Brittany and Scotland

[Aryaman2]

Brittany and Scotland
Hi all
There has been a long and hot discussion on the Saxon invasion of England, and I wonder, what about Brittany and Scotland? The Galloroman population of Brittany ceased to speak latin no romance language survived, while the Celtic language of Brittany is clearly originary of Britain, not the revival of the Gallic population.
Similarly, picti were erased from memory by the Scottish invasion. Are there any traceable parallels with the Saxon invasion in Britain?

[Robert Vermaat]

There has been a long and hot discussion on the Saxon invasion of England, and I wonder, what about Brittany and Scotland? The Galloroman population of Brittany ceased to speak latin no romance language survived, while the Celtic language of Brittany is clearly originary of Britain, not the revival of the Gallic population.
Similarly, picti were erased from memory by the Scottish invasion. Are there any traceable parallels with the Saxon invasion in Britain?

Hi Inaki,
The population of Brittany may well have spoken more Gallic than Latin. We know from Late Romans sources (amongst them Sidonius Appolinaris' moaning poems) that in the country, latin was by no means the first language.
As to Scotland, maybe the main difference is that it was far more sparcely inhabited? besides that, the Scottish invasion was by no means massive and depopulating - it started out as the settlement of a peninsula and took centuries.

[Agraes]

I read somewhere about the evidence of the gallic language spoken to the Xth century in France.

When the Britons came in Western Armorica, there was still a lot of Gallic speakers, and Gallic and Brythonic weren't that far. There is also a tale (in the Dream of Maxen Wledig) recording that the Britons of Conan Meriadec killed the Armoricans, and cut their women tongue. Purely myth, but an explanation of "why no more gallic". And in the eastern part of the peninsula, there was speakers of Roman, this part (counties of Nantes and Rennes) will be only conquered by the Bretons in the IXth century.

But Romano-Gallic aristocraty did also hold Darioritum/Vannes/Gwened for a while, even "besieged" by brythonic settlements, as shown by the toponomy. Vannes will only became fully Breton under Waroch in the late VIth century - it has been argued that this was the origin of "Erec and Enid", Erec beeing a form of Waroch, and Enid of Gwened, the king and its land.

In the civitas curiosoliti, the latest "settlement" of the Britons when Riwall of Dumnonia will install himself after chasing the Frisians and Goths established there in the early VIth century, Brythonic population was probably less dense than in Civitas Ossismi and Veneti (Cornouailles and Bro-Erec), and the population of this region will readopt Roman and then French in the High Middle Ages, after several events (the Viking Invasion, the Norman Conquest of Britain and the Crusades) and the departure of part of the Breton elite. And then, Brittany will enter in the feodal age fully, no longer turned to Cornwall and Wales but to France and England, with french-speaking dukes, no more Breton-speaking kings.


For Scotland, Gaels won the day, but after a very long process. For a very very long time there was gaelic large settlements in Argyll ("Gaelic coast"), in Western Scotland. There was also the Brythonic kingdoms of Gododdin (conquered by Northumbria circa 640 AD, later on annexed by Scotland as "Lothian") and Alcluyd/Strathclyde (union with Scotland in the XIth century). From the V to the Xth century, it will be a long haul fight between Picts and Gaels of Dal Riada for which one will have the power. Gaels will be successfull under Kenneth Mac Alpine, taking advantage of the Pictish matrimonial system, beeing crowned king of the Picts and apparently treachously killing the pictish elite. The Pictish culture will then fall under the weight of Gaelic and Norse influences.