Who were the angles and Saxons?

Answer 1

Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading tribes in the south and east of Great Britain starting from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, lasting until the Norman conquest of 1066. The Benedictine monk, Bede, identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes:

• The Angles, who may have come from Angeln, and Bede wrote that their whole nation came to Britain [3], leaving their former land empty. The name 'England' or 'Ænglaland' originates from this tribe. [4]
• The Saxons, from Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen, Germany)
• The Jutes, from the Jutland peninsula.

The Angles and Saxons were closely related, and spoke different dialects of Ingweonic (North Sea German). They could probably understand each other, but probably made fun of each other's accents like the present-day Norwegians and Swedes. Neither could understand the Jutes, who moved south and mixed with Franks in Hannover before moving to Frisia. Chances are they had trouble understanding the Frisians too.

Answer 2

It's actually spelled JUTES- they were tribes from Continental Europe who crossed over to England in a series of migrations during the Centuries following Roman withdrawal from England.

At the time, the population of Britain was either Celtic or 'Romano-British', people of mixed Celtic and Italian race who were the descendants of inter-marrying between Roman citizens and Celts. The Saxon tribes came from the region of Germany now known as Saxony, whilst the Angles and Jutes came from Denmark and the Low Countries. Initially they came as warring invaders and fought bitter battles with the Celtic tribes, conquering large swathes of land and setting them up as their own autonomous fiefdoms. Later on they tended to come in peace, trading with the native Celts and sharing knowledge of agriculture, technology and economic systems.

They never succeeded in conquering the powerful tribes of Wales, Scotland or Cornwall, but although over the Centuries peace did develop between Celts in England and the Anglo-Saxon invaders, they were never COMPLETELY at ease with each other, and disliked each other having their own seperate kingdoms. Eventually, the English Celtic tribes became assimilated with the Saxons after the last purely Celtic kingdom in England, Elmet (what is now North Yorkshire) was overthrown during the Dark Ages. They intermarried, merged ethnically, and ultimately became the later Anglo-Saxon race of the latter part of the first Millenium, to be united as a single nation by King Alfred the Great.