ARTHUR AS CERDIC OF WESSEX: HERO OR VILLAIN?

The Battles of Cerdic and the Gewissei 

(From the HISTORIA BRITTONUM'S Arthurian Battle List)

I've taken the liberty of drawing a line around the sites picked out as Arthurian battles in Chapter 56 of Nennius.  Please see the wall map with pins portrayed above.  Yellow pins are battle sites from the HB, identified with battles in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.

As I will show in my revision of THE BEAR KING (out in the next day or so), the Cerdic/Ceredig son of Cunedda/Maqui-coline/Ceawlin battles all cluster in the south.  Chronologically, Bedenham (named for the Bieda of the ASC'S year entry 501) works for Badon.  The white pin to the west is for Bath, which linguistically is a perfect match for Badon, but impossible chronologically (as the Gewissei took that town in 577. 

The red pin is for Arthur's Camlan, which I would place at The Cams - although the Afon Camlan in NW Wales is the site recorded in Welsh heroic tradition. When we move to the north in the Thames Valley, and then again to the Avon in the west, we have left Arthur behind and are "padding out" the Arthurian battle list with military actions belonging to other members of the Gewissei.

The blue pin is for Amesbury, which I discuss at length in THE KING OF STONEHENGE (itself due out very soon in revised form).  Two clear pins stand for two Badburys.  The one at Liddington Castle is not far from Barbury Castle, either the 'Bear's Fort' or the fort of a man named 'Bear.' We are told Ceawlin and Cynric (= the Cunorix son of Maqui-coline/Ceawlin/Cunedda found on a memorial stone at Viroconium/Wroxeter) fought at Barbury.  I've been tempted in the past to associate this bear with Arthur.  According to the Welsh Annals, the Second Battle of Badon (whose date comes verye close to fighting at Ashdown in the ASC) was the Liddington Castle Badbury.  This shows confusion with the Badon/Bathum place-name.

The remaining clear pins are other Gewissei battles.

The term Gewissei is from AS gewis, and Dr. Richard Coates long ago showed that it meant something like the 'sure or certain ones'.  He thought my suggestion that it had been made up to account for the supposed meaning of Cerdic's name (often spelled Certic) - one related fancifully by the English to Latin certus - "ingenius." In the past it was thought to designate those non-English fighters who were known and reliable, i.e. allies.  This was in opposition to the designation wealas or 'Welsh', originally an AS name for the British which meant 'foreigner, stranger.'

And here we hit the crux of the Arthur = Cerdic problem, viz. the Welsh claimed Arthur fought against the Saxons, but the Saxon claim he fought with them against the Britons. Who is right?

Before attempting to answer that question, I need to interpose a selection from my book THE KING OF STONEHENGE:

"Let us now look at the early battles in Wiltshire as these are found recorded in THE ANGLE-SAXON CHRONICLE.  We begin with the defeat of the British by Cynric at Old Sarum.  Cynric is the Cunorix found buried at Viroconium/Wroxeter.  He was a son of Cunedda, whose other name was Maqui-coline/Ceawlin (Cælin in Bede).  Four years later a battle is fought at Barbury Castle further north...

Rather significantly, the Barbury battle is not said to be a victory.  We are merely told there was a battle there.  In 560, Ceawlin succeeds Cynric. After Barbury Castle there are no more battles against the Britons until 571 - 15 years later. And the theater of action has changed: the Gewissei are now coming up the Thames Valley.  In 577, the war theater changes again, this time to the west and north of Wiltshire (including the capturing of Bath).  In 584, there is a battle in Oxfordshire, well to the NE of Wiltshire. We do not return to Wiltshire until 592, when a great slaughter occurs at Adam's Grave near Alton Priors resulting in the expulsion of Ceawlin.  In the next year, Ceawlin perishes. 

From the Battle of Beranburh to that of Adam's Grave, 36 years had passed."

What that tells us is that someone had managed to hold what would eventually become the nucleus of the kingdom of Wessex for almost a generation.

But the arrangement of the Gewissei battles on the map forces us to consider two possibilities.  One, is this arrangement merely an artificial construction, i.e. something conjured in a later period to "draw the early boundaries" of what was imagined to be the process of kingdom formation?  I'm not sure this question can be answered, as one either respects the integrity of the ASC or one does not.  If perceived as traditional material rather than history, then any or all the battles might be construed as problematic, even suspect.

Second, were the Gewissei fighting to take the nucleus of Wessex, or were they in actuality attempting to stem the tide of the English, who already held the territory within the area circumscribed by the battles?  For we have two choices here.  If Arthur/Cerdic/Ceredig son of Cunedda of the Gewissei were serving the high king of Wales (who appears to have been based at Viroconium) against British enemies to the south, then his allying himself with the Saxons pushing into Wessex makes perfect sense.  This is what we glean from the pages of the ASC.  But if Arthur were fighting the Saxons, as the HB claims, along with the kings of the Britons, then his push up through Hampshire and taking of the Isle of Wight would be a counter-offensive against the Germanic barbarians.

I've mentioned above that the name Gewissei does not, in fact, automatically imply that this mercenary or federate force was allied with the Saxons.  It instead was a term invented to describe the followers or descendants of Cerdic.  Yet what if the term were interpreted by Saxon chroniclers centuries later as meaning 'allies'?  Could these Irish or Irish-British warriors have been mistakenly identified as the founders of Wessex when, in fact, they were in reality defending British territory against the Saxons?

Alas, I think there might be some slight indication that the view put forward by the ASC is correct.  I will offer my argument for this in my revision of THE KING OF STONEHENGE: MODRED AND THE DEFENSE OF DARK AGE BRITAIN.