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The Angles and Pope Gregory I

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beneficii
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27 Apr 2015, 3:15 am

From Wikipedia:

Quote:
The Angles are the subject of a legend about Pope Gregory I, who happened to see a group of Angle children from Deira for sale as slaves in the Roman market. As the story would later be told by the Anglo-Saxon monk and historian Bede, Gregory was struck by the unusual appearance of the slaves and asked about their background. When told they were called "Anglii" (Angles), he replied with a Latin pun that translates well into English: “Bene, nam et angelicam habent faciem, et tales angelorum in caelis decet esse coheredes” ("It is well, for they have an angelic face, and such people ought to be co-heirs of the angels in heaven"). Supposedly, this encounter inspired the Pope to launch a mission to bring Christianity to their countrymen.[5]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles

Now I believe the Angles and their region, which is called Angeln, are the source of the names England and English. Nevertheless, the Angles supposedly had an unusual appearance which Pope Gregory I thought was angelic. This makes me wonder. What did the Angles look like?


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beneficii
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27 Apr 2015, 3:29 am

According to this, their unusual appearance was due to their blond hair and blue eyes:

http://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/25603/ ... r-heights/


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kraftiekortie
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27 Apr 2015, 8:26 am

The Angles were a Germanic ethnic group who migrated to England with some of the Saxons--hence, "Anglo-Saxon." The migrations seemed to have started around AD 450 or so. Ironically, they became Christianized somewhat later than the Celts in Ireland.

It does seem as if "England" derives from the "Angles."



Janissy
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27 Apr 2015, 9:04 am

He sees children being sold as slaves and his comment is how good looking they are?!?!? :evil:



naturalplastic
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27 Apr 2015, 12:14 pm

The Angles probably just looked like modern Brits, and modern Dutch, and modern Germans, and most generic north Europeans.

The Pope Gregory was an Italian Roman used to seeing olive skinned Mediterraneans. Germanic, and Celtic, people from northern europe from beyond the Alps were all exotic specimens to him - with their flaxen hair and blues eyes,and fair skin. So he considered that foreign fair look to be "angelic".


The sport of fishing today is also called "angling". It derives from the Old English word "angle" which meant "hook" (or anything bent) before it morphed into the modern meaning of a geometric type angle.

The north sea coast of modern Germany bends as it forms the peninsula of Jutland. The ancient Germanic tribe who lived at that bend (or Angle) came to be called the "people of the Angle"- or just the "Angles".

When the Roman empire finally retreated from Britain the barbarians tribes of the coast of Germania invaded and drove the Celtic Britons out of most of south east Britain. These invading Germanic tribes being the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

Which is why place names in that part of the UK have names like "East Anglia", and "Wessex"(West Saxon). Eventually south east Britain came to known as "la Angleterre" (the land of the Angels), and finnally as "England".



trollcatman
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27 Apr 2015, 4:01 pm

beneficii wrote:
According to this, their unusual appearance was due to their blond hair and blue eyes:

http://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/25603/ ... r-heights/


Perhaps it was more a pun than anything else? According to that article pope Gregory had been to Britain before for missionary work, so he had probably seen people of the northern parts of Europe before.
The Dutch word for England is Engeland, and the word for angel is engel, I always wondered if there was some connection, but it's just based on the Angles.
Anyway, the Angles, Saxons, and Frisians were likely closely related people, they were neighbours speaking very closely related languages (the Anglo-Frisian languages, of which today only English, Scots and Frisian are left as far as I know).
They would likely have looked like the Danes and Germans, Europeans look sort of similar anyway.



naturalplastic
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27 Apr 2015, 8:30 pm

Janissy wrote:
He sees children being sold as slaves and his comment is how good looking they are?!?!? :evil:


This was in ancient times. Late Roman Empire times when slavery was still the norm and slave labor was the foundation of the economy.

But yeah- of that context the story does sound kind of strange to modern ears.



beneficii
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19 Aug 2016, 6:47 pm

Janissy wrote:
He sees children being sold as slaves and his comment is how good looking they are?!?!? :evil:


Judging from what I've read lately, it now seems creepy as all hell. That's what we today call "fetishizing" someone for their race or ethnicity.


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naturalplastic
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19 Aug 2016, 7:10 pm

One book (the Story of English) Ive read said that the Pope was an incurable pun maker. And that's why he went off into this Angles/angels word play.



ASS-P
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19 Aug 2016, 7:26 pm

...Thank you . Interesting .
My understanding was that the physical land , what is now England , was Christian early on , as a Roman Empire part - Wales and Ireland followed later .




beneficii wrote:
From Wikipedia:

Quote:
The Angles are the subject of a legend about Pope Gregory I, who happened to see a group of Angle children from Deira for sale as slaves in the Roman market. As the story would later be told by the Anglo-Saxon monk and historian Bede, Gregory was struck by the unusual appearance of the slaves and asked about their background. When told they were called "Anglii" (Angles), he replied with a Latin pun that translates well into English: “Bene, nam et angelicam habent faciem, et tales angelorum in caelis decet esse coheredes” ("It is well, for they have an angelic face, and such people ought to be co-heirs of the angels in heaven"). Supposedly, this encounter inspired the Pope to launch a mission to bring Christianity to their countrymen.[5]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles

Now I believe the Angles and their region, which is called Angeln, are the source of the names England and English. Nevertheless, the Angles supposedly had an unusual appearance which Pope Gregory I thought was angelic. This makes me wonder. What did the Angles look like?


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