An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England | Page 5

so few that we are
left in all but total ignorance as to what actually occurred. For more
than two hundred years we can only guess at the course of events, or
infer it from its probable analogy to what we know was occurring in the
other parts of the Empire, or from the conditions we find to have been
in existence as knowledge of succeeding times becomes somewhat
more full. It seems evident that the government of the province of
Britain gradually went to pieces, and that that of the different cities or
districts followed. Internal dissensions and the lack of military
organization and training of the mass of the population probably added
to the difficulty of resisting marauding bands of barbarian invaders.
These invading bands became larger, and their inroads more frequent
and extended, until finally they abandoned their home lands entirely

and settled permanently in those districts in which they had broken the
resistance of the Roman-British natives. Even while the Empire had
been strong the heavy burden of taxation and the severe pressure of
administrative regulations had caused a decline in wealth and
population. Now disorder, incessant ravages of the barbarians, isolation
from other lands, probably famine and pestilence, brought rapid decay
to the prosperity and civilization of the country. Cities lost their trade,
wealth, and population, and many of them ceased altogether for a time
to exist. Britain was rapidly sinking again into a land of barbarism.
*4. Early Saxon England.*--An increasing number of contemporary
records give a somewhat clearer view of the condition of England
toward the close of the sixth century. The old Roman organization and
civilization had disappeared entirely, and a new race, with a new
language, a different religion, another form of government, changed
institutions and customs, had taken its place. A number of petty
kingdoms had been formed during the fifth and early sixth centuries,
each under a king or chieftain, as in the old Celtic times before the
Roman invasion, but now of Teutonic or German race. The kings and
their followers had come from the northwestern portions of Germany.
How far they had destroyed the earlier inhabitants, how far they had
simply combined with them or enslaved them, has been a matter of
much debate, and one on which discordant opinions are held, even by
recent students. It seems likely on the whole that the earlier races,
weakened by defeat and by the disappearance of the Roman control,
were gradually absorbed and merged into the body of their conquerors;
so that the petty Angle and Saxon kings of the sixth and seventh
centuries ruled over a mixed race, in which their own was the most
influential, though not necessarily the largest element. The arrival from
Rome in 597 of Augustine, the first Christian missionary to the now
heathen inhabitants of Britain, will serve as a point to mark the
completion of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the country. By this time
the new settlers had ceased to come in, and there were along the coast
and inland some seven or eight different kingdoms. These were,
however, so frequently divided and reunited that no fixed number
remained long in existence. The Jutes had established the kingdom of
Kent in the south-eastern extremity of the island; the South and the

West Saxons were established on the southern coast and inland to the
valley of the Thames; the East Saxons had a kingdom just north of the
mouth of the Thames, and the Middle Saxons held London and the
district around. The rest of the island to the north and inland exclusive
of what was still unconquered was occupied by various branches of the
Angle stock grouped into the kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, and
Northumbria. During the seventh and eighth centuries there were
constant wars of conquest among these kingdoms. Eventually, about
800 A.D., the West Saxon monarchy made itself nominally supreme
over all the others. Notwithstanding this political supremacy of the
West Saxons, it was the Angles who were the most numerous and
widely spread, and who gave their name, England, to the whole land.
Agriculture was at this time almost the sole occupation of the people.
The trade and commerce that had centred in the towns and flowed
along the Roman roads and across the Channel had long since come to
an end with the Roman civilization of which it was a part. In Saxon
England cities scarcely existed except as fortified places of defence.
The products of each rural district sufficed for its needs in food and in
materials for clothing, so that internal trade was but slight.
Manufactures were few, partly from lack of skill, partly from lack of
demand or appreciation; but weaving, the construction of agricultural
implements and weapons, ship-building, and the working of metals had
survived