Primogeniture in sub-Roman Britain

When the Roman Empire formally withdrew from Britain, you had several statelets emerge in its absence, by a mixture of native sons and Celtic tribal chieftains declaring themselves kings over the civitates. Save for the fact that the entire Roman military apparatus minus the local militia bailed out and these states depleting their meager manpower through fighting each other, I say an important factor but not THE factor in the Romano-Britons losing out to the Saxon invaders was tradition of equal* division of the father's lands amongst the sons as opposed to giving it to the eldest as practiced by the Celts and Germanic people.

Example: Coel Hen (a semi-legendary figure) ruled over most of northern Britain from his capital at Eboracum from the 380s to 420. Upon his death, his kingdom was divided between his two sons Ceneus and Gorbanian who would form the kingdom of Bernaccia. Upon Ceneus' death in 450, his lands were split amongst Gurgustus, first king of Rheged, and Mor inherited the lands around Eboracum. In addition, the Angles were awarded Deywr by Ceneus to settle in exchange for military service against the Picts; they would declare independence a century later as the kingdom of Deira.

How can you end the tradition of dividing one's assets and replace it with primogeniture so that the eldest son would inherit everything? In a best case scenario, you have in northern Britain a reasonably sized kingdom with enough local manpower to defend it from raids without relying too much on mercenaries from across the sea, and in time, maybe expand to the smaller civitates in the southeast.
 
It would definitely help if the place was more Romanized, or instead of the Romans fully leaving they leave someone in charge of the place in Rome's name, although it's effectively independent.
 
It would definitely help if the place was more Romanized, or instead of the Romans fully leaving they leave someone in charge of the place in Rome's name, although it's effectively independent.

Coel Hen was presumably a Roman commander or one of the Celtic sub-kings that Magnus Maximus installed to rule parts of the island under his name, likely the latter given the etymology of his name.
 
It doesn't help that dividing military commands (which in Late Antiquity equals political command) is probably coming from Late Romania in significant parts (as it was for Frankish realms or sub-kingship in Gothic Spain).

Which is the problem at hand with the OP, all respect given to the poster : primogeniture isn't an automatic success story by itself*. The problem of Brittons were their political division rather than administrative division.

It's not like Anglo-Saxons didn't inherited a lot of the political features from Britto-Romans (it's more the case in southern Britain, inheriting from Saxon Shore or even polities as it may be the case for Wessex**).

Now, one had to remember that the political organisation of Germans in Britain didn't went much more than chiefdoms (contrary to what happened in Francia, nobody in Britain managed to take back the provincial imperium, making the political situation on this regard extremely shady) until the VIIth century (or cyclical chiefdoms later, with Offa as the clearer exemple), their military and political organisation was based on different focuses,

A reasonable and reachable alternative would be, IMO, establishing a functioning high-kingship in Britain***

Giving the not that much unified Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, it does have a chance to lives on and leading to a wanked *Wales. I don't know enough to definitely name a candidate or a most likely place (while I think that you can forget about North Sea regions); but the bonus point is that you don't even need a Britton or being totally hostile to Germans to have such.

Actually, you may end with more than two high-kings, one in the north and another in the south.

Now how to reach this is anybody's guess, but I'd think an at least formal transmission of imperium over a candidate for high-kingship would help a lot not only to create some common feature with the various Britto-Romans and Celtics entities, but (and that's important) to keep some authority over various Saxon settlements, especially in the South.

I doubt it would be something other than your average cyclical chiefdom, but it never prevented Anglo-Saxons to dominate while they passed trough several of these.

*One could make the case of primogeniture being a risked choice in ancient times : due to the high infantile mortality, and ciritcally adulte mortality when military command is part of the kingship, it can cause more than often dynastical and political dead-ends.

** Whom first rulers have clearly Celtic names, meaning that either ethnical differences were quite blurred after two centuries of cohabitation, including therefore law and customs; or a political continuity from sub-Roman entities to Anglo-Saxons, if not both as I personally think.

*** Granted, everyone seeing me posting on Sub-Roman Britain knows that it's my favourite alternative. But I really think it's a plausible outcome IATL.
 
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