"It is the first stone inscription to attest the ala Petriana at Stanwix..."
So, I just finished penning this piece -
- when I received several requests for additional information on Stanwix/Uxellodunum/"Petrianis". This is rather ironic, as over the years I've actually written a great deal about the site.
The real question is "Can we take an Arthurian origin at Petrianis seriously?" Or is this tradition pertaining to Stanwix, traceable only as far back as the 1700s, just another instance of local legend?
Well, the first thing that strikes me as interesting is that we can't really explain "Arthuriburgum" based on the name Etterby, the village or farmstead of Etard. I mean, we could get super creative at propose that this Norman French name, from (see Ekwall) OHN Eidhart) was at some point mistakenly assumed to derive from Aet (a common OE element preceding place-names meaning 'at') + Art + by. But our oldest forms for the Etter- portion of the name have Etard, Etarde, Ethard. And it remains true that the Petrianis fort, while adjacent to Etterby (where there are some indications of a vicus for the fort), is actually sitting astride part of modern Stanwix. Thus trying to claim that some antiquarian could have derived Arthur's fort from Etardby is, it seems to me, quite a stretch.
Could Etterby or Stanwix have been chosen because of its proximity to Carlisle? After all, it is often identied with the Carduel first found in late Arthurian romance. Well, no. Why? Because as I long ago demonstrated, Carduel is not Carlisle. [1]
Okay, then what about the sheer size of the fort? I mean, it was the largest fort on Hadrian's Wall.
That is a hard argument to maintain. True, we don't know when the fort completely disappeared beneath the modern town. It is possible that its uniqueness was recognized and appreciated at some point and that this is why Arthur came to be associated with it. A big hero needs a big fort, right? Still, there are plenty of much more impressive sites in Cumbria, including native as opposed to Roman forts. If the local population needed an important ruling center for Arthur, why not pick Carlisle? Why settle on Etterby?
Now, if there were a sun-Roman Arthur based at Petrianis who was a descendent of the Ala Petriana and he fought famously up and down the Dere Street frontier against the Germanic invaders, supported the kingdom of the Gododdin and ultimately won a great victory at Buxton/Badon, might not this leader of cavalry have lent his name to the horse-devoted peoples of Kintyre and Dyfed? Is it conceivable that in order to emphasize their new "Britishness", the Irish infiltrators of those lands introduced the name Arthur into their royal families?
Obviously, we still have to grapple with the Arthur name problem. But I don't think we need to make too big a deal out of it. We need only hypothesize that the Artorius name was preserved in the North, possibly stemming from L. Artorius Castus or through the medium of other Artorii in forts garrisoned by Dalmatians.
Of course, choosing a Dark Age Arthur forces us to deal again with the frustrating lacuna of the Castus memorial stone: ARM[...]S. But we are no longer forced to go with something like my proposed ARM[ATAS] GENTES, as the Dark Age man is the more famous fellow - not Castus. The acceptable reading of ARMENIOS can continue to apply to the lacuna. Castus would have been quite famous in Dalmatia after a successful stint in Armenia and if word of this reached the Dalmatians in Britain through whatever means we can allow for his name continuing in use there in some capacity.
As I'm fairly confident in my Arthurian battle identifications, these are the two options available to us: Arthur = Castus or Arthur = Arthur. In the latter case, we can have an actual death at Camlan, whereas is Castus is associated with the place we can only infer a battle and/or rebuilding (which we know was going on under Septimius Severus). We can also retain Badon which, needless to say, Castus did not participate in. Badon and Camlan were both identified with the Welsh as southern sites (Badbury Liddington and Afon Gamlan, respectfully), but Camboglanna fits the Arthurian battle list perfectly, and Badon strictly from a linguistic standpoint is the perfectly normal and expected British spelling of English bathum. If we go with linguistics, then, Buxton is the better candidate for Badon.
In closing, I should mention the Arthur Penuchel of a corrupt Welsh TRIAD. He may (or may not!) have something to so with a Northern Arthur with links to York and Rheged. Here are some links to articles about him:
[1]
Carduel is said to be in Wales (Gales). However, it has long been customary to identify this site with Carlisle, the Roman Luguvalium, in Cumbria. The "d" of Carduel is said to be due to dissimilation of the first "l" of Carlisle (Welsh Caerliwelydd). I have always thought this linguistic argument to be highly questionable.
Carduel is also hard by the Red Knight's Forest of Quinqueroy and not far from the castle of Gornemont of Goort. Goort is here definitely Gower. Quinqueroy is Welsh gwyn plus caer, a slight error for Caerwent.
While Kerduel in Brittany is derived from Caer + Tudwall (information courtesy Jean-Yves le Moing, personal correspondence; cf. Caer Dathyl in Arfon, from Irish Tuathal = Welsh Tudwall, possibly Caer-fawr or Caernarfon, information courtesy Brian Lile of The National Library of Wales, citing Ifor Williams' Pedair Keinc Ymabinogi, 1951), I think Carduel (Car-dyou-EL) probably derives from Caer +d'iwl, Iwl (pronounced similar to English 'yule', according to Dr. David Thorne of the Welsh Department at Lampeter) being the Welsh form of Julius, the name Geoffrey used for Aaron's partner, St. Julian.
When Perceval first comes to Arthur's court, it is at Carduel; but when Arthur sets off after Perceval when the latter sends the Haughty Knight of the Moor to the court, the king leaves Caerleon. In between the king's placement at Carduel and Caerleon, Anguingueron and Clamadeu find Arthur at Dinas d'Aaron, the Fort of Aaron/Caerleon. In other words, Caerleon and Carduel are the same. Indeed, Anguingueron and the Haughty Knight are sent to Arthur's court by Perceval, who knows only that Arthur is at Carduel. This means that Dinas d'Aaron and Carduel have to be Caerleon
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