On the Term 'Anglo-Saxon' and English Ethnic Identity

Not too long ago, Alejandro García Sanjuán, a Spanish academic with whom I have corresponded and whose work on al-Andalus I highly appreciate, applauded the idea of eliminating references to ‘Anglo-Saxon’ in university curricula and scholarship, characterising such a move as ‘decolonisation’ and suggesting that the same should be done in Spain with terms like Reconquista (“Reconquest”).

Is dropping the use of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ useful? In my view, no. I would suggest that it is possible to use the term for historical convenience and recognising the foundation of what is English ethnic identity, in a way that does not involve fetishisation of the term to promote racism and chauvinism.

To begin with, it helps to note that within the body of literature that is generally categorised as Old English in modern scholarship, Anglo-Saxon as a collective identity marker for the peoples speaking a group of closely related dialects classed as Old English does not seem to occur (if I am wrong, please correct me). However, we do have multiple references to Angles and Saxons in Old English literature. For example, the Old English chronicle contained in the Laud manuscript marks the year 449 CE as the first coming of peoples dubbed Angles, Saxons and Jutes to what is now Britain [1]: