[Sca-cooks] Interesting article-

[TerryDecker]

Three keels do not a hoard make, but an estimated 120 to 200 Saxon warriors 
make a nasty mercenary unit.  And the Saxons were probably settling in 
England before Hengst and Horsa hired out to Vortigern.

Rather than a massive invasion or a peaceful migration, I'm more of the 
raid, trade, settlement, political intrigue, war and conquest school, 
beginning in the 3rd Century culminating in the Saxon Kingdoms of Southeast 
England in the 6th Century.  The find in Oxfordshire is roughly contemporary 
to Gildas, who is the contemporary source for the conquest theory.  It is 
also contemporaneous to the second migration of Britons into Brittany from 
Western England which suggests military rather than social pressure.  "A 
small band of elites" in the Saxon social structure of the day, would have 
been an ealdorman and his edhilingui (essentially the baron and his knights) 
supported by Saxon yeomen and slaves.  And once you are on top of the heap, 
your ways are likely to be adopted.

Bear


-----Original Message----- 

I don't think I said anything about barbarian hordes, and at any rate,
the Franks were quite late to that party. To a large extent they moved
into a gap left when the other tribes pushed out towards the edges.The
Saxons, on the other hand, invited to help settle a civil war, landed on
British soil that was still held by other tribes. And they didn't
particularly care to share. In a way, they're still fighting.

Bonnie Effros might have something to say, about the Franks at least. I
don't have time to plow through it at the moment though- I'm teaching a
section of Western Civ (Constantine through Charlemagne) at an event
Saturday and I still have prep work to do.

Liutgard

On 2/19/2014 7:43 AM, JIMCHEVAL at aol.com wrote:
> The parallel is in modern preconceptions of how all this change happened.
> On the Frankish side, I don't think there's any serious recent historian 
> who
>   still accepts the narrative of "barbarian hordes" wiping out what was 
> left
> of  Roman civilization. I know less about the English side, but certainly
> the  article suggests a similar idea exists about the end of Roman rule in
> England.  And it is interesting to see that paleoanthropology can 
> undermine
> the old ideas  in both cases.
>   Jim  Chevallier
>   (http://www.chezjim.com/) www.chezjim.com