Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Cultures

Anglo-Saxons

Also Known As Anglo-Saxon · Anglo Saxons
Peoples

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The Anglo-Saxons were the Germanic peoples who settled in Britain from the fifth century, whose speech became Old English and whose kingdoms were the political setting of England's conversion to Christianity. They arrived with a Germanic religion of which little direct evidence survives, mostly place names, the names of the weekdays, and the goddess Eostre whom Bede records as giving her name to the Easter month. The conversion from the late sixth century onward produced a literate church culture that copied scripture and vernacular poetry alike, and their runic alphabet, the Futhorc, developed locally from the Elder Futhark.

Facts
Traditions
Principal Religious Traditions
A Germanic religion of which little direct evidence survives, known mainly from place names, burial practice and the notices of Christian writers who opposed it; and the Christianity that arrived from Rome in 597 and from Ireland in the same period, which the kingdoms adopted within a century. 3
Origins
Origin Region
The North Sea coast of what is now Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, with settlement in Britain from the fifth century. 1
Language Family
Old English, West Germanic within Indo-European. 2
Practice
Practice Status
Reconstructed in the modern era and openly practised 3
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Woden, Eostre and a Religion in Fragments

Anglo-Saxon paganism is attested by scraps. Bede names two goddesses, Hretha and Eostre, in the course of explaining month names, and Eostre gave English the word Easter. Royal genealogies trace descent from Woden; place names preserve the gods in Wednesbury, Thundersley and Tuesley; and the days of the week carry Tiw, Woden, Thunor and Frig. David Wilson's study assembles the material and is candid that it does not add up to a theology.

The archaeology gives more. Furnished burial with weapons, jewellery and food, cremation under mounds, the ship burial at Sutton Hoo with its extraordinary deposit, and the temple Bede describes being destroyed by its own priest at Goodmanham together indicate a religion concerned with lineage, with the display of standing, and with the passage of the dead.

The Old English Rune Poem, preserved in a Christian manuscript, names each letter with a verse, and some of those verses appear to carry older material inside a Christian frame. The atlas records the gods as attested by name and by place, and marks the rest as not recoverable, rather than filling it in from the Norse sources, which are three centuries later and belong to a different branch of the family.

Conversion, Bede and a Christian Literature in English

The conversion began in 597 with the mission Gregory the Great sent to Kent under Augustine, and proceeded kingdom by kingdom, with reversions, across most of a century. Irish missionaries working from Iona converted Northumbria from the north, and the Synod of Whitby in 664 decided in favour of Roman practice on the dating of Easter, which settled the question of which church the English kingdoms belonged to.

Bede, writing at Jarrow by 731, is the source for nearly all of this, and his history is a work of argument as well as of record. His account of the sparrow flying through the lighted hall, offered in a Northumbrian king's council as a reason to accept the new teaching, is the most quoted description of a conversion in English.

What followed was one of the earliest vernacular Christian literatures in Europe. Caedmon's hymn, the Dream of the Rood in which the cross itself speaks as a retainer, and the biblical poems collected among the Anglo-Saxon minor poems were composed in the alliterative verse of the older tradition. Beowulf, a poem about pagan heroes written by a Christian, sits exactly on the seam. Old English became a language of preaching, of law and of scripture translation, unusually early and unusually fully.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 25 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value a."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 26 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value ae."

The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc is their runic alphabet, developed locally from the Elder Futhark.

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "David Wilson is an archaeologist, and this academic book, published by Routledge, surveys what is actually known about pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon religion from archaeological and limited textual..."

Source Anglo-Saxon PaganismDavid Wilson

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 18 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value b."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, J.R.R."

Source Beowulf: The Monsters and the CriticsJ. R. R. Tolkien

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 6 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value c/k."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 24 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value d."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Bede's De Temporum Ratione, The Reckoning of Time, completed in 725, is a work with no publication year in the modern sense since it survives as a manuscript composition rather than a printed..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Deutsche Mythologie is Jacob Grimm's own 1835 philological study, and it is the source of the reconstructed Continental goddess Ostara, whom Grimm inferred from the Old High German name for Easter..."

Source Deutsche MythologieJacob Grimm

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Donar's Oak, also called Jove's Oak or Thor's Oak, was a large sacred oak near Geismar in Hesse, central Germany, dedicated to the Germanic god Donar (Thor) and revered as a central cultic site by..."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 29 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value ea."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 19 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value e."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "The Elder Futhark is the oldest runic alphabet, twenty four characters used across Germanic speaking Europe from about the second century to the eighth, and named for the sound values of its first..."

Source Runes: An IntroductionRalph W. V. Elliott

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity, Alaric Hall's 2007 study from Boydell Press, is a linguistic and textual reassessment of Anglo-Saxon elf belief, arguing..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 13 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value eo."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 15 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value x/z."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 23 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value oe."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 1 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value f."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 12 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value j/y."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 7 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value g."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 9 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value h."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 22 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value ng."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 28 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value io."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 11 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value i."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 21 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value l."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Bede's Life of Saint Cuthbert is a primary hagiographic text, an eighth century account of the Northumbrian monk-bishop's life and posthumous miracles, written by one of the most careful historians..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 20 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value m."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Modranicht (Old English, Night of the Mothers) is the one pagan Anglo-Saxon observance the monk Bede names directly in De Temporum Ratione, recording that the pagan English reckoned the start of..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Terje Spurkland is a specialist in runology and Scandinavian historical linguistics, and this book, translated into English by Betsy van der Hoek and published by Boydell Press, is an academic..."

Source Norwegian Runes and Runic InscriptionsTerje Spurkland; Betsy van der Hoek (trans.)

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 10 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value n."

Old English, Languages

Old English is their language.

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 4 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value o."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 14 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value p."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context, Karen Louise Jolly's 1996 study from the University of North Carolina Press, argues the Anglo-Saxon elf charms are best read as a..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "A woodcut portrait of Pope Sergius I, made for Hartmann Schedel's Liber Chronicarum, the Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in 1493."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 5 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value r."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 16 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value s."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie's edition of The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, published by Columbia University Press in 1942 as volume six of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records series, is the standard critical..."

Source The Anglo-Saxon Minor PoemsElliott Van Kirk Dobbie (editor)

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Wayne Harbert is a linguist, and this academic book, published by Cambridge University Press, is a technical survey of the Germanic language family's grammar, phonology and historical development..."

Source The Germanic LanguagesWayne Harbert

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine, prior of a Roman monastery, to the Kingdom of Kent, a deliberate choice since King Aethelberht held influence over neighbouring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and was..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Michelle P. Brown's The Lindisfarne Gospels, Society, Spirituality and the Scribe, published by the British Library in 2003, is a scholarly study of the manuscript's production, its monastic and..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "The Tree: The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft is Raymond Buckland's 1974 book, published by Samuel Weiser, setting out Seax-Wica, the tradition of modern Witchcraft he founded in the United States..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Raymond Buckland's The Tree, The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft, published by Samuel Weiser in 1974, is the primary text itself, Buckland's own founding document for Seax-Wica, a tradition of..."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 3 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value th."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 17 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value t."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Three interlaced arcs forming a closed triple loop."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 2 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value u."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Three interlocking triangles, carved on Gotland picture stones such as Stora Hammars and Tangelgarda, on a bedpost from the Oseberg ship burial, and on an Anglo-Saxon gold ring from the Nene valley..."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "A community-maintained tertiary reference on Anglo-Saxon paganism, directly examined."

Source Wikipedia, "Anglo-Saxon Paganism"Wikipedia contributors

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 8 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value w."

This source names Anglo-Saxons directly: "Rune 27 of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the expanded English and Frisian rune row preserved in the Old English rune poem; sound value y."

Source An Introduction to English RunesR. I. Page

Contained In

The Anglo-Saxons are one of the Germanic peoples.

Originated In

England, Regions

The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms became England.

Their settlement area lies within the modern United Kingdom.

Principal Tradition Of

Anglo-Saxon Paganism, Religions

Anglo-Saxon Paganism is the pre-Christian religion of the Anglo-Saxons and is named for them.

Related To

Saxons, Cultures

The Saxons of the continent are the parent population of one of the settling groups.

Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
2. The Germanic Languages
Wayne Harbert, Cambridge University Press, 2007View the Source
3. Anglo-Saxon Paganism
David Wilson, Routledge, 1992View the Source
Beowulf
Anonymous (Nowell Codex)View the Source
The Old English Rune Poem: A Critical Edition
Maureen Halsall, University of Toronto Press, 1981View the Source
The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems
Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (editor), Columbia University Press, New York, 1942
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