In this video, we're going to examine some stories telling us about the lives of the Celtic speakers in eastern England, from around the 4th century, when the Anglo-Saxons were first beginning to arrive, all the way to the 11th century, hundreds of years after the Anglo-Saxons first began to arrive.
The subject of a Celtic England is often controversial, and marked down by centuries of a total denial of the presence of Britons in England practically anytime after the 6th century. But today, we will examine plenty of evidence to counter that, from Britons in the Swamps of the Fens, to Welsh kings in the East, Celtic-named kings such as Cerdic and Caedwalla in the south, alongside Celtic Christians in the north. We will examine the troublesome Brythonic marauders that plagued eastern England in the 11th century, and the servile population from Wales that lived in Kent, Wessex, and 10th century Cambridgeshire.
The History of Wales, and Welsh history in general, is often seen as a counterbalance to the Germanic history of England, but as you will see today, English history is just as Celtic as they come.