Anglo-Saxon society

thumb|Anglo-Saxon king with his witan. Biblical scene in the illustrated Old English Hexateuch (11th century), portraying pharaoh in court session, after passing judgment on his chief baker and chief cupbearer. The witan () was the king's council in the Anglo-Saxon government of England from before the 7th century until the 11th century. It comprised important noblemen, including ealdormen, thegns, and bishops. Meetings of the witan were sometimes called the witenagemot.

thumb|right|The England Runestones#U 241|runestone U 241 in Lingsberg, [[Uppland, Sweden, was raised by the grandchildren of Ulfríkr circa 1050 in commemoration of his twice receiving Danegeld in England.]]

Angeln (German and Low German: Angeln; Danish and South Jutlandic: Angel; Latin: Anglia) is a small peninsula in northern Germany, on the Baltic coast of Jutland. Jutland consists of the mainland of Denmark and the northernmost German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Angeln belongs to the region of Southern Schleswig, which constitutes the northern part of Schleswig-Holstein. The region is often referred to in German as Landschaft Angeln (Landscape Anglia) or Halbinsel Angeln (Anglia Peninsula).

process which changed the language and culture of most of what became England from Romano-British to Germanic

thumb|Ivory seal of Godwin, an unknown thegnfirst half of eleventh century, British Museum

A housecarl (; ) was a non-servile manservant or household bodyguard in medieval Northern Europe.

thumb|A mention of ealdormen in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

form of Vulgar Latin spoken in Great Britain in the Roman and sub-Roman periods

A churl (Old High German ), in its earliest Old English (Anglo-Saxon) meaning, was simply "a man" or more particularly a "free man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelled , and denoting the lowest rank of freemen. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it later came to mean the opposite of nobility and royalty, "a common person". Says Chadwick:

senior official with local responsibilities under the Crown

Old English terms

clothing of Anglo-Saxon England

plucked string instrument widely used in north-western Europe from pre-Christian to medieval times