Rheged’s exiled warband?

The Irish annals include the following entries dealing with conflict in northern Ireland during the late 7th and early 8th centuries:

682: The battle of Ráith Mór Maigi Lini against the Britons, in which Cathasach son of Mael Dúin, king of the Cruithin, fell, and Ultán son of Dícuill.

697: Britons and Ulaid wasted Mag Muirtheimne.

702: Írgalach grandson of Conaing was killed by Britons in Inis Mac Nesáin.

709: The battle of Selg in Fortuatha Laigen against the Uí Cheinnselaig, in which fell two sons of Cellach of Cuala, Fiachra and Fiannamail, and Luirg with Cellach’s Britons.

* * * *

Who were these ‘Britons’ and where did they come from? Why were they involved in the wars of Ireland?

The Irish annals of this period were written at the Hebridean monastery of Iona by monks who were, in many cases, themselves of Irish origin. It would appear from the above entries that an indication of where the British warbands came from was regarded by these monks as unnecessary. Perhaps they felt that they had already provided this information by describing the warbands as ‘Britons’? In the period 682-709 there was indeed only one North British kingdom capable of waging war in Ireland. This was Strathclyde, the last surviving realm of the Gwyr y Gogledd (‘The Men of the North’), with its chief royal citadel at Dumbarton Rock. The Clyde Britons had seen their compatriots fall one-by-one to the inexorable advance of English Northumbria. By c.670 the Northumbrian kings held sway over large tracts of what is now southern Scotland, having conquered major British realms such as Rheged and Gododdin. Some measure of imperium or overkingship was exercised over Strathclyde by the English king Oswiu (died 670) and by his son Ecgfrith (died 685) but the Dumbarton dynasty endured throughout this troubled period and in fact outlived the Northumbrian royal house by more than a hundred years.

Given Strathclyde’s status as the only functioning political entity of the northern Britons between 682 and 709 we might logically deduce that the warbands who campaigned in Ireland came from this kingdom. The annalists on Iona would have felt little need to call them anything other than ‘Britons’ because it would be generally assumed that they came from Strathclyde. Any Scot, Pict, Irishman or Englishman of the late 7th century would have known that the Dumbarton kings were the only Britons who still commanded armies in the North.

Some historians, however, prefer an alternative explanation for the presence of North British warriors in Ireland by seeing them as “part of the exiled warband of Rheged” (Smyth 1984, p.26). According to this theory, the English conquest of Rheged left its military forces leaderless and penniless, driving them “to seek their fortune at the courts of Irish kings always in need of warriors for their own incessant warfare” (ibid.). Why these men should travel to Ireland rather than seek gainful employment in Britain is explained in simple economic terms: Irish kings apparently had the ability to “more richly reward them for their services” (Evans 1997, p.110). At this point it might be useful to note that there is no reference to Rheged in the Irish annals, not even in entries relating to the late 6th century when its kings reached the zenith of their power. The monks of Iona who wrote the earliest annals retrospectively were probably aware of Rheged’s existence through their contacts with Northumbrian monasteries but they chose not to mention the kingdom. By contrast they mentioned Strathclyde many times, usually by reference to the royal citadel at Dumbarton. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Strathclyde was the only British territory in which Iona had any interest.

I have always been puzzled by the ‘Rheged mercenaries in Ireland’ theory. Why was it devised at all, and what purpose does it serve? The history of Rheged is mysterious enough without complicating it even further. Instead of weaving imaginative sagas around fragmentary information presented by medieval texts we should examine the fragments more closely to see what they say about the political biases of monastic writers and their secular patrons. By looking at the Irish annals from Iona’s viewpoint we might find ourselves better equipped to understand what role the annalists assigned to the Strathclyde Britons in the late 7th century. This kind of approach was adopted by James Fraser during an insightful study of secular and ecclesiastical contacts between Scots and Britons. Fraser examined the annals of 682 to 709 in the context of Iona’s political loyalties and offered a plausible hypothesis to explain the presence of Strathclyde warbands in Ireland. He envisaged a period of close co-operation between the Clyde kings and a royal dynasty of Scots in nearby CowaI, a relationship which produced “a tendency to share enemies and allies” (Fraser 2005, 109). Among the Cowal dynasty’s rivals were the Scots of Kintyre who, for more than a hundred years, had been in a symbiotic relationship with Iona. Fraser suggested that the Cowal Scots received strong military support from Dumbarton in pursuit of dynastic interests in Ireland. This led to Britons fighting alongside Cowal’s Irish allies against other Irish factions allied to Kintyre. The activities of these Britons were duly noted by the annalists because the interests of Iona’s patrons – the royal kindreds of Kintyre – were affected by the course of events. I will not delve any further into the complex web of 7th century politics – this post is long enough already – but Fraser’s article is certainly worth reading. The main point I wish to make here is that the idea of Rheged’s exiled warriors campaigning in Ireland does not stand up to scrutiny. The annals of 682 to 709 surely refer to the political affiliations and military obligations of the Strathclyde kings.

Alfred Smyth, Warlords and holy men: Scotland AD 80-1000 (Edinburgh, 1984)

Stephen Evans, The lords of battle: image & reality of the comitatus in Dark Age Britain (Woodbridge, 1997)

James E. Fraser, ‘Strangers on the Clyde: Cenel Comgaill, Clyde Rock and the bishops of Kingarth’. Innes Review 56 (2005), pp.102-20.

* I am grateful to Michelle of Heavenfield for drawing my attention to James Fraser’s article soon after it appeared in print.

Scottish Origins: Myths and Misconceptions

One of the most important papers of recent years is Ewan Campbell’s ‘Were the Scots Irish?’, published in the journal Antiquity in 2001. Campbell questions the scholarly consensus which envisages migrants from Antrim establishing an Irish colony in northwest Britain sometime around AD 500. The migration hypothesis has long been accepted as the correct view of Scottish origins, partly because it explains why the inhabitants of Argyll spoke Gaelic – the language of Ireland – at a time when everyone else in North Britain spoke a Brittonic language (i.e. British/Cumbric in the Lowlands and Pictish in the Highlands). Migration from Ireland was also mentioned by Bede in 731 when he referred to the origins of Dal Riada, the kingdom of the early Scots. In the 10th century the kings of the Scots produced a similar “foundation legend” which traced their lineage back to Irish ancestors who came to Argyll as conquerors.

As an archaeologist Campbell wonders why Argyll yields no material evidence of the alleged migration. If the Scots had arrived from Ireland in large numbers we would expect them to build dwellings of similar types to the ones they left behind. No such evidence has been found, nor do the place-names of Argyll suggest that a mass of Gaelic-speaking immigrants supplanted an indigenous Pictish or British population. It is usual for traces of an earlier language to be visible among place-names coined in the speech of an invader but the Argyll names are so thoroughly Gaelic that they actually appear to be indigenous. Some historians believe that the Scots came to Britain as a small, elite group of kings and aristocrats. This could possibly explain the lack of archaeological evidence for a mass-migration but, as Campbell points out, high-status foreigners would have imposed the trappings of their own culture on the native elites whom they conquered or absorbed. We should therefore expect the decorated brooch – the ubiquitous badge of high-status among early medieval cultures – to show Irish characteristics whenever an example is unearthed in the archaeology of Argyll. Again, no such evidence is forthcoming: the brooches worn by the early Scots are of recognizably British rather than of Irish design.

What, then, of the foundation legend mentioned by Bede? Surely his testimony – having been written in the 8th century – must count for something? Campbell makes a strong case for believing that Bede was merely stating the earliest form of an origin-story that the Scots would later richly embellish in the 10th century. Such tales were very common in early medieval Europe and were often concocted as political propaganda to create suitably dramatic origins for dominant royal dynasties.

As an alternative hypothesis Campbell envisages no migration from Ireland to Argyll other than a cultural one arising from social and economic links across the narrow seas between the two areas. These links led to the adoption of Gaelic as the common language of trade and social interaction but, although the people of Argyll became Gaelic-speakers, their distinctive regional identity was strong enough to preserve their indigenous culture in the face of Irish influences. Campbell suggests that the linguistic shift from Brittonic to Gaelic was achieved during the pre-Roman Iron Age. Thus, when Roman writers spoke of the Scotti (Scots) of Ireland they were probably referring collectively to all Gaelic speakers – including the Scots of Argyll.

This is only a brief summary of Campbell’s paper. I find his alternative view of Scottish origins convincing and compelling. It will not persuade everyone to change their views but it issues a bold challenge to conventional wisdom and cannot be ignored.

Ewan Campbell, ‘Were the Scots Irish?’ Antiquity 75 (2001) pp.285-92.

Saint Ninian

The Scottish journal Innes Review is a rich treasure-trove of information on early medieval studies. Many of its articles feature research at the cutting edge of scholarship, written by authors who are not afraid of upsetting some long-established applecarts.

One article that springs to mind is a detailed study of Ninian by Thomas Owen Clancy, who proposes that this controversial saint should be identified as the sixth-century cleric Finnian of Movilla. Clancy constructs a picture of Finnian as a Briton who founded churches and monasteries in Ireland and Scotland, the most famous of these being at Whithorn in Galloway. The original British form of the saint’s name was Uinniau which became Finnian among speakers of Irish Gaelic. Clancy suggests that the name was further amended by English clerics at Whithorn in the eighth century, who devised the “literary” form Ninian in order to promote the site as a cult centre through the medium of hagiography.

The traditional or conventional view of Ninian is that he founded Whithorn in the fifth century and undertook missionary work further north in Pictland. Clancy exposes the flaws in this view and pushes Ninian/Uinniau into the mid-500s, to a time that provides a better fit with Whithorn’s archaeology. Mysterious old tales of Irish monks studying there during the sixth century thus find a plausible context, as too does the reference to the British king Tudwal who might have been the attested Strathclyde ruler Tudwal of Dumbarton (c.560). In fact, even a brief perusal of Clancy’s argument is likely to make anyone question the notion of a fifth-century Ninian. Having read John MacQueen’s seminal study Saint Nynia and having noted the more recent work of Alan Macquarrie and Dauvit Broun I now believe that the matter of Ninian is finally settled. Clancy’s article offers a “best fit” for this enigmatic figure’s place in history.

Thomas Owen Clancy, ‘The real Saint Ninian’. Innes Review 52 (2001), pp.1-28.

John MacQueen, St Nynia. Revised edition (Edinburgh: 1990).

Dauvit Broun, ‘The literary record of St Nynia: fact and fiction?’ Innes Review 42 (1991), pp.143-50.

Alan Macquarrie, ‘The date of St Ninian’s mission: a reappraisal’. Records of the Scottish Church History Society 23 (1987), pp.1-25.

Alan Macquarrie, The saints of Scotland: essays in Scottish church history, AD 450-1093 (Edinburgh: 1997).

King Arthur

Many people think Arthur was a historical figure of the fifth or sixth centuries. This is not a view I share, which is why I generally leave Arthur aside when discussing early medieval topics. My own view is the one encapsulated by Oliver Padel in 1994, when he examined the key question: Did Arthur exist? Padel suggested that Arthur originated in legend as “a pan-Brittonic figure of local wonder-tales” like the mythical Irish hero Fionn (Finn Mac Cool). The two figures share much in common: both appear in tales of magical beings and places; both were associated with mysterious prehistoric monuments; both were portrayed as saviours of their homelands. Padel argues that just as Fionn made the transition from Irish legends to Irish historical texts, so Arthur made the same transition in a British context, becoming a key figure in pseudo-history as well as remaining an important character of folklore. Hence the list of Arthur’s battles in the Historia Brittonum of c.830, and hence his appearance in the Welsh Annals, while a parallel tradition continued to weave him into tales such as Culhwch and Olwen. But there was no real Arthur, according to Padel, unless the legendary figure was created partly out of a folk-memory of the Roman centurion Lucius Artorius Castus (who led an army from Britain to Gaul in c.200).

Views such as the one expressed by Padel are obviously unpopular with supporters of the Historical Arthur but, when the early medieval sources are examined, the absence of this enigmatic figure is very noticeable. Neither Bede nor Gildas mention him, so why should we regard him as important?

Oliver Padel, ‘The nature of Arthur’. Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 27 (1994), pp.1-31

The Siege of Edinburgh?

A well-known entry in the Irish Annals gives the following information for AD 638: obsesio etin. This means “the siege of Etin” and is usually seen as a reference to an otherwise undocumented attack on Edinburgh. In the early medieval period Edinburgh was the chief citadel of the Britons of Gododdin who called it Din Eidin. In Irish this name would normally appear as Eitin which corresponds closely to the annalists’ Etin. The timescale seems to fit with our knowledge of what was happening in southern Scotland at that time: the English of Northumbria, led by King Oswald, were steadily encroaching on British territory. A Northumbrian siege of Edinburgh would therefore seem consistent with a major inroad by Oswald’s army into the heartland of Gododdin. In 1959 Kenneth Jackson took this idea further by suggesting that the annal for 638 represents not only an English siege of Din Eidin but also the final phase in the conquest of Gododdin. Many writers have followed this line of thought in subsequent studies of seventh century history.

Like other isolated snippets of data relating to this period the “siege of Edinburgh in 638″ has evolved from a plausible explanation of an obscure annal into a rather large factoid (i.e. a fact-shaped object). This is why so many books and articles dealing with Oswald or Gododdin say that the kingdom fell under English control in 638 without warning the reader that this “fact” is no more than a guess. In a paper of 1989 David Dumville drew attention to what he called the “enthusiasm and historical mileage” generated by this annal but he is one of the few writers to counsel a cautious approach to its testimony. He was right to do so. The words obsesio etin may indeed preserve a genuine record of the collapse of Gododdin but equally they might refer to a wholly unrelated event at a place called Etin somewhere else in the British Isles. Writers of Scottish or Northumbrian history books should therefore sound a note of caution when their narrative reaches the late 630s, if only to remind their readers that the picture is not as clear-cut as we might wish it to be.

Kenneth Jackson, ‘Edinburgh and the Anglian occupation of Lothian’, pp.35-42 in Peter Clemoes (ed.) The Anglo-Saxons: some aspects of their history and culture presented to Bruce Dickins (London: 1959).

David Dumville, ‘The origins of Northumbria: some aspects of the British background’, pp.213-22 in Steven Bassett (ed.) The origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Leicester: 1989).