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Flag of Cornwall (Kernow)
Map showing the location of the Cornish Cornovii of
West Wales
The Cornovii were a Celtic tribe who inhabited the far South West peninsula of Great Britain, during the Iron Age, Roman and post-Roman periods and gave their name to Cornwall or Kernow.[1] [2] [3]
The Ravenna Cosmography, of around 700, makes reference to Purocoronavis, (almost certainly a corruption of Durocornovium), 'a fort or walled settlement of the Cornovii', (unidentified, but possibly Tintagel or Carn Brea). According to professor Philip Payton, in "Cornwall: A History", [4] the Cornovii were most likely a sect or offshoot of the Dumnonii tribe whose territory included modern day Cornwall, Devon, western parts of Somerset and perhaps the fringes of Dorset. The Cornovii were sufficiently established for their territory to be recorded as Cornubia by c700AD, the name meaning "people of the horn", or "peninsula". "Corn" is a common element in British place-name etymology, literally meaning Horn, but in this context a horn-shaped peninsula. The original territory name was Cerniw and the suffix wealas being the Anglo-Saxon word, meaning foreigner, (which they also applied to the Welsh), hence the Anglo-Saxon name of Corn-wealas, meaning "foreigners of the horn".
The people who inhabited the very north of the British mainland (modern Caithness), and the English West Midlands ( NW Staffordshire & NE Shropshire) were also known by the same name, Cornovii. In 1973 Oxford University historian Dr John Morris put forward a theory in his work 'The Age of Arthur', that the Cornovii from the West Midlands migrated to Cornwall in 460. There is however no primary evidence to suggest that these tribes were related or that there was any contact between the two and it appears that the only connection is a name similarity. (The names of 'tribes' Dumnonii, Damnonii, Cornovii, Cornavii occur at several locations all over Britain and may simply reflect some language similarity in the eyes of the Romans). For instance there was a Damnonii tribe in Scotland (the Clyde Valley), whose name looks very similar to the Dumnonii tribe of South West Britain, so many have assumed that they must be the same people but again there is no evidence of any contact between the two.
Philip Payton, in his book "Cornwall - A History" says "Dr John Morris in his controversial "The Age of Arthur" postulates an ingenious theory - the Morris thesis is not widely accepted by archaeologists and early historians, and we may safely conclude that the Cornovii located west of the Tamar were an indigenous people quite separate from their namesakes in the Midlands and Caithness."
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