THE PROBABLE RULING CENTER OF CEREDIG/ARTHUR IN CEREDIGION

Llandewi Aberarth, church with hill fort above it

Llandewi Aberarth

In previous blog posts, I proposed that the name Arthur or Artorius was a Latin decknamen on an Irish name meaning "Bear-king", and that the king in question was Ceredig son of Cunedda of Ceredigion, known in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Cerdic of the Gewessei.  Furthermore, I had theorized that the bear personal names in the Ceredigion genealogy could best be explained by the fact that in mid-Ceredigion there was an Arth or 'Bear' River, right next to the Afon Aeron.  Aeron or *Agrona, 'Slaughter goddess', suggested to me that the "Bear" might also have been a divine river.  If so, the bear names of Ceredig and his descendants were due to the fact that the ruling center of the kingdom was somewhere on the Afon Arth.

Subsequent research to find this ruling center of Ceredig/Arthur revealed only two possible sites. One is Dineirth, and the other Llandewi Aberarth.  What I needed to determine is which of the two places showed potential for sub-Roman or early medieval habitation.

According to Frances Foster, Archive & Library Assistant, Archive and Library Team, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales:

"I have checked the information we hold on the above site [Dineirth] and have not found any mention of Roman occupation or activity.  The description on the Ordnance Survey National Archaeological Record card states that the site was originally a Clare Castle (Richard de Clare) founded prior to 1136.

In R.E. Kay’s description he suggests that ‘the first Norman adventurers may have found the earthworks of a small promontory fort at their chosen site which they heightened and strengthened’.  He also says that ‘the Castle of Dineirth (or Dinarth) was probably founded by Richard de la Mare and follower of Richard de Clare in 1110.

http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/archive/search/result?CAT_NO=845881&SEARCH_MODE=COMPLEX_SEARCH

Again in Cadw’s scheduling description there is no mention of sub-Roman occupation of this site." 

Llandewi Aberarth may be different. On the possible ruling center of the kingdom of Ceredigion, Toby Driver, Senior Investigator (Aerial Survey) for the RCAHMW and author of HILLFORTS OF CARDIGAN BAY, says

"I would find it very difficult to decide on a place for a ‘ruling centre’, although a coastal position may be better connected than one inland [emphasis mine]... The Arth has a very restricted catchment, and I am not aware of any other major archaeological sites along its reaches. That said the presence of a major castle at Dinerth, the Viking hog-back stone at Llanddewi-Aberarth and the coastal hillfort, along with the ancient fish traps on the foreshore at Aberarth, all add up to a high concentration of interesting sites. Certainly it is an interesting locale along the Cardigan Bay coastline."

Here is the description of the hill fort at Llandewi Aberarth from COFLEIN (http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/419561/details/hillfort-st-davids-church-llanddewi-aberarth):

NPRN 419561

Map Reference SN46SE

Grid Reference SN47616337

Unitary (Local) Authority Ceredigion

Old County Cardiganshire

Community Dyffryn Arth

Type of Site DEFENDED ENCLOSURE, HILLFORT

Broad Class Defence

Period Iron Age

Site Description The church of St Davids sits below and to the east of the triangular summit of a prominent coastal hill which has been suggested as a possible Iron Age hillfort by the Dyfed Archaeological Trust, citing both its general shape and the presence of Bronze Age finds just below the summit.

Royal Commission aerial photographs of the hilltop taken during the drought summer of 2013 (on 12th July) appear to clarify parched banks and ditches of a large triangular or pear-shaped hilltop enclosure, generally following the lines of present field boundaries and walls but of more massive construction, suggesting a prehistoric origin. This main hilltop enclosure measures approximately 278m x 110m, enclosing 2.7 hectares. On the east side of the ridge is a discrete, smaller rectangular earthwork enclosure within the larger one, following the line of the ridge but with a rounded southern end, into which the cemetery of St Davids Church encroaches. It is possible that this is also a prehistoric or early medieval enclosure [emphasis mine], perhaps representing a first phase, or a contraction of a larger site. Recorded during RCAHMW aerial reconnaissance (frames AP_2013_2951-53) and also during winter conditions on 26th February 2014, highlighting the earthworks (frames AP_2014_0311-12, 319, 324-5).

If I'm right about the Arth River being the location of the Dark Age ruling center belonging to Ceredig and his descendants, then the hill fort at Llandewi Aberarth must be considered the primary contender.  Of course, only excavation of the site, and in particular of the smaller enclosure on the east side of the ridge, would be able to demonstrate whether sub-Roman or early medieval habitation occurred there.

I'm still trying to procure at least a preliminary report on the hill fort at Llandewi Aberarth, but so far have had no success obtaining such a document.  It may not exist. However, if such a report is forthcoming, I will immediately make it available here.  

THE CERDIC/ARTHUR BATTLE MAP

Here is my final arrangement of the battles of Cerdic/Ceredig/Arthur.  For a more detailed discussion of them, please see some of my more recent blog posts.  

A few notes on the map:

1) Ceredicesora or "Cerdic's shore" has been thought to be the Ower near Calshot.  This is a very good possibility for a landing place.  However, the Ower further north by Southampton must be considered a leading contender, as it is quite close to some of the other battles.

2) Cerdicesleag or "Cerdic's wood" I would tentatively identify with Lee (leag)-on-the-Solent.  I pick this location because of the mention of Stuf (= Stub/b) both before and after the Cerdicesleag battle. Lee-on-the-Solent is just a little bit west of Stubbington, the settlement of the descendents of Stuf/Stubb.  It is also just across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, which was given to both Wihtgar and Stuf.  

3) Bitton on the Somerset Avon is thought to be the Roman period Trajectus (= Tribruit).  While the place may have been called this, it was named for the actual crossing of the Severn from here to Caerwent in Wales.  

4) Wallop, here in green letters, was supposedly the location of a battle of Ambrosius.  The great Danebury Hill camp is at Nether Wallop and I would make the case for this being the actual battle site.

Here are the correspondences of the Historia Brittonum battles and the modern place-names:

Glein = Ower 1 or Ower 2

Dubglas in Linnuis = River Blackwater

Bassas = Charford

Castle Guinnion = Wihtgarasburh

City of the Legion = Caerleon

Tribruit = Bitton (Severn Crossing from Caerwent)

Breguoin/Agned (Bremenium/Egnatius) = Liddington Castle/Badbury

Badon = Badbury/Liddington Castle

A NOTE ON CHEARSLEY AND NOTLEY

Some discussion has been made of Chearsley and Notley in Buckinghamshire as indicators that Cerdic of Wessex's battles originally belonged there, rather than in Hampshire.  This is quite simply wrong.

Charford, for example, has known early forms such as Cerdeford.  Notley is not remotely possible for Natanleod/leag.  Here are the two Buckinghamshire place-names as discussed briefly by Dr. Richard Coates of The English Place-Name Society:

"The bulk of early spellings are of the type Cherdes-, and nothing definitely points to Ceolred (no <l>) or Cerdic (no <c>).  Notley (Bucks) is just a straight up and down hnutu + leah, as all the medieval spellings show. And Natan- won’t give Nut- spellings."

CADBURYS AND THE PERSONAL NAME BAD(D)A

Cadbury Castle, Somerset

As I mentioned in my previous blog piece http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/01/arthurs-badon-at-last-evidence-for.html, Badda of the Badbury/Baddanbyrig hill forts is an attested English name that is also found spelled Bada. It is the spelling with a single /d/ that should interest us the most.

I was thinking about the several Badburys and recalled that a similar pattern of hill fort names exists further to the west in England, in territory that remained much longer in control of the British.  I'm referring, of course, to the Cadbury forts.  There are four of these:

Cadbury Camp in North Somerset

Cadbury Castle in Devon

Cadbury Castle in Somerset

Cadbury Hill in North Somerset

To these we may compare -

Badbury Rings in Dorset
Badbury in Wiltshire
Badbury Hill in Berkshire
Badbury in Northants.
Baumber in Lincolnshire (Badeburg in the Domesday Book; Bada's or Badda's burg, according to                                                 Ekwall)

It is fashionable in older books (even Mills!) to find the first component of this place-name as a hypothetical OE personal name *Cada.  But more recent scholars (like noted English place-name expert Dr. Richard Coates) agree with me that the known Brythonic name (found in an Arthurian context!) Cadwy/Cato/Cado/Cattw, etc., more likely explains Cad-.  Although Cadwy is included in some royal genealogies and is presented to us as a human hero, his name might well be a hypocoristic form of a divine name like the Gaulish god Caturix, 'Battle-king'.  Dr. Coates response to my query about whether Cadwy could stand for Caturix or similar was merely "Yes."

The Welsh word cad as listed in the GPC:

cad1

[Crn. cas, Gwydd. cath, Gal. Caturīges; fel elf. mewn e. fel catberth, caterwen, catffwl ac enw nant fel Cadnant golyga ‘cryf, nerthol, mawr’]

eb. ll. cadau, cadoedd.

a  Brwydr, ymladdfa, rhyfel, ymryson, ymdrech, helynt:

battle, conflict, war, strife, struggle, trouble. 

In other words, the Cadbury hill forts are elevated defensive earthworks that were deemed sacred to a sort of divine personification of battle.

I would suggest that the same is true of the Badbury forts - and, indeed, that this and only this can explain why here are several such forts all bearing the same name.  

In the famous, though exceedingly brief, account of Badon in Gildas, we are told a great slaughter of the enemy occurred at the hill.  Gildas's word here is the Latin strages. [For those who would like to study for themselves the relevant sections on Badon in Gildas, in Latin text form and in good modern English translations, please see http://people.clas.ufl.edu/jshoaf/2014/07/07/gildas/.  As I've mentioned before, Bede pretty well repeats what Gildas has to say on the battle, using stragis for strages.] Strages or 'slaughter', as it happens, is one of the meanings of OE beado, a word that occurs in numerous uncompounded and compounded personal names in a fairly wide variety of spellings.

From the Anglo-Saxon dictionary of Bosworth and Toller:

BEADO, beadu; g. d. beadowe, beadwe, beaduwe; f. Battle, war, slaughter, cruelty; pugna, strages :-- Gúþ-Geáta leód, beadwe heard the War-Goths' prince, brave in battle, Beo. Th. 3082; B. 1539. Wit ðære beadwo begen ne onþungan we both prospered not in the war, Exon. 129b; Th. 497, 2; Rä. 85, 23. Beorn beaduwe heard a man brave in battle, Andr. Kmbl. 1963; An. 984. Ðú þeóde bealdest to beadowe thou encouragest the people to slaughter, Andr. Kmbl. 2373; An. 1188. [O. H. Ger. badu-, pato-: O. Nrs. böð, f. a battle: Sansk. badh to kill.]

So on the model of the Cadbury forts, I propose that Bada or Badda is merely a spelling variant of a beado-derived name, and that Gildas's comment on the strages that took place there is not only a description of the result of military action at the location, but an actual definition of Bada/Badda as 'Slaughter.'  When I passed this idea along to Dr. Coates, he commented "Well, to my mind this is ingenious."

If I am right, this is yet more evidence in support of Badon = Badbury, in this case the one now called Liddington Castle in Wiltshire.  

DECIDING BETWEEN BATH AND BADBURY OR A TALE OF TWO LID BROOKS

Barbury Castle, Wiltshire

Here is the 'Badon Problem' in a nutshell, and it is one I've been wrestling with for decades: the place-name itself is universally held by Celtic linguists and place-name specialists to be a British form of the Old English Bathum or 'Baths.'  The philological and phonological arguments are very solid.  

But there are major problems with this identification.  Firstly, Gildas - who claims the battle happened when he was born, and who should, therefore, have some authoritative knowledge regarding the event - claims the Saxons were soundly defeated there.  This seems quite impossible for Bath in Somerset, as the English has not penetrated anywhere near this far into the West Country at this point in history.  

Slightly more likely is the other 'bathum', namely Aquae Arnemetia at Buxton in Derbyshire. Buxton, however, does not fit in at all with the other battles as I've laid them out in the South of England.

I've recently identified Arthur's City of the Legion and the following battle of Tribruit with Caerleon-on-Usk and the Trajectus or Severn crossing to the Avon.  Bath is, of course, on the Avon, and so would fit in well with this grouping as Badon.  But, the intervening battle of Mount Breguoin/Agned must give us pause.  

I've shown how the meaning of the root of the place-name Breguoin (= Brewyn/Bremenium) matches that of the root found in the Liddington place-name that was given to the Badbury hill fort in Wiltshire.  Agned is for Egnatius, the name of a Roman governor who became associated with Bremenium.  This is too much of a coincidence, and I'm fairly certain Breguoin is here a substitute for the English place-name Liddington.  

From http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Wiltshire/Liddington:

Liddington

'Farm/settlement on the stream called Hlyde (= the noisy one)'. The water-course is on record as the Lid Brook.

Elements and their meanings

hlȳde (Old English) A noisy stream (literally a loud one.

tūn (Old English) An enclosure; a farmstead; a village; an estate.

Refs

Watts; Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-names 372

E. Ekwall; Dictionary of English Place-Names 297

A.D. Mills; Dictionary of English Place-Names 298

"Gover, Mawer and Stenton, The Place-Names of Wiltshire" 282

I have noticed that there is a Lid Brook a few miles ENE of Bath as well.  While I tried making a case for Bury Wood Camp being named for the Lid Brook, the truth is that the hill fort is between two branches of the Doncombe Brook, with the Lid being a fair distance to the south.  Nor could I make a case for the Lid Brook once being the original name of the By Brook river, for this last was originally called the Weaver. Here are the early forms and the etymology for the By Brook (as kindly supplied to me by Ally McConnell, Archivist, Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, who was drawing from THE PLACE-NAMES OF WILTSHIRE):

Essentially the same information is to be found in Eilert Ekwall’s book English River Names (1928 edition):

What this means is that the 'Badon' identified with Breguoin has to be Liddington Castle.

I've also demonstrated that the so-called Second Battle of Badon of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM would appear to be a reference to the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE'S account of Cenwalh's being driven to Ashdown by Wulfhere.  Ashdown is only a few miles from the Liddington Badbury and we might assume that the ravaging went right past the hill fort.  

As I see it, there are two possible solutions to the 'Badon Problem:'

1) Very early on the superficially similar names Bathum/Badon and Baddan(-byrig) were confused in the Welsh tradition. Gildas or his source may not have been responsible for this, but subsequent copyists certainly could have been.  Thus what should have more closely resembled Baddan- ended up, merely by mistake, as Badon.  Eventually, the incorrect form became accepted as canonical, while the correct one was forgotten.

OR

2) Modern linguists are, at least in this one case, overly strict in disallowing the possibility that Badon actually represents Baddan(-byrig) and not Bathum. In other words, that some otherwise unexplainable development took place which transmuted Baddan- to Bathum.

My own feeling is that it is far more likely the ancient Welsh are the ones to blame for the place-name switch.  They were far less astute in the science of language evolution than today's scholars.  In this respect, then, the linguists and place-names experts are both right and wrong: they are right in that Badon cannot be the linguistic equivalent of Baddan-, but they are wrong if they insist that precisely because this is so Badon cannot be the Liddington Badbury.  

For what it's worth, Liddington Castle has my vote as Arthur's Badon. 

COMING NEXT: Deciding between Bath and Badbury or A Tale of Two Lid Brooks

Lid Brook, Wiltshire

Arthur's Badon at Last: The Evidence for the Badbury at Liddington Castle

Liddington Castle Ditch

I've struggled for some time with the hill-name Agned, site of one of Arthur's battles according to the HISTORIA BRITTONUM.  While I was seeking the hero's military activities in the North of Britain, I was quite satisfied that Agned stood for the personal name Egnatius, a Roman governor who did rebuilding of the fort of Bremenium.  This argument received enthusiastic support from language experts.  Bremenium is Arthur's Breguoin, found as Brewyn in a poem devoted to Urien's campaigns.

But when I came to realize that Arthur was Cerdic of Wessex or, more properly, Ceredig son of Cunedda, and had to shift the theater of war to southern England and Wales, Agned once again became a problem.  I wondered if it might be for Agnes (Agnetis), another excellent solution for the hill-name.  I then attempted to foist Agnes onto Little Solsbury Hill at Bath, thinking this Christian saint may have been a substitute for the virgin pagan goddess Sulis Minerva.  But this argument was forced in the extreme, as there is no evidence for the worship of St. Agnes at Bath.

While we can opt for Agned being a corruption of agued, a word meaning "distress, dire straits, anxiety' or the like, and propose that it is not really a true place-name at all, but merely a descriptor, this solution takes some special pleading.  Such is always the case when you propose an alternate reading, thus assuming, quite dangerously, that the word in question should be something other than what it is.  We often resort to this kind of linguistic trickery when we find ourselves ignorant of the original form.

What I'm realizing now is that I can keep Egnatius as the name underlying Agned. I would suggest that what happened with the three hill names in the battle list is as follows:

Liddington is a name based on a stream that ran near the hill fort of Baddanbyrig/Badbury.  The stream-name is from OE hlyde, 'loud', and conveys the sense of the 'roaring' water.  As it happens, the root of Bremenium/Brewyn/Breguoin is Welsh brefu, used of a stream by the Roman fort of that name.  The meaning of brefu is the same as that of English hlyde, something I've mentioned before in previous essays.  So what seems to have happened here is that whoever compiled the battle list knew the meaning of English Liddington, a name applied to the Badbury hill-fort, and so substituted Breguoin, a Welsh name with the same meaning.  After this substitution took place, someone else who did not know Breguoin was for Badbury at Liddington added Egnatius/Agned to this list as a second name for Breguoin. I've also pointed out that the Roman fort of Bremia on the Afon Brefi in Ceredig's Ceredigion is from the exact same root as Bremenium.    

I can now state my opinion that Badon, despite the philologists insistence that this MUST be for Bathum, 'baths', is actually Badbury at Liddington.  Furthermore, the Barbury hill-fort close to Liddington, the "Fort of the Bear", was named for Arthur, whose name was by the Welsh connected with their own word for bear, arth.  Finally, Wanborough hard by Liddington Castle was site of the Roman town of Durocornovium.  Cornovium contains the same place-name element as Cernyw or Cornwall and Cornovii (the tribe inhabiting what later became Powys).  Arthur in Welsh tradition is always associated with Cornwall. 

A great deal of ink has been spilt on the most probable etymology for the Baddanbyrig name. This comes from an attested, NOT a hypothetical name, Badda.  Badda itself is demonstrably Germanic. Dr. Richard Coates recently shared with me why the name can't come from the Brythonic:

"Badda, if borrowed, and if we take the double <dd> seriously, is difficult to link to a Brittonic etymon.

British */t/ > Britt. */d/ would show up as OE /d/, not as a geminate (double).
British */tt/ > Britt. */θ/ would show up as OE */θ/, written with thorn, but never <dd>.
British */d/ > Britt. */ð/ would show up as OE /d/ or /ð/, depending on the period, for which the spelling <dd> is most unlikely.
British */dd/ seems to have yielded simple Britt. */d/ (Jackson LHEB 428, on credu), and would show up as OE /d/, not as a geminate (double).

So I conclude that Badda cannot be of Celtic  origin, particularly because Late British did not have geminate /dd/."

I would note in passing that as with several similar Old English names (e.g. Eadda/Eada, Hadda/Hada; see M. Redin's STUDIES IN UNCOMPOUNDED PERSONAL NAMES), Badda is found spelled with only one /d/, i.e. as Bada.

Badda is actually found on a coin as the name of a moneyer of King Edward the Elder (899-924); see https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?similar=1146410.

THE SECOND BATTLE OF BADON

[NOTE: The following is taken from an old post of mine at http://www.facesofarthur.org.uk/articles/guestdan2.htm.]

There is one possible clue to identifying Badon. It lies in a comparison of the Welsh Annals entry for the Second Battle of Badon and the narrative of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  The actual year entry for this Second Battle of Badon reads as follows:

665 The first celebration of Easter among the Saxons.  The second battle of Badon. Morgan dies.

The "first celebration of Easter among the Saxons" is a reference to the Synod of Whitby of c. 664.  While not directly mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, nor the Anglo-Saxon version of Bede, there is an indirect reference to this event:

664 … Colman with his companions went to his native land…

This is, of course, a reference to Colman's resigning of his see and leaving Lindisfarne with his monks for Iona.  He did so because the Roman date for Easter had been accepted at the synod over the Celtic date.  

While there is nothing in the ASC year entry 664 that helps with identifying Badon, if we go to the year entry 661, which is the entry found immediate prior to 664, an interesting passage occurs:

661 In this year, at Easter, Cenwalh fought at Posentesburh, and Wulfhere, son of Penda, ravaged as far as [or "in", or "from"] Ashdown…

Ashdown is here the place of that name in Berkshire. It is only a half dozen miles to the east of Badbury and Liddington Castle.  A vague reference to ravaging in the neighborhood of Ashdown may well have been taken by someone who knew Badon was in the vicinity of Ashdown as a second battle at Badon.

I've recently identified Posentesbyrig as "Pascent's Burg".  Leading English place-name authority Dr. Richard Coates had this to say when I asked him if this etymology worked:

"I see no absolute barrier to Posent – Pascent. Welsh <sc> is the cluster [sk], which would be rendered in OE as  “esh” since OE had no cluster [sk] before a front vowel, even in the earliest times. “Esh” would normally also be spelt <sc>, but that’s a coincidence. It’s possible for “esh” to appear very occasionally as <s>, even before the conquest, as in Ryssebroc for Rushbrooke (Suffolk) in the mid-10th century."

Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing where Pascent's Burg was located.  Pascent son of Vortigern ruled over Buellt and Gwrtheyrnion.  But the Vortigern family was also said to have originated at Gloucester.  William of Malmesbury claims that Bradford on Avon was once called Vortigern's Burg, but this is surely not right, as Cenwalh of Wessex is said to fight at both Bradford on Avon and Posentesbyrig in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  While Pascent's Burg and Vortigern's Burg may refer to the same place, if these aren't nicknames for Gloucester we cannot know Posentesbyrig's location.  

The battle listed before Posentesbyrig in the ASC is Peonnum, fought against the Welsh by Cenwalh. This is thought to be Penselwood in Somerset, found in the Domesday Book as Penne or Penna.

A battle at Gloucester, nicknamed Pascent's fort, would make sense between the Mercian king Wulfhere and the Wessex king Cenwalh.

COMING SOON: New evidence for Liddington Castle/Badbury as King Arthur's Mount Badon

Liddington Castle hillfort, Swindon