Dumnonia

For the Brythonic colony of the same name in Brittany see Domnonée

Dumnonia was a Brythonic kingdom of sub-Roman Britain, located in the south-west peninsula of modern England and covering Devon, most of Somerset and possibly part of Dorset, its eastern boundary being uncertain. Cornwall may or may not have been part of Dumnonia.^[1] Following Sub-Roman emigration from southwestern Britain to northern Brittany, a sister kingdom also called Domnonia was established on the continental north atlantic coast which apparently shared close ties and possibly political leadership with its insular counterpart [ see Domnonée and Armorica ].

Name

The kingdom is named for the Dumnonii, a Celtic tribe living in the area when the Romans arrived in Britain. It is unclear whether it was a single united kingdom or simply a series of sub-kingdoms. Certainly the kingdom of Cornwall appears to have been at least semi-independent at times, possibly because it was based on the territory of a sub-tribe, the Cornovii.

Dumnonia is the Latin form of the name. Variants include Damnonia and Domnonia. It was known to the English of neighbouring Wessex as the kingdom of West Wales. In Welsh, and similarly in the native Brythonic language, it was Dyfneint and this is the form which survives today in the name of the county of Devon (Modern Welsh: Dyfnaint, Cornish: Dewnans).

Character

Dumnonia is as noteworthy for its many settlements which have survived from Romano-British times as for the complete lack of the villa-system; instead the isolated enclosed farmsteads locally called rounds survived the Roman evacuation, to be replaced in the sixth to seventh centuries by the unenclosed farms that later took the toponymic tre-.^[2] As in other Brythonic areas, Iron Age hillforts, such as Cadbury Castle, were refortified for the use of lords or kings. Other high-status settlements like Tintagel were built anew. Post-Roman imported pottery has been excavated from many sites across the region; a surge in late fifth-century Mediterranean imports has not been explained.^[3]

The people of Dumnonia would have spoken a Brythonic dialect similar to the ancestor of modern Cornish and Breton. Irish immigrants, the Déisi,^[4] are evidenced by the Ogham-inscribed stones^[5] they have left behind, confirmed and supplemented by place-name studies.

Christianity

Christianity also seems to have survived in Dumnonia from the Romano-British era, with a number of late Roman Christian cemeteries extending into the sub-Roman period. Parish organisation was a later development of fully Normanised times.^[6] The religion was boosted by evangelists from Ireland, like Saint Piran, and Wales, like Saint Petroc or Saint Keyne. There were important monasteries at Bodmin and Glastonbury; and also Exeter where 5th century burials discovered near the cathedral probably represent the cemetery of the foundation attended by St. Boniface (although whether this was Anglo-Saxon or Brythonic is somewhat controversial).

Kings of Dumnonia

There are disconnected records of several apparent kings of Dumnonia; several of these appear in a pedigree of the monarchs recorded in Old Welsh sources, which may be reconstructed thus:

Cynfawr – whose name occurs on the famous Drustanus stone near Fowey in Cornwall.
Custennyn Gorneu – supposed grandfather of Arthur (see below)
Erbin – father of Geraint (see below)
Geraint – probably the leader at the Battle of Llongborth
Cado – who appears in the Life of St Carannog

Traditionally, Cado’s son was Constantine of Dumnonia, the man reproached by the contemporary writer, Gildas, in the early 6th century. He may be the same as St. Constantine of Cornwall. A later King Geraint appears in the Life of St Teilo and may be the same man mentioned in the poem Y Gododdin at the Battle of Catraeth (Catterick) around 600. A third King Geraint corresponded with Saint Aldhelm and fought King Ine of Wessex in 710.

Arthurian connection

The renowned King Arthur is often said to have been a member of the royal house of Dumnonia, his traditional grandfather, Constantine, being identified with Custennyn Gorneu above. Erbin and his son, Geraint, appear in the Arthurian tale of Geraint and Enid as ruling "on the far side of Severn" (from Caerleon). Gildas’ Constantine of Dumnonia appears in Arthurian legend as the great king’s successor, Constantine III of Britain.

It is claimed by some that Arthur's great victory at the Battle of Mount Badon, took place in Devon where the Brythonic Dumnonians fought off Anglo-Saxons. Most historians, however, believe this battle was fought elsewhere, near Bath for example. His final Battle of Camlann, is also said to have been fought at Slaughter Bridge near Camelford.

Territorial reduction

Conflict between Dumnonia and the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex began to increase in the 7th century. By 658, it lost the part of Somerset east and north of the River Parrett and the rest of the modern county fell in 710. Devon was overrun by the end of the century. The medieval Breton toponyms of Domnonée and Cornouaille/Kernev probably reflect emigration from Cornwall and Devon during this period.

William of Malmesbury (Gesta regum Anglorum) reported that Brythons were living alongside Saxon people as equals in Exeter during the 10th century, but that King Athelstan sharply attacked the Cornish in Exeter, drove them from the city over the River Tamar, fixing that as the eastern boundary of their territory, in 927. The boundary remains the modern one; however a part of Exeter retained the title 'Little Britain' until the 18th century. The Brythons of the far west survived with at least some degree of independence as the Kingdom of Cornwall.

References

^ Susan M. Pearce, The Kingdom of Dumnonia: Studies in History and Tradition in South-Western Britain A.D. 350-1150 (Padstow, Cornwall) 1978. A guide to the archaeology and written sources.
^ Pearce 1978; the Historical Atlas of South-West England, Roger Kain and William Ravenhill, eds. (Exeter) 1999, provides detailed information.
^ Charles Thomas, reviewing Pearce 1978 in Britannia 12 (1981:417).
^ Charles Thomas, And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? Post-Roman Inscriptions in Western Britain (Cardiff: University of Wales Press) 1994.
^ The stones are sometimes inscribed in Latin, sometimes in both. (Thomas 1994).
^ Pearce 1978, ch. 3 "The Establishment of the Church".

Christopher A. Snyder (2003), The Britons