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and adjacent islands in the 5th century, before the invasion and subsequent founding of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms:
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The Britons (* Pritanī, , ), also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons, were the Celts who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages, at which point they diverged into the Welsh people, Cornish people, and Bretons (among others). They spoke Common Brittonic, the ancestor of the modern Brittonic languages.
The earliest written evidence for the Britons is from Greco-Roman writers and dates to the Iron Age. Ancient Britain was made up of many tribes and kingdoms, associated with various hillforts. The Britons followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by . Some of the southern tribes had strong links with mainland Europe, especially Gaul and Gallia Belgica, and minted their own coins. The Roman Empire conquered most of Britain in the 1st century AD, creating the Roman Britain. The Romans invaded northern Britain, but the Britons and Caledonians in the north remained unconquered, and Hadrian's Wall became the edge of the empire. A Romano-British culture emerged, mainly in the southeast, and British Latin coexisted with Brittonic. It is unclear what relationship the Britons had with the Picts, who lived outside of the empire in northern Britain; however, most scholars today accept the fact that the Pictish language was closely related to Common Brittonic.
Following the end 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 fragmented, and much of their territory gradually became Anglo-Saxons, while the north became subject to a similar settlement by Gaels-speaking tribes from Ireland. 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 in Brittany (now part of France), the Channel Islands, and Britonia (now part of Galicia, Spain). 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 the Hen Ogledd ("Old North") in southern Scotland and northern England, and the remnants of the Pictish people in northern Scotland.Scottish Archaeological Research Framework ( ScARF), Highland Framework, Early Medieval (accessed May 2022). Common Brittonic developed into the distinct Brittonic languages: Welsh language, Cumbric, Cornish language and Breton language.
The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Britain was made by Pytheas, a Ancient Greece geographer who made a voyage of exploration around the British 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 the Pretanoí or Bretanoí. Pliny's Natural History (77 AD) says the older name for the island was Albion, and Avienius calls it insula Albionum, "island of the Albions".The name could have reached Pytheas from the .
The P-Celtic ethnonym has been reconstructed as * Pritanī, from Common Celtic * kʷritu, which became Old Irish cruth and Old Welsh pryd. This likely means "people of the forms", and could be linked to the Latin name Picti (the Picts), which is usually explained as meaning "painted people". The Old Welsh name for the Picts was Prydyn. Linguist Kim McCone suggests the name became restricted to inhabitants of the far north after Cymry displaced it as the name for the Welsh people and Cumbrians. The Welsh prydydd, "maker of forms", was also a term for the highest grade of bard.
The medieval Welsh form of Latin Britanni was Brython (singular and plural). Brython was introduced into English usage by John Rhys in 1884 as a term unambiguously referring to the P-Celtic speakers of Great Britain, to complement Gaels; hence the adjective Brythonic refers to the group of languages. "Brittonic languages" is a more recent coinage (first attested in 1923 according to the Oxford English Dictionary).
In the early Middle Ages, following the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, the Anglo-Saxons called all Britons Bryttas or Wealas (Welsh), while they continued to be called Britanni or Brittones in Medieval Latin. From the 11th century, they are more often referred to separately as the Welsh people, Cumbrians, Cornish people, and Bretons, as they had separate political histories from then. From the early 16th century, and especially after the Acts of Union 1707, the terms British and Briton could be applied to all inhabitants of the Kingdom of Great Britain, including the English people, Scottish people, and some Irish people, or the subjects of the British Empire generally.
Common Brittonic developed from the Insular branch of the Proto-Celtic language that developed in the British Isles after arriving from the continent in the 7th century BC. The language eventually began to diverge; some linguists have grouped subsequent developments as Western and Southwestern Brittonic languages. Western Brittonic developed into Welsh in Wales and the Cumbric language in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" of Britain (modern northern England and southern Scotland), while the Southwestern dialect became Cornish language in Cornwall and South West England and Breton language 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 of language revitalization since the 20th century.
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.
| Atrebates | Calleva Atrebatum |
| Brigantes | Isurium Brigantum |
| Cantiaci | Durovernum Cantiacorum |
| Carvetii | Luguvalium |
| Catuvellauni | Verulamium |
| Corieltauvi | Ratae Corieltauvorum |
| Cornovīī (*Cornowīī) | Viroconium Cornoviorum |
| Damnonii | Vanduara (Loudoun Hill or Walls Loch) |
| Deceangli | Canovium or Clwydian Range |
| Demetae | Moridunum |
| Dobunni | Corinium Dobunnorum |
| Dumnonii | Isca Dumnoniorum |
| Durotriges | Durnovaria; Maiden Castle |
| Iceni | Venta Icenorum |
| Novantae | Rispain Camp? |
| Ordovices | Dinas Dinorwig? |
| Parisī | Petuaria |
| Regni | Noviomagus Reginorum |
| Selgovae | Eildon Hill? |
| Silures | Venta Silurum; Llanmelin |
| Textoverdi | Coria? |
| Trinovantes | Camulodunum |
| Votadini | Traprain Law |
The carnyx, a trumpet with an animal-headed bell, was used by Celtic Britons during war and ceremony.Hunter, Fraser (of Museum of Scotland), Carnyx and Co- piece by Hunter on the carnyx
In 2021, a major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain during the Bronze Age, over a 500-year period from 1,300 BC to 800 BC. The migrants were "genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France" and had higher levels of Early European Farmers ancestry. From 1000 to 875 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain, making up around half the ancestry of subsequent Iron Age people in this area, but not in northern Britain. 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". The authors describe this as a "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain". There was much less migration into Britain during the subsequent Iron Age, so it is more likely that Celtic reached Britain before then. Barry Cunliffe suggests that a branch of Celtic was already being spoken in Britain and that the Bronze Age migration introduced the Brittonic branch.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was originally compiled by the orders of King Alfred the Great in approximately 890, starts with this, incorporated into the Chronicle from Bede's Ecclesiastical History:
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 modern East Anglia, East Midlands, North East England, Argyll, and South 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 English Kingdom of Lindsey.
Regni (essentially modern Sussex and eastern Hampshire) was likely fully conquered by 510. Ynys Weith (Isle of Wight) fell in 530, Caer Colun (essentially modern Essex) by 540. The Gaels arrived on the northwest coast of Britain from Ireland, dispossessed the native Britons, and founded Dal Riata which encompassed modern Argyll, Skye, and Iona between 500 and 560. Deifr (Deira) which encompassed modern-day Teesside, Wearside, Tyneside, Humberside, Lindisfarne (Medcaut), and the Farne Islands fell to the Anglo-Saxons in 559, and Deira became an Anglo-Saxon kingdom after this point. Caer Went had officially disappeared by 575, becoming the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia. Gwent was only partly conquered; its capital Caer Gloui (Gloucester) was taken by the Anglo-Saxons in 577, handing Gloucestershire and Wiltshire to the invaders, while the westernmost part remained in Brittonic hands, and continued to exist in modern Wales.
Caer Lundein, encompassing London, St. Albans and parts of the Home Counties,Nennius (c. 828). History of the Britons. Chapter 6: "Cities of Britain". fell from Brittonic hands by 600, and Bryneich, which existed in modern Northumbria and County Durham with its capital of Din Guardi (modern Bamburgh) and which included Ynys Metcaut (Lindisfarne), had fallen by 605 becoming Anglo-Saxon Bernicia. 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 covered Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire, 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.
Novant, which occupied Galloway and Carrick, was subsumed by fellow Brittonic-Pictish polities by 700. Aeron, which encompassed modern Ayrshire, was conquered by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria by 700.
The Kingdom of Cait, covering modern Caithness, Sutherland, Orkney, and Shetland, was conquered by Gaelic Scots in 871. Dumnonia (encompassing Cornwall, Devonshire, and the Scilly Isles) 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 (including Dartmoor), still in the hands of the Britons, where they became the Brittonic state of Cornwall. The Channel Islands (colonised by Britons in the 5th century) came under attack from Norsemen and Danes Viking attack in the early 9th century, and by the end of that century had been conquered by Viking invaders.
The Kingdom of Ce, which encompassed modern Marr, Banff, Buchan, Fife, and much of Aberdeenshire, disappeared soon after 900. Fortriu, the largest Brittonic-Pictish kingdom which covered Strathearn, Morayshire and Easter Ross, had fallen by approximately 950 to the Gaelic Kingdom of Alba (Scotland). Other Pictish kingdoms such as Circinn (in modern Angus and The Mearns), Fib (modern Fife), Fidach (Inverness and Perthshire), and Ath-Fotla (Atholl), had also all fallen by the beginning of the 11th century or shortly after.
The Brythonic languages in these areas were eventually replaced by the Old English of the Anglo-Saxons, and Scottish Gaelic, although this was likely a gradual process in many areas. Similarly, the Brittonic colony of Britonia in northwestern Spain appears to have disappeared soon after 900. The kingdom of Ystrad Clud (Strathclyde) was a large and powerful Brittonic kingdom of the Hen 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 of North Yorkshire, the western Pennines, and as far as modern Leeds in West Yorkshire. 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.
Wales remained free from Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic Scots and Viking control, and was divided among varying Brittonic kingdoms, the foremost being Gwynedd (including Clwyd and Anglesey), Powys, Deheubarth (originally Ceredigion, Seisyllwg and Dyfed), Gwent, and Morgannwg (Glamorgan). These Brittonic-Welsh kingdoms initially included territories further east than the modern borders of Wales; for example, Powys included parts of modern Merseyside, Cheshire and the Wirral and Gwent held parts of modern Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Somerset and Gloucestershire, 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, "Germanic invaders may not have ruled by apartheid". New Scientist, 23 April 2008. remaining only in Wales, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Brittany, 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. Britonia in Spanish Galicia seems to have disappeared by 900. Wales and Brittany remained independent for a considerable time, however, with Brittany united with France in 1532, and Wales united with England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 in the mid 16th century during the rule of the Tudors (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. The Welsh language and remain widely spoken, and the Cornish 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 to Patagonia in Argentina, forming a community called Y Wladfa, which today consists of over 1,500 Welsh speakers.
Evidence of continuing Brythonic presence in Eastern England can be found in the Life of Saint Guthlac, a biography of the East Anglian hermit who lived in the 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. The 12th century story Havelok the Dane includes a Saxon king Alsi, of Brittonic origin, who ruled over Lincolnshire, Lindsey, Rutland and Stamford. In the year 1090 a monk in Ramsey wrote that "the savage and untamable race of the Britons was ravaging far and wide in the province of Huntingdon". 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. Another story from Ramsey mentions raids of Britons not far from Royston in the 10th century. Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, p. 140 In The 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 a twelfhynde man, let each of the gild give half a mark for his aid: if the slain man be a ceorl, 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 in Cambridgeshire in the tenth century, it was not so numerous as elsewhere, and that there the Welshman's life was more respected. The legend of Wandlebury Hill, popular in Cambridge, contains several pagan elements, mentioning a town Cantabrica and a tribe of Wandali near Ely, who were " savagely murdering the Christians".Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia (c.13th century) The legend was first written in 1211 by Gervase of Tilbury, and can be seen an original Celtic story, originated at the end of the Roman Empire during the raids of Vandals, which later passed to local Anglo-Saxon population.
Oosthuizen (2016) mentions six placenames in the region with the " wealh-" root, which means 'Briton', including Walewrth, Walsoken and Walpole. Other examples of Brythonic toponyms include River 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').Green, T., 2012. Britons and Anglo-‐Saxons.
Martiniano et al. (2018) examined the remains of a female Iron Age Briton buried at Melton between 210 BC and 40 AD. She was found to be carrying the maternal haplogroup U2e1e. The study also examined seven males buried in Driffield Terrace near York between the 2nd century AD and the 4th century AD during the period of Roman Britain. Six of these individuals were identified as native Britons.. "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." The six examined native Britons all carried types of the paternal R1b1a2a1a and carried the maternal haplogroups H6a1a, H1bs, J1c3e2, H2, H6a1b2 and J1b1a1. The indigenous Britons of Roman Britain were genetically closely related to the earlier Iron Age female Briton, and displayed close genetic links to modern Celts of the British Isles, particularly Welsh people, suggesting genetic continuity between Iron Age Britain and Roman Britain, and partial genetic continuity between Roman Britain and modern Britain. On the other hand, they were genetically substantially different from the examined Anglo-Saxon individual and modern English people populations of the area, suggesting that the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain left a profound genetic impact.
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