Talk:Dumnonia

Cover?
Did Dumnonia cover Cornwall? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.195.86.36 (talk • contribs)
 * This information is given in the article Walgamanus 08:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Dumnonia & Cornwall.
There has been a tradition of trying to find evidence for the separation of Cornwall from the rest of England for centuries. In many cases this is entirely valid, however this is not the place to discuss such matters. Through both Roman organisation, and the post Roman kingdom of Dumnonia, Cornwall formed an integral part. Tintagel is a far larger settlement with far more imported high status objects than anywhere else in the southwest, even South Cadbury, which leads it to be a lgical capital for the kingdom.

Although there is literature, such as that done by Charles Thomas concerning Roman subcantons and sub kingdoms for Cornwall, there is no archaeological or historical evidence to back this up, and if anything the evidence points to the contrary. Charles Thomas in fact had to borrow the term sub-canton from its post medieval Swiss usage, hardly a comparable source.

Only after the Kingdom of Dumnonia was eroded down to an area highly comparable to modern day Cornwall can we talk about Cornwall in an a separate sense. Further assimilation by Wessex into the region was halted by the Norman Conquest and a policy of divide and conquer.

I therefore propose that is inaccurate to refer to Cornwall as a separate entity in this article, but instead highlight its importnace in the Kingdom of Dumnonia.
 * For more information:
 * The Archaeology of Cornwall, by Dr Caradoc Peters, Cornwall Editions.
 * A History of Cornwall, Philip Payton, Cornwall Editions.
 * Beware of outdated or unsourced areas in these books:
 * Celtic Britain, Charles Thomas, Thames and Hudson.
 * F E Halliday, A History of Cornwall, House of Stratus.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.136.31.72 (talk) 16:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

Cadbury Castle
Cadbury Castle, i.e. the hill fort at South Cadbury Somerset, is generally considered to be in the territory of the Durotriges. There is a Cadbury in Devon but this is a different hillfort. Adresia 09:49, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * There seems to be some confusion about the time, all the maps seem to be of the Roman invasion in 43AD but talk of the Dumnonii controlling Cadbury seem to be talking the 5th century. Are there later maps? Did Dumnonia expand? LamontCranston (talk) 14:28, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Another user - User:Ghmyrtle - has put a suggested merger tag on this page, and the Dumnonii page. So I've changed the two tags to both point at this section so it can be discussed. Stevebritgimp (talk) 19:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Disagree - I think Dumnonii and Dumnonia are two separate things, one being a tribe or administrative division of early Roman Britain, and an ethnic group. The other is a post-Roman British kingdom.  While you could say these are difficult to separate, to be vague for a moment, all books that I've read don't identify these two things.  People with knowledge in this area would immediately know the difference, even if it is only one letter. Stevebritgimp (talk) 19:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - I am by no means an expert, so I'm coming to this as an interested reader, as most WP readers would. In my view, as they stand, the articles do not differentiate clearly between the supposed pre-Roman "Dumnonii" and post-Roman "Dumnonia", or even state clearly whether, or why, such a distinction should be deemed to exist. Most sources I've looked up seem to regard the two terms as essentially interchangeable, in so far as the Dumnonii were the people who lived in Dumnonia, before and after the Roman period. Am I wrong?  Incidentally, the two articles were one until they were split by this edit in 2006. Before coming down one way or another, for or against merger, I'd like to hear the views of an expert or two. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose - per Stevebritgimp. And I think the articles differentiate themselves just fine - rst20xx (talk) 17:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The pre-Roman Dumnonii survived, largely Romanised and Christianised, to become the population of post-Roman Dumnonia. Each article does need a succinct summary of the other in appropriate places. --Wetman (talk) 17:24, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose: distinct items require distinct entries. Walgamanus (talk) 20:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to withdraw the proposal on the understanding that those who know more of the subject than I do will, as Wetman suggests, ensure that there is suitable cross-referencing between the two articles and explanation of their relationship. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I've deleted the merger tag. But see also below....  What is going on?  Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal - Kingdom of Dumnonia
Is a separate article on Kingdom of Dumnonia needed? I'm not convinced. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * As there have been no comments after 9 months I'm removing the merge tags. Please insert if this is still felt to be an issue.&mdash; Rod talk 14:17, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I realise the tags have been removed but we can still discuss the subject. I don't see the point of having two articles as they seem to cover the same subject:


 * Dumnonia was a Brythonic kingdom of sub-Roman Britain, located in the south-west peninsula of modern England and covering Devon, most of Somerset and possibly part of Dorset, its eastern boundary being uncertain. Cornwall may or may not have been part of Dumnonia. The first sentence from Dumnonia
 * The Kingdom of Dumnonia, was a Celtic petty kingdom that existed during the sub-Roman period and Early Middle Ages in Great Britain's south-western peninsula; it was roughly in the area of what is today called Cornwall and Devon. The first sentence from Kingdom of Dumnonia


 * At the moment, it looks pretty clear that the two should be merged, but I'm not hugely familiar with the post-Roman kingdoms. Sorry I haven't commented before, but I've only recently added this page to my watchlist. Nev1 (talk) 14:26, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Dumnonia is also a territory in northern Britain and Dumnonia is the Anglo-Saxon Latin name for Devon. However, the articles are about exactly the same topic. Dark Age Celts has some of the poorest quality coverage in all medieval-topic Wikipedia mainly because it lacks a single or group of decent editors who take control of it. Briefly perusing a while ago I discovered the same Dumnonian Constantine to have two articles, just like this one! If people agree, I can perform a merge and even a history merge (this involves temporarily deleting one page, moving the other to the deleted page's location, deleting that, and restoring all history from both in the same place). Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 16:30, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It's funny how adding a merge tag got no comment for 9 months & removing them gets comments within hours. I'm definitely not an expert in the field but I'm convinced by the arguments above & would welcome the merge suggested.&mdash; Rod talk 16:40, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Yep, the moral of the story is that it's best to post in multiple places in case one isn't being watched or is low traffic. I've posted a note at Talk:Dumnonii and Talk:Scandinavian York as they're both fairly active at the moment and also Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject European History/Sub-Roman Britain Taskforce. Then again, if a note had been left on the same pages back in October I'm not sure it would have helped much as I think all three pages were fairly quiet at the time (I don't think the task force actually existed).
 * Deacon of Pndaspetzim, it would be great if you could perform the merge, but I'd like to wait for a day or two to see if anyone who contributed on Talk:Dumnonii turns up. Nev1 (talk) 18:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey, I only commented because my attention was directly drawn to it. @Nev, I agree that waiting at least a week is only decent. Cheers, Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 21:27, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Apologies for not leaving a message on the taskforce page last year - I blame stupidity. The case for merger seems obvious to me.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * PS - by the way, there is also another article, Kings of Dumnonia, to be added into the merger debate.... Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree - that Dumnonia and Kingdom of Dumnonia be merged, really these are about the same thing. There are other Dumnonias, such as Domnonee and the northern Damnonii and so on, but then these can be flagged up and linked in the name section or the header, as they already are in the Dumnonia article.  There is also a Kings of Dumnonia which might need a separate article, if only because of its length.  Am still opposed to merging Dumnonia with Dumnonii which I think are clearly distinguishable things in most people's minds, in the same way as Dumnonia and Domnonee, or Dumnonii and Fir Domnann. Phew! Stevebritgimp (talk) 13:24, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Can we make a decision on how best to go ahead with this merger now? I hadn't fully appreciated that, last month, User:Brythonek added a mass of material into the Dumnonii article - with the result that that article is in a horrendous state. What is the best way forward? I don't think there's any argument against keeping Domnonee, Damnonii and Fir Domnann as separate articles, but, if Dumnonii is also to be separate, there is a need to rescue that article, and also to merge (and edit, with reliable references) Dumnonia, Kingdom of Dumnonia, and (in my view also) Kings of Dumnonia. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd agree that merging the territory and the kingdom makes sense as they cover pretty much the same ground. My only real contact with this is the article on the Dumnonii on which I was asked to comment (here). I tried to be kind in my replies to Brythonek, but having just had another look at the article I have to say that it is difficult to know where to start with it and that the best solution perhaps is to rewrite it from start to finish. My main concern is with the supposed Roman and sub-Roman "history" given there together with a subsequent portion of the section on the early medieval period. It is not insignificant that this inaccurate and extravagant mish-mash is mainly sourced from britannia.com. This is ill-understood legend and tradition which is poorly presented, often just plain wrong - e.g. a century or more out from the usually accepted floruits for historical figures - and which takes the "British High King" hypotheses as its keystone. Not at all acceptable and I'm not in a hurry to volunteer editing it: my inclination would be to scrap it and start afresh. I'm not an expert on the history of the area, but the king list needs expert attention, especially for the earlier periods, in order to distinguish as far as is possible, given the nature of much of the evidence, history from myth. Worryingly, as Deacon of Pndapetzim notes, there are a number of related articles which are in an equally sorry state, including seperate articles for characters who may or may not have been distinct individuals, e.g. Petroc/Petroc Baladrddellt. Enaidmawr (talk) 21:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Would it be best to revert Dumnonii to the earlier version - here - and improve it from there? At the same time, Dumnonia, Kingdom of Dumnonia, and Kings of Dumnonia could be merged.  I don't have any specialist knowledge, so I'd be looking at it from the point of view of trying to reduce the obvious overlaps, and look to others to improve the reliability and referencing.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:02, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * In support of a merger but it would be quite difficult to sort everything out clearly.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 08:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite, July 2009
I have been bold and rewritten and restructured the article, using material from new sources as well as from other WP articles (where referenced). Hope this has improved things! In my view, the Kingdom of Dumnonia article should now be deleted and redirected to this article. The articles on Kings of Dumnonia and Kingdom of Cornwall should still remain, but they need to be critically examined, with particular regard to the reliability of some of the sources. Comments welcome! Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:48, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

It's some time since I've studied this area, but I'm worried by the quality of this article. To me it looks as if it contains a lot of hypotheses dressed up as facts or given too much prominence; and although there are a lot of references they are not very specific. Lack of precision is illustrated by the sentence "the name of which derives from the French Grande-Bretagne", which is of course wrong although the thought behind it is correct. As a more substantive example, an implication behind the article is that the word "Dumnonia" (as opposed to "Dumnonii") is first attested before Gildas, which I doubt. Diomedea Exulans (talk) 08:11, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Susan Pearce's The Kingdom of Dumnonia
I'm sure someone mentioned this on a talk page, but I can't recall where. I've borrowed it through inter-library loan if anyone wants anything from it, but it is half a century old now and I don't know if any of it has been overtaken by later work. Dougweller (talk) 17:20, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 1978 was only 31 years ago: whether it has been superseded I would not know but it is useful for dealing with the whole period 350-1150 together.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 22:31, 8 August 2009

(UTC)


 * Sorry, I meant to correct that, I'm not sure what I was thinking about, but the question still stands about whether anyone wants me to look up anything specific in it. Dougweller (talk) 05:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

*dumno
I query this claimed root and its meaning. The online sources I have consulted suggest for deep "dubno" and for world "albjo". I have also seen a derivation of Dumnonia as "worshipers of the god Dumnos". This may be more plausible in view of the widespread occurrence of the name. Adresia (talk) 13:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The derivation in the article is referenced here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I was brought up on dumnoni meaning people of the land - maybe the 'world' or 'realm' sense of dumno in the reference. There is effectively no difference between dubno and domno.  There are names Togidubnos, Cogidubnus, Togidumnus, etc.  Both b and m end up as v/f in Welsh.  Dubnovellaunus ended up both as Dyfnwal and Domhnaill and eventually Donald.  A more open question would be does that have any significance to Dumnoni/Dobunni, as another of my faded memories says the Dumnoni didn't produce coins, but did use Dobunnian coins.  We attach maybe too much significance to vague areas called 'the land' organised by Roman administrators who didn't speak the language.  Again for wikipedia purposes an outside source is king. Stevebritgimp (talk) 23:35, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Devon Flag
Why has the Devon Flag been added to this article - it has no connection with the Kingdom of Dumnonia at all and was only created in 2003. It isn't specifically intended as a Celtic flag. (And I'm an enthusiast for the flag and the Celtic thing). I really don't see what business it has here. Stevebritgimp (talk) 23:02, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. That was a very confusing infobox.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 23:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Do we know who added the infobox? It is an IP user. Stevebritgimp (talk) 23:12, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I removed the infobox as it seemed like it would confuse matters rather than clarify them. To pick another example apart from the flag issue, it gave the impression that Dumnonia was succeeded by the Kingdom of Cornwall when it does not appear to have been a certainty that Dumnonia covered part of Cornwall. Nev1 (talk) 23:15, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

More work on early expansion into Dumnonia
The current text is "The Saxons may have expanded westward from eastern Somerset after a battle in 661 at Posentesburh, possibly Posbury near Crediton in Devon. In 682 they "advanced as far as the sea", but it is unclear where this was." Evidence for the battle of Posentesburh comes from the AS Chronicles(http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/658-75.html or(better) http://rae2007.cch.kcl.ac.uk/pase/apps/persons/index.html). In context, the battle appears to be against Wulfhere of Mercia and also Wessex may have lost. After googling, I found "The origins of Somerset" M. D. Costen - 1992. Which could be a reference to doubt over locating Posentesburh and it's significance to Devon. The other historical evidence for the early Saxon inroads into Devon is that according to The Life of Boniface, in the late 7th century, the ruler of the monastery of Examchester(which is equated with Exeter) has a Germanic name. And also Boniface who studies there self-identifies as Anglosaxon. As far as I know, this is the only evidence, so it could be put in the text. Is there any more evidence?119.12.251.13 (talk) 07:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't add to this, but just noting that we don't use Britannia.com ("America's Gateway to the British Isles since 1996") as it isn't considered a reliable source by our criteria. But you've provided an alternative one. Dougweller (talk) 08:12, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Section: Possible Dumnonia Continuity with ... Brittany
I agree there is a reasonably well documented continuity among historians, even modern day ones. The folklore on the continuity is extensive. Much of this continuity is being documented through current period work, January 2013, on various webpages associated with Brittany. I've added some links to these and also added a link to the Brittany portal in Footnotes. This section holds great promise and should be developed more. Cornwall and Brittany are both modern Celtic Nations !96.224.73.113 (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Footnotes, References, and Other Support Items
I've initiated the use of Footnotes to separate explanations from the Reference function. See if you think it is suitable. This is used in many other historically oriented wikipedia sites to good result. Brittany portal added 96.224.73.113 (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Imported pottery ? out of date info
The claim "Post-Roman imported pottery has been excavated from many sites across the region. An apparent surge in late 5th century Mediterranean imports is yet to be explained satisfactorily" has been tagged as being "old info". Can anyone update the information or explain what needs to be changed?&mdash; Rod talk 08:24, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

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The Map
@Dudley Miles deleted @Nwbeeson's map of pre-Roman Celtic tribes, stating that's it's "misleading". He probably knows more about early Britain than I do, so I'm not going to contest that claim. But that map, in one form or another, is on a lot of pages, on a lot of different versions of Wikipedia. If it's misleading enough to delete from an obscure page about one particular Celtic kingdom, it shouldn't be on any page.

So the correct thing to do is have a discussion about whether the map needs to go away. That would happen by starting a deletion request from the map's Wikimedia Commons page. Use the "Deletion Request" button on the left.

In the meantime, I think it makes sense to revert the deletion of the map from this page. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 22:43, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I did not mean that it is misleading for all articles, just for this article. The map is of pre-Roman Celtic tribal areas, whereas the article is about post-Roman Dumnonia, when most of England was occupied by Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:48, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Never mind then. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 23:36, 20 October 2023 (UTC)