England

The central and southern portions of the Isle of Britain. The English people are an even blend of Romano-British Celts, Anglo-Saxon Teutons, Danes, and Normans (themselves a melding of Frankish and Norwegian folk). Their influence on world affairs is much too well known to require review here.

Contains: Arundel, Atrebates, Bamburgh, Bath, Bedford, Bernicia, the Bretwaldas, the Brigantes, Bryneich, Caer Baddan, Caer Ceri, Caer Gloui, Caer Lerion, Calchwynedd, Cambridge, Canterbury, the Cantii, Catraeth, the Catuvellauni, Chester, the Chilterns, Cirencester, Clifford and Westmoreland, Cornwall, Cumberland, Cumbria, Deira, Derby, Dumnonia, Durham (incl. Lindisfarne), East Anglia, Elmet, England, Essex, Glastenning, Glastonbury, Gloucester, Guinntguic, Hampshire, Hereford, Huntingdon, Hwicce, the Iceni, Isle of Wight, Jorvik, Kent, Kernow, Leicester, Lincoln, Lindsey, Linnuin, London, Magonset, Meonwara, Mercia, Middlesex, Norfolk, North Rheged, North Votadini, Northampton, Northumbria, Oxford, Pengwern, Rheged, Richmond, Scilly Isles, Somerset, South Rheged, South Votadini, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, the Trinovantes, the Votadini, Warwick, Wessex, Westminster, Wiltshire, Wroxeter, York (Archbishops) and York (Dukes).

Files for neighboring regions: Channel Islands, (Northern) France, Ireland, Isle of Man, the Low Countries, Scotland, Wales.
 

BATH A city in southwestern England, known for its mineral springs since Roman times, when it was called Aqua Sulis.


BEDFORD An old town in east-central England, 44 miles (71 km.) north of London and 20 miles (32 km.) east-southeast of Northampton. A ford on the Great Ouse at which the Romans based a station, it was chartered during the reign of Henry II (1154-89). It is noted as the site of John Bunyan's (author of Pilgrim's Progress) meeting hall where he preached.


BERNICIA The thinly populated reach of territory in Durham and northern Northumberland. The sequence of Kings here, especially from 570-593, is extremely muddled, and I have had to sift through competing versions in order to make a best guess. Best guess is: I have it wrong in one way or another.


The BRETWALDAS The institution of the Bretwalda was the closest thing that the Anglo-Saxons had to a High King or national leader. Simply put, the Bretwalda was that Anglo-Saxon monarch acknowledged by all the others to be paramount in battle, and most powerful among their number. Here is a list of those rulers identified by their peers as Bretwaldas. The names in Gray were not specifically named as such, but were clearly the Bretwaldas of their era. For a study of legendary High Kings of Britain, including a variant on the Bretwaldas from the Synod of Whitby (664), go HERE.


CAMBRIDGE A town in east-central England, 48 miles (77 km.) north of London and 25 miles (40 km.) east of Bedford, a ford on the River Cam just south of the Fen Country. It is world famous for its University, whose origins go back to 1209 (as a place of refuge by students fleeing town-and-gown riots in Oxford) - the first College (Peterhouse) being established in 1284.


CANTERBURYThe Archbishops of Canterbury are the Primates of England, and as such deserve mention in these files. The see was established in the Dark Ages within the Kingdom of Kent, and although it has never held a fully autonomous territory (yet note, it was independent enough to mint its own coinage circa 765-914), it has nevertheless exerted an enormous influence on English history and culture. Westminster In 1828-9 Roman Catholics were again given full rights in Great Britain, and in 1850 Parliament permitted the re-establishment of an official Catholic hierarchy. The Catholic primate's see was settled on Westminster but, in a move which incensed the British government and angered the public for decades after, Pope Pius IX added the titular dignity of Canterbury to the new Archbishopric.


CATRAETH A post-Roman petty Kingdom in north-central Britain, one of the divisions of the Votadini. King Peredur is very likely the real-life basis for the Sir Perceval cycles in Arthurian legend.


The CATUVELLAUNI A pre-Roman tribal kingdom located north of the Thames, and extending north and northwest; essentially, the modern regions of Hertford, Buckingham, and Oxford. The Catuvellauni were probably the wealthiest and most influential of the British tribal states. See also, a putative list of the traditional High Kings of Britain as a comparison.


CHESTER An important town on the Dee River, in western England. The primary legionary headquarters for Roman forces in western Britannia, it became in much later times the seat of an equally important Palatine Earldom.


CIRENCESTER A town in southwestern England, at the edge of the Cotswolds. The capital of the Dobuni before Roman occupation, during Roman times it was the largest city in Britain after London. From the 13th century it was the site of important wool-fairs.


CORNWALL The far southwestern corner of England, beyond Dumnonia (Devonshire), and like the Welsh highlands it was a refuge for Britons fleeing Saxon invasion.


DEIRA The region lying north of the Humber River, in north-central Yorkshire, with the city of York as its center.


DERBY A town in central England, 35 miles (56 km.) northeast of Birmingham.


DUMNONIA (Devon) The southwest corner of England, covering Cornwall and Devon. The region was not successfully conquered by the English until the very end of the Saxon period.


DURHAM City in northern England. Normally I would not include a local Bishopric, but the Bishops of Durham were extremely powerful. After the Norman conquest they were made Prince-Bishops of the Palatinate of Durham (1071-1836), exactly in the manner of Prince-Bishoprics on the Continent, especially within the Holy Roman Empire. They had their own parliament, army, foreign ministry and court system. So autonomous were they that a steward of Antony Beck, Bishop at the end of the 13th century, could honestly say "There are two kings in England namely the Lord King of England wearing a crown in sign of his regality and the Lord Bishop of Durham wearing a mitre in place of a crown in sign of his regality in the diocese of Durham." With the waning of the Middle Ages, Durham's authority was hedged in, and was especially limited after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and the Puritan Revolution in the 17th century. The Principality was abolished in 1836. Nevertheless, the Bishops retained the Durham Palatinate Court until 1971.


EAST ANGLIA The Angles were one of the other folk to have occupied Britain, alongside the Saxons and Jutes. Although not the most numerous or influential, their name was ultimately applied to the whole Teuton-British establishment; Anglaland.


ELMET A small British Kingdom in the central Pennines, in the area about Leeds.

ENGLAND England emerges throughout the 9th century CE, as the Kingdom of Wessex became the pre-eminent Anglo-Saxon nation and, with the containment of the Scandinavian Kingdom of York by the end of the century, the only surviving English nation. By 925, documents and seals exclusively refer to the Kingdom as "England", rather than Wessex.


ESSEX The land north of the Thames estuary, between East Anglia in the north and Kent to the south. See also, a putative list of the traditional High Kings of Britain as a comparison.


GLASTONBURY A town in Somerset, 6 miles (10 km.) southwest of Wells Cathedral and the Mendip Hills, 22 miles (35 km.) south of Bristol, and 18 miles (29 km.) northeast of Taunton. Lying in a marshy lowland, the district is dominated by a roughly conical tor, and has been regarded as a sacred site for ages. The place is said to have been the earliest Christian colony established in Britain, being where Joseph of Arimathea is claimed to have settled, bearing with him the Holy Grail. Furthermore, it is inextricably associated with Arthurian lore, being identified as the Isle of Avalon, and the final resting place of Arthur himself. There was an hermitage of anchorites located here from at least the 5th century, and a Benedictine abbey was established here in the 7th century. By itself, the place is just another small monastery of no great significance or temporal power, like thousands of other such places all over Europe... but its continuing  impact on British legend and lore is so great and fundamental, that its inclusion here is inevitable. See also, Glastenning, for early sub-kings of the district. On a literary note, the immediate environs of this site are where Henry Fielding (who was born in the district) places much of the action in his novel Tom Jones - his description of an old ruined abbey on the estate of Tom's benefactor, squire Allworthy, as comprising "...one of the towers ... grown over by ivy, and part of the front, which remained still entire" (I - 4) is a perfectly adequate description of Glastonbury as it appeared in the early 18th century.


GLOUCESTER Port city in western England, at the beginning of the Severn Estuary leading into Bristol Channel which separates southwestern England from Wales. Gloucester stands upon the site of the Roman city Glevum. In Saxon times it was the capital of Mercia. Noteworthy is the cathedral (begun 1089) in which Edward II is buried.


HAMPSHIRE Hampshire (abbr. Hants) is a county on the south coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county borders (clockwise from West), Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Surrey and West Sussex. Hampshire contains the town of Winchester, the historic capital of the Kingdom of Wessex.


HEREFORD Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders the English ceremonial counties of Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south east and the Welsh preserved counties of Gwent to the south west and Powys to the west. Hereford is a cathedral city and is the county town; with a population of approximately 50,000 inhabitants it is also the largest settlement. The county is one of the most rural and least densely populated in England.


HUNTINGDON A small town in south-central England, in old Cambridgeshire - it lies 15 miles (24 km.) northwest of Cambridge, 18 miles (29 km.) northeast of Bedford, and some 56 miles (90 km.) almost due north of London. An Earldom from the Middle Ages, it had