Might be good to retire that factoid, it’s really a very poor way to view european history.

It wasn’t long ago that I was using “Anglo-Saxon” to refer to the people of early medieval England — in fact, the word appears in the title of my doctoral dissertation. Since completing my doctoral work, I’ve learned that “Anglo-Saxon” has had a racist history since at least as early as the nineteenth century, both in Europe and in America. Additionally, it was a term very rarely used by people during the Middle Ages. By the time the kingdom of England was unified (to some extent) in the tenth century, people would have referred to it as the kingdom of the English (or Englisc), not of the Anglo-Saxons.

For the past few years, scholars have debated what the least problematic, most appropriate alternative to “Anglo-Saxon” would be. I have switched to using “early medieval” and “English”, broader terms that more accurately reflect the diversity of this historical period. I myself am a “medievalist” or “medieval scholar”. Language matters.

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