Re: OT: Of Angles and Saxons

----- 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

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