What countries did the Anglo-Saxons inhabit?
37780#121
Outside Anglophone countries, both in Europe and in the rest of the world, the term "Anglo-Saxon" and its direct translations are used to refer to the Anglophone peoples and societies of Britain, the United States, and other countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand – areas which are sometimes referred to as the Anglosphere. The term "Anglo-Saxon" can be used in a variety of contexts, often to identify the English-speaking world's distinctive language, culture, technology, wealth, markets, economy, and legal systems. Variations include the German "Angelsachsen", French "Anglo-Saxon", Spanish "anglosajón", Portuguese "Anglo-saxão", Russian "англосаксы", Polish "anglosaksoński", Italian "anglosassone", Catalan "anglosaxó" and Japanese "Angurosakuson". As with the English-language use of the term, what constitutes the "Anglo-Saxon" varies from speaker to speaker.
Anglo-Saxons
37780#0
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century, and the direct ancestors of the majority of the modern British people. They comprise people from Germanic tribes who migrated to the island from continental Europe, their descendants, and indigenous British groups who adopted many aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture and language; the cultural foundations laid by the Anglo-Saxons are the foundation of the modern English legal system and of many aspects of English society; the modern English language owes over half its words – including the most common words of everyday speech – to the language of the Anglo-Saxons. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their initial settlement and up until the Norman conquest.
The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including regional government of shires and hundreds. During this period, Christianity was established and there was a flowering of literature and language. Charters and law were also established. The term "Anglo-Saxon" is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England and eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. In scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English.
Anglo-Saxons
22368461#75
Various scholars have used a synthesis of evidence to present models to suggest an answer to the questions that surround the Anglo-Saxon settlement. These questions include: How many migrants were there? When did the "Saxons" gain political ascendency? What happened to the 'Romano-Brittonic' peoples in the south-east of Britain? The Anglo-Saxons were a mix of invaders, migrants and acculturated indigenous people. The ratios and relationships between these formative elements at the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement are the subject of enquiry. The traditional interpretation of the settlement of Britain has been subject to profound reappraisal, with scholars embracing the evidence for both migration and acculturation. Heinrich Härke explains the nature of this agreement: "It is now widely accepted that the Anglo-Saxons were not just transplanted Germanic invaders and settlers from the Continent, but the outcome of insular interactions and changes. But we are still lacking explicit models that suggest how this ethnogenetic process might have worked in concrete terms".
Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain
9038381#1
Germans have resided in the United Kingdom throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons were partly from what is now Northern Germany, and created the notion of England as a Germanic country. Likewise, the English language was descended from their dialects. The Anglo-Saxons arrived in what later became England from the 440s. Examples include the Hanseatic merchants of the Middle Ages and also the sixteenth-century Protestant refugees who emigrated to Great Britain to flee the instability caused by the religious wars following the Reformation. By the end of the seventeenth century, a significant German community had developed, consisting mostly of businessmen, mainly from Hamburg; sugar bakers and other economic migrants.
Germans in the United Kingdom
12446#65
The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain resulted in Anglo-Saxon (or English) displacement and cultural assimilation of the indigenous culture, the Brythonic-speaking British culture, causing the foundation of a new kingdom, England. As in what became England, indigenous Brythonic Celtic culture in some of the south-eastern parts of what became Scotland (approximately the Lothian and Borders region) and areas of what became the Northwest of England (the kingdoms of Rheged, Elmet, etc.) succumbed to Germanic influence c.600—800, due to the extension of overlordship and settlement from the Anglo-Saxon areas to the south. Cultural and linguistic assimilation occurred less frequently between the Germanic Anglo-Saxons and the indigenous people who resided in the Roman dominated areas of England, particularly in the regions that remained previously unconquered. Anglo-Saxons occupied Somerset, the Severn valley, and Lancaster by c. 700 where they remained dominant. Over time, the Anglo-Saxons, with their distinct culture and language, displaced much of the extant Roman influence of old.
On the European continent, the eastern remnant of Francia developed into the Kingdom of Germany, which became the most important part of the Holy Roman Empire proclaimed by Otto I in 962 AD. The Holy Roman Empire included all remaining Germanic-speaking groups from the 10th century. In the Late Medieval to Early Modern period, some groups split off the Empire before a "German" ethnicity had formed, consisting of Low Franconian (Dutch, Flemish) and Alemannic (Swiss) populations.
Germanic peoples
3736#22
At the time of the Roman Empire, about two thousand years ago, various tribes, which spoke Celtic dialects of the Insular Celtic group, were inhabiting the islands. The Romans expanded their civilisation to control southern Great Britain but were impeded in advancing any further, building Hadrian's Wall to mark the northern frontier of their empire in 122 AD. At that time, Ireland was populated by a people known as Hiberni, the northern third or so of Great Britain by a people known as Picts and the southern two thirds by Britons.
Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century AD. Initially, their arrival seems to have been at the invitation of the Britons as mercenaries to repulse incursions by the Hiberni and Picts. In time, Anglo-Saxon demands on the British became so great that they came to culturally dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain, though recent genetic evidence suggests Britons still formed the bulk of the population. This dominance creating what is now England and leaving culturally British enclaves only in the north of what is now England, in Cornwall and what is now known as Wales. Ireland had been unaffected by the Romans except, significantly, for being Christianised—traditionally by the Romano-Briton, Saint Patrick. As Europe, including Britain, descended into turmoil following the collapse of Roman civilisation, an era known as the Dark Ages, Ireland entered a golden age and responded with missions (first to Great Britain and then to the continent), the founding of monasteries and universities. These were later joined by Anglo-Saxon missions of a similar nature.
British Isles
37780#13
What happened to the indigenous Brittonic people is also subject to question. Heinrich Härke and Richard Coates point out that they are invisible archaeologically and linguistically. But based on a fairly high Anglo-Saxon figure (200,000) and a low Brythonic one (800,000), Brythonic people are likely to have outnumbered Anglo-Saxons by at least four to one. The interpretation of such figures is that while "culturally, the later Anglo-Saxons and English did emerge as remarkably un-British, . . . their genetic, biological make-up is none the less likely to have been substantially, indeed predominantly, British". The development of Anglo-Saxon culture is described by two processes. One is similar to culture changes observed in Russia, North Africa and parts of the Islamic world, where a powerful minority culture becomes, over a rather short period, adopted by a settled majority.
Anglo-Saxons
37688819#3
Most of southern, eastern and central England has shown a somewhat close genetic similarity with modern populations in the Low Countries, Germany and Denmark, which has been interpreted as representing a major contribution by peoples originally from Germany or Denmark such as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Franks, later Danes and the previous Belgae Celts who had inhabited the same areas of Britain, or prior immigrants from before the aforementioned peoples arrived while the populations of areas such as Wales and southwestern England are closer to populations of modern-day western France 
"'We might be seeing the result of Anglo-Saxon invasions pushing other peoples down into Cornwall or Wales,' Bruce Winney suggests. 'Or we might be seeing how Britain was recolonised after the ice ages. The West of our islands may have been peopled by movement up the coastal areas from Atlantic-facing Europe, whilst the southeast was influenced by pre-Anglo-Saxon movements from the area that now spans Denmark to Belgium. These patterns may then have been reinforced by the Anglo-Saxon invasions much later.'"
People of the British Isles
9652708#4
Following the virtual abandonment of the Roman city, the area's strategic location on the River Thames meant that the site was not deserted for long. From the late 5th century, Anglo-Saxons began to inhabit the area.
Anglo-Saxon London
19097669#8
In this sub-Roman Britain, as Anglo-Saxon culture spread across southern and eastern Britain and Gaelic through much of the north, the demonym "Briton" became restricted to the Brittonic-speaking inhabitants of what would later be called Wales, Cornwall, North West England (Cumbria), and parts of Scotland such as Strathearn, Morayshire, Aberdeenshire and Strathclyde. In addition the term was also applied to Brittany in what is today France and Britonia in north west Spain, both regions having been colonised by Britons in the 5th century fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasions. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island. The "Historia Brittonum" claimed legendary origins as a prestigious genealogy for Brittonic kings, followed by the "Historia Regum Britanniae" which popularised this pseudo-history to support the claims of the Kings of England.
British people