Rock of Clyde
Over the past few weeks I've written a number of pieces on my ideas for the possibility of a Dark Age British Arthur in the North. Such an elusive figure may have existed, despite my preference for seeing in a northern Arthur a mythical construction built upon the attested historical entity Lucius Artorius Castus.
Two of my most recent blog posts on the subject:
Here I wish to explore a problem which continues to bother me.
While it is easy to account for the transmission of the Arthur name from Strathclyde to Dalriada (as Aedan married the niece of the British king), it is not an easy matter to account for the presence of the name Arthur in Dyfed.
In the following article -
- I did try and provide some possible explanations for the Arthur son of Pedr of the Irish-descended dynasty in SW Wales. But are any of those explanations satisfactory?
I have, in my exploration of a Dark Age northern Arthur candidate, focused on two possible Arthurian centers: Alclud/Dumbarton and Uxellodunum/Petrianis/Stanwix. The problem is not so much whether either is a decent choice, but rather whether the Arthurian battles - as I've laid them out - actually represent those of a Roman general or can be assigned to just one Dark Age chieftain or mercenary (without resorting to a composite figure). And it seems to me that Dyfed's Arthur may hold the clue to answering this question.
To begin, discounting the suggestions I made in the "Stones and Horsez" article above, I've been unable to establish a link between the Deissi and Strathclyde or Dalriada (other than their shared "Irishness", of course). We know of no marriage ties existing between Dyfed and either Strathclyde or Dalriada. Nor is there a hint in our records of a military alliance. Lastly, I could not find anything convincing to tie the tribal groups together prior to their respective folk migrations to Britain.
But could there be an interesting religious connection between SW Wales and Northern Britain.
St. Kentigern/Mungo of Strathclyde is said to have fled to Menevia/St. David's prior to returning home under the kingship of Rhydderch.
Could the name of a famous northern Arthur have come to be known to the Dyfed royal house through Kentigern?
Unfortunately, no.
Scholars have shown that Kentigern's sojourn in Wales and his etablishment of religious houses there which are well-known to have been founded by Welsh saints was a Norman period creation of Jocelyn of Furness. Jocelyn invented the story to bolster the primacy of the Glasgow archbishopric. Instead, actual early Mungo place-names are clustered in Cumbria and if the saint did flee anywhere, it was to there. Not to Wales.
That all leaves us, I'm afraid, with nothing substantial of a true historical nature to help us account for how the Arthur name got to Dyfed.
I keep coming back to the marked horse culture present in both Dyfed and Dalriada.
Interestingly, I've had confirmed for me that the Petriana unit name, deriving from that of its founder, Titus Pomponius Petra, would still have taken the form Petriana had Petrus been that commander's cognomen.
And this brings us back once more to Petr(us), later Welsh Pedr, the father of the Dyfed Arthur. Such a man may have seen in the Cumbric Arthur, a war-leader who descended from the Ala Petriana - a famous cavalry unit he may have associated with his own name - a good name for his own son.
The only other Petra that could be involved is that of Petra Cloithe, a Latin rendering of Alclud, capital of Strathclyde. Although, so far as I know, that Latin form is used only in Adomnan's Life of St. Columba. All the Welsh sources have Alclut/Alclud.
We also have the questionable 18th century testimony of a couple of antiquarians that Stanwix was known anciently as "Arthur's fort." While it is easy to dismiss this claim, the site is the only one in the North to have been referred to as Arthur's headquarters
[The romance-derived Carlisle is a modern misinterpretation, something I long ago made clear: see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/02/pinning-down-arthur-his-most-likely.html?m=1.]
The Petrianis fort has always been ideally situated for an Arthurian command post. It is close to Camboglanna/Castlesteads, to Aballava/Avalana/"Avalon" (Burgh By Sands), to Dea Latis/"Lake Goddess" dedications and to a prototypical Grail fort (Concavata/Drumburgh). In the Roman period it was the most important fort on the Wall, housing the largest cavalry unit in all of Britain. It could respond quickly to points North and East.
Finally, it is believed (although reports have yet to be published) that wooden structures excavated there might prove sub-Roman reuse of the fort.
If there were ever a perfect place for a Dark Age British Arthur, fighting in the old Brigantian territory and north into the territory of the Votadini against the Saxons (and maybe the Picts - unless the Miathi/Maeatae and Caledonii belong to Lucius Artorius Castus and/or Arthur son of Aedan)), Petrianis is it.
We would have to postulate that the same man was well-known at Alclud and his name passed from there to Dalriada. If Kentigern really was in Cumbria, he may have learned of Arthur while there. Or there may gave been marriage ties and/or a military alliance between Strathclyde and Cumbria.
We must remember, though, that Castus was of the equites. If Petr father of Arthur is not properly to be related to the cultural remnant of the Ala Petriana (which, after all, had been withdrawn from Britain in the early 5th century), and we thus lose that viable means of transmission of the Arthur name, the mythical ghost of Castus must be allowed to come back into play.
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