01-18-2007, 01:09 PM
Quote:... that would mean that the population took a sharp dive after Britain became independent (Gildas saw that as a happier time, I believe), ...
Hi Vortigern,
I don't think Gildas saw the period between the late 4th cent to the AS period as a happy time at all. He only refers to one short period of peace.
During the latter stages of roman rule he writes of Britain:
... open to be trampled upon by two foreign tribes of extreme cruelty, the Scots from the north-west, the Picts from the north; and for many years continues stunned and groaning.
It's at this point Gildas thinks the romans instructed the Britons to build the walls which:
... being made not of stone but of turf, proved of no advantage ...
to the Britons who he describes as:
... the rabble in their folly, and destitute of a leader.
The repeated devastation he describes thus:
They rush across the boundaries, carried over by wings of oars, by arms of rowers, and by sails with fair wind. They slay everything, and whatever they meet with they cut it down like a ripe crop, trample under foot and walk through.
When the romans withdrew for the last time, according to Gildas, he records that:
the terrible hordes of Scots and Picts eagerly come forth ... differing partly in their habits, yet alike in one and the same thirst for bloodshed ...
and continues:
... on learning the departure of our helpers and their refusal to return, became more audacious than ever, and seized the whole northern part of the land as far as the wall, to the exclusion of the inhabitants.
which indicates that, in some areas at least, land started to become depopulated.
As far as the Britons are concerned, Gildas thinks they had a pretty wretched time of it:
They abandon their cities and lofty wall: there ensues a repetition of flight on the part of the citizens; again there are scatterings with less hope than ever, pursuit again by the enemy, and again still more cruel massacres. As lambs by butchers, so the unhappy citizens are torn in pieces by the enemy ...
and then Gildas starts to write about how the Britons turned against each other and:
... even began to restrain one another by the thieving of the small means of sustenance for scanty living, to tide over a short time, which the wretched citizens possessed. Calamities from without were aggravated by tumults at home, because the whole country by pillagings, so frequent of this kind, was being stripped of every kind of food supply, with the exception of the relief that came from their skill in hunting.
Gildas then mentions a victory of the Britons over the Irish and Picts:
Then for the first time, they inflicted upon the enemy, which for many years was pillaging in the land, a severe slaughter ...
This is the start of Gildas' peaceful period, but he doesn't see it as a happy time:
The boldness of the enemy quieted for a time, but not the wickedness of our people; the enemy withdrew from our countrymen, but our countrymen withdrew not from their sins.
He acknowledges it as a prosperous time, but one fermenting wickedness:
While another more poisonous hunger was silently growing on the other hand, and the devastation quieting down, the island was becoming rich with so many resources of affluence that no age remembered the possession of such afterwards: along with these resources of every kind, luxury also grew.
It's at this point where, according to Gildas, the Irish and Picts returned and that the Saxons were invited to help repel their raids.
Gildas' account of the suffering British population in the early 5th cent. does have some support from St Patrick:
I was taken into captivity to Ireland with many thousands of people ...
Patrick, like Gildas blames it on sinful ways but gives an indication of the extent of the effect of Irish and Pictish raids on the british population:
the Lord brought over us the wrath of his anger and scattered us among many nations, even unto the utmost part of the earth
When Patrick escaped from Ireland and returned to Britain, he reported:
... after three days we reached land, and for twenty-eight days we travelled through deserted country ...
Having fallen into captivity again, on his second return to Britain, Patrick wrote (from memory) that:
life and property had suffered but that the land still bore it's fruits.
It seems quite reasonable to me to hypothesise a collapse in the population, together with some parts becoming wholly depopulated, between the roman and AS periods.
Quote:I think current thought has the British population already diminishing since the 3rd c., a curve that i could well accept becoming a bit steeper during the 5th c., with all the raids, civil wars and Anglo-Saxon migration starting. But I can't accept any idea that after 450 it became stable?
Perhaps I put it badly. I don't mean stable to indicate a settled population, just that steep decline from approx 4 million to around 2 million stopped.
Quote:With a the wars continuing right into the 7th c? How about that supposed plague of the mid-th c., we know that hit Britain too!
I don't think Härke is addressing the 6th and 7th cents., simply that the Anglo Saxons entered, in some parts, an empty landscape and that there wasn't a mass exodus or genocide in the 5th cent.
best
Harry Amphlett
Harry Amphlett
