Вортигерн: Британский военачальник V века

5th century ruler in Sub Roman Britain

Vortigern ('/v//ɔːr//t//ᵻ//dʒ//ɜːr//n/; , Guorthegern; Gwrtheyrn; ; Old Breton: Gurdiern, Gurthiern; ; Vortigernus, Vertigernus, Uuertigernus, etc. ), also spelled Vortiger, Vortigan, Voertigern and Vortigen, was a 5th century warlord in Britain, known perhaps as a king of the Britons or at least connoted as such in the writings of Bede and Gildas. His existence is contested by scholars and information about him is obscure. He may have been the "superbus tyrannus" said to have invited Hengist and Horsa to aid him in fighting the Picts and the Scots, whereupon they revolted, killing his son in the process and forming the Kingdom of Kent. It is said that he took refuge in North Wales, and that his grave was in Dyfed or the Llŷn Peninsula. Gildas later denigrated Vortigern for his misjudgement and also blamed him for the loss of Britain. He is cited at the beginning of the genealogy of the early Kings of Powys.

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle provides dates and locations of four battles which Hengest and his brother Horsa fought against the British in the county of Kent. The sources are obscure for the fifth century annals; however, an analysis of the text demonstrates some poetic conventions, so it is probable that they were derived from an oral tradition such as sagas in the form of epic poems. There is dispute as to when the material was written which comprises the Historia Brittonum, and it could be later than the Chronicle. Some historians argue that the Historia Brittonum took its material from a source close to the Chronicle.

The story of Vortigern adopted its best known form in Geoffrey's pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae. Geoffrey names Constans the older brother of Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon. After the death of their father, Constantinus III, Vortigern persuades Constans to leave his monastery and claim the throne. Constans proved a weak and unpopular puppet monarch and Vortigern ruled the country through him until he finally managed Constans' death by insurgent Picts. and gave a line of descent leading to the royal family of Powys, who erected the cross.

It has occasionally been suggested by scholars that Vortigern might be a royal title, rather than a personal name. The name in Brittonic literally means "Great King" or "Overlord", composed of the elements *wor "over , super" and *tigerno "king, lord, chief, ruler" (compare Old Breton machtiern, Cornish myghtygern a type of local ruler literally "pledge chief") in medieval Brittany and Cornwall. However, the element *tigerno was a regular one in Brittonic personal names (compare Kentigern, Catigern, Ritigern, Tigernmaglus, et al.) and, as *wortigernos (or derivatives of it) is not attested as a common noun, there is no reason to suppose that it was used as anything other than a personal name (in fact, an Old Irish cognate of it, Foirtchern, was a fairly common personal name in medieval Ireland, further lending credence to the notion that Vortigern was a personal name and not a title).

A valley on the north coast of the Llŷn Peninsula, known as Nant Gwrtheyrn or "Vortigern's Gorge", is named after Vortigern, and until modern times had a small barrow known locally as "Vortigern's Grave", along with a ruin known as "Vortigern's Fort". However, this conflicts with doubtful reports that he died in his castle on the River Teifi in Dyfed ("Nennius") or his tower at The Doward in Herefordshire (Geoffrey of Monmouth). Other fortifications associated with Vortigern are at Arfon in Gwynedd, Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire, Carn Fadryn in Gwynedd, Clwyd in Powys, Llandysul in Dyfed, Old Carlisle in Cumberland, Old Sarum in Wiltshire, Rhayader in Powys, Snowdon and Stonehenge in Wiltshire.

Vortigern's story remained well known after the Middle Ages, especially in Great Britain. He is a major character in two Jacobean plays, the anonymous The Birth of Merlin and Thomas Middleton's Hengist, King of Kent, first published in 1661. His meeting with Rowena became a popular subject in 17th century engraving and painting, e. g., William Hamilton's 1793 work Vortigern and Rowena (above right). He was also featured in literature, such as John Lesslie Hall's poems about the beginnings of England. One of Vortigern's most notorious literary appearances is in the play Vortigern and Rowena, which was promoted as a lost work of William Shakespeare when it first emerged in 1796. However, it was soon revealed as a literary forgery written by the play's purported discoverer, William Henry Ireland, who had previously forged a number of other Shakespearean manuscripts. The play was at first accepted as Shakespeare's by some in the literary community, and received a performance at London's Drury Lane Theatre on 2 April 1796. The play's crude writing, however, exposed it as a forgery, and it was laughed off stage and not performed again. Ireland eventually admitted to the hoax and tried to publish the play by his own name, but had little success.