Notes |
- CEAWLIN (d. 593) was King of Wessex, according to the Anglo -Saxon
Chronicle, whose chronology however is not reliable for this period,
from 560 to 593. The annals in the Chronicle relating to his career
are cast in a tone which suggests that they may derive from a lost Old
English epic poem. For what they are worth, they conjure up a Germanic
warlord of the sort celebrated in the surviving epic Beowulf. They
show Ceawlin engaged in warfare with his neighbors both Anglo-Saxon
and British, winning battles as at Dyrham in 577, capturing towns such
as Bath, acquiring booty and perishing probably by violence. Bede
allotted him an imperium or overlord-ship like that attributed to
Aelle of Sussex: whatever this may have meant to Bede, to us Ceawlin's
imperium is as opaque as Aelle's. It is possible that Ceawlin was
responsible for the construction of some or all of the great earthwork
known as Wansdyke. If this were so, he might have had a greater degree
of ordered power at his disposal than the bloody record of the
Cbronicle suggests.
Ceawlin, son of Cynric, undertook the government of the West Saxons,
560, and reigned thirty winters. "In 568, Ethelbert came to the
kingdom of Kent and was Defeated. He Defeated three other British
Kings (Conmail, Condidan and Farinmail) at Dyrham (577), 5 miles north
of Bath which he captured with Circencester and Glouchester. In his
day the holy Pope Gregory sent us baptism. And Columba, the mass
-priest, came to the Picts . . . 591. This year there was a great
slaughter of Britons at Wanborough; Ceawlin was driven from his
kingdom . . . 593. This year died Ceawlin." (ASC 560, 568, 591, 593,
854; CCN 227).
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