Few written sources survive for the first centuries of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. We rely on later legends, such as the story of a great Romano-British war leader called Arthur who defeated the invaders in battle. The conquest was certainly slow and difficult for, unlike the earlier Roman and later Norman conquerors, the Anglo-Saxons were never a united people. They fought against each other as much as they did against the Britons.

Following the collapse of Roman rule, the Britons came to call themselves by a Celtic name, Cymry, meaning "fellow countrymen". The Anglo-Saxons had a different name for them - Wealh, meaning "foreigner", which was also used as a term for a slave. This is the orgin of the word "Welsh".

As the Britons were pushed into the west, town life came to an end. Archaeologists digging in towns founded by the Romans often find a layer of black soil dating from the fifth and sixth centuries, showing that these places were now overgrown with vegetation. A later Anglo-Saxon poem, The Ruin, marvels at decaying buildings in a Roman town, and imagines that they must have been built by giants: "These shattered walls are wonderful to see. The buildings left by giants are crumbling."

West Stow Country Park & Anglow Saxon Village

Anglo-Saxon traces

Most Anglo-Saxons were farmers, who lived in small settlements scattered throughout the countryside. Since their buildings were timber rather than stone, they leave little archaeological traces behind except holes for posts. West Stow in Suffolk is one of just a handful of early Anglo-Saxon sites to be fully excavated. The village, which was occupied from around AD 420-650, has also been carefully reconstructed. Different construction methods were used for each building - testing out ideas about what they may have looked like.

Visit the West Stow village website here

The legacy of the early settlements are place names, and 90% of those in England are Anglo-Saxon in origin. They can be recognised by distinctive endings, including "ing" (people), "ham" (home), "ley" (clearing) and "tun" (village). Names also often record the name of an early Anglo-Saxon chieftain who first settled the place. A typical example is Birmingham, which originally meant "the home of Beorma's people". Names of invading peoples were also given to larger areas of the country. Essex, Middlesex and Sussex are respectively the lands of the East, Middle and South Saxons, and the Angles are remembered in East Anglia.

Woden and Thor

Thor is shown wielding his hammer, symbolising thunder and lightning, as he reconstructed the globe
©TopFoto.co.uk

Unlike the Britons, who were Christian, the Anglo-Saxons worshipped many gods, including Tiw and Woden, gods of war, Thor, god of thunder, and the goddess Frig. These gave us the names of four days of the week: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and springtime, gave her name to Easter.

The invaders introduced new burial practises, cremating their dead and placing the ashes in urns, or burying bodies with clothing and equipment to take to the next world. The Britons, by contrast, followed the Christian practise of burying bodies without grave goods, lined in an east-west direction.

Kings

The earliest Anglo-Saxon rulers were war leaders, who held onto power by defeating enemies in battle and rewarding military followers with booty. They called themselves kings, though it is unlikely that succession was hereditary in early times. Only gradually did stable kingdoms emerge, as well as royal dynasties.

According to Bede's Ecclesiastical History Of The English Nation, the East Anglian royal dynasty was founded in the late sixth century by a man called Wuffa (probably meaning "Little Wolf"). The Wuffingas, as his dynasty was called, had their royal hall at Rendlesham, just upriver from Sutton Hoo. Nothing survives of the hall, which would have been a large timber building. It probably resembled an Anglo-Saxon royal hall excavated at Yeavering in Northumberland. Find out about the royal hall at Yeavering here.

Wuffa was able to pass on power to his son Tyttla, who was in turn succeeded by Raedwald - probably the king buried in the ship at Sutton Hoo. One of the most surprising things about the Sutton Hoo ship burial is that the royal dynasty which created it was just three generations old. The burial, with its amazing treasures, shows that the Wuffingas had managed to create a powerful and wealthy kingdom, with well-established trading links with the continent and Scandinavia.