Post-Roman York: cremation cemeteries

York was an important military, ecclesiastical and political centre in Late Roman Britain. In the early seventh century it was under royal control of the Anglian (‘Anglo-Saxon’) kings of Deira, and later in the seventh century it developed into a major ecclesiastical centre and the seat of an archbishopric, a status it holds to this day.

In between, the historical record is a blank. There are no definite references to York between the fourth century and the seventh century, although there are one or two snippets whose meaning is less than clear (see earlier post on Post-Roman York: the documentary evidence) for a summary of the documentary records). Evidence from archaeology provides some clues that may help to fill in the gap. I discussed the headquarters building in an earlier post. This post discusses the Anglian cremation cemeteries at The Mount and Heworth in post-Roman York

Evidence

The Mount
The area around the modern streets of The Mount and Driffield Terrace, York, was the site of an important Roman cemetery.

Map link here
The arrow shows the location of The Mount. The scale is currently set to show the location of the cemetery in relation to the rest of the city. Zoom in for a detailed view showing the street names.

Roman law forbade the burial of dead in urban areas, and The Mount Roman cemetery was outside the south-western walls of the civilian city (the colonia) on the west bank of the River Ouse. It was a large cemetery along the main Roman road approaching York from the south-west, and the part of the cemetery around the junction with modern Albemarle Road (see map link above) was on a local high point. Prestigious memorials and monuments lined the main road, such as the tombstone of the wealthy lady Julia Velva, now in the Yorkshire Museum. Less elaborate Roman burials have been found in the lower-lying area around Trentholme Drive near Knavesmire Road (see map link above), suggesting that wealthy individuals had monuments in the prominent location on the high ground and that more ordinary people were buried in the less prestigious area lower down the hill (Ottaway 2004, p.122). A group of burials in coffins recently excavated at Driffield Terrace (see map link above) contained an unusually high proportion of decapitated adult males, leading to speculation that they may represent gladiators despatched in the arena after losing fights (Hunter-Mann 2006). Burials from the Roman cemetery have been dated to the mid-second century to the early fourth century (Ottaway 2004, p 121).

In the mid-nineteenth century, an unknown number of Anglian cremation urns were found during building work on the north-east side of Dalton Terrace (see map link above) (Tweddle 1999, p 169-170). Six survive, and fragments of a further eight were found in the fill of a nineteenth-century culvert excavated in the 1950s in the same area. A pair of iron shears, a fragment of bone comb and a coin of the Empress Julia Domna (wife of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, who died at York in 211) survive from one of the urns. Another bone comb fragment was found with the other urn fragments in the 1950s excavation. The urns are approximately dated to the late fifth to sixth century (Tweddle 1999, p 170), and indicate an Anglian (‘Anglo-Saxon’) cremation cemetery either in the same area as or adjoining the earlier Roman cemetery (Tweddle 1999, p 167, 170).

Heworth
Another Anglian cremation cemetery of broadly similar date was identified during railway construction work in the late nineteenth century on the west side of Dodsworth Avenue, north-east of the Roman military fortress site at York.

Map link here
The arrow shows the location of Dodsworth Avenue. The scale is currently set to show the location of the cemetery in relation to the rest of the city. Zoom in for a detailed view showing the street names.

About 80 to 90 urns were identified, of which 40 were taken to the Yorkshire Museum, apparently laid out in rows about two feet apart and aligned at right-angles to the ridge and furrow of a ploughed surface (Tweddle 1999, p 235). More had been destroyed before the Yorkshire Museum was notified. Several urns contained glass beads fused by heat , another contained some gaming pieces, and one contained a pair of copper-alloy tweezers. A further ten urns were discovered in a second excavation in 1880. The urns are dated to the late fifth and sixth centuries (Tweddle 1999, p 235). Later excavations in 1965 confirmed that the whole cemetery appeared to have been destroyed in the construction work (Tweddle 1999, p 170).

A Roman cemetery is known nearby, but it was located further south along Dodsworth Avenue near the junction with Heworth Green, which follows the line of the Roman road running north-east towards Malton (Tweddle 1999, p 170). There is nothing to show whether the Anglian cemetery was positioned in relation to the earlier Roman cemetery. However, an enigmatic note from 1879 mentions ‘a Saxon urn found at the side of the tumulus in the garden at Heworth’ and a drawing from 1920 shows a mound near the bend in the River Foss between the Roman and Anglian cemetery sites at Heworth (Tweddle 1999, p 173-5) (roughly at the site of St John’s Walk in the map link above). This may indicate a second Anglian cemetery in the area.

Interpretation

Clearly, the cremation burials at The Mount and Heworth indicate the presence of a group of people who liked to cremate their dead and bury the ashes, sometimes with grave goods, in pottery urns of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ design. The cremations are dated approximately to the late fifth and sixth century. Unfortunately, as the cemeteries were identified during nineteenth-century building work and the original number of burials is not known, it is not possible to estimate the size of the associated population.

It seems reasonable to infer that the people who buried their dead in the cremation cemeteries lived somewhere nearby. This may have been within the area of the Roman city or in the surrounding countryside, or both.

The cremation cemetery at The Mount was either adjoining the Roman cemetery or on part of the same site, and that at Heworth was only a few hundred yards from a Roman cemetery. This could indicate some form of continuity of use. It is interesting that similar continuity of use has been recorded at the Roman fort of Burgh Castle in Norfolk, where the Roman military cemetery outside the fort was also the site of an early ‘Anglo-Saxon’ cremation cemetery (discussed in my earlier post Burgh Castle: Cnobheresburg?).

Such continuity could be official, if there was a governing authority in fifth- and sixth-century York that designated and enforced certain sites as recognised places of burial.

It could be religious or spiritual, if an established burial ground was recognised as sacred in some way and therefore suitable as a last resting place, or if an established burial ground was considered likely to be haunted by spirits and therefore a place unsuitable for occupation or use by the living.

It could reflect a desire for some sort of connection with previous inhabitants, perhaps claiming inheritance or a shared heritage. This could even reflect a tradition (real or imagined) of direct familial descent. The Roman Army recruited Germanic soldiers and traded goods and supplies across the North Sea. It is possible that families established by Germanic soldiers or traders who settled in or near York may have retained sufficient of their Germanic heritage to choose to use a Germanic burial rite, perhaps to signal a change of status, identity or religion, for a burial in an established Roman cemetery where previous members of the family had been interred. Alternatively, if the legend of Vortigern recruiting Hengest and Horsa as mercenary soldiers reflects a genuine situation in which a post-Roman political authority in Britain recruited Germanic mercenaries, perhaps from families or areas with a tradition of supplying recruits to the Late Roman Army, some may have had ancestors (real or imagined) who had previously served in the Roman Army and been buried in the Roman cemetery at York. The coin of Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus, in one of the cremation urns from The Mount may represent such a perceived Roman heritage (“We came over with Emperor Severus, you know”). It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that it was a family heirloom, handed down through generations from an ancestor who really had served in Severus’ army during his campaign in Caledonia until it was interred, perhaps with the last of the line on the family burial plot. I need hardly add that this is speculation.

It could reflect practical convenience. The memorials, tombstones, sarcophagi and mausolea of the Roman cemetery would still have been visible in the fifth and sixth centuries. It is possible that they made the area impractical for cultivation and therefore suitable for use as a burial ground by default, even if the people concerned felt no connection with the people buried there during Roman times.

It could reflect nothing more than geography (the one thing about history that never changes, as the saying goes). The Mount is on high ground next to a major routeway, and therefore a good place to locate a prominent grave.

Conclusion

The cremation cemeteries at The Mount and Heworth indicate the presence of a population somewhere in the vicinity of York in the fifth and sixth centuries who chose to cremate their dead and bury the ashes, sometimes with grave goods, in ‘Anglo-Saxon’ pottery urns in or near Roman cemeteries. Since over a hundred urns have been recorded, it seems likely that the population using this funeral rite was substantial rather than tiny, but its size and longevity cannot be determined. It also seems likely that the population using the cemeteries lived in or near York, but whether they lived within the Roman settlement or in the surrounding countryside, or a mixture of both, is unknown.

The apparent mixture of a characteristically pagan Anglian funeral rite (cremation and burial of the ashes with grave goods) in use at Roman locations (established Roman cemeteries) is interesting. As noted above, it is not unique as a similar combination occurs at the Roman military site of Burgh Castle Roman Fort (and those are just two that I happen to know about, not an exhaustive sample). The significance of this is unknown, and largely open to speculation. It could indicate some sort of mixed culture with Anglian and Roman elements, a new culture trying to claim a link with the past, pure coincidence reflecting geography or practical land use, or any number of other variations. As so often in this period, many interpretations are possible.

References
Hunter-Mann, K. Romans lose their heads: an unusual cemetery at The Mount, York. York Archaeological Trust, 2006, Archaeology of York Web Series No. 6, available online
Ottaway P. Roman York. Tempus, 2004. ISBN 0-7524-2916-7.
Tweddle D, Moulden J, Logan E. Anglian York: a survey of the evidence. Council for British Archaeology/York Archaeological Trust, 1999. ISBN 1-902771-06-0.

Map links
York

In Winter’s Shadow, by Gillian Bradshaw. Book review

First published 1981. Edition reviewed, Sourcebooks 2011, ISBN 978-1-4022-4074-4. 410 pages. Uncorrected advance review copy supplied by publisher.

In Winter’s Shadow completes Gillian Bradshaw’s Arthurian trilogy, begun in Hawk of May (reviewed here earlier) and continued in Kingdom of Summer (reviewed here earlier). The central characters are Gwynhwyfar, her husband King Arthur, and Arthur’s chief commander Bedwyr. Other important characters are familiar from the legends, including Arthur’s illegitimate son Medraut and the warriors Gwalchmai (later Sir Gawain) and Cei. Fictional characters from the earlier books, including Gwalchmai’s servant Rhys and his wife Eivlin and Medraut’s companion Rhuawn, also reappear here.

After many years of struggle, Britain is approximately at peace. King Arthur and Queen Gwynhwyfar are beginning to restore some measure of prosperity and stability after the destructive upheavals of war. But although Arthur’s malevolent half-sister Morgawse is dead, the evil she set in train lives after her in the person of her son Medraut. Consumed by hatred, Medraut lives only to bring about the destruction of Arthur. Medraut’s first weapon is the shameful secret of his own birth. But it is the human frailties of Gwynhwyfar, Arthur and Bedwyr that give Medraut his second and most deadly weapon – one which may bring down not only Arthur but everything he has tried to achieve.

Although In Winter’s Shadow is billed as the third in a trilogy, it could be read as a stand-alone. Readers who have read the previous two will recognise events and people from them, and will pick up references to earlier incidents, but the main elements of the back story are filled in as necessary. Arthurian trilogies sometimes seem to fade by Book 3 or to sag under the accumulated weight of legend, but not in this case. I thought In Winter’s Shadow was the strongest of the three novels by quite a margin.

For me, the most compelling aspect of In Winter’s Shadow was the character of Gwynhwyfar, who narrates the novel in first person throughout. Gwynhwyfar as portrayed here is a fully three-dimensional character, with her share of human failings and her share of admirable qualities. She is intelligent and well educated, and sufficiently interested in the past to understand and share Arthur’s dream of recreating the best aspects of the lost Roman Empire, including impartial justice and respect for law. While Arthur is fighting battles, Gwynhwyfar is managing logistics and supply with a quiet fortitude that brings out the best in people and gets things done. Supply may be less than glamorous, but it is as essential as dashing tactics; as the old (apocryphal?) military saw has it, ‘Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics’. Arthur relies on her as much as on any of his warriors, and working together as partners in a shared task allows them to develop a deep and loving marriage. But the relentless immensity of the task inevitably puts a strain on their relationship, intensified by Medraut’s sly scheming.

The love triangle between Gwynhwyfar, Arthur and Bedwyr is completely convincing. No individual is entirely at fault, none is entirely blameless. They are three fundamentally good people who care deeply for one another, yet the conflicting demands of other loyalties, together with Medraut’s malice, conspire to twist their love into a destructive force. Gwynhwyfar is, naturally, at the heart of it, and her dilemmas, her choices, the consequences of those choices and the further dilemmas that follow from those consequences make for compelling reading.

The plot has few surprises for anyone familiar with the Arthurian legends. If anything, the well-worn tale makes the novel more poignant, as events rush to their inevitable conclusion and all the characters’ struggles to escape their fate merely serve to entangle them further. As well as the story of Gwynhwyfar, Arthur and Bedwyr, the tale of Gwalchmai and the boy Gwyn, begun in Kingdom of Summer, reaches its conclusion in In Winter’s Shadow. I noticed some deft references to other legends, for example the relatively minor character of Sandde Angel-face who appears in Culhwch and Olwen: “no-one placed his spear in him at Camlan, so exceeding fair was he; all thought he was an angel helping”. No doubt there are lots of other subtle references like this that I missed.

A plus point for me was that fantasy and magic play almost no role in the plot, much less than in the previous two books (This might explain in part why I thought In Winter’s Shadow the strongest of the trilogy). Gwalchmai still has his Otherworld sword and horse, but if they have any magical powers they are scarcely mentioned. Medraut is said to serve the ‘Darkness’, as his evil sorceress mother Morgawse did before him, but for the most part this could be taken as a metaphor for ordinary human vices such as cruelty and greed.

A sketch map at the front of the book is useful for following the characters’ journeyings, for those not familiar with the geography of Britain and Brittany, although not all the places mentioned in the text are shown on the map. There’s no Author’s Note in the advance review copy; I don’t know if there will be one in the final version.

Moving retelling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of Gwynhwyfar, completing the story of Gwalchmai begun in Hawk of May and Kingdom of Summer.

Kingdom of Summer, by Gillian Bradshaw. Book review

First published 1981. Edition reviewed: Sourcebooks, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4022-4072-0. 329 pages. Advance review copy supplied by publisher.

Kingdom of Summer is the second in Gillian Bradshaw’s Arthurian trilogy, sequel to Hawk of May (reviewed here earlier). The story still revolves around Gwalchmai (Sir Gawain in the later legends), though it is narrated by his (fictional) servant Rhys ap Sion. Many of the characters are figures from the legends, including Morgause, her husband King Lot of Orkney, their sons Gwalchmai and Agravain, Morgause’s illegitimate son Medraut, Arthur’s knights Cei and Bedwyr, and Arthur himself. Maelgwn Gwynedd, historical king of Gwynedd in the early to mid sixth century, appears as a secondary character*. The central character, Rhys ap Sion, and an Irish servant girl called Eivlin are fictional.

Rhys ap Sion is a freeborn farmer, peaceably working his family’s land near the River Severn. When a wounded warrior, Gwalchmai ap Lot, seeks hospitality at the farm in a bitter winter, Rhys feels drawn to him and goes with him as his servant to Arthur’s stronghold at Camlann and then on a diplomatic mission to Maelgwn Gwynedd. There Rhys encounters Gwalchmai’s sinisterly beautiful mother Morgause and suave brother Medraut, not to mention their attractive Irish serving girl Eivlin. As Rhys learns more of the dark secrets haunting Gwalchmai’s past, he comes to realise that the schemes afoot threaten not only Gwalchmai but Arthur’s kingdom itself.

Fantasy is less dominant in Kingdom of Summer than in Hawk of May, a plus point for me. Gwalchmai still has his magical Otherworld sword and horse, and supernatural duels and healing miracles feature in the plot, but for me the strongest aspect of the novel was the interplay between the characters. Apart from Morgause, who is evil incarnate (as expected from her role in the previous book), everyone has a mix of strengths and weaknesses. Gwalchmai is at first sight the ideal hero of legend, brave, courteous and near-invincible in battle, but he is haunted by his not-entirely-honourable treatment of a woman several years earlier, and he is endearingly hopeless at practical matters such as obtaining food and shelter. Agravain is a complete contrast, brash, arrogant, inclined to casual violence and not given to thinking if he can help it, but also likeable in his ebullience. Medraut is a contrast again, charming, subtle and persuasive. The conflicts between the three Orkney brothers are sharply drawn, and test Rhys’s loyalty to Gwalchmai.

Rhys himself, as the narrator, is a central character in the novel, and the tale is as much his as Gwalchmai’s. A hard-headed farmer – both literally and figuratively – he is rather out of his depth in the world of warrior honour and Otherworldly weapons, and his down-to-earth common sense is both a support and a contrast to Gwalchmai’s rather abstract concerns. The Irish girl Eivlin is a delight. Her first line, on being asked where she got that kettle, is to reply, “A hen laid it in the rafters, having been affrighted in a coppersmith’s shop”, which sold me straight away. In her own way, she demonstrates as much courage and loyalty as any of the warriors.

There are two distinct plot strands, Gwalchmai’s search for the woman he wronged and Morgause’s evil schemes to destroy Arthur and all he stands for. The first is resolved – although there is, I think, scope for it to reappear – and the second is clearly setting up for a climax in the last book of the trilogy. I shall be interested to see how it plays out.

There’s a sketch map in the front for anyone who is unfamiliar with the geography of Arthurian Britain, although not all the place names are marked and Less Britain appears to be placed in modern Picardy and Normandy rather than its more usual location in modern Brittany. The ARC has no historical or author’s note, although there may be one in the finished version. Not that it matters greatly, because the Arthurian legends have been told and retold so many times that they have near-limitless scope for interpretation.

Second in an engaging fantasy trilogy retelling the story of Gwalchmai (later Sir Gawain) of Arthurian legend.



*Although Maelgwn is dated to the early to mid sixth century (died in 547), I’m not sure that Kingdom of Summer is intended as set in the same period; Maelgwn may have been displaced earlier in time to make him contemporary with Arthur’s heyday. The author’s note for Hawk of May commented that ‘the novel is only partially historical’, so chronology is not that important.

The Kingmaking, by Helen Hollick. Book review

First published 1994. Edition reviewed: Sourcebooks, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4022-1888-0. 563 pages.

I read and enjoyed The Kingmaking when it was first published, and am pleased to see it back in print. It is the first in the Pendragon’s Banner trilogy, a retelling of the King Arthur story from Arthur’s boyhood to his death. Arthur and his wife Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere is the later medieval spelling of the same name) are the central characters. The Kingmaking covers the period 450–457 AD, and Arthur is aged 15 at the beginning of the novel. Many of the characters, such as Arthur, Gwenhwyfar, Uthr, Ygrainne, Morgause, Cei and Bedwyr, are familiar from Arthurian legend. Others, such as Hengest, Vortigern and his wife Rowena, Ambrosius and Cunedda are known from historical sources although not always associated with Arthur.

Uthr Pendragon, exiled from Britain many years earlier after being defeated in battle by Vortigern, returns to try to reclaim his throne with the help of his old friend and ally, Cunedda of Gwynedd. Cunedda’s feisty daughter Gwenhwyfar takes an immediate dislike to Uthr’s companion, a boy of unknown parentage called Arthur, until a shared dislike of Uthr’s evil mistress Morgause brings the two together. When Uthr’s bid for power ends in his death and Arthur’s true parentage is revealed, it seems that the fates of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar will be woven together. But Vortigern and his malicious daughter Winifred have other ideas, and soon Arthur and Gwenwhyfar find themselves entangled in a web of politics, war and ambition that threatens to divide them for ever.

The first thing to say about The Kingmaking is that it is a story of human love, hatred, loyalty, betrayal, war and politics without any of the supernatural elements that have come to be associated with the Arthur legends. There is no Merlin, no magic and no enchanted sword in a stone. This is no loss in my view, quite the reverse, and some of the author’s suggestions for incidents that could have led to the supernatural parts of the legend are highly ingenious and great fun to spot. But readers who like magic and enchantments should look elsewhere.

The Kingmaking places Arthur in the middle of the fifth century as a contemporary of Vortigern and predecessor of Ambrosius Aurelianus, whereas it is more usual to place Arthur after Ambrosius. Given that there isn’t an uncontested date in the two centuries of British history between the Rescript of Honorius in 410 AD and the arrival of St Augustine in 597 AD, the dates for Arthur’s life are fair game for the novelist’s imagination.

What I found most memorable about The Kingmaking was the characterisation of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar. Both are fully rounded individuals with a mix of good and bad qualities, and both do admirable and not-so-admirable things. Arthur is dynamic, enthusiastic and brave, but also ruthless, ambitious, not above lying and cheating to gain his ends, and often fails to control his appetites for drink and women, with consequences that range from awkward to disastrous. Gwenhwyfar is bold and passionate, as brave as Arthur, but wilful and hasty to rush to judgment. Both are proud, hot-tempered and inclined to speak before thinking, leading them to inflict pain on each other and those around them. Their relationship is an emotional rollercoaster even without the obstacles thrown in their way by the political manoeuvrings. Life for them and for those around them, must be exhausting and exciting in about equal measure. Gwenhwyfar is a little too much of the warrior heroine for my liking, and as far as I know not one legend even hints at Gwenhwyfar as a warrior. Though as so little is known of the period, who’s to say it’s impossible?

Of the secondary characters, I found the men more varied and convincing than the women. Gwenhwyfar’s brothers include the cheerful Etern, the quietly competent Enniaun, and the henpecked Osmail, Cei is upright and honest, and the pedantic Emrys (Ambrosius Aurelianus) has potential though he hardly appears in The Kingmaking. Even Vortigern and Hengest are rational men who deal in realpolitik, however unpleasant. In contrast, Morgause is pure evil and Winifred (Vortigern’s fictional daughter) is pure spite, and I found both somewhat tedious. I had the impression of a sharp fault line between the good guys (Arthur, Gwenhwyfar and their friends and allies) and the bad guys. Vortigern, Hengest, Rowena, Winifred, Melwas and Morgause, all Arthur’s enemies, are deceitful, cruel, vindictive, cunning, spiteful and/or selfish. Hengest is brave, but apart from that they hardly have a redeeming feature between them.

One notable feature is that the horses are almost secondary characters in their own right. I have the impression that the author knows a lot about horses and their ways, which adds an extra dimension to a novel in which cavalry warfare plays such a large part.

The complex politics of a power struggle in a dying empire are convincingly portrayed. Vortigern and Uthr are rivals for the position of supreme ruler of Britain; Vortigern’s sons and Arthur are similar rivals; Hengest and his followers are Vortigern’s paid allies, but have an eye to their own advantage; Cunedda is an independent power in Gwynedd, inclined to side with Uthr and then Arthur against Vortigern but no man’s lapdog; Rowena, Winifred and Gwenhwyfar are all rivals for the position of Queen to the current king and mother of the next one. Add in local kings and chieftains, and there are enough plot threads to weave a tangled tale. The narrative skilfully cuts back and forth between the threads so that none of them is left for too long, but you do have to pay attention. The Kingmaking is a long book (550+ pages) and a complicated one; it’s not a quick read.

A delightful feature is the ingenious take on the legend of the sword in the stone (no, I’m not going to tell you what it is). So much so that I thought it a great shame that it only appeared at the end. The marvellous sword is such a central component of the legend that I’d have liked to see it play an integral role in the plot from much earlier on.

A down-to-earth retelling of the King Arthur story as that of a ruthless fifth-century soldier and his feisty queen.


Q&A with Helen Hollick
As part of the blog tour to launch this new edition of The Kingmaking, author Helen Hollick kindly answered a few questions for me. Here they are:

Q. In The Kingmaking, you have Arthur coming to the kingship in around 456 AD and personally defeating Hengest. This is rather earlier than usual, as Arthur is more usually placed some time after Vortigern and Hengest. Why did you choose to make him their contemporary?

A. This time frame was more logical – and it was not my own idea. The Arthurian historian Geoffrey Ashe suggested it, and his theory was most convincing. There is no evidence for any of these dates – indeed, there is no evidence that Arthur even existed – but by looking closely at the early Welsh legends and the few pieces of contemporary writing that we do have, placing Arthur these few years earlier seemed, to my mind, to fit the missing piece of the jigsaw into the puzzle.

Q. In your story, Arthur's wife Gwenhwyfar is the daughter of Cunedda, the founder of Gwynedd in modern north-west Wales . Tell me more about what led you to place Gwenhwyfar there.

A. Cunedda was a real person. He and his family were forcibly moved from Traprain Law (near Edinburgh , Scotland ) to North Wales possibly around 430 – 450 ish.. We do not know why, or who moved him. I thought it was a good story to use, and since reading Sharon Kay Penman’s wonderful novels about Gwynedd (especially Here Be Dragons) I was determined to combine the two.

Then, while researching some genealogies (admitted not necessarily reliable) to my delight I discovered he may have had a daughter called Gwyn.

Well, that was it! My ideas were set!

Q. What first drew you to want to retell Arthur and Gwenhwyfar's story?

A. While working in a local public library I re-discovered Rosemary Sutcliff’s superb teenage novels set in Roman Britain – Eagle of the Ninth, Frontier Wolf, Mark of the Horse Lord etc, and then Mary Stewart’s Hollow Hills Trilogy, and there I discovered an Arthur who was very different to the one of the Medieval Tales.
I had never liked the ‘traditional’ Arthurian stories as I could not accept that King Arthur was so bad a king to abandon his kingdom and his wife and go in search of the Grail. Surely he would have foreseen that Lancelot and Guinevere would have an affair? I also disliked Lancelot and all those too-good-to-be-true knights. None of it seemed real history.

Mary Stewart’s novels had an author’s note which stated that if Arthur had existed he would have been a Romano British war lord. I liked that idea very much and read all I could about the ‘real’, more interesting Arthur. But then the existing novels began to irritate me. Knights in armour, chivalry, turreted castles… this was not right for the Dark Ages. It was fine as a fairy tale but not as an historical novel.
These stories were not how I saw things. I was so frustrated with one portrayal of Gwenhwyfar that I threw the book across the room!

I had had enough. The only way to relieve my frustration was to write my own story. There would be no knights, grails, round tables. No myth, no magic. No Lancelot, no Merlin.

Instead, I explored the early Welsh legends of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar. These legends turned out to be far more exciting and emotional than the Medieval stories. Arthur was more plausible. Arthur was suddenly real.

It took me ten years to write what eventually became The Kingmaking. It was first published in the UK almost 15 years ago – and since then the trend has very much fallen towards portraying Arthur in his correct time period – the Dark Ages, between the going of the Romans and the coming of the Anglo Saxons.

Thank you, Helen!

Helen is participating in a Blog Tour in honour of the publication of The Kingmaking. Here are the stops:

http://harrietdevine.typepad.com/harriet_devines_blog/2009/02/the-kingmaking.html 2/20

http://lazyhabits.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/the-kingmaking/ 2/21 and interview 2/27

http://carpelibrisreviews.com/the-kingmaking-by-helen-hollick-book-tour-giveaway/ 2/23

http://www.historicalnovels.info/Kingmaking.html 2/23
http://www.historicalnovels.info/historical-novels-blog.html

http://www.bibliophilemusings.com/2009/02/review-interview-kingmaking-by-helen.html 2/23

http://lilly-readingextravaganza.blogspot.com/2009/02/kingmaking-by-helen-hollick.html 2/23 and guest blog 2/25

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=484
http://chikune.com/blog/?p=488 2/24

http://booksaremyonlyfriends.blogspot.com/ 2/25

http://peekingbetweenthepages.blogspot.com/ 2/26 and guest blog 2/27

http://webereading.blogspot.com/ 2/26

http://www.caramellunacy.blogspot.com 2/26

http://bookthoughtsbylisa.blogspot.com/ 3/1

http://www.skrishnasbooks.com/ 3/1

http://jennifersrandommusings.wordpress.com/ 3/1

http://rhireading.blogspot.com/ 3/1

http://passagestothepast.blogspot.com/ 3/2

http://thetometraveller.blogspot.com/ 3/2

http://steventill.com/ 3/2

http://savvyverseandwit.blogspot.com / 3/2 and interview 3/3

http://www.carlanayland.blogspot.com/ 3/3

http://readersrespite.blogspot.com/ 3/3 and interview on 3/5

http://libraryqueue.blogspot.com/ 3/4

http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/ 3/4

http://www.myfriendamysblog.com/ 3/5

http://samsbookblog.blogspot.com 3/5

http://goodbooksbrightside.blogspot.com/ 3/5

Merlin Trilogy, by Mary Stewart. Book review

The Crystal Cave
The Hollow Hills
The Last Enchantment

Set in Britain in roughly the second half of the fifth century AD, Mary Stewart’s take on the familiar King Arthur legend is narrated by Merlin the enchanter.

The first novel, The Crystal Cave, introduces Myrddin Emrys (Merlin) as the illegitimate son of the unmarried Princess of South Wales and an unknown father. His lonely childhood, tolerated rather than accepted at his grandfather’s court, takes a turn for the better when Merlin encounters the wise Galapas, a hermit living in a cave above the town. Galapas teaches the young Merlin not only medicine, music, natural history and languages, but also how to use his strange spiritual gifts of vision and prophecy. The Crystal Cave of the title refers to a crystal-lined geode off Galapas’ cave, where Merlin first experiences his power of second sight. His grandfather’s death and his uncle’s ambition send Merlin, aged 12, in flight for his life. Chance - or fate - takes him to Brittany where Aurelianus Ambrosius, rightful King of Britain, is living in exile and building up an invasion force to reclaim his throne. Ambrosius (Latin form of the name Emrys) is revealed as Merlin’s real father. Merlin joins his father’s cause, and his powers of prophecy and vision place him at the centre of tumultuous events as Ambrosius challenges the usurper Vortigern for the throne of Britain and Ambrosius’ brother Uther burns with illicit passion for another man’s wife.

Beginning at the point where The Crystal Cave left off, The Hollow Hills traces Merlin’s fate-driven quest for the great sword of Emperor Magnus Maximus, known in Welsh legend as the hero Macsen Wledig. As the hermit of the Green Chapel in the Wild Forest in England’s Lake District, Merlin is tutor and guide to the young Arthur, born as a result of King Uther’s illicit tryst with Ygraine of Cornwall and being brought up in anonymity as the ward of Count Ector at Galava (modern Ambleside). Once again Merlin’s powers are called upon to bring the young Arthur to his destiny as Uther’s heir and successor – but not even Merlin can guard Arthur against the dark seed of destruction sown by Uther’s daughter Morgause.

The last in the trilogy, The Last Enchantment, tells the story of Merlin during Arthur’s reign. Having brought Arthur to the crown and the sword of his destiny, Merlin’s powers are fading and he is growing old and ill. Arthur’s two sisters Morgause and Morgan are brewing poison and treachery, and as the danger gathers Merlin seeks a pupil who will be able to take up his role as Arthur’s enchanter when he is gone. In the lovely Nimue Merlin finds his heart’s desire and recognises her as an enchantress with powers as great as his own. But how is she connected with Merlin’s foreknowledge of his own fate, entombed alive in his own cave in the hollow hill?

The trilogy is beautifully written in limpid prose. Landscape, wildlife and the changing seasons are especially well conveyed in vivid descriptive detail, bringing the world fully to life. The author says in the Note to The Crystal Cave that all the places described are authentic. There is no equivalent statement in the Notes to the other two novels, so I am not certain whether the same philosophy was carried throughout the series. Some of them can be pinpointed on a map, such as the Roman forts in the Aire Gap, while the site of the Green Chapel seems to be somewhere near Grasmere in the English Lake District but I wouldn’t like to say exactly where.

A series of novels with Merlin as the central character is always likely to contain magic, and sure enough there are some fantastical elements. Merlin has magic that works, can call fire from the air, can see events far removed in time and place, and fate or destiny dictates some episodes that would otherwise be outrageous coincidences. An interesting feature, perhaps connected with the importance of fate as a driver of events, is that Merlin’s magic is not entirely under his control. Whatever its nature, his power ebbs and flows, and Merlin interprets this as showing that he is being used as a tool by the god. God, singular, in Merlin’s world view. He accepts and honours numerous religions and deities, but believes, “All the gods are one God.”

The characters are complex and interesting, rarely either entirely bad or entirely good. Good people do bad things, and even the evil Morgause is accorded some measure of understanding for her actions. Merlin himself is an attractive character, which is just as well since the trilogy is narrated by him in first person and so the reader is perforce in Merlin’s company throughout. I often find first-person narratives frustrating, restricted as they are to a single character’s experiences and values. Fortunately Merlin is observant, curious, tolerant, a traveller in both body and mind, ever eager for new knowledge whatever its source, and his second sight allows him to recount events beyond his own experience. This has the effect of widening the scope of the narrative and allowing the story to unfold on a broader canvas than might otherwise be the case.

Most readers will, I would guess, be familiar with the Arthur legend in general terms before reading the trilogy. In a way this perhaps mirrors the experience of the storytellers of old – a Welsh bard getting up to recount The Dream of Macsen Wledig or an English scop reciting Beowulf must have recognised that most of the audience already knew the ending. Some stories seem to have an indefinable narrative life that makes them absorbing even when you know the ending, and the Merlin trilogy manages to achieve that. At least it did for me – the episode of the entry into Tintagel and subsequent escape at the end of The Crystal Cave remains gripping no matter how many times I read it, even when I know perfectly well what happens to everyone involved.

The starting point for the trilogy was Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regium Brittaniae), according to the Author’s Note to The Crystal Cave. This immediately gives you fair warning not to get pedantic about historical accuracy (insofar as there is any such thing in an era with so few sources and so few facts as post-Roman Britain). Geoffrey’s tale has a cheerfully cavalier approach to history. The author describes Geoffrey as a “master of romance” (with which I would agree), and says of his book, “...he produced a long, racy hotch-potch of “history” [...] arranging his facts to suit his story, and when he got short of facts (which was on every page), inventing them out of the whole cloth. Historically speaking, the Historia Regium Brittaniae is appalling, but as a story it is tremendous stuff.” In the note to The Hollow Hills, she quotes Geoffrey Ashe and goes on to say, “.... any given episode of my story can be ‘taken as fact or imagination or religious allegory or all three at once’. In this, if in nothing else, it is wholly true to its time.” The trilogy is best read in that spirit.

The novels can be read independently but work better if read in order. I found The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills to be the most compelling. The Last Enchantment did not work so well for me. This may be because The Last Enchantment deals with the period of Arthur’s reign around which many legends have accreted – the twelve battles, the Round Table, Guinevere’s abduction and alleged adultery, the massacre of the innocents, the theft of Arthur’s sword, Camelot, the Holy Grail, the Lady of the Lake, Merlin’s affair with Nimue, Merlin’s imprisonment, Arthur’s two sorceress sisters, Merlin’s madness in the Caledonian Forest, and so on. The Last Enchantment has to touch on all these, which makes it rather meandering. By contrast, The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills cover Merlin’s early life and Arthur’s boyhood, which have far less legendary material attached and consequently allow a freer rein for the author’s imagination.

Enthralling retelling of the Arthur legend from Merlin’s point of view.

Has anyone else read this?

The Reign of Arthur: From History to Legend, by Christopher Gidlow. Book review

Edition reviewed: Sutton Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0-7509-3418-2

“Arthur was a great king. He ruled a land of knights in armour, damsels in distress, dragons and derring-do, home of Merlin the Magician and Morgan le Fay. He was born in Tintagel, became king by a combination of sword, stone and sorcery, and ruled from the castle of Camelot. At his Round Table sat Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain and Sir Galahad, seekers of the Holy Grail. Finally, in tragedy, the love of Lancelot and Guenevere brought down the whole kingdom, leaving Arthur sleeping in the Isle of Avalon.

Did this King Arthur really exist? Almost certainly not. He was defined by writers of romance fiction in the twelfth century and refined through the Middle Ages. He inhabited a fabulous world based on that of his medieval audience. It was in this form that Arthur was revived by the Victorians and entered the public imagination.

Could this fantastic king be based on historical reality?”

These paragraphs begin Christopher Gidlow’s book, and it is the latter question that he sets out to answer.

The first part of his book is a survey of the earliest historical sources to mention Arthur and/or his battles. Three sources mention Arthur by name, the Welsh heroic poem Y Gododdin, the Historia Brittonum, and the Annales Cambriae. Two of these, Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae, say that Arthur was the victorious commander at a battle named Badon, and two further sources, Gildas’ De Excidio Britanniae and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, mention the battle of Badon but do not mention the name Arthur. What do they actually say?

Y Gododdin mentions Arthur in a single stanza, comparing one of the poem’s fallen heroes to Arthur,

“He brought down black crows to feed before the wall
Of the city, though he was no Arthur.”

The dates of the battle being described and of the poem itself have been, and still are, the subject of much scholarly debate. Christopher Gidlow quotes linguistic analysis arguing that the oldest verses were composed in a language that pre-dates Old Welsh and thus dates to before the end of the 6th century AD, and these include the Arthur stanza. Arthur’s name is the rhyme for the name of the hero, so it is unlikely to have been added in at a later date. If one accepts this analysis, and I see no reason not to do so, a man named Arthur was considered a fitting comparison for a fallen warrior hero in the later sixth century. This would be consistent with a real historical Arthur, known to the poet and his intended audience, who had a successful military career before the poem was composed.

Historia Brittonum (sometimes called Nennius after the name attributed to its author in some – but not all – of the surviving versions of the text) says in its prologue that it was written in about 830 AD. Linguistic analysis similar to that mentioned above for Y Gododdin argues that some of its spellings for names and places are much older than its stated date of composition, and therefore that the writer was drawing on earlier written sources. Historia Brittonum is the source for the details of Arthur’s military career:

“Then Arthur along with the kings of Britain fought against them in those days, but Arthur himself was the military commander ["dux bellorum"]. His first battle was at the mouth of the river which is called Glein. His second, third, fourth, and fifth battles were above another river which is called Dubglas and is in the region of Linnuis. The sixth battle was above the river which is called Bassas. The seventh battle was in the forest of Celidon, that is Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth battle was at the fortress of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of holy Mary ever virgin on his shoulders; and the pagans were put to flight on that day. And through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the blessed Virgin Mary his mother there was great slaughter among them. The ninth battle was waged in the City of the Legion. The tenth battle was waged on the banks of a river which is called Tribruit. The eleventh battle was fought on the mountain which is called Agnet. The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself, and in all the wars he emerged as victor.”

Some of the battle locations can be identified with reasonable certainty, e.g. the ‘City of the Legion’ is referred to elsewhere in Historia Brittonum, in Annales Cambriae and by Bede, who helpfully tells us “which the English call Legacastir but the Britons more correctly call Carlegion”, and is probably Chester. Calidon is the Roman name Caledonia and presumably refers to somewhere in Scotland. Most of them are uncertain, and legions of enthusiasts have located them all over the country with varying degrees of plausibility. The most interesting thing about the list, as pointed out by Christopher Gidlow, is that it has no supernatural elements. Arthurian sceptics have used the line, “no one struck them down except Arthur himself” to dismiss the list as the mythical exploits of a superman, but I share Christopher Gidlow’s view that the phrase is more likely to reflect the common practice of referring to a victory as the general’s, taking the presence of his army for granted. If a modern writer says, “Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo”, we don’t imagine the two generals slugging it out in single combat, and there’s no particular reason to assume that the writer of Historia Brittonum did either. Historia Brittonum’s account is a prosaic description of the career of a successful military leader who won a lot of battles. For mythical and legendary elements, like dragons and a fatherless boy with the gift of prophecy, you have to look to the Historia’s description of Ambrosius Aurelianus, not to Arthur.

Annales Cambriae, ‘The Annals of Wales’ contain two entries referring to Arthur:

“516 The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors.

537 The battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell.”

Christopher Gidlow argues that the dates are unlikely to be accurate, partly because the Annals are set out in numbered decades and several of the decades have 9 years or 11 years instead of 10, with obvious potential for miscounting, and partly because the AD dating system was an innovation of Bede in the early 8th century. Prior to Bede the conventional way to reckon dates was by regnal years (“In the seventh year of the reign of King So-and-so”), much as Rome reckoned dates by reference to the serving consuls. Bede makes reference to both systems, and records the dates of important events like major synods according to numerous regnal year systems in different kingdoms (e.g. the Synod of Hatfield was held, “in the tenth year of the reign of King Egfrid of the Northumbrians; in the sixth year of King Ethelfrid of the Mercians....”etc). No wonder Bede felt the system could do with being tidied up if all the kingdoms were to be unified in one church; it was probably a little like railway time replacing local time in Britain during the nineteenth century. So AD dates attributed to events that pre-date Bede are most likely to have been estimated by a post-Bede scholar writing down material from older sources or oral tradition, and their accuracy (or otherwise) is a matter of conjecture. The important point is that the Annales Cambriae mention Arthur’s major battle from Historia Brittonum, and 20 years later record his death in a different battle. Again, there is nothing especially unusual or legendary about the entries. They are similar in form to other entries in the Annales, and don’t contradict Historia Brittonum.

Gildas and Bede both refer to the battle of Badon, but do not name its commander. Both sources (they are so similar that Bede probably based his account on Gildas) say that after Hengist and Horsa defeated Vortigern, Ambrosius Aurelianus became the leader of the Britons and a period (length unspecified) of back-and-forth warfare began, which lasted up until the siege of Badon when the Britons won a resounding victory. If either source said explicitly that Ambrosius led the British side at Badon there would be a discrepancy with Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae, but neither does. There seems to be no reason why Arthur could not have been the military commander at the battle even if Ambrosius was still overall ‘leader’, or there may have been a change of leader during the warfare preceding Badon.

This leads Christopher Gidlow to a rather exasperated section on double standards, where he makes the point that the documentary evidence for Maelgwn Gwynedd (usually identified with the Mailcun mentioned in Historia Brittonum and the Maglocunus castigated by Gildas) is no stronger than that for a historical Arthur. He concludes, “Historians cannot have it both ways..... If Maelgwn Gwynedd can be accepted on a balance of probabilities, then so should Arthur”. I share this view - I don’t mind a historian arguing that Source X is unreliable and should be treated with caution or disregarded altogether, but it does look like cheating when the same author then uses bits of the same source to support a different theory.

Christopher Gidlow concludes the first part with a summary of plausible roles for the figure of Arthur as recorded in these early sources. Arthur could have been a sub-king of a small region that was part of one of the larger kingdoms; a king of one of the kingdoms whose dynasties did not last into the Middle Ages; a high king with power over more than one kingdom; a military leader employed as a Magister Militum by a post-Roman provincial governor or a high king. Any or all of these would fit with the scanty records in the early sources, and Christopher Gidlow makes the important point that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The same man might have held different roles at different points in his life, or been different things to different people.

If one accepts that there was a military hero who led some or all of the British to victory against some or all of the Saxons in a battle at a place called Badon some time in the late 5th or early 6th century – which is not at all implausible – then one might as well accept the name given to him in the same sources and call him Arthur.

The second part of the book charts the development of the Arthur story in surviving Welsh medieval texts, notably the poems in the Black Book of Carmarthen, the stories of Culhwlch and Olwen and the Dream of Rhonabwy, the Triads, various Saints’ Lives, and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, which arguably is the text that shot Arthur to superstardom. In it, Christopher Gidlow shows how these later texts acquire the mythical trappings that have become so much a part of the Arthur story in the modern form summarised at the top of this post. He makes a convincing case for seeing the process as one by which legendary tales accreted around a historical figure, in the same way as Roman emperor Magnus Maximus became the subject of a dream legend in the Dream of Macsen Wledig, rather than one by which a pseudo-historical figure was invented out of folk tales.

What I chiefly liked about The Reign of Arthur was its approach of starting from the sources, setting out what they say in a reasonably logical order, and then putting together an interpretation. It makes a refreshing change from proposing a theory and then quoting sources to support it. I once tried assembling the Arthur sources in a similar fashion – though Christopher Gidlow has done it much more thoroughly than I could – and came to much the same conclusions as he has. Which is nice.

In common with much narrative non-fiction, the book doesn’t use footnotes to cite sources, which I find mildly annoying. However, the author does make an effort to say in the text where he got information from, which is very useful as it allows the reader to check the source material and decide whether to be convinced by the argument. For example, at one point he argues for a scribal error in Annales Cambriae to resolve a discrepancy with Bede over the date of the seventh-century battle of Chester (not the same as Arthur’s battle at the City of the Legion, though very possibly at a similar location). Because he quoted his sources, I could look up Bede’s description, and my reading is that Bede’s account can accommodate the Annales Cambriae date without needing to postulate a scribal error. So I disagree with the author on this point, but because I can see where it came from I can accept the rest of his argument. In fact, if anything I think my interpretation strengthens his point that the Annales can be regarded as a reasonably historical source. I find it much more convincing when I can follow the author’s logic like this.

A clear and scholarly survey of the historical source material for Arthur and its later development into legend.

Has anyone else read it? Or have an opinion on King Arthur?