History Of The Anglo-Saxons
The following information is taken from appendix 6 in, "The Story Of Celto-Saxon Israel", but without the many valuable illustrations found in the book. This excellent resource with over 170 maps, charts, and illustrations, is considered the best study available on the subject of the European connection with the lost House of Israel. It may be purchased from our web bookshop at www.migrations.info
The History Of The Anglo-Saxons
By Sharon Turner, F.A.S. & R.A.S.L.
From the Sixth Edition, 1836
Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, London, England
Who Was Sharon Turner?
By Marie King, reprinted from Youth Message Magazine, 1947.
Sharon Turner was a widely read and profoundly learned historian.
He was also an eminent London attorney, and was in practice for himself
in the Temple until failing health forced him to retire. For the remainder
of his life he used his talents in studying, for historical purposes,
the origin of the Anglo-Saxons from the Cottonian Library of the British
Museum. He was born in London in 1768 and died there in 1847.
In his day, and for a number of years afterwards, he was constantly quoted
by historians as an authority upon Anglo-Saxon origins, life, and literature.
The English Cyclopaedia, published in 1857, says of him: “He was the
first English author who had taken the pains, or had sufficient knowledge,
to investigate the valuable remains left to us in Anglo-Saxon records.
He consulted the original manuscripts with great industry and intelligence,
and the result has been that, though his views have been more than once
assailed, they have been generally sustained, and that the study of Saxon
literature has been more appreciated, and the authenticity of his materials
more generally understood. The work, History of the Anglo-Saxons, soon
took a permanent place in the historical literature of the country.”
To which the Dictionary of National Biography adds that his writings
are “almost as complete a revelation as the discoveries of Layard.”
P.W. Thompson, in his book, Britain in Prophecy and History, writes:
“From the fact of his having enjoyed a pension of 300 pounds during the
last years of his life it would appear that his contemporaries thought
highly of him.” Sir Edmund Gosse speaks of him as “a careful imitator
of Gibbon, who illustrated the Anglo-Saxon period of our chronicles.”
Lord Macaulay refers to Turner’s History as an authority consulted by
him in his researches concerning Sedgemoor. The elder Disraeli wrote
of Turner in terms of warm appreciation: “Hume dispatches, comparatively
in a few pages, a subject which has afforded to the fervid diligence
of my friend, Sharon Turner, volumes precious to the antiquary, the lawyer,
and the philosopher.” (page 68) Again, on pages 166-167: “Now, remembering
in what estimate Southey helld his Life of Wesley, when regarded in its
relative order of importance as contrasted with other of his own works,
it is illuminating to be faced with the fact that Robert Southey, D.C.L.,
Poet Laureate, one of the most deservedly appreciated authors of his
own day, could find no worthier recipient for the dedication of this
favourite book than his esteemed friend Sharon Turner. This, remember
is the deliberate judgment of a contemporary; Southey could afford to
be independent in his choice in conferring the honour, and he chose Turner
for the highest honour which he, as a foremost writer, had it in his
power to bestow.” These extracts help us to see the esteem with which
Sharon Turner was held in his day.
A Selection from pages 96-102, 6th edition
of 1850, by Sharon Turner
(pp 31-35 of second edition of 1807)
“The first appearance of the Scythian tribes in Europe may be placed, according to Strabo and Homer, about the eighth, or according to Herodotus, in the seventh century before the Christian era. Herodotus likewise states, that the Scythians declared their nation to be more recent than any other, and that they reckoned only one thousand years between Targitaos, their first king, and the aggression of Darius. The first scenes of their civil existence, and of their progressive power, were in Asia, to the east of the Araxes. Here they multiplied and extended their territorial limits, for some centuries, unknown to Europe. Their general appellation among themselves was Scoloti, but the Greeks called them Scythians, Scuthoi or Nomades.
To this judicious and probable account of Herodotus, we add the information collected by Diodorus. He says, that the Scythians, formerly inconsiderable and few, possessed a narrow region on the Araxes; but, by degrees, they became more powerful in numbers and in courage. They extended their boundaries on all sides; till at last they raised their nation to great empire and glory.
One of their kings becoming valiant and skilful in the art of war, they added to their territory the mountainous regions about Caucasus, and also the plains towards the ocean, and the Palus Maeotis, with the other regions near the Tanais. In the course of time they subdued many nations, between the Caspian and the Maeotis, and beyond the Tanais. Thus, according to Diodorus, the nation increased, and had kings worthy of remembrance. The Sakai, the Massagetai, and the Arimaspoi, drew their origin from them.
The Massagetai seem to have been the most eastern branch of the Scythian nation. Wars arising between them and the other Scythic tribes, an emigration from the latter took place according to the account which Herodotus selects, as in his opinion the most authentic, which occasioned their entrance into Europe. Such feuds and wars have contributed, more than any other cause, to disperse through the world its uncivilized inhabitants.
The emigrating Scythians crossed the Araxes, passed out of Asia, and invading the Kimmerians, suddenly appeared in Europe in the seventh century before the Christian era. Part of the Kimmerians flying into Asia Minor, some of the Scythian hordes pursued them; but, turning in a direction different from that which the Kimmerians traversed, they missed their intended prey, and fell unintentionally upon the Medes. They defeated the Medes, pressed on towards Egypt, and governed those parts of Asia for twenty-eight years, till Coaxers, the king of Media, at last expelled them.
The Scythian tribes however continued to flock into Europe; and, in the reign of Darius, their European colonies were sufficiently numerous and celebrated to excite the ambition of Babylon; but all his efforts against them failed. In the time of Herodotus, they had gained an important footing in Europe. They seem to have spread into it, from the Tanais to the Danube, and to have then taken a westerly direction; but their kindred colonies, in Thrace, had extended also to the south. Their most northward ramification in Europe was the tribe of the Roxolani, who dwelt above the Borysthenes, the modern Dnieper.
It would be impertinent to the great subject of this history, to engage in a minuter discussion of the Scythian tribes. They have become better known to us, in recent periods, under the name of Getae and Goths, the most celebrated of their branches.
As they spread over Europe, the Kimmerian and Keltic population retired towards the west and south. In the days of Caesar, the most advanced tribes of the Scythian, or Gothic race, were known to the Romans under the name of Germans. They occupied all the continent but the Cimbric peninsula, and had reached and even passed the Rhine. One of their divisions, the Belgae, had for some time established themselves in Flanders and part of France; and another body, under Ariovistus, were attempting a similar settlement near the centre of Gaul, which Caesar prevented. It is most probable that the Belgae in Britain were descendants of colonists or invaders from the Belgae in Flanders and Gaul.
The names Scythians and Scoloti were, like Galli and Kimmerians, not so much local as generic appellations. The different tribes of the Scythians, like those of the Kimmerians and Gauls, had their peculiar distinctive denominations.
The Saxons were a German or Teutonic, that is, a Gothic or Scythian tribe; and of the various Scythian nations which have been recorded, the Sakai, or Sacae are the people from whom the descent of the Saxons may be inferred, with the least violation of probability. Sakai-suna, or the sons of the Sakai, abbreviated into Saksun, which is the same sound as Saxon, seems a reasonable etymology of the word Saxon. The Sakai, who in Latin are called Sacae, were an important branch of the Scythian nation. They were so celebrated, that the Persians called all the Scythians by the name of Sacae; and Pliny, who mentions this, remarks them among the most distinguished people of Scythia. Strabo places them eastward of the Caspian, and states them to have made many incursions on the Kimmerians and Treres, both far and near. They seized Bactriana, and the most fertile part of Armenia, which, from them, derived the name Sakasina; they defeated Cyrus; and they reached the Cappadoces on the Euxine. This important fact of a part of Armenia having been named Sakasina, is mentioned by Strabo in another place; and seems to give a geographical locality to our primeval ancestors, and to account for the Persian words that occur in the Saxon language, as they must have come into Armenia from the northern regions of Persia.
That some of the divisions of this people were really called Saka-suna, is obvious from Pliny; for he says, that the Sakai, who settled in Armenia, were named Sacassani, which is but Saka-suna, spelt by a person unacquainted with the meaning of the combined words. And the name Sacasena, which they gave to the part of Armenia they occupied, is nearly the same sound as Saxonia. It is also important to remark, that Ptolemy mentions a Scythian people, sprung from the Sakai, by the name of Saxones. If the Sakai, who reached Armenia, were called Sacassani, they may have traversed Europe with the same appellation; which being pronounced by the Romans from them, and then reduced to writing from their pronunciation, may have been spelt with the x instead of the ks, and thus Saxones would not be a greater variation from Sacassani or Saksuna, than we find between French, Francois, Franci, and their Greek name, Phraggi; or between Spain, Espagne, and Hispania.
It is not at all improbable, but that some of these marauding Sakai,
or Sacassani, were gradually propelled to the western coasts of Europe,
on which they were found by Ptolemy, and from which they molested the
Roman Empire, in the third century of our era. There was a people called
Saxoi, on the Euxine, according to Stephanus. We may consider these also,
as a nation of the same parentage; who, in the wanderings of the Sakai,
from Asia to the German Ocean, were left on the Euxine, as others had
chosen to occupy Armenia. We may here recollect the traditional descent
of Odin preserved by Snorre in the Edda and his history. This great ancestor
of the Saxon and Scandinavian chieftains is represented to have migrated
from a city, on the east of the Tanais, called Asgard, and a country
called Asaland, which imply the city and land of the Asae or Asians.
The cause of this movement was the progress of the Romans. Odin is stated
to have moved first into Russia, and thence into Saxony. This is not
improbable. The wars between the Romans and Mithridates involved, and
shook most of the barbaric nations in these parts, and may have excited
the desire, and imposed the necessity of a westerly or European emigration.”
