07-09-2010, 10:49 AM
Where are we?
We have bookends of Roman practice before the departure of the legions (circa AD 409) and that of the Brittonic losers at the battle of Catraeth (circa AD 600), both indicating the use of mounted warriors by the defenders, but an irritating lack of detail about how those horse-borne troops were organized , trained or equipped. And, of course, our "best" sources for those bookends are the entertaining but unreliable documents of Saint Gildas (De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae) and Aneirin (Y Gododdin). From the tea leaves of those works, other literary sources, and the archeological debris of the period we guess at what might have transpired. :|
Contemporary Eastern Roman and western Asian practice is too remote to have greatly influenced how the Britons organized and equipped themselves. Later practice--Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norman--is largely irrelevant. :roll:
In rejecting later Medieval practice and equipage as anachronistic, we must then fall back on later western Roman practice for a prototype of sub-Roman Britain, understanding that the farther one projects after AD 409 the less likely one can employ even that model.
Right?
We have bookends of Roman practice before the departure of the legions (circa AD 409) and that of the Brittonic losers at the battle of Catraeth (circa AD 600), both indicating the use of mounted warriors by the defenders, but an irritating lack of detail about how those horse-borne troops were organized , trained or equipped. And, of course, our "best" sources for those bookends are the entertaining but unreliable documents of Saint Gildas (De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae) and Aneirin (Y Gododdin). From the tea leaves of those works, other literary sources, and the archeological debris of the period we guess at what might have transpired. :|
Contemporary Eastern Roman and western Asian practice is too remote to have greatly influenced how the Britons organized and equipped themselves. Later practice--Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norman--is largely irrelevant. :roll:
In rejecting later Medieval practice and equipage as anachronistic, we must then fall back on later western Roman practice for a prototype of sub-Roman Britain, understanding that the farther one projects after AD 409 the less likely one can employ even that model.
Right?
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil
Ron Andrea
Ron Andrea
