Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a very interesting, even brilliant, rethink of British history in the Dark Ages. Fleming abandons narrative history in favor of which might be called anthropological history, attempting to recreate what happened to the lives of ordinary inhabitants of Great Britain from about 400 A.D. to the Norman Conquest. Some of her take, particularly her analysis of the "Anglo-Saxon" conquest, is highly controversial, even radical. In particular, she argues that the Germanic migrations were largely peaceful, that the Germanic population amalgamated with the pre-existing Celtic-speaking population, and that the claims that the Saxons conquered the British population with "fire and sword" was a later confabulation concocted by successful aristocrats of both Germanic and British origin to glorify their pedigree. This is a startling reversal of the usual narrative of Anglo-Saxon conquest, and it is based almost wholly on archeological discoveries. But is it right? There are some reasons to think it is not: 1. Genetics. About 35% of the present male population of southeast England descends from Germanic stock (See Bryan Sykes, "Saxons, Vikings & Celts"), twice that of the Germanic input into the present South English female population. This points to a moderate "Genghis Khan" effect -- male conquerors killing or displacing the indigenous male population and impregnating the local females. As Sykes put it: "The gory chronicles of Gildas do contain a grain of truth. The roughly twofold excess of Saxon/Danish Y-chromosomes compared to their maternal counterparts hints at a partially male-driven settlement with some elimination or displacement of the indigenous males." (at 286) Since there has been considerable "internal migration" within Great Britain since the dark ages, the percentage of Anglo-Saxon male genetic input in the fifth and sixth centuries was probably even greater at that time. Fleming hardly mentions genetics and as far as I can tell does not even acknowledge Sykes and his DNA studies on English ancestry. Trying to do archeology without considering genetic input is like doing paleontology without mentioning DNA -- the needle is often more convincing than the spade. What Fleming needs are Saxon graveyards with a number of high-status burials of men with Celtic Y-chromosomes, and British cemeteries with some burials of low-status men with Germanic Y-chromosomes. To date, she does not have theses. 2. Linguistics. Old English contains very little Celtic input, but is almost mutually comprehensible with, e.g., Old Frisian, the language of many Germanic settlers. If the Celtic and Germanic populations melded, rather than the latter assimilating the former, we would expect a more "Creole" type language, or at least heavier linguistic input, such as Norman French provided to Middle English. 3. Literature. Gildas records the incursions of the "gallows crew" of Saxons in a manner consistent with the "fire and sword" narrative, noting that their conquests stopped about fifty years before at Mt. Badon. Gildas may have been alive at that earlier date, and certainly many of his parishioners were. It is hard to distort a history which substantially contradicts the living memory of one's contemporaries. 4. History. Already by the fourth century the Romans had fortified the "Saxon shore" against Germanic invaders. It is hard to believe that Saxon pirates, who may have already settled in Southeastern Britain during Roman times, spawned harmless farmers in the fifth century. And it is difficult to imagine such a Saxon farmer saying to a Celtic indigene something like "Hi! I'm your new neighbor. I'll be taking over the fifty acres next to your homestead," nor that Celtic neighbor saying, "Glad to meet you." And why did the Western Celts (the proto-Welsh) uniformly consider the invaders to be Saxons rather than invaders of mixed pedigree? 5. Demographics. For Fleming's thesis to work, the population of Southeast England in the fifth and sixth centuries must have been low relative time the periods before and after so that there was a lot of available land. Was it? And if so, why? There is a great deal to like about Fleming's account, however. First, her observations about the small size and disparate origins of many of the early Germanic settlements rings true. Second, she is certainly right that the Germanic and Celtic elements often did form alliances and fight with their own ethnic group almost as much as against each other. Third, her accounts of British history after about 600 A.D. (when the English were Christianized and written records became more numerous) is plausible, even convincing. Fourth, her concentration on what British history and life were like for the ordinary people is both refreshing and ground-breaking. And her last chapter on what the bones tell us about health, lifespan, and ordinary living is revelatory. I give this book a "5" even though I disagree with its central thesis -- or perhaps because I do. I would not have been nearly so stimulated if that thesis had been less problematical.