Re[2]: Cerdic, son of King Arthur??
Chris Bennett
CJB.
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Subject: Re: Cerdic, son of King Arthur??
Author: bal...@MAIL.AUBURN.EDU
Date: 2/9/96 4:49 AM
Eochaid (eoc...@aol.com) wrote:
: What does anyone think about Geoffrey Ashe's theory in "The Discovery of
: King Arthur" of Cerdic, King of the West Saxons, being a son of King
: Arthur and his first wife, a daughter of King Vortigern and his Saxon
Completely absurd.
CJB: Agreed.
CJB: Ashe's speculation is based on his identification of the fifth
century British king Riothamus with king Arthur. He makes, I think, quite
a good case that Riothamus may be the ultimate source of some of Geoffrey
of Monmouth's stories about Arthur, but that is a _long_ way from proving
that he _was_ Arthur, and his efforts to explain the clearly SIXTH century
material about Arthur on the basis of this theory are completely feeble.
I have elsewhere seen a suggestion that Riothamus was the title of
Aurelius Ambrosianus (just as Vortigern was a title). This fits much
better chronologically, though it has other problems.
: wife. He says that Elesa could not be Cerdic's father because "a real
: fifth-century Saxon father would never have given his son a British name"
Ashe is right about Cerdic not being a son of Elesa, but for the
wrong reason. The reason that Elesa could not be Cerdic's father
is that the entire pre-Cerdic part of the West Saxon genealogy
was proven by Sisam in the 1950's to be an 8th and 9th century
fabrication. But just because Cerdic's traditional parentage has
been disproven, that does not mean that we should give credence
to far-fetched theories like the one advanced by Ashe. Cerdic (if
he existed at all, which is questioned by some authorities) was a
very shadowy figure, and it is doubtful that his parentage can be
convincingly determined.
CJB: While I agree that the ASC ancestry of Cerdic is a fabrication, that
doesn't necessarily mean it was made out of whole cloth. "Cerdic" seems
to me clearly to be the Celtic name "Ceretic", and I think that the
suggestion that "Gewis" has something to do with the Gewissae -- Gwentmen -
- associated with Vortigern is intriguing. I have also seen a suggestion
that the name "Elesa" is not Saxon but also Celtic (according to a
monument in Powys, Vortigern had a son called Eliseg), and the resemblance
is, superficially at least, close enough that I'm willing to reserve
judgement on it pending further research. But at best this material
suggests that there MIGHT have been a connection between Cerdic and
Vortigern of some type -- it has absolutely nothing to do with Arthur or
Riothamus.
: This would make Cedric three-quarters British and one fourth Saxon. On
: the cross subosedly excavated at Glastonbury in 1191, it said that
: Guinevere was Arthur's second wife. A chronicle says that Vortigern's
: half-Saxon daughter had a son with a High King. The dates are pretty
: close for Arthur and Cerdic, but most of Ashe's evidence in iffy.
: ~Matthew James Buell
Stewart Baldwin
Stewart L Baldwin
: CJB: While I agree that the ASC ancestry of Cerdic is a fabrication, that
: doesn't necessarily mean it was made out of whole cloth. "Cerdic" seems
: to me clearly to be the Celtic name "Ceretic", and I think that the
: suggestion that "Gewis" has something to do with the Gewissae -- Gwentmen -
: - associated with Vortigern is intriguing. I have also seen a suggestion
: that the name "Elesa" is not Saxon but also Celtic (according to a
: monument in Powys, Vortigern had a son called Eliseg), and the resemblance
: is, superficially at least, close enough that I'm willing to reserve
: judgement on it pending further research. But at best this material
: suggests that there MIGHT have been a connection between Cerdic and
: Vortigern of some type -- it has absolutely nothing to do with Arthur or
: Riothamus.
I think that the important article by K. Sisam, "Anglo-Saxon royal
genealogies", in Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 39 (1953),
pp. 287-346 (required reading for those who really want to understand
some of the processes by which early genealogies were faked), which
was recently reprinted in the collection "British Academy Papers on
Anglo-Saxon England" (Oxford University Press, 1990), shows that
Cerdic's genealogy was, in fact, pretty much "made out of whole
cloth". Cerdic's genealogy is interesting because enough manuscripts
survive to show some of the stages of the falsification process.
What follows is my attempt to outline Sisam's reconstruction of this
process (but read his article for a better explanation).
It started with the pedigree of the kings of Bernicia, which begins
Woden, Baeldaeg, Brand, Benoc, Aloc (Alusa in some manuscripts), etc.,
followed by several more generations until you get to Ida (6th
century), king of Bernicia. One early version of the West Saxon
genealogy goes Woden, Baeldaeg, Brand, Giwis, Aluca, Cerdic, and the
one given by Asser is very similar: UUoden, Beldeg, Brond, Geuuis,
Elesa, Cerdic. Thus, in the early stages of the fake West Saxon
pedigree, the first five generations of the Bernician pedigree are
used, except that Benoc is replace by Giwis, and then Aluca (i.e.
Aloc) is made the father of Cerdic. This pretty much kills the
idea that the name Elesa is related to the similar Welsh name, for
the name Elesa is in fact the name Aloc, "borrowed" from the royal
genealogy of Bernicia, and Aloc, if he ever existed at all, would
have been a many-generations-removed ancestor of Ida, and would
have lived well before the Angles had any Welsh influence. The
name "Gewisse" was the early name for the West Saxons, and the name
Giwis which was used to replace Benoc was almost certainly invented
to explain the name of the tribe, much like "Brutus" was invented
explain the name Britain.
What about the other names in the later version of the pedigree. I
suppose you could argue that Freawine and Wig were added to the
middle of the pedigree because of some vague tradition, but it is
much more likely that the person faking the pedigree was imitating
the pedigree of the kings of Mercia, who were at that time claiming
to be descended from Offa and Wermund, legendary kings of the Angles.
Adding Freawine and Wig to the genealogy gave the West Saxons a
similar claim.
There are two names left. Where did they come from? Well, the guy
who did the final stage of the faking was a poet, and wanted his
generations to form nice alliterative pairs. For this, he needed
a name beginning with "E" and another beginning with "F", so he made
them up, making sure that the number of syllables was right so that
the meter of the poem would not be destroyed.
By the way, the above comments apply only to the West Saxon royal
genealogies. Some of the genealogies of the other kingdoms of
Anglo-Saxon England are earlier in origin, but should still be
examined with healthy skepticism.
Stewart Baldwin