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Cornubia (Corniu / Cerniw)
A sub-kingdom of the greater
Dumnonian kingdom, it was the last free
British territory in the south of Britain (outside Cymru) to survive, absorbing into it
(or being absorbed into) the remnants of Dumnonia so that the two eventually became
indivisible. It was first created a sub-kingdom by Constantine Corneu. Penwith, the upper
westernmost cantref, was a principality in its own right for a time, being owned
by a king of Brittany.
Known as Cornubia
during Roman and immediately Post-Roman Britain, the name became corrupted by the dramatic
changes in the British language in the sixth and seventh centuries, and by being passed through
Welsh hands. The name means "people of the horn", ie the Land's End section of
the Cornish peninsula. The Saxons called them Corn-wealas, Cornwall (wealas
being the Saxon word for foreigner or stranger, which is what they applied to all Britons in their own
land).
Cerniw is not to be confused with the name Cernyw used to describe the kingdom and
sub-kingdoms that formed the early Glywyssing. The
latter name had fallen out of use by the sixth century. |
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