Re: OT: Of Angles and Saxons

Thanks people!

                                          Andreas

Quoting Sally Caves <scaves@...>:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
> To: <CONLANG@...>
> Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 11:27 AM
> Subject: OT: Of Angles and Saxons
>
>
> >I recently ran across the claim that no Anglo-Saxons called themselves
> >'Saxons'
> > before the Conquest - that is was strictly an exonym - but all considered
> > themselves Angles/English. The names of kingdoms and regions containing
> > "Sax" -
> > Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex - supposedly all postdate the Conquest,
> > and
> > were introduced by the Normans (leaving one to wonder what the kings of
> > Wessex
> > and so on called their kingdoms).
>
> Well exactly.
>
> > I find this more than a little difficult to believe, but couldn't find any
> > explicit denial in any book I've got easy access to. Anyone into these
> > matters
> > feel like commenting?
> >
> >                                               Andreas
>
> "Explicit denial" is found in OE textual confirmation. What about Wesseaxna
> rice in the Chronicles for the year 866?  Her feng Aethered Aethelbryhtes
> brothur to Wesseaxna rice.  "Here Aethered, Athelbryhtes brother, succeeded
> to the kingdom of the West Saxons."  Or in Saint Oswald: "Tha becom he to
> Westseaxan... "then he came to Wessex."  Also in the Battle Brunanburh:
> Wesseaxe forth / ondlongne daeg eorodcistum / on last legdun lathum
> theodum... "The Westsaxons went forth all day long with (their) fine troops
> following on the tracks of the enemy peoples" (i.e., the Scandinavians and
> the Scots).
>
> Here it is for Eastseaxan, again in the Chronicles (for the year 893): ...in
> on Eastseaxe ongean tha scipu; and more famously in the "Battle of Maldon,"
> ll. 68-69: Hi thaer Pantan stream mid prasse bestodon / Eastseaxena ord and
> se aeschere.  "They, the vanguard of the East-Saxons and the army, stood in
> battle array at the Pante River."
>
> There are entries, too, for the Suthseaxe, but I'm too hurried to look it
> up. Your source is totally mistaken.
>
> Sally
>

Quoting Joe <joe@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> >I recently ran across the claim that no Anglo-Saxons called themselves
> 'Saxons'
> >before the Conquest - that is was strictly an exonym - but all considered
> >themselves Angles/English. The names of kingdoms and regions containing
> "Sax" -
> >Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex - supposedly all postdate the Conquest, and
> >were introduced by the Normans (leaving one to wonder what the kings of
> Wessex
> >and so on called their kingdoms).
> >
> >I find this more than a little difficult to believe, but couldn't find any
> >explicit denial in any book I've got easy access to. Anyone into these
> matters
> >feel like commenting?
> >
> >
> >
> Nope.  The Anglo-Saxon chronicle explicitly refers to Wessex several
> times (probably the rest, too, but yeah).  But, for some reason, the
> Saxons still spoke Englisc.
>