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( Anglo-Saxons)
Anglo-Saxon is the term usually used to describe the peoples living in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD to the Norman conquest of 1066.[1] Benedictine monk Bede identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes the Angles, Jutes and the Saxons, who originated from the Jutland peninsula and Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony). The Angles may have come from Angeln, and Bede wrote their nation came to Britain, leaving their land empty. [2] They spoke closely related Germanic dialects. The Anglo-Saxons knew themselves as the "Englisc", from which the word "English" derives. Place names seem to show that smaller numbers of some other German peoples came over Frisians at Fresham, Freston, and Friston; Flemings at Flempton and Flimby; Swabians at Swaffham; perhaps Franks at Frankton and Frankley. It was perhaps under Offa of Mercia (reigned 755-759), or under Alfred the Great (reigned 871–899) and his successors, that the several kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons existed. Under the reign of Athelstan (reigned 924–937) the Anglo-Saxon kingdom took shape into England. The term "Anglo-Saxon" is from Latin writings going back to the time of King Alfred the Great, who seems to have frequently used the title rex Anglorum Saxonum or rex Angul-Saxonum.
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