The Gododdin () were a

Brittonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...

people of north-eastern

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...

, the area known as the

Hen Ogledd Yr Hen Ogledd (), in English the Old North, is the historical region which is now Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands that was inhabited by the Brittonic people of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages. Its population sp ...

or Old North (modern south-east

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and north-east England), in the sub-Roman period. Descendants of the Votadini, they are best known as the subject of the 6th-century Welsh poem ''

Y Gododdin ''Y Gododdin'' () is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia a ...

'', which memorialises the

Battle of Catraeth The Battle of Catraeth was fought around AD 600 between a force raised by the Gododdin, a Brythonic people of the ''Hen Ogledd'' or "Old North" of Britain, and the Angles of Bernicia and Deira. It was evidently an assault by the Gododdin party on ...

and is attributed to

Aneirin Aneirin , Aneurin or Neirin was an early Medieval Brythonic war poet. He is believed to have been a bard or court poet in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland. From the 17th c ...

. The name ''Gododdin'' is the

Modern Welsh The history of the Welsh language (Welsh: ''Hanes yr iaith Gymraeg'') spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh. Origins Welsh evolved from British, the C ...

form, but the name appeared in Old Welsh as ''Guotodin'' and derived from the tribal name '' Votadini'' recorded in Classical sources, such as in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

texts from the Roman period.

Kingdom

It is not known exactly how far the kingdom of the Gododdin extended, possibly from the

Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...

area to the kingdom of '' Bryneich'' (Bernicia), and including what are now the Lothian and

Borders A border is a geographical boundary. Border, borders, The Border or The Borders may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * ''Border'' (1997 film), an Indian Hindi-language war film * ''Border'' (2018 Swedish film), ...

regions of eastern

. It was bounded to the west by the Brittonic

Kingdom of Strathclyde Strathclyde (lit. " Strath of the River Clyde", and Strað-Clota in Old English), was a Brittonic successor state of the Roman Empire and one of the early medieval kingdoms of the Britons, located in the region the Welsh tribes referred to as ...

, and to the north by the

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from e ...

. Those living around

Clackmannanshire Clackmannanshire (; sco, Clackmannanshire; gd, Siorrachd Chlach Mhannainn) is a historic county, council area, registration county and Lieutenancy area in Scotland, bordering the council areas of Stirling, Fife, and Perth & Kinross and the ...

were known as the

Manaw Gododdin Manaw Gododdin was the narrow coastal region on the south side of the Firth of Forth, part of the Brythonic-speaking Kingdom of Gododdin in the post-Roman Era. It is notable as the homeland of Cunedda prior to his conquest of North Wales, and ...

. According to tradition, local kings of this period lived at both

Traprain Law Traprain Law is a hill east of Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, It is the site of a hill fort or possibly ''oppidum'', which covered at its maximum extent about . It is the site of the Traprain Law Treasure, the largest Roman silver hoard ...

and Din Eidyn (

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, whose English name is ultimately a

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...

, with 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 settlers in the mid-5th c ...

' corresponding to the Welsh '; in

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well ...

it is still known as '), and probably also at ' (

Dunbar Dunbar () is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately east of Edinburgh and from the English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Dunbar is a former royal burgh, and gave its name to an ecc ...

, Scottish Gaelic '). Gododdin included districts such as

and

Eidyn Eidyn was the region around modern Edinburgh in Britain's sub-Roman and early medieval periods, approximately the 5th–7th centuries. It centred on the stronghold of Din Eidyn, thought to have been at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Cas ...

south of the Firth of Forth.

Cunedda Cunedda ap Edern, also called Cunedda ''Wledig'' ( 5th century), was an important early Welsh leader, and the progenitor of the Royal dynasty of Gwynedd, one of the very oldest of western Europe. Name The name ''Cunedda'' (spelled ''Cuned ...

, legendary founder of the

Kingdom of Gwynedd The Kingdom of Gwynedd (Medieval Latin: ; Middle Welsh: ) was a Welsh kingdom and a Roman Empire successor state that emerged in sub-Roman Britain in the 5th century during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. Based in northwest Wales, th ...

in north

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, is supposed to have been a Manaw Gododdin warlord who migrated southwest during the 5th century.''Historia Britonum''
retrieved 4 April 2009.

Later history

In the 6th century, Bryneich was invaded by the

Angles The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ...

and became known as

Bernicia Bernicia ( ang, Bernice, Bryneich, Beornice; la, Bernicia) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England. The Anglian territory of Bernicia was ap ...

. The Angles continued to press north. In around 600 the Gododdin raised a force of about 300 men to assault the Angle stronghold of Catraeth, perhaps

Catterick, North Yorkshire Catterick () is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, it is north-west of the county town of Northallerton just to the west of ...

. The battle, which ended disastrously for the Britons, was memorialised in the poem ''

''. In 638, Eidyn, modern Edinburgh, was under siege and fell to the Angles, for the Gododdin seem to have come under the rule of Bernicia around this time. To what extent the native population was replaced or assimilated is unknown. Bernicia became part of

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

. Shortly afterwards this came under a unified England, then in 1018

Malcolm II Máel Coluim mac Cináeda ( gd, Maol Chaluim mac Choinnich, label=Modern Scottish Gaelic; anglicized Malcolm II; c. 954 – 25 November 1034) was King of Scots from 1005 until his death. He was a son of King Kenneth II; but the name of his mot ...

brought the region as far as the

River Tweed The River Tweed, or Tweed Water ( gd, Abhainn Thuaidh, sco, Watter o Tweid, cy, Tuedd), is a river long that flows east across the Border region in Scotland and northern England. Tweed cloth derives its name from its association with the ...

under Scottish rule.

Notes

References

* Kenneth H. Jackson (1969). ''The Gododdin: The Oldest Scottish poem'' (Edinburgh: University Press) * W.J. Watson (1926, 1986). ''The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland: being the Rhind lectures on archaeology (expanded) delivered in 1916.'' (Edinburgh, London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1926; Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1986, reprint edition). * W.J. Watson (1926, 1986). ''The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland: being the Rhind lectures on archaeology (expanded) delivered in 1916.'' (Edinburgh, London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1926; Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1986, reprint edition). * Davies, John. "Dinas Powys, Catraeth, and Llantwit Major." ''A History of Wales''. London: Allen Lane :, 1993. 61–62. Print. * Davies, Norman. "The Germanico-Celtic Isles." ''The Isles: A History''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. 165–166, 185–187, 195, 207. Print.

External links

* {{Medieval Scotland Former countries in the British Isles Celtic Britons Tribes of ancient Scotland Lothian Scottish culture States and territories established in the 5th century Hen Ogledd Historical Celtic peoples

Kingdom

Later history

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links