More news on the Quest

Those of you who have read my book The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone will know that I have identified the king Evelake mentioned in The Quest for the Holy Grail as an English rendition of the Welsh name Afallach which I translate as Mistletoe (literally the lash of the apple-tree) - the symbol of the Celtic God Lud.  Today I found another mention of him in an ancient life of the Celtic saint Carantoc or Carannog (associated with Cornwall and Crantock but Welsh-born in Ceredigion).  The life contains an encounter between Carantoc and King Arthur which is almost certainly an old Druid myth relating to the God rather than the King although it is possible that the reference of a grant of land to Carantoc's church does refer to the real King.  But what caught my eye was the genealogy listed for the saint  in which he is listed as  the son of Ceredig the King of Ceredigion who is son of Cunedda, son of Ederyn, son of Padarn peis Rudawg, son of Tegid, son of Kain, son of Gwrgain, son of Doli, son of Gwrdoli, son of Dwfri, son of Gwrddofri, son of Amguoloid, son of Enwerydd, son of Onwedd, son of Dwfr, son of Brithgwern son of Owain, son of Afallach, son of Canalech, son of Beli and his mother was Anna who they say was a cousin [kinswoman/descendant] of the Virgin Mary.

The first section is the real genealogy and ancestry of Carantoc but in the section in bold italics we are into the realms of a mythical/religious past.  I had Owain down as a son of Bran (a water god) because that is how he is referred to in The Quest for the Holy Grail but here he is identified as the son of Lud/Afallach who is a sun/sky god. I have no idea who Canalech is, I have never come across this name before but Beli is one of the Trinity of Gods (jointly with his wife Don) and is the God who is the owner of the Sword of Truth, the judge of sinners.  What is also interesting from the point of view of my thesis that the Christian and Druid churches merged in the mid-fifth century is the fact that Carantoc's genealogy links him mythically not only with the Druid gods but also with the Christian church through his supposed descent through his mother from the Virgin Mary.  This clearly indicates the dual nature of the early Celtic Church so its quite an exciting discovery.

Grail Quest - another twist in the trail

In my book The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone I put forward the theory that the Christian version of the book was perhaps written by St Dyfrig but I now think I may have been mistaken.  In my last blog I mentioned the fact that the role of 'Keeper of the Book' was hereditary and in assuming that for monks this meant it passed from spiritual father to spiritual son I traced it back through Saints Illtud and Cadoc to Dyfrig.  However further research has revealed that Cadoc and Illtud were not of the School of Dyfrig as I had assumed.  Cadoc was tutored from the age of seven by Tathan (St Athan), an Irish contemporary of Dyfrig and so was of his school at St Athans, Glamorgan or Swent near Chepstow.  Illtud was trained by Cadoc and so is a scholar of his school at Llancarfan.  Applying the hereditary principle therefore it would seem that the originator of the Christian version of The Sword in the Stone was Tathan rather than Dyfrig.  He is also of the right age and location to fit the profile of the Christian writer. Having said that since there is no firm evidence to link the book to either of them directly any identification must remain speculative.

Quest for the Holy Grail

Regular readers of this column will know that I have embarked on my own Quest to find out who wrote The Quest for the Holy Grail.  I have have come up with three pieces of useful evidence which don't quite crack the case but get us closer to the answer and may help some of the other Grail-seekers out there.

The protector of the Book of Armagh was known as the Maor na Canoine or The Keeper of the Book. I mention in The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone that Saints Illtud and Cadoc are described as The Keepers of the Grail.  It follows then that I am correct in assuming that this means not the keepers of the cup but the keepers of the book which tells the story of Grail Quest.  The position in Ireland was hereditary so it also follows that they inherited the book rather than wrote it themselves taking the provenance back a generation so I am still reasonably convinced that the original Christian author was Dyfrig or one of his school.

A further piece of evidence to back up my claim that the book tells the story of a merger between the Christian and Druid churches in the mid fifth century comes from the Iolo manuscript which tells us that Illtud's foundation at Llantwit Major was divided into nine cells or colleges.  One of these was named after St David who must be a late arrival as he was a pupil of Illtud's school (their most illustrious so not surprising he had a college named after him).  However the other eight are quite illuminating.  Four are named after the four Christian Gospel writers - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but the other four have Welsh names - Arthur, Morgan, Eugain and Amwn.  These four I surmise are the four principal Druid authorities - the original writers of The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone which is in four parts.  The first part tells us the origins of The Sword of Truth and The Ship of Faith and the very early history of Britain.  The second tells us the story of Balin and Balan.  The third section is the familiar story of The Sword in the Stone and the last is the story The Quest for the Holy Grail.   The names Arthur and Morgan are of course also the names of Celtic deities but in this case, given the symmetry of the names, I think these are writers named after the gods rather than referring to the deities themselves.  Both names have always been very popular in Wales. 

The names indicate a fifty-fifty division between the two churches suggesting a merger rather than a takeover or wholesale conversion.

My final clue - not really evidence as it relies on a tradition rather than a document - is that there is a story that Merlin was born near Carmarthen in 480 AD.  This seems a remarkably precise and rather late date for the arrival of the Celtic God but it does fit the timeline for the production of the book or perhaps a copy of it.  The principal saint who lived near Carmarthen is St Teilo who was one of Dyfrig's scholars trained by him at Henllan which puts him in the frame.

There still remains the question of which Christian writer did the rewrite to produce the text we have now but it does give us a very good provenance for the book.  I think we can say with some confidence where it originated and name at least some of the people who had a hand in it.

Bed burials evidence of double monasteries?

Having looked through some of the archaeology, admittedly rather briefly at this stage, I have formed the theory that the 13 bed burials discovered in Britain are possible evidence of double monasteries (ie male and female residents) run by a woman.  They are scattered across the country and several have been found in the East which gives the lie to the idea taught to me in school that on the arrival of the Saxons in the East the Brits all upped sticks and moved to the West.  These settlements are British not Saxon although they may have included Saxons among their number.  The key features I am looking for are

• a bed burial
• other Christian Druid symbolism eg the cross found at Trumpington, the coins found at Street House, glass beads indicating the woman may have been holding a rosary, orientation of the graves
• mixed burials - double houses were for both men and women
• a British settlement nearby as at Collingbourne and Coddenham - the servants and tenants of the monastery would not live within the enclosure but a couple of miles away
• is the cemetery within an Iron Age enclosure - this is the case at Coddenham and Street House and fits the pattern of monastic foundation within the Celtic Church
• does the cemetery end use around 700 AD? - this seems to be the case with most of them and is most illuminating - after the Synod of Whitby the double monasteries were closed, moved to wholly Christian sites and segregated - the women Abbots who had been accorded equality within the Celtic Church were downgraded by the Roman Catholic Church to an inferior status - one explanation for the bed burials is that there was no precedent for the funeral of a woman Abbot or Bishop so they invented one marking their high status

One outcome of this research is that I can refine the date of The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone slightly as somewhere between 454 AD and 650 AD but as all the burials are around 650 AD possibly it is later than I thought.  However there is a cemetery at Great Chesterford which fits the bill which is dated between 450 and 600 AD, precisely my period, and it will be interesting to see what evidence if any turns up there which might bring the dating of the book forward again.  Lots to think about!

Coddenham bed burial

Further to my investigation into Anglo-Saxon bed burials and my theory that they are not in fact Saxon at all but Christian Druid burials of the early Celtic Church I have looked into two more and again found tantalising tangible links to The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone. Very enticing is the burial at Coddenham in Suffolk.  Here the cemetery was unknown until its discovery during investigation of an Iron Age site - so another link between the burials and the re-use of Iron Age/Druid sites.  50 burials were discovered dated to the latter part of the 7th century/early 8th century through the discovery of coins of that date on the site making the dating pretty certain.  They lay around a probable prehistoric barrow and barrows were raised over 3 of the burials. This raises a question mark over whether they were Saxon.  I would respectfully suggest not.  Saxons went in for cremation not burials and it is unlikely they would choose to site a cemetery on an old Iron Age site. The bed burial indicates that the body was laid on a bed inside a wooden chamber over which there was a 'curved wooden cover' reminiscent of the cabin of a ship of the period.   A high-status woman certainly and probably a religieuse as she is being sent to eternal rest in a replica of the cabin of the Ship of Faith although there seem to be no other Christian objects among the grave goods apart from beads which might be the remnants of a rosary.  Nevertheless there is something which points up the dangers of identifying these cemeteries too closely as Anglo-Saxon per se.  A pendant is among the grave goods reusing a Frankish gold coin of Dagobert 1 suggesting that at least some of those buried in the cemetery are not Saxons but Franks.  The Celtic Church, despite the name we give to it, was a broad church embracing all ethnicities and by the late 7th century there were a large number of Columban monasteries on Frankish territories (see my book Columbanus: Poet, Preacher, Statesman, Saint for the spread of the Celtic Church in Europe).  The Coddenham site again reveals some evidence linking it to the Sword story and to a British rather than a Saxon provenance.  At Collingbourne Ducis in Wiltshire there were few grave goods but the archaeologists do note that the fact that the cemetery contains burials rather than cremations suggests a strong British influence pointing to a nearby settlement which was occupied at the same time.  Further investigations are called for but I do think there is enough to suggest a re-assessment of these sites is called for.  My detective work continues...

Street House Bed Burial

Following up the Trumpington Meadow discovery (see earlier blog) I decided to do a bit more research into the other Anglo Saxon bed burials discovered in the UK to see if there is any more tangible evidence to back up my theory set out in The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone that there was a merger between Druids and Christians in 454 AD.  My first stop is at Street House in Teeside where excavations within an Iron Age enclosure produced the discovery of a cemetery including a bed burial. 

The archaeologists conclude the east-west orientation of the graves and the symbolism on the bracteates, coins and pendants they also discovered suggest the deceased were Christian but they are puzzled as to why the cemetery is within an Iron Age/pagan enclosure.  I can answer that.  In the two centuries between 454 AD and the Synod of Whitby at the end of the seventh century it was the common practice for Christian Druid monasteries of the Celtic Church to be set up using Iron Age sites - Finian in Ireland for example used an Iron Age fort and Columbanus continued the practice on the continent but there using Roman forts changing the shape of a monastic settlement from circular to rectangular or square.  Partly this was practical but it was also a visible sign of the collaboration between Christian and Druids. The lack of Iron Age artefacts is accounted for by the fact that the new religious occupants would have cleared away any military detritus as unsuitable for a Christian settlement. I note that they also mention that the site was in use between 650 and 700.  In other words after the Synod of Whitby the monastery was moved away from a pagan/druid site to a site that was wholly Christian breaking with the idea of continuous occupation. 

 Among the coins the archaeologists found were a number were of reused coins of the Corieltauvi tribe dated AD43 which had clear Christian symbolism engraved into them.  The date is significant.  According to The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone Christianity comes to Britain independently of Rome being brought by Joseph of Arimathea directly from the Holy Land.  Whether Joseph of Arimathea was personally concerned or not the book gives us a date.  Christianity comes to Britain around AD40.  The coins indicate the date at which Christianity arrived in the north-east which is perhaps why they are to be found among the burials.  This is exciting because the archaeology again backs up the documentary evidence of the book. 

St Patrick's Day

To celebrate St Patrick's Day the Daily Mail reports that an expert in ancient and medieval history from Cambridge University, has asserted that St Patrick, whose father was a Decurion, a Roman tax collector, was not captured and taken to Ireland as a boy-slave as he claimed but that he emigrated to avoid becoming a tax collector. 

Patrick was born around 390 AD and Roman rule was abandoned when he was about twenty so it's likely this career was in any case closed to him before he reached maturity.  Was his story of the slave shepherd boy who received his calling while watching his flocks by night  invented by the saint himself.  This may well be true.  Aside from Patrick's own account there is no reason to believe he ever went to Ireland prior to taking up the post of Bishop there in 432 AD.  What we do know is that he studied at the monastery of Lerins on the French Riviera where he would have been influenced by the monastic ideals of John Cassian and then at the monastery of Auxerre under St Germanus.  Auxerre is very interesting as it seems to be the focus of a movement to create an independent church in northern Gaul and Britain.  Patrick's pupil, Dubronius or Dyfrig, who is my prime suspect as the author of The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone, also trained at Auxerre. 

The collapse of the Roman Empire meant that Gaul was ruled by the Franks - whose name means free people - who had never been subject to Roman rule.  The same was true of the Irish and the Romans had abandoned the Britons in 410 AD.  You have to remember that at this time the Pope was only one of five patriarchs all answerable to the Emperor in Constantinople.  To the people of northern Europe the Roman Catholic Church was highly suspect.  Having thrown off the yoke of the Roman Empire they had no desire to be indirectly ruled from Constantinople through the dictates of the Roman Church. 

Patrick came to Britain on two preaching tours with St Germanus. On the second tour while in Britain they heard that Palladius the Bishop of Ireland had died.  Patrick immediately went to Ireland and took over his position.  This is interesting because in the first place he was not the first person to bring Christianity to Ireland or attempt to establish the church there.  Secondly Palladius was a Metropolitan Bishop.  Patrick had been trained in monasteries - monks were not necessarily priests and were outside the episcopalian system.  How then did he manage to get himself appointed Bishop of Ireland?  This would normally have been an appointment in the gift of the Pope.  It is entirely possible that Patrick did invent the story of his days as a slave in Ireland and his mystical calling on the hillside to justify taking over the position of Palladius without authorisation.  After all a divine appointment trumps one even by the Pope. 

However there is a slight suggestion that his story may not have been entirely baloney.  At Caermead, just outside Llantwit Major in South Wales, there are the remains of a Roman villa.  Excavations in 1888 uncovered the skeletons of forty-three humans and three horses and evidence of burned masonry suggesting that the estate was attacked by Irish raiders in the fourth century and its inhabitants massacred backing up Patrick's story of abduction by Irish raiders.  Was this villa at Caermead Patrick's birthplace?  His place of birth is uncertain but it would explain why in 500 AD a decade or so after his death, Illtud chose to site his great monastery beside the ruins of the villa.

Whether Patrick's story of his early life is true or not all of us in the British Isles, not just in Ireland, owe a great debt to this wandering scholar.  Llanilltud Fawr, as it should be properly known, became one of the great centres of scholarship in the early middle ages and sent its scholars out across Europe challenging imperial power and changing the way we think and our ideas about who we are.

Happy St Patrick's Day.