The period most clearly defining what we now call England was the six centuries of
Anglo-Saxon rule, from shortly after the departure of the Roman colonisers, around AD
410, to the Norman Conquest in 1066. During this period, the barbarian tribes that had
been moving westward across Europe since the mid-third century might have raided
Britain. In the early fifth century, these restless tribes menaced Rome. In order to handle
threats closer to home, Rome had to withdraw garrisons from Britannia, the province it
had governed for 350 years. With the Romans having left, the Scotti and the Picts, tribes
to the west and north, started edging across the borders. Lacking Roman defenders,
Britons solicited Germanic troops from the continent as mercenaries. According to the
Venerable Bede, the year of the fateful invitation of the ‘helping hands’ was probably 450.
These hired fighters were understood to come from three Germanic tribes, namely, the
Saxons, Angles and Jutes. Modern scholars locate the homelands of these tribes in
Germany, the northern Netherlands and Denmark.