ELTIC
ommunity
of the Atlantic:
BRITTANY,
BRITAIN,
BELGIUM,
IBERIA,
GAUL,
WALES,
CORNWALL,
and the
ISLE of MAN
. Brittany
Some information about each one. Listing of Celtic tribes some of whom migrated to England and or Ireland or into one of the other territories of the Celtic Community of the Atlantic, and how they interacted with Ireland to a greater extent and earlier than is generally known.
Before the Bronze Age and for at least three thousand years forward the above listed Celtic communities traded with each other, Ireland and beyond - forging alliances and associations.
These alliances and associations led to interactions between trading partners that went beyond business partners to social and cultural integration. It was, beyond the stories of heroic men, women, tribes and clans in history, rather it was an evolution of a civilization. Though there was fighting between tribes, clans and regions even, there is no hard evidence of total invasions of one people replacing, absorbing or removing another as described in the ancient literature. When a tribe came into an area of another tribe, they usually coexisted over time and a mixed, better organization took place in the area as the best parts of each others tribal ways were incorporated into the new way of doing things.
Those tribes who would not accomodate the new arrivals, either left or the better tribe dominated the other. Often the lesser tribe was reduced to serfdom in the employ of the dominant tribe. It was not the violent waves of migrating tribal warfare, rather it was the evolution of the Celtic Culture from the Neolithic period up through the Urnfield, Hallstatt and La Tene periods to today that stayed mostly in place and modified over time and transfigured the Celtic community of the Atlantic in a dynamic that made it stronger over time until it too was transformed by outside forces beyond its control.From their position on the Atlantic rim they received and then transferred changes and new knowledge to each other, to their own hinterlands as well as to other cultures and beyond. They were not positioned on the Atlantic rim because they were pushed there from the interior of the continent or islands, rather they found the location on the Atlantic rim a source of growth and economic power, one they have sustained to this day.
In this section you will see the Celtic community of the Atlantic was greater than it is now. Belgium was once home to many Celtic tribes that moved elsewhere. And while it would be a difficult task to count them in today's Celtic Atlantic community, the Belgae were certainly active members in their day. Evidence is offered that Spain and Portugal should be listed as members of the Atlantic Celtic community discussions of the ancient and modern worlds.
More evidence is developing showing the Celtic history of parts of Spain and Portugal both in archeological and linguistic finds as well as genetic, DNA evidence. This has substantiated some of the previously held views, one of which was that the Irish developed from peoples immigrating from Spain.
One of the newer theories being offered is that the Celts grew from the Tartessians, a Celtic tribe in Andalucia, Spain. More is offered on them as the last subject covered in this section.
Historic Brittany is shown in green, the modern administrative area includes the lighter green. France is shown in Orange and the European Union in Camel
BritainBrittany (French: Bretagne ; Breton: Breizh, pronounced [br?js]; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously as a kingdom and then as a duchy, Brittany was a fief of the Kingdom of France. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain). It is characterized as one of the six Celtic nations.[1][2][3][4]
Brittany occupies a large peninsula in the north west of France, lying between the English Channel to the north and the Bay of Biscay to the south. Its land area is 34,023 km² (13,136 sq mi). The historical province of Brittany is divided into five departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the north east, the Loire-Atlantique in the south east and Morbihan in the south on the Bay of Biscay.In 1956, French Regions were created by gathering Departements between them[5]. The Region of Brittany comprises, since then, four of the five breton départements (80% of historical Brittany), while the remaining area of the old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique département around Nantes forms part of the Pays de la Loire region. This territorial organisation is sometimes contested.
In January 2007 the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,365,500. Of these, 71% lived in the région of Brittany, while 29% lived in the région of Pays-de-la-Loire. At the 1999 census, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (711,120 inhabitants), Rennes (521,188 inhabitants), and Brest (303,484 inhabitants).
The history of Brittany may refer to the entire history of the Armorican peninsula or only to the creation and development of a specifically Brythonic culture and state in the Early Middle Ages and the subsequent history of that state.
Pre-Brythonic Armorica includes the ancient megalith cultures in the area and the Celtic tribal territories that existed before Roman rule. After the collapse of the Roman empire, large scale migration from Britain led to the foundation of British colonies linked initially to homelands in Cornwall and Wales. The independent Breton kingdom later developed into the Duchy of Brittany, before it was unified with France to become a province. After the French Revolution Brittany was abolished as an administrative unit, but continued to retain its distinctive cultural identity. Its administrative existence was reconstituted, in reduced size, as the Region of Brittany in the mid-20th century.
The peninsula that became "Brittany" was a centre of ancient megalithic constructions in the Neolithic era. It has been called the "core area" of megalithic culture.[6] It later became the territory of several Celtic tribes, of which the most powerful was the Veneti. After Caesar's conquest of Gaul, the area became known to the Romans as Armorica, from the Celtic term for "coastal area". Its transformation into "Brittany" occurred in the late Roman period, with the establishment of Brythonic settlement in the area. The history behind such an establishment is unclear, but medieval Breton and Welsh sources connect it to a figure known as Conan Meriadoc. Welsh literary sources assert that Conan came to Armorica with the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus, who took his British troops to Gaul to enforce his claims and settled them in Armorica. Regardless of the truth of this story, Brythonic settlement probably increased during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Scholars such as Léon Fleuriot have suggested a two-wave model of migration from Britain which saw the emergence of an independent Breton people and established the dominance of the Brythonic (British Celtic) Breton language in Armorica.[7] Over time the Armorican British colony expanded, forming a group of petty kingdoms which were later unified in the 840s under Nominoe in resistance to Frankish control.[8]
ReferencesIn the mid-9th century Nominoe and his successors won a series of victories over the Franks which secured an independent Duchy of Brittany. In the High Middle Ages the Duchy was sometimes allied to England and sometimes to France. The pro-English faction was victorious in 1364 in the Breton War of Succession, but the independent Breton army was eventually defeated by the French in 1488, leading to dynastic union with France following the marriage of Duchess Anne of Brittany to two kings of France in succession.[9] In 1532 the Duchy was incorporated into France.
Two significant revolts occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries: the Revolt of the papier timbré (1675) and the Pontcallec Conspiracy (1719). Both arose from attempts to resist centralization and assert Breton constitutional exceptions to tax.[10]. The Duchy was legally abolished during the French Revolution and divided into five Départements. The area became a centre of royalist and Catholic resistance to the Revolution during the Chouannerie. During the Second Empire conservative Catholic values were reasserted. When the Republic was reinstituted in 1871, there were rumours that Breton troops were mistrusted and mistreated at Camp Conlie during the Franco-Prussian War because of fears that they were a threat to the Republic.[11]
1.^ The Celtic League
2.^ Festival Interceltique de Lorient 2010
3.^ Official website of the French Government Tourist Office: Brittany
4.^ http://books.google.com/books?id=iKIWY4P9uFwC
5.^ Michèle Cointet, op. cit., pp. 183-216 (p. 216 pour la citation)
6.^ Mark Patton, Statements in Stone: Monuments and Society in Neolithic Brittany, Routledge, 1993, p.1
7.^ Léon Fleuriot, Les origines de la Bretagne: l’émigration, Paris, Payot, 1980.
8.^ Smith, Julia M. H. Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp.80-83.
9.^ Constance De La Warr, A Twice Crowned Queen: Anne of Brittany, Peter Owen, 2005
10.^ Joël Cornette, Le marquis et le Régent. Une conspiration bretonne à l'aube des Lumières, Paris, Tallandier, 2008.
11.^ Rennes, guide histoire
12.^ .J-R Rotté, Ar Seiz Breur. recherches et réalisations pour un art Breton moderne, 1923-1947, 1987.
13.^ http://books.google.com/books?id=h99nAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Il+est+interdit+de+parler+breton+et+de+cracher+par+terre%22&dq=%22Il+est+interdit+de+parler+breton+et+de+cracher+par+terre%22&ei=BcJMS8PWMILmzASN-dn2Cw&cd=2
14.^ "Cote de Granit Rosé (pink granite coast)". Frenchconnections.co.uk. http://www.frenchconnections.co.uk/en/guide/miniguidepage/150687-cote-de-granit-ros%C3%A9---brittany. Retrieved 2009-02-06.
15.^ Renouard, Michel, Bretagne, Éditions Ouest France, 2007, p. 49
16.^ Bretagne: poems (in French), by Amand Guérin, Published by P. Masgana, 1842: page 238
17.^ http://www.bierbreizh.info/
A Look at Some British Celtic Tribes
Oct 11th, 2009 by Lysianassa
This article looks at three different 'Celtic' tribes that lived in ancient Britain.
Before the Romans came to Britain and annexed it into their Empire, ancient Britain was home to some of the most interesting kingdoms, or tribes in the Celtic world. These Celts occupied different areas of Britain, Wales and Scotland, each having their own distinct heritage and traditions.
When looking at Celtic tribes, either in Britain or anywhere else in Europe, it is important to stress that the word Celtic is an umbrella term; it refers to a group of people who speak a Celtic language, which is descended from the Indo-European family language branch. These 'Celts', found throughout British Isles and Europe, all shared a common origin, not only in language, but culture and blood. In this then, the Celtic people are only referred to as 'Celtic' by modern standards and would not have called themselves Celtic.
There are no records as to what these ancient people called themselves. The term 'Britains' and the naming of their lands 'Britannia' were what the Romans referred to these tribes. It is quite possible that the people, instead of calling themselves Britains or Celts, would have called themselves after the tribes they belonged to. Academically speaking, it is more appropriate to refer to these ancient people as Late Iron Age people.
There were around 20 major distinct tribes throughout the island of Britannia, although there were smaller tribes who had similar characteristics with these larger groups. The Atrebates were one of these major tribes, the extent of their land occupation in parts of West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire and north east Wiltshire in southern England. We know from excavations that their occupations were at Selsey and Silchester, this capitol being called Calleva Atrebatvm.
One of our most key sources of information on the Atrebates comes from the Romans. When Caesar invaded Britain, he made note of the people he found there. "The sea coast is peopled by the Belgians, drawn thither by the love of war and plunder. These people, coming from different parts of their parent country and settling in Britain, still retain the name of the states from which they emigrated".
The Atrebates were a tribe that migrated from Belgium, but we should be wary of taking Caesar's account as literal truth; Caesar saw Britain as a land full of people from Belgium who was very different, and less civilized, than the people he had met throughout Gaul on his way to Britain.
One important Atrebate was Comius, a chief of this tribe. There are accounts that Caesar sent him to Britain ahead of him, intending to use him as an ambassador to the people due to the influence he had. From this, and other reliable archaeological sources, there are possibilities that there were a tribe of Atrebates in Britain before Comius was sent by Caesar.
They were considered to be the most civilized of the tribes and this is probably due to the fact that they supported Roman rule and had a succession of tribal leaders who were loyal to Rome, including Tincommius, Eppillus and Verica. However, by 25 CE, the Atrebates were under constant pressure from the Catuvellauni, until they were able to subjugate the entire Atrebate lands. Indeed, one tribal ruler, probably Verica, was forced to seek refuge with Claudius, the Roman emperor who finally brought Britannia under Roman rule.
Another ancient tribe of Britain were the Cornovii. These were a people whose territory was located in modern day Shropshire and Wroxeter, with their capitol named Viroconivm Cornovirovm. Like with many Late Iron Age British people, we rely on much of our information on these tribes comes from Roman sources. One source places the tribe, with its towns Deva and Viroconium, immediately east of the Ordovices of North and Central Wales, another gives among his list of towns the barbarous form Utriconion Cornoninnorum. Older scholars have called the tribe Cornavii but more recent scholars, however, have preferred the form Cornovii. In addition to this, the former scholar mentions Cornavii in the north of Scotland, and it is possible that there was such a tribe name in Western Gaul (cf. the later name of Brittany Cornouailles).
It seems that there were no major towns or centres among the Cornovii until the beginnings of Roman rule, which the tribe complied with almost immediately. From this it seems as though they were a pastoral life. Once the Romans arrived and set up a permanent military presence in Britain, the Cornovii provided the Romans with the regiment Notitia Dignitatum who served the north west of Britain.
With the coming of the Romans, the Cornovii built up their towns with Roman influence, including the construction of a Roman bath house and a forum. Their capitol at Wroxeter was said to have been destroyed in the second century CE but it has been suggested, and widely accepted amongst scholars, that it wasn't destroyed until the time of Marcus Aurelius.
Another Late Iron Age tribe in Britain were the Dumnonii who were located in modern Devon and Cornwall. Their capitol was called Isca Dvmnoniorvm. The Dumnonii are a tribe with a long history which can be traced back to the Bronze Age but it wasn't until later that they were named Dumnonii. Indeed, early Irish accounts call them the Fir Domnann, and it has been suggested that there was a mass migration from Cornwall to Ireland, introducing bronze metal working to Ireland. One reason supporting this belief is the fact that scholars are aware of extensive trade between Ireland and the mainland at this time.
According to scholars, there were two parts to the Dumnonii tribe, the Northern Dumnonii and the Southern Dumnonii.Myths of British ancestry
Stephen Oppenheimer
21st October 2006 - Issue 127 of Prospect Magazine
Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons, in fact neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands
Read Stephen Oppenheimer's follow-up to this article here, in the June 2007 edition of Prospect, as he answers some of the many comments and queries readers have sent in response to his analysis. You can also find out more about his work here, at the Bradshaw Foundation website.
The fact that the British and the Irish both live on islands gives them a misleading sense of security about their unique historical identities. But do we really know who we are, where we come from and what defines the nature of our genetic and cultural heritage? Who are and were the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish and the English? And did the English really crush a glorious Celtic heritage?
Everyone has heard of Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. And most of us are familiar with the idea that the English are descended from Anglo-Saxons, who invaded eastern England after the Romans left, while most of the people in the rest of the British Isles derive from indigenous Celtic ancestors with a sprinkling of Viking blood around the fringes.Yet there is no agreement among historians or archaeologists on the meaning of the words "Celtic" or "Anglo-Saxon." What is more, new evidence from genetic analysis (see note below) indicates that the Anglo-Saxons and Celts, to the extent that they can be defined genetically, were both small immigrant minorities. Neither group had much more impact on the British Isles gene pool than the Vikings, the Normans or, indeed, immigrants of the past 50 years.
The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of our ancestors came to this corner of Europe as hunter-gatherers, between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, after the melting of the ice caps but before the land broke away from the mainland and divided into islands. Our subsequent separation from Europe has preserved a genetic time capsule of southwestern Europe during the ice age, which we share most closely with the former ice-age refuge in the Basque country. The first settlers were unlikely to have spoken a Celtic language but possibly a tongue related to the unique Basque language.Another wave of immigration arrived during the Neolithic period, when farming developed about 6,500 years ago. But the English still derive most of their current gene pool from the same early Basque source as the Irish, Welsh and Scots. These figures are at odds with the modern perceptions of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon ethnicity based on more recent invasions. There were many later invasions, as well as less violent immigrations, and each left a genetic signal, but no individual event contributed much more than 5 per cent to our modern genetic mix.
Many myths about the Celts
Celtic languages and the people who brought them probably first arrived during the Neolithic period. The regions we now regard as Celtic heartlands actually had less immigration from the continent during this time than England. Ireland, being to the west, has changed least since the hunter-gatherer period and received fewer subsequent migrants (about 12 per cent of the population) than anywhere else. Wales and Cornwall have received about 20 per cent, Scotland and its associated islands 30 per cent, while eastern and southern England, being nearer the continent, has received one third of its population from outside over the past 6,500 years. These estimates, set out in my book The Origins of the British, come from tracing individual male gene lines from continental Europe to the British Isles and dating each one (see box at bottom of page).
If the Celts were not our main aboriginal stock, how do we explain the wide historical distribution and influence of Celtic languages? There are many examples of language change without significant population replacement; even so, some people must have brought Celtic languages to our isles. So where did they come from, and when?The orthodox view of the origins of the Celts turns out to be an archaeological myth left over from the 19th century. Over the past 200 years, a myth has grown up of the Celts as a vast, culturally sophisticated but warlike people from central Europe, north of the Alps and the Danube, who invaded most of Europe, including the British Isles, during the iron age, around 300 BC.
Central Europe during the last millennium BC certainly was the time and place of the exotic and fierce Hallstatt culture and, later, the La Tène culture, with their prestigious, iron-age metal jewellery wrought with intricately woven swirls. Hoards of such jewellery and weapons, some fashioned in gold, have been dug up in Ireland, seeming to confirm central Europe as the source of migration. The swirling style of decoration is immortalised in such cultural icons as the Book of Kells, the illuminated Irish manuscript (Trinity College, Dublin), and the bronze Battersea shield (British Museum), evoking the western British Isles as a surviving remnant of past Celtic glory. But unfortunately for this orthodoxy, these artistic styles spread generally in Europe as cultural fashions, often made locally. There is no evidence they came to Britain and Ireland as part of an invasion.Many archaeologists still hold this view of a grand iron-age Celtic culture in the centre of the continent, which shrank to a western rump after Roman times. It is also the basis of a strong sense of ethnic identity that millions of members of the so-called Celtic diaspora hold. But there is absolutely no evidence, linguistic, archaeological or genetic, that identifies the Hallstatt or La Tène regions or cultures as Celtic homelands. The notion derives from a mistake made by the historian Herodotus 2,500 years ago when, in a passing remark about the "Keltoi," he placed them at the source of the Danube, which he thought was near the Pyrenees. Everything else about his description located the Keltoi in the region of Iberia.
The late 19th-century French historian Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville decided that Herodotus had meant to place the Celtic homeland in southern Germany. His idea has remained in the books ever since, despite a mountain of other evidence that Celts derived from southwestern Europe. For the idea of the south German "Empire of the Celts" to survive as the orthodoxy for so long has required determined misreading of texts by Caesar, Strabo, Livy and others. And the well-recorded Celtic invasions of Italy across the French Alps from the west in the 1st millennium BC have been systematically reinterpreted as coming from Germany, across the Austrian Alps.
De Jubainville's Celtic myth has been deconstructed in two recent sceptical publications: The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention by Simon James (1999), and The Celts: Origins, Myths and Inventions by John Collis (2003). Nevertheless, the story lingers on in standard texts and notably in The Celts, a Channel 4 documentary broadcast in February. "Celt" is now a term that sceptics consider so corrupted in the archaeological and popular literature that it is worthless.
This is too drastic a view. It is only the central European homeland theory that is false. The connection between modern Celtic languages and those spoken in southwest Europe during Roman times is clear and valid. Caesar wrote that the Gauls living south of the Seine called themselves Celts. That region, in particular Normandy, has the highest density of ancient Celtic place-names and Celtic inscriptions in Europe. They are common in the rest of southern France (excluding the formerly Basque region of Gascony), Spain, Portugal and the British Isles. Conversely, Celtic place-names are hard to find east of the Rhine in central Europe.
Given the distribution of Celtic languages in southwest Europe, it is most likely that they were spread by a wave of agriculturalists who dispersed 7,000 years ago from Anatolia, travelling along the north coast of the Mediterranean to Italy, France, Spain and then up the Atlantic coast to the British Isles. There is a dated archaeological trail for this. My genetic analysis shows exact counterparts for this trail both in the male Y chromosome and the maternally transmitted mitochondrial DNA right up to Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and the English south coast.
Further evidence for the Mediterranean origins of Celtic invaders is preserved in medieval Gaelic literature. According to the orthodox academic view of "iron-age Celtic invasions" from central Europe, Celtic cultural history should start in the British Isles no earlier than 300 BC. Yet Irish legend tells us that all six of the cycles of invasion came from the Mediterranean via Spain, during the late Neolithic to bronze age, and were completed 3,700 years ago.
Anglo-Saxon ethnic cleansing?
The other myth I was taught at school, one which persists to this day, is that the English are almost all descended from 5th-century invaders, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, from the Danish peninsula, who wiped out the indigenous Celtic population of England.
The story originates with the clerical historians of the early dark ages. Gildas (6th century AD) and Bede (7th century) tell of Saxons and Angles invading over the 5th and 6th centuries. Gildas, in particular, sprinkles his tale with "rivers of blood" descriptions of Saxon massacres. And then there is the well-documented history of Anglian and Saxon kingdoms covering England for 500 years before the Norman invasion.
But who were those Ancient Britons left in England to be slaughtered when the legions left? The idea that the Celts were eradicated-culturally, linguistically and genetically-by invading Angles and Saxons derives from the idea of a previously uniformly Celtic English landscape. But the presence in Roman England of some Celtic personal and place-names doesn't mean that all ancient Britons were Celts or Celtic-speaking.
The genocidal view was generated, like the Celtic myth, by historians and archaeologists over the last 200 years. With the swing in academic fashion against "migrationism" (seeing the spread of cultural influence as dependent on significant migrations) over the past couple of decades, archaeologists are now downplaying this story, although it remains a strong underlying perspective in history books.
Some geneticists still cling to the genocide story. Research by several genetics teams associated with University College London has concentrated in recent years on proving the wipeout view on the basis of similarities of male Y chromosome gene group frequency between Frisia/north Germany and England. One of the London groups attracted press attention in July by claiming that the close similarities were the result of genocide followed by a social-sexual apartheid that enhanced Anglo-Saxon reproductive success over Celtic.
The problem is that the English resemble in this way all the other countries of northwest Europe as well as the Frisians and Germans. Using the same method (principal components analysis, see note below), I have found greater similarities of this kind between the southern English and Belgians than the supposedly Anglo-Saxon homelands at the base of the Danish peninsula. These different regions could not all have been waiting their turn to commit genocide on the former Celtic population of England. The most likely reason for the genetic similarities between these neighbouring countries and England is that they all had similar prehistoric settlement histories.
When I looked at exact gene type matches between the British Isles and the continent, there were indeed specific matches between the continental Anglo-Saxon homelands and England, but these amounted to only 5 per cent of modern English male lines, rising to 15 per cent in parts of Norfolk where the Angles first settled. There were no such matches with Frisia, which tends to confirm a specific Anglo-Saxon event since Frisia is closer to England, so would be expected to have more matches.
When I examined dates of intrusive male gene lines to look for those coming in from northwest Europe during the past 3,000 years, there was a similarly low rate of immigration, by far the majority arriving in the Neolithic period. The English maternal genetic record (mtDNA) is consistent with this and contradicts the Anglo-Saxon wipeout story. English females almost completely lack the characteristic Saxon mtDNA marker type still found in the homeland of the Angles and Saxons. The conclusion is that there was an Anglo-Saxon invasion, but of a minority elite type, with no evidence of subsequent "sexual apartheid."
The orthodox view is that the entire population of the British Isles, including England, was Celtic-speaking when Caesar invaded. But if that were the case, a modest Anglo-Saxon invasion is unlikely to have swept away all traces of Celtic language from the pre-existing population of England. Yet there are only half a dozen Celtic words in English, the rest being mainly Germanic, Norman or medieval Latin. One explanation is that England was not mainly Celtic-speaking before the Anglo-Saxons. Consider, for example, the near-total absence of Celtic inscriptions in England (outside Cornwall), although they are abundant in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Brittany.Who was here when the Romans came?
So who were the Britons inhabiting England at the time of the Roman invasion? The history of pre-Roman coins in southern Britain reveals an influence from Belgic Gaul. The tribes of England south of the Thames and along the south coast during Caesar's time all had Belgic names or affiliations. Caesar tells us that these large intrusive settlements had replaced an earlier British population, which had retreated to the hinterland of southeast England. The latter may have been the large Celtic tribe, the Catuvellauni, situated in the home counties north of the Thames. Tacitus reported that between Britain and Gaul "the language differs but little."
The common language referred to by Tacitus was probably not Celtic, but was similar to that spoken by the Belgae, who may have been a Germanic people, as implied by Caesar. In other words, a Germanic-type language could already have been indigenous to England at the time of the Roman invasion. In support of this inference, there is some recent lexical (vocabulary) evidence analysed by Cambridge geneticist Peter Forster and continental colleagues. They found that the date of the split between old English and continental Germanic languages goes much further back than the dark ages, and that English may have been a separate, fourth branch of the Germanic language before the Roman invasion.
Apart from the Belgian connection in the south, my analysis of the genetic evidence also shows that there were major Scandinavian incursions into northern and eastern Britain, from Shetland to Anglia, during the Neolithic period and before the Romans. These are consistent with the intense cultural interchanges across the North sea during the Neolithic and bronze age. Early Anglian dialects, such as found in the old English saga Beowulf, owe much of their vocabulary to Scandinavian languages. This is consistent with the fact that Beowulf was set in Denmark and Sweden and that the cultural affiliations of the early Anglian kingdoms, such as found in the Sutton Hoo boat burial, derive from Scandinavia.A picture thus emerges of the dark-ages invasions of England and northeastern Britain as less like replacements than minority elite additions, akin to earlier and larger Neolithic intrusions from the same places. There were battles for dominance between chieftains, all of Germanic origin, each invader sharing much culturally with their newly conquered indigenous subjects.
So, based on the overall genetic perspective of the British, it seems that Celts, Belgians, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings and Normans were all immigrant minorities compared with the Basque pioneers, who first ventured into the empty, chilly lands so recently vacated by the great ice sheets.
Note: How does genetic tracking work?The greatest advances in genetic tracing and measuring migrations over the past two decades have used samples from living populations to reconstruct the past. Such research goes back to the discovery of blood groups, but our Y-chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA are the most fruitful markers to study since they do not get mixed up at each generation. Study of mitochondrial DNA in the British goes back over a decade, and from 2000 to 2003 London-based researchers established a database of the geographically informative Y-chromosomes by systematic sampling throughout the British Isles. Most of these samples were collected from people living in small, long-established towns, whose grandparents had also lived there.
Two alternative methods of analysis are used. In the British Y-chromosome studies, the traditional approach of principal components analysis was used to compare similarities between whole sample populations. This method reduces complexity of genetic analysis by averaging the variation in frequencies of numerous genetic markers into a smaller number of parcels-the principal components-of decreasing statistical importance. The newer approach that I use, the phylogeographic method, follows individual genes rather than whole populations. The geographical distribution of individual gene lines is analysed with respect to their position on a gene tree, to reconstruct their origins, dates and routes of movement.
Myths of British ancestry revisited
Stephen Oppenheimer 30th June 2007 — Issue 135 of Prospect Magazine
Stephen Oppenheimer responds to readers' questions and comments on his October 2006 article on British ancestry
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q—Stephen Oppenheimer’s fascinating thesis helps to answer one of the most vexing questions of dark-age British history: why is there so little trace of Celtic culture in England and in the English language? The fact that so little remains of Celtic influence in England in terms of place names—outside Cornwall and Cumbria—and in the language points to a long process of cultural conquest by the 4th and 3rd centuries BC Belgic invaders, who were Germanic, as implied by Julius Caesar’s history of his British adventures. The cultural and linguistic origins of the English are thus pre-Roman. The Anglo-Saxon elite invasions of the 5th and 6th centuries AD reinforced, rather than created, a pre-existing difference between the proto-English and the culturally Celtic of the western fringes of the British Isles.
Mark Hudson
A—This letter draws attention to an aspect of the evidence that I understate in my book, namely the near-absence of Celtic influence in modern English place names. Whereas there are a couple of examples of near-complete “language shift” with absence of borrowing from a previous aboriginal vocabulary, indigenous place names are in general more resistant to extinction. This can be seen in America and Australia, which retain a considerable number of indigenous place names. These two examples are interesting, not only because massive replacement and genocide took place, but also because Australian and American English retain far more aboriginal vocabulary than native English retains Celtic. England itself retains pre-Indo-European place and river names, but few Celtic names, and the English language has literally only a handful of Celtic words.
The fact that England is such a “Celtic desert” is a problem for linguists who believe that Anglo-Saxon triumphed in what had been a totally Celtic-speaking region, even given the gory stories of massacre. This problem is because the Angles and Saxons apparently carried out a much better job of language extinction than in Australia and America, where genocide and massive replacement are so well documented. The “overkill” problem is acknowledged by English place name authority Richard Coates in a recent article “Invisible Britons: the view from linguistics,” where he concludes either that the genocide was complete or that there were few Britons actually living in England to interact with the invaders: “I argue that there is no reason to believe large-scale survival of an indigenous population could so radically fail to leave linguistic traces.”
Rather than pause to question scholarly assumptions that England had been 100 per cent Celtic-speaking until the 5th-century invasions, Coates prefers to use the linguistic evidence to challenge the genetic evidence: “These are the questions that need to be answered by those who propose a massive contribution of Britons to the “English” gene-pool.”
I guess I would see it the other way around. While there is no reason to expect that language change, resulting from invasion, should necessarily be massively reflected in the genetic picture, there is every expectation that complete genocide predicted by linguists should be—if it really happened.
Stephen Oppenheimer
Q—Oppenheimer’s article shows the futility of letting scientists loose on purely historical questions, which are better tackled by historians, archaeologists and linguists. There is no essential connection between where your ancestors came from in the Neolithic period and what language you speak or how you behave culturally. In any case, statistically all of us are descended from everyone: allowing 25 years per generation, in the 62 generations since 450AD, we have had 4.6 x 1016 direct ancestors, more people than have ever existed, and so we must be related to everyone on earth many times over.
Martin Nichols
A—From your first sentence it seems you must long for the good old days when historians, archaeologists and linguists could speculate on European invasions by Indo-Aryans, Kurgan horsemen and Celts, free of troublesome biological evidence. If you read my article and book, you will realise that your second sentence contains my starting point or null hypothesis: that connections between culture and genes are likely to be tenuous and that individual cases where this is claimed have to be tested appropriately.
Stephen Oppenheimer
Q—It is true that, “The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of our ancestors came to this corner of Europe as hunter-gatherers, between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago.” This is the R lineage group and most European males have an R Y chromosome. But it is rather silly to say that, “Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons; in fact, neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands.” Angles, Saxons, Celts and Basques are not lineage groups. They are ethnic groups that developed within the last 2,000 or 3,000 years. Like most Europeans, they probably belonged to the R lineage. Most Germans, Poles, French, Spaniards and Russians also belong to the R lineage group. None of this negates the established history of the British Isles.
Has Oppenheimer read the research of Weale et al—”Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration” (2002)—which shows that the male populations in two central English towns were genetically very similar, whereas those of two north Welsh towns differed significantly both from each other and from the English towns? Using novel population genetic models that incorporate both mass migration and continuous gene flow, they concluded that this was best explained by a substantial migration of Anglo-Saxon Y chromosomes into central England—but not into north Wales.
Douglas Forbes
A—I cannot claim responsibility for your second quotation, which is from the article’s standfirst. As you must realise, authors of magazine articles rarely have control over these. I cannot disagree with your complaint, but hopefully you read the whole article.
On your second point, it is misleading for you to talk about frequencies of the R male lineage in different European countries as if this constituted a uniform genetic background, since there are actually two main R groups, which split tens of thousands of years ago outside Europe and had completely different modes of spread and present distributions in Europe. R1b expanded from the Basque Ice Age refuge and predominates in extreme western Europe, being found at only 20 per cent or less in Russia and the Baltic states. R1a1, on the other hand, predominates in eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent in Scandinavia. I deal with the spread of both major R lineages at length in chapters 3 and 4 of my book The Origins of the British.
I have indeed read the research of Weale et al. I discuss it and similar papers at length in chapter 11 of my book, where I register my disagreement with their method of reconstruction from relative gene group frequencies, presenting instead my own phylo-geographic re-analysis of their data, based on fine detail of individual founding lineages.
Stephen Oppenheimer
Q—Interestingly, Robert Graves, in his book The White Goddess, developed a theory about early settlement of these islands similar to Stephen Oppenheimer’s. Graves’s evidence is based on early literary sources, mythology, local tradition and the archaeology known at the time of writing. I gather that Graves is not popular among archaeologists. But if you are prepared to tease out strands of DNA from human body fluids, looking through The White Goddess should be no greater challenge.
Christine Peace
A—Thanks for this information. I have read several of Graves’s books, but not The White Goddess. I shall rectify. Incidentally, another European scholar, linguist Theo Venneman, has a reconstruction of post-Ice Age recolonisation of the British Isles, which gives a relative of the Basque language primacy of place as the first entrant. I outline his theory in the new paperback edition of my book The Origins of the British.
Stephen Oppenheimer
Q—Regarding your statement that 75-95 per cent of paternal genes in Britain are of Iberian origin, is this genetic material distinct and specific only among Basque-type peoples, or does some of it share features with other, non-Basque Europeans? If the latter is true, why is it omitted from your findings?
Timothy Burton
A—I do discuss the questions you raise, but in chapters 3 and 4 of my book The Origins of the British, not in the more condensed Prospect article. Part of the answer to your query is in my answer to Douglas Forbes above, but allow me to expand a little more here.
As you suggest, the re-expansion of paternal group R1b and maternal group H from the Basque Ice Age refuge spread up the coasts of all the countries facing the Atlantic, after the ice melted. The British Isles retained higher rates than the other countries, for several reasons related specifically to early movements directly from the Basque country rather than from general diffusion from western Europe. First, as a result of lower sea levels, the British Isles, in particular Ireland, were connected and at the furthest edge of the extended Ice Age European continent, and thus received the bulk of early coastal migration. Then, as sea levels rose, first Ireland then Britain became islands, relatively insulated from further migration from elsewhere in Europe, thus preserving their high rates of R1b and similarity to the initial settlements.
The means by which I could separate the R1b types in the British Isles from those on the other side of the channel is by the use of “Founder Analysis.” That is, looking at the detail of their gene types (so-called STR haplotypes). These revealed 21 founding clusters, which could only have arrived direct from the Basque country. Their descendant twigs are unique to the British Isles. Furthermore I was able to date the arrival of these individual clusters using their diversity.
Stephen Oppenheimer
Q—What about the genetic make-up of the Man Islanders? Did it suffer few modifications from its origins because of? geographical remoteness, or is it very different from the rest of the British Isles because of the impact of invasions (such as the Vikings) on a small population?
Alexandre Cogan
A—The simple answer is that your first suggestion is closer to the truth than your second. The Isle of Man received more Norwegian gene-flow than anywhere else in the British Isles, except for Shetland and Orkney, which received the most. This does not, however, account for more than 20-25% of the male Isle of Man gene pool. Fig 11.4b in my book gives a very approximate genetic distance map, illustrating this in more detail.
Stephen Oppenheimer
Belgium
Gallia Belgica
From Wikipedia,
Province of Gallia Belgica (sometimes given as Belgica Prima[1]) was a Roman province located in what is now the southern part of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, northeastern France, and western Germany. The indigenous population of southern Gallia Belgica consisted of a mixture of Celtic and Germanic tribes, often described as the Belgae as well. According to Julius Caesar, the border between Gallia and Belgica was formed by the Marne and the Seine[2] and that with Germania by the Rhine[3] The area is the historical heart of the Low Countries, a region corresponding roughly to the current Benelux group of states, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg as well as the French Flanders and some part of the Rhineland.Roman conquest
In 57 BC, Julius Caesar led the conquest of the tribes in the region which Romans would later call Gallia Belgica. Modern accounts hold that there were eighteen peoples in the region.[4] Save the southern Remi, all the tribes allied against the Romans, fearful of isolation if the rest of the region was conquered and angry at the Roman decision to garrison legions in their territory the preceding winter. Contemporary estimates of the allies’ combined strength numbered the troops at 288,000, led by the Suession king, Galba.[5] Due to the Belgic coalition’s size and reputation for uncommon bravery, Caesar avoided meeting the combined forces of the tribes in battle. Instead, he used cavalry to skirmish with smaller contingents of tribesmen. Only when Caesar managed to isolate one of the tribes did he risk conventional battle. The tribes fell in a piecemeal fashion and Caesar claimed to offer lenient terms to defeated, including Roman protection from the threat of surrounding tribes.[6] Most tribes agreed to the conditions. A series of uprisings followed the 57 BC conquest. The largest revolt was led by the Bellovaci in 52 BC, after the defeat of Vercingetorix. During this rebellion it was the Belgae who avoided direct conflict. They harassed the Roman legions, led personally by Caesar, with cavalry detachments and archers. The rebellion was put down after a Bellovaci ambush of the Romans failed. The revolting party was slaughtered.
Julius Caesar's commentary
As noted in the section on Gaul, Julius Caesar wrote in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico:Gaul is divided in three parts, one is inhabited by the Belgae, the other by the Aquitanians, the third part by those who call themselves the Celts, but those we call Gauls. They all have other languages, institutions and laws. The Gauls are separated from the Aquitanians by the Garonne and from the Belgae by the Marne and the Seine. The bravest Gauls are the Belgae, because their culture and inhabitants are located far away from the rest of the province, because few merchants visit them, and because they are close to Germania, which is across the Rhine and with whom they are at war.
Formation of Gallia Belgica
The province of Gallia Belgica was originally part of Gallia Comata, however this governmental structure proved ineffective. Following a census of the region in 27 BC, Augustus ordered a restructuring of the provinces in Gaul. Therefore in 22 B.C., Marcus Agrippa split Gallia Comata into three regions (Gallia Aquitania, Gallia Lugdunensis and Gallia Belgica.) Agrippa made the divisions on what he perceived to be distinctions in language, race and community - Gallia Belgica was meant to be a mix of Celtic and Germanic peoples.[7] The capital of this territory was Reims, according to the geographer Strabo, though later the capital moved to modern day Trier. The date of this move is uncertain.
Modern historians view the term ‘Gaul’ and its subdivisions as a “product of faulty ethnography” and see the split of Gallia Comata into three provinces as an attempt to construct a more efficient government, as opposed to a cultural division.[8] Successive Roman emperors struck a balance between Romanizing the people of Gallia Belgica and allowing pre-existing culture to survive. The Romans allowed local governments to survive, typically in the form of Cantons, however their number in Gallia Belgica was curbed. Roman government was run by Concilia in Reims or Trier. Additionally, local notables from Gallia Belgica were required to participate in a festival in Lugdunum (modern Lyon) which typically celebrated or worshiped the emperor’s genius. The gradual adoption of Romanized names by local elites and the Romanization of laws under local authority demonstrate the effectiveness of this concilium Galliarum.[9] With that said, the concept and community of Gallia Belgica did not predate the Roman province, but developed from it.
Under the Emperors
During the 1st century AD (estimated date 90 AD), the provinces of Gaul were restructured. Emperor Domitian reorganized the provinces in order to separate the militarized zones of the Rhine from the civilian populations of the region.[10] The northern Gallia Belgica was renamed Germania Inferior (around modern Belgium), the eastern part Germania Superior (West Germany and Eastern France) and the southern border of Gallia Belgica was extended to the south. The newer Gallia Belgica included the cities of Camaracum (Cambrai), Nemetacum (Arras), Samarobriua (Amiens), Durocorter (Reims), Diuidorum (Metz) and Augusta Treverorum (Trier).
Emperor Diocletian restructured the provinces around 300, and split Belgica into two provinces: Belgica Prima and Belgica Secunda. Belgica Prima had Treveri (Trier) as its main city, and consisted of the eastern part. The border between Belgica Prima and Belgica Secunda was approximately along the River Meuse.
Fall of Gallia Belgica
In 406 AD, the Vandals, Burgundians and other tribes crossed the Rhine and defeated the Gaulish forces. The Franks had already infiltrated Germania Inferior and controlled it since at least 350 AD. They emerged victorious and Belgica Secunda became in the 5th century the center of Clovis' Merovingian kingdom and during the 8th century the heart of the Carolingian Empire. After the death of Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious, the region was divided by the Treaty of Verdun in 843. The three sons of Louis the Pious divided his territories into three kingdoms: East Francia, West Francia which became the kernel of modern France, and Middle Francia which was succeeded by Lotharingia. Though often presented as the dissolution of the Frankish empire, it in fact the continued adherence to Salic patrimony. Lotharingia was divided in 870 by the Treaty of Meerssen under West- and East Francia.
Belgica as the name of the Low Countries
Representation of the Low Countries as Leo Belgicus by Claes Janszoon Visscher, 1609.Although the name "Belgica" is now reserved for Belgium, before the division of the Low Countries into a southern and a northern half in the 16th century, the name referred to the entire Low Countries. The Seventeen Provinces of the Low Countries were then divided into the independent Belgica Foederata or the federal Dutch Republic and the Belgica Regia or the royal Southern Netherlands under the Habsbourgian crown. For example, several contemporary maps of the Dutch Republic, which consisted of the Northern Netherlands, and therefore has almost no intersection with the country of Belgium, show the Latin title Belgium Foederatum.[11]In a Belgian dictionary Latin-French (edited in Brussels in 1826 by P.J. De Mat) the word "Belga" is translated as "Flamand" (Flemish).
References1.^ "Luxembourg." Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, 16. Funk & Wagnalls, Inc., 1990. ISBN 0-8343-0091-5
2.^ "Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana diuidit.", Commentarii de Bello Gallico
3.^ "Proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt." Commentarii de Bello Gallico
4.^ Jean-Pierre Picot. Dictionnaire Historique de la Gaule (Paris: La différence, 2002), p. 321.
5.^ Gaius Julius Caesar. The Conquest of Gaul. Trans. S.A. Handford (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp. 59-60.
6.^ Ibid., pp. 59, 70, 72.
7.^ Matthew Bunson. Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire (New York: Facts on File, 1994), p. 169.
8.^ The Cambridge Ancient History, New Ed., Vol. 10 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 469.
9.^ Edith Mary Wightman, Gallia Belgica (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 57-62, 71-74.
10.^ Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola and Richard J. A. Talbert. A Brief History of the Romans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 224.
11.^ For example, the map "Belgium Foederatum" by Matthaeus Seutter, from 1745, which show the current Netherlands.[1]Morini
The Morini are a Belgaec tribe located the closest to England across from Kent and the White Cliffs of Dover opposite the Morini city of Boulogne
Morini
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe Morini are mentioned here because some think they are the origin of the Moran family. They are a Belgiac tribe who allied with the Menapii, a tribe thought to have been related to the Fir Bolg and Fir Domnann. We know the Morini moved across the Straight of Dover and settled in England. Did they move further to visit or be with their Belgae buddies the Fir Bolg, and the Fir Domnann ?
The Morini were a Belgic tribe in the time of the Roman Empire. We know little about their language but one of their cities, Boulogne-sur-Mer was called Bononia by Zosimus and Bonen in the Middle Ages. Zosimus mentioned the Low Germanic character of the city (Bononia germanorum). Their civitas during the Roman Empire was Tarwanna or Tervanna, Thérouanne (Terwaan in Dutch), today in France.
The region around Boulogne and Calais is known to be Flemish until the end of the Middle Ages. The region close to the Belgian border is still known today as French Flanders.
Together with the Menapii they were mentioned in the Commentarii de Bello Gallico.
Etymology
The tribe's name Morini is derived with suffix -no- (like other Celtic peoples Ruteni, Santoni, Turini or Tigurini) from the Celtic word mori "sea" , mentionned in The Vienna Glossary as more translated mare "sea" in Latin. Another derived word morici exists and is translated marini "sailors". Morini represents another variation and it means "those of the sea". The variation morici is found in Aremorici "those who live in front of the sea" (Celtic are "in front of", "along")[2]. Mori is a close relative of Welsh môr, Breton and Cornish mor, Irish muir. The Indo-European prototype was perhaps *mori (or less probably *mari) that gave also birth to Germanic *mari or *meri : English mere, German Meer, etc..Old Slavic morje, etc.[3]
Location
The Morini inhabited the low-lying plains and coastal wetlands awashed by tidal forces of the North Sea in the historic Flanders region (the province of West Flanders) of western Belgium and the present-day departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais of northernmost France. The word "Flanders" is a contraction of "flooded lands" and refers the north of the Morini territory.
Way of life
The Morini built their houses on the edges of the wet polders, on reclaimed land drained away for expandable farming, and on man made hills in the polders called pol or terp. Remainders of those pols can still be observed.[4]
They were successful farmers as polders are very fertile. Traces were found of dikes and Roman ditches[5] . They traded with other tribes, like the ancient (Kentish) Britons of nearby Great Britain and the Batavi of present-day Holland.History
Caesar was very interested in that part of the Morini territory where the crossing of the sea to Britannia was "the shortest" [6], now known as the present-day region of Calais. The Morini had several harbours of which Portus Itius, the modern city of Boulogne, was only one of them.[7] Caesar wanted to induce mainly fear in the northern Morini so "that they wouldn't attack him."[8] The territory of the Morini and Menapii was well protected by marshes and woodland and suited for guerilla tactics. The dangers outweighed the benefits of subduing those economically less interesting regions. In 55 BC Labienus tightened the Roman grip upon the strategically more important western side of the Morini tribal areas.[9] In 54 BC Caesar let one legion, under the command of legate Caius Fabius, hibernate there.[10] In 53 BC the Morini were joined most probably with the Menapii under the command of the Atrebate Commius.[11] During the great Gallic rebellion led by Vercingetorix, the Morini sent a contingent of some 5000 (or 7000?) men to the relief force which had to liberate Alesia.[12]
Caesar gave some interesting details: The tribe counted some pagi (subregions), which, apparently, could make their own decisions.[13] The Morini fled into or behind the "moeren" (swamps)
and became unreachable for the Roman army. In 56 BC, when autumn was very wet, this tactic worked . The year after, which was much dryer, it failed.[14] The Morini would have participated together with other coastal people (Lexovii, Namnetes, Ambiliati, Diablintes and Menapii) and tribes from Britain, in the uprising of the Veneti.[15] Theoretically, the named people were involved in trade and transport to south Britain, an activity Caesar wanted for himself.
Although Caesar fought the Morini, he managed to conquer only a part of their territory around Calais. The rest of the Morini were annexed by emperor Augustus between the years 33-23 B.C. and their tribal lands became part of the Roman province of Belgae.They were converted to Christianity by Saints Victoricus and Fuscian, but the region was re-evangelized by Saint Omer in the seventh century.
Modern Morini
The tribe of the Morini persists today in the indigenous people of the modern Belgian province of West Flanders, which corresponds closely to the ancient territory of the Morini. They speak a particular and difficult dialect ("West-Vlaams") of Dutch. According to Stephen Oppenheimer their genetic signature is virtually identical to the people of south-east Britain (Kent)[16].
References
1. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 2.4
2. ^ fr:Pierre-Yves Lambert, La langue gauloise, éditions errance 1994. p. 34.
3. ^ Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise, éditions errance 2003.
4. ^ For instance near the natural reserve 'Uitkerkse Polder' http://www.studiokontrast.com/nr/31_uitkerke.html
5. ^ see above 'Uitkerkse Polder'
6. ^ Caes., D.B.G., IV 21.3 - previously, Caesar knew only the crossing from the Veneti region
7. ^ Caes., D.B.G., V 2.3; Strabo, Geographia IV 5.2. From Boulogne the crossing was the easiest, from Wissant (?) the shortest.
8. ^ Caes., D.B.G., IV 22
9. ^ Caes., D.B.G., IV 38.1-2
10. ^ Caes., D.B.G., V 24.2
11. ^ Caes., D.B.G., VI 8.4 en VII 76.2
12. ^ Caes., D.B.G., VII 75.3
13. ^ Caes., D.B.G., IV 22.1, 5. "apparently" because Caesar seems to believe initially all too easily that all of the Morini subjected to him, except some pagi. The last paragraph of book IV demonstrates that this was an illusion.
14. ^ Caes., D.B.G., III 28-29; IV 38. In book III Caesar writes about "uninterrupted woodlands and marshes". In Book IV he notes that the Morini had withdrawn in the marshes and the Menapii in the woods (IV 38.2-3).
15. ^ Caes., D.B.G., III 9.10
16. ^ The Origin of the British (2006) by Stephen OppenheimerWhat folllows are clips from various sources regarding the Morini in history
Gann (Commius in Roman records), king of the Atrebates and other Celtic tribes, a chosen leader of the pan-Celtic revolt against Caesar which made him Rome's most wanted man, fled to SE Britain and for 20 years ruled over its Belgic tribes until 26 B.C. On persistent rumours of an imminent Roman invasion of Britain, he handed over to his son, Tincommius, and disappeared from Romano-British records. He led women, children and noncombatants to the West of Ireland out of harm's way. Irish legend tells that Gann and Sengann (Tincommius in Roman records) led the Fir Belg (Belgic) invasion which "landed in Clare (and Limerick) at the Shannon mouth" precisely where Ptolemy located the Gangani (Gann's followers), the one source corroborating the other. Belgic tribes from SE England, the Atrebates, Morini, Mac Umhoir and Domnann led by Gann's family invaded along the West coast of Ireland in a northwards expansion.
THE EXTENT AND DIVISION OF COICED OL nECHMACHT (ARCHAIC CONNACHT)
Ferach Mhor divided Coiced Ol nEchmacht (archaic Connacht) into 3 parts among the Fir Belg tribes. He gave Fidech of the Fir Craibhe the territory from Rath Fidech (al. Caheradrine Fort near Clarinbridge) SW of Athenry to Limerick. He gave Eochaid Allat the territory from Galway River to Drobhais (Drowes) River (i.e. the western districts of Galway, Mayo and Sligo north to Ballyshannon, the territory of the Fir Domnann.Close ties existed between the ruling Fir Belg tribes of Munster and Connacht descended from Gann, Sengann and Dela, and between them and the Manapi…Manapi princesses married into the Munster and Connacht aristocracy and vice versa…The mother of the 3 Munster Cairbres (sons of Conaire) was Sarait, daughter of Conn Cedchathach, Connacht Fir Belg Overking. In 'De Maccaibh Conaire', Conaire is a contemporary of Eoghan Mor, ancestor of the Eoghanacht dynasty of Munster, and son of Conn's younger daughter Sadb, Oilill Olum's Queen. Sadb first wed Lughaid Loigde (Laga) of the Corcu Loigde by whom she bore Lughaid mac Con (who) was fosterson and son to Oillil and Sadb and grandson of Conn Cedchatach. Eoghan Mor's Queen was Moncha of the Manapi. Eoghan Mor's grand-daughter, Mongfhind, wed Eochaid Muigh Mhaen, Fir Belg Overking, ancestor of Connacht's medieval kings and dynasties.
As Fir Belg Overking, Conaire expelled the sons of Desa from Ireland for marauding. At sea they met a Conmaicne Manapi reaver, Ancel. With 5000 warriors they marched from Tracht Fuirbthi (Furbo in Galway Bay in the land of the Conmaicne, Connemara) along the Sli Mhannin to Turoe and assassinated Conaire at Bruiden Da Dhearg near Turoe. The Manapi threat of a takeover of the kingship was now real.
The Books of Lecan and Ballymote record that Eoghan Mor of Munster sojourned with Connacht's Conn Cedchatach (of the Hundred Battles); to help curb the growing power of the Manapi, Eoghan set up a stronghold at Rath Fidech (Fidig, al. Caheradrine Fort near Clarinbridge SW of Athenry) at the heart of what had become a sprawling Manapi settlement stretching from Ath Claidh Magh Ri to Loughrea. Eoghan settled his bands of young warriors, the Oige Bethra, whom he brought from Crich Ealla (Duhallow in NW Cork) around Rath Fidech at the pivitol point of the 3 divisions of Ol nEchmacht (Laud 610; Ca 302; Lec 164).
In a dispute over the kingship Lughaid mac Con challenged Eoghan Mor to a battle. Eoghan was victor. Lughaid fled to Scotland to a king related to his own Manapi people who helped him assemble a vast army from various tribes, including Votadini (Fotad) and Manapi from MannauGoddodin. Lughaid led his vast army to Ath Claidh Magh Ri, slew Art son of Conn, Fir Belg Overking, together with Eoghan Mor and his sons at the Battle of Magh Muc Dhruime and marched to Temhar (Turoe) to usurp the title of Rí Temhróit.
P.243-244'Dendshenchas Medraige' states that "the folk (Manapi and Fotads) of the ireful Lughaid Mac Con seized all the land around Magh Ri (Clarinbridge) and settled there, as corroborated by 'Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae' which further states (P.265) that they captured the lands of Maine and Fiachrach Aidhne (from the plain around Loughrea, centered on Turoe, to Galway Bay). King Cormac mac Art later expelled Lughaid mac Con and assumed his rightful throne as Rí Temhró, Overking of the Fir Belg tribes. Cormac fought 7 battles with the followers of Lughaid mac Con who went south into Munster to serve under Oillil Olum.
P.244-247The chief historic feature of Cormac mac Art's reign is his constant warfare with the Ulaid. Deciding enough was enough, he led the Fir Belg tribes of Southern Ireland in a massive invasion of Cruthin (Ulster) lands (as told by 'Cath Crinna'). A careful analysis of 'Cath Crinna' shows that Tara and the territory south of the Boyne as far as the Tolka River flowing into Dublin Bay was still part of Ulster. Cormac planted his Fir Belg tribes on lands they each conquered from the Cruthin of Ulster along the new border running NW from the Tolka River in Dublin to Loch Ramor in Cavan and Loch Erne to the NW Connacht coast. No attempt was made to camouflage the fact that Tara was part of Ulster (still well within the Ulster Boundary). Professor F. J. Byrne sensed an interpolation in the title of Cormac as Rí Temhró of legendary history, a sly shift from Turoe to Tara of Meath. His qualification of "Cormac's reign at Tara" by the use of the word 'alleged' explodes Cath Crinna's insinuation that Cormac reigned at Tara of Meath. T.F. O Rahilly had to admit in his late "Additional Notes" that 'Cath Crinna' suggests that at that time the power of the Ulaid extended south of the Boyne, and consequently included Tara" ('Early Irish History & Mythology' p.485). His life was cut short before he had the time to absorb the full ramifications and vast implications of his all-too-late discovery.
P.308Truth is often bitter, fact stranger than fiction. Tara, contrary to prevalent belief, was never the Capital of an Iron Age or medieval united Ireland. The projection of a High-Kingship of Ireland in St. Patrick's time is pure fiction perpetrated for propaganda purposes. What was the root cause of the great medieval conspiracy which suppressed the archaic history of Turoe/Athenry oppidum in particular & of Ireland in general, in favour of Tara of Meath and Rathcroghan of Roscommon? These were glorified out of all proportion as the Royal Seats of the High-Kingship of Ireland and of Connacht respectively from time immemorial. Chapter 4 addresses the who-what-when-where-and-why of this hideous hoax.
Large segments of the Northern Continental Belgae fled to southeast England from Roman and Germanic conquest in Caesar's time. In 27/26 BC as preparations for a massive Roman invasion of Britain proceeded some considerable way before being cancelled, Commius, king of Belgae in the Silchester, Winchester and Chichester/ Selsey regions of the south of England, led a folk-movement of his subjects to the Shannon estuary in the West of Ireland. There they are recorded by Ptolemy as the Ganngáni 2 , the decendants of Gann which was the genuine Celtic name of Commius, the Romanised form of his name. His descendants expanded north into Connacht where Déla, Gann's grandson, landed his invasion force at the great seaport of Ath Clee Magh Rí in Galway Bay and advanced inland to set up court on the Hill of Dail (Cnoc na nDála, Knocknadala today) beside Turoe (Cnoc Temhro) 5 . There he established the famous Feis Temhro as recorded in Irish legendary history. From there his descendants, the ancient Fir Belg (Belgae, the Romanised form of their name) of Connacht pushed the aboriginal Cruthin, the men of Ulster, inexorably north-eastwards over the following centuries. The two Regia of Ptolemy's Irish record were the Capitals of these two warring provinces. The warfare involved is recorded in Ireland's oldest legendary history, the Ulidian Tales. This is further corroborated by vestiges of the great linear embankments thrown up by both parties as boundary fortificatious which scar the face of the Celtic Irish landscape to this day and tell of the ferocity of the long drawn-out warfare between the Fir Belg of Connacht and the men of Ulster.
These facts of history were suppressed by pseudo-historians of the Ui Neill warlords and the monastic federation of Armagh in favour of their own concocted glorification. As this Turoe oppidum was of major importance in the late Irish Iron Age, its identification and recovery calls for a total re-evaluation of the origins and history of Celtic Ireland.
Footnotes:
1. Dindshenchas of Magh Mucrama .
2. ' Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia ', p.79 tI ed. Muller (paris 1883).
3. Dindshenchas of Maen Magh (Magh Main).
4. Senchas na Releg, De Gabail an tSida, De Copur in da Muccida in the Book of Leinster, 2468, line 32931-5; 290a 37234-7; and 155a 20348-50; also in Lebor na hUidre and elsewhere.
5. Dindshenchas of Cnoc na nDála ,
6. Edmund Hogan in ' Onomasticon Goedelicum ' under Ath Cliath Magh Rí, p. 56 ff
7. Met. Dindshenchas of Sliabh Bladhma in Book of Leinster, 192 a.Iberia
Celtic Legacy in Galicia
Manuel Alberro, University of UppsalaEvidence of the early presence of Celtic peoples in the Iberian Peninsula has been drawn from sources in the fields of history, archaeology, linguistics, religion, mythology, oral literature and the arts (Alberro 2002, 2003, 2004b; Almagro-Gorbea 1991; Cunliffe 1997: 148-56; Koch 1991; Lenerz-de Wilde 1996; Lorrio and Ruiz Zapatero 2005). However, the Hispano-Celts were for a long time practically excluded from the Celtic world, since archaeological finds from the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures were scarce in this area, and did not provide enough evidence for a cultural scenario comparable to that of Central Europe.
Furthermore, north of the Pyrenees Spanish archaeological studies were practically unheard of, and Spain was seriously under-represented in forums and European publications on the subject. All of this serves to explain why most of the studies on the Celts have either excluded the Celts from Iberia, or barely acknowledged their existence, let alone displayed any depth of knowledge on these people. However, increased scholarly interest in Iberia's Celtic connections has been a significant feature of the last decade: during the past few years, Iberian Celts have been included in several survey texts about the Celts: Cunliffe (1997:133-144 and 2003); Kruta (2000: 316-333); Collis (2003:122-123, 177-180); Haywood (2001: 44-45); Raftery and Twist (2001: 48-49, 113); Alberro and Arnold (2004-2008).
A turning point was the detection by Tovar in 1946 of several basic traits of the Celtiberian language, which has finally been accepted as a branch of the Celtic languages. This pioneering work was followed by several others: Lejeune (1955), Schmoll (1959) and Tovar himself (1948, 1949, 1950, 1955-56, 1961, 1985). The presence of a Celtic language in the Iberian Peninsula was definitively confirmed by the above-described Botorrita bronze tablets, which are considered the most important texts in any Celtic dialect (Beltrán and Tovar 1982; de Hoz and Michelena 1974; Eska 1989; Jordán Cólera 2004: 326ff; Meid 1993 and 1994: 7-28; Villar et al. 2001).
The early presence of large Celtic populations in the Iberian Peninsula is thus documented by sources in the fields of history, archaeology and linguistics. Reports of a Celtic presence in this extensive territory during the Iron Age (Hallstatt period, 700-500 BC) are many and reliable. However, many scholars maintain that the Celts were already settled in this area much earlier, towards the end of the Bronze Age, and that they occupied very extensive tracts of the Iberian Peninsula for centuries (Lenerz-de Wilde 1996; Lorrio 1997: passim, 1999:11-22; Powell 1983: 45-48). Herodotus, using information from Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 540-475 BC) and the reports of seafarers who described their trips to the "Tin Isles", was one of the first Classical authors to refer to the Keltici who dwelled in the Iberian peninsula "beyond the Pillars of Hercules", that is, to the West of Gibraltar (Lenerz-de Wilde 1996: 533; Rankin 1996:8). In his Ora Maritima, Rufus Festus Avienus described the Celtic tribe of the Berybraces or Bebryces as occupying the area by the River Tyrius (now the Turia) in the Iberian Peninsula (Hubert 1987: 289-90); he cited sources from the sixth century BC. Strabo, Poseidonius, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy in his Geographia allude to Celtic tribes living in the northwest and southwest of the Iberian peninsula as well as to the Celtiberians of the northern-central plateau, while Diodorus, Strabo, Valerius Maximus, Silius Italicus, Justin and Livy, among other ancient authors, also described the Celtiberians and their characteristics. Well-known Celtiberian writers include Quintilian and Martial; the latter states in an epigram that he was born in 40 AD in the Celtiberian town of Bilbilis (Rankin 1996: 169-70, 186).
The main Celtic peoples of the Iberian Peninsula
The main Celtic groups of the Iberian Peninsula are the Celtiberians of the large eastern and central plateaux, the Celtici of the southwest, and the Gallaeci and other Celtic peoples of the northwest. The Celtiberians are the best-known and most researched group among the Celts of Spain, and according to many authors the ones who played the most important historical and cultural role (Lorrio 1997). Authors such as Burillo (2005) are of the opinion that the Celtiberians never constituted a real social, cultural, or political unit, thus the study of this group should be geared toward an analysis of the historical process that developed through an amalgamation of populations that inhabited a territory defined by Classical writers as Celtiberia. However, other scholars maintain that the Celtiberians constitute an archaeologically, linguistically, geographically and chronologically well-defined cultural system, extending from the sixth century BC to the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula and the period immediately afterwards (Almagro-Gorbea 1993; Lorrio 1997: 10). From the beginning of the second century BC on, the Celtiberi began to appear in reports describing the almost permanent conflicts they had with the Romans. Diodorus, Poseidonius, Strabo, Valerius Maximus, Silius Italicus, Justin and Livy, among other ancient authors, have described the Celtiberians and their characteristics.
The homeland of the Celtiberians lay in the northeastern region of Spain, stretching from the southern flank of the Ebro Valley to the Eastern Meseta (plateau). It was geographically described by Strabo, Pliny and Ptolemy, and also has been defined by the distribution of inscriptions in the Celtiberian language written in the Latin or Iberian alphabet. The most famous of the numerous archaeological sites is Numantia, which was besieged and destroyed by Scipio in 133 BC and is now being studied by modern methods. The importance of Celtiberian Segeda is corroborated by its coin mints, whose output displays the city's name in Celtiberian (i.e. sekeida). Its two archaeological sites cover a substantial area: Segeda I, located on the hill of Mara, Zaragoza, was conquered and destroyed by the Romans in 153 BC, while Segeda II, Durón de Belmonte de Gracián, Zaragoza, was destroyed during the Sertorian Wars (Burillo Mozota 1999, 2001a, 2001b, 2001-2002, 2003). A large number of finds also have been made inside several hill-forts, locally called castros (Fernández Castro 1995: 356-57). The ethnic closeness and kinship between the Celtiberians and the rest of the Celts of the Iberian Peninsula, visible in the language, the social structure and especially in the shared ideology, have been described by Marco Simón (1989:117-23, 1993: 481-88;1998: passim). The Celtici of the southwest, on the other hand, in the territories of the historical Celtici described by Herodotus and other Classical authors, lately have been the subject of very productive archaeological work (Berrocal Rangel 1992, 2005; Júdice Gamito 1991).
The Celts in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula
Social and commercial relations between the peoples of the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and those of Brittany and the British Islands date back to very remote times. Trade in tin between Ireland and Galicia was already established during the late Neolithic (MacCalister 1921:16), and the similarities in thousands of stone tombs found all along the coasts of Atlantic Europe could indicate that those contacts existed during the period of megalith construction as well (Eogan 1982). These ancient connections continued during the Bronze Age, when a well-defined socio-cultural and commercial zone called the Atlantic Façade, Area, or Province included Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales, the Cornish Peninsula, Armorica (Brittany) and Galicia in Spain, and lasted for at least three millennia (Cunliffe 1997:148). Cunliffe affords northwestern Iberia particular importance within the zone, noting how the complex influence of western seaways converged "around the isolated yet reassuring stepping-stone of Galicia" (Cunliffe 2001:60). Koch has discussed the social basis of early celticization, presenting a model in which he argues that the consolidation of a proto-Celtic language took place during the Late Bronze Age (c.1300-600 BC) in the Atlantic Zone (1991:18-19). According to a number of authors, Celtic language(s) became the lingua franca for the whole area at the time (Alonso Romero 1976; Cunliffe 1997:148-56; Meijide 1994; Ruiz-Gálvez 1984: passim). Thus, enough evidence exists to indicate that several centuries before the Christian Era, the northwest of the Iberian peninsula was already integrated into the Atlantic world (Tranoy 1981:103), and that the contacts between Galicia and the Celtic Atlantic regions continued until the middle of the first millennium AD (Cunliffe 1997: 145-49).During Emperor Diocletian's reign, the Romans created an administrative unit called Gallaecia that covered all of northwestern present-day Spain as well as the northern part of Portugal (Figure 1). Based on data collected from Classical authors and the inscriptions found in this area, some authors have described the numerous tribal groups, mostly Celtic, living in this extensive region (Maluquer de Motes 1963a: 17-21; Tranoy 1981:45-74). The Celtic presence in this area is clearly evidenced by the presence of many placenames ending in -briga, personal names, and the numerous mentions of the Celtici. The name Gallaeci or Callaeci appears for the first time in writing in Appio in 139 BC, when Q. Servilius Caepio invaded the region; for his military achievements, Decimus Junnius Brutus received the name of Callaicus. The main town of the Tiburi, Mansio Nemetobriga, was an important socio-political center (both components of this name, nemetos- and -briga, are clearly identified as Celtic), and one Celtic group, the Gallaeci, are estimated to have numbered some 300,000 individuals living in 24 settlements (Maluquer de Motes 1963a: 17-21; Tranoy 1981:45-74).
Figure 1. Map of Galicia (after Tranoy 1981).
Various forms of evidence, mostly inscriptions and a number of place names ending in -briga, indicate that a Celtic language was spoken over much of central and western Iberia. The tribal name Gallaeci is enshrined in the modern name of Galicia. A few words with Celtic roots are still found in the agrarian vocabulary of rural Galicia, among them aramio, arable land; labéga, plough; cheda, a cart implement; broa, millet; and bogalla, acorn (Lorrio 1991: 27).
Philological evidence can also be obtained by a comparison between Galician linguistic remains and those of Celtiberia and Gaul (Albertos Firmat 1966 and 1975:52). Other indications of a Celtic presence found in this region include the numerous gold torques, sculpted stone heads wearing torques, Hallstatt and La Tène-style decorated jewelry such as the gold tiaras of Elviña and San Martín de Oscos, helmets (Figure 2), and a number of castros (hill-forts) with round houses typical of Celtic regions such as ancient Britannia and Ireland. The so-called guerreros-galaicos, life-size stone figures armed with daggers and shields found at the entrances of castros, also wear torques (Lenerz-de Wilde 1996: 547; Parcero 1999, 2000; Parcero and Cobas 2005).
Celticization in the northwestern Iberian Peninsula
The northwest, which had played an important role in the Bronze Age Atlantic Area, also had an impact on the process of the celticization of the whole Peninsula. After several decades of unconvincing attempts by scholars to demonstrate that the celticization of the Iberian Peninsula took place through invasion waves from the La Tène area (Bosch Gimpera 1942), current Spanish research considers mono-causal invasionist theories as serious oversimplifications, adopting instead a model based on the assimilation of selected cultural elements by the indigenous elites. This model is in turn based on the existence of a cultural substratum with origins in the Atlantic Bronze Age cultural area of the northwestern Peninsula, which had already assimilated linguistic and ideological traits such as the use of a proto-Celtic or Celtic language, hill-forts (castros) with circular stone houses (Ayán et al. in press), certain burial rites, and religious ideologies and practices involving common divinities and religious sites such as springs, brooks, rivers, mountains and woods. This proto-Celtic substrate preserved in the northwest spread during the later Bronze and Iron Age to the highlands of the Iberian mountains and the Eastern plateau, where it developed into the culture of the Celtiberians. From there, it later spread to extensive areas of the north and west of the Peninsula, where it was easily absorbed by the proto-Celtic substratum. However, the proto-Celtic culture of the extreme northwest retained most of its cultural characteristics. Thus, the celticization of the Iberian Peninsula may have had its origin in the northwest, which could explain similar cultural, socio-economic, linguistic and ideological patterns (Almagro-Gorbea 1992, 1993: 146-48; Cunliffe 1997: 139).Celtic immigration to northwestern Iberia during the fifth century AD
At the time when the Angles and the Saxons arrived in Britain, for reasons that have not yet been determined, several Celtic tribes from the south of the island emigrated to the Armorican peninsula (Brittany) and some of them even farther to the northwest of the Iberian peninsula where they landed in the westernmost coast of today's province of Asturias (Berresford Ellis 1993b: 56-7). Spanish historians have recorded this Celtic immigration and landing as having taken place in Galicia between El Ferrol and the River Eo (Orlandis 1975: 48-9), while García y García (1986) maintains that Celtic and Breton tribes arrived in Galicia as early as the end of the fourth century AD. These relatively recent Celtic colonies managed to maintain their own culture, identity and peculiar religious structures, and were recognized as such in the Council of Lugo that took place in the year 567 AD. They were granted their own Christian See, known as Britonia or Bretoña, with headquarters in a monastery of their own. Their bishop, Mahiloc o Mailoc (prelado de la Britonensis ecclesia), who, according to Spanish historians had led this group of Britons to that area, signed the acts of the Second Council of Bracarense which took place in Braga in the year 572 AD (García y García 1986:124). These Celtic colonies expanded further, and their numerous inhabitants contributed to the fact that the region retained its Roman-given name of Gallaecia (today's Galicia). The Moors ravaged the See of Bretoña in AD 830, but it continued to exist at least until the Council of Oviedo in AD 900. This Britonensis ecclesia was located in Bretoña, in the province of Lugo, a locality that still keeps that name. Relatively recent archaeological excavations have uncovered the remains of this church and of a large castro (Chamoso Lamas 1967, 1975; Young 2002).
Several writers describe the contacts between northwestern Spain and Ireland, as well as the various expeditions by Celtic-Irish monks who arrived in Galicia during the so-called "Age of the Saints" in the fifth to first centuries AD. Some historians today speak of a "Celtic thalassocracy" which, they argue, extended in the first centuries of the Christian era from the kingdom of Dalriada to Galicia in Spain (Lewis 1958: Chap. II, passim). Bowen (1977: passim) has studied the considerable activity along the Atlantic sea-routes during this "Age of the Saints" in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. An example of these maritime expeditions found in the oral tradition and the Irish medieval manuscripts is the Immram Curaig Ua Corra, or Uí Corra boat with nine men aboard, among them a bishop and a priest, which landed at "the corner of Spain" (Galicia), where the travellers founded a church (Alonso Romero 1991:55-57; Best and O'Brien 1956; Dillon and Chadwick 1973:242).
Among the most visible signs of Celtic heritage present today in northwestern Spain are the Celtic place-names, the numerous Celtic hill-forts (castros) with circular houses (Ayán et al. 2006-2007), as well as the practice of story telling and some of the stories themselves, which are almost identical to those told in Ireland (Caulfield 1981:205-15). Alonso Romero (1990, 1991) has amply described the persistence of Celtic traditions in Galicia while the similarities between the folklore, rituals, traditions, and superstitions of Galicia and those of the Celtic countries have been recently researched by Alberro (2000 and 2001).Historical, archaeological, linguistic and cultural sources of evidence point to the retention of Celtic heritage in northwestern Spain and northern Portugal, in spite of the fact that the Celtic languages once spoken there were lost due to the Roman occupation of those areas. The abundance of Celtic placenames, the numerous Celtic hill-forts (castros) with round houses, representations of têtes coupées, gold torques and stone heads wearing torques, inscriptions, dedications to Lug and other Celtic deities, the continuing practice of story-telling and the stories themselves, and a number of cultural factors tend to support this assertion.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Prof. Fernando Alonso Romero, University of Santiago; Prof. Séamus Mac Mathúna, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland; Prof. Alberto Lorrio, University of Alicante; Alfredo Erias, Director, Museo de Antropología Das Mariñas, Betanzos; Prof. Philip Payton, Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter; Xosé Lois Foxo, Conductor of the Bagpiper's Band and School of Ourense; my son Prof. Alexander Alberro, University of Florida, Gainesville; and last but not least Prof. Bettina Arnold, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, for her invaluable help in editing and polishing this paper.
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1975. La Edad de Bronce en el occidente atlántico. Primeras Jornadas de Metodología, Santiago de Compostela, 1973 Vol. 1. Santiago de Compostela: University of Santiago.
Marco Simón, F.
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1989. Lengua, instituciones y religión de los celtíberos. In Los Celtas en el Valle Medio del Ebro, pp. 99-129. Zaragoza: Colección Mariano de Pano y Ruata.
1993. La religiosidad en la Céltica hispana. In M. Almagro Gorbea and G. Ruiz Zapatero (eds), Los Celtas: Hispania y Europa, pp. 477-512. Madrid: University of Complutense.
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McDonald, M.
1989. "We are not French!": Language, Culture and Identity in Brittany. London: Routledge.
Meid, W.
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Navascués, J.M. and A. Tovar
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Orlandis, J.
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Parcero Oubiña, C. and I. Cobas Fernández
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Gaul
From WikipediaGaul (Latin: Gallia) is a historical name used in the context of Ancient Rome in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, but also sometimes including the Po Valley, western Switzerland, and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. In English, the word Gaul may also refer to an inhabitant of that region (French: Gaulois), although the expression may be used more generally for all ancient speakers of the Gaulish language (an early variety of Celtic). This language was widespread in Europe, but it shared Gaul with other languages (including at least the Aquitanian language, and also possibly a separate Belgic language[1]). The Latin name for Gaul, still used as the modern Greek word for France, is Gallia.
Gauls under Brennus defeated Roman forces in a battle circa 390 BC. In the Aegean world, a huge migration of Eastern Gauls appeared in Thrace, north of Greece, in 281 BC. Another Gaulish chieftain, also named Brennus, at the head of a large army, was only turned back from desecrating the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece at the last minute — he was alarmed, it was said, by portents of thunder and lightning.[2] At the same time a migrating band of Celts, some 10,000 warriors, with their women and children and slaves, were moving through Thrace. Three tribes of Gauls crossed over from Thrace to Asia Minor at the express invitation of Nicomedes I, king of Bithynia (which was a small geographical location just south of the Bosphorus and the Black Sea in the northern portion of modern-day Turkey, southeast of modern-day Istanbul), who required help in a dynastic struggle against his brother. Eventually they settled down in eastern Phrygia and Cappadocia in central Anatolia, a region thenceforth known as Galatia.
Etymology
At the top of this section is a Map of Gaul circa 58 BC.The names Gallia and Galatia sometimes are linked to the ethnic name Gael, which is, however, derived from Old Irish Goidel (derived, in turn, from Old Welsh Guoidel "Irishman", now spelled Gwyddel, from a Brittonic root *Wedelos meaning literally "forest person, wild man"[3]), and cannot be directly related. It is uncertain whether the Gal- names are from a native name of a tribe, or if they are exonyms. Birkhan (1997) considers a root * g(h)al- "powerful" (PIE * gelh, well-attested in Celtic, and with cognates in Balto-Slavic), but speculates that the name also could be taken from a Gallos River, comparable to the names of the Volcae and the Sequani which are likely derived from hydronyms. There also have been attempts to trace Keltoi and Galatai to a single origin. It is most likely that the terms originated as names of minor tribes * Kel-to and/or Gal(a)-to- which were the earliest to come into contact with the Roman world, but which have disappeared without leaving a historical record.[4]Josephus claimed that the Gauls were descended from Gomer, the grandson of Noah.
In English usage the words Gaul and Gaulish are used synonymously with Latin Gallia, Gallus and Gallicus. However, the similarity of the names is probably accidental: the English words are borrowed from French Gaule and Gaulois, which appear to have been borrowed themselves from Germanic walha- (likely via a Latinization of Frankish Walholant "Gaul", literally "Land of the Foreigners/Romans", making it partially cognate with the name Wales), the usual word for the non-Germanic-speaking peoples (Celtic-speaking and Latin-speaking indiscriminately).[5] The Germanic w is regularly rendered as gu / g in French (cf. guerre = war, garder = ward), and the diphthong au is the regular outcome of al before a following consonant (cf. cheval ~ chevaux). Gaule or Gaulle can hardly be derived from Latin Gallia, since g would become j before a (cf. gamba > jambe), and the diphthong au would be incomprehensible; the regular outcome of Latin Gallia is Jaille in French which is found in several western placenames.[6][7]
Hellenistic etiology connects the name with Galatia (first attested by Timaeus of Tauromenion in the 4th c. BC), and it was suggested that the association was inspired by the "milk-white" skin (???a, gala, "milk") of the Gauls (Greek: Ga??ta?, Galatai, Galatae).
History
Pre-Roman Gaul
A map of Gaul in the 1st century BC, showing the relative positions of the Celtic tribes.
The early history of the Gauls is predominantly a work in archaeology - there being little written information (save perhaps what can be gleaned from coins) concerning the peoples that inhabited these regions - and the relationships between their material culture, genetic relationships (the study of which has been aided, in recent years, through the field of archaeogenetics), and linguistic divisions rarely coincide.The major source of materials on the Celts of Gaul was Poseidonios of Apamea, whose writings were quoted by Timagenes, Julius Caesar, the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus, and the Greek geographer Strabo.[8]
Many cultural traits of the early Celts seem to have been carried northwest up the Danube Valley, although this issue is contested. It seems as if they derived many of their skills (like metal-working), as well as certain facets of their culture, from Balkan peoples. Some scholars think that the Bronze Age Urnfield culture represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European-speaking peoples (see Proto-Celtic). The Urnfield culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from ca. 1200 BC until 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture (ca. 700 to 500 BC) directly from the Urnfield. Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is considered by some scholars to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures.
Massalia (modern Marseille) silver coin with Greek legend, 5th-1st century B.C.The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture, which developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from the Greek, Phoenician, and Etruscan civilizations. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Hungary. Farther north extended the contemporary Pre-Roman Iron Age culture of northern Germany and Scandinavia.
By the 2nd century BC, France was called Gaul (Gallia Transalpina) by the Romans. In his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar distinguishes among three ethnic groups in Gaul: the Belgae in the north (roughly between Rhine and Seine), the Celts in the center and in Armorica, and the Aquitani in the southwest, the southeast being already colonized by the Romans. While some scholars believe that the Belgae south of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved. One of the reasons is political interference upon the French historical interpretation during the 19th century. French historians adopted fully the explanation of Caesar who stated that Gaul stretched from the Pyrenees up to the Rhine in the north. This fitted the French expansionist aspirations of the time under Napoleon III. In the north of (modern) France, the Gaul-German language border was situated somewhere between the Seine and the Somme. Northern Belgic tribes like the Nervians, Atrebates or Morini appear to be Germanic tribes who migrated from the Germanic hinterland and adopted Celtic language and customs[citation needed], as all of the names of their leaders and towns are Celtic. In addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia (present-day Marseille) along the Mediterranean coast. Also, along the southeastern Mediterranean coast, the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-Ligurian culture.
In the 2nd century BC, Mediterranean Gaul had an extensive urban fabric and was prosperous, while the heavily forested northern Gaul had almost no cities outside of fortified compounds (or oppida) used in times of war. The prosperity of Mediterranean Gaul encouraged Rome to respond to pleas for assistance from the inhabitants of Massilia, who were under attack by a coalition of Ligures and Gauls. The Romans intervened in Gaul in 125 BC, and by 121 BC they had conquered the Mediterranean region called Provincia (later named Gallia Narbonensis). This conquest upset the ascendancy of the Gaulish Arverni tribe.
Conquest by Rome
The Roman proconsul and general Julius Caesar pushed his army into Gaul in 58 BC, on the pretext of assisting Rome's Gaullish allies against the migrating Helvetii. With the help of various Gallic tribes (for example, the Aedui) he managed to conquer nearly all of Gaul. But the Arverni tribe, under Chieftain Vercingetorix, still defied Roman rule. Julius Caesar was checked by Vercingetorix at a siege of Gergorvia, a fortified town in the center of Gaul. Caesar's alliances with many Gallic tribes broke. Even the Aedui, their most faithful supporters, threw in their lot with the Arverni but the ever loyal Remi (best known for its cavalry) and Lingones sent troops to support Caesar. The Germans of the Ubii also sent cavalry which Caesar equipped with Remi horses. Caesar captured Vercingetorix in the Battle of Alesia, which ended the majority of Gallic resistance to Rome.As many as a million people (probably 1 in 5 of the Gauls) died, another million were enslaved, 300 tribes were subjugated and 800 cities were destroyed during the Gallic Wars. The entire population of the city of Avaricum (Bourges) (40,000 in all) were slaughtered.[9] During Julius Caesar's campaign against the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland) approximately 60% of the tribe was destroyed, and another 20% was taken into slavery.
Roman Gallia
The Gaulish culture then was massively submerged by Roman culture, Latin was adopted by the Gauls, Gaul, or Gallia, was absorbed into the Roman Empire, all the administration changed and Gauls eventually became Roman citizens.[10] From the 3rd to 5th centuries, Gaul was exposed to raids by the Franks. The Gallic Empire broke away from Rome from 260 to 273, consisting of the provinces of Gaul, Britannia, and Hispania, including the peaceful Baetica in the south.Following the Frankish victory at the Battle of Soissons in AD 486, Gaul (except for Septimania) came under the rule of the Merovingians, the first kings of France. Gallo-Roman culture, the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire, persisted particularly in the areas of Gallia Narbonensis that developed into Occitania, Gallia Cisalpina and to a lesser degree, Aquitania. The formerly Romanized north of Gaul, once it had been occupied by the Franks, would develop into Merovingian culture instead. Roman life, centered on the public events and cultural responsibilities of urban life in the res publica and the sometimes luxurious life of the self-sufficient rural villa system, took longer to collapse in the Gallo-Roman regions, where the Visigoths largely inherited the status quo in the early 5th century. Gallo-Roman language persisted in the northeast into the Silva Carbonaria that formed an effective cultural barrier with the Franks to the north and east, and in the northwest to the lower valley of the Loire, where Gallo-Roman culture interfaced with Frankish culture in a city like Tours and in the person of that Gallo-Roman bishop confronted with Merovingian royals, Gregory of Tours.
Religion
The Gauls practiced a form of animism, ascribing human characteristics to lakes, streams, mountains, and other natural features and granting them a quasi-divine status. Also, worship of animals was not uncommon; the animal most sacred to the Gauls was the boar, which can be found on many Gallic military standards, much like the Roman eagle.Their system of gods and goddesses was loose, there being certain deities which virtually every Gallic person worshiped, as well as tribal and household gods. Many of the major gods were related to Greek gods; the primary god worshiped at the time of the arrival of Caesar was Teutates, the Gallic equivalent of Mercury. The "father god" in Gallic worship was "Dis Pater" (cf. Dyaus Pitar), who could be assigned the Roman name "Saturn". However there was no real known theology, just a set of related and evolving traditions of worship.
Perhaps the most intriguing facet of Gallic religion is the practice of the Druids. The druids presided over human or animal sacrifices that were made in wooded groves or rude temples. They also appear to have held the responsibility for preserving the annual agricultural calendar and instigating seasonal festivals which corresponding to key points of the lunar-solar calendar. The religious practices of druids were syncretic and borrowed from earlier pagan traditions, especially of ancient Britain. Julius Caesar mentions in his Gallic Wars that those Celts who wanted to make a close study of druidism went to Britain to do so. In a little over a century later, Gnaeus Julius Agricola mentions Roman armies attacking a large druid sanctuary in Anglesey, also known as Holyhead, Wales. There is no certainty concerning the origin of the druids, but it is clear that they vehemently guarded the secrets of their order and held sway over the people of Gaul. Indeed they claimed the right to determine questions of war and peace, and thereby held an "international" status. In addition, the Druids monitored the religion of ordinary Gauls and were in charge of educating the aristocracy. They also practiced a form of excommunication from the assembly of worshipers, which in ancient Gaul meant a separation from secular society as well. Thus the Druids were an important part of Gallic society. The nearly complete and mysterious disappearance of the Celtic language from most of the territorial lands of ancient Gaul, with the exception of Brittany, France, can be attributed to the fact that Celtic druids refused to allow the Celtic oral literature or traditional wisdom to be committed to the written letter.
The Celts practiced headhunting as the head was believed to house a person's soul. Ancient Romans and Greeks recorded the Celts' habits of nailing heads of personal enemies to walls or dangling them from the necks of horses.[11]
The Gauls
The Dying Gaul, an ancient Roman marble copy of a lost ancient Greek statue, thought to have been executed in bronze, commissioned some time between 230 BC – 220 BC by Attalos I of Pergamon to honor his victory over the Galatians.The Druids were not the only political force in Gaul, however, and the early political system was complex, if ultimately fatal to the society as a whole. The fundamental unit of Gallic politics was the tribe, which itself consisted of one or more of what Caesar called "pagi". Each tribe had a council of elders, and initially a king. Later, the executive was an annually-elected magistrate. Among the Aedui, a tribe of Gaul, the executive held the title of "Vergobret", a position much like a king, but its powers were held in check by rules laid down by the council.The tribal groups, or pagi as the Romans called them (singular: pagus; the French word pays, "region", comes from this term) were organized into larger super-tribal groups that the Romans called civitates. These administrative groupings would be taken over by the Romans in their system of local control, and these civitates would also be the basis of France's eventual division into ecclesiastical bishoprics and dioceses, which would remain in place - with slight changes — until the French Revolution.
Although the tribes were moderately stable political entities, Gaul as a whole tended to be politically-divided, there being virtually no unity among the various tribes. Only during particularly trying times, such as the invasion of Caesar, could the Gauls unite under a single leader like Vercingetorix. Even then, however, the faction lines were clear.
The Romans divided Gaul broadly into Provincia (the conquered area around the Mediterranean), and the northern Gallia Comata ("free Gaul" or "long haired Gaul"). Caesar divided the people of Gaulia Comata into three broad groups: the Aquitani; Galli (who in their own language were called Celtae); and Belgae. In the modern sense, Gaulish tribes are defined linguistically, as speakers of dialects of the Gaulish language. While the Aquitani were probably Vascons, the Belgae would thus probably be counted among the Gaulish tribes, perhaps with Germanic elements.
Julius Caesar, in his book, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, comments:
All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The Garonne River separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the River Marne and the River Seine separate them from the Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilisation and refinement of (our) Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germani, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war; for which reason the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valour, as they contend with the Germani in almost daily battles, when they either repel them from their own territories, or themselves wage war on their frontiers. One part of these, which it has been said that the Gauls occupy, takes its beginning at the River Rhone; it is bounded by the Garonne River, the Atlantic Ocean, and the territories of the Belgae; it borders, too, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, upon the River Rhine, and stretches toward the north. The Belgae rises from the extreme frontier of Gaul, extend to the lower part of the River Rhine; and look toward the north and the rising sun. Aquitania extends from the Garonne to the Pyrenees and to that part of the Atlantic (Bay of Biscay) which is near Spain: it looks between the setting of the sun, and the north star.
ReferencesBirkhan, H. (1997). Die Kelten. Vienna.
Footnotes1.^ Caesar wrote that: "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in our Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws." Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen. (Julius Caesar, De bello Gallico, T. Rice Holmes, Ed., 1.1
CAESARIS COMMENTARIORVM DE BELLO GALLICO (in Latin)
2.^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, Phocis
3.^ Koch, John, "Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia", ABC-CLIO, 2006, pp. 775-6
4.^ Birkhan 1997:48.
5.^ Sjögren, Albert, "Le nom de "Gaule", in "Studia Neophilologica", Vol. 11 (1938/39) pp. 210-214
6.^ Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (OUP 1966), p. 391.
7.^ Nouveau dictionnaire étymologique et historique (Larousse 1990), p. 336.
8.^ Berresford Ellis, Peter (1998). The Celts: A History. Caroll & Graf. pp. 49–50. ISBN 0-786-71211-2.
9.^ Julius Caesar The Conquest of Gaul
10.^ Helvetti
11.^ see e.g. Diodorus Siculus, 5.2The Celts* from Aquitania who went to Ireland could offer a tie into the Basque DNA results (that tie Ireland and the Basques compare 90% in DNA). Aquitania at several points in its history crossed the Pyrenees and held Basque country many times.
*there is much debate about whether the Aquitani were Celtic, most linguists group them with the Basques which still makes the point about the DNA comparison between the Irish and Basques.
It should also be noted by Morans that the Laigin of Brittany controlled Connacht for a very long time and could be another source for the Morans.
And for one more possibility, be sure and read the Moor Morans section under Appendix II Other Morans.
Wales
ed.
Wales
From Wikipedia
Wales ( /'we?lz/ (help·info) Welsh: Cymru;[2] pronounced ['k?mr?] (help·info)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom,[3] bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual; Welsh and English have equal status, and bilingual signs are the norm throughout the land. The once-steady decline in Welsh speaking has reversed over recent years, however, with Welsh speakers currently estimated to be around 20% of the population.[4][5]
During the Iron Age and early medieval period, Wales was inhabited by the Celtic Britons. A distinct Welsh national identity emerged in the centuries after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations today.[6][7][8] In the 13th century, the defeat of Llewelyn by Edward I completed the Anglo-Norman conquest of Wales and brought about centuries of English occupation. Wales was subsequently incorporated into England with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, creating the legal entity known today as England and Wales. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century, and in 1881 the Welsh Sunday Closing Act became the first legislation applied exclusively to Wales. In 1955, Cardiff was proclaimed as the capital city and in 1999 the National Assembly for Wales was created, which holds responsibility for a range of devolved matters.
The capital Cardiff (Welsh: Caerdydd) is the largest city in Wales with 317,500 people. For a period it was the biggest coal port in the world[9] and, for a few years before World War I, it handled a greater tonnage of cargo than either London or Liverpool.[10] Two-thirds of the Welsh population live in South Wales, with another concentration in eastern North Wales. Many tourists visiting Wales have been drawn to its "wild ... and picturesque" landscapes.[11][12] From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the "land of song", attributable in part to the revival of the eisteddfod tradition.[13] Actors, singers and other artists are celebrated in Wales today, often achieving international success.[14] Cardiff is the largest media centre in the UK outside of London.[15]
Llywelyn the Great founded the Principality of Wales in 1216. Just over a hundred years after the Edwardian Conquest, in the early 15th century Owain Glyndwr briefly restored independence to what was to become modern Wales.[16][17] Traditionally the British Royal Family have bestowed the courtesy title of "Prince of Wales" upon the male heir apparent of the reigning monarch. Wales is sometimes referred to as the "Principality of Wales", or just the "principality",[18][19] although this has no modern geographical or constitutional basis.
Etymology
The English name Wales originates from the Germanic words Walh (singular) and Walha (plural), meaning "foreigner" or "stranger" who had been "Romanised".[20] The Ænglisc-speaking Anglo-Saxons used the term Waelisc when referring to the Celtic Britons, and Wealas when referring to their lands.The same etymology applies to walnut (meaning "foreign (Roman) nut") as well as the wall of Cornwall and Wallonia.[21] Old Church Slavonic also borrowed the term from the Germanic, and it is the origin of the names Wallachia and its people, the Vlachs.[22][23][24]
The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is Welsh for "Land of the Cymry". The etymological origin of Cymry is from the (reconstructed) Brythonic word combrogi, meaning "compatriots", in the sense of "fellow countrymen".[25]The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the post-Roman Era relationship of the Welsh with the Brythonic-speaking peoples of northern England and southern Scotland, the peoples of Yr Hen Ogledd (English: The Old North). In its original use, it amounted to a self-perception that the Welsh and the "Men of the North" were one people, exclusive of all others.[26] In particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage, culture, and language to both the Welsh and the Men of the North. The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century.[27] It is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan written c. 633.[28]
In Welsh literature the word Cymry was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe the Welsh, though the older, more generic term Brythoniaid continued to be used to describe any of the Britonnic peoples (including the Welsh) and was the more common literary term until c. 1100. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh. Until circa 1560 Cymry was used indiscriminately to mean either the people (Cymry) or their homeland (Cymru).[25]
The Latinised form of the name is Cambria. Outside of Wales this form survives as the name of Cumbria in North West England, which was once a part of Yr Hen Ogledd. It is used to represent a geological period (the Cambrian) and in evolutionary studies to represent the period when most major groups of complex animals appeared (the Cambrian explosion). This form also appears at times in literary references, perhaps most notably in the pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, where the character of Camber is described as the eponymous King of Cymru.
It has occasionally been suggested, both in outdated historical sources and by some modern writers, that the Cymry were somehow linked to the 2nd century BC Cimbri or to the 7th century BC Cimmerians because of the phonetic similarity. Such suggestions have long been dismissed by scholars on etymological and other grounds.[29][30]
History
Bryn Celli Ddu, a late Neolithic chambered tomb on AngleseyWales has been inhabited by modern humans for at least 29,000 years.[31] Continuous human habitation dates from the end of the last ice age, between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago (BP), when Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from central Europe began to migrate to Great Britain. Wales was free of glaciers by about 10,250 BP, the warmer climate allowing the area to become heavily wooded. People would have been able to walk between continental Europe and Great Britain until about 7,000-6,000 BP, before the post-glacial rise in sea level made Great Britain an island.[32][33] John Davies has theorised that the story of Cantre'r Gwaelod's drowning and tales in the Mabinogion, of the waters between Wales and Ireland being narrower and shallower, may be distant folk memories of this time.[32]Neolithic colonists integrated with the indigenous people, gradually changing their lifestyles from a nomadic life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers – the Neolithic Revolution.[32][34] They cleared the forests to establish pasture and to cultivate the land, developed new technologies such as ceramics and textile production, and built cromlechs such as Pentre Ifan, Bryn Celli Ddu and Parc Cwm long cairn between about 5,500 BP and 6,000 BP, about 1,000 to 1,500 years before either Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed.[35][36][37][38][39]
In common with people living all over Great Britain, over the following centuries the people living in what was to become known as Wales assimilated immigrants and exchanged ideas of the Bronze Age and Iron Age Celtic cultures. According to John T. Koch and others, Wales in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture that also included the other Celtic nations, England, France, Spain and Portugal where Celtic language developed.[40][41][42][43][44][45] By the time of the Roman invasion of Britain the area of modern Wales had been divided among the tribes of the Deceangli, Ordovices, Cornovii, Demetae and Silures for centuries.[46]
Colonisation
The first documented history of the area that would become Wales was in AD 48. Following attacks by the Silures of southeast Wales, in AD 47 and 48, the Roman historian Tacitus recorded that the governor of the new Roman province of Britannia "received the submission of the Deceangli" in north-east Wales.[47]
A string of Roman forts was established across what is now the South Wales region, as far west as Carmarthen (Caerfyrddin; Latin: Maridunum), and gold was mined at Dolaucothi in Carmarthenshire. There is evidence that the Romans progressed even farther west. They also built the Roman legionary fortress at Caerleon (Latin: Isca Silurum), of which the magnificent amphitheatre is the best preserved in Britain.
The Romans were also busy in northern Wales, and the mediaeval Welsh tale Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig (dream of Macsen Wledig) claims that Magnus Maximus (Macsen Wledig), one of the last western Roman Emperors, married Elen or Helen, the daughter of a Welsh chieftain from Segontium, present-day Caernarfon.[48] It was in the 4th century during the Roman occupation that Christianity was introduced to Wales.
After the Roman withdrawal from Britain in 410, much of the lowlands were overrun by various Germanic tribes.[49] However, Gwynedd, Powys, Dyfed and Seisyllg, Morgannwg, and Gwent emerged as independent Welsh successor states. They endured, in part because of favourable geographical features such as uplands, mountains, and rivers and a resilient society that did not collapse with the end of the Roman civitas.
This tenacious survival by the Romano-Britons and their descendants in the western kingdoms was to become the foundation of what we now know as Wales. With the loss of the lowlands, England's kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria, and later Wessex, wrestled with Powys, Gwent, and Gwynedd to define the frontier between the two peoples.
Having lost much of what is now the West Midlands to Mercia in the 6th and early 7th centuries, a resurgent late-seventh-century Powys checked Mercian advancement. Aethelbald of Mercia, looking to defend recently acquired lands, had built Wat's Dyke. According to John Davies, this endeavour may have been with Powys king Elisedd ap Gwylog's own agreement, however, for this boundary, extending north from the valley of the River Severn to the Dee estuary, gave Oswestry (Welsh: Croesoswallt) to Powys.[50] King Offa of Mercia seems to have continued this consultative initiative when he created a larger earthwork, now known as Offa's Dyke (Welsh: Clawdd Offa). Davies wrote of Cyril Fox's study of Offa's Dyke:
In the planning of it, there was a degree of consultation with the kings of Powys and Gwent. On the Long Mountain near Trelystan, the dyke veers to the east, leaving the fertile slopes in the hands of the Welsh; near Rhiwabon, it was designed to ensure that Cadell ap Brochwel retained possession of the Fortress of Penygadden." And for Gwent Offa had the dyke built "on the eastern crest of the gorge, clearly with the intention of recognizing that the River Wye and its traffic belonged to the kingdom of Gwent.[50]
However, Fox's interpretations of both the length and purpose of the Dyke have been questioned by more recent research.[51] Offa's Dyke largely remained the frontier between the Welsh and English, though the Welsh would recover by the 12th century the area between the Dee and the Conwy known then as the Perfeddwlad. By the eighth century, the eastern borders with the Anglo-Saxons had broadly been set.
Following the successful examples of Cornwall in 722 and Brittany in 865, the Britons of Wales made their peace with the Vikings and asked the Norsemen to help the Britons fight the Anglo-Saxons of Mercia to prevent an Anglo-Saxon conquest of Wales. In AD 878 the Britons of Wales unified with the Vikings of Denmark to destroy an Anglo-Saxon army of Mercians. Like Cornwall in 722, this decisive defeating of the Saxons gave Wales some decades of peace from Anglo-Saxon attack. In 1063, the Welsh prince Gruffydd ap Llywelyn made an alliance with Norwegian Vikings against Mercia which, as in AD 878 was successful, and the Saxons of Mercia defeated. As with Cornwall and Brittany, Viking aggression towards the Saxons/Franks ended any chance of the Anglo-Saxons/Franks conquering their Celtic neighbours.
Medieval Wales
Principalities in north Wales 1267–76See also: Norman invasion of Wales and Wales in the Late Middle Ages
The southern and eastern lands lost to English settlement became known in Welsh as Lloegyr (Modern Welsh Lloegr), which may have referred to the kingdom of Mercia originally, and which came to refer to England as a whole.[52] The Germanic tribes who now dominated these lands were invariably called Saeson, meaning "Saxons". The Anglo-Saxons called the Romano-British 'Walha', meaning 'Romanised foreigner' or 'stranger'.[22]The Welsh continued to call themselves Brythoniaid (Brythons or Britons) well into the Middle Ages, though the first use of Cymru and y Cymry is found as early as 633 in the Gododdin of Aneirin. In Armes Prydain, written in about 930, the words Cymry and Cymro are used as often as 15 times. However, it was not until about the 12th century, that Cymry began to overtake Brythoniaid in their writings.
Dolwyddelan Castle, built by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in the early 13th century to watch over one of the valley routes into GwyneddFrom 800 onwards, a series of dynastic marriages led to Rhodri Mawr's (r. 844–77) inheritance of Gwynedd and Powys. His sons in turn would found three principal dynasties (Aberffraw for Gwynedd, Dinefwr for Deheubarth, and Mathrafal for Powys), each competing for hegemony over the others.Rhodri's grandson Hywel Dda (r. 900–50) founded Deheubarth out of his maternal and paternal inheritances of Dyfed and Seisyllwg, ousted the Aberffraw dynasty from Gwynedd and Powys, and codified Welsh law in 930, finally going on a pilgrimage to Rome (and allegedly having the Law Codes blessed by the Pope). Maredudd ab Owain (r. 986–99) of Deheubarth (Hywel's grandson) would, (again) temporarily oust the Aberffraw line from control of Gwynedd and Powys.
Maredudd's great-grandson (through his daughter Princess Angharad) Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (r. 1039–63) would conquer his cousins' realms from his base in Powys, and even extend his authority into England. Historian John Davies states that Gruffydd was "the only Welsh king ever to rule over the entire territory of Wales... Thus, from about 1057 until his death in 1063, the whole of Wales recognised the kingship of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. For about seven brief years, Wales was one, under one ruler, a feat with neither precedent nor successor."[53] Owain Gwynedd (1100–70) of the Aberffraw line was the first Welsh ruler to use the title princeps Wallensium (prince of the Welsh), a title of substance given his victory on the Berwyn Mountains, according to John Davies.[54]
A sculpture of Owain Glyndwr (c. 1354 or 1359 – c. 1416), the last native Welsh person to hold the title Prince of Wales.The Aberffraw dynasty would surge to pre-eminence with Owain Gwynedd's grandson Llywelyn Fawr (the Great) (b.1173–1240), wrestling concessions out of the Magna Carta in 1215 and receiving the fealty of other Welsh lords in 1216 at the council at Aberdyfi, becoming the first Prince of Wales. His grandson Llywelyn II also secured the recognition of the title Prince of Wales from Henry III with the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267. Later however, a succession of disputes, including the imprisonment of Llywelyn's wife Eleanor, daughter of Simon de Montfort, culminated in the first invasion by Edward I.As a result of military defeat, the Treaty of Aberconwy exacted Llywelyn's fealty to England in 1277. Peace was short lived and with the 1282 Edwardian conquest the rule of the Welsh princes permanently ended. With Llywelyn's death and his brother prince Dafydd's execution, the few remaining Welsh lords did homage for their lands to Edward I. Llywelyn's head was then carried through London on a spear; his baby daughter Gwenllian was locked in the priory at Sempringham, where she remained until her death 54 years later.[55]
To help maintain his dominance, Edward constructed a series of great stone castles. Beaumaris, Caernarfon, and Conwy were built mainly to overshadow the Welsh royal home and headquarters Garth Celyn, Aber Garth Celyn, on the north coast of Gwynedd.
After the failed revolt in 1294–95 of Madog ap Llywelyn – who styled himself Prince of Wales in the so-called Penmachno Document – there was no major uprising until that led by Owain Glyndwr a century later, against Henry IV of England. In 1404 Owain was reputedly crowned Prince of Wales in the presence of emissaries from France, Spain and Scotland; he went on to hold parliamentary assemblies at several Welsh towns, including Machynlleth. The rebellion was ultimately to founder, however, and Owain went into hiding in 1412, with peace being essentially restored in Wales by 1415.
Although the English conquest of Wales took place under the 1284 Statute of Rhuddlan, a formal Union did not occur until 1536,[18] shortly after which Welsh law, which continued to be used in Wales after the conquest, was fully replaced by English law under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542.
Industrial Wales
Prior to the British Industrial Revolution, which saw a rapid expansion between 1750 and 1850, there were signs of small-scale industries scattered throughout Wales.[56] These ranged from industries connected to agriculture, such as milling and the manufacture of woollen textiles, through to mining and quarrying.[56] Until the Industrial Revolution, Wales had always been reliant on its agricultural output for its wealth and employment and the earliest industrial businesses were small scale and localised in manner.[56]The emerging industrial period commenced around the development of copper smelting in the Swansea area. With access to local coal deposits and a harbour that could take advantage of Cornwall's copper mines and the copper deposits being extracted from the then largest copper mine in the world at Parys Mountain on Anglesey, Swansea developed into the world's major centre for non-ferrous metal smelting in the 19th century.[56] The second metal industry to expand in Wales was iron smelting, and iron manufacturing became prevalent in both the north and the south of the country.[57] In the north of Wales, John Wilkinson's Ironworks at Bersham was a significant industry, while in the south, a second world centre of metallurgy was founded in Merthyr Tydfil, where the four ironworks of Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, Plymouth and Penydarren became the most significant hub of iron manufacture in Wales.[57] In the 1820s, south Wales alone accounted for 40% of all pig iron manufactured in Britain.[57]
In the late 18th century, slate quarrying began to expand rapidly, most notably in north Wales. The most notable site, opened in 1770 by Richard Pennant, is Penrhyn Quarry, which by the late 19th century was employing 15,000 men;[58] and along with Dinorwic Quarry, dominated the Welsh slate trade. Although slate quarrying has been described as 'the most Welsh of Welsh industries',[59] it is coal mining which has become the single industry synonymous with Wales and its people. Initially coal seams were exploited to provide energy for local metal industries, but with the opening of canal systems and later the railways, Welsh coal mining saw a boom in its demand. As the south Wales coalfield was exploited, mainly in the upland valleys around Aberdare and later the Rhondda, the ports of Swansea, Cardiff and later Penarth, grew into world exporters of coal, and with them came a population boom. By its height in 1913, Wales was producing almost 61 million tons of coal,[60] but when the heavy industries collapsed after World War II, the towns centred around these industries also went into a deep depression, with massive unemployment and emigration.
As Wales was reliant on the production of capital goods rather than of consumer goods, there were little skilled craftspeople and artisans that existed in the workshops of Birmingham and Sheffield in England. Therefore there were few factories producing finished goods in Wales, a key feature when considering regions associated with the Industrial Revolution.[57] Though there is increasing support that the revolution was reliant on harnessing the energy and materials provided by Wales, and in that development, Wales was of central importance.[57]
Nationalist revival
In the 20th century, Wales saw a revival in its national status. Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925, seeking greater autonomy or independence from the rest of the UK. In 1955, the term England and Wales became common for describing the area to which English law applied, and Cardiff was proclaimed as capital city of Wales. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (English: The Welsh Language Society) was formed in 1962, in response to fears that the language may soon die out.Nationalism grew, particularly following the flooding of the Tryweryn valley in 1965 to create a reservoir supplying water to the English city of Liverpool. Despite 35 of the 36 Welsh Members of Parliament (MPs) voting against the bill, with the other abstaining, Parliament still passed the bill and the village of Capel Celyn was drowned, highlighting Wales's powerlessness in her own affairs in the face of the numerical superiority of English MPs in the Westminster Parliament.[61] In 1966 the Carmarthen Parliamentary seat was won by Gwynfor Evans at a by-election, Plaid Cymru's first Parliamentary seat.[62]
Both the Free Wales Army and Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (MAC) (English: Welsh Defence Movement) were formed as a direct result of the Tryweryn destruction,[63] conducting campaigns from 1963. In the years leading up to the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969, these groups were responsible for a number of bomb blasts—destroying water pipes, tax and other offices, and part of a dam being built for a new English-backed project in Clywedog, Montgomeryshire.[63] In 1967, the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 was repealed for Wales, and a legal definition of Wales, and of the boundary with England was stated.
Unofficial graffiti memorial to Capel Celyn, Tryweryn (English: Remember Tryweryn) at Llanrhystud, near Aberystwyth[64]A referendum on the creation of an assembly for Wales in 1979 (see Wales referendum, 1979) led to a large majority for the "no" vote. However, in 1997 a referendum on the same issue secured a "yes", although by a very narrow majority. The National Assembly for Wales (Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru) was set up in 1999 (as a consequence of the Government of Wales Act 1998) and possesses the power to determine how the central government budget for Wales is spent and administered (although the UK parliament reserves the right to set limits on the powers of the Welsh Assembly).The 1998 Act was amended by the Government of Wales Act 2006 which enhanced the Assembly's powers, giving it legislative powers akin to the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly. Following the 2007 Assembly election, the One Wales Government was formed under a coalition agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Labour Party, under that agreement, a convention is due to be established to discuss further enhancing Wales's legislative and financial autonomy. A referendum on giving the Welsh assembly full law-making powers is promised "as soon as practicable, at or before the end of the assembly term (in 2011)" and both parties have agreed "in good faith to campaign for a successful outcome to such a referendum".[65]
Government and politics
Royal Badge of WalesConstitutionally, the United Kingdom is de jure a unitary state with one sovereign parliament and government in Westminster. Referenda held in Wales and Scotland in 1997 chose to establish a limited form of self-government in both countries. In Wales, the consequent process of devolution began with the Government of Wales Act 1998, which created the National Assembly for Wales (Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru).[66] Powers of the Secretary of State for Wales were transferred to the devolved government on 1 July 1999, granting the Assembly responsibility to decide how the Westminster government's budget for devolved areas is spent and administered.[67]Devolved responsibilities include agriculture, economic development, education, health, housing, industry, local government, social services, tourism, transport, and the Welsh language. The National Assembly is not a sovereign authority and has no primary legislative powers, which the Westminster Government retains, but since the Government of Wales Act 2006 came into effect in 2007, the National Assembly can request powers to pass primary legislation as Assembly Measures on specific issues.[67] The UK Parliament could, in theory, overrule or even abolish the National Assembly for Wales at any time.
The Senedd buildingThe Assembly consists of 60 members, known as "Assembly Members (AM)". Forty of the AMs are elected under the First Past the Post system, with the other 20 elected via the Additional Member System via regional lists in 5 different regions. The largest party elects the First Minister of Wales, who acts as the head of government. The Welsh Assembly Government is the executive arm, and the Assembly has delegated most of its powers to the Assembly Government. The new Assembly Building designed by Lord Rogers was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on St David's Day (1 March) 2006.The First Minister of Wales is Carwyn Jones (since 2009), of the Labour Party, with 26 of 60 seats.[68] After the National Assembly for Wales election, 2007 Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru; The Party of Wales, which favours Welsh independence from the rest of the United Kingdom entered into a coalition partnership to form a stable government with the "historic" One Wales agreement.
As the second-largest party in the Assembly with 14 out of 60 seats, Plaid Cymru is led by Ieuan Wyn Jones, Deputy First Minister of Wales. The Presiding Officer of the Assembly is Plaid Cymru member Lord Elis-Thomas. Other parties include the Conservative Party, currently the loyal opposition with 13 seats, and the Liberal Democrats with six seats. The "LibDems" had previously formed part of a coalition government with Labour in the first Assembly. There is one independent member.
In the House of Commons – the lower house of the UK government – Wales is represented by 40 MPs (of 646) from Welsh constituencies. Labour represents 29 of the 40 seats, the Liberal Democrats hold four seats, Plaid Cymru three and the Conservatives three.[69] A Secretary of State for Wales sits in the UK cabinet and is responsible for representing matters that pertain to Wales. The Wales Office is a department of the United Kingdom government, responsible for Wales. Cheryl Gillan has been Secretary of State for Wales since 12 May 2010, replacing Peter Hain of the previous Labour administration. Gillan was appointed to the new Conservative-Liberal coalition Westminster government following the United Kingdom general election of 2010.[70]
Wales is also a distinct UK electoral region of the European Union represented by 4 Members of the European Parliament.
Local government
For the purposes of local government, Wales was divided into 22 council areas in 1996. These "unitary authorities" are responsible for the provision of all local government services.[71]
Map of unitary authority areas
Merthyr Tydfil (Merthyr Tudful) †
Caerphilly (Caerffili) †
Blaenau Gwent †
Torfaen (Tor-faen) †
Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy)
Newport (Casnewydd) *
Cardiff (Caerdydd) *
Vale of Glamorgan (Bro Morgannwg) †
Bridgend (Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr) †
Rhondda Cynon Taf †
Neath Port Talbot (Castell-nedd Port Talbot) †
Swansea (Abertawe) *
Carmarthenshire (Sir Gaerfyrddin)
Ceredigion
Powys
Wrexham (Wrecsam) †
Flintshire (Sir y Fflint)
Denbighshire (Sir Ddinbych)
Conwy †
Gwynedd
Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro)
Areas are Counties, unless marked * (for Cities) or † (for County Boroughs). Welsh language forms are given in parentheses, where they differ from the English..
Note that there are five cities in total in Wales: in addition to Cardiff, Newport and Swansea, the communities of Bangor and St David's also have UK city status.
Principal areas
established in 1996 Blaenau Gwent · Bridgend · Caerphilly · Cardiff · Carmarthenshire · Ceredigion · Conwy · Denbighshire · Flintshire · Gwynedd · Isle of Anglesey · Merthyr Tydfil · Monmouthshire · Neath Port Talbot · Newport · Pembrokeshire · Powys · Rhondda Cynon Taf · Swansea · Torfaen · Vale of Glamorgan · Wrexham
Counties and districts
1974–1996 Clwyd Alyn and Deeside · Colwyn · Delyn · Glyndwr · Rhuddlan · Wrexham Maelor
Dyfed Carmarthen · Ceredigion · Dinefwr · Llanelli · Preseli Pembrokeshire · South Pembrokeshire
Gwent Blaenau Gwent · Islwyn · Monmouth · Newport · Torfaen
Gwynedd Aberconwy · Anglesey · Arfon · Dwyfor · Meirionnydd
Mid Glamorgan Cynon Valley · Merthyr Tydfil · Ogwr · Rhondda · Rhymney Valley · Taff-Ely
Powys Brecknock · Montgomeryshire · Radnorshire
South Glamorgan Cardiff · Vale of Glamorgan
West Glamorgan Lliw Valley · Neath · Port Talbot · Swansea
Counties
established before 1889 Anglesey · Brecknockshire · Caernarfonshire · Cardiganshire · Carmarthenshire · Denbighshire · Flintshire · Glamorganshire · Merionethshire · Monmouthshire · Montgomeryshire · Pembrokeshire · Radnorshire
Law
England fully annexed Wales under the Laws in Wales Act 1535, in the reign of King Henry VIII. Prior to that Welsh Law had survived de facto after the conquest up to the 15th century in areas remote from direct English control. The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 provided that all laws that applied to England would automatically apply to Wales (and Berwick-upon-Tweed, a town located on the Anglo-Scottish border) unless the law explicitly stated otherwise. This act, with regard to Wales, was repealed in 1967. However, Wales and England, as part of a single legal entity, share the same legal system—except for a few changes to accommodate the autonomy recently afforded to Wales. In this sense, English law is the law of Wales. (See England and Wales.)English law is regarded as a common law system, with no major codification of the law, and legal precedents are binding as opposed to persuasive. The court system is headed by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom which is the highest court of appeal in the land for criminal and civil cases.The Supreme Court of Judicature of England and Wales is the highest court of first instance as well as an appellate court. The three divisions are the Court of Appeal; the High Court of Justice and the Crown Court. Minor cases are heard by the Magistrates' Courts or the County Court.
Since devolution in 2006, the Welsh Assembly has had the authority to draft and approve some laws outside of the UK Parliamentary system to meet the specific needs of Wales. Under powers conferred by Legislative Competency Orders agreed by all parliamentary stakeholders, it is able to pass laws known as Assembly Measures in relation to specific fields, such as health and education. As such, Assembly Measures are a subordinate form of primary legislation, lacking the scope of UK-wide acts of parliament, but able to be passed without the approval of the UK parliament or Royal Assent for each 'act'. Through this primary legislation, the Welsh Assembly Government can then also draft more specific secondary legislation. With devolution, the ancient and historic Wales and Chester court circuit was also disbanded and a separate Welsh court circuit was created to allow for any Measures passed by the Assembly.
Geography
Wales is located on a peninsula in central-west Great Britain. Its area is about 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi) – about the same size as Massachusetts, Israel, Slovenia or El Salvador and about a quarter of the area of Scotland. It is about 274 km (170 mi) north–south and 97 km (60 mi) east–west. Wales is bordered by England to the east and by sea in the other three directions: the Môr Hafren (Bristol Channel) to the south, Celtic Sea to the west, and the Irish Sea to the north. Altogether, Wales has over 1,200 km (746 mi) of coastline. There are several islands off the Welsh mainland, the largest being Ynys Môn (Anglesey) in the northwest.
Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), Gwynedd is the highest mountain in WalesMuch of Wales's diverse landscape is mountainous, particularly in the north and central regions. The mountains were shaped during the last ice age, the Devensian glaciation. The highest mountains in Wales are in Snowdonia (Eryri), and include Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), which, at 1,085 m (3,560 ft) is the highest peak in Wales. The 14 (or possibly 15) Welsh mountains over 3,000 feet (914 m) high are known collectively as the Welsh 3000s, and are located in a small area in the north-west.The highest outside the 3000s is Aran Fawddwy 905m (2,969 ft) in the south of Snowdonia. The Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog) are in the south (highest point Pen-y-Fan 886 m/2,907 ft, and are joined by the Cambrian Mountains in Mid Wales (after which the earliest geological period of the Paleozoic era, the Cambrian, is named).
In the mid-19th century, two prominent geologists, Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick, used their studies of the geology of Wales to establish certain principles of stratigraphy and palaeontology. After much dispute, the next two periods of the Paleozoic era, the Ordovician and Silurian, were named after ancient Celtic tribes from this area. The older rocks underlying the Cambrian rocks were referred to as Pre-cambrian.
Wales has three national parks: Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons and Pembrokeshire Coast. It has four Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. These areas include Anglesey, the Clwydian Range, the Gower Peninsula and the Wye Valley. The Gower Peninsula was the first area in the whole of the United Kingdom to be designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in 1956.
Tor Bay and Three Cliffs Bay, Gower (Gwyr), Swansea.Much of the coastline of South and West Wales is designated as Heritage Coast. The coastline of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, the Gower Peninsula, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, and Ceredigion is particularly wild and impressive. Gower, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Cardigan Bay all have clean blue water, white sand beaches and impressive marine life. Despite this scenic splendour the coast of Wales has a dark side; the south and west coasts of Wales, along with the Irish and Cornish coasts, are frequently blasted by huge Atlantic westerlies/south westerlies that, over the years, have sunk and wrecked many vessels.On the night of 25 October 1859, 114 ships were destroyed off the coast of Wales when a hurricane blew in from the Atlantic; Cornwall and Ireland also had a huge number of fatalities on its coastline from shipwrecks that night. Wales has the somewhat unenviable reputation, along with Cornwall, Ireland and Brittany, of having per square mile, some of the highest shipwreck rates in Europe.The shipwreck situation was particularly bad during the industrial era when ships bound for Cardiff got caught up in Atlantic gales and were decimated by "the cruel sea".
Like Cornwall, Brittany and Ireland, the clean, clear waters of South-west Wales of Gower, Pembrokeshire and Cardigan Bay attract marine visitors including basking sharks, Atlantic grey seals, leatherback turtles, dolphins, porpoises, jellyfish, crabs and lobsters. Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion in particular are recognised as an area of international importance for Bottlenose dolphins, and New Quay in the middle of Cardigan Bay has the only summer residence of bottle nosed dolphins in the whole of the UK.The modern border between Wales and England was largely defined in the 16th century, based on medieval feudal boundaries. The boundary line (which very roughly follows Offa's Dyke up to 40 mi (64 km) of the northern coast) separates Knighton from its railway station, virtually cuts off Church Stoke from the rest of Wales, and slices straight through the village of Llanymynech (where a pub actually straddles the line).
The Seven Wonders of Wales is a list in doggerel verse of seven geographic and cultural landmarks in Wales probably composed in the late 18th century under the influence of tourism from England.[72] All the "wonders" are in north Wales: Snowdon (the highest mountain), the Gresford bells (the peal of bells in the medieval church of All Saints at Gresford), the Llangollen bridge (built in 1347 over the River Dee, Afon Dyfrdwy), St Winefride's Well (a pilgrimage site at Holywell, Treffynnon) in Flintshire), the Wrexham (Wrecsam) steeple (16th century tower of St. Giles Church in Wrexham), the Overton Yew trees (ancient yew trees in the churchyard of St. Mary's at Overton-on-Dee) and Pistyll Rhaeadr – a tall waterfall, at 240 ft (73 m). The wonders are part of the rhyme:Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,
Snowdon's mountain without its people,
Overton yew trees, St Winefride's Wells,
Llangollen bridge and Gresford bells.
ClimateHighest maximum temperature: 35.2 °C (95.4 °F) at Hawarden Bridge, Flintshire on 2 August 1990.
Lowest minimum temperature: -23.3 °C (-10 °F) at Rhayader, Radnorshire (now Powys) on 21 January 1940.[73]
Maximum number of hours of sunshine in a month: 354.3 hours at Dale Fort, Pembrokeshire in July 1955.[74]
Minimum number of hours of sunshine in a month: 2.7 hours at Llwynon, Brecknockshire in January 1962.[75]
Maximum rainfall in a day (0900 UTC – 0900 UTC): 211 millimetres (8 in) at Rhondda, Glamorgan, on 11 November 1929.[76]
Wettest spot – an average of 4,473 millimetres (176 in) rain a year at Crib Goch in Snowdonia, Gwynedd (making it also the wettest spot in the United Kingdom).[77][78]
Economy
The main building of Cardiff UniversityParts of Wales have been heavily industrialised since the 18th century and the early Industrial Revolution. Coal, copper, iron, silver, lead, and gold have been extensively mined in Wales, and slate has been quarried. By the second half of the 19th century, mining and metallurgy had come to dominate the Welsh economy, transforming the landscape and society in the industrial districts of south and north-east Wales.From the middle of the 19th century until the mid-1980s, the mining and export of coal was a major part of the Welsh economy. Cardiff was once the largest coal exporting port in the world[9] and, for a few years before World War One, handled a greater tonnage of cargo than either London or Liverpool.[10]
From the early 1970s, the Welsh economy faced massive restructuring with large numbers of jobs in traditional heavy industry disappearing and being replaced eventually by new ones in light industry and in services. Over this period Wales was successful in attracting an above average share of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK. However, much of the new industry has essentially been of a "branch factory" type, often routine assembly employing low skilled workers. The Cardiff-based Bank of Wales was established in 1971, but was later taken over by HBOS and absorbed into the parent company.
Wales has struggled to develop or attract high value-added employment in sectors such as finance and research and development, attributable in part to a comparative lack of economic mass (i.e. population) – Wales lacks a large metropolitan centre and most of the country, except south-east Wales, is sparsely populated. The lack of high value-added employment is reflected in lower economic output per head relative to other regions of the UK – in 2002 it stood at 90% of the EU25 average and around 80% of the UK average. However, care is needed in interpreting these data, which do not take account of regional differences in the cost of living. The gap in real living standards between Wales and more prosperous parts of the UK is not pronounced. In June 2008, Wales made history by becoming the first nation in the world to be awarded Fairtrade Status.[79]
British one Pound coin (reverse), depicting the Welsh dragon (Welsh: Y Ddraig Goch).In 2002, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Wales was just over £26 billion ($48 billion), giving a per capita GDP of £12,651 ($19,546). As of 2006, the unemployment rate in Wales stood at 5.7% – above the UK average, but lower than in the majority of EU countries.As with the rest of the United Kingdom, the currency used in Wales is the pound sterling, represented by the symbol £. The Bank of England, created as the central bank for the Kingdom of England (which included Wales), is responsible for the currency of the entire UK. Banks in Wales, unlike those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, do not have the right to issue banknotes. The Royal Mint, who issue the coinage circulated over the whole of the UK, have been based at a single site in Llantrisant, south Wales since 1980, having been progressively transferring operations from their Tower Hill, London site since 1968.[80] Since decimalisation, in 1971, at least one of the coins in UK circulation has depicted a Welsh design, e.g. the 1995 and 2000 one Pound coin (shown left). However, Wales has not been represented on any coin minted from 2008.[81]
Due to poor-quality soil, much of Wales is unsuitable for crop-growing, and livestock farming has traditionally been the focus of agriculture. The Welsh landscape (protected by three national parks) and 42 Blue Flag beaches, as well as the unique culture of Wales, attract large numbers of tourists, who play an especially vital role in the economy of rural areas.[82] See Tourism in Wales.
Demographics
Swansea city centre and Swansea Bay. Swansea is the second most populous city in WalesThe population of Wales in the United Kingdom Census 2001 was 2,903,085, which has risen to 2,958,876 according to 2005 estimates. The main population and industrial areas are in South Wales, consisting of the cities of Cardiff (Caerdydd), Swansea (Abertawe) and Newport (Casnewydd) and surrounding areas, with another significant population in the north-east around Wrexham (Wrecsam).According to the 2001 census, 96% of the population was White British, and 2.1% non-white (mainly of British Asian origin).[85] Most non-white groups were concentrated in the southern port cities of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. Welsh Asian communities developed mainly through immigration since World War II. More recently, parts of Wales have seen an increased number of immigrants settle from recent EU accession countries such as Poland – although some Poles also settled in Wales in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
In the 2001 Labour Force Survey, 72% of adults in Wales considered their national identity as wholly and another 7% considered themselves to be partly Welsh (Welsh and British were the most common combination). A recent study estimated that 35% of the Welsh population have surnames of Welsh origin (5.4% of the English population and 1.6% of the Scottish also bore 'Welsh' names).[86] However, some names identified as English (such as 'Greenaway') may be corruptions of Welsh ('Goronwy'). Other names common in Wales, such as 'Richards', may have originated simultaneously in other parts of Britain.In 2002, the BBC used the headline "English and Welsh are races apart" to report a genetic survey of test subjects from market towns in England and Wales.[87] Other recent researchers, such as Bryan Sykes and Stephen Oppenheimer, have argued that the majority of modern-day English and Welsh people trace a common ancestry to migrants who arrived in the British Isles during the Mesolithic and the Neolithic periods, although the National Museum Wales consider the conclusions made to date from genetic studies "implausible".[8]
In 2001 a quarter of the Welsh population were born outside Wales, mainly in England; about 3% were born outside the UK. The proportion of people who were born in Wales differs across the country, with the highest percentages in the South Wales Valleys, and the lowest in Mid Wales and parts of the north-east. In both Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil 92% were Welsh-born, compared to only 51% in Flintshire and 56% in Powys.[88] One of the reasons for this is that the locations of the most convenient hospitals in which to give birth are over the border in England[citation needed]. Around 1.75 million Americans report themselves to have Welsh ancestry,[89] as did 467,000 Canadians in Canada's 2006 census.[90]
Languages
The Eisteddfod is an annual celebration of Welsh culture, conducted in Welsh.The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 provide that the English and Welsh languages be treated on a basis of equality. However, even English has only de facto official status in the UK (see Languages of the United Kingdom) and this has led political groups like Plaid Cymru to question whether such legislation is sufficient to ensure the survival of the Welsh language.[91]English is spoken by almost all people in Wales and is therefore the de facto main language (see Welsh English). However, northern and western Wales retain many areas where Welsh is spoken as a first language by the majority of the population and English is learnt as a second language. 21.7% of the Welsh population is able to speak or read Welsh to some degree (based on the 2001 census), although only 16% claim to be able to speak, read and write it,[18] which may be related to the stark differences between colloquial and literary Welsh. According to a language survey conducted in 2004, a larger proportion than 21.7% claim to have some knowledge of the language.[92]
Today there are very few truly monoglot Welsh speakers, other than small children, but individuals still exist who may be considered less than fluent in English and rarely speak it. There were still many monoglots as recently as the middle of the 20th century.[93] Road signs in Wales are generally in both English and Welsh; where place names differ in the two languages, both versions are used (e.g. "Cardiff" and "Caerdydd"), the decision as to which is placed first being that of the local authority.
During the 20th century a number of small communities of speakers of languages other than English or Welsh, such as Bengali or Cantonese, have established themselves in Wales as a result of immigration. This phenomenon is almost exclusive to urban Wales. The Italian Government funds the teaching of Italian to Welsh residents of Italian ancestry. These other languages do not have legal equality with English and Welsh, although public services may produce information leaflets in minority ethnic languages where there is a specific need, as happens elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Code-switching is common in all parts of Wales, and the result is known by various names, such as "Wenglish" or (in Caernarfon) "Cofi".
Religion
St. David's Cathedral in Pembrokeshire.The largest religion in Wales is Christianity, with 72% of the population describing themselves as Christian in the 2001 census. The Presbyterian Church of Wales is the largest denomination and was born out of the Welsh Methodist revival in the 18th century and seceded from the Church of England in 1811. The Church in Wales is the next largest denomination, and forms part of the Anglican Communion. It too was part of the Church of England, and was disestablished by the British Government under the Welsh Church Act 1914 (the act did not take effect until 1920).The Roman Catholic Church makes up the next largest denomination at 3% of the population. Non-Christian religions are small in Wales, making up approximately 1.5% of the population. 18% of people declare no religion. The Apostolic Church holds its annual Apostolic Conference in Swansea each year, usually in August. The patron saint of Wales is Saint David (Welsh: Dewi Sant), with St David's Day (Welsh: Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant) celebrated annually on 1 March.
In 1904, there was a religious revival (known by some as the 1904-1905 Welsh Revival or simply The 1904 Revival) which started through the evangelism of Evan Roberts and took many parts of Wales by storm with massive numbers of people voluntarily converting to nonconformist and Anglican Christianity, sometimes whole communities. Many of the present-day Pentecostal churches in Wales claim to have originated in this revival.
Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in Wales, with more than 30,000 reported Muslims in the 2001 census. There are also communities of Hindus and Sikhs mainly in the South Wales cities of Newport, Cardiff and Swansea, while curiously the largest concentration of Buddhists is in the western rural county of Ceredigion. Judaism was the first non-Christian faith (excluding pre-Roman animism) to be established in Wales, however as of the year 2001 the community has declined to approximately 2,000.[94] Paganism and Wicca are also growing in Wales. According to the 2001 Census, there are 7,000-recorded Wiccans in England and Wales, with 31,000 Pagans.[95]
Culture
Wales has a distinctive culture including its own language, customs, holidays and music.
Wales is primarily represented by the symbol of the red Welsh Dragon, but other national emblems include the leek and daffodil. The Welsh words for leeks (cennin) and daffodils (cennin Pedr, lit. "(Saint) Peter's Leeks") are closely related and it is likely that one of the symbols came to be used due to a misunderstanding for the other one, though it is unclear which came first.
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108.^ "WalesOnline - News - Wales News - Flights set to resume between North and South". WalesOnline website. Welsh Media Ltd. 30 April 2010. http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/04/30/flights-set-to-resume-between-north-and-south-91466-26346467/. Retrieved 6 June 2010.
109.^ "Revived Swansea-Cork ferry service sets sail". BBC News website (BBC News). 10 Mar 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/8561187.stm. Retrieved 19 Jun 2010.
110.^ The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales pp189
[edit] Bibliography
Davies, John; Jenkins, Nigel (2008). The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 9780708319536.
Cornwall
and the
Isles of Scilly
Map of Cornwall showing it to be in the Southwest corner of England and the Isles of Scilly off its western coast
Cornwall
From Wikipedia,
Cornwall (English pronunciation: /'k?rnw?l/; Cornish: Kernow ['k?rn??]) is a ceremonial county and unitary authority of England, United Kingdom, forming the tip of the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Taken with the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall has a population of 534,300, and covers an area of 3,563 km2 (1,376 sq mi).[1][2] The administrative centre and only city is Truro.The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age peoples, and later (in the Iron Age) by Celts. There is little evidence that Roman rule was effective west of Exeter and few Roman remains have been found. Cornwall was afterwards part of the Brythonic (Celtic) area of Dumnonia, separated from Wales after the Battle of Deorham, often coming into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex before King Athelstan in 936 AD set the boundary between English and Cornish people at the Tamar.[3]
Historically tin mining was important in the Cornish economy, becoming significant during the middle ages and expanding greatly during the 19th century when rich copper mines were also in production. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, the tin and copper trades entered a period of decline. Subsequently china clay extraction became more important and metal mining had virtually ended by the 1990s. Traditionally fishing (particularly of pilchards), and agriculture (particularly of dairy products and vegetables), were the other important sectors of the economy. The railways led to the growth of tourism during the 20th century and it is now of greater importance economically than the other industries. Today, Cornwall's economy struggles after the decline of the mining and fishing industries, and has become more dependent on tourism. The area is noted for its wild moorland landscapes, its extensive and varied coastline and its very mild climate.
Celtic Tribes of Cornwall
Cornwall is recognised as one of the Celtic nations by many Cornish people, residents and organisations.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] It retains a distinct cultural identity, reflecting its history, and modern use of the revived Cornish language has increased.[11] Some people question the present constitutional status of Cornwall, and a nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom in the form of a devolved legislative assembly, and greater recognition of the Cornish people as a national minority.[12]
Etymology
"Cornweallas" in the Anglo-Saxon ChronicleThe name Cornwall comes from combining two different terms from separate languages. The Roman term for the Celtic tribe which inhabited what is now Cornwall at the time of Roman rule in Britain, Cornovii, came from a Brythonic tribal name which gave modern Cornish Kernow, also known as Corneu to the Brythons.[13] This could be from either of two sources; the common Celtic root cern, or the Latin cornu, both of which mean "horn" or "peninsula", suggestive of the shape of Cornwall's landmass. There is a problem with this theory however. At least two other known Celtic tribes bore the name Cornovii, one tribe in Caithness which may also be considered a "headland" or "horn-land", yet another, the principal tribe known to the Romans as Cornovii lived in the West Midlands and Powys areas, calling into question the derivation of the name from a peninsula (however, Celtic tribes were not necessarily permanently settled, and the Latin forms may be based on different British names).[14] Another theory suggests that the name of the Cornovii tribes may well be connected to totemic worship of the "horned god" such as the Gaulish Cernunnos or a similar totemic cult. Nevertheless, the Cornovii were sufficiently established in the present day area recognised as Cornwall for their territory to be recorded as Cornubia by 700 AD, and remained as such into the Middle Ages. The Ravenna Cosmography, of around 700, makes reference to Purocoronavis, (almost certainly a corruption of Durocornovium), 'a fort or walled settlement of the Cornovii', (unidentified, but possibly Tintagel or Carn Brea).[15][16]During the 6th and 7th centuries, the name Cornubia became corrupted by extensive changes in the Old English language.[17] The Anglo-Saxons provided the suffix wealas, meaning "(romanised) foreigners", creating the term Corn-wealas. Some historians note that this was the word for Wales, however it is understood that the term applied instead to all Brythonic peoples and lands, who were considered foreign by the Anglo-Saxons. As Cornwall was known as West Wales (as being west of Wessex) and present-day Cumbria as North Wales during those times, the "Wales" meaning is probable.
History
The present human history of Cornwall begins with the reoccupation of Britain after the last Ice Age. According to John T. Koch and others, Cornwall in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age that also included the other Celtic nations, England, France, Spain and Portugal where Celtic languages developed with the Tartessian language the first written Celtic language so far discovered.[18][19][20][21][22][23] During the British Iron Age Cornwall, like all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons. The Celtic British language spoken at the time eventually developed into several distinct tongues, including Cornish.[15] The first account of Cornwall comes from the Sicilian Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (c. 90 BC – c. 30 BC), supposedly quoting or paraphrasing the fourth-century BC geographer Pytheas, who had sailed to Britain:The inhabitants of that part of Britain called Belerion (or Land's End) from their intercourse with foreign merchants, are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very carefully the earth in which it is produced ... Here then the merchants buy the tin from the natives and carry it over to Gaul, and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on horses to the mouth of the Rhône.– [24]
The identity of these merchants is unknown. There has been a theory that they were Phoenicians, however there is no evidence for this.[25] (For further discussion of tin mining see the section on the economy below.)
There is a theory that silver was extracted from the copper ores of Cornwall in pre-Roman times, as silver is easily converted to its chloride (AgCl) by surface waters containing chlorine.[26] After a period of Roman rule, Cornwall reverted to independent Celtic chieftains.
Conflict with Wessex
The chronology of English dominance over Cornwall is unclear. In the 8th century Cornwall came into conflict with the expanding kingdom of Wessex. There are no recorded charters or legal agreements showing Cornwall as part of Wessex.[27] Furthermore, there is little economic, military, social, cultural or archaeological evidence that Wessex established control over Cornwall, although some historians, notably Michael Swanton,[28] and Malcolm Todd[29] assert to the contrary.
The Annales Cambriae report that in 722 AD the Britons of Cornwall won a battle at Hehil. Annales Cambriae However, it is not stated whether the Cornish fought the West Saxons or some other enemy. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states in 815 (adjusted date) "& þy geare gehergade Ecgbryht cyning on West Walas from easteweardum oþ westewearde."..."and in this year king Ecgbryht raided in Cornwall from east to west." and thenceforth apparently held it as a ducatus or dukedom annexed to his regnum or kingdom of Wessex, but not wholly incorporated with it.[30] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles states that in 825 (adjusted date) a battle was fought involving the "Welsh", presumably those of Cornwall, and the Defnas (men of Devon). It only states:- "The Westwealas (Cornish) and the Defnas (men of Devon) fought at Gafulforda". However, there is no mention of who won or who lost, whether the men of Cornwall and Devon were fighting each other or on the same side, and no mention of Egbert. This is the only record of this battle. In the same year Ecgbert, as a later document phrases it, "disposed of their territory as it seemed fit to him, giving a tenth part of it to God." In other words he incorporated Cornwall ecclesiastically with the West Saxon diocese of Sherborne, and endowed Ealhstan, his fighting bishop, who took part in the campaign, with an extensive Cornish estate consisting of Callington and Lawhitton, both in the Tamar valley, and Pawton near Padstow.
In 838, the Cornish and their Danish allies were defeated by Egbert at Hengestesdune (Anglo-Saxon Chronicles): an unknown location (various places have been suggested over the years from Hengistbury Head in Dorset, Hingston Down, Devon to Hingston Down in Cornwall). In 875, the last recorded king of Cornwall, Dumgarth, is said to have drowned in battle. Around the 880s, Anglo-Saxons from Wessex had established modest land holdings in the eastern part of Cornwall; notably Alfred the Great had acquired a few estates.[31] William of Malmesbury, writing around 1120, says that King Athelstan of England (924–939) fixed the boundary between English and Cornish people at the east bank of the River Tamar.
Norman period
One interpretation of the Domesday Book is that by this time the native Cornish landowning class had been almost completely dispossessed and replaced by English landowners, the largest of whom was Harold Godwinson himself. However, this is highly questionable: The Bodmin manumissions show that two leading Cornish figures, nominally had Saxon names, but these were both glossed with native Cornish names. This suggests that Saxon names in Cornwall indicate not ethnicity, but preferences in naming, perhaps as means to establish membership of a pro-Saxon ruling class.
However, after the Norman conquest most of the land was seized and transferred into the hands of a new Breton-Norman aristocracy, with the lion's share going to Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother of King William and the largest landholder in England after the king.[32] Ultimately this aristocracy eventually became a Cornu-Norman ruling class, a phenomenon closely resembling the situation in the rest of England, and later in Ireland.
Later medieval administration and society
Subsequently, however, Norman absentee landlords became replaced by a new Cornu-Norman elite. These families eventually became the new ruling class of Cornwall (typically speaking Norman French, Cornish, Latin and eventually English), many becoming involved in the operation of the Stannary Parliament system, Earldom and eventually the Duchy.[33] The Cornish language continued to be spoken and it acquired a number of characteristics establishing its identity as a separate language from Breton. Cornwall showed a very different type of settlement pattern from that of Saxon Wessex and places continued, even after 1066, to be named in the Celtic Cornish tradition with Saxon architecture being uncommon. The earliest record for any Anglo-Saxon place names west of the Tamar is around 1040: they are particularly noticeable in the north-east of the county.[15]
Christianity in Cornwall
Many place names in Cornwall are associated with Christian missionaries described as coming from Ireland and Wales in the fifth century AD and usually called saints (See List of Cornish saints). The historicity of some of these missionaries is problematic[34] and it has been pointed out by Canon Doble that it was customary in the Middle Ages to ascribe such geographical origins to saints.[35] Some of these saints are not included in the early lists of saints.[36]
St Piran, after whom Perranporth is named, is generally regarded as the patron saint of Cornwall.[37] However in early Norman times it is likely that St Michael the Archangel was recognized as the patron saint[38] and the title has also been claimed for St Petroc.[citation needed]
The Church in Cornwall in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon times
The church in Cornwall until the time of Athelstan of Wessex observed more or less orthodox practices, being completely separate from the Anglo-Saxon church until then (and perhaps later). The See of Cornwall continued until much later: Bishop Conan apparently in place previously, but (re-?)consecrated in 931 AD by Athelstan. However, it is unclear whether he was the sole Bishop for Cornwall or the leading Bishop in the area. The situation in Cornwall may have been somewhat similar to Wales where each major religious house corresponded to a cantref (this has the same meaning as Cornish keverang) both being under the supervision of a Bishop.[39] However if this was so the status of keverangow before the time of King Athelstan is not recorded. However it can be inferred from the districts included at this period that the minimum number would be three: Triggshire; Wivelshire; and the remaining area. Penwith, Kerrier, Pydar and Powder meet at a central point (Scorrier) which some have believed indicates a fourfold division imposed by Athelstan on a sub-kingdom.The Middle Ages
It is notable that in Cornwall that most of the parish churches in existence in Norman times were generally not in the larger settlements and that the medieval towns which developed thereafter usually had only a chapel of ease with the right of burial remaining at the ancient parish church.[40] Over a hundred holy wells exist in Cornwall, each associated with a particular saint, though not always the same one as the dedication of the church.[41][42]
Various kinds of religious houses existed in mediaeval Cornwall though none of them were nunneries; the benefices of the parishes were in many cases appropriated to religious houses within Cornwall or elsewhere in England or France.[43]
Religious history from the Reformation to the Victorian period
In the sixteenth century there was some violent resistance to the replacement of Catholicism with Protestantism in the Prayer Book Rebellion.[44] In 1548 the college at Glasney, a centre of learning and study established by the Bishop of Exeter, had been closed and looted (many manuscripts and documents were destroyed) which aroused resentment among the Cornish. They, amongst other reasons, objected to the English language Book of Common Prayer, protesting that the English language was still unknown to many at the time. The Prayer Book Rebellion was a cultural and social disaster for Cornwall, the reprisals taken by the forces of the Crown have been estimated to account for 10-11% of the civilian population of Cornwall. Culturally speaking, it saw the beginning of the slow "death" of the Cornish language.
From that time Christianity in Cornwall was in the main within the Church of England and subject to the national events which affected it in the next century and a half. Roman Catholicism never became extinct, though openly practised by very few; there were some converts to Puritanism, Anabaptism and Quakerism in certain areas though they suffered intermittent persecution which more or less came to an end in the reign of William and Mary. During the 18th century Cornish Anglicanism was very much in the same state as Anglicanism in most of England. Wesleyan Methodist missions began during John Wesley's lifetime and had great success over a long period during which Methodism itself divided into a number of sects and established a definite separation from the Church of England.
From the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century Methodism was the leading form of Christianity in Cornwall but is now in decline.[45][46] The Church of England was in the majority from the reign of Queen Elizabeth until the Methodist revival of the 19th century: before the Wesleyan missions dissenters were very few in Cornwall. The county remained within the Diocese of Exeter until 1876 when the Anglican Diocese of Truro was created[47][48] (the first Bishop was appointed in 1877). Roman Catholicism was virtually extinct in Cornwall after the 17th century except for a few families such as the Arundells of Lanherne. From the mid-19th century the church reestablished episcopal sees in England, one of these being at Plymouth.[49] Since then immigration to Cornwall has brought more Roman Catholics into the population.
Physical geography
Cornwall forms the tip of the south-west peninsula of the island of Great Britain, and is therefore exposed to the full force of the prevailing winds that blow in from the Atlantic Ocean. The coastline is composed mainly of resistant rocks that give rise in many places to impressive cliffs. Cornwall has a border with only one other county, Devon.Coastal areas
The north and south coasts have different characteristics. The north coast on the Celtic Sea, part of the Atlantic Ocean, is more exposed and therefore has a wilder nature. The prosaically named High Cliff, between Boscastle and St Gennys, is the highest sheer-drop cliff in Cornwall at 223 metres (732 ft).[50] However, there are also many extensive stretches of fine golden sand which form the beaches that are so important to the tourist industry, such as those at Bude, Polzeath, Watergate Bay, Perranporth, Porthtowan, Fistral Beach, Newquay, St Agnes, St Ives, and on the south coast Gyllyngvase beach in Falmouth. There are two river estuaries on the north coast: Hayle Estuary and the estuary of the River Camel, which
Politics and administration
With the exception of the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall is now governed by a unitary authority known as the Cornwall Council based in Truro. Cornwall's Courts of Justice are also located in Truro.
The Isles of Scilly form part of the ceremonial county of Cornwall and have, at times, been served by the same county administration. However, since 1890, they have been administered by their own unitary authority, now known as the Council of the Isles of Scilly. They are still grouped with Cornwall for other administrative purposes, such as the National Health Service and Devon and Cornwall Police.[60][61][62]. There is more on the The Isles of Scilly following this section.
Prior to reorganisation on 1 April 2009, council functions throughout the rest of Cornwall were organised on a two-tier basis, with a county council and district councils for the six districts of Caradon, Carrick, Kerrier, North Cornwall, Penwith, and Restormel. While projected to streamline services, cut red tape and save around £17 million a year, the reorganisation was met with wide opposition, with a poll in 2008 giving a result of 89% disapproval from Cornish residents.[63][64][65]The first elections for the new unitary authority were held on 4 June 2009. The new council has 123 seats; the largest party is the Conservative Party with 50, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 38, Independents with 32 and Mebyon Kernow with 3 seats.[66]
Prior to the creation of the new unitary council, the former county council had 82 seats, the majority of which were held by the Liberal Democrats, elected at the 2005 county council elections. The six former districts in Cornwall had a total of 249 council seats, and the numerically largest groups represented on them were Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, and Independents.
Self-rule movement
There is a growing call within Cornwall for greater self-rule. Cornwall Council's Feb 2003 MORI poll showed 55% in favour of an elected, fully-devolved regional assembly for Cornwall and 13% against. (Previous result :46% in favour in 2002). However the poll also showed that 72% were in favour of a "South West Regional Assembly.[70] The Cornish Constitutional Convention[12] advocates the creation of a Cornish Assembly, along the lines of those for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and in 2001 presented a petition to the then Prime minister, Tony Blair calling for the change. It is claimed that many of the duchy residents are calling for a high degree of autonomy within England, or a split from England, creating (or perhaps recreating[71]) a fifth home nation of the United Kingdom.[72] and/or a separate Cornish Development Agency, a result of discontent with the South West Regional Development Agency.
Cornish political parties
Cornish nationalists have organised into two political parties: Mebyon Kernow, formed in 1951, and the Cornish Nationalist Party. In addition to the political parties, there are various interest groups such as the Cornish Stannary Parliament and the Celtic League. In November 2000, the Cornish Constitutional Convention was formed to campaign for a Cornish Assembly. It is a cross-party organisation including representatives from the private, public, and voluntary sectors, of all political parties and none. Between 5 March 2000 and December 2001, the campaign collected the signatures of 41,650 Cornish residents endorsing the declaration for a devolved regional Cornish Assembly, along with 8,896 signatories from outside Cornwall.[12] In 2003 a MORI poll showed 55 per cent of respondents favoured establishing a regional assembly for Cornwall.[73] The campaign also has the support of all five Cornish Lib Dem MPs and Mebyon Kernow.[74]
The question of Cornwall's constitutional status
The question of Cornwall's constitutional status as a de facto county of England, as established by the Local Government Act 1888, a Duchy, i.e. the Duchy of Cornwall established in 1337 by Edward III of England for his son, Edward, Prince of Wales, or another constitutional entity of the United Kingdom is a complex one. In recent years there has been cross-party recognition of the issue at least as far as the calls for a Cornish Assembly are concerned. In addition there are also groups and individuals, including the Revived Cornish Stannary Parliament, the Cornish Constitutional Convention,[72] and John Angarrack,[75] who reject the present constitutional status of Cornwall, denying the legality of Cornwall's current administration as a county of England, and Cornwall's relationship to the Duchy of Cornwall.
Question of Cornish national identity
Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and diaspora, and is recognised by many people and organisations (including the Celtic League, Cornish Stannary Parliament, Mebyon Kernow, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), Celtic Congress and the BBC) alongside Brittany, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales as one of the six "Celtic nations". Alongside Asturias and Galicia, Cornwall is also recognised as one of the eight Celtic nations by the Isle of Man Government and the Welsh Assembly Government.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][97] Cornwall is represented, as one of the Celtic nations, at the Festival Interceltique de Lorient, a celebration of Celtic culture held annually in Brittany.[98]
There is some ambiguity over how many of the people living in Cornwall consider themselves to be Cornish, since results from different surveys (including the national census) have been varied. In the 2001 census, 7 percent of people in Cornwall identified themselves as Cornish, rather than British or English. However, activists have argued that this underestimated the true number as there was no explicit "Cornish" option included in the official census form.[99] Subsequent surveys have suggested that as many as 44 percent identify as Cornish.[100] Many people in Cornwall say that this issue would be resolved if a Cornish option became available on the census.[101] The question and content recommendations for the 2011 Census provide an explanation of the process of selecting an ethnic identity which is relevant to the understanding of the often quoted figure of 37,000 who claim Cornish identity.[102]
Cornish language
The Cornish language is closely related to Welsh and Breton, and less so to Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx. The language continued to function as a community language in parts of Cornwall until the late 18th century, and there has been a revival of the language since Henry Jenner's "Handbook of the Cornish Language" was published in 1904. A study in 2000 suggested that there were around 300 people who spoke Cornish fluently.[103] Cornish however had no legal status in the UK until 2002. Nevertheless, the language is taught in about twelve primary schools, and occasionally used in religious and civic ceremonies.[104] In 2002 Cornish was officially recognised as a UK minority language[105] and in 2005 it received limited Government funding.[106] A Standard Written Form was agreed in 2008.[107]
Several Cornish mining words are still in use in English language mining terminology, such as costean, gunnies, and vug.[108]
References
^ a b "Population estimates for UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Mid-2008" (ZIP). National Statistics Online. Office for National Statistics. 27 August 2009. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/Mid_2008_UK_England_&_Wales_Scotland_and_Northern_Ireland_27_08_09.zip. Retrieved 26 September 2009.
^ "UK Standard Area Measurements (SAM)" (ZIP). National Statistics Online. Office for National Statistics. July 2007. http://www.ons.gov.uk/about-statistics/geography/products/geog-products-other/sam/index.html. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
^ Stenton, F. M. (1947) Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Clarendon Press; p. 337
^ a b "Celtic League - Kernow branch - Information". Celtic League website. Celtic League. 2009. http://www.celticleague.net/branches/kernow2.html. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
^ a b "Cornish Stannary Parliament Archives - Documents - UNITED NATIONS RECOGNISES CORNISH IDENTITY". Cornish Stannary Parliament website. Cornish Stannary Parliament. 2008-07-06. http://cornishstannaryparliament.co.uk//resources//index.php?topic=General. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
^ a b "Mebyon Kernow - The Party for Cornwall - BETA". Mebyon Kernow website. Mebyon Kernow. 2007. http://www.mebyonkernow.org/?q=policies_historic_celtic_nation. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
^ a b "About RTÉ- RTÉ Awards". RTÉ website. RTÉ. 2009-01-13. http://www.rte.ie/about/awards/celtic09%20nominees.html. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
^ a b "CRAOBHACHA NÁISIÚNTA Branches of the International Celtic Congress" (in Irish, English). Celtic Congress. http://www.ccheilteach.ie/craobh.html. Retrieved 16 February 2010.
^ a b "BBC - Irish - Tionchar na gCeilteach". BBC Northern Ireland website. BBC. 2009-04-24. http://www.bbc.co.uk/irish/articles/view/720/english/. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
^ a b "Welsh Assembly Government - Celtic countries connect with contemporary Cymru". Welsh Assembly Government website. Welsh Assembly Government. 2008-05-13. http://wales.gov.uk/news/topic/officefirstminister/2008/2372569/;jsessionid=2HxQKNPNwtyLzpl2VLlsysLyGVVhyMybcd94RlxXDyZHG6VpJbjP!1298896870?lang=en. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
^ "The Cornish Language Development Project - Evaluation - Final Report". Hywel Evans, Aric Lacoste / ERS. pp. 20. http://www.magakernow.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=41357&p=0. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
^ a b c "Blair gets Cornish assembly call". BBC. 2001-12-11. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/1704112.stm. Retrieved 2008-05-22.
^ "Britain's Heritage and History - Cornwall". Camelot International. 13 August 1997. http://www.camelotintl.com/heritage/counties/england/cornwall.html. Retrieved 2007-12-01.
^ "Celtic Museum". Michael Newton/Saorsa Media. 1991. http://whitefiles.org/b2_h/1_celtic_museum/zcm/cm4/4_lngg.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-02.
^ a b c Payton, Philip (1996). Cornwall. Fowey: Alexander Associates. ISBN 1-8995-2660-9. Revised edition Cornwall: a history, Fowey: Cornwall Editions Ltd, 2004 ISBN 1-904880-00-2 (Available online on Google Books)
^ N.B. another Durocornovium existed at Wanborough in Wiltshire
^ "Kingdoms of British Celts - Cornubia". The History Files. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/BritainCornubia.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-01.
^ http://www.aber.ac.uk/aberonline/en/archive/2008/05/au7608/
^ "O'Donnell Lecture 2008 Appendix". http://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Research/ODonnell.pdf.
^ Koch, John (2009). Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History in Acta Palaeohispanica X Palaeohispanica 9 (2009). Palaeohispanica. pp. 339–351. http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/29/54/26koch.pdf. Retrieved 2010-05-17.
^ Koch, John. "New research suggests Welsh Celtic roots lie in Spain and Portugal". http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146413465. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
^ Cunliffe, Karl, Guerra, McEvoy, Bradley; Oppenheimer, Rrvik, Isaac, Parsons, Koch, Freeman and Wodtko (2010). Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaeology, Genetics, Language and Literature. Oxbow Books and Celtic Studies Publications. pp. 384. ISBN 978-1-84217-410-4. http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/88298//Location/DBBC.
^ "Rethinking the Bronze Age and the Arrival of Indo-European in Atlantic Europe". University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. http://www.oxbowbooks.com/pdfs/books/Celtic%20West%20conf.pdf. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
^ Halliday, F. E. (1959) A History of Cornwall, London: Duckworth, ISBN 1-84232-123-4, p. 51.
^ Halliday, p. 52.
^ Tylecote, R. F. (1962) Metallurgy in Archaeology
^ Pre Norman Conquest Cornwall
^ Michael Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 2nd ed. London, Phoenix Press, 2000, p. 177
^ Todd, Michael (1987) The South West to AD 1000. London : Longman ISBN 0-582-49273-4
^ The Foundation Of The Kingdom Of England
^ Keynes, Simon; Lapidge, Michael (tr.) (1983), Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources, London, Penguin Books, p. 175; cf. ibid, p. 89
^ Williams, Ann, and Martin, G. H. (2002) (tr.) Domesday Book - a complete translation, London, Penguin, pp. 341-357
^ Payton (1998) Cornwall, pp. 100-108
^ Orme, Nicholas (2000) The Saints of Cornwall, see also Article on "Saint Uny" at http://www.lelant.info/uny.htm. The patron saint of Wendron Parish Church, "Saint Wendrona" is another example.
^ Doble, G. H. (1960) The Saints of Cornwall. 5 vols. Truro: Dean and Chapter, 1960-70
^ See for example absences from Olsen and Padel's "A tenth century list of Cornish parochial saints" in Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies; 12 (1986); and from Nova Legenda Angliae by John Capgrave (mid-15th cent.)
^ "St. Piran - Sen piran". St-Piran.com. http://www.st-piran.com/st-piran.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ Henderson, Charles (1935) "Cornwall and her patron saint", In: his Essays in Cornish History. Oxford: Clarendon Press; pp. 197-201
^ Charles-Edwards, T. (1970) "The Seven Bishop Houses of Dyfed," In: Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, vol. 24, (1970-1972), pp. 247-252.
^ Cornish Church Guide (1925) Truro: Blackford
^ Jenner, Henry (1925) "The Holy Wells of Cornwall". In: Cornish Church Guide. Truro: Blackford; pp. 249-257
^ Quiller-Couch, M. & L. (1894) Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall. London: Chas. J. Clark
^ Oliver, George (1846) Monasticon Dioecesis Exoniensis: being a collection of records and instruments illustrating the ancient conventual, collegiate, and eleemosynary foundations, in the Counties of Cornwall and Devon, with historical notices, and a supplement, comprising a list of the dedications of churches in the Diocese, an amended edition of the taxation of Pope Nicholas, and an abstract of the Chantry Rolls [with supplement and index]. Exeter: P. A. Hannaford, 1846, 1854, 1889
^ "The Prayer Book Rebellion 1549". TudorPlace.com.ar. http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/prayer_book_rebellion.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Methodism". Cornish-Mining.org.uk. http://www.cornish-mining.org.uk/story/religion.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ Shaw, Thomas (1967) A History of Cornish Methodism. Truro: Bradford Barton
^ "Truro Cathedral website - History page". TruroCathedral.org.uk. http://www.trurocathedral.org.uk/cathedral-story/story1.html. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ Brown, H. Miles (1976) A Century for Cornwall. Truro: Blackford
^ "Diocese of Plymouth". http://www.plymouth-diocese.org.uk/. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
^ The Official Guide to the South West Coast Path
^ Britain's only other example on an ophiolite, the Shetland ophiolite, is older, and linked to the Grampian Orogeny
^ Cornwall County Council, "The County Flower."
^ Price, J. H., Hepton, C. E. L. and Honey, S. I. (1979). The Inshore Benthic Biota of the Lizard Peninsula, south west Cornwall: the marine algae -- History; Chlorophyta; Phaeophyta. Cornish Studies; no. 7: pp. 7-37
^ Bere, Rennie (1982) The Nature of Cornwall. Buckingham: Barracuda Books
^ Met Office, 2000. Annual average temperature for the United Kingdom.
^ Met Office, 2000. Annual average sunshine for the United Kingdom.
^ Met Office, 2000. Annual average rainfall for the United Kingdom.
^ "Average Weather for Isles of Scilly, ENG — Temperature and Precipitation". http://www.climatetemp.info/united-kingdom/isles-of-scilly.html.
^ "Weather Averages - Truro, England". Foreca. http://weather.uk.msn.com/monthly_averages.aspx?wealocations=wc:34002. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
^ "Isles of Scilly Cornwall through time". visionofbritain.org.uk. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit_page.jsp?u_id=10076742&c_id=10171878. Retrieved January 19, 2007.
^ "Isles of Scilly RD Cornwall through time". visionofbritain.org.uk. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/relationships.jsp?u_id=10026210&c_id=10001043. Retrieved January 19, 2007.
^ "About your local police". Devon and Cornwall Police. http://www.devon-cornwall.police.uk/AboutUs/Pages/Aboutyourlocalpolice.aspx. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
^ "One Cornwall - A unified council for Cornwall". Cornwall County Council. http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=37570. Retrieved 2008-05-22.
^ http://www.onecornwall.cornwall.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=44400
^ "Cornwall super-council go-ahead". BBC. 2007-07-25. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/6914947.stm. Retrieved 2007-07-25.
^ "Cornwall Council elections - Thursday, 4th June, 2009". Cornwall Council. http://democracy.cornwall.gov.uk/mgElectionResults.aspx?ID=1&V=0&RPID=112166. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
^ British Archaeology, no 30, December 1997: Letters
^ Rowse, A. L. (1941) Tudor Cornwall. London: Cape; pp. 91-94
^ "Mark Prisk appointed Shadow Minister for Cornwall" (flash video). Cameron, David. 2007-07-24. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nIAarTqZsaU. Retrieved 2008-05-23.
^ Cornwall Council's Feb 2003 MORI poll
^ The Battle of Deorham in 577 AD separated modern Wales from the Brythonic (Celtic) kingdom of Dumnonia. Over time, it shrank gradually under pressure from the English kingdom of Wessex until in 936 AD King Athelstan set the boundary between the English and Cornish people at the river Tamar.
^ a b Campaign for a Cornish Assembly - Senedh Kernow
^ "This is The West Country - Give Cornwall what it wants". This is The West Country website. Newsquest Media Group. 2004-01-22. http://archive.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/2004/1/22/21396.html. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
^ "Cornish MPs determined to win more power for Cornwall - Dan Rogerson MP". Dan Rogerson MP for North Cornwall website. Dan Rogerson MP. 2007-06-11. http://www.danrogerson.org/2007/06/11/cornish-mps-determined-to-win-more-power-for-cornwall/. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
^ The Duchy of Cornwall Human Rights Association
^ http://devon-cornwall-libdems.org.uk/resources/sites/84.234.17.197-44731d1eeb1e05.55457880/Cornwall+Lib+Dems+2009+Manifesto.pdf
^ "Minutes for the Census Sub-Group Meeting held on 23 November 2006". Central & Local Information Partnership. 2007-02-09. http://www.clip.local.gov.uk/lgv/core/page.do?pageId=40416. Retrieved 2008-05-23.
^ Rendle, Phil. "Cornwall - The Mysteries of St Piran" (PDF). Proceedings of the XIX International Congress of Vexxilology. The Flag Institute. http://www.flaginstitute.org/pdfs/Phil%20Rendle.pdf. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
^ "Cross of Saint Piran". Flags of the World (FOTW). http://www.fotw.net/flags/gb-corn.html. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
^ Payton, Philip (2004). "Re-inventing Kernow". Cornwall: A History (2nd revised ed.). Fowey: Cornwall Editions Limited. p. 262. ISBN 1904880053.
^ Cornwall (United Kingdom)
^ British Flags (United Kingdom) from The World Flag Database
^ ONS December 2006
^ Eurostat
^ Halliday, p69.
^ Halliday, p. 182
^ Poverty and deprivation in Cornwall (June 2006) and Poverty and neighbourhood renewal in west Cornwall (January 2002)PDF (756 KB)
^ Visit Cornwall, 2007. The total number of visitors to the county includes those on business and visiting relatives. Tourism in CornwallPDF (216 KB)
^ Scottish Executive, 2004. A literature review of the evidence base for culture, the arts and sport policy.
^ Line-caught wild bass from Cornwall - South West Handline Fishermen's Association
^ . UNESCO Page on the Cornwall & West Devon application
^ The University of Exeter - Cornwall Campus - Camborne School of Mines
^ Home
^ Office for National Statistics, 2001. Population Change in England by County 1981-2000.
^ Office for National Statistics, 2001. Births, Deaths and Natural Change in Cornwall 1974 – 2001.
^ Office for National Statistics, 1996. % of Population of Pension Age (1996).
^ "Isle of Man Post Office Website". Isle of Man Post Office website. Isle of Man Government. 2009. http://www.gov.im/post/stamps/FutureIssue.aspx?categoryid=164. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
^ "Site Officiel du Festival Interceltique de Lorient". Festival Interceltique de Lorient website. Festival Interceltique de Lorient. 2009. http://www.festival-interceltique.com/le-monde-des-celtes-et-de-la-celtie.php. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
^ Dugan, Emily (2009-09-06). "The Cornish: they revolted in 1497, now they're at it again". Independent (The). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-cornish-they-revolted-in-1497-now-theyre-at-it-again-1782535.html. Retrieved 14 July 2010.
^ "Welsh are more patriotic". BBC. 2004-03-03. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3527673.stm. Retrieved 14 July 2010.
^ "Information paper: Recommended questions for the 2009 Census Rehearsal and 2011 Census: National Identity" (PDF). Office for National Statistics. December 2008. p. 32. http://www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-questionnaire-content/recommended-questions---national-identity.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-13.
^ "2011 Census; 2011 census questionnaire content; question and content recommendations for 2011; ethnic group prioritisation tool". Office for National Statistics. pp. 20–22. http://www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-questionnaire-content/question-and-content-recommendations-for-2011/ethnic-group-prioritisation-tool.pdf. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
^ http://www.gosw.gov.uk/gosw/docs/254795/mode_of_use.doc
^ "Cornish in United Kingdom". European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/languages/langmin/euromosaic/uk1_en.html. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ BBC news - November 2002 - Cornish gains official recognition
^ BBC news - June 2005 - Cash boost for Cornish language
^ An Outline of the Standard Written Form of Cornish
^ Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms by American Geological Institute and U S Bureau of Mines (pages 128, 249, and 613)
^ "MPs swear Oath of Allegiance in Cornish". Maga Kernow. 2010-05-24. http://www.magakernow.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=48210. Retrieved 2010-06-26.
^ "Elizabeth Adela Forbes". PenleeHouse.org.uk. http://www.penleehouse.org.uk/artists/elizabeth-forbes.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Samuel John Lamorna Birch". HayleGallery.co.uk. http://www.haylegallery.co.uk/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=59. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Virginia Woolf". NYTimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/n/nicolson-woolf.html. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Ben Nicholson". StormFineArts.com. http://www.stormfinearts.com/images/gallery_b/b-nicholson/b-nicholson.html. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Naum Gabo". Artnet.com. http://www.artnet.com/artist/660735/naum-gabo.html. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Bernard Leach and the Leach Pottery". Studio-Pots.com. http://www.studio-pots.com/leach.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Tate St Ives". Tate.org.uk. http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ art cornwall .org: art and artists in Cornwall including Cornish galleries
^ "An-Daras.com". http://www.an-daras.com.
^ The whole Tori - Music - Entertainment - theage.com.au
^ "Daphne du Maurier". DuMaurier.org. http://www.DuMaurier.org/. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "The Birds". MovieDiva.com. http://www.moviediva.com/MD_root/reviewpages/MDBirds.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot". WorldwideSchool.org. http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/detective/TheAdventureoftheDevilsFoot/Chap1.html. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Over Sea, Under Stone". Powell's Books. http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780689840357. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "The Killer Mine". BoekBesprekingen.nl. http://www.boekbesprekingen.nl/cgi-bin/boek.cgi?boek=588391. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "The Little Country". Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Little-Country-Charles-Lint/dp/0312876491. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "Shell Cottage". hp-lexicon.org. http://www.hp-lexicon.org/atlas/gazetteer/gazetteer-s.html. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
^ "Biography of William Golding". William-Golding.co.uk. http://www.william-golding.co.uk/p_biography.html. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "St Enodoc Church". RockInfo.co.uk. http://www.rockinfo.co.uk/daymer/stenochc.html. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ "William Sydney Graham". CPRW.com. http://www.cprw.com/Drexel/graham.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-11.
^ a b c Clegg 2005, p. 10.
^ Harvey 2002, p. 221.
^ a b Gallagher, Brendan (23 October 2008). "Cornish rugby union celebrate 125 years of pride and passion--but are they the lost tribe?". The Daily Telegraph. London: telegraph.co.uk. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/club/3247717/Cornish-rugby-union-celebrate-125-years-of-pride-and-passion---but-are-they-the-lost-tribe-Rugby.html. Retrieved 2009-09-07
^ The Bodmin hurl is held whenever the ceremony of beating the bounds takes place: each occasion must be five years or more after the last one.
^ BBC NEWS, Surfers aim to break world record
^ Objective One media release
^ - Cornish recipe site
^ Martin, Edith (1929). Cornish Recipes, Ancient & Modern. 22nd edition, 1965.
^ Official list of British protected foods
^ Mason, Laura; Brown, Catherine (1999) From Bath Chaps to Bara Brith. Totnes: Prospect Books
^ Pettigrew, Jane (2004) Afternoon Tea. Andover: Jarrold
^ Fitzgibbon, Theodora (1972) A Taste of England: the West Country. London: J. M. Dent
[edit] Further reading
Balchin, W. G. V. (1954) Cornwall: an illustrated essay on the history of the landscape. (The Making of the English Landscape). London: Hodder and Stoughton
Boase, George Clement; Courtney, W. P. (1874–1882) Bibliotheca Cornubiensis: a catalogue of the writings, both manuscript and printed, of Cornishmen, and of works relating to the county of Cornwall, with biographical memoranda and copious literary references. 3 vols. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer
du Maurier, Daphne (1967). Vanishing Cornwall. London: Doubleday. (illustrated edition Published by Victor Gollancz, London, 1981, ISBN 0-575-02844-0, photographs by Christian Browning)
Ellis, Peter Berresford (1974). The Cornish Language and its Literature. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Books. ISBN 0-7100-7928-1. (Available online on Google Books).
Graves, Alfred Perceval (1928). The Celtic Song Book: Being Representative Folk Songs of the Six Celtic Nations. London: Ernest Benn. (Available online on Digital Book Index)
Halliday, Frank Ernest (1959). A History of Cornwall. London: Gerald Duckworth. ISBN 0-7551-0817-5. A 2nd edition was published in 2001 by the House of Stratus, Thirsk: the original text new illustrations and an afterword by Halliday's son
Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia. London: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-8510-9440-7. (Available online on Google Books).
Payton, Philip (1996). Cornwall. Fowey: Alexander Associates. ISBN 1-8995-2660-9. Revised edition Cornwall: a history, Fowey: Cornwall Editions Ltd, 2004 ISBN 1-904880-00-2 (Available online on Google Books).
Stoyle, Mark (2001). "BBC - History - The Cornish: A Neglected Nation?". BBC History website. BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/cornish_nation_01.shtml. Retrieved 2009-05-25.
Stoyle, Mark (2002). West Britons: Cornish Identities and the Early Modern British State. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. ISBN 0-8598-9688-9.
Williams, Michael (ed.) (1973) My Cornwall. St Teath:The Isles Of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly (English pronunciation: /'s?li/, Cornish: Enesek Syllan) form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. Traditionally administered as part of the county of Cornwall, the islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890. This council is currently known as the Council of the Isles of Scilly.The correct name for the islands is the Isles of Scilly, or simply Scilly; the people of Scilly consider the terms "Scillies" and "Scilly Isles" to be incorrect.[citation needed] The adjective "Scillonian" is sometimes used for people or things related to the archipelago.
The islands are designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Geography
The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago of five inhabited islands and numerous other small rocky islets (around 140 in total) lying 45 km (28 mi) off Land's End. They are all composed of granite rock of late Carboniferous age.
The islands' position produces a place of great contrast—the ameliorating effect of the sea means they rarely have frost or snow, which allows local farmers to grow flowers well ahead of those in mainland Britain. The chief agricultural product is cut flowers, mostly daffodils. Exposure to Atlantic winds means that spectacular winter gales lash the islands from time to time. This is reflected in the landscape, most clearly seen on Tresco where the lush sub-tropical Abbey Gardens on the sheltered southern end of the island contrast with the low heather and bare rock sculpted by the wind on the exposed northern end.
As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plantlife chose thrift (Armeria maritima) as the "county flower" of the islands.[1][2]
Climate
The Isles of Scilly have a temperate Oceanic climate (Koppen climate classification Cfb) amongst the mildest and warmest climates in the United Kingdom. The average annual temperature is 11.6 °C (53 °F) in comparison to London which has 11.0°C (52 °F). Winters are amongst the warmest in the country due to southerly latitude and moderating effects of the ocean. Summers are not as warm as on the mainland. They are perhaps the sunniest areas in the UK with on average 7.6 hours per day in July. The lowest temperature ever record was -6.4°C on 13 January 1987 and the highest was 27.8°C on 16 August 1947.[3] The maximum snowfall was 23 cm (9 inches) on the 12 January 1987. On average there are less than 2 days of air frost per year.
History
Scilly has been inhabited since the Stone Age and its history has been one of subsistence living until the early 20th century (people lived from what they could get from the land or the sea). Farming and fishing continue today, but the main industry now is tourism.
The islands may correspond to the Cassiterides (Tin Isles) visited by the Phoenicians and mentioned by the Greeks. However, the archipelago itself does not contain much tin—it may be that they were used as a staging post from the mainland.
It is likely that until relatively recent times the Isles were much larger with many of them joined into one island, named Ennor. Rising sea levels flooded the central plain around 400–500 AD, forming the current islands.[5]
Evidence for the older large island includes:
A description in Roman times describes Scilly as "Scillonia insula" in the singular, as if there were a single island or an island much bigger than any of the others.
Remains of a prehistoric farm have been found on Nornour, which is now a small rocky skerry far too small for farming.[2][6]
At certain low tides the sea becomes shallow enough for people to walk between some of the islands. This is possibly one of the sources for stories of drowned lands, e.g. Lyonesse.
Ancient field walls are visible below the high tide line off some of the islands (e.g. Samson).
Some of the Cornish language place names also appear to reflect past shorelines, and former land areas.[7]
The whole of southern England has been steadily sinking in opposition to post-glacial rebound in Scotland: this has caused the rias (drowned river valleys) on the southern Cornish coast, e.g. River Fal and the Tamar Estuary.Offshore, midway between Land's End and the Isles of Scilly, is the supposed location of the mythical lost land of Lyonesse, referred to in Arthurian literature. This may be a folk memory of inundated lands, but this legend is also common amongst the Brythonic peoples; the legend of Ys is a parallel and cognate legend in Brittany.
Norse and Norman period
Olaf Tryggvason, who supposedly visited the islands in 986. It is said an encounter with a cleric there led him to Christianise Norway.At the time of Norse King Cnut, the Isles of Scilly fell outside England, as did Wales and Cornwall.
Cnut the Great (Old English: Cnut; Old Norse: Knutr inn riki; Danish: Knud den Store or Knud II[1] c. 985 or 995 – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute or Knut, was a Viking king of Denmark (Cnut II), England, Norway and parts of Sweden. As a statesman, with notable successes in politics and the military, and the importance of his legacy – if now obscure – Cnut seems to have been one of the greatest figures of medieval Europe. Until recently though, after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his achievements were largely lost to history.
Cnut was of Danish and Polish descent. His father was Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark (which gave Cnut the patronym, Sweynsson). Cnut's mother was the daughter of Mieszko I, the first ruler of Poland; her name is thought to have been Swietoslawa (see: Sigrid Storråda).[2][3][4]
As a prince of Denmark, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity throughout the British Isles. His accession to the Danish throne within a couple of years in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut held this power-base together by uniting Danes and Englishmen under cultural bonds of wealth and custom, rather than sheer brutality. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. Sweden's capital at Sigtuna was held by Cnut.[5] He had coins struck which called him king there, but no record of a coronation survives.
The kingship of England of course lent the Danes an important link to the maritime zone between Great Britain and Ireland, where Cnut like his father before him had a strong interest.[6] In light of the struggles of the Danes for preeminence within Scandinavia, Cnut's rule was definitely felt by the sea-kingdoms of the Viking settlers among the Celtic nations; known as the Gall Gaidel. These were the Kingdom of the Isles (probably under direct overlordship through one of his lieutenants[7]) in the Sea of the Hebrides, and the Kingdom of Dublin (probably on the terms of vassal and suzerain),[8] in the Irish Sea. The chief goal here was to control the western seaways to and from Scandinavia, and to check the might of the Earls of Orkney.[9] At the height of his power, Cnut held certain Gaelic kingdoms[10] and the Ui Imhair sea-kingdom of Echmarcach mac Ragnaill[11] as client territories, too.
Cnut's possession of England's archdioceses and the continental diocese of Denmark – with a claim laid upon it by the Holy Roman Empire's Hamburg-Bremen archdiocese – was a source of great leverage within the Church, gaining notable concessions from the Pope, such as one on the price of the pallium of his bishops. Cnut, also gained concessions on the tolls his people had to pay on the way to Rome from other magnates of medieval Christendom, at the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor. After his 1026 victory against Norway and Sweden, and on his way to Rome for this coronation, Cnut styles himself in a letter written for the benefit of his subjects, king of all England and Denmark and the Norwegians and of some of the Swedes.[12]
In 995 Olaf Tryggvason would become King Olaf I of Norway. Born c. 960, Olaf had raided various European cities and fought in several wars. In 986 however, he (supposedly) met a Christian seer on the Isles of Scilly. In Snorri Sturluson's Royal Sagas of Norway, it is stated that this seer told him:
Thou wilt become a renowned king, and do celebrated deeds. Many men wilt thou bring to faith and baptism, and both to thy own and others' good; and that thou mayst have no doubt of the truth of this answer, listen to these tokens. When thou comest to thy ships many of thy people will conspire against thee, and then a battle will follow in which many of thy men will fall, and thou wilt be wounded almost to death, and carried upon a shield to thy ship; yet after seven days thou shalt be well of thy wounds, and immediately thou shalt let thyself be baptised.
The legend continues that, as the seer foretold, Olaf was attacked by a group of mutineers upon returning to his ships. As soon as he had recovered from his wounds, he let himself be baptized. He then stopped raiding Christian cities and lived in England and Ireland. In 995 he used an opportunity to return to Norway. When he arrived, the Haakon Jarl was already facing a revolt. Olaf Tryggvason persuaded the rebels to accept him as their king, and Haakon Jarl was killed by his own slave, while he was hiding from the rebels in a pig sty.
With the Norman Conquest, the Isles of Scilly came more under centralised control. About twenty years later, the Domesday survey was conducted. The islands would have formed part of the "Exeter Domesday" circuit, which included Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire.
In the mid-12th century there was reportedly a Viking attack on the Isles of Scilly, called Syllingar by the Norse,[8] recorded in the Orkneyinga saga— Sweyn Asleifsson "went south, under Ireland, and seized a barge belonging to some monks in Syllingar and plundered it."[8] (Chap LXXIII)
"...the three chiefs—Swein , Þorbjörn and Eirik—went out on a plundering expedition. They went first to the Suðreyar [Hebrides], and all along the west to the Syllingar, where they gained a great victory in Maríuhöfn on Columba's-mass [9th June], and took much booty. Then they returned to the Orkneys."[8]
"Maríuhöfn", literally means "Mary's Harbour/Haven". The name doesn't make it clear whether it referred to a harbour on a larger island than today's St Mary's, or a whole island.It is generally considered that Cornwall, and possibly the Isles of Scilly came under the dominion of the English Crown late in the reign of Athelstan. In early times one group of islands was in the possession of a confederacy of hermits. King Henry I gave it to the abbey of Tavistock who established a priory on Tresco which was abolished at the Reformation.[9]
Middle Ages and early modern period
Scilly was one of the Hundreds of Cornwall in the early 19th century, (formerly known as Cornish Shires).At the turn of the 14th century, the Abbot and convent of Tavistock Abbey petitioned the king saying that they"state that they hold certain isles in the sea between Cornwall and Ireland, of which the largest is called Scilly, to which ships come passing between France, Normandy, Spain, Bayonne, Gascony, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall: and, because they feel that in the event of a war breaking out between the kings of England and France, or between any of the other places mentioned, they would not have enough power to do justice to these sailors, they ask that they might exchange these islands for lands in Devon, saving the churches on the islands appropriated to them."[10]
William le Poer, coroner of Scilly, is recorded in 1305 as being worried about the extent of wrecking in the islands, and sending a petition to the King. The names provide a wide variety of origins, e.g. Robert and Henry Sage (English), Richard de Tregenestre (Cornish), Ace de Veldre (French), Davy Gogch (possibly Welsh, or Cornish), and Adam le Fuiz Yaldicz (Spanish?).It is not known at what point the islands' inhabitants stopped speaking Cornish, but it seems to have gone into decline during the Middle Ages. The islands appear to have lost the old Celtic language before parts of Penwith on the mainland, in contrast to the history of Irish or Scottish Gaelic.
During the English Civil War, the Parliamentarians captured the isles, only to see their garrison mutiny and return the isles to the Royalists. By 1651, the Royalist governor, Sir John Grenville, was using the islands as a base for privateering raids on Commonwealth and Dutch shipping. It was during this period that the Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War started between the isles and the Netherlands. In June 1651, Admiral Robert Blake captured the isles for the Parliamentarians. Blake's initial attack, on Old Grimsby, failed, but the next attacks succeeded in taking Tresco and Bryher. Blake set up a battery on Tresco to fire on St. Mary's, but one of the guns exploded, killing its crew and injuring Blake himself. A second battery proved more successful. Subsequently, Grenville and Blake negotiated terms that permitted the Royalists to surrender honourably. The Parliamentary forces then set to fortifying the islands. They built Cromwell's Castle—a gun platform on the west side of Tresco—using materials scavenged from an earlier gun platform further up the hill. Although this poorly sited earlier platform dated back to the 1550s, it is now referred to as King Charles's Castle.
The islands appear to have been raided frequently by Barbary pirates.
Since 1539 the Isles of Scilly have been administrated as a part of the Duchy of Cornwall. An early governor of Scilly was Thomas Godolphin, whose son Francis received a lease on the Isles in 1568. They were styled Governors of Scilly and the Godolphins and their Osborne relatives held this position until 1834. In 1834 Augustus John Smith acquired the lease from the Duchy for £20,000. Smith created the title Lord Proprietor for himself, and many of his actions were unpopular. The lease remained in his family until it expired for most of the Isles in 1920. Today, the Dorrien-Smith estate still holds the lease for the island of Tresco.
The flag of the Isles of Scilly.
The Scillonian Cross is the unofficial flag of the Isles of Scilly.
Saint Piran's cross, the flag of Cornwall is also used. The Isles of Scilly were one of the Hundreds of Cornwall, but their relationship to Cornwall is unclear.
National government
The phrase "England and Cornwall" (or the Latin equivalent Anglia et Cornubia) remained in use after the Norman Conquest. Before the Tudor period, laws were typically designated as taking effect in Anglia et Cornubia. A similar situation exists today with the Isles of Scilly within Cornwall (i.e. Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly). Both the relationship of Cornwall to the Isles of Scilly, and the constitutional status of Cornwall are a matter of some debate.
Politically, the islands are part of England, one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom. They are represented in the United Kingdom Parliament as part of the St Ives constituency
As part of the United Kingdom, the islands are part of the European Union and are represented in the European Parliament as part of the multi-member South West England constituency.
Local government
Historically, the Isles of Scilly were administered as one of the hundreds of Cornwall, although the Cornwall quarter sessions had limited jurisdiction there. The archipelago is part of the Duchy of Cornwall, the Duke being the heir to the British throne, and he is allowed special rights and privileges in the islands.
The Local Government Act 1888 allowed the Local Government Board to establish in the Isles of Scilly "councils and other local authorities separate from those of the county of Cornwall"... "for the application to the islands of any act touching local government." Accordingly, in 1890 the Isles of Scilly Rural District Council (the RDC) was formed as a sui generis unitary authority, outside the administrative county of Cornwall. Cornwall County Council provided some services to the Isles, for which the RDC made financial contributions. Section 265 of the Local Government Act of 1972 allowed for the continued existence of the RDC, but renamed as the Council of the Isles of Scilly.[11][12]
This unusual status also means that much administrative law (for example relating to the functions of local authorities, the health service and other public bodies) that applies in the rest of England applies in modified form in the islands.[13]
With a total population of just over 2,000, the council represents fewer inhabitants than many English parish councils, and is by far the smallest English unitary council. The latest elections took place on the 4 June 2009; there were 21 elected councillors (all independent), 13 elected by St Mary's residents and two each, elected by residents of Bryher, St Martins, St Agnes and Tresco. There are also some 164 staff employed by the council. These numbers are significant in that almost 10 per cent of the population is directly linked to the council as either an employee or councillor.[14]
For judicial purposes, shrievalty and lieutenancy purposes the Isles of Scilly are "deemed to form part of the county of Cornwall".[15]
.
References^ "County flower of Isles of Scilly". Plantlife International - The Wild Plant Conservation Charity. http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/plantlife-discovering-plants-county-flowers-england-islesofscilly.htm. Retrieved 7 April 2006.
^ a b Thorgrim. "Nornour". http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=7614. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
^ "Local Climate Profile" (PDF). Council of the Isles of Scilly. 2009-05-28. http://www.scilly.gov.uk/Council%20of%20the%20Isles%20of%20Scilly/Local%20Climate%20profile%20(%20IOS).pdf. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
^ "Average Weather for Isles of Scilly, ENG — Temperature and Precipitation]"]. http://www.climatetemp.info/united-kingdom/isles-of-scilly.html.
^ "Ancient Sites on the Isles of Scilly". Cornwall in focus. http://www.cornwallinfocus.co.uk/history/ennor.php. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
^ Dudley, Dorothy. "Excavations on Nor'Nour in the Isles of Scilly", 1962-6 in The Archaeological Journal, CXXIV, 1967. (includes the description of over 250 Roman fibulae found at the site)
^ Weatherhill, Craig (2007) Cornish Placenames and Language London: Sigma Leisure.
^ a b c Anderson, Joseph (Ed.) (1893) Orkneyinga saga. Translated by Jón A. Hjaltalin & Gilbert Goudie. Edinburgh. James Thin and Mercat Press (1990 reprint). ISBN 0-901824-25-9
^ Cornish Church Guide; p. 194
^ National Archives
^ "Isles of Scilly Cornwall through time". visionofbritain.org.uk. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit_page.jsp?u_id=10076742&c_id=10171878. Retrieved January 19, 2007.
^ "Isles of Scilly RD Cornwall through time". visionofbritain.org.uk. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/relationships.jsp?u_id=10026210&c_id=10001043. Retrieved January 19, 2007.
^ Examples include the Health and Social Care Act 2003, section 198 and the Environment Act 1995, section 117.
^ "Council of the Isles of Scilly Corporate Assessment December 2002"January 16, 2007.
^ Gibson, F, My Scillionian Home… its past, its present, its future, St Ives, 1980
^ a b c d Isles of Scilly Integrated Area Plan 2001-2004, Isles of Scilly Partnership 2001
^ Neate, S, The role of tourism in sustaining farm structures and communities on the Isles of Scilly in M Bouquet and M Winter (eds) Who From Their Labours Rest? Conflict and practice in rural tourism Aldershot, 1987
^ a b Isles of Scilly Local Plan: A 2020 Vision, Council of the Isles of Scilly, 2004
^ Isles of Scilly 2004, imagine…, Isles of Scilly Tourist Board, 2004
^ J.Urry, The Tourist Gaze (2nd edition), London, 2002
^ "British International home page". British International Ltd.. http://www.islesofscillyhelicopter.com/. Retrieved January 17, 2007.
^ "Skybus Timetables". Skybus. http://www.islesofscilly-travel.co.uk/timetable_skybus.asp. Retrieved June 8, 2010.
^ "Isles of Scilly Travel - Travel by sea". Isles of Scilly Travel. http://www.islesofscilly-travel.co.uk/sea.htm. Retrieved January 17, 2007.
^ Mitchel, Sandy. Duchy of Cornwall - Prince Charles' Backyard - Prince Charles - Not Your Typical Radical. National Geographic Magazine. May 2006:96-115. Map ref 104. Map source Duchy of Cornwall Property Services Department [1]
^ Duchy of Cornwall website
^ Martin D, 'Heaven and Hell', in Inside Housing, 31st October, 2004
^ Sub Regional Housing Markets in the South West, South West Housing Board, 2004
^ a b S. Fleming et al., “In from the cold” A report on Cornwall’s Affordable Housing Crisis, Liberal Democrats, Penzance, 2003
^ The Cornishman, Islanders in dispute with Duchy over housing policy, 19 August 2004
^ http://www.worldgigs.co.uk/
^ Scilly News » Blog Archive » Beckham and Gerrard make surprise visit
^ "Active People Survey - national factsheet appendix (Microsoft Excel)". Sport England. http://www.sportengland.org/national_factsheet_appendix_(all_las_ranked)_v2.xls. Retrieved January 16, 2007.
^ http://www.freeview.co.uk/freeview/Switchover/West-Country
^ "An Island Parish". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/listings/programmes.shtml?day=yesterday&service_id=4224&filename=20070115/20070115_2030_4224_16817_30. Retrieved January 16, 2007.
^ http://www.samllewellyn.com/novels.html#hellIsle of Man
The Isle of Man
Isle of Man
From Wikipedia
Motto: Quocunque Jeceris Stabit (Latin)
Whithersoever you throw it, it will stand.
Anthem: "O Land of Our Birth"
"Arrane Ashoonagh dyThe Isle of Man (pronounced /'mæn/; Manx: Ellan Vannin,[2] pronounced ['?l??n 'van?n]), otherwise known simply as Mann (Manx: Mannin, ['man?n]), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is represented by a Lieutenant Governor. The island is not part of the United Kingdom, but its foreign relations and defence are the responsibility of the UK Government. Also, although it does not usually interfere in the island's domestic matters, its "good government" is the ultimate responsibility of the Crown (i.e., in practice, the Government of the United Kingdom).[3]
The island has been inhabited since before 6500 BC. It began to be influenced by Gaelic culture in the AD 400s and the Manx language, a branch of the Gaelic languages, gradually emerged. In the 800s, the Norse began to settle there. A Norse-Gaelic culture emerged and the island came under Norse control. In 1266, the island became part of Scotland. After a period of alternating rule by the kings of Scotland and England, the island came under the feudal overlordship of the English Crown in 1399. The lordship revested into the British Crown in 1764 but the island never became part of the United Kingdom and retained its status as an internally self-governing jurisdiction.
Mann is not a part of the European Union, but has a limited relationship concerning the free movement of goods.
History
The Isle of Man became separated from Britain and Ireland by about 8000 BC. It appears that colonisation took place by sea sometime before 6500 BC.[4] The first residents lived in small natural shelters, hunting, fishing and gathering for their food. They used small tools made of flint or bone, which have been found near the coast. Representatives of these artifacts are kept at the Manx Museum.[5]The Neolithic Period marked the coming of knowledge of farming, better stone tools and pottery. It was during this period that megalithic monuments began to appear around the island. Examples from this period can be found at Cashtal yn Ard near Maughold, King Orry's Grave in Laxey, Meayll Circle near Cregneash, and Ballaharra Stones in St John's. This was not the only Neolithic culture; there were also the local Ronaldsway and Bann cultures.[6]
During the Bronze Age, the large communal tombs of the megalith builders were replaced with smaller burial mounds. Bodies were put in stone lined graves along with ornamental containers. The Bronze Age burial mounds created long lasting markers about the countryside.[7] According to John T. Koch and others, the Isle of Man in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age that also included the other Celtic nations, England, France, Spain and Portugal where Celtic languages developed with the Tartessian language the first written Celtic language so far discovered.[8][9][10][11][12][13]
The Iron Age marked the beginning of Celtic cultural influence. Large hill forts appeared on hill summits, and smaller promontory forts along the coastal cliffs, while large timber-framed roundhouses were built. It is likely that the first Celtic tribes to inhabit the Island were of the Brythonic variety. Around AD 700, cultural influence from Ireland, probably along with some degree of migration, precipitated a process of Gaelicisation, evidenced by Ogham inscriptions, giving rise to the Manx language, which remains closely related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic.[14]
Viking settlement of Mann began at the end of the 8th century. The Vikings established Tynwald and introduced many land divisions that still exist. They also left the Manx Runestones. Although the Manx language does contain Norse influences, they are few. The Norse Kingdom of Mann and the Isles was created by Godred Crovan in 1079 after the Battle of Skyhill. During Viking times, the islands of this kingdom were called the Súðreyjar or Sudreys ("southern isles") in contrast to the Norðreyjar ("northern isles") of Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. This later became Anglicised as Sodor. The Church of England diocese is still called the Diocese of Sodor and Man although it only covers Man.[15]
(When the Rev. W.V. Awdry wrote The Railway Series, he invented the island of Sodor as an imaginary island located between Mann and the Cumbrian coast.)[16]
In 1266, as dictated in the Treaty of Perth, Norway's King Magnus VI ceded the isles to Scotland. Mann came under English control in the 14th century. During this period the Isle was dominated by the Stanley family, who also held the title of Earl of Derby, who had been given possession of Man by King Henry IV. In 1703, the Act of Settlement secured peasant rights and marked the beginning of a move away from feudal government. In 1765, however, the British Crown secured a greater control over the island, without incorporating it into Great Britain, laying the grounds for the island's status as a Crown dependency.[17]
In 1866, greater autonomy was restored to the island's parliament and a full transition to democracy began. The Isle quickly developed as a finance centre and tourist destination, becoming increasingly prosperous during the 20th century. During both the First and Second World Wars the island was used as a location for internment camps for Central Powers and Axis citizens and suspected sympathisers, respectively.[18]
Tynwald
Tynwald, the island's parliament, was nominally founded in AD 979. It is arguably the oldest continuous parliament in the world.[19] The annual ceremonial meeting in July on Tynwald Day, the island's national day, continues to be held at Tynwald Hill, where titles are announced and a brief description of the new laws enacted by Tynwald during the previous year is given.[20]Geography
Map of the Isle of Man
As well as the main island of Mann itself, the Isle of Man includes some nearby small islands: the seasonally inhabited Calf of Man; Chicken Rock on which stands an unmanned lighthouse; and St Patrick's Isle and St Michael's Isle, both connected to the mainland by permanent roads/causeways.Mann is located in the middle of the northern Irish Sea, approximately equidistant from the islands of Britain and Ireland. In the context of Britain, the island lies closest to Scotland followed by England and then Wales.
The Isle is 52 kilometres (32 mi) long and 22 kilometres (14 mi) wide at its widest point. It has an area of around 572 square kilometres (221 sq mi).[21]
Hills in the north and south are bisected by a central valley. The extreme north is exceptionally flat, consisting mainly of deposits built up by deposition from glacial advances from western Scotland during colder times. There are more recently deposited shingle beaches at the Point of Ayre. The island has only one mountain higher than 600 metres (2,000 ft), Snaefell, with a height of 620 metres (2,034 ft).[21] According to an old saying, from the summit one can see six kingdoms: those of Mann, Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales, and Heaven.[22][23][24] Some versions add a seventh kingdom, that of Northern Ireland, the Sea, or Neptune.[25][26]
Population
At the 2006 interim census,[27] Mann was home to 80,058 people, of whom 26,218 resided in the island's capital, Douglas. Most of the population was born in the British Isles, with 47.6% born in Mann, 37.2% born in England, 3.4% in Scotland, 2.1% in Northern Ireland, 2.1% in the Republic of Ireland, 1.2% in Wales and 0.3% born in the Channel Islands. The remaining 6.1% were born elsewhere in the world.Census
The Isle of Man Full Census, most recently held in 2001, has been a ten-yearly occurrence since 1821, with interim censuses being introduced from 1966. It is separate from, but similar to, the Census in the United Kingdom.
The 2001 Census was conducted by the Economic Affairs Division of the Isle of Man Treasury, under the authority of the Census Act 1929.
Climate
The Isle of Man has a temperate climate, with cool summers and mild winters. Average rainfall is higher than the average for the British Isles, due to its location to the west of Great Britain and sufficient distance from Ireland for moisture to be accumulated by the prevailing south-westerly winds. Average rainfall is highest at Snaefell, where it is around 1,900 millimetres (75 in) a year. At lower levels it can be around 800 millimetres (31 in) a year. Temperatures remain fairly cool, with the recorded maximum being 28.9 °C (84.0 °F) at Ronaldsway.
Government
The United Kingdom is responsible for the island's defence and ultimately for good governance, and for representing the island in international forums, while the island's own parliament and government have competence over all domestic matters.[28]The island's parliament is Tynwald, which dates from at least AD 979 and is the oldest continuously existing ruling body in the world.[29] Tynwald is a bicameral legislature, comprising the House of Keys (directly elected by universal suffrage) and the Legislative Council (consisting of indirectly elected and ex-officio members). These two bodies meet together in joint session as Tynwald.
The executive branch of government is the Council of Ministers, which is composed of members of Tynwald. It is headed by the Chief Minister, currently Tony Brown MHK. The Council of Ministers comprises the greater part of the House of Keys.
Vice-regal functions of the Head of State are performed by a Lieutenant Governor.
Under British law, Mann is not part of the United Kingdom. However, the UK takes care of its external and defence affairs, and retains paramount power to legislate for the island.[30] There are no independent military forces on Mann. There is an independent Isle of Man police force, which is controlled directly by the Isle of Man Government, but which nonetheless voluntarily submits to inspection by the UK inspectorate of police.[31]
Citizenship
Citizenship in Mann is governed by UK law. Passports issued by the Isle of Man Passport Office say "British Islands - Isle of Man" on the cover but the nationality status stated on the passport is simply "British Citizen". Although Manx passport holders are British citizens, because Mann is not part of the European Union, those without a grandparent born in the UK (or who have not lived continuously for a period of five or more years in the UK) do not have the same rights as other British citizens with regard to employment and establishment in the EU. Isle of Man passports can be issued to any British citizen in Mann (whether or not that person has "Manx status" under the local Isle of Man employment laws). They can also be issued to Manx-connected British citizens residing in the UK or any of the other Crown Dependencies.
European Union
Mann holds neither membership nor associate membership of the European Union. Protocol 3 of the UK's Act of Accession to the Treaty of Rome permits trade for Manx goods without tariffs.[32] In conjunction with the Customs and Excise agreement with the UK, this facilitates free trade with the UK. While Manx goods can be freely moved within the EU, capital and services cannot be. EU citizens are entitled to travel and reside in the island without restriction.
Commonwealth of Nations
Mann is not itself a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. By virtue of its relationship with the United Kingdom, it takes part in several Commonwealth institutions, including the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Commonwealth Games.
Politics
Most Manx politicians stand for election as independents rather than as representatives of political parties. Though political parties do exist, their influence is not nearly as strong as in the United Kingdom.The largest political party is the recently established Liberal Vannin Party, which promotes greater Manx independence and more accountability in Government. A nationalist pressure group Mec Vannin advocates the establishment of a sovereign republic.[33]
Local government
Local government on the Isle of Man is based on the concept of ancient parishes. There are two types of local authorities: a corporation for the Borough of Douglas, and bodies of commissioners for the town districts of Castletown, Peel and Ramsey, the village districts of Kirk Michael, Laxey, Onchan, Port Erin and Port St Mary, and the 15 'parish districts' (those parishes or parts of parishes which do not fall within the districts previously mentioned). Local authorities are under the supervision of the Isle of Man Government's Department of Local Government and the Environment (DOLGE).
Economy
The Isle of Man is a low-tax economy with no capital gains tax, wealth tax, stamp duty, or inheritance tax[34] and a top rate of income tax of 20%. A tax cap is in force; the maximum amount of tax payable by an individual is £100,000 or £200,000 for couples if they choose to have their incomes jointly assessed. The £100,000 tax cap equates to an assessable income of approximately £570,000. Personal income is assessed and taxed on a total worldwide income basis rather than a remittance basis. This means that all income earned throughout the world is assessable for Manx tax rather than only income earned in or brought into the Island.The rate of corporation tax is 0% for almost all types of income, the only exceptions are that the profits of banks are taxed at 10%, as is rental (or other) income from land and buildings situated on Mann.[35][36]
Offshore banking, manufacturing, and tourism form key sectors of the economy. Agriculture and fishing, once the mainstays of the economy, now make declining contributions to the Island's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Trade takes place mostly with the United Kingdom. The island is in customs union with the UK, and related revenues are pooled and shared under the Common Purse Agreement.
The Manx government promotes island locations for making films by contributing to the production costs. Since 1995, over eighty films have been made on the island.
Culture
The culture of the Isle of Man is influenced by its Celtic and to a lesser extent its Norse origins, though its close proximity to the UK, period as a UK tourist destination and recent mass immigration by British migrant workers has meant that British influence has been dominant since the Revestment period. Recent revival campaigns have attempted to preserve the surviving vestiges of Manx culture after a long period of Anglicisation, and significant interest in the Manx language, history and musical tradition has been the result.Etymology of name
The origin of the name Isle of Man is unclear. In the Manx Gaelic language the Isle of Man is known as Ellan Vannin, where ellan is a Gaelic word meaning island. The earliest form of 'Man' is Manu or Mana[40] giving the genitive name Manann leading to the word Mannin, which is lenited when used after the feminine word Ellan, giving Mhannin. As mh is pronounced like a v in Goidelic languages, in modern Manx the name becomes Ellan Vannin. These forms are related to the figure of Celtic mythology known as Manannán to the Irish and Manawydan to the Welsh.[41]
The name enters recorded history as Mona (Julius Caesar, 54 BC), and is also recorded as Monapia or Monabia (Pliny the Elder, AD 77), Monœda (Ptolemy, AD 150), Mevania or Mænavia (Paulus Orosius, 416), and Eubonia or Eumonia by Irish writers. In Welsh records it is Manaw, and in the Icelandic sagas it is Mön.[42][43][44][45]
Though Mann was never incorporated into the Roman Empire, the island was noted in Greek and Roman accounts where it was called variously Monapia, M??a??da (Monaoida), M??a???a (Monarina), Menavi and Mevania.[46] The Old Welsh and Old Irish names for Mann, Mano and Manau, also occur in Manau Gododdin, the name for an ancient district in north Britain along the lower Firth of Forth.[47] The name is probably connected with the Welsh name of the island of Anglesey, Ynys Môn[47] and possibly with the Celtic root reflected in Welsh mynydd, Breton menez, Scottish Gaelic monadh mountain.[47] These probably derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- to tower referring to the island apparently rising out of the Irish Sea on the horizon.[48][49]
Language
The official language of the Isle of Man is English. Manx Gaelic has traditionally been spoken but is now considered "critically endangered".[50]The Manx Gaelic language is a Goidelic Celtic language and is one of a number of insular Celtic languages spoken in the British Isles. Manx Gaelic has been officially recognised as a legitimate autochthonous regional language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, ratified by the United Kingdom on 27 March 2001 on behalf of the Isle of Man government.
The Manx language is closely related to the Irish language and Scottish Gaelic. By the middle of the 20th century only a few elderly native speakers remained: the last of them, Ned Maddrell, died on 27 December 1974. By then a scholarly revival had begun to spread to the populace and many had learned Manx as a second language. The first native speakers of Manx (bilingual with English) in many years have now appeared: children brought up by Manx-speaking parents. Primary immersion education in Manx is provided by the Manx government: since 2003, the former St John's School building has been used by the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh (Manx language-medium school). Degrees in Manx are available from the Isle of Man College and the Centre for Manx Studies. Manx-language playgroups also exist and Manx language classes are available in island schools. In the 2001 census, 1,689 out of 76,315, or 2.2% of the population, claimed to have knowledge of Manx, although the degree of knowledge in these cases was presumably varied.
In common use are the greetings moghrey mie and fastyr mie which mean good morning and good afternoon respectively. The Manx language knows no evening as it is afternoon. Another frequently heard Manx expression is traa dy liooar meaning time enough, and represents a stereotypical view of the Manx attitude to life.
Symbols
For centuries, the island's symbol has been its ancient triskelion, a device similar to Sicily's Trinacria: three bent legs, each with a spur, joined at the thigh. The Manx triskelion does not appear to have an official design; government publications, currency, flags, the tourist authority and others all use different variants. Most, but not all, preserve rotational symmetry, some running clockwise, others anti-clockwise. Some have the uppermost thigh at 1200, others at 1130 or 1000, etc. Some have the knee bent at 90°, some at 60°, some at closer to 120°. Also, the degree of ornamentation of the leg wear and spur varies considerably.
The three legs are reflected in the island's motto (adopted late in the symbol's history): Quocunque Jeceris Stabit, traditionally translated from Latin as Whithersoever you throw it, it will stand, or Whichever way you throw it, it will stand.The origin of the Three Legs of Man (as they are usually called) is explained in the Manx legend that Manannan repelled an invasion by transforming into the three legs and rolling down the hill and defeating the invaders.
Variations on the Manx triskelion are still in use on the coats of arms belonging to the different branches of the ancient Norwegian noble family that ruled Mann until the 13th century. This particular version belongs to the Skancke branch of the Skanke family. The name stems from skank, the Norwegian version of the word shank, or leg. The Norse royal family of Man stayed on the island for some years after the death of Magnus III and the beginning of Scottish rule. The family's emigration only came after the final attempt on the part of the Manx at restoring the old Sudreyar dynasty in the 1275 uprising against the Scots. This revolt failed disastrously, ending in the deaths of hundreds of rebels, including the last Norse King of Mann, Godred VI Magnuson when the Manx suffered defeat in the decisive Battle of Ronaldsway, near Castletown. When the Norse-Manx royals arrived in Norway they took service as nobles of the Norwegian king, quickly becoming knights, landlords, and clergy under the Norwegian Crown.
Religion
The predominant religious tradition of the island is Christianity, and the ancient Christian Church of the island is today part of the Anglican Communion. The diocese has an unbroken history from 1154 to the present day, during which there have been many changes in tradition and detail. As with all ancient Anglican churches, the diocese was once (and until the Reformation) part of the then mainstream of western Christian tradition, the Roman Catholic Church. The diocese has been part of the national churches of Norway, Scotland, and England.[51] It has also come under the influence of Irish religious tradition. Since 1541[52] its bishop and 28 parishes[53] have been part of the Province of York.[54]Other Christian churches also operate on Mann. The second largest denomination is the Methodist Church, which is close in size to the Anglican diocese. There are eight Roman Catholic parish churches, under the authority of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool. Additionally there are five Baptist churches, four Pentecostal churches, and two United Reformed churches.[55]
There is a small Muslim community on the island, with a Mosque in Douglas, which is regularly attended several times a day by local worshippers.[56]
There is a small Jewish community on the island, with a synagogue in Douglas.[57]
Myth, legend and folklore
In Manx mythology, the island was ruled by Manannán mac Lir, a Celtic sea god, who would draw his misty cloak around the island to protect it from invaders. One of the principal theories about the origin of the name Mann is that it is named after Manannan.In the Manx tradition of folklore, there are many stories of mythical creatures and characters. These include the Buggane, a malevolent spirit who according to legend blew the roof off St Trinian's Church in a fit of pique; the Fenodyree; the Glashtyn; and the Moddey Dhoo, a ghostly black dog who wandered the walls and corridors of Peel Castle.
Mann is also said to be home to fairies, known locally as the little folk or themselves. There is a famous Fairy Bridge and it is said to be bad luck if one fails to wish the fairies good morning or afternoon when passing over it. It used to be a tradition to leave a coin on the bridge to ensure good luck. Other types of fairies are the Mi'raj and the Arkan Sonney.
An old Irish story tells how Lough Neagh was formed when Ireland's legendary giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (commonly anglicised to Finn McCool) scooped up a portion of the land and tossed it at a Scottish rival. He missed, and the chunk of earth landed in the Irish Sea, thus creating the island.
Peel Castle has been proposed as a possible location of the Arthurian Avalon.[58][59]
References and Notes
1.^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/im.html#People
2.^ Ellan is Manx for island; Vannin is the genitive case of Mannin, and means of Mann.
3.^ http://www.gov.im/cso/ExternalRelations/constitution.xml. The term "good government" is used in the "Kilbrandon Report" of the Royal Commission on the Constitution (United Kingdom). According to the House of Commons Justice Committee, there is "a high degree of consensus amongst academics, legal advisors, politicians and officials about the meaning of the term 'good government' used in the Kilbrandon Report. They agree that good government would only be called into question in the most serious of circumstances [...]", such as "a fundamental breakdown in public order or endemic corruption in the government, legislature or judiciary. [...] Kilbrandon suggests that intervention to preserve law and order or in the event of grave internal disruption would be justifiable, but that an attempt to define the circumstances further would be essentially pointless." Source: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmjust/56/5606.htm , accessed 2010-07-15
4.^ Bradley, Richard (2007). The prehistory of Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN 0521848113
5.^ Manx Museum Mesolithic collections
6.^ Manx Museum Neolithic collections
7.^ Manx Museum Bronze Age collections
8.^ http://www.aber.ac.uk/aberonline/en/archive/2008/05/au7608/
9.^ "O'Donnell Lecture 2008 Appendix". http://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Research/ODonnell.pdf.
10.^ Koch, John (2009). Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History in Acta Palaeohispanica X Palaeohispanica 9. Palaeohispanica. pp. 339–351. http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/29/54/26koch.pdf. Retrieved 2010-05-17.
11.^ Koch, John. "New research suggests Welsh Celtic roots lie in Spain and Portugal". http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146413465. Retrieved 2010-05-10.
12.^ Cunliffe, Karl, Guerra, McEvoy, Bradley; Oppenheimer, Rrvik, Isaac, Parsons, Koch, Freeman and Wodtko (2010). Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaeology, Genetics, Language and Literature. Oxbow Books and Celtic Studies Publications. p. 384. ISBN 978-1-84217-410-4. http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/88298//Location/DBBC.
13.^ "Rethinking the Bronze Age and the Arrival of Indo-European in Atlantic Europe". University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. http://www.oxbowbooks.com/pdfs/books/Celtic%20West%20conf.pdf. Retrieved 2010-05-24.
14.^ Manx Museum Celtic Farmers (Iron Age) collections
15.^ Diocese of Sodor and Mann - Manx Notebook site
16.^ Sibley, Brian (1995). The Thomas the Tank Engine Man. Heinemann. p. 154. ISBN 0 434 96909 5
17.^ Manx Notebook website, Act of Revestment
18.^ Manx National Heritage website
19.^ Both the Icelandic parliament and the Faroe Islands' parliament were established earlier, but were abolished from 1800 to 1845 and 1816 to 1852, respectively.
20.^ Tynwald website
21.^ a b http://www.gov.im/isleofman/geography.xml
22.^ "Snaefell Mountain Railway". Isle of Man Guide. Maxima Systems Ltd. http://www.iomguide.com/mountainrailway.php. Retrieved 2008-06-05. "From the top on a clear day it is said one can see the six kingdoms. The kingdom of Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Mann and Heaven."
23.^ "Snaefell Mountain Railway". visitisleofman.com. Isle of Man Government. http://www.gov.im/tourism/culture/attractions/snaefell_attract.xml. Retrieved 2008-06-05.
24.^ "Snaefell Mountain Railway". Best Loved Hotels. http://www.bestloved.com/attractions/snaefell-mountain-railway-in-douglas-isle-of-man-the-north-england-uk.php. Retrieved 2008-06-05.
25.^ "Snaefell Summit". isle-of-man.com. http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/tourism/pcards/snaefell.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-05. "It is the answer to the often posed question as to where can one see seven kingdoms at the same time? The seven Kingdoms being the four mentioned by Earl James, the Kingdom of Man, of Earth (in some answers that of Neptune) and of Heaven."
26.^ Ian O'Leary Lecture
27.^ "Isle of Man Census 2006 - Summary Results" (PDF). Isle of Man Treasury. Isle of Man Government. December 2006. http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/treasury/economic/census/isleofmancensusreport2006.pdf. Retrieved 2008-06-05.
28.^ Isle of Man Government website
29.^ British Library page on the Chronicle of Mann
30.^ Royal Commission on the Constitution 1969 - 1973, Volume I, Report (Cmnd 5460)
31.^ Isle of Man Constabulary website
32.^ Manx government explanation of Protocol 3
33.^ MecVannin website
34.^ Direct Tax - Isle of Man Government
35.^ New Assessor of Income Tax - Isle of Man Government
36.^ Forget Monaco: Isle of Man cuts tax to tempt super-rich - Tax, Money - Independent.co.uk
37.^ "Isle of Man Newspapers". Isle of Man Newspapers. http://www.iomtoday.co.im/newspaper.aspx. Retrieved 2008-09-04.
38.^ Isle of Man - About the Island
39.^ "Driving on the Isle of Man". Isle of Man Guide. Maxima Systems Ltd. 2005. http://www.iomguide.com/drivingontheisleofman.php. Retrieved 2010-06-08.
40.^ Kinvig, R.H. (1975). The Isle of Man. A Social, Cultural and Political History. (3rd ed.). Liverpool University Press. p. 18. ISBN 0-85323-391-8
41.^ Kneale, Victor (2006). "Ellan Vannin (Isle of Man). Britonia.". in Koch, John T.. Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 676
42.^ Moore 1903:84
43.^ Sacheverell 1859:119–120
44.^ Waldron 1726:1
45.^ Kinvig, R.H. (1975). The Isle of Man. A Social, Cultural and Political History. (3rd ed.). Liverpool University Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN 0-85323-391-8
46.^ Rivet, A.L.F.; Smith, Colin (1979). The Place Names of Roman Britain. Batsford. pp. 410–411
47.^ a b c Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO Ltd. p. 676. ISBN 978-1851094400
48.^ Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO Ltd. p. 679. ISBN 978-1851094400
49.^ Indogermanisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch: Record number 1277 (Root / lemma: men-1)
50.^ "UNESCO accepts Manx language is not 'extinct'". Isle of Man Government. 2009-08-19. http://www.gov.im/lib/news/cso/unescoacceptsman.xml. Retrieved 2009-08-20.
51.^ Moore, A.. "Diocesan Histories. Sodor and Mann.". http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/dh1893/index.htm.
52.^ Act of Parliament (1541) 33 Hen.8 c.31
53.^ A full list is given on the diocesan website.
54.^ See official entry in the Anglican Communion directory.
55.^ All churches on the island are listed on this website.
56.^ Muslims in Britain (30 November 2009). "Isle of Man Islamic Association". http://mosques.muslimsinbritain.org/show-mosque.php?id=720. Retrieved 21 May 2010.
57.^ David M.R. Shulman (2 August 2009). "The Jewish Community on the Isle of Man". http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/iom.htm. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
58.^ http://www.electricscotland.com/history/avalon.htm
59.^ http://www.lawsons.ca/isleoman/iom_002.html
60.^ Isle of Man - Factfile - Daily Life
61.^ http://www.manxgrandprix.org/Competitors/MGP%20regulations%2009.pdf page 4
[edit] Bibliography
Moore, Arthur William (1903). Manx Names (Revised Cheap ed.). London: Elliot Stock (published 1906). http://books.google.com/?id=FvsEAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover.
Russel, G. (1988). "Distribution and development of some Manx epiphyte populations". Helgolander Meeresunters. (42): 477–492.
Sacheverell, William (1859). Cumming, Joseph George. ed. An Account of the Isle of Man. Douglas: The Manx Society. http://books.google.com/?id=dIYNAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover.
Waldron, George (1726). Harrison, William. ed. A Description of the Isle of Man. Douglas: The Manx Society. 1865. http://books.google.com/?id=Ix4tAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR5.I found this next articlewhich I must share with you.
Are We All
Related ? ? ?
The Royal We
The mathematical study of genealogy indicates that everyone in the world is descended from Nefertiti and Confucius, and everyone of European ancestry is descended from Muhammad and Charlemagneby Steve Olson
A few years ago the Genealogical Office in Dublin moved from a back room of the Heraldic Museum up the street to the National Library. The old office wasn't big enough for all the people stopping by to track down their Irish ancestors, and even the new, much larger office is often crowded. Because of its history of oppression and Catholic fecundity, Ireland has been a remarkably productive exporter of people. The population of the island has never exceeded 10 million, but more than 70 million people worldwide claim Irish ancestry. On warm summer days, as tourists throng nearby Trinity College and Dublin Castle, the line of visitors waiting to consult one of the office's professional genealogists can stretch out the door.
I suspect that many people have had a fling with genealogy somewhat like mine. In my office I have a file containing the scattered lines of Olsons and Taylors, Richmans and Sigginses (my Irish ancestors), that I gathered several years ago in a paroxysm of family-mindedness. For the most part my ancestors were a steady stream of farmers, ministers, and malcontents. Yet a few of the Old World lines hint at something grander-they include a couple of knights, and even a baron. I've never taken the trouble to find out, but I bet with a little work I could achieve that nirvana of genealogical research, demonstrated descent from a royal family.
Earlier this year I went to Dublin to learn more about the Irish side of my family and to talk about genealogy with Mark Humphrys, a young computer scientist at Dublin City University. Humphrys has dark hair, deep-blue eyes, heavily freckled arms, and a pasty complexion. He became interested in genealogy as a teenager, after hearing romantic stories about his ancestors' roles in rebellions against the English. But when he tried to trace his family further into the past, the trail ran cold. The Penal Laws imposed by England in the early eighteenth century forbade Irish Catholics from buying land or joining professions, which meant that very few permanent records of their existence were generated. "Irish people of Catholic descent are almost completely cut off from the past," Humphrys told me, as we sat in his office overlooking a busy construction site. (Dublin City University, which specializes in information technology and the life sciences, is growing as rapidly as the northern Dublin suburb in which it is located.) "The great irony about Ireland is that even though we have this long, rich history, almost no person of Irish-Catholic descent can directly connect to that history."
While a graduate student at Cambridge University, Humphrys fell in love with and married an Englishwoman, and investigating her genealogy proved more fruitful. Her family knew that they were descended from an illegitimate son of the tenth Earl of Pembroke. After just a couple of hours in the Cambridge library, Humphrys showed that the Earl of Pembroke was a direct descendant of Edward III, making Humphrys's wife the King's great-granddaughter twenty generations removed. Humphrys began to gather other genealogical tidbits related to English royalty. Many of the famous Irish rebels he'd learned about in school turned out to have ancestors who had married into prominent Protestant families, which meant they were descended from English royalty. The majority of American presidents were also of royal descent, as were many of the well-known families of Europe.
Humphrys began to notice something odd. Whenever a reliable family tree was available, almost anyone of European ancestry turned out to be descended from English royalty-even such unlikely people as Hermann Göring and Daniel Boone. Humphrys began to think that such descent was the rule rather than the exception in the Western world, even if relatively few people had the documents to demonstrate it.
Humphrys compiled his family genealogies first on paper and then using computers. He did much of his work on royal genealogies in the mid-1990s, when the World Wide Web was just coming into general use. He began to put his findings on Web pages, with hyperlinks connecting various lines of descent. Suddenly dense networks of ancestry jumped out at him. "I'd known these descents were interconnected, but I'd never known how much," he told me. "You can't see the connections reading the printed genealogies, because it's so hard to jump from tree to tree. The problem is that genealogies aren't two-dimensional, so any attempt to put them on paper is more or less doomed from the start. They aren't three-dimensional, either, or you could make a structure. They have hundreds of dimensions."
Much of Humphrys's genealogical research now appears on his Web page Royal Descents of Famous People. Sitting in his office, I asked him to show me how it works. He clicked on the name Walt Disney. Up popped a genealogy done by Brigitte Gastel Lloyd (Humphrys links to the work of others whenever possible) showing the twenty-two generations separating Disney from Edward I. Humphrys pointed at the screen. "Here we have a sir, so this woman is the daughter of a knight. Maybe this woman will marry nobility, but there's a limited pool of nobility, so eventually someone here is going to marry someone who's just wealthy. Then one of their children could marry someone who doesn't have that much money. In ten generations you can easily get from princess to peasant."
he idea that virtually anyone with a European ancestor descends from English royalty seems bizarre, but it accords perfectly with some recent research done by Joseph Chang, a statistician at Yale University. The mathematics of our ancestry is exceedingly complex, because the number of our ancestors increases exponentially, not linearly. These numbers are manageable in the first few generations-two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents-but they quickly spiral out of control. Go back forty generations, or about a thousand years, and each of us theoretically has more than a trillion direct ancestors-a figure that far exceeds the total number of human beings who have ever lived.
In a 1999 paper titled "Recent Common Ancestors of All Present-Day Individuals," Chang showed how to reconcile the potentially huge number of our ancestors with the quantities of people who actually lived in the past. His model is a mathematical proof that relies on such abstractions as Poisson distributions and Markov chains, but it can readily be applied to the real world. Under the conditions laid out in his paper, the most recent common ancestor of every European today (except for recent immigrants to the Continent) was someone who lived in Europe in the surprisingly recent past-only about 600 years ago. In other words, all Europeans alive today have among their ancestors the same man or woman who lived around 1400. Before that date, according to Chang's model, the number of ancestors common to all Europeans today increased, until, about a thousand years ago, a peculiar situation prevailed: 20 percent of the adult Europeans alive in 1000 would turn out to be the ancestors of no one living today (that is, they had no children or all their descendants eventually died childless); each of the remaining 80 percent would turn out to be a direct ancestor of every European living today.
Chang's model incorporates one crucial assumption: random mating in the part of the world under consideration. For example, every person in Europe would have to have an equal chance of marrying every other European of the opposite sex. As Chang acknowledges in his paper, random mating clearly does not occur in reality; an Englishman is much likelier to marry a woman from England than a woman from Italy, and a princess is much likelier to marry a prince than a pauper. These departures from randomness must push back somewhat the date of Europeans' most recent common ancestor.
But Humphrys's Web page suggests that over many generations mating patterns may be much more random than expected. Social mobility accounts for part of the mixing-what Voltaire called the slippered feet going down the stairs as the hobnailed boots ascend them. At the same time, revolutions overturn established orders, countries invade and colonize other countries, and people sometimes choose mates from far away rather than from next door. Even the world's most isolated peoples-Pacific islanders, for example-continually exchange potential mates with neighboring groups.
This constant churning of people makes it possible to apply Chang's analysis to the world as a whole. For example, almost everyone in the New World must be descended from English royalty-even people of predominantly African or Native American ancestry, because of the long history of intermarriage in the Americas. Similarly, everyone of European ancestry must descend from Muhammad. The line of descent for which records exist is through the daughter of the Emir of Seville, who is reported to have converted from Islam to Catholicism in about 1200. But many other, unrecorded descents must also exist.
Chang's model has even more dramatic implications. Because people are always migrating from continent to continent, networks of descent quickly interconnect. This means that the most recent common ancestor of all six billion people on earth today probably lived just a couple of thousand years ago. And not long before that the majority of the people on the planet were the direct ancestors of everyone alive today. Confucius, Nefertiti, and just about any other ancient historical figure who was even moderately prolific must today be counted among everyone's ancestors.
Toward the end of our conversation Humphrys pointed out something I hadn't considered. The same process works going forward in time; in essence every one of us who has children and whose line does not go extinct is suspended at the center of an immense genetic hourglass. Just as we are descended from most of the people alive on the planet a few thousand years ago, several thousand years hence each of us will be an ancestor of the entire human race-or of no one at all.
The dense interconnectedness of the human family might seem to take some of the thrill out of genealogical research. Sure, I was able to show in the Genealogical Office that my Siggins ancestors are descended from the fourteenth-century Syggens of County Wexford; but I'm also descended from most of the other people who lived in Ireland in the fourteenth century. Humphrys took issue with my disillusionment. It's true that everyone's roots go back to the same family tree, he said. But each path to our common past is different, and reconstructing that path, using whatever records are available, is its own reward. "You can ask whether everyone in the Western world is descended from Charlemagne, and the answer is yes, we're all descended from Charlemagne. But can you prove it? That's the game of genealogy."
Copyright © 2002 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; May 2002; The Royal We; Volume 289, No. 5; 62.
Tartessos
Tartessos
From Wikipedia
Tartessos (Tartessus) was a harbor city and surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula (in modern Andalusia, Spain), at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It was mentioned by Herodotus,[1] Strabo,[2] in Pliny's Natural History,[3] and in the fourth-century Avienus's literary travel itinerary Ora Maritima, long after Tartessos had disappeared. Velleius Paterculus' date for the founding of Tartessos, about eighty years after the Trojan War, 12th or 11th centuries BC, but before the Phoenicians made contact with an existing city, has not received archaeological confirmation: the bulk of finds date from Punic occupation, after about 500 BC.[4]
The Tartessians were rich in metal. The pseudonymous geographical versifier, Pseudo-Scymnus (ca 90 BC), was surely imitating an older source when he wrote, "the renowned Tartessos, famous town, receives tin carried by the river from Celtica, as well as gold and bronze in great quantity".[5] Trade in tin was very lucrative in the Bronze Age, since it is a major component of true bronze. Herodotus refers to a king of Tartessos, Arganthonios, presumably named for his wealth in silver.
The people from Tartessos became important trading partners of the Phoenicians, whose presence in Iberia dates from the eighth century BC, and who nearby built a harbor of their own, Gades (current-day Cádiz).
"Tartessic occupation sites of the Late Bronze Age that were not particularly complex, in which a domestic mode of production seems to have predominated" is one mainstream assessment.[6] An earlier generation of archaeologists and historians took a normative approach to the primitive Tartessians' adoption of Punic styles and techniques, as of a less-developed culture adopting better, more highly evolved cultural traits, and finding Eastern parallels for Early Iron Age material culture in the Tartessian sites. A younger generation have been more concerned with the process through which local institutions evolved.[7]
Location
In the 6th century BC, Tartessos disappeared rather suddenly from history. The Romans called the wide bay the Tartessius Sinus though the city as such no longer existed. One theory is that the city was destroyed by the Carthaginians who wanted the Tartessans' trading routes. Another is that it had been refounded, under obscure conditions, as Carpia. When the traveller Pausanias visited Greece in the 2nd century AD (Pausanias Description of Greece 6.XIX.3) he saw two bronze chambers in an Olympian sanctuary, which the people of Elis claimed was Tartessian bronze:
They say that Tartessus is a river in the land of the Iberians, running down into the sea by two mouths, and that between these two mouths lies a city of the same name. The river, which is the largest in Iberia, and tidal, those of a later day called Baetis, and there are some who think that Tartessus was the ancient name of Carpia, a city of the Iberians.
Flavius Philostratus, in his The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (book v.1), observes of this southernmost part of Hispania: "the promontory of Europe, known as Calpis, stretches along the inlet of the Ocean and right hand side a distance of six hundred stadia, and terminates in the ancient city of Gadeira."
The name "Carpia" possibly survives as El Carpio, a site in a bend of the Guadalquivir, but the origin of its name has been associated with its imposing oldest feature, a Moorish tower erected in 1325 by the engineer responsible for the alcázar of Seville.
The site of Tartessos has been considered irretrievably lost—buried, Schulten thought, under the shifting wetlands replacing former estuaries behind dunes at the modern single mouth of the Guadalquivir, where the river delta has gradually been blocked by a sandbar stretching from the mouth of the Rio Tinto, near Palos de la Frontera, to the riverbank opposite Sanlúcar de Barrameda. The area is now protected as the Parque Nacional de Doñana.[8]
Archaeological discoveries
The discoveries published by Schulten in 1922[9] first drew attention to Tartessos and shifted its study from classical philologists and antiquarians, to investigations based on archaeology,[10] though attempts at localizing a capital for what was conceived as a complicated culture in the nature of a centrally-controlled kingdom ancestral to Spain were inconclusively debated. Subsequent discoveries were widely reported: in September 1923 archaeologists discovered a Phoenician necropolis in which human remains were unearthed and stones found with illegible characters. It may have been colonized by the Phoenicians for trade because of its richness in metals.[11]
A later generation turned instead to identifying and localizing "orientalizing" features of the Tartessian material culture within the broader Mediterranean horizon of an "Orientalizing period" recognizable in the Aegean and Etruria.
J.M. Luzón was the first to identify Tartessos securely with modern Huelva,[12] based on discoveries made in the preceding decades. Since the discovery in September 1958 of a rich gold treasure at El Carambolo, three km west of Seville[13] and at La Joya, Huelva,[14] archaeological surveys have been integrated with philological and literary surveys and the broader picture of the Iron Age in the Mediterranean basin to provide a more informed view of Tartessic culture on the ground, concentrated in western Andalusia, Extremadura and in southern Portugal from the Algarve to the Vinalopó River in Alicante.[15]
Alluvial tin was panned in Tartessian streams from an early date. The spread of a silver standard in Assyria increased its attractiveness (the tribute from Phoenician cities was assessed in silver). The invention of coinage in the seventh century BC spurred the search for bronze and silver as well. Henceforth trade connections, formerly largely in elite goods, assumed an increasingly broad economic role. By the Late Bronze Age, silver extraction in Huelva Province reached industrial proportions. Pre-Roman silver slag is found in the Tartessian cities of Huelva Province. Cypriot and Phoenician metalworkers produced 15 million tons of pyrometallurgical residues at the vast dumps of Riotinto. Mining and smelting preceded the arrival, from the eighth century onwards, of Phoenicians[16] and then Greeks, who provided a stimulating wider market and whose influence sparked an Orientalizing phase in Tartessian material culture (ca.750-550 BC) before Tartessian culture was superseded by the Classic Iberian culture.
"Tartessic" artifacts linked with the Tartessos culture have been found, and many archaeologists now associate the "lost" city with Huelva. In excavations on spatially restricted sites in the center of modern Huelva, sherds of elite painted Greek ceramics of the first half of the sixth century have been recovered. Huelva contains the largest accumulation of imported elite goods and must have been an important Tartessian center. Medellín, on the Guadiana River, revealed an important necropolis.
Elements specific to Tartessian culture are the Late Bronze Age fully-evolved pattern-burnished wares and geometrically banded and patterns "Carambolo" wares, from the ninth to the sixth centuries; an "Early Orientalizing" phase with the first Eastern imports, beginning about 750 BC; a "Late Orientalizing" phase with the finest bronze casting and goldsmiths' work; gray ware turned on the fast potter's wheel, local imitations of imported Phoenician red-slip wares.
Characteristic Tartessian bronzes include pear-shaped jugs, often associated in burials with shallow dish-shaped braziers with loop handles, incense-burners with floral motifs, fibulas, both elbowed and double-spring types, and belt buckles.
No precolonial necropolis sites are identified. The change from a late Bronze Age pattern of circular or oval huts scattered on a village site to rectangular houses with dry stone foundations and plastered wattle walls took place during the seventh and sixth centuries BC, in settlements with planned layouts that succeeded one another on the same site. At Cástulo (Jaén), a mosaic of river pebbles from the end of the sixth century is the earliest mosaic in Western Europe. Most sites were inexplicably abandoned in the fifth century.
Tartessian language
The Tartessian language is an extinct pre-Roman language once spoken in southern Iberia and has recently been classified as a Celtic language. The oldest known indigenous texts of Iberia, dated from the 7th to 6th centuries BC, are written in Tartessian. The inscriptions are written in a semi-syllabic writing system and were found in the general area in which Tartessos was located and in surrounding areas of influence. Tartessian language texts were found in Southwestern Spain and Southern Portugal (namely in the Conii areas of the Algarve and southern Alentejo. This variety is often referred as Southwest script). According to J. Koch and others [17], Tartessian may have been the earliest written Celtic language.Legends and suppositions
Schulten gave currency to a view of Tartessos that made it the Western, and wholly European source of the legend of Atlantis.[18] A more serious review, by W.A. Oldfather, appeared in The American Journal of Philology.[19] Both Atlantis and Tartessos were believed to be advanced societies which collapsed when their cities were lost beneath the waves; supposed further similarities with the legendary society make a connection seem feasible, though virtually nothing is known of Tartessos, not even its precise site. Other Tartessian enthusiasts imagine it as a contemporary of Atlantis, with which it might have traded.
The enigmatic Lady of Elx, an ancient bust, of a high artistic quality, of a woman found in southeastern Spain, has been tied with Atlantis and Tartessos, though the statue displays clear signs of being manufactured by later Iberian cultures.
"Tarshish"
The place-name Tarshish in the Old Testament was connected to Tartessos by some early twentieth-century Classicists, though others connect it to Tarsus in Anatolia. (See entry for Jonah in the Jewish Encyclopedia.) Tarshish, like Tartessos, is associated with extensive mineral wealth.
References
1.^ Herodotus, i. 163 ; iv.152.
2.^ Strabo, iii.2.13
3.^ Pliny, iv.120.
4.^ Javier G. Chamorro, "Survey of Archaeological Research on Tartessos" American Journal of Archaeology 91.2 (April 1987, pp. 197-232) p 226.
5.^ Pseudo-Scymnus, Periegesis, 164, noted by T.J. Gamito, The Celts in Portugal (2005), The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula, e-Keltoi 6: 571–605.
6.^ Wagner, in Alvar and Blásquez 1991:104)
7.^ Essays from both points of view are found in Alvar and Blázquez, according to the review by Antonio Gilman in American Journal of Archaeology 98.2 (April 1994), pp. 369-370.
8.^ Thirty kilometers inland there still is a mining town by the name of Tarsis.
9.^ Schulten, Tartessos (Hamburg, 1922; Spanish tr. Madrid, 1924, 2nd ed. 1945).
10.^ The historiography of Tartessos is surveyed by Carlos G. Wagner, "Tartessos en la historiografía: un revisión crítica".
11.^ "Dig Up Phoenician City", New York Times, September 26, 1923, pg. 3.
12.^ Luzón, "Tartessos y la ría de Huelva", Zephyrus 13, 1962:97-104.
13.^ J.M. Carriazo, El tesoro y las primeras excavaciones en 'El Carambolo' (Camas, Sevilla) (Excavaciones Arqueológicas en España), 1970.
14.^ J.P. Garrido, Excavaciones en la necrópolis de La Joya, (E.A.E.), 1970.
15.^ The results of Tartessian archaeology as of 1987 were summarized by Javier G. Chamorro, "Survey of Archaeological Research on Tartessos" American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 91, no.2 (April 1987), pp. 197-232.
16.^ Phoenician coastal settlements and necropoli are typically located at the mouth of rivers, on the first hill behind the delta, at Cadiz, Málaga, Granada and Almeria.
17.^ Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History, 2009
18.^ A. Schulten, Ein Beitrage zur ältestens Geschichte des Westens (Hamburg 1922). Its amused reviewer for The Journal of Hellenic Studies (43.2 [1923], p. 206) agreed that "we are quite willing to add it to the long list of possible origins for the Atlantis legend" and that "our hearts burn within us to think of the Tartessian literature six thousand years old".
19.^ The American Journal of Philology 44.4 (1923), pp. 368-371.
[edit] Further reading
J. M. A. Blazquez, Tartessos y Los Origines de la Colonizacion Fenicia en Occidente (University of Salamanca) 1968. Assembles Punic materials found in Spain.
Jaime Alvar and José María Blázquez, Los enigmas de Tartessos (Madrid:Catedra) 1993. Papers following a 1991 conference.TARTESSIANS
Huelva was discovered to have an enormous amount of silver and gold in the Rio-Tinto mines. Trading settlements grew.
The mythical, vanished harbour city: Tartessos was situated in western Andalucía (now believed to be buried beneath the wetlands of Doñana).
Tartessos means in Basque Translation: between seas - Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Tartessos was associated with incredible wealth.
The city is believed that it was lost due to a Tsunami or an earthquake. Scant records are left. Testimony of The Carambolo Jewellery, however, bears witness to its existence.Tartessians and Phoenicians Imported and Exported Between Each Other
The Tartessians Traded:
Cadiz Marine salt
Trousseau Ceramics
Metals
Cereals
Animal hidesThe Phoenicians Traded
Grape-Vines and Wine. (Eventually, when they created their inland settlements, their wine-making knowledge was shared)
Quality Olive Oil
Unguents and Perfumes
Cheap Trinkets
They introduced the Tartessians to carved Ivory and Ostrich Eggs.
They took Slaves.Initial bartering was done by leaving goods on the beach.
The Phoenicians would row back to their boats. The Tartessias would lay their goods - in exchange - on the beach. The Phoenicians would return. Either be satisfied with the exchange or - expect more.
They knew the value of the precious metals: the locals had no idea. They sold the metals to the Greeks and beyond.
Phoenicians were nicknamed "phoinikes" by the Greeks. The Phoenicians were Canaanites. However, the Greek name stayed and became the root of Phoenician-name etymology.Phonix meant purple-red. Phoenicians were renowned for their fabric-tinting skills. They monopolised a particular Purple-red dye: their characteristic dress colour.
This distinctive colour was obtained from a small sea-snail: Tyrian Purple or imperial purple; was more expensive than gold to obtain.
Breath-holding divers harvested the Murex sea-snails. It was an expensive source: the price exhorbitant. The purple-red color became identified as a "royal colour", only the very rich could afford it.The use of Tyrian purple continued by emperors until the final collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453 AD. Meanwhile in Europe, Medieval Kings wore Royal Purple - which is more predominantly blue.
The Phoenicians were a serious power for over 900 yrs. In the Ancient World their knowledge was transmitted into the History of Andalucia.
Phoenicians fell into decadence and the Greeks, seeking advantage, began trading with the Tartessians.
Greeks took-over the Phoenicians' littoral colonies: Malaga, Alicante, Ampuira, Rosas, Mainaké and others. The Greeks and Phoenicians, finally, fought over the jurisdiction of the Mediterranean.It is believed by some historians that the Tartessians were among the first Celtic groups and that some of them moved North and West before the city of Tatessos disappeared and founded the Celtic communities of Lusitania, Celtiberia and Aquitanian and then spread further along the Atlantic coast in Galacia, and Arsturias Spain and Norte, Portugal. Still later groups from these entered Ireland, Britain, Brittany, Scotland, Gaul, Wales, Cornwall and the Isle Of Man. Years went by between the migrations and the seperated Celts evolved into different tribes with different names after each stage.
Note the Aquitanian area covers both sides of the Pyrenees which would help to explain the similar DNA results between the Irish and Basques noted in the discussions above.
If after all this you are confused as to our true origins, you can go back to the safe and and generally offered
Milesian Legend >
