Vortigern, also spelled Vortiger, Vortigan, Voertigern and Vortigen, was a 5th-century warlord in Britain, known perhaps as a king of the Britons or at least connoted as such in the writings of Bede and Gildas. His existence is contested by scholars and information about him is obscure.
Detail from Lambeth Palace Library MS 6 folio 43v illustrating an episode in Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136). Pictured above, Vortigern sits at the edge of a pool whence two dragons emerge, [a crimson dragon representing Uther Pendragon defeating the white dragon that represents Vortigern] which do battle in his presence.
The First Meeting of Vortigern and Rowena, painted by William Hamilton
The Pillar of Eliseg
Sub-Roman Britain is the period of late antiquity in Great Britain between the end of Roman rule and the Anglo-Saxon settlement. The term was originally used to describe archaeological remains found in 5th- and 6th-century AD sites that hinted at the decay of locally made wares from a previous higher standard under the Roman Empire. It is now used to describe the period that commenced with the recall of Roman troops to Gaul by Constantine III in 407 and to have concluded with the Battle of Deorham in 577.
Barbury Castle, a 6th-century hill fort in Wiltshire
Roman coins findings clearly indicate the areas of greatest "Romanization" and presence in Roman Britain
Britain c. 540, in the time of Gildas
