In the first half of the 5th century, Roman oversight in London collapsed, leaving the Romanised Britons to look after themselves. By 457, the city appears to have become almost completely abandoned. There is no evidence of anyone living within the city walls for the next 200 years. Over the next few centuries, settlers arrived from modern-day Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, who are now referred to as "
Anglo-Saxons". Rather than occupy the abandoned, overgrown Roman city, Anglo-Saxons at first preferred to settle outside the walls, only venturing inside to scavenge or explore. One Saxon poet called the Roman ruins "the work of giants". Rather than continuing Romano-British culture, Anglo-Saxons introduced their own building styles, pottery,
language, place names and
religion. Cemeteries from this early Anglo-Saxon period have been found at
Mitcham,
Greenwich,
Croydon, and
Hanwell in
Ealing. By the 670s they had developed the port town of
Lundenwic in the area of
Covent Garden, taking its name from the old Roman name
Londinium and adding the Old English suffix
wic or "trading town". Excavations in 1985 and 2005 have uncovered an extensive Anglo-Saxon settlement that dates back to the 7th century. The excavations show that the settlement stretched along what is now the
Strand (i.e. "the beach"). By about 600, Anglo-Saxon England had become divided into a number of small kingdoms within what eventually became known as the
Heptarchy. Although Bede, writing in the 730s referred to London as the capital of the
Kingdom of Essex, it was a border town between three more powerful kingdoms;
Mercia,
Kent and
Wessex, evidence from coins and documents suggests that the Midland kingdom of Mercia dominated London from around 670 until 870, especially during the long reign of
Offa. Following Offa's death in 796, supremacy over London was disputed between Mercia and Wessex.
Reconversion to Christianity In 597, Pope
Gregory the Great began the
reconversion of southern Britain to Christianity. He sent
Augustine of Canterbury to build upon the goodwill of
Æthelberht of Kent, and London received
Mellitus, its first post-Roman
Bishop of London in 601. Mellitus founded the
first cathedral of St Paul towards the western end of the old walled city. This first attempt at converting London to Christianity was however short-lived, as Mellitus was driven out of London by
pagans following Æthelberht's death in 616. The bishopric of London was re-established for good in 675, when the
Archbishop of Canterbury,
Theodore of Tarsus, installed
Earconwald as bishop. Although evidence of Christian activity in 7th century London is thin, by the 8th century it had become a major Christian city. ==Viking attacks==