To
begin with, the modern territorial identity emerges out of a wider geographical
construct: Dumnonia, while the defining act of setting the River Tamar as the
Cornish border was a function of English intrusion in the tenth century. And yet,
there is also a suggestion that Cornwall was long before that time an administrative
sub-division (pagus) of the Roman canton of Dumnonia.
Map
From The Medieval Period
(In the state-funded 'Historical Atlas of South West
England'
distributed free to all comprehensive school in Cornwall, Cornwall
was airbrushed out.)
However, (in a further paradox)
if we are to acknowledge the Romans as the first to establish Cornwall as an administrative-political
unit, then we must also admit that in other respects Roman influence west of the
Tamar was in fact minimal.
Even so, we are constrained
by historical convention to speak of pre-Roman, Roman and post-Roman Cornwall,
a relatively harmless convenience if we can agree what we mean by these therms
but altogether more misleading (and dangerous) should we infer that Cornwall was
somehow an exemplar of Roman Britain.
Roman Britain is
an inherently misleading concept, implying as it does a homogenous political and
cultural Romanisation of the entire island. Worse still is the idea of a Roman
Britain that gives way to an Anglo-Saxon England, a view of early history that
leaves little room for consideration of indigenous continuity (not least in Cornwall),
ecourgages the erroneous equation of Britain with England, and reduces British
(and thus Cornish) experience to a succession of invasions – Celts, Romans,
Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans.
This is the approach of
the so-called National Curriculum, the staple diet of schoolchildren in Cornwall
as much as it is in Sussex or Hampshire, one that leaves pupils in many Cornish
schools with little idea of the reality and issues of early Cornish history.
We
can only agree with Professor Charles Thomas when he expresses ‘sorrow and
annoyance….at the undue extension of words like England, English or a philosophy
of a taught British past underlying such book –titles as Everyday Life in
Roman and Anglo-Saxon Times, Roman Britain and the English Settlements, or Roman
Britain to Saxon England. There are still others of us, west of Offa’s Dyke
and the river Tamar, and north of Hadrian’s Wall’.
In
fact, there is still remarkably little evidence for the Roman conquest of South
West Britain, and the popular assumption of a relentless westerly thrust following
the arrival of the Legions in AD43 is probably flawed. A fort was established
at Isca Cumnoniorum (Exeter) in cAD 55, the base of the Second Augustan Legion,
and it was from there that Roman rule was exercised and Roman power extended in
the far West.
As far as Cornwall is concerned, there are
few clues to the extent of this rule and power. The only tangible evidence of
military intrusion is the Roman fort at Nanstallon, near Bodmin. Contructed cAD55
– 60 and excavated in the early 1970’s by Aileen Fox and the late Professor
W.L.D. ‘Bill’ Ravenhill.
Situated in the middle
of Cornwall near the Fowey-Camel trade and communication route, Nanstallon was
probably a forward operating base and was strategically well-placed for the Roman
presence to be felt. However, the Legion at Exeter was withdrawn cAD 75 and, with
no Roman town west of Isca Dumnoniorum, Cornwall (as Ian Soulsby puts it) ‘settled
down to four centuries of only nominal Roman rule.
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From Professor Philip Payton's book,
Cornwall - A History.
Philip Payton, Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies.
