AHC: Surviving Britonia

[Zorqal]

During the 5th and 6th centuries, several groups of Romano-Britons fled England, trying to escape the Anglo-Saxons. The most famous of these groups developed in the Bretons, and their Kingdom of Brittany, which was independent until 1532, and is now the modern French region of Bretagne.

But, there was another group. These Britons bypassed France entirely, instead coming to land in northern Gallaecia (modern Galicia), in north-west Iberia. This settlement, called Britonia by historians, faded, though it remained as an independent Bishopric for some time until being incorporated in the Diocese of Mondonedo-Ferrol.

My challenge is; have this Briton colony in Iberia, Britonia, be at least as successful as Brittany, meaning independent for a considerable time, as well as a distinct cultural region to this day, if it gets conquered at all. Bonus points if it doesn't, and maybe goes on to be an alt-Portugal or something.

 

[kasumigenx]

During the 5th and 6th centuries, several groups of Romano-Britons fled England, trying to escape the Anglo-Saxons. The most famous of these groups developed in the Bretons, and their Kingdom of Brittany, which was independent until 1532, and is now the modern French region of Bretagne.

But, there was another group. These Britons bypassed France entirely, instead coming to land in northern Gallaecia (modern Galicia), in north-west Iberia. This settlement, called Britonia by historians, faded, though it remained as an independent Bishopric for some time until being incorporated in the Diocese of Mondonedo-Ferrol.

My challenge is; have this Briton colony in Iberia, Britonia, be at least as successful as Brittany, meaning independent for a considerable time, as well as a distinct cultural region to this day, if it gets conquered at all. Bonus points if it doesn't, and maybe goes on to be an alt-Portugal or something.

It would be called BRETONHA? right.

 

[Lleibi]

If you want Britonia to survive, i'd say you'd need two things:

-Something has to happen to Brittany. Either most celto-romans go straight to Britonia for whatever reason or Brittany has problems with its neighbours. That would help for them to conserve their identity for longer.

-If the muslim invasion of the peninsule goes as per OTL, see where the southern bishoprics take refuge.
I'm fuzzy on the details, but i know that during the invasion, the bishoprics of the southern Gallaecia took refuge in northern Gallaecia. Essentially they fused. For example, Iria had authority over the bishopric of Tuy, Lugo over the bishopric of Braga (hence, becoming metropolitan).
I'm thinking that similar to Covadonga, an early victory of Britonia against some razzia (for example, there was a large one against Lugo), might encourage some of those bishoprics to take refuge in Britonia instead. If one of those is Braga (hence awarding the metropolitany), you'll have a powerful political center in Britonia. They could become an independent political kingdom extending their suzerainty over neighbouring galaico-romans, down to the border with the emirate.

 

[Don Quijote]

It would be called BRETONHA? right.

That 'h' makes it sound Portuguese. Either Britonia or Britoña.

 

[Lleibi]

That 'h' makes it sound Portuguese. Either Britonia or Britoña.

Medieval Galician used 'nh', so Britonha would be appropriate. The 'ñ' was not invented in OTL until much later, alledgedly by Alfonso X 'the Wise'. 'ñ' was, after all, an alternative writing of -nn-, the latin consonant group that in Spanish would give the sound /ñ/.
In Galician the sound /ñ/ comes mostly from the groups -gn- and -nj- (the group -nn- was simplified to -n-).

The reason why nowadays Galician uses 'ñ' instead of 'nh' is because after the XVI century Galician stopped being a written language almost completely. When the recovery began in c.XIX, even the awareness of its relation to Portuguese had been lost, and people who wrote in Galician used the only grammar and spelling they had learned at school: the Spanish.

 

[LSCatilina]

You'd need huge butterflies during Late Roman Empire. You had Britton presence in Armorica since the IIIrd Century, mixed with Germanic presence (as the Saxon Shore).

Basically, the migration is the result of a common history (if not common politics) on both sides of the Channel : Riothamus was more a title than a name, and he was probably king from British Isles to begin with.

So even disregarding the geographical closeness, making such migration really obvious in Brittany rather than Galicia, you'd have to deal with a lot of changes in Late Antiquity, up to the military campaigns and raids in Gaul in the IIIrd century.

One could argue that a successful Britton takeover of Armorica* doesn't means Britonia couldn't survive as such. Fair enough.

But the Galician settlement was extremely limited : geographically and politically, you simply didn't have much incitative doing so.
Eventually, they got assimilated politically a lot quicker than Britons, and more completly so : Brittany wasn't that strategically important for Franks, except to prevent Breton raiding (hence why Frankish March of Brittany was established in first place), Bretons of Galicia were right in the middle of a strategic region for Goths.

Indeed, it was a place for trade with Atlantic shore (as hinted by coinage finds) but as well to take on Cantabrians. I don't think Goths would have let Britto-Romans that were basically newcomers in this region (contrary, again, to Armorica) roaming free, critically speaking about reduced numbers.

One good thing would be to have Goths or Suebi simply not managing to get a hold on northern peninsula, one may think, but you'd certainly butterfly away the arrival of these populations : it's not really known why they came in Galicia in first place, but the main explanation was that they were called off from Armorica by local rulers.

Now, does that means you couldn't have a somehow "Breton" identity in Galicia, akin to the "Normand" identity in Neustria? I think that's quite possible : after all, Bretonia in spite of being heavily gothicized/romanized by the VIIth century survived up to the Viking Age. But that wouldn't be a Britton entity, rather a Northern Hispano-Romance one, as Normand identity was essentially French with some particularities.

I know AH.com is really good at focusing on anecdotical knowledge, and there's nothing wrong at this. But Britto-Roman settlement in Galicia is as relevant than Alan settlement in Loire Valley by itself : such things happened relatively often in Late Antiquity.

* Tough saying Brittany remained independent and continuous from IIIrd century to XVIth is at very best nationalist-inspired rethoric. It regularily divided, get largely inspired by their neighbour or their romance population, and regularily acknowledged one or the other suzerainty.