Ergyng
Ergyng (or Erging) was a Welsh kingdom of the Dark Ages; of the sub-Roman and early medieval period, between the 5th and 7th centuries. It was later referred to in English as Archenfield.
Location
The kingdom lay mostly in what is now western Herefordshire, its heartland between the River Monnow and River Wye. However, it also spread into modern Monmouthshire and east of the Wye, where stood the old Roman town of Ariconium (rendered in Welsh as Ergyng) at Weston under Penyard. The name of the kingdom may be derived from the town, and Ariconium may have been the first capital. Some maps[1] show Ergyng extending across what is now the Forest of Dean to the River Severn.
Kings
After the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain in 410 AD, new smaller political entities took the place of the centralised structure. The area was originally part of the Kingdom of Glywysing (modern Glamorgan) and the Kingdom of Gwent, but seems to have become independent for a period under Peibio Clafrog in the 5th or 6th century and again under Gwrfoddw Hen in the early 7th century.[2] Peibio was the grandfather of Saint Dubricius (or Dyfrig), the first Bishop of Ergyng and an important figure in the establishment of Christianity in South Wales. He founded large teaching monasteries at Llanfrother near Hoarwithy and at Moccas, and a bishopric seems to have been based at St Constantine's Church at Goodrich.[3]
Dubricius' cousin, Gwrgan Fawr (the Great) was one of its most important monarchs and may have obtained sway over Glamorgan as far as the River Neath. In the middle of the 7th century.
Onbraust of Ergyng married Meurig of Gwent, and their son Athrwys ap Meurig ruled as king over both kingdoms. Ergyng eventually became a mere cantref.[3]
Later history
By the 8th century, the expanding power of Mercia led to conflict with the native British, and by the 9th century the Mercians had gained control over the area and nearby Hereford. The sites of old British churches fell to Mercia, and the native Britons here were left under Mercian rule.[4] Comparably few early Welsh place names in the area have survived, superseded by the English language.[5] The rump of Ergyng then became known to the English as Arcenefelde or Archenfield. Although its Welsh-speaking inhabitants retained special rights, the area was unequivocally incorporated into the County of Hereford in the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535 and 1542.
It has been observed that:
Archenfield was still Welsh enough in the time of Elizabeth for the bishop of Hereford to be made responsible together with the four Welsh bishops for the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Welsh. Welsh was still commonly spoken here in the first half of the nineteenth century, and we are told that churchwardens’ notices were put up in both Welsh and English until about 1860.[6]
References
- ↑ Map of Later Cymru (Wales)
- ↑ Ergyng at The History Files
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Hereford.uk.com – Herefordshire History Template:Webarchive
- ↑ Archenfield Archaeology – Who we are Template:Webarchive
- ↑ Hall, Alaric: 'The Instability of Place-names in Anglo-Saxon England and Early Medieval Wales, and the Loss of Roman Toponymy', in 'Sense of Place in Anglo-Saxon England', ed. by Richard Jones and Sarah Semple (Donington: Tyas, 2012), pp. 101-29
- ↑ Transactions Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, 1887, page 173
- Davies, Wendy:
- 'The Llandaff Charters' (1979)
- 'Wales in the Early Middle Ages' (1982)
- Doble, Gilbert Hunter: 'Lives of the Welsh Saints' (1971)
- Morris, John: 'The Age of Arthur' (1973)
- Perry, Raymond: 'Anglo-Saxon Herefordshire' (2002)
- Rivet, A. L. F. and Smith, Colin: 'The Place-Names of Roman Britain' (1979)