ABSTRACT
The Angles and Saxons, even more than the Franks, were in the sixth century a nation of foot-soldiery, rarely provided with any defensive armour save a light shield. The arms and appearance of the war-bands which followed Hengist or Cerdic across the North Sea can best be gathered from the evidence of the countless Anglo-Saxon graves which have been excavated of late years. As an alternative for the sword the old English often used in early times the broad two-edged dagger eighteen inches long, resembling the scramasax of the Franks, which they called seax, and associated with the Saxon name. The organisation of the English conquerors of Britain differed from that of the other Teutonic invaders of the empire in several ways. The old English kingdoms were founded after desperate struggles with the Romano-Britons, who did not submit and stave off slaughter like their equals in Gaul or Spain, but fought valiantly against the scattered attacks of the invaders.
