Little England beyond Wales
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates
Little England beyond Wales is a name that has been applied to an area of southern Pembrokeshire and southwestern Carmarthenshire in Wales, which has been English rather than Welsh in language and culture for many centuries despite its remoteness from England. Its origins may lie in the Irish, Norse, Norman, Flemish and Saxon settlement that took place in this area more than in other areas of South West Wales. Its northern boundary is known as the Landsker Line.
A number of writers and scholars, ancient and modern, have discussed how and when this difference came about, and why it should persist, with no clear explanation coming to the fore.
Etymology
The language boundary between this region and the area to the north where Welsh is more commonly spoken, sometimes known as the Landsker Line, is noted for its sharpness and resilience. Although it is probably much older, the first known approximation of "Little England beyond Wales" was in the 16th century, when William Camden called the area Template:Lang.<ref>Awbery, Gwenllian M, Cymraeg Sir Benfro/Pembrokeshire Welsh, Llanrwst, 1991, Template:ISBN</ref>
History
Between 350 and 400, an Irish tribe known as the Déisi settled in the region known to the Romans as Demetae.<ref name="Davies 1994">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp The Déisi merged with the local Welsh, with the regional name underlying Demetae evolving into Dyfed (410–920), which existed as an independent petty kingdom.<ref name="Davies 1994" />Template:Rp The area became part of the kingdom of Deheubarth (920–1197), but it is unclear when it became distinguished from other parts of Wales. Welsh scholar Dr B. G. Charles<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> surveyed the evidence for early non-Welsh settlements in the area.<ref>Charles, B. G., The Placenames of Pembrokeshire, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1992, Template:ISBN, pp xxxv–lii</ref> 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.<ref>Jones, Thomas, (ed.), Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth MS 20 Version, UoW Press, Cardiff, 1952</ref> Sometimes these were stated to be conflicts with Saxons, sometimes with people of unspecified origin. The Saxons influenced the language. John Trevisa, writing in 1387, said: Template:Blockquote
Arnulf's Rebellion
Arnulf de Montgomery the Earl of Pembroke rose in revolt against Henry I and was as a result disinherited. Up to that point Pembroke had been a fairly typical Marcher county, but after the rebellion was put down it became far more like an English shire, with intermediate landholders enjoying more independence.Template:Sfn
Flemish settlement
Template:Main The Flemish immigration was from Flemish people from England, rather than directly from Flanders first started in 1105. A last batch of Flemings were sent to southwest Wales by King Henry in about 1111. Unsurprisingly, then, the Flemish language did not survive in the local dialect.<ref name=Laws />
According to George Owen of Henllys, writing in 1603, in 1155, under the orders of the new King Henry II, another wave of Flemings were sent to Rhys ap Gruffydd's West Wales territories.<ref name=Laws />
Gerald of Wales (c.1146-c.1223) and Brut y Tywysogyon recorded that "Flemings" were settled in south Pembrokeshire soon after the Norman invasion of Wales in the early 12th century. Gerald says this took place specifically in Roose. 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.
Castle Building and Peace
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.Template:Citation needed
What followed, starting with the reign of Edward I in the late 13th century, was 100 years of peace, particularly in "Little England", marked by the Edwardian conquest of Wales, which must have compounded the tendency of Welsh to become a minor language in the region.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> With the failure of Owain Glyndŵr's revolt in the early 15th century, in which no fighting took place in "little England", came punitive laws affecting Wales, though these were, for reasons historians have not been able to ascertain, applied less rigorously here than elsewhere in Wales.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Tudor Period
National awareness of the region was made much of in the 15th century with the birth of Henry Tudor at Pembroke Castle and his eventual accession to the English throne after beginning his campaign in southwest Wales. At the end of the Tudor period, George Owen produced his Description of Penbrokshire (sic), completed in 1603.<ref name="Owen">Owen, George, The Description of Pembrokeshire Dillwyn Miles (Ed) (Gomer Press, Llandysul 1994) Template:ISBN</ref> 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 said: Template:Blockquote
Of Little England, he added: Template:Blockquote
Owen 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.<ref name="Owen"/> The disruptions of the post-Black Death period may account for this.Template:Citation needed
Modern period
Although Little England is described by several later writers (other than Edward LawsTemplate:NoteTag), they do little but quote Owen. Richard Fenton in his Historical Tour of 1810 observed that churches in the south of the county were more likely to have spires than those in the north.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Quantitative descriptions of the linguistic geography of the area start with that of Ernst Georg Ravenstein, around 1870.<ref>Ravenstein, E. G., On the Celtic languages of the British Isles; a statistical survey, in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society XLII, 1879, 579–636</ref> This shows a further shrinkage since Owen's time. From 1891 onward, linguistic affiliation in Wales has been assessed in the census. 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."<ref>John, Brian S., The Linguistic Significance of the Pembrokeshire Landsker in The Pembrokeshire Historian 4, 1972. pp. 7–29</ref>
Aspects of the South Pembrokeshire dialect were noted from a talk at the British Library given by Marloes inhabitants in 1976; their dialect showed distinctive similarities to the English spoken in the West Country of England, as opposed to the English spoken in south east Wales.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Prior to the 1997 Welsh devolution referendum, which resulted in the creation of the National Assembly for Wales (now the Senedd), it was reported that Pembrokeshire's vote could be key.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The differences in the proportion of Welsh speakers persist, illustrated by the map derived from the 2011 census, and the name has persisted into the 21st century; in 2015 Tenby was quoted as being "traditionally the heart of Little England beyond Wales".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2022, the ice cream maker Upton Farm, based at Pembroke Dock, was criticised for using the phrase "Made for you in little England beyond Wales" in their packaging. The company agreed to remove the reference in future, and replace it "with messaging that more clearly celebrates our Welshness".<ref>Conor Gogarty, "Welsh ice cream maker apologises for 'little England beyond Wales' branding", Wales Online, 23 April 2022. Retrieved 24 April 2022</ref>
Overview
_-_geograph.org.uk_-_870902.jpg){kind=link}
As for placenames, the greatest concentration of Anglo-Saxon names is in the former hundred of Roose, which had pre-Norman origins, while there are considerable numbers of Welsh placenames in the rest of Little England, although these areas were certainly English-speaking. Flemish names, Fenton noted, are rarely found in early documents, supporting Owen's statement: Template:Blockquote
but that: Template:Blockquote
Fenton adds: Template:Blockquote
On the Gower Peninsula, the sharp distinction between the English- and Welsh-speaking populations has been referred to as the "Englishry" and the "Welshry".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As mentioned by Owen, the cultural differences between Little England and the "Welshry" extend beyond language.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Manorial villages are more common in Little England, particularly on the banks of the Daugleddau estuary, while the north has characteristically Welsh scattered settlements. Forms of agriculture are also distinct.<ref>Davies, M. F., Pembrokeshire, Part 32 (pp 75–170) of Stamp, L. D. (Ed.), The Land of Britain, Report of the Land Utilisation Survey, London, 1939</ref>
On the other hand, Little England and the Welshry have many similarities. Typical Welsh surnames of patronymic origin (e.g. Edwards, Richards, Phillips etc.) were almost universal in the Welshry in Owen's time, but they also accounted for 40 per cent of names in Little England.Template:Citation needed According to John, the majority of English-speaking Little England natives today regard themselves as Welsh, as did Gerald, who was born on the south coast at Manorbier in 1146.<ref>John, pp. 19–20.</ref>
Most recently, David Austin labels "Little England" a myth and questions the process by which the language came about, attributing it to a combination of land manipulation and Tudor "aspirant gentry".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Genetic studies
Welsh academic Morgan Watkin claimed that levels of type A blood in South Pembrokeshire were 5–10 per cent higher than in surrounding areas.Template:Citation needed Watkin suggested that this was due to Viking settlement in the area, rather than the forcible transfer of a colony of Flemish refugees to the area, by King Henry I, in the early 12th century. However, the geneticist Brian Sykes later commented that – while the levels of blood group A in the Low Countries were not particularly high – it was not possible to tell whether the high levels in "Little England" were caused "by rampaging Vikings or by a few cartloads of Belgians".<ref>Sykes, Brian, Blood of the Isles (Bantam, 2006) page 90</ref> Sykes also commented that, based on the findings of his Oxford Genetic Atlas Project, there was a lack of patrilineal Y-chromosomes from the "Sigurd" clan (haplogroup R1a) in South Wales in general, which was strong evidence against Viking settlement, and meant that Watkin's theory regarding the high frequency of type A blood in "Little England" was wrong.<ref>Sykes, Brian, Blood of the Isles (Bantam, 2006) pages 227, 238</ref>
A 2003 Y-chromosome study in Haverfordwest revealed an Anglo-Celtic population similar to populations in South West England.<ref>Capelli, C., et al., A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles, in Current Biology,3, 2003, pp 979–984</ref>
Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics reported in 2015 "unexpectedly stark differences between inhabitants in the north and south of the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire" in DNA signatures.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See also
- Landsker Borderlands Trail – a waymarked long-distance footpath through this region.
- Cultural relationship between the Welsh and the English
Notes
References
Further reading
- Aitchison, John W., and Carter, Harold, The Welsh Language 1961–1981: an interpretive atlas, UoW Press, 1985, Template:ISBN
- Bowen, E. G., (Ed.), Wales: a Physical, Historical and Regional Geography, Methuen, 1957
- Davies, Thomas, Penfro Gymreig a Seisnig a'i Phobl in Y Berniad 4, 1914, pp 233–238.
- Fenton, Richard, A historical tour through Pembrokeshire. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme &Co, 1811 Internet Archive PDF
- Jenkins, Geraint. H., (ed) The Welsh Language before the Industrial Revolution, UoW Press, 1997, Template:ISBN
- Jenkins, Geraint. H., (ed) Language and Community in the 19th Century, UoW Press, 1998, Template:ISBN
- Jenkins, Geraint. H., (ed) The Welsh language and its social domains 1801–1911, UoW Press, 2000, Template:ISBN
- Jones, Emrys, and Griffiths, Ieuan L., A linguistic map of Wales: 1961, in The Geographical Journal, 129, part 2, 1963, p 195
- Laws, Edward. The History of Little England Beyond Wales, London, 1888 Internet Archive
- Mais, S. P. B. Little England Beyond Wales
- Pryce, W. T. R., Welsh and English in Wales, 1750–1971: A Spatial Analysis Based on the Linguistic Affiliation of Parochial Communities in Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 28, 1978, pp 1–36.
- Thomas, J. Gareth, The geographical distribution of the Welsh language, in The Geographical Journal, 122, part 1, 1956, pp 71–79
- Template:Cite book
- Williams, D. Trevor, Linguistic divides in South Wales: a historico-geographical study, in Archaeologia Cambrensis 90, 1935, pp 239–66
- Williams, D. Trevor, A linguistic map of Wales according to the 1931 census, with some observations on its historical and geographical setting, in The Geographical Journal, 89, part 2, 1937, p 146-51