A Refutation of Keith J. Fitzpatrick-Matthew's Dismissal of Several of My Battle-Site Identifications

Keith J Fitzpatrick-Matthews, in his THE ‘ARTHURIAN BATTLE LIST’ OF THE HISTORIA BRITTONUM (http://www.historiabrittonum.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Arthurian-battle-list-of-the-Historia-Brittonum.pdf), was not privy to some of arguments that seek to lay out the geographical spread of Arthur's military career.  For example, while he was aware of the meaning of Welsh tryfrwyd, he had not read my treatment of the PA GUR'S Traeth Tryfrwyd (a trajectus at Queensferry west of Edinburgh). Nor was he aware of the reading of Egnatius for Agned, or that John Reid had recently made a good case for supporting Skene's idea that Dunipace contains bas, 'shallow.' [Although, in the end, I chose a different site for Bassas: https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/03/why-i-am-forsaking-dunipace-for.html.]

He also chose to ignore Rivet and Smith's take (citing Crawford and Holder) on Binchester for Guinnion:

"Note (3). A further interesting survival is discussed by O. G. S. Crawford in Antiquity, IX (1935), 287. Arthur's eighth battle was fought, according to Nennius (56), in castello Guinnion. Crawford notes that objection had been made to the identification of this with Vinovia on phonetic grounds, rightly; but Crawford seems not to have noted that Ptolemy's alternative Vinnovium (British *Uinnouion) brings us very close to the later name set down by Nennius. There is still a problem, however, in that Vinnovium should have given in Old Welsh at this stage a form in -wy, or similar; but it could be that -ion has been maintained as a learned form. Crawford, even without this support, thought that the identification should not be entirely rejected, and he was surely right (Holder III, 354 supported the equation too)."

Still, given the fact that we have inscriptions showing the spelling was Vinovia, it is difficult to accept an alternative form from Ptolemy, somehow fossilized, as the origin of Guinnion.  Alan James, an expert in the Brittonic place-names in the North, has reminded me that modern scholars agree with Jackson on Guinnion, and see Crawford and Holder as being quite wrong.  Still, Anscombe's emendation of Guinnion to Guinuion (with n and u frequently being confused with one another), and with confirmation from Roman military experts that Binchester does classify as a castellum (it being an auxiliary fort),  I see no need to opt for a different site.  I elsewhere discuss in detail my reason for rejecting Carwinning in Ayrshire as Guinnion (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-new-identification-of-arthurs.html).

But for several of my identifications Mr. Fitzpatrick-Matthews took umbrage.  I will start with what he had to say about the Dubglas in the Linnuis region:

“August Hunt (2005), quoting personal corre-spondence with Richard Coates, concludes that it survives as Linnels (>*lindolīn) on the Devil’s Water in Northumberland (Hunt 2012, 98): while both names share the element *lindo-, they are emphatically not the same name; nor can linnuis derive from *lindolīnenses, which would be necessary if the identification of the name were correct.”

The fact is that if a lake were present, there could once have been residents on that lake.  The Lake-elbow name might then well be secondary.  And, indeed, river courses change, sometimes fairly radically over time. A widened portion of a river or a large pool/lake may have developed bends, leading to the creation of the Lake-elbow place-name.   Thus 'Lake-elbow' follows naturally from the obvious fact that a lake existed.  

But we can go further with this.  On maps, there is literally a Linnel Lake, as well as several river-bend or 'oxbow' lakes present.  I have checked the earliest maps, and these lakes are all natural.  They are not reservoirs or water-filled gravel pits.

It was once thought that the Devil’s Water stemmed from a Dilston Norman family, the D’Eivilles. But going by the earliest spelling of the Devil’s Water (Divelis c. 1230) leads recent authorities to state uncategorically that this etymology is incorrect and the Devil’s Water is cer-tainly of the Dubglas river-name type.

The Devil’s Water at Linnels is thus the only extant Dubglas river-name associated with a demonstrably Welsh lake-name that is geographically plausible as a battle site against Britons and Saxons during the period of Arthur. 

Worth noting is the fact that the Roman Dere Street road at Corbridge splits immediately north of the Wall, the eastern branch or ‘Devil’s Causeway’ continuing North-NorthEast, straight to the Northumberland Glen.

As an aside, I would mention that the Battle of Hexham was fought at Linnels on May 14, 1464.

Matthews settles for the tried and true Chester for Arthur's City of the Legion battle, even though it makes absolutely no sense in the context of battles against the invading English.  He says

"A recent attempt to identify it with York (Field 1999; Malcor 1999; Reid 1999, 223; Field 2008, 15; Hunt 2012, 115) is misguided, as there FIGURE 8: GUINNION FIGURE9: URBE LEGIONIS 16 is no evidence to indicate that York was ever known as anything other than Eburacum/Eboracum in British Latin or Cair Ebrauc in Old Welsh (Rivet & Smith 1979, 337; Green 2007, 209)."

Once again, what is important in this statement is what it omits.  He does not like the idea that the name Arthur - indisputably from Latin Artorius - could have been preserved in the north because among this or that group there was a folk or ancestral memory of the L. Artorius Castus who was stationed at York in the 2nd century.  In addition, he does not take into account the link between Peredur son of Eliffer of of the Great Warband and Peredur son of Efrawc/Ebrauc (this last being an eponym for York).  I have suggested that the Great Warband (W. gosgordd) stands for the Sixth Legion, which was stationed at York. The name Eliffer itself, from Eleutherius, was a Greek title known to be applied to Constantine the Great, whose association with York is well known. The other Arthurian battles stretch up and down Dere Street, either on that Roman road or slightly to the east or west of it.  Thus York, undeniably the most important British legionary fortress during the late Empire, remains the best candidate for Arthur's urbs legionis.  

Matthews also takes me to task rather severely for my identification of Badon with Buxton:

"August Hunt (2012, 136ff) suggested Buxton on the spurious and inverted grounds that badonis “must derive from a Bath name” and there are fifteenth- and sixteenth-century records of a road called Bathamgate, identified with Roman road 713 (Margary 1973, 313) leading south-west from the town."

This statement serves only to highlight the author's linguistic ignorance.  For what he doesn't say is that the Badon name as a British form of English Bathum is not disputed among the top place-name experts.  And, in fact, the longest and best treatment of the name ever offered - one included in my writings and books - was produced for me by Dr. Graham Isaac.  Thus there is nothing spurious about this identification.  Nor is the Bathamgate name to held suspect, as it derives from provable Old English and is not a modern concoction.  Matthews clearly does not like the identification, and so disparages it without properly countering the statements made by the place-name experts themselves.  

Matthews then goes on to cite his own favorite candidate for Badon: 

“Caitlin Green (2007, 213) has suggested a site at Baumber (>Badeburg in Domesday Book) near

Horncastle, Lincolnshire. Her reasoning is based around the archaeological evidence for the early

(and apparently mass) settlement of Lindsey in the fifth century by people identified as Anglo Saxon (Leahy 1993, 36) and the presence of pos-sibly two other sites in the battle list (glein and

dubglas) in the region of the *lindenses.”

Two major problems with this idea.  Firstly, Badeburg or ‘Bada’s fortified place’ (Victor Watts, The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names) does not accord with the form Badon-/Bathum. And unless we go with later spellings like Baenburch and Baumbir - themselves quite possible influenced by the nearby River Bain – we are again talking about something that should accord with Baddan-.  

Secondly, there is no hill or mountain at Baumber.  Furthermore, there is no hill-fort.

We can easily, then, dispense with this site as a candidate for Badon.