Managing Transition: Western Britain from the End of Empire to the Rise of Penda. Issue 8 (14th August 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: White, Roger
• Is Part Of: History compass. Volume 11:Issue 8(2013:Aug.)
• Page Start: 584
• Page End: 596
• Publication Date: 2013-08-14
• Subjects: World history -- Periodicals; History -- Periodicals; 900
• DOI: 10.1111/hic3.12070
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1478-0542

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>The transition of Britain from being a province within the Roman Empire to the Kingdoms of Medieval England is one that is dominated in the public imagination by the historical account written by Bede. This tells us of how the Anglo‐Saxons were invited into Britain, settling in specific territories. This largely accords with the archaeological record. What Bede does not talk of is how the other nations of Britain arose. It is argued that the genesis of the peoples of the West, the Welsh and Cornish, derives from the survival of one of the later Roman provinces of Roman Britain, Britannia Prima. While the other three provinces succumbed swiftly to the incoming Anglo‐Saxon populations that had been invited to defend the territory, in the West Britannia Prima was able to defend itself for a century and a half until Penda began to erode its frontiers. In doing so, it managed to develop and sustain an identity that was no longer Roman but was something new, based on the Brittonic culture of the coastal region of the province and which coalesced into the peoples known today as the Welsh and Cornish.</p> </abstract>