The Anglo-Saxons and the Jutes: The History and Legacy of the European Groups that Settled Britain in the Middle Ages

Summary

As the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century, Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned and Roman control of the area broke down.

Little is known of this period of British history, but soon the Anglo-Saxons – who had been harassing the Saxon Shore as pirates – showed up and began to settle the land, creating a patchwork of little kingdoms and starting a new era of British history. Several early medieval historians, writing well after the events, said the Anglo-Saxons were invited to Britain to defend the region from the northern tribes and ended up taking over. However they came to control most of England, the Anglo-Saxons became the dominant power in the region for nearly 500 years, and the strength of their cultural influence could be felt even after William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings and became the first Norman ruler on the island. The efforts to consolidate his rule in England were complicated from the start, both due to external enemies and those jockeying for his position while he was still alive, but the Normans would manage just barely to cling to power over England, and William remains the last foreign conqueror of the island. 

The Jutes were so closely related to the Angles and Saxons that the nature of their existence has been, and continues to be, the subject of scholarly debates. Although historians and archaeologists have identified a Germanic tribe known as the Jutes that migrated to England at the same time as the Angles and Saxons, the attempt to distinguish them from the other tribes has been questioned. Either way, once the Jutes landed in England, they immediately distinguished themselves from the Angles and Saxons by carving out kingdoms in the regions of Kent and the Isle of Wight. From these two locations, the Jutes not only carried on many of their pre-migration cultural traditions but also adopted some of the new, unifying European traditions, particularly Christianity.