What was Cumbria?

Around 1116, David, Prince of the Cumbrians, instituted an investigation into those lands that had once been under the authority of the Diocese of Glasgow.  Barrow notes that David, who was later King David I, of Scotland, considered Cumberland and Westmorland as lying within his realm [1].

In the text of the Inquisition, David talks about "we Cumbrians" and describes Cumbria as a region situated between England and Scotland [2].  The Maitland Club's reprint of William Hamilton's Descriptions of the Sheriffdoms of Lanark and Renfrew [3] notes that the then county of Cumberland only represented a part of the ancient territory of Cumbria.

David describes Cumbria as being situated between England and Scotland. The language of the Cumbrians was a sister dialect of Welsh, Cornish and Breton. We do not know what they called it themselves ( though we could make an educated guess that it was something like Cömbraeg) but in his book Language and History in Early Britain [4],  Kenneth Jackson coins the name "Cumbric" for the language of the Cumbrians.

David talks about the Cathedral of Glasgow being the seat of the Cumbrian bishop. The cathedral is dedicated to St Mungo or Kentigern and churches dedicated to Kentigern can be found across the territory that was Cumbrian.

In 1291, the Canons and Priors of Carlisle composed the Cronica de Karleoli from documents in their possession and informed King Edward I of England that Cumbria had consisted of the bishoprics of Glasgow, Carlisle and Candida Casa - that is Whithorn in Galloway - and that it had extended south from Carlisle to the River Duddon [5]. The Victoria History of Cumberland quotes the Scottish chronicler, Wyntoun, as placing the south-east boundary of Cumbria as the Rere Cross on Stainmore.  Phythian-Adams did a detailed analysis of land holdings in English Cumbria just after the Norman take-over. He noted that the area around Millom (but north of the Duddon), was in the Domesday Book, and probably went with Lancashire until it was added to Copeland (part of Cumberland) later [6]. On page 9 of his Land of The Cumbrians, his map shows the boundary of the diocese of Carlisle, set up by the Normans, but possibly representing some earlier boundary. I have noticed over the years, that that most of the Cumbric names are within the diocesian boundaries, with the exception of a group around Cartmel (which may be an group of Britons with archaic naming patterns - see below) and a line of names that runs down the western fellside from Cockermouth, taking in Lamplugh, Mockerkin and going as far as the river Esk at Ravenglass, broadly following the main line of communication down the coast.

In the Cronica de Karleoli, the Canons of Carlisle are careful to describe a previous Anglo-Saxon King Edward in 924 as king of the English, Cumbrians, Danes, Scots and Britons (presumably the Welsh or Cornish).  In 1059 the monks refer to Malcolm, King of the Cumbrians. They also make the point that the Earl of Northumbria, Cospatricius (Gospatric) in 1070 was Cumbrian (as his name suggests).

The Cumbrians appear as a separate ethnic group in the Battle of the Standard in 1138 when they take their place next to the men of Teviotdale in the Scottish second line. David had been ceded "English" Cumberland from England in 1135, territory which he possibly regarded as rightfully his as Prince of the Cumbrians.

Despite being Prince of the Cumbrians, David, was certainly not one of them. He was a Norman. In his Inquisition, he (or whoever wrote the text for him says on his behalf) that he does not rule the whole of the Cumbrian territory. Edmonds wonders whether this is because the Cumbrian lands to the south of the Solway were not in his hands at this time [7]