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people who had inhabited Britain under Roman
rule. Landscape archaeologists have noted that
these three groups correspond to different
geographic trading areas. This would explain why
the areas seem so closely linked culturally at a
time when Roman roads were abandoned for sea
and river routes.
So what did happen? Conquest is not the only
possible explanation. We think that the Roman
military largely pulled out of Britain to fight in
European wars during the 300s C.E. According to
one account, the last Roman troops pulled out in
the year 410C.E. (see illustration pages 2–3). This
was a huge problem for people in Britain. They
still needed soldiers to defend them against pirates
and raiders, but they probably stopped paying
taxes to Rome shortly after the Roman militaryThe Sources
Texts that date to the early Anglo-Saxon
period are very limited. During the 400s and
500s C.E., most people in England did not
write. Those who did rarely preserved what
they wrote. Historians have traditionally
relied on two texts. One is a church sermon
written during the 400s C.E. It is actually the
only text that survives from the period in
England that followed the departure of the
Roman soldiers. Its author was a monk
named Gildas. He wrote the sermon to warn
his audience that they had sinned and were
being punished by foreign invaders.
The second text dates to a much later time,
but offers a much more elaborate story. It
was written by a churchman named Bede,
who is still well known today for his works
about history and theology. Bede told how
Roman rule collapsed and was followed by
the arrival of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
These three groups supposedly migrated in
large numbers from northern Germany and
present-day Denmark. Scholars today say
that Bede’s story, sometimes referred to by the
Latin phrase adventus Saxonum (“arrival of the
Saxons”), should not be taken completely as fact.
Bede’s only source seems to be Gildas’s vague
comments, and archaeologists have been unable
to confirm Bede’s story.What Bede Says
Bede suggests that there was a massive and
violent conquest. There is little evidence, however,
of large-scale violence and destruction. Even
immigration seems to have been small-scale and
to have occurred on a variety of fronts. Scholars
now think that Bede probably invented his story
to explain the world as he saw it. That is to say,
he saw Britain composed of at least three general
groupings of English-speakers who certainly
appeared and sounded very different from theLeaders of various tribes
in Britain make plans to
strengthen their position,
after the departure of
the Romans.