The English and the Celts - no genocide?

[ambrosius]

This means that they had likely captured the river-crossing of Aylesford - and the site of the Roman villa (and church) at the nearby hamlet of 'Eccles'. The fact that the name survived at Eccles shows that the (pagan) Jutes recognised the church as such (even though they would have no use for it, themselves, for another 150 years, until St. Augustine came to convert them). :lol:
[..]
All it says is that the Jutes who captured Aylesford recognized the nearby church as being what it was.
A church. That's all we can say. The site may well have already been abandoned by the native Britons, seeking refuge from the advancing Jutes. Certainly, I wouldn't expect there to have been any British civilians hanging around at Aylesford to see the outcome of the coming battle. Any still there when the Jutish forces arrived would presumably have been killed or fled.

Mike, that's just rubbish. Advancing pagan Jutes who not only recognise building as churches, AND retain the name! If that would really have happened, they would most likely have torched the place and renamed it after one of their own gods! :lol:

You're quite wrong, again, Robert. Pagan Germanic tribes from East of
the Rhine frontier would be perfectly well aware that the Romanised
Gauls and Britons were Christians in the 5th c. and would have had
plenty of opportunity to see church buildings for themselves on the
continent, before coming to Britain. As for retaining the name (and
'Eccles', from Latin Ecclesia is a generic name for any
church building - that is, a cruciform Basilican hall with apsidal ending
and font) this is no more unusual than retaining the also generic, also Latin loan-word 'Castra/Castrum' in the form 'Chester/Caster/Caister'
to describe almost all the Roman walled-towns and forts which the
anglo-Saxons encountedred across England. (Here I go, yet again,
having to explain the same thing to the same people for the - I forget -
is it the fifth or sixth time...? :lol: :lol: :lol: )

As for your next suggestion - I completely agree with you! On
encountering these abandoned churches, they probably did
torch them - after having stripped them of any church-silver which
the Britons (very unlikely) left behind. Unless raiding-parties had
already got there and taken the silver in a surprise attack. After all,
Anglo-Saxons were pagan - as far as we know - from 450-597. They
had no need for churches. And since they seem to have been virtual
protoypes of the Vikings (who shared their origins and many of their
apparent cultural attributes) they probably made a point of making
a 'Bee-line' for the nearest church as soon as they landed, in order
to strip it of its presumed valuables. Isn't that what Vikings did? 8)
It would pay them to be able to identify Roman churches and be able
to locate them in the landscape. And they may well have torched
them afterwards, as you say - which rather belies your previous claim
of these churches continuing as active British churches, doesn't it? :lol:

As for your next suggestion, we know that Anglo-Saxons renamed
many British sites after their own gods. Woodnesborough, the first
'English' village you come to moving inland from the Saxon Shore Fort
of Rutupiae (Richborough, in Kent) etymologises as 'Woden's Burgh'.
This is probably the oldest English village, since it would be the first
'Jutish' settlement after the Jutes managed to cross from the Isle of
Thanet and occupy the maniland of Kent. As for paganism in general,
yes, we know that Christianity had to be re-introduced to Kent in 597
onwards, and St. Augustine makes no mention of any of the Jutes in
Kent being Christians... only the Frankish wife of King Aethelberht,
who was using an abandoned Romano-British church, just outside
Canterbury, as her chapel. Note the 'abandoned', there. :lol:

Talk about unwarrented assumptions - I like your sense of humour!

Yep. I talk about unwarranted assumptions. Usually yours. :lol:
I prefer to rely on the actual archaeological and written evidence
which we have - see above. You know... the kind of stuff I could
prove in court... (not, of course, that I'm saying it will necessarily come to that...) :lol: :lol: :lol:

Let's face it Mike. I see signs of Britons living among the Anglo-saxons, how few or many I can't tell, but I see signs.

Robert, you can see little green men if you really try hard enough;
it makes no difference to me. I only see the evidence - either what's
written or what we dig up from the ground.

You have a different model - no contacts at all, and that means you must explain awy every such sign that points into the other direction.

Wrong again, actually. :roll: I see plenty of contact. All hostile!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Lots of spears and seaxes and all kinds of pointy stuff like that. 8)

That's your good right, but I see no point in discussing that any further - it's down to differences of opinion and neither of us can really prove what happened for real.

Well I'm glad you agree that you cannot prove anything. Personally,
I have a good deal of evidence backing me. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ambrosius/ Mike