Goutodin / Gododdin

Goutodin was a British kingdom of the Votadini, an Iron Age Celtic tribe whose territory stretched from the Firth of Forth to the Tyne. After the Roman withdrawal in the early fifth century, the lands of the Votadini became part of the Hen Ogledd, the Old North, which was ruled from Ebrauc (York) by Coel Hen. After the death of Coel Hen in about 420, the Old North gradually splintered into smaller kingdoms. By 470, the Kingdom of Goutodin had emerged in the northern territory of the Votadini, centred on the citadels of Din Eidyn (Edinburgh) and Trapain Law (Haddington). In the time between Coel Hen’s death and its emergence as an independent kingdom, the Goutodin territory may have been ruled by Alt Clut’s powerful first king, Coroticus, or possibly was governed from Ebrauc by Coel Hen’s successor. The southern half of the Votadini lands became Bernaccia and the border between the two kingdoms was likely at Berwick. To the north was Manau-Gododdin, a small but important sub-kingdom and a buffer against the Picts.

Map showing the Kingdom of Goutodin / Gododdin and its neighbours in c.500

The first king of Goutodin was King Lot, but little is known of his reign in the late fifth century. His son, Gawain, succeeded him in 490 but appears to have been absent from the kingdom for most of his reign as various sources place him first in Rheged and then in Wales. Bran Hen, King of Bernaccia, either took the opportunity and seized Goutodin or was given care of the kingdom by the absent Gawain. Sometime later, Bran Hen handed control of Bernaccia to his young nephew, Morcant Bulc, and kept hold of Goutodin for himself.

In Bernaccia, the Angle laeti revolted in 547, seized the kingdom and kicked Morcant out. The dispossessed king fled north to Goutodin and took refuge in his uncle’s court. Morcant became King of Goutodin after Bran Hen’s death (and presumably in Gawain’s continued absence) but never gave up on regaining his lost kingdom. By 590, Morcant had entered into an alliance with the kings of Alt Clut, Rheged and Elmet, three northern kingdoms who, like Goutodin, felt threatened by the Anglian presence on their borders. The confederation laid siege to Ynys Mencaut (Lindisfarne) the same year and almost succeeded in driving the Bernicians into the sea, but Morcant fatally weakened his own cause by ordering the assassination of King Urien of Rheged. The confederation fell apart, Morcant Bulc disappeared from the records and the Angles regained Bernicia.

The last two British kings of Goutodin, Cynan and Mynyddog Mwynfawr, ruled simultaneously from 590, either as co-rulers, or, more likely, within a divided kingdom with Cynan ruling East Lothian from Trapain Law and Mynyddog Mwynfawr ruling West Lothian from Din Eidyn. The troubled last years of Goutodin are commemorated by a seventh century Welsh poem, Y Gododdin, which records an army of northern warriors from Goutodin, Elmet and Rheged marching south with the intent of retaking Ebrauc from the Angles. Right at the end of the sixth century, in 597, the northern British clashed with a Northumbrian army under Aethelfrith at the Battle of Caltreath (Catterick, in North Yorkshire). The northern British were decimated and Y Gododdin mourns the loss of so many warriors of the Old North. Severely weakened by the defeat, Goutodin managed to limp on for another forty years until 638 when, after King Oswald's capture of Trapain Law and siege of Din Eidyn, Goutodin finally fell to Bernicia.