Ambrosius Aurelianus - Other Accounts

Other Accounts

Bede follows Gildas' account of Ambrosius in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, but in his Chronica Majora he dates Ambrosius' victory to the reign of the Emperor Zeno (474–491).

The Historia Brittonum preserves several snippets of lore about Ambrosius. The most significant of these is the story about Ambrosius, Vortigern, and the two dragons beneath Dinas Emrys, "Fortress of Ambrosius" in Chapters 40–42. This story was later retold with more detail by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his fictionalized Historia Regum Britanniae, conflating the personage of Ambrosius with the Welsh tradition of Merlin the visionary, known for oracular utterances that foretold the coming victories of the native Celtic inhabitants of Britain over the Saxons and the Normans. Geoffrey also names him as one of three sons of Constantine III, along with Constans II and Uther Pendragon.

But there are smaller snippets of tradition preserved in the Historia Brittonum: in Chapter 31, we are told that Vortigern ruled in fear of Ambrosius; later, in Chapter 66, various events are dated from a Battle of Guoloph (often identified with Wallop, 15 km (9.3 mi) ESE of Amesbury near Salisbury), which is said to have been between Ambrosius and Vitolinus; lastly, in Chapter 48, it is said that Pascent, the son of Vortigern, was granted rule over the regions of Buellt and Gwrtheyrnion by Ambrosius. It is not clear how these various traditions relate to each other, or whether they come from the same tradition; it is very possible that these references are to different men with the same name. The Historia Brittonum dates the battle of Guoloph to "the twelfth year of Vortigern", by which 437 seems to be meant. This is perhaps a generation before the battle that Gildas says were commanded by Ambrosius Aurelianus.

At the end of the story in Chapters 40–42, Vortigern hands over to Ambrosius "the fortress, with all of the kingdoms of the western part of Britain." In Chapter 48 Ambrosius Aurelianus is described as "king among all the kings of the British nation". It is impossible to know to what degree he actually wielded political power, and over what area, but it is certainly possible that he ruled some part of England. Léon Fleuriot has suggested Ambrosius is identical to Riothamus, a Brythonic leader who fought a major battle against the Goths in France around the year 470. Fleuriot argues that Ambrosius led the Britons in the battle, in which he was defeated and forced to retreat to Burgundy. He then returned to Britain to continue the war against the Saxons.

Because Ambrosius and Vortigern are shown in the Historia Brittonum as being in conflict, some historians have suspected that this preserves a historical core of the existence of two parties in opposition to one another, one headed by Ambrosius and the other by Vortigern. J. N. L. Myres built upon this suspicion and speculated that belief in Pelagianism reflected an actively provincial outlook in Britain and that Vortigern represented the Pelagian party, while Ambrosius led the Catholic one. Subsequent later historians accepted Myers' speculation as fact, creating a narrative of events in 5th century Britain with various degrees of elaborate detail. Yet a simpler alternative interpretation of the conflict between these two figures is that the Historia Brittonum is preserving traditions hostile to the purported descendants of Vortigern, who at this time were a ruling house in Powys. This interpretation is supported by the negative character of all of the stories retold about Vortigern in the Historia Brittonum, which include his alleged practice of incest.

Ambrosius Aurelianus appears in later pseudo-chronicle tradition beginning with Geoffrey's Historiae Regum Britanniae with the slightly garbled name Aurelius Ambrosius, now presented as son of a King Constantine. When King Constantine's eldest son Constans is murdered at Vortigern's instigation, the two remaining sons, Ambrosius and Uther, still very young, are quickly hustled into exile in Brittany. (This does not fit with Gildas' account, in which Ambrosius' family perished in the turmoil of the Saxon uprisings.) Later, when Vortigern's power has faded, the two brothers return from exile with a large army, destroy Vortigern and become friends with Merlin.

In Welsh, Ambrosius appears as Emrys Wledig (Emperor Ambrose). In Robert de Boron's Merlin he is called simply Pendragon and his younger brother is named Uter, which he changes to Uterpendragon after the death of the elder sibling. This is probably a confusion that entered oral tradition from Wace's Roman de Brut. Wace usually only refers to li roi ("the king") without naming him, and someone has taken an early mention of Uther's epithet Pendragon as the name of his brother.

S. Appelbaum has suggested that Amesbury in Wiltshire might preserve in it the name of Ambrosius, and perhaps Amesbury was the seat of his power base in the later fifth century. Place name scholars have found a number of place names through the Midland dialect regions of Britain that incorporate the ambre- element: examples include Ombersley in Worcestershire, Ambrosden in Oxfordshire, Amberley in Herefordshire, Amberley in Gloucestershire and Amberley in West Sussex. These scholars have claimed this element represents an Old English word amor, the name of a woodland bird. However, Amesbury in Wiltshire is in a different dialect region and does not easily fit into the pattern of the Midland dialect place names. If this etymology is combined with the tradition reported by Geoffrey of Monmouth stating that Ambrosius Aurelianus ordered the building of Stonehenge – which is located within the parish of Amesbury (and where Ambrosius was supposedly buried) – and with the presence of an Iron Age hill fort also in that parish, then it may be tempting to connect Ambrosius with Amesbury.