Following theend of Roman rule in Britain during the 5th century,Anglo-Saxon settlement of eastern and southern Britain began. The culture and language of the Britons gradually fragmented, and much of their territory gradually becameAnglo-Saxon, while the north and theIsle of Man became subject to a similar settlement byGaelic-speaking tribes fromIreland who would eventually formScotland. The extent to which this cultural change was accompanied by wholesale population changes is still debated. During this time, Britons migrated to mainland Europe and established significant colonies inBrittany (now part of France), theChannel Islands,[5] andBritonia (now part ofGalicia, Spain).[2] By the 11th century, Brittonic-speaking populations had split into distinct groups: the Welsh in Wales, the Cornish in Cornwall, the Bretons in Brittany, the Cumbrians of theHen Ogledd ("Old North") in modern southern Scotland and northern England, and the remnants of the Pictish people in northern Scotland.[6] Common Brittonic developed into the distinct Brittonic languages:Welsh,Cumbric,Cornish andBreton.[2]
The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Britain was made byPytheas, aGreek geographer who made a voyage of exploration around theBritish Isles between 330 and 320 BC. Although none of his writings remain, writers during the following centuries make frequent reference to them. The ancient Greeks called the people of Britain thePretanoí orBretanoí.[2]Pliny'sNatural History (77 AD) says the older name for the island wasAlbion,[2] andAvienius calls itinsula Albionum, "island of the Albions".[7]The name could have reached Pytheas from theGauls.[8]
TheP-Celticethnonym has been reconstructed as *Pritanī, fromCommon Celtic *kʷritu, which becameOld Irishcruth andOld Welshpryd.[2] This likely means "people of the forms, shapely people", and could be linked to the Latin namePicti (thePicts), which is usually explained as meaning "painted people".[2] The Old Welsh name for the Picts wasPrydyn.[9] Linguist Kim McCone suggests the name became restricted to inhabitants of the far north afterCymry displaced it as the name for theWelsh andCumbrians.[10] The Welshprydydd, "maker of forms", was also a term for the highest grade ofa bard.[2]
The medieval Welsh form of LatinBritanni wasBrython (singular and plural).[2]Brython was introduced into English usage byJohn Rhys in 1884 as a term unambiguously referring to theP-Celtic speakers of Great Britain, to complementGoidel; hence the adjectiveBrythonic refers to the group of languages.[11] "Brittonic languages" is a more recent coinage (first attested in 1923 according to theOxford English Dictionary).
The Britons spoke anInsular Celtic language known asCommon Brittonic. Brittonic was spoken throughout the island of Britain (in modern terms, England, Wales, and Scotland) and theIsle of Man.[2][a] According to early medieval historical tradition, such asThe Dream ofMacsen Wledig, the post-Roman Celtic speakers ofArmorica were colonists from Britain, resulting in theBreton language, a language related toWelsh and identical toCornish in the early period, and is still used today. Thus, the area today is calledBrittany (Br.Breizh, Fr.Bretagne, derived fromBritannia).
Common Brittonic developed from the Insular branch of theProto-Celtic language that developed in theBritish Isles after arriving from the continent at some point between the 10th and the 7th century BC. The language eventually began to diverge; some linguists have grouped subsequent developments asWestern andSouthwestern Brittonic languages. Western Brittonic developed into Welsh inWales and theCumbric language in theHen Ogledd or "Old North" of Britain (modern northern England and southern Scotland), while the Southwestern dialect becameCornish in Cornwall andSouth West England andBreton in Armorica.Pictish is now generally accepted to descend from Common Brittonic rather than being a separate Celtic language. Welsh and Breton survive today; Cumbric and Pictish became extinct in the 12th century. Cornish had become extinct by the 19th century but has been the subject oflanguage revitalization since the 20th century.[13]
Celtic Britain was made up of many territories controlled byBrittonic tribes. They are generally believed to have dwelt throughout the whole island ofGreat Britain, at least as far north as theClyde–Forthisthmus. The territory north of this was largely inhabited by thePicts; little direct evidence has been left of thePictish language, but place names and Pictish personal names recorded in the laterIrish annals suggest it was indeed related to the Common Brittonic language.[14][15][page needed][16][17] TheirGoidelic (Gaelic) name,Cruithne, is cognate withPritenī.
The following is a list of the major Brittonic tribes, in both the Latin and Brittonic languages, as well as their capitals during the Roman period.
TheBattersea Shield, a ceremonial bronze shield dated 3rd–1st century BC, is an example of La TèneCeltic art from Britain.
TheLa Tène style, which covers BritishCeltic art, was late arriving in Britain, but after 300 BC the ancient British seem to have had generally similar cultural practices to the Celtic cultures nearest to them on the continent. There are significant differences in artistic styles, and the greatest period of what is known as the "Insular La Tène" style, surviving mostly in metalwork, was in the century or so before the Roman conquest, and perhaps the decades after it.[citation needed]
There are competing hypotheses for when Celtic peoples, and the Celtic languages, first arrived in Britain, none of which have gained consensus. The traditional view during most of the twentieth century was that Celtic culture grew out of the central EuropeanHallstatt culture, from which the Celts and their languages reached Britain in the first millennium BC.[20][21][page needed] More recently,John Koch andBarry Cunliffe have challenged that with their 'Celtic from the West' theory, which has the Celtic languages developing as a maritimetrade language in theAtlantic Bronze Age cultural zone before it spread eastward.[22] Alternatively, Patrick Sims-Williams criticizes both of these hypotheses to propose 'Celtic from the Centre', which suggests Celtic originated inGaul and spread during the first millennium BC, reaching Britain towards the end of this period.[23]
In 2021, a majorarchaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain during theBronze Age, over a 500-year period from 1,300 BC to 800 BC.[24][page needed] The migrants were "genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France" and had higher levels ofEarly European Farmers ancestry.[24][page needed] From 1000 to 875 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain,[25] making up around half the ancestry of subsequentIron Age people in this area, but not in northern Britain.[24][page needed] The "evidence suggests that rather than a violent invasion or a single migratory event, the genetic structure of the population changed through sustained contacts between mainland Britain and Europe over several centuries, such as the movement of traders, intermarriage, and small-scale movements of family groups".[25] The authors describe this as a "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain".[24][page needed] There was much less migration into Britain during the subsequent Iron Age, so it is more likely that Celtic reached Britain before then.[24][page needed] Barry Cunliffe suggests that a branch of Celtic was already being spoken in Britain and that the Bronze Age migration introduced the Brittonic branch.[26]
TheAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was originally compiled by the orders of KingAlfred the Great in approximately 890, starts with this, incorporated into theChronicle fromBede'sEcclesiastical History:[27]
Brittene igland is ehta hund mila lang ⁊ twa hun brad ⁊ her sind on þis igland fif geþeode Englisc ⁊ Brittisc ⁊ Wilsc[b] ⁊ Scyttisc ⁊ Pyhtisc ⁊ Bocleden. Erest weron bugend þises landes Brittes þa coman of Armenia.
The island of Britain is eight hundred miles long and two hundred broad; and here in this island are five languages: English and British and Welsh[c] and Scottish and Pictish and Book-language[d]. The first inhabitants of this land were Britons, who came fromArmorica.[e]
—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, original Bodi. Land. 636 text given byBenjamin Thorpe[28]
In 43 AD, the Roman Empire invaded Britain. The British tribes opposed the Roman legions for many decades, but by 84 the Romans had decisively conquered southern Britain and had pushed into Brittonic areas of what would later become northern England and southern Scotland. During the same period,Belgic tribes from the Gallic-Germanic borderlands settled in southern Britain. Caesar asserts the Belgae had first crossed the channel as raiders, only later establishing themselves on the island.[32] In 122 the Romans fortified the northern border withHadrian's Wall, which spanned what is nowNorthern England. In 142 Roman forces pushed north again and began construction of theAntonine Wall, which ran between theForth–Clyde isthmus, but they retreated back to Hadrian's Wall after 20 years. Although the native Britons south of Hadrian's Wall mostly kept their land, they were subject to theRoman governors, whilst the Brittonic-Pictish Britons north of the wall probably remained fully independent and unconquered. The Roman Empire retained control of "Britannia" until its departure about 410, although parts of Britain had effectively shrugged off Roman rule decades earlier.[citation needed]
Many of the old Brittonic kingdoms began to gradually disappear in the centuries after the Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Gaelic invasions; Parts of the regions of modernEast Anglia,East Midlands,North East England,Argyll, andSouth East England were the first to fall to the Germanic and Gaelic Scots invasions. The kingdom of Ceint (modern Kent) fell in 456 AD. Linnuis (which stood astride modern Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire) was subsumed as early as 500 AD and became the EnglishKingdom of Lindsey.
Regni (essentially modernSussex and easternHampshire) was likely fully conquered by 510.Ynys Weith (Isle of Wight) fell in 530,Caer Colun (essentially modern Essex) by 540. TheGaels arrived on the northwest coast of Britain from Ireland, dispossessed the native Britons, and foundedDal Riata which encompassed modernArgyll,Skye, andIona between 500 and 560.Deifr (Deira) which encompassed modern-day Teesside, Wearside, Tyneside, Humberside, Lindisfarne (Medcaut), and theFarne Islands fell to the Anglo-Saxons in 559, and Deira became an Anglo-Saxon kingdom after this point.[35] Caer Went had officially disappeared by 575, becoming the Anglo-Saxonkingdom of East Anglia.Gwent was only partly conquered; its capitalCaer Gloui (Gloucester) was taken by the Anglo-Saxons in 577, handingGloucestershire andWiltshire to the invaders, while the westernmost part remained in Brittonic hands, and continued to exist in modern Wales.
Caer Lundein, encompassingLondon, St. Albans and parts of theHome Counties,[36] fell from Brittonic hands by 600, and Bryneich, which existed in modern Northumbria and County Durham with its capital of Din Guardi (modernBamburgh) and which included Ynys Metcaut (Lindisfarne), had fallen by 605 becoming Anglo-Saxon Bernicia.[37] Caer Celemion (in modern Hampshire and Berkshire) had fallen by 610. Elmet, a large kingdom that covered much of modern Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cheshire and likely had its capital at modern Leeds, was conquered by the Anglo-Saxons in 627.Pengwern, which coveredStaffordshire,Shropshire,Herefordshire, andWorcestershire, was largely destroyed in 656, with only its westernmost parts in modern Wales remaining under the control of the Britons, and it is likely that Cynwidion, which had stretched from modern Bedfordshire to Northamptonshire, fell in the same general period as Pengwern, though a sub-kingdom of Calchwynedd may have clung on in the Chilterns for a time.[38]
Novant, which occupied Galloway and Carrick, was subsumed by fellow Brittonic-Pictish polities by 700.Aeron, which encompassed modernAyrshire,[39] was conquered by the Anglo-Saxonkingdom of Northumbria by 700.
TheKingdom of Cait, covering modernCaithness,Sutherland,Orkney, andShetland, was conquered by Gaelic Scots in 871.Dumnonia (encompassingCornwall,Devonshire, and theIsles of Scilly) was partly conquered during the mid 9th century AD, with most of modern Devonshire being annexed by the Anglo-Saxons, but leaving Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly (Enesek Syllan), and for a time part of western Devonshire (includingDartmoor), still in the hands of the Britons, where they became the Brittonic state ofKernow. TheChannel Islands (colonised by Britons in the 5th century) came under attack fromNorse andDanishViking attack in the early 9th century, and by the end of that century had been conquered by Viking invaders.
The Brythonic languages in these areas were eventually replaced by theOld English of the Anglo-Saxons, andScottish Gaelic, although this was likely a gradual process in many areas. Similarly, the Brittonic colony ofBritonia in northwesternSpain appears to have disappeared soon after 900. The kingdom ofYstrad Clud (Strathclyde) was a large and powerful Brittonic kingdom of theHen Ogledd (the 'Old North') which endured until the end of the 11th century, successfully resisting Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic Scots and later also Viking attacks. At its peak it encompassed modern Strathclyde,Dumbartonshire,Cumbria,Stirlingshire,Lanarkshire,Ayrshire,Dumfries and Galloway,Argyll and Bute, and parts ofNorth Yorkshire, the westernPennines, and as far as modernLeeds inWest Yorkshire.[41][page needed][42][43][44][f] Thus the Kingdom of Strathclyde became the last of the Brittonic kingdoms of the 'Old North' to fall in the 1090s when it was effectively divided between England and Scotland.[45][46]
The Britons also retained control ofWales and Kernow (encompassingCornwall, parts ofDevon includingDartmoor, and theIsles of Scilly) until the mid 11th century when Cornwall was effectively annexed by the English, with the Isles of Scilly following a few years later, although at times Cornish lords appear to have retained sporadic control into the early part of the 12th century.
Wales remained free from Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic Scots and Viking control, and was divided among varying Brittonic kingdoms, the foremost beingGwynedd (includingClwyd andAnglesey),Powys,Deheubarth (originallyCeredigion,Seisyllwg andDyfed),Gwent, andMorgannwg (Glamorgan). These Brittonic-Welsh kingdoms initially included territories further east than the modern borders of Wales; for example, Powys included parts of modernMerseyside,Cheshire andthe Wirral and Gwent held parts of modernHerefordshire,Worcestershire,Somerset andGloucestershire, but had largely been confined to the borders of modern Wales by the beginning of the 12th century.
However, by the early 12th century, the Anglo-Saxons and Gaels had become the dominant cultural force in most of the formerly Brittonic ruled territory in Britain, and the language and culture of the native Britons was thereafter gradually replaced in those regions,[47][failed verification] remaining only in Wales, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly andBrittany, and for a time in parts of Cumbria, Strathclyde, and eastern Galloway.Cornwall (Kernow,Dumnonia) had certainly been largely absorbed by England by the 1050s to early 1100s, although it retained a distinct Brittonic culture and language.[48]Britonia in SpanishGalicia seems to have disappeared by 900. Wales and Brittany remained independent for a considerable time, however, with Brittany united withFrance in 1532, and Wales united withEngland by theLaws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 in the mid 16th century during the rule of theTudors (Y Tuduriaid), who were themselves of Welsh heritage on the male side.
Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isles of Scilly continued to retain a distinct Brittonic culture, identity and language, which they have maintained to the present day. TheWelsh andBreton languages remain widely spoken, and theCornish language, once close to extinction, has experienced a revival since the 20th century. The vast majority of place names and names of geographical features in Wales, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Brittany are Brittonic, and Brittonic family and personal names remain common. During the 19th century, many Welsh farmers migrated toPatagonia inArgentina, forming a community calledY Wladfa, which today consists of over 1,500 Welsh speakers.
Eastern England was populated by Brythonic tribes such as theIceni,Corieltauvi, andCatuvellauni. In the most common view, the Britons of Eastern England were assimilated by Anglo-Saxons in the first 200 years of invasion, from 450-600 AD, as their kingdoms were conquered. This view is often supported by the lack of Brythonic toponyms in the region, and by various mentions such as theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 491 AD: "Aelle andCissa begirtAndredesceaster and slay all who dwell therein, nor was there for that reason one Briton left alive".[49]
Evidence of continuing Brythonic presence in Eastern England can be found in theLife of Saint Guthlac, a biography of the East Anglianhermit who lived inthe Fens during the early 8th century.Saint Guthlac was described as attacked on several occasions by people he believed were Britons living in the Fens.[50] The 12th century storyHavelok the Dane includes a Saxon king Alsi, of Brittonic origin, who ruled overLincoln,Lindsey,Rutland andStamford. In the year 1090 a monk inRamsey wrote that "the savage and untamable race of the Britons was ravaging far and wide in the province ofHuntingdon". This suggests that Britons were still living in the Fens by 11th century and most likely practiced their own style of Christianity, which was considered pagan by local Anglo-Saxons.[50] Another story from Ramsey mentions raids of Britons not far fromRoyston in the 10th century.[51] InThe Memorials of Cambridge we can find a line "If any of the gild slay a man, and he be an avenger by compulsion (neadwraca) and compensate for his violence, and the slain man be atwelfhynde man, let each of the gild give half a mark for his aid: if the slain man be aceorl, two oras: if he be Welsh (Wylisc) one ora", where "Wylisc" refers to a Briton. We may infer that, though a Welsh servile population existed inCambridgeshire in the tenth century, it was not so numerous as elsewhere, and that there the Welshman's life was more respected.[50] The legend ofWandlebury, popular in Cambridge, contains several pagan elements, mentioning a townCantabrica and a tribe ofWandali nearEly, who were "savagely murdering the Christians".[52] The legend was first written in 1211 byGervase of Tilbury, and can be seen an original Celtic story, originated at the end of the Roman Empire during the raids ofVandals, which later passed to local Anglo-Saxon population.[53]
Oosthuizen (2016) mentions six placenames in the region with the "wealh-" root, which means 'Briton', includingWalewrth,Walsoken andWalpole. Other examples of Brythonic toponyms includeRiver Great Ouse, from Proto-Celtic*Udso-s ('water'),River Welland (possibly from "wealh-" root),River Cam (Granta), from Proto-Celtic *kambos ('crooked'),Chettisham (compare Welsh "coed", meaning 'wood'),Chatteris (from the same root),King's Lynn, from Brythonic *llɨnn ('lake').[54][55]
Schiffels et al. (2016) examined the remains of three Iron Age Britons buried ca. 100 BC.[56] A female buried inLinton, Cambridgeshire carried the maternal haplogroupH1e, while two males buried inHinxton both carried the paternal haplogroupR1b1a2a1a2, and the maternal haplogroupsK1a1b1b andH1ag1.[57] Their genetic profile was considered typical forNorthwest European populations.[56] Though sharing a common Northwestern European origin, the Iron Age individuals were markedly different from laterAnglo-Saxon samples, who were closely related toDanes andDutch people.[58]
Martiniano et al. (2018) examined the remains of a female Iron Age Briton buried atMelton between 210 BC and 40 AD.[59] She was found to be carrying the maternal haplogroupU2e1e.[60] The study also examined seven males buried in Driffield Terrace nearYork between the 2nd century AD and the 4th century AD during the period ofRoman Britain.[59] Six of these individuals were identified as native Britons.[61] The six examined native Britons all carried types of the paternalR1b1a2a1a and carried the maternal haplogroupsH6a1a,H1bs,J1c3e2,H2,H6a1b2 andJ1b1a1.[60] The indigenous Britons of Roman Britain were genetically closely related to the earlier Iron Age female Briton, and displayed close genetic links to modernCelts of theBritish Isles, particularlyWelsh people, suggesting genetic continuity between Iron Age Britain and Roman Britain, and partial genetic continuity between Roman Britain and modern Britain.[62][61] On the other hand, they were genetically substantially different from the examinedAnglo-Saxon individual and modernEnglish populations of the area, suggesting that theAnglo-Saxon settlement of Britain left aprofound genetic impact.[63]
^While there have been attempts in the past to align the Pictish language with non-Celtic language, the current academic view is that it was Brittonic. See:Forsyth 1997, p. 37: "[T]he only acceptable conclusion is that, from the time of our earliest historical sources, there was only one language spoken in Pictland, the most northerly reflex of Brittonic."
^Thorpe's parallel Cott. Tober. B.iv text readsBrytwylsc.[28]
^Swanton notes that MS E saysBrittisc ond Wilsc giving six languages and possibly meaningCornish byBrittisc, whereas MS D saysBryt-Wylsc as one language.[29]
^Swanton's 20th century translation substitutes Armorica directly with a note about the original manuscript.[29] The 19th century translation byIngram retains the original manuscript error in translation and notes that the Saxon transcriber of theChronicle misquotedBede, who wroteArmoricano meaning an area in northwesternGaul that includes modernBrittany.[30]Thorpe notes the same.[31]
^cf.Bannerman 1999, Chapter 3/"The Scottish takeover of Pictland and the relics of Columba", representing the "traditional" view.
^abMartiniano et al. 2018, p. 6. "Six of the seven individuals sampled here are clearly indigenous Britons in their genomic signal. When considered together, they are similar to the earlier Iron-Age sample, whilst the modern group with which they show closest affinity are Welsh. These six are also fixed for the Y-chromosome haplotype R1b-L51, which shows a cline in modern Britain, again with maximal frequencies among western populations. Interestingly, these people do not differ significantly from modern inhabitants of the same region (Yorkshire and Humberside) suggesting major genetic change in Eastern Britain within the last millennium and a half. That this could have been, in part, due to population influx associated with the Anglo-Saxon migrations is suggested by the different genetic signal of the later Anglo-Saxon genome."
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Forsyth, Katherine (2005). "Origins: Scotland to 1100". In Wormald, J. (ed.).Scotland: a History. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–37.ISBN9780198206156.
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Giles, John Allen (1887).The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England: Also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. With Illustrative Notes, a Map of Anglo-Saxon England and a General Index (5th ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.
Kapelle, W. E. (1979).The Norman Conquest of the North: the Region and its Transformation, 1000–1135. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.ISBN0-7099-0040-6.
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MacAulay, Donald (1992).The Celtic languages. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.ISBN0-521-23127-2.OCLC24541026.
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