Semi-legendary British king who, according to Bede, recruited Germanic mercenaries led by Hengist and Horsa to help fight off the Picts after the final withdrawal of the Roman administration from Britain (409). Tradition has it that the revolt of these troops opened the way for the Germanic conquests and settlements in England.
Vortigern, (also spelled Vortiger and Vortigen) was a 5th century warlord in Britain, a leading ruler among the Britons (Brythons).
The stories of Vortigern
Gildas
The first writer to tell the story of Vortigern was the sixth century historian Gildas, writing his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) in the first decades of the 6th century.
It is not clear whether Gildas used the name of Vortigern. Most editions published today omit the name, but there are at least two manuscripts that do: Avranches public library MS. The fact that Bede also used the name makes it likely that Gildas did so as well.
Gildas adds several small details that suggest either he or his source received at least part of the story from the Anglo-Saxons. The second detail is that he repeats that the visiting Saxons were "foretold by a certain soothsayer among them, that they should occupy the country to which they were sailing three hundred years, and half of that time, a hundred and fifty years, should plunder and despoil the same."
Gildas never addresses Vortigern as the king of Britain. Gildas also does not see Vortigern as bad;
Modern scholars have debated the various details of Gildas' story, and attempted to pry open his language after more information. One point of discussion has been over the words Gildas uses to describe the Saxon's subsidies (annonas, epimenia), and whether they are legal terms used in a treaty of foederati, a late Roman political practice of settling allied barbarian peoples within the boundaries of the Empire to furnish troops to aid in the defence of the Empire.
The only certainty one gets, after reading much of the secondary literature, is that even the writers close to Gildas in time struggled with the gaps in his account, which they filled with either their own research, or imagination.
Bede
The first to consider Gildas' account was Bede, who is highly praised by modern scholars for his scholarship and analysis. Bede only adds several details, perhaps most importantly the name of this "proud tyrant", Vortigern (Latin Uurtigernus/Uuertigernus/Vertigernus, Old English Wyrtgeorn). Since Bede heavily leaned on Gildas, this may simply be a confirmation that Gildas indeed used the name of Vortigern, too. Another significant detail which Bede added to Gildas' account is to call Vortigern the king of the British people.
Bede also supplies a date (which has been traditionally accepted, but was considered suspect since the late 20th century) of AD 446, "Marcian being made emperor with Valentinian, and the forty-sixth from Augustus, ruled the empire seven years." Bede seems to have used a period of 40 years, which he added to the end of Roman Britain, which he reasonably calculated at AD 409 or 406, when the first usurped may have attempted to rise against the regular Roman government.
Bede gives names to the leaders of the Saxons, Hengest and Horsa;
Historia Brittonum
The Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons), usually attributed to a certain Nennius, a monk from Bangor, Gwynedd, was probably compiled during the early 9th century. "Nennius" was the first to blacken the name of Vortigern, who is nonetheless figuring heavily in genealogies of many Welsh royal houses. Vortigern is accused of incest (a possible or perhaps intentional mistake of Vortigern for Vortipor, accused by Gildas of the same crime), oath-breaking, treason, love for a pagan woman, and lesser vices such as pride.
The Historia Brittonum recounts many details about Vortigern and his sons. Chapters 31-49 tell how Vortigern (Guorthigirn) deals with the Saxons and St. Germanus. Chapter 66 give important chronological calculations, mostly on Vortigern and the Adventus Saxonum.
Excluding what is taken from Gildas, there are six groupings of traditions:
Material quoted from a Life of Saint Germanus. These excerpts describe Saint Germanus' incident with one Benlli, an inhospitable host seemingly unrelated to Vortigern, who comes to a untimely end but his servant who provides hospitality is made the progenitor of kings of Powys; Vortigern's son by his own daughter, whom Germanus in the end raises; and Vortigern's own end caused by fire brought from heaven by Germanus' prayers. It has been suggested that the saint mentioned here may be no more than a local saint or a tale that had to explain all the holy places dedicated to a St. Germanus or a 'Garmon', who may have been a Powys saint or even a bishop from the Isle of Man around the time of writing the Historia Britonum. The side-step to Benlli seems only to be explained as a jab towards the rival dynasty of Powys, suggesting they did not descend from Vortigern, but from a mere slave. Stories that explain why Vortigern granted land in Britain to the Saxons -- first Thanet, in exchange for service as foederati troops; then Essex and Sussex, after a banquet where the Saxons treacherously slew all of the leaders of the British, but saved Vortigern to extract this ransom. This origin of the later legend of Merlin is clearly a local tale that had attracted the names of Vortigern and Ambrosius to usurp the roles of earlier characters. While neither of them has any connection with that remote part of Wales, the personage of Vortigern is best known to us because of this tale. The dates of 425 for when Vortigern came to power, the date of 428 of the arrival of the Saxons ("Adventus Saxonum") and 437 for the battle between a certain Vitalinus with Ambrosius at the Battle of Wallop (probably in Hampshire). As both dates are derived from a source that mentioned "the xth year of Vortigern", there is a possibility of an underlying chronicle here. A number of calculations attempting to fix the year Vortigern invited the Saxons into Britain. These are several calculations made by the writer, dropping interesting names and calculating their dates, making several mistakes in the process. Genealogical material about Vortigern's ancestry, the names of his four sons (Vortimer, Pascent, Catigern, Faustus), a father (Vitalis), a grandfather (Vitalinus) and a great-grandfather who is probably just an eponym (Gloui) which associates Vortigern with Glevum, the civitas of Gloucester.The Historia Brittonum relates four battles taking place in Kent, obviously related to material in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see below). In the Historia Brittonum it is claimed that Vortigern's son Vortimer, led the Britons against Hengest's Saxons. Moreover, it is claimed that the Saxons were driven out of Britain, only to return at Vortigern's re-invitation a few years later, following the death of Vortimer.
The stories preserved in the Historia Brittonum reveal an attempt by one or more anonymous British scholars to provide more detail to this story, while struggling to accommodate the facts of the British tradition. This is an important point, as it indicates that either at the time, or near that time, there were one or more Welsh kings who traced their genealogy back to Vortigern.
An early British chronicle fragment
The earliest form of the name of Vortigern that we know of is Uuertigernus, which comes from a manuscript bound at the end of the Bern Codex 178.
Our main interest in this altered copy of Bede's recapitulation is the name "Uuertigerno". This form of the name Vortigern is unique, although for all we know the annalist might have drawn it also from Bede, as the rest of the text. Bede, who drew largely from Gildas, used Vertigernus in his De Temporum Ratione (III, 66), a form which he also must have obtained from an early British source, whether this was a version of Gildas or some other, lost source. Bede's usual form is the pre-literary English form Uur-, which he uses in his Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (I.14), which must have been copied from a document written in the early 7th century.
A similar annal to this one, containing the form Vertigerno, was found by H.
The earliest form of Vortigern would be the theoretical Celtic *Wortigernos. The Irish form of the name is Foirtchern(n), a name that also appears in Scotland. In Brittany the name is Gurthiern, a form related to the Welsh Gwrtheyrn. The literary (Anglo-Saxon) form of the name is Wyrtgeorn.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
When we reach the accounts in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we are presented with a great amount of information and seemingly great detail. The Chronicle provides dates and locations of four battles Hengest and his brother Horsa fought against the British in southeast Britain, in the historic county of Kent. Vortigern is said to have been the leader of the British in only the first battle, the opponents in the next three battles variously called "British" and "Welsh" -- which is not unusual for this part of the Chronicle. No Saxon defeat is acknowledged, but the geographical sequence of the battles suggests a Saxon retreat and the Chronicle locates the last battle, dated to 465 in Wippedsfleot, the place where the Saxons first landed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle presents the year 455 as the last date when Vortigern is mentioned.
Because the date of the material underlying the compilation of the Historia Brittonum is disputed, and could be later than the Chronicle, some argue that the Historia Britonum took its material from a source close to the Chronicle;
Geoffrey of Monmouth
It was with the pen of Geoffrey of Monmouth that the story of Vortigern adopted its best-known form in the fictional Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).
Some of the new elements he introduces may however come from contemporary oral tradition: for instance the site of the banquet where the Saxons slew the British, located in modern Wiltshire (suggested by the construction of Stonehenge in their honour), and the figure of Eldol, Count of Gloucester, who fights his way out of the Saxon trap to serve as a loyal retainer to Aurelius Ambrosius (Geoffrey's form of the name of the aristocrat Gildas calls Ambrosius Aurelianus).
In addition, Geoffrey states that Vortigern was the successor to Constans, the son of the usurping emperor Constantine III. Further, Vortigern used Constans as a puppet king and ruled the nation through him until he finally managed to kill him through the use of insurgent Picts. Besides that, more reminds us of Vortigern; the name of the bishop is Guitelin, a name similar to the Vitalinus mentioned in the ancestry of Vortigern, and to the Vitalinus who is said to have fought with an Ambrosius at Guoploph/Wallop. This Guithelin/Vitalinus disappears without a trace from the story as soon as Vortigern arrives. All these coincidences add up to the assumption that Geoffrey duplicated the story of the invitation of the Saxons, and that the tale of Guithelinus the archbishop might possibly give us some insight into the background of Vortigern before his rise to power.
Geoffrey is also the first to mention the name of Hengest's daughter, who seduces Vortigern to marry her, after which his sons rebel, as a certain Rowen, also called Ronwen, Renwein or Rowena, none of which is a Germanic name. Like the Historia Brittonum, Geoffrey adds that Vortigern was succeeded briefly by his son Vortimer.
William of Malmesbury
Writing shortly after Geoffrey of Monmouth, William added much to the damnatio memoriae of Vortigern: "At this time Vortigern was King of Britain;
William however does add some detail, no doubt because of a good local knowledge. first, at a place called Wirtgernesburg, and then at a mountain named Pene..". Though this might simply indicate that Vortigern’s name was attached to a wandering folk-tale old enough to become attached to Bradford ("Broad Ford") before the Saxons came there in the second half of the 7th century, we must consider that William lived nearby and must have known the region well.
Wace
After William of Malmesbury, Wace adds any more material to the tale of Vortigern, and scholars consider him a more reliable reporter of the oral tradition than Geoffrey. Vortigern rarely appears in the later stories of King Arthur, but when he does he is usually the figure as described by either Geoffrey of Monmouth or Wace.
It is not easy to dismiss Vortigern as a fictional character, invented to explain how the Saxons came to dwell in Britain and control much of the eastern part of the island.
Vortigern: history or apocrypha?
Having waded through all of these stories, one probably wants to know if there was a real human being behind it all: was there a magistrate or aristocrat in post-Roman Britain who actually negotiated a treaty with a number of Saxons to serve as mercenaries?
The inscription on the Pillar of Eliseg, a mid-9th century stone cross, gives the Brythonic variant of Vortigern: Guorthigern, a name similar to Vortigern, or Gildas' "superbus tyrannus".
It has been suggested that Vortigern is a title rather than a name. However, none of the contemporary persons bearing similar names containing -tigern (St. Kentigern, Catigern, Ritigern or Tigernmaglus) are ranked as kings, which makes this suggestion unlikely. And although there are more person named Vortigern (nine persons in Ireland named Vortigern, Fortchern or Foirtchern are known), all but one are commoners. That makes it extremely unlikely that Vortigern is a title.
It seems certain that there existed a person called Vortigern. Either way, the legendary Vortigern is of more impact than the real Vortigern, in much the same manner as the legendary Greek king Theseus.
Portrayals of Vortigern on television
In the 1991 television programme, Merlin of the Crystal Cave, Vortigern was portrayed by Jon Finch.
In the 1998 television mini-series, Merlin, Vortigern was portrayed by Rutger Hauer.
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