How Cumbria created the Britannia symbol on our coins
A beautiful helmeted woman in a slinky dress with spear and shield has been on our money for centuries - so what is her hidden connection to Cumbria?
In 1731, a mysterious cache of sculptures was discovered near the Roman fort at Birrens in Scotland, about thirty miles north of Carlisle.
They were buried in the ruins of a two-thousand-year-old temple. Soldiers guarding the most dangerous zone north of Hadrian’s Wall used to pray there for survival in battle.
The most intriguing figurine to emerge from the rubble was a high relief carving of a woman wearing a plumed helmet. She was standing in her own niche, dressed in a flowing gown, holding a spear in her right hand while to her left stood a shield.
When this beautifully preserved image, standing about a yard high and eighteen inches wide, first came out of the ground traces of expensive gold gilding were still clinging to the surface of the sandstone. This indicated the Romans regarded it as a very sacred object.
The inscription on the bottom of the altar reads: "Sacred to Brigantia”.
The impressive female depicted above these words is the Celtic goddess that protected Carlisle. The Romans particularly admired Brigantia because they reckoned she was a version of Minerva and Victoria, their goddesses of war and victory. These were issues that were terribly important to soldiers on a hazardous frontier.
The Romans were convinced that the deities the natives worshipped across the Empire must be related in some way to their own pantheon of gods. The process of figuring out what the correspondences were was known as “interpretatio Romana”. Once the link was satisfactorily established they paid homage to the local gods on the basis that it was better to be safe than sorry.
Religion was a life-or-death matter on the furthest-flung border of the Empire. The inscription on Brigantia’s statue goes on to say that it was installed in the temple by “Amandus, the engineer”, the important man who oversaw the building of the new fort in 160 AD.
It is quite likely the statuette was carved in Carlisle. It is now on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Brigantia, whose name means “the Exalted One”, was an important deity. In addition to the above-mentioned attributes, she was also the Celtic goddess of poetry, learning, prophecy, fertility, prosperity, healing, peace - and sovereignty.
For the Celts, words meant a lot. They did not write things down very much. But, paradoxically, that meant words were more important to them, not less. The Celts were very poetic. In fact, the poetic tradition that England is so proud of is much, much more Celtic than, say, that of the late-coming Anglo Saxons. For example, Wordsworth’s poetry is saturated with Celtic philosophy and symbolism. That is why we should pay a lot of attention what Celtic words mean.
Therefore, it is worth unpacking what the name Brigantia means. The “brig” part of her name means flame, force, vigour and exalted status. It also refers to a high part of the landscape such as a Celtic “oppida” or fortified town such as Carlisle.
If you delve even further back into the past, you will find that Brigantia was worshipped as the female creator or the mother goddess across the ancient Celtic world (the Romans had a similar concept: the matres domesticate).
Brigantia was seen as being so powerful that the main Celtic tribe that inhabited what are now the six northernmost counties of England (including Cumbria) venerated her as their native goddess - and they called themselves the Brigantes in her honour.
She was also known as St Bridget, Brigid, Brig, Brid and Bride. Now, this is fascinating because the legacy of Cumbria’s profoundly Celtic past is expressed across the county in the names of Cumbrian churches and local settlements. This is no accident.
When early Christians spread their religion across the place we now call Cumbria following the departure of the Romans they took care to convert the traditional Celtic deities into Christian saints to encourage potential followers of pagan religions to sign up.
Hence, there is a Cumbrian village called Bridekirk with a church called St Bridget that was built in stone in 1130. But before that, a wooden church stood on the same site which almost certainly was there during the Celtic Kingdom of Cumbria before 945 AD when the last king of Cumbria, Dunmail, lost his kingdom.
There is another St Bridget of similar antiquity at Beckermet on the coast, and a 12th Century church called St Bridget at Brigham. At Kirkbride, there is yet another pre-Conquest church dedicated to St Bridget. So, the goddess Brigantia remained a powerful presence in Cumbria well into the early Middle Ages.
So, when you look at the statue of Berigantia that was dug up at Birrens statue, the way she looks might strike you as being oddly familiar. This is not surprising, because for the past three hundred years Britain’s Royal Mint has produced coins with a female figure on the back that looks very similar to Brigantia. She is a woman in a flowing gown armed with a spear and shield and wearing a Corinthian helmet that we know as Britannia.
How did she get there? Well, it is important to look at the history of the first years of the Roman invasion of Britain. When they got here, the legions found themselves facing faced an unexpectedly bloody 30-year slog just to take over the south of the island alone. They had no hope of tacking the menacingly unruly tribes to the north at the same time. So, they did a deal with the Celtic queen of northern England, Cartimadua.
For 26 years she served as a proxy ruler, clamping down a vast swathe of territory from Yorkshire the Pennines and the place we now know as Cumbria. She prevented the Caledonians from invading. For this service the Romans paid her lavishly, in gold. She was such an effective ruler her tribal coalition, known as the Brigantes (named after the goddess), regarded her as a divine reincarnation of Brigantia. Both she and the god became inextricably associated with the land she protected.
Her role was so significant that the Roman geographer, Ptolemy, who lived from 100-170AD, referred in his writings to Cartimandua’s realm as Brigantia, or Britannia, vaguely to refer to “the people to the north of the bit we occupy.” It caught on.
Roman Britain was subsequently divided into four provinces in 197 AD. The rich south was named Britannia Superior (“Upper Britain”). The poorer north was named Britannia Inferior (“Lower Britain”). An image like Brigantia was adopted as the symbol of the whole place. That is why Brigantia-Britannia found her way onto the coins the Romans issued in Britain.
For example, just before his wall-building visit to Cumbria in 122 AD, the Emperor Hadrian issued two coins, known as Bronze Asses. They commemorated his victories in a bloody four-year war the Romans waged in the Brigantes’ territory against British rebels. By this stage, Cartimandua had gone, and the Romans were ruling the north themselves. The Asses bore the image of a scantily-dressed woman they called Britannia. She was meant to symbolise the people he supposed Hadrian had defeated, languishing in supine surrender.
However, the name Britannia and the image was so powerful that it survived the end of Roman rule. It gradually underwent a transformation so that ultimately it became the assertive, not a passive, symbol of Britain.
In 1672, Britannia made her reappearance on Britain’s coinage during the reign of Charles II, initially on the farthing. Wearing a loosely draped gown, she was bare headed, held a spray of leaves symbolising Britain’s desire for peace in her right hand and a spear symbolising preparedness for war in the other. A shield was propped by her left side.
A century later Britannia's spear was swapped for the characteristic trident in 1797 to symbolise the Royal Navy's victories at sea, and her helmet was restored to her head in 1825 to represent Britain’s military successes on land.
Britannia’s symbol is still a potent image of Britain. The Royal Mint has been issuing solid gold bullion coins since 1997 carrying an updated image of Britannia. Her image appears everywhere in British culture…
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This is a short extract from a new book called Secrets of the Lost Kingdom.
You can buy the book at The New Bookshop, Main Street, Cockermouth, at the Moon & Sixpence cafe at Lakeside, Keswick, Bookends in Keswick and Carlisle, and Sam Read in Grasmere.
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