HOW I MISSED CAMLAN ALL THESE YEARS - AND FINALLY FOUND IT

Possible Locations of Camlan

My readers will know that over the years I selected three primary locations for Arthur's battle of Camlan, a word supposedly derived from either *Cambolanda, 'crooked enclosure', or *Camboglanna, 'crooked bank/shore.'  There is the Camboglanna Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, the Afon Gamlan in NW Wales (the favored spot in Welsh tradition) and, more recently, the Uley Bury hillfort on the River Cam in Gloucestershire.

Unfortunately, I've only now realized I missed something.  And, once again, this something has been hiding in plain view in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.

In my book THE BEAR KING, I made my case for Cerdic of Wessex/Ceredig son of Cunedda being Arthur.  While I managed to identify the Arthurian battles with those of Cerdic and other Gewissae, I did not have the insight necessary to find Camlan in the ASC.

I believe now I do.

The death-date for Arthur at Camlan in the Welsh Annals is 537.  This dovetails very nicely with Cerdic's passing in 534.  Just prior to Cerdic's death, he and Cynric had taken the Isle of Wight.  In the entry on his death, we are told that he and Cynric gave all of Wight to Stuf and Wihtgar.

Why is this last reference important?  Because Stuf (eponym for Stubbington) and Wihtgar (a slight corruption of a word meaning the "men of Wight") were first mentioned in 514 as arriving at Cerdicesora/Certisesora, 'Cerdic's bank or shore.'

In THE BEAR KING, I showed that the Glein battle of Arthur was for Cerdicesora, the first battle of Cerdic and Cynric.  The word Glein has been improperly derived from 

W. glân 

[Crn. C. glan, Llyd. C. glan, H. Wydd. glan ‘pur, clir, disglair’: < Clt. *glano-, fel yn enwau’r afonydd Gal. Glana, Glanis ar y Cyfandir, o’r gwr. *ĝhel-, ĝhlə- ‘disgleirio’] 

clean, cleansed, neat; clear of sin, pure, good, virtuous, uncorrupted, undefiled, fair, honest, sincere.

when it should instead be related to 

W. glan 

[H. Grn. glan, gl. ripa, Crn. C. glan ‘glan (afon); ochr, llechwedd’, Llyd. glann: < Clt. *glanno-] 

river-bank, brink, edge; shore

It will be noted that the glan of Camboglanna as 'crooked bank/shore' is the same word.

Now, Cerdicesora was either the Ower near Southhampton or the one near Calshot.  But there were other owers in the region.  In 477, Cymen is a combatant in the battle of Cymenesora. It is not known for certain where this particular ora was located, but the generally accepted opinion is that it is The Owers south of Selsey Bill.  These are offshore rocks, but may once have been part of the mainland.  The questionable authority for this identification is a forged charter which lists "Cumeneshora" (see https://books.google.com/books?id=ysgq2XUV_KgC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=cumeneshora&source=bl&ots=q73LuUpKKh&sig=8OT8pKn09HLzJQDABo6kIFPNLiI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj5g_WptNHbAhUPFnwKHUZSCF4Q6AEIMjAD#v=onepage&q=cumeneshora&f=false).

I do not think this identification is correct.  Aelle of Sussex's sons are all being used as eponyms in the ASC to map out the early boundaries of Sussex.  Cissa is for Chichester (although see also Cissbury Ring not far north of Lancing), Wlencing for Lancing.  The unknown Mearcredesburna or 'Mearcred's Burn' I make out to be the Adur's tributary, the Rother, once called the Limen, a British river-name.  Limen was probably connected to Latin limen, 'a limit', from limes, and so the name Mearcred (containing mearc, 'boundary') was substituted.  It marks the eastern boundary of early Sussex.  Aderitum or Pevensey, another Aelle conquest,  is a bit further east.

Cymen is no different.  Some have seen his name in Keynor, which has a rife (see rythe, AS, a fountain; well; rivulet - a small stream usually one occasioned by heavy showers of rain) that empties into Pagham Harbour.  To quote on this site from WIKIPEDIA (with cited sources):

The Manor of Keynor is situated at the western end of Pagham Harbour. Selsey based historians Edward Heron-Allen and Francis Mee favour the Keynor area of Sidlesham for Cymenshore, they suggest that the name Keynor is derived from Cymensora.[43][44] However Margaret Gelling asserts that Keyn-or actually means Cow — Shore in Old English.[45]

43. "Selsey Bill. Historic and Prehistoric", Heron-Allen, p. 88
44. "A History of Selsey",Mee,p. 10, Phillimore (1988)
45. Gelling. The Landscape of Place Names. pp. 208 - 209

'Cow-shore' would be incorrect.  I do not have access to Gelling at the moment, but cúna
'of cows', gen. pl. of cú, 'cow', may be what was intended.

There is also an AS personal name *Caegin, a derivative of Caega, which can become Keyn- in place-names (see Ekwall under Cainham, Cainhoe and Keynsham).

The early forms (here supplied to me by Dr. Richard Coates) do not at all work for Cymen:

Kienora, Kyenora c.1187 Box
Chienore 1187 France
Kynore 1263,1304 FF 1270 Ch 1274 Ipm 1428 FA
Kinnor' 1271 Ass
Kynnore 1272 RH
Kenor or Keynor 1784 Recov
Keaner or Kymere or Kenward 1805 ib

There is a better possibility for Cymen's ora - a place on Portsmouth Harbour called Cams Hall.  Ekwall's listing for this place reads as follows:

[Kamays 1242 Fees, Cammeys 1282 Ep, Cams 1412 FA] The place is on Portsmouth Harbour. The name is no doubt the British name of the bay and identical with CAMBOIS.

Under CAMBOIS he has:

Identical with Welsh CEMMAES, KEMEYS and Ir camus, 'a bay.' The name is a derivative of OCelt

*kambo- 'crooked', Welsh cam.  It is British in origin...

Mills confirms the etymology of Cambois in his place-name study:

A Celtic name, a derivative of Celtic *camm 'crooked'...

From the GPC:

camas, cemais 

[cf. Gwydd. cambas, cambus ‘tro mewn afon, fforch, plygiad’, yn aml mewn e. lleoedd, e.e. Athan-chamais ‘rhyd y tro’] 

eb. ?ll. cemais.

Tro neu gongl mewn afon, cilfach o fôr, bae:

bend or loop in a river, inlet of sea, bay. 

As this 'crooked' bay has a shore, this is a very likely spot for Camlan.  I would suggest that the otherwise unattested Cymen may be for something like Welsh camen, "crookedness, curvature, turn, bend, loop", from cam + -en. Although camen is only attested from the 14th century, it is found in a couple of Welsh place-names and it is possible the word could have been in existence in the 8th or 9th centuries.

As can be noticed on the map above, Cams Hall is quite close to Stuf's Stubbington.  Such a proximity suggests that a Camlan situated here fits the context of the ASC, where Cerdic's death is entered in the same year as his granting of Wight to Stuf and Wihtgar.  

Of course, it goes without saying that if Arthur's Camlan is on Portsmouth Harbour, this strengthens the argument that Arthur = Cerdic of Wessex. In addition, the date of Camlan in the Welsh Annals would be more or less correct.  And that, in turn, would force us to acknowledge that Arthur's Badon battle was, in fact, the Bieda battle of c. 501 A.D. (with Bieda being transmitted to the Welsh in its variant form of Baeda, itself being later confused with Badon, a Welsh rendering of English bathum, i.e. Bath in Somerset).  The importance of the Bieda battle became unduly magnified over time for no other reason than it was said to have been fought on the day the famous St. Gildas was born.

It has occurred to me that the Welsh Annals 'Badon' is for the Bieda battle, while the Badon attached to the end of the battles in the Historia Brittonum is pretty clearly for Bath.  I say this because the Badon of the latter source comes after or is grouped with other Gewissei battles in which Cerdic is not said to have fought.  I would again refer the reader to my THE BEAR KING for more details.