Читать книгу The Great Hollenberg Saga - Heinz Niederste-Hollenberg - Страница 38

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, and after Constantin III, the Roman military commander in England, withdrew his legions, England got visitors from the continent. Three Germanic tribes, the Saxons, the Jutes, and the Angles stormed part of the island. The original Celtic people didn’t have a chance. Battle after battle was lost; till only poetic revenge was left (legend of King Artus).

Around 600 AD, there were seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England. One of those kingdoms was in Essex un-der the rule of King Sebert, the centre of the Saxons around London.

Most recent excavations in Essex (= East-Saxons) near Sutton-Hoo as well as in Cumwhitton near Carlisle provi-ded proof of early Germanic graves of that period. The findings in Sutton-Hoo could relate to King Sebert, who died 616 A.D., after he had converted to Christianity in 604 AD. This “royal tomb” of Sutton Hoo shows a typical set-up of the old pagan belief of the Saxons even when the corpse carried some Christians symbols.

Helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial 1, England.

British Museum [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)]