Question #dc738
1 Answer
An ancient tribe(s) that inhabited Britain.
Explanation:
The Anglo-Saxons come from 2 Germanic tribes, the Angles and Saxons (obviously), and there are others, such as the Jutes and Frisians, but they are of less import regarding the matter at hand.
Basically, as you may know, the Roman Empire (or, to be precise, the Western Roman Empire) was falling in the 5th century, primarily due to all the instability (they had been having monetary problems, brigands, revolts, etc., which had been going on ever since the "Third Century Crisis")(1). Another big factor for the instability was the invasion/migration/settling of barbarian hordes in Roman lands.
Basically, in northern Europe, the Saxons and Jutes thought it'd be a fantastic idea to invade Roman Britain, due to there being nearly no troops, fertile land to farm in, and all the other reasons you can think of to conquer new lands.
After a while (in the 800's), Britain wound up looking something like this:
They were invaded by Vikings in 867 (2), but they eventually kicked them out.
What is usually referred to as the end of the Anglo-Saxon rule was when the Normans (from Normandy, in northern France), under (you may have also heard of him) William the Conqueror, ended up throwing the Anglo-Saxon king out of power (king Harold Godwinson), after the Battle of Hastings (3). Afterwards, Britain remained under the same populace, they just had to get accustomed to being under French rule.*
*We still refer to people of Britain today as "Anglo-Saxons", I presume due to the preponderance of the Anglo-Saxons ever since the inhabitation of Britain (as they were not cleansed or removed or anything).
Notes (if you want to read more about the topics with the numbers beside them):
(1): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century
(2): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Heathen_Army
(Also, there is a really really good show called "Vikings" which deals with (2).)
