Above:
Mildenhall Museum is set to double in size to help display the remains of an Anglo-Saxon warrior and his horse.
The warrior, who is thought to have died about AD 500, was found buried at RAF Lakenheath in 1997 with a horse, bridle, sword and shield.
Mildenhall Museum is set to double in size to help display the remains of an Anglo-Saxon warrior and his horse.
The warrior, who is thought to have died about AD 500, was found buried at RAF Lakenheath in 1997 with a horse, bridle, sword and shield.
Even before the final break with Rome, foreign mercenaries had been hired to protect Britain. Burgundians and Vandals had been brought to Britain by the Emperor Probus (276-282), and mercenaries from the defeated Alamanni played a role in Constantius' campaigns in 306.From the 450s onwards, Germans began invading Britain in large numbers. Since the Germans were themselves illiterate, and Roman culture was collapsing, there are no contemporary written descriptions of these invasions. The best available account was written about a century later (c. 540) by a British monk, Gildas the Wise. His De excidio et conquestu Britanniae [The Overthrow and conquest of Britain] was written as a diatribe against corruption and a call to Christian repentance - not as a balanced and objective history.Gildas states that a "proud tyrant" (Vortigern) invited "fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations."
Gildas also said that in the year of his birth (about 500 AD), the British - led by a great warrior (King Arthur?) - defeated the Saxons in a great battle at Mons Badonicus (Mynydd Baddon, Mount Badon.)
What is clear is that these "Germans" did indeed colonise what became Angle-land or England, until they met high ground in Cornwall, Wales and the north. There was some resistance. A British monk names Gildad told of a great battle in the West Country where the Saxons were stopped by a general whose Celtic nickname was "the Bear" (artos) – the sole historical basis for the Arthur legend.
What is clear is that these "Germans" did indeed colonise what became Angle-land or England, until they met high ground in Cornwall, Wales and the north. There was some resistance. A British monk names Gildad told of a great battle in the West Country where the Saxons were stopped by a general whose Celtic nickname was "the Bear" (artos) – the sole historical basis for the Arthur legend.
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century.
Following the final withdrawal of the Roman legions from the provinces of Britannia in around 408 AD these small kingdoms were left to preserve their own order and to deal with invaders and waves of migrant peoples such as the Picts from beyond Hadrian's Wall, the Scots from Ireland and Germanic tribes from the continent.
King Arthur, a larger-than-life figure, has often been cited as a leader of one or more of these kingdoms during this period, although his name now tends to be used as a symbol of British resistance against invasion.
The invading communities overwhelmed or adapted existing kingdoms and created new ones - for example, the Angles in Mercia and Northumbria. Some British kingdoms initially survived the onslaught, such as Strathclyde, which was wedged in the north between Pictland and the new Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.
By 650 AD, the British Isles were a patchwork of many kingdoms founded from native or immigrant communities and led by powerful chieftains or kings. In their personal feuds and struggles between communities for control and supremacy, a small number of kingdoms became dominant: Bernicia and Deira (which merged to form Northumbria in 651 AD), Lindsey, East Anglia, Mercia, Wessex and Kent.