Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Conal]

I agree. The degree of it all...the ratios of what to what, is something that needs clarification. In Armorica the cavalry classes were very powerful. The Romans "en landed" the Alans in a way specifically designed to ensure that they could concentrate on being cavaly and not having to farm themselves. The bloodlines of beef stock there seem to support that.I think it stayed that way for at least a couple of hundred years. The Franks and co subsumed the Alans but embraced the system.

Were the Alans actually "en landed" in Armorica or in neighnouring Orleans & Valencea so they were close at hand?

If they were not part or Armorician society and therefore not subsumed then the future references to Breton cavlary may have been with regard to a home grown type and not, what is often assumed, specifically a direct development of Alanic cavalry. I ask this as in AD448 the Armoricians are said to have revolted due to Alanic settlement. Is it clear that they were in revolt as the Alans had been put amongst them or that they were interfering from adjacent lands? Either way they were not being accepted so maybe they were not assimilated, maybe resitence wasn't futile????

I think quite a lot has been made of a few sentences in the Gallic chronicles, especially that for 452.