Editing Anglo-Saxons (section)

== Ethnonym ==
In modern times, the term "Anglo-Saxons" is used by scholars to refer collectively to the Old English speaking groups in Britain. As a compound term, it has the advantage of covering the various English-speaking groups on the one hand, and to avoid possible misunderstandings from using the terms "Saxons" or "[[Angles (tribe)|Angles]]" (English), both of which terms could be used either as collectives referring to all the Old English speakers, or to specific tribal groups. Although the term "Anglo Saxon" was not used as a common term until modern times, it is not a modern invention because it was also used in some specific contexts already between the 8th and 10th centuries.

Before the 8th century, the most common collective term for the Old-English speakers was "Saxons", which was a word originally associated since the 4th century not with a specific country or nation, but with raiders in [[North Sea]] coastal areas of Britain and [[Gaul]]. An especially early reference to the Angli is the 6th-century Byzantine historian [[Procopius]], which he apparently heard through Frankish diplomats. He never mentions the Saxons, but he states that a large island called ''Brittia'', which was not far from the Rhine delta. He had heard it was settled by three nations, the ''Angili'', ''Frissones'' ([[Frisians]]), and ''Brittones'', who were each ruled by their own king. Each nation was so prolific that ''Brittia'' sent large numbers of individuals every year to the Franks, who planted them in unpopulated regions of their territory.

By the 8th century the Frisians and Saxons in Germany were seen as two distinct countries, and writers such as Bede and some of his contemporaries including [[Alcuin]], and [[Saint Boniface]], began to refer to the overall group in Britain as the "English" people (Latin ''Angli'', ''gens Anglorum'' or Old English ''Angelcynn''). In Bede's work the term "Saxon" is also used to refer sometimes to the Old English language, and also to refer to the early pagan Anglo-Saxons before the arrival of Christian missionaries among the Anglo-Saxons of Kent in 597.<ref name=brooks>{{cite journal |last1=Nicholas Brooks |title=English Identity from Bede to the Millenium |journal=The Haskins Society Journal |date=2003 |volume=14 |pages=35–50}}</ref> The term "Saxon", on the other hand, was at this time increasingly used by mainland writers to designate specific northern neighbours of the [[Franks|Frankish]] kingdom of [[Austrasia]]. Bede therefore called these the "[[Old Saxons]]" ({{lang|la|antiqui saxones}}), and he believed that there was no longer any country of Angles in Germany, as it had become empty due to emigration.

Similarly, a non-Anglo-Saxon contemporary of Bede, [[Paul the Deacon]], referred variously to either the English (''Angli''), or Anglo-Saxons (Latin plural genitives ''Saxonum Anglorum'', or ''Anglorum Saxonum''), which helped him distinguish them from the European Saxons who he also discussed. In England itself this compound term also came to be used in some specific situations, both in Latin and Old English. [[Alfred the Great]], himself a West Saxon, was for example ''Anglosaxonum Rex'' in the late 880s, probably indicating that he was literally a king over both English (for example Mercian) and Saxon kingdoms. However, the term "English" continued to be used as a common collective term, and indeed became dominant. The increased use of these new collective terms, "English" or "Anglo-Saxon", represents the strengthening of the idea of a single unifying cultural unity among the Anglo-Saxons themselves, who had previously invested in identities which differentiated various regional groups.<ref name=brooks/>

In contrast, Irish and Welsh speakers long continued to refer to Anglo-Saxons as Saxons. The word ''Saeson'' is the modern Welsh word for "English people"; the equivalent word in [[Scottish Gaelic]] is ''[[Sassenach|Sasannach]]'' and in the [[Irish language]], ''Sasanach''.<ref>Ellis, Steven G. ''A View of the Irish Language: Language and History in Ireland from the Middle Ages to the Present''.</ref> Catherine Hills suggests that it is no accident "that the English call themselves by the name sanctified by the Church, as that of a people chosen by God, whereas their enemies use the name originally applied to piratical raiders".<ref>Hills, Catherine. ''Origins of the English''. Duckworth Pub, 2003: 15</ref>