Votadini Votadini River Line (2) Category="Ancient Britons"Category="Ancient Roman enemies and allies"Category="History of Northumberland"Category="History of Scotland"Category="Roman Britain"The Votadini were a people of Iron Age and Roman Britain. Their territory was in the north-east, extending south of the Firth of Forth and extended from the Stirling area down to the River Tyne, including at its peak what are now the Lothian and Borders regions of eastern Scotland, and Northumberland in north east England. Their capital was probably the Traprain Law Hill fort in East Lothian, until that was abandoned in the early 400s, moving to Din Eidyn (Edinburgh).

Due to linguistic changes their descendants in the Sub-Roman/early medieval period were known as the Gododdin (pronounced [go'došin]).

Prehistory

The area was settled as early as 3000 BC, and offerings of that period imported from Cumbria and Wales left on the sacred hilltop at Cairnpapple Hill, West Lothian, show that by then there was a link with these areas. By around 1500 BC Traprain Law, East Lothian was already a place of burial, with evidence of occupation and signs of ramparts after 1000 BC. Excavation at Edinburgh Castle found late Bronze Age material from about 850 BC.

Brythonic Celtic culture and language spread into the area at some time after the 8th century BC, possibly through cultural contact rather than mass invasion, and systems of kingdoms developed. Numerous hillforts and settlements support the image of quarrelsome tribes and petty kingdoms recorded by the Romans, though evidence that at times occupants neglected the defences might suggest that symbolic power was sometimes as significant as warfare.

The Roman period

In the 1st century the Romans recorded the Votadini as a British tribe. Between 138-162 they came under direct Roman rule as occupants of the region between Hadrian's and the Antonine Walls. Then when the Romans drew back to Hadrian's Wall the Votadini became a friendly "buffer state", getting the rewards of alliance with Rome without being under its rule, until about 400 when the Romans withdrew from Britain. Quantities of Roman goods found at Traprain Law, East Lothian might suggest that this proved profitable, though this is open to speculation.

Since the 3rd century Roman Britain had been divided into provinces, and in the last reorganisation a fifth province called Valentia was created, which included the Votadini territory.

The sub-Roman period

After the Roman withdrawal in the early 5th century, the lands of the Votadini became part of the Kingdom of the North, which broke up in the later part of the 5th century.

By about 470 a new kingdom of Gododdin had emerged covering most of the original Votadini territory, while the southern part between the Tweed and the Tyne formed its own separate kingdom called Brynaich. Cunedda, legendary founder of the Kingdom of Gwynedd in north Wales, is supposed to have been a Gododdin warlord who migrated south-west about this time.

Both kingdoms eventually fell to the Angles of Bernicia; it is this warfare that is commemorated in Aneirin's 7th century poem-cycle Y Gododdin.

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