The two Macsen Wledigs

Gen.	EWGT	HG 2b	HG 2c			JC 13b		HG 4
	WCD	B1 2b	HG 2c			B2 13b		B1 4
-10		Protector
-9		Protec
-8		Maxim Gule[t]ic	Constantii		Helen Lui[t]dauc	Custenint	Elen	Maxim Guletic
-7		Dimet	Constantini magni			Constantinus Ma6r		Anthun
-6		Nimet	Constans			Maximianus		Eidinet
-5		Gloitguin	[Macsen Wledig]			Maxen Wledic		Tutagual
-4		Clotri	[Custennin]			Custennin		Dinacat
-3		Triphun	Pincr Misser			Miser		Senill
-2		Aircol	Stater			Ewein		Neithon
-1		[Erbin]	Eliud			Pr6tech		Run
0		Guortepir	Ebiud			Kyngar		Tutagual
1		Cincar				Ewein		Anthec
2						Cynd6r Bendigeit		[Cynin]
3								Mermin
4								Anara[u]t
5								Tutagual
6								[I]udgual

Fig. 1.

The earlier Macsen

The name Macsen Wledig has been applied to two distinct persons. The first individual appears at HG 2b and HG 4 gen. -8 as Maxim Guletic, see fig. 1. It is proposed that this individual corresponds to the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus of HG 2c and JC 13b also in gen. -8. This is consistent with the birth of Constantius Chlorus’s wife, Helena, between 248 and 250.¹ The Pen. 16 version of Breuddwyd Macsen only describes the story of his dream and visit to Gwynedd. The Historia Brittonum refers to Constantius:

.u^us. ⁵³<constantinus>⁵⁴ constantini magni pater, id est uir tranquillisimus. ille <constantinus>⁵⁵ in britannia morte obiit, qui constantinum filium ex concubina helena creatum imperatorem <gilliarum>⁵⁶ reliquit, qui in britannia obiit.

The fifth [was] Constantius, the father of Constantine the Great, that is a most peaceful man. That Constantius met his death in Britain, who left his son Constantine, from his concubine Helena, made emperor of the Gauls, who died in Britain.

Fitzpatrick-Matthews K.J, Chartres Recension VI.

The translation, by altering Constantinus to Constantius, corrects a scribal error in the Latin text made at some point in the transmission of the document. Further information concerning Constantius is provided in the Harleian recension:

quintus constantinus, constantini magni filius, fuit. et ibi moritur, et sepulchrum illius monstratur iuxta urbem quę uocatur cair segeint, ut litterę quę sunt in lapide tumuli ostendunt. et ipse seminauit tria semina, id est auri, argenti, aerisque, in pauimento supradictę ciuitatis, ut nullus pauper in ea habitaret unquam. et uocatur alio nomine minmanton¹⁷⁹.

Fitzpatrick-Matthews K.J, 2016, Harleian recension XXII

Here, in an attempt to make sense of the name Constantinus, a copyist has at some point in the transmission altered pater to filius, thus compounding the earlier error. The document confirms Constantius’s association with Gwynedd with his reference to Caer Segeint.

The two earlier names in HG 2b, that is Protec and Protector, refer to emperors who immediately preceded Constantius Chlorus, namely Maximian and Diocletian. They both held the title Britannicus Maximus (Great victor in Britain) and were thus considered its protector.²

The later Macsen

The second Macsen Wledig appears at JC 13b gen. -5. He was Magnus Maximus, the Western Roman emperor, born c. 335. The version in Pen. 4 of the White Book of Rhydderch has a continuation which starts:

For seven years the emperor stayed in this Island.

Davies S., 2007, 108.

It then describes his return to Rome, conquering lands on the way, after leaving Caerleon in Gwent. This part refers to events in connection with Magnus Maximus, including the populating of Llydaw.

Fig. 2. The opening lines of The Dream of Macsen Wledig from Pen. 4. (The National Library of Wales)

Verification of dating

There are a number of evidence to support the dating shown in fig. 1. For example, Cyndwr Fendigaid of JC 13b gen. 2 is St. Kentigern who was the son Owain ab Urien Rheged. It is proposed that Cyngar was the name of Owain’s mother. It could be a female name as one of Brychan’s daughter was named thus. The story concerning the birth of Owain tells us he was born out of wedlock by an unnamed lady. Triad 70 is the only place where the mother is named and it claims her name was Modron ferch Afallach. That is fictional and Bromwich wrote:

… myth which depicted him [Urien] as mating with the locally worshipped goddess Modron …

BromWich, R., 2006, 451.

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1. Harbus, A., 2002, 13. ^˄
2. Wolcott D., Maxen Wledig and the Welsh genealogies, Ancient Wales Studies. ^˄

Why Bartrum’s dating of the Demetian Arthur is wrong

The nature of the problem

To understand why there is a problem with the birthdate of Arthur ap Pedr given by Bartrum, namely 560, we need to look at a pedigree list, HG 2, that mentions him:

[O]uein m. [H]elen merc [L]oumarc m. Himeyt m. Tancoys[tl] merc Ouein m. Margetiut m. Teudos m. Regin m. Catgocaun m. Cathen m. Cloten m. Nougoy m. Arthur m. Petr m. Cincar m. Guortepir m. Aircol m. Triphun m. Clotri m. Gloitguin m. Nimet m. Dimet m. Maxim Gule[t]ic m. Protec m. Protector m. Ebiud m. Eliud m. Stater m. Pincr Misser m. Constans m. Constantini magni m. Constantii et Helen Lui[t]dauc, que de Brittannia exiuit ad crucem Christi querendam usque ad Ierusalem, et inde attulit secum usque ad Constantinopolin, et est ibi usque in hodiernum diem.

Table 1 shows the above list together with the allocated generation numbers, estimated birthdates and obits sourced from the Annales Cambriae stated by Bartrum in A Welsh Classical Dictionary.

Gen.	Birthdate	HG 2
1	330	Maxim Gule[t]ic (ob. 388)
2	355	Dimet
2	380	Nimet
3	410	Gloitguin
4?	440?	Clotri
4	430	Triphun
5	460	Aircol
6	480	Guortepir
6	510	Cincar
7	535	Petr
8	560	Arthur
9	580	Nougoy
9	600	Cloten
10	625	Cathen
11	650	Catgocaun
11	675	Regin
12	700	Teudos
13		Margetiut (ob. 796)
14?		Ouein (ob. 811)
15?		Tancoys[tl] (ob. 790)
16		Himeyt (ob. 893)
17		[L]oumarc (ob. 904)
18		[H]elen (ob. 929)
18	900	[O]uein

Table 1. Bartrum’s generations and birthdates.

Bartrum’s scheme would have had 17 generations between Maxim Guletic and Margetiut whose obits Bartrum dated as 388 and 796 respectively. This would result in 24 years/generation, contrary to his statement on generation lengths:

This is based on the well known fact that, on the average, three male generations span almost exactly a century … A male generation is the period of time between the birth of father and the birth of son, or daughter. Female generations, birth of mother to birth of son or daughter, are on the average much shorter, and in the period covered are nearer to 20 years, i.e. five to a century.

Bartrum, P.C., 1974, vol. 1, 6.

To achieve a more realistic step-size, he gave a number of parents and offsprings the same generation number, viz. Dimet/Nimet, Guortepir/Cincar, Nougoy/Cloten, Catgocaun/Regin, and possibly Clotri/Triphun.This results in a more satisfactory generation lengh of 34 years/generation, but at the cost of artificially giving parents and offsprings the same generation number. This combining of generations also occurs at the end of the table with Helen/Ouein.
Furthermore, it needs to be pointed out that there is an anomaly in that Bartrum’s tentative birthdate given to Clotri is 10 years after that of Tryffin who Bartrum believed was his nephew.

Bartrum did not continue beyond what he termed generation 1. However, under the entry headed Tryffin, king of Dyfed in A Welsh Classical Dictionary he provided a continuation togehter with some additions derived from other lists with which he attempted to synchronize :

Table 2. The Ancestry of Tryffin.

However, this made the problem worse as now there would have been 23 generations between Maxim Guletic and Margetiut, giving a generation length of 18 years/generation.

The resolution of the problem

The reason why Bartrum’s analysis went astray was because he treated HG 2 as a single line of descent, whereas in reality it consists of three seperate segments as shown in table 3. That the manuscript compilers did not always know when one list ended and the next one began can be seen in, for example, JC 10 to 11 where the ending of the first list is repeated at the start of the following one.

The proposed generation numbers are based on the principle that the generation number of an offspring should be one greater than that of the parent. Arthur’s generation has been numbered gen. 0. For table 3 the birthdates do not give estimates for the individuals listed, as they did in table 1, but rather give the average birthdate for members of each generation. This has been derived from a database of known obits of individuals named in a range of pedigree lists with the assumption that the average life-span was 65 years. Note, the birthdates, on average, increase in a regular fashion by 32 years, consistent with Bartrum’s assertion concerning generation lengths quoted above. The vast majority of generations in my database are male ones.

Gen.	Birthdate	HG 2a	HG 2b	HG 2c
-9	197		Protector
-8	229		Protec
-7	261		Maxim Gule[t]ic	Constantii (ob. 306)	Helen Lui[t]dauc
-6	293		Dimet	Constantini magni
-5	325		Nimet	Constans
-4	357		Gloitguin	[Macsen Wledig] (ob. 388)
-3	389		Clotri	[Custennin]
-2	421		Triphun	Pincr Misser
-1	453	Petr	Aircol	Stater
0	485	Arthur	Guortepir	Eliud
1	517	Nougoy	Cincar	Ebiud
2	549	Cloten
3	581	Cathen
4	613	Catgocaun
5	645	Regin
6	677	Teudos
7	709	Margetiut (ob. 796)
8	741	Ouein (ob. 811)
9	773	Tancoys[tl] (ob. 790)
10	805	Himeyt (ob. 893)
11	838	[L]oumarc (ob. 904)
12	870	[H]elen (ob. 929)
13	902	[O]uein

Table 3. Proposed generations and birthdates.

This analysis gives the optimum date for Arthur’s birth as 485. The Demetian Arthur’s birthdate is in the period that one would expect for the individual around whom the Arthurian cycle was built bearing in mind the dates for Badon and Camlan given in the Annales Cambriae.

One consequence of this proposed analysis is that the Maxim Guletic of table 1 was not a reference to Macsen Wledig but rather to the emperor Constantius Chlorus, as shown in table 3, who died in 306. His wife, St. Helena, was conflated in the first part of the Mabinogion tale, entitled Dream of Macsen Wledig, with Eudaf’s daughter, Elen Luyddog, who was probably St. Helena of Cornwall. Bartrum appears to agree with this identification in table 2 where he synchronizes a number of pedigrees, including JC 13.
The proposed allocation of generations in the relevant segment, JC 13b, of that list is shown in table 4. Note, this list provides the missing names in HG 2c, namely Custennin and Macsen Wledig. The latter individual appears in the correct generation to be identified with the emperor Magnus Maximus who died in 388.

Gen.	JC 13b
-7	Custenint	Elen
-6	Constantinus Maỽr
-5	Maximianus
-4	Maxen Wledic
-3	Custennin
-2	Miser
-1	Ewein
0	Kyngar (m.) Prỽtech
1	Ewein
2	Cyndỽr Bendigeit

Table 4.

Bartrum made use of the dateable event for the birth of Guortepir. His date of 480 cannot be too wrong as Gildas, writing in the 540s in the De Excidio, refers to him as Vortipor saying:

… discolor canescente iam capite … appropinquante sensim uitae limite …

… though thy head is now becoming grey … though the end of life is gradually drawing near …

DE 31. Williams H., 1899.

It may be that Barturm, too, noticed HG 2 needed to be divided into three segments as he wrote:

There seems to be three independent strands of pedigree here, see note to ABT 18a.

Bartrum, P.C., 1966, 126.