Ertach Kernow - Prehistoric to Medieval Kernow’s early history
Kernow's early history has its King Arthur myth but also has an interesting real historical story to tell and should be better taught at schools and colleges. Cornish people and those that identify as Cornish are now regaining something of Cornwall’s lost culture and language. There is a growing understanding of the effects that the suppression of Cornwall’s national identity and language by England beginning from the early medieval period. But before we take an overview of medieval Cornwall a brief look at what was taking place during the prehistoric periods. Knowledge from Cornwall’s ancient Mesolithic sites and Neolithic monuments along with Bronze Age and Iron Age residential and burial remains is increasing.
It was the Greek historian and geographer Herodotus who around 445 BCE referred to Cornwall as the Cassiterides or ‘Tin Islands’. Around 330 BCE Pytheas of Massilia circumnavigated Britain determining that Britain was somewhat triangular is shape naming three corners Kantion (Kent), Orkas (Orkneys) and Belerion (Belerium) for Cornwall. The name ‘Belerion’ is thought to derive from the proto-Celtic word for shining and the Celtic deity Belenos. After spending time in what is now Brittany, later named by the Romans Armorica, he travelled to Cornwall mentioning Cornish trade in tin with Mediterranean locations. Using various spellings of ‘Belerion’ Cornwall was mentioned by many Greek and Roman historians and geographers over the coming centuries.
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So far the only historical records are those that have come from Greek and Roman sources and based on a small number of travellers own first hand records. On his return from his travels Pytheas wrote a book ‘Peri tou Okeanou’, translated to ‘On the Ocean’ which sadly no longer exists. However, copies of it would have been shared amongst large libraries such as the famed Great Library at Alexandria, so what has been preserved is through the writing of over eighteen others using Pytheas’ work over the next millennium.
The Greek writer Diodorus Siculus wrote during the first century BCE, albeit in translation. ‘We shall now only say something concerning the island, and the tin that's found there. In form it's triangular, like Sicily; but the sides are unequal. It lies in an oblique line, over against the continent of Europe; so that the promontory called Cantium (Kent) next to the Continent is about a hundred furlongs from the land. Here the sea ebbs and flows, but the other point called Belerium, (Cornwall Point, or the Land's End) is four days sail from the continent…. Also, now we shall speak something of the tin that's dug and gotten there. They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerium (Cornwall), by reason of their converse with merchants, are more civilised and courteous to strangers than the rest are. These are the people that make the tin, which with a great deal of care and labour they dig out of the ground; and that being Rocky, the metal is mixed with some veins of earth, out of which they melt the metal, and then refine it: Then they beat it into four-square pieces like to a dye and carry it to a British isle near at hand, called Ictis.’ Ictis is thought to refer to St Michael’s Mount.
Only during more recent times is archaeology and science adding more to the story of Cornwall. Take the latest work carried out on Bodmin Moor with ‘King Arthur’s Hall’ now found to be far older than originally thought. That there was a busy tin trade between Cornwall reaching the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean some three thousand years ago is no longer in doubt. The combination of underwater archaeology and science has proved that Cornish tin fashioned into ingots was transported on ships one of which sank on route. Scientific testing can even tell which area of Cornwall the tin came from. John Twynne a Tudor period schoolmaster in Canterbury had suggested that the Phoenicians had travelled to Cornwall to obtain tin some 3,000 years ago. We can be fairly confident that Pytheas of Massilia (Marseille) circumnavigated Britain and visited Cornwall about 2350 years ago. The Phoenician connection is now thought to be a myth. Cornish tin ingots it’s believed were traded by perhaps many merchants before finding their way to the Levant. The recent discovery of tin ingots as cargo found in shipwrecks in the eastern Mediterranean have helped prove that trade.
the Nebra Sky Disc discovered in Germany in 1999 has been dated to before 1600 BCE. Recent scientific analysis of the artefact proves it includes Cornish tin in the bronze. The gold within the Nebra Sky Disc as well as the Bush Barrow lozenge from around 1950 BCE, discovered near Stonehenge has proved through analysis to come from Cornwall. More exactly for the Sky Disc the gold came from the Carnon Valley. Investigations into the constituent minerals found in artefacts corroborates the ancient Greek and Roman texts relating to Cornish mineral extraction. The archaeological and scientific work confirms the trading in tin and other Cornish minerals from a very early date reaching out far beyond the Anglo-Celtic Isles.
Archaeology is now telling us much more about Cornish history and life in Cornwall than ever before. Many of the historical events taken as fact into the 19th century are unravelling as scientific advances provide more accurate answers. The Bronze Age saw the construction of hilltop forts and enclosures become more prevalent. There were also many promontory or cliff castles built around the coast. Construction of these continued through the Iron Age adding additional concentric rings to the earlier forts. Living accommodation continued to be round houses of stone topped with timber and thatch. Looking at a map of Cornwall with its various historical sites and monuments one would notice what are termed ‘rounds.’ These are a group of round houses enclosed by a stone wall and external ditch. Not sufficient to be a fort, but sufficient to keep domesticated livestock in and wild animals out.
With the coming of the Romans to Britain there was at last some potential written sources relating to Cornwall and the southwest of Britain generally. Britain had been briefly invaded by Julius Ceasar in 54 BCE but true invasion did not take place until 43 CE under the Emperor Claudius. The southwest of Britain was conquered by the legate Vespasian which saw even the mightiest Iron Age hillforts unable to withstand Roman military technology. The peoples living in the far west are thought to have been a sub-tribe, the Cornovii, of a larger tribal grouping the Dumnonii. The Dumnonii tribe gave its name to what would become the territory of Dumnonia following the Roman withdrawal from Britain. The Roman headquarters for southwest Britain was at Isca Dumnoniorum, to us Exeter, where a number Roman remains can still be seen.
There were military incursions into Cornwall and forts built at Calstock, Nanstallon and Restormel with five milestones known to exist. There seems not to have been any battles and perhaps the only interest the Roman’s had in Cornwall was for copper and tin. Let’s be frank there wasn’t likely much else of use to the legions. Perhaps the Roman’s felt that it was less costly to purchase and barter for these minerals rather than to occupy the land in a heavy-handed way.
With the withdrawal of the Romans the medieval period begins. This early period is what was commonly known as the Dark Ages, although with so much new evidence coming to light this title is being challenged. The Cornish Celtic church was coming into being with what became known as the Age of Saints, an important part of that era. The area known as Dumnonia reached its maximum covering Cornwall, Devon and as far as Somerset in the sixth century. Dumnonia was gradually beaten back to the Tamar by the Saxon kingdom of Wessex through to the ninth century. The fifth century was the time of the legendary King Arthur but whether there was any connection to Cornwall no real evidence exists. That there was ever such a person is possible but was he a king or as many now believe an important war leader. The major source covering the history of this period has come from the seventh century monk the Venerable Bede who was Anglo-Saxon and therefore perhaps less likely to acclaim a Celtic hero. The Welsh cleric Gildas who lived during the sixth century claimed to have been born the same year as the Battle of Badon Hill where the Saxons were defeated. Gildas was the first person to mention the battle followed by Bede some two centuries later. Was Arthur, or in proto-Celtic ‘Artos’ meaning bear, a nickname for a huge strongman leader actually known in history? Perhaps we will never know. Maybe he was Aurelius Ambrosius a fifth century leader and named by Bede and Gildas who won the Battle of Badon Hill.
As time moved through the early medieval centuries and the Dumnonian lands shrank under the onslaught of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex Cornwall became a more recognised region. The native name Kernow had been mentioned as early as 400 CE in the ‘Ravenna Cosmography’ which listed routes in the Roman Empire. Cornubia, a pseudo-Latin term, was first recorded as being used by the Saxon Bishop Aldhelm of Sherborne Abbey c.700 CE writing about his travels through Dumnonia to Cornubia. The Annales Cambriae, Welsh Annals, mentioned Cornwall in connection with the drowning of the Cornish king Donyarth in 875 naming him ‘rex Cerniu, id est Cornubiae’ (king of Cornwall, that is, of the Cornish people’).
Moving through the early and middle medieval period Cornwall although out on a limb gradually became more important and mentioned in records to ever greater degrees.
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