Excerpts from Marc Morris’ “The Anglo Saxons”: Why was Offa’s Dyke...
Brendan@AtlanticBalliol
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May 25, 2026
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Excerpts from Marc Morris’ “The Anglo Saxons”:
Why was Offa’s Dyke built against the Britons in Wales and not against the Northumbrians, East Anglians and West Saxons?
Why was Offa’s Dyke built against the Britons in Wales and not against the Northumbrians, East Anglians and West Saxons?
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‘Because despite their occasional violent differences, by this time, the people in these Anglo-Saxon kingdoms regarded themselves as a single ethnic group - a group that we can reasonably start to describe as ‘English.’
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‘The word English derives from Angli or Angles. Increasingly during the eighth century, people were using Angli as a general term to describe all Germanic speaking peoples in Britain.’
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‘St. Boniface, born a West Saxon, acknowledged his ancestral links with the continental Saxons he hoped to convert, saying they were ‘one and the same blood and bone’.
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Carrying on!
‘If the Mercians, Saxons and Northumbrians were feeling a growing sense of kinship with each other, they were simultaneously growing less well disposed towards the Britons’
‘If the Mercians, Saxons and Northumbrians were feeling a growing sense of kinship with each other, they were simultaneously growing less well disposed towards the Britons’
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‘During the migration period, the pagan Saxon newcomers found little in Romano-British culture that they considered worthy of emulation. If they lived near the Britons, they were regarded as low status, or ‘walas’, meaning foreigners or strangers.
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‘Walas, as you may have guessed, is the English root word for Wales/Welsh, though it did not acquire geographic meaning until the twelfth century.
In Old English, wealas meant all Britons in Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria.’
In Old English, wealas meant all Britons in Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria.’
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‘In Francia, hostility between the Franks and Gauls disappeared over time, but in Britain the divide between Saxon and Briton only grew deeper.
Primarily because of the language gap, differences in customs and Church practices after the Anglo Saxons converted to Christianity.’
Primarily because of the language gap, differences in customs and Church practices after the Anglo Saxons converted to Christianity.’