Ancient and ArchaeologyĚý permalink
Roman reinforcements - where from
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Message 1.Ěý
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Friday, 23rd October 2009
Roman legions served 400 years in Britain
apparently they didnt allow local brits to serve
so for 400 years there was a constant erosion of legion strength by retiremant or war
where did these reinforcements come from
did they have a constant train marching the 1000 miles from Rome ??
were they seconded from the local legions in france/germany
??
st -
Message 2
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Saturday, 24th October 2009
Hi stalteriisok
The Auxilliaries which made up most of the Roman Army in Britain were all made up of troops from all over the Empire and were not Roman citizens.
The Legions on the other hand were made up of Roman citizens. As I understand it the Legions were added to from the citizenship as and when needed.
Although there were a number of British Auxilliaries because of bad experiemces in other countries the Auxilliaries from Britain were never based here - many for instance were stationed on the Rhine.
I found the following Wiki reference very helpful:
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 3
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Saturday, 24th October 2009
TA the link goes to a page with no information on it.
I do not understand the original question. The British people could well have been recruited into the Roman army, especially after 221ad when Caracalla made all free inhabitants into Roman citizens. -
Message 4
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Saturday, 24th October 2009
Hi fascinating
If you Google "Auxiliaries (Roman military)" it will bring up the Wikipedia site that I was refering to....
Pre AD221 only Roman Citizens were allowed to enroll in the Legions. Native Auxiliaries were not stationed in their own countries as a matter of policy - therefore up to this point British troops would not have been allowed to re-inforce the Roman Army here.
Post AD221 due to the change in law to expand Roman Citizenship for taxation purposes, it was certainly possible for "British Freemen" to be included in the Legions as they were now Roman Citizens and obviously you ended up with more Roman Citizens in the Auxiliary.
Whether native troops were now allowed to serve in their own country is not at all clear - but it seems that the auxilliaries were opened up to the barbarians in the 4th century.
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 5
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Saturday, 24th October 2009
fascinating
yes indeed - but from what i have read the romans didnt let brits serve in the legions because of the tribal affiliations - ie they would have been involved in ops against their own tribe
apparently they - because of their martial prowess - were allowed to serve in the rhine legions
so where did the reinforcements come from - surely not from 1000 miles away ?? -
Message 6
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Saturday, 24th October 2009
Hi stalteriisok
Strage to say I think you will find that is exactly what happened. The Romans were great at logistics gained through their army and trade experiences.
They would have thought nothing of having to take regiments from one country to garrison another similarly to Brits garrisoning the Rhine Frontier.
If you look at the garrisons on Hadrians Wall they were all from outside the country....
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 7
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Sunday, 25th October 2009
stalteriisok,
fascinating
yes indeed - but from what i have read the romans didnt let brits serve in the legions because of the tribal affiliations - ie they would have been involved in ops against their own tribe
Ěý
where did you read that? -
Message 8
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Monday, 26th October 2009
fascinating
what are you - a policeman ??
i really cant remember - if u track my posts - its the thread about the use of britons being used in the rhine legions because of their martial prowess - i name the source
not sure but it may have been Hello magazine lol
when u think about it - its logical as i am sure up till 410ad the romans didnt completely trust us and tribal affinities were probably the first choice of a subjected nation
st -
Message 9
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
Hi stalteriisok
The evidence points towards native Britons serving in the Roman army very soon after the invasion. As far as I know there is no reason to believe that the native British population was prevented from serving or that there was any mistrust of them by the Roman authorities.
Early on of course the only citizens in Britain would have been direct descendants of the Roman administration or army. “Colonies” were set up for retired soldiers and their families, some of these where destroyed during the Bodica revolt. Auxiliary troops on their retirement received citizenship thus allowing their sons to serve in the Legions.
But the Auxiliary units of the Roman army accepted non citizens and would have recruited from the native population. By AD212 all freeborn men in the Empire would have been eligible to serve in every unit, Legion or otherwise.
British units were already serving in the Roman army by AD84, they fought under the command of Agricola in his invasion of Caledonia.
Units such as the 1st and 2nd Cohorts Brittonum Milliaria were serving in the Roman army by the end of the 1st century AD.
British warriors fought in the Dacian campaigns of Trajan but probably fighting as “Symmachiarii” under their own leaders and in tradition style rather than as Roman troops.
British units are listed in the Nottia Dignitatum serving in Gaul and Spain during the late 4th century. But the main point is that the recruits would have been locally sourced so British named units in Gaul and Spain would have soon lost any British troops due to retirement.
Roman units in Britain would after just 25 years have been almost entirely British because other than a few transfers the vast majority of units remained in their forts for centuries.
Britain’s would have been recruited and served in Britain and occasionally their units would have been transferred to other areas of the Empire.
Also the idea of Britishness was probably non existent in Roman Britain, it would have seemed as foreign for an Iceni to serve on Hadrian’s wall as to serve in Gaul, probably even more so. -
Message 10
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
As Prof. Garret Fagan pointed out once at a lecture I attended - some people see the archeological proofs of foreign military personnel in Britain as "evidence" that local recruitment was avoided or forbidden, at least for a long period initially. It is evidence of nothing except that which pertained across the empire - no area once conquered escaped recruitment and the policies regarding deployment of troops were fluid, to put it mildly. That Britons recruited would leave no discernible trace is not even that difficult a concept to explain. While it could mean that they were deployed abroad as a matter of policy (for which no evidence exists), it is just as likely from what we do know that they simply became "Roman soldiery" and left behind them all those artefacts one would expect.
There are way too many assumptions treated as fact regarding the nature of the Roman occupationj in Britain. -
Message 11
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
fascinating
what are you - a policeman ??
Ěý
If someone is going to start a whole discussion based upon what seems to be a dubious idea, I think it is pertinent to ask where the dubious idea came from. -
Message 12
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
It's one that's fairly common - hence Fagan addressing it in his lecture too. I've seen it stated as fact many times myself.
Stalteriwasok, the October 1997 edition of Hello magazine makes slight allusion to it also - your memory is uncanny! And it has a lovely picture of Kim Bassinger in St Moritz accompanying the article. -
Message 13
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
Nordmann, where is your evidence? We demand a link to that picture of Kim Bassigner!
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Message 14
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Wednesday, 28th October 2009
Hi stalteriisok
where did these reinforcements come from
did they have a constant train marching the 1000 miles from Rome
Ěý
By the time of the conquest of Britain the Roman army was recruiting from all over the empire but one of the least productive areas for recruits was Rome itself.
Over time the wealth and prosperity within the empire made a military career for the average citizen an unattractive proposition. Roman Elite’s still entered the military as a step towards public office but even this was to decline during the later empire.
New laws were introduced to force landowners to provide recruits but the wealthy could pay their way out of military service and protect their employees from being press-ganged. Many wealthy citizens started to recruit their own private bodyguards units, some of which became powerful private armies.
By the 3rd century AD there were very few soldiers recruited from Italy let alone the population of Rome. This trend spread throughout the empire where the wealthy regions such as Gaul and lowland Britain failed to provide enough recruits.
During the 4th century the Western Roman army was made up of Germans, Africans and people from either side of the borders of the Roman Empire. In the East the manpower situation was less of a problem for the army.
By the 5th century the Roman army relied more and more on “barbarian” allies to provide the striking force of the army, these were not part of the Roman army. But until AD 410 Britain provided more than its fair share of recruits to the Roman army and the British legions were a powerful tool for any budding Emperor -
Message 15
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Wednesday, 28th October 2009
I expect that it was this type of comment that stalteriisok was originally referring to:
"The great majority of regiments probably founded in the first century were stationed away from their province of origin in the second e.g. of 13 British regiments recorded in mid 2nd century, none were stationed in Britain.
Furthermore, it appears that in the Flavian era native nobles were no longer permitted to command auxiliary units from their own nation.
After a prolonged period in a foreign province a regiment would become assimilated, since the majority of its new recruits would be drawn from the province in which it was stationed, or neighbouring provinces.
Those same "British" units, mostly based on the Danube frontier, would by ca. 150, after almost a century away from their home island, be largely composed of Illyrian, Thracian and Dacian recruits.
However, there is evidence that a few regiments at least continued to draw some recruits from their original home provinces in the 2nd century e.g. Batavi units stationed in Britain."
It would appear that this original caution (brought on by a rebellion of Batavian auxilliary troops) was well founded as in AD364 to AD368 local British troops rebelled:
The historian Ammianus provides an account of the tumultuous situation in Britain between 364 and 369, and he describes a corrupt and treasonous administration, native British troops (the Areani) in collaboration with the barbarians, and a Roman military whose troops had deserted and joined in the general banditry.
Kind regards - TA -
Message 16
Posted by brushstroke (U14041781) on Friday, 30th October 2009
all this talk of where romans recruited from,does this mean that a certain mr "capello " maybe could have some english in him
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Message 17
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Saturday, 31st October 2009
Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:26 GMT, in reply to TheodericAur in message 15
I understand that even during the Principate, the Army had recruitment trouble and it was not unknown for non-citizens to be recruited into the legions, being granted what might be called "emergency citizenship"! What Englishvote said about the lack of (for want of a better word) 'true' Romans seems to be true.
If you take the case of Legio II Augusta, it was raised (probably) in Italy in the late 1st century BC, but spent very little time there. Before its arrival in Britain in AD43, it had spent extended periods in Spain, Germany and Gaul before being shipped to Britain, where it spent the rest of its career. There was no reason why they should not have been recruiting locally if there were suitable candidates. After all, certainly in Gaul and Germany they were(mainly in stable areas, whose locals would not be considered a threat. They spent the best part of four centuries in Britain - are we to believe they considered the natives too dangerous to be recruited all that time?
In any case, the idea that recruits could be moved vast distances is not so surprising. We have evidence of a diploma (certificate of discharge) of one A. Basiel Sarniensis, dated to 5th April AD71, who served with the Misenum fleet in Italy but almost certainly came from the Channel Island of Sark! -
Message 18
Posted by TheodericAur (U13724457) on Sunday, 1st November 2009
Hi Anglo-Norman
I suspect, as I am always being told, that 350 years is a long time and consequently what happens in the 1st century AD to what was happening in the 4th century different criteria applied.
Certainly locally recruited Auxilliaries were garrisoned in different countries ("Germans" in Britain and "Brits" in Germany) during the second century as a matter of policy mainly because troops recruited into the Roman Army and stationed in their own land would side with the locals if a rebellion happened.
A example of this was the loss of Varus's legions in Germany who were defeated partly by military trained in the Roman Army.
(We perhaps shouldn't be that surprised at this as there is a feeling that the Afghan Military has already been infiltrated by the Taliban according to American Military sources)
If you look at the cohorts serving on Hadrian's Wall they would appear to be made up of specialist troops from all over the empire but not Britain.
As I have said previously Romans were brilliant at logistics and I threfore fully agree with you about the movement of troops over thousands of miles for reinforcement purposes.
Interestingly Britain in mid-2nd century contained the largest number of auxiliary regiments in any single diocese: about 60 out of about 400.
In the case of later Roman recruitment I suspect that you are correct in that both the Legions and the Auxilliary Regiments were recruited locally but to what percentage I can find no record - after all most freeman in Roman Provinces were "citizens" anyway from the early 3rd century.
There were obviously British Troops serving on the Wall by around AD360 as they rebelled against the Roman Army and sided with the locals during the Great Conspiracy.
There were Roman Regiments left here after AD407 - perhaps these were made up of locally recruited Roman military who eventually provided the defence against invasions around and after AD410.
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 19
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Sunday, 1st November 2009
A example of this was the loss of Varus's legions in Germany who were defeated partly by military trained in the Roman Army.
(We perhaps shouldn't be that surprised at this as there is a feeling that the Afghan Military has already been infiltrated by the Taliban according to American Military sources)Ěý And is it not the case that the Taliban were trained by the US when the USSR was the invading force? The ironies of war!! -
Message 20
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Wednesday, 4th November 2009
We perhaps shouldn't be that surprised at this as there is a feeling that the Afghan Military has already been infiltrated by the Taliban according to American Military sources)
Ěý
oh dear - how true this has panned out - unbelievable - so sad
st -
Message 21
Posted by LavenderBlueSky (U13842100) on Monday, 14th December 2009
TA - your knowledge is impressive. Kudos. I learn so much from your posts.
I read somewhere around that a few Roman auxiliaries were Saxons. I'm assuming this means "Germanic".
Although we have proof (I think) that there was no true Saxon invasion, is it possible these auxiliaries helped the Saxons when they arrived? If so, when the Romans withdrew, wouldn't they have taken their auxiliaries with them?
Would auxiliaries be used to defend Rome from the Goth? Seems unlikely Germanic auxiliaries would do that. Any suggestions?
(Sorry to drag up an old thread but I've been away for a while.) -
Message 22
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Wednesday, 16th December 2009
I am fairly certain that Tacitus mentions British auxiliary units being in Rome during the Year of the Four Emperors, AD 69. Then again, that is 26 years after the Claudian invasion, so most, if not all, of those servign in those units might not have been born before the conquest.
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Message 23
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Wednesday, 16th December 2009
Hi LavenderBlueSky
The make up of the Roman Army by AD300 was made up from soldiers from many parts of the empire and this would include Germans and Brythons for instance – if you look at the make up of the troops on Hadrian’s Wall there are many different types of troops.
I think that possibly you have to look at two withdrawals of troops from Britain, one by Stilicho in AD402 / 403 and one by Constantine III in AD407.
Stilicho had just got Britain back under control so although he took some troops with him, it is probable that he left enough troops to completely keep Britain safe.
Constantine III was one of the soldiers who was left behind before the Army elected him Emperor.
Although he took another Army with him to Gaul to defend Western Europe it is my contention that he left a well organised force behind him – although TP would disagree with me maintaining that he took nearly all the troops with him.
Many of the troops left behind would no doubt have been of a Germanic origin and throughout the occupation of Britain old soldiers would have retired here with their families so there would have been a sort of Germanic presence but I suspect that they regarded themselves as Roman or Romano British more than German.
So the question as to whether they would have helped incomers is not really possible to answer, however perhaps they wouldn’t have felt it was necessary to fight them.
Around AD400 it was certainly the case that entire tribes were moving across Europe under protection of their own military, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that peoples migrated to Britain at some stage possibly after foederati were invited in to help protect Britain as with the people who occupied Kent between AD425 and AD450.
Regarding the German Auxiliaries defending Rome, Stilicho himself was born in Germany, the son of a Vandal father and a Roman mother but rose to become a famous Roman General and Consul.
At one stage he was contemplating using the Alaric’s Goth Army even though he had fought him previously – so the idea of a purely “Roman Born” army was not really the case – perhaps you could compare it to more like the “French Foreign Legion” since around AD212 many people from different provinces were made Roman Citizens
by decree and could serve in the Legions or as auxiliaries or indeed foederati. Yet xyoou also had cohorts made up from one nationality.
So I believe that some German Auxiliaries could easily have fought the Goths to defend Rome and Honorius.
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 24
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Wednesday, 16th December 2009
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:26 GMT, in reply to TonyG in message 22
I am fairly certain that Tacitus mentions British auxiliary units being in Rome during the Year of the Four EmperorsĚý
Not sure about Rome, but certainly Italy, though I can't remember for the life of me whether they were Vitellians or Flavians. -
Message 25
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Thursday, 17th December 2009
From memory, they were there when Otho had Galba murdered, so presumably they would have been Othonians (?) by the simple logic of supporting the apparent winner. Otho seized power with actually very little active support from the army, only a few units of Praetorians, I think. The rest of the soldiers simply stood by and watched it happen.
I am not sure whether Tacitus ever mentions them again after that, so it is possible that they fought for Otho and switched to Vitellius after Otho's suicide. If that supposition is corrct, they had the knack of supporting the loser three times. -
Message 26
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Thursday, 17th December 2009
Many of the troops left behind would no doubt have been of a Germanic originĚý
No doubt? The Roman Army had auxiliaries from all parts of the empire. There might have been people of Syrian origin or Egyptian origin or Iberian origin. Why do you think many of the troops were German origin. What do you mean by German, do you mean Germania proper, outside of the Empire? -
Message 27
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Friday, 18th December 2009
Hi Fascinating
There is no doubt that there were troops from all over the Empire based in Britain.
You are correct in that there were indeed troops from Iberia, Syria and Egypt in Britain at one stage or another but there were also many cohorts recruited from Roman Germany not Germania.
The original question was about Saxons (who were based in Germania) and whether there may have been Roman auxiliaries in Britain who had German roots and might have helped “Saxon” incomers.
I apologise for any confusion caused by my wording but I think that it is reasonable to believe that there were many people in Britain including active troops who had German roots (not Saxon roots) left in Britain when the “Germanic” foederati were invited in by the Council of Britain in the 5th Century.
A few examples of Cohorts from Roman Germany based in Britain:
The First Nervian Cohort of Germans, one-thousand strong, part-mounted. This unit was recruited from among the various tribes of the German provinces, sometime during the reign of the emperor Nerva (AD96-98). They were a cohors milliaria equitata, a one-thousand strong peregrine auxiliary regiment of mixed infantry centuriae and cavalry turmae.
The Fourth Cohort of Frisiavones (Frisians, Roman Germany) The name of this unit occurs on a single dedicatory inscription from Bowes in County Durham, dated to the governorship of the propraetor Julius Severus (AD130).
Birrens was originally the home of the first cohort of the Nervana Germanorum equitata mlliaria, a cavalry unit.
Chesters home of the First Cohort of Vangiones from Upper Rhineland in Germany.
Obviously you can, and probably should, doubt everything about this age, I can only interpret my own understandings from the limited evidence available…and the resultant information raised from discussions on these boards.
Are you aware of any cohorts recruited from Germania?
Kind Regards – TA. -
Message 28
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Monday, 21st December 2009
By the end of the 4th century the Roman army would have contained many men of Germanic origin, and had done for centuries.
It was not just the Auxiliaries that contained Germans but also the Legions. There is plenty of archaeological evidence that Germans returned to their home areas outside of the Empire after serving in the Roman army and some took their equipment with them. Most of what I have read deals with the Franks rather than the Saxons but I would assume that men returned to their homes after serving.
This process of recruits entering and leaving the Empire changed the Roman army but also greatly effected the tribes outside the empire
Even more confusing is the fact that after the reforms to the Roman army during the 4rd century AD new units were formed into the elite field army and later into many regional field armies.
These new units replaced the old auxiliary cohorts, Alae and old legions which were relegated to border units. The new field army units were called legion Palatina, cavalry Vexillationes and Auxilia Palatina.
Many had Germanic sounding names but all were elite professional units and not hired tribesmen.
By the end of the 4th century the Roman army would have contained many Germans, Africans and Eastern Europeans in all the units of the field army. But the older legions and Auxiliaries that formed the border units probably recruited from locals. So the units in Britain with Germanic sounding names would have actually contained mostly Britain’s.
The evidence suggests that the Roman troops stayed loyal to their commanders for as long as they remained an organised force.
It was not a matter of the Roman army letting the Saxons into Britain but that the governing elite of Britain turning to a outside force to replace a military that had been removed or otherwise diminished.
The evidence suggests that the Saxons and other tribes decided that Britain presented a good opportunity for conquest and did indeed invade.
The same process occurred in Gaul with other Germanic tribes. -
Message 29
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Monday, 21st December 2009
Hi Englishvote
The only part of your post that I find contentious is the "invasion" scenario.
In what timeframe do you see that happening?
Kind Regards - TA -
Message 30
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 21st December 2009
Hi EV and TA,
It's a pity in a way that we can't discuss this issue in a single thread rather than spreading it over two of three. Would there me any merit in starting a 'Dark Age British' forum or a 'Roman Britain: end of empire' thread?
TP -
Message 31
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Tuesday, 22nd December 2009
Hi TheodericAur
I don’t see anything contentious about the Saxon invasion during the 5th century AD. In fact it would be hard to explain it as anything else.
By AD 410 the Roman administration of Britain had finally come to an end and the strength of the Roman military machine had been reduced to a level insufficient to defend the British.
Saxon mercenaries were hired in to replace the professional troops that were no longer available, probably not by a central authority but by a rump state or local warlords who were trying to maintain their positions.
Local leaders and generals all over the Roman Empire had long been recruiting private armies, called Bucellarii, later these soldiers became regular units within the Byzantine Empire.
No doubt the local British leaders in the Southeast turned to Saxon and other mercenaries to fill the role of private troops.
Sometime during the middle of the 5th century these Saxons probably revolted against their paymasters and became the leaders themselves.
Other British warlords would obviously not just have accepted Saxon overlordship and were busy carving out their own little Kingdoms.
During the 5th and 6th centuries the Saxons and the British kingdoms fought for control and power as more “Saxons” entered Britain. This “Saxon” invasion obviously did not consist entirely of Saxons but the term was used to encompass many tribal groupings.
There is no reason to suppose that the “Saxon’s” were a unified force fighting to conquered Britain or that Britain at this time was in any sense a nation. But Saxons invaded and over the next few centuries conquered the lowland British kingdoms.
This would not have been a peaceful migration, nobody just gives up power. The length of time it took the Saxons to take control of lowland Britain demonstrates the strength of the British determination and power of their forces. The Franks did not encounter the same resistance in Gaul in admittedly different circumstances. -
Message 32
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 22nd December 2009
Hi EV,
As you know I am sympathetic to anyone who tries to sew together the miserable fragments we have of British 5th and 6th century history into whole cloth, but your description can't be allowed to pass without comment.
I won't complain about your use of 'Saxon' (although others might) but naturally you mean people from modern Holland, Germany and South Denmark who would have considered themselves Saxons, Angles, Franks, Frisians, Jutes and so forth. We dare not assume that these tribal groups were uniform in matters of language and customs.
It is very questionable whether in the early 5th century it is appropriate to think of 'a Roman military machine... defending the British'. The 'British' or at least the upper strata of society would have been considering themselves as Roman for generations. These same people had just 'appointed' (we have no idea what the actual process was of course) an emperor, Constantine III who took his army to Gaul in an attempt to preserve the other NW Roman provinces, not to desert Britain.
What do you mean by 'mercenaries' I wonder? The Roman Army had a policy of recruitment of Germanic infantry into its army, as you know, and those military and civilian authorities left in Britain, after the failure of Constantine's expedition, seem to have continued this process. I doubt if the Gurkha soldiers serving in the modern British Army would consider that they functioned as mercenaries. Do you know for a fact that the Germanic forces in Dark Age Britain were?
I agree that we should not be looking for a centralised British authority in the 5th and 6th centuries and the useful term 'successor states' has been coined (by John Morris I believe). But neither should be be looking for uniformity in 'Anglo-Saxon' states, or states under the control of an 'Anglo-Saxon' royal family. I'm perfectly happy to accept Northumbria attacking Elmet, or Gwynedd allying itself with Mercia, but I have real problems with your “Saxons invaded and over the next few centuries conquered the lowland British kingdoms”. Aside from anything else what meaning does the word 'invasion' have for you? Does elite replacement in one successor state, where the basic population was left unchanged, constitute invasion. Alternatively would substantial but peaceful migration of 'Anglo-Saxon' people into another successor state, but one that kept its British elite in control, be considered an invasion?
If we take one example from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. AD 597: “in this year Coelwulf began to reign in Wessex, and ever fought and made war either against the Angles, or against the Welsh, or against the Picts, or against the Scots.” Leaving aside the practical difficulties Coelwulf would have had in fighting the Picts surely the message is that between 450 and 700 everyone fought everyone in Britain as opportunity presented. During this period the language of lowland Britain changed, as did its religion, but the process doesn't seem to have affected agriculture much.
People can certainly change their names, language, and political allegiance for many reasons other than defeat in battle. So what, in AD 597 did 'being a Saxon' actually involve?
Kind regards,
TP -
Message 33
Posted by LavenderBlueSky (U13842100) on Tuesday, 22nd December 2009
Thank you for the information, Theoderic Aur. You confirmed what I thought I knew about that time period.
I wish I had a percentage of your knowledge. It is impressive. -
Message 34
Posted by LavenderBlueSky (U13842100) on Tuesday, 22nd December 2009
Something that bothers me with this whole thread is that Britons appear unable to defend themselves. We know this cannot be true because the Saxons failed to overcome Devon, Cornwall and Wales.
Surely there were many Britons who trained with the Roman army and were numbered among the auxiliaries. By reading this thread one would assume they all went into hiding after the Romans withdrew and forgot how to fight. Knowing the British temperament, I doubt that happened.
Clearly the withdrawal of Roman troops gave others like the Saxons the idea that Britain was easy pickings. How odd that small areas like Devon and Cornwall could stand against them when they could be attacked by land and by sea. The Welsh also held them at the border.
Is it possible the invading Saxons spread themselves too thin to conquer areas rich in ore and gold? -
Message 35
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 22nd December 2009
Hi LavenderBlueSky,
You're lucky to have TA's attention; I really looked forward to his long and interesting posts. Once I would occasionally get one myself!
I'm afraid that lack of evidence makes this a difficult period to understand. For example to say that Roman troops were 'withdrawn' is an oversimplification of what must have been a long and complex process extending over several generations.
It's worth asking yourself what 'Britain' and 'Saxon' mean in this period. But don't assume that the 'British temperament' now is necessarily paralleled by the situation in the 5th century. That is arguing from analogy and is not evidence.
Those historians who still accept a Dark Age Saxon invasion of Britain have the difficult problem of explaining how this took place when the post-Roman population of Britain was 2-3 million. There must have been thousands of young men with military training, or experience with hunting weapons, as you suggest. The simplest suggestion is that the Saxon 'invasion' never happened at all, at least not in the way often portrayed.
There are those who would see the activities of the kingdom of Wessex in Cornwall, or those of Edward I in Wales as the last gasps of 'Saxon' conquest, but it really makes no sense to do this and I imagine you would agree.
It is probably stretching a point to call any part of Britain 'rich in gold', although Saxon smiths were as famous as Saxon carpenters. Since they formed small states whose basic populations were the native British, now recruited to Anglo-Saxon culture and language, there is really no question of their spreading themselves too thinly.
TP -
Message 36
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 22nd December 2009
Does elite replacement in one successor state, where the basic population was left unchanged, constitute invasion.Ěý
OF COURSE IT DOES. Are we to suggest that the Normans did not invade England just because there was only an elite which took power?(Sorry for appearing to shout but these stuck-in-the-1980s messageboards do not allow other means of emphasis like underline or italics).
Emphatically the Roman army defended Britain. It doesn't matter that the Britons regarded themselves as Romans, they only way that you can convey the fact that there was a Roman army in Britain which had the job of defending the islands we live in from barbarians, (ie people outside the Roman Empire who wanted to loot wealth from what was in Britain) then we say that a part of the Roman army was here, in part, to defend Britain. Though there is precious little written information that has come down to us from the Dark Ages, several of the accounts (not only Gildas) talk of destructive invaders called Saxons, and battles with them.
What do you think is going to happen when a nation has had its defending army withdrawn? The first thing that you can expect to happen is the local rich people, with the power to pay soldiers, will vye for power. The next thing that will happen will be invaders coming from abroad willing to take what they can get. First they wanted loot to carry off. Then it dawned on them that they could take the land and settle there. I have a theory that the population of Britain had dropped to a low level by the time the Romans left, so I surmise that much of the invasion was a taking up of empty land and just using it without opposition. Yet I am faced with the historical accounts, which suggest nothing less than a long drawn out war in which the Christian British were desperately trying to fight off fearsome heathen barbarians (from the British point of view). This view is even shown in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which (if you believe in the stupid "history is written by the victors" theory) would if anything be inclined to whitewash the Saxons' activites. -
Message 37
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 22nd December 2009
Hi fascinating
Don't worry, I'm not put out by a little shouting.
I'm glad we agree that the Anglo-Saxon 'invasion' closely paralleled that of the Normans. But my question was really directed at an earlier poster who might have a very different concept of invasion.
Basically both Norman and Anglo-Saxon interventions involved elite replacement and land reapportionment. Not that Norman behaviour couldn't be very brutal, no one who has studied Medieval northern England could possibly think otherwise. But it falls far short of exterminating everyone in eastern England and pushing the remaining population into Cornwall, Wales, Cumbria and Strathclyde, which is what the 'Anglo-Saxons' were once believed to have done.
I have no problem at all with the Romans defending Britain, the geographical expression, only with them defending 'the British'. Contrasting 'British' and 'Roman' makes perfect sense in the 1st century AD. Contrasting 'British' and 'Anglo-Saxon' may make sense in the 5th and 6th centuries, if you are very careful with definitions that is. But trying to contrast 'British' and 'Roman' in the lowland Britain of the late 4th century does not make sense at all if one believes, as I do, that almost everyone would have thought of themselves as Roman and nobody would have considered themselves 'British', even if they had some faint residual loyalty to an Iron Age tribal grouping.
I can't dispute that Gildas describes continual slaughter; very naturally the far greater historian Bede used him as a source and by so doing created a narrative which endured unchanged for more than a millennia. It was even adopted by the ASC as you say. I'm not sure that later, much later, Anglo-Saxons would necessarily wish to whitewash their ancestors; the Saxon scop was keener to recount the exploits of courageous battle heroes than successful pasturalists. Few royal lines claimed descent from smiths, merchants or carpenters, yet these were the essential figures in Anglo-Saxon culture. Fortunately we are not compelled to accept Gildas's account, written 50-100 years after the events described, as more than a partial and regional description; any more than we have to accept his suggestion that 'Hadrian's' Wall was constructed at the end of Roman Britain. A plausible suggestion, but one that we, with our greater knowledge can see is erroneous.
Your theory that the British population dropped significantly in the post-Imperial period makes the intervention by Anglo-Saxon migrants more easy, and potentially less blood thirsty. Unfortunately you have to devise a mechanism (crop failure or disease perhaps) that affects one community and not the other. Do you have any positive evidence that a such a population crash occurred? If not it remains a purely a hypothesis. It's fairly easy to test since a dramatic reduction in population would entail the abandonment of marginal agricultural land (as occurred after the Black Death). This would lead, I would imagine, to pollen evidence of re-forestation but I don't believe that this is a feature in the 5th or 6th centuries.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 38
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Tuesday, 22nd December 2009
Hi TP
My apologies for the delay in replying to you on the other thread but I was having difficulty in choosing which of these two threads to approach as both were heading in similar yet parallel directions – yet both were fascinating – and as usual invigorating (some of the coin detail about the “minimissimi” I had never come across) but I was surprised that no one mentioned “clipping” which would perhaps indicate that there was a definite use of the coinage post AD410.
The last time that we communicated, the thread was going in the direction of post AD410, Doc Fortune, Jesus and the Druids – quite a heady combination!!
My stance still is that Constantine III believed that he could control the Western Empire including Britain and therefore would have left the “stub” of a force based on the previous Roman military structure.
I do however respect your argument that Constantine III may have taken all the troops and that the local rich people built up their own armies.
What concerns me about that argument is the comment that Britain actually stood up to the invaders (allegedly outside Roman control) and won – but how if they didn’t have their own armies already?
So I feel that there was still an Army based upon the Roman model which saw off the invaders after Constantine took a large part of the forces to Gaul.
“LavenderBlueSky’s” concerns that invaders would try to do just that is borne out but this was early in the 5th Century whereas the expansion of the “Saxons” was not until around AD450 before they were beaten back at the beginning of the 6th Century at Badon, where exactly has to be your own interpretation I expect.
“LavenderBlueSky’s” mention of riches I still like but would base it on Silver rather than Gold.
Also the local economy doesn’t seem to collapse after AD410 which you would have thought would have happened if there was a complete change of administration.
After AD410, the next few years seems to be regarded as a “golden age” when the country thrived and it would seem that there was a reforming of society into some warlords and the Council of Britain that seem to emerge around AD425. There appears to be a third if nebulous army force based out of the North.
This 15 years between AD410 / AD411 and AD425 is critical to the events of the next few years.
As you know I agree with your version of the “Saxon” invasions (expansions) and about the population around AD410 but I think that perhaps “Fascinating”’s ideas about a downturn in Romano / Brython population around AD450, climate change and plague are an area that I would value your comments on.
Best Wishes - TA -
Message 39
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 23rd December 2009
Hi TA,
I entirely understand the practical problem when three threads progress in the same general direction. Worse, our discussion on the old thread was becoming purely mutual. Debate on this historical period is much enhanced by the participation of fascinating and englishvote, with Haesten for the Anglo-Saxons of course.
Coin clipping is seen with silver coins where the metal has intrinsic value. Obviously if you can clip enough silver from 20 coins to make a 21st you show a handsome profit. The problem is that most societies regard this as illegal, although it may sometimes be done officially. If widely practised merchants may start weighing the coins and giving them bullion value, not their face value. Can I stress again that I have no problem with precious metal coins being use post AD 410 since they represent 'bullion' and can be melted down to make fine brooches etc. What I dispute is whether brass coinage, of no intrinsic value, was used as money once it was no longer ultimately backed by the Roman central authority's reserves.
How the post-Imperial British successor states defeated invaders, if invaders there really were, has passed beyond our understanding I fear. There just isn't the evidence. The best we can do is to produce a plausible hypothesis. Once there were no longer central Roman authorities no one would stop a 'king', general, or war lord training a comitatus. Some soldiers were left in Britain (even if we don't agree on how many), some British auxiliaries returned, there were foreign recruits, some recently retired soldiers might make good trainers, and fit young men who were experienced hunters (and knew the land) could surely be trained in a year or two. After all the resulting army was not going to be pitted against old-style Roman legionaries. According to the traditional accounts the major fighting was in the period around AD 450-500 which gave the successor states a generation to form their armies. If you like to feel that such armies were formed around a Roman model that's fine; but the Roman army in the early 5th century was a complex entity. As we have discussed before did the successor states have the economic resources to retain cavalry and keep a force permanently in the field?
What is the evidence for a downturn in the British population? In a sense you are better asking fascinating since it is his theory not mine, but I can only envisage three type of proxy data: climatic deterioration, historical records of epidemics, or archaeological evidence of land desertion. Mike Baillie's dendrochronological studies suggest a climatic downturn in AD 540; could this have been associated with a famine? The Welsh annals have a 'great death' or 'yellow plague' in 547 in which Maelgwn of Gwynedd died. Could this have represented a great epidemic; the Plague of Justinian perhaps. Even if these events occurred they seem rather late for the traditional accounts of the Saxon 'invasions', and would surely have affected all the British communities. I'm not an archaeo-botanist but their general impression is that the 'Roman Landscape' of Britain changed in the 7th century. Surely a massive dislocation in society in the 5th or early 6th centuries would have brought about this change far earlier?
My real intention in all these exchanges is to ask posters to consider what they mean, in this period, by words like 'invasion', 'Roman', 'Britain' and 'Saxon'. Ethnicity, in particular, is not fixed and immutable. To me it makes no more sense to say that Edwin had an Anglo-Saxon army than to say Edward I had one. I can't say that this point of view has ever met with much sympathy on these boards!
Supposing it is 480 and I live in 'Essex'. One of my grandfather's came from South Denmark but the other three were born in Britain. My first language is an 'Old English' dialect but I understand 'Old British' well enough to speak it to two grandparents. I serve in the army of my king (whose came here from Sweden as it happens). Am I Saxon or British?
TP -
Message 40
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Wednesday, 23rd December 2009
I don’t think that there is much separating all of our points of view on this thread, it appears to come down to interpretation of key terms.
Personally I use the word Briton’s to mean the population of Britain and Roman when talking about the administration and the military.
It would be confusing to describe the army as The British army rather than the Roman army. Its make up, organisation and its strategy was still Imperial rather than British even at the start of the 5th century.
Saxon is an easy term of reference to include all the differing tribes that “invaded” Britain during the 5th century from continental Europe. The Romans used the word Saxon at the time probably because they could not distinguish between the tribes or could not be bothered.
Probably the most controversial word used is “invasion”, and it is indeed very hard to nail it down to mean one thing.
The same way migration can be interpreted in many ways the Saxon invasion was probably stretched over generations and differed in its actual effects over that time.
Saxon armies probably had only a few hundred men in them, the idea of large armies conquering Roman Britain is certainly false. But thousands of Saxons must have migrated to Britain to have such an influence on British society.
It was not simply a matter of elite replacing elite’s, such as during the Norman invasion. This was a major social change as well, but probably greatly helped by the huge vacuum caused by the ending of Roman society in Britain.
By 450 the Saxon mercenaries took over areas for their own and this probably resulted in many more Saxons migrating to Britain at this time.
So we can have Saxons peacefully migrating to areas of Britain where the ruling elite had already been replaced with Saxon elite’s at the same time that Saxon warriors are invading areas where British elite’s still rule.
British society would have been very different to Saxon society at this time, all male Saxons were warriors and served their lords whereas the wealthy parts of Roman Britain or what was left of it was more like modern British society.
Wealthy Britain’s owned land, poorer Britain’s worked the land and there was a considerable urban population made up to a large part by middle classes. The military was separate from this society and people did not see themselves as warriors or as responsible for military service the way that the Saxon population did.
In Gaul the Franks simply replaced the ruling elite and took over the role of the military leaving the peasants and bureaucrats to continue much as before, there was not real resistance to this change of power.
In Britain where there was still a remnant of the Roman military the British resisted strongly, such as around old military garrisons or major military centres. Also where Roman British society was less stratified and where the older Iron age society still lingered the population probably felt more responsible for their own defence. Thus we see that parts of Britain that were less Romanised became less Saxonised
The level of resistance ensured total destruction of the remnants of Roman society and paved the way for “Saxon” culture to replace it. -
Message 41
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Wednesday, 23rd December 2009
TwinProbe, I think the sources, and the question of their validity, has been gone over several times on this message board, so I don't want to do so again. I want to merely determine where you are coming from. It seems to me (and of course I could be wrong) that your starting point is that you want to believe that the Saxons (& other peoples/cultures/tribes) came to post -Roman Britain as settlers coming to an open land, and that they melded with the native population, with little conflict. As Gildas conflicts with that view, you seem to want to write him off, even though he was there at the time (well as a newborn baby when the battle of Badon happened). Bede's account is much the same as Gildas, and was probably taken from Gildas, so you must cast aside that too. Then there is the ASC, which does not seem to rely on Gildas but fills some other details, many of which tell of conflict. But you seem to want to cast doubt on that too.
From your postings you seem to have a lot more knowledge on the matter than me. But there seems to be this desire to believe that there was no conflict. Maybe I am wrong. But if I am right, I wonder why you have this desire. History shows that Europe has nearly always had some conflict going on at some time, even when it was called Christendom (Christ's Kingdom!) and with stable nations having organised armies, they still occasionally invaded and knocked seven bells out of each other.
I am just curious as to why you might think people would NOT invade (in the most serious sense of the word, to come armed and seize what you want) a country without a properly organised force to defend it.
Think what would happen if there was no police force in Britain. First looters would be seizing everything they want from shops. Next it would be hijacking lorries filled with goods. Then people would be terrified as gangs roamed the streets and robbed citizens at will. Then gangs would form into larger groups under big bosses and would fight each other. All this in a modern educated society. What do you think would happen in a world with no police or army to stand in the way of invaders?
I could well be mistaken about your thoughts, in which case I hope you will illuminate me. -
Message 42
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 23rd December 2009
Hi ev,
I have no problem with your usage of Briton, Roman and Saxon as clarified by the definitions you give. But there are problems with the nomenclature of recently arrived immigrants, as there are today of course. I largely agree with your views over migration and invasion. I don't have any difficulty at all with 'thousands of Saxons' arriving over several generations, if you really mean 'thousands' as opposed to 'hundreds of thousands' that is! I wholly agree that the situation with regard to governance and population make-up must have varied enormously on a regional basis.
So where do we differ? You write “British society would have been very different to Saxon society at this time, all male Saxons were warriors and served their lords whereas the wealthy parts of Roman Britain or what was left of it was more like modern British society”. I can't agree with this since it goes far beyond the evidence we have. Although we do have a fairly good grasp of how Romanised British elites lived in the late Empire we have only the vaguest notion of what British society was like in the post-Imperial period. Such knowledge as we do have is very restricted by region, 'Wales' for example being relatively well understood and 5th century British 'Norfolk' being an enigma wrapped in a mystery.
Nor am I happy with the concept that all male 'Saxons' were warriors. This is certainly the impression one gets from heroic poetry and the ASC, but Saxon society must have had many farmers and craft specialists unless they 'converted' British ones wholesale. I know that many male Anglo-Saxon graves contain weapon burials, but many contain occupants too old or too young to have been warriors. I can accept that knives were an important part of Anglo-Saxon culture but I don't think we can safely assume that every male wielded them in anger, or even that no females ever did.
I can see the attractions of your view that in those parts of Britain where there was still a remnant of the Roman military the British resisted strongly. The difficulty here is in dating. There is good evidence that the Roman military probably continued in the Hadrian's Wall forts and in York. But could the occupants of such sites have been fighting 'Saxons' in the 5th century? Fighting each other certainly; fighting Picts or Scots possibly. But 'Saxons'?
Finally I would prefer to say that Anglo-Saxon England evolved out of post-Imperial British society but, yes, I think we finally have reached a substantial measure of agreement.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 43
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 23rd December 2009
Hi fascinating,
I'm very happy to explain my 'starting point', which is that our ideas about the past should be based on the analysis of evidence. Naturally I accept that such evidence can be difficult to find, and that occasionally evidence from texts and that from the soil seems to be telling a quite different story. Very often a knotty historical problem simply cannot be resolved on the evidence now available however much we would wish it.
However, going to the end of your message, I think that you have drawn a very illuminating parallel between Dark Age British and modern British society. The modern British Army has devoted no time in the last 50 years to keeping out emigrants to Britain and there has been no military invasion during this period; nonetheless hundreds of thousands of immigrants have come. Some came because they were specifically invited, some came because there were known job opportunities in the UK, and some simply smuggled themselves here to escape something appalling at home. British society has been very much changed, I would say for the better, as a result of this process. Now I am generally opposed to argument from analogy but this could have been the mechanism by which Saxons arrived in Britain.
Although we spend a great deal of time discussing the formation of Anglo-Saxon England exactly the same arguments can be marshalled elsewhere in the UK. The Pictish society of Shetland was replaced by a Viking-Norse one. How did this occur? One group of academics believes that the indigenous population was massacred to the last man; the other takes the position of elite replacement and population continuation.
Bede (a great personal hero of mine) unquestionably took his account of 5th century Britain from Gildas, and it is his enormous (and well deserved) authority that has been responsible for the survival of Gildas's narrative. I would suggest those who champion Gildas as a historian to ask themselves why we have not adopted his theory of the origin of Hadrian's Wall. The reason, obviously, is that modern archaeological research is incompatible with his explanation. Such, I would claim, is also the case with his account of the conflict between Britons and Saxons.
The ASC was written hundreds of years after the events that interest us but I wouldn't disagree with your view that its authors had access to additional material. Unfortunately ordinary people only occur in the ASC (to use Catherine Hills highly significant phrase) to be “slaughtered or baptised”. Worse still the early events described are not those mentioned by Gildas so that we cannot use one source to check on another. Famously the battle of Badon does not appear in the ASC even as a skirmish.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 44
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Thursday, 24th December 2009
TwinProbe, thanks for your reply. You say that our ideas about the past should be based on analysis of evidence. As far as I can see, the evidence, such as we have, is of armed, destructive, invasion of Britain by peoples from what is now north Germany and Denmark. I have just been reading the ASC again. Apart from the odd pious reference to the doings or deaths of saints, almost the entire thrust of the narrative is of invaders coming a slaying Britons, sometimes after laying seige to towns, and of taking booty. (Badon is not mentioned but this was a British victory so the authors presumably regarded it as a temporary setback, not worth mentioning).
There really is no parallel between modern immigration and what happened in the 5th/6th centuries. Modern immigration has not changed the language of the place. There has been no laying seige of cities and running off with booty. There have been no pitch battles between natives and immigrants that I know of.
Naturally some people at some time may want to move from place to place. Thus I suppose, during the Roman Empire, many thousands decided to go to Rome, probably because it was the centre of wealth, and the largest population centre, and they thought they could do profitable business there. Even so, I am not going to call this general movement to Rome an invasion - though the Goths entering the city in 410 plainly was.
All things being equal, the Britons might have wanted to move to Gaul, or Germany, as much as the Saxons wanted to move to Britain. Yet that is not what we find. The evidence is of Saxons and others having a fixated idea of moving to Britain, with several accounts in ASC of them coming together in groups of boats, killing and laying seige. Now that IS an invasion! It is not individuals making economic choices without menace. It is coming by force and taking what you want.
Gildas was plainly wrong about the building of Hadrian's Wall, but let's not lay too much store by him getting one fact wrong. I would not rely on him for information on something that happened over 100 years before he lived. For things that happened just before he lived, to his parents say, then we can place some reliance on him, provided it accords with other evidence, such as the ASC, the account of St Germanus etc. And I don't see anything that contradicts him, materially, there. The appeal to Rome for help to repel the invaders appears in both Gildas and ASC, so I think we can count that as fact. That in itself says much about the context: the Britons WERE fearful of peoples coming into their country, and needed armed men to repel them. The general story, of Britons trying to fight off invaders, is the same in Gildas and ASC.
Nobody is saying that the Britons were massacred to the last man. But the more I think about the evidence, the more I think of how very weak this idea of a slow immigration, with little conflict, is. I am more open to persuasion that much massacring took place, and that the Britons, those that survived, were mostly driven West. Pollen evidence in this time indicates a drop in cultivation in the North (as Roman troops left you would expect less cultivation) about the same in the East, but an actual intensification in the West, and that could well mean refugee Britons crowding into the West and trying to wrest a living from the soil there. -
Message 45
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Thursday, 24th December 2009
Hi fascinating,
Well we're way off subject now aren't we, but it is Christmas Andrew, isn't it?
I think if you look critically at the sources then the apparent evidence of the armed, destructive, invasion of Britain appears a great deal less convincing than it does at first sight. I know that we have discussed this before but forgive me if a rehearse the evidence for the benefit of any new readers of this thread who prefer not to post.
Of archaeological evidence there is none at all. The fabric of Roman Britain is abandoned to decay, but does not perish in fire and slaughter. Recognisable Anglo-Saxon house-forms and artefacts start to appear in the 5th & 6th century cemeteries, particularly in eastern England. Clearly new fashions in building, jewellery and weapons become popular but there is no intrinsic evidence that they were imposed by force. The lay out of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries often respects older burial monuments. Given the large population of post-Roman Britain, and the evidence that agriculture continued largely uninterrupted until the 7th century, peaceful collaboration would seem more probable if it wasn't for the historical sources.
So what about those historical sources? Gildas was writing an admonitory religious work, not history. If I wished to reconstruct post-War US history I certainly wouldn't do so on the basis of the sermons of Dr Billy Graham, valuable though they no doubt are. You say “I would not rely on him for information on something that happened over 100 years before he lived”, but that is exactly what you are doing. Gildas states that he was born the year of the Battle of Badon. Of course we don't know precisely when that was, AD 490-510 perhaps. Allowing him 40 years to become a distinguished cleric he was certainly writing in the mid-6th century about events in the mid-5th to which he could not possibly have been a witness. I'm not suggesting that the appalling events he described never occurred at all, only that we don't know where, we don't know when, we especially don't know how representative they were, nor even if they were really the straightforward Briton v Saxon clash that they purport to be.
This account in Bede and most of the account in the ASC is taken from Gildas. This does not necessarily make them wrong but they cannot be considered independent. The only independent historical sources are brief, very brief, entries in the Gallic Chronicle and what we might call the 'additional material' in the ASC. As you say there are accounts in ASC of 'Saxons' arriving in groups of boats, but often the leaders have names clearly invented to explain topographical features (like Port and Portsmouth) or have names, or found kingdoms, that inconveniently have British names – like Cerdic, Kent or Bernicia. Again I can't claim that none of the sieges described took place, the account of the attack on the old Roman shore fort of Anderida seems rather circumstantial, but Saxons were not famous for their siege-craft, the Roman towns were deserted at this time, and none show evidence of a destructive end.
I'm sorry that, after all, you don't like the parallel between Anglo-Saxon and modern migration to Britain. I'm particularly surprised that you don't think modern immigration has changed our language. West Indian English is a particularly vigorous dialect, and one of several affecting the speech of modern UK youngsters, innit?
Of course there have been no recent pitched battles, that wasn't my point at all, which was that substantial numbers of people (with their culture, language and fashions) can migrate largely peacefully and without the necessity of a blood bath. And this, of course, is what happened to lowland Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 46
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Thursday, 24th December 2009
TwinProbe, I am afraid this is not making any sense to me at all.
From a distance of 1500 years, one cannot expect there to be much direct archaelogical evidence of fire and slaughter. What we do see are things like one of the gates at Silchester being blocked - why? Plus the final abandonment of almost every single town, barring perhpas Canterbury, does at least suggest wholesale disruption.
On Gildas, I have actually done a search and found a sermon by Billy Graham where he mentions WW2. He says "There is also anti-semitism. In Europe, anti-semitism is raising its ugly head again. That's what Hitler tried to do, kill all the Jews. In the Holocaust, millions of Jewish people perished because they were Jews. Today, the same things are cropping up. We need to do everything we can to be friends and neighbors of the people who have been chosen by God to be his people, the Jewish people.
“Bigotry of any kind is a sin in God's eyes.”
Now imagine we are discussing the alleged mass murder of the Jews in the year 3500. I point to a scrap of a document by Billy Graham that has come down to us. You say you cannot rely on the words of a sermoniser, but what I say is, nobody would listen to the sermoniser if he spouted forth what was known to be false. If people had not perished in the war by the million just because they were Jews, people would just turn away from Billy Graham and mutter he is a fool. Similarly, I take it that Gildas could not have ranted that the peoples' great misfortunes, of their cities being destroyed etc, unless that, or something close to that, did actually happen. I hardly think he is out of his time, the invasion of the Saxons was not finished until about 600.
I have no problem with the ASC giving certain kingdoms their Welsh names. In the US you still have native American names preserved in some places such as Minnesota. Most often invaders rename the places, but sometimes they don't.
The immigration into Britain has introduced the odd word here and there (and in my circle I hardly ever here the word 'innit') but it has come nowhere near to changing the language. Emphatically the coming of the 'english' was utterly different to modern immigration.
Can I just ask you to consider the appeal by the British to the Romans in the 5th century. If you regard that as authentic, what does it tell you? -
Message 47
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Thursday, 24th December 2009
Hi fascinating,
Oops! You're perfectly correct; I haven't checked any of Billy Graham's sermons recently, depending instead on my 40 year old memories of hearing him at a Crusade. I will now cheerfully accept that you have proved your case, namely that clerics can incorporate genuine history into their homilies. But do ask yourself what part of the country Gildas was supposed to be describing, and remember that he was writing in what he regarded as a time of relative peace: 'foreign wars have stopped, but not civil wars' etc
I think that even at the distance of 1500 years there might well be evidence of destruction and slaughter on a large scale, although you are not the first poster to criticise me on this point. But there is, for example, archaeological evidence to support Tacitus's account of the Boudiccan rebellion and also constructional evidence to support the historical accounts of the British coast being assailed by enemies in the 4th century, although not the identity of those enemies. The evidence to support Gildas's claim has been sought and has not been found, but no, in itself this lack of evidence does not disprove his account. No archaeological evidence has been found confirming the battle of Brunanburh although no-one doubts its historicality.
I've probably telescoped the evidence provided by Roman towns and villas too much too for it to be intelligible. I think that a good case can now be made for the abandonment of many of the towns in Roman Britain during the 4th century, in other words at too early a period to shed any light on Anglo-Saxon migrations one way or another.
The fact that villa estates survived longer only to finish in decay may be better evidence that the 'Saxon' and 'Pictish' raiding of the late 4th or early 5th centuries was less destructive than might be supposed from historical accounts but again may be from too early a period to shed light on the migration. It would be possible to argue that there was an interval of post-Imperial native British culture, during which there was abandonment of Roman buildings, prior to Anglo-Saxon migrations. One could then claim that such buildings were not damaged by Saxons because they were already in an advanced state of decay. How such a theory could deal with the ASC's account of the attack on Anderida I'm not sure; re-fortification in a time of crisis perhaps.
The 'groans of the Britons' to the Roman power in Gaul around the mid-5th century does certainly suggest that some part, or parts, of Britain were in trouble, although the Picts or Irish may have been the barbarians referred to. Dating this appeal would be really helpful. Was it to Aetius (as Bede assumed) or to Aegidius 20 years later? If the earlier date is correct then the impression is somewhat nullified by St Germanus's second visit to Britain in the 440s for theological discussions
I can't argue against your entirely correct statement that the North Americans used native American names for some of their states. The northern hills of Pendle and Pen y Ghent seem to have retained their names in exactly the same way. But to me it seems immensely puzzling that the first land handed over by 'Vortigern' to Hengist should retain its Iron Age name of Kent, and that the founder of the 'Anglo-Saxon' dynasty of Wessex should have a British name (Cerdic) and not a Saxon one. But if you don't share my puzzlement, you don't.....
How long did it take to change the language of lowland Britain from 'Old British', or perhaps a Latin derived proto-Romance language, to Old English? Three hundred years? Five hundred years? Modern immigrants seem to be doing a great job in a far shorter period in my estimation. Perhaps scholars of linguistics have some method of plotting the rate of language change. Perhaps I had better appeal to those who know!
I asked my son for guidance on his use of immigrant English vernacular. His answer: 'writing about history on Christmas Eve Dad? Get a life'. So perhaps I had better.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 48
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Thursday, 24th December 2009
Hi Englishvote,Fascinating and TP
I agree that we cannot write off Gildas completely but as with everything of this age I think that we should not treat his writings as “gospel”. He certainly wasn't an historian.
I believe that we actually only get glimpses of what is happening in various parts of the country – Gildas is writing from the West Country down by the Severn so is probably biased about events in that area.
I don’t think that there were armies thousands strong fighting one another but rather there were warbands who fought one another and possibly these weren’t based upon tribal lines at all times.
I do not agree that the change of language indicates that previous inhabitants were slaughtered or driven out.
When considering the Norman invasion it is surprising how many “Norman” words are still in existence considering it was only the elite that actually settled here not a great immigration.
I think there is a direct parallel in today’s North America where Spanish is now recognised as being the language that is likely to dominate in the next few years but there has been no invasion just a steady migration of workers who have slowly risen through the ranks by dint of hard work and numbers.
(You only have to go to Disneyland where the announcements are made in Spanish and English to see what I mean)
I expect that even when new people arrived that the current inhabitants at the worker level either accepted them or that the incomers employed them.
I think that we also should look at climate change, which we have touched on before, which certainly started a downward trend in AD350 onwards with increased rainfall,flooding, marginalisation of land, changes to the coastline both here and in Northern Germany and Denmark.
I feel that much of the immigration was attractive because people needed food. In fact the arguments between the foederati of Kent invited in by the Council of the Romano British was over food.
I also think that it is possible that plague and famine happened as Gildas states and he uses the Bible as a parallel – I also think he has to be credible to his readers and if there hadn’t been famine or plague it is not realistic and becomes irrelevant as a serious document for his own time.
I think also we have to be careful about the chronology of events – when were the gates at Silchester blocked? AD425, AD450, AD550?
We know that the cities were abandoned but we still don’t know the reasons but we do know that they weren’t burnt to the ground completely or re-populated for many years – why?
I think that what would be really interesting would be to try and group the facts and ideas by decades from AD410 to AD600 and then we might start to get a pattern.
Best Wishes and Merry Christmas to you all - TA -
Message 49
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Sunday, 27th December 2009
I believe that we actually only get glimpses of what is happening in various parts of the country – Gildas is writing from the West Country down by the Severn so is probably biased about events in that area.
Ěý
Do you have any reason for believing that this area was in any way unique?
When considering the Norman invasion it is surprising how many “Norman” words are still in existence considering it was only the elite that actually settled here not a great immigration.
Ěý
A large percentage of the words in use in English today have "Morman" origin, but the foundation of the language is still English, just as we would expect from an invasion of an elite. The fact that the English language has entirely replaced the previously-existing Romano-British, is strong indication of wholesale population replacement.
I don’t think that there were armies thousands strong fighting one another but rather there were warbands who fought one another and possibly these weren’t based upon tribal lines at all times.
Ěý
Why don't you think that? The ASC speaks of thousands being slaughtered in one battle. Please give reasons why you do not believe this.
I think there is a direct parallel in today’s North America where Spanish is now recognised as being the language that is likely to dominate in the next few years but there has been no invasion just a steady migration of workers who have slowly risen through the ranks by dint of hard work and numbers.
Ěý
First there is no indication that Spanish will dominate nationally in the USA, let alone North America. Second, a better example would be the invasion of South America by Spanish and Portugese people in the 17th century. I, for one, do not doubt that there were battles and massacres, though of course the native population probably suffered more from diseases that they had no resistance to.
(You only have to go to Disneyland where the announcements are made in Spanish and English to see what I mean)
Ěý
That does not prove very much. A large minority speak only Spanish, so Spanish, as well as English, is used. By the 7th century, in Britain, only english was used.
I expect that even when new people arrived that the current inhabitants at the worker level either accepted them or that the incomers employed them.
Ěý
You have no evidence for that.
I think that we also should look at climate change, which we have touched on before, which certainly started a downward trend in AD350 onwards with increased rainfall,flooding, marginalisation of land, changes to the coastline both here and in Northern Germany and Denmark.
Ěý
I would like you to put forward exactly what evidence you have seen of significant climate change in this period.
I think also we have to be careful about the chronology of events – when were the gates at Silchester blocked? AD425, AD450, AD550Ěý
Any of those dates indicates a need to defend against threatening forces.
We know that the cities were abandoned but we still don’t know the reasons but we do know that they weren’t burnt to the ground completely or re-populated for many years – why?
Ěý
From what others have posted on here, the cities were well into decline in the late 4th century, though of course there is the evidence that the people tried to continue city life into the mid-5th century at least. i say that cities finally became abandoned when communications between them broke down, as a result of invading forces which rendered it unsafe to travel and transport goods on the roads between them.
I think that what would be really interesting would be to try and group the facts and ideas by decades from AD410 to AD600 and then we might start to get a pattern Ěý
Unfortunately, there are not enough facts to be able to do this. -
Message 50
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Sunday, 27th December 2009
Hi Fascinating,
I'm very much an observer of this debate with no new knowlege to contribute. But I am a little puzzled by your statement that cities finally became abandoned when communications between them broke down, as a result of invading forces which rendered it unsafe to travel and transport goods on the roads between them.Ěý and can't help wondering why the invaders did not occupy the cities.
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