Book Review: The Battles of King Arthur by Tony Sullivan

The Battles of King Arthur
By Tony Sullivan
Pen & Sword, Hardback, 288 pages + 32 illustrations
ISBN: 9781399015301
Published: 26th May 2022

This is Tony Sullivan’s second Arthurian book from publisher Pen & Sword, the first outing being King Arthur: Man or Myth? (2020) an investigation of the evidence for King Arthur based on the earliest written sources, weighing the possibility of Arthur as an historical figure or purely a creation of fiction.

Many recent works by a new generation of authors has become tedious in their pursuit of identifying a specific person in a particular location as the legendary king. This is fuelled by the limited reliable information available and the vagueness of Arthur’s battles as recorded in the ninth century Historia Brittonum allowing poetic licence to run a mock.

Refreshingly, KingArthur: Man or Myth? examined a list of possible suspects without bias toward identify a particular figure as King Arthur and is therefore the best starting point for anyone new to Arthurian studies.

The Battles of King Arthur continues with the author’s unbiased approach, focusing on Arthur’s battles in the Historia Brittonum, but making two assumptions: firstly that Arthur was a historical figure; and secondly, that this battle list is genuine. Not all will agree with these assumptions as this is a contentious subject, but these assumptions are essential for a study of Arthur’s battles; otherwise the page remains pretty much blank.

Tied to these two assumptions the author sets out the case for the most likely locations of Arthur’s battles using archaeological evidence and historical sources to place Arthur and his battles in the correct political, cultural and military context. To this end the book focuses on three broad hypotheses: firstly, that there is a reasonable amount of evidence to estimate the political, cultural and military context; secondly, some of Arthur’s battles can be located on the balance of probabilities; and finally, the proposed locations will make sense in the context of the political and military situation and the archaeological and literary evidence.

We start with a brief look at historical events leading up to the time when Arthur fought, from Roman Britain to Post-Roman Britain AD410-450. Next we move on to examine the Anglo Saxons, investigating the archaeological and literary evidence to understand the Germanic migration and the possible meaning of Gildas’s “partition” before examining how regional polities evolved from civitas to Kingdoms. It quickly becomes clear that this was a far more complex picture than what we are often told; it seems there is not one single scenario that comfortably fits all.

Using contemporary accounts of fifth and sixth century battles (such as Y Gododdin for example) the next chapter on weapons and warfare sets the scene for how these battles must have been fought discussing sizes of armies, battle formations and tactics.

The author acknowledges that having laid out the historical background in great detail, a complex picture has emerged. A fragmenting political and civilian structure in addition to changes in cultural identities across a range of different groups: aristocratic elites; townsfolk; peasants; military and mercenary groups; and a heterogeneous group of Germanic settlers. Into this pressure cooker of economic, religious and social frictions he places Arthur within a time-frame of c.450-520.

We now move to the climax of the book, Chapter 7, The Thirteen Battles of Arthur, a solid forty pages. Here the author discusses all twelve battles from the Historia Brittonum with the addition of Arthur’s apparent final battle at Camlann from the Annals Cambriae. Each battle is discussed in depth in turn with a map to show the location as identified against the balance of probabilities. The locations of Arthur’s battles is another contentious issue, and not everyone will agree with these conclusions, yet Tony Sullivan provides the best fit for a historical Arthur in the context of the timeframe.

This is weighty volume, packed with detailed information, but the author’s writing style makes for a very easy read that moves on at a fair pace. This is an important addition to the Arthurian debate and so refreshing when the genre is polluted these days with whacky theories claiming to identify King Arthur as whoever you like.

In The Battles of King Arthur author Tony Sullivan has taken popular Arthurian studies to a new level. Highly recommended.

Copy received from the publisher in return for posting a review without obligation.

* * *

Arthur’s Battles according to Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth provides the first full length account of the story of King Arthur's career, as such it can be stated that Arthurian literature begins with the Historia regum Britanniae (De gestis Britonum), c.1138. 

Arthur occupies more than one fifth of Geoffrey's History of the Kings of Britain; out of eleven books Arthur’s career spreads across four, making his entrance toward the end of Book Eight, his exploits completely fill Books Nine and Ten, and his exit is set at the beginning of Book Eleven. His reign is without doubt the pinnacle of Geoffrey's work on the Kings of Britain.

Narrative
Liber VIII. Book Eight of the Historia regum Britanniae closes with Arthur's conception at Tintagel through Merlin's magic and swiftly moves on to his father Uther Pendragon's death at St Albans after being poisoned by the Saxons. 

Liber IX. Following the death of Uther Book Nine begins with his son Arthur invested as king. No sooner than he is crowned than Arthur set off to fight Saxons, Picts and Scots by the river Duglas near York. The enemy retreated into the city where Arthur subjected them to a siege. The Saxons awaited the arrival of Chelricus from Germany. When Chelricus arrived with six hundred ships of pagan warriors Arthur called off the siege and withdrew to London. Arthur then sent for assistance from his nephew Hoelus and the Armorican Britons. When Hoelus arrived with fifteen thousand men they immediately went to Kaerluidcoit, which Geoffrey tells us is also named Lincoln in the province of Lindsey, which was under siege from the Saxons. Once battle commenced six thousand Saxons fell, the rest abandoned the siege and quickly fled to the forest of Celidon. Arthur surrounded them and after three days the Saxons requested to leave and return to Germany, they left hostages and promised to pay tribute.

On the return voyage, breaking their promise, the Saxons turned back and landed at Totnes, ravaging the land as far as the Severn estuary and subjected the town of Bath to a siege. Hearing of this Arthur abandoned his expedition against the Scots and Picts who were besieging his nephew Hoelus who had been taken ill in the city of Dumbarton. Arthur headed south to the region of Bath. So great is Arthur's victory that many of the Saxons under Chelricus fled. Following his success Arthur immediately hurried back to Scotland and ordered Cador, Duke of Cornwall to pursue the Saxons. Cador caught up with them at Thanet and inflicted great slaughter, killing Chelricus.

Cador then went north to assist Arthur against the Scots and Picts who were now blockaded at Loch Lomond after fighting three battles against Arthur. Gillamuris, King of Ireland, came to the aid of the Scots with a fleet of ships but Arthur abandoned the blockade and turned on them who, after heavy losses, were forced to sail home. He then turned his attention back to the Scots and Picts who Geoffrey says he wiped out with utter ruthlessness.

Arthur then turned his attention to the islands and conquered Ireland and then Iceland. The kings of Gotland and the Orkneys submitted and paid tribute to Arthur. He then set off for Norway and Denmark. After accepting their submissions he sailed for Gaul and engaged with the Roman tribune Frollo who ruled there on behalf of Emperor Leo.

After some of Frollo's men, the best of the Gallic knights, moved across to join Arthur, Frollo withdrew to Paris. Arthur besieged the city which prompted Frollo to come out and fight Arthur in single combat to end the suffering of the citizens. Arthur defeats Frollo by cleaving his head in two with his sword Caliburnus. Then the city opened its gates and surrendered to Arthur. He now divided his forces in two with Hoelus subduing Aquitaine and Gascony while Arthur dealt with the other provinces. 

Having spent nine years subduing all the regions of Gaul, Arthur then returned to Britain. During the following Whitsun celebrations at Caerleon Arthur received a delegation from Lucius Hiberius, procurator of the Roman republic. They presented a letter that demanded tribute from the Britons for taking the Roman province of Gaul. Cador, Duke of Cornwall, states that the Britons have been at peace for five years without being tried in war, and claimed that God had set the Romans on course to allow them to recover their old virtue.

Arthur, with unanimous support from his recently acquired empire, ordered his armies to meet him at the harbour of Barfleur on the first day of August from where they would advance into the land of the Burgundians. Meanwhile, Arthur sent a letter to the Romans stating that he would never pay tribute nor would he be going to Rome to face their sentence, but demanded from them what they had demanded from him.

Liber X. The entire contents of Book Ten of the Historia regum Britanniae is dedicated to Arthur's second Gallic campaign and its finale at the Battle of Siesia.

Before leaving Britain, Arthur charged his nephew Modred and Queen Guanhumara with the governance of the country in his absence. After departing from Southampton Arthur had a dream during the crossing of a Bear and a Dragon. He men saw this as a good omen but Arthur believed this was relevant to his own fate.

On landing Arthur fought with the giant of Mont-St-Michel and then retold the story of his victory over Ritho the giant who made a cloak from the beards of kings.

Giants defeated, Arthur headed for Autun where he expected to find Lucius Hiberius. Arriving at the river Aube he discovered that Lucius was camped not far away. He sent a delegation, including his nephew Gawain, to tell Lucius to leave France or advance the following day. After some minor skirmishes the senator Petreius Cocta advanced with 10,000 men but he was captured by Arthur's men and taken to Paris with other prisoners.

At this point Lucius was undecided if he should push on and engage with Arthur or retreat to Autun and wait for help from emperor Leo. He entered Langres intending to march to Autun that night. When Arthur heard of this he resolved to cut him off that same night, leaving the city he occupied a valley called Siesia, through which Lucius would pass. 

Having learnt of the planned ambush Lucius abandoned his intentions to go to Autun and decided to attack the Britons in the same valley. A great battle ensued when the two armies met with many casualties on both sides in which Lucius was struck down by an unknown lance, and Arthur was victorious. Lucius's body was sent to Rome with a message that this was the only tribute that Britain needed to pay.

Arthur then decided to March on Rome but turned back when he heard that his nephew Modred had usurped the crown and was in union with Queen Guanhumara.

Liber XI. The beginning of Book Eleven details the final battle at Camblam (Camlann). On hearing of Modred taking the crown Arthur hurried back to Britain accompanied only by the kings of the islands and their troops leaving Hoelus, Duke of Brittany, with his forces to maintain peace in Gaul.

Modred had sent the Saxon leader Chelricus back to Germany to gather as many men as he could and return to Britain immediately. In return Modred promised him all of the island from the river Humber to Scotland and the territory of Kent held by Hengist and Horsa in Vortigern's time. Chelricus quickly returned with eight hundred ships of warriors. Modred also called on Arthur's sworn enemies the Picts, Scots and Irish to join his forces. Geoffrey tells us that Modred's total force numbered some eighty thousand fighting men.

Modred attacked Arthur as soon as he landed at Richborough, with Gawain killed in the fighting. Modred pulled his forces back to Winchester. After burying his dead, Arthur pursued him with great slaughter on both sides. Modred took ship and fled to Cornwall where Arthur followed him to the river Camblam where the final conflict unfolded.

Modred was killed in the battle and Arthur being mortally wounded was taken to the Isle of Avallon to be healed of his wounds. He handed the crown of Britain to his relative Constantius, son of Cador Duke of Cornwall.

Source:
Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain (An edition and translation of the De gestis Britonum), Latin text edited by Michael D Reeve, trans. Neil Wright, Boydell Press, 2009.

Commentary
With Arthur’s victory over the Romans in Gaul, Geoffrey reached the climax of the Historia regum Britannia. This simple fact is often overlooked as it does not fit with the image of Arthur when reconstructed as a “historical” Dark Age warlord leading the native resistance against the advancing Anglo-Saxons in a post-Roman Britain.

It is known that Geoffrey used Gildas, Bede and the Historia Brittonum (Nennius) and no doubt pulled the theme of Arthur’s battles from the latter. It is evident that here Geoffrey departed from his sources as he only briefly follows the Nennian battle list and his source for Arthur’s Gallic campaign has never been found. Consequently, Arthur’s exploits in Gaul are often dismissed as pure invention or, at the other extreme, used in imaginative reconstructions by today’s popular authors claiming to have found the king’s true identity producing vivid accounts of a total European conquest in which Arthur even became known as the “King of Greece”.

Geoffrey certainly pulled names and places from various sources disregarding any set chronology to make it fit the sequence in his story. He fails to adhere to the list of twelve battles fought by Arthur as recorded in the 9th century Historia Brittonum; only three of Geoffrey’s battles can be reconciled with this list. He ignores Nennius’s first battle on the river Glein and concentrates Arthur’s earliest battles on the river Duglas near York, then moves to a siege of the city. Geoffrey’s “Duglas” is clearly intended to be the river Dubglas were Arthur fought his second, third, fourth and fifth battles according to the Historia Brittonum. Geoffrey ignores the sixth battle on the river Bassa. According to Geoffrey, after Duglas, Arthur then besieged the Saxons at York but withdrew to London when Chelricus arrived from Germany with six hundred ships. When Hoelus of the Armoricans arrived with fifteen thousand men, he and Arthur immediately made for Kaerluidcoit which was under siege from the Saxons, presumably by the same group from York. Geoffrey tells us this place is also named Lincoln in the province of Lindsey, the region identified as part of Lincolnshire.

In the Historia Brittonum the four battles on the river Dubglas are said to be in the “region of Linnius” which is equated with Lindsey, so here Geoffrey maintains the general location, he seems to be locating the Duglas somewhere south of York. After breaking the siege at Lincoln the Saxons withdraw to the forest of Celidon, which Geoffrey takes from the seventh battle of the Historia Brittonum in the “Caledonian Forest, that is, the Battle of Celidon Coit”. Most commentators see this as meaning Scotland but clearly to Geoffrey it was not far from York and therefore in Northern England.

The Historia Brittonum records Arthur’s ninth battle as in the “City of the Legion” (Urbe Legionis). Perhaps Geoffrey identified York as the City of the Legions, or he may have meant Lincoln? Both were significant legionary fortresses in their day and Geoffrey would probably have been aware of their Roman remains. However, Lincoln was never recorded as “Kaerluidcoit” which Geoffrey provides as an alternative name. The Historia Brittonum listed 28 cities in Britain, the twenty-eighth is recorded as “cair-luit-coit” (Fortress in the Grey Wood) which is identified as Wall-by-Lichfield in Staffordshire; Lincoln is notably absent from the list of cities. However, “The City of the Legion” is generally considered as either Caerleon or Chester by most attempting to decipher the battle list.

Geoffrey does not include the Historia Brittonum’s eighth battle at Guinnion fort, the tenth on the bank of the river Tribruit (Tryfrwyd) nor the eleventh battle on the hill called Agned (named as Breguoin in some manuscripts). Geoffrey tells us that Mons Agned was one of cities built by Ebraucus which he identifies as Edinburgh but he does not mention a battle fought there. 

Geoffrey includes Arthur’s twelfth and final battle from the Historia Brittonum at Badon which he identifies at Bath Hill. Badon is undoubtedly Arthur’s greatest victory over the advancing Saxons, the culmination of a series of battles reflecting Gildas’s account of Ambrosius rallying the Britons leading up to that point.

It is likely that Geoffrey simply ignored the battle sites that he could not identify. Indeed, many of the locations of the battles listed in the Historia Brittonum have defied positive identification since being recorded over a thousand years ago. 

Significantly none of Arthur’s battles in the Historia Brittonum have been positively identified in Gaul. Yet after the victory at Badon, and immediately heading north to defeat the Picts and Scots at Dumbarton (Alcud), Moray and Loch Lomond, Geoffrey takes Arthur on a conquest of north-west Europe. As detailed in Book Nine, Geoffrey has Arthur conquer Ireland, Iceland, Gotland, the Orkneys, Norway and Denmark before heading for Gaul for the first time and defeats Frollo, the Roman Tribune. After coming back to Britain, Arthur returns to Gaul when the Romans demand tribute from him for his previous incursion into their province.

Following Arthur’s second successful campaign in Gaul, this time defeating Lucius Hiberius, he is about to march on Rome but before he crosses the Alps he receives news of Modred’s usurpation and returns to Britain. He pursues Modred across southern Britain which ultimately leads to his final battle at Camblam (Camlann) in Cornwall. Modred’s treachery and love triangle with  Guanhumara (Gwenhwyfar/Guinevere) is unknown before Geoffrey. Modred (Medraut) is included in the Welsh Annals as falling along with Arthur at Camlann but there is nothing in this entry to suggest he was Arthur’s nemesis, indeed in early Welsh tradition he was noted for his valour and virtue.

Oddly, Geoffrey has Modred travel from land-locked Winchester to Cornwall by ship. He must have imagined he travelled southward from Winchester to Southampton then travelled along the coast. Camlann is not far from Tintagel and perhaps Geoffrey had it in mind to take Arthur’s journey full circle and place his death near the place of his conception.

No pre-Galfridian source (literature that is generally agreed to date from before the Historia regum Britanniae, c.1138) recalls Arthur returning from Gaul as a prelude to fighting Modred at Camlann which again must be attributed to Geoffrey’s inventiveness. This creative gift of Geoffrey’s is again emphasised by characters from earlier in his tale that are used again at Camlann; Modred calls Chelricus from Germany, who was killed by Cador after Badon, and Cassibellanus from the 1st century BC suddenly appears from nowhere to be present at the battle at Camblam in the 6th century AD. There are many other examples, too many to mention here.

Geoffrey’s disregard for the original locations and sequence of the battle list included in the Historia Brittonum emphasises his “creative” talent. We can only positively identify three locations from that list: River Duglas, Forest of Celidon, Badon; for the rest he seems to have disregarded the original document and felt at liberty to select his own choice. There is certainly no record outside of Geoffrey that has Arthur travelling north to fight Picts and Scots immediately after Badon. Many commentators today consider Geoffrey took selective elements, people and placenames, from various sources and significantly embellished them to construct his own version of the story of Arthur. 

Without doubt Book Ten is the pinnacle of Arthur’s career and the climax of Geoffrey’s Historia regum Britanniae; the entire content is dedicated to Arthur's second Gallic campaign and its finale at the Battle of Siesia. This event was clearly a major inspiration for Geoffrey. Yet, there is no known source for Geoffrey’s Arthurian campaign in Gaul. A Breton source is often argued as providing Geoffrey with geographical knowledge of events in Gaul, but as yet a Breton source has never been uncovered that records Arthur’s Gallic war as detailed by Geoffrey. 

We can immediately disregard the Arthur of early Welsh tales that journeys to foreign lands to steal cauldrons and kill giants, witches and magical boars; these accounts are mythical in nature and here Arthur is dabbling in the supernatural. What’s more, in these early Welsh tales, Arthur always journeys west to Ireland or the Otherworld, never to Gaul. And never fights Romans.

We are left with the choice of either accepting Geoffrey’s account of Arthur as accurate and constructed from another source, now lost and totally unknown to us; or he simply invented much of it, heavily embellishing his source document.

It is often argued that Geoffrey used the accounts of either Riothamus or Magnus Maximus, two historical characters known to have led their forces to Gaul, as his inspiration for Arthur’s Gallic campaign. We will look at these next.

* * *

Arthur and the Saxons

The Road to Camlann Part III – The South East

“It is useless to look for Arthur's battle-sites anywhere but round about the area, once highly Romanized, in southern England, in the country south of the Thames and west of Kent. If it can be shown that enough remains to suggest identification of the battle-sites on the fringe of this area, the story of Nennius becomes credible.”1

Arthur's Battles and the Saxon Wars
If Arthur's battles were fought against the Saxons, and it is not certain they were, we might hope to find some trace in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. We find no records of Badon or Camlann, the high and low points of Arthur's career, among the early English; perhaps they are there, hidden from a form we might recognise, but in a different language.

The battle list contained within the 9th century Historia Brittonum (also known as 'Nennius' if you will) shows a series of battles that culminated in the twelfth at the battle of Badon. This account of the Britons fortunes seems to reflect Gildas (De Excidio Britanniae, ‘On the Ruin of Britain’) who, gives no dates but was writing before Maelgwn's death in 547 AD and certainly within living memory of the battle, places great significance to the ‘siege of Badon Hill’ (obsessio montis Badonicus) as the ‘final victory of our Country which has been granted to our time by the will of God.’

Anderitum Roman fort

Gildas tells us that the Britons took up arms and rallied under Ambrosius Aurelianus, the last of the
Romans and that, “from that time on now the citizens, now the enemy, were victorious ... right up until the year of the siege of Badon Hill, almost the last, not the least, slaughter of the villains, and this the forty-fourth year begins (as I know) with one month already elapsed, which is also [that] of my birth.”

In this passage it seems obvious that Gildas is saying is that he was born in the same year as the siege of Badon Hill and he was writing forty-three years and one month after that battle; we can thus date the battle to within a few years of either side of the year 500 AD.

Alternatively, it has been suggested saying that he is saying that the battle of Badon took place
forty-three years and one month after some other event not named by him in this sentence.

Bede closely follows Gildas in describing the fluctuating fortunes of the Britons, and the battle of Badon: “From that time on, now the citizens, now the enemy were victorious right up until the year of the siege of mount Badon, when there was no small slaughter of the enemy about forty-four years after their arrival in Britain.”2

Here Bede appears to have interpreted Gildas' statement as meaning that Badon occurred in the year of his birth, the forty-fourth year of the English settlement in Britain.

Bede claims the English Advent occurred in 449 AD. Badon, then must have occurred around 493 - 495. 449 is the year that the Anglo Saxon Chronicle records the arrival of Hengist and Horsa in Ipwinesfleet, at the invitation of Vortigern the king of the Britons. Battles at Aylesford (455), Crayford (457) and Wippedfleet (465) followed, which resulted in the Britons conceding Kent and fleeing to London. This account is mirrored in the so-called 'Kentish Chronicle' of the Historia Brittonum, but with the names Hengist and Horsa meaning stallion and horse it raises suspicion of it being a purely mythical foundation story.

In the 10th century Welsh Annals, Badon [Bellum Badonis] is entered under year 72, which corresponds to A.D. 518, and reads,

“The battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were victorious.”

The Annals are the first to give these details, and the first to provide a precise date for Badon; there are no other extant sources for the 518 date. Frank Reno3 re-calibrates the dates of the Annals Cambriae by 19 years, a full lunar cycle, calculated from the Easter Tables, which once again brings the date for Badon to around 500 AD.

As Badon is the last battle in the 12 listed in the Historia Brittonum (Nennius), Arthur's battles must have all been fought prior to that date, and, following the Welsh Annals, Camlann 21 years later. We can therefore pinpoint Arthur's floruit within a window of around 480 to 520.

Sussex

If Arthur was the leader of the Britons at Badon it is unlikely he could have been around to fight Hengist and Horsa in the mid-5th century, the Britons were led by the sons of Vortigern against the Saxon in Kent. Indeed, if Arthur fought against the Saxons in the south-east during the last quarter of the 5th century his adversaries would have been Aelle and Cerdic. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle records:

477 – Aelle lands at place called Cymenes ora with his three sons, Cymen, and Wlenking, and Cissa, in three ships. There they slew many of the Welsh; and some in flight they drove into the wood that is called Andred's leag.
485 - This year Aelle fought with the Britons at Mearcreades burnam.
490 - This year Aelle and Cissa besieged Andredes cester, and slew all that were therein; nor was one Briton left there afterwards.4

Aelle and the foundation of Sussex
According to the Chronicle, Aelle landed at Cymenes ora (ora = shore), which has been identified as a stretch of south-eastern coast between Selsey and Pagham. Andred's leag is the forest of Anderida, the Weald, which then stretched from Kent in the east to just north of Selsey in the west. Andredes cester is without doubt meant as the Roman Saxon Shore fort at Anderitum (now Pevensey castle) some 50 miles eastward along the coast from Selsey. From these two Chronicle entries we can see Aelle's progress from landing in 470 to the South Saxons spreading to Pevensey twenty years later. But the main area of Saxon settlement in the 5th century seems to have been between the river Ouse and Cuckmere. By the 6th century this had spread westward to the Adur, the opposite direction to the Chronicle.5

Pevensey Castle (Anderitum) - copyright English Heritage

The Chronicle tells us that in 485, in the midst of this reign, Aelle fought the Britons at Mearcreades burnam but does not record this as victory for the English. Mearcreades burnam has been interpreted as 'the river of the frontier agreed by treaty,' i.e the Ouse was the boundary of Saxon settlement, and the battle could have been an attempt by Aelle to break out beyond this boundary.6 At 480-feet Mount Caburn is one of the highest landmarks in East Sussex, on the summit is the remains of an Iron Age hill fort, separated from the South Downs, by Glynde Reach, a tributary of the River Ouse.

Collingwood identifies Arthur's first battle ("on the river Glein") from the Historia Brittonum as the Glynde in eastern Sussex, at its confluence with the Ouse near Lewes beneath the Caburn (Caer Bryn = strong fort). A long barrow on Cliffe Hill, part of the Caburn, is known as the Warriors Grave, which may have been so-named in memory of a battle fought here. Ekwall7 accepts the Glynde as equivalent to the "river Glein” a site often favoured by scholars as the Glen in Northumberland, or the Glen in Lincolnshire.

If this was indeed Arthur's first victory as recorded in the battle list of the Historia Brittonum, the date, 485, fits perfectly with the dates suggested for the Arthurian campaign. Aelle seems to have been contained until he struck at Andredes cester (Pevensey) some five years later.

We then hear no more of Aelle in the Chronicle and there is no record of his death. Yet, Bede, the historian of the English peoples, tells us that Aelle was the first English king to hold sovereignty (bretwalda) over all the southern provinces south of the Humber.8

Traditionally Aelle is the leader of the Saxon's at Badon (c.495) along with Octha of Kent (son of Hengist?). Octha is identified with 'Osla Big-Knife' (Gyllellvawr) in Arthurian tradition; in Culhwch and Olwen he is one of Arthur's warband as they hunt the giant boar Twrch Trwyth, but drowns when he follows the boar into the Severn and the scabbard of his seax (Saxon long-knife) fills with water dragging him under; in the Dream of Rhonabwy he is Arthur's adversary at Badon (Caer Faddon).9

Badbury Rings, Dorset

Traditionally we are are told that Badon was fought at Bath, as this describes the ancient name of the city with the hot springs, an idea that has stuck since Geoffrey of Monmouth's fables; but surely Bath is far too west for a Saxon advance at this time. Even the favoured sites of Liddington Castle (Wiltshire) and Badbury Rings (Dorset) are too far west for a South Saxon advance, a battle site further east, nearer the territory of the South Saxons (suthsaexe) would make much better sense. Archaeological evidence for early Saxon settlement in Sussex has been found in burials at Alfriston, Selmeston, Bishopstone, Beddingham, Glynde, Saxonbury (Lewes) and Wooodingdean.

However, if the identification of Arthur's first battle on the Glynde (river Glein) and his penultimate, Badon, in the south-east are correct we should then also expect to find the other ten battles in this area of England. Collingwood does exactly that for eleven of Arthur's battles but fails to offer a candidate for Badon in the region of the South Saxons.10 Oddly, the south-east is one area of Britain largely absent of Arthurian tradition.

After Badon, Aelle disappears from the Chronicle and even Sussex fails to get a mention for 150 years; it seems almost certain that both Aelle and his sons were killed in the battle. Badon was without doubt such a resounding victory for the Britons, perhaps revenge for the slaughter of all the occupants of the fort at Andredes cester, that the archaeological record shows a cessation in Saxon expansion in the south from this time for several generations. Indeed, writing before 865, a monk from Fulda records Saxons from Britain landing at Cuxhaven, Lower Saxony, Germany, in 531, an event which is also supported by the account in Procopius who writes of 6th century migration from Britain to the land of the Franks across the Channel.

If Arthur's twelve battles were fought in the south of England then can we expect find the site of Camlann also in the same area?


Copyright © 2017 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/


Notes & References
1.  WG Collingwood, Arthur's Battles, Antiquity 11, 1929.
2.  Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Oxford, 2008.3. Frank D Reno, The Historic King Arthur, McFarland & Co, 1997.
4. Michael Swanton (Translator & Editor), The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997.
5. Mike Ashley, The Mammoth Book of King Arthur, Robinson, 2005.
6. Ibid.
7. Ekwall, English River Names, Oxford University Press, 1928.
8. Bede, op.cit.
9. Thomas Jones and Gwyn Jones, The Mabinogion, Everyman, New Edition, 2001.
10. Collingwood, op cit.

* * *

The Hunters of Banna

Revolving many memories, till the hull
Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.

But when that moan had past for evermore,
The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn
Amazed him, and he groaned, "The King is gone."1


The Strife of Camlann
The 9th century Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons) records Arthur's twelve battles in which he was victorious in them all. Yet, Arthur's last and final battle in which he fell is not listed in the Historia Brittonum. The Battle of Camlann, was according to Welsh tradition, internecine strife, Briton fighting Briton, is first found in the 10th century Annals Cambriae (The Welsh Annals) attached to the manuscript Harleian MS 3859. Scholars of Arthurian studies have argued for centuries over the location of this last fateful battle, proposing sites from Cornwall to Scotland and just about anywhere in between.

In his seminal work ‘The Early Evolution of the Legend of Arthur’ Thomas Jones2 argues that the entry recording Arthur’s demise at the Battle of Camlann in the Annals Cambriae should be treated as authentic. However, as the Annals end at Year 954 they were clearly assembled in the 10th-century and we cannot rule out the possibility of a later interpolation by a manuscript copyist.3 The Welsh Annals entry reads:

537 - Gueith camlann in qua Arthur et Medraut corruerunt, et mortalitas in Brittannia et in Hibernia fuit. 

[The battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell: and there was plague in Britain and Ireland].

The entry in the Welsh Annals is the only historical record of Camlann; it has no other source, unlike the second Arthurian entry, the Battle of Badon which appears in the 6th century account of Gildas and the later ecclesiastical history of Bede.

The use of the word 'Gueith' in a Latin chronicle (compare with the entry for the Battle of Badon =  Bellum Badonis) suggests a Welsh source. However, the reference to 'Guieth' is not unique to the Camlann entry, the term occurs five times in the Welsh Annals. Throughout the Annals the author is using two words for battle, ' Gueith' and 'Bellum' reflecting on his source, either vernacular or Latin respectively.4

The Welsh tradition of the Battle of Camlann is quite different from later accounts following Geoffrey of Monmouth who has Arthur fighting Modred who has taken the kingdom while Arthur is on campaign in Europe. In Welsh tradition the strife of Camlann is due to a quarrel between Gwenhwyfar and her sister Gwenhwyfach, and Modred, or Medraut as he is called, is not recorded as Arthur's nemesis.

However, a Welsh source does not necessarily demand a location in Wales they shout. A favoured location for Camlann in the quest for a Northern Arthur is the Roman fort of Camboglanna on Hadrian's Wall since Ekwall first made the suggestion in 1927, followed by OGS Crawford in 1935.4

Favoured no doubt for its location on a spur on the south side of the Roman fort which drops down steeply to the River Irthing winding its way through a very crooked glen indeed. This place certainly seems to qualify as the crooked riverbank implied by the etymology of the name “Camlann” derived from the Brittonic *Cambo-glanna ("crooked bank (of a river)"), as found in the name of the Roman fort of Camboglanna, (“crooked glen”).6

Birdoswald Roman fort - posts marking the site of the Dark Age hall

Attractive as the Camboglanna = Camlann proposition appears, the Romano-British name of “Camboglanna” would have evolved into “Camglann” in Old Welsh,7 whereas the  entry in the Welsh Annals appears as “Camlann” (without the “g”) as it would have appeared in Medieval Welsh. This has been interpreted as indicative of a later, rather than contemporary, insertion into the 10th century Annals.8

However, if it is accepted that Camlann can be derived from the ancient Celtic name of a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall named Camboglanna which fort is it?

For many years Camboglanna was identified with the fort at Birdoswald at the Western, Cumbrian sector of the Wall and this is the site still favoured by many Arthurian scholars as the location of Arthur's last battle.9 Yet, today the official English Heritage guidebook for Hadrian's Wall makes no mention at all of Camboglanna.10

Vallum Aelium 
Hadrian's Wall was built on the command of Emperor Hadrian, a demarcation of the end of Empire. Its function to separate Romans from barbarians. Hadrian's Wall is believed to have been abandoned after three hundred years when the Romans left Britain. But recent research has shown that parts of the Wall were occupied after the Roman withdrawal.

Hadrian's Wall

The Wall runs across the north of Britain for 73 miles (about 80 Roman miles), stretching from Bowness-on-Solway in the west to Wallsend on the river Tyne in the east. In the west the defences, without the Wall, extend for a further 25 miles down the Cumbrian coast to Maryport. A huge ditch and bank earthwork, the Vallum, was built immediately south of the Wall providing a militarised zone.

The first plan was for a turf wall in the west, from the crossing of the river Irthing to the Cumbrian coast, and a wall of stone in the east. The decision was probably based on the availability of local stone. Work is thought to have started around 122 AD following Hadrian's visit to Britain and shortly after being built the Wall was temporarily abandoned around 140 AD when the frontier was moved north with the construction of the turf Antonine Wall (Vallum Antonini) stretching from the Clyde to the Forth. Twenty years later this turf wall was abandoned and the Legions fell back to Hadrian's Wall.

Hadrian's Wall was constructed in sections by three legions: II Augusta; VI Victrix; and XX Valeria Victrix as attested by several inscribed stones found along its length. There are also several inscriptions found on the Wall recording activity by the “civitates”, the cities of Britain. The so-called “Civitas Stones” are all undated but dates ranging from Hadrian's time to the late 4th century have been proposed for them. The civitas stones record that the civilians of the cities of the Durotriges, the Dumnonii, and the Brigantes all contributed to the building of the Wall. The two most westerly civitas inscriptions were found in that sector of the turf wall between the crossing of the River Irthing to Bowness-on-Solway, later rebuilt in stone in the 2nd century when the Legions returned from the Antonine Wall. However, the inscriptions may be linked to refortification works in the early 3rd century when the Emperor Septimius Severus was credited with building “a wall from sea to sea.”11

In writing “On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain”, c.540 AD, Gildas is often accused of producing a garbled account of the construction of the Walls. Gildas tells us that Britain is stripped of  her soldiery and the flower of her youth when her armies crossed to the continent following the usurper Maximus, never to return. The Britons, “ignorant off the art of war”, then suffered at the hands of the Picts and the Scots and sent letters to Rome. A Legion was immediately despatched which recovered the island from the barbarians. The Britons are then instructed to build a wall across the island from one sea to the other. "But this wall, being made of turf instead of stone, was of no use to that foolish people", groans Gildas. No sooner had the Legion returned home when the old enemy overrun the whole country wreaking havoc and slaughter on the Britons.

Then, he goes on, the Romans with the help of “the miserable natives, built a wall different from the former, by public and private contributions, and of the same structure as walls generally, extending in a straight line from sea to sea, between some cities, which, from fear of their enemies, had there by chance been built.” They then erected towers at intervals on the southern coast [The Saxon Shore forts?] “then left the island never to return.”

Gildas chronology is undoubtedly confused, he sees the construction of the stone wall after Maximus left Britain in 383 AD. But he is correct in stating that Hadrian's Wall was originally built of turf, without necessarily referring to the Antonine Wall, and then rebuilt in stone as was the case with the western sector from the crossing of the Irthing. As the civitas stones attest the Wall was built with public and private funds, it is possible a memory of the Durotriges involvement in the construction of the Wall survived to Gildas day in the territory of the Celtic tribe as this area is probably where Gildas lived and wrote.12

Today the remains of the original turf wall can still be seen near Birdoswald running behind the stone wall where the first two miles west of the Irthing were built on a different line, probably at the time when the Legions returned from the Antonine Wall. Nearby, at Lanercost many stones can be seen that were robbed from the Roman Wall during construction of the Priory in the 12th century.

Dark Age Continuity at Birdoswald
There can be little doubt that the Roman garrison in Britain was severely weakened by successive troop withdrawals by Maximus, Stilicho and Constantine III, but the opinion that the wall was deserted after the late 4th century has, in the light of recent archaeological work, been abandoned in favour of continuous use well into the 5th century.

Reconstruction of the Dark Age timber hall at Birdoswald

The Roman fort at Birdoswald is situated on top of an escarpment with the river Irthing deeply cut to the south. The first fort built here was probably a timber and turf construction, and as discussed above, lies in the turf sector of the Wall. This was replaced by a stone construction later in Hadrian's reign. The first Roman troop based here is not known but through the 3rd and 4th centuries the First Aelian Cohort of Dacians (Cohors prima Aelia Dacorum), founded by or named in honour of the Emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus, was stationed at the fort. This Cohort was originally recruited from what is now Romania and altars have been found at Birdoswald displaying the curved Dacian sword, the falx. This cohort was founded no later than 125 AD and, as no record of its existence in Dacia has been found, it seems to have been permanently deployed on Hadrian's Wall. Its commander, the praefectus, would have reported directly to the Dux Brittanium, the commander of the armies of northern Britannia. Twenty seven stone altars have been found at Birdoswald, of which twenty four are dedicated to Jupiter, “Best and Greatest”. One altar was dedicated to the native British deity, Cocidius (RIB1885)13 and another to the Roman god of the forest Silvanus (RIB 1905) dedicated by a group calling themselves the Venatores Bannienses, or “the Hunters of Banna”.

It comes as no surprise that this altar stone, designated RIB 1905, spent a period of time in the crypt at Lanercost Priory, which used many stones robbed from the Wall that can still be seen among the masonry there today.

After the Roman withdrawal from Britannia c.410 AD occupation of the fort at Birdoswald appears to have continued into the early 6th century by which time the former granaries had been demolished and the northern one replaced with a large timber hall, a construction conjectured by size and type to have been occupied by a local warlord as evidenced at South Cadbury hill fort in Somerset. Today the position of the timber pillars of the hall are marked by modern posts. The hall seems to have survived into the 6th century when the site appears to have gone out of use around 520 AD, although the West Gate was much altered and remodelled into the Medieval period.14

Apart the association of the name Camboglanna and its possible etymological evolution to Camlann in Medieval Welsh, no doubt the attraction to Birdoswald for Arthurians, at least in part, is the Dark Age Continuity at the Roman site, with the construction of the timber hall and then the abandonment of the site in the early 6th century, notably around the date of the Battle of Camlann in the Welsh Annals.

Yet, controversy has raged for years as to whether Camboglanna is Birdoswald or Castlesteads with many reconstructed Arthurian battle lists citing Birdoswald as the site of the infamous last battle of the Dux Bellorum.15

Camboglanna or Banna?
Castlesteads was situated a few miles west, next along the Wall from Birdoswald, although today nothing remains of the fort above ground which was cleared in 1791. The confusion between the name of the two Roman forts seems to have originated from a missing section of text (lacuna) in the Nottita Dignatum.16

The Notitia Dignitatum (Register of Offices) is a document of the late Roman Empire that details the administrative organisation of the Eastern and Western Empires. Known only from an 11th century copy called the Codex Spirensis, from which all known and extant copies of this late Roman document are derived. The Notitia depicts the Roman army at the end of the 4th century, but compiled at two different times: the Eastern section apparently dates from c. 395 AD; the Western from c. 420 AD.

The Notitia Dignitatum Occidentis (‘Register of Offices in the West’) lists several military commands: dux Britanniarum; comes litoris Saxonici per Britannias; comes Britanniarum; the governors of the five British provinces; and the staff of the vicarius in London. It is not only the earliest written evidence for 5th century military command in Britain, but it is the only documented evidence of the term Litoris Saxonici (Saxon Shore).

The command of the dux Britanniarum listed in the Notitia Dignitatum includes the limitaneus (frontier) forts along Hadrian’s Wall (per liniam valli) and the Cumbrian coast. From east to west, this includes at the Western sector of the Wall:

Tribunus cohortis primae Asturum, Aesica
Tribunus cohortis secundae Dalmatarum, Magnis 
Tribunus cohortis primae Aeliae Dacorum, Amboglanna 
Praefectus alae Petrianae, Petrianis 
Praefectus numeri Maurorum Aurelianorum, Aballaba 
Tribunus cohortis secundae Lingonum, Congavata
Tribunus cohortis primae Hispanorum, Axeloduno

During the 7th century an unknown monk in the Monastery at Ravenna in Italy compiled a list of all the towns and road-stations throughout the Roman Empire; this document is known as the Ravenna Cosmography. Listed at the western (Cumbrian) end along the Wall are the following forts:

Esica [Great Chesters]
Magnis [Carvoran]
Banna [?]
Uxelludamo [Stanwix]
Avalana [Burgh by Sands]
Maia [Bowness on Solway]

As can be seen from the two lists of forts at the western (Cumbrian) sector of the Wall the confusion is confounded by the Notitia Dignitatum which lists Amboglanna  between Aesica (Great Chesters) and Vxelodvnvm (Stanwix), whereas the Ravenna Cosmography records this fort as Banna. Owing to the inconsistency of spelling in these times it was once thought that 'Banna' was a misrepresentation of 'Camboglanna'. Therefore, if the Notitia and the Cosmography are referring to the same place then the fort between Great Chesters and Stanwix must be the fort known today as Birdoswald as Ekwall and Crawford claimed.

On the line of Hadrian's Wall 
The issue of Camboglanna or Banna being the fort at Birdoswald seems to have resolved by the inscriptions on the souvenir bowls (paterae) from the Wall.17 A patera is a shallow ceramic or metal libation bowl often with a handle, perhaps best described as a small ladle, for pouring a liquid in offering to deity. For example, peterae have been found at the Roman Baths in the city of Bath, inscribed with the letters 'DSM' or the words 'Deae Sulis Minerva' indicating they were dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva.

The Rudge Cup was discovered in the well of a Roman villa in Froxfield six miles east of Marlborough in Wiltshire in 1723 and bears the following inscription:

A MAIS ABALLAVA VXELODUM CAMBOGLANS BANNA

These names present an itinerary of the Wall from west to east, listing the forts as Mais (Bowness), Aballava (Burgh-by-Sands), Uxelodunum (Stanwix), Camboglanna (Castlesteads) and Banna (Birdoswald). Significantly the Rudge Cup lists two forts after Stanwix.

In 1949 another patera was found, on this occasion at Amiens in France, an important halt for Roman Legionaries. Known as the Amiens Skillet  this patera bears the following inscription:

MAIS ABALLAVA VXELODVNVM CAMBOG...S BANNA ESICA

The Amiens Skillet includes the five forts on the Rudge Cup, with the addition of Aesica (Great Chesters). The list differs from the Notitia Dignitatum and the Ravenna Cosmography in that it omits Magnis (Carvoran), which should come between Banna (Birdoswald) and Aesica (Great Chesters), but probably left out because Magnis was not actually on the Wall but was south of the Vallum, having been originally built to guard the Stanegate.

In 2003 another Roman patera was discovered in Staffordshire. Known as the Ilam Pan, or Staffordshire Moorlands Patera, this latest discovery is probably the earliest. An enamelled Roman bronze vessel of 90 mm diameter with Celtic triskele design, The Ilam Pan bears the following inscription:

MAIS COGGABATA VXELODVNVM CAMMOGLANNA RIGOREVALI AELI DRACONIS

The Ilam Pan lists the names of four Roman forts on the western sector of the Wall written as the ancient form of the name as 'Val[l]i Aeli' (the 'Aelian frontier'), using part of Hadrian's name which was in full Publius Aelius Hadrianus.

Notably the four forts listed on the Ilam Pan do not match the first four forts listed on the Rudge Cup and Amiens Skillet. The second fort on the Staffordshire Bowl is Coggabata (Drumburgh), whereas the other two bowls have Aballava (Burgh-by-Sands) as the second fort. The reason for this discrepancy is unclear, but the omission of Coggabata from the Rudge Cup and Amiens Skillet may be due to its small size and may have been considered an insignificant fort. The words 'Rigorevali Aeli' have been interpreted as 'On the line of Hadrian's Wall', as Aelius is the family name of Hadrian. 'Draconis' is thought to refer to either the manufacturer of the bowl or the person it was made for, a man named Draco.

These three paterae from the Wall have been described as military souvenirs and their combined inscriptions confirm the sequence of western forts; Aballava (Burgh-by-Sands), Uxelodunum (Stanwix), Camboglanna (Castlesteads) Banna (Birdoswald), and Aesica (Great Chesters).18

reductio ad absurdum
These souvenirs from the Wall have recently been identified as 'Grails' and said to be Arthurian artefacts; the Ilam Pan is called the “Dragon Cup of Camlann” because it is inscribed with the name Draco and the site of Camboglanna. It is suggested that Draco could have been a rank used by the commander (Dux) of the troops on the Wall near Camboglanna, thus we have “Arthur Draco....the Arthur Pendragon of legend”. The Rudge Cup is described as the “Cup of Avalon” because it names Camlann (Camboglanna) and Avalon (Aballava) on the inscription.19

The Hunters of Banna
When the evidence of the paterae is considered with the altarstone set up by the Hunters of Banna discovered at Birdoswald  in 1821 the case for Banna is conclusive:

DEO SANCTO SILVANO VE NATORES BANNIESS

The inscription has been translated as “To the holy god Silvanus the hunters of Banna (set this up)” (RIB1905).

RIB 1905 proves the fort at Birdoswald was indeed Banna

Further, the confusion between the Notitia and the Cosmography is resolved by Hassall's suggestion that the omission of the name 'Banna' from the list of forts “along the line of the wall” combined with the omission of the otherwise well-attested name of the unit at Camboglanna (cohors II Tungrorum) results from a lacuna by later copyists of the Notitia. A reconstructed text (shown in bold) would read as such:

Tribunus cohortis secundae Dalmatarum, Magnis
Tribunus cohortis primae Aeliae Dacorum, [Banna 
Tribunus cohortis secundae Tungrorum, C]Amboglanna 
Praefectus alae Petrianae, Petrianis 
Praefectus numeri Maurorum Aurelianorum, Aballaba 20

This affirms the names of the forts on the line of the Wall: Magnis [Carvoran]; Banna [Birdoswald]; Camboglanna [Castlesteads]; Petrianis [Stanwix]; Aballaba [Burgh-by-Sands].
With some certainty then we conclude that the Romano-British name Camboglanna was the Roman fort at Castlesteads situated above the river known as the Cam Beck, which may provide a better explanation for the name. Archaeologists and historians are now agreed that Birdoswald was actually the fort bearing the Romano-British name 'Banna' derived from the pre-Indo-European word for peak.21

On the line of Hadrian's Wall

However, despite the best efforts of authors of Arthurian pseudo-historical reconstructions favouring a northern setting for the final battle at Camlann, apart from a similarity of name, there is very little else at Camboglanna (Castlesteads) to suggest any sort of connection with King Arthur.

And yet for all the evidence that has been available for at least forty years, Arthurian works published as recently as this year continue to identify Camboglanna as the Roman fort at Birdoswald.22


Copyright © 2016 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/


Notes & References
1. Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Passing of Arthur, from Idylls of the King, 1859-1885
2. Thomas Jones, The Early Evolution of the Legend of Arthur, Nottingham Medieval Studies 8, 1964, pp. 3-21.
3. See Thomas Charles-Edwards, in ‘The Arthur of History’, in R. Bromwich, et al,  Arthur of the Welsh, UWP, 1991, pp.25-27, 28; Geoffrey Ashe, entry for ‘Camlann’, in N.J. Lacy (ed.) The Arthurian Encyclopedia, Garland, 1986, pp. 76-78.
4. N. J. Higham, King Arthur: Myth-Making and History, Routledge, 2005.
5. Eilert Ekwall, English River Names, Oxford University Press, 1927 (Reprint edition, 1968); OGS Crawford, Arthur's Battles, Antiquity 9, 1935.
6. Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein, University of Wales Press, 1961, p. 160;
7. Leslie Alcock, Arthur's Britain, Penguin, 1979, p.67. Geoffrey Ashe, op.cit.
8. John T Koch, Celtic Culture, ABC-CLIO, 2006.
9. Simon Keegan, The Lost Book of Arthur, Newhaven Publishing, 2016.
10. David Breeze, Hadrian's Wall, English Heritage Guidebooks, 2006.
11. David Breeze, The Civitas Stones and the Building of Hadrian’s Wall, Transactions C&WAAS CW3, xii, 2012, pp.69-80.
12. Ken Dark, Civitas to Kingdom: British Political Continuity 300-800, Leicester University Press, 1999, Appendix.
13. The First Aelian Cohort of Dacians was stationed at Bewcastle before Birdoswald, the forts connected by the Maiden Way. The fort at Bewcastle was named Fanum Cocidi; the “Shrine of Cocidius”.
14. Tony Wilmott, Birdoswald Roman Fort, EH, 2005, p.12-13.
15. Keegan, op.cit. pp.136-7.
16. M Hassall, Aspects of the Notitia Dignitatum, Oxford, 1976.
17. David Breeze, editor, The First Souvenirs: Enamelled Vessels from Hadrian's Wall, C&WM AAS, 2012.
18. Ibid.
19. Keegan, op.cit. pp.30-33.
20. M Hassall, Aspects of the Notitia Dignitatum, Oxford, 1976; quoted in  Rivet & Smith, Place-Names of Roman Britain, Batsford, 1979, and Breeze & Dobson, Hadrian's Wall, Penguin, 4th Edition, 2000, pp.294-295.
21. Rivet & Smith, Place-Names of Roman Britain, Batsford, 1979, pp.261–2, 293–4.
22. Keegan, op.cit. pp.136-7.

* * *

Arthur, Badon and the Cross

Ever since Constantine's vision of the Heavenly sign led him to victory early Christian armies have fought under the protection of the Cross.

The Cross goes Forth
On the night of 27th October 312 AD Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor from 306 to 337, is said to have received his famous 'Vision of the Cross'. Constantine's biographer Eusebius of Caesarea records that following the vision Constantine's soldiers daubed the sign of the Chi-Rho, one of the earliest forms of christogram, on their shields. The next day Constantine was victorious against his rival Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge. Constantine's mother Helena was inspired to undertake a journey to the Holy Land in 326-28 in which, according to legend, she is said to have discovered the True Cross, parts of which she brought back to Constantinople.

The Constantine connection with York perhaps explains the regional interest in this cult in Northumbria from the 7th century; over more than 1,500 stone preaching crosses survive, most of which are located in the north, as evidence of a cult of the Cross in Anglo Saxon England. The cult of St Helena was centred on York, the place of Constantine's elevation following the death of his father 'Constantine Chlorus' in 306. Church dedications to Helena are ubiquitous in the north with over half found in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.1

Ruthwell Cross
(Wikimedia Commons)

The cult of the Cross is emphasised by the actions of the Northumbrian King Oswald who, perhaps imitating Constantine's vision, erected a wooden cross prior to his victory over Cadwallon at Hefenfelth (Heavenfield), near Hexham, in 633 AD.

A crumpled, folded cross found among the Staffordshire Hoard has a series of holes along the bottom indicating it was probably mounted on a pole or staff as a processional cross. As the cross was found among a hoard of predominately martial artefacts, the spoils of a war, it is likely to have been a cross carried into battle. The Hoard consists of over 3,500 items, providing over 5kg of gold, dated to the 7th or 8th century Mercia.

Further evidence of this northern cult can bee seen in the Ruthwell Cross, in Dumfries and Galloway, once part of Northumbria, a spectacular 7th century Anglian high cross. The cross has verses from the Old English poem 'The Dream of the Rood' carved into it in Old English runes and Latin which were probably added at later date.

During the Crusades there had been a tradition that the True Cross was carried into battle as a talisman or perhaps a supernatural weapon; it was used at the battle of Ramleh in 1103 and in almost every major engagement in the decades thereafter. A relic from the True Cross had been carried at the Battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187 by the bishop of Acre. The Christian Crusader army of Guy de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, was annihilated at Hattin by the Muslim forces of Saladin. The Cross was last seen tied upside down to a lance and heading for Damascus. The loss of the True Cross and the city of Jerusalem prompted the call for the Third Crusade two years later.

The 10th century Cambro-Latin text the Annales Cambriae (Welsh Annals), a collection of historical notes compiled in the 10th century, lists several medieval conflicts but makes just one mention of this Christian icon being carried into battle. The entry for year 516 records a battle at Badon where Arthur carried the cross of Jesus and the British were the victors:

“516 - The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors.” 

This entry in the Welsh Annals is clearly related to the well known passage in the 9th century Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons) detailing the legendary King Arthur's twelve battles. At the eighth battle at the castle Guinnion Arthur is said to have carried an image of the Virgin Mary on his shoulders.

No doubt inspired by the Crusades, some 13th century manuscripts of the Historia Brittonum include glosses and marginalia in an attempt to explain the carrying of the Holy icon into battle which claim that the relic of the Virgin was preserved at Wedale after the legendary King Arthur brought it back to Britain after a journey to Jerusalem with a relic of the True Cross through which he achieved his victories.2

The Battle of Badon
That the battle of Badon was a historical event is not disputed; it is mentioned by the contemporary writer Gildas and a century or so later by Bede, by all accounts considered a reliable historian. More correctly the battle was the siege of Badon hill (obsessio Badonicus montis) according to Gildas, who wrote De Excidio Britanniae ("On the Ruin of Britain") around the middle of the 6th century. This was without doubt a major British victory which appears to have halted the Saxon advance for several generations. Indeed, archaeological evidence has been interpreted as seeing some Germanic invaders return to the continent.

Gildas records a running conflict between the Britons and the Saxons, that victory went sometimes to the home nation, sometimes to the invaders, culminating in the battle of Badon. The leader of the Britons in this campaign was Ambrosius Aurelianus, but Gildas does not specifically mention the British leader at Mount Badon. Bede, following Gildas as ever for this period, does not mention the leader at Badon either. However, he is named for the first time, in the later Historia Brittonum, as Arthur:

“The twelfth battle was on the mountain of Badon, in which there fell in one day nine hundred and sixty men from one charge [of] Arthur; and no-one slew them except him alone, and in all battles he was the victor.”

In efforts to trace Arthur's battles, the majority of Arthurians prefer a southern location for the battle of Badon. Geoffrey of Monmouth locates the Battle of Badon Hill at the Roman town of Bath. Today Little Solsbury Hill just outside the modern city of Bath is a favoured location, a view perhaps prejudiced by those seeking an element of truth in Geoffrey's fables.

Badbury Rings, Dorset, is another chief candidate. Visible today are the earthworks of the Iron Age hillfort, which was followed by a Roman posting station. Liddington Castle, Wiltshire, is another, the "Castle" refers to the earthen ramparts another Iron Age hillfort. It seems any ancient hill fort is a possibility.

Badbury Rings

Whatever the location, the battle of Mons Badonicus is the only one of all Arthur's twelve battles listed in the Historia Brittonum that can be positively verified from external sources and seen as a historical event as it is named by the near-contemporary 'historian' Gildas.

Gildas writes that the victory at Badon was the same year of his birth:

“From that time on now the citizens, now the enemy, were victorious ... right up until the year of the siege of Badon Hill, almost the last, not the least, slaughter of the villains, and this the forty-fourth year begins (as I know) with one month already elapsed, which is also [that] of my birth.”

Debate continues as the interpretation of the passage in Gildas on the dating of Badon. It may mean that the battle took place forty-four years and one month after Ambrosius, or that Gildas was writing forty-four years after the battle.  However, it is known that Gildas was writing before the death of Maelgwn (Maglocunus) of Gwynedd, as he launches into a personal tirade against this 'dragon of the island', who he accuses of embarking on a violent rule since the very beginning of his youth when he killed the king, his uncle, and his band of soldiers, with sword, spear, and fire. According the Welsh Annals, Maelgwn died in 547 AD.

In Bede (HE, Book I.16) the similarity to Gildas' passage is obvious:

“They had at that time for their leader, Ambrosius Aurelius, a modest man, who alone, by chance, of the Roman nation had survivcd the storm, in which his parents, who were of the royal race, had perished. Under him the Britons revived, and offering battle to the victors, by the help of God, came off victorious. From that day, sometimes the natives, and sometimes their enemies, prevailed, till the year of the siege of Baddesdownhill, when they made no small slaughter of those invaders, about forty-four years after their arrival in England.”

To Bede the lapsed forty-four years signified the coming of the English, Adventus Saxonum, i.e. forty-four years before Badon. Howard Wiseman suggests the date of the battle recorded in the Welsh Annals is derived from Gildas and Bede and not from an independent source.3

The Welsh Annals
Comparison of the Arthurian battle-list in the Historia Brittonum and the Welsh Annals entry for the Battle of Badon reveals a remarkably similar account to the battle at castle Guinnion. The Arthurian battle list contained within chapter 56 of the Historia Brittonum makes no mention of Arthur carrying the Cross at Badon, but includes at the centre of the passage:

“The eighth battle [was] in the castle of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of Saint Mary the perpetual virgin on his shoulders, and on that day the pagans were put to fl ight and a great slaughter was upon them through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of Saint Mary his holy virgin mother.”

Caitlin (Thomas) Green has concluded that the Badon entry in the Welsh Annals cannot be regarded as an independent witness to Arthur’s historicity; as such the Annals account either derives from the Historia Brittonum or its source.4 Indeed, the Badon entry in the Annals indicates a high level of borrowing from the Historia.

Annales Cambriae

The Welsh Annals is a Cambro-Latin text compiled in the 10th century, surviving in a Latin manuscript of c.1100, recording events from c.447 to c.954. Studies have shown the text is related to surviving versions of the Irish annals, sharing early entries such as the deaths of Saints Patrick (457), Brigit (521), and Columba (595). The Welsh Annals consist of three primary stratum:

• 453 to 613 is based on a set of Irish annals,
• 613 to 777 is based on a north British chronicle,
• from the late 9th century compiled in St David’s, south Wales.5

The Welsh Annals conclude with the death of Rhodri, son of Hywel, a prince of South Wales, in 954 and were probably compiled shortly after. Some of the earlier entries are apparently derived from 8th century sets of Irish Annals. However, neither of the Arthurian entries,  Bellum Badonis or Guieth Camlann, appear in the Irish annals.

Other entries appear to be clear repetitions of erroneous statements found in the Historia Brittonum, such as the ascription of the baptism of the Northumbrian king Edwin to Rhun, the son of Urien, repeated in the Welsh Annals at year 626 AD, when the more reliable historian Bede states the holy sacrament was administered by bishop Paulinus (HE, Book II.14).

Another, the Welsh Annals entry for 630 AD, details when “on the Kalends of January the battle of Meigen; and there Edwin was killed with his two sons” seems to derived from the Historia Brittonum which states the two sons of Edwin fell with him in battle at Meicen.

Bede (HE, Book II.20) records Edwin being slain on the 12th October at the battle on the plain called Haethfeld (Hatfield Chase near Doncaster, Yorkshire). Welsh sources describe Meigen as an ancient district surrounding Long Mountain, Cefn Digoll, near Welshpool in Montgomeryshire.

The fetching of Myngan from Meigen to Llansilin is listed as one of the 'Three Missions that were obtained from Powys' in the Triads of the Island of Britain. The poem Moliant Cadwallon (In Praise of Cadwallon) lists a sequences of fourteen victories by Cadwallon over the English and includes the line, 'The camp of Cadwallon on the Severn and from the far side to Dygen, almost  the burning Meigen'.6 Dygen Freiddyn is the old name for Breidden Hill in Montgomeryshire, collectively a group of hills forming a northern extension of the Long Mountain. Clearly nowhere near south Yorkshire.

On the Shoulders of Giants
The transmission of these erroneous entries from the Historia Brittonum in to the Welsh Annals tells us much about the compilation of the text. Nicholas Higham has gone as far as providing a word count for the two Arthurian entries in the Welsh Annals and compared this to the Historia passage, chapter 56, of Arthur's battles, from the Latin:

[516]: Bellum Badonis, in quo Arthur portavit crucern Domini nostri Jhesu Christi tribus deibus et tribus noctibus in humeros suos et Brittones victores fuerrunt.

[537]: Gueith Camlann, in qua Arthur et Medraut corruerunt.

Higham notes that the Historia also uses the Welsh word 'Gueith' for battle rather the Latin 'Bellum' at the very next chapter (HB 57: Gueith Lin Garan) and the phrase 'tribus deibus et tribus noctibus' follows soon after at chapter 63 (the siege of Lindisfarne). From of a total of thirty-one words in the Arthurian entries in the Welsh Annals just five are original to that text, and one of these a personal name and the other a place-name, the rest can be found in the Arthurian passage of the Historia Brittonum, or very close to it.7

As long ago as the 19th century it was noted that some of the early entries in the Welsh Annals show signs of translation from Welsh. Thomas Price suggested that 'humeros suos' (Latin: 'on his shoulders') resulted from the confusion of Old Welsh scuit 'shield' with scuid 'shoulder'.8 As Thomas Jones notes, it would certainly be easier to envisage the picture of Christ's Cross engraved on Arthur's shield, as with Constantine's soldiers at the battle of Milvian Bridge, rather than his shoulder.9

Indeed, on observing the apparent confusion of scuit with scuid John Koch notes ‘that error of transmission is hardly likely to have come about twice’ and suggests that the Annals entry is more easily understood as derived from Historia Brittonum’s account.10

The Badon entry is very unlike the other early entries in the Welsh Annals which are short and factual, and free from miraculous and fictional elements. Jones suggests the reference to Arthur carrying the cross into battle bears the appearance of religious legend and is not convincing in either historical record or legend.11

In conclusion we are left to ponder whether the Badon entry in the Welsh Annals was taken from the battle-list in the Historia Brittonum; or if the original entry in the Welsh Annals was a simple chronicle record similar to other early entries, such as, “AD 516 – The Battle of Badon,” leader undefined as in Gildas and Bede, with the possibility of the later addition of the Arthurian material inspired by the Christian content around the eighth battle at castle Guinnion?


Copyright © 2015 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/


Notes & References
1. Antonina Harbus, Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend, DS Brewer, 2002.
2. Edmund Chambers, Arthur of Britain, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1927, reprinted 1966.
3. Howard Wiseman, The derivation of the date of the Badon entry in the Annales Cambriae from Bede and Gildas, Parergon 17, 2000.
4. Thomas Green, The Historicity and Historicisation of Arthur, 1998.
5. Kathleen Hughes, The Welsh Latin Chronicles, Oxford University Press, 1974.
6. Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain, Third edition, University of Wales Press, 2006.
7. Nicholas Higham, King Arthur: Myth-making and History, Routledge, 2002.
8. Thomas Stephens, Literature of the Kymry, 1849, referenced in Thomas Jones, The Early Evolution of the Legend of Arthur, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 1964.
9. Jones, op.cit.
10.  John Koch, General Editor and Antone Minard, Editor, The Celts: History, Life, and Culture,
ABC-CLIO, 2012
11. Jones, op.cit.

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Once Upon a Time in the North.......

The Real King Arthur Discovered: A Dark Age General from Strathclyde 
Widely reported recently 1, 2, has been the revelation that the legendary British King Arthur has been identified as a historical figure, a general from 5th and early 6th century Strathclyde who fought all his battles in southern Scotland and Northumberland.3

This is not a new story; the same was widely publicised back in March this year, see for example King Arthur in Strathclyde.

So what's new? This isn't just another pseudo-historical account published by a keen amateur Arthurian so beloved by Guy Halsall (Worlds of Arthur: Facts and Fictions of the Dark Ages, OUP 2013) but a paper published by an academic, so it must be factual, right?

The paper presenting the argument for Arthur not as a King but as a Dark Age general based in Strathclyde details the research of Dr Andrew Breeze, a philologist and Celticist from the University of Navarre in Pamplona, Spain, whose previous works include the controversial claim that the Mabinogion was authored by Gwenllian, the daughter of Gruffudd ap Cynan, king of Gwynedd.

“The evidence,” for the historical Arthur Breeze claims “is in a Latin chronicle called The History Of The Britons, written in the ninth century by a Welsh monk. It lists nine places where Arthur defeated his enemies, but nobody has been able to say exactly where they were.”

Breeze's paper, The Historical Arthur and sixth-century Scotland, is published in the University of Leeds journal Northern History, Volume 52, Issue 2, September 2015.

Breeze bases his argument on his positive identification of the Arthurian battle list in the 9th century Latin chronicle known as The History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum), often referred to as 'Nennius' after the monk who claimed to make a pile of all he could find on the Britons, as detailed in the prologue in some versions of the text.

The Arthurian battle list, the so-called chapter 56 of the  Historia, lists twelve battles fought by Arthur in which he was victorious in all of them. The author does not claim Arthur was king of the Britons but the Dux Bellorum, the leader of battles, i.e. a generalissimo.

How Mordred was slain by Arthur - Arthur Rackham

The Arthurian battle list from the Historia:

Then Arthur, with the kings of Britain, fought against them in those days, but Arthur himself was the dux bellorum. 
The first battle was at the mouth of the river which is called Glein. 
The second, third, fourth, and fifth battles were above another river which is called Dubglas and is in the region of Linnuis. 
The sixth battle was above the river which is called Bassas. 
The seventh battle was in the forest of Celidon, that is Cat Coit Celidon. 
The eighth battle was at the fortress of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of holy Mary, the everlasting virgin, on his shoulders [shield]; and the pagans were put to flight on that day. And through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the blessed Virgin Mary his mother there was great slaughter among them. 
The ninth battle was waged in the City of the Legion.
The tenth battle was waged on the shore of a river which is called Tribruit. 
The eleventh battle was fought on the mountain which is called Agned. 
The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself, and in all the wars he emerged as victor.4

Interpretations
The battles on the rivers Glein, Dubglas and Bassas are unknown outside the Historia. However, Breeze follows previous scholars in identifying the 'Glein' as the River Glen near Wooler in Northumberland, but the 'Dubglas' he cites as the River Douglas near Lanark. The sixth battle at 'Bassas' Breeze sees as a scribe’s miswriting of Tarras Water in Eskdale.

It is commonly agreed that the seventh battle in the forest of Celidon, Cat Coit Celidon, is the Caledonian forest in Scotland. The links with Merlin who fled into the forest after the Battle of Arfderydd, (The Battle of Armterid entry for AD 573 in the Welsh Annals) and its Arthurian associations requires no further comment here. Breeze places this battle in the Southern Uplands, near Beattock Summit.

The location of the eighth battle at the fortress of Guinnion is also unknown beyond the Arthurian battle list. 'Guinnion', according to Breeze, took place at Kirkgunzeon, between Dumfries and Kirkcudbright.

The battle fought at the City of the Legions is generally considered to be a misplacement of the Battle of Chester, c.616, in which the forces of Powys were slaughtered by the Northumbrians. The battle is a hundred years too late and wrongly ascribed to Arthur; no other battles at the city of the legions are known.

Breeze places the ‘city of the Legion’ at the east end of the Antonine Wall near Bo'ness and not at Chester or York as most others have. He sees this as yet another scribal error, for “The Rock of the Legion”, near Kinneil. Earlier, in March this year, Breeze identified Gildas' city of the legion, the place of the martyrdom of Aaron and Julius, as Caer-Lerion as Leicester (Ratae).

The tenth battle was fought on the shore of the river Tribruit (Tryfrwyd in Welsh) which may be the same battle found in an obscure poem from the Black Book of Carmarthen known as Pa gur yv y porthaur? (What man is the porter?) which contains the lines “Perforated shields from Tryfrwyd?” and “On the strands of Tryfrwyd” while Arthur fights dog-heads (Cynvyn) on Mynyd Eiddyn (Din-Eidyn). Here Arthur's retinue includes mythological figures such as Mabon, the son of Modron and Manawydan, the son of Llyr. Here we are clearly in the realm of fantasy. Breeze argues the site of this battle is actually Dreva in Upper Tweeddale.

The eleventh battle was fought at a hill called 'Agned'. Geoffrey of Monmouth identifies Mount Agned as Edinburgh and specifically Din-Eidyn as the Castle of Maidens. Perhaps Geoffrey knew of a tradition of an Arthurian battle on Edinburgh rock; 'Arthur's Seat' is the name of the main peak of the group of hills at the centre of the city of Edinburgh with a hill fort situated on the summit. In 638 AD the monks of Iona record the siege of Din Eidyn; is this the same battle wrongly ascribed to Arthur?

Other recension's of the Historia give the eleventh battle the alternative name of Breguoin. It has been suggested that this name could derive from Bremenium, now High Rochester in Northumberland, a Roman fort constructed near the Roman road known as Dere Street.

Bremenium has also been identified as the site of King Urien Rheged's later battle of the
Cells of Brewyn (cellawr Brewyn) recorded in A Song for Urien Rheged, a battle-catalogue poem from the Llyrfr Taliesin (‘The Book of Taliesin’). Many historians accept that Arthur's Breguoin battle was taken from the Urien poem and incorporated into the Arthurian battle-list in the Historia.

Breeze has identified Mount Agned as Pennango in Teviotdale. Consulting books on early Scottish place-names he states Pennango means ‘Death Hill’, a lost toponym southwest of Hawick.

Arthur's Last Stand
Included in the Harelian manuscript is the Annals Cambriae (Welsh Annals), a 10th century Cambro-Latin chronicle with the following Arthurian entries:

516 -The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders for three days and three nights and the Britons were victors.

537 -The Strife of Camlann in which Arthur and Mordred fell and there was death in Britain and in Ireland. 

The Badon entry in the Welsh Annals looks suspiciously like it is derived directly from the eighth battle in Historia battle list; at the fortress of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of Holy Mary, the everlasting virgin, on his shoulders.

The battle is found in Gildas' 6th century work De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae as the Seige of Mons Badonicus. Gildas does not name the leader at the battle but cites Ambrosius Aurelius as the leader of the Britons in the campaign leading up to it; by implication Ambrosius was the British leader at Badon. In the Historia account of the battle Arthur slays 960 by his own hand; it seems here we have again ventured into the realm of the fantastic. Clearly the Badon entry does not belong to Arthur and cannot be considered as evidence to his historicity.

The site of the battle of Badon, Breeze says was likely to be Braydon, near Swindon in Wiltshire and had nothing at all to do with Arthur, arguing that the battle is entirely absent from Early Welsh vernacular tradition and Arthur's first association with the battle is not found until the 9th century Historia.

Finally we come to the battle of Camlann and Arthur's last stand. Although featured in later Welsh tradition such as the Triads, the strife of Camlann is entirely absent from the Historia and earlier sources.

As with all the Arthurian battles a multitude of locations have been suggested for Camlann over the years, ranging from the River Camel in Cornwall, the Afon Gamlan in Gwynedd, Wales, to Cameleon near Falkirk in Scotland. Breeze locates the site of the conflict at Castlesteads on Hadrian’s Wall. Again, this is hardly new, being first suggested by Ekwall in 1928, followed by Crawford in 1935.5

Birdoswald

Crawford argued that the name was originally Camboglanna, the name derived from Brittonic cambo "crooked" and glanna "bank/shore", popularly interpretted as "crooked glen". For many years Camboglanna was considered to be the Roman fort of Birdoswald on Hadrian's Wall where the River Irthing twists and turns its way around the site forming a crooked glen indeed. However, Birdoswald has since been identified as the Roman fort of Banna while Camboglanna is now Castlesteads a few miles to the west on high ground overlooking the Cambeck Valley.

Breeze said the pattern presented by the new identifications is “startling”. Instead of  Arthurian battles occurring up and down the country, as others have claimed, there is a concentration in southern Scotland and the Borders. Hence, Arthur fought all his battles on the borders of Strathclyde defending the kingdom from other Northern Britons.

A Dark Age Battle Poem
It was first suggested some eighty years ago that the Arthurian battle list contained within Chapter 56 of the Historia Brittonum is excerpted from an Early Welsh battle-catalogue poem, perhaps an elegy to Arthur.6 Similar poems can be found in The Book of Taliesin in praise of Urien Reheged.

However, the authenticity of the Arthurian battle list is far from proven; if the list is based on an old poem it is possible the names of the battle sites may have been selected for their rhyme scheme rather than historical value and borrowed from other sources: Dubglas rhymes with Bassas; Cat Coit Celidon with Castell Guinnion; Cair Legion with Bregion. Indeed, Arthur appears in the legends of all the Brythonic lands yet there is no trace of this 'poem' outside of the Historia. At best a battle poem can only be used as a measure of the growth of a legend of a particular hero7 and we should use caution in using Early Welsh poetry as a historical source.8

If the battle sites in such a poem were indeed recollections of a historical account we should expect to find external references to them. Only three of the nine Arthurian battle sites can be verified from external sources and even then they appear to be wrongly ascribed to Arthur the soldier. The first six battles, all fought at rivers, defy identification; the seventh looks suspiciously like Merlin's forest; the fortress at Guinnion is the oddity, it looks like it should belong to a poem like Preiddu Annwn (The Spoils of Annwn) a mythical tale in which Arthur attacks several fortresses; The battle of the Tribuit has striking similarities to the mythological account in the poem Pa Gur. The final three battles, the city of the Legions, Mount Agned (Breguoin) and the battle of Badon, all wrongly ascribed to Arthur but 'borrowed' for the battle list.

In summary, prior to Breeze's article, the situation on the Arthurian battle list is that we have six unidentified battle sites at rivers, three mythical encounters and three borrowed from external sources but seemingly wrongly ascribed to Arthur conveniently making the battle list up to the biblical number of twelve. Yet, the Historia is typically cited as being the first document to support Arthur as a historical figure.

What the Historians say
And there lies the problem with Breeze's argument and many others attempting to construct a historical Arthur from the Historia; the 9th century document is not considered a reliable source by any means. Modern scholars consider the document to be a well-constructed piece of synthetic historical writing.

The Historia Brittonum was compiled in Wales in the first half of the 9th century. About forty manuscripts are known to exist in eight recensions. The 'Nennian Prologue' is now generally agreed as a later forgery. Most manuscripts omit the introduction and leave the authorship blank, as such, scholarly opinion no longer considers the ascription to a monk named 'Nennius' as valid.

Nevertheless, the Historia is an important source for Roman Britain and Wales and the Brythonic north (yr Hen Ogledd) of the 5th to the 7th centuries. It purports to give an account of the geography and history of the British Isles from their first settler (Brutus) to the early Middle Ages; subsequently it was the single most important source used by Geoffrey of Monmouth in creating his legendary History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae, c.1139).

Today historians view the document with considerable suspicion. John Koch for example states, “much of the contents are picturesque, fantastic, and clearly unhistorical, with the result that some view the work as a whole as belonging to the genre of legendary history rather than history”.9

Nicholas Higham states, “Arthur emerges for the first time in an insular context as a pseudo-historical character in a series of Latin works written in Wales and Brittany in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and early twelfth centuries. These works were of several different kinds, including a synthetic pseudo-history (the Historia Brittonum), a chronicle (the Annales Cambriae)...”

“We should be hesitant, therefore, in ascribing any particular antiquity to the author’s sources and cautious about judging it as historically accurate as regards the depiction of the fifth and sixth centuries. There is much legend and myth included, which must once again tell against its historicity.”10

Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, in his ongoing study of the Historia Brittonum argues that “The bases of recent critical arguments about the historical value of the text are that:

1. Where it impinges upon history that can be tested by external sources (for instance, in its accounts of Roman Bitain (§§19-30)..... or Saint Germanus (§§32-35, 39 and 47), it is demonstrably either wrong or it distorts the evidence to fit the author’s preconceptions about British history. The pseudo-history constructed around the career of Magnus Maximus (§27) is an excellent example of this tendency.”11

Caitlin (Thomas) Green tells us that, “.....the case for a historical Arthur rests entirely on two sources, the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae, both of which would appear to have a concept of Arthur that is (at least partly) unequivocally historical.

“As such the Historia is of very dubious historical value, for example, in addition to many of its sources being of a similar date to itself and suspect in nature, the Historia can be shown to portray characters who are decidedly mythical in origin, such as Hengest and Horsa as genuinely historical. 

“Indeed, as a number of recent commentators have recognised, the Historia Brittonum is in fact a synchronising and synthetic history of the type well known from medieval Ireland, fusing sources for its own political ends and involved in the creation of a full national pseudo-history, a process which was closely allied with the historicising of legend.”12

David Dumville views the document as a carefully crafted political statement, reflecting the concerns of early 9th-century Gwynedd and containing little or nothing of value to the history of earlier ages. The best we can say with regard to Arthur is that the Historia Brittonum provides an indication of the state of the Arthurian legend in 9th century Gwynedd.13

History?
When using the battle list from the Historia Brittonum to reconstruct a Dark Age history it is often overlooked that the same early manuscript (Harleian MS 3859) includes the Mirabilia, a list of topographical Wonders of the Island of Britain that are described as “overtly folkloric and non-historical in nature”; Arthur the soldier appears in two mirabilies (wonders) concerning s pile of rocks showing his dog Cabal's footprint with a miraculous returning stone and the tomb of Arthur's son Amr which always varies in length. Clearly, this is not history but fantasy and aptly demonstrates that even from the earliest stage the Arthurian legend had entered the marvellous world of myth. Consequently the Mirabilia is often ignored by those claiming the battle list as a genuine campaign itinerary.

Dr Breeze should be commended on making the first positive identification of the battle sites, if that is indeed what he has achieved. However, positive identification of the localities mentioned in the so-called chapter 56 of the Historia Brittonum, possibly, but not probably, based on an Early Welsh battle catalogue poem, is not proof of the historicity of the victor.

As Kenneth Jackson remarked on the Arthurian battle list as long ago as 1959, “a great deal of nonsense has been written in the attempt to identify them”14


Copyright © 2015 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/


Notes & References
1. King Arthur? No, the legendary leader was just a Scottish general who lived most of his life in Strathclyde – The Mail Online 03 September 2015
2. King Arthur: Legendary figure was real and lived most of his life in Strathclyde, academic
claims – The Independent 03 September 2015
3. Andrew Breeze, The Historical Arthur And Sixth-Century Scotland, in Northern History Volume 51, Issue 2 (September 2015), pp.158–181.
4. John T Koch & Antone Minard eds., The Celts: History, Life, and Culture, ABC-CLIO, 2012.
5. Eilert Ekwall, English River Names, 1928 (Oxford reprints 1968), and OGS Crawford ,Antiquity Volume IX, No: 36, 1935.
6. H M & N K Chadwick, The Growth of Literature, 3 Volumes, 1932-40, (Cambridge Library Collection 2011).
7. David N Dumville, The Historical Value of the Historia Brittonum, in Arthurian Literature VI, 1986.
8. David N Dumville, 'Early Welsh Poetry: Problems of Historicity', in Early Welsh Poetry: Studies in the Book of Aneirin, ed. Brynley F. Roberts. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988.
9. John T Koch, entry for Historia Brittonum in Celtic Culture, ABC, 2006.
10. Nicholas J. Higham, Early Latin Sources: Fragments of a Pseudo-Historical Arthur, in Companion to Arthurian Literature, Edited by Helen Fulton, Blackwell, 2009.
11. Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, The Historia Brittonum website.
12. Thomas Green, The Historicity and Historicisation of Arthur, 1998.
13. David N Dumville, The Historical Value of the  Historia Brittonum,
14. Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson, 'The Arthur of History' in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed., RS Loomis, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959.

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