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History of the Theosophical Society in Wales

Chronology of Wales and the Celtic Tradition

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Since the beginnings of the Theosophical Society within Wales, Welsh Theosophists have had a strong interest in Celtic Mysticism and Traditions. It is hoped that this Chronology of Welsh and Celtic cultural history will provide a helpful resource for study.

1000 BC: The Iron Age

It was not until the time of the Romans that written history began in and about Britain. For information on the earliest settlements, we have to look to our archaeologists. From them we learn that by 1000 BCE, the Iron Age proper had arrived in what is now Wales where its people grouped themselves into large hill forts for protection; practiced mixed, settled farming, but also worked extensive copper mines. Many of these impressive hill forts remain in Wales, some of

them, such as Tre'r Cewri atop Yr Eifl Mountain in Gwynedd (North Wales), were still occupied during the Roman invasions in the first century CE. Advanced metalworking seems to have been introduced as a result of contact with the Halstatt culture of Austria, from an area near present-day Saltzburg. This culture

itself had benefited from contact with others in the Mediterranean area, whose use of the symbols and patterns so characteristic of Celtic design, is named La Tene, after a village on the shores of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland.

700-500 BCE: The Arrival of the Celts.

(There was an earlier Celtic migration to the British Isles Circa 1200 -1000 BCE. This group is often referred to a Gaelic and spoke Goidelic, a language that evolved into Scots, Irish and Manx Gaelic)

It was at this time that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain, probably introduced by small groups of migrants who became culturally dominant in their new homelands, and whose culture formed part of a great unified Celtic "empire" encompassing many different peoples all over Northern Europe. The Greeks called these people, with their organized culture and developed social structure Keltoi, the Romans called them Celtai. In spite of the fact that they were perhaps the most powerful people in much of Europe in 300 BCE, with lands stretching from Anatolia in the East to Ireland in the West, the Celts were unable to prevent intertribal warfare. Their total lack of political unity, despite their fierceness in battle, ultimately led to their defeat and subjugation by the much-better disciplined armies of Rome. Even the Celtic languages on Continental Europe eventually gave way to those stemming from Latin. But in Britain, at least for a few hundred years after the Roman victories on mainland Europe, the Celts held on to much of their customs and especially to their distinctive language which has survived today as Welsh. The language of most of what is now England and Wales was derived from a branch of Celtic known as Brythonic: it later gave rise to Welsh, Cornish and Breton (these differ from the Celtic languages derived from Goidelic, namely Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx). Along with the new languages, new religions entered Britain, particularly that of the Druids, the guardians of traditions and learning. The Druids glorified the pursuits of war, feasting and horsemanship. They controlled the calendar and the planting of crops, and they presided over the religious festivals and rituals that honored local deities. Thus they constituted the first target for the invading Roman legions.

43-383 AD: Roman Britain

The first invasion of the British Isles (Britannia) by the Romans took place in 55 BC under Julius Caesar, but it did not lead to any significant occupation. He had some interesting, if biased comments concerning the native inhabitants. "All the Britons," he wrote, "paint themselves with woad, which gives their skin a bluish color and makes them look very dreadful in battle" ("De Bello Gallico").

It was not until a hundred years later, following an expedition ordered by the Emperor Claudius, that a permanent settlement of the grain-rich eastern territories of Britain began in earnest. From their bases in what is now Kent, the Roman armies began a long, arduous and perilous series of battles with the native Celtic tribes, first victorious, next vanquished. But as on the Continent,

superior military discipline and leadership, aided by a carefully organized system of forts connected by straight roads, led to the triumph of Roman arms. It was not long before a great number of large, prosperous villas were established all over Britain, but especially in the Southeast and Southwest.

The villas testified to the rapidity by which Britain became Romanized, for they functioned as centers of a settled, peaceful and urban life. They are mostly found in present-day England. Mountainous Wales and Scotland were not as easily settled; they remained "the frontier" -- lands where military garrisons were strategically placed to guard the Northern and Western extremities of the Empire. Smaller forts were constructed to protect the Roman copper, tin, lead and gold mines that most certainly utilized native labor. In what is now Wales, the Romans were awestruck by their first sight of the druids. The historian Tacitus described them as being "ranged in order, with their hands uplifted, invoking the gods and pouring forth horrible imprecations" ("Annales"). The fierce resistance of the tribes in Wales meant that two out of the three Roman legions in Britain were stationed on the Welsh borders. Two impressive Roman fortifications remain to be seen: Isca Silurium (Caerleon) with its fine ampitheatre, in Gwent /Monmouthshire (South Wales); and Segontium, (Caernarfon), in Gwynedd (North Wales). Though the Celtic tongue survived as the medium of everyday speech, Latin was being used mainly for administrative purposes.

Many loan words entered the native vocabulary, and these are still found in modern-day Welsh. Today's visitors to the principality are surprised to find hundreds of place names containing Pont (bridge), while ffenest (window), pysgod (fish), milltir (mile), melys (sweet or honey), cyllell (knife), ceffyl (horse), perygl (danger), eglwys (church), and many others attest to Latin influence. Rome, of course, became Christianized with the conversion of Constantine in 337, and thanks to the missionary work of Martin of Tours in Gaul and the edict of 400 AD that made Christianity the only religion of the Empire, the people of Britain quickly adopted the new religion.

The old Celtic gods had to slink off into the mountains and hills to hide, reappearing fitfully and almost apologetically only in the poetry and myths of later ages.

400-600: The Saxon Invasions.

When the city of Rome fell to the invading Goths under Alaric, Roman Britain, which had experienced centuries of comparative peace and prosperity, was left to its own defenses. One of the local Romano-British leaders may have been a tribal chieftain named Arthur, who put up some kind of organized resistance to the oncoming Saxon hordes. As early as 440, an anonymous writer penned the following: Britain, abandoned by the Romans, passed into the power of the Saxons (Chronica Gallica). One prominent British chieftain, Vortigern (Gwrtheyrn) is remembered as being responsible for inviting the first Germanic mercenaries to help defend Britain against the invading Picts. The arrival of Hengist and Horsa and their Jutes mark the beginning of Germanic settlements in Britain (ironically, the first modern Welsh language centre is located in a remote valley named Nant Gwrtheyrn (the stream of Vortigern) in the Lleyn Peninsular, Gwynedd, North Wales).

516:The Battle of Mount Badon / Badon Hill.

The "Annales Cambriae" (one text of which dates from 1100, but which is based on much earlier sources), states that the Battle of Mount Badon (Badon Hill) took place in 516 and that the Celts were victorious under Arthur, "who bore the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders for three days and three nights." The battle may have been one of the decisive ones that made the existence of Wales possible by halting further westward expansion by the Saxons. The are several claims for the site of the Battle of Badon Hill but the strongest is the Iron Age fort near the village of Badbury just south of Swindon in Wiltshire.

Badon Hill is reported as King Arthur’s twelfth and last victory against the Saxons but another important victory was that of the City of the Legions which was Arthur’s ninth. The strongest candidate for this is Chester which was known as Caer Legion but Caerleon in Gwent also has a claim. At this time Chester was within the Celtic Kingdom of South Rheged which corresponded roughly to modern Lancashire and Cheshire.

540:"De Excidio Britanniae"

This work, "Concerning the Fall of Britain", written by the cleric Gildas, gives us a garbled history in which he blames the coming of the Saxons as punishment for the many sins of the native Britons.

550-650: Saxon Influence

Apart from the heroic defense of Arthur (reputed to have been killed at the Battle of Camlan Circa 539 CE in a battle with another Celtic King and not the Saxons), Romano-Britain quickly crumbled under the onslaught of Germanic tribes, themselves under attack from the east and wishing to settle in the sparsely populated, but agriculturally rich lands across the narrow channel that separated Britain from the Continent. Their invasions met fierce and prolonged resistance, but more than three hundred years of fighting between

the native Celts and the ever-increasing numbers of Germanic peoples eventually resulted in Britain sorting itself out into three distinct areas: the Britonic West, the Teutonic East and the Gaelic North. These areas later came to be identified as Wales, England and Scotland, all with their very separate cultural and linguistic characteristics. (Ireland, of course, remained Gaelic: many of its

peoples migrated to Scotland, taking their language with them to replace the native Pictish. Some Irish also settled in Western Wales but were eventually absorbed into the local population).

600: The Welsh Language Begins its Written History.

According to the distinguished historian John Davies, it was around the year 600 that the Welsh language began to be written down as the older Brythonic tongue gradually gave way to Welsh. Poets such as Aneirin and Taliesin showed that the "new" language could produce great literature and thus was much more than a local patois.

425-664: The Age of the Celtic Saints.

Though much of Britain was settled by the pagan Saxons, the Celtic Church (mainly monastic) survived in the West. This was the age of Saints Dyfrig, Illtud, Teilo, Padarn and David (Dew, the patron saint of Wales). Much missionary work took the Welsh churchmen to Ireland (one of these was Patrick himself). It is from this time that the Welsh word Llan appears, signifying a church settlement.

The Celtic Church survived the coming of Augustine to Canterbury. It continued many traditions of the early Church that had been superseded at Rome. Even as late as 731, the English historian Bede commented that the Welsh (the Britons) upheld "their own bad customs" against the true Easter of the Catholic Church. Many of the early British church settlements are dedicated to David, about whom very little is known except that he lived in the 6th Century and died around 589. Information about his life comes from "The Life of St David" written in the late 11th century by Rhygyfarch of Llanbadarn (Church of Padarn) but supplemented by Geraldus Cambrensis around 1200. It was then that the church named for the saint at Ty Dewi (St David's) became a place of pilgrimage. David was not adopted as the patron saint of Wales until the 18th century, when his birth date, March 1st was chosen as a national holiday.

615: The Battle of Chester and the Split in the Brythonic Kingdoms.

The English peoples gradually gained control over much of Southern Britain. The period saw the defeat of the Welsh at Dyrham in 577 that cut them off from their fellow Britons in the Southwest and the Battle of Chester in 615, that severed contact with the Britons of the North. The Welsh of the Western peninsular were now on their own but could develop as a separate cultural and linguistic unit from the rest of Britain. A Celic language survived in Cumbria until the middle ages but there are insufficient written reocords to reconstruct it.

633. Wales as a Separate Cultural and Linguistic Unit.

This is signified by the use of the word Cymru in a poem dated 633. The term comes from Cymbrogos, the Celtic word for Compatriot. The Britons, in their never-ceasing battle against the Pagan invaders, referred to themselves as "Cymry" a term still used today. The word Welsh is a later word used by the Saxons to denote those people of Britain (the native population) they considered as "foreign" or who had been "Romanized." Today's Welsh call the English "Sais" (Saxons).

664: The Death of Cadwaladr.

The death of Cadwaladr marked the end of any hopes of the Britons regaining their ancient kingdoms on the mainland. Cadwaladr was the son of Cadwallon of Gwynedd, whose intention, according to historian Bede, had been to exterminate the English race. The death of Cadwaladr's father in Rome is the starting point of the Brut y Tywysogyon, the chronicle of the Welsh princes. The author of the "Brut" stated "And from that time onwards the Britons lost the crown of the kingdom and the Saxons won it." It was apparent that it was all over for Cadwaladr as "King of the Britons" before he even started his reign. The people of Wales would have to wait for the Tudors to re-establish any claim to the throne of Britain. It is significant, therefore, at Bosworth Field in 1485, the Red Dragon of Cadwaladr was carried by Henry Tudor in his defeat of Richard III

c. 720: Links Between Wales and Britanny are Severed.

Contact between the Welsh Church and Yvi of Britanny was the last known link between the two Celtic countries. After that, each "nation" went its own separate way.

768: The Celtic Church is Reunited with Rome.

Following centuries of isolation, first following the lead of the Irish Bishops, then those of the rest of Britain, the Celtic Church in Wales (which had been mainly monastic), decided to conform to the Rules of Rome and the authority of the Church that had been set up by Augustine and his successors at Canterbury and agreed upon at Whitby in 664.

784: The Building of Offa's Dyke by the King of Mercia.

This may have been the single most important event in the survival of the Welsh nation. Whatever its initial intention, the dyke became a permanent boundary between the Welsh and the English people. Thus the notion of Wales as a separate geographical area from the rest of Britain came to be established, though many Welsh people continued to reside east of the 240 kilometer-long bank and ditch. Even today, at towns such as Owestry, there is a large Welsh presence on the "English" side of the Dyke. English settlements have taken place on the western side since the castle-building programs of Edward I, beginning with Flint in 1284.

800: Nennius and the "Historia Brittonum."

Born around 800, Nennius was responsible for the work "Historia Brittonum," which purports to give the history of Britain from the time of Julius Caesar to the end of the seventh century. Nennius is important for the study of early Arthurian materials; he describes Arthur as a "leader of battles, who defeated the Saxons twelve times, the final battle being Mount Badon."

844-877: The Reign of Rhodri Mawr (Rhodri the Great).

In 844 Rhodri ap Merfyn became king only of Gwynedd, but by the time of his death in 877, he had united all of Wales under his rule. His reign certainly did much to heighten the Welsh consciousness of being one people. In 856, Rhodri killed the Viking leader the "black pagan" Horme, restricting Danish occupation of Wales to a few scattered ports and trading posts (Norse names survive at Llandudno (North Wales) (the Great Orme); Swansea (South Wales) (Sweyn's Ey) and some small islands in the Bristol Channel.

c. 890: Welsh Rulers Acknowledge the Overlordship of Alfred of Wessex.

After Alfred's successes against the Danes, the Welsh kings asked him for his patronage, and their recognition that the king of England had claims upon them became "a central fact in the subsequent political history of Wales" (Davies, p. 85). As Alfred's court became a center of learning, his patronage could only have been beneficial to the people of Wales, though a sense of subservience to the English Crown was established. The "Cyfraith Hywe" (Law of Hywell) was written, not in Latin, but in Welsh. It excelled in granting a high status to women, curtailing death by execution, abolishing the primitive English practices of proving guilt, pardoning theft if the sole intention was to stay alive; and

safeguarding the rights of illegitimate children. The far-reaching, far-sighted laws were drawn up in Whitland, in Dyfed. It was Welsh law (and literature) that a French scholar called the product of "the most civilized and intellectual people of the age."

937: The Battle of Brunanburgh.

Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great of England, called "ruler of the whole orb of Britain," imposed heavy taxes upon the Celtic peoples of Britain. A rebellion against his rule was led by the Scots and the Northmen that culminated in their heavy defeat at Brunanburgh. The Welsh did not take part, even though the poem "Armes Prydein", written a few years before the momentous battle, had predicted their victory over the English King. Had the battle gone the other way, the people of Wales would have surely regained their independence.

960: The "Annales Cambriae."

Around 960 a collection of documents, pedigrees and annals that deal with the early history of the Welsh kingdoms over the past 500 years was drawn up. Other stories bound up with these "chronicles" and which include mention of Vortigern and Arthur, were later called "Historia Brittonum" and ascribed to Nennius.

1039-1063: The Reign of Gruffudd ap Llewelyn.

Gruffudd ap Llywelyn deserves praise as the only Welsh ruler to unite the ancient kingdoms of the whole of Wales under his authority. He started off a brilliant reign by utterly defeating an army of Mercians to secure the borders of his nation, recovering many areas in present-day Flintshire and Maelor (North Wales) that would remain part of Wales. His alliances with English rulers brought peace to Wales for a quarter of a century.

According to Gwynfor Evans, that Wales did not suffer the fate of Strathclyde, where the Welsh language disappeared under the weight of the Anglo-Saxons incursions, was entirely due to the inspiration that Gruffudd ap Llywelyn brought to the people of Wales, inspiring them with his vigor and vision. Finding his country weak and divided, he left it strong and united.

1066-77: The Coming of the Normans to Wales.

Following the defeat of the English King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, it wasn't too long before the victorious William of Normandy set about establishing the Marcher Lordships on the borders of Wales, a country with which he did not seem particularly anxious to get involved.

He had enough on his plate without getting involved west of Offa's Dyke; in any case it was in Norman interests to develop close ties with the Welsh rulers in order to secure their own frontiers. The semi-independent Marcher Lords were responsible for many of the magnificent castles that today dominate the Welsh landscape. Beginning with Chepstow, erected by the Earl of Hereford, the castles commanded territories that became known as "Englishries." In them, English settlers practiced a way of life and law totally unknown to the inhabitants of the "Welshries" the less fertile, upland and mountain areas. The divisions are apparent even today, as one travels from Clwyd to Gwynedd, or from Glamorgan into Carmarthen, or better yet, from southern Pembroke into Northern Pembroke across the linguistic dividing line known as "landsker."

The County of Cheshire became the Palatinate of the Earl of Chester with its own courts and parliament and a large area of North Wales was ruled from Chester. For a time a large area of Mid Wales was ruled from Ludlow by the Earl of Shrewsbury.

The results of the 1997 Referendum also show the results of the original Norman divisions. On the positive side, it is to the Norman-Welsh writers, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gerald of Wales that the glories of Welsh literature became known to the world.

1090: "The Life of St. David."

"The Life of St David" is the first of the lives of the Welsh saints. It was written by Rhygyfarch of Llanbadarn (near Aberystwyth) (Mid Wales) around 1190

1120-1129: "Historia Regum Britanniae."

Geoffrey of Monmouth's major work became the basis for a whole new and impressive European literature of Arthurian romance. Giving his source for his history as Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, Geoffrey gives us the tradition of Arthur as a wise, noble and benevolent king presiding over a chivalric court in a kind of Golden Age of the British Isles, the tradition that is still one of the dominant themes of world literature today. It was Geoffrey's writings that provided the people of Wales with a claim to the sovereignty of the whole island of Britain, a claim of which the Tudors were later anxious to take advantage. To Geoffrey also we owe the story of "The Dream of Macsen Wledig", interpreted today by such visionaries as folk singer and nationalist Dafydd Iwan.

1137-1170: The Reign of Owain Gwynedd.

Under Owain Gwynedd and Madog ap Maredudd, the kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys were gradually freed from Norman influence and became re-established as major political units under Welsh rulers, enjoying Welsh law, and where the Welsh language flourished. Owain defeated an army led by Henry II (1154 – 1189) at Coleshill on the Dee Estuary in 1157.

Though eventually Owain was forced to recognize Henry's control over lands to the east of the River Clwyd (Tegeingl, part of the old Earldom of Chester), he refused to acknowledge the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Wales, holding the consecration service for the new Bishop of Bangor (North Wales), not in that northern Welsh city, but across the Celtic sea in Ireland. After inflicting another humiliating defeat on the English forces in the steep-sided Ceiriog Valley and now in full control of the whole of native Wales, Owain took as his title "the Prince of Wales" (Princeps Wallensium).

1169: Prince Madog Reaches the Americas.

According to a popular Welsh legend (see my "Facts about Wales"), Prince Madog of Gwynedd, accompanied by a group of followers, made landfall on what is now Mobile Bay, Alabama some time in 1169. The explorers then traveled up the Missouri, where a remnant inter-married with the Mandans and left behind some of their customs and their language.

1146-1243: Giraldus Cambrensis.

Gerald of Wales was born at Manorbier, in Pembrokeshire (South West Wales) around 1146 into a Norman-Welsh family. His prolific writings include "Itinerarium Kam briae" and "Description Kambriae", both of which contain the only sources for much early Welsh history and folk tales.

1176: The Eisteddfod at Aberteifi (Cardigan).

(West Wales) The "Brut y Tywysigyon" records the following anonymous entry for the year 1176: "At Christmas in that year the Lord Rhys ap Gruffudd held court in splendour at Cardigan (Aberteifi) (West Wales) . . . And he set two kinds of contests there: one between bards and poets, another between harpists and crowders and pipers and various classes of music-craft. And he had two chairs set for the victors." The above entry is the first known mention of the Eisteddfod, the much beloved festival that has become so much a part of Welsh culture and tradition.

The word itself (one of the very, very few words of Welsh origin that are found in an English dictionary), can be translated as "a chairing" and chairs are still awarded for the winners of poetry contests. Modern eisteddfodau [pl.] include the National Eisteddfod of Wales, held in a different venue in Wales each year during the first week in August; and the Llangollen (North Wales) International Eisteddfod, held on the banks of the River Dee in Clwyd each July.

Other well-attended Esteddfodau take place at various times in towns and villages all over Wales as well as at such far-flung places of Welsh influence as Edwardsville, Pennsylvania; Queensland, Australia; and Trelew, Patagonia.

Late 12th Century: The Court Poets.

The general growth of European court culture in the late 12th century also found its counterpart in Wales where a new flourishing of the court poets accompanied military successes against the Anglo-Normans. The main poetic form was the "awdl", the short monorhymed piece involving use of one or more intricate meters. Dominant poets were Cyndelw Brydydd Mawr (Cyndelw the Great Poet); Llywarch ap Llywelyn; Gwalchmai; Hywel ap Owain Gwynedd; and Gruffudd ap yr Ynad Coch, whose elegy on the death of Prince Llywelyn must be one of the most moving and powerful laments ever written in the Welsh language.

1200: Edward I's Welsh Castles.

Following his wars against the Welsh under Llywelyn and the Treaty of Aberconwy (North Wales), Edward began his major castle-building campaign, starting with Flint, Rhuddlan (North Wales), Aberystwyth (Mid Wales) and Builth (South Wales). After the death of Llywelyn in late 1282., Edward's second phase of castle-building began, including the mighty North Wales strongholds of Conwy, Caernarfon, Harlech, Cricieth, and Beaumaris.

1200-1240: Unification of Wales under Llywelyn ap Iorwerth.

Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (son of Iorwerth) was the grandson of Owain Gwynedd. Under his dynamic leadership and military prowess, his lands were again united as a single political unit for one of the few times in their long, checkered history. In 1204, the Prince married Joan, the daughter of King John of England. In the "Brut", it is stated that Llywelyn "enlarged his boundaries by his wars, gave justice to all according to their deserts, and by the bonds of fear or love bound all men duly to him." He was further recognized as pre-eminent in Wales by the new king Henry III (1216 – 1272). Llywelyn's long reign of 46 years brought an era of relative peace and economic prosperity to Wales. Welshmen were appointed to the Bishoprics of St. David's (West Wales) and Bangor (North Wales). The bards referred to LLywelyn as the Prince of Aberffraw and Lord of Eryri, but to posterity, as Gwynfor Evans proudly points out, he became known as Llywelyn Fawr (Llewelyn the Great).

1222-1283: Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

After he death of Llywelyn the Great, quarrelling between his two sons Dafydd and Gruffudd undid most of what their father had accomplished. In 1254, Henry II of England gave the young Prince Edward control of all the Crown lands in Wales. The situation was restored under the brilliant leadership of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd whose success led to the acceptance of his claim to be called

"Prince of Wales" by King Henry at the Treaty of </