History of Cornwall

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The history of Cornwall begins with the pre-Roman inhabitants, including speakers of a Celtic language that would develop into Brythonic and Cornish. After a period of Roman rule, Cornwall reverted to independent Celtic chieftains. Since the Middle Ages, it has been a part of the Kingdom of England which was subsequently incorporated into Great Britain and the UK.

Cornwall has also figured in such pseudo-historical or legendary works as Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, a precursor of much of Arthurian legend (see legendary Dukes of Cornwall).

Contents 1 Pre-Roman Cornwall 2 Roman Cornwall 3 410-1066 4 1066-1485 5 Tudor and Stuart period 6 Civil War 7 18th and 19th centuries 7.1 1755 Tsunami 7.2 Developments in tin mining 7.3 Politics, Religion and administration 8 20th and 21st Centuries 9 See also 10 References

[edit] Pre-Roman Cornwall

Cornwall and neighbouring Devon had large reserves of tin, which was mined extensively during the Bronze Age by people associated with the Beaker culture. Tin is necessary to make bronze from copper, and by about 1600 BCE the West Country was experiencing a trade boom driven by the export of tin across Europe. This prosperity helped feed the skilfully wrought gold ornaments recovered from Wessex culture sites.

There is evidence of a relatively large scale disruption of cultural practices around the 12th century BCE that some scholars think may indicate an invasion or migration into southern Britain.^{[citation needed]}

Around 750 BCE the Iron Age reached Britain, permitting greater scope of agriculture through the use of new iron ploughs and axes. The building of hill forts also peaked during the British Iron Age. During broadly the same time (900 to 500 BCE), the Celtic culture and peoples spread across the British Isles.

The first classical account of Cornwall comes from the Sicilian Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (c.90 BCE–c.30 BCE), supposedly quoting or paraphrasing the fourth-century BCE geographer Pytheas, who had sailed to Britain:

[The inhabitants of that part of Britain called Belerion or the Land's End] from their intercourse with foreign merchants, are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very carefully the earth in which it is produced…Here then the merchants buy the tin from the natives and carry it over to Gaul, and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on horses to the mouth of the Rhône.^[2]

Who these merchants were is not known. Historical sources such as Strabo, though not entirely reliable, state that the Phoenicians traded tin with Cornwall. There is no archaeological evidence for this. Some modern historians have attempted to debunk earlier antiquarian constructions of "the Phoenician legacy of Cornwall" ^[3], including belief that the Phoenecians even settled Cornwall.

By the time that Classical written sources appear, Cornwall was inhabited by tribes speaking Celtic languages. The Romans knew the area as Cornubia. This name is related to the words Kernow or later Curnow used for Cornwall in the Cornish language.

It is also proposed that this name may derive from the Celtic tribe of the Cornovii.^[4] The name Cornwall comes from this root to which the Anglo-Saxon word Wealas (Welsh, or foreigners) is added.^[5] A people of this name (Cornovii) are known, from Roman sources, to have lived in the Outer Powys to Shropshire area of the later Wales and England. One unlikely theory suggests that a contingent was sent to South West Britain in order to rule the land there and keep out the invading Irish, but this theory was dismissed by professor Philip Payton in his book Cornwall - A History, 1996. A similar situation occurred in North Wales. However, there is no evidence for this move west, and the Cornish place-name DVROCORNAVIVM (possibly Tintagel) referenced by Ptolemy would imply there was an independent tribe of British people called the Cornovii or "people of the horn". Possibly, they were a sub-tribe of the greater Dumnonii that covered much of the West Country at that time.

[edit] Roman Cornwall

During the time of Roman dominance in Britain, Cornwall was rather remote from the main centres of Romanisation. The Roman road system extended into Cornwall, but the only known significant Roman sites are two forts near Restormel Castle and at Nanstallon, and a villa at Magor Farm near Camborne. Furthermore, the British tin trade had been largely eclipsed by the more convenient supply from Iberia.

According to Léon Fleuriot, however, Cornwall remained closely integrated with neighbouring territories by well-travelled sea routes. Fleuriot suggests that an overland route connecting Padstow with Fowey and Lostwithiel served, in Roman times, as a convenient conduit for trade between Gaul (especially Armorica) and the western parts of the British Isles. (Fleuriot 1982:18)

[edit] 410-1066

See also: Kingdom of Cornwall

In the wake of the Roman withdrawal from Britain, Saxons and other peoples were able to conquer most of the east of the island. Cornwall, however, remained under the rule of local Romano-British and Celtic élites. It appears that Cornwall was a division of the Dumnonii tribe - whose tribal centre was in the modern county of Devon and were known as the Cornovii. During the sub-Roman historic period there is little distinction made between the Kingdom of Cornwall, the Cornovii, and Dumnonia. Indeed the names were largely interchangeable; with Dumnonia being the Latin name for the region and "Cornwall", or rather Cornweal, being the Anglo-Saxon name for them.

For most of its history, at least until the mid-8th century, the rulers of Dumnonia were probably also the rulers of Cornwall. In Arthurian legend Gorlois (Gwrlais in Welsh) is attributed the title "Duke of Cornwall" but evidence of his existence is scant. He could have been a sub-king in Cornwall because of place names such as Carhurles (Caer-Wrlais) and Treworlas (Tre-Wrlais). There was almost certainly a King Mark of Cornwall. After the loss of most of the territory today called Devon, the British rulers are referred to either as the kings of Cornwall or the kings of the "West Welsh".

This is also the period known as the 'age of the saints', as Celtic Christianity and a revival of Celtic art spread from Ireland and Scotland into Great Britain, Brittany, and beyond. Cornish saints such as Piran, Meriasek, or Geraint exercised a religious and arguably political influence; their activities also connected Cornwall strongly with Ireland, Brittany, Scotland, and Wales, where many of these saints were trained or formed monasteries. The Cornish saints were often closely connected to the local civil rulers; in a number of cases, the saints were also kings.

A Kingdom of Cornwall emerged around the 6th century; its kings were at first sub-kings and then successors of the Brythonic Celtic Kingdom of Dumnonia. The political situation was much in flux, and several kings or polities appear to have exercised sovereignty across the Channel in Brittany. Meanwhile the Saxons of Wessex were rapidly approaching from the east and crushing the kingdom of Dumnonia. In 721 the Britons defeated the West Saxons at "Hehil" (Annales Cambriae). A century passed before we specifically hear of the West Saxons attacking Cornwall again, although the "Welsh" who fought a battle against King Cuthred in 753 were probably from this area. In 814 King Egbert "laid waste to Cornwall from east to west".^[6] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that in 825 (adjusted date) the Battle of Gafulforda, unidentified but perhaps Galford, near Lydford in Devon took place: "The West Wealas (Cornish) and the men of Defnas (Devon) fought at Gafalforda".^[7][8] In 838 the Cornish in alliance with the Danes were defeated by Egbert of Wessex (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) at Hingston Down.^[9] where the Wealas and the Danes were "put to flight". The Annales Cambriae records that in 875 AD king Dungarth of Cerniu ("id est Cornubiae") drowns. A remarkable quote is attributed to the last known independent king of Cornwall; "Sorrow comes from a world upturned".

By the 880s the Church in Cornwall was having more Saxon priests appointed to it and they controlled some church estates like Polltun, Caellwic and Landwithan. Eventually they passed these over to Wessex kings. However according to Alfred the Great's will the amount of land he owned in Cornwall was very small.^[10] West of the Tamar Alfred the Great only owned a small area in the Stratton region, plus a few other small estates around Lifton (on Cornish soil east of the Tamar). These were provided to him illicitly through the Church whose Canterbury appointed priesthood was increasingly English dominated. William of Malmesbury, writing around 1120, says that King Athelstan of England (924–939) fixed Cornwall's eastern boundary at the Tamar and the remaining Cornish were evicted from Exeter and perhaps the rest of Devon - "Exeter was cleansed of its defilement by wiping out that filthy race".^[11] By 944 Athelstan's successor, Edmund I of England, styled himself 'King of the English and ruler of this province of the Britons' ^[12], an indication of how that accommodation was understood at the time.

In 1013 Cornwall's enemy and Anglo-Saxon neighbour, Wessex was conquered by a Danish army under the leadership of the Viking leader and King of Denmark Sweyn Forkbeard. Sweyn annexed Wessex to his Viking empire which included Denmark and Norway. He did not, however, annex Cornwall, Wales and Scotland, allowing these "client nations" self rule in return for an annual payment of tribute or "danegeld". Between 1013-1035 the Kingdom of Cornwall, Wales, much of Scotland and Ireland were not included in the territories of King Canute the Great^[13]

The chronology of English expansion into Cornwall is unclear, but it had been absorbed into England by the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066), when it apparently formed part of Godwin's and later Harold's earldom of Wessex.^[14] The records of Domesday Book show that by this time the native Cornish landowning class had been almost completely dispossessed and replaced by English landowners, the largest of whom was Harold Godwinson himself.^[15] The Cornish language continued to be spoken, particularly in western and central Cornwall, and acquired a number of characteristics establishing its identity as a separate language from Breton. However Cornwall showed a very different type of settlement pattern to that of Saxon Wessex and places continued, even after 1066, to be named in the Celtic Cornish tradition. The earliest record for any English place names west of the Tamar is around 1040.^[16]

The early organisation and affiliations of the Church in Cornwall are unclear, but in the mid-ninth century it was headed by a Bishop Kenstec with his see at Dinurrin, a location which has sometimes been identified as Bodmin. Kenstec acknowledged the authority of Ceolnoth, bringing Cornwall under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the 920s or 930s King Athelstan established a bishopric at St Germans to cover the whole of Cornwall, which seems to have been initially subordinated to the see of Sherborne but emerged as a full bishopric in its own right by the end of the tenth century. The first few bishops here were native Cornish, but those appointed from 963 onwards were all English. From around 1027 the see was held jointly with that of Crediton, and in 1050 they were merged to become the diocese of Exeter.^[17]

[edit] 1066-1485

After the Norman conquest most of the land in Cornwall was seized and transferred into the hands of a new Norman aristocracy, with the lion's share going to Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother of King William and the largest landholder in England after the king.^[18] On several occasions over the following centuries noblemen were created Earl of Cornwall, but each time their line soon died out and the title lapsed until revived for a new appointee. In 1336, Edward, the Black Prince was named Duke of Cornwall, a title that has been awarded to the eldest son of the Sovereign since 1421. The Duke is the Sovereign of Cornwall and the Duchy extends over the entire territory of Cornwall and the sea surrounding it.

A popular Cornish literature, centred on the religious-themed mystery plays, emerged in the 14th century (see Literature in Cornish) based around Glasney College—the third oldest British University.

[edit] Tudor and Stuart period

The general tendency of administrative centralization under the Tudor dynasty began to undermine Cornwall's distinctive status. For example, under the Tudors, laws were no longer specified to apply in Anglia et Cornubia (in England and Cornwall); instead, Anglia was taken to include Cornubia. The Cornish Rebellion of 1497 originated among Cornish tin miners who opposed to the raising of taxes by Henry VII in order to make war on Scotland. This levy was resented for the economic hardship it would cause; it also intruded on a special Cornish tax exemption. The rebels marched on London, gaining supporters as they went, but were defeated at the Battle of Deptford Bridge.

The Cornish also rose up in the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549. Much of south-western Britain rebelled against the Act of Uniformity 1549, which introduced the obligatory use of the Protestant Book of Common Prayer. Cornwall was mostly Catholic in sympathy at this time; the Act was doubly resented in Cornwall because the Prayer Book was in English only and most Cornish people at this time spoke the Cornish language rather than English. They therefore wished church services to continue to be conducted in Latin; although they did not understand this language either, it had the benefit of long-established tradition and lacked the political and cultural connotations of the use of English. Twenty percent of the Cornish population are believed to have been killed during 1549. It is one of the major factors that contributed to the decline in the Cornish language.

It is worthy of note that on many maps produced before the 17th century Cornwall was depicted as a nation of Great Britain on a par with Wales and Ireland; famous example include Gerardus Mercator's Atlas^[19] and the famous Mappa Mundi.

[edit] Civil War

Main article: First English Civil War

Cornwall played a significant role during the English Civil War, as it was a Royalist enclave in the generally Parliamentarian south-west. The reason for this was that Cornwall's rights and privileges were tied up with the royal Duchy and Stannaries and the Cornish saw the Civil War as a fight between England and Cornwall as much as a conflict between King and Parliament. The English Parliament wanted to reduce royal power. This would include the Cornish Parliament which has powers rivalling that of the English (now British) Parliament. Parliamentary forces invaded Cornwall three times and burned the Duchy archives. In 1645 Cornish Royalist leader Sir Richard Grenville, 1st Baronet made Launceston his base and he stationed Cornish troops along the River Tamar and issued them with instructions to keep "all foreign troops out of Cornwall". Grenville tried to use "Cornish particularist sentiment" to muster support for the Royalist cause and put a plan to the Prince which would, if implemented, have created a semi-independent Cornwall.^{[20][21][22][23]}

Main article: Cornwall in the English Civil War

[edit] 18th and 19th centuries

[edit] 1755 Tsunami

On 1 November 1755 at 09:40 the Lisbon earthquake caused a tsunami to strike the Cornish coast at around 14:00. The epicentre was approximately 250 miles (400 km) off Cape St Vincent on the Portuguese coast, over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south west of the Lizard. At St Michael's Mount, the sea rose suddenly and then retired, ten minutes later it rose 6 ft (1.8 m) feet very rapidly, then ebbed equally rapidly, and continued to rise and fall for five hours. The sea rose 8 ft (2.4 m) in Penzance and 10 ft (3.0 m) at Newlyn. The same effect was reported at St Ives & Hayle. The 19th Century French writer, Arnold Boscowitz, claimed that "great loss of life and property occurred upon the coasts of Cornwall".^[24]

[edit] Developments in tin mining

At one time the Cornish were the world's foremost experts of mining (See Mining in Cornwall ) and a School of Mines was established in 1888. As Cornwall's reserves of tin began to be exhausted, many Cornishmen emigrated to places such as the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa where their skills were in demand. There is no current tin mining undertaken in Cornwall, however a popular legend says that wherever you may go in the world, if you see a hole in the ground, you'll find a Cornishman at the bottom of it. Several Cornish mining words are in use in English language mining terminology, such as costean, gunnies, and vug.

Since the decline of tin mining, agriculture and fishing, the area's economy has become increasingly dependent on tourism— some of Britain's most spectacular coastal scenery can be found here. However Cornwall is one of the poorest parts of Western Europe and it has been granted Objective 1 status by the EU.

[edit] Politics, Religion and administration

As in other Celtic regions, Jacobitism enjoyed substantial popularity in Cornwall during the early 18th century though a rebellion in 1715 led by James Paynter of St. Columb was quickly stopped by the authorities. James Paynter was tried for High Treason but claiming his right as a Cornish tinner was tried in front of a jury of other Cornish tinners and was cleared.

Industrialised communities have long appeared to weaken the pre-eminence of the Church of England, and as the Cornish people were readily involved in mining, a rift developed between the Cornish people and their Anglican clergy in the early eighteenth-century.^[25] Resisting the established church, many ordinary Cornish people were Roman Catholic or non-religious until the late 18th century, when Methodism was introduced to Cornwall during a series of visits by John and Charles Wesley. Methodist separation from the Church of England was made formal in 1795.

In 1841 there were nine hundreds of Cornwall: Stratton, Lesneweth and Trigg; East and West; Powder; Pydar; Kerrier and Penwith. The shire suffix has been attached to several of these, notably: the first three formed Triggshire; East and West appear to be divisions of Wivelshire; Powdershire and Pydarshire. The old names of Kerrier and Penwith have been re-used for modern local government districts.

[edit] 20th and 21st Centuries

A political party, Mebyon Kernow, or ("Sons of Cornwall"), was formed in 1951 to attempt to reinstate a sense of Cornish Nationalism and to achieve a renewed independence from the United Kingdom. The party has had no national success, but the more wide-spread use of the Flag of St Piran has been accredited to this party.^{[citation needed]}

Recently there have been some developments in the recognition of Cornish identity or ethnicity. In 2001 for the first time in the UK the inhabitants of Cornwall could record their ethnicity as Cornish on the national census and in 2004 the schools census in Cornwall carried a Cornish option as a subdivision of white British.

[edit] See also

• Timeline of Cornish history
• List of topics related to Cornwall
• Constitutional status of Cornwall

[edit] References

• Léon Fleuriot. Les Origines de la Bretagne. 1982. Payot.
• Halliday, F.E, A History of Cornwall, Duckworth, 1959, ISBN 1-84232-123-4 and Halliday, Frank Ernest (2001.). History of Cornwall, 2nd edition. Main text same as 1959 edition but with afterword by Halliday's son.. Thirsk, North Yorkshire: House of Stratus. ISBN 0-7551-0817-5. 

• Gerrard, Sandy (2000.). The early British tin industry. Stroud, Glos: Tempus Publishing. ISBN 0-7524-1452-6. 

• Kendrick, Thomas D. (1950). British antiquity. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. BNBNo.b5007301. 

• Penhallurick, Roger D. (1986). Tin in antiquity: its mining and trade throughout the ancient world with particular reference to Cornwall. London: The Institute of Metals. ISBN 0-904357-81-3. 

• Wood, Michael (1981). In Search of the Dark Ages. BBC. ISBN 0-563-17835-3. 

and several subsequent editions and reprints

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