Post-Roman Britain

To start with, the name Gwynedd is definitely a post-Roman pronunciation which is still used by the modern Welsh.

Go back 1500 years and it is still most likely to be pronounced the modern way. But note that 1500 years ago when written down (in Latin, as no one wrote in Old Welsh back then), the name was spelled Venedotia. The first three letters, 'ven-', are probably the proto-Celtic word for 'white'. The proto-Celtic (or common Celtic) root was 'windo'. The proto-Celtic 'd' apparently mutates into a 't', a voiced 'th', a hard 'k', an 's', or a soft 'ch', and also, of course, it can be dropped entirely.

Proto-Celtic 'v' became an 'f' in Old Irish Gaelic, producing the Gaelic word 'fin' for white. In Britain it shifted the other direction and became a 'w', then a 'gw', and in at least one location (Votodini = Gododdin) the 'w' was dropped so that what began as a 'v' became a 'g'.

Gwynedd is said to have been founded by Britons from Manau Gododdin on the north side of the Firth of Forth and River Forth. But Roman writers did not describe that area as Votodini (Gododdin) territory. To them it was the land of a Pictish tribe called the Venicones.

Venicones? There's that 'ven-' again. And it isn't difficult to get from a 'c' to a 't' when people have no writing and they are pronouncing a word as they please. It slides right over. There is even precedent for it among Celtic tribes, as witnessed by Galatia and Galacia as tribal names on opposite ends of the Celtic expansion. The common root in that case is 'gal', a cock (or rooster in US English), probably a reference to the red hair common among early Gauls (Galli).

In my opinion, Gwynedd was founded by Venicones (Venedoti) from Fife. Their point of origin was at a fort in Fife called Manau, which was nominally under Gododdin overlordship. Hence 'Manau Gododdin'.

Picts or Brits?

But how could this happen? How could a group of 'Picts' become Roman Britons?

To begin with there were no 'Picts'. It's just an adopted name, in the same manner that the Britons of Wales adopted Cymry as their name, and Cymru as their country (instead of Prydein = Britain). No Picts existed as any sort of separate people. The so-called Picts were merely Britons who had not been conquered by the Roman army. The 'Picts' were the free Britons north of the Antonine wall.

But the Romans did occupy an area north of the Antonine wall for a generation, before retreating to more defensible positions. Which area was that? Fife.

The Venicones had been occupied for a generation by Romans, whose influence continued north of the Forth at Manau after the legions marched away. Manau was subject to the Gododdin, who were in turn clients of the Roman Empire.

The Gwyneddmen are Venicones. And they still call themselves Venicones, with an updated pronunciation.

Further afield

Just as fascinating is the fact that the men of Gwynedd appear to be one of a large number of Celtic or Italo-Celtic tribes (Latin is a language closely related to Celtic), all of which are using variations of 'white' (ven-) as their name. Whether these tribes are branches of one tribe (not likely), or that groups of them are branches of a few tribes (likely), or that none of them are related (not likely) is unclear.

Known usage of this naming pattern is as follows:

Vindelici - Vindelicia (pronounced 'wendelichia') simply identifies the country inhabited by the Vindelici, a region bounded on the north by the Danube and (later) the Hadrian's Limes Germanicus, on the east by the Oenus (Inn), on the south by Raetia and on the west by the territory of the Helvetii. It thus corresponded to the north-eastern portion of Switzerland, the south-east of Baden, and the south of Württemberg and Bavaria. Its chief town was refounded by the Romans as Augusta Vindelicorum ('Augusta of the Vindelici', or Augsburg).

The material culture of its inhabitants, the Vindelici, was La Tène. Whether the Vindelici spoke a Celtic (Gaulish) or Germanic language, is not certain; a possible etymology of their name includes an element vind- cognate to Irish find- 'white' and directly descended from the proto-Celtic root 'windo'. Together with the neighbouring tribes they were subjugated by Tiberius in 15 BC. The Augustan inscription of 12 BC mentions four tribes of the Vindelici among the defeated.

Vandals - a German tribe formed by combination with a Gaulish tribe (and possibly involving a change of leadership from Celtic to Germanic)? (See Vindelici, above.)

Veneti - three examples are known to exist:

The Adriatic Veneti, Enetoi in Greek, a bygone people of north-eastern Italy (ie. the modern Venice area) who spoke an unclassified Indo-European language. Since they quickly adopted Latin they may be speakers of some Italo-Celtic language.

The Armorican Veneti, a Celtic tribe who lived in what is now Brittany in France. Also, Vannes in Brittany emerged as the Breton 'Gwened'. Sounds very much like Gwynedd.

The Vistula Veneti, a bygone people of north central Europe, who lived in the area of the Vistula river basin and along the shores of the Baltic Sea (Wends). Were they Gauls who adopted a Slavic language?

Gwynedd - this was based on the former Brythonic tribal lands of the Ordovices, Gangani, and the Deceangli which were collectively known as Venedotia in late Romano-British documents. The name Gwynedd may derive from Brythonic Ueneda, but this spelling also looks as though it was derived from Venedotia. These names may be akin to the Goidelic (the ancestor of Irish) 'Fenia' (which gives fiana, 'war-band' in Old Irish - eg. Finn and his warriors). But of course the original meaning is 'white'. Thus the possible meaning may be 'Land of the Hosts' or 'Land of the Warrior Bands' if the name is Irish in origin.

Guenet - a region mentioned by Nennius that may correspond to Gwynedd. Or not. He seems confused between Gwynedd and Baddan (Bath).

Venicones - a tribe from Fife, Tayside, who were supposedly 'Picts'.

Vennicnii - of Ireland. The name is very similar to Venicones; probably a branch of the same tribe who migrated to County Donegal from Fife or vice versa.

Main Sources

Greek references - Dictionary.com web site

Latin references - Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary by John Traupman, and the University of British Columbia Maths Department web site

Ammianus Marcellinus - Res Gestae Libri XXXI available online at 'Early Church Fathers - Additional Texts' web site

Ptolemy - Geographia

Map at Rootsweb (the main map is very silly because it has Concani and Gangani adjacent in the Thomond area, when anyone can see they are the same tribal name with different spellings)

Map perhaps not under copyright: Alexander G Findlay's Insulae Brittanicae, produced in 1849 in A Classical Atlas of Ancient Geography, available online at the University of Texas Libraries

Text copyright © Edward Dawson. An original feature for the History Files.