The battle of Catraeth: other evidence and interpretation

The heroic poem Y Gododdin is one of the longest and most famous texts in medieval Welsh. It was written down in the kingdom of Gwynedd in North Wales in a thirteenth-century manuscript, but the spellings in one of the two versions suggest that it may be several centuries older. It consists mainly of a series of elegies for warriors who feasted at the court of Din Eidyn (modern Edinburgh) before setting out to fight at a place called Catraeth where many, perhaps most, of them were killed. Where might Catraeth have been?

Evidence

The evidence from the poem Y Gododdin was described in the previous post.  

Canu Taliesin

A place called ‘Catraeth’ is also mentioned in the Canu Taliesin poetry praising Urien, king of Rheged. For more information about Urien, see my earlier post 'Urien Rheged'.

The men of Catraeth arose with the dawn, 

About the Guledig, of work a profitable merchant.

This Urien, without mockery is his regret.

--The Battle of Gwen Ystrat, translation available online

I saw the ruler of Cathraeth beyond the plains

 --The Spoils of Taliesin, translation available online

In the ‘Battle of Gwen Ystrat’, Urien is described as ‘Guledig’, meaning something like leader or overlord.  The men of Catraeth appear to be under his command, although the poem does not say that the battle in question (‘Gwen Ystrat’, which translates as something like ‘white valley’ or ‘fair valley’) was being fought at Catraeth. In ‘The Spoils of Taliesin’, Urien is clearly described as the ruler of Catraeth. Although Taliesin refers to Urien’s domain as ‘Rheged’, the location of Rheged itself has not been identified more precisely than somewhere in what is now northern England and/or southern Scotland. For more information on the possible location of Rheged see my earlier posts here and here. I like the idea that Rheged was located around Carlisle, the Lake District and the Solway, but other interpretations are equally possible.

Place names

There is no modern place with a name that can be definitively and uniquely identified as Catraeth.

The most common suggestion for the location of ‘Catraeth’ is modern Catterick, located at the eastern end of the strategic Roman road that crosses the Pennines through the Stainmore Pass or Stainmore Gap (the modern A66 road follows much the same route as its Roman predecessor). Bede, writing in the eighth century, refers to it as ‘Cetreht’. The Roman name of the settlement at the site of modern Catterick Bridge was Cataractonium. The English Place-Name Society website suggests that it originally derived from a Brittonic name ‘Caturatis’ meaning ‘fortification’, which was (mis)interpreted by the Romans as the Latin ‘Cataracta’, meaning ‘waterfall’. (Misunderstanding place names on the grounds that they sound like a word you recognise evidently has a long history).

Tim Clarkson argues that although ‘Catraeth’ could be an earlier form of the modern name ‘Catterick’, this is not the same thing as proving that they refer to the same place (Clarkson 2010, p. 106). There may have been many other places with now-lost names that could have given rise to ‘Catraeth’, and the poem may refer to one of these.

Another possibility occurs to me, and that is that the name ‘Catraeth’ looks as though it might be composed of the elements ‘Cat’, meaning ‘battle’, and ‘Traeth’, meaning ‘strand’ or ‘shore’. I don’t know enough about etymology to know whether this could be a real possibility. If it is, then the ‘Catraeth’ of the poem might not be a place name at all, but a description of the event commemorated – ‘the battle on the shore’. In which case, trying to identify it from modern or recorded place names might be impossible.

Interpretation

The battle of Catraeth was fought between warriors from Edinburgh and enemies identified variously as ‘Deiran’, ‘Saxons’ or ‘Lloegr’s mixed hosts’ in the more archaic ‘B’ version of Y Gododdin. The ‘A’ version adds two mentions of Bernicia, one of which seems to bracket Bernicia alongside the Gododdin rather than as enemies (see previous post 'Catraeth: Y Gododdin').

The terms referring to Saxons or Lloegr are not geographically precise enough to be much help in identifying the location of the battle, as they could refer to groups of people in Britain anywhere from Northumbria to Wessex. The term ‘Deira’ is much more geographically precise, as Deira is quite securely located somewhere in the region of modern Yorkshire. For this reason, I would focus on ‘Deira’ as the most useful clue to the enemy, which in turn gives a possible clue to the location.

Catterick Bridge is in modern North Yorkshire, and therefore either within or close to the territory of sixth-century Deira (as usual, the exact boundaries of Deira are not known). It is therefore a plausible location for a battle in which Deira was one of the sides (although I agree with Tim Clarkson that it is not proven).

Furthermore, Catterick Bridge is on a major north-south Roman road (Dere Street), at a river crossing (the Swale), and close to the junction with the major east-west Roman road across Stainmore Pass. River crossings are common battle sites, and the Roman road network would have been obvious routes for moving armies across country. Catterick is approximately 150-170 miles from Edinburgh, depending whether you take the shorter route over the Cheviot hills or the longer route via the coast. Although this is a long way, it is within the known campaigning range of early medieval armies (see earlier post on campaigning ranges). Given that armies from Northumbria are known to have fought near Chester and in Pictland, and that an army from Gwynedd and the West Midlands invaded and occupied Northumbria, it does not seem at all unreasonable that an army from Edinburgh could have fought at Catterick Bridge.

To get from Edinburgh to Catterick Bridge, the warriors in the poem would have had to cross or skirt the territory of Bernicia, which in the late sixth century was ruled by the aggressive and militarily successful king Aethelferth. Bernicia was probably Gododdin’s closest territory ruled by an English king. However, Catwallaun of Gwynedd had no problem crossing the territory of English Mercia when he invaded Northumbria in 633, and indeed the English king of Mercia was his ally in the campaign. I see no reason why the Gododdin could not have had a similar arrangement with Bernicia as Catwallaun had with Mercia a few decades later. Bernicia could have been an active ally of Gododdin during the campaign, as Mercia was to Gwynedd, which would be consistent with the reference to ‘the army of Gododdin and Bernicia’ in stanza A-47. Or it may have played a more passive role, simply allowing the Gododdin warriors to pass unhindered.

The reference in Canu Taliesin to Urien as ‘ruler of Catraeth’ is more problematic for the Catterick Bridge location. Although Rheged’s location is uncertain, the likely areas are on the western coast of Britain roughly from Strathclyde to Lancashire. Catterick Bridge is distinctly on the eastern side. I don’t think any likely location for Rheged can easily be made to include Catterick Bridge. My best suggestion is that if Urien was a ruler of Catterick Bridge it would be in the sense of being some sort of overlord. This might reflect anything from outright military conquest, through some kind of tribute-paying client relationship (with varying degrees of asymmetry and coercion), to an amicable alliance by blood or marriage. The location of Catterick Bridge near the junction between Dere Street and the main trans-Pennine Roman road over Stainmore gives it obvious strategic importance. The ruler of a kingdom based around the western end of the Stainmore Pass road may well have wanted to control the other end of the pass as well. Historia Brittonum makes it clear that Urien was a powerful military leader, so outright conquest may be possible. Or, if there was a post-Roman Brittonic kingdom based around York (see my earlier series of articles on post-Roman York), Catterick Bridge may well have been part of its territory. Catterick Bridge is in the Vale of Mowbray, and only about 40 miles from York along the main north-south Roman road of Dere Street. Urien shares a (claimed) descent from Coel Hen with Peredur, tenuously associated with York (see post on Peredur), and it may be possible that Urien had some sort of claim to authority in the York area, including Catterick, based on this shared descent. Or, more prosaically, Taliesin may just have been flattering his patron by giving him an additional title.

If this mention of Urien as ‘ruler of Catraeth’ means that Catraeth was in the territory of Urien’s kingdom of Rheged, then either Rheged was in Yorkshire rather than in the west (which seems most unlikely to me, see the post on Rheged), or ‘Catraeth’ was not at Catterick Bridge. Tim Clarkson argues a case for locating ‘Catraeth’ somewhere much further north, perhaps in the valley of the River Tweed or in Lothian (Clarkson 2010, p. 108-9), and this is certainly a possibility. It is a long way from the territory of the Deiran enemies identified in the poem (just as Catterick Bridge is a long way from the territory of the Gododdin warband), but there is no obvious reason why the Deirans should not have been just as capable of long-distance campaigning as the Gododdin.

For my part, I prefer the traditional location of ‘Catraeth’ at Catterick Bridge. 

The main reasons for this are:

• it has a name that could be derived from Catraeth;
• it seems a likely sort of site for a battle, since it is on an important Roman road and at a river crossing;
• it is in or close to the known location of Deira, and therefore a plausible location for a battle in which Deira was one of the sides;
• although it is a long way from Edinburgh, early medieval armies are recorded by Bede as campaigning over similarly long distances, and I don’t think there is any obvious reason why the army of Gododdin should have been any less capable than its approximate contemporaries in Gwynedd or Northumbria.

I think the main difficulty with locating ‘Catraeth’ at Catterick Bridge is Taliesin’s line describing Urien as ‘ruler of Catraeth’. I’ve suggested above that this could be explained by some sort of overlordship over an area outside his core territory, but I will readily admit that this involves a certain amount of hand-waving. However, most explanations are likely to, given the shortage of evidence.

So I chose to place ‘Catraeth’ at Catterick Bridge in Paths of Exile. I don’t claim that this is a proven location; however, I think it is reasonably plausible. Other explanations are possible.

References

Clarkson T. The Men of the North. Birlinn, 2010. ISBN 978-1-906566-18-0

Canu Taliesin, The Battle of Gwen Ystrat, translation available online

Canu Taliesin, The Spoils of Taliesin, translation available online

English Place-Name Society website, Catterick

Map links

General map showing the approximate locations of Gododdin, Bernicia and Deira 

Catterick Bridge (Cataractonium) 

Edinburgh 

Stainmore 

 

Twilight of Avalon, by Anna Elliott. Book review

Edition reviewed: Touchstone 2009, ISBN 978-1-4165-8989-1. 426 pages.

Twilight of Avalon is subtitled “A novel of Trystan and Isolde”, and is billed as Book 1 of a trilogy. It’s set in Britain seven years after King Arthur’s death at the battle of Camlann, some time in the first half of the sixth century or thereabouts. Trystan, Isolde and King Mark (here spelled Marche) are famous characters in Arthurian legend, and other characters from the legends such as Merlin, Mordred and Arthur’s sister Morgan make appearances. The author’s note says that Madoc of Gwynedd is loosely based on the historical figure of Maelgwn Gwynedd. All the other main characters are fictional.

Isolde is the illegitimate daughter of Mordred, King Arthur’s son and nephew by incest with Morgan, and of King Arthur’s unfaithful wife Guinevere. Orphaned at the age of 13 when Mordred was killed fighting Arthur at Camlann, Isolde was married to Arthur’s heir, the boy-king Constantine and made High Queen of Britain, at least in name. Now Constantine has been killed, in battle as is thought (though Isolde knows it was murder), and Isolde’s position at court has become extremely precarious. She is widely distrusted as a witch, because of her descent from Morgan and because she has skills as a healer and a limited power of second sight. Evil King Marche of Cornwall is scheming to get the High Kingship for himself, and forces Isolde into marriage as part of a traitorous plot. With her only possible ally among the lesser kings dead in suspicious circumstances, Isolde flees from the court at Tintagel to seek evidence of Marche’s treason. She finds herself forming a reluctant alliance with a mysterious prisoner, Trystan, who has lately escaped from Marche’s dungeons, and his three rag-tag companions. Isolde must not only find a way to foil Marche’s treason, but also come to terms with her own past.

If you’re familiar with the story of Tristan and Isolde from Wagner’s opera or from the Arthurian romances, you’ll find Twilight of Avalon a very different take. Despite the “sweeping romance” promise in the cover blurb, the traditional romantic love story doesn’t make any appearance at all, though there are hints that it may be intended for Book 2 and/or 3. There’s no glamorous Camelot and no high chivalry. The setting is the darkest of Dark Ages, an unremittingly grim world of violence, chaos and betrayal. With few exceptions, the kings of Britain are violent, arrogant, deceitful, self-centred and/or a bit thick. None of them features on the list of tyrants named by Gildas in On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain*, but they are clearly cut from the same cloth. The lives of the warrior aristocracy are nasty, brutish and short; you probably don’t want to imagine how miserable this world must be for the peasantry off-stage.

There are some fantasy elements to the novel, and some features of the traditional high medieval setting are retained. Tintagel is a stone-built castle with turrets and dungeons, travellers with no money living rough eat rabbit stew and wear rabbitskin cloaks**, literacy is so all-pervasive that an uneducated man who cannot read and write says of another character “he might as well have ‘Saxon’ stamped on his forehead”, copper coins are a standard medium of exchange and despite the chaos and poverty there is sufficient of a mercantile economy for a hermit living on a wild moor in the middle of nowhere to have ready access to a supply of wine. A crucial plot twist depends on Isolde having a real power of second sight that actually works, and another depends on a character apparently seeing a ghost conjured up by some supernatural power on Isolde’s part. Isolde has somehow induced total amnesia about her entire life prior to the battle of Camlann, apparently by effort of will, and hears strange supernatural voices. That said, there is much less mysticism and magic than in many Arthurian novels, which was a major plus point for me. An early reference to goddess-worship and the Christian church being responsible for the oppression of women had me rolling my eyes, but I was glad to find that the question of religion is more interestingly handled as the book develops, with an open-minded Christian hermit drawing a parallel between magic and miracles.

The pace is leisurely, not to say slow. With its minute-by-minute account of Isolde’s thoughts and feelings, the narrative can take a lot of pages to cover not very much ground. For example, the first two chapters (27 pages) are occupied by Isolde contemplating the body of her dead husband in church, and taking food to two prisoners and tending their injuries occupies 17 pages. About a third of the way in I had hopes that the plot might pick up, as Isolde decides to go in search of a goldsmith-cum-spy who can bear witness to Marche’s treachery, but was disappointed. The narrative promptly bogged down again in a sequence of escape, recapture, re-escape, re-recapture and re-re-escape interspersed with scenes of Isolde nursing just about every other character through illness or injury, the goldsmith was never mentioned again and the urgent need to find proof of Marche’s treasonous dealings seemed to just fade away. I wonder if the book was drastically cut to length and half the plot vanished, leaving these (to my mind) rather annoying loose ends, or if perhaps they are going to be picked up somehow in Books 2 and 3. I also felt the escape-recapture cycle got a bit repetitive for my taste. Guards working for an evil tyrant are traditionally inefficient, partly for plot purposes and partly because tyrannical leadership styles rarely get the best out of their subordinates, but having the same guards fall for the same trick pulled by the same prisoner twice within a few days stretched my credulity.

Twilight of Avalon is very much Isolde’s story, as all events are seen through her eyes and understood through her feelings. Fortunately, Isolde is an attractive and even admirable character. She is essentially powerless, a pawn in the games of kings like Marche, but she is not weak, she never whines and she never gives up. She makes use of her wits, her limited supernatural powers and whatever else comes to hand in her quest to outwit Marche. Isolde is also a gifted storyteller, and numerous tales and legends are nested into the narrative, giving an extra layer of depth to the setting. Isolde dominates the novel so completely that I found my perception of the whole book altering with my reactions to her character. Twilight of Avalon should suit readers who like to identify with a particular character, provided they take to Isolde and her emotional journey.

The secondary characters – everybody else – perhaps divide a little too readily into good and bad, though Madoc of Gwynedd is an interestingly complex character with a mix of qualities. I hope to see more of him in the sequels. I’d have liked to see more of his point of view in this novel, particularly with regard to his apparently sudden change of heart. I’d also have liked to see Trystan’s viewpoint. Isolde’s amnesia governs her reactions to him (and is essential to the plot), but Trystan has no similar amnesia and I was curious about his motivations and his opinion of (and feelings for?) Isolde. He spends most of the novel in a prison cell, almost as powerless as Isolde, yet he clearly has experience and skills as a soldier and a leader of men. I hope Trystan’s role will be further developed in the sequels.

Although billed as Book 1 of a trilogy, Twilight of Avalon feels to me like the first third of a single long book. The mystery of Trystan’s identity is resolved (for those readers who didn’t guess it as soon as he appeared, or at least as soon as he was named), but little else is. The outcome of Marche’s treasonous dealings, the ongoing war, Trystan’s role, Isolde’s position at court, and her relationship with the lesser kings and with Trystan are all To Be Continued.

First instalment in a retelling of the Tristan and Isolde legend, with a strong focus on Isolde’s emotional journey and a refreshingly low quotient of magic and mysticism.



*Madoc of Gwynedd is loosely based on Maelgwn Gwynedd, who is usually identified with Gildas’ Maglocunus, but if the character has done any of the outrageous things for which Gildas castigated his historical counterpart, they don’t feature in the book.

**There’s a debate about whether the Romans or the Normans introduced rabbits to Britain, but in the 13th century rabbit was an expensive luxury food. Rabbits didn’t become the ubiquitous free country pie filling until at least the late Middle Ages.