So I have been watching a series of videos of English history, all the way to the start with Britannia and the Britons, to around 1600. What I am curious about from watching though is the lineage of English people, because I had always thought they were Anglo Saxon, but from watching the history, it seems once William became king it was primarily Norman from then on out. So was it that the royalty was Norman and the people were Saxon? Or was it just a mesh between the two?
This topic links to the modern academic debate regarding the Anglo-Saxon and Norman ‘invasions’ of England. It is often generalised that England is Anglo-Saxon because when these Germanic warrior cultures of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (Frisians and possibly other groups as well) came to England, they replaced the indigenous Romano-Celtic population through mass killing or forced exodus. This is likely not true and an oversimplification of what occurred when the Anglo-Saxons ‘invaded’ England. Through genome sequencing it is clear that modern English people have around 25-40% Germanic DNA originating from the Anglo-Saxons, that number being higher in the Southeastern areas where the Anglo-Saxons landed. [1] This has solidified the theory that the Anglo-Saxons intermarried with the indigenous Romano-Celtic populations, and has mostly put to bed the idea that the Anglo Saxons wiped them out through genetic replacement.
The Norman invasion, on the other hand, had significantly less genetic effect on the English population. However, as you have identified, it had a very crucial cultural shift in the noble class. William the Conqueror most likely brought over around 8000 Normans with him. [2] It is also important to remember who the Normans actually were. William the Conqueror and the ‘Normans’, aka ‘Northmen’, were the descendants of ‘Rollo’, aka Hrólfr, a Norse viking who secured land in Normandy after Charles the Simple included it in an offer for the Norsemen to stop raiding his lands. These Norsemen settled in Normandy and intermarried with the indigenous Frankish population. When the Normans eventually invaded England under William, they largely replaced the ruling class of Anglo-Saxons, but made very little effect on the genetics of the general population. So, at this time it can be generalised that in the aftermath of the Norman conquest, the ruling noble class of England was Norman, while mostly everyone else was a mix of Germanic and indigenous British Celtic DNA. Eventually these two identities merged into one broad English culture and identity. Considering the fact that the Normans were a mix of Nordic and Frankish DNA, it can be assumed that the ruling Normans were not hugely genetically different from the English populations. Certainly, they would be more closely linked than other distinct European genetic populations.
TLDR: So, to finally answer your question, English people since the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions are a mix of indigenous Celtic, Germanic Anglo-Saxon, Norse viking, and broadly Northwestern European admixture. The Anglo-Saxon invasion had significant genetic effects on Britain, intermarrying with the established Celtic population, putting to rest the idea that there was a genocidal replacement by the Germanic invaders. The Norman conquest, however, saw no significant genetic effects on England’s broad populace, since they mostly replaced the Anglo-Saxon nobility in the ruling class of England.
References:
[1] Schiffels et al. Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon Genomes from East England Reveal British Migration History. Cambridge: Nature Communications, 2016.
[2] Huscroft, Richard. The Norman Conquest: A New Introduction. Boston: Routledge, 2009