Adventus Saxonum 410 CE

When the Romans retreated from Britain after nearly 400 years of occupation, the Saxons, Angles and Jutes began to arrive with their boats from the areas around South Denmark. The Venerable Bede, a monk from the then Kingdom of Northumbria, wrote that their nation came to Britain, leaving their own lands empty. The invaders were referred to as Anglo–Saxon, and called themselves Englisc, from which the word English and England derives.

A lot of them were already in Britain under the ‘Foederati’ or ‘Treaty of Alliance’, where tribes who were neither from Roman colonies nor beneficiaries of Roman citizenship would provide warriors to fight in the Roman armies in exchange for certain benefits. In short, they were mercenaries. During these treaties the tribes often rebelled, and there was a constant threat from northern tribes such as the Picts and the Scots. As a result, Hadrian’s Wall was built by the Emperor Hadrian as a military defence from these barbarian northerners and other invaders from the sea.