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The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain was the process, from the mid 5th to early 7th centuries, by which the coastal lowlands of Britain developed from a Romano-British to a Germanic culture following the Roman withdrawal in the early 5th century. The traditional view of the process has assumed an invasion of several Germanic peoples, later collectively referred to as Anglo-Saxons, from the western coasts of continental Europe, followed by the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms across most of what is now England and parts of lowland Scotland. The arrival of a Germanic element in the history of Britain is also called the a term first used by Bede in about 731.〔, Bede's ''Ecclesiastical History''.〕 The assumption that the Anglo-Saxon settlement developed from the invasion or migration of people from the Germanic coastlands, largely displacing the native people, has been challenged by those suggesting that the changes in material culture and language were caused primarily by a process of acculturation that followed the movement of a relatively small number of people. Some writers have also argued that the influence of Germanic peoples and culture was already present in eastern regions of pre-Roman Britain. The view that the Anglo-Saxons arose from insular changes and developments, rather than as a result of mass migration and displacement, is now widely accepted.〔 However, the extent to which incomers displaced or supplanted the existing inhabitants and the extent to which mutual acculturation occurred is still the subject of ongoing debate. At the centre of this debate is the creation of an acceptable model for cultural and linguistic change, as there are few historical or contemporary sources relating to the anglicisation of lowland Britain. The sources that do exist are open to a variety of interpretations, as is the more recently available evidence largely derived from archaeology and genetic research. ==Background== By AD 400, southern Britain – that is Britain below Hadrian's Wall – was a peripheral part of the Roman Empire in the west, occasionally lost to rebellion or invasion, but until then always eventually recovered. That cycle of loss and recapture collapsed over the next decade. Eventually around 410, while Roman power remained a force to be reckoned with for a further three generations across much of Gaul, Britain slipped beyond direct imperial control into a phase which has generally been termed "sub-Roman".〔P. Salway, Roman Britain (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 295–311, 318, 322, 349, 356, 380, 401–5〕 The history of this period has traditionally been a narrative of decline and fall. However evidence from Verulamium suggested that urban-type rebuilding,〔S. S. Frere, Verulamium Excavations, II (London, Society of Antiquaries, 1983).〕 featuring piped water, was continuing late on in the fifth century, if not beyond. At Silchester, there are signs of sub-Roman occupation down to around AD 500,〔M. G. Fulford, 'Excavations on the sites of the amphitheatre and forum-basilica at Silchester, Hampshire: an interim report', Antiquaries Journal, 65, 1985, pp. 39–81; Fulford, Guide to the Silchester excavations: the Forum basilica 1982–4 (Reading, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, 1985); Fulford, The Silchester amphitheatre: excavations of 1979–85 (London, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1989).〕 and at Wroxeter new Roman baths have been identified as Roman-type.〔P. Barker et al., The Baths Basilica, Wroxeter: Excavations 1966–90 (London, English Heritage Archaeological Reports 8, 1997). The general point of urban decline is made by A. Woolf, 'The Britons', in Regna and Gentes: The Relationship between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World, eds H.-W. Goetz, J. Jarnut and W. Pohl (Leiden, Brill, 2003), pp. 362–3〕 The writing of Patrick and Gildas (see below) demonstrates the survival of Latin literacy and Roman education, learning and law within elite society and Christianity, in Britain throughout the bulk of the 5th and 6th centuries. There are also signs in Gildas' works that the economy was thriving without the Roman taxation, as he complains of ''luxuria'' and self-indulgence. This is the 5th century Britain into which the Anglo-Saxons appear.〔A. B. E. Hood (ed. and trans.), St. Patrick: His Writings and Muirchu's Life (Chichester, Phillimore, 1978); M. Winterbottom (ed. and trans.), Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and other works (Chichester, Phillimore, 1978). Neither text is securely dated but both are clearly post-Roman and Patrick at least is generally assumed to be a fifth-century author. For the dating of Gildas, see variously D. N. Dumville 'The Chronology of De Excidio Britanniae, Book I', in Gildas: New Approaches, eds M. Lapidge and D. N. Dumville (Woodbridge, Boydell and Brewer, 1984), pp. 61–84; N. J. Higham, The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 118–45.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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