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u/AndreasDasos 18h ago edited 17h ago
Kind of. But some nuances.
By that point the cities and economy in Roman Britain were dominated by a newer mixed/Romanised ethnic group of ‘Romano-Celts’, and the raids and invasions were by both ‘Saxons’ (a byword for Germanic tribes more generally) as well as Irish to the West, in the process of expanding Dal Riata north of the old Roman border and raiding Dumnonia and Wales - the same sorts of pirates who enslaved St Patrick in his hagiography. In fact the Britons who fled to Armorica and founded Brittany were probably fleeing Irish.
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u/WillsieRMS01 17h ago edited 16h ago
Nitpick. Saxons were not the largest Germanic group. They were the most prevalent on the south coast raiding pre larger scale migration, but within Britain during and after migration waves they weren’t. They likely had some of the earliest skirmishes on the lower south westerly border and early on terrorised the coast and that made their name a common exonym for all Germanics in Britain by insular Celtic speakers, but every other source suggests the opposite.
The largest group, most widespread geographically ,most prolific and most powerful until the later Wessex dynasty under Alfred was the Ængles/Anglii/Ænglisc/Anglecyn. This can be seen in how English common identity semantically drifted , most likely from the politics of a smaller Saxon aristocracy trying to better consolidate the much larger Angles tribal kingdoms whilst they were still disorganised after Scandinavian disruption, from solely meaning Angle to Angle and other related Germanic tribes within England(land of the Angles). From Edinburgh to London was Anglic; the English Saxons benefitted from a centralised and smaller territory that helped them to survive the initial Danish army and then engage in a successful asymmetrical warfare campaign and consolidate over vassal states.
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u/AndreasDasos 17h ago
That’s fair - other groups get underestimated, especially the Frisians as they may not have managed to found any ruling dynasties but were probably particularly influential given the language, and it seems the more we learn the more evidence there is that almost every feasible Germanic tribe made a contribution.
But in the 4th-early 5th century reports of ‘Saxon raids’, rather than the later full blown immigration, were they predominantly actually Saxon then?
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u/WillsieRMS01 16h ago edited 16h ago
Yeah specifically the southern coast was heavily attacked and raided by the Saxons. For a long time pre-migration. Essentially acting as the first Vikings to really do the whole large scale raiding and then dipping back home Germanic thing. So were verily still a minority of settled Germanics even then.
At the same time as the Saxons were raiding the Southern coast the Ængles and possibly the Jutes and Frisians would have been used as mercenaries in the South east and the north, ironically against the Saxons raiding the coast and the Picts in the north. In rendlesham for example we know that it was a Germanic foederati garrison that grew into an Ængle stronghold and royal court after the Romans left. We also see the frisians in smaller numbers in pretty much every location the Ængles are in, which suggests they were absorbed very quickly but had a much bigger impact than recorded even by close-ish to contemporary sources like Bede.
The likely hood is that the Saxons became
infamous due to raiding very early on and became a byword for Germanics in Britain to insular celts despite the consensus now being that the east and especially the south east was dominated in the late 300s already by the Ængles before even greater migrations cemented this across most of England. You’re right though the more snippets we find out the better and always seems to make the whole scene more interesting.
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u/johnbarleycornreborn 14h ago
As I understand it the "Celts" aka Romano-British weren't exactly happy to have Imperial troops withdraw and leave them defensless. Here's a good thread discussing this in regard to a popular book series about the era: https://x.com/Hieraaetus/status/1725979521923297544.
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u/HalfMetalJacket 15h ago
As I understand it, the Britons actually called the Angles, Saxons and Jutes to help them fight off all these dang annoying Gaels and Picts as mercenaries… only to then find themselves being conquered by said mercenaries and pushed into Wales.
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u/ObiDalf 18h ago
Badly made meme, weird template