Ricatus

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title: "Ricatus" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["monarchs-of-cornwall", "11th-century-english-monarchs"] topic_path: "general/monarchs-of-cornwall" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricatus" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Old_Central_Cross_-_moved_to_Penlee_House_Gallery_and_Museum,Penzance_Parish(geograph_6037713).jpg" caption="The cross at Penlee House – the inscription is on one of the narrow sides"] ::

Ricatus was a possible 11th-century king of Cornwall, although recent scholarship has cast doubt on his existence.

Penzance Market Cross

The primary evidence for a king of this name is the medieval Penzance Market Cross which now stands in the grounds of Penlee House in Penzance, Cornwall, England, UK. The cross dates to around 1050 AD, or as early as 1007. R. A. Stewart Macalister in his Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum published in 1949 stated that an inscription in a panel on the side of the cross read REGIS RICATI CRUX, translating to "Cross of King Ricatus".{{cite book |last=Thomas|first=Charles|authorlink=Charles Thomas (historian) |title=And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? - Post Roman Inscriptions in Western Britain |pages=298–300, 303, 335 |publisher=University of Wales Press|year=1994 |isbn=0-7083-1160-1}}

On the basis of Macalister's reading, Susan Pearce (1978) speculated that "a native ruling family survived west of the Tamar long enough to set up the early tenth century cross, now in Penlee Gardens, Penzance, the inscription on which seems to have referred to a King Riocatus or Ricatus". Writing about it in 1986, Charles Thomas said that because of the cross' late date, Ricatus could have been little more than a local ruler around Land's End. However, Thomas describes the cross in greater detail in his later book on post Roman inscriptions in Western Britain, And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? (1994). In this work, he describes the inscription as having "lettering so grotesque as to be unintelligible", and he relegates Macalister's reading to a footnote, where he says that it "is impossible to follow", adding that "an eleventh-century Cornish king would need a lot of explaining." Philip Payton, in his Cornwall: A History (2004) acknowledges this, but says there was "perhaps a semblance, an echo, an assertion of Cornish kingly independence" in the far west of Cornwall less than a century before the Norman Conquest.{{cite book |last=Payton|first=Philip|authorlink=Philip Payton |title=Cornwall: A History|edition=2nd|year=2004 |publisher=Cornwall Editions Ltd|location=Fowey |page=57|isbn=1-904880-00-2}}

In 1998 Thomas examined the cross again in detail and stated that the inscription actually reads RECGISI CRUX or RAEGISI CRUX meaning "the cross of Recgisi or Raegisi",{{cite web |title=PNZAN/1|url=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/stone/pnzan_1.html |work=Celtic Inscribed Stones Project|publisher=University College London |accessdate=13 January 2014 |last=Thomas|first=Charles|authorlink=Charles Thomas (historian) |title=Penzance Market Cross : a Cornish Wonder re-wondered |date=1999|publisher=Penlee House Gallery & Museum|location=Penzance |pages=37–40}}

Possible mentions

The 11th/12th century Welsh tale Culhwch and Olwen refers to "Gormant the son of Ricca", saying that he was "Arthur's brother by his mother's side; the Penhynev of Cornwall was his father", a parallel to later stories of Gorlois of Cornwall. This Ricca may possibly refer to Ricatus; it also occurs as a variant name for Rhitta Gawr, a giant of Welsh folklore. The title Penhynev or Pennhynef means 'chief elder', and the first triad of Peniarth 54 uses the same title for Caradawg Vreichvras as Arthur's chief elder at Celliwig, Cornwall.

The sixteenth-century Cornish language drama Beunans Meriasek ('The Life of St Meriasek') at lines 2463–65 mentions four Cornish kings. The second is called Pygys, which may be a misreading for an earlier Rygys, the Cornish form of Ricatus.

Legacy

In 1980 Mullion School, Mullion, Cornwall named one of its houses, Ricat, after King Ricatus.

References

References

  1. If he existed, Ricatus may have been the penultimate [[List of kings of Dumnonia#Cornish kings. Cornish king]].Rawe, Donald. ''A Prospect of Cornwall'', p. 35 (R. Hale, 1986).
  2. Amery, John. ''Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries'', Volume 27, page 1 (J.G. Commin, 1958).
  3. Pool, Peter. ''The history of the town and borough of Penzance'', p. 8 (Corporation of Penzance, 1974).
  4. Pearce, Susan M.. (1978). "The Kingdom of Dumnonia: Studies in History and Tradition in South-Western Britain, A.D. 350–1150". Lodenek Press.
  5. [[Charles Thomas (historian). Thomas, Charles]]. (1986). ''Celtic Britain''. Ancient Peoples & Places Series. London: Thames & Hudson
  6. (1877). "The Mabinogion". Bernard Quaritch.
  7. Parker, Will. (2016). "Culhwch and Olwen Translation".
  8. {{cite wikisource. (1868)
  9. Harris, Markham. ''The life of Meriasek: a medieval Cornish miracle play'', p. 135 (Catholic University of America Press, 1978).

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