ARTHUR'S GRANDFATHER: CAN THE 'CONSTANTINE' CONNECTION BE SAVED?

In my most recent blog post, I made a case for Uther Pen[dragon] being the Pen son of Nethawc of CULHWCH AND OLWEN.  See https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/11/arthur-of-northern-dumnonii.html.  I've had a friend remind me of earlier work I'd done on Constantine, the grandfather of Arthur according to Geoffrey of Monmouth.  This work had been gathered together into a series of related articles here: https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/10/earlier-pieces-on-arthur-penuchel-son.html.

I'm willing to reconsider the Constantine connection for three reasons: firstly, the identification of Uther Pendragon with Pen son of Nethawc is dependent on a shortened form of Pendragon, viz. Pen, for its efficacy.  This abbreviated form is found only, so far as I know, in the rubric title for the elegy poem on Uther.  Some would see this limitation in my argument as a fatal flaw.

Second, an Arthur at York or somehow associated with York is appealing, as the 2nd century Lucius Artorius Castus was stationed there and it is thus the most likely place where the name Arthur would have been remembered and passed down through the generations.

Third, the places on the western end of Hadrian's Wall that seem to be obviously Arthurian are greatly diminished in importance if we go with an Arthur born in northern Dumnonia, rather than one from York or environs.

So, I was thinking the other day about Custennin Waredwr, 'the deliverer', a title given by the Welsh to Arthur's father.  I had mentioned before that this title matched that of the Liberator title given to Constantine the Great.  And that in Greek sources a word was used for Liberator that forms the root of the personal name Eleutherius.  The last was the name of the Dark Age ruler of York (in Welsh, Eliffer), as well as the name of a pope who was alive at the time of Lucius Artorius Castus.

Arthur Penuchel or 'Overlord' appears in a corrupt TRIAD as a son of Eliffer.  Chronologically, this will not do.  If we try to insert Uther Pendragon between Arthur Penuchel and Eliffer, we get into even more trouble.  Yet it seems to me we should look at this more carefully, in case I missed something.

We know of three places in England and Wales which, rightly or wrongly, came to be associated with a Constantine. The first is York, made famous by Constantine the Great.  The second is Carnarfon, thought by most scholars to the city of Constantine.  And, of course, we have a Constantine or Constantines of Dumnonia in the southwest.  Of these three places, the only one that makes sense for an Arthur is that of York.

I still think the Eleutherius name at York is a sort of title taken in honor of Constantine the Great.  There may have been a sort of ancestor cult of the Emperor at this city.  If so, then Eleutherius could be taken as another name for Constantine, and we would have in this king a strong candidate for the father of Uther Pendragon.

Alas, we immediately bump up against the severe chronological problem I've alluded to above.

Gorlassar, the epithet applied to Uther in the elegy poem, which was converted into the person Gorlois in Geoffrey of Monmouth, is elsewhere applied (twice!) only to one other hero: Urien of Rheged.  I once theorized that the 'uther pen' or terrible head was, originally, the decapitated head of Urien, which features prominently in the poetry of Llywarch Hen.  According to the corrupt TRIAD on Arthur Penuchel, his mother was the sister of Urien.  But a son of Urien is again too late to be our Arthur.

All of which brings us back to the *Artenses (Welsh Arthwys) or 'People of the Bear' in the Irthing Valley, and to Ceidio son of Arthwys and brother of Eliffer of York.  The Irthing Valley lies between York and Rheged (the nucleus of which was the Annan River valley).  Ceidio, as I've demonstrated before, comes from a name that would have meant 'battle-leader' or similar - a name matching in meaning the dux bellorum designation applied to Arthur in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM.  Ceidio was of the right generation to be Arthur.  If he came from Banna/Birdoswald, which has a significant sub-Roman and Dark Age hall complex, he would have been at least partly descended from Dacians, who were famous for the draco standard.  Allowing for Pendragon being an oblique reference to the draco (rather than merely meaning 'chief warrior' or 'chief of warriors', as is indicated by standard Welsh heroic poetry usage), we can hypothetically place Uther at Banna.  Arthur's Camboglanna is Castlesteads also in the Irthing Valley, and Aballava/Avalana/'Avalon' with its Goddess of the Lake is just a little to the west.  As is Congabata, a possible prototype for the Grail Castle.

This is the paradigm I pitched during my recent paper presentation at the Second International Symposium of Lucius Artorius Castus in Podstrana, Croatia just last month.  And it is the argument I make in the revised version of my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY.

Although it may not be convincing to many to claim that Arthur's British name was Ceidio, and his Roman name just happens to be absent from the genealogies of the Men of the North, I cannot otherwise come up with a better candidate for a historical Arthur.  While I like the idea of attempting to trace Uther's father to the kingdom of Strathclyde, even if we can allow ourselves to accept the abbreviated use of his name from the elegy as a means of identifying him with Pen son of Nethawc of C&O, we run into trouble with the Nethawc (= Nechton) name.  For the story in C&O is referring to Pictish entities, one of whom was wrongly incorporated into the Strathclyde royal line.  The one in the story is connected to Kildare, and that means we're talking about the 5th century Nechton of Abernethy.  Arthur does not hail from Highland Scotland!

We can opt for the Nechton name being a reference to a god found preserved in the Strathclyde River Nethan and probably Cambusnethan, but we would be forced in that case to suggest that Uther merely came from that region.  In other words, Nethawc stood for the place where Uther came from.  We would be left with no true family connection.

It is for all these reasons that I've decided (for now) to stick with the Ceidio = Arthur equation.  Should I come up with anything in the future that would cause me to change my mind about this, I will formulate any new theory as best I can and post it here.