Conquest of the Interior

To the new-comers Britain was a land of great fertility as compared with that which they had left behind them. Little wonder is it that they soon advanced to complete the conquest. Of the earlier phases of the struggle, from 450 to 550, we know little. Leaving the coast, the Teutonic strangers followed the river valleys and open places, and occupied the land between fens and forests, wood and dike. The resistance of the Britons was desperate. Under Ambrosias Aurelius, toward the end of the fifth century, they made a stand, but were defeated. They succeeded, however, in winning a glorious victory (date unknown, possibly 500) at Mount Badon, which for the moment checked the advance of the Saxons and postponed further conquest for forty years.

The respite, however, was brief. The second period of conquest was for the Anglo-Saxons a time of continuous success. Passing up the rivers from the south coast and crossing the valley of the Thames, the West Saxons won a victory at Bedford about 571. Six years afterward they broke the resistance of the Britons in the southwest by winning a battle at Deorham (between Bath and Gloucester), thus occupying the valley of the Severn and cutting off the Britons in Devon and Cornwall from those in North Wales and Strathclyde. The Angles, moving westward from the central coast, established the kingdom of Mercia, or the March-land. In the north, frith, king of Deira and Bernicia, attacked the Britons of Wales and the north in 616 and defeated them in a mighty battle at Chester. This victory completed the work begun at Deorham, and destroyed the unity of the Britons by cutting off those of Wales from the Strathclyde Britons. Henceforth, the latter, separated from their southern kin, occupied the region between Dumbarton on the north and the river Derwent on the south; and as no effectual resistance could longer be made by the Britons, it was now only a matter of time until the Saxons should become the dominant race in the island.

Tribal Settlements

During the first two centuries of the settlement the conquerors of Britain were not single powerful tribes establishing single tribal kingdoms, but rather dozens of small tribal groups each under its own war-leader. Of but few of these peoples have the names been preserved, and of but very few do we know more than the name. Some of them were groups of warriors, many were doubtless groups of kin-families; that is, families connected by ties of blood, composed of men, women, children, and slaves.

Early Organization of the Tribes

The continued warfare of a century and a half had effected many changes in the organization of these peoples. In nearly all of the early groups the war-leader, or heretoga, had become the king. The king was generally selected from a single family which was supposed to be descended from the gods and stood as representing the unity of the tribe. He was awarded the largest portion of the conquered lands and the largest share of the booty. As king he was supported by his people, received maintenance from them in the form of food and products of the soil, obtained a share of all fines imposed and lands confiscated, and was served personally by the men of the tribe in many different capacities. All these gifts and services became more and more definite and exact as time went on, and came to be looked upon as special royal rights that the king could grant to others if he wished. On his part, the king was the leader of his tribe in war and a judge among his people. As war-leader he had about him his free-companions called gesithas, who in time became the oldest nobility of the kingdom, the precursors of the thegns; as judge he was accustomed to enforce some sort of justice upon the guilty and to move frequently from place to place, himself and his retinue being housed and fed by the people. He occasionally summoned the chief men of the tribe as councillors, and the latter sat as a body of wise-men, advising the king. Once a year, or perhaps oftener, the king gathered the adult men of the tribe in a folkmot. This body was originally the fighting force of the tribe, because war was the chief object for which it was summoned, and the settling of disputes, the imposing of fines, and the making of laws were objects of but secondary importance.

Of the local life of the tribe we know very little. The people lived generally in groups, sometimes forming a separate community or village, sometimes clustered about the tun or farmstead of a chieftain. Their common interests were chiefly connected with their religion, their amusements, and the tilling of the soil. To each family group was assigned enough land for its support, and this portion, called a hide, was not at first a fixed amount, but depended on the nature of the soil. That is, if the land were poor, the hide would be larger than it would be if the land were fertile. Land was occupied only as far as it was wanted for the raising of crops or the pasturing, of animals. Original allotments of land, called folklands, whether given to king, gesithas, or families, were held according to time-honored custom, and could be used or disposed of as the customs of the people or folk allowed. Socially the invaders were divided into three classes: nobles or eorls, whose superiority came from heredity or birth ; ceorls or freemen, composing the greater part of the tribe ; and slaves, some brought by the invaders, others obtained by conquest on British soil.

Such seem to have been the chief characteristics of Anglo-Saxon life before the year 600. Gradually the small tribes began to merge into the larger. Some were entirely absorbed; some, though retaining their separate names, were subjugated; and others were united for purposes of conquest. Instead of the many small groups already noted, a few larger tribal peoples appear: Kentishmen, West Saxons, South Saxons, East Anglians, Mercians, Northumbrians. Their kings grew steadily in importance and influence, although we still read of sub-kings, and of subordinate but separate peoples as late as the middle of the tenth century.