A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



place name within the limits of the modern county disappears from 

 history for a century and a half. The city of Carlisle ceased to be so 

 far as recorded history is concerned. The memorials of the district 

 south of the Solway perished. It is just possible that Florence, full of 

 the ruthless ravages of the Danes in the north, and rinding no materials 

 for the history of the north-western district, jumped to the conclusion 

 that Carlisle shared the fate of many cities in the rest of Northumbria. 

 Subsequent events may help to throw doubt on the alleged destruction 

 of Carlisle and the desertion of its site. 



After the Danish conquest of Northumbria all is dark or indistinct 

 in the region south of the Solway. We lose the guidance of Carlisle in 

 our efforts to disentangle the obscure allusions which may possibly refer 

 to the district. In the tenth century the chroniclers make incidental 

 mention of tribes and peoples inhabiting the western shores, but it is 

 very difficult to say with certainty that our district was included. As 

 yet the territory between the Solway and the Duddon had no political 

 existence as a separate state, and we know not whether it had been dis- 

 severed from Northumbria when that kingdom began to decline. There 

 is no evidence that Strathclyde extended south of Hadrian's wall at any 

 time subsequent to the English conquest. The territorial name is a 

 warrant that it comprised only the valley of the Clyde, and can have 

 extended little beyond what is now known as Clydesdale. In that case 

 allusions to the Straecled-Walas, Streatcledwali, Stratcluttenses, or Welsh 

 of Strathclyde, need present no difficulties. But it is different with the 

 Cumbri, a race which has given its name to the modern county, and of 

 which we have no mention before 875. Ethelwerd is the first of the 

 chroniclers who uses the word, 1 but he gives no indication of the terri- 



where that locality is (ii. 85). Florence of Worcester (Man. Hist. Brit. p. 573) almost used the same 

 phrase, ' in loco qui dicitur Eamotum,' in which he is followed by Symeon of Durham (Hist. Regum, 

 ii. 124). Mr. Arnold, the editor of Symeon, suggests that Etton in the east riding of Yorkshire is 

 meant. The importance of ' Dacore ' in Bede's day furnishes a strong probability that the ' Eamotum ' 

 of the Chronicle and Florence may be identified with Eamont, formerly Eamot, in Cumberland, which 

 is close to Dacre. But we have the positive testimony of William of Malmsbury that the Scots sub- 

 mitted to Athelstan, ' ad locum qui Dacor vocatur,' which is sufficient to settle the identity of ' Eamo- 

 tum ' (Gesta Regum Anglorum, \. 147, ed. Stubbs). There is a tradition that the conference was held 

 in a room of Dacre Castle, still pointed out as 'the kings' chamber.' E. W. Robertson denies the truth 

 of the whole story of the submission of the kings to Athelstan, and suggests that the account in the 

 Cottonian MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is an interpolation ; he also says that Malmsbury's authority 

 for the statement was an old poem (Early Kings, ii. 3978). 



1 It may be taken that ' Cumbri ' and ' Cumbria,' as the designation of the people and their 

 territories, did not come into use before the eleventh century, but it is an open question whether 

 Ethelwerd was the first to employ the terms. In the tractate on the Life of St. CadnH it is stated that 

 King Donald conducted the saint to the city of Leeds, which was the boundary between the northmen 

 and the Cumbrians, 'conduxit usque Loidam Civitatem quae est confinium Normannorum atque 

 Cumbrorum ' (Skene, Chron. of the Puts and Scots, p. 116). As Cadrog died about 976, and as the 

 author of the Life states that he had his information from the saint's disciples, Dr. Skene has dated the 

 tract in the eleventh century. Ethelwerd certainly lived and wrote in the same century (Hardy, De- 

 scriptive Catalogue, i. 571-4 ; ii. 65). The people of this region were called Britons by Gildas, 

 Nennius and Bede, and their kings were spoken of by Adamnan and the Ulster Annals as reigning in 

 Petra Cloithe or Alocluaithe, but no mention is made of Cumbri. Strathclyde was introduced by 

 later writers as the name of the kingdom over which the kings ruled. In the matter of territorial 

 titles Sir Henry Maine's remarks on the history of tribe sovereignty (Ancient Law, pp. 103-9) an d 

 Mr. Freeman's notes on early geographical nomenclature are of great value (Norman Conquest, i. 584-6, 

 597-605). 



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