From Britain to England

Roman legions left Britain in 407, after which the Celtic Britons fought among themselves and faced raids from the Picts and Scots in the north. To defend themselves the Britons hired Germanic tribes — the Jutes, Angles and Saxons — who from the mid-5th century began to settle and take land for themselves. The Jutes took Kent, and many Celts fled to Armorica, which became Brittany. A British leader, Ambrosius Aurelianus, held the Anglo-Saxons back for a time around the late 5th – early 6th century; his name later mingled with the tales about Arthur, but King Arthur, Lancelot and Merlin are legendary figures. The Anglo-Saxons founded seven kingdoms; from the name of the Angles the language later came to be called English and the country England (“land of the Angles”). In the 9th century Danish Vikings overran much of England; Alfred the Great of Wessex (871–899) stopped them and the land was divided, the north-east becoming the Danelaw (“the area under Danish law”). Alfred built burhs (fortified towns), reorganized the army and fleet and inspired the compiling of the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”.