10
Athelstan is one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings who is probably better known in Cornwall than he is elsewhere in Britain. That is largely due to the work of William of Malmesbury, whose Gesta Regnum provides the following anecdote about his rule:
Departing thence, he turned towards the Western Britons, who are called the Cornwallish, because, situated in the west of Britain, they are opposite to the extremity of Gaul. Fiercely attacking, he obliged them to retreat from Exeter, which, till that time, they had inhabited with equal privileges with the Angles, fixing the boundary of their province on the other side of the river Tamar, as he had appointed the river Wye to the North Britons. This city then, which he had cleansed by purging it of its contaminated race, he fortified with towers and surrounded with a wall of squared stone. And, though the barren and unfruitful soil can scarcely produce indifferent oats, and frequently only the empty husk without the grain, yet, owing to the magnificence of the city, the opulence of its inhabitants, and the constant resort of strangers, every kind of merchandise is there so abundant that nothing is wanting which can conduce to human comfort. Many noble traces of him are to be seen in that city, as well as in the neighbouring district, which will be better described by the conversation of the natives, than by my narrative.
This is a fine and fiery narrative which has spun many folk tales in its wake. Interestingly, this is a story which is often recited in modern Cornish histories or folk tales, sometimes used as an example of a sort of English ethnic cleansing (an image William’s rhetoric does, in fairness, invoke) against the natives. Whereas we have seen many English sources, both contemporary and modern, exaggerate events in the south-west to their own favour, this is an interesting example of the reverse: English actions being exaggerated to fit a desired Cornish narrative. In some versions Athelstan marches from Exeter throughout Cornwall and conquers the Isles of Scilly beyond [Alexander, 1916]. However, it is also a story with very little basis in fact or sources other than William’s writing. In fact, it runs counter to the image of Athelstan most sources paint.
It certainly is true that Athelstan was a successful warrior-king much like his father and grandfather before him. However, he was also one of the most active kings, diplomatically speaking, that Wessex and indeed England would ever see. It was this diplomatic flair that would see him able to claim the title Rex Totius Britanniae, the King of All Britain – a title that so many others may have aspired to but, all relying purely on the sword, none had been able to achieve.
In many ways Athelstan is similar to his great-grandfather, Ecgberht, particularly in the fact that both had a less than promising start to their rule. While Ecgberht was exiled by the designs of Offa of Mercia, Athelstan instead found himself hounded by accusations that his birth was illegitimate. Certainly his father seems to have inherited a somewhat active interest in the opposite sex, taking three wives over the course of his reign (usually not waiting until the previous one was dead but instead ‘setting them aside’) and fathering many children.
Within Wessex, Athelstan never seems to be popular during his youth, likely due to the machinations of his stepmother, and Edward’s second wife, Aefflaed and her family. She, perhaps understandably, acts from a desire to see her children inherit the throne. Instead, Athelstan spent his youth in Mercia in the court of his aunt, Athelflaed, and it is probably here that he learned many of the skills that made him such an effective king. As we have noted previously, Aethelflaed, although not impacting much on Cornwall during her life, was a powerful political player, able to assert her rule over Mercia at a time when a woman wielding such power was practically unheard of.
More than that, she was able to put her daughter in a position to succeed her, which is a remarkable achievement even if it was immediately undermined by her brother.
It is Athelflaed who tends to Alfred’s alliances in southern Wales and lays the groundwork for Edward to later build on with powerful figures like Hywel Dda. In fact, it is possible that the Mercian court, placed on the Welsh border as it was, would have had more Brythonic faces in it than Winchester. This potentially left Athelstan with a desire to bring together the Welsh kingdoms with the English rather than attempt conquest. Certainly this seems to be an undertaking he puts considerable time and effort towards, as we shall see.
When Edward eventually died in 924, Athelstan was immediately proclaimed king by the Mercians, most likely due to his long association with that territory as well as the memory of his aunt. However, the Witan of Wessex instead proclaimed his half-brother Aelfweard king. This set the stage for a potentially destructive civil conflict raging in the east. However, Aelfweard died a few weeks later and Athelstan assumed the kingship of both realms.
According to William of Malmesbury, opposition to Athelstan continued to ferment in Wessex, particularly around Winchester, where an otherwise unremarkable nobleman called Alfred apparently plotted to blind Athelstan. While this story may seem far-fetched on the face of it, it’s actually attested in a pair of charters which note forfeiture of land by Alfred for conspiracy and include the plot to blind Athelstan. The tale also speaks to an underlying tension between Athelstan and Winchester as the majority of Athelstan’s charters in the early years of his reign are undertaken without the Archbishop of Winchester present.
Despite these early trials, Athelstan enters his reign as a king who prefers to use diplomacy rather than the sword where possible. In 925 the Chronicle records not just his ascent to the throne of Wessex, but also the following exchange with the Viking king of Northumbria:
925. This year king Edward died, and Athelstan his son succeeded to the kingdom. And St. Dunstan was born and Wulfhelm succeeded to the archbishopric of Canterbury. This year king Athelstan and Sihtric king of the Northhumbrians came together at Tamworth, on the 3d before the Kalends of February; and Athelstan gave him his sister.
Interestingly, a different version of the Chronicle records the following the year before:
924. This year king Edward died among the Mercians at Farndon; and very shortly, about sixteen days after this, Aelflward his son died at Oxford; and their bodies lie at Winchester. And Athelstan was chosen king by the Mercians, and consecrated at Kingston. And he gave his sister to Ofsæ [Otho], son of the king of the Old-Saxons.
Both of these entries, although recording the same starting event, Edward’s death, give very different impressions of Athelstan’s next move. Of course, it is extremely notable that in both versions he gives a sister in marriage to a powerful figure.
Athelstan well understood the value of royal marriages outside of one’s own kingdom and his early rule saw a wave of marriages described by Sheila Sharp [1997] as ‘a flurry of dynastic bridal activity unequalled again until Queen Victoria’s time’. He was particularly keen to establish relations with the Franks, marrying off sisters to the leaders of both Eastern and Western Frankia. Athelstan seems to have viewed the Carolingians as a model to be emulated, even as their dynasty dissolved into splintered factions on the Continent. He was, for example, the first West Saxon king to wear a crown for his coronation, and to be depicted crowned on coinage. Prior to this it was more customary to wear a helmet to display one’s role as the defender of the people.
It is interesting, given this wider context and the importance Athelstan clearly placed on his sisters and female relations as dynastic tools, that he would choose to marry one of them to Sihtric, the Viking king of Northumbria. By the beginning of the tenth century, Northumbria stood almost completely alone, sandwiched between the growing power of the rapidly uniting English in the south and an equally emergent Scotland in the north.
It must have seemed obvious to most observers that an independent Northumbria could not long survive in the face of these two expanding powers, and indeed could do little to resist either one without the aid of the other.
As such we might expect Athelstan simply to invade Northumbria; indeed, it seems likely that this is what his father was planning on doing and would have done had he not died at that time. The fact that he instead tries the diplomatic approach speaks to a desire for avoiding conflict if at all possible. It again paints the picture of a king who is happy to achieve rule with the pen rather than the sword; or in this case, by attempting to tie his potential enemies to him so that they can be brought onside. It is difficult to imagine this Athelstan, one willing to marry his own sisters off to foreign kings to ensure peace and friendship, as the sword-wielding nemesis of the Britons that William’s tale paints.
However, this tendency for diplomacy, and a willingness to rule through compromise, is a frequent feature of Athelstan’s reign. It is likely rooted in the deep Christian faith he professed throughout his life. Like his grandfather, Alfred, Athelstan seems to view the Church both in its role as a political tool but also from a position of genuine belief in its message.
Incidentally, this is probably why the vision of Athelstan presented in the Chronicle and other sources is so positive. Unlike Edward, who we have much fewer sources for and who does not seem to have shared his relation’s obsession with the godly, Athelstan was an active patron of the Church and sought to bring together learned clerics from across Britain and the Continent at his court. This means the people writing the history, overwhelmingly the clergy, looked upon him favourably in their records.
This actually goes some way towards explaining William of Malmesbury’s consistently fawning coverage of Athelstan’s reign, and potentially the root of his exaggerations in the case of Exeter’s ‘cleansing’. The abbey that William attended as a monk, Malmesbury Abbey, was the benefactor of significant grants by Athelstan. Over the course of five charters (S415,S454,S434-436) Athelstan bestows over 160 hides of land on the abbey. This would have been a huge amount of wealth, each hide being sufficient to support a family at the absolute minimum (the actual relation of a hide to a level of wealth is often a confusing and inconsistent subject in Anglo-Saxon Britain).
Interestingly, one of the charters (S415) is one of those including lands forfeited by the plotting Alfred, and contains a summary of the plot. This is most likely where William found the story for inclusion in his chronicle. This does suggest, despite his occasional exaggerations, that he was at least working from first-hand sources in some instances. This is interesting for our purposes, because according to William he had gathered the stories of Athelstan’s actions in Exeter by visiting the city itself and speaking to the inhabitants there. Given that we have a likely first-hand source for at least one of his tales, it is perhaps worth accepting the possibility that he did just that.
Viewed in this light, the tale takes on a different quality, for while it may not be accurate, indeed it seems very unlikely to be so, it may instead represent an undertone of resentment or distrust present in medieval Exeter towards the Cornish. Certainly it is not difficult today to imagine bitter words shared between inhabitants of Devon and Cornwall, but perhaps this has a more serious cultural basis.
If we consider again the slavery riddles in the Exeter Book, and their likely relations to the Cornish, as well as the events of Gafulford, it may well be that what William is recording here is the result of generations of ‘otherness’ and distrust between the two sides, intermittently fuelled by armed conflict – though most of this has been gone for centuries by the time of William’s writing.
Again, we are given a glimpse into the emergence of Cornwall as it is today; of the feeling that it is both part of a (by now) united English state but also entirely foreign and removed from it.
Stepping away from William and the Church for a moment, there is another aspect of Athelstan’s foreign relations that bears looking at. He was an active foster parent for a number of royal scions from across north-west Europe, hosting in his court the princes of Western Francia (also his nephew), Scotland, Norway and Brittany.
His relation with Alan ‘Crooked Beard’ of Brittany is particularly interesting for our purposes. The Bretons had managed to win their independence as a separate kingdom from the Franks in the middle of the ninth century. However, a period of political unrest was eventually followed by a large-scale invasion and occupation by Norsemen.
As the Chronicle of Nantes records:
Among the nobles who fled for fear for the Danes, Mathuedoi, the count of Poher, put to sea with a great multitude of Bretons, and went to Æthelstan, king of the English, taking with him his son, called Alan, who was afterwards surnamed ‘Crooked Beard’. He had had this Alan by the daughter of Alan the Great, duke of the Bretons, and the same Æthelstan, king of England, had lifted him from the holy font. This king had great trust in him because of this friendship and the alliance of this baptism.
Athelstan taking the role of Alan’s godfather was a more serious undertaking in the Early Medieval world than it would be today. It was something more akin to a foster father, and certainly Athelstan seems to have taken a significant role in raising Alan.
The Breton state was young and a fairly minor player in European affairs when compared to, for example, the kingdom of West Frankia or Norway where Athelstan’s other foster sons came from. Given this, it may seem unusual that Athelstan would take such an interest in its affairs. Yet this is exactly what he did, not only helping to raise young Alan but also giving him ships, men and supplies to help retake his kingdom as laid out by the Chronicle of Nantes once again:
The city of Nantes remained for many years deserted, devastated and overgrown with briars and thorns, until Alan Crooked Beard, grandson of Alan the Great, arose and cast out those Norsemen from the whole region of Brittany and from the river Loire, which was a great support for them. This Alan was brought up from infancy with Athelstan, king of the Anglo-Saxons, and was strong in body and very courageous, and did not care to kill wild boars and bears in the forest with an iron weapon, but with a wooden staff. He collected a few ships and came by the king’s permission with those Bretons who were still living there, to revisit Brittany.
For Athelstan to have taken such measures suggests he saw the Bretons and their kingdom to have an importance that their size and political weight would not necessarily merit. Given his drive to become the King of All Britain, it is possible that he believed Brittany to be a potential extension of this realm, one he could hold influence over via his close relationship with its ruling family.
This would fit into his wider work to bring the Welsh kingdoms into closer alignment with the English state, particularly working with Hywel Dda but also the rulers of several smaller Welsh kingdoms who were present at his Winchester court and witnessed several charters, such as S400 and S436. Athelstan, as already noted, was also keen to bring together churchmen from around the British Isles as part of making his court and kingdom a centre of Christian learning.
When all of this is taken together it shows a determination from Athelstan to forge, not just an English kingdom, but a Kingdom of All Britain; an ambition that would probably have seemed impossible even to his grandfather. The fact that he (perhaps) saw Brittany as part of this sphere of influence speaks to both the longstanding ties that remained in place between south-west Britain and the Bretons but also Athelstan’s awareness of them.
The crowning achievement of this approach would be seen a year after he had sent his sister north to marry Sihtric, at a small town in the north of the newly minted England. As the Chronicle records:
926. This year fiery lights appeared in the north part of the heavens. And Sihtric perished: and king Athelstan obtained the kingdom of the North-humbrians. And he ruled all the kings who were in this island: first, Howel king of the West-Welsh; and Constantine king of the Scots; and Owen king of the Monmouth people; and Aldred, son of Ealdulf, of Bambrough: and they confirmed the peace by pledge, and by oaths, at the place which is called Eamot, on the 4th before the Ides of July; and they renounced all idolatry, and after that submitted to him in peace.
It should be pointed out that, following Sihtric’s death, Athelstan shows the pragmatic streak which also helped make him such an effective ruler. He doesn’t use any further diplomatic overtures to find a new Norse king of Northumbria but simply moves in to fill the power vacuum himself (most likely using his sister’s role as queen to give it some justification).
However, the greater achievement here, after all Northumbria’s independence was doomed long before Athelstan actually moved in, is the oaths of fealty being paid to Athelstan by the assembled kings of Britain. While both his father and grandfather had worked with, and accepted fealty from, rulers of small Briton states, no one had attempted something so grand as to pull together all the disparate powers in Britain into a single confederation of kingdoms. It’s possible that, given the disdain that early English laws, such as those of King Ine, held the native Britons in, no one had actually considered accepting fealty in this way.
For our purposes it is interesting to note that Howel, usually identified as Hywel Dda of Wales, is identified as King of West-Wales. As we have seen earlier in this work, West Wales and the West Welsh usually refers to Cornwall and the Cornish, and its usage here is unusual.
Certainly there is a strong case to be made for this figure to be Hywel Dda. As we have already mentioned, he is a longstanding ally of Wessex and as such his presence would be expected at an event as momentous as Eadmont Bridge. Equally, his footing as first among the kings to be mentioned reflects the reality also seen in the charters he witnesses, where his name is usually the first of the ‘Sub Reguli’ or sub-kings to appear.
That being said, the usage of West Welsh, an already established phrase with a history that would be known to the Chronicle scribes, seems unusual. It has been argued that it is due to Hywel’s kingdom, Dheubarth, being on the western edge of Wales. However, that argument seems slightly unusual, especially given the established power dynamic in Wales at the time. While Hywel will, after Eamont Bridge, eventually come to control all of Wales, he was, at the time, only in control of most of the southern portion of modern Wales. The northern portion, Gwynedd, was ruled by his cousin Idwal, who also supported Athelstan and appeared at his court numerous times.
Therefore it seems likely that the more obvious geographic distinction would be northern or southern Wales, and certainly William of Malmesbury talks a great deal about how Athelstan receiving tribute from Gwynedd represents a powerful feat all on its own:
He compelled the rulers of the northern Welsh, that is, of the North Britons, to meet him at the city of Hereford, and after some opposition to surrender to his power. So that he actually brought to pass what no king before him had even presumed to think of: which was, that they should pay annually by way of tribute, twenty pounds of gold, three hundred of silver, twenty-five thousand oxen, besides as many dogs as he might choose, which from their sagacious scent could discover the retreats and hiding places of wild beasts; and birds, trained to make prey of others in the air.
Again, William is clearly exaggerating for effect here. It’s also not immediately clear whether he means Gwynedd or Strathclyde; however, given the location (Hereford), the former seems more likely. We know that Idwal seems to attend Athelstan’s court from around this time, witnessing his first charter in 926, so certainly it seems likely this may be the incident to which William is referring. This passage is in the same part of the text as his descriptions of the Cornish being driven from Exeter, so we should treat the military aggrandisement here with the same scepticism; however, the importance William placed on this event does tell us something significant.
From the time of Gildas through much of the Early Medieval period, Gwynedd was frequently the most powerful of the Briton kingdoms and often asserted its power over both its neighbours and the Saxon kingdoms. So Idwal’s cooperation with Athelstan would have been a major diplomatic coup indeed.
Eventually their relationship will sour, but the underlying reason appears to be the ambitions of Hywel Dda, not Athelstan himself. In the 940s Idwal will rebel against Athelstan because he fears Hywel is seeking to usurp him. After the war is lost and Idwal is killed, Hywel proceeds to do exactly that, disinheriting Idwal’s sons and taking the crown for himself.
However, if we return to the events of Earmont Bridge, the lack of mention of Idwal seems extremely odd. Of course, the Chronicles were compiled and copied numerous times, so it is possible that Idwal suffered from some choice editing either within the reign of Hywel or even just beyond, but given William’s overzealous recounting of Gwynedd’s capitulation it’s clear that the kingdom’s power still echoed in the cultural memory and, as such, we would expect a record of its surrender to be included for posterity.
As such, the exclusion of Idwal, and the use of West Welsh for Howel, leaves many questions hanging over the Chronicle’s account of Eadmont Bridge. A number of possible explanations, including Howel simply referring to Hywel Dda as is currently believed, can be proposed when looking at these questions.
The first is that the entry in the Chronicle is an incomplete list. The actual meeting at Eadmont Bridge could have been attended by a larger number of kings than is listed (the kings of all Britain, as William writes) and this list was cut down over time. This potentially explains Idwal’s exclusion and could explain the use of West Welsh if a Cornish king was also in attendance (potentially even another named Howel) and his suffix was appended to another name.
This isn’t as hopeless as it may appear. The meeting at Eadmont is, after all, only fifty years from 875 and Dungarth/Doniert’s unfortunate swimming accident. It is entirely possible that the family who raised the stone to his memory could still have been in power in Cornwall.
Which brings us to the other possible scenario: it could well be that the Chronicle entry refers to exactly who it says it refers to – that is, a Howel of West Wales or Cornwall. While we might expect Hywel Dda to be at such an event based on his longstanding relationship with the ruling house of Wessex, it could also be that he isn’t there for exactly that reason. He has already given his fealty to Athelstan and as such it is not necessary for him to do so again. Meanwhile, the other major rulers who are listed at Eadmont – the kings of Scotland and Strathclyde and the Lord of Bamburgh – are all new vassals to Athelstan whose allegiance hadn’t previously been secured.
Would a potential King of Kernow fit this mould? Well, as we have seen, the fighting between Wessex and Cornwall ends in a sort of uneasy allegiance. The Cornish are at once subject to Wessex and yet removed from it. The wars with the Danes in the years since had also left little opportunity for Wessex to assert its control over much more than the very north-eastern corner of the country.
Fealty is also never set in stone in the Early Medieval world. A close parallel may be seen in the Breton experience, where Erispoe and his predecessors consistently rebelled against then rejoined the kingdom of West Frankia, until he and his son eventually secured their independence at the battle of Jengland.
Indeed, we have very little evidence, until Athelstan’s reign, of the Cornish becoming particularly more English; unlike their former relations across the Tamar in Devon, who adopt the English language and Saxon patterns of organisation and landholding.
This suggests that, while there can be no doubt that Kernow no longer posed an imminent threat to the stability or power of the emerging English state, it was still not fully integrated into it. Indeed, there may have been no formal agreement over exactly how much control or tribute was to be awarded by one side to the other (or if there was, it may well have lapsed over the long years of the Danish invasion).
As such, it may have been prudent for Athelstan to formally and publicly bring Kernow into his control at Eadmont Bridge. Some level of political realignment would also potentially explain the still-simmering cultural tensions that William recorded during his conversations in Exeter.
Certainly Athelstan was as busy in Cornwall as he was in other regions, and his actions (as elsewhere) seem to rely on diplomatic concessions to a presumably still active Cornish elite in order to win their loyalty.
The most dramatic of these moves was perhaps the re-establishment of a Cornish bishopric, based at St Germans, and the separation of religious jurisdiction in Devon and Cornwall between this new see and the Saxon minster at Crediton. As we have seen, the variation of customs between the Cornish Church and that of Wessex was not only a point of repeated conflict but also, given the repeated overtures by Wessex to resolve it, a key facet of its attempt to dominate the south-western Britons.
In the seventh century it was Aldhelm’s religious concerns that set the scene for the invasion of Devon and the sundering of Dumnonia. It also put the first Cornish land (the lands around Maker) into Wessex hands. However, as highlighted by Edward’s grant to the Bishop of Crediton, the Cornish Church clung to its own identity. In fact it may, as Olson [1989] suggests, have maintained some measure of its own hierarchy despite the continuing pressure from Wessex and Crediton.
As such, Athelstan’s creation of the new bishopric is, in some ways, an acknowledgement of the political reality he inherited. However, by not just accepting this reality but making it official policy, he was able to step away from the failed policies of his predecessors and also make an overture to the native elite.
Viewed in this light, the first bishop, Conan, being a native Cornishman, can be seen as another concession to the local elite. In actual fact the first three bishops, as discussed by Insley [2003], are all either confirmed to be or extremely likely to have been Cornish.
As for what Athelstan, and the kings who followed him, could have gained from the arrangement, we need to look at the Church they were supporting. As Insley points out, the Cornish Church itself not only survived in the face of Wessex’s expansion but actually thrived, particularly in terms of ongoing patronage. This means it was not just a powerful institution but also one in control of significant wealth and lands.
This would have made it a powerful and influential voice among the other Cornish nobles, the teyrns or chieftains who would have led their teylus against Wessex in the conflicts of the eighth and early ninth centuries. By bringing them onto his side, or at least granting them a new legitimacy within the English state, Athelstan may have done a huge amount for his standing amongst that same nobility.
This not only would have been a significant step in securing the western borders of Wessex but, more importantly, it would also serve to improve relations with the Cornish families who still controlled many of the natural tin deposits in England.
Finds like the Praa Sands ingots, an assembly of tin ingots ranging in size from a sliver to a full hemispherical ingot with a cross mark embossed on it, highlight the ongoing tin production and trade that was central to the Cornish economy. The ingots themselves have recently been redated to the mid-ninth century, showing this trade was ongoing even as the Great Heathen Army warred with Alfred [Biek, 1994].
With the Cornish still in only passing compliance with Wessex, it is likely that much of the profit, and potentially taxation, of the tin trade was still escaping the royal coffers – especially given, as discussed, the largely marine nature of the trade. As the demand for bronze products continued to grow, as well as other uses such as solder for statuary decoration, the value of tin would have increased throughout this time. However, the mining and refinement of tin is a highly skilled process and, as such, was difficult to replicate without the expertise of Cornish miners, although the lords of Devon no doubt had attempted to encourage miners on Dartmoor to remain in the county.
The establishment of the new diocese certainly seems to mark a turning point in relations between Cornwall and the English state. From this point on we begin to see a number of charters issued by English rulers to both Cornish institutions, in particular the Church of St Petroc at Bodmin, but also to the diocese at Crediton in what would seem to be recompense for losing the nominal control of, and presumably the tithes that went with, the Cornish Church.
These charters replaced an earlier tradition, described by Wendy Davies [1982] as the ‘Latin Celtic Charter’, which are best encapsulated by the Llanlawren charter. This is a ninth-century charter, translated by Oliver [2016] from a fifteenth-century copy, which records a grant of land from Maechi who is described as ‘comes’, essentially a military title which implies he was some sort of warrior or, given he is granting land here, a leader of warriors. He grants the land to St Heldenus, which is assumed to be a religious institution that is otherwise unknown in the period. What is interesting about the Llanlawren charter is that, while it is described as the only ‘true Cornish charter’ by Padel, it is made with a care of language and specificity of form that implies this was far from an unusual creation. This suggests that the legal tradition of Cornwall was at least as developed as the Saxon tradition and, given the date of the Llanlawren charter in the second quarter of the tenth century, it survived long past the end of hostilities with Wessex. Even the simple act of a Cornish noble supporting a small religious institution on his own speaks strongly of an independence of action and, potentially, longstanding tradition.
This reinforces a Cornish identity that remained much more separate from Wessex than was previously assumed. Rather than being absorbed fully after Hingston Down, the Cornish institutions, both religious and secular, continue in their own traditions and seem to actively resist the efforts of Wessex to enforce change.
This began to change in the early tenth century; while the Llanlawren charter represents a longstanding native tradition it is soon joined by a number of royal charters from Aethelstan granting lands in Devon and Cornwall to his new Cornish bishopric or to the old institution at Crediton. The number of charters and their locations seems to suggest that Aethelstan is attempting to move holdings of the English Church out of Cornwall while simultaneously moving Cornish holdings west of the Tamar. This suggests a level of cooperation with the local Cornish aristocracy and may in fact be the basis for the famous settling of the border [Insley, 2013].
If Aethelstan did move the border officially to the Tamar, it is likely that he was simply reinforcing what had, by that point in the tenth century, become the status quo. While there may still have been Cornish landholders on the eastern side of the Tamar, and indeed the Church at least clearly did hold lands there, it is likely that their actual control or say in the runnings of those lands would have been greatly diminished over the years.
As such, this could be seen as the other side of the compromise that gave renewed life to the Cornish Church.
The diplomatic approach, seen in Cornwall and Wales, certainly seems to have been effective. In the years following Athelstan’s rule there are a dozen charters issued by English kings either of land in Cornwall or gifting land to bodies (usually religious institutions) within it.
To see just how effective it may have been on a wider scale, we can actually turn to a Welsh source: a barnstorming tenth-century poem known as the Armes Prydein, or ‘The Prophecy of Britain’. Written sometime in the mid to late tenth century, the poem is a call to arms, describing how all the Brythonic peoples (and their Viking friends – potentially important given the demonstrated links between Cornwall and the Scandinavian world) would rise up against the Saxon English and throw them back into the sea:
The contention of men even to Caer Weir (Durham), the dispersion of the Allmyn (English)
They made great rejoicing after exhaustion,
And the reconciling of the Cymry and the men of Dublin,
The Gwyddyl of Iwerdon (Irish), Mona, and Prydyn,
Cornwall and Clydemen their compact with them.
…
That the Allmyn are about to emigrate abroad,
One after another, breaking afresh upon their race.
The Saxons at anchor on the sea always.
The Cymry venerable until doomsday shall be supreme
The poem is notable for several reasons. Perhaps the most important is the very early use of Cymry to identify the Welsh as a single people rather than a group of disparate principalities. This echoes similar national identities that we have seen being forged in England and Scotland during the tenth century. This effectively completes what we might consider to be the modern map of British identities.
As previously noted, all of these are also predated by the identification of Cornwall and the Cornish, which appears at the start of the eighth century at the very latest.
It’s also interesting to note that, while each nation in the coalition is introduced singly, Cymry is used from that point on to refer to the whole group. This seems to indicate, to the poet’s mind at least, that all the Brythonic peoples were part of this same singular people, an attitude that is still reflected by organisations such as the International Celtic Congress.
There are parallels to be drawn here between the Welsh poet’s viewpoint and that of Athelstan himself. As we have seen, he seems to have gone to great efforts to incorporate Welsh kings, the Cornish Church and even Breton nobility into a power network with himself at the centre.
The Prydein is probably written towards the end of Athelstan’s reign, or possibly just after his death. This means that, in terms of Welsh politics, it is written at around the peak of Hywel Dda’s power. The king had managed to use his links to Athelstan, as well as his own political savvy and manoeuvrings, to bring almost the entirety of Wales under his direct rule. He also continued to support Athelstan’s successors and avoid open conflict with the English.
There were still advantages to this approach. For one, it avoided further English expansion into Wales as focus remained largely to the north or towards the shore seeking out Viking raiders.
In such an environment the Prydein can be viewed as a direct attack on Hywel’s policies, a repudiation towards him (and, by extension, the native Cornish elites and their Breton peers). Additionally, given the rapid arrival of the Vikings back both in the Danelaw and raiding around the coast in the years following Athelstan’s death, the poem can be seen as a literal call to action, a demand to seize the opportunity to take back land from the Saxons while they were fighting other foes.
In this regard the poet also seems to be giving voice to an undercurrent of hostility from the Brythonic side, an acknowledgement that, while the rulers of the day may urge integration, it would never be so easy for the common people. It is practically a mirror to the hostility William of Malmesbury recorded on the streets of Exeter so many centuries later.
It should be noted, though, that the very fact the poet, writing in a persuasive style similar to the finest propaganda, felt the need to agitate for an uprising against the English speaks to the effectiveness of the conciliatory approach undertaken by Athelstan and his successors.
We can see the legacy of this in Cornwall, in one of the finest single artefacts from the Early Medieval period in the south-west: the Bodmin Gospels of St Petroc, otherwise known as the Bodmin Manumissions (although this strictly only refers to certain sections), is one of the most, if not the most, important books in Cornish history.
This importance comes from several factors, and it is worth looking at each of these in some detail. Initially, it is worth considering what the Gospels tell us about Cornwall and its place in the Early Medieval world during the ninth and tenth centuries. The Gospels themselves were produced in Brittany sometime in the late ninth century and then were procured by the Church of St Petroc shortly after. This serves to underline the continuing strong links between Cornwall and Brittany that we have discussed previously. It also highlights that, culturally at least, the Cornish Church still showed a preference for ‘Insular’ art – that is, the art style predominantly found around the Irish Sea and in Brittany, of which the Book of Kells is probably the most extravagant example. This is despite a contemporary style of Anglo-Saxon illumination being developed in Wessex and elsewhere. We have already shown the continued survival of some level of separate Cornish Church even prior to Athelstan’s reorganisations, but this stylistic difference marks just another facet of that divide.
There were further artistic flourishes previously present in the Gospels, including illuminations of the four Evangelists in a style likely reminiscent of the Landevennec Gospels. Unfortunately, these decorations were intentionally removed at some point during the book’s life, which is obviously a significant loss for modern historians.
It is also worth noting that the Gospels themselves contain examples of writing in Latin, Cornish and Old English. This showcases not only that there were at least some Old English speakers present in Bodmin at the time, but also that native scribes were able to write and understand a number of different languages, which suggests a high degree of learning and cultural exchange.
Moving on from the Gospels themselves, there are then the Manumissions, referring to the ritualised freeing of slaves in a church in order to reap heavenly rewards, which are perhaps the most famous part of the book. The manumissions are recorded both on their own pages (appended at the end of the Gospels themselves) and in the margins of the Gospels. They record dozens of names of both slaves and their owners and, as such, offer a vital resource for ethnographers looking for tangible evidence for the longstanding Brythonic Cornish identity we have encountered throughout this work. It has also, in the past, been something of a double-edged sword for those interested in the history of Cornwall and the Cornish and how the relationship between the Cornish and the English developed into its current state.
This is mostly because a majority of the released slaves, potentially as high as 80 per cent, have identifiably Brythonic names, while a majority of those doing the releasing seem to have English or Saxon names. This has previously been taken as proof that the Cornish were a conquered people, subjected to slavery within their own country. However, as we have discussed previously, slavery was a major feature of life around the Irish Sea, to an extent not really seen in the rest of Anglo-Saxon England (although there were certainly slaves present there too). The Cornish had taken an active role in this trade and, as such, seeing a high volume of native slaves should not be surprising in and of itself. As for the English names of the enslavers, thanks to research by Picken [1986] and others we can positively identify at least one of these English names as a Cornishman using an official alias. Wulfsige, the third bishop of the Cornish diocese, is elsewhere identified as Comoere, a more ambiguous, but likely to be Brythonic, name.
The decisive entry, illegible until looked at forensically was: ‘This is the name of that woman, Guenenguith, and her son whose name is Morcefres who[m] Bishop Comoere freed on the altar of St Petroc for the redemption of his soul in the presence of these witnesses.’
The dating of the entry, and the title of bishop, ties Comoere closely to Wulfsige.
There are also a further two instances, noted by Charles Insley [2013], where tenth-century charters (S755 and S770) list beneficiaries who use both Cornish and English names. These are Aelfheah Gerent and Wulfnoth Rumoncant, both of whom are the recipients of land from King Edgar. It is also interesting to note that, in each case, they are listed as either faithful vassals or ‘His Man’ in the charter text. This implies that, not only are these (presumably) native Cornish elites now fully integrated into the apparatus and legal framework of the English state, but they have also come to serve the royal house directly. This suggests that, given the mores of Early Medieval lordship and reciprocal duties, they were likely engaged in some form of military service as well as general fealty to the king.
Returning to the Gospels, the dual names of Wulfisge, Aelfheah and Wulfnoth all show that the presence of an English name does not, by the tenth century at least, automatically indicate the presence of an English person. In fact, given the higher levels of involvement the Cornish elite had always had in the slave trade, it would perhaps be safer to assume native elites in most cases, although obviously this will not be a foolproof approach either.
Certainly this seemingly widespread adoption of dual English-Cornish identities seems to underscore a Cornish elite which is tying itself more firmly into the English state, possibly seeing this as the best road for its own advancement. At the same time, both the practices around slavery and the retention of Cornish names suggests this remains just one layer of identity and the older Cornish layer remains very close to the surface.
Finally, we should address the Gospels’ importance to the Cornish language: the Gospels and Manumissions contain the earliest examples of written Cornish in the world. Ahe Gospels manuscript also contains a dictionary with words ranging from the mundane to the ecclesiastical; an absolutely vital resource in preserving the legacy of written Cornish into the modern world.
The final legacy from Athelstan’s reign in Cornwall is the formal organisation of the Hundreds or keverang. These are subdivisions of the country into administrative districts, similar to the Anglo-Saxon Hundreds or the Welsh cantrefs. In some sources the word, keverang, is translated as ‘war host’, but this seems to be potentially apocryphal as most modern translations link it more closely to an administrative unit only.
The Cornish Hundreds do bear some differences from their English counterparts and they also survive much longer, eventually forming the basis for the local Cornish militia and army in more recent centuries. Whether these represent an older form of administration that Aethelstan simply made official is harder to tell. Certainly the similarities to the Welsh Cantref would potentially indicate that the Hundreds represent a similar concept. It may also be worth remembering the ‘Lord of Three War Hosts’ mentioned in earlier centuries, who may well represent an ancient leader of one of these subdivisions.
Following Aethelstan’s death, his successors were eventually able to grant lands more widely in Cornwall, moving from the eastern fringes all the way to the Lizard and Land’s End. Still, they seem to do so in conjunction with local elites (for example, Edgar’s grants to two Cornish nobles) and are somewhat considered in their approach.
In various charters they seem to make reference to some of their holdings lying outside of ‘England’, providing a tacit admission that Cornwall still maintained a somewhat separate identity from the central English state. Some examples of this can be seen below:
S498 King Edmund I to Athelstan ‘Comes’ grant of lands in Devon
Edmundus rex Anglorum huiusque provincie Britonum
Edmund King of the English and ruler of this Province of the Britons
S770 King Edgar to Aelfheah Gerent
Eadgar rex Anglorum ceterarumque gentium in circuitu
Edgar King of the English and other nations around them
S832 King Edward the Martyr to Aethelweard ‘Comes’
rex Anglorum ceterarumque circumquaque nationum
King of England and of other Nations
While it is inarguable that Cornwall and the Cornish elite were, bit by bit, fully incorporated into the English state so far as legal control and, importantly in the Early Medieval period, military obligation were concerned, these small concessions in legal niceties continue to give hints of the character of Cornwall, the unique Brythonic heritage which it had managed to preserve in the face of increasing pressure from Wessex. The most intriguing entry in the later part of the tenth century comes from Aethelred II, known as the ‘Unread’ or poorly advised. He issued a charter confirming the grant of lands to Bishop Ealdred of Cornwall and used the following phrase to describe the holdings:
Ealdredi episcopi id est in prouincia Cornubie
Ealdred Bishop in the province of Cornwall
The use of ‘province’ to describe Cornwall is interesting as it carries with it very specific connotations which are separate from simple ideas of rulership. A province is, usually, a region with its own ruler or government who are subservient to an over-king. This would be most often seen in the earlier Saxon period, when the various kingdoms of the Heptarchy might try to foist this status on their neighbours. Given the lack of information we have about any surviving Cornish royal family, it is difficult to say that this would denote the survival of some kind of under-king; however, it does very clearly speak to the continuing unique identity of Cornwall and how this would eventually be moulded into the Duchy of Cornwall in the Later Medieval period.
Duchies on the Continent, for example Brittany, were often provinces of this type; that is, regions with significant autonomy or unique cultural identities which were nevertheless ruled (sometimes only nominally) by another party.
It’s probably worth noting that the late tenth century – this period of closer integration with the English state – also marks one of the only recorded Viking attacks in Cornwall. In 981 the Chronicle records: ‘981. In this year St. Petroc’s-stowe [Padstow] was ravaged; and that same year was much harm done everywhere by the sea-coast, as well among the men of Devon as among the Welsh.’
This attack led to the monks of St Petroc’s moving the saint’s relics and shrine to Bodmin, probably reinforcing the importance of the already fairly wealthy church there as St Petroc was an important figure throughout Cornwall. It is interesting to note here that the Chronicle still refers to the Cornish as ‘Welsh’ (original ‘Wealas’) or foreigners.
While this is a point we keep returning to, it is worthy of repetition. The continuing ‘otherness’ of the Cornish is a notable outlier when compared to the Briton inhabitants of other regions the Saxons successfully subdued. Across the whole of England, with the notable exception of place-name elements such as Kent, there is no other group that retains its original Brythonic identity once it is integrated into the English state or one of the smaller Saxon kingdoms. The continuing proof that the Cornish did exactly this is testament not only to the period of open warfare during the eighth and ninth centuries, but also to the eventual negotiated settlements with Ecgberht and then with Athelstan. The Cornish elite, and the people they ruled, bent with the prevailing winds but never broke and as such preserved their identity and language into the modern era, whereas other groups, such as the Durotriges to their east, vanished almost entirely.
Further confirmation of this separate Cornish identity can be seen in the will of King Eadred (died 955) which lists all the southern shires of England but noticeably does not include Cornwall in this list. This indicates that Cornwall still holds a separate identity to a shire, most likely the earlier quoted idea of a ‘province’ with all the legacy of former kingship it bears with it.
As the tenth century moved into the eleventh, the old Anglo-Saxon order was eventually replaced as Viking raids increased during the reign of Aethelred, until a full-scale invasion arrived led by Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark and his son, Cnut. Sweyn and Cnut fought a series of engagements with Aethelred and his forces until they had driven him into exile. An entry in the Chronicle for 1013 notes:
Then went king Sweyn thence to Wallingford, and so over the Thames westward to Bath, and sat down there with his forces. And Ethelmar the ealdorman came thither, and the western thanes with him, and they all submitted to Sweyn, and delivered hostages for themselves. And when he had thus succeeded, then went he northward to his ships; and then all the people held him for full king.
Simeon of Durham, a twelfth-century monk and chronicler, lists Ethelmar as Ealdorman of Devon [Stevenson, 1855] which, if correct, would seem to indicate that the western thanes are likely to be the majority of the leaders from Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. Given the number of charters in Cornwall listing the recipient as ‘Comes’, or even just to non-Church figures, we have to assume that the Cornish nobility were tied militarily to England. That is, they held their lands on the understanding that they would support the king or their overlords in times of conflict. As such this submission is very likely to have included Cornish nobles in its ranks, or at least a delegation thereof.
Not that the peace was to last. Sweyn would pass away shortly after and Aethelred was called back from exile. However, Cnut arrived soon after and again managed to set Aethelred to flight. Eventually he entered a conflict with Edmund Ironside that would see England divided between the south and west on one side and north and east on the other. In this, as we have noted, he likely had at least some support from the Cornish nobility, although the majority of the fighting took place a great distance from the far south-west. There is no further mention of the western thanes, though, so we cannot be sure of their presence or absence.
Eventually, Edmund himself dies and Cnut takes the whole of England for himself, though notably makes no claim on Wales or Scotland which had previously slipped the control of the English.
There is a persistent rumour, often quoted in historical websites or even at visitor attractions in Cornwall, that Cnut did not claim Cornwall as part of his territories; however, in the course of researching this book I have found no evidence to support the claim.
Cnut takes all the holdings of the English kings as his own, and even has a Devonshire lord, Brictric, killed upon taking power (presumably as revenge for the western thanes once more taking up arms), suggesting his power extended at least as far as the Tamar. As we have noted, the nobility of Cornwall had, by this point, very closely aligned themselves with England while maintaining elements of their own identity. However, there is nothing to indicate that anyone was in a position to assert Cornish independence in the face of Cnut’s invasion and even less to support what might have happened to it afterwards (there is no entry describing a reclaiming of Cornwall after the fact).
In fact, Cnut issued two charters granting land in Cornwall (S951 and S953) which seems to put to rest any notions that he did not consider those lands as part of his domain.
As the Anglo-Saxon period comes towards an end in the mid to late eleventh century, there are two final entries in the Chronicle that are of interest to us. Both involve the Godwins, the powerful family of Wessex nobles who would dominate much of the reign of Edward the Confessor before seeing their eldest scion, Harold Godwinson, crowned king during the tumultuous events of 1066.
In 1048, though, Godwin had overplayed his hand and both he and Harold were exiled and stripped of their earldoms:
And then Odda was appointed earl over Devonshire, and over Somerset, and over Dorset, and over the Welsh. And Algar, the son of Leofric the earl, was appointed to the earldom which Harold before held.
Again we find that the Cornish have retained the ‘Wealas’ title, even here at the very end of the Anglo-Saxon period. It is particularly interesting given what will follow in the years following 1066. Despite this continuing difference, King Edward is able to dissolve the Cornish Bishopric in 1050 and combine it with the see of Devon into a single diocese based in Devon. Given the importance of Athelstan’s formation of the separate Church in achieving unity, it seems clear that by this point the Cornish are fully integrated into the English state, including religiously, whereas this had previously been a continuing sticking point.
In 1052 the other entry which is of interest to us notes:
This year came Harold, the earl, from Ireland, with 9 ships to the mouth of the Severn, nigh the boundaries of Somerset and Devonshire, and there greatly ravaged; and the people of the land drew together against him, as well from Somerset as from Devonshire; and he put them to flight, and there slew more than thirty good thanes, besides other people: and soon after that he went about Penwithstert [Land’s End].
This ravaging was part of Harold’s, and previously his father, Godwin’s, attempts to force Edward to end their exile by making their absence more painful than their presence had been. However, Harold’s ravaging of Devon and Somerset, and presumably at least some parts of Cornwall given the trip around Land’s End, would have won him no friends. He, or more accurately his family, would perhaps have cause to regret these actions later on, though that would take some time to bear fruit. For now it does make clear that, while Harold will eventually be instated as Earl of Wessex, he remains a Sussex man (where most of his family’s lands were) at heart, with no particular love for Wessex’s traditional heartlands.