h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nothing much to report, but this forum is a bit quiet lately, so I just thought I'd mention that I managed to find this essay by Thomas Kerslake at the central library in Columbia, as an appendix to a facsimile edition of Kerslake's book "Saint Richard the King of Englishmen and His Territory". I will comment further when I've read it. That is all.

I have a copy of Thomas Kerslake's article (which can be obtained from the Devon Local Library collection), and I think it quite an interesting approach.

Essentially Kerslake looks at church dedications to find where the Celts would likely to have congregated (quite literally) in early Exeter.

This is possible because the British (Celtic) church dedications tend to use different (and local) saints then that used by the Saxons (or Normans).

He believes the evidence suggests that the celts occupied a large and contiguous area extending from the centre of the walled city to its northern boundary (including the whole of the north gate) and beyond.

The evidence for Saxon occupation is less clear, but there is some evidence for the east of the city.

Kerslake also refers to "Britayne" - which was inside the west gate.

I just started reading his essay on St. Richard today. He writes in that florid Victorian style, never using one word when he can use ten, so I'm still waiting for him to get to the point

Could Kerslake’s technique of using Celtic church dedications to work out where the Celtic Devonians lived and congregated be extended to the entire county?

One of the strongest arguments for the persistence of Celtic culture in Devon has to be the many dedications to Celtic saints; especially Saint Petrock.

Does anyone know of a map showing the position of surviving Celtic church dedications in Devon? One could be created, but it would take time. Such a map might give clues to the position of the Celtic Devonians at the end of the Saxon period.

Herefordshire is another county with a rich surviving Celtic heritage, owing to its border with Wales. Here, on this county council sponsored web page, two maps shows Herefordshire’s Celtic church dedications.

http://www.smr.herefordshire.gov.uk/saxon_viking/saxon_saints.htm

One shows all Celtic dedications, and the second shows churches with direct connections to Celtic saints.

In the maps, Herefordshire is shown as divided into an English and a Celtic part. The latter “remaining Celtic through the Anglo-Saxon settlement” according to the source.

It would be interesting to know what a similar mapping would reveal about Devon.

ExeValleyBoy - you may find this book useful (haven't read it, ut probably should):-

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0859895165/qid=1130190410/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/102-4788031-1236112?v=glance&s=books

ExeValleyBoy,

Terry Faull, in his book “Secrets of the Hidden Source – In search of Devon’s Ancient and Holy Wells”, includes a map showing the locations of Celtic Saint dedications in Devon. I cannot reproduce it here, but I can confirm that the distribution is fairly even, but with an obvious blank zone in the sparsely populated region of Dartmoor. There is perhaps a slight bias towards the West of Devon, but nothing like the obvious division that occurs in Herefordshire. Faull has listed 38 such locations in total, where Celtic dedications have been recorded, but points out that a few of these have been changed to saints of the Roman Church in recent times.

Faull’s list (in no particular order) is given below. This will enable you to create your own distribution map.

Place - Dedication

St. Budeaux (Plymouth) - St. Budoc
Petrockstowe - St. Petroc
Newton St. Petrock - St. Petroc
Landkey - St. Kea (Cei)
Instow – St. John(?)
Hartland – St. Nectan
Exeter – St. Sidwell
Coryton – St. Curig
Chittlehampton – St. Urith
Cheristow – St. Wenn
Bridestowe – St. Bridget
Braunton – St. Brannoc
Bradstone – St. Nonna
West Worlington – St. Petroc
West Anstey – St. Petroc
Welcombe – St. Nectan
Virginstowe – St. Bridget
Torre – St. Petroc
South Brent – St. Petroc
Romansleigh – St. Rumon
Parracombe – St. Petroc
Lydford – St. Petroc
Lewtrenchard – St. Petroc
Hollacombe – St. Petroc
Harpford – St. Petroc
Farringdon – St. Petroc
Ashton – St. Nectan
Clannaborough – St. Petroc
Cotleigh – St. Petroc
Dartmouth – St. Petroc
East Portlemouth – St. Winwalloe
Exeter – St. Kerrian
Exeter – St. Petroc
Staverton – St. Paul de Leon
Newton St. Cyres – St. Juliot
Inwardleigh – St. Petroc
Dunkeswell – St. Petroc
Brendon – St. Brendon

The relatively even spread of Celtic dedications correlates well with the distribution of place-names of Brythonic etymology, in that it shows that there probably weren’t small enclaves of Britons among a sea of Saxons, as there possibly were in some other counties. If anything, it would have been the other way round. Corroborative evidence for this is to be found among the recent genetic surveys.

EVB,

Terry Faull has produced a useful map in his book "Secrets of the Hidden Source - In search of Devon's ancient and holy wells" (Halsgrove: ISBN 1 84114 354 5).

In his third chapter which is based on the early celtic church in Devon he has a map showing churches dedicated to celtic saints in Devon, and highlights those dedicated to St Petroc.

They are widespread throughout Devon.

Thank you all for the sources and to Plymouth Exile for the good list of Celtic saint dedications. They do appear widely distributed and not just confined to one ‘Celtic’ area.

Regarding these dedications, it seems that long ago there were many more. This interesting site discusses the holy wells of north Devon.

http://www.holywells.com/index.html

Here, the author Terry Faull describes the medieval church’s suspicion of these ancient holy sites.

http://www.holywells.com/html/opposition_to_holy_wells.html

He concludes;

“A further example of the continuation of this central control may be see in the 12th and 13th centuries when a number of Devon church dedications seemed to have lost their link with their Celtic founders and been replaced by more mainstream patrons (the folklorist Sabine Baring-Gould even claims that the 14th century Bishop Grandisson of Exeter was still positively anti-Celtic and took every opportunity of renaming churches away from original links with their Celtic founders).”

The Devon churches’ rededication to ‘more mainstream patrons’ in the 12th and 13th centuries also coincides with the most likely period for the extinction of the Celtic language throughout most of Devon.

This made me think; has the Anglo-Saxon influence on Devon been over-estimated?

If what is said about the late survival of the Celtic language is true, and what Baring-Gould claims about Bishop Grandisson’s prejudices is true, it looks like a serious cultural change was imposed on Devon not by Saxon invasion in the Dark Ages, but during the 12th and 13th centuries, hundreds of years after the Saxon settlements.

If Bishop Grandisson was ‘positively anti-Celtic’, it is quite likely his opposition would have extended to people talking in the Celtic language (maybe in or around church) as well as carrying on antique ‘pagan’ religious customs. The cultural change in this instance would not have been an attempt to make Devon people ‘English’ in any modern sense of nation-building, but more a by-product of a religious mission to enforce conformity to church doctrine.

“This made me think; has the Anglo-Saxon influence on Devon been over-estimated?”

ExeValleyBoy,

I think it was certainly overestimated by the historians of the Victorian era and the early 20th century, but we are still left with the legacy of a large number of Old English place-names. Having said that, the proportion of such names is not nearly as high as the authors of the “Place-Names of Devon” (PND) volumes suggested. I believe that there are three main reasons for this:-

1. The PND volumes were written in 1931-2, when near total population replacement by the Saxons was the accepted wisdom of the day, and place-name etymologists adhered unquestioningly to Ekwall’s rule that Germanic etymologies should be found where at all possible, before considering others.
2. One of the PND authors was none other than Sir. Frank Stenton, who was a firm believer in the population replacement model of the Anglo-Saxon invasion/settlement, so he would not have even considered Brythonic etymologies unless there were no alternatives, regardless of how improbable such alternatives might have been.
3. The PND volumes have been classified by Richard Coates as a “major place-names study”. Careful study of the maps of Devon reveals that a much higher percentage of minor place-names (small hamlets and individual farms) contain Brythonic elements than is the case with the major names (villages and towns). These minor names were, to a large extent, not included in the PND volumes.

This paints a picture of Devon at the end of the first millennium with small scattered towns, mainly occupied by the descendents of the small Saxon settler minority, and a large number of tiny hamlets and farmsteads, which had remained predominantly in the hands of the large native British majority throughout the Saxon settlement period. There are, of course, exceptions to this general rule, as there are towns and villages with Brythonic names (e.g. Dawlish and Hemyock), and hamlets and farms with Old English names. Of course, since that time, the two populations will have mixed, so it is probable that at the present time, no town/hamlet demarcation between Saxon descendents and British descendents would be found in the Devon population.

Plymouth Exile,

I agree with your idea of what Devon was like at the end of the 11th century. The picture I got from reading about the time was of a very wild, sparsely populated region, very poor and isolated.

The Domesday Book mentions that the largest settlement in the South Hams was Totnes, and it only contained 95 houses.

WG Hoskins describes what late 11th century Devon was like;

“In the countryside were vast uncolonized stretches between the villages. After three or four hundred years of occupation and hacking at the surrounding waste, the villages of Domesday Devon had cleared no more than a few hundred acres around about them. Villages were small and isolated, linked to each other by tracks or roads which were little more than bridle-paths. There was no industry in Devon other than the small household activities such as pottery and cloth making; there was little or no mining; trade was negligible. About half the county lay waste in moorland, woodland, heath and marsh. Large areas were completely uninhabited.”

The population of Devon at the time was probably no more than 80,000 people.

This changed after the Norman Conquest. Between the 11th and 14th centuries Devon experienced a period of economic expansion with accompanying population growth. Saxon settlements that had been little more than hamlets in 1086 turned into larger villages and towns.

The picture that emerges is not of population replacement by the English, but of English movement into an area that was largely uninhabited. But where Devon was inhabited, it was Celtic, and remained Celtic. A large number of settlements were created by the English, but these later took on Celtic characteristics, like the church dedications, as Celtic Devonians grew in number owing to economic development and moved into expanding towns and villages that had been created by the Saxons. This idea is supported by the fact that almost all the towns that have Celtic saint dedications have English names. Is this a case of a Celtic settlement being renamed by the English, or rural Celtic people moving into a growing town that was, at its foundation a tiny Saxon hamlet, and bringing with them their own customs and traditions? I think it is probably the latter. Dartmouth is a good example. It was only founded in the 12th century, but has a church dedication to St. Petrock.

ExeValleyBoy,

When Hoskins spoke of Devon being a largely depopulated land following the departure of the Romans, into which the Saxons migrated, he was reflecting the accepted wisdom of the time (the 1950s). He cites large-scale 6th century migrations from Dumnonia to Armorica, which then became Brittany, as evidence for depopulation. He uses this to conclude that large-scale de-cultivation, and hence re-forestation, would have occurred at this time.

In recent years, some historians have questioned the scale of the migrations to Brittany, and Petra Dark, in her book “The Environment of Britain in the First Millennium AD”, has summarised recent work carried out in the field of pollen archaeology to determine where and when crop de-cultivation and re-forestation occurred. The results for Devon are a little inconclusive. On Exmoor, there is clear indication of re-forestation, but in South Devon the indicators point to continuity of cultivation from the Roman period to the late 8th century. This new evidence does not support the de-population hypothesis, but does indicate maintenance of the status quo. This does not mean that the population was high, but merely that it did not suddenly decline. This is commensurate with a large number of scattered individual farmsteads over most of the non-moorland areas. It is therefore likely that the small number of Saxon migrants did not find an almost deserted Devon countryside. Even Hoskins seems to acknowledge this when he concludes that a high proportion of the Devon population reveal pre-Saxon ancestry.

Celtic church dedications in towns dating back only to the 12th century or later could, as you say, be due to Brythonic people moving into the towns and bringing Celtic dedications with them, or there could have already been a small Celtic holy site (perhaps with a holy well) at the location where the later town grew up. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

If I recall Hoskin's work, he suggested that the Saxons probably first arrived in Devon not by land but by sea and they "established" a number of the towns that we now see alongside major rivers in Devon.

If this is so then there would very likely have been a local British population still in existence in the very same places (as these are places relatively rich in food, resources and the opportunity to trade).

As relatively 'isolated' settlements, surrounded and presumably significantly outnumbered by an existing native population in the general area it would be emminently sensible to get along with, and indeed to trade with these British neighbours rather than try to kill and/or expel them, running the risk of retribution from the greater population in the surrounding area.

Therefore you might expect to see Saxon and Celtic settlements that were originally distinct but relatively close, that may over the passage of time have been joined as the settlement expanded.

I am not aware of any record of military confrontations between Celt and Saxon arising from local competition for resources, and so presumably this arrangement was, at least for the most part, successful.

>If I recall Hoskin's work, he suggested that the Saxons probably first arrived in Devon not by land but by sea and they "established" a number of the towns that we now see alongside major rivers in Devon.<

I have just finished reading the Kerslake book and in his monograph on "King" Richard, he says much the same thing. As Ricky does not appear in any of the Wessex king-lists, Kerslake postulates that he was the leader of a Saxon war-band which had already settled in Devon prior to the westward expansion of what he calls "the descendents of Woden", ie the West Saxon dynasty whose exploits form the focus of much of the ASC.

As for the essay which forms the title of this thread, it suffers somewhat from that Victorian sense of certainty (a wag once wrote that "perhaps" is the word you're least likely to find in a Victorian history book). Kerslake reconstructs the possible extent of the British district of Exeter (prior to the expulsion by Athelstan, after which "Little Britayne" formed a refuge for the remnant of Exeter's British population) from church dedications, but only two of the dedications he gives, St. Petrock and St. Kerian, are indisputably British. The others are ambiguous, but Kerslake assumes a British dedication from their proximity to the two parishes already mentioned. I see no reason to doubt his thesis, but I feel a modern historian would be a little more circumspect about saying "this is what happened" rather than "this is probably what happened". Then again, he was writing in 1873, so it would be churlish to criticise him for being a product of his time.

Kerslake extends his reconstruction of probable British and Saxon districts to the surrounding countryside, using the parishes of St. David and St. Sidwell as evidence. In this, he follows the model of "Britons in the hills, Saxons in the valleys" which I have seen mentioned in a couple of other sources (Hazel Harvey's Exeter Past and Barbara Yorke's Wessex In The Early Middle Ages). He doesn't, however, make any mention of what happened to the British after Athelstan's expulsion, other than the mention of Little Britayne noted above. So to say that "Kerslake says they all relocated to St. David's" is, I feel, to misrepresent him.