Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England by N Howe

by Nicholas Howe

A revisionist interpretation of Anglo-Saxon England. Nicholas Howe proposes that the Anglo-Saxons fashioned a myth out of the 5th-century migration of their Germanic ancestors to Britain. Through the retelling of this story, the Anglo-Saxons ordered their complex history and identified their destiny as a people. Howe traces the migration myth throughout the literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, in poems, sermons, letters and histories from the sixth to the eleventh centuries.

Genres: Medieval, Anglo Saxon

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howe argues that an origin myth existed in Anglo-Saxon England pertaining to the ancestral migration of the continental Angles, Saxons, and Jutes and that this myth served as a cohesive agent in the decidedly fractious English people. As a literary critic, he traces the existence of this myth as it shows up in literary texts, primarily Gildas, Bede, Alcuin, Wulfstan, Exodus, Boniface, and Beowulf. He also touches upon the myth in the Chronicle in The Battle of Brunanburh. Prudently, he bases his postulation of a migration myth on the historical evidence that the influx from the continent was neither as extensive nor as geographically or chronologically precise as the Anglo-Saxon records (particularly Bede) lead one to believe. His concern is not to describe the actual historical situation in which the continental peoples come to Britain, but rather to examine their own “remembered history,” true or false as it may be, as it is expressed in many of their literary texts. He finds that the migration myth was used to unify the English people in a way that actual political and social structures would not have allowed in AE England. By holding firm to belief in a common ancestral heritage on the continent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to see themselves as a culturally uniform group and to solidify their nation. The migration myth rears itself primarily in the form of a religious insight in which the Anglo-Saxons saw themselves as rightfully taking the island nation from the morally flagging British, paving their way to the eventual (re)conversion of the island after Augustine’s mission.

This is a powerfully argued book of pristine scholarship. Howe is at his best in tackling the actual texts, particularly Exodus and Beowulf. Nearly every page includes interesting insights into the culture and the literature of the Anglo-Saxons.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book aimed at people interested in Anglo-Saxon literature and not someone like me who comes from an interest in medieval history - but even so I found it a quite rewarding read and I think you would like it even more if you are more familiar with the texts analysed here.

[Thom Dunn]

RECO Neil Mandsfeld, 7-13-12}}

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that completely changed the way I viewed medieval studies. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Anglo-Saxon England.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foundational work on the Anglo-Saxons' sense of space in the poetry.