"IN THIS YEAR CERDIC AND CYNRIC OBTAINED THE KINGDOM OF THE WEST SAXONS": AN ANALYSIS OF ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE YEAR ENTRY 519

River Avon at South Charford

I've always found the year entry 519 in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE to be supremely perplexing. Why?

Because after only a couple of battles in southern Hampshire, they are suddenly being declared the rulers of the West Saxons.  Furthermore, the "kingdom" they "obtain" did not, at that point in time, even exist.  

The word translated as 'obtained' is onféngun, from on-feng, to lay hold of or seize.  In other words, the kingdom in question was taken through military force or conquest.  

To help us understand this ASC entry, we need some context.  The following passage is from "Roman Britain and the English Settlements" by R. G. Collingwood, Robin George Collingwood and John Nowell Linton Myres:

To this classic account I would add this selection from the more recent "The Rome that Did Not Fall: The Survival of the East in the Fifth Century" by Gerard Friell and Stephen Williams:

We need to understand the traditional story of Vortigern's inviting in of the Saxons along the lines of what is described in paragraph two of the second work cited above.  The Saxons were not "invited".  They came in on their own once the Saxon Shore forts were abandoned by Rome.  The British high king was forced to accept a foedus arrangement with these Germanic barbarians, as he could not prevent their incursions and could only seek to at least temporarily redirect their energies against other invaders.

The 'Saxon Rebellion' which appears to have taken place in Vortigern's lifetime was a natural and inevitable development. While the foedus held, the Britons could rely on the Germanic federates to help defend their borders.  But before too long the Saxons began to see the lands in which they had settled "as really their territory" and as soon as they could they sought "to enlarge it" at the expense of the Britons.

As I mentioned in my last blog post (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/history-is-written-by-victors-or-just.html), the ASC has Cerdic and Cynric arriving in Hampshire a full 40 years after Vortigern fights against the "rebelling" Saxon federates.  The English sources are unanimous in proclaiming the Irish (or Hiberno-British) Gewissei was the founders of Wessex.  Yet they also betray a profound ignorance regarding the ethnic identity of the Gewissei. Even the term Gewissei is based on an erroneous assumption: the name Cerdic, often spelled Certic, was wrongly associated with L. certus, yielding an ethnonym derived from AS gewis.  The meaning of Gewissei undoubtedly contributed to the notion that these fighters were allies.  

Given my identification of the Gewissei with Cunedda and his sons, and the presence of Cynric/Cunorix in a grave at Viroconium/Wroxeter, it is undeniable that these men were sent to southern England to fight by the high king (whoever he was).  Given the steady expansion of the English to the south and east of Wales, it makes little or no sense to suggest that the Gewissei were sent to ally themselves with the English against the Britons who provided the only buffer between Saxon-held territory and Wales.  Instead, this seems to conform to "the calling in of federates of one set of barbarians to defend a frontier region against another and the granting of land and stipendia for their support."

When we look at the Gewissei battles arranged on a map, we find them all positioned on the frontier zone.  Sure, this could be viewed as warriors pushing outward from the settled Saxon areas through the limes with the Britons.  But it can just as easier be seen as the Gewissei launching a long-term counter-offensive against the Saxons.  

It is in the last light that I would interpret the ASC year entry 519: Cunedda and his sons were granted the right to take British territory back from the Saxons.  In this sense, they were declared to be rulers of the region inhabited by the West Saxons - a title and role whose reality could only actually be realized once the reconquista was complete.