Fake and Forgery at Glastonbury Abbey

1. The Early History of Glastonbury Abbey 

Introduction 
At the time of Domesday Glastonbury was the wealthiest religious house in England. The monastery’s fortunes had started to decline under the last Saxon abbots of the late 11th century. The situation was exacerbated by the arrival of the Normans and Lanfranc’s monastic reforms which brought the Glastonbury monks into conflict with Thurstan, their first Norman abbot. Then on St Urban’s day, 25th May, 1184 a disastrous fire broke out which destroyed much of the monastery’s buildings. Glastonbury’s fortunes were turned around by the successive appointments of some shrewd abbots who promoted the prestige of the abbey to reach its peak in the centuries following the Norman Conquest up to its Dissolution in 1539. The growth of the abbey’s reputation can be attributed to chroniclers employed by the monks to produce the history of the abbey and ‘prove’ its antiquity. The process started in the 12th century and saw the production of increasingly elaborate later medieval legends.

Glastonbury Abbey reimagined

Henry of Blois: A Man of Influence
In 1126 King Henry I of England invited his nephew Henry of Blois (c.1096-1171) to become abbot of Glastonbury. The position had been vacated when Seffrid Pelochin left Glastonbury to take up the position of Bishop of Chichester. Blois was appointed Bishop of Winchester in 1129 and aspired to become Archbishop of Canterbury. Yet Henry refused to give up his beloved Glastonbury and remained abbot and bishop until his death in 1171; at 45 years one of the longest abbacy’s at Glastonbury equalled only by John Chinnock who served as abbot 1375-1420. As bishop of Winchester Henry resented his subservience to Canterbury but failed to convince his elder brother King Stephen of England to create a third diocese in the West Country, York being the second in Northern England. However, Stephen did appoint him as papal legate from 1139-1143, ranking him above the Archbishop of Canterbury, making him the most powerful man in the English Church during the civil war known as the Anarchy which raged from 1138 to 1153.

The Civil War erupted when the 17-year old William Adelin, the only legitimate son and heir of King Henry I of England, drowned in the White Ship disaster causing a succession crisis. King Henry’s preference was for his daughter the Empress Matilda to succeed him but he failed to gain the support of the nobility and his nephew Stephen of Blois, supported by his younger brother Henry, abbot of Glastonbury and bishop of Winchester, seized the throne. Henry would later switch sides to support Matilda and then switch back to Stephen. The Civil War raged on, becoming something of a stalemate; the way out was an agreement on the future succession of England. In 1153, the Treaty of Westminster stated that Stephen would remain monarch of England for the rest of his life but on his death Henry (Curtmantle), the eldest son of Empress Matilda and Geoffrey of Anjou would succeed him as King Henry II, the first Plantagenent king of England.

Bligh Bond's reconstruction of the
first Christian settlement at Glastonbury

Back at Glastonbury, when Henry of Blois first arrived from the Benedictine Abbey at Cluny in France in 1126 he is said to have found the Somerset monastery in a dilapidated state with the monks lacking even the daily basics. This was a drastic change of prosperity for a monastery that at the time of Domesday was recorded as the wealthiest religious house in England. The monastery’s fortunes had started to decline under the late-Saxon abbots Aethelweard (1027-1053) and Aethelnoth (1053-1077) who strayed from the abbey’s long traditions. The situation was exacerbated by the arrival of the Normans when William I installed many of his vassals in the abbey’s lands. 

In 1070 King William appointed Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the church in England. Lanfranc, an Italian born monk who had served as prior of Bec Abbey in Normandy and abbot of St Stephen's Abbey in Caen, introduced ecclesiastical reforms to the Anglo-Norman church in England and questioned the sanctity of the Anglo-Saxon saints; the likes of St Cuthbert, St Alban and St Dunstan all became objects of Norman scepticism. Lanfranc also started to replace the Anglo-Saxon bishops and within twenty years of the Conquest all Anglo-Saxon bishops had been removed except for Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester (1062 to 1095), the only English-born bishop to retain his diocese for any significant length of time after the arrival of the Normans.

The appointment of Norman heads of religious establishments saw Thurstan from the Abbey of Saint-Étienne in Caen installed as the first Norman abbot of Glastonbury in 1077. Thurstan immediately started to introduce new ecclesiastical practices changed the traditional Glastonbury chant for that of Fécamp, which was unacceptable to the monks. His aggressive attitude resulted in a conflict in 1083 in which at least two monks were killed and several others wounded. Thurstan was sent back to Normandy in disgrace.

Then there were the challenges from Canterbury. Prior to Henry of Blois’s appointment Eadmer, a monk from Christ Church, Canterbury, had written a long letter to Glastonbury c.1120 ridiculing rumours circulating that they held the body of St Dunstan. The rumours claimed monks from Glastonbury had removed St Dunstan’s remains from Canterbury the year after the church was abandoned and left desolate following an attack by the Danes as recorded in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle year 1011. Eadmer asserted that he had himself as a boy witnessed the translation of St Dunstan’s body when it was moved during the construction of the new cathedral at Canterbury in 1074. The story continues that having retrieved the Saint’s relics from Canterbury the monks at Glastonbury then hid them away and only produced them for veneration by the public after the devastating fire of 1184. A few years earlier, late in the 11th century, probably between 1080 and 1090, another Canterbury monk named Osbern wrote a Life of St Dunstan and claimed that Dunstan was the first abbot of Glastonbury implying that the Somerset house’s foundation could only be traced back to the 10th century.

The Old Church

It is hardly surprising that Glastonbury had reached such a low ebb when Henry of Blois arrived. Henry had a passion for grand buildings and was a great collector of the arts. On appointment he immediately started the restoration of Glastonbury on two fronts, firstly he restored the buildings and secondly raised the prestige of the monastery by employing writers to produce accounts of the early history of the monastery. Henry is credited with building a chapter house, cloister, bell tower, refectory, dormitory, an outer gate and the ‘castellum’.

As Henry set about rebuilding the monastery buildings he employed Robert of Lewes, a man with proven business acumen, to recover the monastery’s lost estates. Henry invited the hagiographer Caradog of Llancarfan and the respected historian William of Malmesbury to produce literary accounts to raise the profile and prestige of Glastonbury. During the 12th century religious houses relied on hagiography to establish their early history based on the deeds of a founding saint. Later the growth of Romance literature would start to influence the accounts of certain houses, including Glastonbury. 

Men who knew of Arthur
At the end of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain, c.1136) he entrusts Caradog of Llancarfan to continue the history of the Welsh kings, leaving the English Kings to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. At one time Caradog was suspected of being the author of a large part of the Brut y Tywysogion (The Chronicle of the Princes) up to around 1150 but this is generally discounted by modern scholars. However it is generally accepted that Caradog did write the Life of St Cadog in which Arthur figures prominently, and also possibly the Life of St Iltud, in which Arthur is noted as cousin of the saint.

Caradog produced the second of the two lives of St Gildas around 1130-1150 which contained an episode of the abduction of Arthur’s Queen Gwenhwyfar by Melvas, king of the Summerland. Arthur assembled the men of the south-west but Gildas and the Abbot of Glastonbury resolved the issue without war breaking out. In return the two kings embellished Glastonia (Glastonbury) with gifts of many lands. Caradog tells us that after this Gildas went on to live a hermit's life upon the bank of a river close to Glastonbury and when he died he was buried in the middle of the pavement of St. Mary's church (the Old Church). However, another Life of Gildas, possibly written earlier in the 11th century by an unnamed monk claims Gildas spent he last days in Rhuys, Brittany, where he was buried.

At the end of his Life of St Gildas Caradog tells us that Glastonia was of old called ‘Ynisgutrin’ the name still used by the British inhabitants at the time he wrote. He explains that ‘Ynis’ in the British language is ‘insula’ in Latin, and ‘gutrin’ (made of glass). But, according to Caradog, after the coming of the English it was renamed “Glastigberi, according to the formation of the first name, that is English ‘glass’ and ‘beria’ a city; then Glastinberia, that is, the ‘City of Glass’. 

The respected historian William of Malmesbury also knew of Arthur. In his Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings, c.1125) William treats Arthur as a historical figure who the Britons still told many fables even in his own day. In this chronicle he adds that the tomb of Walwin, ‘the noble nephew of Arthur’ has been found but adds that “The sepulchre of Arthur is no where to be seen, whence ancient ballads fable that he is still to come.”

The marker for Arthur's tomb

Around sixty years after William’s visit to Glastonbury King Arthur’s grave was discovered in the monk’s cemetery in 1190/91. According to Gerald of Wales the monks of Glastonbury had been told of the location of the grave by King Henry II. A burial cross recovered from the grave identified the bodies as King Arthur and his wife Guinevere lying in the Isle of Avalon. Evidently from what we read in the Gesta Regum Anglorum William was not aware of Arthur being buried at Glastonbury and clearly he was not told of this by the monks during his visit. Significantly not one of these contemporary writers, William of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth or Caradog of Llancarfan had identified Glastonbury with Avalon. 

The Old Church 
William of Malmesbury was a highly respected historian for his works Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings) and Gesta pontificum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Bishops). He had translated the Life of St Wulfstan into Latin for Worcester and already written several saint’s Lives for Glastonbury, SS. Dunstan, Patrick, Benignus and Indract. But Glastonbury had a major problem: it did not have a founding saint. Encouraged by their new abbot Henry of Blois, the monks of Glastonbury requested William to write the history of the abbey. On his arrival in 1129 he engaged with the monks no doubt listening to their tales of the long traditions of the monastery and spent much time in the abbey archive researching its history.

The monks of Glastonbury firmly believed in the sanctity of the monastery’s provenance and subsequent long history. In the late-10th century the first biographer of Dunstan, known simply as ‘B’, recorded the belief that that the ancient church (antiqua ecclesia) at Glastonbury had not been built by the hand of man but had been “fashioned in Heaven”. ‘B’ appears to be a trustworthy source for the long traditions at Glastonbury as he had apparently been a member of the community there, his account of the abbot being based on personal memories up to 960 when Dunstan was appointed archbishop of Canterbury.

The First Saxon church (Reading University)

However, during his time at Glastonbury William could not find any evidence for the first church having been built by the disciples of Christ as implied by ‘B’. Yet he knew of the story of missionaries sent to Britain by Pope Eleutherius at the request of King Lucius, as recorded in Bede and other sources which, according to Scott, arose from a misreading of the Liber Pontificalis (The Book of Popes). As a compromise William did however allow the possibility, probably on the insistence of the Glastonbury monks, of an apostolic origin.

Evidently, the Old Church (vetusta ecclesia) is at the heart of the Glastonbury legends. Writing in the early 12th century William described this church as the oldest he knew, describing it as a brushwood building identical with the antiqua ecclesia mentioned by Dunstan's biographer 'B' in the 10th century. The Old Church along with many of the monastic buildings was completely destroyed by the fire of 1184. 

Construction of the Lady Chapel 1184-86

The Lady Chapel that survives in a ruinous state today as a result of the 16th century Dissolution was built during 1184 and 1186 on the exact site of the vetusta ecclesia, and later a crypt was added, thus any archaeological evidence for the Old Church was totally lost. The Lady Chapel was built in a Romanesque style, intentionally designed to appear archaic to preserve the memory of the Old Church and its claimed early foundation

By the time of William’s visit the monks firmly believed in the tradition that St Patrick had been the first abbot of Glastonbury in the 5th century. The connection with St Patrick later attracted many Irish pilgrims which can be traced back to at least Dunstan’s abbacy in the 10th century. ‘B’ tells us that Dunstan received an excellent education from Irish pilgrims who frequented Glastonbury, learned men who came to the Abbey to worship at the tomb of their blessed Patrick.

Legendary accounts suggest a Celtic Church was founded at Glastonbury. Tradition claims Saints Patrick and Brigit visited in the 5th century with the monastery claiming to hold relics of both saints and SS David and Gildas. However, there is no evidence that St Patrick ever visited Glastonbury, let alone appointed as the first abbot, yet there was certainly an attraction at Glastonbury that drew many Irish pilgrims in the 10th century which indicates that at least from this date Celtic saints were being venerated there. So many saints relics were held there that William called it a “heavenly shrine on earth.”

The archaeological picture has been confused by the layers of clay, which contained Roman or sub-Roman ceramics, imported into Glastonbury by Dunstan to raise the level of the monk’s cemetery. A spring, known today as St Joseph’s Well, on the southern edge of the Lady Chapel may date from the Roman period. The waters are said to have healing properties and was certainly in existence long before the chapel was built. The monks claimed a pre-Saxon church at Glastonbury and there is certainly a case for a post-Roman settlement at Glastonbury, but whether this was secular or ecclesiastical has not been determined. 

Glastonbury traditions also recounted numerous endowments made by kings and nobles associated with the place throughout its history which supported the high regard that the monastery was held in the past. William could trace land grants back to 601 but Glastonbury’s earliest historical documents date from the late 7th century; charters of the Wessex kings Cenwealh (641-72), Centwine (676-85) and Ine (688-726) confirm land grants or privileges to the monastery.

King Ine was the first of its patrons among the Wessex kings, enriching the monastery with gifts of vast estates and credited with building the first stone church at Glastonbury in the early 8th century dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. Excavations in the 1920s discovered three phases of stone churches associated with the Saxon monastery. The earliest, King Ine’s dates to around AD 712, being erected immediately to the east of the Old Church

The royal endorsement of Glastonbury continued through the 10th century into the early 11th century with three prominent Wessex kings buried there; Edmund I (d.946) in the presbytery, with Edgar the Peaceful (d. 975) and Edmund II Ironside (d. 1016) both reburied adjacent to the tomb of King Arthur. 

The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey today

The History of Glastonbury as it Should Have Been
After spending time with the monks at Glastonbury and listening to their oral accounts of the long traditions associated with the monastery and searching the document archive William presented his De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie (On the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury) to the monks for their approval. He was aware that his work would not be what the monks had expected. Being a respected historian William would not include fables as fact unless he could find evidence to substantiate them; he could not give them the history they wanted. This would explain his rather defensive Preface to De Antiqitate; clearly the monks were dissatisfied with William’s conclusion

After the fire of 1184 Glastonbury was in desperate need of funds for rebuilding. Long running issues with the bishop of Bath came to head in 1192 when Savaric Fitzgeldewin was appointed to the position. Savaric wanted control of Glastonbury and formed a new seat known as the Diocese of Bath and Glastonbury. However, the Glastonbury monks refused to accept Savaric as the head of their establishment and held out for their independence. In 1199 he forced his entry into the abbey and excommunicated monks who opposed him. The dispute had cost Glastonbury dearly in legal fees and Savaric was also said to be diverting Glastonbury’s funds for other purposes in the Diocese. In 1186 when the Lady Chapel was completed work started on the Great Church (major ecclesia) but was not completed until 1303, 119 years after the fire, a long delay which can only be attributable to a lack of funds. 

The dispute with the Bishop of Bath had taken its toll on the abbey’s finances and weakened their independence. Their prestige had taken a battering from Osbern and Eadmer of Canterbury, which from 1170 held the relics of Thomas Becket, the top pilgrim attraction in the country. It is hardly surprising that Henry of Blois found the monastery in such a sorry state on his arrival, downbeat and downtrodden. Glastonbury then entered a period of ‘creative writing’, in other words outright forgery, amending documents and producing charters within its scriptorium to create a foundation story and long history how they thought it should be. 

Dissatisfied with William’s conclusion the monks would later add the required ‘proofs’ to the De Antiqitate that William had omitted to create what they perceived to be the ‘real’ history of Glastonbury. No original copies of De Antiquitate have survived in the form in which William presented it to Glastonbury on completion, but we know of its original text from large sections that had been transcribed into William’s later editions of the Gesta Regis Anglorum. The earliest version of the "De Antiquitate" that has come down to us is a 13th century copy heavily interpolated by the Glastonbury monks which adds significant elaboration not present in William's original document. As time went on the Glastonbury monks would make further amendments to William’s original work and by the 14th century later copies of William’s work claimed that the Old Church was founded by Joseph of Arimathea in the year AD 63 who had travelled to England after the Crucifixion.

Manuscript scholars such as John Scott have identified a combination of historical, textual, and chronological inconsistencies, particularly when compared to William’s other, authentic works such as the Gesta Regum Anglorum. Some interpolations even refer to events after William’s death c.1143 providing conclusive proof that he could not have written those parts. 

Scott concludes that the first 36 chapters of the De Antiquitate have been heavily rewritten by later scribes. Scott summarises what he considers was the fate of William’s De Antiquitate as such:

• incidents that refer to Henry of Blois in the past tense must have been added after his death in 1171,
• the rediscovery of the remains of St Dunstan at Glastonbury post date the fire of 1184,
• references to King Arthur were added after the discovery of his grave in 1190-91,
• chapters identifying Glastonbury as Avalon only became necessary after the discovery of Arthur’s grave and the inscription on the burial cross - as we have seen above neither William or contemporary writers identified Glastonbury with Avalon. Or, indeed, the burial place of Arthur,
• We can be certain that Joseph of Arimathea as the founder of Glastonbury does not appear in William’s original work, he only mentioned the possibility of an apostolic origin, as this was added by monks in response to the later Romance tradition that claimed Joseph brought the Holy Grail to Britain, literature that appeared well after William’s death.

Scott expands this: although the Glastonbury monks were not totally satisfied with the interpretation of the monastery’s history as presented by William in his De Antiquitate the shortcomings did not seem that important while they had the powerful abbot Henry of Blois, who as we have seen was also Bishop of Winchester and one time papal legate to the king, his brother. However their fortunes soon changed with Henry’s death in 1171 which was followed by the disastrous fire in 1184 which destroyed most of the church buildings, then Savaric, the Bishop of Bath, threatened their independence and tapped into the monastery’s wealth.

The monks began to seek a means to restore their finances and prestige. Without a founding saint and relics they had to look elsewhere for a major attraction. Following the devastating fire of 1184 the monks started publicising the claim that the bones of Arthur had been discovered at their monastery and made the first additions to William’s original text accordingly. Among these amendments the most outrageous were the claims that Glastonbury held the remains of St Dunstan and the falsification of the Charter of St Patrick. The history of the monastery was extended to include the conflict with the bishop of Bath in 1192. Around 1230 these additions were integrated into a continuation of William's De Antiquitate attributed to Adam of Damerham, a monk of Glastonbury. Then the publication of the History of the Holy Grail, which detailed how Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy vessel to the Vale of Avalon in Britain, meant further revision was necessary. Accordingly in 1247 the reworked version of William’s De Antiquitate was copied again and the scribe introduced Joseph into the monastery’s history by adding a first chapter and rewriting the second. The 1247 revision survives as the earliest known copy of De Antiquitate known as T, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.5.33 (724).

The ‘history’ of Glastonbury received further interpolations as an ongoing matter with the addition of notes and marginal glosses by various hands inserted into the T, Cambridge manuscript. There are other variant manuscripts that have largely copied and extended from T, Cambridge and include additional later material annotated by different hands from the 13th  through to the 15th centuries. 

However, the fantastical claims of Glastonbury did not convince everyone. We have already seen how Canterbury had challenged their claim to possess the relics of St Dunstan. Oddly, there was no challenge, although perhaps a great deal of scepticism, to the claim that Glastonbury had discovered Arthur’s grave and held his relics. Then in his early-14th century ‘Polychronicon’ Ranulf Higden stated that it was not possible that the St Patrick buried at Glastonbury could be the apostle of Ireland as it was well known that he was buried in that country. 

In response in the mid-14th century a monk known as John of Glastonbury in an abbreviated continuation of Adam of Damerham’s work strongly opposed Higden's argument. John’s chronicle (Cronica sive Antiquitates Glastoniensis Ecclesie) added further information on Joseph of Arimathea and produced in writing for the first time the ‘Prophecy of Melkin’ which claims Joseph lies in Avalon with two cruets containing the blood and sweat of the “prophet Jesus”. John’s work ran to the year 1342 then was in turn continued by another hand down to the late 15th century. The cult of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury was developed and promoted particularly by the later abbots John Chinnock (1375–1420) and  Richard Beere (1493–1524).

The rewards of fake and forgery propelled Glastonbury Abbey into a Golden Age in the four centuries following the Norman Conquest up to its fall in the Dissolution in the 16th century.

Sources:
John Scott, The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation, and Study of William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie, Boydell Press, 2009. Scott’s comprehensive study of the ‘De Antiquitate’ has been invaluable in producing this article. Scott’s edition is based on manuscript T, Cambridge.

Antonia Gransden, The Growth of the Glastonbury Traditions and Legends in the Twelfth Century,
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Volume 27, Issue 4, October 1976, pp. 337-358. Reprinted in Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition (see below).  

Caradoc of Llangarfan: The Life of Gildas - Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University
Hugh Williams, translator. Two Lives of Gildas by a monk of Ruys and Caradoc of Llancarfan.First published in the Cymmrodorion Record Series, 1899. 

Other Works Consulted:
Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition, edited by James P Carley, DS Brewer, 2001.
James P Carley, Glastonbury Abbey: The Holy House at the Head of the Moors Adventurous, Gothic Image, 1996.
The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey: Essays in Honour of the ninetieth birthday of C.A.Ralegh Radford, edited by Lesley Abrams and James P Carley, Boydell Press, 1991.
Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey: An Edition, Translation and Study of John of Glastonbury's Cronica sive Antiquitates, James P. Carley (Editor) and David Townsend (Translator), Boydell Press, 2009.

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Saint Non’s Chapel

Non, Mother of Saint David
It is a short walk to St Non’s Chapel from St Davids Cathedral, situated less than a mile out of the city heading south on Goat’s Street. There is a small parking area at the side of the road before you reach St Non’s Retreat Centre above St Non’s Bay on the Pembrokeshire coastal path. From here there dramatic views of the rugged coastline and a path leads down to the chapel. St Non is the mother of St David, patron saint of Wales. Non’s feast day is celebrated shortly after St David’s Day, which various calendars record as the 2nd, 3rd or 5th March.

Tradition claims that the site of the chapel is where Non gave birth to David during a storm although in Rhygfarch’s 11th century Life of David (Buchedd Dewi) he fails to provide a location but tells us that a rock bears the imprints of Non’s hands made during the birth that was incorporated into the altar of the chapel built on the spot. Writing in the 12th century Gerald Wales appears to be the first to record David’s birthplace at St Non’s chapel on the coast, a little south of St Davids.

The chapel is is one of eight medieval oratories dotted around the headlands of St Davids peninsula with paths leading on to the cathedral. Seaborne pilgrims from as far away as Ireland and Brittany would arrive at one of the bays and scramble up amongst the cliffs of the Pembrokeshire shoreline and give thanks at one of the chapels for their safe arrival before completing their pilgrimage to St Davids.

Much of the chapel was demolished in the early 19th century when local farmers robbed the stones to repair their field boundaries. Inside the chapel is a stone inscribed with a ringed cross. This inscribed stone was originally outside the chapel but today sits quietly in the corner. The lower courses of the chapel walls contain huge blocks described as ‘cyclopean masonry’ which according to Elizabeth Rees are often found in 7th - 8th century Anglo-Saxon buildings. In the 19th century excavations uncovered slab-lined graves to the east and south of the chapel that Rees suggests may indicate the presence of an extramural cemetery outside St Davids possibly a pre-Christian cemetery that later become Christian. 

Nearby the chapel is St Non’s Holy Well, said to have sprung up at the moment of David’s birth, this is one of the major healing wells in Wales and said to cure eye diseases. The Welsh Life of St David recalls that at his baptism a spring appeared and a blind man who was holding David was cured and recovered his sight.

Non’s Story
In the Lives of the Welsh Saints many holy men’s mothers were of noble birth which are often reflected in the genealogies. David was no exception, his grandmother Meleri was said to be one of the twenty-four daughters of Brychan, legendary king of Brycheiniog; all of them mothers of male saints. Yet Non figures in hagiography solely as David’s mother and most of what we know of her derives from versions of Rhygyfarch’s Life of David.

Rhygyfarch’s ‘Life’ was written some five hundred years after David’s lived. He drew from old manuscripts in the cathedral library and oral traditions, and what he has to say about Non focuses mostly on her life as a nun and the birth of David. Rhygyfarch tells us that Sanctus (Sant) son of king Ceredig of Ceredigion met a nun, a virgin called Nonnita, and he took her by force and violated her. She conceived a son, the holy David. After this Non(nita) continued to be chaste and may have finished her days as a nun at Ty Gwyn (the White House).

There is no Welsh ‘Life’ of St Non but there are stories of her found in Welsh poetry, folklore and other Saint’s Lives such as that of Gildas the 6th century cleric who wrote of the coming of the Saxons in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae.

There are two ‘Lives’ of Saint Gildas. The first written in the 9th century by an anonymous monk from the Rhuys monastery, in Brittany, where Gildas spent his last days. The second Life was written by the 12th-century Welsh cleric Caradoc of Llancarfan, which is well known for the story of the abduction of Gwenhwyfar by Melwas which leads to a confrontation with King Arthur. 

In Caradoc’s Life of Gildas he tells us that Saint Gildas became the most celebrated preacher in Britain. However, there was one occasion when he was lost for words; Gildas was preaching in a church when he found himself unable to speak. He asked all to leave the church but found he was still unable to continue. He asked if anyone was hiding in the church when a woman pregnant with child called out to him “I, Nonnita, am staying here between the walls and the door, not wishing to mingle with the crowd.”

Gildas requested she left the church. After Nonnita had left he called the people back in to deliver his sermon. At the end the Angel of the Lord explained to Gildas that “Nonnita, a saintly woman, remains in the church, who is now with child, and is destined, with great grace, to give birth to a boy whom thou couldst not preach, the divine power withholding thy speech. The boy this is to come will be of greater grace: no one in your parts will equal him.”

The child in Nonnita’s (St Non) womb was Dewi (David); so moved by the experience Gildas bequeathed Wales to St David’s administrations. 

In Bonedd y Saint (Descent of the Saints) she is called Non, the daughter of Cynyr of Caer Gawch in Mynyw (Menevia, now St Davids). Non’s mother is recorded as Anna, daughter of Uthr Pendragon, therefore Arthur is her uncle.

A late Breton miracle play Buez Santez Nonn hac ez map Deuy (The Life of St Non and her son David) is thought to have been written in the 15th century at the abbey of Doulas in Brittany. The Buez expands on the all too brief accounts of Non in the Latin and Welsh Lives of St David claiming Non was born of a Breton noble family and that she lived and died at Dirinon 3 miles from Doulas. The Buez claims Non was buried at Dirinon where today a reliquary is said to contain her relics. The silver gilt reliquary is supposed to have been made around 1450, around the same time the Buez was composed possibly to promote her relics.

Did Non Exist?
In some Saints’ Lives we find some of the saints’ mothers seem to have been invented, identified as ‘ghosts’ in the genealogies; some scholars suspect Non may be an example of this, created simply for the story of David’s birth. Non gave birth to David after Sant, a prince of Ceredigion, forced himself upon her. Certainly by naming David’s parents as ‘Non’ (nun) and ‘Sant’ (holy man) may simply have been a way of providing appropriate parentage of a saint when his real parents were insignificant or unknown.

Non is commemorated in South Wales and also in Cornwall, Devon, Ireland and Brittany. There are several chapels dedicated to Non called ‘Llan-non’ or ‘Capel Non’ usually in proximity of Dewi (David) churches.

In Cornwall her chief foundation was Altarnun (Non’s altar), near Launceston, where according to William of Worcester she lies in rest. Non may be remembered at Pelynt in south-east Cornwall, about 4 miles west of Looe. The name comes from ‘plou Nent’ which means ‘parish of Non’ where a holy well bears her name. Seven miles north-west from here, on the edge of Bodmin Moor, is Davidstow. The former name was Dewstow, as you will know David’s name was Dewi in Welsh. In a field to the east of the church is St David’s holy well today protected by a modern stone well-house, the pure water used at the Davidstow creamery.

D Simon Evans floats the suggestion that ‘Non’ may have originally been the name of a monk who was a contemporary and companion of David who can be traced in Cornwall and Brittany. When his life story was forgotten the likeness of his name to the word ‘nonna’ (nun) could possibly have led to the creation of the story of the violated nun and when put together with the connection of St Nonna and St Dewi the story changed from companions to mother and son. Evans cites the tradition concerning Efrddyl, the daughter of Peibo and the mother of Dubricius; she was also a virgin that was violated, but the name may have originally been that of a man who was a companion of Dubricius.

See also:

The Empty Shrine of St David
Saint David at Glastonbury

Sources:
Elizabeth Rees, The Celtic Saints of Wales, Fonthill Media, 2015.
D Simon Evans, The Welsh Life of St David, University of Wales Press, 2016.
Two Life’s of Gildas by a monk from Ruys and Caradoc of Llancarfan, translated by Hugh Williams, Llanerch Press, 1990.
P.C. Bartrum, A Welsh Classic Dictionary: People in History and Legend up to about AD 1000, The National Library of Wales, 1993.

Photographs: Edward Watson

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The Empty Shrine of St David

Today, 1^st March is the feast day of St David, patron saint of Wales. Yet the relics of the 6^th century holy man are sadly missing following years of destruction of the cathedral and the Reformation.

According to the Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan (Vita Griffini Filii Conani) in 1081 Gruffudd ap Cynan (c. 1055–1137) king of Gwynedd and Rhys ap Tewdwr (c. 1040 – 1093) king of Deheubarth went to the church of David to pray. Gruffudd and Rhys swore an oath of loyalty on Saint David's relics and went on to a famous victory at the battle of Mynydd Carn. 

What these relics are is not made clear, it may have been St David’s remains or secondary relics which according to Rhygyfarch's Life of Saint David the Patriarch of Jerusalem had presented to him: 'an altar covered with skins and veils, a bell renowned for its miracles, a pastoral staff ‘lustrous with glorious miracles’ and a ‘coat woven from gold’. There are accounts of a superaltar, known as the 'Sapphire' that David presented to Glastonbury Abbey, his bell once kept at Glascwm, Montgomeryshire and his staff was preserved at Llanddewi Brefi,  in Ceredigion. Yet no early accounts have survived of the personal relics of Saint David who was active in the 6th century.

Saint Davids Cathedral

The cult of St David at Menevia had become extensive in the 8th and 9th centuries. By the 10th century David is portrayed as spiritual leader of the Welsh in the vaticinatory poem Armes Prydain Fawr (The Great Prophecy of Britain), the earliest reference to St David in (extant) Welsh literature. As the cult of David was seen as a focus for resistance against the Normans they invested heavily in the site and promoted the cult in the 11th and 12th centuries to raise its status among the Welsh bishoprics.

The best known account of Saint David is Rhygyfarch’s 11th century Life of David (Buchedd Dewi) but this simply records that after David died he was buried at his monastery in Menevia, the Latin name for St Davids. The name Menevia is supposed to be derived from ‘Menapia’ the Roman name of the settlement; alternative claims suggest it may be derived from the Welsh ‘Mynyw’ or Irish for ‘thorny place or thicket’. However, the name Menevia has been used for centuries to identify the area of Pembrokeshire including the monastery, the bishopric and associated religious features, forming the Diocese of Menevia.

Saint David'stained glass window

Typical of an early monastery the site of St Davids Cathedral is built on isolated low lying marshland, the historic core thought to be around the transept of the modern cathedral. Yet excavation has so far failed to uncover any evidence of pre-Norman structures with all archaeological finds being of medieval date. However, the north chapel is slightly off-line to the main axis of the cathedral which suggests that it may have been aligned to earlier structures.

The early monastery was attacked and destroyed many times. The Brut y Tywysogion (Chronicle of the Princes) records the following:

810 – Menevia was burnt
904 - Menevia was destroyed
981 - Godfrey, son of Harold, devastated Dyved and Menevia
987 - the Pagans devastated Llanbadarn, and Menevia, and Llanilltud, and Llangarvan, and Llandydoch.
991- Edwin, son of Einon, with Eclis the Great, a Saxon prince from the seas of the South, devastated all the kingdoms of Maredudd, to wit, Dyved, and Ceredigion, and Gower, and Cydweli; and a second time took hostages from all the territory; and devastated Menevia a third time.
998 - Menevia was depopulated by the Pagans.
1011 - Menevia was devastated by the Saxons,
1020 - Eilad came to the island of Britain, and Dyved was devastated, and Menevia was demolished.
1071 - the French ravaged Ceredigion and Dyved, and Menevia and Bangor were laid waste by the Pagans. And then Bleiddud, bishop of Menevia, died
1078 - Menevia was miserably devastated by the Pagans; and Abraham, bishop of Menevia, died
1079 - William the Bastard, king of the Saxons and the French and the Britons, came for prayer on a pilgrimage to Menevia.
1088 - the shrine of St. David was taken by stealth out of the church, and was completely despoiled close to the city.
1089 - Sulien, bishop of Menevia, the wisest of the Britons, and illustrious for his religious life, died …. And then Menevia was demolished by the Pagans of the Isles.
1095 - Gerald the steward [Gerald of Windsor, Grandfather of Gerald of Wales] to whom had been assigned the stewardship of the castle of Pembroke, ravaged the boundaries of Menevia.

The Nave, Saint David's Cathedral

The Life of Caradoc records that owing to the attacks by the pirates from the Orkneys, probably the ‘Pagans of the Isles’ of the 1089 entry in the Brut, St David’s was almost uninhabited for seven years and a visitor took almost a week to arrive at David’s tomb ‘because of the thorns and briars’ that now covered the deserted site.

By now the relics of St David were long lost. Yet years of destruction could not extinguish veneration of St David who was still held in special reverence. In 1123 Pope Callixtus II granted a special privilege to St Davids declaring that two pilgrimages to the Cathedral were equal to one journey to Rome and that three visits would be equivalent to one to Jerusalem itself.

The Welsh Annals (Annales Cambriae) record under 1182 that: "the church of Menevia is demolished and begun anew."

The earlier church was of no great antiquity, dedicated just 50 years earlier in 1131 by Bernard the first Norman bishop who Pope Calixtus II described as 'bishop of the church of Andrew the Apostle and St David'.

The entry in the Welsh Annals implies that the site of the old church was cleared before the construction of the new church started but an architectural survey carried out in 1922 suggests that the presbytery of the 1131 church was left standing while the new nave was built and was originally intended to be incorporated in the new building. A second assessment in 1926 attributed the fall of the tower in 1220 to the process of removing the 1131 fabric.

A recent survey of Llandaf cathedral indicated that the main chamber of the presbytery, which closely compares to that of St Davids, was retained from Urban's earlier cathedral of the 1120s and incorporated into the late 12th century rebuild. It is also argued that the present St Thomas Becket chapel at St Davids may preserve part of the 1131 cathedral. The Becket chapel extends east alongside the wall of the presbytery but on a slightly different alignment, and may be part of the remains of the east end of the earlier church.

A New Shrine
The cathedral (the church of the bishop's seat) that we see today was that started in 1182 by the Norman Bishop Peter de Leia and has stood for over 800 years. In response to demand for physical relics of the Saint, David’s body was ‘discovered’ after appearing in a dream by the Prior of Ewenny in Glamorgan. Accordingly, a new shrine was constructed in 1275 by Bishop Richard de Carew after the original was destroyed by Vikings in 1089. It is supposed that a reliquary within this new shrine contained a small casket with the relics believed to be St Davids, that had been miraculously discovered outside the Cathedral. Shrines were usually placed behind the altar but at St Davids it is placed in the north arcade of the choir facing the bishop’s throne. The new shrine was highly coloured and adorned with paintings and a decorated canopy.

Saint David's shrine (front) - St Patrick, St David and St Andrew

Following the conquest of Gwynedd, King Edward I and Queen Eleanor visited the new shrine in 1284 and were presented with an arm bone of Saint David. Edward later placed a relic of St David on the high altar of the church of Great St Helen, London.

In 1328 Henry Gower was appointed Bishop of St David’s, a rare appointment of a Welshman during the Norman period. Gower carried out extensive remodelling works including the nave, the choir and the ornately carved Gothic stone screen which now houses his tomb effigy. Gower also commissioned the Bishop’s Palace next to the cathedral. The palace was home to the Bishop’s of St Davids until the Reformation in the 16th century.

The Bishop's Palace adjacent the Cathedral

During the Reformation William Barlow, the newly appointed bishop of St Davids, seized the relics of St David when they were brought out for display on St David’s Day, 1st March 1538. Barlow also did away with the shrine of St David and destroyed or dispersed all the relics and treasures held by the Cathedral. He wrote to Thomas Cromwell, architect of the Reformation and principal secretary to King Henry VIII, and described the relics as “two heads of silver plate enclosing two rotten skulls studded with putrefied cloths: Item, two arm bones and a worm eaten book covered with silver plate.”

Barlow’s successor Bishop Robert Ferrar, “burnt all ye Martyrologies, portiforiums, & antient Mis-sales of ye Cathedral Church of Saint David, with their calenders, wherein were entered ye names of ye Bishops & ye days and years of their entrance & death or translation ” apparently on the command of the king.

Saint David's shrine notice panel 

Elis ap Howel a church sexton had hidden away “masse books, hympnals, Grailes, Antiphons, and suche lik” belonging to the cathedral. In 1571 these were found by a ‘Mr Chanter’ who tore them to pieces.

But not quite all was lost when two texts associated with Saint Davids cathedral came to light in recent years. The first was five lecciones Sancte Nonite, consisting of thirty-eight lines of text provides the only surviving material from an office for the feast of Saint Nonita, or Non, mother of St David. The second text consists of the accounts of eleven posthumous miracles effected by Saint David between about 1215–29 and 1405, collected by William of Worcester (1415-c.85) and survived in an obscure British Library manuscript.

In the 1920s it was thought that some bones that had been discovered behind the Cathedral’s high altar in 1866 could be the remains of St David. Seventy years later Wyn Evans, future Bishop of St Davids, had the remains radiocarbon dated and they were found to to date to the 12th and 14th centuries and therefore could not be the bones St David who died on the traditional date of 1st March 1589.

Today St David’s relics remain elusive yet surprisingly the 13th century shrine has survived. Compare with the shrine of Thomas Becket that has been completely removed from Canterbury Cathedral, all that remains today are the steps worn down by the feet of thousands of pilgrims to the site of the shrine where a single candle burns for the martyr.

Saint David's shrine (rear) - St Justinian and St Non

The Little Things
In 2012 St Davids shrine was restored with new icons painted by Sarah Crisp drawing on techniques dating back to the medieval period. The three icons at the front of the shrine depict from left to right St Patrick, St David and St Andrew while at the rear are two icons which depict St Non, the mother of David, and St Justinian.

David’s last words to his followers were, “be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things you have seen me do”.

See also:

Saint Non's Chapel
Saint David at Glastonbury

Sources:
Michael Curley, The Miracles of Saint David, Traditio, Vol. 62 (2007), pp. 135-205
Elizabeth Rees, The Celtic Saints of Wales
Brut y Tywysogion, translated by William ab Ithel - Mary Jones, Celtic Literature Collective, 
John Crook, ‘The Shrine of St David’ in Jonathan Wooding and J Wynn Evans (ed.), The Condition of Menevia: Studies in the History of St Davids, UWP, 2024).
St David of Wales: Cult, Church and Nation, edited by J Wyn Evans and Jonathan Wooding, Boydell Press, 2007.

Photographs: Edward Watson

Edited 07/03/26

* * * 

2025 and all that . . . . matters Arthurian

2025 has been a relatively quiet year on the Arthurian front, a noticeable absences of new claims of having identified King Arthur's grave or the usual pseudo-historical books claiming to have identified the 'Real King Arthur'. I'm sure they will be back next year! We have had a remarkable development in scientific techniques in reading a lost Merlin manuscript stitched into the cover of an Elizabethan register without the need to unfold it. And there have been several academic works published.

Rare Merlin manuscript read for the first time in hundreds of years
In 2019 fragments of a manuscript were found hidden in the binding of a 16th-century Elizabethan archival register for nearly 400 years at Cambridge University Library. The fragile 13th century manuscript fragment was found to contain rare medieval stories of Merlin and King Arthur.

The manuscript was identified as part of the French-language Suite Vulgate du Merlin, part of the Lancelot-Grail cycle, which was a very popular medieval work but few now remain, has been identified as having been written between 1275 and 1315, a time when Arthurian romances were particularly popular among noblewomen, although the fragment is from a lost copy dated to around 1300.

'The Merlin', or the 'Merlin en Prose', or simply 'Prose Merlin', is the second part in the five part Lancelot-Grail cycle. The first section of the work recounts the life of Merlin and his efforts to promote the cause of Uther Pendragon, the father of Arthur, followed by Arthur’s ultimate rise to kingship and his coronation. The second section, called variously the 'Vulgate Suite de Merlin' also known as 'the Sequal section of the Prose Merlin', describes the events at Arthur’s court after his coronation, which serves as an introduction to the third part of the Lancelot-Grail cycle, entitled the 'Lancelot en prose'. The 'Vulgate Suite de Merlin' should not be confused with the Suite de Merlin or the Prophesies de Merlin which while treating similar material both stem from different textual traditions.

Today there are less than 40 surviving manuscripts of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin, with each one uniquely handwritten by individual medieval scribes. 

These fragments have now been digitised using cutting-edge techniques in a ground-breaking three-year project at Cambridge University Library. 

The medieval tale of Merlin tells the early years of King Arthur's court, positioned as a sequel to an earlier text written around 1200 in which Merlin is born a child prodigy with the gift of foresight and casts a spell to facilitate the birth of King Arthur, who proves his divine right to rule by pulling the sword from the stone. In the tale the magician becomes a blind harpist who later vanishes into thin air. He later reappears as a balding child who issues edicts to King Arthur wearing no underwear. Being the child of a woman impregnated by an incubus gave Merlin his shape-shifting powers. He asks to be Arthur's standard bearer on the battlefield. Arthur agrees and Merlin turns up with a magic, fire-breathing dragon.

After being recycled and repurposed in the 1500s as the cover for a property record owned by the Vanneck family of Heveningham from Huntingfield Manor in Suffolk, this rare manuscript fragment miraculously survived through the centuries after being folded, torn, and stitched into the binding of the book making it almost impossible for the experts at Cambridge to access it, read it, or confirm its origins without risking any damage in unpicking the binding.

Using  multispectral imaging (MSI), CT scanning and 3D modelling the researchers at the library were able to digitally capture the most inaccessible parts of the fragile parchment without unfolding or unstitching it. This preserved the 700 year old manuscript in situ and avoided irreparable damage while at the same time allowing the heavily faded fragment to be virtually unfolded, digitally enhanced and read for the first time in centuries in March 2025.

>> Lost manuscript of Merlin and King Arthur legend read for the first time after centuries hidden inside another book

Arthurian books published in 2025

The Arthurian World edited by Victoria Coldham-Fussell, et al, (Routledge, first paperback edition published 2025). This book includes several essays on the Arthurian legend, covering topics like Arthur in early Welsh tradition and post-medieval interpretations.

This collection provides an innovative and wide-ranging introduction to the world of Arthur by looking beyond the canonical texts and themes, taking instead a transversal perspective on the Arthurian narrative. Together, its thirty-four chapters explore the continuities that make the material recognizable from one century to another, as well as transformations specific to particular times and places, revealing the astonishing variety of adaptations that have made the Arthurian story popular in large parts of the world.

Divided into four parts—The World of Arthur in the British Isles, The European World of Arthur, The Material World of Arthur, and The Transversal World of Arthur — the volume tracks the legend’s movement across temporal, geographical, and material boundaries. Broadly chronological, each part views the unfolding Arthurian story through its own lens, while temporal and geographical overlaps between the sections underscore the proximity of these developments in the legend’s history.

Studies in Arthurian and Chronicle Traditions in Memory of Fiona Tolhurst, Edited by Dorsey Armstrong, K S Whetter (DS Brewer, 2025). A collection of essays from Boydell & Brewer that examines Arthurian and Chronicle texts.

Essays examining Arthurian and Chronicle texts, contexts, and reception, in honour of Fiona Tolhurst's contributions to Arthurian Studies. In her all-too-short but ground-breaking academic career, Fiona Tolhurst made significant contributions to the discipline of Arthurian Studies, advancing, amongst much else, understanding of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Arthurian Women, the English Mortes, and modern Arthuriana, including cinematic versions of the legend. The essays assembled here reflect her commitment to explication of Arthurian and Chronicle texts and contexts. Several engage with Geoffrey of Monmouth, examining, among other topics, the depiction of women in his narrative of British origins; the function of giants and significance of landscape and geography in his writings; the contrast between Geoffrey's Trojan-British empire and the Graeco-Egyptian foundation narratives of Scottish and Irish chronicles; and the reception and use of his writing from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Other contributors consider characterization and politics in the Brut tradition and Malory; the puzzling dualities of the alliterative Morte; the reception of Malory's "Trystram"; continuities between medieval and modern readings of the Morte Darthur; and the uses, adaptation, and appropriation of Arthurian themes and ideals in the twenty-first century. 

King Arthur: Medieval British Literature and Modern Critical Tradition, Andrew Breeze (Uppsala Books, 2025). A scholarly analysis of the Arthurian legend from medieval sources to modern criticism, including chapters on Arthur's historicity, Merlin, and key texts like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

King Arthur: Medieval British Literature and Modern Critical Tradition is a book that revolutionizes our understanding of Britain’s history and early literature. It begins with a compelling demonstration of ‘King’ Arthur as no figure of legend, but a flesh-and-blood warrior of the sixth century. He was not a ruler, but a North British champion fighting other North Britons during the terrible ‘volcanic winter’ of 536-7, and dying a soldier’s death in the latter year at Camlan or Castlesteads on Hadrian’s Wall. Arguments for this are followed by chapters on Arthur in the literatures of medieval Britain as perceived by scholars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They include chapters on modern understanding of the Welsh Mabinogion, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, Layamon’s Brut, the alliterative Morte Arthure, and Sir Thomas Malory’s prose Morte Darthure, the last printed in 1485 by William Caxton. Besides these is dramatic proof on the Arthurian romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, using evidence set out by Ann Astell to identify its author as the Cheshire magnate Sir John Stanley (d. 1414), who will have written it in late 1387 for Christmas revels that year at Chester Castle. Solving problems which have baffled scholars for centuries, King Arthur: Medieval British Literature and Modern Critical Tradition is a volume that will fundamentally alter our view of Britain’s past. 

King Arthur and the Languages of Britain: Examining the Linguistic Evidence - Bernard Mees, (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025)

Medievalists have denied the historical existence of King Arthur for over 50 years. Arthur and the Languages of Britaindemonstrates how linguistic evidence can be employed to see if the earliest historical records that mention Arthur are reliable. The book begins with an analysis of the evidence for the Anglo-Saxon invasions and the response of the Britons, and introduces the main methodological approaches employed in the linguistic analysis of historical records. 

It then provides evidence for Arthur as a Cumbric-speaker active in the region about Hadrian’s Wall, before assessing the linguistic evidence which supports the validity of the references to Arthur in the Welsh Annals and the Historia Brittonum. Bernard Mees reflects on how Arthur is recorded as having taken part in the Battle of Mount Badon, a site that has never been located, and dying at Camlann, now Castlesteads on Hadrian’s Wall. 

Mees uses linguistic analysis of the evidence recorded for the existence of Arthur to support the historical reliability of these records. Mees concludes with a summary of how Geoffrey of Monmouth created pseudo-historical stories from the references to Arthur in these early sources, turning Ambrosius Aurelianus into Merlin and Mordred into King Arthur’s nephew and the lover of his queen Guinevere. 

Arthurian Literature XL edited by K.S. Whetter and Megan G. Leitch (DS Brewer, 2025).
The 40th volume in a series of academic essays on Arthurian literature and history.

Appropriately for the journal’s fortieth milestone, this volume of Arthurian Literature offers an especially wide range of topics, from printers’ modifications in early Arthurian books to a study of archetypal characters in several linguistic traditions. It begins with the winner of the Derek Brewer Essay Prize, which has this year been awarded to an original and intriguing investigation of how and why Wynkyn de Worde (or various of his staff working under his direction) modified his 1529 printing of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur. 

Thereafter, literary-critical explorations range across French, Welsh, and Middle English Arthurian literatures, including examinations of marriage in Chrétien’s Chevalier au Lion, Peredur in the Welsh Grail texts, fairies and cosmic providence in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the shifting degrees of agency possessed by Malory’s Gwenyvere. 

The volume also features a lively reconsideration of the Arthurian tomb at Glastonbury from the point of view of material culture, and an examination of Arthur’s hagiographical characterisation in Latin-Breton Saints Lives’. It closes with a survey of twentieth-century English-language retellings of Arthurian fiction that highlights female authors’ many contributions to the genre. 

 
Arthur, Origins, Identities and the Legendary History of Britain by Jean Blacker (Brill, 2024). A book addressing how Arthurian histories contributed to British identity. Although published in 2024 this book was awarded the Dhira B. Mahoney prize in 2025.

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s immensely popular Latin prose Historia regum Britanniae (c. 1138), followed by French verse translations – Wace’s Roman de Brut (1155) and anonymous versions including the Royal Brut, the Munich, Harley, and Egerton Bruts (12th -14th c.), initiated Arthurian narratives of many genres throughout the ages, alongside Welsh, English, and other traditions.

Arthur, Origins, Identities and the Legendary History of Britain addresses how Arthurian histories incorporating the British foundation myth responded to images of individual or collective identity and how those narratives contributed to those identities. What cultural, political or psychic needs did these Arthurian narratives meet and what might have been the origins of those needs? And how did each text contribute to a “larger picture” of Arthur, to the construction of a myth that still remains so compelling today?

Happy New Year!

* * *

Agricola and the Conquest of the North

The Return of Agricola
Our knowledge of the fortification and conquest of North Britain in the Flavian period is largely derived from the account of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD c.56-120). More commonly known simply as ‘Tacitus’ he wrote two major historical works, ‘Annals’ and ‘The Histories’ for which he is widely regarded by modern scholars as one of the greatest Roman historians. His other works include ‘Germania’ and a biography of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola, ‘De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae’, an account of the governor of Roman Britain from AD 77-84. Tacitus's ‘Agricola’  has been described as a eulogy for his deceased father-in-law which made Agricola the best known of all the Roman governors of Britain and elevated him to the Flavian dynasty’s greatest military leader. It has been largely accepted for many years as the historical narrative for the Roman conquest of Scotland.

Flavian Sites in Scotland (copyright David Breeze)

Agricola served in Britain on three occasions, as military tribune during the Boudiccan revolt, Legionary legate of Legio XX, and finally governor, the only senator to have served all three ranks in the same province. Tacitus is our only near-contemporary source for this period of British history that presents Agricola during his term of office as provincial governor leading the 1st-century conquest of ‘Calendonia’, the term the Romans used for the region beyond the Solway-Tyne isthmus, modern Scotland. Such was Tacitus’s admiration of his father-in-law that he is often accused of bias by historians, as we have seen above, Tactitus is not-so-complimentary on Agricola's predecessors particularly Bolanus and provides just a single sentence on the governorship of Frontinus.

Following his recall from Britain as commander of Legio XX in AD 74 Agricola was sent to govern Aquitania. Two years later he was back in Rome and elected suffect consul. In AD 77 the historian Tactitus married Agricola’s daughter. Agricola was then appointed Governor of Britain by emperor Vespasian. The previous governor of Britain Frontinus (AD 73/74-77) had been recalled by Rome in AD 77 and by the summer of that year Agricola had been appointed governor of Britain. The date of Agricola’s appointment is a matter of debate between scholars, some favouring AD 78, but most now follow the chronology proposed by the late Anthony Birley that his tenure was AD 77-84, an unprecedented seven years in office as Governor of Britain. 

Agricola fought seven campaigns in Britain, the first in Wales and then the following year against the Brigantes in northern England. As governor of Britain it would seem that Agricola was briefed by the emperor to complete the conquest of the whole island, subsequently, his next five campaigns were conducted in the far north of the Province as the Romans intended to conquer Scotland.

AD 77 First Campaign: North Wales
His first mission was to subjugate the Ordovices and complete the conquest of North Wales and Mona (Anglesey). Immediately prior to his arrival the Ordovices were still active against Rome having massacred a cavalry unit in North Wales in AD 77. Accordingly, Agricola’s first task was to deal with the last troublesome tribe in Wales, by the winter of that year he had established a series of forts in North Wales. The Ordovices were pursued as they fled to Mona where the last vestiges of resistance held out. According to Tactitus [The Agricola, 18] he was ruthless in dealing with them; “The result of the action was almost the total extirpation of the Ordovices”.

Agricola reorganised the British legions in preparation for his planned conquest of the Caledonian tribes in Scotland. Legio II Adiutrix were moved from Lincoln to Chester at the mouth of the River Dee on the northern Welsh border, to construct a legionary fortress with harbour. No doubt their expertise in amphibious operations would be a crucial factor in their deployment at Chester in support of the northern campaign. 

AD 78 Second Campaign: Northern England
The summer of AD 78 was spent in preparation for the northern campaigns. Agricola assembled his army for the conquest of the north Britain, comprising Legio IX with vexillations from Legio XX, Legio II Augusta and Legio II Adiutrix supplemented with a large number of auxiliaries. It would appear that during this year Agricola concentrated on consolidating the Roman hold over the territory largely occupied by the Brigantians, constructing forts and roads up to the Solway – Tyne line.

Tacitus tells us that Agricola “marked out the encampments, and explored in person the estuaries and forests. At the same time he perpetually harassed the enemy by sudden incursions until they lay aside their animosity, and to deliver hostages. These districts were surrounded with castles and forts, disposed with so much attention and judgment, that no part of Britain, hitherto new to the Roman arms, escaped unmolested”. [The Agricola, 20]

He then set about ‘Romanising’ these tribes by encouraging the natives to erect temples, courts of justice, and dwelling-houses, rewarding those that complied with his intentions.[The Agricola, 21] 

Reconciling the account of Tacitus with archaeology he is credited by historians in the construction of temporary marching camps, forts and roads in northern England in preparation for movement into southern Scotland. He extending Dere Street and establishing the Stanegate road from Carlisle to the fort at Beaufront Red House, effectively the northern border, running east-west on the line of the Solway Firth – Tyne isthmus. Vexillation sized forts were established along this line, such as Chesterholm (Vindolanada), roughly a day’s march apart. Hadrian’s Wall would later be built along this line but slightly north of the Stanegate.

Dere Street would eventually be extended to the Forth. Many Flavian forts were sited to guard river crossings such as Piercebridge on the Tees, Binchester (Vinovia) on the Wear, Ebchester (Vindomara) guarding the crossing on the Derwent in County Durham. The Beaufront Red House (Sandhoe) fort was constructed at the point were Dere Street crossed the Stanegate, and would become the main support base of Agricola’s campaigns as he ventured further north between during his tenure as governor. 

The earlier fort at Beaufront Red House was replaced sometime after AD 85 with the establishment of the Roman station at Corbridge (Coira) 0.5 mile away. Coria would later become the legionary base for Legio XX and Legio VI Victrix in supporting the Hadrian’s Wall garrison. The fort at Coira was completely levelled around AD 163 after the Roman withdrawal from the Antonine Wall and fall back to Hadrian’s Wall, converting the site into a market town and administrative centre for the northern frontier, the most northerly town in the Roman world.

AD 79 Third Campaign: Southern Scotland to the Tay
The Agricola 22 states that the military expeditions of the third year discovered nations new to the Romans, being the occupants of the land north of the Stanegate. Accepting that Cerialis ventured as far as Carlisle and no further north, although there is some debate to how far he actually reached which we will come to later, it is generally accepted that Agricola’s third campaign was the subjugation of the tribes of south-east Scotland. According to Tacitus the Romans met little resistance from the Votadini with Agricola making a lightning advance as far as the estuary of the Tay.  

In the spring of AD 79 Agricola continued the march north, ravaging as far as the ‘Taus’, usually interpreted at the estuary of the river Tay. Tacitus writes that the northern tribes failed to confront the Romans which allowed the legions to erect fortresses. Tacitus adds, “no general had ever shown greater skill in the choice of advantageous situations than Agricola; for not one of his fortified posts was either taken by storm, or surrendered by capitulation”. [The Agricola, 22] 

In addition to fortifying the Southern Uplands, historians have interpreted chapter 22 of ‘The Agricola’ as including the construction of the Gask Ridge, a fortified road with eighteen known watchtowers running from the fort at Ardoch to Bertha at the Tay.

The Gask Line

This ridge is about 70m above sea level in the Midland Valley (Central Lowlands) between the Highland massif and the Southern Uplands. The ridge forms part of a natural corridor dividing the Highland Line from Fife leading northwards to the coastal strip of rich agricultural land skirting around the Highlands extending to the Moray Firth. The ridge provides clear views north to the Highlands and south over the hollow of Strathearn in the Earn Valley and the Firth of Forth. Near to the River Earn lay the Roman Camp at Strageath, one of a series used by the Romans to consolidate their newly gained territory. Historians attempt to trace the progress of the Roman invasion of Scotland by the many temporary marching camps and fortifications constructed as the army moved north, numbering over several hundred in total with some better known than others, such as Ardoch, Stracathro, Battledykes, Raedykes and Normandykes. 

But the evidence is far from straightforward, many sites are known only from cropmarks detected by aerial survey, dating evidence from the few excavations has been extremely limited and many sites have been re-used and built over by later Roman invasions of Scotland, such as the Antonine and Severan interventions.  The comment by Tacitus that ‘not one of the fortified posts were ever taken by storm’ is supported by the archaeology, from excavations to date, which shows the forts were abandoned by the Romans, some dismantled, with no evidence of hostile attack.

Furthermore, historians fail to agree on the function of the Gask line; is it simply a fortified supply line, an invasion corridor leading to Moray, constructed to monitor Fife, or the first northern frontier constructed by the Romans. We will return to this issue later, however it is a massive understatement to say that tracing the various Roman campaigns in Scotland is challenging at best.

Around this time the construction of a series of elite buildings were commenced within the legionary fortress at Chester by Legio II Adiutrix. Two lead water pipes found at Chester, one inscribed to Vespasian and the other to Agricola, have been dated to AD 79, which confirms the construction of the later legionary fortress commenced in the decade AD 70-80, during the early Flavian period. One lead pipe is supposed to have connected to a water feature at the centre of a elliptical building, unique in the Roman world and usually seen as indicating that Agricola intended Chester, the largest legionary fortress in Britain, to be the new capital of the province and a base for an invasion of Ireland. The fortress at the mouth of the Dee was ideally located to be the capital of an expanded British province including Scotland and Ireland; perhaps this was Vespasian’s grand plan for Roman Britain that Agricola was putting into effect. But on 24 June AD 79 Vespasian died after a long illness and his eldest son Titus became emperor and the campaign in the north, while seeming to stall while Agricola consolidated his new gained grounds, would continue the following year. However, the concept of an invasion of Ireland died with Vespasian.

AD 80 Fourth Campaign: Consolidating Southern Scotland
Tacitus tells us that on Agricolas second year in Scotland the Roman army, having the Tay the previous year, paused its northward advance and spent the next summer securing the country which had been ‘overrun’. Having secured the south eastern lands of the Votadini Agricola must have encountered the Selgovae in the hills of Central Southern Scotland. Marching camps along the Tweed and Lyne valleys shows the Romans progress into the heartland of the Selgovae. To the north of this Agricola came upon the Dumnonii territory where he established forts across the narrow neck of land between the estuaries of Clota and Bodotria (Clyde and Forth). This natural line of defence across the narrowest landmass of the mainland, about 35 miles, would be re-used by the builders of the Antonine Wall some sixty years later. Tacitus adds that all the territory on the southern side of this line was held in subjection while the remaining hostile tribes were pushed beyond it “as it were, into another island”. [The Agricola, 23]

AD 81 Fifth Campaign: Galloway and Dumfries
In his fifth year as governor Agricola conquered the Novantae in what is now Galloway and Carrick, in south-westernmost Scotland, opposite Ireland (Hibernia) which he considered invading. Tacitus gives an outline of Ireland and why it would be advantageous to the Romans to possess the island adding that Agricola had received into his protection one of the Irish petty kings who had been expelled suggesting that the man could be useful tot he Romans should they decide to invade the island across the Gallic Sea. Tacitus claims that he heard Agricola mention on more than one occasion that he could take Ireland with a single legion and a few auxiliaries. [The Agricola 24]

On 14 September Titus died and his younger brother Domitian became emperor, the last of the Flavian dynasty.

AD 82 Sixth Season: Angus and Aberdeenshire
In the summer of the sixth season Agricola explored the eastern seaboard beyond Bodotria (The Firth of Forth) possibly named after the Proto-Celtic *vo-rit-ia meaninhg 'slow running'. The new emperor Domitian recalled vexillations from Britain’s legions for the war in Germania, however Agricola’s campaign continued as he advanced to confront the Caledonians. By the summer he was campaigning in Angus and Aberdeenshire by land and sea. There are reports of attacks by the Caledonii on Roman forts. Agricola receives reports of a Caledonian three-pronged advance who carry out a night attack on the camp of Legio IX Hispana, probably at Dalginross. Agricola responded in a timely manner and came to the aid of the embattled legion.

By the autumn Agricola had created a defensive line comprising of a series of forts blocking the glens to control movements of the northern tribes. It is thought that around this time construction started on the legionary fortress at Inchtuthil probably by Legio XX. [The Agricola, 25-27]

Tacitus records the campaign year ended with the ‘flight and debacle’ of “a cohort of Usipii, which had been levied in Germany and sent over into Britain, performed an extremely daring and memorable action.” The Usipii killed a centurion then set sail in three vessels, driven by the waves, they sailed around the island of Britain but lost their ships. They were treated as pirates, intercepted first by the Suevi then by the Frisii, and sold as slaves. [The Agricola , 28]

This is often interpreted as the Usipii sailed around the whole of the island of Britain but the later Roman historian Cassius Dio (AD 165-235), probably following Tacitus, also records the extraordinary expedition of the Usipii. According to Dio, the Usipii set out from the western side of the island, sailed through the difficult waters of northern Scotland and came around to the eastern side. They were then driven to the Baltic Sea where they lost their ships and attempting to reach their homeland were captured by the Suevii and then the Frisii.

AD 83 Seventh Season: Mons Graupius
The following summer Agricola received the devastating news of the loss of his son. Tacitus writes that “war was one of the remedies of his grief”.

The Caledonii persisted in hit and run tactics, favouring guerilla warfare rather than face the legions in the field where they knew they would almost certainly be defeated by the better armed and well disciplined Roman war machine. Agricola knew that to defeat them he would need to pull the Caledonii into the open field of battle. In summer of AD 83 he ordered the lands to the Moray Firth to be ravished while the Roman navy harassed the coast. The Romans finally drew the Caledonians to battle at a place called Mons Graupius, the battle site still lacking positive identification to date. Tacitus records some 10,000 Caledonians were killed, a generation of fighting men wiped out that would bring stability to the area for the next twenty years. While The Romans only experienced 360 casualties without the need to engage the Legions, the battle was won by auxiliaries alone.

Agricola then instructed his fleet to sail around the north coast to confirm that Britain was an island. This is claimed to be the first circumnavigation of Britain.

AD 84: Withdrawal and Recall
Tacitus wrote that having now conquered all of the island of Britain Agricola was recalled by Domitian in the spring of AD 84, ending an unusually long tenure as governor of Britain. The change in Provincial Governor would see a dramatic turn in events and the surrender of all the lands won by seven years campaigning by Agricola. Tacitus writes: "Britain was completely conquered and immediately let go". [Histories]

Domitian’s main concern was unrest on the Danube and he needed all available resources to control the restless Dacian tribes. Clearly the Roman occupation of North Britain was not the emperor’s priority. With the loss of Agricola and the appointment of a new (un-named governor) the Romans started to withdraw from Scotland, the uncompleted fortress at Inchtuthil was abandoned and demolished. Legio II Adiutrix was withdrawn from Britain as the emperor Domitian decided he could not afford four legions in Britain and needed to reinforce forces on the lower Danube. Legio XX were moved from Inchtuthil to Chester which would now be its permanent base, but work on the 'Elliptical building' and other prestigious building at the centre of the fortress, planned to be Agricola’s new capital of an expanded province that included Ireland and Scotland, all stopped and failed to extend beyond the foundations.

Tactitus is quite hostile in his reaction to Domitian’s surrender of Scotland and accuses the emperor of jealousy of Agricola’s success, eclipsing the emperor’s own 

Agricola died on 23 August AD 93 at his family estates in Gallia Narbonensis aged 53. Rumours circulated that Domitian was responsible for his death by administering poison but no evidence has been produced to confirm this. Writing some years later Cassius Dio was rather more forthright and directly accused Domitian of Agricola’s murder “because his deeds were too great for a mere general”.

Remaining silent during Domitian's reign, Tacitus wrote and published his eulogy to his father-in-law within two years of the Emperor's assassination on 18 September 96.

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