[I've detected some weird things about the Camlann entry of c. 537 in the AC. First, that the Mawdd place-name of the Camlans in NW Wales appears to have the same semantic meaning as the main element of the Maeatae tribal name.
In the Irish Annals, the Dalriadan king Comgall son of Domangart dies in 537. The same death notice is found in 545, where Tigernach links it with the plague in Ireland. That reference to plague is in the Camlan year entry.
A later Domangart is said to be brother to Artur of Dalriada and in Tigernach falls in battle with Artur.
A St. Comgall appears with Columba in Adamnan (who mentions Artur's death fighting the Miathi). They visit each other after the latter has seen Aedan father of Artur. The meeting place is Cambus or "river bend" on the River Bann in NE Ireland.
There are Cambus place-names on the pronounced loops of the River Forth right below Dumyat, the "Fort of the Miathi."
Thus it seems to me that there is something very fishy going on with the Camlan entry. It looks more and more like a temporally displaced reference to Artur of Dalriada against the Miathi.
Oh - and if Bassas of the HB Arthur is Dunipace by Arthur's Oven and between the 2 Miathi forts - within only a couple kilometers of Myot Hill, in fact - then add another "coincidence."]
While no one should rely on Geoffrey of Monmouth for anything historical, in treating of Camlan of the ANNALES CAMBRIAE recently I totally neglected to mention that Modred (= W. Medraut) was said to be the son of the eponymous ruler of Lothian.
Lothian, part of the old Votadini kingdom, bordered on the lands of the Maeatae/Miathi (see
Cambus ('river-bend') is right below Dumyat, the Fort of the Miathi, on the River Forth. Just a little west on the Forth, closer to Stirling, is Cambuskenneth. The Forth meanders in large, pronounced loops at this point in its course.
This spot, rather than Geoffrey's Camblam in extreme SW Britain in Cornwall or the Camlans in NW Wales, makes sense in the context of a personage hailing from Lothian.
LOTH. (Fictitious).
A British king mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth as an elder contempoary of Arthur. He first
appears as ‘Loth of Lodonesia [Lodoneis] ... a most valiant soldier, mature in wisdom and age’ to whom
Uther in his last illness entrusted the British army in its wars against the Saxons, Octa and Eosa. He was
married to Anna daughter of Uther (HRB VIII.21). He was brother to Urianus [Urien], king of Mureif
[Rheged], and to Auguselus [Arawn], king of the Scots. Arthur, after his victories in Scotland, restored
the three brothers to their respective kingdoms. By Anna, the sister of Arthur, Loth was the father of
Gualguanus [Gwalchnmai] and Modred [Medrod] (HRB IX.9).
Loth was the nephew of Sichelinus (or Sichelmus), king of the Norwegians [of Llychlyn], who
had appointed Loth to succeed him on his death. But when Sichelin died the Norwegians refused to
accept Loth and advanced Riculfus to the sovereignty instead. Thereupon Arthur conquered Norway and
Dacia [Denmarc] and established Loth upon the Norwegian throne (IX.11). Loth is mentioned again as
king of Norway, who came to Arthur's special coronation (IX.12).
The authors of Brut y Brenhinedd consistently mis-name Geoffrey's Loth ‘Llew ap Cynfarch’,
who, like Urien, could not have been a contemporary of Arthur. See s.n. Llew ap Cynfarch. Other
corresponding names in the Brut are shown in [ ].
Loth was evidently intended to be the eponym of Lothian, which is elsewhere apparently
represented by Lleuddun Luyddog (q.v.). See TYP p.422. But the authors of the Brut did not recognize
the fact.
ARTHURIAN ROMANCE
Chrétien de Troyes mentions him only as a name, king Lot, in Erec et Enide, and as father of
Gawain in Yvain. In the ‘Vulgate’ Merlin and Merlin-continuation he is described as Loth or Lot, king
of Orcanie. His wife, the sister of Arthur, is variously named in these romances. See s.n. Morgen. In the
‘Estoire’ of the ‘Vulgate’ cycle he is given a pedigree which makes him son of Hector, a descendant of
Pierre, who was a kinsman of Joseph of Arimathea (Sommer I.280). The genealogy was copied by John
of Glastonbury in Historia de Rebus Glastoniensibus, ed. Thomas Hearne, 1726, pp.56 and 73.
SCOTTISH FICTIONS
John Fordun in his Scotichronicon (c.1385), III.24, said that Loth, lord of Laudonia, was
descended from Fulgentius. This Fulgentius is mentioned in II.31, evidently copying HRB V.2. See s.n.
Sulien (1). Later Fordun (III.25) accused Geoffrey of Monmouth of inconsistency in making Loth's wife
Anna to be a sister of Aurelius Ambrosius [not Arthur], while he describes Gualguanus and Modred,
sons of Loth, as Arthur's nephews (HRB X.4, X.2); but Fordun misinterpreted sororem ipsius in HRB
IX.9, where ‘ipsius’ refers to Arthur not Aurelius Ambrosius.
Hector Boece made the same mistake in his Scotorum Historia (1527). He called Lothus a king
of the Picts, who married Anna, a sister of Aurelius Ambrosius, by whom he was the father of Modred,
Valuane [Gawain], and Thametes or Thenew (IX.5). Thenew became the mother of St.Mungo [i.e.
Kentigern] (IX.13). By this, Boece is seen to be identifying Loth with Lleuddun Luyddog, whose
daughter Denw was the mother of Kentigern according to Bonedd y Saint. John Major had anticipated
Boece in this respect (Historia Maioris Britanniae, 1521, fos.28v-29).
Also from Bartrum on Lleuddun, the eponym for Lothian:
LLEUDDUN LUYDDOG. (500)
The anonymous fragmentary Life of St.Kentigern, says (§1) ‘A certain king, Leudonus, from
which the province over which he ruled obtained the name Leudonia had a daughter ... Thaney.’ She
became the mother of Kentigern [Cyndeyrn Garthwys]. Leudonus, described as half-pagan, was killed
by his swineherd. The place where he was buried was marked by a stone about one mile south of
Dunpelder (§7). See below. See further s.n. Denw.
In the earliest version of Bonedd y Saint his name is spelt Lewdwn lluydawc and it is very
variable in the later manuscripts, but Lleuddun is the preferred modern spelling. He was of Dinas Eidyn
and was the father of Denw (wife of Owain and mother of Cyndeyrn Garthwys), Tenoi (wife of Dingad
and mother of Lleuddad and others), and Peren (wife of Bugi and mother of Beuno) (ByS §§14, 18. 30
in EWGT pp.56, 57, 59). He is evidently the same as Ludun mentioned in the Life of St.Kea as father of
that saint, and Lidin in the genealogy of St.Gurtheirn.
His place of burial is said to be Dunpender Law in East Lothian (LBS III.375). Lleuddun's seat
was Traprain Law, then named Dunpelder, an isolated hill in Haddingtonshire, four miles east of
Haddington which is 18 miles east of Edinburgh (DNB s.n. Kentigern). If he also possessed Dinas Eidyn
[Edinburgh] it is likely enough that the whole province belonged to him (H.M.Chadwick, Early
Scotland, p.146).
It is from Lleuddun that Lleuddunion [Lothian] receives its name. Welsh sources do not give
him any parentage. As eponym of Lothian he equates with Loth of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia
Regum Britanniae. Geoffrey says that Loth was a brother of Urien (HRB IX.9), i.e. Urien ap Cynfarch.
This is chronologically possible and suggests that Lleuddun was perhaps a son of Cynfarch (PCB).
Except for this doubtful point, however, Geoffrey seems to have had no authentic information about
Lleuddun/Loth. For example he wrongly makes Urien and Loth elder contemporaries of Arthur. For this
reason Loth is dealt with under another heading. See s.n. Loth.
Entry for Lothian in John Koch's CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA:
Lothian is a region of south-east Scotland (Alba).
In the present (post-1995) system of regional authorities
West Lothian, Mid Lothian, and East Lothian
(Scottish Gaelic Lodainn an Iar, Meadhan Lodainn,
Lodainn an Ear) make up a compact urbanized area
south of the Firth of Forth and either side of the
Scottish capital and south-eastern metropolis of
Edinburgh (Dùn Èideann). In the Middle Ages,
Lothian referred to a larger territory, which extended
from the present English border at the river Tweed
and Cheviot hills, to Stirling in the north-west, as well as
including Edinburgh itself. As a region suiting a prosperous
mix of pastoralism and arable agriculture,
this greater Lothian was naturally the richest and
probably the most densely populated area of preindustrial
Scotland. It is also historically the most
deeply Anglicized. As Jackson proposed, Anglian
Bernicia (Brynaich) under Oswald probably took
over Lothian as a result of obsesio Etin (the siege of
Edinburgh), noted in some annals at 638. The
evidence of Scottish place-names suggests a fairly
substantial Anglo-Saxon settlement in the area and contrastingly
slight Gaelic and Scandinavian influence.
Lothian was never ruled by the Norse. Thus, Lothian
may be characterized as the cradle of the non-Gaelic
Anglian Scots culture of the Scottish Lowlands. A
system of local organization in shires, as in England,
prevailed there in the central Middle Ages, and Lothian
has tended to represent a standard Scottish identity in
modern times, figuring centrally, for example, in the
influential fiction of Sir Walter Scott.
Nonetheless, Lothian is of interest to Celtic
studies for several reasons. First, prior to 638 it had
formed part of the northern Brythonic kingdom of
Gododdin. Brythonic place-names are as thick on
the ground there as anywhere outside Wales (Cymru),
Cornwall (Kernow), or Brittany (Breizh), indicating
a high level of survival and a less than overwhelming
Anglian settlement. The hagiography of the Celtic
St Kentigern of Glasgow (Glaschu) looks back to
Brythonic Lothian as his home country. It should also
be borne in mind that King Oswald himself and the
7th-century church of Bernicia were heavily influenced
by Gaelic culture by way of the island monastery of
Iona (Eilean Ì) and the cult of its founder, St Colum
Cille. The Bernician grip on Lothian was not all
that strong and seems to have been partly rolled back
in the north-west after the great Pictish victory of
Nechtanesmere in 685. A Pictish symbol stone found
at Edinburgh and a scatter of place-names of Pictish
type in Lothian may date to this period.
Northumbrian power never fully recovered. The
powerful Viking kingdom of York (867–954) stood
on what had been southern Northumbria (Deira/
Dewr), cutting off Lothian from Anglo-Saxon
England and setting the stage for permanent annexation
by Gaelic Scotland to the north after Viking power
waned. During the reign of King Illulb (Indulf, 954–
62) Edinburgh was occupied by the Scots. In 973 the
Anglo-Saxon King Edgar received the homage of
Cinaed mac Mael Choluim (Kenneth II of
Scotland) and granted Lothian in return, which was
probably merely a confirmation of the current political
reality. Scottish control over the region was permanently
consolidated at the battle of Carham on the Tweed in
1018, where Mael Coluim mac Cinaeda (Malcolm
II), with allies from Strathclyde (Ystrad Clud),
defeated the Northumbrian Earl Uhtred. While these
events brought Lothian under the Gaelic dynasty and
aristocracy of Alba and imparted an enduring Scottish
identity, the Gaelic language gained little ground there,
and Lothian’s cultural importance within Scotland
proved an important factor in the spreading de-
Gaelicization of subsequent centuries.
The name Lothian, attested as Welsh Lleuddiniawn,
is of Celtic origin, from *Luguduniana‘the country
of the fort of [the god] Lugus’; see further Lleu;
Lugudunon.
[1]
The account given in the Welsh version of Geoffrey, the Brut y Brenhinedd, substitutes for Loth one Llew [literally 'Lion', but probably an error for Lleu] ap CYNFARCH OER ap MEIRCHION GUL, father also of Urien of Rheged. Such a geographical fix transfers Medraut/Modred from the Antonine Wall to that of Hadrian - to the very region where we find the Camboglanna Roman fort. Llew/Lleu may point to Carlisle, ancient Luguvalium, the "Lugus-strong" fort rather than the personal name that had once been proposed for the site.
Once again, there is nothing here for a Medraut in the South.
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