Appearence and tactics of early 5th century Saxons.

[Robert Vermaat]

I don't think anyone has suggested that the Anglo-Saxons
forced native farmers to farm for them. The natives in the East seem
either to have been killed or become refugees, escaping to the West,
according to the records of the time. There would be no increase in
the number of people living on the Eastern farmland, only a change from
natives to Anglo-Saxons. Incidentally, it is interesting that, in addition
to the arrival of Anglo-Saxons at West Heslerton, there also seems to
have been a movement Eastwards of native Britons from Cumbria.
But that could be due to many reasons. Perhaps they were escaping
from Irish pirates in the West. Perhaps they were British troops sent
East to fight-off the arriving Anglo-Saxons. Perhaps the two communities
did eventually come to integrate. We may never know. But the fact
remains that we have a large proportion of 1st generation Anglo-Saxon
immigrants, who (as Raedwald correctly points out) are only the tip
of the iceberg, since their children and grandchildren would all be being
brought-up in Anglo-Saxon households, in the Anglo-Saxon culture.
And the most significant thing about these immigrants being women is
that you learn to speak from your mother. So this explains why English
replaced Brythonic in the East - Anglo-Saxon mothers were bringing-up
Anglo-Saxon children to speak English. 8)

Well, a valid point of course, which I thought about. But isn’t that the point indeed? Change the distant landlord and nothing changes, and you’ll have a farmer that continues to till his land and herds his flock, all the while looking at his new lord, and at some point taking up what the man has to offer.

Facts? What fact? When you take West Heslerton (indeed), the evidence points rather to a migration FROM the West that TO the West. The only 4 Anglo-Saxons that stepped off the boat there were women and children, NOT a large proportion as you claim but a minority (2 out of 24), and arriving not in the earliest ‘wave’ but over a 250-year period. The remainder were dived 50-50 into natives (who could be 2nd-generation Saxons as well as 2nd-generation Britons) and immigrants from Cumbria. Who, btw, were not buried with traditional British goods but indistinguishable from the rest of the burials.
Sure, you can claim Irish threats, but that would hardly have caused them to flee to their Saxon enemies, would it? And if they are British soldiers than how did they end up in those Anglo-Saxon households that you claim their children were brought up in?

Back to farmer forced to farm – if their farms were taken over by Saxons who set up their households there, took their women and raised their children, you still expect nothing to happen? The enslaved farmer is forced to tell his captors all about his farm while his offspring is – what? If they are also slaves, then I still see no reason for all of them to continue to live in the house, build new ones (NOT Saxon types, mind you) and change not a thing? As if the newcomers would sign a document – “I enslave you but in return I promise to keep your farm as it is, unchanged, over three generationsâ€