Cambria

Cambria is a name for Wales, being the Latinised form of the Welsh name for the country, . The term was not in use during the Roman period (when Wales had not come into existence as a distinct entity) or the early medieval period. After the Anglo-Saxon settlement of much of Britain, a territorial distinction developed between the new Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (which would become England and Southern Scotland) and the remaining Celtic British kingdoms (which would become Wales and, before their absorption into England and Scotland, Cornwall to the south and Strathclyde or Hen Ogledd to the north). Latin being the primary language of scholarship in Western Christendom, medieval writers commonly used either the older term Britannia, as the territory still inhabited by Britons, or Wallia, a term derived from Old English, to refer to Wales. The term Cambria is first attested in Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century as an alternative to both of these, since Britannia was now ambiguous and Wallia a foreign import, but remained rare until late in the Middle Ages. thumb|

==Etymology== The Welsh word (Wales), along with (Welsh people), was falsely supposed by 17th-century Celticists to be connected to the Biblical Gomer, or to the Cimbri or the Cimmerians of antiquity. In reality, it is descended from the Brittonic word combrogi, meaning 'fellow-countrymen'. The name thus conveyed something like '[Land of] the Compatriots'. The use of as a self-designation seems to have arisen in the post-Roman era, to refer collectively to the Brittonic-speaking peoples of Britain, inhabiting what are now Wales, Cornwall, Northern England, and Southern Scotland. It came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century and is attested (as ) in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan (, by Afan Ferddig) . In Welsh literature, the word was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe the Welsh, though the older, more generic term continued to be used to describe any of the Brittonic peoples (including the Welsh) and was the more common literary term until . Thereafter, prevailed as a reference to the Welsh. Until , the word was spelt or , regardless of whether it referred to the people or the country; for the country evolved later. The Latinised form emerged in the Middle Ages, first attested in, and perhaps coined by, Geoffrey of Monmouth.