Brigantes!

B is for BRIGANTES

Many of my main characters in The Beltane Choice, and in the sequel, are Brigantes. But who were they?

In AD 43, Roman Emperor Claudius sent some 40,000 Roman troops to capture Britannia and extend the Roman Empire to every part of the island. After the initial triumph of Claudius against the Catuvellauni in the south-east of Britannia, some of the Celtic tribes preferred to become ‘client kingdoms’ of Rome rather than continue to battle against the superior Roman fighting machine. This process created buffer zones between the tribes. For a ‘price’ the Romans largely left the ‘client kingdoms’ to rule themselves and focused on subduing those tribes who constantly refused to submit to Rome.

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The Brigantes - named for the Celtic goddess Brigantia - was a large federation of Celtic tribes who occupied a large tract of territory in what is now the north of England, and were mainly farmers. They had few large hill-forts across their territory; more commonly lived in smaller settlements and roundhouse villages. Before the arrival of the Roman Empire, any battles fought tended to be for localised territorial reasons and as such they had never formed a huge disciplined army. Warrior against warrior combat was usual during any Brigante tribal skirmishes. 

When faced with thousands of severely drilled Roman soldiers, who worked together as a fighting unit, the bravery of the Celtic people was repeatedly tested.

Queen Cartimandua and her husband Venutius who co-ruled from AD 43-69 are probably the best known Brigante rulers. They took on the mantle of ‘client-kingdom’ status and made treaties with Rome. In Roman terms this was highly favourable since the huge area of land to the north didn’t require to be ‘policed’ by Rome.

However, the marriage had its problems and around AD 51 Cartimandua handed over the High King Caractacus to the Romans after his defeat against the Ordovices. Not all of her subjects were in favour of betraying fellow Celts, and this was a move probably not condoned by her husband. In AD 57 Venutius gathered forces to rebel against Cartimandua but was thwarted by the armies of Rome. Though they appear to have temporarily reconciled their marriage did not last, Cartimandua divorcing Venutius in favour of Vellocatus - his shield bearer. Whatever her reasons for that, her life makes interesting fiction that’s been written by quite a few authors already!

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If the king and queen can’t manage to work together cohesively, then what can be said about the rest of the federation? The different factions within the Brigantes who disagreed with each other, during the years following, weren’t conducive to the unity of the whole federation -the result being Cartimandua had to be rescued by the Romans in AD 69 when she was under attack from Venutius and her own people. Cartimandua subsequently disappeared from history and Venutius became the Brigantian king. The tenure didn’t last long since Venutius suffered a large scale defeat probably somewhere near the Celtic hill fort at Stanwick in AD 73. From that point on the Brigantes appeared to be leaderless.

Cartimandua doesn’t feature in my work in progress but Venutius has a truly ‘cameo’ role! My main characters are, however, true Brigantians who will not yield to the yoke of Rome!

(The photo is a Romanised version of Brigitte/ Brigantia -Celtic goddess)

Slainthe! 

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