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Most people who study early medieval history have probably encountered _Anglo-Saxon England_ by F. Stenton. Still a useful book. No question it's important, but have you ever read the end?
"The Normans who entered into the English inheritance were a harsh and violent race. They were the closest of all western peoples to the barbarian strain of the continental order. They had produced little in art or learning, and nothing in literature...
...that could be set beside the work of Englishmen. But politically, they were the masters of their world" (Stenton 687). The history of this field's scholarship is rooted in ethnonationalism. Cultivating English identity centered on AS is an explicit goal of much of that work.
Contextualizing our current work to be mindful of a term that is inseparable from its racist and colonial roots and contemporary application in white supremacy is not "cancel culture."
We should pursue of honest and responsible scholarship willing to confront and engage the past in the primary sources and the field's history. Half the books on my shelf have AS in the title. It's disingenuous to claim that I or anyone wants to cast all that aside.
If you study the material and textual history of that island 52.3555° N, 1.1743° W or thereabouts, you were trained in a white supremacist framework. I was too. Acknowledging and unpacking that should be part of our work. Responsible use of AS is part of that work.
It is arrogant and bad scholarship to just pretend the discussions of AS as a racist term never happened. We simply can't do that.
