The Anglo-Saxons

The major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain, ca. 600. Source.

I don't know whether they teach high-school history any better today than they did in my day, but I got a dime-store version of the fall of the Roman Empire that went something like this:

There was a great empire. It was pagan at first, and persecuted Christians. Later it became Christian. Outside the empire were pagan barbarians. The empire kept the barbarians at bay and prospered. Eventually, it couldn't keep them out anymore and they came in. They killed and destroyed because, being pagan, they didn't know or care that you aren't supposed to kill people, and being barbarian, they didn't know or care that civilization is a good thing. So they torched the place. Then there were Dark Ages.

It wasn't until much later in life that I came to understand how simplistic this version is. Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast and Robin Pearson's History of Byzantium podcast were helpful to me in this regard.

But then I realized that the simplistic narrative is pretty close to the truth if you look specifically at Britain. Maybe we English-speaking people are apt to take a Britanno-centric view of the Fall of Rome.

The Anglo-Saxons, at least in the first 150 years or so after their arrival in Britain, really weren't interested in civilization. We know very little about this period, because the Anglo-Saxons left very little in the way of written records. But this is good for my purposes. If my novel is set during this period, there are plenty of gaps in the historical record into which I can weave my story. I can choose historical kingdoms, and maybe even use known historical figures for some of my characters, since so little is known about their lives.

These people truly were interested in little more than war and plunder. Going out and fighting other people (including other Anglo-Saxons) just to steal their stuff seems to have been both their principal economic activity and their principal form of recreation. Anglo-Saxon kings and warriors of this period seem to fall into the gray area between "the government" and "a criminal gang shaking down the peasants for protection money." With all due respect to J.R.R. Tolkien, who loved these guys...really?

I guess I have already outed myself as a Star Trek geek, so let me just say that my thumbnail image of the Anglo-Saxons is that they are Klingons. That is, a warrior people who think fighting battles and drunkenly toasting each other afterward is what life is all about. Star Trek's Klingons are more complicated than that, but that's an adequate first approximation. Whenever I have a question about Anglo-Saxon culture, I'll just ask myself, "What would Kahless do?"

I feel pretty good about this. I have a handle on the setting now. A general "where" and "when." Next I need a more specific "where" and "when."

Today's word count is 55,167. Yes, I know. Slightly less than yesterday's. Some of the word count is notes, which I delete when I don't need them anymore. Sometimes I revise and condense stuff.