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The Middil Engle (Middle Angles)
The Middil Engle were formed by tribes of Angles forging their way west from
the newly conquered territory of the East
Engle in the early 500s. Their large territory was centred on modern
Leicestershire and reached to western Cambridgeshire and the East Engle
border, north to the borders of the Lindisware,
and south to the surviving British pocket of resistance in the Chilterns
(proposed as
Cynwidion),
and beyond them the Ciltern Saetan.
The proposed British territory of
Caer
Lerion fell by around AD 500, leaving virtually no trace of its
existence behind, and this formed the heartland of the Middil Engle
territory. To the west now was the British kingdom of
Pengwern. The Middil
Engle were shielded from the
East Seaxe by heavily wooded country
lying along their south eastern border.
In the early stages of settlement, the Anglians were not totally dominant in the area;
there was also a sizable Saxon presence, although evidence supports the fact
that many Saxons were settled in this area before the collapse of Roman
rule. The settled Saxons and the newly arrived Angles merged throughout
Middle Anglia. Some Saxon groups moved southwards to encircle the British in
the Chilterns, joining Saxons already
settling the area from the Thames Valley.
Also forming part of the Middil Engle
peoples were the tribes of the Herstingas (northwest of Cambridge) and the
Undalum (between Kettering and Great Casterton). The Spaldingas took the
area around The Wash. The North Engle settled in
modern Nottinghamshire (Nottingham is a preservation of the North Engle
name), and the Suth Engle were in modern Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. There is also evidence of
Frisian involvement in place names such as Rothwell and Rothley in modern
Northamptonshire, roth being Frisian for a clearing.
This region has no recorded kings. That is not to say they didn't exist, but the
region was largely conquered from the east by the East Angles in the early
seventh century, and then taken over entirely by the
Mercians later in the
same century, so whatever royal house might have emerged there was allowed
no time to bed down and leave any lasting mark. |