[Political Interest]

I have become interested in this history of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons. When people talk about Normans and Saxons, are they referring to two different peoples or are they both the same? Therefore, when one speaks about the Anglo-Saxons(English) and Normans, are we speaking of two different nations? Also, if the Normans are indeed the same as the Anglo-Saxons(English), does that mean that some Scottish clans have a great deal of English blood in them?

[Oxymoron]

Normans are Vikings who settled in France later invaded England 1066. Anglo Saxons are Germanic people who settled in Britain.

[Political Interest]

Normans are Vikings who settled in France later invaded England 1066. Anglo Saxons are Germanic people who settled in Britain.

In that sense they are then quite different and hence the Scots are still an ethnically distinct people from the English?

[Invictus_88]

The Scots cannot be distinguished except by DNA test, and even then it's merely 'indicative'.

[Political Interest]

The Scots cannot be distinguished except by DNA test, and even then it's merely 'indicative'.

But they are still different, are they not? Were Celts not the original inhabitants of the British Isles? Then came the Anglo-Saxons, followed by the Normans, who then intermarried with a great number of Celts and Anglo-Saxons? Still, the Scottish Clans are different from the Anglo-Saxons, as were the Normans from the latter, yes?

[MB.]

Were Celts not the original inhabitants of the British Isles?

The celti were like belgium-maygars or something (the belgi) who migrated throughout Europe after the end of the last major glacial around 9,000 BC (I think... it's all covered in Stephen Oppenheimer's The Origins of the British [2006]).

Then came the Anglo-Saxons

The Romans were the first major colonizers of Britain, then the Angles, Jutes, Saxons and other people from Denmark and Scandinavia, then the Vikings and then the Normans etc

[Political Interest]

But are Celts and Anglo-Saxons different people?

[Ter]

The Scots cannot be distinguished except by DNA test

Not so....

Scots are instantly recognisable because nobody understands them when they talk.
Even when they keep quiet, the attentive observer will notice the skirt worn by males.

Ter

[JRS1]

But are Celts and Anglo-Saxons different people?

Im interested -what do you mean by different people? What do you mean by ethnically different?

[Oxymoron]

Yes they are very different.

[Rojik of the Arctic]

But are Celts and Anglo-Saxons different people?

Yes and no. There is some mix and matching but mostly the celts are a "pure" breed whereas the Anglo-Saxons are a mix of many races. Even the language of England can change depending on the location and the history/ancestry.

[elcule]

Yes, the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons are different, as are the Celts from both.

The Normans are an off-shoot of "original" Vikings who settled in the North of France (Normandy), successfully invading England in 1066 under William of Normandy (William I of England).

The Anglo-Saxons are a mixtures of Jutes and Saxons who began to populate Britain in the declining days of the Roman empire. However, they were never part of one united nation (England) until around 850/900, when two most prevalent kingdoms of the time - those of Mercia and Wessex - merged into one, the latter assimilating the former.

The Celts are what you might call the 'indegenous' of the British Isles, their existence here pre-dating the Roman presence and surviving long after it - most notably in Wales and Scotland, the extreme areas to which they were pushed by Roman Imperialism.


Hope that helps, I'm only really aware of their histories from a British perspective, the product of a myopic education system is suppose, but just remember that no race can claim to be truly autochthonous, and every culture has been formed through a myriad of experiences, hence my caution in using the phrase indegenous to describe the Celts.

[Le Rouge]

The Celts are not indigenous. A race of individuals lived there before them. My knowledge on them is fuzzy but I think I'm correct in saying that the pre-Celtic inhabitants of the isles were related to the modern-day Basque and Berbers. (not sure about the latter).

[elcule]

A race of individuals Haha!

Yeah, well this is demonstrating my remark about no race being totaly autochthonic, at what point can a race be called indegenous? If, as you claim, the Basques preceded the Celts, would that mean that there are no peoples indegenous to the British Isles?

[Oxymoron]

What about the Druids?

[Brio]

The Anglo-Saxons are a mixtures of Jutes and Saxons who began to populate Britain in the declining days of the Roman empire.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the Anglo-Saxons are a mixture of Angles and Saxons? Hence the word Anglo-Saxon.

What about the Druids?

I believe the Druids were just the religious class of Celtic society.

[dugfromthearth]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the Anglo-Saxons are a mixture of Angles and Saxons? Hence the word Anglo-Saxon.

During the fall of Roman power in Britain and thereafter, Germanic mercenaries were hired to serve in Britain - much as Germanic mercenaries were being hired elsewhere in the western Roman Empire.

The three Germanic tribes that were hired in large numbers were the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As happened elsewhere, the Germans discovered that they were major powers in Britain and established their own territories of control. They had come as full tribes and had their families with them, so they brought their full blood, it wasn't just a few hundred mercenaries.

Being all Germans, they just get lumped together as one group, and the Jutes get left out so they are just called Anglo-Saxons.

[Kynaston+1]

dugfromtheearth - Yes, but. The geneticist Oppenheimer - in what seems to me a very impressive book - points out that everywhere in Britain the majority of the population share most genes with the Basques, their ancestors having followed the retreating ice north way back. As he points out, there never were any 'Celts' in Britain - just British people who spoke Celtic languages. His estimate of Anglo-Saxon genetic influence on current British people is about 5% of the population. In the old world peope could shift much more easily by sea and rivers than by land, and most of these characters sneaked in down the rivers and lived in very small and isolated villages, leaving the rest of of the country to the British: what gave them their big chance was the disastrous climate change at roughly the time we kicked out the Roman authorities and - most of all - the Plague in Justinian's time, which hit civilised people hardest because they had granaries, therefore rats, therefore plague-bearing fleas. It is a pity people get so worked up about very small invading minorities: they have fairly minor influence on actual populations. The people of Britain were farmers, not hunter-gatherers like the native Americans: let who might be bosses, they stayed, worked the land and had children. We are basically the people who came back after the Ice Age, still.

[Cookie Monster]

By the time the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain, the Celts had already mixed with the Romans.

[Kynaston+1]

All free men were Roman citizens, yes. There were never any people called 'Celts' in Britain until the early Eighteenth Century when Lhuyd invented them, and there was very little foreign settlement by anybody in Roman times (Rome, at top, had a population of a million, and why should they give up the bread and circuses?). After a century or two the legions in Britain were British anyway.