TheOld North (Welsh:Hen Ogledd,Welsh pronunciation:[ˌheːnˈɔɡlɛð]) is thehistorical region that was inhabited by theBrittonic people ofsub-Roman Britain in theEarly Middle Ages, nowNorthern England and the southernScottish Lowlands, alongside the fellow Brittonic CelticKingdom of Elmet, inYorkshire. Its population spoke a variety of theBrittonic language known asCumbric which is closely related to, if not a dialect of,Old Welsh. Thepeople of Wales and those of the Old North considered themselves to be one people, and both were referred to asCymry ('fellow-countrymen') from the Brittonic wordcombrogi. The Old North was distinct from the parts ofGreat Britain inhabited by thePicts,Anglo-Saxons, andScoti.
The major kingdoms of the Old North wereElmet,Gododdin,Rheged, and theKingdom of Strathclyde (Welsh:Ystrad Clud). Smaller kingdoms includedAeron andCalchfynydd.Eidyn,Lleuddiniawn, andManaw Gododdin were evidently parts of Gododdin. The laterAnglian kingdoms ofDeira andBernicia both had Brittonic-derived names, suggesting they may have been Brittonic kingdoms originally. All the kingdoms of the Old North except Strathclyde were gradually either integrated or subsumed by the emerging Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Gaelic Scots and fellow Brittonic Picts by about 800; Strathclyde was eventually incorporated into the risingMiddle Irish-speakingKingdom of Scotland in the 11th century.
The memory of the Old North remained strong in Wales after its fall, and indeed the term came into being in Wales after the destruction of the Brittonic kingdoms of the north. Welsh tradition included genealogies of theGwŷr y Gogledd, or Men of the North, and several important Welsh dynasties traced their lineage to them. A number of important early Welsh texts were attributed to the Men of the North, such asTaliesin,Aneirin,Myrddin Wyllt, and theCynfeirdd poets. Heroes of the north such asUrien,Owain mab Urien, andCoel Hen and his descendants feature in Welsh poetry and theWelsh Triads.
Almost nothing is reliably known of Central Britain beforec. 550. There had never been a period of long-term, effectiveRoman control north of theTyne–Solway line, and south of that line effective Roman control began to erode before the traditionally given date of departure of theRoman military fromRoman Britain in 407. It was noted in the writings ofAmmianus Marcellinus and others that there was ever-decreasing Roman control from about 100 onward, and in the years after 360 there was widespread disorder and the large-scale permanent abandonment of territory by the Romans.[citation needed]
By 550, the region was controlled by nativeBrittonic-speaking peoples except for the eastern coastal areas, which were controlled by the Anglian peoples ofBernicia andDeira. To the north were thePicts (now also accepted as Brittonic speakers prior to Gaelicisation) with theGaelic kingdom ofDál Riata to the northwest. All of these peoples would play a role in the history of the Old North.[citation needed]
From a historical perspective, wars were frequently internecine, and Britons were aggressors as well as defenders, as was also true of the Angles, Picts, andGaels.[citation needed] However, those Welsh stories of the Old North that tell of Britons fighting Anglians have a counterpart, told from the opposite side. The story of the demise of the kingdoms of the Old North is the story of the rise of the Kingdom ofNorthumbria from two coastal kingdoms to become the premier power in Britain north of theHumber and south of theFirth of Clyde and theFirth of Forth.
The interests of kingdoms of this era were not restricted to their immediate vicinity. Alliances were not made only within the same ethnic groups, nor were enmities restricted to nearby different ethnic groups. An alliance of Britons fought against another alliance of Britons at theBattle of Arfderydd.Áedán mac Gabráin ofDál Riata appears in theBonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd, a genealogy among the pedigrees of the Men of the North.[1] TheHistoria Brittonum states thatOswiu, king of Northumbria, married a Briton who may have had some Pictish ancestry.[2][3] A marriage between the Northumbrian and Pictish royal families would produce the Pictish kingTalorgan I. Áedán mac Gabráin fought as an ally of the Britons against the Northumbrians.Cadwallon ap Cadfan of theKingdom of Gwynedd allied withPenda of Mercia to defeatEdwin of Northumbria.
Conquest and defeat did not necessarily mean the extirpation of one culture and its replacement by another. The Brittonic region of northwestern England was absorbed by Anglian Northumbria in the 7th century, yet it would reemerge 300 years later as South Cumbria, joined with North Cumbria (Strathclyde) into a single state.
The organisation of the Men of the North wastribal,[note 1] based onkinship groups of extended families, owing allegiance to a dominant "royal" family, sometimes indirectly through client relationships, and receiving protection in return. ForCeltic peoples, this organisation was still in effect hundreds of years later, as shown in the IrishBrehon law, the WelshLaws of Hywel Dda, and theScottishLaws of the Brets and Scots. TheAnglo-Saxon law had culturally different origins, but with many similarities toCeltic law. Like Celtic law, it was based on cultural tradition, without any perceivable debt to the Roman occupation of Britain.[note 2]
A primaryroyal court (Welsh:llys) would be maintained as a "capital", but it was not the bureaucratic administrative centre of modern society, nor the settlement orcivitas of Roman rule. As the ruler and protector of his kingdom, the king would maintain multiple courts throughout his territory, travelling among them to exercise his authority and to address the needs of his people, such as in the dispensing of justice. This ancient method of dispensing justice survived as a part of royal procedure until the reforms ofHenry II (reigned 1154–1189) modernised the administration of law.
Modern scholarship uses the term "Cumbric" for the Brittonic language spoken in the Old North. It appears to have been very closely related toOld Welsh, with some local variances, and more distantly related toCornish orBreton. There are no surviving texts written in the dialect; evidence for it comes from placenames, proper names in a few earlyinscriptions and later non-Cumbric sources, two terms in theLeges inter Brettos et Scottos, and the corpus of poetry by thecynfeirdd, the "early poets", nearly all of which deals with the north.[4]
Thecynfeirdd poetry is the largest source of information, and it is generally accepted that some part of the corpus was first composed in the Old North.[4] However, it survives entirely in later manuscripts created in Wales where the oral tradition continued on, and it is unknown how faithful they are to the originals. Still, the texts do contain discernible variances that distinguish the speech from the Welsh dialects. In particular, these texts contain a number ofarchaisms – features that appear to have once been common in all Brittonic varieties, but which later vanished from Welsh and theSouthwestern Brittonic languages.[4] In general, however, the differences appear to be slight, and the distinction between Cumbric and Old Welsh is largely geographical rather than linguistic.[5]
Cumbric gradually disappeared as the area was conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, and later the Scots andNorse, though it survived in theKingdom of Strathclyde, centred at Alt Clut in what is nowDumbarton in Scotland.Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that it re-emerged inCumbria in the 10th century, as Strathclyde established hegemony over that area. It is unknown when Cumbric finally became extinct, but the series ofcounting systems of Brittonic origin recorded in Northern England since the 18th century have been proposed as evidence of a survival of elements of Cumbric;[5] though the view has been largely rejected on linguistic grounds, with evidence pointing to the fact that it was imported to England after theOld English era.[6][7]
One of the traditional stories relating to the genealogies of Welsh dynasties derived fromCunedda and his sons as "Men of the North". Cunedda himself is held to be the progenitor of the royal dynasty of the Kingdom of Gwynedd, one of the largest and most powerful of the medieval Welsh kingdoms, and an ongoing connection to the Old North. Cunedda's genealogy shows him as a descendant of one ofMagnus Maximus' generals, Paternus, who Maximus appointed as commander at Alt Clut. The Welsh and the Men of the North may have seen themselves as one people. TheWelsh name for themselves,Cymry, derives from this ancient relationship, although this is debatable, as while Gwynedd seemed to have good relationships with them, and with Ceredigion, it is unknown how the other Welsh Kingdoms saw them, since they were not unified themselves, especially the southern Kingdoms likeDyfed andYstrad Tywi, which had heavy Irish presence at the time. 'Cymry' was a term that referred to both the Welsh and the Men of the North but was sometimes applied to others such as the Picts and the Irish as well.[8][9][10] It is derived from the Brittonic word combrogoi, which meant "fellow-countrymen", and it is worth noting in passing that itsBreton counterpartkenvroiz still has this original meaning of "compatriots". The word began to be used as an endonym by the Men of the North during the early 7th century (and possibly earlier),[11] and was used throughout theMiddle Ages to describe theKingdom of Strathclyde. Before this, and for some centuries after, the traditional as well as the more literary term wasBrythoniaid, recalling the still older time when all on the island remained a unity.Cymry survives today in the native name for Wales (Cymru, land of theCymry), and in the English county nameCumbria, both meaning "homeland", "mother country".
Many of the traditional sources of information about the Old North survive in Welsh tradition, and bards such asAneirin (the reputed author ofY Gododdin) are thought to have been court poets in the Old North.
A listing of passages from the literary and historical sources, particularly relevant to the Old North, can be found in SirEdward Anwyl's articleWales and the Britons of the North.[12] A somewhat dated introduction to the study of old Welsh poetry can be found in his 1904 articleProlegomena to the Study of Old Welsh Poetry.[13]
Stories praising a patron and the construction of flattering genealogies are neither unbiased nor reliable sources of historically accurate information. However, while they may exaggerate and make apocryphal assertions, they do not falsify or change the historical facts that were known to the bards' listeners, as that would bring ridicule and disrepute to both the bards and their patrons. In addition, the existence of stories of defeat andtragedy, as well as stories of victory, lends additional credibility to their value as sources of history. Within that context, the stories contain useful information, much of it incidental, about an era of British history where very little is reliably known.
These sources are not without deficiencies. Both the authors and their later transcribers sometimes displayed a partisanship that promoted their own interests, portraying their own agendas in a positive light, always on the side of justice and moral rectitude. Facts in opposition to those agendas are sometimes omitted, and apocryphal entries are sometimes added.
While Bede was a Northumbrian partisan and spoke with prejudice against the native Britons, hisEcclesiastical History of the English People is highly regarded for its effort towards an accurate telling of history, and for its use of reliable sources. When passing along "traditional" information that lacks a historical foundation, Bede takes care to note it as such.[16]
TheDe Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae byGildas (c. 516–570) is occasionally relevant in that it mentions early people and places also mentioned in the literary and historical sources. The work was intended to preach Christianity to Gildas' contemporaries and was not meant to be a history. It is one of the few contemporary accounts of his era to have survived.
Brittonic place names in Scotland south of the Forth and Clyde, and in Cumberland and neighbouring counties, indicate areas of Old North inhabited by Britons in the early Middle Ages.
Isolated locations of later British presence are also indicated by place names ofOld English andOld Norse origin. In Yorkshire, the names ofWalden,Walton andWalburn, from Old Englishwalas "Britons or Welshmen", indicate Britons encountered by the Anglo-Saxons, and the name ofBirkby, from Old NorseBreta "Britons", indicates a place where the Vikings met Britons.[17]
TheHistoria Regum Britanniae ofGeoffrey of Monmouth is disparaged aspseudohistory, though it looms large as a source for the largely fictionalchivalric romance stories known collectively as theMatter of Britain. The lack of historical value attributed to theHistoria lies only partly in the fact that it contains so many fictions and falsifications of history;[note 3] the fact that historical accuracy clearly was not a consideration in its creation makes any references to actual people and places no more than a literary convenience.
TheIolo Manuscripts are a collection of manuscripts presented in the early 19th century by Edward Williams, who is better known asIolo Morganwg. Containing various tales, anecdotal material and elaborate genealogies that connect virtually everyone of note with everyone else of note (and with many connections toArthur and Iolo's native region ofMorgannwg), they were at first accepted as genuine, but have since been shown to be an assortment of forged or doctored manuscripts, transcriptions, and fantasies, mainly invented by Iolo himself. A list of works tainted by their reliance on the material presented by Iolo (sometimes without attribution) would be quite long.
Places in the Old North that are mentioned as kingdoms in the literary and historical sources include:
Several regions are mentioned in the sources, assumed to be notable regions within one of the kingdoms if not separate kingdoms themselves:
Kingdoms that were not part of the Old North but are part of its history include:
The following names appear in historical and literary sources, but it is unknown whether or not they refer to British kingdoms and regions of the Old North.