Questions on Constantius, Constantine and the Northern British Tribes

[Robert Vermaat]

What is 'Romano British'?
How many British read and spoke latin?
How many British are recorded as holding high rank in the military or Roman institutions?
What evidence is there that a British populace became educated in Roman schools? This would imply that Britons were able to rise within the Roman administration. Evidence?
sources please
Had the populace been 'Romanised' we would expect to see a population, for example, of Roman names - especially continuing post Roman departure . We do not. Gildas is quite clear when he refers to Ambrosius as the almost alone among his kind. Gildas refers to him as a "Roman".

So much later we have:
' He was a man of unassuming character, who, alone of the Roman race chanced to survive in the shock of such a storm (as his parents, people undoubtedly clad in the purple, had been killed in it), whose offspring in our days have greatly degenerated from their ancestral nobleness. To these men, by the Lord's favour, there came victory.'
ie; the Romans are considered a seperate race.

Lots of questions & assumptions

Romano-British - this is how we today describe the population of the Britsih provinces during the Roman period.

How many British read and spoke latin? - you mean citizens of the British diocese? No figures available. I would imagine that many more spoke the language, becauase every dealing with the government would mean you had to be able to understand the language. Reading would have come second, but everyone who would come in contact with legal documents of any sort would have to be able to read it, or rely on a translator.

How many British are recorded as holding high rank in the military or Roman institutions?  - No figures available, because Roman rcords hardly ever show someone's background.

What evidence is there that a British populace became educated in Roman schools? - The whole populace? None, because the Romans did not have a school system where the whole population as educated. Education was mostly a private affair, if you wanted your children to be schooled you hired a tutor.

a population, for example, of Roman names - especially continuing post Roman departure . We do not. - Actually we do. By far the most monument that we see show a very Romanised population where names are concerned. If you had expected this to end when the Roman control of Britain ended, this is not the case. After a surge of Brythonic names we still see, even 200 years after the end of Roman rule, many many Roman names occurring on funeral monuments, even in regions where Romanisation had been thin during the Roman period.


Gildas: 'ie; the Romans are considered a seperate race. - Gildas was writing during the early 6th century, more than a century after the end of Roman rule. Even IF Ambrosius had been recognisable as 'a Roman', this would be similar to descriptions from other forman Roman provinces (such as Gaul, Germany and Noricum), where newcomers distinguished themselves from the Original population. This is by no means any proof for the sepration of Romans and Britons into seperate classes during the Roman period.
Even more so, there is no agreement for your opinion, that by Gildas' time there were 'Romans' in Britain who were some sort of seperate class. 'Roman' in the Gildensian meaning refers to political position, as in 'continental'.

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You have said it was the army that retained the power. True - but if Constantine had to have an army for his battles in the Rhine then this must have been raised from sources stationed in Britain and perhaps those supporters on the continent - but the main contingent in Britain.

Constantine's army might have added some forces from Britain - some say he may have pulled the VI legion from York - but his army was the very same army that his father had on the continent. He did not need any troops from Britain.