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Trinovantum — the evolution of a legend
John Clark
One as@ct of that legendary ‘British history’ whifx was accepted us *fact almost wifkuut queslion by historical writers until the earb seventeentk century, and in popular and literary tradition much longer, was the story of the jbundation of London, as lrinovanlum or ‘Afew
Troy’, by a group of exiled Trojnns, long befbre the Roman conquest of Britain. in considering the relevance of this medieval story to the problems of London’s actual origin, this paper traces its sources and development. Ambiguities in :he Latin of Julius Caesar and Orosius led later writers, including Fobably Bede, to assume that there had once existed a British city called Trinovantum. The British ulriters, refiesented by Nennius, invented a TTojun origin for their people on welttried models. These two independent traditions were combined in the twelfth century by GeoJrey of Monmouth, who identljied Trinovantum as Troia Nova, and made the further ident@ation of this city with London, Later Londoners- wRre well aware o/ tkis ‘Trojan foundation’, and found 212 the stoTy a source of pride and a reason for the pre-eminence of their cirpl.
The *first foundation ul’ the city of LA)II~~M is a subject which has stitnul;lt.cd thr ilrtt.rc.st of generations of its hiy.torians. Fur ucarl) J’CXUS from thts early twelfth five hundred century, the acco:mt given by CcoKrcy 4’ M~lltriouth in his Historicl regum Bhmiw was accepted with little rescrvarion : the: citv was founded long before the Komans camt to Britain, as ‘Trinov;ltltum’ or ‘NM Troy‘, by a group of Trojan settlers under rh(b lcadcrship of Rrutus! great-grandson of Aeneas, who gave his name to tht: isl~d of Britain and its people (Fig. 1). Even after the recognition of Ccoffrey’s work as largdy fabrication, and the dcmisc of the traditional ‘British history’, histori;lns of London seemed reluctant to accept thr implication of the complete lack of historical or archaeological evidence for a pre-Roman settlement on the site ofthc city: ehe implic;ition that London came into existence only between the Roman invasion of AD 43 and the first mention of it as a town of merchants in AD 60 (Merrifield l965:36). Instead, they sought in its name a Celtic Llyn Uin (‘Lake-fort’), a Llong Dinas (‘Ship-city’) or even a L/an Uyn (‘Temple of Diana’) {Davis 1926:227-B). Wooden piles f’ound in the valley of the Walbrook, the stream that formerly ran through the midst of the city, were accepted as the remains of a British
largely to that thesis. Tatlock, in his comprchcnsivc survey ul Gcoffrcy’s work and its sourc~c’s (i950 :263, note 24), gave a stern warning agilinst the ;Ittitudc: “For a11 his long notoriety as an inventor, scholars hare been prone to belicvc that at this or that special point 11~ may embalm tradition.” Although others have shown good cvidcncc that Geoffrey’s (iourccs did indeed include oral tradition, particul;~ly W&h icgend (Loomis 1959 ; Parry and Caldwell 1959:81-5), it is evident that to atrrjbutc any statement in the Nistoria to the survival of an otherwise unrecorded ~CI authentic tradition is dangerous. i\s an tx;mplc of the application to an archacological subject of this approach WC may take Figgott’s suggestion (I 94 i) that Gtmflrey’s iwotml of ihc Crcction of Stonchengc, involving the ‘;;inging of rhc skotlcs from ircland, might embody a genuine foikmemory of the transporting of some of the stont’s, rllc ‘bluestones’, from their distant so&~ in Pembrokeshire. This inviting hypothesis has been restated by other arch;ieologists, norably Atkinson [ 1936: 1845) and Grinsell (1975:5--l 1j, but it remains unconvincing. There’ is little reason to envisage an oral tradition surviving for approaching three milleoia and in spite of changes cf population when Geoffrey’s story can be explained as a dclibcratc, and imaginative, response to the questions implicit in Henry of Huntingdon’s descrip?ion of Stonchcngc in his Historia An&r-urn a few years before: “Nor can anyone guess by what means so many stones were raised so high, or why they were built there” (Atkinson 1956: 183; Tatlock 1950: 41). Geoffrey was prepared to guess, and to
138
known written works, ~11 indcpcl\dcntly rccordcd traditions, have been climinatcd as sources fbr Gcoflrey’s stories, before rccourse’ is had to unknown works or unr-worded traditions note must be taken ot‘his illvcntivc genius ihnd his obvious gift for Lhc reconstruction of history on thr scantiest u1 fnundntions provided by earlier writers or hy his own knuwlcdgc or the contcmpor;lry world, or puuibly invpircd in some instances by arcl~aeologicill obscrvatiot~s.2 So, before the story of Trinovanrum can be used as cvidcmc in the discu&n ofpreRoman London, its status, as history, legend or fiction, requires: clarification. Its origin, in gcncral terms, has long been rccognizr~d, John Stow communrcd on ir in the sixteenth ccn tury (Kingsford 1908 : 3-4) and Bishop Stillingflect in the srventccnth (1704 :47281 ): more recently Lethaby [I9021 12-13), Faral (1929a $0 and 1929bz9 1) and Tatlock (1950:30) have dealt briefly with the topic. None of these authors devoted much attcntion to it, or attempted to trace the specific ‘tradition’ dcvcloped. steps by which the Yet of all Geoffrey’s stories it Is one whose complex genesis in the ambiguous Latin of two Roman authors and the patriotic fahCations of seventh to ninth-r;:ntury Britons can be demonstrated with sotnr certainty, and whose development shct’s interesting light on the methods and ‘IV attitudes of early historians.
The Trinovantcs as a people of prc-Roman and Roman Britain are recorded both in the writings of Ruman historically, and archaeologically (Dunnctt authors,
197.5); their ‘city”, however, :tppc~rrcd first, unherzddcd mcl unintended, in Julius Chcsar’s account of his Gallic c;hmpaigns (De hello gal&o 5.20). According; to Cncsar, during his second invasion of’ Hritair. in 54 BC and after his crossing of the Thames, il tribe called the Trinov;mtt*s (or Trinobantcs -- both forms are found) cmc’ to terms with him, to bc followed by others, the Ccnimagni, the Scgontiaci, the Ancaiilcs, the Bibroci and thr Citssi. Hc dcscrihcd the Trinovantcs as ~ro~eJbmiGna twum regionurn civitas -- “about the strongest cirritas of that rqion,” Cicilas, ‘statr’or ‘nalion’, is Cwsar’s gcnoral term for the Gailic tribes, and in tht. contextofhisown writings it is unambiguous. L.;itcr, howEver, it was Lo have a diffcrcnt meaning; somctimcs in 1illW cliissic;il Latin Latin it was cmd rcgutarty in mcdicr;ll syuonynlous with WAS, ‘city’, and rcadcrs were to intcrprct Caesar’s USC’01‘ the word in that scnsc.3 Thus, when in the fifth crntury AD thu historian Omsius sumrnarizcd Cacs;lr’s account of his invasions of Britain, hrL employed Caesar‘s cxprcssion _lirmissima rinitas of the Trinovantcs, but clearly assumed that cividas meant ‘city‘, l-or hc immcdiatcly wunt on to doscribc the other peoples who surrendered ttr Caesar as urbes aliae compluws -. “scvt:ral other cilies” (Hisloriae 6. g-10). Thus, by equating ctuitas and tubs, and in ignorance of the actual situation in the south of Britain some five hundred years before his own time, Orosius attributed to the eariy Britons a number of cit)p-states, of which that of tht- Trinovantes was ‘the strongest’. Morevcr, tbc ambiguity is compounded, for Orosius referred to the Trinovantes not in the nominative, but in the gunitive: “the
‘I’hcbwork> ol’ Omsius wcrcb t(t br rd’ grt*;ir importazicr i1?;il major, in stbmc cast’s Ilk<. soic’, s0urc.e: oi’inli,rmation on Rormtn hiatlq historians. Thus hi> used by mcdicval q:tI;\ptCbm 011 C._h~!Silr’S Ihit ish c;lllrpiti@ts wcrc lhc immcdiittc source of lhc ilCC(tUltt b!Hcdc, the :irsl English historian to drxribc thcsc cvtmts. Bcdc did lit& tnorc* than trmscribc Or&us’ narrative, mcrcIy omitGng a ltiw words and adding a description rrl‘thrb stakes with which the Britons brtificd the Thamcs ford, stakes which, hc clitimed, could still hc swn - an early, it’ mistakrn, applic;ltion of archacologiu~l cvidmcc- by it historian (Hisloria PC&.U’Q.~~~U.Z 1.2 ; Colgrave and Mynors 1969 :20-3). Since Bcde made no comment on the ~rinocanlm j%mkhrza civilas it is imp&Me to bc certain in what scnst! hc understood the phrnsc. Although translators have tended to compromise, with versions such as “the strongest city of the (Shcrlcy-Pticc 1955:41), in Trinovantes” the fact of the ambiguity of Bedc’s only source it seems probable that he would have preferred the more obvious meaning, and that the correct translation should be “the strongest city, Trinovantum”. While Beds was presenting Cae:
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work? which in its final form is atvibuted lo wuth W&3, to Nenriius and to the early ninth CCI,tury. thou& it clearly incorporaIVY mu&l earlier material. FOTtllis account of Cat%1 1”s invasions, the writt‘r, like Bedf_!, drew on OrosIus, but produccf: a lively if unrelinb!c pr&cis of Orosius’ tlafrative very diflcrcnt from Bedc’s transcript (Historia B,-itontcnl 19, 20). The diver qzncc from Carwrb own account is sn ~-cat that at first sight it is easy to hclicw th: t thr rZuthos hild ;L~C~YS IO an indcpendrnt v :rsiun of the wents, presumably in native E’.ritish tradition .- a vkw adopted by Mars1 1 (1970:73). Yet the rirf’ferenc~s can bc cxpl;.ined by the ituthor’s misunderstanding and &aultymemory of a text probably already (orrupt, and his enthusiastic rmbroidcry on it (Faral 1929a:36-92). From thr outset the tone is direrent. Caesar, while reporting his losses, stressed his victories and thr surrenders of British tribes, i\nd Orosius in his bald summary git\re no undur emphasis to either side. The British version, on the other hand, is not uncxpccrcdlp more favourable to the Britons, ignorimg the Romans’ victories and recording o&f their defeats and disastrous losses of ships and men. The surrender of ?rinacanttrn~c&as becomes a bat& (perhaps on the partisan assumption that no British city ;voutd surrender without a bat:le - indeed thr surwndcr is not recorded): “Battle was waged Ibr the third time near the place which is called Trinovantum.” Thus, Trinovantum was now a definite if unlocalized place. Yet its location is perhaps implicit in the text. 1mmediatcly before the account oft he events at Trirtovantum the author had described C:aesar’s battle to cross the Thamcs; in this he followed Orosius. From either Nennius
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or Orosius the reader is likely to draw the conclusion that the territory of Trinovantumjthc Trinovantes lay beyond (that is, north of) the Thamcs, and close to its crossing-point - a fact which, even ifimplied, i:; certainly not cxpiicit in Caesar’s own account, though the geographical writings of Ptolemy and other evidence confirm the location of the tribe in this general area (Dunnctt 1975: 1; I l-13; 27-9). Yet one historian is more specific in Icxating the events of 54 BC. About the end of the ninth century, an English version of OTOSiUS’ history was produced, perhaps inspired by King Alfred, to which were added, among other things, descriptions of the geography of those northern regions of which Orosius had no knowledge. The account of Caesar’s invasions is very brief, ?>ut presents some intcrcsting features (5.7.2; Rosworth 1859:llO). It omits Caesar’s earlier raid, in 55 BC, and abbrcviatcs to a ’ bare mention the first two battles of the 44 BC campaign, both of which are placed ;n ‘Kentland’. The third battle, according to Orosius, was at the Thames ford; Bede had described the stakes still to be seen there ; the English translator boldly identified the ford as Wallingford. After the Thames battle, Orosius recorded the surrender of Trinouantzun civihn, with its leader ‘Androgorius’ (‘Androgius’ in Bede), followed by the surrender of u&s afiae cum~~uves; the English version is that “after the battle, the king came into his hands, and the townspeople (burhwa~) that were in Cirenccster, and afterwards all that were in the island.” Clearly “the townspeople that were in translates Trinouanlum civilas. Cirenccster” Not only is the existence of a city accepted, but it is identified with a contemporary
town. There is little to recommend this identification, presumably based on the assonance of %n(ovantum) and Qxn(ceastre) and the recognition of the latter as an ancient town, though it was perhaps attractive to Alfred’s court in that, with the battIc at Wallingfurd, it placed Caesar’s vic.tr>ries firmly on the borders of Wcsscx! This is an identification that does not scrm ta be taken up by later writers, who turned to the Latin of Orosius rather than thr English account. Apart from this abortive attempt to locaiize Trinovantum more closely, the histories readily available in the ninth century stem merely to have agreed that there was such a place in the time of Cacsat-, that it was the strongest city of the Britons, and that it Iay just north of the Thames and close to a crossing-point. Three hundred or so years added no more, until Geoffrey of Monmouth came to apply his mind to the subject; if anyone before him made the attractive assumption that the city so situated was London he does not seem to have committed the idea to writing.
It is the Hisha BAmmz which provides the earliest account (indeed a choice ofaccounts) of the Trojan ancestry of the British, a story modelled on that of the descent of the Remans from Aeneas’ band of Trojan exiles, and oat of a group of such stories found among the nations of north-west Europe fjilowing the collapse of the Roman Empire. The historians of these succcssur-states were faced with the problems of tracing the early histories of new nations of whose ancestors classical authors had little, and
How~vcr, thcrc were prt~ccdrtlt~ in native* tradition, in the Bible and in classical writer\; Lbr the cponymous hcru, the Ibundcr who gave a race its origin and n;imr, whiic tht* Bible ids<) provided au un;unbiguous Ii-amrwork for the writing of world history, li)r it stated that thcrc had bcx-n a univmw! Flood, ;\ftcr which the dcsccndants of the: tllrcc. suns of Noah had rcpopulatrd thr- whdt rarth (Genesis 9: 19). Thus, it is not surprising to find in an rarly chapter ~1’ the Historio Britonurn (19) an account of libur brothers, Francus, Romanus, Almannus and Brito (or Britto), who traced their ancestry to Japhcth, son of Noah, but whosl~ actual uponymic origin is obvious, and whose tnspiration can be fbund in stories current earlier among the Franks (Farit 1929a: 81-6). However, for any nation with a claim to succeed to the power of Rome the temptation remained tn legitimize that claim by a gcncalogy proving a close kinship with the Komans. The Remans’ own ;mccstry had been dcscribcd most vividly hy Vcrgil in the Aeneid - the wanderings of the fijundingfather Aencas aftor the fall ofTroy, and his settlement in Italy; yet that ancestry itself was no more than a patriotic fabrication at the third century BC by Roman writers who, after the wars with Greece, suught in Greek legend a national hero who was himself
an enemy
of Greece,
in Homcr’spiousTrojan The Frank& authors
and found
one
(Gary 1949: 1 l-12). of the seventh and
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lG$tll
rtmlurics
who crcatcd ;t Ttw+tn Franks (E’nral 19‘29a : 1724; ‘!r;S-93) \vt‘w thus in good cunqxwy atId \\t*t*t*doing nu mor(‘, though they did not t c;lliztb it, than their- Kotna~l prcdcccssors (Ii’;I t hOUS~tld VCitrS earlier. 1n t tw vatkk wwnshs ol‘ Itw Hdorin !I~i~untrll~ arc inc<~rpori~t~*d il numhu: of ;rttctnpts (thy conq3ilcr ol’ ~lw vulgatv tc*xl (i_i;!rl&n trxt 10) 12_4crstO Ihctn i1s.a “LNal;dd t~spcrin~c~” hnc rp.YpP:-iln~?~!rr~~~ b@k :/mNi - thus ;h~nlitting their spccularivc nttturc) TV)rclatc. the Britons to the Trojan ;\nccstry of this Rrltnans, in cmul;ltion of the Franki& ;KCWINS. The fn‘st t,f thcsc, fi>und in Lit11only in 1hc cnrly ‘Chartres man+ script, trarcs thr. dcnsccnt of the Britons back try otlr Brutus, il Roman ‘co~~sul’ dcsc~nclcd frum Actwas iitld identified a* the brother of Romulus and Remus (Cha: tres text i 1). The other, the vulgatc version. tells ofBritto, grandson of Aeneas, who sifter accidrntally killing his father flod from Italy to Britain (Harlcian text 10). An nttcmpt was also made, not very successfully, tu rcconcilc the Trojan descent of Brutus[Brit:o (the names seem interchangeable) and the biblical genealogy from Japheth (18). These SW.& ikIT no more than the historical speculations of ‘Ncnnius’ ;md his sources, and in no way rcleviittt to a discussion of any authentic native tradition of the origins of the British (Faral 19’29a: 1?O-84;, 192-U; for a contrary view scr: Spcncc 1937 : especially 165-6). Thcrc is no trace of any st:ch tradition. Dedc, admittedly perhaps not well-placed, as an Englishman, for the study of British traditions, was ;tblc to record only the belief that the Britons had come from Brittany perhaps merely a recognition of the obvious kinship of raceson both sides ofthe Channcl.6
i\twstry
142
h-
I!W
The common Trojan ancestry ofRomans, Franks and Britons was to bccomc a historic;tl commonplace, imitated by writers of othr‘r n;ttions, as by Snorri Sturluson in t tw cuhcmcristic prologue to his Eddu, dtriving
the- Norse
gods
from
Troy
(Young
197 1 :‘L3-8). Yet the originators of thcsc stories rcbcogtiizcrl that they were no more than SpCCUliltiotlS, and such must remain t hr
rxtcrd
Of
lhcir historktl
wlidity.
New Troy The Hisroria Brilon71n2provided only a skclctal outline of the Trojan origins of the Britons, and ;m unrulatcd rc.fert:nce to a place called Trinovantupl in the time of Julius Caesar; of the history of thu Britons between these LWOperiods it had nothing to report, The lack of.n reli;tblc British history was, by the twelfth century, notorious (Tatlock 1950: 430-l )_ In 1139 the English historian Henry of Huntingdon wrote to 2 c*:rrespondent, N’arinus the Rreton, in a lc .;cr quoted in Robert dc Torigny’s CIzronjcl., that hc had begun his Historia hglorwn frhlrn Lhe time of Julius Caesilt., omitting rhc period between Brutus and Caesar, becau : in spite of assiduous rcscarrh hc: had faiied to find any evidence, either oral or writzen, relating to the prc-Roman British kings: . . net uoce WC script0 hrfum temporum snepLrimf noliliam quwrerrs irrwniri pdui (Chart,!> rs 1927 :25 l-
2). Yet, he continued in the same Ictter, he had rccr ;I tty discovered with astonishment (slzfpens i?veni) a written work on the subject. The wo!*k was the recently completed Historia lzgz in Rritazniae and its author, who claimed to have found in “a certain very ancient rook in the British language” the evidencp for the early history of Britain that
others had sought in vain, was Geoffrey of Monmouth.B Born, or brought up, in Monmouth, perhaps of Brcton stock, Geoffrey was a lung-term resident of Oxford and probable sometime visitor to London (Tatlock 19X:438-+8). Discussion of his SOU~CCYhas been long and occasionally acrimonious. We must rcgretfuljy class the “ancient book in the British language” along with Professor James Moriarty’s Dpamics of an asteroid and the Necronnmicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred among great fictional books; Ccoffrcy’s written sources were, it seems, ones equally available to us. Whatever his sources, however, Geoffrey’s aim is clear: to provide, if with tongue in cheek, the history of the early inhabitants of the British Isles which, as Henry of Huntingdon noted, was lacking, and in particuiar to fill convincingly the void bctwecn the coming of Brutus and the invasion of Caesar. To the bare outline of Brutus’ settlement, derived from the His&r& Britonurn, he added much picturesque detail, providing Brutus with fresh adventures, a pr0phec.y of success, and Trojan companions to set& his newfound land (Historia regum Bri&nniuc! 1.S 18). Many of the events and characters are clearly modelled on those of the Aeneid, and indeed in style and spirit Geoffrey’s work has more in common with Vergil’s than with that of historians who wcrc his contemporarjcs. He was producing for the Britons a foundation epic comparable with the Aeneid, with as ltttie basis in historical fact. For the kings, from Brutus to the coming of the Romans, he unscrupulously robbed and adapted later Welsh genealogies and traditional tales; presumably believing that
history rcpcats itself, LC was not above reading brick into the prehistoric past even IS, characters and cclrtainly attitudes of more rcccnt, even cuntcmporary times .. a failing not unknown among murc recent historians; Gransdcn has commented (1974 ~206) on his value “as a mirrttr of his own time, nrtt as a record of the F?.st”. His genius, howcvm, is clearly seen in the two-way link he forged between the Trojans, the: t:vcnts of Caesar’s time, and the modern period, a link consisting in the place, and the name, Trinovantum. Trinovantum hc identified in one direction as ‘New Troy’, a city foundrd by the Trojans, in the other as London, the most important English city of his own time (1.17, 3.20). According to Geoffrey, Brutus, having divided the land (IIOWcalled ‘Britain’ after his own name) among tho Trojan colonists, set out to found a city. Discovering a suitable site on the banks of the Thamcs, Brutus built his city, and called it, in memory of lost Troy, ‘New Troy’ - ‘~UI&I Nova (Fig. 2). The derivation of T7-inovantumfrom T~oia Nova is a delightful piece of etymologizing, an activity in which Geoffrey excelled, and his explanntion of the changes to the name in the course of time is as convincing as it is spurious. Th e name and status of Trinovantum came, as WE have seen, from the liisloria Britonurn and BedclOrosius, but that its etymology was Gcofircy’s own contribution is suggested by the fact that it is he who first provided, with his British kings, the necessary bridge from the Trojans to Caesar; without that, no-one would have the motive to connect in this way two complcrely unrelated incidents in the historical record - the Trojan settlement and the surrender of Trinovan turn.
143
144
twelfth century (Kissack 1974 : 22). The inspiration for Geoffrey’s ‘New Troy’ must come! as with so many of his inventions, from a multiplicity of sources. Having described the foundation of Trinovantum which Brutus granted to its citizens together with a law-code (a fantasy that was to play a part in medievai discussion of London’s legal status), Geoffrey turned to the awkward fact that its name must at some point have been changed to ‘London’. We find two slightly diflcrcnt accounts of this change, attributed to King
Lud, who rebuilt and l_,rtifird the city. Either Lud himsrlf changed its nitrnt: tt~ Kirerlud (‘the City of Lud’) ( I. 17), or it was changed in his honour (3.20). The chronology is incunsistcnt ; Lud died before Caesar’s invasion, yet the city appears as: Trinovantum in Gcoffrcy’s account uf that invasion (4,3-4; 4.8.-9) - as, of course, his sources required. The change of name, and its further development by way of K+&udein to Lmdene and Lunllres, ir:not one ofGeoffrey’s more clcgant inventions; it merely provides the dcsircd link hctwccn the ‘strongest city’
145
rJf BIilish
times
i~~Hl
that
Of
CCOfficv’S
ti;ly.
It MU not only the city, ;lccording to G&f+, which took its n:imc from Lud, hut ;~lso ant‘ ui‘ its gates, where hc was ;idmittcdly iI 11ame buried - Ludgatr, simplt~r to dcri,vc from ‘Lud’ than is London, with its intrusive: ‘n ! Eponymous founders ;Ibound in Gcc~ffr~~‘s Hislo&, and although Lud himscli’ may hil.\‘t’ an origin in Celtic tradition,: thc!,c is no nc!cd to look beyond a similarity ut’ n;unr to account for his status iis fi,undrr or rcbuildcr of London and its cast g;~t~. It is tempting, in spite ofTatlock’s v5.arning rcfcrrcd to, above, to suggest that htzrc.for once Gcoffrcy may indeed “embalm II .Iditir)n”, in the form of a locally-known btory of the origin of London. If any local tr;lditioll or London’s foundation did exist and thrrc is no cvidcnce before Gcoflrcy’s time that it did - ic stems far more likely that it would rcvolvt around 4~ simple isolated figure of the cponymous Lud than the complcxitics of a Trojan foundrr and it change ofnamc Geoffrey’s story of London’s refoundation ;rnd rebuilding would then dcrivc from an earlier itccount of the city’s original foundation. At a tlumbcr of points in his His/orio, Gcoffrry rcvcals un appmmt knowiedqc of London’s topography; his refcrcnccs co thr city wall and (perhaps) its ditch and to the Tower of London may simply rcflccr common knowledge, but he XC~S to show particular acquaintance with Ludgatc and its itssociatcd church of St Martin, Billingsgatc and its wharves, and the Walbrook stream (Tatlock 1950:304). Wht:thcr that knowledge was acquired on a pcrsclra! visit or through an informant, hcs co~lri 3s casil? have learnt in the same way local stories 01 the city’s origin. Yet the slur): of Lud ;lccd bc nothing mclrc than
146
historic;ll speculation by Geoff&y or another - an eponymic invention with as Iittlc inspiration from popular legend, and zis little validity, as the story of Romulus and Remus (Cary 3949:780) c)r sixtccnth-
century Russian talcs of Mosokh (son of Japhcth) and his wife Kvn, the founders of Moscow (Vcycc 1972 : 5). The city of Trinov:mtum/London plays a major role in the events, Iargcly the products of Geoffrey’s imagination, that fill the pages of the Hisroria. Marc important than any of local tradition is possible influrncc London’s contem/~ora
‘The His-h~-iaregzrtnBrihznniar!won immcdiittu wide popularity and circulation, as witness lhc fijrty-tight complete manuscripts of it surviving from the twtslfth century alone which Acton Criscom was able to list (1929:373-7), , whiie its adaptation into French vcrsc by Wacc and back into English by Layn&n gave it currency far beyond the circle of clerics md scholars who could read it in Latin. Accepted as historical fact, it was an authoritative text on which historians could draw confidently and upon which they built boldly. Forty years after Geoffrey wrote the H&nrin it was widely enough known and accepted to scrvc William Fitz Stcphcn, the biographer of Thomas Beckct, a~ the basis without the need for dctailcd explanation .-.
for a (pdvourablc) comparison of Lundon with Rome, thatothcr Trojan colony (Kingsford 190&b:22&5; Stcnlon 1934:29-30). In the following century Matthew Paris marked un a vcr~ion ofhis map of thrb route to Rome : “the city of Lcjndon which is the c;ipital of Engl;lnd. Brutuo who lirst srttled Etigl;~nd founded it and c;Acd it 1L’cw‘I’roy” (Fig. 4) (Vaughan t958:24-2 ;md 247--Y, pl. 12; illustrated in colour, Glanvillc 1972 :73). To the pouts of the mid& ;tgcs - Richurd of Maidstom*, John Gowttr (Robertson 1968 : 3) and the anonymous writrr of St Erkmwnld (Mow 1975:.55) in the fourtcrbnth ccntrrry, John Lydgatc in the fifteenth and (probably) William Dunbar at the beginning of the sixteenth (Kingsford 1903: 115 and 253) London was LLN~w Troir ;/TIN ntctrtrpoi & the maystcr toun”, “Citcc ofl’Citw5 . . .I In thy bygyanynge caflrd new Troyc”, or “Strung Troy in tvigour and in strenuytic”,
observed in London (Liber albz~ 3.4; Riley 1859:4974 and 1861 :427). He also ascribccr London’s immemorial control over the ‘fhames to the cilr
148
London’s Trojan tlrigin, was further undermined in the scvrzntccnth century, though Brinkley (1967) h as shown how the validity of the British history could be a matter for political debate, it,i reputation reflecting the varying fortunes of king and parlismcnt, and has providc:t a survey of the attitudes of historical and political writers uf the period - by no means all on one side (1967 : 55-62 and 206-12). Whatever thr views of historians, the story of London’s foundation survived in popular tradition. One of A hundred no~ubrkhingsjbr a #emv (the misprint is original), a chapbook published ir 1680 (Thompson 1976 : 189), was that “clondon was built 356 years before Rome in the time of Eli the High Priest” - the wording is after Richard Qafton’s Chronicle of 1569 (1809:28); and in 1679 a playwright could address his audicncr as “London Trojans” (Brinkley 1967: 118). Little remains of New Troy today. The Trojan Corineus and the aboriginal giant Goemagog (Gogmagog), whose epic struggle Geoffrey of Monmouth described (Historda regum Britanniae 1.16), stowd in effigy to greet royal visitors to the city in 1554 and 1558 (Fairholt 1859:28-9) and still, in different guise, watch over the deliberations of the City’s Common Council in Guildhall. Yet for some five or six centuries after Geoffrey first described the founding of Trinovantum the story was, in its persistence, in its ability to withstand logical attacks, truiy a ‘legend’ a:$ defined by the Shorl~r Oxford En&h dictionary: “An unauthentic story handed down by tradition and popularly regarded as historical”. Some legends may incorporate a germ of truth, a ‘folk-memory’ of actual events. ‘Trinovantum’ is not such a legend. In
origin it Was arl~$isical, il strange mt!langr OS ~tdmlarly errors and scholarly inventions. It is irrelevant to any discussion of thr existence or non-existence of a pre-Roman London. ft reflects not the origins of London but London’s need for a pedigree, and perhaps the lack, in the twelfth century, of any earlier traditiun on the subject strong enough to compete with Geoffrey’s speculation. In its developmenr it illuminates the methods of the historians who de& with it: their respect ror, but misuse of, authorities; their tendency to rewrite history to suit contemporary needs or prejudices, to provide the Britons with a history of past greatness as compensation for their Later weakness, or London with a glorious gencsis as the rationale for its later strength. Similar attitudes to the past still survive, and it would be sanguine to expect modern historians to be totally immune from their influence; perhaps Geoffrey of Monmouth merely lacked the subtlety expected of a historical writer today.
1
and
This was
concentration discuswd
is noted
by
Dr
by Kent
Manse1
(1978:X),
Spratlirlg
in 311
(unpublished) lecture to the London and Middlesex Archacologicel So&q in October 1977 urtdrr thr: provocarive titfe “Was tondot) really a Roman Foundarion? The Cchic oppidum of Londonion”. Geoffrey’s cussed
purpnsr
recently
by
and methods
Brook!:
(1976)
have and
btxan disGransdct;
(1974:201-8). Tadock (I950) and Parry and Caldwcll (1959) provide a thorough cwspcctus of his soutxxti. Little attention has been paid to instarws in which Geoffrey’s inspiration seems to bc archaeological: the high status assigned lo the Roman town of CarrIeon, represented in Geoffrey’s day by imprcssivc ruins (Tatlock B Ruman
195O:W70); legion
b&h:
the story Ihc
of the beheading Walbrook
stream
of in
Literature Atkittson, R. .J, C:. 1956. Stont+cngc. I.ondrm. Bosworth, J. (cd. :tttd trans.) 18.59. King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxott version of the history of IIK wttrld hy Or&us. : .vndon, Brinkley, R. F, 1967. Arthurian lrgcud in thr bcvcntermh cet:lury. Lontlcln. Brooks,
C. I:. L. 1976. Geoffrey
hislorian,
;II
C.
N. L. Brookc,
ctf Monmrtuth
n> ;t
D. E. Luscombr.
149
Hf. Martin and D. C~WII (rds.), Church and government in the nriddtc ages: 77-91. Cambridge. C-&y. M. and others (cds.) t 949. Thr Oxford rt:&c;tl dictionary. Oxfikd. Chambers. E. K. t 9’27. Arthur of Britain. Loncton. Clark, J. 1978. Ctdw,rllo, king of Ihr Britons. tl~ bronze horscmnn crfl,tw~don. inJ. Bird, H. C:hirpItI;III and J. Cl;rrk (cd>.). C:
Hrit;hI.
Edinburgh.
Krndrick, 1’. D. 19X. Rritisb antiquity. London. Kent, J, t978. Thr London area in thr hrte iron :agcs: an intcrprctaiion of the earliest coins, in J. Bird, H. Ghapm;sn irnd J, Clark (ads.), Collcctanca Londinicn&. London and Mi:ldlcsex ~rchaeIJlogical Socie:ty special paper no. : : 53-8. Kingslilrd, C. L, (cd.) 1905. Chronicles of London. Oxford. Kingbford, C. L. (cd,) 190&a and b. .!ohn Stow: mwy or London, 2 ~013, Oxford.
150
KIss;sck, K. E. 1974. Medieval Mtrttmoutb. Manmouth. Lnn&‘ox, A. 1867. A description ofcertain pitch libund m*ar London Wail and Southwvilrk, possibly the remains ufpilc dwt~lliuggs. Ant hropolrIgic;d review 5 [xxi-lxxxiii. Latham, R. E. 1965. Revised nIc*dicv;tl Latiu weldlist. Londf~ri. Lcthaby. W, R. 1%):. J,ondott bcti,rc~ tttr Conquc’,t. Lundon. I.I*rcis, C. T. ;tnd C. S;huTt. 1879. A Latin dictiIIn;tI’y. Oxford. Liebrrmilnn, 1:. l!lfi3. Die gcsctzc dcr angclsachsen, 1. H:tlle. LtII~nis. K. S, 1959. ‘Tttc orat diffrlsirm of Artlturiaa Iegtbnd. irt R. S. Ltjotnis (cd.). Arthurian literature iI1 III<* nIiddtIv agrr: 52-U. Oxf’ord. Lut, F. I WC. Ncnniu> ct l’historia Brittonttm. Paris. Marsh, H. 1970. Dark iIgr Britain. Nrwton Abbot. Qi;~h, (;. tW9. Niwtrcnth and twcntictft ccIItttr> ;tntiquiiics dralrrs ;md arretinc w;Ire liom London. ‘I’rans;IctiIjtts d’th Lwldml ,Ind Middlesex Arrhaeoioj&rl Socirty :iU: 125 9. hlc~~rifkd. R. t96.5. l’br Rt,man city (~1’Lrlndott. Londotl. Yorcy, A. and C. N. L. Brookc. 1963. Gilbrrt FIthot :Ind his lcrters. Catr~bridge. Morris,.]. (cd.) 1980. Ncnnius. British ttistory and thr \Velsh nnnills. C:hichtst~r. Mnrsc, K. (cd.) 1975. St Erkcuwald. C;tmbridgc. P;trry, .J. J. and R. I\. Caldwell. 1959. Ccoffrcy of .MorImouth in K. S. Loomis (cd.), Arthurian litrraturr in rhe mirldlc ages: 72-99. C)xli,rd. III Pil;golr, 8. 1941. ‘t’hr sources of Geoffrey .Monmouth. 2. Tht. Stonehenge story, Antiquity, 15: 30.5-19. Prycc, T. D. and F. Oswald. 1928. Roman Londun: io initial uccupation ac evidenced by early types of tcrrd sigillala. Arch;tcologia 78: 73- 1IO. Riley, H. T. (cd.) 1859. Munimenta gildhallac Lcmdunicnsis. RS. London. Riley, H. T. (trans.). 1861. Libcr albus: the White Book of Ihe City of London. London. Ri!cy, H. T. (cd.) 1868. Memorials of London and London life in the thirteenth, fuurtccnth and tiftd:cnth centuries. lundun. River_ A. L. F. and C. Smith. 1979. The place-namck of Roman Britain. London.
151
One as@ct of that legendary ‘British history’ whifx was accepted us *fact almost wifkuut queslion by historical writers until the earb seventeentk century, and in popular and literary tradition much longer, was the story of the jbundation of London, as lrinovanlum or ‘Afew
Troy’, by a group of exiled Trojnns, long befbre the Roman conquest of Britain. in considering the relevance of this medieval story to the problems of London’s actual origin, this paper traces its sources and development. Ambiguities in :he Latin of Julius Caesar and Orosius led later writers, including Fobably Bede, to assume that there had once existed a British city called Trinovantum. The British ulriters, refiesented by Nennius, invented a TTojun origin for their people on welttried models. These two independent traditions were combined in the twelfth century by GeoJrey of Monmouth, who identljied Trinovantum as Troia Nova, and made the further ident@ation of this city with London, Later Londoners- wRre well aware o/ tkis ‘Trojan foundation’, and found 212 the stoTy a source of pride and a reason for the pre-eminence of their cirpl.
The *first foundation ul’ the city of LA)II~~M is a subject which has stitnul;lt.cd thr ilrtt.rc.st of generations of its hiy.torians. Fur ucarl) J’CXUS from thts early twelfth five hundred century, the acco:mt given by CcoKrcy 4’ M~lltriouth in his Historicl regum Bhmiw was accepted with little rescrvarion : the: citv was founded long before the Komans camt to Britain, as ‘Trinov;ltltum’ or ‘NM Troy‘, by a group of Trojan settlers under rh(b lcadcrship of Rrutus! great-grandson of Aeneas, who gave his name to tht: isl~d of Britain and its people (Fig. 1). Even after the recognition of Ccoffrey’s work as largdy fabrication, and the dcmisc of the traditional ‘British history’, histori;lns of London seemed reluctant to accept thr implication of the complete lack of historical or archaeological evidence for a pre-Roman settlement on the site ofthc city: ehe implic;ition that London came into existence only between the Roman invasion of AD 43 and the first mention of it as a town of merchants in AD 60 (Merrifield l965:36). Instead, they sought in its name a Celtic Llyn Uin (‘Lake-fort’), a Llong Dinas (‘Ship-city’) or even a L/an Uyn (‘Temple of Diana’) {Davis 1926:227-B). Wooden piles f’ound in the valley of the Walbrook, the stream that formerly ran through the midst of the city, were accepted as the remains of a British
largely to that thesis. Tatlock, in his comprchcnsivc survey ul Gcoffrcy’s work and its sourc~c’s (i950 :263, note 24), gave a stern warning agilinst the ;Ittitudc: “For a11 his long notoriety as an inventor, scholars hare been prone to belicvc that at this or that special point 11~ may embalm tradition.” Although others have shown good cvidcncc that Geoffrey’s (iourccs did indeed include oral tradition, particul;~ly W&h icgend (Loomis 1959 ; Parry and Caldwell 1959:81-5), it is evident that to atrrjbutc any statement in the Nistoria to the survival of an otherwise unrecorded ~CI authentic tradition is dangerous. i\s an tx;mplc of the application to an archacological subject of this approach WC may take Figgott’s suggestion (I 94 i) that Gtmflrey’s iwotml of ihc Crcction of Stonchengc, involving the ‘;;inging of rhc skotlcs from ircland, might embody a genuine foikmemory of the transporting of some of the stont’s, rllc ‘bluestones’, from their distant so&~ in Pembrokeshire. This inviting hypothesis has been restated by other arch;ieologists, norably Atkinson [ 1936: 1845) and Grinsell (1975:5--l 1j, but it remains unconvincing. There’ is little reason to envisage an oral tradition surviving for approaching three milleoia and in spite of changes cf population when Geoffrey’s story can be explained as a dclibcratc, and imaginative, response to the questions implicit in Henry of Huntingdon’s descrip?ion of Stonchcngc in his Historia An&r-urn a few years before: “Nor can anyone guess by what means so many stones were raised so high, or why they were built there” (Atkinson 1956: 183; Tatlock 1950: 41). Geoffrey was prepared to guess, and to
138
known written works, ~11 indcpcl\dcntly rccordcd traditions, have been climinatcd as sources fbr Gcoflrey’s stories, before rccourse’ is had to unknown works or unr-worded traditions note must be taken ot‘his illvcntivc genius ihnd his obvious gift for Lhc reconstruction of history on thr scantiest u1 fnundntions provided by earlier writers or hy his own knuwlcdgc or the contcmpor;lry world, or puuibly invpircd in some instances by arcl~aeologicill obscrvatiot~s.2 So, before the story of Trinovanrum can be used as cvidcmc in the discu&n ofpreRoman London, its status, as history, legend or fiction, requires: clarification. Its origin, in gcncral terms, has long been rccognizr~d, John Stow communrcd on ir in the sixteenth ccn tury (Kingsford 1908 : 3-4) and Bishop Stillingflect in the srventccnth (1704 :47281 ): more recently Lethaby [I9021 12-13), Faral (1929a $0 and 1929bz9 1) and Tatlock (1950:30) have dealt briefly with the topic. None of these authors devoted much attcntion to it, or attempted to trace the specific ‘tradition’ dcvcloped. steps by which the Yet of all Geoffrey’s stories it Is one whose complex genesis in the ambiguous Latin of two Roman authors and the patriotic fahCations of seventh to ninth-r;:ntury Britons can be demonstrated with sotnr certainty, and whose development shct’s interesting light on the methods and ‘IV attitudes of early historians.
The Trinovantcs as a people of prc-Roman and Roman Britain are recorded both in the writings of Ruman historically, and archaeologically (Dunnctt authors,
197.5); their ‘city”, however, :tppc~rrcd first, unherzddcd mcl unintended, in Julius Chcsar’s account of his Gallic c;hmpaigns (De hello gal&o 5.20). According; to Cncsar, during his second invasion of’ Hritair. in 54 BC and after his crossing of the Thames, il tribe called the Trinov;mtt*s (or Trinobantcs -- both forms are found) cmc’ to terms with him, to bc followed by others, the Ccnimagni, the Scgontiaci, the Ancaiilcs, the Bibroci and thr Citssi. Hc dcscrihcd the Trinovantcs as ~ro~eJbmiGna twum regionurn civitas -- “about the strongest cirritas of that rqion,” Cicilas, ‘statr’or ‘nalion’, is Cwsar’s gcnoral term for the Gailic tribes, and in tht. contextofhisown writings it is unambiguous. L.;itcr, howEver, it was Lo have a diffcrcnt meaning; somctimcs in 1illW cliissic;il Latin Latin it was cmd rcgutarty in mcdicr;ll syuonynlous with WAS, ‘city’, and rcadcrs were to intcrprct Caesar’s USC’01‘ the word in that scnsc.3 Thus, when in the fifth crntury AD thu historian Omsius sumrnarizcd Cacs;lr’s account of his invasions of Britain, hrL employed Caesar‘s cxprcssion _lirmissima rinitas of the Trinovantcs, but clearly assumed that cividas meant ‘city‘, l-or hc immcdiatcly wunt on to doscribc the other peoples who surrendered ttr Caesar as urbes aliae compluws -. “scvt:ral other cilies” (Hisloriae 6. g-10). Thus, by equating ctuitas and tubs, and in ignorance of the actual situation in the south of Britain some five hundred years before his own time, Orosius attributed to the eariy Britons a number of cit)p-states, of which that of tht- Trinovantes was ‘the strongest’. Morevcr, tbc ambiguity is compounded, for Orosius referred to the Trinovantes not in the nominative, but in the gunitive: “the
‘I’hcbwork> ol’ Omsius wcrcb t(t br rd’ grt*;ir importazicr i1?;il major, in stbmc cast’s Ilk<. soic’, s0urc.e: oi’inli,rmation on Rormtn hiatlq historians. Thus hi> used by mcdicval q:tI;\ptCbm 011 C._h~!Silr’S Ihit ish c;lllrpiti@ts wcrc lhc immcdiittc source of lhc ilCC(tUltt b!Hcdc, the :irsl English historian to drxribc thcsc cvtmts. Bcdc did lit& tnorc* than trmscribc Or&us’ narrative, mcrcIy omitGng a ltiw words and adding a description rrl‘thrb stakes with which the Britons brtificd the Thamcs ford, stakes which, hc clitimed, could still hc swn - an early, it’ mistakrn, applic;ltion of archacologiu~l cvidmcc- by it historian (Hisloria PC&.U’Q.~~~U.Z 1.2 ; Colgrave and Mynors 1969 :20-3). Since Bcde made no comment on the ~rinocanlm j%mkhrza civilas it is imp&Me to bc certain in what scnst! hc understood the phrnsc. Although translators have tended to compromise, with versions such as “the strongest city of the (Shcrlcy-Pticc 1955:41), in Trinovantes” the fact of the ambiguity of Bedc’s only source it seems probable that he would have preferred the more obvious meaning, and that the correct translation should be “the strongest city, Trinovantum”. While Beds was presenting Cae:
139
work? which in its final form is atvibuted lo wuth W&3, to Nenriius and to the early ninth CCI,tury. thou& it clearly incorporaIVY mu&l earlier material. FOTtllis account of Cat%1 1”s invasions, the writt‘r, like Bedf_!, drew on OrosIus, but produccf: a lively if unrelinb!c pr&cis of Orosius’ tlafrative very diflcrcnt from Bedc’s transcript (Historia B,-itontcnl 19, 20). The diver qzncc from Carwrb own account is sn ~-cat that at first sight it is easy to hclicw th: t thr rZuthos hild ;L~C~YS IO an indcpendrnt v :rsiun of the wents, presumably in native E’.ritish tradition .- a vkw adopted by Mars1 1 (1970:73). Yet the rirf’ferenc~s can bc cxpl;.ined by the ituthor’s misunderstanding and &aultymemory of a text probably already (orrupt, and his enthusiastic rmbroidcry on it (Faral 1929a:36-92). From thr outset the tone is direrent. Caesar, while reporting his losses, stressed his victories and thr surrenders of British tribes, i\nd Orosius in his bald summary git\re no undur emphasis to either side. The British version, on the other hand, is not uncxpccrcdlp more favourable to the Britons, ignorimg the Romans’ victories and recording o&f their defeats and disastrous losses of ships and men. The surrender of ?rinacanttrn~c&as becomes a bat& (perhaps on the partisan assumption that no British city ;voutd surrender without a bat:le - indeed thr surwndcr is not recorded): “Battle was waged Ibr the third time near the place which is called Trinovantum.” Thus, Trinovantum was now a definite if unlocalized place. Yet its location is perhaps implicit in the text. 1mmediatcly before the account oft he events at Trirtovantum the author had described C:aesar’s battle to cross the Thamcs; in this he followed Orosius. From either Nennius
140
or Orosius the reader is likely to draw the conclusion that the territory of Trinovantumjthc Trinovantes lay beyond (that is, north of) the Thamcs, and close to its crossing-point - a fact which, even ifimplied, i:; certainly not cxpiicit in Caesar’s own account, though the geographical writings of Ptolemy and other evidence confirm the location of the tribe in this general area (Dunnctt 1975: 1; I l-13; 27-9). Yet one historian is more specific in Icxating the events of 54 BC. About the end of the ninth century, an English version of OTOSiUS’ history was produced, perhaps inspired by King Alfred, to which were added, among other things, descriptions of the geography of those northern regions of which Orosius had no knowledge. The account of Caesar’s invasions is very brief, ?>ut presents some intcrcsting features (5.7.2; Rosworth 1859:llO). It omits Caesar’s earlier raid, in 55 BC, and abbrcviatcs to a ’ bare mention the first two battles of the 44 BC campaign, both of which are placed ;n ‘Kentland’. The third battle, according to Orosius, was at the Thames ford; Bede had described the stakes still to be seen there ; the English translator boldly identified the ford as Wallingford. After the Thames battle, Orosius recorded the surrender of Trinouantzun civihn, with its leader ‘Androgorius’ (‘Androgius’ in Bede), followed by the surrender of u&s afiae cum~~uves; the English version is that “after the battle, the king came into his hands, and the townspeople (burhwa~) that were in Cirenccster, and afterwards all that were in the island.” Clearly “the townspeople that were in translates Trinouanlum civilas. Cirenccster” Not only is the existence of a city accepted, but it is identified with a contemporary
town. There is little to recommend this identification, presumably based on the assonance of %n(ovantum) and Qxn(ceastre) and the recognition of the latter as an ancient town, though it was perhaps attractive to Alfred’s court in that, with the battIc at Wallingfurd, it placed Caesar’s vic.tr>ries firmly on the borders of Wcsscx! This is an identification that does not scrm ta be taken up by later writers, who turned to the Latin of Orosius rather than thr English account. Apart from this abortive attempt to locaiize Trinovantum more closely, the histories readily available in the ninth century stem merely to have agreed that there was such a place in the time of Cacsat-, that it was the strongest city of the Britons, and that it Iay just north of the Thames and close to a crossing-point. Three hundred or so years added no more, until Geoffrey of Monmouth came to apply his mind to the subject; if anyone before him made the attractive assumption that the city so situated was London he does not seem to have committed the idea to writing.
It is the Hisha BAmmz which provides the earliest account (indeed a choice ofaccounts) of the Trojan ancestry of the British, a story modelled on that of the descent of the Remans from Aeneas’ band of Trojan exiles, and oat of a group of such stories found among the nations of north-west Europe fjilowing the collapse of the Roman Empire. The historians of these succcssur-states were faced with the problems of tracing the early histories of new nations of whose ancestors classical authors had little, and
How~vcr, thcrc were prt~ccdrtlt~ in native* tradition, in the Bible and in classical writer\; Lbr the cponymous hcru, the Ibundcr who gave a race its origin and n;imr, whiic tht* Bible ids<) provided au un;unbiguous Ii-amrwork for the writing of world history, li)r it stated that thcrc had bcx-n a univmw! Flood, ;\ftcr which the dcsccndants of the: tllrcc. suns of Noah had rcpopulatrd thr- whdt rarth (Genesis 9: 19). Thus, it is not surprising to find in an rarly chapter ~1’ the Historio Britonurn (19) an account of libur brothers, Francus, Romanus, Almannus and Brito (or Britto), who traced their ancestry to Japhcth, son of Noah, but whosl~ actual uponymic origin is obvious, and whose tnspiration can be fbund in stories current earlier among the Franks (Farit 1929a: 81-6). However, for any nation with a claim to succeed to the power of Rome the temptation remained tn legitimize that claim by a gcncalogy proving a close kinship with the Komans. The Remans’ own ;mccstry had been dcscribcd most vividly hy Vcrgil in the Aeneid - the wanderings of the fijundingfather Aencas aftor the fall ofTroy, and his settlement in Italy; yet that ancestry itself was no more than a patriotic fabrication at the third century BC by Roman writers who, after the wars with Greece, suught in Greek legend a national hero who was himself
an enemy
of Greece,
in Homcr’spiousTrojan The Frank& authors
and found
one
(Gary 1949: 1 l-12). of the seventh and
141
lG$tll
rtmlurics
who crcatcd ;t Ttw+tn Franks (E’nral 19‘29a : 1724; ‘!r;S-93) \vt‘w thus in good cunqxwy atId \\t*t*t*doing nu mor(‘, though they did not t c;lliztb it, than their- Kotna~l prcdcccssors (Ii’;I t hOUS~tld VCitrS earlier. 1n t tw vatkk wwnshs ol‘ Itw Hdorin !I~i~untrll~ arc inc<~rpori~t~*d il numhu: of ;rttctnpts (thy conq3ilcr ol’ ~lw vulgatv tc*xl (i_i;!rl&n trxt 10) 12_4crstO Ihctn i1s.a “LNal;dd t~spcrin~c~” hnc rp.YpP:-iln~?~!rr~~~ b@k :/mNi - thus ;h~nlitting their spccularivc nttturc) TV)rclatc. the Britons to the Trojan ;\nccstry of this Rrltnans, in cmul;ltion of the Franki& ;KCWINS. The fn‘st t,f thcsc, fi>und in Lit11only in 1hc cnrly ‘Chartres man+ script, trarcs thr. dcnsccnt of the Britons back try otlr Brutus, il Roman ‘co~~sul’ dcsc~nclcd frum Actwas iitld identified a* the brother of Romulus and Remus (Cha: tres text i 1). The other, the vulgatc version. tells ofBritto, grandson of Aeneas, who sifter accidrntally killing his father flod from Italy to Britain (Harlcian text 10). An nttcmpt was also made, not very successfully, tu rcconcilc the Trojan descent of Brutus[Brit:o (the names seem interchangeable) and the biblical genealogy from Japheth (18). These SW.& ikIT no more than the historical speculations of ‘Ncnnius’ ;md his sources, and in no way rcleviittt to a discussion of any authentic native tradition of the origins of the British (Faral 19’29a: 1?O-84;, 192-U; for a contrary view scr: Spcncc 1937 : especially 165-6). Thcrc is no trace of any st:ch tradition. Dedc, admittedly perhaps not well-placed, as an Englishman, for the study of British traditions, was ;tblc to record only the belief that the Britons had come from Brittany perhaps merely a recognition of the obvious kinship of raceson both sides ofthe Channcl.6
i\twstry
142
h-
I!W
The common Trojan ancestry ofRomans, Franks and Britons was to bccomc a historic;tl commonplace, imitated by writers of othr‘r n;ttions, as by Snorri Sturluson in t tw cuhcmcristic prologue to his Eddu, dtriving
the- Norse
gods
from
Troy
(Young
197 1 :‘L3-8). Yet the originators of thcsc stories rcbcogtiizcrl that they were no more than SpCCUliltiotlS, and such must remain t hr
rxtcrd
Of
lhcir historktl
wlidity.
New Troy The Hisroria Brilon71n2provided only a skclctal outline of the Trojan origins of the Britons, and ;m unrulatcd rc.fert:nce to a place called Trinovantupl in the time of Julius Caesar; of the history of thu Britons between these LWOperiods it had nothing to report, The lack of.n reli;tblc British history was, by the twelfth century, notorious (Tatlock 1950: 430-l )_ In 1139 the English historian Henry of Huntingdon wrote to 2 c*:rrespondent, N’arinus the Rreton, in a lc .;cr quoted in Robert dc Torigny’s CIzronjcl., that hc had begun his Historia hglorwn frhlrn Lhe time of Julius Caesilt., omitting rhc period between Brutus and Caesar, becau : in spite of assiduous rcscarrh hc: had faiied to find any evidence, either oral or writzen, relating to the prc-Roman British kings: . . net uoce WC script0 hrfum temporum snepLrimf noliliam quwrerrs irrwniri pdui (Chart,!> rs 1927 :25 l-
2). Yet, he continued in the same Ictter, he had rccr ;I tty discovered with astonishment (slzfpens i?veni) a written work on the subject. The wo!*k was the recently completed Historia lzgz in Rritazniae and its author, who claimed to have found in “a certain very ancient rook in the British language” the evidencp for the early history of Britain that
others had sought in vain, was Geoffrey of Monmouth.B Born, or brought up, in Monmouth, perhaps of Brcton stock, Geoffrey was a lung-term resident of Oxford and probable sometime visitor to London (Tatlock 19X:438-+8). Discussion of his SOU~CCYhas been long and occasionally acrimonious. We must rcgretfuljy class the “ancient book in the British language” along with Professor James Moriarty’s Dpamics of an asteroid and the Necronnmicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred among great fictional books; Ccoffrcy’s written sources were, it seems, ones equally available to us. Whatever his sources, however, Geoffrey’s aim is clear: to provide, if with tongue in cheek, the history of the early inhabitants of the British Isles which, as Henry of Huntingdon noted, was lacking, and in particuiar to fill convincingly the void bctwecn the coming of Brutus and the invasion of Caesar. To the bare outline of Brutus’ settlement, derived from the His&r& Britonurn, he added much picturesque detail, providing Brutus with fresh adventures, a pr0phec.y of success, and Trojan companions to set& his newfound land (Historia regum Bri&nniuc! 1.S 18). Many of the events and characters are clearly modelled on those of the Aeneid, and indeed in style and spirit Geoffrey’s work has more in common with Vergil’s than with that of historians who wcrc his contemporarjcs. He was producing for the Britons a foundation epic comparable with the Aeneid, with as ltttie basis in historical fact. For the kings, from Brutus to the coming of the Romans, he unscrupulously robbed and adapted later Welsh genealogies and traditional tales; presumably believing that
history rcpcats itself, LC was not above reading brick into the prehistoric past even IS, characters and cclrtainly attitudes of more rcccnt, even cuntcmporary times .. a failing not unknown among murc recent historians; Gransdcn has commented (1974 ~206) on his value “as a mirrttr of his own time, nrtt as a record of the F?.st”. His genius, howcvm, is clearly seen in the two-way link he forged between the Trojans, the: t:vcnts of Caesar’s time, and the modern period, a link consisting in the place, and the name, Trinovantum. Trinovantum hc identified in one direction as ‘New Troy’, a city foundrd by the Trojans, in the other as London, the most important English city of his own time (1.17, 3.20). According to Geoffrey, Brutus, having divided the land (IIOWcalled ‘Britain’ after his own name) among tho Trojan colonists, set out to found a city. Discovering a suitable site on the banks of the Thamcs, Brutus built his city, and called it, in memory of lost Troy, ‘New Troy’ - ‘~UI&I Nova (Fig. 2). The derivation of T7-inovantumfrom T~oia Nova is a delightful piece of etymologizing, an activity in which Geoffrey excelled, and his explanntion of the changes to the name in the course of time is as convincing as it is spurious. Th e name and status of Trinovantum came, as WE have seen, from the liisloria Britonurn and BedclOrosius, but that its etymology was Gcofircy’s own contribution is suggested by the fact that it is he who first provided, with his British kings, the necessary bridge from the Trojans to Caesar; without that, no-one would have the motive to connect in this way two complcrely unrelated incidents in the historical record - the Trojan settlement and the surrender of Trinovan turn.
143
144
twelfth century (Kissack 1974 : 22). The inspiration for Geoffrey’s ‘New Troy’ must come! as with so many of his inventions, from a multiplicity of sources. Having described the foundation of Trinovantum which Brutus granted to its citizens together with a law-code (a fantasy that was to play a part in medievai discussion of London’s legal status), Geoffrey turned to the awkward fact that its name must at some point have been changed to ‘London’. We find two slightly diflcrcnt accounts of this change, attributed to King
Lud, who rebuilt and l_,rtifird the city. Either Lud himsrlf changed its nitrnt: tt~ Kirerlud (‘the City of Lud’) ( I. 17), or it was changed in his honour (3.20). The chronology is incunsistcnt ; Lud died before Caesar’s invasion, yet the city appears as: Trinovantum in Gcoffrcy’s account uf that invasion (4,3-4; 4.8.-9) - as, of course, his sources required. The change of name, and its further development by way of K+&udein to Lmdene and Lunllres, ir:not one ofGeoffrey’s more clcgant inventions; it merely provides the dcsircd link hctwccn the ‘strongest city’
145
rJf BIilish
times
i~~Hl
that
Of
CCOfficv’S
ti;ly.
It MU not only the city, ;lccording to G&f+, which took its n:imc from Lud, hut ;~lso ant‘ ui‘ its gates, where hc was ;idmittcdly iI 11ame buried - Ludgatr, simplt~r to dcri,vc from ‘Lud’ than is London, with its intrusive: ‘n ! Eponymous founders ;Ibound in Gcc~ffr~~‘s Hislo&, and although Lud himscli’ may hil.\‘t’ an origin in Celtic tradition,: thc!,c is no nc!cd to look beyond a similarity ut’ n;unr to account for his status iis fi,undrr or rcbuildcr of London and its cast g;~t~. It is tempting, in spite ofTatlock’s v5.arning rcfcrrcd to, above, to suggest that htzrc.for once Gcoffrcy may indeed “embalm II .Iditir)n”, in the form of a locally-known btory of the origin of London. If any local tr;lditioll or London’s foundation did exist and thrrc is no cvidcnce before Gcoflrcy’s time that it did - ic stems far more likely that it would rcvolvt around 4~ simple isolated figure of the cponymous Lud than the complcxitics of a Trojan foundrr and it change ofnamc Geoffrey’s story of London’s refoundation ;rnd rebuilding would then dcrivc from an earlier itccount of the city’s original foundation. At a tlumbcr of points in his His/orio, Gcoffrry rcvcals un appmmt knowiedqc of London’s topography; his refcrcnccs co thr city wall and (perhaps) its ditch and to the Tower of London may simply rcflccr common knowledge, but he XC~S to show particular acquaintance with Ludgatc and its itssociatcd church of St Martin, Billingsgatc and its wharves, and the Walbrook stream (Tatlock 1950:304). Wht:thcr that knowledge was acquired on a pcrsclra! visit or through an informant, hcs co~lri 3s casil? have learnt in the same way local stories 01 the city’s origin. Yet the slur): of Lud ;lccd bc nothing mclrc than
146
historic;ll speculation by Geoff&y or another - an eponymic invention with as Iittlc inspiration from popular legend, and zis little validity, as the story of Romulus and Remus (Cary 3949:780) c)r sixtccnth-
century Russian talcs of Mosokh (son of Japhcth) and his wife Kvn, the founders of Moscow (Vcycc 1972 : 5). The city of Trinov:mtum/London plays a major role in the events, Iargcly the products of Geoffrey’s imagination, that fill the pages of the Hisroria. Marc important than any of local tradition is possible influrncc London’s contem/~ora
‘The His-h~-iaregzrtnBrihznniar!won immcdiittu wide popularity and circulation, as witness lhc fijrty-tight complete manuscripts of it surviving from the twtslfth century alone which Acton Criscom was able to list (1929:373-7), , whiie its adaptation into French vcrsc by Wacc and back into English by Layn&n gave it currency far beyond the circle of clerics md scholars who could read it in Latin. Accepted as historical fact, it was an authoritative text on which historians could draw confidently and upon which they built boldly. Forty years after Geoffrey wrote the H&nrin it was widely enough known and accepted to scrvc William Fitz Stcphcn, the biographer of Thomas Beckct, a~ the basis without the need for dctailcd explanation .-.
for a (pdvourablc) comparison of Lundon with Rome, thatothcr Trojan colony (Kingsford 190&b:22&5; Stcnlon 1934:29-30). In the following century Matthew Paris marked un a vcr~ion ofhis map of thrb route to Rome : “the city of Lcjndon which is the c;ipital of Engl;lnd. Brutuo who lirst srttled Etigl;~nd founded it and c;Acd it 1L’cw‘I’roy” (Fig. 4) (Vaughan t958:24-2 ;md 247--Y, pl. 12; illustrated in colour, Glanvillc 1972 :73). To the pouts of the mid& ;tgcs - Richurd of Maidstom*, John Gowttr (Robertson 1968 : 3) and the anonymous writrr of St Erkmwnld (Mow 1975:.55) in the fourtcrbnth ccntrrry, John Lydgatc in the fifteenth and (probably) William Dunbar at the beginning of the sixteenth (Kingsford 1903: 115 and 253) London was LLN~w Troir ;/TIN ntctrtrpoi & the maystcr toun”, “Citcc ofl’Citw5 . . .I In thy bygyanynge caflrd new Troyc”, or “Strung Troy in tvigour and in strenuytic”,
observed in London (Liber albz~ 3.4; Riley 1859:4974 and 1861 :427). He also ascribccr London’s immemorial control over the ‘fhames to the cilr
148
London’s Trojan tlrigin, was further undermined in the scvrzntccnth century, though Brinkley (1967) h as shown how the validity of the British history could be a matter for political debate, it,i reputation reflecting the varying fortunes of king and parlismcnt, and has providc:t a survey of the attitudes of historical and political writers uf the period - by no means all on one side (1967 : 55-62 and 206-12). Whatever thr views of historians, the story of London’s foundation survived in popular tradition. One of A hundred no~ubrkhingsjbr a #emv (the misprint is original), a chapbook published ir 1680 (Thompson 1976 : 189), was that “clondon was built 356 years before Rome in the time of Eli the High Priest” - the wording is after Richard Qafton’s Chronicle of 1569 (1809:28); and in 1679 a playwright could address his audicncr as “London Trojans” (Brinkley 1967: 118). Little remains of New Troy today. The Trojan Corineus and the aboriginal giant Goemagog (Gogmagog), whose epic struggle Geoffrey of Monmouth described (Historda regum Britanniae 1.16), stowd in effigy to greet royal visitors to the city in 1554 and 1558 (Fairholt 1859:28-9) and still, in different guise, watch over the deliberations of the City’s Common Council in Guildhall. Yet for some five or six centuries after Geoffrey first described the founding of Trinovantum the story was, in its persistence, in its ability to withstand logical attacks, truiy a ‘legend’ a:$ defined by the Shorl~r Oxford En&h dictionary: “An unauthentic story handed down by tradition and popularly regarded as historical”. Some legends may incorporate a germ of truth, a ‘folk-memory’ of actual events. ‘Trinovantum’ is not such a legend. In
origin it Was arl~$isical, il strange mt!langr OS ~tdmlarly errors and scholarly inventions. It is irrelevant to any discussion of thr existence or non-existence of a pre-Roman London. ft reflects not the origins of London but London’s need for a pedigree, and perhaps the lack, in the twelfth century, of any earlier traditiun on the subject strong enough to compete with Geoffrey’s speculation. In its developmenr it illuminates the methods of the historians who de& with it: their respect ror, but misuse of, authorities; their tendency to rewrite history to suit contemporary needs or prejudices, to provide the Britons with a history of past greatness as compensation for their Later weakness, or London with a glorious gencsis as the rationale for its later strength. Similar attitudes to the past still survive, and it would be sanguine to expect modern historians to be totally immune from their influence; perhaps Geoffrey of Monmouth merely lacked the subtlety expected of a historical writer today.
1
and
This was
concentration discuswd
is noted
by
Dr
by Kent
Manse1
(1978:X),
Spratlirlg
in 311
(unpublished) lecture to the London and Middlesex Archacologicel So&q in October 1977 urtdrr thr: provocarive titfe “Was tondot) really a Roman Foundarion? The Cchic oppidum of Londonion”. Geoffrey’s cussed
purpnsr
recently
by
and methods
Brook!:
(1976)
have and
btxan disGransdct;
(1974:201-8). Tadock (I950) and Parry and Caldwcll (1959) provide a thorough cwspcctus of his soutxxti. Little attention has been paid to instarws in which Geoffrey’s inspiration seems to bc archaeological: the high status assigned lo the Roman town of CarrIeon, represented in Geoffrey’s day by imprcssivc ruins (Tatlock B Ruman
195O:W70); legion
b&h:
the story Ihc
of the beheading Walbrook
stream
of in
Literature Atkittson, R. .J, C:. 1956. Stont+cngc. I.ondrm. Bosworth, J. (cd. :tttd trans.) 18.59. King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxott version of the history of IIK wttrld hy Or&us. : .vndon, Brinkley, R. F, 1967. Arthurian lrgcud in thr bcvcntermh cet:lury. Lontlcln. Brooks,
C. I:. L. 1976. Geoffrey
hislorian,
;II
C.
N. L. Brookc,
ctf Monmrtuth
n> ;t
D. E. Luscombr.
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KIss;sck, K. E. 1974. Medieval Mtrttmoutb. Manmouth. Lnn&‘ox, A. 1867. A description ofcertain pitch libund m*ar London Wail and Southwvilrk, possibly the remains ufpilc dwt~lliuggs. Ant hropolrIgic;d review 5 [xxi-lxxxiii. Latham, R. E. 1965. Revised nIc*dicv;tl Latiu weldlist. Londf~ri. Lcthaby. W, R. 1%):. J,ondott bcti,rc~ tttr Conquc’,t. Lundon. I.I*rcis, C. T. ;tnd C. S;huTt. 1879. A Latin dictiIIn;tI’y. Oxford. Liebrrmilnn, 1:. l!lfi3. Die gcsctzc dcr angclsachsen, 1. H:tlle. LtII~nis. K. S, 1959. ‘Tttc orat diffrlsirm of Artlturiaa Iegtbnd. irt R. S. Ltjotnis (cd.). Arthurian literature iI1 III<* nIiddtIv agrr: 52-U. Oxf’ord. Lut, F. I WC. Ncnniu> ct l’historia Brittonttm. Paris. Marsh, H. 1970. Dark iIgr Britain. Nrwton Abbot. Qi;~h, (;. tW9. Niwtrcnth and twcntictft ccIItttr> ;tntiquiiics dralrrs ;md arretinc w;Ire liom London. ‘I’rans;IctiIjtts d’th Lwldml ,Ind Middlesex Arrhaeoioj&rl Socirty :iU: 125 9. hlc~~rifkd. R. t96.5. l’br Rt,man city (~1’Lrlndott. Londotl. Yorcy, A. and C. N. L. Brookc. 1963. Gilbrrt FIthot :Ind his lcrters. Catr~bridge. Morris,.]. (cd.) 1980. Ncnnius. British ttistory and thr \Velsh nnnills. C:hichtst~r. Mnrsc, K. (cd.) 1975. St Erkcuwald. C;tmbridgc. P;trry, .J. J. and R. I\. Caldwell. 1959. Ccoffrcy of .MorImouth in K. S. Loomis (cd.), Arthurian litrraturr in rhe mirldlc ages: 72-99. C)xli,rd. III Pil;golr, 8. 1941. ‘t’hr sources of Geoffrey .Monmouth. 2. Tht. Stonehenge story, Antiquity, 15: 30.5-19. Prycc, T. D. and F. Oswald. 1928. Roman Londun: io initial uccupation ac evidenced by early types of tcrrd sigillala. Arch;tcologia 78: 73- 1IO. Riley, H. T. (cd.) 1859. Munimenta gildhallac Lcmdunicnsis. RS. London. Riley, H. T. (trans.). 1861. Libcr albus: the White Book of Ihe City of London. London. Ri!cy, H. T. (cd.) 1868. Memorials of London and London life in the thirteenth, fuurtccnth and tiftd:cnth centuries. lundun. River_ A. L. F. and C. Smith. 1979. The place-namck of Roman Britain. London.
151