Kingdoms of British Celts - Cornovii (Cornwall)

It was the Romans who coined the name 'Gaul' to describe the Celtic tribes of what is now France and Belgium, quite possibly based on an original form of the word 'Celt' itself (see feature link). When it came to the Celts of Britain, the name of the islands itself was used: Prydein (Latinised as Prettania or Britannia).

Its collective people were Britons, although not all of them were Celts, let alone the same 'type' of Celts. Successive waves of immigration had left a vague mix of Bell Beaker folk, Urnfield proto-Celts, Hallstatt and La Tène waves, and Belgae, the latest arrivals. By the first century BC these latter people dominated the south and east of the isles.

The Cornovii may have been a splinter of a scattered Midlands Cornovii tribe which could be found in the Severn Valley, or even of a similarly-named Cornavii tribe in second century Caledonia (modern Scotland), or it may have been the original source of both of them (see map link for tribal locations).

Such links have been the subject of a great deal of scholarly discussion. This group, however, certainly seems to have been under the domination of the greater and far more powerful Dumnonii tribe. They occupied the extreme south-western tip of Britain during the first centuries BC and AD, bordered to the east (across the River Tamar) by the Dumnonii, with the Scilly Isles (a potential location for Lyonesse) a few kilometres west of the rocky Cornwall coast.

Quite often the Cornovii tend to be lumped together with the Dumnonii in descriptions or on maps, and can even escape mention altogether (see the map of Europe's tribes around the first centuries BC and AD to view these locations in relation to all other Celts).

The region's earliest mention in history is one of the earliest for the whole of the British Isles. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who was born in the Sicilian colony of Agyrium, wrote around 60 BC of 'foreign merchants' visiting 'Belerion' in Britain (ie. Land's End) to buy tin which had been mined and prepared by the natives. He was paraphrasing Pytheas of Massalia from about 325 BC. The earliest of these merchants are commonly believed to be the Phoenicians, or possibly even the Minoans, although this cannot be proved.

Something of note is the fact that the profusion of hill forts to the east of the Tamar was virtually unknown in Cornwall. Their place is taken by fortifications which are very similar to those in Brittany and Spain.

This could support the idea that the Cornovii were clearly not simply a unit of the Dumnonii - one which had probably been absorbed by them for control of the Cornish tin trade - but whatever the truth of this, they may indeed have had different (and probably earlier) origins which could have been similar to those of the southern Irish of Munster.

The Cornovii appear to have survived in some form during the Roman period, perhaps because the peninsula to the west of Isca (Exeter) was never heavily infiltrated by Rome. The Dumnonii seem to have exercised a certain amount of self-government in their own lands (and may have been almost entirely self-governed during Roman rule), and this also guaranteed the virtual independence of the Cornovii.

Even so, the Roman road system entered Cornovii territory, and four forts are known to have existed (at Calstock, Lostwithiel, Restormel Castle (see feature link), and Tregear near Nanstallon). A villa in the Roman style has also been found at Magor Farm near Camborne.

The tribe gained its name from the region, with 'Cornovii' became the Latinised Cornubia by the fifth century AD. The name means 'people of the horn', ie. the Land's End section of the Cornish peninsula. In the sixth and seventh centuries that evolved into 'Corniu'.

To the English, who established a presence by the tenth century, it was Corn-wealas or Cornwall, 'the Welsh of Corniu'. Some scholars dispute the 'horn' meaning of 'Corn-' despite there being several examples of Celtic tribes adopting similar names when living in similar peninsula locations.

Such naming suggests the possibility of a tribal connection between the Cornovii and the Caereni or Cornavii of Caledonia, perhaps a splintering as the tribe was forced westwards by later Celtic arrivals in the country. Instead, those who object to this idea ascribe the name to cult labels which refer to a 'horned god', which may be the root of the identically-named Cornovii tribe in the Midlands.

In all probability no single explanation fits all instances. However, if tribal splintering while being pushed westwards by later arrivals was not the reason for three tribes with the same name - in Cornwall, the West Midlands, and Scotland - then what was the reason? Dumnonian conquest seems unlikely - the Midlands Cornovii were extensive hill fort builders - but the Roman conquest seems to have forced splinters of other tribes into Scotland.

The Dumnonii and Cornovii both seem to have retained close links with the Celts of Armorica (see feature link). During the Roman period, these links were used as trade routes. During the more difficult periods of Roman occupation there was a drift of resettlement from this part of Britain into Armorica. This became much heavier in the late fourth century, and turned into a flood in the mid-fifth century.

Celtic Kingdoms of the British Isles

Celts of Britain

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