Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Agraes]

Vortigern,

All I can say about Coel Hen is that he existed. Not much else sadly. Despite the frustration Arthur gives us Coel Hen is even more mysterious. And as for his being Dux Britannium, most reaserchers agree on that. For good resreach on Ambrosius Aurelianus and Vortigern I recommend "The Real King Arthur" by P.F.J Turner. However be careful, he overuses Latin translations of names and listens to Linda Melcor and Geoffrey of Manmouth too much. (ie. Arthur was Lucius Artorius Castus, he commanded the Equites Sarmatium, etc, etc.)

Drat... those mines are buried. Oh well, I guess we'll have to go back to the latest Roman records of their productivity then use our knowledge of population estimation to figure out what the mines were like. Oh, and I changed my estimate about the cavalry. If an Ala of cavalry was a hundred men and the Taifalia had two Alae and so did the Cataphractarii , then "Arthur's" cavalry force was about 600 men. Exactly two Romano-British cavalry warbands and large enough to be stationed at Cadbury Castle while leaving room for guards and a small infantry garrison.

That's mostly speculation and you can deduce whatever you want from it.
From what I know, Coel Hen is only known from geneaologies, post-galfridian writtings and some dubious tradition. I don't know of researchers that really assume he was Dux britanniarum. Of course he fits the role, just as Arthur fits the role of a south-western powerful warlord circa 500 AD. Yet this is no proof that either existed.

I am quite sorry for any arthurian enthousiasts (I have been one and my interested in the period started because of Arthur among other stuff but there is still no proof at all that Arthur did ever exist, all possible sources having been dismissed by serious scholarship. Thus nothing - except the scenario of a novel, a movie or a video game - can be built on this.

There is a lot that have been discovered in the recent years in the studies of 5th and 6th century Britain, and there is possibly a lot more that awaits us. I would be the first pleased if someone discovers any real reliable proof of Arthur's historicity. Meanwhile, Ill stick my interest on attested characters such as Vortigern, Ambrosius Aurelianus or Riothamus.


About the tin, Ewan Campbell thought south-western Britain was rich enough in the white metal to attract the byzantine traders between AD 475-550. Trade with eastern Mediterranea and North Africa is very well attested in Britain by that time, the concentration of imports focusing on centres such as Tintagel in Cornwall, Bantham in Devon and Dinas Powys in South Wales. For Campbell British tin was the nearer ressource from Byzantium, he thus argues that Sapin tin mines were extinguished by that time, that there was no large ressource of tin known in Asia Minor and of course that the Byzantine military had a huge neccessity of tin.
See Ewan CAMPBELL, Continental and Mediterranean Imports to Atlantic Britain and Ireland AD 400-800, Council for British Archaeology, 2007.

Ken Dark has reviewed this book in Early Medieval Europe revue. He disagrees with part of Campbell's theories about the reasons of the trade of tin. Now a likely fact remains from textual sources and archaeological works: South-Western Britain seems to have produced enough tin by the late 5th and early 6th century AD to exchange it with meditarranean goods brought by eastern traders. That implies a surplus.
Now there is quite few finds linked with warfare from the digs of sites such as Dinas Powys (an iron ferule of a spear shaft), Bantham (two spearheads), South Cadbury (a crossbow bolt, an axehead that could be a tool) or Tintagel (nothing!). Of course a lot of this could have been lost. We may have found however one or two lost scales if South Cadbury really hosted 600 lorica squamata-clad battle-horsemen!