Northumbria was originally composed of the union of the two independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Bernicia, the former British kingdom of Bryneich and Deira, the former British kingdom of Deifr or Dewr. Bernicia covered lands north of the Tees, while Deira corresponded roughly to modern-day Yorkshire, absorbing the British Kingdom of Elmet. Bernicia and Deira were first united by Aethelfrith, a king of Bernicia, who conquered Deira around the year 604. He was defeated and killed around the year 616 in battle at the River Idle by Raedwald of East Anglia, who installed Edwin, the son of Aella, a former king of Deira, as king.

Edwin, who accepted Christianity in 627, soon grew to become the most powerful king in England.  He was recognised as Bretwealda or Ruler of all Britain and its islands, including Ireland, the original Islands of the Pretani, and he conquered the Isle of Man amd Gwynedd in Northern Wales. He was, however, himself defeated by an alliance of the exiled king of Gwynedd, Cadwallon ap Cadfan and Penda, king of Mercia,  at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.

After Edwin’s death, Northumbria was split between Bernicia, where Eadfrith, a son of Aethelfrith, took power, and Deira, where a cousin of Edwin, Osric, became king. British Cumbria tended to remain a country frontier with the Britons. Both of these rulers were killed during the year that followed, as Cadwallon continued his devastating invasion of Northumbria. After the murder of Eanfrith, his brother, Oswald, backed by warriors sent by Domnall Brecc of Dalriada (Dál Riata), defeated and killed Cadwallon at the Battle of Heavenfield in 634.

Oswald expanded his kingdom considerably. He incorporated Gododdin lands northwards up to the Firth of Forth and also gradually extended his reach westward, encroaching on the remaining British speaking kingdoms of Rheged and Strathclyde. Thus, Northumbria became not only part of the far north of modern “England”, but also covered much of what is now the south-east of modern “Scotland”. King Oswald re-introduced Christianity to the Kingdom by appointing St Aidan, an Irish monk from Iona to convert his people. This led to the introduction of the practices of “Celtic” Christianity and a monastery  was established on Lindesfarne.

War with Mercia continued, however. In 642, Oswald was killed by the Mercians under Penda at the Battle of Maserfield. In 655, Penda launched a massive invasion of Northumbria, aided by the sub-king of Deira, Aethelwald, but suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of an inferior force under Oswiu , Oswald’s successor, at the Battle of Winwaed. This battle marked a major turning point in Northumbrian fortunes: Penda died in the battle, and Oswiu gained supremacy over Mercia, making himself the most powerful king in England.

Coin of Eric Bloodaxe at the British Museum. The legend reads ERIC REX (“King Eric”)

In the year 664 the Synod of Witby was held to discuss the controversy regarding the timing of the Easter festival. Much dispute had arisen between the practices of the “Celtic” church in Northumbria and the beliefs of the Roman church. Eventually, Northumbria was persuaded to move to the Roman practice and the Celtic Bishop Colman of Lindesfarne returned to Iona.

Northumbria lost control of Mercia  in the late 650s, after a successful revolt under Penda’s son Wulfhere, but it retained its dominant position until it suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Picts at the Battle of Dun Nechtain in 685; Northumbria’s king, Ecgfrith (son of Oswiu), was killed, and its power in the north was gravely weakened. The peaceful reign of Aldfrith, Ecgfrith’s half-brother and successor, did something to limit the damage done, but it is from this point that Northumbria’s power began to decline, and chronic instability followed Aldfrith’s death in 704.

In 867 Northumbria became the northern kingdom of the Danelaw, after its conquest by the brothers Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless who installed an Englishman, Ecgberht, as a puppet king. Despite the pillaging of the kingdom, Viking Rule brought lucrative trade to Northumbria, especially at their capital York. The kingdom passed between English, Norse and Norse-Gaelic kings until it was finally absorbed by King Eadred after the death of the last independent Northumbrian monarch, Erik Bloodaxe, in 954.

After the English regained the territory of the former kingdom, Scots invasions reduced Northumbria to an earldom stretching from the Humber to the Tweed. Northumbria was disputed between the emerging kingdoms of England and Scotland. The land north of the Tweed was finally ceded to Scotland in 1018 as a result of the Battle of Carham.  Yorkshire and Northumberland were first mentioned as separate in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1065. William the Bastard became king of England in 1066. He realised he needed to control Northumbria, which had remained virtually independent of the Kings of England, to protect his kingdom from Scottish invasion. In 1067, William appointed Copsi (sometimes Copsig) as Earl. However, just five weeks into his reign as earl, Copsi was murdered by Osulf II of Bamburgh.

To acknowledge the remote independence of Northumbria and ensure England was properly defended from the Scots, William gained the allegiance of both the Bishop of Durham and the Earl and confirmed their powers and privileges. However, anti-Norman rebellions followed. William therefore attempted to install Robert Comine, a Norman Noble noble, as the Earl of Northumbria, but before Comine could take up office, he and his 700 men were massacred in the city of Durham. In revenge, the now “Conqueror” led his army in a bloody raid into Northumbria, an event of ethnic cleansing that became known as the harrying of the North. Ethelwin, the Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Durham, tried to flee Northumbria at the time of the raid, with Northumbrian treasures. The bishop was subsequently caught, imprisoned, and later died in confinement; his seat was left vacant.

Rebellions continued, and William’s son William Rufus decided to partition Northumbria. William of St Carilef was made Bishop of Durham, and was also given the powers of Earl for the region south of the rivers Tyne and Derwent, which became the County Palatine of Durham.The remainder, to the north of the rivers, became Nothhumberland, where the political powers of the Bishops of Durham were limited to only certain districts, and the earls continued to rule as clients of the English throne. The city of Newcasltle was founded by the Normans in 1080 to control the region by holding the strategically important crossing point of the river Tyne.

The flag of the kingdom was “a banner made of gold and purple” (or red), first recorded in the 8th century as having hung over the shrine of King Oswald. This was later interpreted as vertical stripes. A modified version (with broken vertical stripes) can be seen in the coat of arms and flag used by Northumberland County Council.

Northumbria during its “golden age” was the most important centre of religious learning and arts in the British Isles. Initially the kingdom was evangelised by Irish monks from the “Celtic” Church, based at Iona in modern Scotland, which led to a flowering of monastic life. Lindesfarne on the east coast was founded from Iona by Saint Aidan in about 635, and was to remain the major Northumbrian monastic centre, producing figures like Wilfrid and Saint Cuthbert. The nobleman Benedict Biscop had visited Rome and headed the monastery at Canterbury in Kent and his twin-foundation Monkwearmouth -Jarrow Abbey added a direct Roman influence to Northumbrian culture, and produced figures such as Coelfrith and Bede.

Northumbria played an important role in the formation of Insular Art, a unique style combining Anglo-Saxon, Pictish, Byzantine  and other elements, producing works such as the Lindesfarne Gospels. St Cuthbert Gosplel, the Ruthwell Cross and Bewcastle Cross, and later the Book of Kells, which was probably created at Iona. After the Synod of Whitby in 664 Roman church practices officially replaced the “Celtic” ones but the influence of the “Celtic style continued, the most famous examples of this being the Lindisfarne Gospels. The Venerable Bede (673–735) wrote his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731) in Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, and much of it focuses on the kingdom. The devastating Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793 marked the beginning of a century of Viking invasions that severely checked all Anglo-Saxon culture, and heralded the end of Northumbria’s position as a centre of influence, although in the years immediately following confident works like the Easby Cross were still being produced.

Northumbria has its own check or tartan, which is similar to many ancient tartans (especially those from Northern Europe, such as one found near Falkirk and those discovered in Jutland that date from Roman times (and even earlier). Modern Border Tartans are almost invariably a bold black and white check, but historically the light squares were the yellowish colour of untreated wool, with the dark squares any of a range of dark greys, blues, greens or browns; hence the alternative name of “Border Drab”. At a distance the checks blend together making the fabric ideal camouflage for stalking game.

The most persistent influence of Northumbria, however, is its language. From Old Northumbrian English developed modern Geordie and other variants, i.e. Northern (north of the Rver Coquet), Western (from Allendale through Hexham up to Kielde), Southern or Pitmatic (the mining towns such as Ashington and much of Durham), Mackem (Wearside), Smoggie (Teeside) and possibly also Tyke (Yorkshire). It is spoken mainly if not exclusively in the modern day counties of Northumberland and Durham. Whilst all sharing similarities to the more famous Geordie dialect and most of the time not distinguishable by non-native speakers, there are a few differences between said variants not only between them and Geordie but also each other. Yet the most prominent derivative of Old Northumbian English is modern Scots and its variant Ulster-Scots, also known as Scotch-Irish or Ullans. The latter term I created as a neologism to differentiate the language from Ulster-Scots or Scotch Irish traditions and it has found its way into the Belfast Agreement through my fiends David Trimble and David Campbell of the Ulster Unionist Party.

To be continued

© Pretani Associates 2014 

Yr Hen Ogledd (The Old North) is a British “Welsh” term which refers to those parts of what is now northern “England” and southern “Scotland” in the years between 500 and the Viking invasions of c. 800, with particular interest in the Brittonic or Old British-speaking peoples who lived there. Until recently, knowledge of the Old North has been suppressed by the partisan nationalist academic elites of Ireland, Scotland and England, but teaching our people about it through the internet will be an essential part of the modern Ulster and Appalachian cultural revolution.

Places in the Old North, the Middle Lands, that are mentioned as kingdoms in the literary and historical sources include:

• Alt Clut or Ystrad Clud – a kingdom centred at what is now Dumbarton in “Scotland”. Later known as the Kingdom of Strathclyde, it was one of the best attested of the northern British kingdoms. It was also the last surviving, as it operated as an independent realm into the 11th century before it was finally absorbed by the Kingdom of Scotland and its ecclesiatical centre of Govan superceded by Glasgow.
• Elmet – centred in western Yorkshire in northern “England”. It was located south of the other northern British kingdoms, and well east of present-day Wales, but managed to survive into the early 7th century.
• Gododdin – a kingdom in what is now southeastern Scotland and northeastern England, the area previously noted as the territory of the Votadini. They are the subjects of the poem Y Goddodin, which memorialises an illfated foray by an army raised by the Gododdin on the English of Bernicia.
• Rheged – a major kingdom in Galloway and Carrick that may have included parts of present-day Cumbria, though its full extent is unknown. It may have covered a vast area at one point, as it is very closely associated with its king Urien, whose name is tied to places all over northwestern Britain.

Several regions are mentioned in the sources, assumed to be notable regions within one of the kingdoms if not separate kingdoms themselves:

• Aeron – a minor kingdom mentioned in sources such as Y Gododdin, which gave its name to Ayrshire in southwest Scotland. It is frequently associated with Urien of Rheged and may have been part of his realm.
• Calchfynydd (“Chalkmountain”) – almost nothing is known about this area, though it was likely somewhere in the Hen Ogledd, as an evident ruler, Cadrawd Calchfynydd, is listed in the Bonedd Gwyr y Gogledd. William Forbes Skene suggested an identification with Kelso (formerly Calchow) in the Scottish Borders.
• Eidyn – this was the area around the modern city of  Edinburgh then known as Din Eidyn (Fort of Eidyn). It was closely associated with the Gododdin kingdom. Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson argued strongly that Eidyn referred exclusively to Edinburgh, but other scholars have taken it as a designation for the wider area.^] The name  survives today in toponyms such as Edinburgh, Dunedin, and Carriden (from Caer Eidyn), located fifteen miles to the west. Din Eidyn was besieged by the English in 638 and was under their control for most of the next three centuries.
• Manau Gododdin – the coastal area south of the Firth of Forth, and part of the territory of the Gododdin. The name survives in Slamannan Moor and the village of Slamannan in Stirlingshire. This is derived from Sliabh Manann, the ‘Moor of Manann’. It also appears in the name of Dalmeny, some 5 miles northwest of Edinburgh, and formerly known as Dumanyn, assumed to be derived from Din Manann. The name also survives north of the Forth in Pictish Manaw as the name of the burgh of Clackmannan and the eponymous county of Clackmannanshire, derived from Clach Manann, the ‘stone of Manann’, referring to a monument stone located there.
• Novant – a kingdom mentioned in Y Gododdin, presumably related to the Novantae people of southwestern Scotland.
• Regio Dunutinga – a minor kingdom or region in North Yorkshire mentioned in the Life of Wilfrid . It was evidently named for a ruler named Dunaut, perhaps the Dunaut ap Pabo known from the genealogies. Its name may survive in the modern town of Dent, Cumbria.

Kingdoms that are not descibed by the academic elite as part of the Old North but are part of its history include:

• Dalriada (Dál Riata) – Alhough this was a Gaelic-speaking kingdom in early Mediæval times, its people were indigenous Epidian Cruthin and the family of Áedán mac Gabráin of Dalriada appears in the Bonedd Gwýr y Gogledd (The Descent of the Men of the North).
• English Northumbria and its predecessor states, Bernicia and Deira, which engulfed the Middle Kingdoms.
• The Caledonian Cruthin Kingdom of Pictavia.
• Bryneich – this is the British name for the English kingdom of Bernicia and was the  pre-Anglo-Saxon British kingdom in this area. 
• Deifr or Dewr – this was the British name for the English Deira, a region between the River Tees and the Humber. The name is of British origin, and as with Bryneich, represented the earlier British kingdom.

To be continued

© Pretani Associates 2014 

John Condon
Gravestone of John Condon at the Poelcapelle British Cemetery (nl)
Born	(1896-10-05)5 October 1896 Waterford City, Ireland
Died	24 May 1915(1915-05-24) (aged 18) Ypres, Belgium
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1913-1915
Rank	Private
Unit	Second Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment (1684)
Battles/wars	World War I, Second Ypres

John Condon (5 October 1896 – 24 May 1915) was an Irish soldier long believed to have been the youngest Allied soldier killed during the First World War, at the age of 14 years, as shown on his gravestone, which we visit with the Somme Association every year.

However it is now believed from a birth certificate, census, war diaries and other records that John Condon would have been 18 years old at the recorded date of his death and that the wrong individual is named on the grave. At the present time, the headstone in Poelkapelle Cemetery (nl)) and the CWGC record continue to assert the challenged data.

Waterford has therefore honoured its war dead when it unveiled a specially commissioned memorial to him as “the youngest recorded casualty on the Allied side in the first World War”, Waterford-born Private John Condon who “died in Flanders at the age of just 14”. He was known as the Boy Soldier and was killed in a gas attack on May 24th, 1915.

Hundreds of people were on hand to see the specially commissioned sculpture by artist Paul Cunningham unveiled in Cathedral Square by Mayor of Waterford Cllr John Cummins. Members of the Naval Service Reserve, the Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen and the British Legion were present.

The John Condon Memorial Committe chairman Cllr Tom Cunningham explained that the idea for the €100,000 bronze cylindrical memorial, which stands 4.3 metres high, dates back over a dozen years when a number of local citizens contacted him to highlight that they felt was a serious omission. 

“Some 4,800 people from Waterford city and county fought in World War 1 and over 1,100 of them perished and a number of people felt that they been airbrushed from history and should be remembered here in the city so that’s where the idea for the memorial came from,” he said. 

“And although it’s named after the iconic figure of John Condon – the Boy Soldier- the youngest recorded casualty on the Allied side in World War I, it is dedicated to all men and women from Waterford who died in armed conflict including in our own War of Independence.” 

Among those in attendance at the ceremony were John Condon’s nephew, also John Condon and his cousin, Willie ” Sonny” Condon as well as relatives of many others from Waterford city and county who also perished in the first World War. 

Curator of Waterford Museum of Treasures Donnachadh O Cealllachain explained that John Condon, who was from Wheelbarrow Lane off Barker Street in the city. He lied about his age to join the Royal Irish Regiment as a reservist in 1913 and arrived in France in December 1914. 

“John was attached to the Second Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment and was involved in the Second Battle of Ypres in April and May 1915 when the Germans used poison gas to attack the Allies’ position and he died in the gas attack on May 24th, the second last day of the battle,” he said. 

“He is buried at Poelkapelle near Ypres and his headstone records that he was just 14 years old and, according to Commonwealth War Graves Commission records, he was the ‘Youngest Known Battle Casualty of the War’ which has resulted in his grave being one of the most visited of the war graves.”

Yet I do think there is a cryptic or garbled reference to the Life of Jesus in Josephus which does survive. In the Acts of the Apostles (21), we read that during the time of the Procurator Marcus Antonius Felix (52-58 AD), Paul was arrested following a riot in the Temple…”And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said to the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? Art thou not that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers (sicarii)?” Do we see here Judas the Sicarios (Dagger-man) and Simon the Zealot? And was Jesus the Egyptian? And did Paul actually meet the resurrected and living Jesus on the road to Damascus? For there is no doubt in my own mind that he died on the cross and rose again on the third day.

Josephus in the Wars of the Jews (2.259) says that during the governorship of Porcius Festus (58-62 AD) there were many people “who deceived and deluded the people under pretense of Divine inspiration, but were in fact for procuring innovations and changes to the government. These men prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, pretending that God would there show them the signals of liberty” Do we see here Paul, the Apostles and the early Christians gaining influence among the people and the apparent failure of Jesus’s mission gradually changing to triumph. Although for those who had misunderstood his message, and there were many, disaster was about to befall Jerusalem.

Josephus then continues: “ There was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and he got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him ; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives. He was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended to rule them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him”.

In the Antiquities of the Jews (20.169-171), Josephus ignores the prophet’s alleged threat of violence, writing, ” about this time, someone came out of Egypt to Jerusalem, claiming to be a prophet. He advised the crowd to go along with him to the Mount of Olives, as it is called, which lay over against the city, at a distance of a kilometre. He added that he would show them how the walls of Jerusalem would fall down at his command, and he promised them that he would procure them an entrance into the city through those collapsed walls. Now when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons and came up against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. He slew four hundred of them, and took two hundred alive. The Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight, but did not appear any more.”

Living through the past fifty years of conflict in Northern Ireland has taught me to be circumspect of journalistic reports on the situation here . Looking back at similar circumstances in Judea all those years ago has also made me appreciate all the more the true story of Jesus in the Gospels and deplore the attempts by academics to dissect it so much as to obliterate his message. I can remember clearly what happened here since the mid sixties, so I will stick with the witness of Paul and the Evangelists, who were so close to these happenings. I do not care if there are minor differences in the accounts. It proves their authenticity. The greatest of the exegetes of that time and indeed later, not only Jesus, but Hillel, Paul and then Johanan ben Zakkai, Akiba and Augustine emphasised that charity and loving kindness were essential to the interpretation of Scripture. Only when Jews, Christians, Muslims and others accept this can they listen with humility and true understanding to the opinions of others.

Concluded

© Pretani Associates 2014 

They say that nothing is known about Jesus and Paul except that which is written about them in what Christians call the New Testament. But nothing is known of Josephus save what he tells us of himself in his writings. And much of what we think we know of Jewish history from the rise of the Macabees to the fall of Masada in 73 AD is derived from his books. Joseph Ben Mattathias, Titus Flavius Josephus (c 40-100 AD), tells us he is of priestly and Hasmonean descent . His Vita or Life was written to justify his betrayal of his country to save his own life and to win favour with the Romans. Strangely enough, though a conscienceless Romanophile in Jerusalem, who would not have tolerated the Christians as they were considered a threat to Roman State religion, he was a proud Judeophile in Rome, who would have also thought that Jesus was illegitimate, a false prophet and a magician. He wrote the Wars of the Jews to praise the Romans in their cause and, later, Against Apion and Antiquities of the Jews to praise the Jews and Judaeism.

However, by following the tradition of Greco-Roman historiography, in what he would have thought to have been a quest for historical truth, Josephus in effect has set his work apart from Biblical Authors before him, and Jewish and Christian writers for centuries after him, who regarded the purpose of history as proof of God controlling the destiny of the Universe. His writing contains statements which are biased, erroneous, embellished with outright fabrication, and include legend and folklore presented as fact. Yet his work is probably as accurate as any Hellenic historian. Although he omits reference to such great exegetes as Hillel, Paul and the Apostles and there are questionable references to Jesus, his chief authority is the everyday life of Judea, its geography, agriculture and the politics of the celebrities of the day, particularly focussed on two of the most critical centuries of recorded history. Indeed the Wars of the Jews is one of the most magnificent literary achievements of all time, which not only tears at the emotions but spurs the imagination and haunts our memory as only a Jewish composition can do.

To be continued

© Pretani Associates 2014

Today I was installed at Hillsborough Castle as Librarian of The Commandery of Ards in Northern Ireland of the Most Venerable Order  of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. I succeeded my two old friends, the late John Hughes and Robin Charley, who had both given great service to the Order.

Installation of a new Commandery Officer – Librarian 

When the Chaplain has concluded the opening prayers, the Knight Commander has welcomed the gathering, and before any other business is conducted, the Director of Ceremonies addressed the Bailiff Grand Cross representing the Knight Commander as follows: Bailiff Grand Cross , Sir, is it your pleasure to install Confrere Adamson as the Librarian. 

Bailiff Grand Cross: It is. 

The Director of Ceremonies  conducted the new Commandery Officer from his place in the Chapter Room before the Bailiff Grand Cross. The Director of Ceremonies shall present the new Commandery Officer as follows: Bailiff Grand Cross, Sir, I present to you our Confrere Adamson, a member of the Order on his appointment as the Librarian of the Commandery of Ards. 

Bailiff Grand Cross: Confrere Adamson, we greet you well and with pleasure receive and welcome you as the Librarian. Be loyal to our Sovereign Head, true to your honour and faithful to your office in the Order. 

The Commandery Officer bowed in homage before the Knight Commander. The Director of Ceremonies then conducts the Commandery Officer to his seat among the other Commandery Officers. 

When the reception and installation were completed, the business of the meeting  proceeded.