Editing England (section)

==Toponymy{{Anchor|Etymology}}==<!--linked-->
{{See also|Toponymy of England}}

The name "England" is derived from the [[Old English]] name {{lang|ang|Englaland}}, which means "land of the [[Angles (tribe)|Angles]]".<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=England |encyclopedia=Online Etymology Dictionary |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=England |access-date=21 July 2010}}</ref> The Angles were one of the [[Germanic peoples|Germanic tribes]] that settled in Great Britain during the [[Early Middle Ages]]. They came from the [[Angeln]] region of what is now the German state of [[Schleswig-Holstein]].<ref>{{harvnb|Ripley|1869|p=570}}.</ref> The earliest recorded use of the term, as "{{Lang|ang|Engla londe}}", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of [[Bede]]'s ''[[Ecclesiastical History of the English People]]''. The term was then used to mean "the land inhabited by the English", and it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was then part of the English kingdom of [[Northumbria]]. The ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle]]'' recorded that the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years later the ''Chronicle'' stated that King [[Malcolm III]] went "out of Scotlande into [[Lothian]] in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense.{{sfn|Molyneaux|2015|pp=6–7}}

The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by [[Tacitus]], ''[[Germania (book)|Germania]]'', in which the [[Latin]] word {{Lang|la|Anglii}} is used.<ref name="Fordham">{{Cite web |title=Germania |url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/tacitus-germanygord.html |access-date=5 September 2009 |publisher=[[Tacitus]] |archive-date=16 September 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080916075339/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/tacitus-germanygord.html |url-status=dead}}</ref> The etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars; it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an ''angular'' shape.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Angle |encyclopedia=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |url=http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50075354?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=Angle&first=1&max_to_show=10 |access-date=5 September 2009}}{{dead link|date=October 2017|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> How and why a term derived from the name of this tribe, rather than others such as the [[Saxons]], came to be used for the entire country is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain ''Angli Saxones'' or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons (Eald-Seaxe) of Old Saxony in Germany.<ref>{{harvnb|Crystal|2004|pp=26–27}}</ref> In [[Scottish Gaelic]], the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England ({{lang|gd|Sasunn}});<ref>{{Cite book |last=Forbes |first=John |title=The Principles of Gaelic Grammar |publisher=Oliver, Boyd and Tweeddale |year=1848 |location=Edinburgh}}</ref> similarly, the [[Welsh language|Welsh]] name for the English language is {{lang|cy|Saesneg}}. A romantic name for England is [[Lloegyr|Loegria]], related to the Welsh word for England, {{lang|cy|Lloegr}}, and made popular by its use in [[Arthurian legend]]. ''[[Albion]]'' is also applied to England in a more poetic capacity,<ref>{{harvnb|Foster|1988|p=9}}.</ref> though its original meaning is the island of Britain as a whole.