Act 3
Roman Kirkdale and Beadlam
71 CE to 580 CE
The lands which would become the
lands of Kirkdale and Chirchebi in Roman and Pagan times
The lands
around Kirkdale were stable and settled for much of their early history,
nestled for protection at the edge of the North Yorkshire high lands. The
association of the estate lands where our family originated, with Roman villas
of Beadlam and Hovingham and the regional centre of Isurium Brigantum,
as well as with the eventual provincial capital of Eboracum, means that we can
continue our story to Roman imperial Britain.
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This
is a new experiment. Using Google’s Notebook LM, listen to an AI powered
podcast summarising this page. This should only be treated as an
introduction, and the AI generation sometimes gets the nuance a bit wrong.
However it does provide an introduction to the themes of this page, which are
dealt with in more depth below. |
It was those small families who
cleared Farndale from the early thirteenth century who we met in Act 1, at the same time that names started
to be used in a way that would soon become hereditary, who allow us to begin to
recount stories of individuals and their experiences. Before that time it is
impossible to identify individuals other than the most noble or royal families.
Names of ordinary folk were just not being used, still less recorded, in a way
which would allow us to claim direct links.
However because we know that our
family emerged into recorded history in a distinct place, a wooded valley in
the dales flowing south from the North York Moors, we are able to continue to
explore the likely path of our ancestors further back in historical time. We
know that by the Norman Conquest, the wild forested lands of Farndale were part
of the great estate of Chirchebi and within that estate there were
settled lands nestled into the northeast corner of the Vale of York as the
agricultural plains met the lower dales. The settled lands of our family were
focused around the place that later came to be known as Kirkdale. So although the name Kirkdale will
not emerge until the seventh century CE, in the Farndale Story we can call
those lands “Kirkdaleland”.
Before the Romans arrived and
expanded their interests to include Kirkdaleland by perhaps around 100 CE, we
should restrict our ambition to pursue the family ancestors to a general
perception that they probably emerged from the primeval swamp of the stone,
bronze and iron ages, which were the subject of Act 2 of our story. However after the
Romans incorporated Kirkdaleland into its Empire, those ancestral lands became
a place of settlement, agriculture and stability. There is every reason to
suppose that our family story shares the story of Kirkdaleland from the time
those lands were tamed by the Romans.
Our family story will soon follow the
trail from the aftermath of Empire Britain to the birth of the English nation,
the spread of Christianity, and the remarkable ambit of York which became a powerhouse of
intellectual achievement in the Anglo Saxon age and disseminated knowledge and
teaching techniques via the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne across
Europe. When we pick up the story again after 1200, we will meander our way
through Plantagenet England, to the industrial age, which we will experience
from the heart of the lands of mills and mines. The family will spread to
become farmers across the new worlds of the British empire and will fight in
the terrible wars of the twentieth century.
Before we embark on that later
journey we start our path in a time of empire, when Kirkdaleland was a northern
region of a unified territory that stretched to Assyria and Mesopotamia in the
east and to North Africa to the south. This might give us a sense of
perspective.
Our family’s journey is only a
perspective on one family’s travels through its own history, which happens to
closely follow the fortunes of England and later Britain. There were countless
families in other places across the globe following different histories, with
equally exciting stories of other national paths. One route into the global
perspective of world history is the podcast series by William Dalrymple and
Anita Anand, Empire, which although touching on the history of the British Empire is far
more an exploration about multiple civilisations and world history. For
instance William Dalrymple has explored the Ashokan Empire of India, which was also within the Roman
ambit, a theme which he explores in his 2024 book, the Golden Road.
As we follow our own path of course
we find a route through our own national experience, but when we use our twenty
first century eyes, we have the privilege of understanding that story within a
global perspective. As the Roman world touched the North York Moors, it was
also within the experience of remarkable civilisations such as India, which
would spread its numbers and conception of zero, as well as its gold, back
westwards.
So now, we can continue the story of
this particular family, by finding ourselves in the midst of a western empire,
whose stretch had reached the agricultural lands of Kirkdaleland.
Scene 1 – Arrival
Empire
In Virgil’s Aeneid,
Jupiter announced that I have set upon the Romans bounds neither of time nor
space. With memories of a failed invasion of Britain by Julius Ceasar in 55
BCE, the Roman Empire by the early first century CE, had adopted an
aggressively imperialistic stance. The Romans came to Britian, to stay, from 43
CE when the Emperor Claudius (41 to 54 CE) rapidly annexed the south and east
of the country. The Romans found diversity in those who they subjugated, with
differing views regarding the benefits of Roman occupation. Their policy was to
exploit internal conflicts between different groups and between squabbling
sons, such as those of Cunobelinus, who Shakespeare called Cymbeline.
Initially
the Romans didn’t venture north of the Humber and Don, but traded with the Parisii, and followed a complicated political path
with the Brigantes.
Claudius’
successor was Nero (54 to 68 CE) who was less enthusiastic about the costs of
maintaining an army in Britain, so expansion slowed.
Nero was
succeeded by Vespasian (69 to 79 CE) at the end of the
Year of the Four Emperors, Vespasian was the commander of the Syrian Army,
and had served in the army in Britain under Claudius. He appointed Gneaus Julius Agricola (40 to 93 CE) as his general.
Agricola extended the Roman occupation across large swathes of northern
Britain, well into Scotland. Agricola’s biography, The
Agricola, was written by his son in law Tactitus.
Roman
experience around the Mediterranean was of city states and centralised groups,
who were susceptible to defeat on the death or subjugation of their leaders.
However in northern Britain they encountered a region where large stable
political units were less usual. The Roamn referred to the people who lived in
the Vale of York, the moors and the dales, and across the Pennines, as the Brigantes.
They appear to have treated them as a centralised group, but this was probably
a mistake. The Brigantes may have been a loose grouping of hill
people, which the Romans might have mistaken as a tribal name.
Claudius had
formed an alliance with Queen Cartimandua, who
Tacitus referred to as Queen of the Brigantes. She and her husband Venutius were, according to Tacitus, loyal to Rome. They
seem to have had their base at an old iron age fortification at Stanwick near
modern Scotch Corner. In 51 CE, Caratacus,
leader of the Catuvellaunians, being roughly the
place of modern Bedfordshire, had sought sanctuary with Cartimandua, but she
had handed him over to the Romans.
When
Cartimandua had a relationship with her armour Bearer, Vellocatus,
her husband Venutius began a civil war against her in
57 CE, but Cartimandua was protected by the Roman Ninth Legion. In 69 CE,
during a period of instability under Emperor Nero, Venutius
attacked again and Cartimandua fled leaving Venutius
in control of the region and in conflict with Rome.
In 71 CE, Nero’s successor Vespasian sent an army under
Quintus Petillius Ceralius to march north and occupy Brigantes
and Parisii territory. The Ninth Legion
erected a large camp near where Malton, northeast of York. stands today. They
also built a fort at Roecliffe, near to modern Aldborough, which was occupied between about 71
to 85 CE. Roecliffe was one of a string of forts
along the line of the modern A1, which provided the main Roman transport
corridor.
A large
military camp was constructed by the Romans as Eboracum, modern day York, in 71 CE.
Urban
settlements grew around the Roman fortifications at Eboracum and Malton.
Eboracum in time became the Roman provincial capital. The Emperors
Hadrian, Septimius Severus, and Constantius I all held court in Eboracum
during their various campaigns. Constantine the Great was proclaimed emperor
there. To the south Roman urban settlements grew around fortifications at Calcaria, Tadcaster, and Danum, Doncaster.
Agricola was
made consul and governor of Britannia in 77 CE.
Domitian (81
to 96 CE), who succeeded Titus (79 to 81 CE), completed Agricola’s campaigns,
but was distracted by imperial interests elsewhere, so withdrew from the areas
furthest to the north, which would lead in time to the reconciliation of Roman
occupation to the wall which would later be fortified as Hadrian’s Wall.
Roman
domination was absolute. Tacitus’ imagined words of a defeated Caledonian
commander, perhaps best reflect the mastery of Rome over the subjugated.
We, at
the furthest limits both of land and liberty, have been defended to this day by
the remoteness of our situation and of our fame. The extremity of Britain is
now disclosed; and whatever is unknown becomes an object of magnitude. But
there is no nation beyond us; nothing but waves and rocks, and the still more
hostile Romans, whose arrogance we cannot escape by obsequiousness and
submission. These plunderers of the world, after exhausting the land by their
devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be
rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only
people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to
slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a
desert, they call it peace.
(Tacitus, Agricola,
30)
Scene 2 – Ancestral Lands
The
family ancestral lands of Kirkdaleland
After the
shock and awe of the first century CE, the years passed, and the lands of north
east Britain settled into easy going provincial domains, drawing on the
benefits of international communications. The nightmare years had passed. Urban
settlement emerged where native folk could learn some Latin, and take some part
in local government.
The lands of
Kirkdaleland are only about twenty five kilometres north of the major Roman
regional capital, Eboracum (York). Eboracum would have become
increasingly accessible from Kirkdaleland during the Roman period, with the
construction of new roads.
Thurkilesti was an ancient road from Cleveland across the North York
Moors which passed close to the west side of Kirkdale and on to Welburn, just
south of the Kirkdale ford and to Hovingham where it later joined the Roman
roads. It was later referred to in Roger de Mowbray’s grants of land to Rievaulx. Kirkdaleland was a
peripheral region, but with connections to the wider political world.
During the
Roman period, Kirkdaleland was in the Roman hinterland. By the late Roman
period, Kirkdaleland was probably part of a stable, well
regulated area with dispersed settlement, probably dependent on major
villa based estates such as at Beadlam and Hovingham.
The
significance of Ryedale was reinforced by an extensive Roman road network.
Wade’s Causeway ran from Malton across Wheeldale Moor
towards Whitby. A Roman road ran from Malton
to the Vale of York via the Coxwold and
Gilling gap where it joined Hambleton Street which stretched from Bernicia to
Lincoln.
The Roman
villa at Beadlam,
only two kilometres west of Kirkdale, was discovered in the 1960s. Beadlam lay within the region formerly controlled by the
kingdom of the Brigantes. After the Roman conquest, the region was
administered from the newly built Roman town of Isurium Brigantum, modern Aldborough, near Boroughbridge. Isurium was a strategic regional capital on the main
transport corridor of Dere Street and along that transport corridor to the
south was Calcaria, Tadcaster; Lagentium, Castleford; and Danum, Doncaster.
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Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough) The
Roman Regional Capital of the lands around Kirkdale |
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A
Roman Villa on palatial scale just south of Kirkdale |
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A
Roman Villa only 2km from Kirkdale in the heart of our ancestral lands |
So by the
later Roman period, Kirkdaleland was part of a stable and well
regulated region, in close proximity to the regional capital of Eboracum.
Only two kilometres to the west of Kirkdale the Roman villa of Beadlam consisted
of about thirty rooms, probably constructed in about 300 CE and occupied until
about 400 CE. The fourth century CE was a time when elite Romano Britains were investing in private villas. An enclosure
ditch and walled compounds for livestock pre-dated the villa, which suggests
the site was in use earlier.
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The
Roman Capital of northern England where Constantine was proclaimed Emperor |
It’s
possible that any Roman presence at Kirkdale itself might have been related to
a place for the burial of the dead from Beadlam.
Hovingham was a Roman villa, perhaps on a
palatial scale, about ten kilometres southwest from Kirkdale. Hovingham might
have had very extensive holdings, which could have embraced a wider estate
including Beadlam and Kirkdaleland.
Villas at
Appleton le Street, Blandsby Park and Langton
indicate that Ryedale was a major agricultural producer in the Roman period.
The landscape of the Vale of Pickering was also likely to have been well
settled. Agricultural produce would have been required at significant scale to
support the northern Roman army.
In the Roman
period, the area around Kirkdale probably included a small number of dominant
settlements in this area of rural hinterland. The population would have been
within the military and administrative orbits of the Roman interests.
A Roman
Port Key
One day in
the second or third century CE, a
Roman soldier dropped his arm purse, close to a prehistoric cairn, above
and overlooking Farndale.
It was later found in 1849 and is currently to be seen displayed in the British
Museum. When the Roman looked over Farndale
it remained a wild forested place.
Roman copper
alloy arm-purses were worn by soldiers. British examples include finds from
Corbridge, South Shields, a site near Housesteads on
Hadrian’s Wall, Colchester, and this one found at Farndale. As it was found above Farndale, it doesn’t evidence
Roman activity within the dale, but it does suggest patrolling across high
moorland tracks, overlooking the dale. Go and see this purse in the British
Museum and you’ll be in direct contact with the land of our ancestors, two
millennia ago.
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A Roman arm purse which can be seen in the British
Museum in London today, found in about the second century CE by a cairn
overlooking Farndale, which will transport you back 2,000 years |
Scene 3 – The End of Empire
Breakup
Constantine
(272 to 337 CE), who had been declared emperor in York in 306 CE, elevated the status of Christianity throughout
the Roman world and built a new imperial residence in the East centred on New
Rome which came to be called Constantinople and later Byzantium.
The problems
which started to beset the Roman empire in the late third century CE, were not
British problems. By this time the folk of Britain were lapping up the benefits
of the Roman empire. New threats came from the east, reflected in a deflection
of Roman defensive effort from Hadrian’s wall to a new chain of Saxon shore
forts, constructed along the eastern and southern shorelines, during the
time of the military commander, Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus
Carausius. The eastern threat deflected Roman legions away from Britain at a
time when Anglo Saxons threatened Britain and penetrated the lines of shore
forts.
Military
weakness led to economic crisis. An age of cattle and sheep rustling was born.
In 410 CE Rome was sacked by the Visigoths from eastern Europe and Roman
control of Britain ceased by about this time. It was about this time that the
Emperor Honorius wrote to the elite of Britain to tell them they were on their
own. The year 410 CE was a momentous year for the fate of Britain. Civilisation
collapsed very rapidly. The trauma can only be imagined. The immediate threat
came from the northern regions of Germany, Denmark, Jutland and Lower Saxony.
The
Romano-British kingdom rapidly broke up into smaller kingdoms. In time, York
became the capital of a British kingdom of Ebrauc.
Go Straight to Act 4 – Anglo
Saxon Kirkdale
or
Before you
do that, you can explore more detail about the Roman history of the region:
· Beadlam
· Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough)
· Eboracum (York)
If your
interest is in Kirkdale then I suggest you visit the following pages of the
website.
· The community in Anglo Saxon
Times
· The church in Anglo Saxon Times
· The Kirkdale Anglo Saxon
artefacts
· The community in Anglo Saxon
Times
· The church in Anglo Saxon
Scandinavian Times
You will
find a chronology, together with source material at the Kirkdale Page.