Land of the Cumbrians: A Study in British Provincial Origins A.D. 400-1120

This study recreates the history of English Cumbria for the period from the withdrawl of the Romans from the far north west of their Empire to the Norman occupation of 1092, when sovereignty over the area was finally divided between England and Scotland. The book gives equal weight to both political and territorial developments within a regional landscape. It considers issues such as relations between contending British policies; the absorption of British structures into Anglian society; war and diplomacy between the Scots and the kingship of Cumbria. Also covered is the extent of the earliest Gaelic-Norse settlement; the partition of Cumbria and the establishment of the boundary with Scotland; the background to the Norman occupation; the relationship between Norman land settlement and earlier territorial structuresl and the forming of a British identity.