The British Isles in 550 CE

Between 550–600 CE, the Angle and Saxon kingdoms were established on the east and south coasts of England. The Romano-British territories had disappeared or splintered, due to internal fighting and inheritance laws that divided land between all surviving sons. The Germanic people (Angles, Saxons and Jutes) first arrived as mercenaries in the 4th century CE to protect the Celtic British against invasions by Scottish Picts and Scotti. More arrived in the mid-5th century and replaced the Latin and Celtic language with Germanic dialects, in addition to creating feudal kingships, such as the kingdom of Deira. Government was disorganized and loosely knit compared to the centralized provincial governments imposed by the Romans. The Saxon expansion was initially halted by the British, but in the 6th century the Anglo-Saxons they began to expand north and west, although they failed to penetrate some kingdoms, such as the Celtic Briton kingdom of Dyfed.