![Bridstow from Ross-on-Wye](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Bridstow_from_Ross-on-Wye.jpg)
Archenfield (
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
: ''Ircingafeld'') is the historic English name for an area of southern and western
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...
in England. Since the
Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
took over the region in the 8th century, it has stretched between the
River Monnow
The River Monnow ( cy, Afon Mynwy) marks the England–Wales border for much of its length. After flowing through southwest Herefordshire, England, and eastern Monmouthshire, Wales, its confluence with the River Wye is approximately south of ...
and
River Wye
The River Wye (; cy, Afon Gwy ) is the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, fourth-longest river in the UK, stretching some from its source on Plynlimon in mid Wales to the Severn estuary. For much of its length the river forms part of Wal ...
, but it derives from the once much larger
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
kingdom of
Ergyng
Ergyng (or Erging) was a Welsh kingdom of the sub-Roman and early medieval period, between the 5th and 7th centuries. It was later referred to by the English as ''Archenfield''.
Location
The kingdom lay mostly in what is now western Herefordsh ...
.
History
Ergyng
The name Archenfield is derived from the older and larger Welsh kingdom of Ergyng (or Ercic), which in turn is believed to derive from the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
town of ''
Ariconium
''Ariconium'' was a road station of Roman Britain mentioned in Iter XIII of the ''Iter Britanniarum'' of the Antonine Itineraries. It was located at Bury Hill in the parish of Weston under Penyard, about east of Ross on Wye, Herefordshire, and ...
'' at
Weston under Penyard
Weston under Penyard is a small village in Herefordshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 1,007.
It lies on the A40 road two miles east of Ross-on-Wye. The Penyard is a prominent hill.
The parish church of St ...
. After the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain in 410 AD, new smaller political entities took the place of the centralised structure. King
Peibio and his descendants were rulers of the area attested from about 555 AD until, in the middle of the 7th century, Onbraust of Ergyng married
Meurig of
Gwent and the two neighbouring kingdoms were combined.
Saint Dubricius (known in Welsh as Dyfrig), a prince and bishop, was important in the sub-Roman establishment of the Christian church in the area. Ergyng eventually became a mere
cantref
A cantref ( ; ; plural cantrefi or cantrefs; also rendered as ''cantred'') was a medieval Welsh land division, particularly important in the administration of Welsh law.
Description
Land in medieval Wales was divided into ''cantrefi'', which were ...
, the Welsh equivalent of a
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...
.
[Hereford.uk.com – Herefordshire History]
English overlordship
By the 8th century, the expanding power of
Mercia
la, Merciorum regnum
, conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia
, common_name=Mercia
, status=Kingdom
, status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex ()
, life_span=527–918
, era=Heptarchy
, event_start=
, date_start=
, ye ...
led to conflict with the Welsh and by the beginning of the 9th century the western Mercians, who became known as the sub-kingdom of
Magonsæte
Magonsæte was a minor sub-kingdom of the greater Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, thought to be coterminous with the Diocese of Hereford.
The British territory of Pengwern was conquered by Oswiu of Northumbria in 656, while he was overlord of t ...
, had gained control over the area and nearby
Hereford
Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population ...
. During the rest of the century they moved its frontier southward to the banks of the
Dore, the
Worm Brook and a stream then known as the Taratur, annexing northern Ergyng. The sites of old British churches fell to Mercia, and the Britons became regarded as foreigners – or, in the
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
language, "Welsh" – in what had been their own land. The rump of Ergyng then became known to the English as Arcenefelde or Archenfield.
[Archenfield Archaeology – Who we are]
/ref> There is no evidence that Offa
Offa (died 29 July 796 AD) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æt ...
built his famous Dyke across the area, probably because it had already been assimilated into Mercia by the late 8th century.
Herefordshire Archaeology Record provides some context for the 9th century in the south of the county:
In the 870s Viking raids continued in the area, while Wessex was ruled by Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...
and Mercia by Ceolwulf II. In 2015, a large hoard of buried treasure was found in a field near Leominster
Leominster ( ) is a market town in Herefordshire, England, at the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town is north of Hereford and south of Ludlow in Shropshire. With a population of 11,700, Leominster is t ...
, consisting mainly of Saxon jewellery and silver ingots, with two remarkable silver pennies, previously-unknown "two emperor" coins showing the heads of both Alfred and Ceowulf and dating to around 879. The find hints at an alliance between the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. Gareth Williams, curator of early medieval coins at the British Museum, commented in 2019 "These coins enable us to re-interpret our history at a key moment in the creation of England as a single kingdom". The treasure was found by two metal detectors operating outside the law, and they were convicted.
A ravaging of Archenfield by the Danes in 905 is reported in the 1870-72 ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales
The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' is a substantial topographical dictionary first published between 1870 and 1872, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It contains a detailed description of England and Wales. Its six volumes h ...
'':
In 915 the area faced an incursion from Vikings led by Ohter and Hroald, coming from the River Severn
, name_etymology =
, image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG
, image_size = 288
, image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle
, map = RiverSevernMap.jpg
, map_size = 288
, map_c ...
. After first capturing Cyfeiliog (Cimeliauc), the Bishop of Llandaff
The Bishop of Llandaff is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff.
Area of authority
The diocese covers most of the County of Glamorgan. The bishop's seat is in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (the site of a ...
, they were defeated in battle by the combined forces of Gloucester and Hereford, possibly at "Kill Dane Field" near Weston-under-Penyard
Weston under Penyard is a small village in Herefordshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 1,007.
It lies on the A40 road two miles east of Ross-on-Wye. The Penyard is a prominent hill.
The parish church of St ...
.[Bryan Walters, ''The Archaeology and Ancient History of Ancient Dean and the Wye Valley'', 1992, ][Colin Lewis, ''Herefordshire, the Welsh Connection'', 2006, ] According to one of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
s'', Cyfeiliog, referred to as Cameleac in the Worcester Chronicle, was bishop in Archenfield, and King Edward the Elder
Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æt ...
ransomed him for £40, but in the view of Michael Swanton
Michael James Swanton (born 1939) is a British historian, linguist, archaeologist and literary critic, specialising in the Anglo-Saxon period and its Old English literature.
Early life
Born in Bermondsey, in the East End of London, in child ...
the evidence for a bishopric there is weak, and the text can be read that he was taken in Archenfield. Thomas Charles-Edwards
Thomas Mowbray Charles-Edwards (born 11 November 1943) is an emeritus academic at the University of Oxford. He formerly held the post of Jesus Professor of Celtic and is a Professorial Fellow at Jesus College.
Biography
He was educated at ...
refers to "Bishop Cyfeilliog, who was probably bishop of Ergyng, or at least captured in Ergyng". He sees the payment of a ransom by the West Saxon king as evidence that the far south-east of Wales then lay in the sphere of power of Wessex rather than Mercia.
The Worcester Chronicle for 915 states that the "jarl Hroald and the other jarl Ohtor's brother" were killed and the raiders left the area, leaving some hostages as a peace bond.
In the early 10th century, a document known as ''The Ordinance Concerning the Dunsaete'' records procedures for dealing with disputes between the English and the Welsh of Archenfield, who were known to the English as the ''Dunsaete'' or "hill people
Hill people, also referred to as mountain people, is a general term for people who live in the hills and mountains.
This includes all rugged land above and all land (including plateaus) above elevation.
The climate is generally harsh, with s ...
". It stated that the English should only cross into the Welsh side, and vice versa, in the presence of an appointed man who had the responsibility of making sure that the foreigner was safely escorted back to the crossing point.[ Anglo-Saxon Herefordshire]
/ref>
Archenfield, which lay outside the English hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...
system, became a semi-autonomous Welsh district, or commote
A commote (Welsh ''cwmwd'', sometimes spelt in older documents as ''cymwd'', plural ''cymydau'', less frequently ''cymydoedd'')''Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru'' (University of Wales Dictionary), p. 643 was a secular division of land in Medieval Wales ...
(Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
''cwmwd''), with its own customs.[Archenfield]
Its administrative centre was at Kilpeck
Kilpeck ( cy, Llanddewi Cil Peddeg) is a village and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England. It is about southwest of Hereford, just south of the A465 road and Welsh Marches Line to Abergavenny, and about from the Wales-England b ...
Castle. Its customs were described in a separate section of the Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
account of Herefordshire. Domesday recorded that "King Gruffydd and Bleddyn laid this land waste before 1066; therefore what it was like at that time is not known". It also stated the Welsh of Archenfield were allowed to retain their old rights and privileges in return for forming an advance and rear guard when the King's army entered or left Wales. The local priests were required to "undertake the king's embassies into Wales", presumably providing a translation service. The exemption from services was mentioned again in 1250 and 1326, when it was stated: "The Frenchmen and Welshmen of Urchenesfeld hold their tenements in chief of our lord the King by socage
Socage () was one of the feudal duties and land tenure forms in the Feudalism, English feudal system. It eventually evolved into the freehold tenure called "free and common socage", which did not involve feudal duties. Farmers held land in excha ...
, rendering 19 pounds 7 shillings and 6 pence. And they ought to find 49-foot-soldiers for our lord the King in Wales for 15 days at their own cost."
Later history
The Welsh inhabitants of Archenfield thereafter retained their privileged position, living in a shadowy border land that was not really part of England nor Wales. Around 1404, Owain Glyndŵr
Owain ap Gruffydd (), commonly known as Owain Glyndŵr or Glyn Dŵr (, anglicised as Owen Glendower), was a Welsh leader, soldier and military commander who led a 15 year long Welsh War of Independence with the aim of ending English rule in Wa ...
and his troops raided the area. Glyndŵr himself may have died around 1416 at Kentchurch
Kentchurch is a small village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England. It is located some south-west of Hereford and north-east of Abergavenny, beside the River Monnow and adjoining the boundary between England and Wales. The village name p ...
, within Archenfield, an area which he considered to be part of Wales. The evidence of its Welsh history remains in many placenames and field names.Archenfield@Everything2.com
/ref>
Uncertainty over the border persisted until the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542
The Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 ( cy, Y Deddfau Cyfreithiau yng Nghymru 1535 a 1542) were Acts of the Parliament of England, and were the parliamentary measures by which Wales was annexed to the Kingdom of England. Moreover, the legal sys ...
- often known as "The Acts of Union" - tidied up many of the administrative anomalies within Wales and the Marcher borderlands. However, no consideration was given at the time to ethnic or linguistic realities, and so various territories were grouped together in a rough and ready manner to form the new shires. Archenfield was thus bundled into Herefordshire as the Hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...
of Wormelow.
Archenfield remained a predominantly Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
-speaking region until at least the 17th century, and the language was still spoken to a significant extent in the Kentchurch area as late as 1750. It almost certainly persisted longer than this and Welsh continued to be spoken in Archenfield well into the modern period:
(Ewyas
Ewyas ( cy, Ewias) was a possible early Welsh kingdom which may have been formed around the time of the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century. The name was later used for a much smaller commote or administrative sub-division, which cove ...
, the other Welsh-speaking area of Herefordshire, was in the diocese of St David's
The Diocese of St Davids is a diocese of the Church in Wales, a church of the Anglican Communion. The diocese covers the historic extent of Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, together with a small part of western Glamorgan. The episcop ...
until late in the 19th century.) A plaque in St Margaret's Church in the Golden Valley is in Welsh and is dated 1574.
Many of the rights and customs of the people of Archenfield were maintained until comparatively recently. Men born in Archenfield had the right to take salmon from the River Wye until 1911.
In King's Caple, the only part of Archenfield east of the Wye, Domesday lists the inhabitants as one Frenchman and five Welshmen. Six local men paid the dues which had been owed at this time, and before, for centuries. Payment was still being made by one of these 'King's Men of Archenfield' in the 1960s.
Legacy
The towns of Ross-on-Wye
Ross-on-Wye ( Welsh: ''Rhosan ar Wy'') is a market town in England, near the border with Wales. It had a population of 10,582 according to the 2011 census, estimated at 11,309 in 2019. It lies in south-eastern Herefordshire, on the River Wye ...
and Hay-on-Wye
Hay-on-Wye ( cy, Y Gelli Gandryll), simply known locally as "Hay" ( cy, Y Gelli), is a market town and community in Powys, Wales; it was historically in the county of Brecknockshire. With over twenty bookshops, it is often described as "the to ...
lie within the bounds of the Archenfield region and areas of or close to both towns today bear the name Archenfield. Additionally, one of Ross-on-Wye's most recognisable symbols, seen on numerous coats-of-arms, is the hedgehog
A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introducti ...
, known in Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
, and locally, as an " urchin" and, in heraldry
Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...
the word ''urcheon'' is used to refer to the hedgehog. Thus the heraldic use can be seen as a partial rebus
A rebus () is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words or phrases. For example: the word "been" might be depicted by a rebus showing an illustrated bumblebee next to a plus sign (+) ...
(or visual pun) on Archenfield. A hedgehog is the family crest of John Kyrle
John Kyrle (22 May 1637 – 7 November 1724), known as "the Man of Ross", was an English philanthropist, remembered for his time in Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire.
Education and legal background
Born in the parish of Dymock, Gloucestershire, he ...
, the "Man of Ross".
One author has even speculated that the names "Archenfield" and "Ergyng" may ultimately derive from the Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
word for hedgehog, ''hericius'', from which "urchin" is also derived. However, the name of the Romano-British settlement of Ariconium
''Ariconium'' was a road station of Roman Britain mentioned in Iter XIII of the ''Iter Britanniarum'' of the Antonine Itineraries. It was located at Bury Hill in the parish of Weston under Penyard, about east of Ross on Wye, Herefordshire, and ...
is clearly the origin of the Welsh name and later the English name (probably via early Welsh).
References
{{coord, 51.9, -2.8, region:GB-HEF_dim:20000, display=title
History of Herefordshire
Geography of Herefordshire
it:Regno di Ergyng