The Battle of Badon /ˈbeɪdən/ also known as the Battle of Mons Badonicus ( la, obsessio isBadonici montis, "Blockade/Siege of the Badonic Hill"; ''Bellum in monte Badonis'', "Battle on Badon Hill"; ''Bellum Badonis'', "Battle of Badon"; Old Welsh: ''Badon'';

Middle Welsh Middle Welsh ( cy, Cymraeg Canol, wlm, Kymraec) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh ( cy, Hen G ...

: ''Gweith Vadon'', "Battle of Badon"; cy, Brwydr Mynydd Baddon, "Battle of Badon Mount/Hill") was a battle purportedly fought between

Britons British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs mod ...

and

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

Post-Roman Britain Sub-Roman Britain is the period of late antiquity in Great Britain between the end of Roman rule and the Anglo-Saxon settlement. The term was originally used to describe archaeological remains found in 5th- and 6th-century AD sites that hin ...

in the late

5th Fifth is the ordinal form of the number five. Fifth or The Fifth may refer to: * Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as in the expression "pleading the Fifth" * Fifth column, a political term * Fifth disease, a contagious rash tha ...

or early

6th century The 6th century is the period from 501 through 600 in line with the Julian calendar. In the West, the century marks the end of Classical Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire late in the previous ...

. It was credited as a major victory for the Britons, stopping the encroachment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms for a period. The earliest references to the battle by the British cleric

Gildas Gildas ( Breton: ''Gweltaz''; c. 450/500 – c. 570) — also known as Gildas the Wise or ''Gildas Sapiens'' — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic ''De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'', which recount ...

date to the 6th century. It is chiefly known today for the supposed involvement of the man who would later be remembered as the legendary King Arthur; although it is not agreed that Arthur was a historical figure, his name first appears in the 9th-century ''

Historia Brittonum ''The History of the Britons'' ( la, Historia Brittonum) is a purported history of the indigenous British ( Brittonic) people that was written around 828 and survives in numerous recensions that date from after the 11th century. The ''Historia B ...

'', in which he is mentioned participating in the battle alongside the Brittonic kings as a war commander, but is not mentioned as a king himself. Because of the limited number of sources, there is no certainty about the date, location, or details of the fighting.

Historical accounts

Gildas

The earliest mention of the Battle of Badon is

' '' De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'' (''On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain''), written in the early to mid-6th century. In it, the

are said to have "dipped heirred and savage tongue in the western ocean" before

Ambrosius Aurelianus Ambrosius Aurelianus ( cy, Emrys Wledig; Anglicised as Ambrose Aurelian and called Aurelius Ambrosius in the ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' and elsewhere) was a war leader of the Romano-British who won an important battle against the Anglo-Sax ...

organized a British resistance with the survivors of the initial Saxon onslaught. Gildas describes the period that followed Ambrosius' initial success: ''De Excidio Britanniae'' describes the battle as such an "unexpected recovery of the sland that it caused kings, nobles, priests, and commoners to "live orderly according to their several vocations." Afterwards, the long peace degenerated into civil wars and the iniquity of

Maelgwn Gwynedd Maelgwn Gwynedd ( la, Maglocunus; died c. 547Based on Phillimore's (1888) reconstruction of the dating of the ''Annales Cambriae'' (A Text).) was king of Gwynedd during the early 6th century. Surviving records suggest he held a pre-eminent position ...

. That

Arthur Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more wi ...

had gone unmentioned in the source closest to his own time, Gildas, was noticed at least as early as the 12th-century hagiography which claims that Gildas had praised Arthur extensively but then excised him completely after Arthur killed the saint's brother, Hueil mab Caw. Modern writers have suggested the details of the battle were so well known that Gildas could have expected his audience to be familiar with them.Green, p. 31.

Bede

The battle is next mentioned in an 8th-century text of Bede's ''

Ecclesiastical History of the English People The ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' ( la, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), written by Bede in about AD 731, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict b ...

'' (''Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum''). It describes the "siege of Mount Badon, when they made no small slaughter of those invaders," as occurring 44 years after the first

Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain is the process which changed the language and culture of most of what became England from Romano-British to Germanic. The Germanic-speakers in Britain, themselves of diverse origins, eventually develope ...

. Since Bede places that arrival just before, during or just after the joint reign (in Rome) of Marcian and

Valentinian III Valentinian III ( la, Placidus Valentinianus; 2 July 41916 March 455) was Roman emperor in the West from 425 to 455. Made emperor in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by powerful generals vying ...

in 449456, he must have considered Badon to have taken place between 493 and 500. Bede then puts off discussion of the battle "But more of this hereafter" only to seemingly never return to it. Bede does later include an extended account of

Saint Germanus of Auxerre Germanus of Auxerre ( la, Germanus Antissiodorensis; cy, Garmon Sant; french: Saint Germain l'Auxerrois; 378 – c. 442–448 AD) was a western Roman clergyman who was bishop of Autissiodorum in Late Antique Gaul. He abandoned a career as a h ...

's victory over the Saxons and

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from e ...

in a mountain valley (traditionally placed at

Mold A mold () or mould () is one of the structures certain fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of spores containing fungal secondary metabolites. The spores are the dispersal units of the fungi. Not ...

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

in northeast Wales), which he credits with curbing the threat of invasion for a generation.Bede, I.xx. However, as the victory is described as having been accomplished bloodlessly, it was presumably a different occasion from Badon. Accepted at face value, St. Germanus' involvement would also place the battle around 430, although Bede's chronology shows no knowledge of this.

Nennius and the Welsh Annals

The earliest surviving text mentioning Arthur at the battle is the early 9th-century ''

'' (''The History of the Britons''), attributed to Nennius, in which the soldier (Latin ''mīles'') Arthur is identified as the leader of the victorious British force at Badon: The Battle of Badon is next mentioned in the ''

Annales Cambriae The (Latin for ''Annals of Wales'') is the title given to a complex of Latin chronicles compiled or derived from diverse sources at St David's in Dyfed, Wales. The earliest is a 12th-century presumed copy of a mid-10th-century original; later ed ...

'' (''Annals of Wales''), assumed to have been written during the mid- to late-10th century. The entry states:

Geoffrey

Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography ...

's c. 1136 ''

Historia Regum Britanniae ''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. I ...

'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain'') was massively popular and survives in many copies from soon after its composition. Going into (and fabricating) much greater detail, Geoffrey closely identifies Badon with Bath, including having Merlin foretell that Badon's baths would lose their hot water and turn poisonous. He also mixes in aspects of other accounts: the battle begins as a Saxon siege and then becomes a normal engagement once Arthur's men arrive; Arthur bears the image of the Virgin both on his shield and shoulder. Arthur charges and kills 470, ten more than the number of Britons ambushed by

Hengist Hengist and Horsa are Germanic brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist as the first of the Jutish kings of Kent. Most modern scholarly consensus now rega ...

near

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of ...

. Elements of the Welsh legends are added: in addition to the shield ''

Pridwen Pridwen was, according to the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, King Arthur's shield; it was adorned with an image of the Virgin Mary. Geoffrey's description of it draws on earlier Welsh traditions found in '' Preiddeu Annwfn'', ''Culhwc ...

'', Arthur gains his sword, '' Caliburnus'' (Excalibur), and his spear, '' Ron''. Geoffrey also makes the defence of the city from the Saxon sneak attack a holy cause, having

Dubricius Dubricius or Dubric ( cy, Dyfrig; Norman-French: ''Devereux''; c. 465 – c. 550) was a 6th-century British ecclesiastic venerated as a saint. He was the evangelist of Ergyng ( cy, Erging) (later Archenfield, Herefordshire) and much ...

offer absolution of all sins for those who fall in battle.Thompson, Aaron & al. (trans.)
History of the Kings of Britain
', IX.iv. In Parentheses, 1999. Accessed 6 February 2013.

Scholarship

There is considerable scholarly debate as to the exact date and location of the battle, though most agree that it took place in southern England sometime around the turn of the sixth century.

Date

Dates proposed by scholars for the battle include 493, 501 and 516. Daniel McCarthy and

Dáibhí Ó Cróinín Dáibhí Iarla Ó Cróinín (born 29 August 1954) is an Irish historian and authority on Hiberno-Latin texts, noted for his significant mid-1980s discovery in a manuscript in Padua of the "lost" Irish 84-year Easter table. Ó Cróinín was Prof ...

have posited that Gildas' 44 years and one month is not a reference to the simple chronology but a position within the 84-year Easter cycle used for computus at the time by the Britons and the Irish church. The tables in question begin in January 438, which would place their revised date of the battle in February 482. Andrew Breeze, in a 2020 book, argues that the Battle of Badon or " Braydon, Wiltshire" took place in 493, deducing that Gildas was writing ''De Excidio'' in 536, in the middle of the

extreme weather events of 535–536 The volcanic winter of 536 was the most severe and protracted episode of climatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2,000 years. The volcanic winter was caused by an eruption, with several possible locations proposed in various contin ...

, because he cited a "certain thick mist and black night" which "sits upon the whole island" of Britain, but not the subsequent famine in the year 537. Breeze concluded that Badon was fought "(...) in southern Britain, was fought in 493 and had nothing to do with Arthur."

Location

Though academics have never reached any consensus, Mount Badon’s location has traditionally been sited in the hills around Bath, most notably at Bathampton Down. Alternatively, Tim and Annette Burkitt have proposed Caer Badden ( la, Aquae Sulis; now Bath, Somerset), some 20 miles northeast of the Roman mines at

Charterhouse Charterhouse may refer to: * Charterhouse (monastery), of the Carthusian religious order Charterhouse may also refer to: Places * The Charterhouse, Coventry, a former monastery * Charterhouse School, an English public school in Surrey Londo ...

, on the basis of the ''Welsh Annals'', as well as archaeological and toponymic evidence. Liddington_Castle,_Liddington,_Swindon_-_geograph

Susan Hirst,

Geoffrey Ashe Geoffrey Thomas Leslie Ashe (29 March 1923 – 30 January 2022) was a British cultural historian and lecturer, known for his focus on King Arthur. Early life Born in London, Ashe was an only child who excelled all his classmates in academics ...

and Michael Wood argue for the site of

Liddington Castle Liddington Castle, locally called Liddington Camp, is a late Bronze Age and early Iron Age univallate hillfort in the English county of Wiltshire, and a scheduled monument. Description The site is on a commanding high point close to the Rid ...

on the hill above Badbury (

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

: ''Baddan byrig'') in Wiltshire. This site commands

The Ridgeway The ancient tree-lined path winds over the downs countryside The Ridgeway is a ridgeway or ancient trackway described as Britain's oldest road. The section clearly identified as an ancient trackway extends from Wiltshire along the chalk ...

, which connects the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

with the River Avon and

River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

beyond. The similarly-named

Badbury Rings Badbury Rings is an Iron Age hill fort and Scheduled Monument in east Dorset, England. It was in the territory of the Durotriges. In the Roman era a temple was located immediately west of the fort, and there was a Romano-British town known as ''Vi ...

in Dorset have also been argued to be the location of the battle. David Cooper agrees that this is the most likely site and has provided the most comprehensive analysis of the battle available to date. Andrew Breeze has argued that ''Badon'' must be etymologically

Brittonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...

rather than English (thus eliminating Bath from consideration as its name is entirely Germanic), and that the toponym as given by Gildas (''Badonici Montis'') is a misprint of ''Bradonici Montis'', based on known Celtic place names in Wales and Cornwall. Breeze posits Ringsbury Camp near Braydon in Wiltshire as the site of the battle.

Possible Saxon commander

Some authors have speculated that

Ælle of Sussex Ælle (also Aelle or Ella) is recorded in early sources as the first king of the South Saxons, reigning in what is now called Sussex, England, from 477 to perhaps as late as 514. According to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', Ælle and three of hi ...

may have led the Saxon forces at this battle. Others reject the idea out of hand.

Second Badon

The A Text of the ''Annales Cambriae'' Harleian MS. 3859. Op. cit. Phillimore, Egerton. ''Y Cymmrodor'' 9 (1888), pp. 141–183. includes the entry: "The first celebration of Easter among the Saxons. The second battle of Badon. Morgan dies."Ingram, James. ''

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfr ...

''. Everyman Press (London), 1912. The date for this action is given by Phillimore as 665, but the Saxons' first Easter is placed by the B Text in its entry 634 years after the birth of Christ and "the second Badon" is not mentioned.

Romance depiction

The 13th-century French Arthurian prose romance

Vulgate Cycle The ''Lancelot-Grail'', also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance in Old French. The cycle of unknown author ...

replaced the Battle of Badon with the Battle of Clarence (spelling variants: ''Clarance'', ''Clarans'', ''Clarenche'', ''Clarens''). In the first round of fighting, a coalition of British kings is defeated by the Saxons (or the Saracens in some versions, including that by

Thomas Malory Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of ''Le Morte d'Ar ...

). In the second phase, Arthur joins the battle and enemy forces are destroyed, driving invaders into the sea.

Local lore

Apart from the professional scholarship, various communities throughout Wales and England have their own traditions maintaining that their area was the site of the battle. These include (besides Badbury Rings and Bathampton Down), the mountain of Mynydd Baedan near

Maesteg Maesteg is a town and community (Wales), community in Bridgend County Borough, Wales. Maesteg lies at the northernmost end of the Llynfi Valley, close to the border with Neath Port Talbot. In 2011, Maesteg had a population of 20,612. The English ...

in South Wales, and

Bowden Hill Bowden Hill is a village in Wiltshire, England, in Lacock parish about south of Chippenham and to the east of Lacock village. Bowden Hill has about 50 houses, a pub, and a small industrial estate. Origins of the name Bowden Hill was historica ...

in Wiltshire.

Modern depictions

King Arthur leads the Knights of the Round Table into battle against the Saxons led by Hengist in the ''

Prince Valiant ''Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur'', often simply called ''Prince Valiant'', is an American comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretc ...

'' comic strip series episodes 1430 (5 July 1964) and following. The battle is mentioned in the 1975 comedy film '' Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' as one of the many questionable feats of Sir Robin, who in the film's bardic narration is said to have "personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill". The battle is featured prominently in 1997's '' Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur'' by

Bernard Cornwell Bernard Cornwell (born 23 February 1944) is an English-American author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written ''The Saxon ...

in the book's second part, "Mynydd Baddon", in which the armies of Angle and Saxon kings Aelle and

Cerdic Cerdic (; la, Cerdicus) is described in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' as a leader of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, being the founder and first king of Saxon Wessex, reigning from 519 to 534 AD. Subsequent kings of Wessex were each cla ...

, aided by Celtic traitors led by Lancelot, are defeated in an epic battle by an uneasy alliance of various British and Irish kingdoms. The author combines various medieval accounts of the battle, such as it beginning as an Anglo-Saxon siege of a hilltop (here initially desperately defended by Guinevere, who is depicted as brilliant strategist and rallying figure) and having Arthur's cavalry appear with the sign of the cross on their shields (here a requisite demanded by the Christian king Tewdric for him to also join the battle), to create a more grounded and realistic depiction than the ones from his medieval sources. The 2004 film '' King Arthur'' ends in a climactic battle scene occurring along the Hadrian Wall as the mostly Romano-British forces of Arthur defeat these of the Saxon kings Cerdic and Cynric, at a heavy cost to Arthur.

References

Sources

*Green, Thomas. ''Concepts of Arthur''. Tempus (Stroud, Gloucestershire), 2007. . {{authority control Badon 5th century in England 5th century in Wales Badon 6th century in England 6th century in Wales Badon Badon Badon Geoffrey of Monmouth