The Selgovae & The Brigantes
The Brigantes were a Celtic tribe which lived between Tyne and Humber of a smaller tribal groups including the Carvetii of Cumbria and Lancashire in the northwest and Iron Age Parisii that lived on the banks of the river Seine in Latin, Sequana. With the Suessiones, the Parisii participated in the general rising of Vercingetorix against Julius Caesar in 52 B.C. During the Roman invasion of AD 43 the Brigantes were arguably the most powerful Celtic tribe in Britain, dominating the north of the country. Brigante settlements were to be found at Catterick, Aldborough, Ilkley and York.
Sub-Roman Britain in which the Roman way of life is overcome by an arguably more primitive and "barbarian" one. In 410, the Emperor Honorius replied. The climate changed in the 5th century, turning cooler and wetter, shortening the growing season and making uplands unsuited to growing grain, declining agricultural production from land. Britain was also probably subject to plague in this period. During the early second century the Romans invaded once again with a legion of 6000 men. The legion disappeared without a trace. In the yeare 196 Hadrians walls garrison was left depleted by an excursion into Gaul by the governer of Britain. The northern tribes attacked once again. This time the romans reported that it was two tribes that struck, the Caledonians and the Maetae. The Caledonians living north of Antonines wall the Maetae living close to the wall, 400 years before the Gaels.
There was a tribe called the Dumnonii, who inhabited most of south west Britain including Cornwall. Cornish started to evolve as a separate language around 2000 BC. The Celtic languages are split into two groups: Brythonic - Cornish, Welsh and Breton form this group with common roots; and Goidelic- Irish, Manx and Scots Gaelic form this second group. The Laigainian colonization is believed to have taken place sometime about 300 B.C. The ancient Laigin or Dumnonii group moved from the western region of Normandy as the Roman built up pressure on Gaul about 100 B.C. The Laigin settled first in southern Britain and then in Ireland. The Uí Neachtain (Naughton) are said to belong to the Laigain group, later living in the territory of the Ui Maine. Between about A.D. 1 and 400 the North Gaels expanded their foothold in the northwest of Ireland and established themselves as Sacral ("totemistically" sacred) High-Kings at the ancient site of Tara near Dublin and Kerry with the aid of their allies, the Laiginian tribe of Oirghialla or Oriel...
The Érainn were the second of the Celtic groups to come to Ireland, They arrived from the Continent between 500 and 100 B.C., and established their La Tène culture throughout the island as a military aristocracy possessing superior iron weapons technology. They were akin to the Belgae of Southwest Britain, and were generally known as the Ulaid in the North, and as the Érainn or Desi of Mumhain (Desmond) in the South, although all the tribes of this ethnic group were known ultimately to be Érainn and to the North, the Dal gCais were the great clan of Thomond, or North Munster, an area more especially associated with County Clare (excluding the Burren and Corcomroe on the northwest corner) and adjacent parts of Tipperary and Limerick. [Rivers in the Galway, Clare Regions]
The Pictish homeland was mainly in the low-lying coastal areas of Eastern Scotland where they sustained themselves through fishing and farming. Celtic neighbors seem to have known them by the name Cruithni. After the withdrawal of Rome, the Picts would dominate the military and political culture of Scotland until the 9th Century AD. There were the Damonii, who lived in the west, an area that covered from what is now known as Ayrshire, all the way to Clyde. Further south were the Novantae, whose territory spread over Galloway and Dumfries. On the east coast were the Votadini, whose people lived as far north as the River Forth. The Votadini had their capital on a hill in East Lothian called Traprain Law. Twenty miles away from Traprain Law there was another Votadinian center, which would later become Edinburgh. The fourth of these southern tribes, the Selgovae, held the area between the Votadini (in the east) and the two western coast tribes.
In the 2nd century AD Alexanderian geographer Ptolemy recorded the names of 17 tribes living north of Hadrians wall. The other 12 tribes lived to the north of Scotland, above the Forth and Clyde. They ranged from the Epidii in the Mull of Kintyre to the Cornovii in Caithness, and from the Cerones in northwestern highlands to the Taezali, whose territory is now known as Aberdeenshire, and the Caledones from whence "Caledonia" got its Latin name. The other remaining tribes were the Venicones, Vacomagi, Decantae, Carnonocae, Caereni, Lugi and Smertae. The Scots (Scoti) with the Ulaid were viking long before the Norse took up the habit, raiding and settling in the islands and peninsulas of south-west Caledonia. Eventually, near the Érainn of Moray and the Cenel Moain and Ross septs, they settled down and founded the Old Irish kingdom of Dal Riada, centered on the Argyll peninsula when linked to Thomond, with its capital at Dunadd. The Scots fought numerous wars with their Pictish neighbors, instigating the formation of a united Pictish kingdom, after which the two nations took turns conquering and being conquered by each other. After the Roman withdrawal from Britain in 409, the Picts systematically raided the territories of their southern neighbors. The latter, however, soon put an end to these raids, probably with the assistance of the Saxons, one of the Germanic tribes that subsequently subjugated the Britons. In the course of the Germanic conquest many Britons withdrew into the to Plymouth (Sutton), Powys -the West Midlands, North Devon, Briefne (Gaelic North Connacht), Caledonian region between the Firth of Clyde and Solway Firth, and there laid the foundations of what became the kingdom of Strathclyde.
The adjacent region to the north was occupied toward the beginning of the 6th century by the Scots, Celtic invaders from North Ireland, who established the Gaelic kingdom that became known in history as Dalriada, including Derry, Pictland, Antrim, Breifne. About the middle of the 6th century the Angles, a people who were related to the Saxons, overran most of Caledonia south of the Firth of Forth and east of Strathclyde. Together with the extensive Angle holdings in the north of what is now England, this region became the kingdom of Northumbria. In 685 Pictish territory north of the Firth of Forth was invaded by a large Northumbrian army. An overwhelming Pictish victory permanently weakened Northumbrian power in Caledonia. About 730 Angus MacFergus, king of the Picts, subjugated Strathclyde and Dalriada, Alba. Relative peace followed until the late 8th century, when Vikings from Scandinavia began to raid the Caledonian coasts. Taking advantage of Pictish preoccupation with the invaders, the Scots and Britons soon regained their independence.
The physical empire of the Romans separated the unruly Selgovae tribe in the north from the Brigantes in the south and discourage them from uniting. Simultaneously, the Scotti and Attacotti from Hibernia, and Saxons from Germany, landed in (coordinated and pre-arranged) waves on the island's mid-western and south-eastern borders, respectively. The Roman usurper Procopius bribed two legions passing by Constantinople, proclaims himself Roman emperor, and takes control of Thrace (Trojan side) and Bithynia and Alamanni cross frozen Rhine in large numbers, invading Roman Empire. Franks and Saxons also landed in northern Gaul. The areani or local sailors whom the Romans paid to provide intelligence on barbarian movements as groups managed to overwhelm nearly all of the loyal Roman outposts and settlements and the entire western and northern areas of Britannia were overwhelmed from Magnentius' losses of the Battle of Mursa Major and so deserting soldiers and escaped slaves roamed the countryside during the Great Conspiracy.
The Selgovae were a Brythonic tribe of the Votadini tribe from the eastern regions of Scotland and Northumberland (Bernicia) at which the capital was abonded in the early 400s to Din Eidyn (Edinburgh). Due to linguistic changes their descendants in the Sub-Roman/early medieval period were known as the Gododdin. The Brythonic kingdom of Bryneich was formed in what had once been the southern lands of the Votadini by the division of the great northern realm of King Coel Hen between his sons in c.420AD. This northern realm is referred to by Welsh scholars as Y Gogledd Hen or, literally, "The Old North". The kingdom of Bryneich was ruled from Bamburgh (known as Din Guardi in Brythonic) under his descendants until they were driven from the castle in 547 by the Angles. Near this chief royal residence lay the island of Lindisfarne (formerly known as Ynys Metcaut), which became the seate of a bishop.
Settlement by the English began in the north, with settlers following the line of Hadrian's Wall and traversing Stainmore Pass then settling the Eden Valley before making their way along the north coast. The Carvetii dominated most of the county for a time whilst the Celtic Setantii were present in the south, until both were incorporated into the vast Brigantes which ruled most of northern England and the Fenlands. After the withdrawal, Coel Hen became the High King of Northern Britain (in the same vein as the Irish Ard Rí) and ruled from Eburacum now York. Remnants of Brythonic and Cumbric are most often seen in place names (Pictland, Dalriada, Devon, St. Petroc, Gaelic-Manx.) Some time later they would have begun to move into the Kent Valley, Cartmel and Furness, gradually moving further north along the west coast. Following Coel Hen's death, his kingdom was continually divided among his descendants until, in the 6th century Urien became the king of a land called Rheged, which is assumed to approximately align with the current boundaries of Cumbria, but included annexes in Dumfries and Yorkshire. The Kingdom was based at Llwyfenydd, believed to be what is now the Lyvennet Beck, a tributary of the River Eden in east Cumbria.
The Brythonic languages were displaced of toponyms, many of the place-names in England and to a lesser extent Scotland are derived from the Brythonic names, including London located on the Thames in southeastern England, Dumbarton a town in Scotland, lying on the north bank of the river clyde, York, Dorchester situated on the river frome, Dover and Colchester an historical town in the north of the English county of Essex. Several place-name elements are thought to be wholly or partly Brythonic in origin particularly bre-, bal-, and -dun for hills, carr - is a fen....) for a high rocky place, coomb for a small deep valley. The territory of Bernicia is said to have stretched from its border with Ebrauc (later called Deira) on the Tyne northwards, ultimately incorporating Gododdin lands up to the Firth of Forth, while its western frontier was gradually extended westward, encroaching on the remaining Cumbric speaking kingdoms of Rheged and Strathclyde. After Bryneich's final conquest by the Angles in c.606 it is thought that only a small proportion of the original Cumbric speaking population remained, mainly in the uplands.