Act 3
Roman Kirkdale and Beadlam
The lands which would become the
lands of Kirkdale and Chirchebi in Roman and Pagan times, 71 CE to 580
CE
The lands around Kirkdale were stable
and settled for much of their early history, nestled 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
It was those small families who
cleared Farndale from the early 1200s 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. 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 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 about 100 CE, we
should restrict our ambition to define this family’s origins, as we did in Act
2, as emerging from the primeval swamp of the stone, bronze and iron ages. 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 will soon
become a powerhouse of intellectual achievement which will disseminate
knowledge and teaching techniques via the court of 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 journey we
should reflect though, that this 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 with 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
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. The Romans adopted a policy of exploitation of internal
conflicts between different groups.
Initially
the Romans didn’t venture north of the Humber and Don, but traded with the Parisii, though the Brigantes tended to
remain more hostile.
Claudius’ successor
was Nero (54 to 68 CE) who was less enthusiastic about the costs of maintaining
an army in Britain.
Nero was
succeeded by Vespasian (69 to 79 CE) at the end of the
Year of the Four Emperors, by then commander of the Syrian Army, who 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 (of 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,
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.
Scene 2 – Ancestral Lands
The
family ancestral lands of Kirkdaleland
The lands of
Kirkdaleland are only about 25 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.
Thurkilsti was a pre Roman road from 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.
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 Gilling
gap where it joined Hambleton Street which stretched from Bernicia to Lincoln.
The Roman
villa at Beadlam,
only 2 kilometres west of Kirkdale, was discovered in the 1960s. The region
around Beadlam was administered from the Roman town
of Isurium Brigantum (modern Aldborough, near Boroughbridge).
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.
It’s
possible that any Roman presence at Kirkdale 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 10km 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 likely well settled, and this might
have extended into the rural hinterland. Agricultural produce would have been
required at significant scale to support the northern Roman army.
There was a pre Roman road from the North York Moors which passed close
to the west side of Kirkdale and on to Welburn, just south of the Kirkdale ford
and on to Hovingham.
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.
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 (now Aldborough). 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).
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.
Scene 3 – The End of Empire
Breakup
In 410 CE
Rome was sacked by the Visigoths from eastern Europe and Roman control of
Britain ceased by about this time. Constantine declared emperor in York
reestablished the Roman empire in the East centred on Byzantium.
The
Romano-British kingdom rapidly broke up into smaller kingdoms and York became
the capital of the 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.