Primary Sources Reveal Dark Complexioned Anglo-Saxons & Vikings

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]It says Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race, a study of the settlement of England and the tribal origin of the old English people >> [music] >> by the late Thomas William Shaw, author of a history of Hampshire, etc., honorary secretary, London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, honorary organizing secretary of the Hampshire uh Field Club and Archaeological Society, edited by his sons T. W. Shore and L. E. Shore.

[00:00:26]All right, this is from 1906.

[00:00:29]We're all the way in chapter 6. It says Rugians, Wends, and tribal Slavonic settlers.

[00:00:35]Now, it says here that the name Wends was given by the old Teutonic nations of Germany to those Slavonic tribes who were located in the countries east of the Elbe and south of the Baltic Sea.

[00:00:48]>> [music] >> It isn't the same as the older name used by Ptolemy, who says that the Wenedi are established along the whole of Wendish Gulf. Tacitus also mentions the Venedi.

[00:01:01]There can therefore be no doubt that these people were seated on the coast of Mecklenburg and Pomerania before the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement. That there were some differences in race between the Wends of various tribes is probable from the existence of such large tribes among them as the Wiltzi and the Obodriti, who in time of Charlemagne formed opposite alliances, the former with the Saxons, the latter with the Franks. The Wends who still exist in Lower Saxony are of a dark complexion. They're of a dark complexion and are the same stock as the Sorbs or Serbs of Serbia.

[00:01:41]They are Slavonic, but many tribes of Slavonic descent are fair in complexion.

[00:01:46]So, many of them are light-skinned.

[00:01:49]Procopius tells us that those Vandals who were allies of the ancient Goths were remarkable for their tall stature, pale complexion, and blond hair. It is therefore by no means improbable that the ancient Slavic uh tribes of the Baltic coast were distinguished by differences in complexion.

[00:02:05]So, they're letting you know that there was different types of Slavic people.

[00:02:09]There was light-skinned Slavics and dark complexion.

[00:02:13]Must be more original. The same migratory movement in lesser degree appears to have extended even into England, bringing into our country some Slavonic settlers, probably in alliance with Saxons, Angles, Goths, and other tribes. And some later on in alliance with Danes. The existence of separate large tribes among the Wends is probable evidence of racial differences. And the alternative names they had are probably those by which they are were known to themselves and to their neighbors. The remnant at the present time of the dark-complexioned Wends of Saxony, who called themselves Sorbs, all right, shows that there must have been some old Wendish tribe of similar complexion from which they are descended. As the country anciently occupied by the Wiltzi included Brandenburg and the district around Berlin. It joined the limits of ancient Saxony on the west. There is evidence arising from the survivals. All right.

[00:03:10]So, it says here chapter seven in the same book, Our Darker Forefathers.

[00:03:16]All right.

[00:03:17]One of the facts concerning the color of the hair and eyes of the people in different countries of England at the present time brought to light by scientific observations is that there is a higher percentage of people of mixed brown type living in Herefordshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset than in most other counties, except those in Cornwall and on the old Celtic borders. The inhabitants of these countries are the darkest. This is usually explained on the supposition that in the process of the Saxon settlement of British population was allowed to remain in these parts of England, which in the course of centuries became mixed with inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon descent. and consequently the present population is more marked than those of pure descent by brown, hazel, or black eyes with brown, chestnut, dark brown, or black hair.

[00:04:02]The counties of Hertford and Buckingham have people as dark as Wales. All investigation goes to show that this brunette outcrop is a reality.

[00:04:12]Beddoe found that the area in which there is a larger percentage of brown people in England extends from the River Lea to the Worcestershire and In dealing with the circumstances of the settlement, these ethnological facts must receive consideration.

[00:04:27]All right.

[00:04:28]The survival of British population is a possible explanation and the one which appears to be the most natural. As there are some difficulties in this conclusion, the question arises, is there any other way in which the origin of these mixed brown people surrounded by others of a somewhat fairer complexion can be explained? An alternative explanation is that people of darker race may have come with the Angles, Saxons, or Danes and have settled largely in these parts of the country. There's circumstantial evidence that people of brown or dark complexion did come into England during the time of both the Saxon and the Danish settlements, and this may now be summarized.

[00:05:06]All right. So, it says that this consideration of the probable origin of the great proportion of brunettes in two of the South Midland counties of England leads us to that of color names as surnames and place names, which may probably have been derived [music] from the original settlers.

[00:05:23]For example, there is in the common name Brown.

[00:05:27]>> [music] >> All right. Brown. This has been derived from the Anglo-Saxon Bruin.

[00:05:32]All right. Bruin. So, remember I what I showed that Bruin in Dutch Bruin is black. Bruin. So, like the hockey team in Boston, the Boston Bruins was a basically talking about people of color or the black Bostons, basically Bostonians.

[00:05:48]You know, the Bruins, the Boston Bruins.

[00:05:52]All right, brew in. [music] Brew in is brown or brown complexion people. Hockey was invented by American Indians. They were talking about American Indians who are brown complexion.

[00:06:03]Again, signifying brown. It is not reasonable to doubt that when our forefathers called a man brune or brown, they gave him this name as a descriptive of his brown complexion. This probability that the brunettes were common is supported by the frequent references to persons named brune in Anglo-Saxon literature. Brune was a name not confined to England in the Anglo-Saxon and later periods. On the contrary, we find that it was a common name in ancient Germany. The typical place name Bruninga field occurs in a charter of Ethelstan dated AD 938.

[00:06:40]And local cue Bruninga field disituord.

[00:06:44]Brunsham hunts is mentioned in a charter of Edward the Elder about AD 900.

[00:06:50][music] So, it says as regards the ancient brown race or races of North Europe, there can be no doubt of their existence in the southeast of Norway and in the east of Friesland.

[00:07:01]There can be no doubt about the important influence which the old Wendish race has had in the northeastern parts of Germany in transmitting to their descendants a more brunette complexion than prevails among the people of Hanover, Holstein, and West Westphalia of more pure Teutonic descent. We cannot reasonably doubt that in view of such survival of brown people as we find at the present time in the provinces of North Holland, Drenthe, and Overijssel, which sell which formed a hint hinterland of the ancient Frisian country, numerous brunettes must have come into the England among the Frisians. It says the consideration of the evidence that people of brunette complexions were among the Anglo-Saxon settlers in England leads on to that of people of a still darker hue, the dark, black, or brown-black settlers. Probably, there must have been some of these among the Anglo-Saxons, for we meet with the personal names Blackman, Blackman, Blakeman, Blackaman, Blackasunu, Blacka, and Blacksiman or Blacman in various documents of the period.

[00:08:07]All right, Blacka was an ealdorman of Lindsey who was by Paulinus.

[00:08:13]Blackman was the son of Ealdric, Ealdric, a descendant of Ida, ancestor of Ealhred, king of Bernicia, and so on.

[00:08:22]The same kind of evidence is met with among the oldest place names. Blackham near Burgh is mentioned in Anglo-Saxon Charter.

[00:08:30]Blackman's Stone was the name of a place in Dorset, and Blackman's Stone, that of a place in Kent. Blackenshale There's another old word [music] used by the Anglo-Saxons to denote black or brown-black, the word sweart. [music] All right, we know that, the swearty, right? Sweart. The personal name Sweart or Sweart may have been derived from this word. The same Stuart, right? The Stuarts. Sweart, Swearts, Sweart.

[00:08:59]Which means black.

[00:09:02]So, this word may be derived from that and may have originally denoted people of a dark, brown, or black complexion.

[00:09:10]Some names of this kind are mentioned in the Domesday record of Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire. These may be of Scandinavian origin, for the eke-name or nickname Swearty is found in the Northern Sagas.

[00:09:24]Halfdan the Black was the name of king of Norway, who died in 863. The so-called black men of the Anglo-Saxon period probably included some of the darker Wendish people among them, immigrants or descendants of people of the same race as the ancestors of the Sorbs of Lusatia. All right? So, I know I'm reading and I hope people is understanding, but let me just know that there was black Anglo-Saxons. So, like people try to say like Benjamin Franklin earlier saying, "Oh, the only white people are the Anglo-Saxons." Well, some of them were, but not all of them were.

[00:09:56]All right?

[00:09:58]Borders of It says, "And the ancestors of the Sorbs of Lusatia on the borders of Saxony and Prussia at the present day, some of the darker ones may well have been among the black Vikings." All right? Black what?

[00:10:11]The black Vikings referred to in the Irish annals. Black Vikings. All right?

[00:10:19]Isn't this a really Vikings?

[00:10:22]Cuz if we break down that letters, those letters, and we separate the V and the I, it becomes six kings.

[00:10:29]You put a space in between those, and we look at it like Roman numeral, the six kings, the Vikings, the six kings.

[00:10:37]Again, the black Vikings referred to in the Irish annals, as well as in those of Wales. It may have been the people who have left the Anglo-Saxon name Blackman or Berki, which occurs in one of the charters. Blackman's stone on the Kentish coast and Blackman's stone on the Dorset coast. As late as time of the Domesday survey, we meet with records of people apparently named after their dark complexions. In Buckinghamshire, Black Blackman, Swertinus, Swertinus, the Swertiness, right? And others are mentioned in Sussex. One named Black in Suffolk, Blackmanus and Swerti Kungus, and others at Lincoln. The invention The invasion of the coast of the British Isles by the Vikings of a dark or black complexion rest on historical evidence, which is too circumstantial to admit of doubt. All right?

[00:11:29]All right? This scholar from all these historical societies is letting you know black Vikings, right? Dark-skinned Vikings. There's too much historical evidence which is too circumstantial to admit of doubt, all right? He's already letting you know it's too much evidence.

[00:11:47]But But But what happened throughout history? What did they teach us?

[00:11:52]All this circumstantial evidence that he knew about. This is from the 1800s, right?

[00:11:58]So, why didn't they teach us that they were black Vikings? Why did they always show white Vikings?

[00:12:03]All right? In the Irish annals, the black Vikings are called Dubh Ghenti or black Gentiles.

[00:12:11]These black Gentiles on some occasions fought against other plunderers of the Irish coast known as the Fair Gentiles who can hardly have been others than the Fair Danes or northern Northmen.

[00:12:22]Entering the year 851, the black Gentiles came to Ath Cliath Dublin, example Dublin. So, that's the name, Dublin. In 852, we are told that eight ships of the Finn Ghenti arrived with them a black Vikings and fought against the Dubh Ghenti for 3 days and that the Dubh Ghenti were victorious. The black Vikings appear at this time to have had a settlement in or close to Dublin and during the 9th century were much in evidence on the Irish coast. In 877, a great battle was fought at Loch Cuan between them and the Fair Gentiles in which Alban, chief of the black Gentiles, fell.

[00:13:03]He may [music] well have been a chieftain of the race of the northern shores of the Mecklenburg coast.

[00:13:10]There is still another way in which men of black hair or complexions may have come into England as thralls among the Norse invaders. In his translation of Osorius or Orosius, King Alfred inserts the account which uh Ohthere, the Norse mariner, gave him of the tribute and skins either down, whalebone and robes made from whale and seal skins which the north northern finns now called laps paid to the northmen. Their descendants are amongst the darkest people of Europe [music] and as they were draws, some of them may have accompanied their lords. The Danes and Norse having the general race characteristics of tall fair men must have been sharply distinguished in appearance from Vikings such such as those of Jamburg for many of these were probably of a dark complexion. There's an interesting record of the descent of a dark sea rovers of the coast of North Wales in the annals of Cambria under the year 987 which tells us that Guthric son of Harold with black men devastated Anglesey and captured 2,000 men. Another entry in the same record tells us that Meredydd redeemed the captives from the black men. This account in the in the from the observances of their forefathers. Okay, this is another screen. So it says so they slew both the black and fair Hewald whose names in subsequent Christian time were and still are held in high honor in Westphalia.

[00:14:36]It is a touching story and one that tells us more than the devotion inspired by Christian zeal to risk their lives which these missionaries showed for the conversion of men of their own race. For as their names indicate they bore in the different complexions evidence of the existence of the fair and the dark people amongst the Anglo-Saxon stock.

[00:14:56]All right, both colors complexions.

[00:15:01]Waringa or Waringe is Hershire. The probable connection of the Wends, some tribes of whom which are the Sorbs are known to have been dark. With parts of the Germany near Brunswick and with parts of Harz and Bucks is shown by these names. Doomsday book tells us whose cause in Buckinghamshire and a people who bore such names as Swarting, Swart, or Swan, Swart, and Swawart among its landholders. And it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that such names refer to people of dark complexions.

[00:15:36]All right? If they got last names like Swart, Stuart, Swart, all right? It's hard to avoid that they have dark complexions.

[00:15:44]Among the laments of Lincoln, a very Danish town, there were also apparently some so-called Danes of dark complexion, all right? Who is the Danes?

[00:15:53]In Hampshire, however, we do not meet with general blunt type. Of the New Forest District, McIntosh says, "The New Forest is inhabited by a mixture of races which almost defy classification."

[00:16:04]The complexion in general being dark.

[00:16:06]All right? In general being what? Dark.

[00:16:08]And this prevalence of dark complexion people among the inhabitants of the New Forest District is still apparent. It is in parts of Wiltshire and Dorset. The same ethnological observer, McIntosh, also says, "In the middle and North Hampshire, the people in general belong to a dark complexion race." I have heard the opinion expressed that they are Wends or a Belgic tribe of Wendish extraction. The present writer is not able to regard the dark complexion type as being largely race. The latter Celts are not characterized by this head form.

[00:16:41]The survival among living people here and there of representatives of the broad-headed type is an interesting ethnological circumstance. As might be expected, that it is chiefly in the most mountainous part of England and the remote parts of Cumberland that traces of this race may still be met with. The type is, according to Beddoe and Ripley, marked by being above the average in height, generally dark in complexion, the head broad and short, the face strongly developed at the cheekbones, grown or beetle-browed, the development of the brow ridges being especially noticeable in contrast with the smooth, almost feminine softness of the Saxon forehead.