Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

The Middel Seaxe (Middle Saxons / Middlesex)

Moving westwards along the Thames in the late fifth century, the Middle Saxons detached themselves from the Thames Valley Saxons when they reached Roman Londinium. They founded settlements to the west and north of the city, threatening the Britons at Caer Mincip (St Albans) in the process. Londinium itself became abandoned for much of the sixth century while the Saxons settled villages in the countryside. The Saxons south of the Thames became known as the Suther-ge, or "southern region" of the Middle Saxons.

By AD 704, the region (which included modern Hertfordshire) was mentioned in a charter as Middelseaxan, by 1086 Midelsexe (in Domesday Book).

c.440 - 496

Saxon settlers begin advancing along the Thames Valley, and some form settlements. Two large groups to the north, west and south of Londinium become known as the Middel Seaxe and the Suther-ge.

c.496

Probable date of the battle of Mons Badonicus, in which Ælle, as Bretwalda, attacks the Britons in the region of Caer Baddan. Ælle's route probably takes him through the Thames Valley to collect his forces from the large numbers of Saxons there, and then they head westwards along the upper Thames Valley until they emerge through the Goring Gap. The ensuing defeat halts Saxon advances for a generation.

c.571

The West Seaxe capture of four towns along the Icknield Way, to the immediate west of the Middel Seaxe.

c.575 - 600

Caer Mincip (Roman Verulamium, modern St Albans) shows plenty of evidence for the survival of a British enclave here, in between the Middel Seaxe and the Icknield Way. A late Roman building had been converted into a barn or granary by the application of huge buttressed foundations. Corn dryers were inserted inside the building so that such agricultural work could take place within the safety of the town walls. A wooden water pipe was later constructed across the site and maintained, quite possibly until the collapse of the enclave at the end of the sixth century.

This date is very close to that of Cynwidion's collapse, and this territory lay to the immediate north. It seems likely that Caer Mincip was a Cynwidion outpost in its final days, and perhaps a final survivor of the postulated Caer Lundein territory before that. That it survived at all was probably due to the weakened state of all the  southern Saxon kingdoms after their Mons Badonicus defeat in c.496.

c.600

The region comes under the dominance of the East Seaxe, who seem to treat it as a sub-kingdom, and Suth-rig as a further sub-kingdom.

c.730

The region comes under the dominance of Mercia, and the Middle Saxons now lose any individual identity they may have held onto.