The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (26 page)

Only a few of these provide much help, especially since we know that some of the names may arise retrospectively, such as Port and Portsmouth. However, even though the
individual’s names may be suspect, the locations are probably more accurate, if they can be traced. Thankfully a few are easier to identify than others.

Cymenes ora
(
ora
meaning shore) appears in a charter of Selsey Abbey as
Cumeneshore
relating to a grant of land by Caedwalla, king of Essex, to the abbey in 673. The
surviving copy is not contemporary, leading some authorities to term it a forgery, but regardless of whether or not the abbey owned the land, the description must still be accurate. It states that
Cumeneshore
was a stretch of coast between Pagham and Selsey Bill, now
known as The Owers, much of which has long since eroded away. The
Andredes leag
is taken as
the vast forest of Anderida, the Weald, which at that time densely covered much of Sussex and west Kent. Its western extremity was just north of Selsey, around Midhurst and Petersfield, so the
ASC
entry does hold together. In 491 Aelle besieged
Andredes cester
, the Roman fort at Anderitum [Pevensey]. Pevensey, some 80km east along the coast from Selsey, is the same spot
that William the Conqueror chose to land nearly six hundred years later.

These first three entries seem to make clear the spread of Aelle’s territory. The archaeology, however, does not wholly support this. The Saxons made little inroad into what became Sussex,
and certainly not in the area around Selsey. One would expect a successful landing there to result in Aelle capturing the Roman town of Noviomagus [Chichester], but not only is there no mention of
this, there have been no archaeological discoveries of any fifth-century Saxon sites there. The main area of Saxon settlement in the fifth century was between the rivers Ouse and Cuckmere, and by
the sixth century it had expanded westward into the area between the Ouse and the Adur. There must be some significance in the battle of 485 “near the margin of
Mearcrædes
burnam
”. This name has been interpreted as “the river of the frontier agreed by treaty”, suggesting that Aelle had an agreement with the British that the Saxons could settle
on one side of a river only. We do not know which river, but it must be either the Cuckmere or, more probably, the Ouse. A major hill fort, Mount Caburn, rises above the Ouse where it is joined by
the Glynde Reach. Caburn is one of the few Celtic names surviving in Sussex, originally
Caer Bryn
: “strong fort”. It seems likely that the original Saxon settlers, despite their
initial victory at Cymen’s shore, must have settled between the Ouse and the Cuckmere, where they were guarded on the west by the fort at Caburn and on the east by the fort at Anderida. In
485 the Saxons sought to break out across one of the rivers, probably the Ouse at Caburn. Unusually for the
ASC,
this is not recorded as a victory. It simply says, “they fought the
Welsh”. No doubt they were contained and pushed back across the river and later, in 491, broke out across the Cuckmere and slaughtered the British at Pevensey.

What it most interesting about Mount Caburn is the Glynde Reach. This small stream was originally the Glynde Bourne, thus bearing a striking similarity to the first battle
of Nennius’s list at the River Glein. If it is the same battle, then it may have been the first Arthurian victory. We do not know how accurate the date is, but 485 fits perfectly with the
likely date for the start of the Arthurian campaign, culminating in Badon in 493 or so. It appears that Aelle was contained by the defeat at
Mearcrædes
until he defeated the British at
Anderida. After that he was able to move further west. It is perhaps telling that the hill that faces Mount Caburn, just to the north, is now called Saxon Down, possibly a memory of where the
Saxons gathered in readiness for their battle against the British.

Aelle is something of a mystery amongst the early Saxon settlers. The earlier Hengist and his successor Octha have been remembered in the story of Vortigern and Ambrosius, whilst the later
Cerdic became the founder of a dynasty. Aelle exists between these two almost as an aside, as if he were battling away in Sussex whilst the main action was happening elsewhere. He doesn’t
appear in any of the Arthurian foundation stories, and after his passing we know nothing more about Sussex for over 150 years. Yet Bede cites Aelle as the first of the Saxons “to rule over
all the Southern kingdoms”. He was the first to be regarded as the
Bretwalda
, a form of High King, to whom all the other chieftains offered their loyalty. We have no reason to doubt
Bede. He tells us that he gathered his information about Sussex from Bishop Daniel of Wessex who knew the people of Sussex intimately. Somehow Aelle, although seeming to have been confined to the
shores of Sussex, became paramount chief of the Saxons.

This suggests that whilst his people may have remained closeted in Sussex, Aelle was in contact with the British leaders, almost certainly with Ambrosius and probably with Arthur. The evidence
has shown that the Saxons had been held in check by the resistance under Ambrosius and that for nearly a generation the Saxons and Angles remained in their coastal settlements. This peace had
become strained by the late 480s, and then broke, perhaps when Ambrosius was too old to govern, and Aelle led a Saxon revival. The assault on Anderida may have been the start of this revival, which
culminated at Badon.

Thus it would seem that Aelle was the Saxon leader at Badon, even though tradition names Octha (or Osa/Eossa). Octha may have been the commander under Aelle. The British
victory at Badon would seem to be a suitable retaliation for the slaughter at Anderida, wiping out the Saxon army. In all likelihood Aelle and his sons were killed in the battle, which is why we
hear no more of him, and why he left no dynasty to rule Sussex. Thereafter Sussex survived as a small insignificant enclave, hemmed in by the British in the Weald. If this is true – and
Aelle’s high rank would strongly suggest it – then it would argue that Badon, and probably most of Arthur’s battle campaign, was in the South.

Octha may also have been killed at Badon or, if he survived, it was now that he was assigned a small territory in Thanet in the far east of Kent, keeping the Saxons at arm’s length from
the British heartland. Octha is usually equated with Aesc, but we cannot be sure they are the same individuals. Aesc is supposed to have ruled the
Cantwara
for 34 years, from 488 to 522,
which almost parallels the Arthurian period, but we cannot accept those dates without question. I am not convinced that the Octha who fought at Badon, according to the story in
The Dream of
Rhonabwy
, is the same as Aesc (or Oisc) from whom the rulers of Kent were descended.

The remaining battles listed at this time all relate to Cerdic and his nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar. We have already discussed the uncertainty of Cerdic’s reign
(see
Chapter 4) and
that his arrival in Britain could have been any one of a series of dates – 495, 514, 523 or 532. Remember that the
ASC
states that Cerdic “succeeded to the kingdom” six
years after his arrival, so that he could have assumed the kingship in 501, 520, 529 or 538. Intriguingly, two of those dates show that he could have arrived either at the time of Badon (493x497)
or at the time of Camlann (
circa
520).

It is hard to imagine that Cerdic’s rise to power is not in some way connected to either Arthur’s triumph or his downfall. Badon was supposed to have instigated a period of peace, a
Pax Arthuriana
, in which all conflicts with the Saxons ceased. Indeed, Gildas still recalled this remarkable calm while writing
De Excidio
in the 530s. If Cerdic arrived in 495, then
his sequence of battles would have disrupted that calm unless they were confined to an area not under Gildas’s consideration. Alternatively, if Cerdic did not
arrive
until 532 and his battles fell into the period 532–538, Gildas may not have considered them worth commenting on, especially as Cerdic was British. Cerdic’s rise to power must have come
as a consequence of Arthur’s fall, unless he was in league with Arthur. But because Cerdic was British, Gildas might have regarded his battles as yet another of the civil wars that continued
in Britain through this period of peace. However, if Cerdic was alive and ruling when Gildas was writing, he would have seen him as the greatest traitor of them all, and would undoubtedly have
mentioned him. This means Cerdic was either already dead or not yet in power. Thus we have two scenarios:

(1) Cerdic was a young Briton, born around the time of the major Saxon revolt in the 440s. He may well have had a Saxon mother and thus knew the language and became an interpreter. He sought
personal gain during the subsequent British retaliation, but failed and retreated to Gaul, possibly Armorica, returning in 495 to curry favour with Arthur and, as a consequence, was granted command
of the Gewisse. Wanting more power he fought against the British and took control of land in Hampshire and Wiltshire, setting himself up as king in 501 and ruling to 517. His death is close to the
probable date for Camlann and we might conjecture that Cerdic was involved in the wars with Arthur and was a supporter of Medraut/Mordred. Cerdic’s usurpation would thus fit into the category
of Gildas’s civil wars but because Cerdic was dead by the 530s, Gildas did not single him out for comment.

(2) Cerdic fits into the later wave of chieftains who established control in the 540s. Cerdic’s campaign ran from 532 to 538 when he assumed control of the West Saxons. This makes a
stronger case for Cerdic being the military commander of a group of confederate Saxons and Britons. The West Saxons were not yet a unified whole, and during the mid sixth century were a number of
separate units carving out territory across the south and the Thames Valley. After a few battles Cerdic managed to unify an area of Saxons and Britons. Gildas would doubtless dismiss Cerdic’s
initial forays as part of the continuing civil unrest and not see it as a re-emergence of the Saxon onslaught which gathered pace in the 540s. What’s more, if Camlann did occur just before
Gildas wrote
De Excidio
(as suggested by his comments about Constantine), then Cerdic may have benefited from
Arthur’s death, taking territory in the inevitable
chaotic aftermath. If he did not already have control of the Gewisse, he certainly took command now.

Of these two options (2) best fits the overall time frame for the chronology of the rulers of the Wessex. (1) has a romantic appeal that makes Cerdic an ally and then an enemy of Arthur, and has
some substance in some of the later tales that claims Cerdic was a friend of Arthur’s until they argued. However, as we have seen, there were so many people called Ceredig/Ceretic/Cerdic that
the tradition probably relates to someone else – most likely Caradog Vreichfras – and was later identified with Cerdic. This solution concurs with our earlier analysis based on the
ASC
, and convinces me that Cerdic was not contemporary with Arthur but rose to power in the vacuum left by Arthur’s death.

If we look at Cerdic’s battles as listed in the
ASC
, regardless of other chieftains such as Port or Stuf, we find only four sites mentioned –
Cerdices ora
,
Cerdices
ford
,
Cerdices leag
and
Wihtgaræsbyrg
. No firm location is known for any of these. It has been suggested that
Cerdices ora
may be the same as Calshot, a spit of land
that juts out at the end of Southampton Water, though other sources suggest this was named after the chalky deposits in the area –
celces ora.
O.G.S. Crawford puts forward a theory
that the Saxons landed at Totton, at the head of Southampton Water, based purely on a logical route rather than any philological data. However, Crawford believed that the Saxons followed an ancient
trackway known as the Cloven Way, which passes through two other possible sites. The
ASC
tells us that
Cerdices ford
was on the far side of Netley Marsh, and if we assume this
reference to be correct, it would place it somewhere just north of the New Forest. The chronicler Athelweard identified it as being on the River Avon, but since
afon
is the Celtic for any
river this does not necessarily help. The Hampshire Avon flows through Charford, just north of Fordingbridge, and Crawford suggested that this was
Cerdices ford.
However, most etymologists
believe the name Charford (and there are several villages with that name) is derived from either
Ceorl’s-ford
, named after another individual, or
cyric forda
meaning “ford
by the church”. Interestingly, just to the east of Charford is the source of the River Blackwater, which flows into the Test near Netley Marsh (
see
Map 5
).
These
four battles (
Cerdicesora
,
Cerdicesford
,
Cerdicesleag
and
Wihtgaræsbyrg
) could be the four fought on the
Dubglas
if the British were fighting Saxons
arriving via Southampton Water.