page_title: Anglo-Saxons
section_title: Migration (410–560)
hierarchical_section_title: Anglo-Saxons / Early Anglo-Saxon history (410–660) / Migration (410–560)
caption_attribution_description: Anglo-Saxon Migration in the 5th century
context_page_description: The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England from the 5th century. They comprised people from Germanic tribes who migrated to the island from continental Europe, their descendants, and indigenous British groups who adopted many aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture and language. The Anglo-Saxons established the Kingdom of England, and the modern English language owes almost half of its words – including the most common words of everyday speech – to their language.
  Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their initial settlement and up until the Norman Conquest.
  The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including regional government of shires and hundreds. During this period, Christianity was established and there was a flowering of literature and language. Charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England and eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century.
context_section_description: The traditional narrative of this period is one of decline and fall, invasion and migration; however, archaeologist Heinrich Härke stated in 2011:
  It is now widely accepted that the Anglo-Saxons were not just transplanted Germanic invaders and settlers from the Continent, but the outcome of insular interactions and changes.
  Writing c. 540, Gildas mentions that sometime in the 5th century, a council of leaders in Britain agreed that some land in the east of southern Britain would be given to the Saxons on the basis of a treaty, a foedus, by which the Saxons would defend the Britons against attacks from the Picts and Scoti in exchange for food supplies. The most contemporaneous textual evidence is the Chronica Gallica of 452, which records for the year 441: "The British provinces, which to this time had suffered various defeats and misfortunes, are reduced to Saxon rule." This is an earlier date than that of 451 for the "coming of the Saxons" used by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, written around 731. It has been argued that Bede misinterpreted his (scanty) sources and that the chronological references in the Historia Britonnum yield a plausible date of around 428.
  Gildas recounts how a war broke out between the Saxons and the local population – historian Nick Higham calls it the "War of the Saxon Federates" – which ended shortly after the siege at 'Mons Badonicus'. The Saxons went back to "their eastern home". Gildas calls the peace a "grievous divorce with the barbarians". The price of peace, Higham argues, was a better treaty for the Saxons, giving them the ability to receive tribute from people across the lowlands of Britain. The archaeological evidence agrees with this earlier timescale. In particular, the work of Catherine Hills and Sam Lucy on the evidence of Spong Hill has moved the chronology for the settlement earlier than 450, with a significant number of items now in phases before Bede's date.
  This vision of the Anglo-Saxons exercising extensive political and military power at an early date remains contested. The most developed vision of a continuation in sub-Roman Britain, with control over its own political and military destiny for well over a century, is that of Kenneth Dark, who suggests that the sub-Roman elite survived in culture, politics and military power up to c. 570. Bede, however, identifies three phases of settlement: an exploration phase, when mercenaries came to protect the resident population; a migration phase, which was substantial as implied by the statement that Anglus was deserted; and an establishment phase, in which Anglo-Saxons started to control areas, implied in Bede's statement about the origins of the tribes.
  Scholars have not reached consensus on the number of migrants who entered Britain in this period. Härke argues that the figure is around 100,000 to 200,000, based on the molecular evidence.  Catherine Hills suggests the number is nearer to 20,000. A computer simulation  showed that a migration of 250,000 people from continental Europe could have been accomplished in as little as 38 years. However, recent genetic and isotope studies have suggested that the migration, which included both men and women, continued over several centuries, possibly allowing for significantly more new arrivals than has been previously thought. By around 500, communities of Anglo-Saxons were established in southern and eastern Britain.
  Härke estimates that the British population in the area that the Anglo-Saxons eventually came to rule over was around one million by the start of the fifth century; however, what happened to the Britons has been debated. The traditional explanation for their archaeological and linguistic invisibility is that the Anglo-Saxons either killed them or drove them to the mountainous fringes of Britain, a view broadly supported by the few available sources from the period. However, there is evidence of continuity in the systems of landscape and local governance, decreasing the likelihood of such a cataclysmic event, at least in parts of England. Thus, scholars
caption: The migrations according to Bede, who wrote some 300 years after the event; there is archeological evidence that the settlers in England came from many of these continental locations
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