The Men Of The North: 10th Anniversary

Ten years have passed since the publication of my book The Men Of The North: The Britons Of Southern Scotland. It has since been reprinted a number of times, becoming unavailable for only brief intervals between reprints. For an author, this is an encouraging situation to be in, and I am grateful to my publishers (Birlinn of Edinburgh) for keeping the book ticking over throughout the decade. I am also grateful for the many positive comments from readers and reviewers, all of which have encouraged me to believe that the effort of researching and writing this book has not been in vain. Of course, no book is going to please everyone, and The Men Of The North is no exception. On the whole, though, it seems to have been generally well-received.

“Until the publication of The Men of the North there had never been a textbook for the North British kingdoms — its appearance should be welcomed by undergraduates, teachers, and the general public alike.” Dr Philip Dunshea (International Review of Scottish Studies, 2012)

The above quote, from a Scottish historian whose opinions I value highly, captures in a nutshell my main reason for writing The Men Of The North: I saw a gap on my bookshelf and decided to have a go at filling it myself. Ever since my first forays into early medieval history in the 1980s, I had become increasingly aware that the Northern Britons are Scotland’s forgotten people. They are far more obscure and mysterious than any of their neighbours (including the supposedly enigmatic Picts) and their significant role in Scottish history has frequently been overlooked. References to them in medieval chronicles are thin on the ground, leaving huge gaps in their story and forcing modern historians to scrabble around for snippets of information in less reliable sources (such as poems and legends). Nevertheless, I had often wondered if the various fragments could be assembled into a more-or-less coherent narrative, a stable framework around which a chronological history might take shape. It was 2009 before I took the plunge by putting pen to paper and fingertip to keyboard. The task was as challenging as I had expected it to be, but the result was a book that I felt passed the test.

The Men Of The North includes my own interpretations of certain parts of the textual evidence. This is especially true in the first half of the book, which draws data from medieval Welsh poems in which the deeds of various sixth-century North British kings and warriors are praised. Ten years later, and I can report that these interpretations remain largely unchanged. I still firmly believe that the locations of Rheged (a kingdom, or part of one) and Catraeth (apparently the site of a battle) remain unknown. I still reject the conventional notion that four North British kings joined together in a military coalition to launch a combined assault on an English royal dynasty whom they besieged or blockaded on the island of Lindisfarne. In this particular instance, I see each British king waging his own campaign independently of his alleged allies. If my views on these topics have changed at all in the past ten years, they have probably hardened rather than softened.

Some of my views have, however, shifted somewhat. On page 178 of The Men Of The North, while discussing the question of where the great battle of Brunanburh (AD 937) was fought, I mentioned three places as popular candidates for the battlefield. These were Bromborough in Wirral (Cheshire), Burnswark in Dumfriesshire and Brinsworth in South Yorkshire. I now favour a location in Lancashire, either near the estuary of the River Ribble or further east around Burnley. This revision of my thinking is presented in detail in my second book on the Northern Britons, published in 2014 under the title Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age.

Several people have asked if a new edition of The Men Of The North is in the pipeline. My response is that there are, as yet, no definite plans. If a second edition does appear at some point in the future, it will undoubtedly make much use of another book, an edited volume called Beyond The Gododdin, published in 2013 by the Committee for Dark Age Studies at the University of St Andrews. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that no new research on the North British kingdoms of the sixth century should be regarded as complete unless the papers in Beyond The Gododdin have been consulted and cited.

Any new edition of The Men Of The North will also cite the publications of Dr Fiona Edmonds, author of several ground-breaking papers on the Viking-Age kingdom of Strathclyde/Cumbria, last of the North British realms. As with the contents of Beyond the Gododdin, I regard the work of Dr Edmonds as essential reading. I recommend, in particular, two journal articles and one book chapter. Bibliographic details for these three are given in the list of references at the end of this blogpost.

The past decade has seen other new publications relating to the Northern Britons, too many to list here. I must, however, mention a major archaeological report produced as part of the Galloway Picts Project. Published in 2017, this substantial monograph gives the results of a programme of excavation at Trusty’s Hill, site of a hilltop fortress famous for mysterious carvings that look like Pictish symbols. Interestingly, the report’s main title is The Lost Dark Age Kingdom Of Rheged, reflecting the authors’ belief that Trusty’s Hill is a good candidate for Rheged’s main centre of royal power. Although I remain open-minded on this claim of a Rheged connection, there can be no doubt that the report represents a big contribution to our archaeological understanding of the Northern Britons, giving us an insight into what must have been one of their principal high-status settlements.

On a personal level, the biggest change in my involvement with the Northern Britons since 2010 has been my participation in a number of local heritage projects at Govan on the south side of Glasgow. Most of these projects had a connection with the Govan Stones, a collection of sculptured monuments displayed in the old parish church. The stones were carved in the ninth to eleventh centuries when Govan was a centre of ritual and authority in the kingdom of Strathclyde. The heritage projects helped to raise awareness of the stones not only among the local community but more widely across Scotland as well as internationally. When I first came aboard in 2012, there were some thirty monuments to be seen. Three others, thought to have been lost, were unearthed last year (as I reported at this blog — see link below). Like the archaeological data from Trusty’s Hill, the rediscovered stones at Govan will be studied and analysed, and the information will increase our knowledge of early medieval Scotland.

The Govan Sarcophagus

Banner outside Govan Old Parish Church where the stones are displayed

I expect the next ten years will yield further new information on the Northern Britons, whether in the form of archaeological discoveries or re-interpretations of historical texts. It will be interesting to see if The Men Of The North gets left behind, like something outdated and obsolete, and whether a revision or update then becomes desirable for author and reader alike. If this is what happens, and if I haven’t made a start on a second edition by September 2030 (the book’s twentieth anniversary), I may need someone to give me a not-too-gentle nudge.

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Links :

My blogpost from September 2010, announcing the publication of The Men Of The North.

The first review of The Men Of The North, at Michelle Ziegler’s Heavenfield blog.

My blogpost from 2019 on the carved stones rediscovered at Govan.

My sceptical views on a supposed ‘coalition’ of sixth-century North British kings at Lindisfarne.

My book review of Beyond The Gododdin for the journal Northern History, available online at my Academia page.

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References :

Tim Clarkson, The Men Of The North: the Britons of Southern Scotland (Edinburgh, 2010)

Tim Clarkson, Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age (Edinburgh, 2014)

Fiona Edmonds, ‘The Emergence and Transformation of Medieval Cumbria’ Scottish Historical Review vol.93 (2014), 195-216.

Fiona Edmonds, ‘The Expansion of the Kingdom of Strathclyde’ Early Medieval Europe vol.23 (2015), 43-66.

Fiona Edmonds, ‘Carham: the Western Perspective’, pp.79-94 in Neil McGuigan and Alex Woolf (eds) The Battle of Carham: a Thousand Years On (Edinburgh, 2018).

Alex Woolf (ed.) Beyond the Gododdin: Dark Age Scotland in Medieval Wales (St Andrews, 2013).

Ronan Toolis and Christopher Bowles, The Lost Dark Age Kingdom of Rheged: the Discovery of a Royal Stronghold at Trusty’s Hill, Galloway (Oxford, 2017).

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The Govan Stones: new discoveries

A major archaeological find at Govan has been causing quite a buzz in the past week or so. No doubt many of you will already be aware of the news from social media and other sources. The find is indeed exciting: three early medieval carved stones, long assumed to have been lost forever, have been rediscovered in the graveyard of the old parish church.

The discovery happened during a community archaeological project called Stones and Bones which is run by Northlight Heritage, a charity closely involved with the conservation of the church (known as ‘Govan Old’) and its collection of early medieval sculpture. The significance of the new find becomes clear when we look back at the long history of the Govan Stones.

The story begins a thousand years ago, in the Viking Age, when Govan was a centre of royal power in the kingdom of Strathclyde. In those days, the site of Govan Old was occupied by a church that served the spiritual needs of Strathclyde’s rulers – a powerful dynasty of Britons whose realm extended northward to Loch Lomond and southward across the Solway Firth. The kings with their families and other members of the local elite worshipped at Govan, burying their dead in the churchyard and marking the graves with elaborately carved stones. After the Scottish conquest of Strathclyde in the eleventh century, the line of local kings came to an end but the gravestones remained. In later times, when the old kingdom of the Britons was barely a memory, many of the stones were re-used by prosperous Govan families as memorials for their own deceased. Hence we see the initials of people who died in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries inscribed on a number of stones, overlaying the Viking-Age carvings of crosses and interlace patterns. In the early nineteenth century, the churchyard still contained more than 40 ancient monuments. Most were recumbent cross-slabs, designed to lie flat over graves, but there were other types too, the most impressive being 5 hogbacks and (after its discovery in 1855) a magnificently carved sarcophagus.

Hogbacks and cross-slabs in the churchyard of Govan Old, c. 1900 [T.C.F. Brotchie]

In the late nineteenth century, Glasgow landowner and politician Sir John Stirling-Maxwell arranged for cast replicas to be made of the early medieval stones. These were then individually photographed, with the images being published by Sir John in 1899 under the title Sculptured Stones in the Kirkyard of Govan. Some years later, the sarcophagus was placed inside the church for safekeeping, to be followed in 1926 by many of the other stones. The rest remained outside. A plan of the churchyard, drawn in 1936 (see below), shows 19 stones lying in a line along the east wall. On the other side of the wall lay one of Govan’s famous shipyards.

Aerial view of Govan in the 1930s, showing the churchyard (highlighted in green on this copy of the original), the River Clyde at upper right and the Harland & Wolff shipyard in the centre.

And so we come to one of the darkest chapters in the story of the Govan Stones. In the early 1900s, the shipyard erected huge sheds right up against the churchyard wall. These enormous buildings were demolished in 1973. Unfortunately, the demolition work brought debris crashing down on the ancient stones lying beside the wall. At the time, it was believed that nearly all of these precious monuments had been reduced to shattered fragments amongst the rubble. A few survived, though badly damaged, and are now inside the church.

Fast forward through four decades to 2019 and the Stones and Bones ‘community dig’. One of the dig’s local volunteers was Mark McGettigan, age 14, a pupil of Lourdes Secondary School in Cardonald. Mark was using a probe to search for objects buried beneath the surface near the eastern edge of the churchyard when he made a remarkable discovery:
“I was just prodding the ground to see if there was anything there and suddenly it made a noise and I realised I had hit something. Myself and two of the archaeologists worked out the area of the object and started to dig it out and clean it. I wasn’t too sure at the start what it was. But then we checked with the records and we realised it was one of the lost Govan Stones. I am extremely happy, in fact I’m ecstatic at what I helped to uncover.”

The stone turned out to be a cross-slab from the Viking Age, carved in the 10th or 11th century. Nor was it a lone discovery: another two slabs were also found. All three have been matched to their corresponding photographs in the Stirling Maxwell survey, published 120 years ago, and identified as ’30’, ’38’ and ’40’ according to Sir John’s classification of the Govan monuments. The composite image at the top of this blogpost shows the three photographs grouped together (by me) but in the original 1899 publication they appear on separate pages.

Conservation and analysis by specialists are the essential next steps for these important relics of Scotland’s ancient past before they can be put on public display. In the meantime, it is quite possible that other stones – hitherto thought to have been reduced to rubble – survived the disaster of 1973 and still await rediscovery. We shall see what happens in the coming months but these are certainly interesting times for Govan’s ancient heritage.

Below are some photographs of the new finds, reproduced here by kind permission of archaeologist Ingrid Shearer from Northlight Heritage.

Uncovering one of the three cross-slabs (Mark McGettigan kneeling at top right).

Frazer Capie (Riverside Museum) and Ingrid Shearer (Northlight Heritage) using the 1899 survey to identify the three slabs.

An early medieval masterpiece revealed (the stone shown as ‘No. 40’ in the picture at the top of this blogpost).

Photogrammetric recording by Dr Megan Kasten of the University of Glasgow.

Finally, a message for those of you who enjoy getting out and about to see Pictish stones and similar ancient stuff. If you haven’t yet visited the collection at Govan Old, you’re missing out on one of Britain’s premier ‘Dark Age’ attractions. The Govan Stones are an absolute must-see for anyone who has an interest in Viking-Age sculpture, Celtic art or Scotland’s early history. Govan was the capital of the kingdom of Strathclyde, the last realm of the Cumbri or Northern Britons. Hardly anyone seems to know about this kingdom, even though it was a major player on the turbulent political stage of the ninth to eleventh centuries. Its inhabitants are the most obscure, the most enigmatic of Scotland’s early peoples. If you think the Picts and their symbol-stones have an aura of mystery, see what you make of the Northern Britons and their hogbacks. Stepping inside Govan Old feels like entering the heart of a strange, forgotten realm that somehow got left out of the school history books. The exciting new discoveries by Mark McGettigan and his fellow community diggers have brought a little bit more of this long-lost kingdom into focus.

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Notes & Acknowledgments

My thanks to Frazer Capie for telling me about the discovery and to Ingrid Shearer for letting me use the press release images and other media information.

The Govan Stones and the churchyard have Scheduled Monument status and are protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. The Stones and Bones community dig has scheduled monument consent from Historic Environment Scotland.

The Govan Heritage Trust is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to secure the future of the church and its rare collection of early medieval sculpture. Anyone wishing to support the Trust can contribute via this link.

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Links

The Govan Stones Project has a website and can be followed on Facebook and Twitter.

Other useful Twitter accounts for news and updates about the latest discoveries:
Northlight Heritage
Love Archaeology
Dr Megan Kasten
Dr Kasten has produced a superb 3D image of one of the newly unearthed cross-slabs.

And, lastly, a couple of media reports, one from Scotland and one from the USA:
Lost Glasgow
New York Post

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Cobwebs

I’ve been away from blogging for more than a year and a half, my longest period of absence since the launch of Senchus ten years ago. Distractions of various kinds have caused me to drift off the radar, but now I’m gradually making my way back. All three of my blogs have lain dormant since the autumn of 2016. Returning after such a long break means oiling their wheels, kick-starting their rusty engines and clearing the cobwebs off my WordPress dashboard.

Although absent from the ‘Blogosphere’ I’ve still kept in touch with history and archaeology. In April 2017, the Stove Network invited me to their headquarters in Dumfries to give a talk about Dark Age Galloway. The event was part of a cultural heritage project called Our Norwegian Story which looked at links between Scandinavia and South-West Scotland, so the Vikings featured prominently in my presentation. On a similar note, I was honoured to give the 2018 Oddveig Røsegg Memorial Lecture to the Scottish Norwegian Society a couple of months ago. My topic was ‘Strathclyde and the Vikings’, with an emphasis on the Norse aspect. A nice souvenir of the evening was a Society badge incorporating the Scottish and Norwegian flags (see below).

Also in 2017 I wrote a book, my seventh on early medieval history and the first without a Scottish focus. It’s a biography of Æthelflæd, the eldest daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex. Æthelflæd ruled the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia in the early tenth century and led her armies against the Vikings. Her death in June 918 is being commemorated 1100 years later at a number of places in what was once her domain. My book is scheduled to appear around the time of the anniversary and is being published by Birlinn of Edinburgh. The front cover shows a sculptured portrait of Æthelflæd from a public artwork at Runcorn in Cheshire, the site of one of her fortresses.

I’ll be posting about Æthelflæd at my other blog Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age, which seems the most relevant venue, but occasional updates on the book will also appear here at Senchus.

Those of you who keep an eye on news about Dark Age Scotland will know that there have been some interesting developments in the last year or so. I hope to report on these as I slowly get back to blogging.

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Remembering Aethelflaed

Aethelflaed of Mercia with her young nephew Athelstan (a modern sculpture at Tamworth Castle).

Today is the 1097th anniversary of the death of my favourite individual from the Dark Ages.

I refer, of course, to the Anglo-Saxon princess Aethelflaed, the Lady of the Mercians. She was the daughter of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, and sister to his successor Edward the Elder.

Aethelflaed married Aethelred, the ruler of Mercia in the western midlands of England, and joined him in a programme of fortress-building that strengthened his people’s defences against Viking raids. After Aethelred died in 911, his widow became sole ruler and – unusually for a woman in those times – a commander of armies in the field. She led military campaigns in person and achieved several major victories. Working in tandem with her brother Edward, she not only held off the Viking menace but won back a number of conquered territories in eastern England.

As part of her wider anti-Viking strategy, she formed a three-way alliance with the kings of Alba and Strathclyde. This northern and Scottish dimension is one of the reasons why I have long been fascinated by her career. Another reason is her connection with Mercia, my homeland, which she governed and protected during a time of great peril and uncertainty.

She died on 12 June 918, at the ancient Mercian settlement of Tamworth.

I’ve mentioned Aethelflaed here at Senchus quite a few times and, six years ago, devoted a blogpost to her. Last year I wrote about her again, at one of my other blogs. Here are the links to those posts…
‘The Lady of the Mercians’ [Senchus blog, 2009]
‘Aethelflaed’ [Strathclyde blog, 2014]

Her alliance with the Scots and Strathclyde Britons is described in a medieval text known as The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The passage in question gives an idea of the high regard in which she was held by contemporaries in lands far beyond the borders of Mercia. The relevant passage, with an English translation, can be seen in my blogpost on the Fragmentary Annals.

I also recommend Susan Abernethy’s article ‘Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia’ and Ed Watson’s ‘Aethelflaed: the making of a county town’.

I discuss Aethelflaed and her relations with the northern kings in my book Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age (on pages 58-63).

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Stones of the Britons

Clach nam Breatann (© David Dorren 1998)

One of the main roads to the Scottish Highlands is the A82 which carries travellers from Glasgow to Inverness via Fort William. After leaving the outskirts of Glasgow, this well-known highway passes Dumbarton and Alexandria before running north along the side of Loch Lomond. The loch is eventually left behind as the A82 continues onward through Glen Falloch to Crianlarich and Tyndrum.

High up on the western slopes of Glen Falloch, on the opposite side from the picturesque Falls, stands Clach nam Breatann, ‘The Stone of the Britons’. Like a space-rocket ready to launch, this enigmatic monument leans up from its base to point towards the sky. The topmost piece or capstone rests on deep-set boulders that seem to grow out of the ground. These foundations are sunk so deeply in the hillside that they might indeed be a natural rocky outcrop. The whole assemblage sits on a conical mound of earth and stone which appears to be partly man-made, like a large cairn now covered with grass.

Clach nam Breatann (© David Dorren 2002)

Clach nam Breatann (© David Dorren 2002)

Tradition asserts that Clach nam Breatann marked the boundary between Picts, Scots and Britons. Its association with the latter suggests that it lay within their territory and therefore belonged to them in some way. Historians generally assume that it defined the northern limit of the kingdom of Alt Clut or Dumbarton (c.400-870 AD) and also of the successor realm Strat Clut or Strathclyde (c.870-1070). The assumption is no doubt correct, although we should also keep in mind the possibility that the stone simply commemorated a famous battle involving the Britons. In the nineteenth century, the Scottish antiquary W.F. Skene suggested that an unidentified ‘Stone of Minuirc’, scene of a battle between Scots and Britons in 717, may have been Clach nam Breatann. The geographical setting of Glen Falloch would certainly be consistent with a frontier clash between opposing forces from Dál Riata and Clydesdale, but Skene’s theory was only a guess and Minuirc remains elusive.

Clach nam Breatann (© David Dorren 1998)

I visited Clach nam Breatann some fifteen years ago. I had never seen anything quite like it before. Not only did it look imposing and ancient, it also had a strangeness, an eccentricity, that I found hard to explain. Since then, I’ve mentioned the stone in my book The Men of the North (with an accompanying photograph) and in several posts at this blog. I would like to make a return visit, to refresh my memory and to take more pictures. Getting there is by no means easy, for the approach involves a trek up a steep hillside over rough, boggy terrain. However, the effort is definitely worth it, especially on a clear day when the view is truly breathtaking.

Clach nam Breatann (© David Dorren 1998)

Clach nam Breatann (© David Dorren 2002)

As well as re-visiting Clach nam Breatann, I’m keen to see another impressive landmark for the first time. This is a gigantic boulder known as Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich, ‘The Briton’s Stone’, a glacial erratic nestling on the southern flank of Ben Donich near Lochgoilhead. As with Clach nam Breatann, tradition asserts that this solitary megalith stands on an ancient boundary between the Clyde Britons and their neighbours – in this case, the Scots of Cowal. Both stones may in fact be part of a single frontier – they are, after all, only 12 miles apart. The possible course of such a divide was traced by the late Betty Rennie who published her findings in the Pictish Arts Society Journal in 1996 (see reference below). Rennie’s pioneering work on ancient boundaries has been continued by two of her former colleagues in the Cowal Archaeological Society – David Dorren and Nina Henry – whose research on the mysterious Druim Alban (‘Ridge of Alba’) was highlighted in an earlier post at this blog.

The following images of Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich give a good idea of its size and of its position in the landscape.

Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich (© David Dorren 2010)

Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich (© David Dorren 2010)

Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich (© David Dorren 2010)

Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich (© David Dorren 2010)

Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich (© David Dorren 2010)

Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich (© David Dorren 2010)

Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich (© David Dorren 1999)

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Notes & references

I am again grateful to Dr David Dorren for allowing me to reproduce his photographs here at Senchus.

Elizabeth B. Rennie, ‘A possible boundary between Dál Riata and Pictland’ Pictish Arts Society Journal 10 (Winter 1996), 17-22.

Armand D. Lacaille, ‘Ardlui megaliths and their associations’ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol.63 (1929), 329-32. [This article describes Clach nam Breatann and can be accessed via the PSAS online archive]

A link to my blogpost on Druim Alban.

Entries on the Canmore database for Clach nam Breatann (under its alternative name Clach na Briton) and Clach A’ Bhreatunnaich.

From the Annals of Ulster, under the year 717:
Congressio Dal Riati & Brittonum in lapide qui uocatur Minuirc, & Britones deuicti sunt.
(‘An encounter between Dál Riata and the Britons at the rock called Minuirc, and the Britons were defeated.’)

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This post is part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde series:

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King Arthur in Strathclyde

Arthur’s O’on (Oven), a Roman monument near the eastern end of the Antonine Wall, demolished in the 18th century (from Roy’s Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain, 1793).

The search for a ‘real’ King Arthur is a topic I usually try to avoid, mainly because I don’t think it adds much substance to the study of early medieval history. I say this as someone whose interest in the early medieval period began more than 30 years ago with a book called The Age of Arthur. In this controversial text, written by John Morris, the original Arthur behind the legend was depicted as a powerful warlord in post-Roman Britain. Gathering numerous scraps of information, Morris managed to weave a detailed historical narrative that many people still find compelling today. Although I initially came to the book via a fascination with Arthur, my attention was soon distracted by what Morris wrote about the Britons of the North. I had previously known nothing about this obscure people, yet their story of heroic kings and long-vanished realms soon held me enthralled. Since then, the North Britons have been at the forefront of my research on early medieval history, while Arthur has become a more shadowy figure in the background.

I simply don’t believe the legendary King Arthur is based on a real person who lived in the fifth/sixth centuries AD. This is why he rarely gets mentioned on this blog or in my books. My opinion on his historical existence is pretty much in line with the position taken by Professor Guy Halsall in Worlds of Arthur, a book I reviewed in the Scottish Archaeological Journal last year. In the review, I supported Halsall’s deep scepticism about Arthur’s historicity.

Like I said at the start of this blogpost, I generally prefer to avoid getting involved in the Historical Arthur debate. Avoidance isn’t difficult, because I don’t feel any great need to include Arthur in my own research on post-Roman Britain. To me, the overall picture is clearer without him. Sometimes, however, he nudges against subjects in which I have a keen interest, prompting me to take notice. This is what happened last week, when a new contribution to the Arthurian debate caused quite a stir in Scotland. ‘Academia up in arms over King Arthur’s Glasgow roots’ said a newspaper headline, referring to a controversial theory by distinguished Celticist and place-name expert Andrew Breeze. Whatever I think of Arthur, any suggestion of a Scottish connection is bound to make me sit up, especially when the source is a renowned philologist who knows a thing or two about Dark Age history.

According to Professor Breeze, the Arthur of legend was a real warlord, a North Briton from the kingdom of Strathclyde, who fought a series of battles in what are now southern Scotland and Northumberland. This runs against a more conventional belief that the historical Arthur was associated with Cornwall and other parts of south-west England. Using the (in)famous battle-list in the Historia Brittonum – a text compiled in Wales in the ninth century – Breeze suggests that all except one of Arthur’s victories were won in the North. The exception is Mons Badonicus or Mount Badon, which he identifies as Braydon in Wiltshire.

Of the other battlefields in the ninth-century list, the river Glein is identified by Professor Breeze as the Glen in Northumberland while the river Dubglas is seen as the Douglas Water near Lanark. I often wonder if these rivers did indeed bear witness to victories won by a Dark Age warlord – perhaps not a northern Arthur, but a Briton nonetheless – and the famous king Urien of Rheged springs to mind. The same might be said of the battle of ‘Celidon Wood’ which, as Breeze observes, must be somewhere in the Southern Uplands. These three identifications are fairly uncontroversial, unlike those proposed for the battlefields of Bassas, Tribruit and Agned, which Breeze locates respectively at Tarras Water (Eskdale), Dreva (Tweeddale) and Pennango (Teviotdale). He sees Bassas as an error for Tarras, which is the kind of typo a careless scribe might make when copying a manuscript. Castell Guinnion, which some historians identify as Vinovia, the Roman fort at Binchester in County Durham, is associated by Breeze with Kirkgunzeon near Dumfries. Again, I think the battle at Guinnion might be a genuine northern event – a victory won by Urien or some other historical hero – that the Arthurian legend has subsequently absorbed. Finally, the battle-site named in Historia Brittonum as ‘City of the Legion’ is often placed at the Roman legionary bases of Chester or Caerleon (in Wales) but Professor Breeze offers his own suggestion of Kinneil at the eastern terminus of the Antonine Wall. It will be interesting to learn the detailed argument behind these theories when he presents them at the International Congress of Celtic Studies in Glasgow in July 2015.

I’ve marked the places suggested by Professor Breeze on the map below.

Click on the image to enlarge.
Original topographic map by Equestenebrarum via Wikimedia Commons.

Those of you who are familiar with J.S. Glennie’s old book Arthurian Localities (1869) will be aware that the idea of a Scottish context for the Historical Arthur has been around for a long time. However, a number of places identified by Professor Breeze have not previously been linked to the Arthurian battle-list so, in that sense, his theory is certainly a new one. It will inevitably spark further debate when the conference paper is presented.

Last week, in an article in the Scottish newspaper The National, Professor Breeze was quoted as saying “I know that my views will be controversial”. His ideas have already been challenged by Stuart McHardy and Simon Stirling, two authors of books locating Arthur in Scotland, who quickly responded via the comments thread at the newspaper’s website. Last Friday, also in The National, Professor Thomas Owen Clancy of the University of Glasgow gave a strong rebuttal, arguing not only against the identification of Arthur as a Strathclyder but also against the whole notion that the battles listed in the Historia Brittonum were fought by a Dark Age warlord. I share Clancy’s doubts. Much as I would welcome a narrative to plug the gaps in Strathclyde’s early history, I don’t think Arthur brings us any closer to finding it. On a more positive note, if Professor Breeze’s theory inspires more people to take an interest in Dark Age Scottish history, then even the diehard sceptics among us ought to see this as a good thing.

Take a look at the links below and see what you think…

‘Was King Arthur a Glaswegian from Govan?’ The National, 3 March 2015.

‘King Arthur battle site unearthed near Peebles’ Peeblesshire News, 3 March 2015.

‘Academia up in arms over King Arthur’s Glasgow roots’ The National, 6 March 2015.

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Notes

I am grateful to Andrew Breeze for drawing my attention to the first two links and to Michelle Ziegler for sending me the third via Twitter.

J.S. Glennie’s book Arthurian Localities is available as a facsimile reprint from Llanerch Press.

Tim Clarkson: Review of Guy Halsall, ‘Worlds of Arthur: Facts and Fictions of the Dark Ages’ in Scottish Archaeological Journal, vol.33, Issue 1-2, pp. 84-86.

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[This blogpost was edited and expanded on 13 March 2015]

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Kindle edition of ‘Strathclyde’

My latest volume on early medieval Scottish history is now available as an e-book. The paperback was published a couple of months ago but many people now prefer digital editions so I’m posting the relevant Amazon links here.

Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age (Kindle edition) – via Amazon UK or Amazon USA.

More information about the book, with a list of chapters, can be found in a blogpost on the paperback edition.

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The English invasion of Strathclyde

A thirteenth-century depiction of Edmund, king of Wessex (939-946)

In 945, the English king Edmund – a grandson of Alfred the Great – launched a devastating raid on the territory of the Strathclyde Britons. Contemporary annalists noted the event in their chronicle entries and some of these brief reports have survived (more or less) in later texts. Last month I wrote a short article on Edmund’s campaign for the website of History Scotland magazine. This is now online and can be accessed via the link below:

History Scotland – The English invasion of Strathclyde

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This post is part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde series:

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New book on the Viking period

‘Ruled from Govan, the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde stretched from Clydesdale to the Solway Firth. This book is the first to shed light on it and its ruling dynasties. A must for all interested in medieval history.’
(Scots Magazine, April 2015)

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My fifth book on early medieval Scotland was published this week.

Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age traces the history of relations between the Cumbri or North Britons and their English neighbours through the eighth to eleventh centuries AD. It looks at the wars, treaties and other high-level dealings that characterised this volatile relationship. Woven into the story are the policies and ambitions of other powers, most notably the Scots and Vikings, with whom both the North Britons and Anglo-Saxons were variously in alliance or at war.

As well as presenting a narrative history of the kingdom of Strathclyde, this book also discusses the names ‘Cumbria’ and ‘Cumberland’, both of which now refer to parts of north-west England. The origins of these names, and their meanings to people who lived in Viking-Age Britain, are examined and explained.

The book’s main contents are as follows:

Chapter 1 – Cumbrians and Anglo-Saxons
A discussion of terminology and sources.

Chapter 2 – Early Contacts
Relations between the Clyde Britons and the English in pre-Viking times (sixth to eighth centuries AD).

Chapter 3 – Raiders and Settlers
The arrival of the Vikings in northern Britain, the destruction of Alt Clut and the beginning of the kingdom of Strathclyde or Cumbria.

Chapter 4 – Strathclyde and Wessex
Contacts between the ‘kings of the Cumbrians’ and the family of Alfred the Great.

Chapter 5 – Athelstan
The period 924 to 939 in which the ambitions of a powerful English king clashed with those of his Celtic and Scandinavian neighbours. Includes a discussion of the Battle of Brunanburh.

Chapter 6 – King Dunmail
The reign of Dyfnwal, king of Strathclyde (c.940-970) and the English invasion of ‘Cumberland’ in 945.

Chapter 7 – The Late Tenth Century
Strathclyde’s relations with the kings of England in the last decades of the first millennium.

Chapter 8 – Borderlands
The earls of Bamburgh and their dealings with the kings of Alba and Strathclyde. Includes a discussion of the Battle of Carham (1018).

Chapter 9 – The Fall of Strathclyde
The shadowy period around the mid-eleventh century when the last kingdom of the North Britons was finally conquered.

Chapter 10 – The Anglo-Norman Period
Anglo-Scottish relations in the early twelfth century and the origin of the English county of Cumberland.

Chapter 11 – Conclusions

Notes for each chapter direct the reader to a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Illustrations include maps, photographs and genealogical tables.

Published by Birlinn of Edinburgh, under the John Donald imprint, and available from Amazon UK and Amazon USA.

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In the pipeline

Six weeks ago I mentioned my latest book, the writing of which reduced my blogging output to a trickle in the first half of 2014. Well, the thing is now being prepared for printing and will soon emerge from Edinburgh as a bright new paperback.

This is the only one of my books to have its own website, which has now been up-and-running since the middle of August. The image above – a preview of the finished product – was posted there earlier today.

Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age (WordPress blog)

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