ANGLO-SAXON
ORIGINS
One of the greatest of Anglo-Saxon historians was
Mr. Sharon Turner, author of several histories in the first half of the
nineteenth century. His most important work, History Of The
Anglo-Saxons, was first completed in 1805 and went through several
editions. English philologist, Dr. Joseph Bosworth stated, “Mr.
Turner and Sir Francis Palgrave’s works must be carefully read by
every Anglo-Saxon student... These... are rich sources of information
for those who are interested in the Anglo-Saxon language and
literature.” (Origin of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages and
Nations, p. 21)
Who
Was Sharon Turner?
By
Marie King,
Reprinted
from Youth Message Magazine, 1947.
Sharon Turner was a widely read and profoundly learned historian. He was
also an eminent London attorney, and was in practice for himself in the
Temple until failing health forced him to retire. For the remainder of
his life he used his talents in studying, for historical purposes, the
origin of the Anglo-Saxons from the Cottonian Library of the British
Museum. He was born in London on September 24, 1768 and died there on
February 13, 1847.
In his day, and for a number of years afterwards, he was constantly
quoted by historians as an authority upon Anglo-Saxon origins, life, and
literature. The English Cyclopaedia, published in 1857, says of
him: “He was the first English author who had taken the pains, or had
sufficient knowledge, to investigate the valuable remains left to us in
Anglo-Saxon records. He consulted the original manuscripts with great
industry and intelligence, and the result has been that, though his
views have been more than once assailed, they have been generally
sustained, and that the study of Saxon literature has been more
appreciated, and the authenticity of his materials more generally
understood. The work, History of the Anglo-Saxons, soon took a
permanent place in the historical literature of the country.” To which
the Dictionary of National Biography adds that his writings are
“almost as complete a revelation as the discoveries of Layard.”
P.W. Thompson, in his book, Britain in Prophecy and History,
writes: “From the fact of his having enjoyed a pension of 300 pounds
during the last years of his life it would appear that his
contemporaries thought highly of him.” Sir Edmund Gosse speaks of
him as “a careful imitator of Gibbon, who illustrated the Anglo-Saxon
period of our chronicles.” Lord Macaulay refers to Turner’s History
as an authority consulted by him in his researches concerning
Sedgemoor. The elder Disraeli wrote of Turner in terms of warm
appreciation: “Hume dispatches, comparatively in a few pages, a
subject which has afforded to the fervid diligence of my friend, Sharon
Turner, volumes precious to the antiquary, the lawyer, and the
philosopher.” (page 68) Again, on pages 166-167: “Now, remembering
in what estimate Southey held his Life of Wesley, when regarded in its
relative order of importance as contrasted with other of his own works,
it is illuminating to be faced with the fact that Robert Southey, D.C.L.,
Poet Laureate, one of the most deservedly appreciated authors of his own
day, could find no worthier recipient for the dedication of this
favourite book than his esteemed friend Sharon Turner... Southey could
afford to be independent in his choice in conferring the honour, and he
chose Turner for the highest honour which he, as a foremost writer, had
it in his power to bestow.” These extracts help us to see the esteem
in which Sharon Turner was held.
The
History Of The Anglo-Saxons
By
Sharon Turner, F.A.S. & R.A.S.L.
Longman,
Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, London, England
A
Selection from pages 96-102, 6th
edition of 1836
(
second edition of 1807, pp 31-35)
The first appearance of the Scythian tribes in Europe may be placed,
according to Strabo and Homer, about the eighth, or according to
Herodotus, in the seventh century before the Christian era. Herodotus
likewise states, that the Scythians declared their nation to be more
recent than any other, and that they reckoned only one thousand years
between Targitaos, their first king, and the aggression of Darius.
The first scenes of their civil existence, and of their progressive
power, were in Asia, to the east of the Araxes. Here they multiplied and
extended their territorial limits, for some centuries, unknown to
Europe. Their general appellation among themselves was Scoloti, but the
Greeks called them Scythians, Scuthoi or Nomades.
To this judicious and probable account of Herodotus, we add the
information collected by Diodorus. He says, that the Scythians, formerly
inconsiderable and few, possessed a narrow region on the Araxes; but, by
degrees, they became more powerful in numbers and in courage. They
extended their boundaries on all sides; till at last they raised their
nation to great empire and glory.
One of their kings becoming valiant and skillful in the art of war, they
added to their territory the mountainous regions about the Caucasus, and
also the plains towards the ocean, and the Palus Maeotis, with the other
regions near the Tanais. In the course of time they subdued many
nations, between the Caspian and the Maeotis, and beyond the Tanais.
Thus, according to Diodorus, the nation increased, and had kings worthy
of remembrance. The Sakai, the Massagetai, and the Arimaspoi, drew their
origin from them.
The Massagetai seem to have been the most eastern branch of the Scythian
nation. Wars arising between them and the other Scythic tribes, an
emigration from the latter took place according to the account which
Herodotus selects, as in his opinion the most authentic, which
occasioned their entrance into Europe. Such feuds and wars have
contributed, more than any other cause, to disperse through the world
its uncivilized inhabitants.
The emigrating Scythians crossed the Araxes, passed out of Asia, and
invading the Kimmerians, suddenly appeared in Europe in the seventh
century before the Christian era. Part of the Kimmerians flying into
Asia Minor, some of the Scythian hordes pursued them; but, turning in a
direction different from that which the Kimmerians traversed, they
missed their intended prey, and fell unintentionally upon the Medes.
They defeated the Medes, pressed on towards Egypt, and governed those
parts of Asia for twenty-eight years, till Coaxers, the king of Media,
at last expelled them.
The Scythian tribes however continued to flock into Europe; and, in the
reign of Darius, their European colonies were sufficiently numerous and
celebrated to excite the ambition of Babylon; but all his efforts
against them failed. In the time of Herodotus, they had gained an
important footing in Europe. They seem to have spread into it, from the
Tanais to the Danube, and to have then taken a westerly direction; but
their kindred colonies, in Thrace, had extended also to the south. Their
most northward ramification in Europe was the tribe of the Roxolani, who
dwelt above the Borysthenes, the modern Dnieper.
It would be impertinent to the great subject of this history, to engage
in a minuter discussion of the Scythian tribes. They have become better
known to us, in recent periods, under the name of Getae and Goths, the
most celebrated of their branches.
As they spread over Europe, the Kimmerian and Keltic population retired
towards the west and south. In the days of Caesar, the most advanced
tribes of the Scythian, or Gothic race, were known to the Romans under
the name of Germans. They occupied all the continent but the Cimbric
peninsula, and had reached and even passed the Rhine. One of their
divisions, the Belgae, had for some time established themselves in
Flanders and part of France; and another body, under Ariovistus, were
attempting a similar settlement near the centre of Gaul, which Caesar
prevented. It is most probable that the Belgae in Britain were
descendants of colonists or invaders from the Belgae in Flanders and
Gaul.
The names Scythians and Scoloti were, like Galli and Kimmerians, not so
much local as generic appellations. The different tribes of the
Scythians, like those of the Kimmerians and Gauls, had their peculiar
distinctive denominations.
The Saxons were a German or Teutonic, that is, a Gothic or Scythian
tribe; and of the various Scythian nations which have been recorded, the
Sakai, or Sacae are the people from whom the descent of the Saxons may
be inferred, with the least violation of probability. Sakai-suna, or the
sons of the Sakai, abbreviated into Saksun, which is the same sound as
Saxon, seems a reasonable etymology of the word Saxon. The Sakai, who in
Latin are called Sacae, were an important branch of the Scythian nation.
They were so celebrated, that the Persians called all the Scythians by
the name of Sacae; and Pliny, who mentions this, remarks them among the
most distinguished people of Scythia. Strabo places them eastward of the
Caspian, and states them to have made many incursions on the Kimmerians
and Treres, both far and near. They seized Bactriana, and the most
fertile part of Armenia, which, from them, derived the name Sakasina;
they defeated Cyrus; and they reached the Cappadoces on the Euxine. This
important fact of a part of Armenia having been named Sakasina, is
mentioned by Strabo in another place; and seems to give a geographical
locality to our primeval ancestors, and to account for the Persian words
that occur in the Saxon language, as they must have come into Armenia
from the northern regions of Persia.
That some of the divisions of this people were really called Saka-suna,
is obvious from Pliny; for he says, that the Sakai, who settled in
Armenia, were named Sacassani, which is but Saka-suna, spelt by a person
unacquainted with the meaning of the combined words. And the name
Sacasena, which they gave to the part of Armenia they occupied, is
nearly the same sound as Saxonia. It is also important to remark, that
Ptolemy mentions a Scythian people, sprung from the Sakai, by the name
of Saxones. If the Sakai, who reached Armenia, were called Sacassani,
they may have traversed Europe with the same appellation; which being
pronounced by the Romans from them, and then reduced to writing from
their pronunciation, may have been spelt with the x instead of
the ks, and thus Saxones would not be a greater variation from Sacassani
or Saksuna, than we find between French, Francois, Franci, and their
Greek name, Phraggi; or between Spain, Espagne, and Hispania.
It is not at all improbable, but that some of these marauding Sakai, or
Sacassani, were gradually propelled to the western coasts of Europe, on
which they were found by Ptolemy, and from which they molested the Roman
Empire, in the third century of our era. There was a people called Saxoi,
on the Euxine, according to Stephanus. We may consider these also, as a
nation of the same parentage; who, in the wanderings of the Sakai, from
Asia to the German Ocean, were left on the Euxine, as others had chosen
to occupy Armenia. We may here recollect the traditional descent of Odin
preserved by Snorre in the Edda and his history. This great ancestor of
the Saxon and Scandinavian chieftains is represented to have migrated
from a city, on the east of the Tanais, called Asgard, and a country
called Asaland, which imply the city and land of the Asae or Asians. The
cause of this movement was the progress of the Romans. Odin is stated to
have moved first into Russia, and thence into Saxony. This is not
improbable. The wars between the Romans and Mithridates involved, and
shook most of the barbaric nations in these parts, and may have excited
the desire, and imposed the necessity of a westerly or European
emigration.”
[End
of Extract]
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