AS Conquest

anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK
Thu Dec 7 12:13:20 UTC 2000


On Tue, 5 Dec 2000 07:19:12 -0600, Ray Hendon <rayhendon at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
> killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
> possibilities.

Manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does report these big killings:-

457: Here Hengest and AEsc fought with the British in the place which is
called Crayford and there killed 4000 men, and the British abandoned Kent
and with great fear fled to London Fort [= the Roman walled city].

491 Her AElle and Cissa besieged "Andredescester" [= Pevensey??] and slew
all who dwelt therein; no Briton was left [there] afterwards.

At 457 the victims were likely an enemy army rather than general population.
491 was likely a one-off outburst of anger agaist the inhabitants of a fort
which had resisted effectively for a while; classical literature records
similar at the fall of Troy.

Afterwards, there were likely Celtic families and Anglo-Saxon famiies in the
land, and the Anglo-Saxons held the army-type weapons and ruling positions
and taxed the Celts, and those Celts as generations passed gradually learned
Anglo-Saxon. Re survival of Romano-Celtic Christianity through the pagan
Anglo-Saxon period, see the English Anglo-Saxon type placenames containing
the element {eccles} (compare Welsh {eglwys} = "church") from Latin
{ecclesia}.

As I wrote before, the Celts may have been either killed or completely
displaced, but not at the hands of an army; see my previous messages.



More information about the Indo-european mailing list