AHC: Empire of the Britons

Per the Arthurian Legend, Arthur held an empire of Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul. Nothing of the sort really happened.

The challenge is to create a Briton Empire during the Dark Ages/Medieval period which holds dominion not necessarily over all the regions of the Arthurian legend, but does hold a recognizable empire nonetheless. Bonus points if it is a beacon of civilization and stability.
 
Maybe have the Romano-Britain kingdoms link up with the Dominion of Soissons? You'd have to have both of them last longer, but you'd get a true Gallic Empire.
 

Cryostorm

Monthly Donor
How about during one of the civil wars that the western Roman Empire had, Crisis of the Third Century seems to be one of the better ones, one of those generals realizes that Rome is slowly falling apart and decides to take his legions to Britain and break off from Rome entirely, and proclaims himself "Emperor in Britain" or whatever the Roman equivalent is. Do this early enough and while the Germanic and Asiatic hordes are ravaging Italy and Gaul refugees, including lots of professional legionaries, flee to the last bastion of civilization in the west which are used to pacify the islands of Britain and Ireland as well as keeping the barbarians off the island.
 
How about during one of the civil wars that the western Roman Empire had, Crisis of the Third Century seems to be one of the better ones, one of those generals realizes that Rome is slowly falling apart and decides to take his legions to Britain and break off from Rome entirely, and proclaims himself "Emperor in Britain" or whatever the Roman equivalent is. Do this early enough and while the Germanic and Asiatic hordes are ravaging Italy and Gaul refugees, including lots of professional legionaries, flee to the last bastion of civilization in the west which are used to pacify the islands of Britain and Ireland as well as keeping the barbarians off the island.

Something like this actually happened during Diocletian's reign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carausian_Revolt
 
The Britons themselves have potential. If my dumb-dumb youtube documentary education on the Post-Roman, Pre-Saxon period is valid, the Britons held onto the fruits of Roman civilization surprisingly well after the Romans left.

(Feel free to pop holes in that)
 
How plausible is it that this Empire of the Britons manages to successfully hold onto Gaul and Roman Britain as a cohesive unit?

Some kind of Romano-British unitary state surviving into the Middle Ages sounds incredibly fascinating if it can be pulled off.
 
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