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October 2001

Parish History Episode 6

THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH

The Roman Conquest of Southern Britain began, as stated in Part 4 of this history, in A.D. 43, and, though there were frontier wars, Roman rule remained secure for over two hundred years. Then, about A.D. 280, the Province began to suffer from pirate raids, perpetrated by the Saxons, who came from that area of Germany now known as NiederSachsen, around the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser and the Ems. They devastated much of the Eastern and Southern coasts of Roman Britain (and also the Northern coast of Gaul), while the “Scots” (that is, the Irish) made similar forays against the Western coasts of the Isle of Britain (and in one of their raids, about A.D. 400, a Christian lad called Patrick, the son of a deacon and the grandson of a priest, was carried off to be a slave in Ireland, but eventually became the apostle who converted that land to the Christian Faith).

These Saxons were closely related to other peoples such as the Frisians, who lived in Friesland, to their West, and the Jutes, who lived in Jutland, to their North, and also to the Angles, who lived in what is now Sleswick and Holstein. Unlike the Goths, and other peoples dwelling along the borderlands of the Western Roman Empire, they did not evolve their own “heretical” form of Christianity, but remained resolutely pagan until well after the collapse of the Western Empire. They had, of course, their own form of religion. Like other Germanic peoples, they worshipped a pantheon of gods, of whom the highest was Woden, from whom most of their tribal kings claimed descent.

These four peoples collectively called themselves Ingwine, from which name we derive that tribal name - the English - by which we call ourselves. The Ingwine were distinguished from other Germans by the cult of a god called (by the Romans) Nerthus (we do not know the Anglo-Saxon form of the name), who dwelt on an island in the North Sea called Heligoland (that is, Holy Island). This had originally been a solitary high hill on a flat plain in the South-Eastern quarter of what is now the North Sea, but this area had been inundated by the rising sea in relatively recent times (perhaps about 100 B.C.), and the Holy Island now stood up out of the waves in sacred isolation.

At first these English tribes, but most particularly the Saxons, sailed against the coasts of Roman Britain and Gaul as pirates, like those Scottish pirates who carried off Patrick, and other women and children, as slaves to Ireland. But a series of disasters befell the Western Roman Empire at the beginning of the Fifth Century, and this led to the abandonment of Britain. Most of the Roman garrisons were withdrawn in successive crises caused by Gothic invasions of the Empire in 398, 402 and 406, and then, in the Winter of 406-407, Gaul was overrun by six hordes of barbarians - the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alans, the Burgundians, the Allemanni, and the Franks (this last horde was eventually to absorb or expel the others) - and Britain was cut off from Italy. In 407, an officer who styled himself Constantine (in imitation of that other Constantine who had also seized power in Britain a hundred years earlier, and had marched on Rome, conquered his enemies, made himself Emperor, and adopted Christianity as his personal religion) gathered up most of the troops who remained, took them to Gaul, and tried to march on Rome, but never got there, and was eventually killed.

There remained in Britain some colonial troops, of British race and language, and also some German “Auxiliaries” in camps along the Roman Wall. The attacks of the Scots and the Saxons became more audacious, and soon the Saxons, and men of other English tribes, began to settle in Britain: at first, it seems, as free settlers within the petty kingdoms which were becoming established by the British chieftains who had begun as commanders of Roman colonial troops, but had then used these forces to make themselves kings over various districts of the Province; but then as mercenaries, defending these kings against their enemies - often enough other bands of Englishmen.

Then, from about 450 onwards, these poachers-turned-gamekeepers turned poacher once more, and many mercenary commanders overthrew their masters, and established themselves as kings in their stead. All over the Eastern half of Southern Britain, wherever there was easy access from the North Sea or the Channel, or from the great navigable rivers such as the Trent, the Nene or the Thames, English chieftains were forming their own kingdoms. In the South, where the best lands lay, most of these new kings were Saxons or Jutes, but North of the Stour the Angles predominated.

(What happened to the native Britons, who were differentiated from their English conquerors by their Celtic speech and by, in most cases, their Christian beliefs ? As in other cases of conquests by alien races, they were either slain, or expelled, or incorporated into the new society - usually as slaves. The English called them “Welshmen”, and various place-names, mostly South of the Trent, such as Walsall, Walsingham and Walthamstow, recall them).

North of the Stour (the boundary river between Essex and Suffolk, later to be made famous through Constable’s paintings), the Angles created kingdoms greater in extent, but poorer in wealth, than the compact Saxon kingdoms of the South. The union of several small kingdoms in the Eastern extremities of Britain, between the Stour and the Wash, resulted in the Kingdom of East Anglia, while more powerful states arose further North - Lindsey, Deira and Bernicia. Other tribes of Angles, who arrived late in Britain, finding no worthwhile land available close to the East coast, pushed up the great rivers - the Bedfordshire Ouse, the Nene, the Welland, the Trent - to create more precarious inland kingdoms, ever at war with the native Britons. One of these inland kingdoms, that of Mercia, originally based on the River Trent, was later to grow into one of the most powerful states in Britain, but the coastal states were, down until the middle of the Seventh Century, of much greater importance.

The sea-crossing from Sleswick to England was much longer than the relatively short crossings used by the Saxons, sailing from the coasts of what are now Holland and Flanders to the South-East of England, and these longer voyages perhaps required better organisation and larger war-bands. Also, Divine Power was useful, and the Kings of Lindsey, Deira and Bernicia all claimed descent from Woden, the greatest of the Nordic gods. For this or other reasons, these kingdoms of the Northern English had become, by about 600, amongst the strongest states in Britain.

Each of these kingdoms had also, to some extent, built on foundations laid by their Roman and British predecessors. The men of Lindsey had sailed up the Witham and had seized the once-great Roman city of Lincoln, and made that their capital. The men of Deira had similarly sailed up the Humber and the Yorkshire Ouse, and had seized the even greater city of York. This became their capital, but they were unable to push on much further North, as they met vigorous resistance from British chieftains based in what had been the great Roman military camp at Catterick.

The Kingdom of Bernicia had been founded on the Rock of Bamburgh, far to the North of regular Roman power, and bore a starker, grimmer aspect than those kingdoms based in former Roman cities. The Bernicians did, however, attempt to extend their power Northwards and Southwards along the coast, and to the South they reached the forts along the Roman Wall. Although the Legions had long departed, the descendants of British and German Auxiliaries who had been left behind, were still living in the garrison towns which had once served the Wall, and the Germans, who spoke dialects akin to English, were happy to pledge allegiance to the Bernician kings. The Geordie dialect of English, incomprehensible to those who dwell in the South, is perhaps descended from the speech of these lost Germans.

If Bernician power did not extend South of the Tyne, and if, thanks to British resistance at Catterick, Deiran power did not reach as far North as the Tees, that means there was a gap, larger than the present area of County Durham, between the two Anglian kingdoms, and Houghton-le-Spring lay in this gap. There is almost no evidence of Anglian settlement in this area, but equally no evidence of sustained British resistance to the invaders.

There is however one curious discovery, made here, in Houghton-le-Spring, over a hundred years ago. In Part 2 of this Parish History, it was mentioned that, among the evidences for Neolithic, Bronze Age and Early Iron Age burials found in the tumulus on Copt Hill, the excavators were surprised to discover that the corpse of an Anglian warrior had been intruded into the ancient grave, probably in the early Sixth Century.

It was most unusual for Anglo-Saxons to reuse old graves in this fashion. But why was his body laid to rest here ? Was he some Woden-descended Anglian king attempting to lay the foundations of yet another Anglian kingdom in what was later to become County Durham? Did he fall in battle against the native Britons? Did his followers choose to inter him here, on the hill above Houghton, as a place of special significance? And if so, what then happened to his followers? Did the Britons rally, and manage to expel or exterminate these settlers?

There are, of course, no answers we can give. Like much else in the early history in Houghton, we are left only with tantalising clues, which we are unable to follow up.