Battle of Mons Badonicus

Britain, c. 500.

In the Battle of Mons Badonicus (English Mount Badon, Welsh Mynydd Baddon) Romano-British and Celts severely defeated an invading Anglo-Saxon army some time in the decade before or after 500. It is a major political/military event of the 5th and 6th centuries in Britain, but there is no certainty about its date or place. The earliest source does not name the commanders of the opposing forces, but by the 9th century the victory was attributed to King Arthur.

Location and date: uncertain

Where this battle was fought as well as the Romano-British leader's name remains unknown. The polemical monk Gildas, a near contemporary, appears to say in his essay De Excidio Britanniae ("The Ruin of Britainnia") that the battle was in the year of his birth, but neither names either side's leader nor has any information that could help find where it was.

Place

A number of places for the battle have been proposed; these are all in present-day England. (For a list of candidates, see Sites and places associated with Arthurian legend.) These sites include:-

• Badbury Hillfort / Badbury Rings, an Iron Age hill fort in Dorset.[1]
• Bath, suggested by Geoffrey of Monmouth. [2] Bath was known to the Saxons as Baþon, Baðon, and Baðanceaster. It is not on a hill. The word "bath" is Germanic, but "Badon" is a Celtic name. Bath's Roman name was Aquae Sulis.
• Buxton, a spa town and the site of a Roman bath.[3]
• Liddington Castle.[4]
• Solsbury Hill near Bath, suggested by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

All of these depend on theories or speculations of scholars built upon a poverty of evidence. A suggested location must take into consideration these points:

• This battle may have been on the frontier between the territories of the native British inhabitants and the Anglo-Saxon invaders.
• It may have been the fate of a deep Anglo-Saxon invasion of British territory to try to separate the Welsh from the Britons of the southwest. "Obsessionis Badonici montis" in Gildas's writings may mean that the Anglo-Saxon army, perhaps trying to reach the Severn estuary, perhaps trying to cut off the British southwest from Wales, went too far into hostile territory and was surrounded and trapped on a hilltop in the Cotswolds.

The Annales Cambriae, found in the Harleian recension of the Historia Brittonum, preserve an entry under the year 665 that records "The second battle of Badon" (bellum Badonis). While pointing to an engagement between two kingdoms of the seventh century, it is debatable which kingdoms these may be and whether this battle is recorded in other historical records of Britain or England. It could be a duplicate of the first battle, which had been passed through another oral transmission route with information changed on the way.

Information about names

In Historia Brittonum

The 9th century Historia Brittonum records traditions that name the Romano-British / Celtic leader as Arthur.

In Taliesin

An old Welsh poem ascribed to Taliesin (who lived in the last half of the 6th century), refers to "the battle of Badon with Arthur, chief giver of feasts… the battle which all men remember". In that sort of society, "chief giver of feasts" implies supreme leader.

More recent speculations

• More recently, scholars guessed that the Romano-British leader could have been Ambrosius Aurelianus and the Saxon leader could have been Aelle of Sussex, King of the South Saxons.

Information about dates

Gildas

Gildas writes "ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis ... quique quadragesimus quartus ut novi orditur annus mense iam uno emenso qui et meae nativitatis est", which has been translated in more than one way.

• It may mean "at/to the year of the siege of Mount Badon ... which happened 44 years and one month ago, and which is [the year] of my birth". King Maelgwn of Gwynedd was still living when Gildas wrote this, therefore Gildas wrote this on or before 547. This suggests the date 503 or shortly before for the battle.
• Bede treated this passage as saying that the battle was 44 years after the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain (which he said was in 449). Adding 44 years to 449 gives the date 493 for the battle. Adding 44 years to 447 (when Thanet was conceded to Hengist) gives the date 491 for the battle. Some would argue that Bede's copy of Gildas was much closer to Gildas's time than any extant; however, the age of a manuscript (especially one no longer existing) is no guide to its accuracy.

Annales Cambriae

The later Annales Cambriae offers the date 516, which few modern scholars accept. Annales Cambriae entries after 525 appear to have been transcribed from contemporary tables for the calculation of Easter; entries before 525 are much less reliable.

Lives of the Saints

The Celtic Lives of the Saints indirectly support a date closer to 493 than 503. The Lives of Dewi Sant (David, the patron saint of Wales), Saint Cadoc and Saint Gildas report that Gildas visited the Abbey of Ty Gwyn in 527 or 528 and objected to Dewi/David being placed in charge of it at such a young age.

These biographies of early church leaders, mostly written in the 11th century, may for propaganda purposes have invented, exaggerated, or borrowed miracles, and altered days of death, but some argue that their authors had no reason to distort mundane facts such as the dates and places of meetings. Further, these three Lives are independent of each other, their authors drawing from records (since lost) or traditions at the abbeys the saints lived in - St David's for David, Llancarfan for Cadoc, and Rhuys in Brittany for Gildas.

Rhygyfarch's Life of David says that David had ten years education under Saint Paulinus (Saint Pol de Leon) before becoming Abbot of Ty Gwyn. This suggests that David's birth could hardly have been later than 514. Rhygyfarch also says that Gildas preached to David's mother, Saint Non, while she was pregnant with him. If Gildas was old enough to be preaching in, at the latest, 514, it is implausible to place the date of Gildas's birth, and therefore of the Battle of Mount Badon, later than 498.

Effects of the battle

However uncertain the place, date, or participants of this battle may be, it clearly halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for some years.

• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is silent about this battle, but documents a gap of almost 70 years between two major Anglo-Saxon leaders (Bretwaldas) in the fifth and sixth centuries.
• Procopius records a story, told to him by a member of a diplomatic delegation from the Franks, including a group of Angles, which included that some Anglo-Saxons and British found their island so crowded that they migrated into northern Gaul to find lands to live on.
• There are other tales from the mid-6th century about groups of Anglo-Saxons leaving Britain to settle across the English Channel.

All of these point to some kind of reversal in the fortunes of the invading Anglo-Saxons.

Archaeological evidence collected from the cemeteries of the pagan Anglo-Saxons suggests that some of their settlements were abandoned and the frontier between the invaders and the native inhabitants pushed back some time around 500. The Anglo-Saxons held the present counties of Kent, Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and around the Humber; it is clear that the native British controlled everything west of a line drawn from the mouth of the Wiltshire Avon at Christchurch north to the river Trent, then along the Trent to where it joined the Humber, and north along the river Derwent and then east to the North Sea, and an enclave to the north and west of London, and south of Verulamium, that stretched west to join with the main frontier. The Britons defending this pocket could securely move their troops along Watling Street to bring reinforcements to London or Verulamium, and thus keep the invaders divided into pockets south of the Weald, in eastern Kent, and in the lands around the Wash.

Second Battle of Badon

According to the Annales Cambriae, in the year 665 there was a second battle at Badon. It also lists for 665 the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity ("first Easter of the Saxons") and the death of one "Morgan". It is possible these three events are connected, if they are factual. Or this battle may be a duplicate of the first battle, heard of by a different route with details changed.

Portrayal in popular media

• In the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the play "Monty Python's Spamalot," Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir-Lancelot is said to have "personally wet himself in the Battle of Badon Hill".
• The 2004 film King Arthur sets the battle south of Hadrian's Wall.
• Bernard Cornwell, in The Warlord Chronicles, places the battle north of Bath.
• In the 2005 PC game Rome: Total War Barbarian Invasion, there is a scenario based on the battle.
• The Dagorhir groups Rome and Eryndor run an event yearly named after Badon Hill.[5]

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