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+--- Thread: Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc) (/showthread.php?tid=6780)
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Agraes - 04-15-2010
Quote:also, elm javelins were popular, they just whitled the sticks until they were thin enough to slip through mail.
What you mean is not clear. Just in case however, mail rings had around 6mm of inside diameter at this time. That's quite small for a javelin to slip through...
![[Image: 800px-Cure-dents_en_bois.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Cure-dents_en_bois.jpg/800px-Cure-dents_en_bois.jpg)
Maybe with those ones...
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 04-15-2010
Yuh.
I remember a British high-fashion model who had legs like that. 8)
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 04-15-2010
Quote:That means folk with advanced "better" weapons.
No it doesn't, it means people armed with weapons that they know how to use properly. It's just as likely that any success on the part of relatively small numbers of Germanic incomers was due to their military experience as Federated troops (which is why they were draughted in in the first place). A small number of well disciplined, well drilled warriors can overcome a much larger armed rabble. A good sword doesn't make a good warrior.
And, of course, not everyone agrees with Harke's 'old fashioned' ideas about the extent of a physical Germanic conquest and subjugation of the Britons. Have you read Pryor's 'Briton AD' for the extreme end of contradictory opinion? I think he's mad meself, whereas I have huge respect for Harke, especially for his work on Anglo-Saxon burials and what they really tell us.
Quote:Key elite foreign troops fight with good metal weapons and not wooden spears, at this time.Archaeology doesn't seem to bear this out. Once you move beyond the age of close order formations with large shields and short stabby swords, the spear is the primary weapon of infantry.
Keep your opponent as far away from you as possible for as long as possible. If you have opposing forces of equal ability and one side's got spears and the other has short arms, the spear wall will win. It's hard to close the gap when you've got people jabbing pointed sticks into your face. Having a sword and knowing how to use it is great, but having a spear is essential.
Unless your comment was putting down the idea that plain wooden spears without sharp metal heads were dominant in the period, in which case I agree with you.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 04-15-2010
Quote:Finally! Something I'm qualified in... Dark Age weaponry. .
Your use of the phrase 'Dark Age' would seem to give the lie to that statement.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - dashydog - 04-15-2010
Well Aaqlnus,
I am talking about steels from much later. Post Roman, that is. By that time, the steel industry has probably changed and developed a lot. Silk Road too. In "my" period, it ll be recovering from Hunnic things and chaotic too.
Rod
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - ArthuroftheBritons - 04-15-2010
Medicus matt,
I am aware that this is the "Post-Roman" period, but , in my humble opinion, "The Dark Ages" sounds so much cooler!
Vortigern,
if you look in my post you'll find the source and I'm qualified because that is the main I looked at when I became infatuated with A... :lol: Also I'll check the book today to find the tale. It could be a lead. Also, it seems that whenever a culture that has touches of earlier ones (In this case Celtic Picti) and a more advanced culture leaves (Romans) People have a tendancy to revert to the old ways. I believe that point was brought up on an ubscure part of Gildas.
Agraes,
What are those? They look like wooden Plumbatari.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Gaius Julius Caesar - 04-15-2010
Quote:
What are those? They look like wooden Plumbatari.
I think you will find they are what are commonly called 'Tooth-picks'.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - dashydog - 04-15-2010
ArthuroftheBritons\\n[quote]Medicus matt,
The earliest examples of these were found in the burned out remains of a mock Italian 1960'3 Restaurant in Edinbugh. Apparantly, when flicked with a butter knife, they could penetrate over 3mm of heavily applied make up atr a range of 20 metres.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 04-15-2010
Quote: I'm qualified because that is the main I looked at when I became infatuated with A... .
You're obviously using a definition of the word 'qualified' that I'm unfamiliar with.
if you don't understand why it is inappropriate to refer to the early medieval period as the 'Dark Ages' in any sort of informed discussion then it just adds strength to my opinion.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 04-15-2010
Quote:The earliest examples of these were found in the burned out remains of a mock Italian 1960'3 Restaurant in Edinbugh. Apparantly, when flicked with a butter knife, they could penetrate over 3mm of heavily applied make up atr a range of 20 metres.
:lol:
And thought it not too many.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - dashydog - 04-15-2010
Quote:dashydog:gj3at1rt Wrote:That means folk with advanced "better" weapons.
Quote:No it doesn't, it means people armed with weapons that they know how to use properly. It's just as likely that any success on the part of relatively small numbers of Germanic incomers was due to their military experience as Federated troops (which is why they were draughted in in the first place). A small number of well disciplined, well drilled warriors can overcome a much larger armed rabble. A good sword doesn't make a good warrior.
And, of course, not everyone agrees with Harke's 'old fashioned' ideas about the extent of a physical Germanic conquest and subjugation of the Britons. Have you read Pryor's 'Briton AD' for the extreme end of contradictory opinion? I think he's mad meself, whereas I have huge respect for Harke, especially for his work on Anglo-Saxon burials and what they really tell us.
Typed a reply before and then promptly lost it....... hell.
Pryor really makes me snigger but he is fine entertainment all right! What the Scots call a bahmpot! Harke is very good and, right now, is awaiting his stuff to be reviewed by the Royal Society in London. I think he is right. I think there was an Apartheid enforced by the saxons in the early days and probably as part of and following enforced subjugation in some places. I envisage a scenario where local foederati who stayed on (to collect their arrears in pay) contacted their mates in Frisland and Germany to come on over and get stuck in. Some of these also would have been professionals..either as mercenaires or pirates. It meant swords and metalware...what with their being Pros and all that. Wooden spear points might have been effective and date back to the paleaolithic but they didnt stop the Romans.
Harke is weak in one respect, I feel, because he does bones and graves and not social and business structures. That is because he has no choice. Our Saxon louts are pre Christian (many still are, oop ere in Northumbria!) and didnt read or write. So..no records. But, these Saxons were mighty traders..really big time. They were also mighty ship owners and builders, some of them. We always hear about the Norsk later on but the Saxons were more than a match for them.
I see the Apartheid as starting off as brutal and real as the immigrant minority of thugs takes over but softening out of necessity as people slid into a rut and the local girls seemed prettier (they always do after a while). Once the Saxon wars start in the mid 600s the apartheird, per se, is dead and more so than ever when the Danes turn up.
But, that apartheid would have been there de facto. Language, contactsk knowledge of the law and access to it. Celto Brits would have had to marry up to get into that.
Later on we saw how the Normans set us up with Solicitors (local thickoes who deal with the Brit customers and Frenchified Barristers who speak french and English and can conduct the case for the thicko solicitor in the french speaking court itself. How little we change, eh! Scots dont have it. Anyway, that is still apartheid.
And, of course, Britain was a divided country in so many ways. One truth in one place would not be mirrored by others in other places.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - ArthuroftheBritons - 04-15-2010
Oh, ha-ha, I guess the joke is, and was supposed to be, on me. :oops: oh and Medicus matt, I know the official reason why, but when something is beaten into you with a textbook it is hard to get it out. Also I guess qualified is only among my less knowledgable peers. Among you guys I am an amature.
Also I think we'rer starting to descend into an ireevelant feud amongst ourselves on offtopic items. We should really get back to the cavalry.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Agraes - 04-15-2010
Quote:Oh, ha-ha, I guess the joke is, and was supposed to be, on me.
Glad you like the tooth-pick.
Here some other impressive Dark Ages warriors with their typical weaponry.
![[Image: 68100198_64c2a7aaed_o.jpg]](http://static.flickr.com/26/68100198_64c2a7aaed_o.jpg)
Ahem! Ok, let's come back on more serious matter.
Quote:Pryor really makes me snigger but he is fine entertainment all right! What the Scots call a bahmpot! Harke is very good and, right now, is awaiting his stuff to be reviewed by the Royal Society in London. I think he is right. I think there was an Apartheid enforced by the saxons in the early days and probably as part of and following enforced subjugation in some places. I envisage a scenario where local foederati who stayed on (to collect their arrears in pay) contacted their mates in Frisland and Germany to come on over and get stuck in. Some of these also would have been professionals..either as mercenaires or pirates. It meant swords and metalware...what with their being Pros and all that. Wooden spear points might have been effective and date back to the paleaolithic but they didnt stop the Romans.
I would pick-up the 'in between' view :wink:
I think it can't be denied there was a significant settlement of germanic newcomers in 5th century Britain. They were called by the British autorities as extra muscle in both external and internal conflicts. Nothing new here, good Gildas was the first to write about it. The 'Anglo-saxons' however don't seem to have taken over large parts of Britain before the 6th century.
I really like Stuart Laycock' theories developped in Britannia: The Failed State. Tribal Conflicts and the End of Roman Britain. That the germanic immigrants were settled on the borders of several warring british civitates seems well convincing. So their settlement seems at first to have been organised by Romano-british autorities. The following decades would see here and there political takeovers by germanic elite and strong cultural influence on the Britons. Some germanic leaders may have called then more people from Germanic mainland.
In itself this would not be surprising. The same thing happenned in Gaul and much of the rest of the Western Roman Empire. The Germanic elites had to cope with the local aristocraty and the people. This resulted in two-ways cultural influence and assimilation. If at first there was some distinction between 'Germanic' (ie Frankish, Wisigothic or any other) and 'Roman' such distinctions were going to vanish.
Britain case is different from the rest of late antique/early medieval Europe for several things. The 'Anglo-saxons' seem to have been composed of a wide selection of tribes, not a single people or coalition such as the Salian Franks, Burgonds, Alemanni or Wisigoths. The process of the conquest/political takeover was much slower and progressive than on mainland, nor it was complete. And finally, they never adopted such a romanised culture as their continental counterparts. This is particularly true for the language, which wasn't a dialect of latin or brittonic but a germanic one. The influence of native tongues on it is another matter. In itself, this may had to do with that slower conquest. The 'Anglo-saxons' may have had more time to assimilise the local Briton population.
I think there wasn't one scenario of 'anglo-saxon' settlement but many of those. It wasn't probably the same thing in Bernicia, Wessex, Kent or East Anglia. Some places may have seen a brutal colonisation with Britons beeing killed, enslaved or forced to exile. In other the process may have been set up by British authorities, resulting in the long term on a cultural mix-up between Britons and Saxons (one often quoted exemple beeing Gewissae leaders with brittonic names such as Cerdic and Cynric). While the germanic warlords may have quickly took up the power here and there they likely had to deal with the locals who may still be way more numerous. And in other place where is very little proof of Germanic settlement such as Bernicia, the Anglo-saxon culture may have been made 'popular' through a very limited number of newcomers.
I must admit I may just have been kicking out an open door!
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 04-15-2010
Hello, Aotb
Quote:Also, it seems that whenever a culture that has touches of earlier ones (In this case Celtic Picti) and a more advanced culture leaves (Romans) People have a tendancy to revert to the old ways. I believe that point was brought up on an ubscure part of Gildas.
Methinks you've been reading too many 19th century authors, even Morris and Ashe. Perhaps the common Briton "reverted to the old ways" because he never lost the old ways. A vast number of northerners (Celtic Picti) might fall into this catagory. BUT, all indications now point that the upper strata of southern Britons were heavily Romanized and remained that way for a century after the so-called "Roman abandonment." This is borne out by the heavier meat in Gildas, and not obscure at all. The central theme of this tread, when we remember it, is sub-Roman British cavalry. And what part the Picts played in it, if anything at all, is extremely subjective. 8)
Quote:What are those? They look like wooden Plumbatari.
Glad Agraes "pointed out" they were toothpicks.
and of course, I was referring to the famous tooth-pick legs of Twiggy, a fashion model of the 1960s. :lol:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Agraes - 04-15-2010
Ken Dark even suggested that the western elites, from the 'less romanised' parts of Britain, adopted a romano-christian culture in the 5th century. There is indeed more proofs of latin culture in 5th century Cornwall, Devon and most of Wales (apart from a few towns, forts and what was the land of the Silures) than in the previous romano-british period. We have proofs of latin litteracy (class-1 stone inscriptions), adoption of christianity (long-cist burials...) and roman tastes (trade for Mediterranean wine, oil and ware). That's the so-called 'celtic revival' :twisted: