A Selection from My Revised "MAKING SENSE OF CAMLAN: MY FINAL TREATMENT OF THE PROBLEM"

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/05/making-sense-of-camlan-my-final.html

West and East Wittering

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Chichester, Cissa and Cymenesora

The Chichester Noviomagus should perhaps be discussed a bit more in the context of Arthur's Camlan.

According to English tradition, Chichester was named for the eponymous Cissa.  Cissa is introduced to us in the ASC as a warrior who fights at a place called Cymenesora near Chichester:

477

Her cuom Ęlle on Bretenlond 7 his .iii. suna, Cymen 7 Wlencing 7 Cissa, mid .iii. scipum on þa stowe þe is nemned Cymenesora, 7 þær ofslogon monige Wealas 7 sume on fleame bedrifon on þone wudu þe is genemned Andredesleage.

[https://asc.jebbo.co.uk/a/a-L.html]

I had once considered Cymenesora as a candidate for Camlan. But I dispensed with it in favor of other sites in southern England, like The Cams in Hampshire. I had come up with another etymology for Cymenesora: 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-new-identification-for-location-of.html

But as Medard of Noviomagus in Gaul was related to Camlan in the Welsh Annals, and Noviomagus was the ancient name for Chichester, and Cissa of Chichester fought at nearby Cymenesora, we might be tempted to favor Cymenesora, i.e. Wittering, on Selsey Bill, as the Camlan being referred to in the Welsh Annals. Whatever the origin of Cymen-, the Welsh may have taken it for their own camen -

[cam2+-en] 

eb. ll. camennau.

1.  Camdra, gwyredd, tro, plyg, dolen:

crookedness, curvature, turn, bend, loop. 

Submit

14g. GDG 194, A ganodd neu â genau / O fawl o’r twrf meistrawl tau, / Gymar hwyl, gem yr heli, / Gamen môr, gymain’ â mi?

c. 1624 CRC 133, ai Daü forddwyd a bortreüwyd / fal dwy gamen kar yr ychen.

1794 P.

Digwydd hefyd mewn e. lleoedd, e.e. Ffridd Camen (Llandrillo) a Camen Fawr (Llanfyllin).

- plus AS ora, 'shore, bank.'

If Cymenesora is the Camlan of the Welsh Annals, does this mean that a real Arthur perished there in 545?

No. As we have actual Camlan names in NW Wales (where the later Welsh tradition places Arthur's death site) and on Hadrian's Wall (the Camboglanna Roman fort), the Welsh Annals entry which employs St. Medard (= Medrad/Medrawd) of Noviomagus to fix Camlan at Cymenesora near Chichester has all the hallmarks of a cleric's Isidorian-style etymological identification.  Such an identification, placed as it is directly across from Cerdic's Isle of Wight, the Wessex founder's last conquest before his death, may well have been intentional.  I have suggested that the chronological bracketing of the Arthur of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM corresponds perfectly with the floruit of Cerdic and that, therefore, Arthur may have been meant to be a sort of counter to the founder of Wessex.

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