Hello and welcome to the History of England episode 20, Anglo-Saxon England in the 11th

century.

This week we're going to have a general run of the development of the Anglo-Saxon state

and where it had got to with stuff like government, law, agriculture, trade and all that sort

of thing.

But before I start into all that fun, there's one other thing to do.

You may remember that I had a really great idea a few weeks ago where I suggested that

people might like to email in their questions.

While that generated the same level of enthusiasm as the idea about people contributing their

own podcast to this series.

Still, I did get one question a while ago from Ben who asked for a summary of why we

ended up being called the English rather than the land of the West Saxons or something

like that.

Being a keen history of Rome follower, I suspect that Ben's a way on the ground tour

of the history of Rome.

But here's an answer to that question or at least my guest at it so that it can be there

when he gets back.

So in the 7th century, a king of Northumbria called Aldrith styled himself Rex Anglorum,

which is the same title that comes to mean the King of the English.

But in this context, it was because he was calling himself King of the Angles.

I guess you'll remember that there were three tribes who had been made as originally

the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes.

...