The Anglo-Saxons are two different peoples and therefore they begin with different histories. Both came from the northern precincts of the Black Sea, but the Saxons migrated into Europe much earlier. Their government was one of two known government prior to the formation of the United States of America (Ancient Israel being the other under Moses) that was designed to have a free people.
We will consider the Saxon story first.
Sharon Turner, in his three-volume work The History of the Anglo-Saxons (London: 1836), describes how Europe was settled by three major waves of people from the Black Sea. We will concern ourselves with the two that settled in western Europe. The first were the Celts or Kimmerians who had settled all across western Europe by 700 B.C. Homer mentions them in his Odyssey. They were the “Cimbri” who later attacked Rome. They are also known as the “Cymry” (pronounced Kumri).
However, by the time of Herodotus in the fifth century B.C., another great people from the Black Sea region had begun to push great waves of their people northward and westward. These are known generally as the Scythians.
The conquests of the Romans and Scythians in Europe made it difficult for the Celts to survive. They were slowly forced to surrender the lands and flee westward. One remnant made its stand in western France, which they called Brittany. Others fled to what we now call the British Isles. In fact, they gave the main island the name of “Britain.” However, the Celts only dominated Britain as a tributary under Rome. When the Romans left around 400 A.D., Britain was soon invaded and, as we will see in a moment, the Celts were eventually driven into Wales, into Ireland, and up into Scotland. Today, the Welsh, the Gaelic Irish, and the Gaelic Scots are all descendants of the original Celts.
Identity of the Saxons
The Scythians who drove out the Celts and settled in northern Europe became known as the Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Germans, Teutons, and the Sacae-suns (presumed to be the ancestors of the Saxons).
The qualities of leadership were so strong among the Sacae that the Persians came to refer to all Scythians as Sacae. The Roman historian Pliny also refers to the Sacae as the most distinguished people among the Scythians.
Identity of the Anglos
The people we know as the Anglos also originated around the Crimea and the northern regions of the Black Sea, but they did not migrate into Europe until the first century B.C. when the Romans (probably under Pompey) first began invading the region. At that time they were known as “Yinglings.” Their sagas suggest that they were a vast population under the leadership of a man named Odin or Wodin. He led them into northern Europe where they conquered or intermingled with the Scythians and eventually had a tremendous impact on the Sacae, or Saxons, with whom they became identified. The name “Yingling” was gradually transliterated to Anglo or Engle. After uniting, the Yinglings and Sacae became a common culture known as the Anglo-Saxons.
Perhaps there are many Americans today who would be puzzled by the following passage from Gilbert Chinard’s biography of Thomas Jefferson:
“Jefferson’s great ambition at that time [1776] was to promote a renaissance of Anglo-Saxon primitive institutions on the new continent. Thus presented, the American Revolution was nothing but the reclamation of the Anglo-Saxon birthright of which the colonists had been deprived by a ‘long trend of abuses.’ Nor does it appear that there was anything in this theory which surprised or shocked his contemporaries; Adams apparently did not disapprove of it, and it would be easy to bring in many similar expressions of the same idea in documents of the time.”
There is also a note in the writings of John Adams that might be puzzling. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were appointed to a committee to recommend the design for the original Great Seal of the United States. Here is what John Adams wrote to his wife:
“Mr. Jefferson proposed the children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, and on the other side Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon chiefs, from whom we claim the honor of being descended and whose political principles and form of government we have assumed.”
The Founders were fascinated with the statutes of freedom enjoyed by ancient Israel, but what was the Anglo-Saxon connection? Why was Jefferson so solicitous of Hengist and Horsa. the two brothers who were the first Saxons to bring their people to England? Thomas Jefferson became so excited about the Anglo-Saxon connection that he even studied their language so he could read their original writings.
The Search for an Ideal Society
Like others of the American Founding Fathers, Jefferson had studied the various forms of government which had operated throughout recorded history. Along with the Greek democracies, the Roman republic, and the numerous monarchies, aristocracies, and other political systems of Europe, he had examined with great interest the governmental institutions established by the ancient Israelites and the very similar forms later used among the Anglo-Saxons. In these he saw the model for free government in his own era.
This was the key to the riddle of why Jefferson was so impressed by this ancient civilization. Their culture had what Jefferson and the other Founders were looking for, and the statutes of the Anglo-Saxons were astonishingly similar to the statutes and institutes of ancient Israel.
Anglo-Saxon Statutes of Freedom
The most remarkable thing about the Anglo-Saxons was the development of statutes of government specifically designed for a free people. It is not entirely clear whether this was exclusive to the Anglo-Saxon heritage or a common heritage of all Scythians. All we know is that these statutes of self-government became characteristic of all the Scythian people and were either brought with them when they left the Black Sea region or were absorbed from the Anglos (Yinglings) when the latter intermingled among them.
As mentioned earlier, the most startling thing about these statutes of self-government is the fact that they are virtually identical with those of the ancient Israelites. Here are the leading provisions that both the Anglo-Saxons and Israelites had in common.
- Both systems proclaimed their people to be a nation of freemen.
- Both systems claimed their law was of divine origin.
- Both systems divided their people into tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands.
- Both systems democratically elected their officials to head each of these divisions.
- Both systems provided for a system of justice which allowed the victim of a wrong to be compensated in damages with the threat of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” if compensation was not forthcoming.
- Both systems allowed offenders to work off their payments as bond-servants if they could not provide compensation otherwise.
- Both systems used the sacred oath in administering justice.
- Both systems emphasized strong local self-government with appeals to a higher level only in case of dire necessity.
- Both systems operated under a social compact or sacred covenant which a person was required to embrace before being admitted to their commonwealth.
- Both systems required that decisions concerning officials or new laws must be made by common consent of the people.
- Both systems based their law on the inalienable rights of the individual.
- Both systems allowed elected or appointed officials only limited, specifically enumerated powers.
Why Were the Statutes of the Israelites and Anglo-Saxons So Similar?
Authorities offer two different explanations for this strange coincidence. One explanation is that since the northern Ten Tribes of the Israelites were captured by the Assyrians and later escaped to the region of the Black Sea around 600 B.C., there could have been a cross-fertilization between their own culture and that of the Scythians.
A second theory is offered, with considerable supportive evidence, that strong segments of the Israelites could have been intermingled with the Scythians and subsequently accompanied the Scythians when they migrated into Europe.
Whichever might have been the case, the significant thing to the American Founding Fathers, and especially to Thomas Jefferson, was the encouraging fact that two different people had established and lived under Peoples’ Law with similar statutes of self-government for an extended period of time.
How the European Scythians Lost Their Heritage of Peoples’ Law
It is well established that the Germanic people and the Scandinavians practiced the statutes of self-government under Peoples’ Law until shortly after the fifteenth century. However, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 A.D., the Christian scholars fled into Europe and joined with clerics and scholars from Rome to spread the doctrine of Roman civil law, which was based on collectivization of power in the ruler. In other words, it was Rulers’ Law. This system is not designed for a free people, but for a monarchial type of government where the people are led from the top downward instead of from the people upward.
Within a century, Roman civil law had imposed itself on practically all of continental Europe, and the statutes of freedom which the Scythian people had previously enjoyed were virtually obliterated.
How the Statutes of Freedom Escaped to England
Fortunately, a contingent of Anglo-Saxons had established itself in the British Isles around 450 A.D. and thereby preserved the full vigor of the original statutes of freedom. Here is how it happened.
Britain was a Roman tributary for nearly four centuries and Roman legions occupied Britain until approximately 400 A.D. About that time there arose a serious threat to the safety of Rome itself and, therefore, nearly all of the foreign legions were called home. At that time the native population of Britain was nearly all Celts, and it was not long before they began fighting among themselves. The king of Kent (who was a Celt) had observed the fighting skill of the Engels, Saxons, and Jutes of the Scythian people living across the channel in Holland, Denmark, and Germany. He decided to invite two Saxon brothers, Hengist and Horsa, to bring over an army to help him fight the Celts who were coming down to attack from the north.
The two brothers came with their warriors and fought magnificently. The only problem was that they never went home. They liked Britain. More of their relatives came over. Before long the Celts themselves were being pushed westward. As the Celts retreated, one whole section of Britain became known as East Anglia after the Anglos. Another section was called Essex (East Saxonland); then there was Sussex (South Saxonland); and Wessex (West Saxonland). The fleeing Celts made their last stand in Wales where King Arthur and his knights fought valiantly but lost. The name of Britain was ultimately changed to Engleland (England).
How the Anglo-Saxons Governed Themselves
Henry Reeve wrote in the preface to the first English edition of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America a summary of the way the English Anglo-Saxons governed themselves. He said that under their principle of a covenant society they established a “constitution of general public assemblies; the election of their magistrates by the people, their sheriffs, their coroners, their port-reeves, and even their tything-men; the dispensation of justice in the county-courts principally, except in cases in which the supreme authority of the Crown was called upon to interfere, are laws of Saxon parentage. These principles are the very basis of the American Constitution; and if the settlers of New England discarded the feudal rights, the royal justiciars, and the claims of primogeniture, when they relinquished the feelings, the traditions, and the character of English subjects, it is not without pride, mingled with admiration, that a Briton points to the common source of our liberties, and to that Saxon foundation of our national existence … and from which many of the institutions of the American States derive their being.”
Jefferson’s Vision
As Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders contemplated the future development of America, they saw it in terms of the ancient institutes of freedom enjoyed by the Anglo-Saxons and ancient Israel. No wonder, then, that Gilbert Chinard wrote, “Jefferson’s great ambition at that time was to promote a renaissance of Anglo-Saxon primitive institutions on the new continent.”
It also becomes clear why Jefferson felt constrained to make the Great Seal of the United States a memorial to ancient Israel on one side and Hengist and Horsa, the Anglo-Saxon brothers, on the other. Unfortunately, this proved to be too complicated for a small seal and a simpler design was therefore adopted.
Nevertheless, the sentiment lingers on. The greatness of America lies in her statutes of freedom which became a legacy of the United States through the sacred records of ancient Israel and the known procedures and practices of the Anglo-Saxons.
