Little England Beyond Wales - History

History

The area was formerly part of the kingdom of Deheubarth, but it is unclear when it became distinguished from other parts of Wales. B. G. Charles gives a survey of the evidence for early non-Welsh settlements in the area. The Norse raided in the 9th and 10th centuries, and some may have settled, as they did in Gwynedd further north. There are scattered Scandinavian placenames in the area, mostly in the Hundred of Roose, north and west of the River Cleddau. The medieval Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogion mentions many battles in southwest Wales and sackings of Menevia (St David's) in the pre-Norman period. Sometimes these were stated to be conflicts with Saxons, sometimes with people of unspecified origin. The first explicit documentary evidence is that of Gerald of Wales and Brut y Tywysogyon, which record that "Flemings" were settled in south Pembrokeshire soon after the arrival of the Normans in the early 12th century. Gerald says this took place specifically in Roose.

The de Barry family, the Lords of Manorbier near Tenby, originally came from Barri near Tournai in Flanders. Gerald de Barry says that the family name was previously Barri, which changed to de Barry when they were ennobled as a reward for their participation in the invasion of Wales. He says that the name was taken from the Island of Barry, which became part of their holdings. The Flemish were noted for their skill in the construction of castles, which were built throughout the Norman territories in Pembrokeshire.

The previous inhabitants were said to have "lost their land", but this could mean either a total expulsion of the existing population, or merely a replacement of the land-owning class. The development of Haverfordwest as the castle and borough controlling Roose dates from this period; this plantation occurred under the auspices of the Norman invaders. The Normans placed the whole of Southwest Wales under military control, establishing castles over the entire area, as far north as Cardigan.

That Flemish might have continued to be spoken is borne out only by a statement of 1577 that a few families could still speak Flemish. However, Ranulf Higdon in his Polychronicon (1327) states that Flemish was by his time extinct in southwest Wales, and George Owen in 1603 was adamant that Flemish was long extinct. As for placenames, the greatest concentration of Anglo-Saxon names is in Roose, while there are considerable numbers of Welsh placenames in the rest of Little England, although these areas were certainly English-speaking. Flemish names are rare, and those that exist are based on personal names of landowners.

At the end of the Tudor period, George Owen produced his Description of Penbrokshire (sic), completed in 1603. The work is essentially a geographical analysis of the languages in the county, and his writings provide the vital source for all subsequent commentators. He is the first to emphasize the sharpness of the linguistic boundary. He says:

et do these two nations keep each from dealings with the other, as mere strangers, so that the meaner sort of people will not, or do not usually, join together in marriage, although they be in one hundred ( and sometimes in the same parish, nor commerce nor buy but in open fairs, so that you shall find in one parish a pathway parting the Welsh and English, and the one side speak all English, the other all Welsh, and differing in tilling and in measuring of their land, and divers other matters.

Of Little England, he added:

(They) keep their language among themselves without receiving the Welsh speech or learning any part thereof, and hold themselves so close to the same that to this day they wonder at a Welshman coming among them, the one neighbour saying to the other "Look there goeth a Welshman".

He described the linguistic frontier in some detail, and his 1603 line is shown on the map. His description indicates that some northern parts had been re-colonised by Welsh speakers. The disruptions of the post-Black Death period may account for this.

Although Little England is described by several later writers, they do little but quote Owen. Quantitative descriptions of the linguistic geography of the area start with that of Ernst Georg Ravenstein, around 1870. This shows a further loss of territory since Owen's time. From 1891 onward, linguistic affiliation in Wales has been assessed in the census, and the situations in 1901 and 1981 are shown in the map. The overall picture is that the boundary has moved to a significant, but small degree. Furthermore, the boundary has always been described as sharp. In 1972, Brian John said of the linguistic boundary that it "is a cultural feature of surprising tenacity; it is quite as discernible, and only a little less strong, than the divide of four centuries ago."