CHAPTER X. CUMBRIA AND THE MEN OF THE NORTH. THE districts comprehended at an early period under the name of Cumbria were of considerable extent; and, as its name indicates, occupied by a Cymric population. Joceline, who wrote about the year 1180, in his life of Kentigern, states that the limits of his bishopric were coextensive with those of the "regio Cambrensis," and extended from the Roman wall to the "flumen Fordense;" but it originally extended even further south than this, for Joceline was judging by the extent of the diocese of Glasgow, and Carlisle and the district surrounding it had, after the Norman Conquest of England, been formed into an earldom, and in 1132 erected into the diocese of Carlisle. In a document printed in the Iolo MSS., the extent of many of the old Welsh districts is given, and the district of Teyrnllwg is said to have extended from Aerven to Argoed Derwennydd-that is, to the Forest upon the Derwent. This river, which falls into the Western Sea at Workington, now divides the diocese of Chester from that of Carlisle; and as soon as we pass the Derwent, dedications of churches to Kentigern comThe district south of the Derwent had very early come under the power of the kings of North mence. umberland, and the independent states of the Cymry probably extended from the Derwent and from Stanmore to the Clyde, including Westmoreland (with the exception of Kendal), and the central districts in Scotland, of Teviotdale, Selkirk, and Tweeddale. It comprehended what afterwards formed the dioceses of Glasgow and Carlisle; and its Cymric population appears as a distinct people, even as late as the battle of the Standard, in 1130, where they formed one of the battalions in King David's army, consisting of the Cumbrenses and Tevidalenses. They appear to have been composed of numerous small states under their petty kings. There is a document in one of the Hengwrt MSS., transcribed about 1300, with the title of Bonhed Gwyr y Gogledd, or Genealogies of the Men of the North-a name used to designate these Northern Cymry. It gives the pedigrees of twelve families, and they fall into three groups-one consisting of six families, whose descent is traced from Ceneu, son of Coel; the second, of five families descended from Dyfnwal Hen, or the aged, grandson of Macsen Guledig, the Roman Emperor; and the third, of one family connected with the north, apparently through the female line. The first group again falls into two branches respectively derived from two sons of Ceneu, son of Coel, Gorwst Ledlwm, and Mar or Mor. Merchion Gul, the son of Gorwst Ledlwm, are given two sons Cynvarch, the father of Urien and Elidir Lydanwyn, father of Llywarch Hen. To Garthwys Το or Arthwys, son of Mor, are given four sons-Ceidiaw, the father of Gwenddolew, Nudd, and Cov; Elivir Gosgorddvawr, or of the large retinue, the father of Gwrgi and Peredur; Pabo Post Prydain, or the pillar of Britain, the father of Sawyl Benuchel, Dunawd Vawr, and Carwyd; and Cynvelyn, the grandfather, by his son Cynwyd Cynwydion, of Clyddno Eiddyn, Cynan Genhir, Cadrod Calchvynydd, and Cynvelyn Drwsgl. The second group, consisting of the descendants of Dyfnwal Hen, also falls into four branches, descended of four sons of Dyfnwal Hen:-Cedig, father of Tudwal Tudclud, the father of Rydderch Hael, Senyllt, father of Nudd Hael, and Servan, father of Mordav; Garwynwyn, father of Caurdav, father of Gwyddno Garanhir; Aeddan Vradog; and Gorwst Briodawr, father of Elidr Mwynvawr. The genealogies annexed to Nennius in 977 do not greatly differ from this. In the first group of families descended from Coel they add the pedigrees of two additional families--that of Gwallawg ap Leenawg and of Morcant. In the second group, the most important variation is that the descent of Dyfnwal Hen, the common ancestor, is not brought from Macsen Guledig, but from a Caredig Guledic, whose pedigree is taken back to a Confer the Rich; and that the descent of the later kings of Strathclyde from Dyfnwal Hen is given. Adding, therefore, the two additional families descended from Coel, we have eight in the first group, and five in the second-in all, thirteen; and the following tables will show their connection :-- |