Angles - Angle Kingdoms in England

Angle Kingdoms in England

See also: Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain, Anglo-Saxons, and History of Anglo-Saxon England

According to sources such as the History of Bede, after the invasion of Britannia, the Angles split up and founded the kingdoms of the Nord Angelnen (Northumbria), Ost Angelnen (East Anglia), and the Mittlere Angelnen (Mercia). H.R. Loyn has observed in this context that "a sea voyage is perilous to tribal institutions," and the apparently tribally-based kingdoms were produced in England. In early times there were two northern kingdoms (Bernicia and Deira) and two midland ones (Middle Anglia and Mercia). As a result of influence from the West Saxons, the tribes were collectively called Anglo-Saxons by the Normans, the West Saxon kingdom having conquered, united and founded the Kingdom of England by the 10th century. The regions of East Anglia and Northumbria are still known by their original titles to this day. Northumbria once stretched as far north as what is now southeast Scotland, including Edinburgh, and as far south as the Humber Estuary.

The rest of that people stayed at the centre of the Angle homeland in the northeastern portion of the modern German Bundesland of Schleswig-Holstein, on the Jutland Peninsula. There, a small peninsular area is still called "Angeln" today and is formed as a triangle drawn roughly from modern Flensburg on the Flensburger Fjord to the City of Schleswig and then to Maasholm, on the Schlei inlet.