Saxon chronicle

With the coming of the Saxons we are beginning to escape from antiquity. The. Saxons were, of course, quite familiar with iron, although references to it in the Saxon Chronicle are scanty. We do know, however, that, owing to shortage of weapons, some of the troops under Harold at the battle of Hastings were armed with stone hammers. The Normans required considerable quantities of iron for their armour. The metal was always made by the direct process. 

The opening paragraph of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also says of the earlier Celtic inhabitants of Britain, whom the Anglo-Saxons displaced ... 

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