Wessexian Cornwall

The Matter Of Britain fascinated me as a child. It had some influence on my desire to return there for school. It may have got me into Late Antiquity generally - The Matter Of Arabia, we might call it. So when I heard of this Breton(?) MS about ninth-century Cornish saints I went looking. I didn't find it directly online, but I did find a followup: Charles Insley, Kings and Lords in Tenth Century Cornwall.

"Cornwall" is one of those funny exonyms like Gary Jennings used to mock, there Cuernavaca "Cowhorn" for Quaunahuac. I've seen it etymologised as "Kernow Wales" to distinguish from Cambrian Wales and, in olden times, from Rheged whence came William Wallace. If so I am unsure what to make of that Breton colony over the Channel, "Cornouaille", like so many Vlachs loose in southern Albania where nobody speaks German. For the part of Neustria, I find "Cornugallensis". So an alternate can be Kernow Gallia.

Insley marks Cornwall's entry into English and Norman attention at William of Malmesbury AD 1130s, an historian who was not British and had no love for the Britons. The context might be the rebellion and secession in southern Cambria in the late 1130s, against king Stephen. Malmesbury claimed that he owned some British books, however - perhaps in Latin. In this he reminds of contemporary Geoffrey of Monmouth who did, in fact, own Nennius. Insley warns us that, just as Geoffrey liked to make sh!t up, so might William.

Insley is interested that Cornwall, despite being clearly un-English, with its own (parish) local organisation and its own (Welshlike) language, didn't matter to the Anglosaxons. Contrast how the Danelaw sure mattered and for that matter so did the Cambria. Some dustup or other happened at Exeter. But mostly the peninsula was just where Wessex - the "West Saxons" - tapered off.

In one cultural difference, the Cornish like the Welsh owned slaves, not serfs like good Norman lords such as Malmesbury. The thralldom was rife through the Danelaw and also among the Anglosaxons. But under Henry Beauclerc son of the Conqueror slavery was a relic of barbarism, as American Republicans would call it. That difference wouldn't have existed in the AD 900s though.

Against Wessex I am sure the odd peasant-band rose up across Tamar. And Exeter happened. But there was never a self-styled "King of the Corno-Gauls" to lead them, as Cambria raised up from time to time. As to why Cornwall didn't pose the same headache to Wessex as the Danes or the Welsh did, I must speculate.

The clearest factor for Cornwall is that its people had outlets. The main ratline, as noted, ran across the channel to Britanny. Britons who didn't want to learn English just moved.

Also vaguely clattering around in historians' minds is that "Wessex" is greater Cornwall - more exactly, greater Devon. (The Dumnonia has a presence in Brittany as well.) Its dynasty was founded by Britons like Cedric. The earls changed languages but not, overall, people. So more-conservative Britons under the newly-minted Wessex were protected, if they didn't talk too much. Certainly more than those under the Northumbrian kingdom where, when the Danes had it, all the churls went into the same bucket anyway.

Under the Saxonised Britons, the alternate structure was the Church. Local parishes kept up Cornish culture, such as it was. Overall Wessex wasn't up for fighting a crusade so it just... didn't.