Bretwalda (brytenwalda, among other variants) is a term that, while having been particularily used in traditional Anglo-Saxon historiography, was reevaluated and recontextualized in order to address its actual meaning

The first mention of bretwalda in Anglo-Saxon sources is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the late IXth century : it marks a particularily powerful dominion over Anglo-Saxons,with a list of powerful kings in Anglo-Saxon history since the VIth century...at the exception of Mercians, probably due to an historiographical bias in favour of Wessex. It didn't really implies an high-kingship or an overlordship over all the other kingdoms (altough it was objectively the case that tese hegemonies were excerced on petty-kingdoms), and doesn't seems to have been a title at all giving it's simply not recorded in sources contemporary of the events described, whether in coinage or chronicles (altough Offa of Mercia self-described as the "Glory of Britain", so the idea that Anglo-Saxon hegemonic kingship was exerced over a region known as Britain was there in the VIIIth century, and was used too by some West Saxons kings afterwards, in search of specific description of their own overlordship).

We'd be looking then as a medieval historiographical denomination, a way to understand and legitimize the domination of Wessex on all England, against both Anglo-Scandinavians and possible regionalist attempts in southern England, thinking it trough precedents of hegemonic kingship in England.

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So, when looking at the concept that it carries, or even the word itself the main question should be : What would that means for a West Saxon scholar living in the late IXth century?

Bretwalda could be decomposed as Bryten-walda.The second component is uninamously understood as "wielder",the first however....

A first and traditional, translation would be understanding with Britain (Bryten being used in the same source for the geographic region), making it "Wielder of Britain".It would make sense, giving that Wessex kings sometimes used "King of Brittania" (Rex Brittaniae) in their charters.As such, we'd be talking of Britain as a political-geographical concept excluding British kingdoms and focusing on an hegemony over Anglo-Saxons, retroactively attributed to previous kings.

Another interpretation makes Bryten a variant of brytten, an adjectival form of breotan (to break, scatter,...) itself meaning wide, as in bryten rice (wide kingdom).This usage, as well attested in the chronicle, would then be more prosaicaly "wild-weilder". It's possible,however,that even in this case, the similarity with Bryten as Britain might have been spotted.

Regardless of the translation, there's no real sign it was intended to establish a reconstructed British legacy similar to the semi-mythified reconstructed Scandinavian legacy.When Oswiuand Northumbrians established their hegemony over Southern Picts, enforcing client petty-kings trough matrimonial and genealogical unions, if not imposing Bernician petty-kings or rulers, there's no sign that they claimed such overlordship from Bretons and, of course, not using an term appearing only centuries later.

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