The idea of a kingdom with a forgotten name really fascinates and sort of scares me. As a species we often like to think we have a pretty good grasp on everything that happened before we got here, but there's so much that we just can't ever know without a time machine. There could be so much that we don't even KNOW we're missing because there are no references to it left at all.
An example is 25,000 medieval manuscripts burned by the Revolutionaires in France during the reign of Terror, and that is just the medieval documents, overall documents destroyed during it is astronomically more, but the amount of patrimonial loss of the middle ages is immense.
@@alexmag342 In any regional archives in France, you find some notary documents sewn together into large volumes, with old medieval parchments with inluminated capital letters used as wraps or covers, holes punched in them, and laces passed through them. I saw such one "cover" made of several layers of medieval paper sheets GLUED layer upon layer, to make it thicker. How much info is lost in those ruined pages, or in those that butchers or fishmongers utilized to wrap up their merchandise!
@@CambrianChronicles Thank you very much for your videos. I do research somewhat similar to yours, but for a later period, and I see what exactly you're up against, except that for your period, there are more lacunae than solid matter. Very interesting.
I think that does happen pretty often, myths tend to survive because they become popular and widespread while actual history is only preserved in text and thus is reliant on someone putting in the work to preserve them.
most places on Earth are probably full of forgotten kingdoms or states - see Pre-Incan Andean region or many parts of Mesoamerica, from which neither pictorial/written records nor oral histories survived. We know that there were cultures, civilisations etc. based on archaeological record but how they were organized? What were their names, how many kingdoms, where were the capitals, what dynasties? No idea.
@@CambrianChronicles wow i havent read too much into English Kings before conquest 😅 its crazy that Rome was only an administration and army with Generals 😅 and they went away
I couldn't agree more. I stumbled across this channel completely randomly and I'm absolutely hooked. I have never had an interest in Welsh history, in fact while I could point out Wales on a map, I couldn't tell you where the borders were, but now it's ancient medieval kingdoms sit fresh in my mind like the neighboring town in my current city. Fascinating stuff and it's amazing what we can glean from these manuscripts, art, and folk Legends. I do believe every Legend and tail is based in some bit of History, of course with Embellishments, but we should not discount fairy tales. Three cheers to the author of these amazing stories, keep up the great work
I remember when I first played ck2, the amount of tiny kingdoms in Wales surprised me a lot. I remember, back when I first played it, many of those kingdoms didn't even have a Wikipedia page. Now, after watching your videos for quite some time, not only I know now the history of those places, but I realize how many other obscure or more ancient kingdoms were left out! How much rich history wales has, how much happened in such a tiny place. I don't know why I'm so drawn to welsh history, I have nothing to connect me to wales. But it's such an interesting topic! thank you for these videos.
Thank you for watching them! I'm glad you've found them interesting, and I'm always happy to hear someone has been introduced to the topic of Welsh history despite having no personal connection to it
@@battlez9577 Yeah, it's a shame what they did to it in ck3. They even got rid of the 768 which included two extra welsh counties, pengwern and ergyng, or smth like it
I find it a little amusing how tiny early medieval British kingdoms were because, for example this one, is an area s small and sparsely populated that it only has two MPs (one Conservative and one Plaid Cymru if you are interested) in the modern Parliament. It really highlights how difficult it was to maintain rule over a territory without the complex layers of communication and administration of later centuries
Wales is also something of a special case because the mountainous landscape creates natural barriers and makes it extremely defensible, thus making it hard to maintain rule over large areas. So even for the Middle Ages Wales has some exceptionally small polities.
@@admiralsquatbar127 Wrong, romans made extensive use of client nobles and handing out province rule and tax collecting to subcontractors because they couldn't do it either. Hell, Rome itself was split into east and west (with two co-emperors each, so 4 parts total) because even their state apparatus was way too inefficient to handle it sooo...
Greetings from Iran, as a person interested in history due to my country's old heritage, your channel is quite interesting to discover another country's different dynasties.
I'd like to thank you for helping spread Welsh history to more people, I have a few friends from there and learning about their country's history is incredibly interesting!
Before Cambrian Chronicles, I always saw Wales as one big coal mine, and also where longbows came from. Now I see it as one big coal mine with deep and interesting folk history, and also where longbows came from.
Probably the most infuriating thing with historical records of any kind (and we still do it today) is that they over-rely on cultural context and often leave out VITAL INFORMATION, or make an off-handed reference to a book that has been lost to time which would have been popular and well known by educated people at the time. And now, poof, they're gone forever, and we will literally never know the context so many ancient writers thought was too mundane or common knowledge to record.
Your videos on Welsh history are downright stellar. I am a Spaniard from Galicia and I wouldn't have gotten interested in the subject without them. I'm also a historian (well, History professor, I'm starting my PhD right now) and your description of how much History has been lost quite poignant. I have studied the Irmandiño Revolt in Galicia, a historical event that happened in the second half of the 15th Century, and it is incredible how few primary sources we have about a war that lasted 3 long years and had a huge effect on Galician society and the end of Medieval feudalism in the region. Before the 20th Century, the only accounts of the events came from noblemen that spoke about it tangentially, only giving us a few lines about it. It is only with the discovery of a trial (which wasn't even initially about the revolt) filled with first-person accounts from peasants about the events that we started to actually understand the Irmandiño Revolt. And, even a century after its discovery, it is still the only in-depth source we have about it. Without it, the Irmandiño Revolt would have been a sidenote with very little information about it. And all coming from the anti-Irmandiño side.
Screamed obscenities, its been so long i had forgotten abt loss until i was forcebly drug back into that joke by funny shapes my brain can't view with ignorance.
it might sound cheesy to say this but i feel that you honor your country profoundly with the passion of your research and your commitment to preserving and *rediscovering* its history whose memory has been unjustly eroded by time, an empire, and myriad other complications that historians face. that already great honor is doubled by how beautifully you share it with us. we’re all fortunate to benefit from your hard and brilliant work! diolch yn fawr iawn am bopeth!
I'll be honest, and I say this with the greatest appreciation of their content, I've used videos and playlists of this channel to fall asleep to several times.
As a fellow Welshman thanks for making our history interesting even to those outside of Wales! Its been crazy to see the growth this channel has seen over the last year or so and I think that's a testament to the quality of your content! Diolch yn fawr
11:06 What if the name of the kingdom ACTUALLY was named Yrth? This is 100% what the younger one of a family would tend to do, who must have thought of himself as being so cool and full of it that he can just call his kingdom "The Mighty" like an absolute chad (or loser, depending on who you ask) with issues about projecting. Big "Super Dooper Mega Kingdom 8000" vibes.
There's a button beneath this comment, inserted by Google. You are supposed to hit it, in order to translate the comment into English. I hit the button. I was disappointed to see that your, already in English, comment didn't translate the village's name into "St. Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.""
Why am I, a guy who lives on the other side of the ocean in Mexico, who's never been to England, much less Wales, and whose only fact he knew of Medieval Wales was that there was a kingdom named Gwynedd, watching this channel? I literally discovered this channel because of your King Arthur video that somehow got recommended to me because I had watched videos of an anime franchise called Fate in which King Arthur is a woman. And now I have watched all your videos about a place I have previously never gave more than 10 minutes of thought at once. You are a legend, and I just wish there was someone that covered the history of my country with the same passion and depth that you do with Wales.
The Ancient Americas channel is really good, it's almost exclusively dedicated to pre-Columbian history though but it does cover the Mexica and other groups living in what is now Mexico quite a bit.
Sometimes some videos are so good that i wish I could “like” them twice or more. Yours are often in that category and this one is definitely in it. Great work. I am an American living in Tokyo but thank you for making me feel a bit closer to my family’s welsh heritage.
I always put these videos on in the evening before bed. It's always a tug of war between wanting to stay awake for the cool history, or falling asleep from all the pleasant visuals and your great voice! Awesome stuff!
Man as a teeny tiny content creator I watch your stuff in some awe. Super well researched, good audio quality, excellent video editing, and damn good release speed. 100k subs is right around the corner and then it's only gonna accelerate faster and faster for you I think, I tip my hat.
this is why I like channels like this one. I learned something new by watching it. I’m 55 years old and I’m still learning history. I love it! Watching videos like these feels like taking the best history class in college that you could ever take.
Thank you! The connections between the two are very interesting, and if it wasn't for Gildas separating them then it could be fairly reasonable to conclude that they'd always been part of the same unit
I found this to be quite an informative video! I, too, find it quite incredible that we forgot the name of an entire kingdom... let alone one that conquered Gwynedd, and whose descendants included not only the kings that would unify most of Wales, but also (eventually) Henry VII, who won the War of the Roses! Instead, we are left with "the driver of the chariot of the receptacle of the bear" (a phrase I never thought I would ever hear), a place in Rhos that _may_ be the missing kingdom, and incomplete Welsh and Irish records. Thanks for the information!
That ending was a very poignant description about what i find so compelling learning about history. It is that allure of learning the mystery about people who influenced so much of your life that you didn’t even realise existed in the first place, who had their names forgotten and who influenced your world that you take for granted without even knowing. And i don’t know, perhaps one day we’ll find out what those posters in the wall are all about. Another excellent video from you Cambria (or should i say Cadwaldr now?) looking forward for your next video in earnest.
To me it's also that you often encounter things that completely shatter whatever simplified world view you had before and really forces you to see things from a new perspective. We tend to treat history as a neat straight line narrative from the past into the present but history is so much more complicated than that and demands that we examine it on its own premises.
I'm English and really enjoy your channel as I love the way you reference different Historians and different Documents in a way that identifies you as a "proper historian" and not one of those who just repeats drivel he half remembers from his long ago school days. At school in England in the 1960s/70s History kind of went Britons/Romans/Anglo Saxon Jutes/ all glossed over in a week or two then 1066 happened and History began. Being a ongoing reader of any history since I left school I always remember the words of my O'level History teacher when he said "Unfortunately most of the history taught in schools is based on crap made up by Victorians". Well done!
I have something I need to say. We are of course very aware and should applaud your efforts in researching and shedding light on these topics. But @14:33 you made me snort my drink out of my nose. It was uncalled for and I applaud you for this as well.
11:49 "See here, Carruthers? These seemingly simple markings? I feel that they must be... significant somehow... ah, I fear that we will never divine their true meaning - another great mystery of the ages!"
I love your thorough, academical listing of sources. Even page numbers. This is how it should be done! Delighted to see Marc Morris there as well, now there's an excellent author and historian. Keep it up, massive respect!
The lens through which we view history is an interesting one since it always through the eyes of those telling it and how that echoes down the years is remarkable. The kingdom likely wasn't expanded upon because it was a history of something else that just referenced it. This is a video about Wales but Imagine in 2000 years someone watches this video and comes away thinking "wtf is an Ireland?" Like you reference the country and most of the people watching likely don't need an explanation further but what is known about Ireland might be completely gone by then or the name is simply an unknown
What also often causes confusion in modern audiences is that states in pre-modern times weren't nation states and functioned in fundamentally different ways. The concept of nation state probably won't survive forever either so at some point a lot of current day texts about geopolitics will become near incomprehensible because it all just assumes the concept of a nation state. And like you don't find a lot of people today explaining what a nation state is because it's such a given to everyone so any historian wishing to understand it would probably have to go back to when the concept developed during the 19th century, and then just figure out that the concept still evolved quite a bit since then.
Your Whole Channel Can Make A Person Despair Due To Such Small Amount Of Knowledge We Actually Have And Have Recorded Of Our History ESPECIALLY From The "Non-Mainstream" Parts Of The World Like Wales
You are so close to 100k! Which is of course very well deserved, the way you are able to elucidate centuries of research and history into every video is truly magical, I was always a history buff but could never fully grasp all the intricacies present across welsh history until I found your channel. Greetings from Brazil!
its such a shame topics this channel covers get left out of broader history education entirely - especially as close as i am to Wales in England, its fascinating! thanks for sharing :D
Thanks for all the careful research. I have no special connection to Wales but this channel makes me appreciate its history and language much more. I wonder - the list of the domains of Cunedda's sons lists associates Einion with "Yrth", which you translate as "the Mighty"; then later Cynlas is described as driving the chariot of "Dinerth". Is it possible that Yrth IS the name of Einion's kingdom, and that the "Dinerth" means that the name "Yrth" was incorporated into a later name?
That's certainly an interesting connection, thank you for sharing! I think the link is a little trickier to connect when using their contemporary spellings, though, as Yrth used to be spelt as "girt", which is pretty different from arth/eirth
(Dec 15 2023) This was randomly recommended to me today, and through the video I was at the edge of my seat, looking how you're trying to resurface from the sands of time a long forgotten name using genealogies of people long gone. Wonderful experience, I must say. Thank you very much for your efforts. P.S.: Someone in comment section already mentioned Crusader Kings, and as a fellow CK enjoyer, now I am definitely gonna check the history of Welsh titles in game.
I just have to say thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into these videos. I've been on RUclips for a very long time now and have seen some of the best documentaries, reviews, and entertainment come and go on the platform. My general opinion regarding the recent crop of channels is that they are usually based on algorithms with no "soul." Your channel has gone straight to the top of my list.
Best channel ever!!!!! I eat my fluoride free toothpaste in spoonfuls every Thursday this channel really helps me get it down with the beautiful layout and ur narration ! It’s almost like I don’t even realise I eat the paste
Thank you, I hope you enjoy eating the paste tomorrow since tomorrow is thursday and that's when it's time to eat the paste so I hope you enjoy eating the paste tomorrow since
The stick-figure comic in the middle is a perfect encapsulation of the frustration common to virtually all historians, but more so the further back in time their specialization is. "Write it down! _Write it down!_ PLEASE!"
I love these videos, being welsh myself learning the history of wales and watching you solve the mystery’s of medieval wales is something truly unique and special! 🎉🎉 (Merry Christmas btw)
Thanks for uncovering these mysteries about old kingdoms as always, my main field of interest is very early japanese history and there is just as much misinformation and lack of proper analysis in the topic as well so these videos are great inspiration for what can be uncovered about ancient happenings with little practical evidence.
Hey so, I have no idea what's going on with the spooky little sections in your new videos, but I'm 1000% here for it lmao. The rest of the video was great too !
I have never before cared about Welsh or British history and I'll likely not care about it outside of watching your videos but the way you organize your thoughts and tell these stories...it's riveting. well done
it'd be so cool to see a collab video between you and Historia Civilis. A Briton-Roman conflict told from two perspectives. Claudius's conquest perhaps with Claudian's side told my HC and the native resistance's from yours
My mother's maiden name is Parry. Apparently they were located in the north of Wales, near Caernarfon. There is a very interesting moment in the family genealogy where somebody decided to throw his lot in with the English, as one generation's given names are (something like) Gruffydd, Rhys, and Angharad while Rhys's children are named Thomas, Edward, and Elizabeth.
A similar thing happened to my family. They migrated from Norway to Wales because of how poor it was in Norway at the time and changed their name to Wilson.
I have some Parrys in my ancestry but mine are from down south near the Herefordshire border via the Vaughans. I'm also a descendent of Dafydd Gam, who sided with the English.against Owain Glyndŵr at the Battle of Agincourt.
Thank you for a very interesting video. It is so refreshing to hear the names of people and places pronounced correctly, instead of many of the posters on YT who can not be bothered to research the correct pronunciation of names within their videos. It is unforgivable in the internet era as it is so easy to do the research on correct pronunciation of any word.
I would echo the ‘Write it Down’ mantra in a different context. Going through old family photos with nothing on the back of the print to say who they are, and those who remembered them now all dead too. So frustrating!
Same story here. Even more upsetting: in Paris, they still have those movable "brocantes", antique flea markets. You can find there, among all sorts of things, old family photographs of SOME unknown people, diaries, school journals, without any identification. I find it tragic: for me, it means a full extinction of a lineage. But even on the old photos that I hold from my late parents, I can't name 50% of those people - with nobody to ask anymore.
this is the only channel on yt where you can find fascinating historical tales subtly interrupted by loss before seamlessly transitioning back to the history
If it weren't for you, my fictional history of Sodor would look VERY different and way to in detail, sometimes its ok to leave stuff out to make it look more mysterious.
One unfortunate thing is I wish there were more painting or pictures of life back then in the 800s and the time period you often talk about. Because unfortunately no fault of your own it's just what exists, is mostly idealised victorian paintings and drawings of Medieval times, or later medieval paintings and pictures and paintings of ruined castles of the medieval times. I do always wonder what was a town like back then, what was the Kings residences like, in that time period. They would have had a beautiful and stunning back drop in north wales, that's one thing for certain. I imagine only some churches would be stone and the rest of all buildings would be Wood, but that's only conjecture from me.
@@dirckthedork-knight1201 we aren't talking about medieval times. Yeah of course there will be stuff that hasn't survived. But also if the sketches look like medieval paintings with no proper perspective and people are the size of buildings that is not what I'm interested in. I'm going to pretend you said dark ages instead of me having to correct you again on what the topic is even about. So yeah but those 3d renders are lots of guess work. I want to know what it actually would have look like.
@@Alex-cw3rz “Dark Ages” is a subset of the Middle Ages. You’re trying to nag someone over some concretely defined boundary where there isn’t one. “Early Medieval”, what they said, is literally synonymous with the way in which you are using “Dark Ages”. Relax.
There's a lack of modern reconstructions for sites in places like Wales and Scotland. I'd like to know what Dumbarton looked like at the time of the viking siege. The siege lasted four months so the Britons must have had some decent defences. They gave up after running out of water so the fort there must have been more impressive than the handful of huts I've seen in some drawings of the site.
Despite having no connection to wales in my ancestry. The indepth nature of the content about a time so long ago it puzzles me to imagine it is fascinating. Keep up the good work!
Given the gaps, one can't help but consider that maybe this account was part of a bigger text that was lost, one that presumed that the reader would have read the other parts first and thus would already know this stuff.
It’s so interesting to think about all of the kingdoms and kings who have died and their lands have been lost to time. Our world was so weird back then.
Right, when the algorithm kicks in creators pretty much explode in popularity as CC deservingly does at the moment. There’s somewhat similar channel called Welsh Viking. It’s significantly older than this one, has a good 200 videos more than this one and yet it has less subscribers. *Check that guy out.* Both channels are great in its own way. I really enjoy Cambrian's delivery, visual style and neat music. Painstaking research of rich Welsh history through archives that’s being done is most appreciated of course. It reminds me of late pagan to Moscow czardom period of my country’s history with its similarly fragmentary and unreliable sources, impossible genealogical and administrative mess and constant maneuvering in political landscape swarming with petty kingdoms. Thanks for another fantastic video, sir!
You have quickly become one of my absolute favorite RUclipsrs my man. Another absolute banger of a video. Gosh I can't believe you keep busting these out
@@CambrianChronicles But genuinely, HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN!? There’s enough surviving evidence to translate ancient languages, and piece together histories once thought complete lost… but one of the countries who’s political history would eventually result in the birth of the Tudor dynasty is just gone? These authors must’ve had extreme beef with Rhos because this is some damnatio memoriae level concealment.
This always reminds me, on a doc a historian said they don't get many details from actual historians, they get more details and a better look at the world of a given time from the mundane, personal diaries etc.
@@theultimateartist4153he's saying that because this channel is primarily a Cymry (Welsh) history channel, whereas Haiti has little-to-no relation to Wales
Isn't it possible the Kingdom associated with Rhos, was just named "Einion" and that simply naming him was sufficient to make the connection in the Cunedda document? It doesn't explain why no other surviving records mention the name, but it's part of the answer.
I also thought that with all the other kingdoms having similar names I'd have expected Einion to be king of Einion-something. I hadn't thought of it just plain being named "Einion" - yeah, that would make sense!
The idea of a kingdom with a forgotten name really fascinates and sort of scares me. As a species we often like to think we have a pretty good grasp on everything that happened before we got here, but there's so much that we just can't ever know without a time machine. There could be so much that we don't even KNOW we're missing because there are no references to it left at all.
That's very true, there will always be plenty of stuff that we can just never know about because it didn't even leave any hints behind
An example is 25,000 medieval manuscripts burned by the Revolutionaires in France during the reign of Terror, and that is just the medieval documents, overall documents destroyed during it is astronomically more, but the amount of patrimonial loss of the middle ages is immense.
@@alexmag342that just makes me upset :( so many stories…
@@alexmag342 In any regional archives in France, you find some notary documents sewn together into large volumes, with old medieval parchments with inluminated capital letters used as wraps or covers, holes punched in them, and laces passed through them. I saw such one "cover" made of several layers of medieval paper sheets GLUED layer upon layer, to make it thicker.
How much info is lost in those ruined pages, or in those that butchers or fishmongers utilized to wrap up their merchandise!
@@CambrianChronicles Thank you very much for your videos. I do research somewhat similar to yours, but for a later period, and I see what exactly you're up against, except that for your period, there are more lacunae than solid matter. Very interesting.
Wales seems to be one of the only places on Earth where kingdoms and people that existed were forgotten and ones that didn't are remembered.
No, it's actually the opposite message to be taken away from all this:
Historic records are often not worth the parchment they are written on.
I think that does happen pretty often, myths tend to survive because they become popular and widespread while actual history is only preserved in text and thus is reliant on someone putting in the work to preserve them.
@@hedgehog3180 See, for example, King Arthur.
@@hedgehog3180 Pretty much. If its a good story and is retold it will survive in some form. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend
most places on Earth are probably full of forgotten kingdoms or states - see Pre-Incan Andean region or many parts of Mesoamerica, from which neither pictorial/written records nor oral histories survived. We know that there were cultures, civilisations etc. based on archaeological record but how they were organized? What were their names, how many kingdoms, where were the capitals, what dynasties? No idea.
This channel has the most niche yet interesting topics I’ve would have never considered in a lifetime. It’s honestly a gem
Haha thank you
@@CambrianChronicles wow i havent read too much into English Kings before conquest 😅 its crazy that Rome was only an administration and army with Generals 😅 and they went away
A gem you say? Ö
@@jerseydevil5712 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
I couldn't agree more. I stumbled across this channel completely randomly and I'm absolutely hooked. I have never had an interest in Welsh history, in fact while I could point out Wales on a map, I couldn't tell you where the borders were, but now it's ancient medieval kingdoms sit fresh in my mind like the neighboring town in my current city. Fascinating stuff and it's amazing what we can glean from these manuscripts, art, and folk Legends. I do believe every Legend and tail is based in some bit of History, of course with Embellishments, but we should not discount fairy tales. Three cheers to the author of these amazing stories, keep up the great work
I remember when I first played ck2, the amount of tiny kingdoms in Wales surprised me a lot. I remember, back when I first played it, many of those kingdoms didn't even have a Wikipedia page.
Now, after watching your videos for quite some time, not only I know now the history of those places, but I realize how many other obscure or more ancient kingdoms were left out! How much rich history wales has, how much happened in such a tiny place. I don't know why I'm so drawn to welsh history, I have nothing to connect me to wales. But it's such an interesting topic! thank you for these videos.
Thank you for watching them! I'm glad you've found them interesting, and I'm always happy to hear someone has been introduced to the topic of Welsh history despite having no personal connection to it
I bloody love Crusader Kings 2. I really need dive back into it again.
One day ck3 will give Wales as many counties as ck2
@@battlez9577 Yeah, it's a shame what they did to it in ck3. They even got rid of the 768 which included two extra welsh counties, pengwern and ergyng, or smth like it
@CambrianChronicles English here, so not DIRECTLY connected and I still find it absolutely fascinating. You do great videos!
I find it a little amusing how tiny early medieval British kingdoms were because, for example this one, is an area s small and sparsely populated that it only has two MPs (one Conservative and one Plaid Cymru if you are interested) in the modern Parliament. It really highlights how difficult it was to maintain rule over a territory without the complex layers of communication and administration of later centuries
Bureaucracy wins out in the end.
Also just the ambition of the locals to declare their own king
Or earlier. Just take a look at the Romans.
Wales is also something of a special case because the mountainous landscape creates natural barriers and makes it extremely defensible, thus making it hard to maintain rule over large areas. So even for the Middle Ages Wales has some exceptionally small polities.
@@admiralsquatbar127 Wrong, romans made extensive use of client nobles and handing out province rule and tax collecting to subcontractors because they couldn't do it either. Hell, Rome itself was split into east and west (with two co-emperors each, so 4 parts total) because even their state apparatus was way too inefficient to handle it sooo...
"Fortunately for us, Ireland exists"
As an Irishman, we don't hear that too often, and it feels great
We need our Bushmills.
We're happy to have y'all 😊
Shoutout Ireland
What the hell is ire land? It sounds like a pretty resentful place.
@@homelessperson5455 what was that riot about last month ?
Greetings from Iran, as a person interested in history due to my country's old heritage, your channel is quite interesting to discover another country's different dynasties.
Thank you, I'm glad to hear!
My father is from Iron too. :)
@@Angie2343 oh thats nice :D I'm glad he managed to get out of Iran tho, it isn't a nice place to live rn...
@@leahthegeek9677 yup
That is funny. I am from Gwynedd, and I have been taking an interest in Iran lately. I would love to visit the North sometime.
I'd like to thank you for helping spread Welsh history to more people, I have a few friends from there and learning about their country's history is incredibly interesting!
Thank you, I'm happy to help!
Before Cambrian Chronicles, I always saw Wales as one big coal mine, and also where longbows came from.
Now I see it as one big coal mine with deep and interesting folk history, and also where longbows came from.
Probably the most infuriating thing with historical records of any kind (and we still do it today) is that they over-rely on cultural context and often leave out VITAL INFORMATION, or make an off-handed reference to a book that has been lost to time which would have been popular and well known by educated people at the time. And now, poof, they're gone forever, and we will literally never know the context so many ancient writers thought was too mundane or common knowledge to record.
Right?! Like, appendices exist! Put the extra reading materials there for us keeners!
Your videos on Welsh history are downright stellar. I am a Spaniard from Galicia and I wouldn't have gotten interested in the subject without them.
I'm also a historian (well, History professor, I'm starting my PhD right now) and your description of how much History has been lost quite poignant. I have studied the Irmandiño Revolt in Galicia, a historical event that happened in the second half of the 15th Century, and it is incredible how few primary sources we have about a war that lasted 3 long years and had a huge effect on Galician society and the end of Medieval feudalism in the region. Before the 20th Century, the only accounts of the events came from noblemen that spoke about it tangentially, only giving us a few lines about it. It is only with the discovery of a trial (which wasn't even initially about the revolt) filled with first-person accounts from peasants about the events that we started to actually understand the Irmandiño Revolt. And, even a century after its discovery, it is still the only in-depth source we have about it.
Without it, the Irmandiño Revolt would have been a sidenote with very little information about it. And all coming from the anti-Irmandiño side.
That's fascinating, it's amazing what a single source can do for historiography, I'm glad some records were preserved, thank you for sharing!
I have spent a bit of time in Viladerrai, (near Trasmiras), Galicia, and find this very interesting. I'm going to Google it now. Thanks for sharing.
Love the sneaky "loss" there out of the shapes!
Huge fan of creators who have fun with their high-quality content ^^
Haha thank you
I was like “is that intentional or do I have internet brain rot” 😂
Where it is?
@@Viziviragat around 11:50
Screamed obscenities, its been so long i had forgotten abt loss until i was forcebly drug back into that joke by funny shapes my brain can't view with ignorance.
it might sound cheesy to say this but i feel that you honor your country profoundly with the passion of your research and your commitment to preserving and *rediscovering* its history whose memory has been unjustly eroded by time, an empire, and myriad other complications that historians face. that already great honor is doubled by how beautifully you share it with us. we’re all fortunate to benefit from your hard and brilliant work! diolch yn fawr iawn am bopeth!
Thank you very much, that's very kind of you, I'm always happy to share the history of Wales
This guy has one of the most calming voices on youtube
Haha thank you, I'm glad you think so
He's also helping me with my Welsh pronunciation!
I'll be honest, and I say this with the greatest appreciation of their content, I've used videos and playlists of this channel to fall asleep to several times.
Yes, it’s such a gentle, lilting voice. Lilting voices are oddly rare nowadays.
Got that ASMR voice lolol
This channel continues to blow my mind in how it manages to unvail such deep historical facts with detective work
Thank you, I hope you liked the video!
So glad that one of the best historical channels on RUclips is Welsh, it's really helping to improve our little countries image online.
Thank you, I'm glad you think so!
As a fellow Welshman thanks for making our history interesting even to those outside of Wales! Its been crazy to see the growth this channel has seen over the last year or so and I think that's a testament to the quality of your content! Diolch yn fawr
Thank you very much!
It's fascinating how much I don't know about Wales despite being the country next door, and how amazingly interesting it is. Thanks for these videos!
Thank you for watching!
this is me whenThe Mystery of the Kingdom that Forgot its Own Name
11:06 What if the name of the kingdom ACTUALLY was named Yrth? This is 100% what the younger one of a family would tend to do, who must have thought of himself as being so cool and full of it that he can just call his kingdom "The Mighty" like an absolute chad (or loser, depending on who you ask) with issues about projecting. Big "Super Dooper Mega Kingdom 8000" vibes.
I was thinking similar. The later names being so similar to Yrth just seems to fit too well
That would be really funny.
“What village am I in?”
Welshman: “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.”
No wonder you can’t remember your kingdom name.
There's a button beneath this comment, inserted by Google. You are supposed to hit it, in order to translate the comment into English. I hit the button. I was disappointed to see that your, already in English, comment didn't translate the village's name into "St. Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.""
@@catabor1It switched a W to a U tho, so that was helpful
That’s funny
"Einion, who was given... oh, fuck this" -- Historia Brittonum
@@ILikedGooglePlusfor ease of pronunciation.
Why am I, a guy who lives on the other side of the ocean in Mexico, who's never been to England, much less Wales, and whose only fact he knew of Medieval Wales was that there was a kingdom named Gwynedd, watching this channel? I literally discovered this channel because of your King Arthur video that somehow got recommended to me because I had watched videos of an anime franchise called Fate in which King Arthur is a woman. And now I have watched all your videos about a place I have previously never gave more than 10 minutes of thought at once.
You are a legend, and I just wish there was someone that covered the history of my country with the same passion and depth that you do with Wales.
Thank you very much, I'm really glad you like the videos!
The Ancient Americas channel is really good, it's almost exclusively dedicated to pre-Columbian history though but it does cover the Mexica and other groups living in what is now Mexico quite a bit.
+1 Ancient Americas! And maybe this would be a good topic for a new channel, if you can do the research.
Whats ironic is that these men probably thought they were going to live forever through the annals of history.
As a historian, I just love to watch your videos to relax 😂 I love your work mate
Thank you, I'm glad to hear it!
Sometimes some videos are so good that i wish I could “like” them twice or more. Yours are often in that category and this one is definitely in it. Great work. I am an American living in Tokyo but thank you for making me feel a bit closer to my family’s welsh heritage.
I discovered this channel a few days ago and am visibly impressed by the historical treatment.
Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪
I always put these videos on in the evening before bed. It's always a tug of war between wanting to stay awake for the cool history, or falling asleep from all the pleasant visuals and your great voice!
Awesome stuff!
Thank you!
Man as a teeny tiny content creator I watch your stuff in some awe. Super well researched, good audio quality, excellent video editing, and damn good release speed. 100k subs is right around the corner and then it's only gonna accelerate faster and faster for you I think, I tip my hat.
Thank you, that's very kind
this is why I like channels like this one. I learned something new by watching it. I’m 55 years old and I’m still learning history. I love it!
Watching videos like these feels like taking the best history class in college that you could ever take.
Thank you very much, that's very kind, I'm glad you're enjoying the channel!
Another great RUclips video. I always wondered why Gildas mentioned Rhos as it’s own Kingdom but Historia Brittonum mentions it as part of Gwynedd.
Thank you! The connections between the two are very interesting, and if it wasn't for Gildas separating them then it could be fairly reasonable to conclude that they'd always been part of the same unit
I found this to be quite an informative video! I, too, find it quite incredible that we forgot the name of an entire kingdom... let alone one that conquered Gwynedd, and whose descendants included not only the kings that would unify most of Wales, but also (eventually) Henry VII, who won the War of the Roses!
Instead, we are left with "the driver of the chariot of the receptacle of the bear" (a phrase I never thought I would ever hear), a place in Rhos that _may_ be the missing kingdom, and incomplete Welsh and Irish records.
Thanks for the information!
It’s definitely a unique phrase! Thank you for watching, I’m glad you enjoyed it
That ending was a very poignant description about what i find so compelling learning about history. It is that allure of learning the mystery about people who influenced so much of your life that you didn’t even realise existed in the first place, who had their names forgotten and who influenced your world that you take for granted without even knowing. And i don’t know, perhaps one day we’ll find out what those posters in the wall are all about.
Another excellent video from you Cambria (or should i say Cadwaldr now?) looking forward for your next video in earnest.
To me it's also that you often encounter things that completely shatter whatever simplified world view you had before and really forces you to see things from a new perspective. We tend to treat history as a neat straight line narrative from the past into the present but history is so much more complicated than that and demands that we examine it on its own premises.
I'm English and really enjoy your channel as I love the way you reference different Historians and different Documents in a way that identifies you as a "proper historian" and not one of those who just repeats drivel he half remembers from his long ago school days. At school in England in the 1960s/70s History kind of went Britons/Romans/Anglo Saxon Jutes/ all glossed over in a week or two then 1066 happened and History began. Being a ongoing reader of any history since I left school I always remember the words of my O'level History teacher when he said "Unfortunately most of the history taught in schools is based on crap made up by Victorians". Well done!
Yeah, we're not even given a full picture about the Anglo Saxons, let alone anyone else wandering around Britain. Unless it's Roman or Norman.
Because of you i discovered welsh history. Greetings from Germany
I'm glad to hear, I hope you're enjoying the videos!
Thanks to your videos, by now I probably know more about medieval Welsh history than most students being taught their land's history in Wales.
I have something I need to say. We are of course very aware and should applaud your efforts in researching and shedding light on these topics. But @14:33 you made me snort my drink out of my nose. It was uncalled for and I applaud you for this as well.
11:49 "See here, Carruthers? These seemingly simple markings? I feel that they must be... significant somehow... ah, I fear that we will never divine their true meaning - another great mystery of the ages!"
I love your thorough, academical listing of sources. Even page numbers. This is how it should be done!
Delighted to see Marc Morris there as well, now there's an excellent author and historian. Keep it up, massive respect!
Thank you!
The lens through which we view history is an interesting one since it always through the eyes of those telling it and how that echoes down the years is remarkable. The kingdom likely wasn't expanded upon because it was a history of something else that just referenced it.
This is a video about Wales but Imagine in 2000 years someone watches this video and comes away thinking "wtf is an Ireland?"
Like you reference the country and most of the people watching likely don't need an explanation further but what is known about Ireland might be completely gone by then or the name is simply an unknown
What also often causes confusion in modern audiences is that states in pre-modern times weren't nation states and functioned in fundamentally different ways. The concept of nation state probably won't survive forever either so at some point a lot of current day texts about geopolitics will become near incomprehensible because it all just assumes the concept of a nation state. And like you don't find a lot of people today explaining what a nation state is because it's such a given to everyone so any historian wishing to understand it would probably have to go back to when the concept developed during the 19th century, and then just figure out that the concept still evolved quite a bit since then.
Omg babe wake up, the best channel on the whole of RUclips just posted
Haha thank you, I hope you liked it!
@@CambrianChronicles it was so good! The research you do to create these must take ages hey. Keep at it!!!!
Your Whole Channel Can Make A Person Despair Due To Such Small Amount Of Knowledge We Actually Have And Have Recorded Of Our History
ESPECIALLY From The "Non-Mainstream" Parts Of The World Like Wales
Terrifying how much history might have been lost during the dissolution of the monasteries...
I think a video or series on the War of the Roses and how it connects to Welsh history would be really cool.
Yes!! I'd love the Welsh perspective on it- that's one of the most fascinating potential topics I've ever heard of!
Your channel gives me life, I think medieval mysteries are absolutely fascinating. Helps with D&D ideas too ;)
Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying them!
i love ur coverage of the brittonic kingdoms. the history of wales is amazing, thank you as a channel for existing. its truly just awesome
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy it!
You are so close to 100k!
Which is of course very well deserved, the way you are able to elucidate centuries of research and history into every video is truly magical, I was always a history buff but could never fully grasp all the intricacies present across welsh history until I found your channel.
Greetings from Brazil!
Thank you, I'm glad you like the videos! I'm hoping to reach 100,000 by the end of the year
So close to 100k! You deserve every one and more
Thank you, I'm really hoping to reach it by the end of the year
Seconded
its such a shame topics this channel covers get left out of broader history education entirely - especially as close as i am to Wales in England, its fascinating!
thanks for sharing :D
The English have a blindspot about the Celtic languages. That's maybe why.
Thanks for all the careful research. I have no special connection to Wales but this channel makes me appreciate its history and language much more.
I wonder - the list of the domains of Cunedda's sons lists associates Einion with "Yrth", which you translate as "the Mighty"; then later Cynlas is described as driving the chariot of "Dinerth". Is it possible that Yrth IS the name of Einion's kingdom, and that the "Dinerth" means that the name "Yrth" was incorporated into a later name?
That's certainly an interesting connection, thank you for sharing! I think the link is a little trickier to connect when using their contemporary spellings, though, as Yrth used to be spelt as "girt", which is pretty different from arth/eirth
Honestly I'm impressed at how you are able to continously find such interesting pieces of history to cover from such a tiny place in the world
I'm not interested in Welsh history for it's own sake, but I like mysteries. Excellent framing device for your videos.
Thank you, I'm hoping that framing will help introduce more people to the topic
(Dec 15 2023) This was randomly recommended to me today, and through the video I was at the edge of my seat, looking how you're trying to resurface from the sands of time a long forgotten name using genealogies of people long gone. Wonderful experience, I must say. Thank you very much for your efforts.
P.S.: Someone in comment section already mentioned Crusader Kings, and as a fellow CK enjoyer, now I am definitely gonna check the history of Welsh titles in game.
I just have to say thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into these videos. I've been on RUclips for a very long time now and have seen some of the best documentaries, reviews, and entertainment come and go on the platform. My general opinion regarding the recent crop of channels is that they are usually based on algorithms with no "soul." Your channel has gone straight to the top of my list.
Thank you very much, that's very kind!
@@CambrianChronicles You're very welcome!
this is the third video youve done that intersects with my research.
Best channel ever!!!!! I eat my fluoride free toothpaste in spoonfuls every Thursday this channel really helps me get it down with the beautiful layout and ur narration ! It’s almost like I don’t even realise I eat the paste
Thank you, I hope you enjoy eating the paste tomorrow since tomorrow is thursday and that's when it's time to eat the paste so I hope you enjoy eating the paste tomorrow since
The stick-figure comic in the middle is a perfect encapsulation of the frustration common to virtually all historians, but more so the further back in time their specialization is. "Write it down! _Write it down!_ PLEASE!"
I love these videos, being welsh myself learning the history of wales and watching you solve the mystery’s of medieval wales is something truly unique and special! 🎉🎉 (Merry Christmas btw)
Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying them!
nice, best channel for welsh history.
Thank you very much!
@@flam2202It's at the very bottom of the description, after the content sources
Thanks for uncovering these mysteries about old kingdoms as always, my main field of interest is very early japanese history and there is just as much misinformation and lack of proper analysis in the topic as well so these videos are great inspiration for what can be uncovered about ancient happenings with little practical evidence.
Hey so, I have no idea what's going on with the spooky little sections in your new videos, but I'm 1000% here for it lmao. The rest of the video was great too !
Haha thank you, they're just weird ideas I think up, I'm glad you like them!
OMG!!! CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY FOR US!!! TYSM😊
I hope you enjoyed it!
I have never before cared about Welsh or British history and I'll likely not care about it outside of watching your videos but the way you organize your thoughts and tell these stories...it's riveting. well done
it'd be so cool to see a collab video between you and Historia Civilis. A Briton-Roman conflict told from two perspectives. Claudius's conquest perhaps with Claudian's side told my HC and the native resistance's from yours
That would be very cool, I don't think he's even collabed with anyone though so he probably wouldn't be interested, sadly!
@@CambrianChronicles I will write under his newest video too when it comes out. hopefully he sees it and who knows, maybe he'll reach out
@@CambrianChroniclesmaybe Scotland history Tours...??...😊😊
Brilliant idea! My two favourite youtubers :)
I get so happy when I get a notification of a new video from this channel :)
Love seeing videos of this quality by a person who is genuinely knowledgeable on the topic.
Thank you, that's very kind!
this was very interesting. I am of Welsh and Scottish descent on my dad's side, love the history and the mystery of them.
My mother's maiden name is Parry. Apparently they were located in the north of Wales, near Caernarfon.
There is a very interesting moment in the family genealogy where somebody decided to throw his lot in with the English, as one generation's given names are (something like) Gruffydd, Rhys, and Angharad while Rhys's children are named Thomas, Edward, and Elizabeth.
Do they know about what century that happened in? I think it's really interesting.
@@franminanicollier9431 My sister would know, she's the one who mapped it out. I'll ask her.
A similar thing happened to my family. They migrated from Norway to Wales because of how poor it was in Norway at the time and changed their name to Wilson.
@@Chux13the Norwegian Whalers brought Lobscouse to Merseyside...the rest is ...Harry Enfield's affectionate spoof....😊😊
I have some Parrys in my ancestry but mine are from down south near the Herefordshire border via the Vaughans. I'm also a descendent of Dafydd Gam, who sided with the English.against Owain Glyndŵr at the Battle of Agincourt.
This is m favourite history channel by far. It is so interesting to learn about the place I live.
I'm glad to hear!
Man, your videos are great, also you give me the dopamine that deters me from faking my death.
That's quite a praise!
Oooh. I’m glad I held on until the end. That button-up made it all so much more intriguing. Nicely done! ❤
I read the Welsh had an influence on the Trinidadian accent,, I would like to see this deeply researched
A big influence on the Scousers accent too...😅😅😅😅
@@eamonnclabby7067 I had no idea, I have always been quite into welsh culture
Thank you for a very interesting video. It is so refreshing to hear the names of people and places pronounced correctly, instead of many of the posters on YT who can not be bothered to research the correct pronunciation of names within their videos. It is unforgivable in the internet era as it is so easy to do the research on correct pronunciation of any word.
The amount of research takes dedication.
Thank you!
True! And I appreciate it!
11:50 the "loss" did not go unnoticed sir
I would echo the ‘Write it Down’ mantra in a different context. Going through old family photos with nothing on the back of the print to say who they are, and those who remembered them now all dead too. So frustrating!
Same story here. Even more upsetting: in Paris, they still have those movable "brocantes", antique flea markets. You can find there, among all sorts of things, old family photographs of SOME unknown people, diaries, school journals, without any identification. I find it tragic: for me, it means a full extinction of a lineage. But even on the old photos that I hold from my late parents, I can't name 50% of those people - with nobody to ask anymore.
this is the only channel on yt where you can find fascinating historical tales subtly interrupted by loss before seamlessly transitioning back to the history
If it weren't for you, my fictional history of Sodor would look VERY different and way to in detail, sometimes its ok to leave stuff out to make it look more mysterious.
That's very true, I'm happy to have helped!
Another wonderful offering. Thanks
I love your videos. That make me want to learn more about Welsh history.
I'm glad to hear!
Your videos are very high quality and you obviously do great research, thank you for teaching us more about Welsh history
Thank you for watching them!
One unfortunate thing is I wish there were more painting or pictures of life back then in the 800s and the time period you often talk about. Because unfortunately no fault of your own it's just what exists, is mostly idealised victorian paintings and drawings of Medieval times, or later medieval paintings and pictures and paintings of ruined castles of the medieval times. I do always wonder what was a town like back then, what was the Kings residences like, in that time period. They would have had a beautiful and stunning back drop in north wales, that's one thing for certain. I imagine only some churches would be stone and the rest of all buildings would be Wood, but that's only conjecture from me.
Many illustrations have probably just not survived
I do know that there are plenty of 3D renders of early medieval towns though
@@dirckthedork-knight1201 we aren't talking about medieval times. Yeah of course there will be stuff that hasn't survived. But also if the sketches look like medieval paintings with no proper perspective and people are the size of buildings that is not what I'm interested in.
I'm going to pretend you said dark ages instead of me having to correct you again on what the topic is even about. So yeah but those 3d renders are lots of guess work. I want to know what it actually would have look like.
@@Alex-cw3rz “Dark Ages” is a subset of the Middle Ages. You’re trying to nag someone over some concretely defined boundary where there isn’t one. “Early Medieval”, what they said, is literally synonymous with the way in which you are using “Dark Ages”. Relax.
There's a lack of modern reconstructions for sites in places like Wales and Scotland. I'd like to know what Dumbarton looked like at the time of the viking siege. The siege lasted four months so the Britons must have had some decent defences. They gave up after running out of water so the fort there must have been more impressive than the handful of huts I've seen in some drawings of the site.
Phenomenal topic, narration, editing, researching
The zoom in to Siberia @5:58 makes it seem like you are trying to say that's where their from😂
Despite having no connection to wales in my ancestry. The indepth nature of the content about a time so long ago it puzzles me to imagine it is fascinating. Keep up the good work!
Given the gaps, one can't help but consider that maybe this account was part of a bigger text that was lost, one that presumed that the reader would have read the other parts first and thus would already know this stuff.
It’s so interesting to think about all of the kingdoms and kings who have died and their lands have been lost to time. Our world was so weird back then.
11:49 Oh you've got to be KIDDING ME. Nowhere is sacred.
Well done.
Gotta mix it up every once in a while
Do you know what that picture is of or anything else about it?
Really really appreciate the footnote notation in the subtitles.
Right, when the algorithm kicks in creators pretty much explode in popularity as CC deservingly does at the moment.
There’s somewhat similar channel called Welsh Viking. It’s significantly older than this one, has a good 200 videos more than this one and yet it has less subscribers. *Check that guy out.*
Both channels are great in its own way. I really enjoy Cambrian's delivery, visual style and neat music. Painstaking research of rich Welsh history through archives that’s being done is most appreciated of course.
It reminds me of late pagan to Moscow czardom period of my country’s history with its similarly fragmentary and unreliable sources, impossible genealogical and administrative mess and constant maneuvering in political landscape swarming with petty kingdoms.
Thanks for another fantastic video, sir!
Thank you, I'm hoping the algorithm will recommend this one lol.
The Welsh Viking is excellent also!
You have quickly become one of my absolute favorite RUclipsrs my man. Another absolute banger of a video. Gosh I can't believe you keep busting these out
Thank you very much! There’s many more to come
Love your videos man! Just wondering if youre thinking on expanding it to cover different celtic cultures? As always, keep up the good work!
I'd definitely like to someday, maybe for a few one-offs in the future!
Thank you for this beautiful documentary ❤
“Ignoring your adopted son is grate”💀💀💀
Man I love your videos! Especially the mysterious slightly eerie vibe. I like how you inserted that dream sequence xD
Haha thank you
11:58
I thought I was going to get stickbugged
Ahhh I wish I'd thought of that haha
I just realised that you use the font *Cambria* in these videos. Brilliant haha
Haha you’re the first person to ever notice that!
“Yassss King Cetula, let’s gooooo. Oh, what’s he king of? Naw he’s just a cool dude.”
- Some author 1300 years ago, probably
Damn, I didn't know King Cetula was chill like that
@@CambrianChronicles But genuinely, HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN!? There’s enough surviving evidence to translate ancient languages, and piece together histories once thought complete lost… but one of the countries who’s political history would eventually result in the birth of the Tudor dynasty is just gone? These authors must’ve had extreme beef with Rhos because this is some damnatio memoriae level concealment.
Maybe he was the King of Cool
This always reminds me, on a doc a historian said they don't get many details from actual historians, they get more details and a better look at the world of a given time from the mundane, personal diaries etc.
You should look into the Kingdom of Haiti, it's the most bizzare thing no one talks about funny enough it was also quite functional
Ah yes, an early medieval Cymry classic, Gwynedd Powys Gwent and Haiti
@@unilajamuha91 ??? I don't understand
@@theultimateartist4153he's saying that because this channel is primarily a Cymry (Welsh) history channel, whereas Haiti has little-to-no relation to Wales
@@raloniusmaximus Thanks for informing me, Yes it has no relation except in terms of obscurity which is what I originally thought this channel was
@@theultimateartist4153 yeah understandable, all good
I love this channel. The medieval rabbit holes are my favourite.❤
Glad you like them!
Isn't it possible the Kingdom associated with Rhos, was just named "Einion" and that simply naming him was sufficient to make the connection in the Cunedda document? It doesn't explain why no other surviving records mention the name, but it's part of the answer.
I also thought that with all the other kingdoms having similar names I'd have expected Einion to be king of Einion-something. I hadn't thought of it just plain being named "Einion" - yeah, that would make sense!
I think forgotten may be a generous way to describe this. Someone at some time, erased that kingdom for reasons.