The Roman Origins of the Northumbrian Kingdom

Abstract

The origins of Northumbria have received very much less attention than those of southern English kingdoms, for which Bede, the Historia Brittonum and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle preserve origin legends. By contrast there is no origin legend recounting the arrival of Angles or Saxons from the continent in the area north of the Humber. Moreover, the archaeological record suggests a far smaller influx of migrants to the North than to the South. The excavations at Birdoswald, however, suggest continuity through the fifth and sixth centuries, while the written and epigraphic evidence suggests that there was a significantly Germanic element to the Wall-zone population even before the sixth century. As limitanei, rather than comitatenses, these would not have been taken out of Britannia by Constantine III in 406. The Bernicii are likely, therefore, to have been largely formed out of a regrouping of forces already on the Wall before 410. Similarly, there are some indications that the core of the Deiri included groups already based in the York/Malton region in the late Roman Empire. The transformation of the remnants of the Roman army, which would have been partially Germanic, may well explain how an Anglian kingdom of Northumbrian could emerge, with very little in the way of immigration.