The Prittlewell prince: Britain's Tutankhamun

Ok, so it's stupid headline but this the story is  fascinating...

A sixth century Anglo-Saxon burial...The website in the link below allows you a virtual tour of the reconstructed burial tomb and has linked to intelligent commentary on the finds.

https://www.prittlewellprincelyburial.org/museum

The Guardian's report with pictures of the finds are here:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/09/britains-equivalent-to-tutankhamun-found-in-southend-on-sea

If the dating is right, this was a high status Anglo-Saxon who was buried, as a Christian, BEFORE St. Augustine arrived.

On reflection, what 'scientific dating technique' is so accurate that it can date this tomb incontrovertibly to the 580s... and where did they find the information about 'Saebert’s younger brother Seaxa'?

(And yes, the Guardian headline is ridiculous but if it grabs your attention who cares.)

What was the name of Hengist's daughter 3/4

If you thought the answer was Rowena, read on….

The Bibliography.

When Geoffrey of Monmouth picks up the story three hundred years after Nennius, the ‘Good Vortigern’ version has probably disappeared and telling an anecdote that did little more than vilify the ancestor of a forgotten dynasty would have been pointless. (For Nennius's version see previous post.) 

In the narrative arc that Geoffrey had skilfully created, the girl had to do more than serve the booze and be bedded by the King if he were to avoid the story teller’s nightmare when the audience asks, yes, but why did you tell us that?   

Geoffrey drops the incest story (if he ever knew it) and the incidents with St. Germannus, and then gives the girl a name and an active role to play. To the question, ‘Why did you tell us this?’ he manages to suggest that she is instrumental in the fall of Britain. She is no longer simply an example of Vortigern’s lack of sexual control. She exploits her influence and position to support her father and her people. 

The Name

Tatlock listed six versions of her name in six of the surviving mss: Renwein, Renwen, Roawen, Ronwen, Rowen, Rouwein, Ronven. It’s easy to overlook the fact that however you spell it, the name is not Germanic. 

Ron Wen makes sense in Welsh as ‘Slender/white spear’ but as Tatlock pointed out, it makes no sense in a Germanic language. It’s been suggested that Rowen is a British attempt at an English name Hrothwyn, but that seems strange since both Hengist and Horsa remain resolutely English and Ronwen, not Rowan is the older form. Tatlock couldn't find it anywhere as a proper name. Rachel Bromwich pointed out that the name occurs nowhere else. It is not found in any other Welsh source except as the name of Hengist’s daughter. 

(For sanity’s sake, I’m going to refer to her as Rowena except in direct quotes.)

Her new role.

In this new version, Rowena arrives in Britain with Saxon reinforcements. We are told her beauty is ‘second to none’.  She serves the drink, but Geoffrey introduces the Wassail episode, fleshing out Nennius’ feast. Approaching the king with a golden cup full of wine she says, ‘Laford King Wacht heil’ (Even in Geoffrey’s Latin the quote is in Middle English).  Vortigern turns to his interpreter who explains the custom. She says, ‘Wasshail’, he replies ‘Drink hail’, takes the goblet, kisses her, and then drinks. Repeat as required.

It may be a ‘folk motif’; it may have mythological significance (in later Welsh tradition ‘R. the Pagan Woman’ is seen as the progenitor of the English); it may be an origin story for a drinking custom current in Geoffrey’s time; it may be all of the above, but it’s guaranteed to bring the girl to the King’s immediate physical attention. It succeeds.

They are married in haste, and Hengist, in consultation with his brother and advisers asks for Kent in return. 

So far, Nennius with additional details. 

The wedding infuriates Vortigern’s leaders and sons. But as soon as she has been ‘handed over’ Hengist is now in a position where he can speak ‘as your father in law’. More Saxons are invited to Britain, and settled in the north. The Britons, alarmed by the influx of pagan warriors, protest to Vortigern but ‘Vortigern was completely opposed to accepting his people’s advice, for, because of his wife, he loved the Saxons above all the other folk’.

Vortigern’s son, Vortimer, is appointed king and is not only successful in battle against the Saxons but begins restoring churches. Oddly the latter detail is the catalyst for Rowena’s first semi-independent action. 'Semi' because in Geoffrey’s story the devil and evil spirits are active:

‘A certain evil spirit which had found its way into the heart of his step-mother Renwein immediately became envious of this virtuous behaviour of his and inspired her to plot Vortimer’s death’.   

She researches poisons and then has him killed, having corrupted one of his servants with innumerable bribes. This is not in Nennius but does provide a reason for Vortimer’s sudden death.  

After Vortimer’s death, the Britons restore Vortigern to the throne. ‘At the request of his wife’ he sends messengers to Hengist in Germany, to ask him to return to Britain. Vortigern asks him to come secretly with a few men. Hengist returns with three hundred thousand warriors. Learning this, Vortigern and the princes of the realm decide to oppose him. ‘The daughter of Hengist sent messengers to tell her father of this decision and he in his turn considered what he could do best to counteract it’.

This is her last action in the story, nor is she mentioned again. Geoffrey drops Hengist’s statement that the Saxons will protect Vortigern during the massacre ‘for the sake of my daughter’. Geoffrey makes no reference to anyone else dying with Vortigern in his tower. 

Developments

In this version then, Rowena plays a more direct role in the fall of Britain.  She is responsible for Hengist’s growing influence over Vortigern, for the death of Britain’s heroic defender, and for the information that pushes Hengist towards the treacherous slaughter of the Britons. 

What Geoffrey finds most shocking is not Vortigern’s uncontrolled sexual desire, or the fact he’s ready to trade Kent for the girl, but the fact that she is a heathen. Having repeated Nennius’ claim that the devil enters Vortigern’s mind, Geoffrey interrupts the narrative ‘I say that Satan entered his heart because, despite the fact that he was a Christian, he was determined to make love with this pagan woman’.  

In Geoffrey’s version, the enormity of this is emphasised by a triple movement in the narrative. When Hengist first appears, Vortigern comments negatively on his faith. When Hengist later asks for land, Vortigern refuses the request because Hengist is a pagan. The extent to which Vortigern is overwhelmed by his desire for the girl is thus emphasised when he makes no objection to her faith. The implication being that if he had insisted on her conversion before the marriage, it would have been acceptable. 

Rowena, clothed with a variety of names, and now playing an active role in the fall of Britain, will have her story fleshed out and finalised by Wace and Laȝamon. The structure of Geoffrey’s narratives suggested a pattern. Laȝamon makes the pattern explicit and raises Rowena from a nameless server of drink to a conniving murderer. Which will be the third and final post. 

Reviews of Michael Aiken's 'Satan Repentant' and James Harpur's 'The White Silhouette'

'Satan Repentant' and 'The White Silhouette' are two very different books of poems squished into one published review. You can read it here.

 http://www.textjournal.com.au/april19/guilar_rev.htm

The question a review doesn't seem to answer:

Would you recommend either book?

Yes, I'd recommend them both.

Who was Hengist's daughter Part 2

In which she first appears, silent, serving the booze.

Hengist’s daughter first appears in the Historia Brittonum, which may or may not have been written by ‘Nennius’ and is dated to the early decades of the 9^thCentury. 

She is not given a name. Hengist holds a banquet for Vortigern and tells his daughter to serve the alcohol. When Vortigern is drunk, Satan enters into his heart and makes him desire the girl. He asks for her and offers half his kingdom in return. Hengist asks for Kent, the deal is struck and Vortigern marries her. The girl disappears from the story. Later, we are told Vortigern favoured the barbarians ‘because of his wife’, and even later Hengist saves him from the massacre of the British leaders ‘for my daughter’s sake’. When, St. Germanus prays Vortigern to death in his tower, ‘he dies with all his wives’.

That’s all. 

More words are spent on Vortigern’s incestuous relationship with his own daughter or on the confused and equally pointless encounter with Merlin. 

Although four centuries separate the story from the time it’s set in, historically, its bones are not improbable. If the leader of a group of mercenaries had a daughter, he might marry her to his employer as a way of improving his own situation.

But the Historia Brittonum reads like an accumulation of anecdotes. And this anecdote sounds like a shard of a folk tale. The only thing we learn about her is that she is beautiful and she is Hengist’s daughter. Her only recorded action is to serve drinks at a banquet. She has no character. She’s not an Eve type, tempting Vortigern. The devil enters his  heart. Her sole value lies in her relationships to men: Hengist's daughter, Vortigern's wife. It’s not even possible to call her a passive object of desire: she has no opinions or reactions. She does not speak. 

However, if the bones of the story are not improbable, the details are. The audience is asked to believe that the ruler of Britain, a hard-headed war-lord, is so smitten by this girl at their first meeting, that he will trade half his kingdom, alienate his supporters and his sons, risk his life and position and put himself in Hengist’s debt so that he can get her into bed as fast as possible. That does seem improbable. 

It has been suggested that by the ninth century there were two versions of Vortigern’s story circulating amongst the British storytellers. In one he is an honoured ancestor. In another a villain who is responsible for the downfall of Britain. 

The Good Vortigern story eventually disappears. There’s no reason to think Geoffrey of Monmouth knew it had existed. 

The story of Hengist’s daughter makes sense as vilification, if Nennius was supporting his patrons by blackening the reputation of the ancestor of a rival dynasty. For the clerical, Christian writers of the middle ages, sex was dangerous. Excessive, uncontrolled sexual desire was an obvious external marker of an evil character.

Vortigern’s inability to control his desire for Hengist’s daughter is mirrored by his inability to control his desire for his own, with whom he has an incestuous relationship. Both relationships indicate the flawed moral character of the man. As vilification it makes sense, as history, it’s an almost irrelevant slur.

But in this folk tale, the nameless girl might signify Vortigern’s failure as a ruler in other ways. Not only is he is dangerously incapable of controlling his desires but he inverts the relationship he should have with his mercenary. He asks permission when he could demand, offering to buy the girl from his inferior, putting himself in the subordinate position. 

I don’t know which marriage customs are supposed to be operating here but there’s no sense that Hengist is offering any dowry to the bridegroom.

From this limited beginning, the story will be expanded, first by Geoffrey of Monmouth, then by Wace and Laȝamon. It’s possible to watch each storyteller interpreting the story he inherits. The later writers obviously felt something important was happening but in seeking for narrative coherence and significance in their sources, they made explicit what is not suggested in the original. By the time Laȝamon was finished with her, Hengist’s daughter, named and acting of her own volition, will be an essential part of a recurring pattern that structures the Legendary History. 

Which is the next post in which she gets a name and does more than serve the drinks.

Who was Hengist's daughter?

A Presentment of Englishy ends with a poem that looks forward to the story of Vortigern, Hengist and his daughter.

The Matter of Britain

(Western Britain, 450 AD).

Mog the Magnificent

in his daub and wattle hut

lord of the scattered rocks

and the wind scarped ridge

watching the sheep he’s counted

penned on the wet hillside.

The members of his retinue

huddled round the fire,

dozing. The harper

droning stories of Vortigern

Hengist and Rowena.

They say it’s easier to look into the sun

Than look at her. They say,

she is the dawn and when she rises day begins.

Vortigern, traitor,

expert in evil,

skilled in deceit

sold his country

for a pagan witch.

Hengist, a cunning man,

a secret, silent, scheming

man, who pimped

his daughter for a crown

he could have seized.

But I was there when Rowena walked into the hall.

She lifted up the goblet, ‘Wes þu hal, Vortigern cyning’

and I swear, Hengist had pitched her at the son

at Vortimer. She swerved. She chose

and with that choice swerved history and Britain fell.

Anyone who reads A Presentment carefully will know that that last italicised section should not be taken seriously as historical fact.

But who was Hengist’s beautiful daughter?

In the next post, her earliest appearance in ‘The Matter of Britain’.  

'A Presentment of Englishry' is now available for purchase online

A Presentment of Englishry is now available from the American, British and Australian Amazons, as well as from the bookdepository, direct from the publisher https://www.shearsman.com/store/-p121791246 and from the shop on www.liamguilar.com.

A Presentment of Englishry.

Are you English?

A Presentment of Englishry in the 11^th century was the offering of proof that a slain person was English (therefore unimportant), in order to escape the fine levied upon hundred or township for the murder of a ‘Frenchman’ or ‘Norman’. Sometime in the 12th century, Laȝamon, a priest living in the small settlement of Areley Kings wrote the first English version of the Legendary History, tracing the story of Britain from the arrival of the Trojans to the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon domination of the Island. 

His 16,000 lines can be read as A Presentment of Englishry. That was certainly his stated intention: to tell the noble deeds of the English, who they were and where they came from. 

 'A Presentment of Englishry' retells his stories, treating his work the way he treated his sources. It also explores a possible version of his life, taking off from the little that is known about him. Stories from Bede and Gerald of Wales are also retold, and the final section takes the story to the end of Roman Britain as a prelude to the story of Vortigern. 

The book is now available on line, from Shearsman Books at A Presentment of Englishry 

and from the bookdepository at https://www.bookdepository.com/Presentment-Englishry-Liam-Guilar/9781848616622?ref=grid-view&qid=1550755372197&sr=1-12

You can also hear a reading of the title poem here