Rheged

Rheged (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈr̥ɛɡɛd]) is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd ("Old North"), the Brittonic-speaking region of what is now Northern England and southern Scotland, in the Early Middle Ages. Its borders are not described in the poems, but some modern scholars have suggested that it included what is now Cumbria in North West England and possibly extended into Lancashire and Scotland. In the historical sources Rheged is intimately associated with the king Urien Rheged and his family. Its inhabitants spoke Cumbric, a Brittonic dialect closely related to Old Welsh.

Location

The name Rheged appears regularly as an epithet of a certain Urien in a number of early Welsh poems and royal genealogies. His victories over the Anglian chieftains of Bernicia in the second half of the 6th century are recorded by Nennius and celebrated by the bard Taliesin, who calls him "Ruler of Rheged". He is thus placed squarely in the North of Britain and perhaps specifically in Westmorland when referred to as "Ruler of Llwyfenydd" (identified with the Lyvennet Valley). Later legend associates Urien with the city of Carlisle (the Roman Luguvalium), only twenty-five miles away; Higham suggests that Rheged was "broadly conterminous with the earlier Civitas Carvetiorum, the Roman administrative unit based on Carlisle". Although it is possible that Rheged was merely a stronghold, it was not uncommon for sub-Roman monarchs to use their kingdom's name as an epithet. It is generally accepted, therefore, that Rheged was a kingdom covering a large part of modern Cumbria.