HISTORICAL BACKGROUND to the SCULPTURE Oliver Padel
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CHAPTER IV HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE SCULPTURE Oliver Padel BEFORE THE ANGLO-SAXONS: previously known, with a fort and civil settlement at THE ROMAN PERIOD AND THE FIFTH TO Lostwithiel, a few miles south of the excavated fort SEVENTH CENTURIES at Nanstallon, and another fort at Calstock near the Tamar (below, p. 38). Large quantities of Roman coins No reference to Cornwall by name is found until have been found all over the county, including some about ad 700. The name of the county in the Brittonic substantial hoards (Penhallurick 2009), and it is likely languages, Cornish Kernow, Welsh Cernyw, is agreed that the tin industry ensured the economic integration to be derived from a British tribal name, *Cornowii of Cornwall into the rest of the Roman province. ‘horn-people’ (whence Corn-wall itself), the same The immediately post-Roman centuries are equally as that of two known British tribes in the Roman dark, for lack of historical information. Substantial period, one in modern Shropshire and Cheshire, the amounts of imported Mediterranean pottery, found other in Caithness (Rivet and Smith 979, 324–5); especially at Tintagel but also in smaller quantities at but the name is not attested in the south-west in the other sites, indicate direct trade between the south- Roman period, except possibly in a place-name in western peninsula and the southern and eastern the Ravenna Cosmography, corruptly Purocoronavis, Mediterranean (below, p. 39), and tin extraction again perhaps for *Durocornovio; there was also another provides an obvious explanation. Inscribed stones of Durocornovium in Wiltshire (Rivet and Smith 979, the fifth to seventh centuries (below, Appendix E, 350). That place has not been securely identified, but p. 253) show that the population was Christian and it lay somewhere in the far south-west, presumably stratified, and they also demonstrate settlement by in Cornwall, and would probably have referred, like Irish-speaking immigrants, who may have come from other Duro- names, to a walled town or Roman fort, the Irish population in south-east Wales rather than specified by the local tribal name. directly from Ireland itself (Okasha 993; Thomas, A. The lack of references to the *Cornowii is generally C. 994; below, p. 40). The bilingual inscriptions on taken to indicate that they were a sub-tribe of, or some of these stones suggest that the Irish population subject to, the Dumnonii (modern Devon) with was becoming integrated into local Brittonic society. their capital at Exeter; this inclusion is also implied There are also a few carved crosses of the period, of chi- if Ptolemy’s ‘Damnonion promontory’ referred to the rho form, but without inscriptions (Okasha 993, nos. Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, and again by a reference 40 and 50). In the fifth to seventh centuries Cornwall of Solinus (third century) to the Dumnonii as the tribe and western Devon were thus part of a cultural holding the shore opposite to Scilly (Rivet and Smith continuum which included Wales and shared some of 979, 429, 458). In the tenth century the River Tamar its culture with Ireland and Brittany, in distinction from was formally recognised as the boundary between that of Anglo-Saxon England which was approaching Devon and Cornwall; the likelihood is that this during this period; but those stones lie outside the prominent natural feature, rising near the north coast cultural tradition embraced in this volume, and it and flowing right across the middle of the peninsula, would be difficult to claim any continuity between demarcated the territories of these two tribes, or that that tradition and the one studied here. Cornwall has of the sub-tribe, already in the Roman period. In always, from its shape and location, been extremely recent years considerably more evidence of a Roman open to cultural and trading contacts overseas, and presence in Cornwall has been discovered than was links between Cornwall and Wales, Brittany and 2 22 CHAPTER IV Ireland have continued throughout the Middle Ages (travelling) through Cornubia which lacks flowery and subsequently, so the potential for fresh influences swards and fertile grasses ...’ (I experienced a tremend- from those regions has always existed. ous storm). The sole documentary clue to Cornwall’s history Cornwall’s first appearance in the historical record during the fifth to seventh centuries appears in De is thus due to the fact that the progressive absorption Excidio Britanniae of Gildas, written probably in the of Devon into Wessex had by this time registered sixth century, in which the named series of iniquitous Cornwall upon the Anglo-Saxon consciousness; rulers includes King Constantine of Damnonia, but and upon that of the Welsh as well, since the second no ruler of Cornwall (Winterbottom 978, 29 and historical mention of it is in the Welsh Annals, 99). If, as seems likely, the intention was to include under the year 722, bellum Hehil apud Cornuenses ‘the all the major Brittonic rulers of southern Britain, the battle of Hehil among the Cornish’. In this entry the lack indicates that Cornwall was still embraced within Cornish were distinguished from the dexterales Brittones ‘greater Dumnonia’, as in the Roman period. ‘southern British’, who achieved another victory (by implication against the English); the latter name could refer to surviving Britons in Devon, or (more likely) THE EIGHTH CENTURY to south-east Wales (Morris 980, 47, 87; Dumville 2002, 4–5). Cornwall first appears by name in about ad 700. The eighth century was thus Cornwall’s single By that time Devon was in the process of being century of existence as a separate political entity, assimilated into Wessex, so Cornwall was emerging between the absorption of eastern Dumnonia (Devon as the surviving tail-end of the former Brittonic tribal itself) into Wessex in the later seventh and earlier kingdom. At around this time, about a generation eighth centuries, and the conquest of Cornwall in the after the Synod of Whitby in 664, the learned Anglo- ninth. In 70 King Gerent fought against Ine, king Saxon Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, was asked by of Wessex (688–726), at an unnamed place (Bately a synod of English ecclesiastics to write to the south- 986, 33; Whitelock et al. 965, 26); but amicable western king Gerent concerning the differences in relations between those two kings are shown not only church practice between his kingdom and the Anglo- by Abbot Aldhelm’s letter and his visit to Dumnonia, Saxon ones. The letter was written before Aldhelm but also by Gerent’s own donation of land at Maker became first bishop of the Saxon see of Sherborne in in Cornwall to Sherborne. The location of this gift, about 705. He addressed Gerent as king of Domnonia just inside Cornwall, may suggest that Gerent had, by (Ehwald 99, 480–6; Lapidge and Herren 979, this period, little authority east of the Tamar. Further 40–3, 55–60), perhaps in recognition that Gerent conflicts are recorded in the course of the eighth would be reluctant to acknowledge the shrunken century, in 743 (Cuthred, king of Wessex 740–56) and nature of his realm; but the fact that Wessex was able in a description of the reign of King Cynewulf (757– to put this pressure on him, apparently successfully 86), and by Cynewulf himself in a charter granting land (for Gerent donated land in Cornwall to the minster to Wells (Bately 986, 35–6; Whitelock et al. 965, at Sherborne: O’Donovan 988 xli, xlviii, 8; 29–30; Sawyer 968, no. 262; the charter is considered Hooke 994, 5), suggests the unequal nature of the spurious, but probably incorporating authentic material, relationship between the two kingdoms. At about this including the phrase naming Cornubii ‘the Cornish’). As time, too, Aldhelm made a journey through Devon in the reign of Gerent, it would be simplistic to assume and Cornwall, which he named in a poem describing that relations between the two kingdoms at this period a great coastal storm which he experienced in a church were exclusively hostile, even though the relationship there. It is this text which contains the earliest record was an unequal one and it is chiefly hostilities which of Cornwall by name (Ehwald 99, 523–8; Lapidge appear in the historical record. Sherborne’s ownership and Rosier 985, 7–9): of land within Cornwall was one obvious channel for Quando profectus fueram peaceful cultural interaction. usque diram Domnoniam per carentem Cornubiam florulentis cespitibus THE NINTH CENTURY et foecundis graminibus ... In the ninth century Cornwall was brought within ‘When I had journeyed as far as grim Domnonia, the kingdom of Wessex, creating opportunities for HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE SCULPTURE 23 sustained cultural contact in both directions. In 85– (Sawyer 968, no. 298; Hooke 994, 05–2; the land 38 King Ecgbert (died 839) gained a series of military extended roughly from Ringmore to Batson, SX 6545 victories over the region, ending its century of to SX 7339). The boundary-clause therefore stands independent existence. Although Cornwall was under in marked contrast with those appearing in grants the rule of Wessex from this time onwards, its royal of Cornish land in the tenth and eleventh centuries, line continued as sub-kings until the death of the last where the Brittonic language was still alive and king in 876, and full administrative assimilation did Cornish names are plentiful in the boundary-clauses. not occur until the following century (below). The Furthermore, the names of the boundary-features in first victory was in 85 when Ecgbert ‘ravaged from the South Hams charter incorporated Anglo-Saxon east to west against the West British’ (Bately 986, 4; local history and lore, showing that by 846 the Saxons Whitelock et al.