Talk:Cadwallon ap Cadfan

Identification

Leaving aside Woolf's paper (which I have not seen), the identification of this person with a supposed king of Gwynned is clearly shaky.

• Bede's first mention of "Caedualla rex Brettonum" (ii. 20) gives no antecedents for him. Later (iii. 1), he is "rex Brettonum Ceadualla".
• AU s.a. 632 has "Bellum Cathloen regis Britonum & Anfrith" and s.a. 633 has "Bellum Iudris regis Britonum".
• AT s.a. has "Cath Etuin maic Ailli reghis Saxonum, qui totam Britanniam regnavit, in quo victus est Catguallaun rege Britonum et Panta Saxano" and s.a. 635 "Cath la Cathlon & Anfraith qui decollatus est, in quo Osualt mac Etalfraith victor erat et Catlon, rex Britonum, cecidit".
• AI s.a. 633 has the bald "Guin Catluain".
• CS and AM do not report anything.
• ASC (E) s.a. 633 has "Her wearð Eadwine cining ofslagan. fram Cadwallan 7 Pendan on Heðfelda on ii idus Octobris 7 he rixade .vii. gear. 7 eac man sloh his sunu Osfrið mid him. 7 þa syððan foran Ceadwala 7 Penda 7 fordydan eall Norðhymbra land."
• AC: no untranslated version available, but the Internet Medieval Sourcebook version gives "The beseiging of king Cadwallon in the island of Glannauc", "On the Kalends of January the battle of Meigen; and there Edwin was killed with his two sons; but Cadwallon was the victor" and "The battle of Cantscaul in which Cadwallon fell".

It's notable that we have "Edwin Ælling" and "Oswald Æthelfrithing" but no patronym for Cadwallon, and no title except rex Brettonum. Yes, there are endless genealogies, later histories, with biblically inspired tales, and the rest, but there's nothing contemporary or derived from an annalistic source which relates Cadwallon to Gwynned or makes him a son of Cadfan. Angus McLellan (Talk) 15:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, Woolf has pretty much destroyed the identification with Gwynedd. That was my reaction, but I also know of at least two historians who agree with him (I don't know the professional opinions of anyone else). The Gwynedd genealogies make no sense with him in it; but when you take him out, they make chronological sense. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 15:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

How should this be reflected in the article? I am worried about editing it to give too much weight to a recent paper, but also worried about giving no consideration within the body of the article to this theory, because the consequence of that could be that we are reporting an outdated understanding as uncontested fact. Reworking the article along these lines might necessitate changing the title as well. Everyking 09:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Barbara Yorke's The Conversion of Britain (2006) says (p. 63):

Penda had initially come to pre-eminence through an alliance in which a British king Caedwalla was the dominant partner. Caedwalla has often been seen as a king of Gwynedd, but is perhaps more likely to have been a king from one of the northern British kingdoms that had suffered from Æthelfrith's ambitions. [157]

Note 157 points us to Woolf's "Caedualla". In her Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (1990) he is "Cadwallon of Gwynedd". Angus McLellan (Talk) 10:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that helps confirm that scholarly opinion has moved away from the Gwynedd theory. Everyking 11:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I found an interesting link (see section B, question 9) from a 2004 exam paper in early Welsh poetry at Aberystwyth. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Alex Woolf's conjectures are important: couldn't they be dealt with as an extended footnote?--Henrywgc 02:33, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I would be EXTREMELY cautious about revising key features of Welsh history that are understood and accepted as they are and have been for centuries on the basis of one modern thesis, compelling or not. Far too much weight is added, as per usual with Wikipedia (and it is a most unfortunate feature) on a modern "revisionist" view seeking to get attention for the author, and which often present an entirely warped view of events designed to emphasise the qualities of the new theory while throughly neglecting the established facts and national tradition which, in this case, places Cadwallon on the throne of Gwynedd. It seems to me entirely unlikely that medieval Welsh historians would include Cadwallon as a king of Gwynedd if he were not and attribute to him the parentage of Cadwaladr Fendigaid if this were not the case. To the medieval Welsh ancestry was everything with every free man expected to be able to state his patrilineal ancestry through nine generations or be unable to claim any inheritance. Such a false claim would immediately be challenged by rival welsh kings whose own pedigrees would no doubt inlude the same ancestors and of course the complete absence of any prior contraversy indicates that this did not happen. It is entirely feasible that Cadwallon would be called "king of Britons" when Gwynedd was recognised at this stage as the principle British kingdom and had been since the time of Maelgwyn Hir (or maybe he was actually the King of Spain and really called Manuel??) The old histories celebrated the achievements of the "men of the north" and if he were a king of Rheged, Elmet, Gododdin, Bryneich or Strathclyde I am confident the old histories would have said as much. Certainly, when Cadwallon moved through the Pennines the ranks of his army would have been swelled with local Britons of the vanquished kingdom of Elmet (occupied by Northumbria in c.619AD) but this does not mean he was from Elmet. Until the established and accepted history of a millennia is shown by a clear margin to be false and that this new theory is accepted broadly by the majority of experts on Welsh history (and by that I mean the alumni of Welsh universities NOT wikipedia editors with their so-called expertise) I would move that a simple sentence (at the most) at the foot of the wiki stating that Alex Woolfe in a thesis has questioned the existance of Cadwallon as we know of him, etc and this alone would suffice.James Frankcom (talk) 20:25, 21 June 2010 (UTC)