Hen Ogledd - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Yr Hen Ogledd is a Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

term used by scholars to refer to those parts of what is now northern England

Northern England

Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...

and southern Scotland

Scottish Lowlands

The Scottish Lowlands is a name given to the Southern half of Scotland.The area is called a' Ghalldachd in Scottish Gaelic, and the Lawlands ....

in the years between 500 and the Viking invasions of c. 800, with particular interest in the Brythonic

Brythonic languages

The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...

-speaking peoples who lived there.

The term is derived from heroic poetry as told by bard

Bard

In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...

s for the enjoyment and benefit of the Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

kings of that era. From the relatively southern Welsh perspective, these are stories of the Gwŷr y Gogledd (Men of the North), with their relationships to the great men of the past given by genealogies such as Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd is a brief Middle Welsh tract which claims to give the pedigrees of twenty 6th-century rulers of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking parts of southern Scotland and northern England. It is attested in a number of manuscripts, the earliest being NLW, Peniarth MS 45, which...

(Descent of the Men of the North) and the Harleian genealogies

Harleian genealogies

The Harleian genealogies are a collection of Old Welsh genealogies preserved in British Library, Harleian MS 3859. Part of the Harleian Collection, the manuscript, which also contains the Annales Cambriae and a version of the Historia Brittonum, has been dated to c. 1100, although a date of c.1200...

. 'The North' became 'The Old North' in recognition of the passage of time since the literary works were contemporary, hence 'The Old North' and 'Men of the Old North'.

In attempting to construct a reasonably accurate history of the areas that now make up southern Scotland and northern England, scholars have adopted the term "Hen Ogledd" or "Old North" from the Welsh heroic poetry to refer to the Brythonic

Britons (historical)

The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...

kingdoms, such as Rheged

Rheged

Rheged is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking region of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, during the Early Middle Ages...

. As used by historians, the term is meant to apply to an area of scholarly research, and is not intended to give undue weight to the poetry and genealogy that first produced the term.

Background

Almost nothing is reliably known of Central Britain before c. 550. There had never been a long-term, effective Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

control north of the Tyne

River Tyne

The River Tyne is a river in North East England in Great Britain. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.The North Tyne rises on the...

– Solway

Solway Firth

The Solway Firth is a firth that forms part of the border between England and Scotland, between Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway. It stretches from St Bees Head, just south of Whitehaven in Cumbria, to the Mull of Galloway, on the western end of Dumfries and Galloway. The Isle of Man is also very...

line, and south of that line effective Roman control ended long before the traditional departure of the Roman military from Roman Britain

Roman Britain

Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

in 407. It was noted in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Roman historian. He wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity...

and others that there was ever-decreasing Roman control from the 2nd century onward, and in the years after 360 there was widespread disorder and the large-scale permanent abandonment of territory by the Romans.

In 550, the region was controlled by Brythonic

Brythonic languages

-speaking peoples except for the eastern coastal areas, which were controlled by the Anglian

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

peoples of Bernicia

Bernicia

Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

and Deira

Deira

Deira was a kingdom in Northern England during the 6th century AD. Itextended from the Humber to the Tees, and from the sea to the western edge of the Vale of York...

. To the north were the Picts

Picts

The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...

, with the Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

controlled kingdom of Dál Riata

Dál Riata

Dál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...

to the northwest. All of these peoples would play a role in the history of the Old North.

Historical context

From a historical perspective the portrayal of the Men of the North as native Britons defending against intruding Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

is a partisan view. Wars were frequently internecine, and Britons

Britons (historical)

The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...

were aggressors as well as defenders, as was also true of the Angles

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

, Picts

Picts

, and Gaels

Gaels

The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....

. However, those Welsh stories of the Old North that tell of Briton fighting Anglian have a counterpart, told from the opposite side. The story of the demise of the kingdoms of the Old North is the story of the rise of Northumbria from two coastal kingdoms to become the premier power in Britain north of the Humber Estuary and south of the Firths of Clyde

Firth of Clyde

The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire, Scotland. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran.At...

and Forth

Firth of Forth

The Firth of Forth is the estuary or firth of Scotland's River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea, between Fife to the north, and West Lothian, the City of Edinburgh and East Lothian to the south...

The interests of kingdoms of this era were not restricted to their immediate vicinity. Alliances were not made only within the same ethnic groups, nor were enmities restricted to nearby different ethnic groups. An alliance of Britons fought against an alliance of Britons at the Battle of Arfderydd

Battle of Arfderydd

The Battle of Arfderydd was fought, according to the Annales Cambriae, in 573. The opposing armies are variously given in a number of Old Welsh sources, perhaps suggesting a number of allied armies were involved...

. Áedán mac Gabráin

Áedán mac Gabráin

Áedán mac Gabráin was a king of Dál Riata from circa 574 until his death, perhaps on 17 April 609. The kingdom of Dál Riata was situated in modern Argyll and Bute, Scotland, and parts of County Antrim, Ireland...

of Dál Riata

Dál Riata

Dál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...

appears in the Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd is a brief Middle Welsh tract which claims to give the pedigrees of twenty 6th-century rulers of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking parts of southern Scotland and northern England. It is attested in a number of manuscripts, the earliest being NLW, Peniarth MS 45, which...

, a genealogy among the pedigrees of the Men of the North. The Historia Brittonum states that the Northumbrian king Oswiu

Oswiu of Northumbria

Oswiu , also known as Oswy or Oswig , was a King of Bernicia. His father, Æthelfrith of Bernicia, was killed in battle, fighting against Rædwald, King of the East Angles and Edwin of Deira at the River Idle in 616...

married a Briton who may have had some Pictish ancestry. A marriage between the Northumbrian and Pictish

Picts

royal families would produce the Pictish king Talorgan. Áedán mac Gabráin fought as an ally of the Britons against the Northumbria

Northumbria

Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

ns. Cadwallon ap Cadfan

Cadwallon ap Cadfan

Cadwallon ap Cadfan was the King of Gwynedd from around 625 until his death in battle. The son and successor of Cadfan ap Iago, he is best remembered as the King of the Britons who invaded and conquered Northumbria, defeating and killing its king, Edwin, prior to his own death in battle against...

of Gwynedd

Kingdom of Gwynedd

Gwynedd was one petty kingdom of several Welsh successor states which emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, and later evolved into a principality during the High Middle Ages. It was based on the former Brythonic tribal lands of the Ordovices, Gangani, and the...

allied with Penda of Mercia

Penda of Mercia

Penda was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the...

to defeat Edwin of Northumbria

Edwin of Northumbria

Edwin , also known as Eadwine or Æduini, was the King of Deira and Bernicia – which later became known as Northumbria – from about 616 until his death. He converted to Christianity and was baptised in 627; after he fell at the Battle of Hatfield Chase, he was venerated as a saint.Edwin was the son...

.

Conquest and defeat did not necessarily mean the extirpation of one culture and its replacement by another. The Brythonic region of northwestern England was absorbed by Anglian Northumbria in the 7th century, yet it would re-emerge 300 years later as South Cumbria, joined with North Cumbria (Strathclyde) into a single state.

Societal context

The organisation of the Men of the North was tribal

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...

, based on kinship

Kinship

Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....

groups of extended families, owing allegiance to a dominant 'royal' family, sometimes indirectly through client relationships, and receiving protection in return. For Celtic peoples, this organisation was still in effect hundreds of years later, as shown in the Irish Brehon law, the Welsh Laws of Hywel Dda

Welsh law

Welsh law was the system of law practised in Wales before the 16th century. According to tradition it was first codified by Hywel Dda during the period between 942 and 950 when he was king of most of Wales; as such it is usually called Cyfraith Hywel, the Law of Hywel, in Welsh...

, and the Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

Laws of the Brets and Scots

Leges inter Brettos et Scottos

The Leges inter Brettos et Scottos or Laws of the Brets and Scots was a legal codification under David I of Scotland...

. The Germanic

Germanic peoples

The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...

Anglo-Saxon law

Anglo-Saxon law is a body of written rules and customs that were in place during the Anglo-Saxon period in England, before the Norman conquest. This body of law, along with early Scandinavian law and continental Germanic law, descended from a family of ancient Germanic custom and legal thought...

had culturally different origins, but with many similarities to Celtic law

Celtic law

A number of law codes have in the past been in use in Celtic countries. While these vary considerably in details, there are certain points of similarity....

. Like Celtic law, it was based on cultural tradition, without any perceivable debt to the Roman occupation of Britain."Anglo-Saxon law" is a modern neologism for the Saxon Law of Wessex, the Anglian Law of Mercia, and the Danelaw

Danelaw

The Danelaw, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , is a historical name given to the part of England in which the laws of the "Danes" held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. It is contrasted with "West Saxon law" and "Mercian law". The term has been extended by modern historians to...

, all of which were sufficiently similar to merit inclusion within this umbrella term. The laws of Anglian Northumbria

Northumbria

were supplanted by the Danelaw, but were certainly similar to these. The origins of English law

English law

English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...

have been much studied. For example, the 12th century Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Angliae
Tractatus of Glanvill
The Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Angliae is the earliest treatise on English law. Commonly attributed to Ranulf de Glanvill and dated ca. 1188, it was revolutionary in its systematic codification that defined legal process and introduced writs, innovations that have survived to...

(Treatise on the laws and customs of the Kingdom of England) is the book of authority

Books of authority

Books of authority is a term used by legal writers to refer to a number of early legal textbooks that are excepted from the rule that textbooks are not treated as authorities by the courts of England and Wales and other common law jurisdictions.These books are treated by the courts as...

on English common law

Common law

Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...

, and scholars have held that it owes a debt to Norman law

Norman law

Norman law refers to the customary law of Normandy which developed between the 10th and 13th centuries following the establishment of the Vikings there and which survives today still through the legal systems of Jersey and Guernsey in the Channel Islands....

and to Germanic law, and not to Roman law

Roman law

Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...

.

A primary royal court
Royal court
Royal court, as distinguished from a court of law, may refer to:* The Royal Court , Timbaland's production company*Court , the household and entourage of a monarch or other ruler, the princely court...

would be maintained as a 'capital', but it was not the bureaucratic administrative centre of modern society, nor the settlement or civitas
Civitas
In the history of Rome, the Latin term civitas , according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law . It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other...

of Roman rule. As the ruler and protector of his kingdom, the king would maintain multiple courts throughout his territory, traveling among them to exercise his authority and to address the needs of his clients, such as in the dispensing of justice. This ancient method of dispensing justice survived throughout England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

as a part of royal procedure until the reforms of Henry II

Henry II of England

Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...

(reigned 1154 – 1189) modernised the administration of law.

Language

Modern scholarship uses the term Cumbric
Cumbric language
Cumbric was a variety of the Celtic British language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North", or what is now northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, the area anciently known as Cumbria. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brythonic languages...

for the variety of the British language

British language

The British language was an ancient Celtic language spoken in Britain.British language may also refer to:* Any of the Languages of the United Kingdom.*The Welsh language or the Brythonic languages more generally* British English...

spoken in the Hen Ogledd. It appears to have been very closely related to Old Welsh, with some local variances. There are no surviving texts written in the dialect; evidence for it comes from placenames, proper names in a few early inscriptions and later non-Cumbric sources, two terms in the Leges inter Brettos et Scottos
Leges inter Brettos et Scottos
The Leges inter Brettos et Scottos or Laws of the Brets and Scots was a legal codification under David I of Scotland...

, and the corpus of poetry by the cynfeirdd, the "early poets", nearly all of which deals with the north.

The cynfeirdd poetry is the largest source of information, and it is generally accepted that some part of the corpus was first composed in the Old North. However, it survives entirely in later manuscripts created in Wales, and it is unknown how faithful they are to the originals. Still, the texts do contain discernible variances that distinguish the speech from contemporary Welsh. In particular, these texts contain a number of archaism

Archaism

In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...

s – features that appear to have once been common in all Brythonic varieties, but which later vanished from Welsh and the Southwestern dialects. In general, however, the differences appear to be slight, and the distinction between Cumbric and Old Welsh is largely geographical rather than linguistic.

Cumbric gradually disappeared as the area was conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, and later the Scots and Norse

Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

, though it survived in the Kingdom of Strathclyde

Kingdom of Strathclyde

Strathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...

, centered around Alt Clut in what is now Dumbarton in Scotland. Kenneth H. Jackson

Kenneth H. Jackson

Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson was an English linguist and a translator who specialised in the Celtic languages. He demonstrated how the text of the Ulster Cycle of tales, written circa AD 1100, preserves an oral tradition originating some six centuries earlier and reflects Celtic Irish society of the...

suggested that it re-emerged in Cumbria

Cumbria

Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

in the 10th century, as Strathclyde established hegemony over that area. It is unknown when Cumbric finally went extinct, but the series of counting

Counting

Counting is the action of finding the number of elements of a finite set of objects. The traditional way of counting consists of continually increasing a counter by a unit for every element of the set, in some order, while marking those elements to avoid visiting the same element more than once,...

systems of Celtic origin recorded in Northern England since the 18th century have been proposed as evidence of a survival of elements of Cumbric; though the view has been largely rejected on linguistic grounds, with evidence pointing to the fact that it was imported to England after the Old English era

Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

Welsh interest

One of the traditional stories relating to the creation of Wales

Wales

is derived from the arrival in Wales of Cunedda

Cunedda

Cunedda ap Edern , was an important early Welsh leader, and the progenitor of the royal dynasty of Gwynedd.-Background and life:The name Cunedda derives from the Brythonic word , meaning good hound. His genealogy is traced back to Padarn Beisrudd, which literally translates as Paternus of the...

and his sons as 'Men of the North'. Cunedda himself is held to be the progenitor of the royal dynasty of Gwynedd

Kingdom of Gwynedd

, one of the largest and most powerful of the medieval Welsh kingdoms, and an ongoing participant in the history of the Old North. Cunedda, incidentally, is represented as a descendant of one of Maximus' generals, Paternus, who Maximus appointed as commander at Alt Clut. However, the relationship between Wales and the Old North is more substantial than this one event, amounting to a self-perception that the Welsh and the Men of the North are one people.

Many of the traditional sources of information about the Old North are believed to have come to Wales from the Old North, and bards such as Aneirin

Aneirin

Aneirin or Neirin was a Dark Age Brythonic poet. He is believed to have been a bard or 'court poet' in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Old North or Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland...

(the reputed author of Y Gododdin

Y Gododdin

Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Britonnic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth...

) are thought to have been court poets in the Old North. These stories and bards are held to be no less Welsh than the stories and bards who were actually from Wales.

Nature of the sources

A listing of passages from the literary and historical sources, particularly relevant to the Old North, can be found in Anwyl

Edward Anwyl

Sir Edward Anwyl was a Welsh academic, specializing in the Celtic languages.Anwyl was born in Chester, England, and educated at the King's School, Chester. He went on to study at Oriel College, Oxford, and Mansfield College, Oxford...

's article Wales and the Britons of the North. A somewhat dated introduction to the study of old Welsh poetry can be found in his 1904 article Prolegomena to the Study of Old Welsh Poetry.

Literary sources

The bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...

ic poetry attributed to Taliesin
Taliesin
Taliesin was an early British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin...

, Aneirin
Aneirin
Aneirin or Neirin was a Dark Age Brythonic poet. He is believed to have been a bard or 'court poet' in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Old North or Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland...

, and Llywarch Hen
Llywarch Hen
Llywarch Hen was a 6th-century prince of the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a ruling family in the Hen Ogledd or 'Old North' of Britain...

.
The genealogical tracts of the Harleian genealogies
Harleian genealogies
The Harleian genealogies are a collection of Old Welsh genealogies preserved in British Library, Harleian MS 3859. Part of the Harleian Collection, the manuscript, which also contains the Annales Cambriae and a version of the Historia Brittonum, has been dated to c. 1100, although a date of c.1200...

, the Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd is a brief Middle Welsh tract which claims to give the pedigrees of twenty 6th-century rulers of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking parts of southern Scotland and northern England. It is attested in a number of manuscripts, the earliest being NLW, Peniarth MS 45, which...

, and the genealogies of Jesus College MS 20
Genealogies from Jesus College MS 20
The genealogies from Jesus College MS 20 are a medieval Welsh collection of genealogies preserved in a single manuscript, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Jesus College, MS 20, folios 33r–41r...

.
The Triads of the Island of Britain
Welsh Triads
The Welsh Triads are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness...

(note that most of the triads published in the notorious third volume of The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales
The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales
The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales is a printed collection of medieval Welsh literature, published in three volumes between 1801 and 1807. Until John Gwenogvryn Evans produced diplomatic editions of the important medieval Welsh manuscripts, the Myvyrian Archaiology provided the source text for many...

are known to be the forgeries of Iolo Morganwg
Iolo Morganwg
Edward Williams, better known by his bardic name Iolo Morganwg , was an influential Welsh antiquarian, poet, collector, and literary forger. He was widely considered a leading collector and expert on medieval Welsh literature in his day, but after his death it was revealed that he had forged a...

, and are not considered valid sources of historical information). The standard scholarly edition is Trioedd Ynys Prydein by Rachel Bromwich
Rachel Bromwich
Rachel Bromwich was a British scholar. Her focus was on medieval Welsh literature, and was Emeritus Reader in Celtic Languages and Literature at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge until her death...

.
The other elegies
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...

and songs of praise
Paean
A paean is a song or lyric poem expressing triumph or thanksgiving. In classical antiquity, it is usually performed by a chorus, but some examples seem intended for an individual voice...

, as well as certain mythological
Welsh mythology
Welsh mythology, the remnants of the mythology of the pre-Christian Britons, has come down to us in much altered form in medieval Welsh manuscripts such as the Red Book of Hergest, the White Book of Rhydderch, the Book of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin....

stories, that have been preserved.

Stories praising a patron and the construction of flattering genealogies are neither unbiased nor reliable sources of historically accurate information. However, while they may exaggerate and make apocryphal assertions, they do not falsify or change the historical facts that were known to the bards' listeners, as that would bring ridicule and disrepute to both the bards and their patrons. In addition, the existence of stories of defeat and tragedy

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

, as well as stories of victory, lends additional credibility to their value as sources of history. Within that context, the stories contain useful information, much of it incidental, about an era of British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

history where very little is reliably known.

Historical sources

The Historia Brittonum attributed to Nennius
Nennius
Nennius was a Welsh monk of the 9th century.He has traditionally been attributed with the authorship of the Historia Brittonum, based on the prologue affixed to that work, This attribution is widely considered a secondary tradition....
The Annales Cambriae
Annales Cambriae
Annales Cambriae, or The Annals of Wales, is the name given to a complex of Cambro-Latin chronicles deriving ultimately from a text compiled from diverse sources at St David's in Dyfed, Wales, not later than the 10th century...
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...

by Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
The Annals of Tigernach
Annals of Tigernach
The Annals of Tigernach is a chronicle probably originating in Clonmacnoise, Ireland. The language is a mixture of Latin and Old and Middle Irish....

These sources are not without deficiencies. Both the authors and their later transcribers sometimes displayed a partisanship that promoted their own interests, portraying their own agendas in a positive light, always on the side of justice and moral rectitude. Facts in opposition to those agendas are sometimes omitted, and apocryphal entries are sometimes added.

While Bede was a Northumbria

Northumbria

n partisan and spoke with prejudice against the native Britons, his Ecclesiastical History
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...

is highly regarded for its effort towards an accurate telling of history, and for its use of reliable sources. When passing along "traditional" information that lacks a historical foundation, Bede takes care to note it as such.

The De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae is a work by the 6th-century British cleric Gildas. It is a sermon in three parts condemning the acts of Gildas' contemporaries, both secular and religious, whom he blames for the dire state of affairs in sub-Roman Britain...

by Gildas

Gildas

Gildas was a 6th-century British cleric. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during this period. His renowned learning and literary style earned him the designation Gildas Sapiens...

(c. 516 – 570) is occasionally relevant in that it mentions early people and places also mentioned in the literary and historical sources. The work was intended to preach Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

to Gildas' contemporaries and was not meant to be a history. It is one of the few contemporary accounts of his era to have survived.

Dubious and fraudulent sources

The Historia Regum Britanniae
Historia Regum Britanniae
The Historia Regum Britanniae is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written c. 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation...

of Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

is disparaged as pseudohistory

Pseudohistory

Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...

, though it looms large as a source for the largely fictional romantic

Romance (genre)

As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...

stories known collectively as the Matter of Britain
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...

. The lack of historical value attributed to the Historia lies only partly in the fact that it contains so many fictions and falsifications of history; the fact that historical accuracy clearly was not a consideration in its creation makes any references to actual people and places no more than a literary convenience.

The Iolo Manuscripts are a collection of manuscripts presented in the early 19th century by Edward Williams, who is better known as Iolo Morganwg

Iolo Morganwg

Edward Williams, better known by his bardic name Iolo Morganwg , was an influential Welsh antiquarian, poet, collector, and literary forger. He was widely considered a leading collector and expert on medieval Welsh literature in his day, but after his death it was revealed that he had forged a...

. Containing various tales, anecdotal material and elaborate genealogies that connect virtually everyone of note with everyone else of note (and with many connections to Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

and Iolo's native region of Morgannwg), they were at first accepted as genuine, but have since been shown to be an assortment of forged or doctored manuscripts, transcriptions, and fantasies, mainly invented by Iolo himself. A list of works tainted by their reliance on the material presented by Iolo (sometimes without attribution) would be quite long.

Major kingdoms

Places in the Old North that are mentioned as kingdoms in the literary and historical sources include:

Alt Clut or Ystrad Clud – a kingdom centered at what is now Dumbarton in Scotland. Later known as the Kingdom of Strathclyde
Kingdom of Strathclyde
Strathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...

, it was one of the best attested of the northern British kingdoms. It was also the last surviving, as it operated as an independent realm into the 11th century before it was finally absorbed by the Kingdom of Scotland
Kingdom of Scotland
The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...

.
Elmet
Elmet
Elmet was an independent Brythonic kingdom covering a broad area of what later became the West Riding of Yorkshire during the Early Middle Ages, between approximately the 5th century and early 7th century. Although its precise boundaries are unclear, it appears to have been bordered by the River...

– centered in western Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

in northern England. It was located south of the other northern British kingdoms, and also well east of present-day Wales, but managed to survive into the early 7th century.
Gododdin
Gododdin
The Gododdin were a Brittonic people of north-eastern Britain in the sub-Roman period, the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North...

– a kingdom in what is now southeastern Scotland and northeastern England, the area previously noted as the territory of the Votadini
Votadini
The Votadini were a people of the Iron Age in Great Britain, and their territory was briefly part of the Roman province Britannia...

. They are the subjects of the poem Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Britonnic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth...

, which memorializes a disastrous raid by an army raised by the Gododdin on the Angles of Bernicia
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

.
Rheged
Rheged
Rheged is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking region of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, during the Early Middle Ages...

– a major kingdom that evidently included parts of present-day Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

, though its full extent is unknown. It may have covered a vast area at one point, as it is very closely associated with its king Urien
Urien
Urien , often referred to as Urien Rheged, was a late 6th century king of Rheged, an early British kingdom of the Hen Ogledd . His power and his victories, including the battles of Gwen Ystrad and Alt Clut Ford, are celebrated in the praise poems to him by Taliesin, preserved in the Book of Taliesin...

, whose name is tied to places all over northwestern Britain.

Minor kingdoms and other regions

Several regions are mentioned in the sources, assumed to be notable regions within one of the kingdoms if not separate kingdoms themselves:

Aeron
Aeron (kingdom)
Aeron was a kingdom of the Brythonic-speaking Hen Ogledd , presumed to have been located in the region of the River Ayr in what is now southwestern Scotland...

– a minor kingdom mentioned in sources such as Y Gododdin, its location is uncertain, but several scholars have suggested that it was in the Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...

region of southwest Scotland. It is frequently associated with Urien Rheged, and may have been part of his realm.
Calchfynydd ("Chalkmountain") – almost nothing is known about this area, though it was likely somewhere in the Hen Ogledd, as an evident ruler, Cadrawd Calchfynydd
Cadrawd Calchfynydd
Cadrawd Calchfynydd was king of the obscure Brythonic kingdom of Calchfynydd in the 6th century.He was the son of King Cynwyd Cynwydion, possibly also of Calchfynydd. He probably succeeded his father around 545. If his kingdom were in Northern Britain, the Angles of Bernicia may have taken it over...

, is listed in the Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd is a brief Middle Welsh tract which claims to give the pedigrees of twenty 6th-century rulers of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking parts of southern Scotland and northern England. It is attested in a number of manuscripts, the earliest being NLW, Peniarth MS 45, which...

. William Forbes Skene
William Forbes Skene
William Forbes Skene , Scottish historian and antiquary, was the second son of Sir Walter Scott's friend, James Skene , of Rubislaw, near Aberdeen....

suggested an identification with Kelso (formerly Calchow) in the Scottish Borders
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...

.
Eidyn – this was the area around the modern city of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, then known as Din Eidyn (Fort of Eidyn). It was closely associated with the Gododdin kingdom. Kenneth H. Jackson
Kenneth H. Jackson
Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson was an English linguist and a translator who specialised in the Celtic languages. He demonstrated how the text of the Ulster Cycle of tales, written circa AD 1100, preserves an oral tradition originating some six centuries earlier and reflects Celtic Irish society of the...

argued strongly that Eidyn referred exclusively to Edinburgh, but other scholars have taken it as a designation for the wider area. The name may survive today in toponyms such as Edinburgh, Dunedin, and Carriden (from Caer Eidyn), located fifteen miles to the west. Din Eidyn was besieged by the Angles in 638 and was under their control for most of the next three centuries.
Manaw Gododdin
Manaw Gododdin
Manaw Gododdin was the narrow coastal region on the south side of the Firth of Forth, part of the Brythonic-speaking Kingdom of Gododdin in the post-Roman Era. Its notability is as the homeland of Cunedda prior to his conquest of North Wales, and as the homeland of the heroic warriors in the...

– the coastal area south of the Firth of Forth
Firth of Forth
The Firth of Forth is the estuary or firth of Scotland's River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea, between Fife to the north, and West Lothian, the City of Edinburgh and East Lothian to the south...

, and part of the territory of the Gododdin. The name survives in Slamannan Moor and the village of Slamannan
Slamannan
Slamannan is a village in the south of the Falkirk council area in Central Scotland. It is south-west of Falkirk, east of Cumbernauld and north-east of Airdrie....

, in Stirlingshire
Stirlingshire
Stirlingshire or the County of Stirling is a registration county of Scotland, based around Stirling, the former county town. It borders Perthshire to the north, Clackmannanshire and West Lothian to the east, Lanarkshire to the south, and Dunbartonshire to the south-west.Until 1975 it was a county...

. This is derived from Sliabh Manann, the 'Moor of Manann'. It also appears in the name of Dalmeny
Dalmeny
Dalmeny is a suburban village and civil parish in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located on the south side of the Firth of Forth, east-southeast of South Queensferry and west-northwest of central Edinburgh; it falls under the local governance of the City of Edinburgh Council.The name Dalmeny is...

, some 5 miles northwest of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, and formerly known as Dumanyn, assumed to be derived from Dun Manann. The name also survives north of the Forth in Pictish Manaw as the name of the burgh
Burgh
A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...

of Clackmannan
Clackmannan
Clackmannan District 1975-96From 1975, Clackmannan was the name of a small town and local government district in the Central region of Scotland, corresponding to the traditional county of Clackmannanshire, which was Scotland's smallest...

and the eponymous county of Clackmannanshire
Clackmannanshire
Clackmannanshire, often abbreviated to Clacks is a local government council area in Scotland, and a lieutenancy area, bordering Perth and Kinross, Stirling and Fife.As Scotland's smallest historic county, it is often nicknamed 'The Wee County'....

, derived from Clach Manann, the 'stone of Manann', referring to a monument stone located there.
Novant – a kingdom mentioned in Y Gododdin, presumably related to the Iron Age Novantae
Novantae
The Novantae were a people of the late 2nd century who lived in what is now Galloway and Carrick, in southwestern-most Scotland. They are mentioned briefly in Ptolemy's Geography The Novantae were a people of the late 2nd century who lived in what is now Galloway and Carrick, in southwestern-most...

tribe of southwestern Scotland.
Regio Dunutinga – a minor kingdom or region in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...

mentioned in the Life of Wilfrid. It was evidently named for a ruler named Dunaut, perhaps the Dunaut ap Pabo known from the genealogies. Its name may survive in the modern town of Dent, Cumbria.

Kingdoms that were not part of the Old North but are part of its history include:

Dál Riata
Dál Riata
Dál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...

– Though this was a Gaelic
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....

kingdom, the family of Áedán mac Gabráin
Áedán mac Gabráin
Áedán mac Gabráin was a king of Dál Riata from circa 574 until his death, perhaps on 17 April 609. The kingdom of Dál Riata was situated in modern Argyll and Bute, Scotland, and parts of County Antrim, Ireland...

of Dál Riata appears in the Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd
Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd is a brief Middle Welsh tract which claims to give the pedigrees of twenty 6th-century rulers of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking parts of southern Scotland and northern England. It is attested in a number of manuscripts, the earliest being NLW, Peniarth MS 45, which...
Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

and its predecessor states, Bernicia
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

and Deira
Deira
Deira was a kingdom in Northern England during the 6th century AD. Itextended from the Humber to the Tees, and from the sea to the western edge of the Vale of York...
Pictish kingdom
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...

Possible kingdoms

The following names appear in historical and literary sources, but it is unknown whether or not they refer to British kingdoms and regions of the Hen Ogledd.

Bryneich – this is the British name for the Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

kingdom of Bernicia
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

. There was probably a pre-Saxon British kingdom in this area, but this is uncertain.
Deifr
Deifr
Deifr was the Brythonic name for the eastern half of the modern county of Yorkshire in northern England and was known to the later Anglo-Saxons as Deira. Deifr means coastal or waters in Brythonic and was probably a territorial subdivision of the large tribal territory of the Brigantes before they...

or Dewr – this was the British name for Anglo-Saxon Deira
Deira
Deira was a kingdom in Northern England during the 6th century AD. Itextended from the Humber to the Tees, and from the sea to the western edge of the Vale of York...

, a region between the River Tees
River Tees
The River Tees is in Northern England. It rises on the eastern slope of Cross Fell in the North Pennines, and flows eastwards for 85 miles to reach the North Sea between Hartlepool and Redcar.-Geography:...

and the Humber
Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...

. The name is of British origin, but as with Bryneich it is unknown if it represented an earlier British kingdom.

External links

Matthews, Keith J. "What's in a name? Britons, Angles, ethnicity and material culture from the fourth to seventh centuries." Heroic Age 4 (Winter 2001).

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Background

Historical context

Societal context

Language

Welsh interest

Nature of the sources

Literary sources

Historical sources

Dubious and fraudulent sources

Major kingdoms

Minor kingdoms and other regions

Possible kingdoms

Further reading

External links