The archaeology of the 'Grote Mandrenke' (man-drowning) of 16th January 1362

 

The island of Strand, Frisia on a 17th century map, showing the impact of the Great Man-Drowner of 1362.

Although in the north east of England we've had a great deal of bad weather in the past few years, not to mention Storm Arwen, it probably pales in comparison with what the townspeople, farmers and fishermen 659 years ago, to this day, had to suffer, in a cataclysmic event called the Flood of St Marcellus. A freak extra-tropical hurricane, coinciding with a new moon, was wreaking a path of destruction across the North Sea coast. 

This was not the first time a storm of this nature had formed in the North Sea; in 1219 on the very same day (known as the First St Marcellus's flood), a cyclone had laid waste to coastal Holland and Frisia, but it was the first that had affected the English coastline, sending storm tides far inland and wiping out whole settlements from memory, such as Ravensrodd in east Yorkshire, founded in the Viking period as Hrafn's Eyr or Raven's Tongue. Written records of the event are scarce, but it is likely that more than 25,000 people died that day.

One of the biggest casualties of the hurricane was town of Dunwich ('hill town') in Suffolk, once the royal centre of the early medieval Suth Folk, where a number of important churches and pontoons, as well as a priory were submerged. The retreat of the coastline was nothing new to the town's residents, but this storm in particular must have been nearly biblical in scale, with probably close to a kilometre sunk in a matter of hours. Acoustic surveys, conducted by Southampton University archaeologists, have determined that much of this sunken part of town still exists, albeit in a very degraded and current-worn condition. 

The storm also had ramifications outside of the coastline; several church buildings and high-built structures were blown down or damaged, encouraging the emergent shift from Romanesque to Gothic architecture. The destruction of north Atlantic harbours certainty had dire consequences to the prosperity of the Hanseatic League and other merchant guilds, as well as the kingdom of Norway, already suffering from the never-ending string of disasters and plagues that characterized the 14th century. The trading nexus of Rungholt on the island of Strand in northern Frisia was completely cast underwater, and several parts of the town, including the tide gates that would have facilitatedincoming vessels. have been identified in various geophysical surveys carried out by the Rungholt Project. 

The flooding of coastal Holland, however, contributed to the formation of the inland lake known as the Zuiderzee, which allowed the Dutch to develop a maritime tradition that would later enable them to establish colonal possessions as far afield as Oceania. 

The World's oldest hillfort?

 

Tulul al-Ghusayn, northeastern Jordan

Hillforts, particularly in western Europe, are usually thought of as being symptomatic of the Late Bronze Age, where the warrior ideal reached its zenith, and communities took to marking and defending their wealth and land in an increasingly competitive and hostile world, and of the Iron Age, where a highly stratified society of elites, retinues, craftsmen, shamans and commoners took shape and those at the (literal) top could control the surrounding landscape and exploit its resources. 

Enclosing land in a monumental fashion goes back before the Neolithic; in northern Finland, for instances, vast hunting or possibly communal-gathering enclosures, made of loose stones, were built by Mesolithic communities, monuments known as Giant's Churches today. But there was not the political or social complexity of the Bronze and Iron Ages, which the hillforts, requiring thousands of man-hours and an organised command hierarchy, are testament to, and therefore the Neolithic is not known for them. 

However, hills have always had the potential to be a natural form of defence; from scavengers, enemy tribes, flooding and food scarcity. Archaeology and genetic evidence certainty suggests that the periods before the Bronze Age, the Mesolithic and Neolithic in particular, were hardly peaceful utopias, it was not just when people tilled the soil, gathered fruit from trees, and gave thanks to the earth goddess, a harmony that was only shattered when the fearsome nomads from the east arrived. 

Nowhere is this more apparent than the late Linear Band Ceramic culture of central Europe, which seems to have burnt up in a flurry of mass-grave digging and ritual execution. Even the earliest farmers who sailed into the Western Mediterranean, circa 6000 BCE, deliberately sailed around areas occupied by territorial Mesolithic hunters, and the entire tradition of megalithic monuments, at least in Europe, is thought to have its origins in the need of early farming communities to mark their territory; in essence, telling the remaining hunter-gatherers to stay away. So the nastiness of human politics was clearly around at this time. Is there any evidence, then, that this was taken to the next level; in the form of monumental defensive enclosures?

Three good candidates for the earliest hillforts are four situated in the basalt deserts of northern Jordan: Jawa, Tulul al-Ghusayn, Khirbet al-Ja’bariya and Khirbet Abu al-Husayn. These are all located on extinct volcanoes, and were surrounded by temporary hunting camps and pastoral activities. Surface finds have dated these hillforts to 4449 cal. BCE at the earliest, well within the Chalcolithic period of the Middle East and the early Neolithic of Europe. These sites were probably occupied until the Early Bronze Age, around 3500 - 3000 BCE. While they are impressive monuments and must have been a good defensive feature, there is no evidence for a stratified and specialized society that produced the better-known hillforts of later periods. The hillfort-dwellers here seem to have been egalitarian, based on the uniform house structures within the forts themselves, and likely did not use the forts primarily for defence, but for a range of functions such as storing animal produce.

The oldest hillforts in Europe, however might be Fortín 1 and Fortín 5, two of a cluster of forts in Almeria in south-eastern Spain, with the first walls and embankments dated to the Middle Copper Age, between 4000 - 3600 BCE. Unlike the Jordanian hillforts, these monumental structures are right beside a river, and seemed to have been abandoned at the end of the Chalcolithic. Their function seems to have been to control the major artery of trade passing along the coast of Spain, as well as east from the Mediterranean. 

In general then, hillforts appear first in the Chalcolithic, in a few isolated places around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, usually connected with centres of metalworking, such as the late copper Age and early Bronze age hillfort of Masckowice, Poland, or trade routes, as with the hillforts of Almeria. For all we know, there might be older hillforts, that are hidden from the archaeological record by virtue of them having no datable artefacts. But based on the current evidence, it seems that once metal and metallurgy started to proliferate, hillforts followed soon after.

Miscellaneous Dark Ages #1: A tentative date for an 'adventus Anglorum'

 

Imaginary depiction of Ida of Bernicia from John Speed's Saxon Heptarchy, in his Theatre. 

Far too much ink has been spilled over the precise date of the adventus Saxonum, the momentous event described by Gildas as heralding the beginning of the end for the Britons, when the British high-king or comes Britanniarum Vortigern / Vitalinus recruited bands of Saxons as federates to keep the Picts at bay, only for it to backfire disastrously a decade or so later, when they revolted, bringing much of Britain under their sway. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle pegs it at 448 C.E; some scholars prefer 441 C.E., while others cluster around 428 C.E. or sometime in the 430s, connecting it with the actions of St. Germanus and St. Lupus of Troyes. A few historians take the adventus as far back as 383 CE, arguing that the superbus tyrannus castigated by Gildas was in fact Magnus Maximus, who possibly recruited Saxons to reinforce the aptly named Saxon Shore and was losing control of the island in the late 380s, during his invasion of Italy. Archaeology certaintly supports a late 4th century date for the arrival of 'Saxons' to Britain, as the settlement of Mucking, Essex shows, but this probably doesn't represent a formal adventus of any kind.

But what about the Angles? Working back in the genealogies from historically verified rulers, Esa appears to be the first ruler of what would later become the kingdom of Bernicia, around the start of the 6th century CE. The king appears in (presumably) later Welsh tradition, via the Historia Regnum Brittaniae, as Eosa, partner-in-crime of Hengest's son Octa in their rampaging around Britain, as well as the shadowy assassin of the high-king Aurelius Ambrosius. Although Geoffrey's tales are nearly all fictional, it's interesting to note that he claims that after expelling the chieftain from York, Aurelius granted Eosa a fiefdom adjacent to Scotland to rule as part of a peace treaty. Esa and his son Eoppa also appear in the geneaology of East Anglia. 

While this in all likelihood reflects a 7th or 8th century treaty or marriage alliance between the two kingdoms, the possibility is open that Esa first arrived in the south, and was granted land after being subjugated by a local ruler. According to Fabio Barberi, the ruler may have been one of the of Ambrosii, related to the landowner Aurelius Urscinus, who is attested on spoons of the Hoxne Hoard. Near to Hoxne, along the same roman road, is the village of Arminghall, which may refer to land owned by Ambrosius's followers, the *Ambresingas , or in Latin the Ambrosiani.

The kernel of truth hidden in this may be that a ruler based in York (Ebrauc/Eboruacum at the time) gave the northern Angles land along the coast to settle, in return for military service. The Germanic-style brooches, belt-buckles and weapon accessories found at places across Hadrian's wall in this period support this idea that there was a foederati arrangement, in all probability a series of entirely peaceful and localised settlements than a single peace treaty after a bloody Britain-wide war. 

As for the other 'Anglian' settlements, Saebald appears in dubious genealogies as the first ruler of Deira (perhaps around 440 C.E.), but it is Soemil, his grandson, that the Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century text which takes considerable interest in the early north-east and with Vortigern's family, credits with 'dividing Deira from Bernicia'. The implication is that beforehand the northern Angles were part of an amorphous polity, likely subject to an overlord, perhaps of the 'Coeling' dynasty, based in Carlisle (Luguvalium) or York. 

The Angles of Lindsey (Lincolnshire) might be more historically grounded, as their first recorded ruler, Winta, is attested in toponymic form in the town of Winteringham and Winterton, both earlier Roman settlements. There is a dearth of Germanic material culture in early medieval Lindsey, however, so Winta may have just ruled over a couple of military camps and old villas lived in by warriors' families, leaving no trace of the continent which they had left.

The southern Angles of East Anglia, Norfolk and Suffolk, however, may have been the earliest to arrive in the British Isles. Archaeology attests to the abandonment of Venta Cenorum (possibly the Caer Went of the Historia Birttonum) shortly after the Roman withdrawal. The civitas is close to Arminghall and the later early medieval settlement of Caistor St. Edmund. Arriving on the Saxon Shore sometime before 450 C.E., they would have met with Germanic-speaking second or third-generation immigrants, some being descendants of the retinue of the Alemannic prince Fraomar. They did not last for long in the area, however, as a new group of Scandinavian-derived or at least Scandinavian-influenced elites established themselves, sweeping any remaining Romano-British administration away. 

The hybrid name of these new arrivals, the Wuffingas (after an eponymous Wuffa), on the other hand, suggests a desire to appease the local Britons, who during the late Iron Age adopted wolf motifs on their currency, as well as to appease the Germanic newcomers, for whom Wulf or Wuff was an honorific title. This could have even been inspired from the Huns, who shared with other Turkic dynasties, such as the Rouran, the custom of calling associates of the Khagan wolves, for instance Odoacer's father Edeco, who was nicknamed Hunulfus. Intriguingly, the Beowulf of legend and the Roduulf adopted as a close confidant by Theoderic circa 510 could also owe their names to this custom. Is this further evidence of the impact of Hunnic ideology on the Germanic-speaking peoples of the late fifth century, as Lotte Headager has passionately argued? Could the Angles have been sent to Britain on behalf of the Huns, who would later claim to the Romans that they ruled all the 'islands in the Ocean'?

But that's enough speculation for one evening. All we can say for certain is that the Anglian settlement began in the early 5th century, consisting of a polyethnic community of elite warriors, merchants and small numbers of families, who perhaps moved to escape the political and social upheavals taking place on the continent. Certainty, no Romano-Briton would have watched a Nydam-style boat beach on the North Sea coast and proclaim the end of Roman Britain. 

So, does it predate the 'Saxon' arrival? Possibly, if we take the genealogies into account. It is worth remembering that foreign observers (i.e. Procopius and his sources) in the following century, outside of Gildas, did not think that there even was a momentous Saxon arrival; they believed that Britain was inhabited only by Angles, Frisians and Britons.

Iron Age Dorset #1: Carthage comes to Poole Harbour

 

Poole Harbour, Dorset. Image Credit: Sandbanks Community Group

It's well known that the during the invasion of Britain in 43 CE, the Romans came across with and disembarked their ships in Poole Harbour, disrupting the cross-channel trade and industry and establishing a legionary camp near Hamworthy and a new trading port in Poole. It's altogether possible that Vespasian, the future emperor, sailed into the harbour to crush the Durotrigan tribal centres of Dunium, Vindocladia, Duronovaria (Maiden Castle, not to be confused with the Roman Durnovaria) and possibly Duropolis. This was not the first intrusion of the Mediterranean world onto Dorset's shores, however.

In an fairly old article by Dr. Caitlin Green (link below), a historian and tutor at the University of Cambridge, she agrees with the musings of earlier scholars that the Phoenicians, or at least their Punic descendants visited the island frequently, whether for tin or other luxury goods, and left their mark in the form of archaic place names, such as the Isle of Thanet (apparently referring to Tanit, a Phoenician goddess), or Sark (meaning roughly 'the dawn sun' in proto-Semitic). Interestingly, in support of this she mentions that several coins of Carthaginian provenance were found in Poole Harbour, close to the 'monumental' marble foundations of the Iron Age port, which has been dated to the third century BCE. Furthermore, she notes that Wilkes et al (2002) have drawn architectural parallels with this port and structures in Motya, Sicily and other Carthaginian harbours.

These strands of evidence lend themselves to two exciting interpretations. One is that Carthaginian sailors frequented the harbour in the early classical period, building a port modelled on Mediterranean examples using local Purbeck stone, possibly using the local population as the labour force. This port was then used to exchange Carthaginian goods, such as wine, olives or salt, with local commodities. These were probably perishable, as no Carthaginian structure has been identified as being built using stone sourced from Britain, or individual buried with British jewellery or metalwork. This would have been mediated with currency, that was valued as an elite method of exchange by local tribes. 

The second interpretation is that through contact and intermittent trade with Carthaginian sailors to the east, who arrived in Cornwall (i.e. the Casserterides and the island of Ictis) to acquire tin, the local Iron Age communities adopted Mediterranean architectural styles and building techniques. That Phoenician (or at least Levantine) sailors traded with Britain has been archaeologically proven from isotopic analysis of tin ingots found on the coast of Haifa. The stray coins in the harbour might have been lost overboard by British logboats, (i.e. the Poole Logboat, constructed around 295 BCE) travelling back from the west.

There are, of course, other ways that the coins could have ended up at the bottom of the harbour. Later Greek travellers might have thrown or dropped them overboard, or a Roman transport ship, carrying the possessons of a north-African family, might have sunk during a storm. Perhaps they were even brought to England by a medieval trader or Norman knight (either of the Sicilo-Norman kingdom or a knight of the Eighth Crusade) travelling back from Tunis, who encountered some Carthaginian ruins collected the coins as a souvenir or trinket. 

However, the fact that there is a wealth of other evidence (including one literary source, the second-hand account of Pytheas of Massaila) for trading activity in the area during the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, the period which the coin dates to, and the apparent similarity between the Iron Age port and Mediterranean ports, makes it likely that Carthaginians were responsible, ether directly or indirectly, for their deposition.

To conclude, I would also suggest that there is another indication that Dorset was economically secure and well-connected with the Mediterranean: the settlement of 'Duropolis', uncovered by Miles Russel and his team from Bournemouth University in 2015. Unlike nearly all other Iron Age settlements, it is completely undefended, an appears to follow a organised street plan. The stratigraphic evidence indicates that it was abandoned by around 100 BCE, corresponding with the destruction of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War and a general shift in western Europe towards building oppida. The fall of Numantia, the Celtiberian capital, in 138 BCE, must have prompted chieftains across the continent to either adapt or accommodate themselves with the Romans. While no coins from Carthage or amphorae have been found at the site, its structure suggests a relatively egalitarian and peaceful society, which may have been made possible by Mediterranean trade.

Sources:

Green, C. (2015) Thanet, Tanit and the Phoenicians: Place-Names, Archaeology and Pre-Roman Trading Settlements in Eastern Kent? Available at: https://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/04/thanet-tanit-and-the-phoenicians.html#fn13

M. Markey, E. Wilkes & T. Darvill, (2002) 'Poole Harbour: an Iron Age port', Current Archaeology, 181, 7–11

Miscellaneous Antiquity #1: Did the Carthaginians reach the Azores?

 

The Lagoa do Caldeirão, Corvo, in the Azores archipelago. Image credit: Teresa Rosa.

The Azores have long been assumed to have been uninhabited until the arrival of the Portuguese by sailors in the service of Dom Henrique, or Henry the Navigator, in the early 15th century.  Unlike the Canary Islands (i.e. the Insulae Canariae), there are no classical accounts, no sailing charts or Roman itineraries that mention the archipelago. One work that predates the first mention of the Azores, the Medici Atlas (circa 1351 C.E.), possibly alludes to the islands: the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, or the Voyages of Saint Brendan the Abbot, written around the start of the 10th century. It describes the saint between 512 and 530 C.E. visiting an island populated by sheep, an island inhabited by a dog, an island home to a 'Paradise of Birds', and a island stalked by an 'Ethiopian devil', among other fantastical places, during their journey to the Isle of the Blessed. 

The work, belonging to a genre of immanra or tales of mythological travels, borrows heavily from Celtic mythology and biblical imagery, but the specific details correspond with the ecology and history of the islands of the Atlantic. Canaria Insulae means 'Islands of the Dogs.', and canary birds received their name from the eponymous islands which they inhabited. The term 'Ethiopians' was furthermore a generic designation for African peoples outside of Roman Egypt, Libya and Mauretania. The devil could have been a Berber descendent of groups from the continent, perhaps even the Canarii tribe, who dwelt in the Atlas mountains and who also related their name with dogs. 

Regarding the Azores, Pico island is labelled on early portolan charts as il columbii, or the island of pigeons, and Corvo island as corvis marinis, or island of sea-crows.  This is good evidence that the author of the work knew the north Atlantic coast well, perhaps from an lost Roman source or from local tales by seafarers, but it hardly proves that the Azores were inhabited.

Archaeology, however, tells a different story. Recent paleoenvironmental research has determined that mice from Norway were present on the island by at least 700 CE, suggesting that Norse explorers, either raiders lost on their way to the coasts of Spain or Ireland or settlers who heared of fantastical lands of bounty from Irish storytellers, reached the island, well before continental Europeans and before the Viking Age truly began. But these would not have been the first. Apparently manmade hypogea structures and tumuli, since the 18th century considered to be prehistoric in origin, are found on the island of Corvo. The only close parallels to these structures are in the Iron Age Mediterranean; the Phoenician and Etruscan necropolises in particular, as well as the tayalots of the Balaeric islands. 

While some of the structures could be the result of erosion or natural weathering, archaeological finds, in agreement with classical authors (Strabo, Geographica) in attesting to the Phoenicians settling Gades outside the Pillars of Hercules, i.e. the straits of Gibraltar, in the 12th century BCE. A trading colony was founded near modern Lisbon at the same time, exchanging goods with the local Oestrimni. Phoenicia also had trading links with the Biblical 'land of Tarshish', conjectured by modern scolars to refer to Tartessos, who adopted the Phoenician alphabet but probably spoke a version of insular Celtic. While no direct link between the Phoenicians and the Azorean structures has been established thus far, they were clearly capable of travelling there. 

Tantalizingly, 16th century accounts from Portuguese sailors, such as Damian de Gois, claim that a cloaked equestrian statue stood on one of the hyogea, pointing an arm to the west (or northeast, or north), until it was destroyed during a storm. No sketch or exhaustive account of the statue survives, so it is impossible to say whether it could have been a relic from Phoenician or Punic occupation. The statue might have depicted Hercules, known to the Phoenicians as Melqart, to whom a temple was dedicated to in Gades, that was only rediscovered by Spanish archaeologists last week.

While any evidence has been lost, a further series of accounts from Corvo, in the 18th century, tell of a rainstorm that dredged up a hoard of supposedly Punic and Cyrenacian coins, exposing a ruined stone building. These coins were quickly distributed to various families and convents across the archipelago, but a few were recovered, sketched and published by the Swedish coin-collector Frans Podolyn. The mix of Greek and Carthagian coins, from the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, supports classical accounts of Greek sailors learning from Phoenician peripluses and sailing with Punic navigators, the best known being Pytheas of Massaila. The coins were unremarkable in  Mediterranean trade, so if the accounts can be trusted, this was not the hoard of a royal fleet. 

Perhaps they were deposited by a sailors who had been blown off course on the route to Lisbon, Galicia or the Casserterides (Tin Islands) of Britain, as an votive offering to Heracles/Melqart to return them to safety, or to thank him for revealing this undisturbed paradise. But to judge from the tumuli which seem to date to an earlier period, the Azores may have been their intended destination, retracing the the routes of their ancestors. It's important to note that the only record of Phoenician voyaging comes from third and fourth-hand Greek and Roman sources; all native records would have been burned in the destruction of Carthage or lost amidst the redevelopment of Punic towns and cities by Rome. They may well have produced whole books about the archipelago, that were never translated and languished in palace libraries until meeting a fiery end.

So did Carthage discover the Azores before the Portuguese did? In all probability, they may well have, even if the testimonies of sailors and priests in the early modern period, and the questionable archaeological evidence, should be taken with several pinches of salt. If it was within the capabilities of Irish sailors and Norsemen to travel to the archipelago, using only curraches and primitive long-ships, Punic navigators, the kind who reached equatorial Africa and traversed the coasts of Britain, could have made the journey just as easily.

Dark Age Cumbria #1: The 'Brigomaglos' inscription at Vindolanda

 

The site of Vindolanda, modern-day Birdoswald. Image Credit: Vindolanda Charitable Trust

Vindolanda is one of the best preserved and best-studied forts of the Roman frontier, with a remarkable assemblage of organic artefacts and delicate tablets preserved in waterlogged and anaerobic conditions by successive levelling and rebuilding. The history of the fort beyond the end of the 4th century is, on the other hand, as in Roman archaeological sites across Britain, hard to determine. While it is clear that the fort ended its purposes as a permanent military station by the end of the following century, it is less clear what happened to the buildings outside the fort; the vicus, where everyday trade, exchange, craftsmanship and worship took place. One inscription, however, may give some deal of insight.

On a damaged piece of tombstone found in a pile of assorted stones near the old cottage of Chesterholm, the name Brigomaglos was inscribed, together with the Latin 'Iacit' and another fragment of a Latin word, '-us', in lettering similar in style to other memorial inscriptions across Western britain. The antiquarians responsible for the discovery interpreted the name as a Brittonic, or old Welsh, form of the name Briocus. They proposed that the Brigomaglos of 5th century Vindolanda was identical to St Brioc, an early Welsh saint who was ordained by the famous statesman and bishop Germanus of Auxerre. This view continued to find support into the latter half of the 20th century, and annotated as such in volumes of Romano-British inscriptions. The missing third Latin inscription was interpreted as 'qui et Briocus', or 'also known as Briocus'.

It was only in 1982 when the name was imbued with a different meaning; that of a grandiose Celtic title, translated as 'high-chief' or 'mighty prince'. The second element, maglos, is a common element of known early Welsh kings, such as Maglocunus (Maelgwyn), a mid-6th century king of Gwynedd. The first is also found with the reputed grandson of Vortigern, Briagath. The tombstone could have therefore commemorated a man of considerable status, perhaps a regional warlord or petty king, subservient to power centres in Carlisle (Caer Ligualid) or Dumbarton Rock (Alclud). It is impossible to say, however, if this title was an Brittonic development or re-intepretation on a Roman office such as comes, magister or dux, or an entirely native development, representing continuity with pre-Roman concepts of kingship. 

If Brigomaglos was, indeed, a chieftain of the immediate post-Roman period, what was his relationship with Vindolanda? He may have used it as a base of operations, sending warbands with some resemblance to formations of limitanei or pseudocomitatenses to conduct raids on neighbouring Britons, probably on behalf of a more powerful authority. Alternatively, he may have been installed, or inherited a role, to protect a kingdom's frontiers. That Vindolanda was the seat of a chieftain is suggested by the unearthing of the foundations of a hall, constructed above an earlier complexes of granary stores. 

As noted in previous posts, pre- and post-Roman names of Celtic origin often appear high-sounding enough to fit a prince or member of an elite, but were used by people of all social classes, groups and backgrounds. Brigomaglos could have been a post-Roman warlord, in the service of the king of Rheged, Cunomarcus (Cynfarch) or the king of Strathclyde, Coroticus (Ceredig), or operating indepedent of both, but he could eqaully have been a common solider, a well-loved priest, a son of a wealthy merchant who died young or was killed, or even a Germanic mercenary brought up in a Brittonic society.

The inscription therefore provides a useful glimpse into post-Roman life, supporting the idea of a gradual transition from an interconnected Roman military and administrative frontier to an anarchic political landscape of rulers striking out at neighbours from strongholds formerly meant to guard this frontier. The 'nasty little Britons' which were once the menace of Roman soldiers recruited from across Europe became their natural heirs

Dark Age Durham #1: A Speculative Overview

 

LIDAR photograph of Maiden Castle, Durham. Credit: © Open Source Environment Agency

The evidence for human settlement in the area of Durham is for the most part, limited, save for a scattering of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic toolsets, as well as a few Bronze and Iron age artefacts. Before the invasion of Aulus Gallus (governor of Roman Britain between 52 and 57 CE) and the subsequent conquest of the Brigantian confederacy, the promontory fort of Maiden Castle stood as the local political and economic power centre. In the Romano-British period, there are only tentative signs of activity, at a farmstead in Old Durham Gardens and underneath the Cathedral's Great Kitchen. Between the withdrawal of Roman administration in the early fifth century and the advent of Bernician power in the middle of the seventh century, Durham is archaeologically blank.

However, where archaeology fails, medieval Welsh poetry may provide the answer. The Armes Pyrdain, a nationalistic hymn that urges the men and women of Wales to gather arms and rally against the Saxons, at  a time when the Great Heathen Army overran the Northumbria and Mercia, and drove Wessex to the brink of collapse, mentions Caer Weir, meaning 'stronghold on the river'. Maiden Castle may have been occupied occasionally during the early Medieval period; its proximity to Ebrauc/Eoferwic (York) and  Din Guarie (Bamburgh), two Brittonic settlements that became Anglo-Saxon royal centres, and its capacity to control traffic moving into the North Sea, would make it an ideal stronghold. On the other hand, the poem indicates that the Caer is located on an extreme point in the British Isles, which would suit a Pictish stronghold such as Caithness or Craig Phadraig, or even Orkney, rather than Durham. 

The Armes Pyrdain mentions the stronghold within the Marwand Cunedda, an elegy that mourns the death of the semi-legendary Cunedda, progenitor of the royal family of Gwynedd. Caer Weir is described as a target of Cunedda's warpath, along with Caer Lywelydd, most likely Carlisle. Sir Ifor Williams, among others, believed the elegy to date to the tenth century at the earliest, however, recent scholarship by John Koch and R.G. Gruffud has suggested that as no mention of Gwynedd, or any other place in Wales proper, is references, with Cunedda's activities confined around Roman civitates in the north and north-east of Britain, it may have originated immediately after the ruler's death, perhaps first as oral tradition and then written down a century afterwards. Cunedda's association with Gwynedd has also been argued to be a later invention, as has Taliesin's inclusion in the poem. 

If the mention of Caer Weir comes from an authentic sixth or seventh-century source, then reconciling it with the archaeological evidence is difficult. However, there was another fort along the River Weir; the Roman foundation of Concangis, which the Anglo-Saxons named Cuneceastra; modern-day Chester-le-Street. This foundation was built alongside Cade's Road, which possibly extended from the mouth of the Humber to the river Tyne. The river was navigable enough to supply a permanent garrison, and to evacuate the garrison should the need arise. Additionally, it is listed in the Notitia Dignitarum as well as the Ravenna Cosmography, indicating that the site was remembered for a substantial period of time after the withdrawal of Roman administration. 

The possibility that Caer Weir is a poetic renaming of Concangis is a plausible one. The old fortress remained relevant in the later Anglo-Saxon period as the resting place of St.Cuthbert, becoming the spiritual heart of the north-east until the foundation of Durham in 995. A well-travelled medieval listener may have made the association. Carlisle was also an equally significant monastic centre by the later seventh century, visited by St.Cuthbert. The saint's vita indicates. that Carlisle had preserved much of its Roman infrastructure, including a miraculously working fountain and intact city walls. Caer Lywelydd and Caer Weir, therefore, would have been natural locations within a poem re-told for a nationalist Welsh audience, linking the honor of their supposed progenitor with two of the most important spiritual strongholds of the north. 

To conclude, there is a case to be made that Durham was occupied during the period between Roman and Northumbrian rule, but a stronger argument can be made for Chester-Le-Street, which is supported by both the archaeological record and contemporary oral tradition. The broader picture of the area; the situation immediately before the Roman withdrawal, the rise and fall of Coel's Northern Britain, and the transition between the Britons of Bryneich and the Angles of Bernicia, is a topic which I will focus on in upcoming posts.