Talk:Timeline of conflict in Anglo-Saxon Britain

Takeover of what?

The idea is laudable but the title is incorrect. "The Anglo-Saxon invasion and takeover of Britain"? When exactly did the Anglo-Saxons "take over Britain"? The over-reliance on Bede and the ASC - naturally very biased, especially the former - also needs redressing. The final entry is at best a half-truth which implies that the Anglo-Saxons conquered Wales: not so! As for the title, I'd suggest that something like "Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon invasion and their establishment in Britain" would be more accurate. Enaidmawr (talk) 23:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nearly a month and no reply. This title is completely inaccurate. When exactly did the Anglo-Saxons take over Britain? I don't recall reading of their conquest of Wales and Scotland in any history book, rather unsurprisingly (the article itself makes no reference to a "takeover of Britain", for obvious reasons). Perhaps the simplest way to rename this is with "Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain". If someone doesn't come up with a better suggestion in the next few days that's what I intend to do. Enaidmawr (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your proposal above (to the redlink). Seems sensible. --Jza84 | Talk 23:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll leave it for a few days to see if there is an alternative proposal - but all the others I could think of were impossibly long! Enaidmawr (talk) 23:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Collecting together assorted primary sources to fabricate a timeline is rather pointless. This article could lead readers to suppose that entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle purporting to describe events in 433 and 1063 are of equal value. The only secondary source cited is Campbell's "Lost Centuries", and that's rather full of cautionary notes on the value of the ASC. Here we have "On or before 547 ...", whereas Campbell (p. 26) is much more cautious: "[The ASC] supplies a date, 547, for the succession of Ida to Bernicia, and another, 560, for that of Aelle to Deira: these may indicate the beginnings of the power in those kingdoms of the dynasties which were to rule them, and possibly of Anglian power there." And so on: may, possibly, perhaps. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Enaidmawr's proposal - and, following the above comment, there should be a clear warning sentence or two in the introduction about the uncertainty around some of the sources cited. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback. As there are no objections I'm moving it to the proposed name. I agree with the above comments on the content and the inherent problems of accuracy and veracity, etc., but that's something that can be worked on even if it means loading the article with "ifs" and "buts". Could do with alternative sources to balance it as well, e.g. Annales Cambriae, Brut y Tywysogion, Scottish chronicles. Enaidmawr (talk) 20:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Celts

The article is littered with references to Celts, what were they doing in Britain, were they on their holidays? Stutley (talk) 10:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might find this list or British Iron Age helpful. Ben Mac Dui 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting list I'm sure, doesn't include any celt tribes though. Both of those articles look like they've been thrown together by people with an ethnic axe to grind and no knowledge of serious historical thinking. There never was a race of celts. There never was a celtic culture. There are no celt genes. Many make an assumption that there was a language, proto-celtic, that linked Gaelic and Welsh but there is no evidence for this.Stutley (talk) 10:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've never been able to understand why people dismiss the science of historical linguistics so readily, yet blindly accept the findings of other fields they know just as little about. The scientific rigour of the discipline is just as strong as that of genetics and archeology, and what it tells us about historical cultures is just as valid. It is good you have a healthy skepticism, that's one of the bases of scientific thought - but please, look at the evidence first!

You will find that the sound correspondences between Brythonic and Gaelic roots, as well as Gaulish, correspond exactly. They are clearly related. Their Genetic (linguistics) relationship is as clear and as rigourously demonstrated as the Genetic (biology) link between chimpanzees and humans. And this scientific method isn't just used in Celtic studies, by "people with an ethnic axe to grind", as you claim. It and similar methods have been applied to thousands of languages all over the world, and it has been just as successful in m a n y, m a n y, m a n y cases in finding relationships between attested languages and in reconstructing ancestral proto-languages.

I realise this discussion occured months ago and the original poster seems to no longer be active, but I hope anyone else who has misconceptions about this issue will read this and take my advice to look into the science of historical linguistics further before they dismiss it as blindly. --81.158.147.16 (talk) 07:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm back. I'm not disputing any link between Brythonic, Gaelic and Gauls, I'm merely pointing out that using the word "celt" to describe any of those is wrong. Stutley (talk) 09:14, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why? We have to use some word if we're going to talk about them as a group. There is no clear contender from the Celtic languages themselves that describes the group as a whole (which makes sense, as they never thought of themselves as a unified group), so why not borrow a convenient word from Greek? There are lots of other similar examples, such as the word "Maya". The various groups of Maya had (and still have) a great many different names for themselves, the word "Maya" is simply taken from the name of one of the first group that Europeans encountered, the people of Mayapan. Sure, it's not historically accurate to use the word to refer to the whole group, but everyone involved in the field knows the origin of the word and would never make the mistake of thinking that all the Maya used the name to refer to themselves.

Another example a bit closer to home is the word "Germanic". Whatever people constituted the Proto-Germanic culture may have refered to themselves using some ancestor of the modern German world "Deutsche", although we can never be sure, but in linguistics we use a word derived from the Latin word "Germanus". This word was originally used by the Romans to refer to a tribe or group of tribes in North-East Gaul that may or may not have even spoken a Germanic language. So why use this term? There are a number of historical reasons, but ultimately it doesn't matter. That is the term that has stuck and is now universally agreed upon. Even in the German language itself the term "Germanisch", not "Deutsche", is used to refer to the Germanic language family. The fact is that label used in discourse does not reflect anything other than just that, a simple label for convenience. --86.137.152.133 (talk) 01:31, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Convenient, exactly. You are grouping tribes in the period 400-800AD with seperate languages and from seperate regions as one based on a common language root dating back up to 2000 years before that time. Why not call them "Indo-Europeans" and the article can be about the Indo-European invasion of the other Indo-Europeans? Stutley (talk) 09:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because that would, as you note, lead to confusion, as both groups are Indo-European speakers. --86.135.124.54 (talk) 16:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that insightful contribution Stutley (talk) 14:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An untrue title

The title implies a takeover of the present Wales and Scotland by the Anglo saxons. This did not happen. I think that 'Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England' may be better, or even 'Timeline of the failed Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain'.Llywelyn2000 (talk) 06:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Invasion is also misleading. Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon settlements, or something like that, might be better. Or even Timeline of Sub-Roman Britain. That would mean a lot of changes to the content, but since it's very poor indeed that would be no bad thing. Angus McLellan (Talk) 10:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the word "invasion" is neccesarily misleading as it could, in any historical context, be partial, complete (i.e. "conquest") or a total failure. I do take your point however and have no objection to another move. I changed it to this as anything seemed better than the original title "Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon invasion and takeover of Britain" (!). I also agree that title and contents don't match. If we opt for the second proposal "Timeline of Sub-Roman Britain" we will need to cut out all the medieval material, which would leave very little; however plenty about early Wales and Scotland (the Hen Ogledd, for instance) could be added to make up for that. "Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon settlements" might be better (terminus=date?). "Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England" is a bit illogical perhaps, as England did not exist before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons. Anyway, no objections to a suitable move (and the less said about the non-existence of the Celts in the first section, above, the better!). (Or what was the first section - just made this a seperate one). Enaidmawr (talk) 18:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Enaidmawr- What you say is totally locical. It wasn't the Anglo Saxons who invaded Britain but a myriad of different tribes. And it wasn't an invation (which today has other connotations to the word: such as the Normandy Invation of June 1944) but rather a slow, immigration of different and incoherent people such as the Frisians, Angles, Jutes over three or four hundred years. Maybe the word 'attempt' should be included in the title. The fact is that the collection of tribes (some would call Anglo Saxons) were NOT successfull in their attempt to take over the whole of Britain. Enaidmawr; the decision is yours, master! Llywelyn2000 (talk) 20:59, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There was an invasion. The name "Anglo-Saxons" means the sum total of the Germanic peoples who invaded. And over most of what is now England the takeover was successful, which explains why I writing this in English and not in a Celtic language. (I live in England.) Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The celts lived somewhere around the Balkans and never set foot in Britain so the less said about them the better.Stutley (talk) 22:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What reasoning! Llywelyn2000 (talk) 22:34, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about something from Gildas: 'De Excidio Britanniae' ('About the Fall of Britain' and the rise of Anglo Saxon Immigration into England)? Too long-winded I should think. Or simply: Timeline of Britain 400 - 800 A.D. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline of Sub-Roman Britain has the advantage of inclusiveness, although it completely changes the focus of the article away from the Anglo-Saxons and would need a big re-write. Possibly a new article? Likewise Timeline of Britain 400 - 800 A.D. Timeline of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain is a little wordy, but possibly the most accurate. In response to Anthony Appleyard, yes, I speak a variant of English too, but this did not become common in large areas of the north and west of Britain until centuries after this timeline ends. Using this measure the "invasion" is still not complete. The problem is of course that it was an invasion, but only of part of Great Britain. Another difficulty is that the article fails to provide any kind of overview e.g. "The invasion/settlement lasted from x date to y date and resulted in an area from A to B falling under the control of the Anglo-Saxons and their allies. The implication of the current version is that the invasion was succesfully concluded by the 11th century. Ben Mac Dui 08:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that there are several issues to be addressed in deciding the title. Firstly, what area are we talking about? I think we agree (do we?) that we are talking about Britain, including the areas now known as England, Scotland and Wales. The second and fundamental question is whether we are simply covering a time period, or whether we are covering a process. In some ways a time period would be simpler as we can cover everything that happened in the area during the period - but how helpful would it be? It would inevitably attract a confusing mass of unrelated information. I can see that a timeline for a particular region might be useful, but in my opinion a timeline for "Britain" would acquire too much information to be of much value to many readers. As to the time period, I suppose 400-800 would be as useful as any other, but would there then need to be one for, say, 800-1200 as well? Or should it be 410-1066? On balance I think the article would be better to cover a process and, as that is where we are starting from, in my opinion the coverage should be of the changes in the population of Britain between the end of the Roman period and the start of the Norman period. Now, that's not much of a title. It might also be too broad - for example, should it cover Vikings as well as Angles, Saxons and Jutes? Or too narrow - should it cover Welsh and Cornish migration to Brittany, for example? I think there is a consensus that the term "Anglo-Saxon" includes smaller groups from the same general area, so I don't have a problem with that term, and I also think "settlement" is more useful and NPOV than "invasion" (although the term "invasion" in itself doesn't imply that it was successful, or a "takeover"). So, I think I support Ben MacDui and favour Timeline of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:47, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree: on the understanding that the first paragraph makes it clear that only parts of Britain became home to these new settlers. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Ben MacDui and Ghmyrtle as it seems the simplest solution without changing the article's focus, but with the clear distinction in the first paragraph, as Llywelyn2000 notes, that the settlement was partial - enough people think that Britain and England (Anglo-Saxon or otherwise) are synomynous already! The period of c. 400-800 seems the sensible one to go for: although A-S England is normally regarded as continuing up to the Norman Conquest we are talking of "settlement" here and that roughly covers the main period for the establishment of the A-S kingdoms (things are rarely that tidy in history so we could allow a brief postcript, I suppose). I'd also like to see a more balanced use of sources and the caveat that sources such as Bede and the A-S Chronicle are inherently biased (as are similar sources, of course...). Enaidmawr (talk) 21:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the last two posts. So far as the first para goes, would it suffice to say: "Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain began around the time of the end of the Roman occupation, and eventually extended over most of England but not Scotland or Wales" - or is that too simplistic? Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Time up please gentlemen! The consensus dictates a much needed change, a less offensive title as suggested by Ben MacDui and Ghmyrtle: Timeline of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain. I shall therefor carry out this change in 10 days time, unless there is good reasoning not to do so - of which, so far, there has been very little. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 21:46, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, the consensus seems established and the move long overdue. It's either Timeline of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain or change the whole article. Enaidmawr (talk) 00:26, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A time for change, I think... Go for it! Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:26, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What fantastic Wiki debate! lol. Strictly speaking although the Anglo-Saxons didn't occupy all of Scotland - a large part of the Scottish lowlands were part of the English Kingdom of Northumbria and remaind a part of England until the Norman conquest. Jalipa

Moving the Goal-posts

The last cut-and-paste by user Stutley is against the rules of Wicki. Moving his comments means that the comments which follow (by myself) refer to other comments by another user. His newly moved comments are also missplaced, anachronistic! What's the protocol regarding such misuse? Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:VANDAL states "Blanking the posts of other users from talk pages other than your own, Wikipedia space, and other discussions, aside from removing internal spam, vandalism, etc., is generally considered vandalism." I see this was inappropriate re-positioning of an edit rather than blanking, which is arguably disruptive rather than outright vandalism per se. I have reverted the post. Ben Mac Dui 07:59, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Diolch. Thanks. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 00:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I moved the post is because I put it in the wrong place by mistake in the first place. It is now in the wrong place in that the post it appears to be a reply to is not the post that it was a reply to. I shall leave it where it is as I don't want to traumatise anyone... Stutley (talk) 09:58, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]