History of Devon - Post Roman Independence

Post Roman Independence

See also Dumnonia

After the departure of the Roman administration from Britain had been completed by around 426 the regions in the west of Britannia formerly under military control appear to have reverted quite quickly to pre-Roman forms of tribal government; the territory called in Latin Dumnonia seems certain to have been one of these regions. Historians of this period appear united in the view that the Britons of the south-west, known to the Anglo-Saxons as the “West Welsh”, Britons or “Welsh of the Horn ” (‘’Cornu-Wealha’’), organised themselves into a realm based on the old Latin tribal definition of the Dumnonii and called “Dyfnaint” in the language of the West Welsh, later mutated into “Dewnans” in the Cornish language. The names "Dyfnaint" and "Defnas", later "Devon", are indeed mutually interchangeable but the territory of the Kingdom of Dyfnaint was originally much greater in extent than the modern County of Devon. This realm of Dyfnaint may have been loosely organised under an acknowledged “high king” who was perhaps the direct ruler of the largest portion of it. Peripheral areas of the realm such as Dorset, Glastonbury, Bath and Cornwall may well have been subordinate or confederate sub-kingdoms united with central Dyfnaint against the common foe; the Anglo-Saxons. Gildas castigated a King Constantius of Dumnonia in about 540 AD for his behaviour. Bishop Aldhelm corresponded with King Geraint of Dumnonia in the late 7th century about religious differences.

The names and leaders of these smaller peripheral territories have largely been lost to us; however a king named Melwas is named as a Brythonic ruler in what may now be Somerset and traditions of some Kings of Cornwall are recorded. Exeter, known as “Caer Uisc”, may have been central to the kingdom but some historians and antiquaries have speculated that the Kings of Dumnonia may have been itinerant with no fixed capital and moved their court from place to place. The Welsh Triads name Celliwig in Cornwall as a possible site of a royal court, another is High Peak close to Sidmouth. The former Roman city of Exeter may have become an ecclesiastical centre, as evidenced by a sub-Roman cemetery discovered near the cathedral. The Brythonic cemetery in Exeter may have been attached to the monastery attended by the young Wilfred St. Boniface (said to be a native of Crediton) in the late 7th century. However its Abbot had a purely Saxon name, suggesting it was an Anglo-Saxon foundation.