From: richardwordingham
Message: 14686
Date: 2002-08-28
--- In cybalist@..., guto rhys <gutorhys@...> wrote:
>
> I believe the names could suggest a few different scenarios eg.:
>
> 1)AS ruling families having married into the native dynasty
to 'legitimize' a weak claim to the throne (cf Henry VII for example)
and maintaining a family name.
Ceadwalla's claim was weak, but again I don't think a Welsh marriage
would have strengthened it. The royal family was very much defined
through the male line, and primogeniture seems to have existed only
in so far as it was rare for brothers to squabble over the crown,
unlike the Roman example. I could more easily believe an alliance
with a Welsh prince - I think Ceadwalla's father was briefly king in
Wessex.
> 2)A-Saxons giving a Brythonic name to offspring in order to
appease/appeal to a native nobility (or subjects) which still
remembered the native ruling dynasty. Gives the impression of
continuity, cf. Edward I.
This idea doesn't seem to fit a 'heroic age'. Early Anglo-Saxon
kings stood a very good change of dying in battle. I think most of
the Bretwaldas died in battle.
This might just fit Edward I. His father nearly lost his throne to
the French king's son. However, I don't think there was any native
nobility worth considering!
> 3)A native ruling dynasty gone 'Saxon', but retaining names of
ancestors in an ethically mixed context.(This theory has been
proposed to explain why kings of Strat Clut retained Brythonic names
even if Brythonic was no longer spoken there).
This is plausible for Cerdic. I have an unreliable recollection of
catching the tail end of a radio play based on that hypothesis.
There is doubt as to whether he was succeeded by 'Cynric' or
whether 'cynric' just means 'rule by the family'. The genealogies
are not consistent as to whether 'Cynric' was his son or grandson.
> 'Cadwallon' would have been pronounced differently in the 6th
century(as I'm sure you are aware) : probably *kadwa'la:n, with a
rounded 'a'ยก (if that is the correct term?????? - and I don't know
how to show the IPA in this script) later '-aw-', then '-o-'. This,
to me, fits in with the vowel in AS.
Yes, an excellent fit!
> Exaclty - I think the change of language (and culture) involved
many processes including 'ethnic cleansing and slaughter' (eg. Isle
of Wight, AS Chronicle 531(?)) and more peaceful and gradual
processes as may be suggested by the preponderance of Brittonic river-
names in the west.
Was the slaughter on the Isle of Wight in 531 any greater than in
686? The most systematic slaughter I can recall was the
extermination of the _English_ royal family of the Isle of Wight, and
I don't think that gets a mention in the AS Chronicle.
Richard.