Anglo-Saxons are not real, Cambridge teaches students

CAMBRIDGE teaches students that Anglo-Saxons did not exist as a distinct ethnic group as part of efforts to undermine “myths of nationalism”.

Britain’s medieval history is taught by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC), but the terms in its title are being addressed as part of efforts to make teaching “anti-racist”.

It aims to “dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism” by explaining that the Anglo-Saxons were not a distinct ethnic group. The department’s approach also aims to show that there were never “coherent” Scottish, Irish and Welsh ethnic identities.

Some in academia allege the term Anglo-Saxon is used to support “racist” ideas of a native English identity.

ASNC said: “Several of the elements discussed above have been expanded to make ASNC teaching more anti-racist.

“One concern has been to address recent concerns over use of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and its perceived connection to ethnic/racial English identity.

“Other aspects of ASNC’s historical modules approach race and ethnicity with reference to the Scandinavian settlement that began in the ninth century.

“ASNC teaching seeks to dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism – that there ever was a ‘British’, ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, ‘Welsh’ or ‘Irish’ people with a coherent and ancient ethnic identity – by showing students just how constructed and contingent these identities are and always have been.”

One lecture addresses how the modern use of the term “Anglo-Saxon” has been embroiled in “indigenous race politics”, by questioning the extent of settlement by a distinct ethnic group that could be called Anglo-Saxon.

The term refers to a cultural group which emerged and flourished between the fall of Roman Britain and the Norman conquest, when Germanic peoples

‘We seek to dismantle the myth of nationalism that English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish people ever existed’

– Angles, Saxons, and Jutes – arrived and forged new kingdoms in what would later become a united England.

Some academics claim that the term Anglo-Saxon has been used by racists – particularly in the US – to support the idea of an ancient white English identity, and should therefore be dropped.

In 2019, the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists changed its name to the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, “in recognition of the problematic connotations associated with the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’”.