At the time of the Domesday Book in 1066, Cumberland, apart
from the area around Millom, did not form part of the kingdom of England and
was ruled by the Scots after their takeover of Cumbria in 1070. The Norman lords land-grabbed parts of
southern Cumbria. What became the Barony of Kendal was in the Domesday book but
Appleby and points north were not part of England at that time, presumably
because they were part of Scotland because they had previously been part of Cumbria. The
barony of Appleby, which later became part of the County of Westmorland,
previously belong to Carlisle, while Kendal belonged to Amounderness in
Lancashire [50]. When Cnut, son of Swein became king of a united England in 1018, English Cumbria was not part of it - being still within Cumbria ruled from Glasgow.
After the Norman king Henry II took the lands around
Carlisle in 1092, he settled southern English people there. Phythian-Adams has
argued persuasively that the settlements named Carleton, or Calatton, represent
the establishment of southern English settlers "a great multitude"
according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. They were possibly from Lincolnshire, planted by the Normans,
to help cement their control of the newly acquired region [6]
David, later David I, was prince of the Cumbrian region from
1107, but by this time the lands to the south of the Solway were in Norman
hands. Phythian-Adams suggests that the establishment of Norman families in
Liddesdale may have been the result of a relatively friendly agreement between
David, Prince of Cumbria and Ranulf le Meschin [6] who agreed on people amenable
to both of them.
In 1135, David took back Cumberland and northern
Northumberland and briefly re-united those parts that had been Cumbrian south
of the Solway with the rest of the historical Cumbrian realm.
Prior to the Norman invasion of the North, Gospatric's
Writ, dated from around 1067x9 refers to the areas in North Allerdale, just
south of Carlisle as having been
Cumbrian. A number of the place-names
and personal names in the writ are Cumbric, but some are Norse and there is an
obvious Gaelic influence. David I in his Inquisition half a century later
laments that he does not rule the whole of Cumbria.
Dauvit Broun argues that the bishopric of Glasgow in some
sense continued the kingdom of Cumbria and was very aware of its royal
associations and its "Welshness" which, if I read him correctly, it
used to promote its independence from other powers, if not politically, at
least culturally [42]. He says that it continued to promote its
Welsh identity (he uses this word rather than Cumbrian or British) while the
Cumbric language was "dead or dying" in the second half of the 12th
Century.
Broun notes a statement by Ralph, archbishop of Canterbury
(1114-22) that the Bishop of Glasgow was a bishop of the ancient Britons, who
up until the time of the Normans was consecrated by a bishop of the Scots or
the Welsh Britons [42]. Ralph states that a recent
bishop, whom he presumes to be Michael, was a Briton, though Broun urges
caution.
The bishopric of Carlisle was founded in 1133 by the Norman
king Henry I. John of Cheam, bishop of
Glasgow, claimed that Glasgow had authority down to Stainmore. Broun says there
is some evidence that Bishop John and his predecessor Michael performed
ecclesiastical functions in Cumberland and Westmorland before the bishopric of
Carlisle was founded.
David I, granted a Mark of Silver to the monks of Wetheral
near Carlisle in 1139 and in his charter he greets all of his just men of Cumberland,
French (i.e Norman), English and Cumbrian [2]. Broun reminds us that this type of salutation was made because it was appropriate to the region and
it does not in itself mean there were still Cumbrians, if by that we understand
Cumbric speakers. However, there was still something Cumbrian about the Wetheral
area that placed it as part of Cumberland and made it appropriate to greet
Frenchmen, Englishmen and Cumbrians. I believe, that Cumbric did survive still
at this time, though it was in steep decline. However in a further charter
dated 1141, granting Wetheral to the church of St Mary at York, he only greets
Frenchmen and Englishmen [2]
In charters from Glasgow there are three authentic [42] addresses to
"Welsh" nobles. A charter of William I from between 1173 x 1191 from
Jedburgh, another from Stirling likely to be from 1212, and an undated charter
of Mael Coluim IV. Broun is sceptical
that there was an ethnic group recognisably Welsh in Glasgow as late as 1212 [42]. He says that this later
charter was modelled on the first from around 1153x65.
Broun also refers to a text called the Leges inter Brettos et Scotos, "laws among Britons and
Scots". It was prohibited by Edward I of England after his conquest of 1305.
The text is in French but it has Gaelic and Welsh (we might say Cumbric) legal
terms. It uses the term galnys, which is equivalent to the Welsh galanas "blood price". Because the text deals with the
harmonisation of Cumbric and Gaelic blood fines, it has been suggested that it
dates from the Scottish takeover of the kingdom of Cumbria. I am mis-quoting from Broun
by deliberately using the terms Cumbric and Cumbria rather than Welsh and
Wales. The two other Cumbric terms are mercheta - a tax paid to a lord by a
father when his daughter married (mercheta
in modern Welsh actually means to womanise) from merch "girl", and kelchyn "circuit".
Down in Wales, the same Edward I also prohibited the Welsh law's criminal codes in
1284 after his defeat of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and the conquest of Wales.
Previously Edward had written to Llywelyn describing Welsh law as detestable. He
also found Irish law "detestable"
and banned it where he held power [51]
However, the Anglicisation was not complete, because Cumbric
place-names, and personal names, are used in the 13th Century even in the west part of the
modern county of Northumberland and in East Lothian.
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