The Last Celts in England
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In this video, we're going to examine some stories telling us about the lives of the Celtic speakers in eastern England, from around the 4th century, when the Anglo-Saxons were first beginning to arrive, all the way to the 11th century, hundreds of years after the Anglo-Saxons first began to arrive.
The subject of a Celtic England is often controversial, and marked down by centuries of a total denial of the presence of Britons in England practically anytime after the 6th century. But today, we will examine plenty of evidence to counter that, from Britons in the Swamps of the Fens, to Welsh kings in the East, Celtic-named kings such as Cerdic and Caedwalla in the south, alongside Celtic Christians in the north. We will examine the troublesome Brythonic marauders that plagued eastern England in the 11th century, and the servile population from Wales that lived in Kent, Wessex, and 10th century Cambridgeshire.
The History of Wales, and Welsh history in general, is often seen as a counterbalance to the Germanic history of England, but as you will see today, English history is just as Celtic as they come.
Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
0:45 - Britons in the Swamp
5:12 - Welsh Kings in the East
8:11 - Celtic Christians in the North
10:18 - Brythonic Marauders in England
12:44 - Bands of Celts in the Forests
14:36 - The Serviles from Wales
15:50 - The Last Celts in England
Sources (turn on captions):
[1] Capelli, C. et al. (2003). A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles. Current Biology, 13(11), pp.979-984. doi:doi.org/10.1016/s0960-9822(03....
[2] Colgrave, B. (1956). Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac. Cambridge University Press.
[3] Davies, John. (2007). A History of Wales. London: Penguin, pp.64-67, 44-45, 48, 37.
[4] Gray, A. (1911). On the late survival of a Celtic population in East Anglia. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 15(1).
[5] Gretzinger, J., et al. (2022). The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool. Nature, 610, pp.1-8. doi: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05....
[6] Harvard University (2023). The Man of Law’s Tale. Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website. chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages....
[7] Higham, N. and Ryan, M.J. (2013). The Anglo-Saxon World. Yale University Press, pp.95-103, 29-30.
[8] Leslie, S. et al. (2015). The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population. Nature, 519, pp.309-314. doi.org/10.1038/nature14230
[9] Morris, M. (2021). The Anglo-Saxons. Penguin, Chapters 1-5.
[10] Skeat, W. W. (1868). The Lay of Havelok the Dane. Early English Text Society.
[11] Skeat, W. W. (1902). The Lay of Havelok the Dane (Introduction). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
[12] Stellar, A.M. (1907). Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England. London: George Bell and Sons.
[13] The British Library (2023). Felix’s Life of Guthlac. www.bl.uk/collection-items/fe....
[14] Thomas, M.G. et al. (2006). Evidence for an apartheid-like social structure in early Anglo-Saxon England. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 273(1601), pp.2651-2657. doi:doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3627.
Maps:
© OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA: www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
www.floodmap.net/
Music:
'Is That You, or Are You You?', 'Wonder Cycle', 'Everybody's Got Problems That Aren't Mine', 'Direct to Video', 'Out of the Skies, Under the Earth' by Chris Zabriskie are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: chriszabriskie.com/dtv/
Artist: chriszabriskie.com/
and 'Kawaii!' - Bad Snacks
Images of, and from:
Europe, Britain and Ireland, Crowland, Demons, Danes, Cerdic, Chaucer, Monk, Ramsey Monastery, Vikings: CC0, via the British Library
St Guthlac: CC0, via the Wellcome Collection
Man with a Beard, Caernarfon Castle, Conwy Castle, Lincoln Cathedral, Crickhowell, Lambeth, Ely Cathedral, Carnedd Llywelyn: CC0, via the Yale Center for British Art
Welsh Dragon: Tobias Jakobs, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Vortigern, Paper Background, the Flame Bearers of Welsh History: CC0, via the National Library of Wales
Seax, Gold Beads, Ethelred II Coin, Cnut Coin: CC BY 2.0, via the Portable Antiquities Scheme
Get 25% off Blinkist premium and enjoy 2 memberships for the price of 1! Start your 7-day free trial by clicking here: blinkist.com/cambrianchronicles Thanks for watching, here’s to making more backups of my videos in the future to stop a chunk of it from corrupting again.
Would it be Possible that the later uses of “Britons” in the sources (esp the danish one) refers to Anglo-Saxons? After all they were living in Britain and the place could be used to define the people.
Keep up the good work. Do you plan to do any videos about the Celts in Ireland by any chance?
@@quimbey14 Definitely!
FEWER grave goods, not less...
@@CambrianChronicles Nowadays most whites kids in London speak English with a hybrid Jamaican dialect which is very different from the anglo saxon dialect of English which is spoken in this t.v programme by this presenter. In the early 2000's, young white kids on council estates in London became JAMAICANISED. This is when they starting speaking with English with a hybrid Jamaican dialect. For example, Essex county is the only place in Britain where the cockney dialect/and or accent is still spoken.
Recent discoveries have shown that Cornish was still spoken amongst some folk into the early 1900's when the 'revival' of the language started. Indeed I can remember my great grandmother talking to her brother in a mixture of Cornish and English in the 1970's. Neither were revivalists, both born in the 1890's.
I've heard plenty of rumours, and I wouldn't be surprised at it's survival, but the sources I've used still point to an extinction at some point, as does UNESCO (which changed it's ruling on Manx after protests from Manx speakers who had just been claimed to not exist!), if you have links to the discoveries I'd love to see them, it'd make a cool video as well!
@@CambrianChronicles I can't furnish links as the historian currently working on this hasn't published anything. But a lot of people including an MP have come forward saying they have heard or known of people that predate the revival speaking Cornish. The dialect I spoke as a child contained as many nouns and even verbs in Cornish as English, and I'll still use some now (even though I'm in 'England'), because I can't think of the English word straight away. The late Cornish historian Craig Weatherhill once told me Cornish was spoken in the South Hams of Devon well into the 13th century, this peaked my interest into Dartmoor and West Devon where there is fairly good evidence the language survived until even later.
@@rialobran Are these dialect words/phrases being mined for modern Cornish or are they already known?
@@damionkeeling3103 I have no idea to be perfectly honest, I should imagine some may have been.
@@rialobran That's very interesting. Thank you for the information.
We can use Irish as as example of what can happen to a language, the English didn't arrive in huge numbers to Ireland, but now the vast majority of human interactions there are done in English. It took no population replacement to replace the language.
English itself could have been obliterated by the arrival of the Norman French onto British shores. For hundreds of years French and Latin were the de facto languages of our courts and high society. One can assume only by sheer weight of numbers did the established English survive, due to it being the common language of the majority poorer classes and serfs to Norman households. Eventual intermarrying over time meant English edged out Norman French and Latin but with their vocabularic infusion. In a similar way English prevails in Ireland but with a uniquely Irish twist.
No it just took Tyranny to replace the language. The English litterally banned the teaching of the Gaelic language. Gaelic speakers were prevented from getting an education. They were discriminated in all spheres of life.
@@occidentadvocate.9759 judging by the proliferation of Feis, Highland gatherings and Eistedfods, the English failed....slainte...E😊
It took massive scale legal repression, the closing down of ancient schools with the oldest continuous Latin education on earth and generally horrific colonial violence and persecution actually. But yeah I see your point.
@@eamonnclabby7067 Scots gaelic is a colonial language in Scotland. And the Isle of man. The Irish themselves were the colonists in these areas. The Scots should be speaking Pictish where they instead speak Gaelic.
Genetic evidence shows that the majority of English people are only 25% Anglo-Saxon or less. Most were Britons who were assimilated in the same way most turks in turkey were formerly Greeks who were assimilated.
Not always. English dna in parts of Eastern England can Max 47% Anglo-Saxon and a additional 5% Swedish possibly Wulfingas Geat dna in Eastern England. Based on a September 2022 study. This is a sometimes not always premise. As for Turkish dna that gets more complicated. Ethnic Turks or Turkish citizens in general regardless of self identification?
Let’s see where this thread goes
Women are normally kept by invaders
yeah but if the english aren't anglo-saxon because they're a minority anglo-saxon in blood, the welsh and others aren't celtic because they're sub-5% celtic in blood, as celtic culture originated in the halstatt culture of central europe. fair?
There was a 2022 study that showed a much higher Anglo-Saxon percentage in the English population. One of the authors confidently asserted that as a result of their study, the mass migration of the Anglo Saxons can no longer be questioned
As someone from Grimsby you are correct that it is a terrible fate
From grimsby aswell, it is true.
@@Connor-wv9pj Really that bad? Surely not, please explain.
@terencemagee it's actually not that bad at all when compared to other towns in England, but its still dodgy around certain areas. It has a worse reputation than it deserves. Been here 17 years and never had a life threatening problem. The chavs are mostly pussies and won't really do anything. Grimsby gets a bad rep because it has grim in the name, that's legit one of the reasons.
Could of been worse, they could of landed at Scunthorpe, since at that time the Carrs and Fens of the area would not have been drained
As a meggy living in GY i concur. But at least we can cry into our beer down the Barge ;)
as someone who lives and grew up in Ely. There are fairly well known stories of the fen tigers. which are stories of the indigenous native peoples whom lived on islands in the fen. And is kind of accepted that the fen was one of the last strongholds of the Britons, due to its natural difficulty to navigate and it’s dangers, until it was drained. It’s why I think our local fen accent is unusual and so similar to one’s found in Cornwall or the West Country. It’s so cool someone shining a light on my local history that im so fascinated by. Thank you! I often discuss our local history and theories with my father and there is still so much to be discovered here.
I'm sure Hereward The Wake also held oiut in the fens against the French Normans. It must have been an amazing place to live. Plenty of eels for dinner!
Wow I love that!
Yes. I absolutely agree. I'm often struck by the similarity in the accent of the west and east. Both these regions were relatively cut off and isolated. Whether it be Hereward the Wake or Alfred in Altheney. But I'm also struck by a black country accent ( not B'ham) and somerset. There are faint echoes of similarity .
Kings Lynn, Welsh Llyn
@@gar6446 It's just a southern English accent before the influence of the London accents. Proper Kent and Sussex accents are similar though dying a quick death because of the East London exodus and the received pronunciation of London middle class spreading their accents through the South East
there is an area in west yorkshire where several villages are called "-- in Elmet', and they are named after a supposed celtic kingdom which survived in west yorkshire when all around was settled by Anglo Saxons
The DNA map of the British Isles bears this out ,West Yorkshire ,Lancashire and Cumbria are the homeland of present day Brigantes, although the parish records of Deane church in Bolton, ( excellent and online) charts the arrival of the Angles in East Lancashire...fascinating stuff..
Elmet was the last Celtic kingdom in England, stretching from the Leeds area west into the Pennines, surviving in some form until around 600ad, and the village of Walsden on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border between Rochdale and Todmorden has been interpreted as the Saxon "Waelisch dene" or "Valley of the Celts". Given that the western edge of Elmet was steep sided hills with boggy valley bottoms it's not good farming land, so not very accessible or attractive to Saxon farmers, and it's conceivable that Walsden was a last Celtic stronghold.
I've heard of this from a Yorkshire dialect perspective.This is why West Riding dialects differ so greatly from East and North Riding dialects.
@@Kevin-mx1vi I'm pretty sure Cornwall was the last Briton kingdom in England, but Rheged also outlived Elmet.
@@hardlo7146 That's interesting, but are we talking about these areas surviving as purely Celtic kingdoms (that is; _ruled_ by Celts) or as kingdoms ruled by some other group ? Anyway, I have to admit that I accepted the word of Ted Hughes (who by coincidence my mum had known since being young) and his research about Elmet for his 1979 book "Remains of Elmet", so I'm happy to be corrected.
As an English person with Celtic heritage, I've always found this extremely interesting. It's a shame how many people think the Anglo-Saxons completely wiped out all of the native Britons in a short space of time, which would've been impossible anyway. They lived alongside them or mixed with them, although admittedly there was a lot of murder and brutal oppression too. The more west you travel into England, the more Celtic roots you'll fine. I need to pick up Welsh again (I was learning it but got distracted by university) as part of my "journey" to bring it back to England lol. But in all seriousness, even looking at modern Welsh and place named in England is interesting. Welsh is a direct descendent of Common Brythonic and many place names in England come from that, which also explains how many places, even simple rivers, have names in Welsh too or at least originate from Brythonic. My hometown of Manchester is called Manceinion in Welsh and comes from a Brythonic word for the area.
A fellow Welsh-learning/Briton-appreciating Manc! Glad to know I'm not the only one
As a Liverpool fan, I can say with pretty high certainty that the Brythonic word means 'scum of the earth' 😉
They absolutely didn’t whipe out the Celtic people. But the Celtic Britonic culture and language was whiped out almost completely
@@sebe2255 no it wasnt. The Welsh and Cornish still speak Brythonic languages. Place names in England still have Brythonic names.
@@carlwoods4564 Place names are a bad indicator. Many places in the Americas have native place names, and the natives were actually whiped out as a people too in many parts. Place bames can linger long after the people who named the things have gone. The actual Old English language meanwhile had basically no influence from the Britonic languages. And I was referring to England, not Wales. Wales is obviously the main part of the British Isles where the Britonic cultures remained alive. Hence why it is called Wales. And I said almost entirely in reference to England. Cornwall and Cumbria being some exceptions. You might not like it for whatever reason but the Anglo-Saxons were very effective at destroying the Celtic culture and language of the natives they assimilated. And we will never why and how exactly this happened
They’ve calculated from Domesday Book that the number of Norman households moving to England after 1066 was about 4000. Say five per household and you have about 20,000. Some were of course elderly parents, some monks. But the population of England then was about a million and 20k is just 2%. So to change a language you don’t need number, you need power.
Precisely! Thank you for those numbers
@@CambrianChronicles What? How could you possibly calculate that from the Domesday Book? Seeing it was written shortly after the Norman Invasion? You know that it was a snapshot of Anglo-Saxon England for the benefit of the new Norman rulers and couldn't possibly list all Norman migration as it happened later. Others have figures of over one hundred thousand Norman colonialists.
Yes. This means control of schools and universities/ writing. That's how Irish was replaced.
Land in England was over 80% owned by 1066 families into the 1970s.
@@casteretpollux There were no universities in 1066. The first, the University of Paris, was later. Why would the Normans have wanted to destroy Irish? Keep them ignorant and powerless would be a better tactic. The greatest loss of Irish happened after 1923. There is a meeting between JM Synge and an old Irishman in Connemara, mending a fishing net. Synge hails him in Irish and the old man replies in English. Synge learns that because the old man spoke English, he’d had a long and fulfilling career in Canada and the US, travelling the world. And where would I have been if I didn’t speak English , the old man asks? Right here! It was his cultural choice.
I once worked for a company in South Cambridgeshire. One day, I overheard two female colleagues saying (of some forgotten problem of that day) “it’s just like when the Saxons came up the rivers”. Maybe it’s a tiny fragment of Brythonic culture surviving to the present day?
That's an interesting titbit. Thanks for sharing
Absolutely 0% chance. They were probably referencing some shared joke about their knowledge of history rather than a folk memory.
@@Htrac Please stop being such a loser, thanks.
Must be in the famous flying pig
It was a really nice touch using older (contemporary?) Maps as a background in this video. Even if they aren't as accurate they're a nice tone setter and it was fun looking at the place names of where I'm from and trying to see which towns and villages existed back then!
Thank you, I'm glad you like them! I love old maps so they're always fun to include.
Me too , don't know what map that is but my hometown is on it up in Norfolk.
@@PaulJohn01 Same county as me, what are the odds! Was looking along the north coast at Cromer and Cley.
@@joewalker4710 Hahaha i'm from Walsham but Cromer was my old stomping ground.
@@PaulJohn01 I love visiting old sites of shrines, like Walsingham, or Tryfynon/ Holywell..ot Saint Patrick's well here on the Wirral...😊
It's worth noting that Cumbrian was likely spoken by hill farming communities in that area until the 19th C.
Now it wasn't
Now now
You mean Cumbric - that is the name of that possible Brythonic language, while Cumbrian refers to the North Anglic dialect spoken there today.
You’re just wrong there
@@alexmason5521cope
Great video! I've always found it implausible that the Britons would have just disappeared in such a short space of time after the Anglo-Saxons coming over.
History was written by the upper class. We really don't know anything about the other 99.9% of people, we only have the often untrustworthy words of the very few wealthy and literate to work from. Assuming that the Britons would've eventually found themselves mostly relegated to second class citizens, after the conquests I could see them living "off the books" for centuries in pockets and small villages. Only sometimes interacting with a person of high status, and rarely written about.
@Welcome to the Monkey Ape Zone yeah I can see that too. This video also got me wondering, if you were to dna most of the lower class and poorer members of Britain if they would show up as majority ancient British dna. Because people of poverty very rarely make it out of poverty, so is it an inherited thing from generations ago.
@@mrwelshmun Was wondering the same thing. Because on the other end it certainly seems to be true, especially for England: apparently the ruling class is still largely made up of the direct descendants of Old William the C and his cronies
The average English person is 64% celtic according to an oxford university study. Anglos really destroyed the English identifying with their celtic roots. It makes more sense to call them "anglo-celts"
Yes the woman were spared and then speared
As far as genetics is confirmed, at max, 52% of English dna is Germanic, which 47% traced to the Anglo-Saxons and 5% to the Swedes, possibly Wulfingas Geats. And at common most for a population, 25% at the least Germanic in parts of England and 76% Germanic in the middle ages. That means somewhere between 25-75% of English dna is Celtic, by the logic of the study mix of Brythonic or indigenous Bell-beaker Celts and French looking dna easily interpretable as Hallstatt continental Celtic dna that brought the culture over to Britain as well as later Gaulish French immigrants. This is all a September 2022 study. Conclusively lacks a 100% population displacement.
@@gnosticpygmy4417 I've met English and Teutonist supremacist online who still promote the complete Wipeout theory. This isn't a dead horse. Its an ongoing myth promoted by some Germanic supremacist in England and mainland Europe. I can forgive a ignorant foreigner not from Europe assuming the Anglo-Saxons wiped out the Britons in England, but online you can see this dead horse isn't beaten to death by a straw but is still being ridden carrying the Germanic supremacist nazi who claims the Anglo-Saxons killed all Britons 100% for Germanic purity. I'm not claiming every Germanic person is a Nazi when saying 100% of Britons were wiped out. I am saying, these instances can be seen online.
I'm familiar with that paper but the result is not quite what you're presenting here. From the section on supervised admixture in the supplementary materials: We estimate an average of 6% Norse Ancestry in present-day England, with peaks in Cumbria, Northeast England, and East Anglia and lower proportions in western and southwestern England (e.g. Cornwall, Sussex, Herefordshire, Forest of Dean)(supp. Fig. 6.3b, Supp. Table 6.7-8), which is close to previous estimates based on ancient DNA. Correspondingly, the overall fraction of CNE ancestry in England was reduced by inclusion of the fourth source population to 32.7% (WBI=36.4%, CWE=24.9%) Factoring in for Norse ancestry brings the average figure of 40% down slightly to 38.7% but the more relevant point is that the paper's Germanic ancestry proportions are not increased by factoring in for Norse ancestry. There is no place in England where people are majority Germanic.
@@BronzeAgeCelt I missed the Norse section. I was focused on the 5.2% Swedish though not the 6% Norwegian. Did they date this to the Viking age or the Anglo-Saxon period? Cause I thought this covers the early Anglo-Saxon period only if memory served, There's no reason to believe Scandinavians from prior to the Viking age weren't present.
@@BronzeAgeCelt I've read the article once and I mostly got my information from Thomas Rousall from survive the Jive
@@BronzeAgeCelt I personally can't/cannot claim a strong Germanic heritage myself. I call myself Anglo-Saxon do to culture and English ethnicity but most my English ancestors being from western English counties were most certainly Britons not Germanic. I have some Saxon and Scandinavian blood but I myself am probably a briton largely genetically. Not including my additional non English ancestry in the British isles. But hey. My opinion doesn't matter I'm American not a UK citizen.
There was a similar phenomenon on the Flemish coastal areas in Belgium, on the other side of the Channel. Dutch historian and linguist Lauran Toorians has demonstrated that a coastal Brythonic language existed there up until the 4th-5th century AD, when the region was already thoroughly Germanic for 3 centuries with the establishment of the Franks. It is likely linked to the seafaring Belgic tribes of an earlier time (Menapii and Morini, Atlantic Celts like the Britons) that lived there on the arrival of Caesar in the 1st century BC. In those days the Flemish coastline was notorious for their pirate dens, both native and from neighbouring Germanic tribes, notably the Saxons. In fact the names of coastal settlements Koksijde (-yde small harbour, Koks- of the Chauci), Lombardsijde (of the Longobardi) and Walravensijde (of the "foreign raven") point back to that era of local history.
Hi, I am exactly from that region. Do you have any links to studies or books regarding this?
@@CnockCnockyes, there is a 145 page monograph "Keltisch en Germaans in de Nederlanden: taal in Nederland en België gedurende de Late Ijzertijd en de Romeinse Periode" L. Toorians, Mémoires de la Société Belge d'Études Celtiques, nr. 13 (2000)
Very interesting, will check that out. Thanks!@@bromisovalum8417
The first “Saxon” kings of Wessex (Cerdic, Cynric, Ceawlin) had suspiciously Brythonic sounding names. I think the people integrated and carried names and blood into what became the English
The English are what they are literally a " Bastard " Nation to give it its true meaning, on Saturday you will have a new King, he will swear that his lineage goes back to Caedwallon and Arthyr why because they can then say that they have a line to the Brythonic Kings of the 5th and 6th Centuries. Plantagenets did the same. Tudors and Stuarts did not have to, their line was already there.
Cerdic - Ceredig(Garadog) Ceawlin - Cynfelyn
We English are Anglo-Celtic. Our germanic forefathers married British women. English dna = Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse/Iberian/Roman
@@GerMFnU1848Sax it’s more complex than that. The movement of Germanic tribes to England has for a long time been viewed as a conquest. Evidence suggests it was more complicated. Saxon mercenaries were employed, but with the departure of the romans, there was a huge skills shortage. It seems Saxon families migrated mostly to farm land as the Romano British were set up to focus on specific tasks. So it may also have been British men marrying Saxon women
It’s true, Cerdic is believed to be of Celtic origin, meaning he was either fully or more likely half-Celtic himself, giving even more evidence of integration.
Absolutely fascinating, thanks for this video. I've often considered that it was the Normans who gave Wales such grief, not the Anglo Saxons. No wonder that so many English people love to learn Welsh and Cornish these days - it is, after all, part of their heritage. Wonderful stuff !
Have you ever heard of Offa's Dyke? Offa was King of Mercia in the 8th century when the kingdom was at the height of its power and dominated the land. He also raided Wales which added to Mercia's vast riches. He ended up building a very long wall of raised embankment on the West Mercian border to stop the Welsh from raiding into Mercia. You can actually visit Offa's dyke today and walk across the entire thing. However it's worth noting that they weren't always at war and sometimes fought together like the Battle of Hatfield chase when Edwin of Northumbria was killed and defeated by an allegiance of Mercian and Welsh armies.
Another excellent treatment of this topic! I imagine the language would also have lasted longest in more isolated communities (e.g. the fens) where there was less regular contact with the Anglo-Saxon elite and growing majority. As cities and towns became more English, nearby villages may have done so as well, but those villages less connected would not have as much. These areas might have been patchworks of surviving Celtic communities and more Anglicised ones. It reminds me of how French died out in most of Louisiana except, for a long time, amongst the Cajuns who had settled in the swamps. Also, as an Anglo-Quebecer, it reminds me of the many isolated Anglophone communities in Quebec interspersed amongst French ones. The situation here is different since these communities tend to be later than the French ones, but it makes a similar patchwork where you sometimes find an Anglo town settled by Scottish lumberjacks in the 1800s surrounded by primarily French towns. Incidentally, a lot of these small Anglo communities are becoming more French as they become more connected to bigger French towns (although Quebec's language policies also have an affect on this).
Thank you, and yes I agree, geographical separation certainly would've played a big role! The Cajun and Quebec examples are super interesting too, so thank you for that. It's interesting how you could compare them to the Britons here too, like the communities in the Fens, or in the Anglo-Saxon (and later Norman-settled Flemish or English) towns that developed near, or in Wales, surrounded by Welsh speaking communities.
In the 1970s in the UK the culture and accents changed every 30 miles or so once you got out of the south East of the country. When my grandfather was talking to his friends I couldn't understand what they were saying. We lived about 35 miles north and east of him so much of the slang I used was different. You sort of had an accepted universal English and a local version that usually sounded more archaic than the universal version. This must have been quite a stark difference back when there were actual different tribes of people though I get an impression local dialects denoted your belonging to an area more than a tribe.
@@CambrianChronicles dialectics are fascinating, the Welsh influence on Merseyside is often overlooked, the FAB 4 all had Irish roots for example although as already mentioned ,John Lennon was reputedly a descendant of Owain Glyndwr, back to the accents though, the Scousers accent only slightly varied from the Clwyd one ..where a lot of folk still commute fo Merseyside as they have done for generations..😊
My grandad has what is known as the fenland drawl, I thought he was American till I was about 10. Now people think I'm American. Accents and dialects a fascinating beast.
In England, most surnames and place-names are Anglo-Saxon. The laws, culture, currency (£), monarchy, all Anglo-Saxon heritage. I call myself Anglo-Celtic
Wake up babe, new Cambrian Chronicles video just dropped
Fascinating. How good to hear this, a more reasoned and far less melodramatic version of history. That the Celts and Anglo-Saxons blended over time makes more sense than that there was constant warfare, though some degree of conflict was inevitable. Fine job, Cambrian Chronicles. Keep up the good (and rigorous) work.
That doesn't explain why there's virtually no Romano Celtic words of phrases in Old English though.
@lovablesnowman old English was a Germanic language with brythonic pronunciations. It was much softer and more sibilant than other Germanic and Nordic languages. spoken at the front of the mouth with much softer "th" sounds. When modern Germans hear old English, they can pick bits out as familiar but are completely baffled by other bits. It's a case of not really understanding how many brythonic languages there were in 5th century England.
What happened in Anglo-Saxon England kind of reminds me of what is happening to the Celts in France right now. Many Bretons have adopted the French language and culture because that is the language of prestige in France right now.
Whereas in the UK in part to devolution over recent decades there's been a resurgence of native languages in Wales/Scotland. Still a lot of regional accents are dying out though.
@@PaulJohn01 the Scousers accent ,here on Merseyside, a hybrid of Irish,Norse and Welsh ,with a smattering of English is still going strong, although the music metropolis of Merseyside aka Ukraine on the river mersey is assimilating Ukrainian as we speak..😊
English in Merseyside has evolved in its own direction now, all those Scots, Welsh and Irish, to say nothing of our Norwegian friends who donated Lobscouse to us...very similar to Irish stew..😊
As for Brittany, the Celtic language has been receding since the 5th century in eastern Brittany. But, the question is, was it Breton or Late Gaulish? There are many words in Breton that are obviously borrowed from Gaulish or Romano Gaulish. In the last 70 years Breton has receded to the far west where there may be as few as 30,000 people (65 yrs +) who still speak it on a regular basis. The younger ones learn a phoney French version of it in schools which has nothing to do with traditional Breton.
Thats also why the English stumble over themselves to use French word like commence, instead of words like begin. It is still happening 900 years after the Norman conquest. Its the same phenomenon, just slower and more diluted.
I’ve seen a Time Team documentary about a village in Yorkshire from the time of the Saxon migrations, which concluded there was no large-scale conquest in the area. It suggested a much more gradual, if still very large migration of Germanic populations to Britain. That lines up very well with the evidence presented here.
Thank you, Yorkshire is super interesting because it also contains the farms that I mentioned (where there's no evidence of any land change, again suggesting a gradual migration). There's also I site somewhere in the north that is theorised to have been occupied by some sort of local ruler, that also doesn't show any major signs of change when the Saxons arrived.
@@CambrianChronicles just returned from deepest Yorkshire, you are right , a much more nuanced story than people realise...😊
This may be West Heslerton, which had a ‘ladder’ formation, ever adding new bits on to one end. Dominic Powlsland (excuse spelling of his name) had been digging it up and writing about it for decades.
@@Joanna-il2ur spot on...😊❤❤
Some of Yorkshire was under the British kingdom of Elmet until around 610AD I think. There is still a few place names with links to Britons and two that have “elmet” in their name such as Barrick-in-Elmet and Sherbun-in-Elmet
Great video. I was wondering where you were going with this but you came up with the explanation that I theorised. Gildas mentioned 5 kings and people wonder why those 5 kings in particular, I think it was never about them committing sins but more because they taxed the citizens of their Kingdoms to the ground. I reckon it’s because the Volcanic winter of 536 AD (which I hope you do a video of soon) affected the Island of Britain so much that these 5 kings just like the Anglo-Saxon leaders taxed these people more than say the other Kingdoms and thus why Gildas condemned them so much in his Ruin and Conquest of Britain.
Thank you! Gildas is super interesting, and indeed his particular choice for the five kings is quite interesting too, I'd love to cover him, and the 536 volcanic winter, sometime in the future.
@@CambrianChronicles that would indeed be very interesting...😊...E
It would also be interesting to cover the climatic variations. Romans enjoyed a relatively warm period. The time from 900AD to 1300AD was also warm. 400AD to 900AD was relatively cold compounded by the volcanic winter of 536.
Yet another very interesting video. Thanks for all the work you put in - diolch yn fawr iawn!
Great video CC, I love the way you're able to gather all of the information you presented earlier in the video together at the end, to bring all points to one solid conclusion.
It can be so valuable to simply take primary sources at their word! It opens so many more possibilities to understanding history.
I love this channel mate. You’re doing a fantastic job! Thank you for all your hard work in producing this great content for us all ❤
Thank you, I really appreciate that!
Totally agree with you on this...😊
I'm from Devon, born and mostly raised, and identify myself as an English Briton of mixed Anglo-Cornish descent (with some Welsh thrown in and, going back far enough, a little Gaelic too) I can speak a few words of Welsh... no Cornish or "Dumnonian" though, sadly. The Celtic people of England definitely *were not* replaced wholesale; we just adopted the language and culture of the new lords... three times over the last couple thousand years! The Romans knew well enough how to absorb conquered peoples and did pretty comprehensive job of it about as far as their roads reached, the Saxons didn't manage it quite so well and the less said about Norman influence the better. Then again, those secondhand Vikings didn't really set out to replace the natives, they just wanted to live in the castles and take all the money, which they DID achieve pretty handily as well.
This shouldn't apply to me since I'm American but speaking for myself in the ancestral perspective most of my ancestors come from the regions called Luitcoyt, Rheged and Glouvia regions of western England. Modern Lancashire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Hereford and Gloucester etc. You want genetically 50%+ Germanic people go to East Anglia, Kent, Essex region. We're basically Britons who's Anglo-Saxon dna comes in touches. Plus additional Welsh last name Pritchett I have.
@@noahtylerpritchett2682 I think it applies pretty well to you actually, given the linguistic and ethnic context of the USA. I don't suppose your earliest recorded ancestors were miners, stonecutters or masons at all? A LOT of "Anglo-Celts" (along with all sorts of Gaels) emigrated to the new world and southern pacific regions during the rise of the Empire.
@@MrMortull I can trace 3000 ancestors multiple many centuries back largely into a variety knights, nobles and aristocrats. Other genealogy of civilians exist. Of course.
Same here. From Texas though. My ancestors are from Cornwall and England. I am Anglo-Celtic
Really interesting video! Sad in a way but history often is. I'm glad that we are delving into our collective history and that it's not been abandoned.
I’m from Hull and I was learning more about my Scottish side and Celtic culture so it’s really cool learning that Hull was/is Celtic too
Glad to see a new upload by you, thank you for the hugely interesting video! I've also read and loved Dr Marc Morris' book, I definitely recommend it to everyone who's interested in the Anglo-Saxons.
Loved this one! As someone who grew up in Cambs/the Fens and went to school at the Ramsey Abbey mentioned, was really fascinating.
As someone who frequently travels around the Therfield- Royston area , this has been very enlightening.
There's a Havelock Street in Cardiff, where I was born and a place called Havelock an hour's drive from where I now reside in Nova Scotia. Old Havelok must've been quite an influence.
the low prestige one is interesting, you can observe the same in China with Chinese where people claim to be fully Han, because the other are seen as inferior. It also influenced historiography for example the Hakka was seen for a long time as completely Han descended, but more modern research in both language and genetics showed that they intermingled with the local tribes and people, creating a mixed people.
Excellent point and backs up my suspicions about Britain!
Hans were actually always governed by others, Mongols, Manchus ...
@@nathan_408 Which is why they've got a chip on their shoulder.
@@nathan_408Let's look at the last four dynasties of Imperial China, from 960 to 1911, about 950 years: Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing. The two foreign dynasties, Yuan (Mongol) and Qing (Manchu) combined to rule for 350 years, while the native (Han) dynasties combined for 600 years. So not only not "always," not even most of the time.
@@drs-xj3pb Northern China has always been under foreign rule: Xianbei, Khitans, Jurchens, Mongols, Manchus.
Manchester was originally called Mamucium, a Latin form of the original (lost) Brittonic Celtic name meaning mother and/or breast (related to a “breast-shaped hill” in the area and possibly a local river goddess). The suffix Chester comes from Latin meaning fort.
Ha! I'm just now realizing chester and castrum / castro are related. In northern Portugal, one can still find plenty of castra remnants where Celts settled and came to resist roman incursions later on. Fascinating!
@@renatopinto3186 Yes, I believe the Welsh have connections in Galicia.
Never got onto that about Manchester. Love it!
Manceinion in Welsh.
Many place names here we claim to be Latin or Anglo-Saxon were actually Celtic originally. Even London, ironically, is probably from a Celtic name for the area. It's sad though because it shows how much the Celts were truly oppressed, which is true. The fact that we're taught Manchester comes from Latin shows this when in fact it came from a "Latin" word BORROWED from Common Brythonic.
Love the choice of paintings - really make me want to go and climb the mountains of the fens!
That was absolutely brilliant. I've been theorising along these lines about Brythonic people for some time now. In my Essex village, we have one Brythonic word still as in 'Pan Lane'. 'Pan' means a basin/hollow/valley and indeed Pan Lane does lead down to a valley.
Indeed - Pant y celyn, Pant Glas, Blaen Pant, for example
Great video. Just as the Celts didnt disappear during the Roman occupation, they didn't during the Saxon occupation either, or even the Norman conquest. These invaders were always in the minority, and ordinary country folk just ignored them. It makes sense that the Celtic spreakers would be driven to the least hospitable places like swamps. We know the ancient Brittonic language split into Cumbric, Manx, Welsh, and Cornish around 550AD. If we imagine that these languages existed up to modern times, there is an argument that Celtic language never died, and is still with is.
There may have been a Brythonic Manx but the Irish took over the island during the early middle ages and modern Manx is derived from middle Irish as is Irish and Gaelic.
We don't have to imagine it. Welsh is alive and kicking.
They didnt just ignore them if they were driven into the swamps....
@@casteretpollux Indeed. I am a learner Welsh speaker ❤️😁
💯 We didn’t die genetically either 😁🙋🏼♀️☘️
Amazing video. I absolutely love this channel!!!
Genuinely excellent video, a mature, academic approach with a well reasoned and evidenced conclusion
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this one, ( I haven't seen the video before posting this) but the Brythonic kingdom of Strathclyde which survived until the 1030s aka 11th century, ruled also the area of what is today Cumbria, of which today this region is inside of England. Therefore doesn't that mean that a substantial population of Britons or at least Brythonic-influenced people in Northern England itself, still spoke this celtic language which before that existed on a wider scale in England, well into the 11th century??
The DNA map of the British Isles would bear this out, Robert the Bruce was as much Gaelic and Brythonic as he was Anglo Norman....E...
But the Lake District had already been under AS rule. When the Vikings smashed Northumbria in the 850s, Strathclyde took it back. The life of St Cuthbert has him visiting Carlisle in 685 at the invitation of the queen, where he saw a Roman fountain still working.
@@eamonnclabby7067 Robert was born in Essex, just outside Chelmsford in the village of Writtle.
@@Joanna-il2ur indeed, but it appears he went native, or Brythonic, or Scots..? fascinating all the same...these Essex boys get everywhere..😅😅
Alistair Moffat, a Scottish writer, writes interesting books on Celtic history and Brythonic language
As a Brythonic Celt from Peran ar Wodhel in Kernew, late a fourth generation Kernew-Ostralek, I admire this video’s content. I’m part of a small group of Kernewek speakers living currently in Japan. Believing one is Celtic is a matter of identity. The language (SWF) is growing again, as is the number of speakers. Lowena Dhis!
😂 A group of Cornish speakers living in Japan. How come? I think I get it Japanese parents think they've enrolled kids in. English classes and unbeknownst you're sipping in Cornish to their impressionable little heads.😊
Trebilco Meur Ras! 😂😂😂
@@robertvictor3058 Dydh da, Robert. Byth na lavar a’n dra!
Nice. what's this in English please?. Y’n dalleth yth esa an Ger, hag yth esa an Ger gans Duw, ha’n Ger o Duw. Yth esa ev y’n dalleth gans Duw. Pup-tra a veu gwrys ganso, ha hebdho ny veu gwrys travyth a veu gwrys. Ynno yth esa bewnans, ha’n bewnans o golow mab-den; ha’n golow a splann y’n tewlder, ha ny wrug an tewlder y fetha.
@@kernowalbion4142 I believe it’s from John 1, as follows: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
Thank you so much for the research you put in
Incredibly interesting videos! Keep up the good work
Very interesting and well done video as always! I think people often see Britain as like one part anglo-saxon and the other part celtic but looking at history and ancestory it's certainly more of a mix. Always fun watching your videos tho man and as someone who is English but is very interested in celtic culture and history this is especially interesting!
Thank you, I agree people tend to see it too binary, I suppose that's because that's what the Victorians wanted English history to be, but also that it provides an easy and simple story.
@@CambrianChronicles Well thanks for showing a more accurate view very interesting indeed!
@@gerrardjones28 I think that the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic issue in England is more complex than thought. And likely more intertwined than we really know. Highlighted by this excellent video. There's even a school of thought that the Saxons and Jute tribes were basically Celtic in their original origin, they just branched off and went a different way when other Celtic tribes maintained Celtism. Unverified but seems plausible.
@@hobi1kenobi112 Susan Oosthuezen alongside linguists on the continent actually believe Old English broke away from continental Germanic far earlier than previously believed. No joke, many of her German colleagues stated that OE was as though people with accents were trying to pronounce Germanic words lol. Your theory has more legs than you know!
@@jackwhitehead5233 seconded....
Your videos are so informative, diolch yn fawr ❤️
Croeso!
Slainte...could not resist a wee bit of Gaelic...😊😊
A thumbs up from me for being informative and entertaining. Bravo .
This channel is so fascinating
Wow, I noticed that the events in which the last Celts of England were involved are so similar to what happened in Lombardy where the Cisalpine Gauls, after the fall of Rome, were invaded by migrant Langobards and then, as time went on, they started interbreeding and so they gave birth to modern Lombards.
Awesome video. Discovering your channel has been the best thing that happened to me. I love history.
Linguistics, history, sociology, genealogy - thank you so much for this fantastic story, man ❤️
Excellent video, cant wait to see more.
It is interesting that some of the last Anglo-Saxon England's resistance to the Normans took place in the same Fenland under Hereward the Wake. Perhaps the impenetrability of the area made it conducive to hold-outs? It also implies that a separate English/British identity there may not have survived to 1066.
Very well presented. Thank you.
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it
Thank you for making content that is intensely interesting and very well presented.
Thanks you for watching!
Fascinating stuff great video as always
Thank you!
Always interesting to hear about Celtic tribes (and this is coming from a stay behind Saxon from Northwest Germany) and I'm curious about continental Celtic tribes and how they related and had contacts to the insular ones as well.
The Brythonic language did not have the Welsh 'll' [ɬ] sound. The description of Brythonic as "sibilant" is much more likely to refer to the high frequency of [s] in Brythonic as well as other fricatives like [θ ð x]. The fact that [ɬ] is found only in Welsh (and not Cornish, Breton, or Cumbric (as far as we know)) means the earliest it could have developed was in the Old Welsh period (800AD-early 12th Century).
This is very true!
True. And furthermore, Old English DID have it - spelt 'lh'
@@worship-under-edge7992 No. Old English had a voiceless L which was only an allophone of /l/ found after /h/ (which would have been realised as [x]). It was written not , e.g. hlāf [(x)l̥ɑːf] 'loaf'. It was never pronounced as [ɬ].
@@entwistlefromthewho That's interesting! It's not whatI was taught - er - rather a long time ago, but scholarship moves on, obviously. Does that apply to all the A-S 'digraphs' - hw, sc, etc - that they were actually consonant clusters, and not conventional spellings of non-latin sounds? (And what was I thinking of! lh indeed!)
Icelandic had the sound in the greeting seall.
Thank you good theory. I look forward to more evidence coming forward from other sources. It is fascinating.
thankyou for your scintillating effort
You're welcome! Thank you for the new word
@@CambrianChronicles i learnt that word from douglas adams when i was 13 (the author of the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy) greetings from down under, down under
Great video, really interesting about the East of England areas… One thing, and I am sure I remember reading this somewhere, is that there were still Welsh speakers in parts of Shropshire in Elizabethan times, which is even more recent than most of information here…is this correct?
Amazing video, thank you! I would be thrilled if some day you could cover the history of Brittany and it's relation to this whole thing
Oui! Ce serait fort intéressant ! Mais très long!
Just to develop a little bit, I know you mention it sometimes, and I m glad. In this video for example, the migration of the clergy class to the west and then across the sea to Brittany could have been an interesting point too. It's hard to find ressources in french about it, I feel there was a lot more research done on the other side of the channel, and I m thankful you are sharing it with us. I think it is still a niche that is left to be filled on KZhead, and would be interesting for all your viewers.
@@mathieuleperson836 then there was Alan of Richmond, in the Pennines, installed by William the Conqueror 😊😊
Alan was a Breton, as apparently was my own 'Norman ' ancestor Ralph Grammaticus who took the name Featherstone after he married the Saxon/Danish lady of the Manor of Featherstone in Yorkshire. He was the boteiller or butler of the Norman Lord Ilbert de Lacy of Pontefract Castle.
Incredible as usual! 🤘
Thank you!
I was born in Ely, I hear about the graves but never knew about the mixed peoples! Thank you, great video.
The Anglo-Saxons migration to Britain resembles analogous to Arab migrations. Where massacres sometimes occur and conquests definitely occur but without the displacement of a local population. That's my analogy. Take Southern Mesopotamia and Jordan, Arab colonization amounts to a few slaughters but largely the Arab migrants assimilated rather than eliminated the local Chaldean and Canaanite/Edomite population. Likewise in England a few massacres would mean not much as it's still not a full-scale genocide. The colonization was strongly restricted to the coast while Anglo-Saxon conquerors massacred some settlements but largely assimilated the populace. Meaning there wasn't a pure 100% genetic replacement. Any massacre that would occur was on the basis of clan or tribe of Britons, and not a blanket Lebensraum type genocide of Britons by the Anglo-Saxons, Similar to how a few Chaldean clans and Canaanite clans in Jordan and Southern Iraq got their tribes killed off but the Arabs didn't blanket slaughter the ethnicity. Rather leaving the conquered tribes alone.
You can see this plainly in terms of phenotypes in the middle east especially. While Assyrians as an independent cultural group in Iraq might be a tiny minority, the local "Sunni Arabs" in the same area are nearly indistinguishable from them.
@@vespiary2066 I used to have a Shia ex from Baghdad. She resembles Assyrian or Babylonian ethnics or even Mizrahim Levantine Jews easily but she looks nothing Arabic from the peninsula. The closest could be Tamini or Shammari two very light skin hazel eyed Arab tribes from the peninsula.
a massacre of britons is recorded in my town
@@gwynedd4023 massacres towards Britons was probably common. But not genocidally organized enough to ever change the demographic significantly. I can name more massacres and murders in the US towards non whites with a larger impact than the rampages In Britain.
@@noahtylerpritchett2682 oh
Ah, this is interesting as my I come from Lincolnshre and I've traced my family back there over about 400 years. When I had a couple of DNA tests (Anc and 23) they both came back with a lot of scandi (including my y hapologroup) but another site has pegged my non-scandi part of my DNA as being closest to modern day Wales. I've been puzzled by this for a while but now it makes a little more sense. Thank you.
You give the same vibes as Historia Civilis but somehow more chill. I really enjoy your videos, keep them up! Also make a Patreon!
Haha thank you, I might make one sometime soon if people are interested in supporting me, I'll have to think of good perks first though
Very well researched and presented, thank you.
Thank you!
In the translation i read Guthlac, being an aristocrat, when his families star fell low, was exiled amongst the Britons, thereby learning the language, secondly Bede is known as the venomous Bede because of his wilfull ignorance of Britons who lived around him and in history. Thirdly have you ever heard of yan tan tethera? A celtic counting system spoken from Lincolnshire to Scotland even today! Check it out!
Isn't it the Venerable Bede then?
@@mitchamcommonfair9543 no, though he is venerated as the father of history in some circles others regard him as the father of lies.
Yes I've heard of yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pym! I'm from West Yorkshire. A branch of my family is called Featherstone from the town in South Yorkshire and it gets its name from Pethera stone meaning four stones as there used to be an ancient stone monument there made from four stones.
Large parts of the East Riding around Hull spent most of the year as marsh and fen. With lots of Celtic influence still in the area, I'm sure you're correct. With both Scots/Irish and Brythonic/British lineage I find this intriguing. Rightly or wrongly, I've started calling this place Deira again. Cheers
Just found you today and now binge watching all of your videos, extremely well researched
Thank you! I'm really glad you're enjoying them
Some fascinating evidence from eastern England - thank you.
Weird, last week I was roughing out an idea for a conlang, the idea for it was a late surviving Brythonic language on an island in the fens of eastern England, more or less exactly where the first tale takes place. Had no idea that it basically did happen.
Can you make a video on Merlin, his origin, if he was based on Myrrdin Walt and if Myrrdin/Merlin was a historical person or not?
Merlin, like 95% of the Arthur legend, is just a story. He was a mad man who ran into a forest.
@@lifeschool he pops up in a few tales of haunted wirral by ,Tom Sleman,
@@eamonnclabby7067 - :) I mean from contemporary sources from 400-800AD.
What a wonderful programme
Thank you!
Amazing my friend i appreciate you.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
It's an absolutely fascinating topic, though it's a shame we have so little to go on. My family have always been Welsh, even going back to the Welsh Princes of the kingdoms of Gwynedd & Powys but it is really interesting to learn about Britons outside of Wales or Ireland.
John Lennon might be a distant relative, given his reputed links to Owain Glyndwr...😊😊
@@eamonnclabby7067 Really? I'd never heard that but it's a cool potential very distant relative to have. Thanks for sharing!
Irish people were Gaelic not Britons. The two groups are quite distinct from each other, even if they also had much in common.
love the vid!
Thank you!
I was suprised to see a painting of my street in Crickhowell in this video from around 12.45
I saved this vid in to my queue by reading only the title. At the end, when the red dragon of Cadwalleder appeared on screen, I was going to recommend a really good channel I'd just discovered here on YT, with an article on that very dragon but as I scrolled down to the comments section to leave my opinion I passed by this channel's name & realized....... this channel was _the_ channel I was going to recommend!
Due to our locaton on the marches I know one or two my Ancestors were Angles. Titta was the name and I believe he founded Titley and Tittenley. But they intermarried with the local Welsh. In fact although am born in England I have at least 8 Welsh names on both Sides. Strangely after thinking my Dads side more English turns out his side show a very mixed heritage. Being from Shropshire and villages a walk from the border, not surprising maybe! I am going to study the border towns more and need to track down where in Wales we were from (closest villages are Titley and Melverly).
Very enjoyable, thank you for the good work 👏 Like deployed 👍
Thank you!
Really interesting thank you. As someone with roots and an old Cornish name, that pre dates the Norman invasion, until it seems to have became "Normanised" under William I. I now live between St Ives and Ramsey where the Bishop of Ely's palace was situated and would have never thought Brythonic was possibly spoken here at such a late date?
I think I commented this from my old account also, but I want to ad a parallell from our common Germanic history. In Sweden (and Scandinavia as a whole) we used the Futhark Rune alphabet during our common history. While it became "extinct" in high society already during the 1000's, the last preserved rune carvings are from the late 1800's in Dalarna, central Sweden. It's an inscription with insignificant actual meaning, but carved by a milk maid. This shows that the common people through all of history have been the ones to actually preserve and cherish the ancient knowledge - in this case on how to use runes to communicate. We didn't get public schools until 1848 in Sweden, so knowledge of the runes were relegated to the lower classes for almost a thousand years after they fell out of fashion with the rulers of our country. This is an amazing feat and I really want to emphasize how much I love this often forgotten but oh so valuable contribution from the people that actually counts.
Just look at the place names in the North of England; Pen y Ghent, Penines, Helfellyn, and Derwent which is derived from Derwen which is Welsh for Oak.
Darwin in Lancashire, Derry in Scotland and Ireland...😊
Any place name with Coome ( Cwm, Valley) or even Morecambe perhaps (mor = sea and cambe = valley? ). Cumbria is littered with Welsh sounding place names as your examples Howard. Thinking about it though Cumbria - Cymru, similar? I'm not an academic but I find this whole subject very interesting.
@@eamonnclabby7067 ah yes Darwin, live near there near where my family originated from there (by a couple towns away) , they had brythonic celt origins.
5:29 as someone from grimsby, you are honestly not even wrong
Big up the Grimsby massive! ❤🎉
@@hobi1kenobi112 Grimsby FC ..Danish Vikings...Tranmere Rovers here on the wirral..Hiberno Norse Vikings, Wirral archeologists re examined the Viking longship underneath the Railway pub in Meols...😊😊
Your videos are amazing. Ive always loved this kind of history but its not taught in schools and rarely found on TV
I love that aside "Buying a house was much better back then."
It might not mean anything, or be helpful, but there are three places in close proximity to one another in South Yorkshire. They are called Wales, Wales Bar and Waleswood.
Yorkshire was an interesting Celtic stronghold for a long time. The kingdom of Elmet was roughly centered on where West Yorkshire is and may have taken in part of South Yorkshire. (The Elmet name still maintains into today.) Author Simon Keegan has found some pretty compelling evidence that a less romanticised King Arthur existed and came from the Elmet/Pennine/Lancs area. The ancient people of what is now modern Wales had links to the Old North and vice versa, and there was interplay between these two regions as Celtic strongholds. There are several Brythonic place names in Yorkshire and Cumbria. There's a possible clan connection from Elmet to Wales as well. Interesting stuff and shows that ancient Britain was possibly more entwined regionally than we seem to be nowadays!
@@hobi1kenobi112 The King in the North by Max Adam's,vividly described the British Isles of 400 to 700 AD ,featuring Saint / King Oswald,who Tolkein based Aragorn on....Oswald lived his exile among my forebears in the ancient sea kingdom of Dalriata...😊
@@hobi1kenobi112 Standish outside Wigan was reputedly a battle site between Arthur and the incoming Angles...
I love the sprinkling in of humour! 🎉
Great video! Very interesting subject
Thank you!
I was greatly surprised to find out that me, as an Englishmen, has a roughly equal mix of Scottish, English and Irish DNA - with Scottish being the highest I had thought I'd be easily 75+% English This has greatly changed my perception of who I am and is still something I'm thinking about
Lucky you - almost a Scot.
Which dna company was it? They're not all reliable
Great video. I often wonder about place names in my region (south London/Surrey) that apparently recall the Britons - Walworth, Wallington, Walton-on-Thames - and in what sense they were originally meant. Were these surviving communities of Brythonic speakers or Anglo-Saxon speakers resettling previously inhabited sites and acknowledging the prior inhabitants? Lots of interesting stuff in the video to keep me wondering!
It's unlikely the Anglo-Saxons would have named things in honour of the Britons in their absence. Walworth means farm of the Briton(s) so is an example of an active farm that was owned by a Briton. This is an example then of a local landowner who was a Briton because they wouldn't have named the farm after the farm workers. It seems Wallington was originally another Walton type name. Maybe the locals began to pronounce it Wallington to sound more English as -ing was a suffix used by Anglo-Saxons to mean 'people of...'.
No wonder I support MillWall
Nice video as always
Thank you!
Interesting video! Not a historian but a paper based this should be worthy of publication. On wikipedia I see a mention of a placename argument for late survival of Welsh in the Fens. With these late accounts of Welsh speakers in that area, we have two bodies of evidence supporting late survival of Welsh in the Fen area.
There are a few Brythonic place names around the Fens, the largest would probably be King's Lynn, with "lynn" coming from the Brythonic "Llyn" meaning "lake".
Old English itself was subjected to the prestige model, with Norman French out representing old English in modern English
No it doesn't. That is just wrong.
@@harrynewiss4630 French origin words make up 29% of the English language lexicon, whereas Germanic (old English) contributes 26%. The other major contributors are Latin at 29%, Greek at 6% and a further 10% are a miscellaneous bunch of words; Persian, Hindi so on and so forth. There are even Brythonic elements to be found in the mix. The data is available online should you care to look. Don’t forget that the official state language of England; that of its elite class, for 500 years was French. It’s nothing to be ashamed of or to be in denial about. No one language exists in total isolation. Except Klingon, obvs.
@@TreforTreforgan You said Norman French. That is wrong. Most French words came into English a long time after the conquest, from other French dialects. Middle English texts from the 12th and early 13th century are often very light on French borrowings.
@@harrynewiss4630 is it wrong to suggest that the Normans brought the French language into England, thus affecting the constituent parts of the English language spoken today? I think not.
@@TreforTreforgan Now try reading my post again and see if you can understand why I corrected you.
Wonderful video from one of my favourite channels. I’ve heard that the Cornish language survived in Devon as well as Cornwall for a while. If so how long did the Cornish language last in Devon before being erased from the area?
I'm not sure how long it lasted in Devon unfortunately, it was probably for a while after the area was conquered, like other parts of England, but I'm unsure of an exact estimate
I'd presume it would have been similar to the other areas mentioned here continuing at least partially until the 11th century; Loose evidence/Records seems to indicate that potentially Anglo-saxon rule had taken over devon around ~700ad, however this may have been reclaimed with mentions of the britons causing the destructions of a castle in taunton. Some sources seemed to presumed that a kind of peace/truce would have lasted until ~800ad. In that time it would prob make sense that whilst in briton rule it may still have had anglo-saxon migration occurring into the area. One thing of note is that Devon does retain quite a lot of Celtic placenames, though quite a few are anglicised. Also referring to this video regarding language class; once devon had transitioned from speaking predominately brythonic they would have actually considered their neighbours in the same way as outsiders or slightly lower class. Though this could all be incorrect :D This is just based on trying to read up various other historians on devonian history; quite often with conflicting ideas.
@@CambrianChronicles Apparently there was one little corner in South Hams during and beyond the reign of Edward the First. That they probably traded with people in Brittany is why their language lasted longer.
I went to college in Exeter and heard that there once was a British quarter there. Also that Bristol gets its name from Bristow, meaning the British enclosure and there were Brythonic speakers in the marshes of Athenley in King Alfred's time and they helped him hide until he was ready to face the Vikings in battle. So the woman whose cakes he burnt will have been a Briton!
Good summary of the evidence, a fascinating subject and a good video. Just a clarification, the fens were not, by and large, a wild swamps but a highly managed food production system that existed with little change from at least Roman times up until the enclosures of common land. Dr Sarah Oosthuizen in her book Anglo Saxon Fenland explores this. (Some of my ancestors were from the fens so I have an interest in the subject!)
never new my home county of lincolnshire had some much celtic history. very cool to hear about