Mons Badonicus

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Mons Badonicus or Badon Hill is the unidentified site of a great battle of the Dark Ages. Little is known of the battle itself, but it is recorded by Gildas, and the legend of the battle of Badon has grown far beyond the meagre detail in his account.

The battle is thought to have been fought between a force of Britons and a Saxon war band in the late 5th or early 6th century.[1] The Britons were victorious and the victory stopped for a generation the advance of the ancestral English into Britain. Badon is chiefly known today for the supposed involvement of King Arthur.

The Battle of Badon is credited in mediæval British and Welsh sources as a major political and military event but seems to have passed unremarked in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles. Because of the limited number of sources, there is no certainty about the date, location, or details of the fighting.[2][3]

Historical accounts

Gildas: The Siege of Mount Badon

The earliest mention of the Battle of Badon is in the near contemporary work by Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae (The Ruin of Britain). Written in the early-mid 6th century AD, the book recounts that the Saxons "dipped [their] red and savage tongue in the western ocean" before Ambrosius Aurelianus organized a British resistance with the survivors of the initial Saxon onslaught. Gildas describes the period that followed Ambrosius' initial success:

... From that time, the citizens were sometimes victorious, sometimes the enemy, in order that the Lord, according to His wont, might try in this nation the Israel of to-day, whether it loves Him or not. This continued up to the year of the siege of Badon Hill (obsessionis Badonici montis), and of almost the last great slaughter inflicted upon the rascally crew. And this commences, a fact I know, as the forty-fourth year, with one month now elapsed; it is also the year of my birth.[4]

The Ruin of Britain is unclear as to whether Ambrosius was still leading the Britons at this point.[5] It describes the battle as such an "unexpected recovery of the [island]". While this alone might suggest that the English were wholly driven out, Gildas refers elsewhere to the shameful partition with the barbarians, which partition of Britain between the two nations is proven by the archaeological record.

Gildas states that the victory survived up to his own day and that it caused kings, nobles, priests, and commoners to "live orderly according to their several vocations" before the long peace degenerated into civil wars and the iniquity of Maelgwn Gwynedd. Passages of The Ruin of Britain that address Maelgwn directly are sometimes employed to date the work from accounts of the king's death by plague in the 540s, but such arguments ignore the obvious apostrophe employed in the passages and the possible years of composition involved in the final collected sermon.

Bede

The battle is next mentioned in an 8th-century text of the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People,[6] which draws heavily on Gildas's work. It describes the "siege of Mount Badon, when they made no small slaughter of those invaders," as occurring 44 years after the arrival of the Saxons.[7][8] Since Bede places that arrival during or just after the joint reign of Marcian and Valentinian in AD 449–456,[9] he must have considered Badon to have taken place between 493 and 500.

Bede then puts off discussion of the battle – "But more of this hereafter" – only to seemingly never return to it. Bede does later include an extended account of the victory of St Germanus of Auxerre over the Saxons and Picts in a mountain valley,[10] which he credits with curbing the threat of invasion for a generation.[11] However, as the victory is described as having been accomplished bloodlessly, it was presumably a different occasion from Badon. (Accepted at face value, St Germanus's involvement would also place the battle around 430, although Bede's chronology shows no knowledge of this.)

Nennius and legendary sources

The earliest surviving text mentioning King Arthur at the battle is the early 9th century Historia Brittonum,[12] in which the soldier (Latin miles) Arthur is identified as the leader of the victorious British force at Badon:

"The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself".[13][14]

The Battle of Badon is next mentioned in the Annales Cambriae (Annals of Wales),[15] assumed to have been written during the mid- to late-10th century. The entry states:

"The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights upon his shoulders [or shield[16]] and the Britons were the victors".[17][18]

That Arthur had gone unmentioned in the source closest to his own time, Gildas, was noticed at least as early as the 12th-century Life of Gildas, which (with all the usual romanticising of mediæval vitae) claims that Gildas had praised Arthur extensively but then excised him completely after Arthur killed the saint's brother, Huail. Modern writers have suggested the details of the battle were so well known that Gildas could have expected his audience to be familiar with them.[19] On the other hand, Arthur might have had nothing to do with it, or be mythical.

The legend took wing win the imaginative writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing around 1136 I the History of the Kings of Britain. Geoffrey identifies Badon with Bath in Somerset, including having Merlin foretell that Badon's baths would lose their hot water and turn poisonous.[20] He employs aspects of other accounts, mixing them: the battle begins as a Saxon siege and then becomes a normal engagement once Arthur's men arrive; Arthur bears the image of the Virgin both on his shield and shoulder. Arthur charges, but kills a mere 470, ten more than the number of Britons ambushed by Hengist near Salisbury. Elements of the Welsh legends are also added: in addition to the shield (named Pridwen), Arthur gains his sword Caliburnus (Excalibur) and his spear Ron (Rhongomiant). Geoffrey also makes the defence of the city from the Saxon sneak attack a holy cause, having St Dubricius offer absolution of all sins for those who fall in battle.[21] Thus a wild romance has been born from a short line of Gildas.

Scholarship

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is completely silent about this battle but does seem to document a gap of almost 70 years between two major Anglo-Saxon leaders (bretwaldas) in the fifth and sixth centuries, and in its account of the early West Saxon kings their advance is apparently restricted to Hampshire until the generation after the time of the battle.

Hirst and Ashe argue for the site of Liddington Castle on the hill above Badbury (Old English Baddan byrig) in Wiltshire. This site commands The Ridgeway track connecting the Thames valley with the Avon and Severn beyond.[22][23]

After the battle

The early sources' account that the Saxons were thrown back around this time seems to be borne out by archaeological evidence. Studies of cemeteries (at this point, the Anglo-Saxons remained pagan while the Britons were Christianized) suggest the border shifted some time around 500. Afterwards, the pagans held the present areas of Kent, Sussex, Norfolk and Suffolk, and the area around the Humber. The Britons seem to have controlled salients to the north and west of London and south of Verulamium in addition to everything west of a line running from Christchurch at the mouth of the Wiltshire Avon north to the Trent, then along the Trent to the Humber, then north along the Derwent to the North Sea. The salients could then be supplied along Watling Street, dividing the invaders into pockets south of the Weald in east Kent and around the Wash.

Second Badon

The A Text of the Annales Cambriae[15] includes the entry: "The first celebration of Easter among the Saxons. The second battle of Badon. Morgan dies."[18][24] The date for this action is given by Phillimore as 665,[15] but the Saxons' first Easter is placed by the B Text in its entry 634 years after the birth of Christ and neither Second Badon nor Morcant are mentioned.[25]

Local lore

Apart from the professional scholarship, various communities around Britain carry on local traditions that their area was the site of the battle: these include Bathampton Down;[26] Badbury Rings, a hill fort at the Kingston Lacy House in Dorset;[27] and Bowden Hill in East Lothian.

Location

The location of Mons Badonicus is unknown. Long tradition places it near Bath in Somerset, but this may date back no further than Geoffrey of Monmouth and be inspired by the similarity of names: the modern Welsh for Bath is Caerfaddon, but the name 'Bath' is clearly Old English, postdating the battle.

Suggestions include:

References

  1. ↑ Ashe, Geoffrey, From Caesar to Arthur pp.295-8
  2. ↑ Dupuy, R. Ernest & al. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History From 3500 B.C. to the Present, 4th ed., p. 193. HarperCollins Pub. (New York), 1993.
  3. ↑ Hollister, C. Warren. The Making of England to 1399, 8th ed., p. 31. Houghton Mifflin Co. (New York), 2001.
  4. ↑ Hugh Williams (ed.), Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1899, p. 61-63.
  5. ↑ Geoffrey Ashe, for one, argues against his involvement. Cf. Ashe, Geoffrey. The British Recovery 473–517, pp. 295–298.
  6. ↑ The "Tiberius Bede" or C text. Cotton Tiberius MS. C.II.
  7. ↑ Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, I.xvi
  8. ↑ L. ...usque ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis quando non minimas eisdem hostibus strages dabant quadragesimo circiter & quarto anno adventus eorum in Britaniam.
  9. ↑ Per Bede's account. The actual dates were somewhat different.
  10. ↑ Traditionally placed at Mold in Flintshire
  11. ↑ Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People/Book 1#20 I.xx
  12. ↑ The "Nennius" entry of the Dictionary of National Biography credits an 11th-century Irish edition by Giolla Coemgin with being the oldest extant edition of the Historia Brittonum, but it apparently only survived in a 14th-century copy. Cf. Todd, James. Irish version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius. Irish Archaeological Soc. (Dublin), 1848. Accessed 6 Feb 2013.
  13. ↑ L. Duodecimum fuit bellum in monte Badonis, in quo corruerunt in uno die nongenti sexaginta viri de uno impetu Arthur; et nemo prostravit eos nisi ipse solus. Mommsen, Theodore (ed.) Historia Brittonum. Accessed 7 Feb 2013
  14. ↑ Lupack, Alan (Trans.) The Camelot Project: "From The History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum) by Nennius". Retrieved 6 Feb 2013.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Harleian MS. 3859. Op. cit. Phillimore, Egerton. Y Cymmrodor 9 (1888), pp. 141–83
  16. ↑ The words for "shoulder" and "shield" being easily confused in Old Welsh: scuit (shield) vs. scuid (shoulder)]. Cf. Jones, W. Lewis. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes, Vol. I, XII, §2. Putnam, 1921. Accessed 30 Jan 2013.
  17. ↑ L. Bellum badonis inquo arthur portauit crucem domini nostri ihu xp'i . tribus diebus & tribus noctibus inhumeros suos & brittones uictores fuerunt.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Ingram, James. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Everyman Press (London), 1912.
  19. ↑ Green, p. 31.
  20. ↑ Thompson. VII.iii.
  21. ↑ Thompson, Aaron & al. (trans.) History of the Kings of Britain, IX.iv. In Parentheses, 1999. Accessed 6 Feb 2013.
  22. ↑ Hirst, S. et al. "Liddington Castle and the battle of Badon : Excavations and research 1976". Archaeological Journal. 1996, vol. 153, pp. 1–59.
  23. ↑ Ashe, Geoffrey. From Caesar to Arthur, pp. 162–4
  24. ↑ L. Primum pasca apud saxones celebratur. Bellum badonis secundo. morcant moritur.
  25. ↑ Public Record Office of the United Kingdom. MS. E.164/1
  26. ↑ Scott, Shane (1995). The hidden places of Somerset. Aldermaston: Travel Publishing Ltd. pp. 16. ISBN 1-902007-01-8. 
  27. ↑ "Badbury Rings"
  • Green, Thomas. Concepts of Arthur. Tempus (Stroud, Gloucestershire), 2007. ISBN 9780752444611.
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