The Beginning of the Dark Ages
410 AD

The Story of England has an easily defined beginning and that is when the German tribe the Angles invaded (official date 449) and we still have East Anglia to remind us of it and of course the French name for England, Angleterra.

The Angle leaders arrived at much the same time as their Germanic neighbours the Saxons(hence the “Anglo Saxon race”) that is when the Romans left to defend Rome. The initial Germanic settlement was in Kent but in 75 years, (by 525) the country previously ruled as a whole by the Roman military, was sub-divided into seven kingdoms as follows.

In the South East; Kent, Sussex, Essex. The first colonies.

In the South; Wessex

In the Midlands; East Anglia, Mercia.

In the North; Northumbria (all territories north of the Humber river, (North-humbria)

Note Scotland and Wales are not included and never were part of England, that is they were never occupied, civilised or ethnically cleansed by either the Romans or the Anglo-Saxons (or the Vikings.)

Why did the Romans leave England?

Because they were being attacked by Germanic tribes from north of their empire who crossed the natural boundaries, the rivers Rhine and Danube and from the east by the Persians. (Now called Iranians). Some reports claim these crossings were aided by climate change when cooling allowed these rivers to freeze over in the winter.

Why did the all powerful Romans have so much difficulty with these nomadic barbarians.

Because

• The Romans had become rich and lazy and many did not want to fight. Many Roman Legions were manned by foreign mercenaries.
• The Roman Empire had recently split into two, East and West with one headquartered in Rome and the other in Istanbul (then called Constantinople). Indeed Emperor Constantine moved the Roman headquarters from Rome to Constantinople c. 300AD and at the same time ordered the adoption of Christianity throughout the empire.
• The northern Germanic tribes were hungry and needed to seek warmer and drier land to grow crops as the world climate was cooling at the commencement of a mini Ice Age (which lasted some 1300 years until about 1850).
• The Germanic tribes were better horsemen and hence very capable of hit and run tactics. In the Roman armies it was generally only the top brass who were mounted.
• The Romans also had to contend with the Persians (Iran) on their eastern flank who had also learnt the art of cavalry warfare.

Rome defended its self for about 100 years before the city of Rome finally was lost to the Germanic invaders in AD 476. The Dark Ages, in the West had begun.

In the richer Eastern Roman Empire the invaders were either beaten back or bribed to go away and the Roman Empire remained intact for a further 1100 years. There was no Dark Ages and Roman culture enhanced by Greek learning lived on.

Constantinople became:

• A centre of learning with a university where boys study included Maths and Philosophy.
• The theological centre of the Christian Church together with close-by Alexandria and Antioch. The Pope in Rome remained, was very jealous and did not like being ignored.
• A centre for the arts.
• The trading powerhouse of the area creating the wealth to maintain an army and pay bribes to attacking barbarians.

(Medieval Europe was reawakened by the immigrants arriving in Italy from encircled Constantinople circa 1400. During the early part of the Dark Ages (c.400AD) it was the Irish in the West who had never been ruled by Romans or attacked by Anglo-Saxons who maintained a scholarship of religion and the culture that went with it, thanks to St Patrick and his followers.)

Further Notes in chronological order.

• St Patrick, the Irish saint. St Patrick a Romanised Britain, was kidnapped by Irish slave raiders, had a vision of God, travelled to and was religiously educated in Gaul (France) and Carthage/Hippo in Tunis and returned to Ireland, converted the pagan Irish to Christianity (or a cut down version which allowed multiple wives and the worshiping of idols. His followers (inc Columba) set up monasteries in Scotland (Iona) which led to the intellectual and theological education of the English historians Gildas and Bede from whom we have learnt much about early Anglo-Saxon times.
• King Arthur or some other Romanised Britain with a similar name (Ambrosium Aurelianus perhaps) achieved his place in mythical history by beating the advancing Saxons at the battle of Badon Hill in 516. Legend has it that he had headquarters in Somerset (South Cadbury) and Cornwall (Tintagel). Badon Hill could be near the town of Bath.

England Unique amongst the old Roman territories in Western Europe

• England and France were “invaded” or occupied by Germanic tribes almost simultaneously c. 450 AD but with different outcomes. In England, if the contempory historian, Gildas is to be believed the Saxons were barbaric, some arriving with multiple wives and the men immediately fornicating with the local maidens. The established Roman order was totally destroyed and the Romanised British male was either killed or he fled to Wales or Scotland. The women were absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon families. Recent DNA tests show 9 out of 10 present day white inhabitants of England to be mainly Saxon not Celtish or old Britain. Welsh, Irish and Scottish people are mainly Celts without Saxon blood. In France which in 400 AD was known as Gaul, the Germanic people who arrived were the southern neighbours of the Saxons, the Franks hence France. However thanks to a Gaulish female beauty, Clotilda who seduced and married the Frankish war lord Clovis (c.493) and converted him to Christianity, Gaul/France retained the law and order and the Christian religion of Rome. The ethnic Gaulist Romans remained and integrated with the Franks. Indeed England is unique amongst the colonies of the Western Roman Empire in that the invaders destroyed all things Roman and started afresh with new laws and even new towns and buildings. While in the domains of France, Spain and Italy things remained much the same save for different rulers.

Note When the Viking Normans invaded England some 600 years later (1066) only 4000 Normans settled in England and they generally did not integrate with the indigenous Anglo Saxons. When the Anglo Saxons attacked some 200,000 eventually arrived by boat and the British then only numbered some 2 millions.

• The first Saxons were invited into England! Saxon invaders were known and feared in Roman Britain as early as 285 AD and the Romans had built a line of forts all along the east and south coast to keep them out. However when the Romans left the remaining Romanised Britains were without generals and weapons and were attacked from the north by the Picts. A Romanised Britain called Vortigern probably acting as a King invited two Saxon war lords, Hengist and Horsa to get rid of the Picts for a fee. It is said that the fee was never paid as the Britains without the Romans had no mint and the Saxons stayed. This started a flood of unwelcome, barbaric, warmongering, oversexed, multiple wifed immigrants into the country.

The Anglo-Saxon divisions of England were ethnically divided as follows:

• Jutes colonized and ruled in Kent and the Isle of White
• East Saxons ruled Essex.
• South Saxons Sussex
• West Saxons Wessex. Land around the town of Winchester
• Angles ruled in East Anglia
• Angles also ruled in Middle Anglia or Mercia
• Angles also ruled in Northumberland

600 AD, about.

Some 150 years after the Anglo Saxon invasion of England.

Europe, north Africa and the Middle East:

The centre of Western Civilisation had moved eastwards from Rome to Constantinople, as can be seen by those cities with a population over 50,000 persons.

In the old West

Rome and Carthage,(in Tunis). (Nothing in France Spain or England)

In the European east.

Constantinople, (in Turkey) Salonica, (now in Greece) Ephesus, (in Turkey) Antioch,(Turkish Syrian border) and Alexandria, (Egypt)