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| Etymology of Wales | |
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The Anglo-Saxon word for 'foreign' or 'foreigner' was Waelisc and a 'foreign(er's) land' was called WÄ“alas. The modern English forms of these words with respect to the modern country are Welsh (the people) and Wales (the land), respectively.
Historically in Britain the words were not restricted to modern Wales or to the Welsh but were used indiscriminately to refer to anything that the Anglo-Saxons associated with Celtic Britons, including other foreign lands (e.g., Cornwall), places once associated with Celtic Britons (e.g., Walworth in County Durham and Walton in West Yorkshire),[5] the surnames of people (e.g., Walsh and Wallace) and various other things that were once new and foreign to the Anglo-Saxons (e.g., the walnut). None of these historic usages is necessarily connected to Wales or the Welsh.
The Anglo-Saxon words are derived from the same Germanic root (singular Walh, plural Walha), applied to Italic and Celtic peoples and places, that has provided modern names for Continental lands (e.g., Wallonia and Wallachia)[6] and peoples (e.g., the Vlachs via a borrowing into Old Church Slavonic),[7][8][9] none of which has any connection to Wales or the Welsh.
Tags:Welsh,English,Welsh (,Ce,Country,Celtic,Britons,Anglo-saxon,Cornwall,Walworth,County Durham,Walton,West Yorkshire,Germanic,Walh,Italic And Celtic,Continental,Wallonia,Wallachia,Vlachs, | |
| Etymology of Cymru | |
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Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Moliant Cadwallon
The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is Welsh for "Land of the Cymry". The etymological origin of Cymry is from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning "fellow-countrymen".[10] The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the post-Roman Era relationship of the Welsh with the Brythonic-speaking peoples of northern England and southern Scotland, the peoples of Yr Hen Ogledd (English: The Old North). In its original use, it amounted to a self-perception that the Welsh and the "Men of the North" were one people, exclusive of all others.[11] In particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage, culture, and language to both the Welsh and the Men of the North. The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century.[12] It is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan (Moliant Cadwallon, by Afan Ferddig) c. 633.[13] In Welsh literature, the word Cymry was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe the Welsh, though the older, more generic term Brythoniaid continued to be used to describe any of the Britonnic peoples (including the Welsh) and was the more common literary term until c. 1100. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh. Until c. 1560 Cymry was used indiscriminately to mean either the people (Cymry) or their homeland (Cymru).[10]
The Latinised forms of these names are Cambrian or Cambric ("Welsh") and Cambria ("Wales"). They survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales, Welsh and the Welsh people. Examples include the Cambrian Mountains (which cover most of Wales), the newspaper Cambrian News, as well as the organisations Cambrian Airways, Cambrian Railways and Cambrian Archaeological Association. Outside Wales, this form survives as the name of Cumbria in North West England, which was once a part of Yr Hen Ogledd. This form also appears at times in literary references, perhaps most notably in the pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, where the character of Camber is described as the eponymous King of Cymru.
Tags:Mp,Ad,Part Of,England,Wikisource,Post-roman Era,Yr Hen Ogledd,Cornish,Breton,Cadwallon Ap Cadfan,Middle Ages,Latinised,Cambrian News,Cambrian Airways,Cambrian Railways,Cumbria,North West England,Pseudohistorical,Historia Regum Britanniae,Geoffrey Of Monmouth,Camber,Roman Era, | |
| Prehistoric origins | |
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See also: Prehistoric Wales
Bryn Celli Ddu
a late Neolithic chambered tomb on Anglesey
Wales has been inhabited by modern humans for at least 29,000 years.[14] Continuous human habitation dates from the end of the last ice age, between 12,000 and 10,000 years before present (BP), when Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from central Europe began to migrate to Great Britain. At that time sea levels were much lower than today, and the shallower parts of what is now the North Sea were dry land. The east coast of present day England and the coasts of present day Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands were connected by the former landmass known as Doggerland, forming the British Peninsula on the European mainland. Wales was free of glaciers by about 10,250 BP, the warmer climate allowing the area to become heavily wooded. The post-glacial rise in sea level separated Wales and Ireland, forming the Irish Sea. Doggerland was submerged by the North Sea and, by 8,000 BP, the British Peninsula had become an island.[15][16] By the beginning of the Neolithic (c. 6,000 BP) sea levels in the Bristol Channel were still about 33 feet (10 metres) lower than today.[17][18][19] John Davies has theorised that the story of Cantre'r Gwaelod's drowning and tales in the Mabinogion, of the waters between Wales and Ireland being narrower and shallower, may be distant folk memories of this time.[20]
Neolithic colonists integrated with the indigenous people, gradually changing their lifestyles from a nomadic life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers about 6,000 BP – the Neolithic Revolution.[20][21] They cleared the forests to establish pasture and to cultivate the land, developed new technologies such as ceramics and textile production, and built cromlechs such as Pentre Ifan, Bryn Celli Ddu and Parc Cwm long cairn between about 5,500 BP and 5,800 BP.[22][23][24][25] In common with people living all over Great Britain, over the following centuries the people living in what was to become known as Wales assimilated immigrants and exchanged ideas of the Bronze Age and Iron Age Celtic cultures. According to John T. Koch and others, Wales in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture that also included the other Celtic nations, England, France, Spain and Portugal where Celtic languages developed.[26][27][28][29][30] By the time of the Roman invasion of Britain the area of modern Wales had been divided among the tribes of the Deceangli, Ordovices, Cornovii, Demetae and Silures for centuries.[20]
Tags:Great Britain,Iron Age,Celtic Nations,Modern Humans,Years Before Present (bp),Mesolithic,Hunter-gatherers,Central Europe,North Sea,Doggerland,Irish Sea,John Davies,Cantre'r Gwaelod,Cromlechs,Pentre Ifan,Bryn Celli Ddu, | |
| Roman era | |
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Main article: Wales in the Roman era
The Roman conquest of Wales began in AD 48 and took 30 years to complete. Roman rule lasted over 300 years. The campaigns of conquest are the most widely known feature of Wales during the Roman era, due to the spirited, but ultimately unsuccessful, defence of their homelands by two native tribes: the Silures; and the Ordovices. Roman rule in Wales was a military occupation, save for the southern coastal region of South Wales, east of the Gower Peninsula, where there is a legacy of Romanisation.[31] The only town in Wales founded by the Romans, Caerwent, is in South Wales. Both Caerwent and Carmarthen, also in southern Wales, became Roman civitates.[32] Wales had a rich mineral wealth. The Romans used their engineering technology to extract large amounts of gold, copper and lead, as well as modest amounts of some other metals such as zinc and silver.[33] Roman economic development was concentrated in south-eastern Britain, and no significant industries located in Wales.[33] This was largely a matter of circumstance, as Wales had none of the necessary materials in suitable combination, and the forested, mountainous countryside was not amenable to industrialisation. Although Latin became the official language of Wales, the people tended to continue to speak in Brythonic. While Romanisation was far from complete, the upper classes of Wales began to consider themselves Roman, particularly after the ruling of 212 that granted Roman citizenship to all free men throughout the Empire.[34] Further Roman influence came through the spread of Christianity, which gained many followers after Christians were allowed to worship freely in 313.[34]
Coin of
Magnus Maximus
Early historians, including the 6th century cleric Gildas, have noted 383 as a significant point in Welsh history,[35] as it is stated in literature as the foundation point of several medieval royal dynasties. In that year the Roman general Magnus Maximus, or Macsen Wledig, stripped all of western and northern Britain of troops and senior administrators, to launch a successful bid for imperial power; continuing to rule Britain from Gaul as Emperor.[36][37] Gildas, writing in about 540, says that Maximus left Britain not only with all of its Roman troops, but also with all of its armed bands, governors, and the flower of its youth, never to return. Having left with the troops and Roman administrators, and planning to continue as the ruler of Britain in the future, his practical course was to transfer local authority to local rulers. The earliest Welsh genealogies give Maximus the role of founding father for several royal dynasties, including those of Powys and Gwent.[38][39] It was this transfer of power that has given rise to the belief that he was the father of the Welsh Nation.[35] He is given as the ancestor of a Welsh king on the Pillar of Eliseg, erected nearly 500 years after he left Britain, and he figures in lists of the Fifteen Tribes of Wales.[40]
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| Post-Roman era | |
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See also: Sub-Roman Britain
The 400 years following the collapse of Roman rule is the most difficult to interpret in the history of Wales.[34] After the Roman departure from Britain in 410, much of the lowlands of Britain to the east and south-east were overrun by various Germanic tribes.[41] However by 500 AD, the land that would become Wales had divided into a number of kingdoms free from Anglo-Saxon rule.[34] The kingdoms of Gwynedd, Powys, Dyfed and Seisyllg, Morgannwg and Gwent emerged as independent Welsh successor states.[34] Archaeological evidence, in the Low Countries and what was to become England, shows early Anglo-Saxon migration to Great Britain reversed between 500 to 550, which concurs with Frankish chronicles.[42] John Davies notes this as consistent with the British victory at Badon Hill, attributed to Arthur by Nennius.[42] This tenacious survival by the Romano-Britons and their descendants in the western kingdoms was to become the foundation of what we now know as Wales. With the loss of the lowlands, England's kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria, and later Wessex, wrestled with Powys, Gwent and Gwynedd to define the frontier between the two peoples.
Having lost much of what is now the West Midlands to Mercia in the 6th and early 7th centuries, a resurgent late-seventh-century Powys checked Mercian advancement. Aethelbald of Mercia, looking to defend recently acquired lands, had built Wat's Dyke. According to John Davies, this endeavour may have been with Powys king Elisedd ap Gwylog's own agreement, however, for this boundary, extending north from the valley of the River Severn to the Dee estuary, gave Oswestry to Powys.[43] Another theory, after carbon dating placed the dyke's existence 300 years earlier, is that it may have been built by the post-Roman rulers of Wroxeter.[44] King Offa of Mercia seems to have continued this consultative initiative when he created a larger earthwork, now known as Offa's Dyke (Clawdd Offa). Davies wrote of Cyril Fox's study of Offa's Dyke: "In the planning of it, there was a degree of consultation with the kings of Powys and Gwent. On the Long Mountain near Trelystan, the dyke veers to the east, leaving the fertile slopes in the hands of the Welsh; near Rhiwabon, it was designed to ensure that Cadell ap Brochwel retained possession of the Fortress of Penygadden." And, for Gwent, Offa had the dyke built "on the eastern crest of the gorge, clearly with the intention of recognizing that the River Wye and its traffic belonged to the kingdom of Gwent."[43] However, Fox's interpretations of both the length and purpose of the Dyke have been questioned by more recent research.[45] Offa's Dyke largely remained the frontier between the Welsh and English, though the Welsh would recover by the 12th century the area between the Dee (Afon Dyfrdwy), and the Conwy known then as Y Berfeddwlad. By the eighth century, the eastern borders with the Anglo-Saxons had broadly been set.
In 853 the Vikings raided Anglesey, but in 856 Rhodri Mawr defeated and killed their leader, Gorm.[46] The Britons of Wales later made their peace with the Vikings and Anarawd ap Rhodri allied with the Norsemen occupying Northumbria to conquer the north.[47] This alliance later broke down and Anarawd came to an agreement with Alfred, king of Wessex, with whom he fought against the west Welsh. According to Annales Cambriae, in 894, "Anarawd came with the Angles and laid waste Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi."[48]
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