Why Did The Anglo-Saxons Not Become More British?
In his article, Bryan Ward-Perkins attempts to clarify some myths surrounding the heritage of the Anglo-Saxons and provide new scholastic conclusions that are more consistent with current evidence. In the process, he touches upon several relevant issues, centered upon, first, debunking an older and erroneous argument, from which basis Ward-Perkins delivers his own interpretation of the evidence. Ward-Perkins begins his piece by introducing his readers, unassociated with the subject or not, to the present moment in the United Kingdom with the image of a nation in transition, struggling to find its identity in the modern world. This is a point of reference from which Ward-Perkins leaps into his discussion of a British past fraught with questionable assumptions and more than a few incongruities.
Ward-Perkins notes that some historical research in the field has tended toward promoting a certain “unified sense of Englishness” among the British peoples during their trek toward the present. Quickly, though, the historian explains that the Anglo-Saxons, the commonly-held ancestors to the English, were not one and the same as the native “Celtics,” or Britons. Ward-Perkins allows that common belief attributes this separation between Anglo-Saxon and Briton to racial differences between the two peoples, and that most English ascribe to the theory that they descend quite purely from the Anglo-Saxons themselves. Likewise, Ward-Perkins suggests that the native Britons were adept at disallowing any relationship with the Anglo-Saxons, and vice versa, such as forgetting or suppressing common ancestry. Ward-Perkins goes on to show that the two groups were nearly always at odds with one another, as the Anglo-Saxons sought to wrench control of Britannia from the natives. To provide insight as to why these events may have contributed to the Anglo-Saxons’ continuing and subsequent spurning of Briton culture, Ward-Perkins compares the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britannia to the Frankish conquest of Gaul. The author concludes that although the Franks cherished their own traditions, much as the Anglo-Saxons must have, the Franks were able to blend native Gallo-Roman traditions to their own whereas the Anglo-Saxons could, or would not. The net result of these, Ward-Perkins seems to suggest, is that the constant rivalry between the Anglo-Saxons and British may have precluded any meaningful exchange or blend of culture and identity.
Ward-Perkins next tackles one of the article’s main objectives, namely laying bare the error of older works of scholarship in the field by E.A. Freeman and J.R. Green. To this end, Ward-Perkins outlines their arguments. Essentially, Freeman and Green decide that the English must necessarily descend from Germany, not from Britain or its inhabitants. However, Ward-Perkins cites population evidence to undermine the totality of their arguments, suggesting that the number of invading Anglo-Saxons would have been small in comparison to the native British population, and, as such, it would be nigh on inconceivable that Anglo-Saxon stock be pure, due to intermarrying and other factors. Even so, Ward-Perkins does acknowledge that more conclusive evidence, such as DNA testing, is required to settle the matter entirely. At any rate, Ward-Perkins suggests that the amalgamation of bias resulting from Freeman’s nineteenth century perspective, a lack of corroboratory evidence, and an unreal expectation as to the number of invading Anglo-Saxons are impetus enough to reject the Freeman argument.
Having disposed of Freeman’s biologically motivated argument, Ward-Perkins advocates his own. He supports an argument touting culture over genetics, as dispersal of British stock into Anglo-Saxon lines did not automatically, necessarily, or at all install British culture into the Anglo-Saxon societies. However, the native British did, over time, surrender increasingly larger portions of their ethos to the prevailing tides of the Anglo-Saxon cultural flood. Ward-Perkins gives a singularly telling example spurring this change, referring to the law code of Ine of Wessex. Under this code, native British had a vested interest in ‘Anglo-Saxonizing’ because they stood to gain greater protection and benefit from the code than they would if they retained their traditional British identity. The process of Anglo-Saxonizing consisted of adopting Anglo-Saxon language, English, as well as adopting the Anglo-Saxon religion, and so on. Ward-Perkins notes that parallel circumstances developed in other parts of the world, as not only the British were absorbed into an encroaching, larger culture. Similarly, African Christians succumbed to Muslim expansion, European pagans yielded to Christians, and Gallo-Romans submitted to the Franks. In these cases, both the conqueror and the conquered participated in gradual interchange of culture and ideas, while the British and Anglo-Saxons did not.
Ward-Perkins suggests that the reason for this is an outright Anglo-Saxon rejection of native British culture. He cites Rome’s proliferation of Latin throughout Italy and Europe as evidence that conquering tribes could culturally dominate the subjugated, but not engaging in interchange with the subjugated is really a phenomenon more specifically relatable to the Anglo-Saxons and the British. Ward-Perkins attributes the failure of cultural diffusion between the two peoples to the Briton’s strong resistance to conquest. Because the Anglo-Saxons were unable to swiftly bring the British to heel as the Franks were able to do with the Gallo-Romans, a protracted conflict continued, increasing animosities and retarding cultural exchange. Furthermore, the historian relates, interminable conflicts in Britain quickly eroded the remnants of higher Roman civilization from British culture, as the Britons reverted to older, pre-Roman traditions to defend against the Anglo-Saxon attacks. Of consequence here is that the Anglo-Saxons had little remaining from Roman civilization to learn from the Britons by the time the Britons were subdued and cultural exchange could take place. Ward-Perkins holds this fact in stark comparison to the rapid Frankish conquest of the Gauls that allowed significant cultural exchange between the groups. As Gaul had not been separated from its Roman cultural heritage, it is possible that the Franks viewed the Gauls as a superior culture, if inferior military power. Ward-Perkins similarly postulates that perhaps the Anglo-Saxons viewed British culture as inferior and thus found it to be unworthy of acculturation and incorporation into the more advanced Anglo-Saxon culture. This seems to be Ward-Perkins’ best reason as to why the Anglo-Saxons did not become “more British.”
Ward-Perkins continues on with his discussion, progressing through a few speculative developments before hitting upon subsequent Anglo-Saxon conquests of a non-military sort. Later on, cultural diffusion carried on without conquest, as English came to a prominent position even beyond the borders of the Anglo-Saxon lands. In the course of his article, Bryan Ward-Perkins successfully overturned an outmoded racial argument and advanced his own thesis, that biology does not make ethnicity, upon an apparently solid basis of supporting evidence.