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[2] [a] The term 'Anglo-Saxon' came into use in the 8th century (probably by Paul the Deacon) to distinguish English Saxons from continental Saxons (Ealdseaxan, 'old' Saxons). The historian James Campbell suggested that it was not until the late Anglo-Saxon period that England could be described as a nation-state. [ 3 ]
In modern times, the term "Anglo-Saxons" is used by scholars to refer collectively to the Old English speaking groups in Britain. As a compound term, it has the advantage of covering the various English-speaking groups on the one hand, and to avoid possible misunderstandings from using the terms "Saxons" or "Angles" (English), both of which terms could be used either as collectives referring ...
Germanic kingship provided a model for early Anglo-Saxon kings. Anglo-Saxons inherited the concept of sacred kingship. [13] The Old English word for king was cyning (' son of the kin '). [14] The term implied the king was part of a "specially selected kindred, divinely called to rule over a people".
The Normans persecuted the Anglo-Saxons and overthrew their ruling class to substitute their own leaders to oversee and rule England. However, Anglo-Saxon identity survived beyond the Norman Conquest, came to be known as Englishry under Norman rule, and through social and cultural integration with Romano-British Celts, Danes and Normans became ...
Southern Britain in AD 600 after the Anglo-Saxon settlement, showing England's division into multiple petty kingdoms. The Kingdom of England emerged from the gradual unification of the early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdoms known as the Heptarchy: East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex.
The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England was the process starting in the late 6th century by which population of England formerly adhering to the Anglo-Saxon, and later Nordic, forms of Germanic paganism converted to Christianity and adopted Christian worldviews.
The end of Roman rule in Britain facilitated the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, which historians often regard as the origin of England and of the English people. The Anglo-Saxons , a collection of various Germanic peoples , established several kingdoms that became the primary powers in present-day England and parts of southern Scotland . [ 3 ]
Instead, for their understanding of Anglo-Saxon settlement historians have often relied upon Bede the English monk, a much later author and scholar (672/673–735), who in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, tried to compute dates for events in early Anglo-Saxon history.