The Historia Brittonum states:
Mailcunus magnus rex apud Brittones regnabat, id est in regione Guenedotae, quia atavus illius, id est Cunedag, cum filiis suis, quorum numerus octo erat, venerat prius de parte sinistrali, id est de regione quae vocatur Manau Guotodin, centum quadraginta sex annis antequam Mailcun regnaret, et Scottos cum ingentissima clade expulerunt ab istis regionibus et nusquam reversi sunt iterum ad habitandum.
Maelgwn, the great king among the Britons, ruled, that is in the land of the men of Gwynedd, whose ancestor, that is Cunedag, with his sons, to the number of eight, had come first from northern parts, that is the region that is called Manau Gododdin, 146 years before Maelgwn reigned, and expelled the Gaels from those lands with immense slaughter so that they never returned to inhabit them.
Mommsen T., 1898, 205-206. Woolf A., 13 Nisan AM 5775, 62.
A solution to reconciling the time gap of 146 years will be proposed. Maelgwn’s reign was probably dated by his obit. The start of reigns were rarely recorded. Far more common were the dates of rulers’ deaths.
At the start of the O Oes Gwrtheyrn Gwrthenau in the Red Book of Hergest (Llyfr Coch Hergest) we have the following time intervals:
O* oes gỽrtheyrn gỽrtheneu hyt weith badỽn
Welsh prose jc 111 P254r:1020. Cambro-Briton vol. II, 1821, 218.
yd ymladaỽd arthur a|e|hyneif a|r saesson
ac y|goruv arthur a|e hyneif wyth mlyned ar|hu+
geint a chant. O|weith badỽn hyt gamlan; dỽy
vlyned ar|hugeint. O|gamlan hyt varỽ maelgỽn;
deng|mlyned …
From the age of Vortigern to the Battle of Badon,
which Arthur and his nobles fought with the Saxons,
when Arthur and his nobles were victorious, 128 years.
From the Battle of Badon to that of Camlan, 22 years.
From the Battle of Camlan to the death of Maelgwn, 10 years …
The time intervals for the last two events are broadly similar to the ones in the Annales Cambriae:
Badon to Camlan 21/20 years,
Camlan to death of Maelgwn 10/9 years.
| AC A | AC B |
| [a72] anus Bellum badonis inquo arthur portauit crucem domini nostri ihu xp’i . tribus diebus & tribus noctibus inhumeros suos & brittones uictores fuerunt . | [b546] Anus Bellum Badonis in quo rex arturus crucem domini nostri ihesu christi tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in humeris suis portauit. In illo prelio cec(i)derunt colgrinus et Radulphus anglorum duces. |
| [a93] anus Gueith cam lann inqua arthur et medraut corruerunt . et mortalitas inbrittannia et in hibernia fuit. | [b566] Anus Bellum camlam in quo inclitus arthurus rex britonum et modredus proditor suus. mutuis wlneribus corruerunt. |
| [a103] anus Mortalitas magna inqua pausat mailcun rex genedotae . | [b575] Anus mortalitas magna fuit in britannia. mailgun. guineth obiit. vnde dicitur hir hun wailgun en llis Ros. tunc fuit lallwelen. |
Bartrum correctly states:
… it seems from the genealogies that Cunedda could not have been born before about A.D.370. Since his son Tybion died before the migration and already left a son Meirion, we can hardly put the migration before about A.D.430 …
Bartrum, P.C, MPS (ed.), 2009, 173.
It is proposed that Cunedda’s arrival down south occurred around 436 AD. The reasoning behind this claim is as the following. It was shown in the article Vortigern and the Adventus in the Historia Brittonum that the 128 years between the start of Vortigern’s reign and Badon, in the Llyfr Coch Hergest, was as a result of incorrectly identifying the date for the former event, 390 AP, as 390 AD. There then followed this sequence of events:
- A later writer adopted the correct year for Vortigern’s reign, resulting in this date for Badon: 425 AD + 128 years = 553 AD
- This would give the date for Camlan as: 553 AD + 20 years = 573 AD
- Maelgwn’s obit would then be: 573 AD + 9 years = 582 AD.
- If the date for Cunedda’s migration was known the following time gap would result: 582 AD – 436 AD = 146 years.
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