Northumbria was an early medieval English kingdom, existing between 654 and 1066 AD, spanning modern-day Northern England and Southern Scotland.
The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the people south of the Humber Estuary. What was to become Northumbria started as two kingdoms, Deira in the south and Bernicia in the north. Conflict in the first half of the seventh century ended with the murder of the last king of Deira in 651, and Northumbria was thereafter unified under Bernician kings.
At its height, the kingdom extended from the Humber, Peak District and the River Mersey on the south to the Firth of Forth on the north. Northumbria ceased to be an independent kingdom in the mid-tenth century when Deira was conquered by the Danes and formed into the Kingdom of York. The rump Earldom of Bamburgh maintained control of Bernicia for a period of time; however, the area north of the Tweed was eventually absorbed into the medieval Kingdom of Scotland while the portion south of the Tweed was absorbed into the Kingdom of England as the county of Northumberland and County Palatine of Durham.
Kingdom (654–954)
Communities and divisions
Possible Celtic British origins
The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria was originally two kingdoms divided approximately around the River Tees: Bernicia was to the north of the river and Deira to the south. It is possible that both regions originated as native Celtic British kingdoms, which the Germanic settlers later conquered, although there is very little information about the infrastructure and culture of the British kingdoms themselves. Much of the evidence for them comes from regional names that are British rather than Anglo-Saxon in origin. The names Deira and Bernicia are likely British in origin, for example, indicating that some British place names retained currency after the Anglo-Saxon migrations to Northumbria.