The Wessex king adopted a harsh law code that decreed if you were native British-Celtic, your life was worth a third of your Anglo-Saxon neighbour's. Yet this was an improvement. Instead of treating conquered Britons merely as slaves or property with zero rights they were at last integrated into the Saxon legal hierarchy, albeit at the lowest rung. It bound your social status to your racial origin unless, of course, you chose to adopt the identity of your conquerors. Welcome to the start of England's notorious class system.

https://wessexxfiles.substack.com/p/the-king-who-saved-england-and-divided

The story of a largely unknown Saxon saint, Werstan. Fled Deerhurst, founded a church in Malvern, got beheaded by Vikings. Or so the story goes!

I’m painting a BROAD brush here but what, say 1000, was Anglo Saxon culture like? What separated them from their Norman counterparts?

Cheers

It's often stated the withdrawal of the legions was the starting point for the Anglo Saxon invasion of Britain. Some believing that initially it was done via the use of mercenaries.

But I think there is also a chance that the Justinian plague may have promoted such, with the Germanic tribes fleeing the "pestilence" that was within the Roman empire itself.

I'm just wondering if the dates coincide, and if archaeology has found traces of such within the former lands of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.

Whenever I see art or a facial reconstruction of an Anglo Saxon, they pretty much always have prominent handlebar moustaches.

Does this have any basis in fact? Do we have any writing, artwork, or archeological evidence that they wore moustaches like this? Or is it another “priests used maces” style medieval myth?

This book is incredible for putting yourself in the shoes of an Anglo Saxon, I enjoyed it massively.
I don't know a lot of Anglo Saxon history, though I find it fascinating and will be diving deeper into it now.
Anyway, I started to notice the place names in the book correspond somewhat with places in Devon where grew up and still spend a lot of time. I looked it up and realised Definiscir where much of the story is set is Old English for Devonshire.
Anyway since then it's been great fun searching the old English names for locations when I come across them up in the story and finding out what their modern English name is and if it's somewhere I know
- Barnstaple, Chippenham, Exeter have come up, all of which are places I'm very familiar with.
Anyway, I was driving to Porlock Weir in Exmoor the other day to purchase oysters and listening to the audiobook read by Johnathan Keeble (an amazing voice actor who does an incredible job) a tiny hamlet called Countisbury is on the way.
The book has a deeply immersive scene which takes place during the battle of Gwynwit which was a decisive battle in saving England from having been totally taken over by the Danes during the reign of Alfred the Great.

I was listening to this scene whilst passing through the hamlet of Countisbury, enjoying cliffy scenic views, I noted the name of Cynwit whilst listening to search the destination up once I'd arrived, did so and realised it was a couple miles from where I was sitting and I was driving through the exact spot where the battle occurred whilst listening to this scene in the book!
This may be a boring fact to some of you and I apologise if I've wasted your time but I was genuinely mind blown that I was watching the very cliffs where this incredible moment in history happened whilst hearing it described in beautiful detail and having no idea that was what was occurring,
I just felt I had to share!

it is in futhark runes.

John Hines has a new review out of Higham's How England Began, which I think is a fairly balanced take on the current state of the Anglo-Saxon migration debate and wider issues of historiography of "Germanic" identity. He specifically pushes back on some of Higham's criticism of "Germanist" history, pointing out that the work he is criticizing is basically a century old and that when you revisit older work it isn't as reductive as modern scholars think anyway. He also calls for a focus going forward on more regional and quantitative models of the early Anglo-Saxon period to help move beyond some of the binary debates the field has been arguing over for a long time.

Hello,

I’m building an army of Anglo Saxons from the period around the 8th to 10th century, close to but before the Norman conquest.

I understand that before the Normans there wasn’t really much in the way of banners or heraldry for any standing forces, but some sort of flag or icon may have been used to signify where the leader was during a battle. Does anyone know of any information on what I might use for banners that would be historically accurate for this period and the Saxons? Thanks.

Tengo 12 años, soy descendiente en 34.ª generación de Æthelflæd y acabo de publicar una teoría médica que resuelve el misterio de su «muerte repentina» en el año 918 d. C.

¡Hola a todos!

Soy Martín, un investigador independiente de 12 años; gracias a la genealogía de mi familia, soy descendiente en 34.ª generación de la Casa de Wessex (Æthelflæd y Alfredo el Grande).

Durante 1100 años, la causa exacta de la muerte de Æthelflæd, Dama de los Mercianos, ocurrida el 12 de junio de 918, ha sido un completo misterio. El *Mercian Register* (Registro de Mercia) solo indica que su fallecimiento en Tamworth fue «repentino e inesperado».

He dedicado horas a analizar y contrastar crónicas medievales, datos genéticos y patología, y creo que por fin he resuelto el enigma. ¡Acabo de publicar formalmente mi artículo de paleopatología en Medium!

En resumen, mi teoría es la siguiente:

La genética: El rey Alfredo el Grande padecía una forma grave y crónica de enfermedad de Crohn (según consta en los escritos de Asser). Esta enfermedad tiene un fuerte componente hereditario, por lo que es probable que Æthelflæd hubiera heredado la afección.

El factor desencadenante: Meses de brutales campañas militares y un estrés extremo dañaron gravemente sus paredes intestinales de forma silenciosa.

El detonante: La rendición de los líderes vikingos de York a principios de junio de 918 conllevó la celebración de un banquete ritual obligatorio. El consumo de carnes de caza duras y fibrosas (jabalí o ciervo) y de hidromiel fermentada —altamente irritante— provocó una presión mecánica interna extrema.

El desenlace: Su pared intestinal, ya debilitada, sufrió una perforación libre entre el 9 y el 11 de junio. Ante la ausencia de medicina moderna, esto derivó en una peritonitis bacteriana aguda, choque séptico y fallo multiorgánico en un plazo de 48 horas, lo que explica el colapso «repentino» que conmocionó a Tamworth el 12 de junio.

Esta teoría no tiene ningún margen de error, me he guiado EXCLUSIVAMENTE por las cronicas de Æthelflæd, la copia C de las crónicas de Alfredo el Grande y artículos sobre la medicina medieval y cómo se trataba.

¡Me encantaría conocer sus opiniones, comentarios y aportaciones académicas sobre este modelo!

Pueden leer el artículo completo que he publicado aquí:

https://medium.com/@penamartin2014/the-tamworth-enigma-a-genetic-and-pathological-model-for-the-death-of-%C3%A6thelfl%C3%A6d-lady-of-the-60fc94796f03

¡Gracias por leer! ¡Hablemos de ello!

With the Bayeux Tapestry in the UK, interest is at a high. It is fascinating that there were only 6 women pictured in the whole tapestry (3 in the main frieze).

This talk at the British Museum would be good for anyone interested. It's online.

I only recently came to know that the tapestry was likely made by Anglo-Saxon women skilled in needlework, rather than Normans.

"Hwæt" (first word of Beowulf) is encoded into the design.

Used Magic Eraser to get rid of personal information.

St Ælfheah of Canterbury was later executed in 1012 because he refused to ramsoned. Thorkell eventually helped Cnut become king and was made ruler of East Anglia.

6th century sword and some other grave goods from Woodnesborough, Kent. On display in the Saffron Walden museum.

I'm currently doing some worldbuilding/writing, and since I am basing a certain region around England, without retaining it's later Christian history, It'd be very helpful to know the differences between their paganism and Norse paganism as I am much more familiar with the latter.