Adventus SaxonumMilitary
Hengist and Horsa land in Kent
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the British king Vortigern invites the Jutish brothers Hengist and Horsa to defend the island against the Picts. They settle in Thanet and soon turn on their hosts — the symbolic beginning of the English settlement.
The date is traditional rather than archaeological: cremation cemeteries and grübenhaus huts of distinctly North German type are attested in eastern England from the early fifth century. Whether by invitation, conquest, or piecemeal settlement, Angles from southern Denmark, Saxons from northwestern Germany, and Jutes from Jutland gradually displaced or absorbed the Romano-British population east of a line from the Solent to the Humber. Their language, a West Germanic dialect, would in time become English.