The Giant’s Grave (© B Keeling)
The Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society has recently made the full text of its Transactions available online. All volumes of this highly respected journal from 1874 onwards have been digitised, with all except the past 10 years being freely accessible and downloadable to non-members.
The Transactions (often abbreviated as TCWAAS) is published annually. Each volume contains a number of articles on the history and archaeology of the present-day county of Cumbria. The online archive can be searched by keyword, not only in the title but in the body of the article (a very useful facility). Words can also be excluded from the search, thus eliminating unwanted articles and making the process quicker and more specific.
TCWAAS is a valuable resource for research on the kingdom of Strathclyde because it deals with a region that formed the kingdom’s southern province in the tenth and early eleventh centuries. The county name ‘Cumbria’ preserves a Latinised form of the name of the kingdom itself, i.e. the land of the Cumbri or North Britons.
Cumbria, realm of the Strathclyde Britons, c.900 AD.
A search of the TCWAAS archive turns up a treasure trove of information on the period when substantial territories south of the Solway Firth were ruled by ‘Cumbrian’ kings whose headquarters lay on the Clyde. The following list of articles is just a selection. It includes items that I consulted while writing my book Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age. Topics range from the origin and meaning of the name ‘Cumbria’ to the cultural affinities of sculptured crosses and other monuments. The list gives the title, author, volume, year and pages.
‘Strathclyde and Cumbria: a survey of historical development to 1092’ by D.P. Kirkby TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 62 (1962). pp. 77 – 94
‘On the use of the terms Strathclyde and Cumbria’ by P.A. Wilson
TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 66 (1966). pp. 57 – 92
‘The Lowther Hogbacks’ by W.G. Collingwood
TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 7 (1907). pp. 152 – 164
[discusses the “Viking” hogback gravestones at Lowther Church]
Late Victorian image of one of the Lowther hogback fragments.
‘The Giant’s Grave, Penrith’ by W.G. Collingwood
TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 23 (1923). pp. 115 – 128
[a detailed study of this enigmatic group of hogbacks and crosses at St Andrew’s Church]
One of the Giant’s Grave cross-shafts (from Collingwood’s 1923 article)
‘The Giant’s Thumb’ by W.G. Collingwood
TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 20 (1920). pp. 52 – 65
[as well as discussing the Thumb (a tenth-century cross at Penrith) this article reconstructs the genealogy of the kings of Strathclyde and suggests that one of them might be the legendary “Owain Caesar” of Cumbrian folklore]
The Giant’s Thumb (from Collingwood’s 1920 article)
‘A reconsideration of Gosforth Cross’ by C.A. Parker and W.G. Collingwood
TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 17 (1917). pp. 99 – 113
[an art-historical study of this famous Viking Age monument near the shore of the Irish Sea]
The Gosforth Cross (© T Clarkson)
‘Rey-Cross’ by W.G. Collingwood
TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 27 (1927). pp. 1 – 10
[the place where Eric Bloodaxe, king of York, is said to have been slain during a battle on Stainmore]
‘Five Strathclyde and Galloway charters – four concerning Cardew and one the Westmorland Newbigging’ by Frederick W. Ragg
TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 17 (1917). pp. 198 – 234
[one of the charters is the eleventh-century Gospatric’s Writ which deals with an area described as “lands that were Cumbrian” (i.e. former Strathclyde territory) between Carlisle and Wigton]
‘Cumberland’ by T.H.B. Graham
TCWAAS 2nd series, vol 26 (1926). pp. 274 – 284
[a discussion of this Old English county name which simply means “land of the Cumbri”]
Members of CWAAS can also access the online version of an interesting article from 2011: ‘From peoples to regional societies: the problem of early medieval Cumbrian Identities’ by Charles Phythian-Adams (TCWAAS 3rd series, vol 11, pp. 51 – 64)
To access the TCWAAS archive, click on the link below and then select ‘Transactions’ from the homepage.
Cumbria Past: the CWAAS website
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SASVA: notes on the Viking Age 
Dear Mr Clarkson – In your book about Strathclyde you examine the battle of Carham, 1018. I live in Coldstream, three miles from Carham. A small group of locals are looking ahead to the 1,000 year anniversary in 2018. I am on the committee. I am not a historian; I am a retired prison governor. So it has been a new experience for me reading up on medieval history (Stenton, Duncan, Woolf, Rollason, Symeon, etc). Yours is the best account I have found so far.
Given the fact that Malcolm and Owain do not appear to have capitalised on their victory at Carham by pushing on further south and given that Cnut appears to have taken no steps to participate at all, it has occurred to me that there may have been either explicit or tacit collusion between the two (Malcolm and Cnut) in which both were happy to see the decline of Bernicia/ Northumbria but neither wished to wage war on the other. Is this an idea to which you would be likely to offer support or criticism?
I take the Ralph Glaber comment that they “fought for a long time” but were they fighting for dominance over each other or merely for shares of Bernicia/Northumbria?
Rannoch Daly
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Thank you for visiting, Rannoch – and thanks also for reading my book. I’m inclined to think your scenario of collusion between Malcolm and Cnut with regard to the status of Bamburgh/Bernicia sounds plausible. The topic could no doubt be explored via recent scholarship on the key players to see if any new thinking has emerged (I was browsing a new biography of Cnut in a bookshop last week, but unfortunately I can’t recall the author’s name).
I’m hoping to return to the whole matter of Carham before the anniversary year, mainly to get my thoughts in order and to make sure I’m up-to-date on the latest studies.
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