The Demetae were a Celtic people of Iron Age and Roman period, who inhabited modern Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire in south-west Wales. The tribe also gave their name to the medieval Kingdom of Dyfed, the modern area and county of Dyfed and the distinct dialect of Welsh spoken in modern south-west Wales, Dyfedeg.
The tribal name Demetae is thought to derive from a Common Celtic element related to the modern Welsh word defaid (sheep) as well as the Ancient Brythonic word defod (wealth, property or riches). [1] This element persists in the name for the area of West Wales that the tribe inhabited, with the post-Roman Kingdom of Dyfed (proto-Celtic *dametos ) a clear continuation of the Pre-Roman etymon. The name even survived the Norman conquest of Wales and the introduction of the Shire system, with Thomas Morgan noting that the Welsh inhabitants of Pembrokeshire still referred to the area as Dyfed in the nineteenth century. [2]
This etymology is supported by the tribal area being especially noted for the cultivation of sheep, from which the Demetae would have generated much of their wealth. Even in the modern era, etymologists and antiquarians such as William Baxter noted the names Dyfed and Demetae derived as "a country fit for the pasture of sheep" and that the local people were noted for their cultivation of large numbers of sheep and goats from ancient times. [3] [4]
The Demetae are mentioned in Ptolemy's Geographia , as being west of the Silures. He mentions two of their towns, Moridunum (modern Carmarthen) and Luentinum (identified as the Dolaucothi Gold Mines near Pumsaint, Carmarthenshire). [5] They are not mentioned in Tacitus' accounts of Roman warfare in Wales, which concentrate on their neighbours the Silures and Ordovices.
Vortiporius, "tyrant of the Demetae", is one of the kings condemned by Gildas in his 6th century polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae . [6] This probably signifies the sub-Roman petty kingdom of Dyfed.
The Battle of Badon, also known as the Battle of Mons Badonicus, was a battle purportedly fought between Britons and Anglo-Saxons in Post-Roman Britain during the late 5th or early 6th century. It was credited as a major victory for the Britons, stopping the westward encroachment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms for a period.
Gildas — also known as Gildas the Wise or Gildas Sapiens — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, which recounts the history of the Britons before and during the coming of the Saxons. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during the sub-Roman period, and was renowned for his Biblical knowledge and literary style. In his later life, he emigrated to Brittany where he founded a monastery known as Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys.
Dyfed is a preserved county in southwestern Wales. It is a mostly rural area with a coastline on the Irish Sea and the Bristol Channel.
Maelgwn Gwynedd was king of Gwynedd during the early 6th century. Surviving records suggest he held a pre-eminent position among the Brythonic kings in Wales and their allies in the "Old North" along the Scottish coast. Maelgwn was a generous supporter of Christianity, funding the foundation of churches throughout Wales and even far beyond the bounds of his own kingdom. Nonetheless, his principal legacy today is the scathing account of his behavior recorded in De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae by Gildas, who considered Maelgwn a usurper and reprobate. The son of Cadwallon Lawhir and great-grandson of Cunedda, Maelgwn was buried on Ynys Seiriol, off the eastern tip of Anglesey, having died of the "yellow plague"; quite probably the arrival of Justinian's Plague in Britain.
Pembrokeshire is a county in the south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and is otherwise surrounded by the sea. Haverfordwest is the largest town and administrative headquarters of Pembrokeshire County Council.
Vortigern, also spelled Vortiger, Vortigan, Voertigern and Vortigen, was a 5th-century warlord in Britain, known perhaps as a king of the Britons or at least connoted as such in the writings of Bede and Gildas. His existence is contested by scholars and information about him is obscure.
Carmarthenshire is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as the "Garden of Wales" and is also home to the National Botanic Garden of Wales.
Constantine was a 6th-century king of Dumnonia in sub-Roman Britain, who was remembered in later British tradition as a legendary King of Britain. The only contemporary information about him comes from Gildas, who castigated him for various sins, including the murder of two "royal youths" inside a church. The historical Constantine is also known from the genealogies of the Dumnonian kings, and possibly inspired the tradition of Saint Constantine, a king-turned-monk venerated in Southwest Britain and elsewhere.
Aurelius Conanus or Aurelius Caninus was a Brittonic king in 6th-century sub-Roman Britain. The only certain historical record of him is in the writings of his contemporary Gildas, who excoriates him as a tyrant. However, he may be identified with one of the several similarly named figures active in Britain during this period. In the 12th century Geoffrey of Monmouth adapted Gildas' account for his chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae, and thereafter Aurelius Conanus was remembered as a legendary King of Britain.
Vortiporius or Vortipor was a king of Dyfed in the early to mid-6th century. He ruled over an area approximately corresponding to modern Pembrokeshire, and Carmarthenshire, Wales. Records from this era are scant, and virtually nothing is known of him or his kingdom. The only contemporary information about Vortiporius comes from the Welsh ecclesiastic Gildas, in a highly allegorical condemnation from his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. At the time the work was written, Gildas says that Vortiporius was king of Dyfed, that he was grey with age, that his wife had died, and that he had at least one daughter.
The Groans of the Britons is the final appeal made between 446 and 454 by the Britons to the Roman military for assistance against Pict and Scot raiders. The appeal is first referenced in Gildas' 6th-century De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae; Gildas' account was later repeated in chapter 13 of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. According to Gildas, the message was addressed to "Agitius", who is generally identified with the general Flavius Aetius. The collapsing Western Roman Empire had few military resources to spare during its decline, and the record is ambiguous on what the response to the appeal was, if any. According to Gildas and various later medieval sources, the failure of the Roman armies to secure Britain led the Britons to invite Anglo-Saxon mercenaries to the island, precipitating the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain.
The Damnonii were a Brittonic people of the late 2nd century who lived in what became the Kingdom of Strathclyde by the Early Middle Ages, and is now southern Scotland. They are mentioned briefly in Ptolemy's Geography, where he uses both of the terms "Damnonii" and "Damnii" to describe them, and there is no other historical record of them, except arguably by Gildas three centuries later. Their cultural and linguistic affinity is presumed to be Brythonic. However, there is no unbroken historical record, and a partly Pictish origin is not precluded.
Cynan Garwyn was king of Powys in the north-east and east of Wales, who flourished in the second half of the 6th century. Little reliable information exists which can be used to reconstruct the background and career of the historical figure. Available materials include early Welsh poetry, genealogies and hagiography, which are often late and of uncertain value.
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae is a work written in Latin by the probably 6th-century AD British cleric St Gildas. It is a sermon in three parts condemning the acts of Gildas' contemporaries, both secular and religious, whom he blames for the dire state of affairs in sub-Roman Britain. It is one of the most important sources for the history of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, as it is the only significant source for the period written by a near contemporary of the people and events described.
The Kingdom of Dyfed, one of several Welsh petty kingdoms that emerged in 5th-century sub-Roman Britain in southwest Wales, was based on the former territory of the Demetae. The medieval Irish narrative, The Expulsion of the Déisi, attributing the kingdom's founding to Eochaid, son of Artchorp, being forced across the Irish sea, in the 5th century; his descendants founding the line of the kings of Dyfed, down to "Tualodor mac Rígin". The Normans invaded Wales, and by 1138 incorporated Dyfed into a new shire called Pembrokeshire after the Norman castle built in the Cantref of Penfro and under the rule of the Marcher Earl of Pembroke.
Moridunum was a Roman fort and town in the Roman province of Britannia. Today it is known as Carmarthen, located in the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire.
Luentinum or Loventium refers to the Roman fort at Pumsaint, Carmarthenshire. The 1.9 hectares site lies either side of the A482 in Pumsaint and was in use from the mid 70s AD to around 120 AD. It may have had particular functions associated with the adjacent Dolaucothi Gold Mines. It formed part of a network of at least 30 forts across Wales, such as Llandovery, Bremia/Llanio near Llanddewi Brefi, and the fort at Llandeilo. The Roman road Sarn Helen, which runs past the Llanio and Llandovery forts was nearby.
Wales in the early Middle Ages covers the time between the Roman departure from Wales c. 383 until the middle of the 11th century. In that time there was a gradual consolidation of power into increasingly hierarchical kingdoms. The end of the early Middle Ages was the time that the Welsh language transitioned from the Primitive Welsh spoken throughout the era into Old Welsh, and the time when the modern England–Wales border would take its near-final form, a line broadly followed by Offa's Dyke, a late eighth-century earthwork. Successful unification into something recognisable as a Welsh state would come in the next era under the descendants of Merfyn Frych.
The Kingdom of Ceredigion was one of several Welsh kingdoms that emerged in post-Roman Britain in the mid-5th century. Cardigan Bay to the west and the surrounding hilly geography made it difficult for foreign invaders to conquer. Its area corresponded roughly to that of the county of Ceredigion. Ceredigion transparently means "the people of Ceredig." The kingdom as an independent entity ceased to exist around the year 872.
The Roman era in the area of modern Wales began in 48 AD, with a military invasion by the imperial governor of Roman Britain. The conquest was completed by 78 AD, and Roman rule endured until the region was abandoned in 383 AD.