THE GEWISSEI BASE OF OPERATIONS or WHERE ARTHUR FITS INTO THE GEWISSEI EQUATION

[For what brought me to write the following piece, please see this link:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/04/am-i-looking-at-arthurian-battles-wrong.html?m=1]

                The Gewissei Battles

I've discussed before the idea tentatively put forward by some top Anglo-Saxon historians (like Barbara Yorke) that the Gewissei may have been fighting against the Germanic invaders rather than for them. In other words, the supposed founders of the nucleus of the kingdom of Wessex had been co-opted by the conquerors.

For the sake of the current argument, let's go with this.

One thing needs to be said at the outset: if the Gewissei were defending the Britons, they didn't come up the Thames or the Hampshire Avon from the sea. They would have come from inland, and would have been pushing in the opposite direction.

I know Ceawlin of the Gewissei is Cunedda, and Ceawlin's son Cerdic is Ceredig son of Cunedda. And I know that Cunedda's son Cunorix, the Cynric of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, was buried in honor at Viroconium/Wroxeter in what was the Roman period kingdom of the Cornovii. Cunedda himself came from Ireland (Drumanagh directly across the Irish Sea from Gwynedd, not Manau Gododdin) and his "sons" (read teulu) were Irish or Hiberno-British.

Now, switch to Arthur. His name, thought by the Welsh to contain their word for "bear", belonged at Barbury in Wiltshire. Arthur's father, Illtud, belonged at nearby Liddington Castle or the Roman settlement named for it at Wanborough, viz. Durocornovium.

Durocornovium, according to all the specialists I've consulted, contains an element which points to the Cornovii kingdom that was centered on Viroconium. To quote from Rivet and Smith (whom Simon Rodway agrees with):

"The two names Durocornovium (qq.v.) indicate the presence of Cornovii also in Cornwall and Wiltshire. In Cornwall (to which they ultimately gave its name) they were presumably either a subdivision or a client-tribe of the Dumnonii and the appearance of the place-namc in Ravenna suggests that they were there before any supposed migration from the Shropshire area in the fifth century (e.g. J. Morris, The Age of Arthur (London, 1973), 68-69). The name in Wiltshire is unexplained, but it might represent a group who settled there in the course of an early migration or the early garrison of a fort."

Let us suppose, then, some kind of relationship between the Cornovii at the Liddington Badbury, i.e. Mount Badon, and the Cornovii tribe in Shropshire.

Now let's allow for the Gewissei under Cunedda/Ceawlin, who should perhaps be viewed as federate mercenaries, being sent to fight the Saxons in southern England. Their forward force was situated at Liddington, which was centrally located, allowing quick response from threats coming from the east and south.

Welsh tradition tells us Uther had kin at Caer Dathal/Dinas Emrys in Arfon. This was the chief fort of Cunedda.  Arthur is said to have taken a wife from there. This connection would represent a series of alliances formed through marriage between the rulers of Durocornovium and the Gewissei.

Such an alliance may well have led to Arthur's intervention in a dynastic dispute in NW Wales. In the dispute he perished at the Afon Gamlan. A church dedicated to his saintly father was established there sometime later.

While this whole scenario is incredibly speculative, it does have the advantage of avoiding the problems attendant on my past attempt to identity Uther Pendragon with Cunedda.