Kingdom of Rheged | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| c.500–c. 600 | |||||||||||
 Yr Hen Ogledd (The Old North) c.500 | |||||||||||
| Capital | Carlisle | ||||||||||
| Common languages | |||||||||||
| Religion | Celtic Christianity | ||||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||
• | Meirchion Gul | ||||||||||
• | Cynfarch Oer | ||||||||||
• | Urien | ||||||||||
• | Owain mab Urien | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | United Kingdom | ||||||||||
Rheged (Welsh pronunciation:[ˈr̥ɛɡɛd]) was one of the kingdoms of theHen Ogledd ('Old North'), theBrittonic-speaking region of what is nowNorthern England and southernScotland, during thepost-Roman era andEarly Middle Ages. It is recorded in several poetic andbardic sources, although its borders are not described in any of them. Archaeological work from 2012 onwards on a site inGalloway inScotland is interpreted by the excavators as showing that it is a royal centre of Rheged. Rheged possibly extended intoLancashire and other parts of northern England. In some sources, Rheged is intimately associated with the kingUrien Rheged and his family.[1] Its inhabitants spokeCumbric, a Brittonic dialect closely related toOld Welsh.[2]
The origin of the nameRheged has been described as "problematic". OneBrittonic-language solution is that the name may be a compound ofrö-, a prefix meaning "great", andcę:d meaning "wood, forest" (cf.Welshcoed) although the expected form in Welsh would be*Rhygoed. If association of the name withcę:d is correct, the prefix may berag-, meaning "before, adjacent to, opposite". Derivation from the elementreg, which with the suffix-ed has connotations of "generosity", is another possibility.[3]
The name Rheged appears regularly as anepithet ofUrien (a late 6th-century king of Rheged) in a number of early Welsh poems and royal genealogies. His victories over theAnglian chieftains ofBernicia in the second half of the 6th century are recorded byNennius and celebrated by the bardTaliesin, who calls him "Ruler of Rheged". He is thus placed squarely in the North of Britain and perhaps specifically inWestmorland when referred to as "Ruler of Llwyfenydd" (identified with theLyvennet Valley).[4] Later legend associates Urien with the city ofCarlisle (theRomanLuguvalium), only twenty-five miles away; Higham suggests that Rheged was "broadly conterminous with the earlierCivitas Carvetiorum, the Roman administrative unit based on Carlisle". Although it is possible that Rheged was merely a stronghold, it was not uncommon for sub-Roman monarchs to use their kingdom's name as an epithet.
Place-name evidence, e.g.,Dunragit (possibly "Fort of Rheged")α suggests that, at least in one period of its history, Rheged includedDumfries and Galloway. Recent archaeological excavations atTrusty's Hill, avitrified fort nearGatehouse of Fleet, and the analysis of its artefacts in the context of other sites and their artefacts have led to claims that the kingdom was centred on Galloway early in the 7th century.[5][6]
Interpretations of another place-name, with even less certainty, indicate that Rheged could also have reached as far south asRochdale inGreater Manchester, recorded in theDomesday Book asRecedham. TheRiver Roch on which Rochdale stands was recorded in the 13th century asRached orRachet.[7] Such names may derive from Old Englishreced "hall or house".[8] However, no other place names originating from this Old English element exist, which makes this derivation unlikely.[9] If they are not of English origin, these place-names may incorporate the element 'Rheged' precisely because they lay on or near its borders. Certainly Urien's kingdom stretched eastward at one time, as he was also "Ruler ofCatraeth" (Catterick inNorth Yorkshire).
It is accepted by most scholars, therefore, that Rheged was a kingdom covering a large part of modernCumbria as well as areas of Dumfries and Galloway and extended, for some of its history, into present day Yorkshire.[10]
The traditional royal genealogy of Urien and his successors traces their ancestry back toCoel Hen (considered by some to be the origins of the OldKing Cole of folk tradition),[11][12] who is considered by many to be a mythical figure; if he has some historicity, he may have ruled a considerable part of the North in the early 5th century. All of those listed below may have ruled in Rheged, but only three of their number can be verified from external sources:
There are two possible later kings of Rheged:
A second royal genealogy exists for a line, perhaps of kings, descended from Cynfarch Oer's brother: Elidir Lydanwyn. According toBonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd Elidir's son,Llywarch Hen, was a ruler in North Britain in the 6th century.[15] He was driven from his territory by princely in-fighting after Urien's death and was perhaps in old age associated withPowys. However, it is possible, because of internal inconsistencies, that the poetry connected toPowys was associated with Llywarch's name at a later, probably 9th century, date.[16] Llywarch is referred to in some poems as king of South Rheged, and in others as king of Argoed, suggesting that the two regions were the same. Searching for Llywarch's kingdom has led some historians to propose that Rheged may have been divided between sons, resulting in northern and southern successor states. The connections of the family of Llywarch and Urien with Powys has suggested to some, on grounds of proximity, that the area of modernLancashire may have been their original home.[17]
After Bernicia united withDeira to become the kingdom ofNorthumbria, Rheged was annexed by Northumbria, some time before AD 730. There was a royal marriage between Prince (later King)Oswiu of Northumbria and the Rhegedian princessRieinmelth, granddaughter of Rum (Rhun), probably in 638, so it is possible that it was a peaceful takeover, both kingdoms being inherited by the same man.[18][19]
After Rheged was incorporated intoNorthumbria, the oldCumbric language was gradually replaced byOld English, Cumbric surviving only in remote upland communities. Around the year 900, after the power of Northumbria was destroyed by Viking incursions and settlement, large areas west of thePennines fell without apparent warfare under the control of the BrittonicKingdom of Strathclyde, withLeeds recorded as being on the border between the Britons and the Norse Kingdom ofYork. This may have represented the political assertion of lingering Brittonic culture in the region.[20] The area ofCumbria remained under the control of Strathclyde until the early 11th century when Strathclyde itself was absorbed into the Scottish kingdom. The name of the people, whose modern Welsh form isCymry has, however, survived in the name ofCumberland and nowCumbria; it probably derives from an old Celtic word *Kombroges meaning "fellow countrymen".
In 2012 archaeologists found evidence atTrusty's Hill near the town ofGatehouse of Fleet, in Galloway, southwest Scotland, which they interpreted as suggesting that the site may have been a royal centre of Rheged's capitalc. 600 AD. One of the lead researchers, Ronan Toolis, stated that their findings revealed structural ruins atop the hill. These originally belonged to a fortification system with a timber-reinforced stone rampart where the main fortification was supplemented by smaller defensive works along the low-lying slopes. According to Toolis, this suggests the presence of a royal stronghold of the period.[5][21] The historianRoger Collins is sceptical, arguing that the evidence does not fit [the excavators'] favoured interpretation of the site as a royal centre".[22]
According to theUniversity of Oxford'sPeople of the British Isles project, the original population of Rheged has left a distinct genetic heritage amongst the people of Cumbria. The research compared theDNA of over 2000 people across the British Isles whose grandparents were all born within 50 miles (80 km) of each other, and found a number of cases, including Rheged, where genetic clusters of people matched the location of historical kingdoms (other examples includedBernicia andElmet).[23]
Several of the other genetic clusters show similar locations to the tribal groupings and kingdoms around at the time of the Saxon invasion (from the 5th century), suggesting that these tribes and kingdoms may have maintained a regional identity for many centuries. For example the Cumbrian cluster corresponds well to the kingdom of Rheged, West Yorkshire to the Elmet and Northumbria to the Bernicia. The existence of these largely quite well separated clusters suggests a remarkable stability of the British people over quite long periods of time.
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