The English and the Celts - no genocide?

[Robert Vermaat]

Gildas, writing in the early 6th c. does not give one single hint that the Saxons drove either British or Christians before them to the West.

That's true, though Gildas gives no clues as to geography. His personal knowledge of the british isles too is suspect, hence he draws on unreliable sources for Hadrian's and the Antonine walls. british christian communities did survive though, even in Kent, hence the 'eccles' names. Eccles itself is a brythonic word borrowed into latin hence english uses a latinised welsh word to denote a community of british christians.

I would not say that Gildas had a bad knowledge of the British Isles. True, his historical knowledge of event further back than the 5th c. are unsound, but then he was not the only one who did not know who built the wWalls - I believe it was Orosius who thought that Severus builkt them. Gildas seems reliable enough for his own story, even when he like to speak in hyperbole often enough.

The survival of Christian communities in Kent, ánd the (eccles-)names for them, is one of those signs that for me speak against a mass migration in the early days of the Anglo-saxon arrival and a total population replacement in the east, as Coates advocates.

Härke suggests that a population crash occured in the immediate post roman period but that the romano british population remained stable from the mid 5th cent onwards.

Does he really? How strange - that would mean that the population took a sharp dive after Britain became independent (Gildas saw that as a happier time, I believe), and that is stabilised when the Anglo-Saxons arrived in (according to Härke, right?) a mass migration, driving all the British before them? I find that hard to believe. I think current thought has the British population already diminishing since the 3rd c., a curve that i could well accept becoming a bit steeper during the 5th c., with all the raids, civil wars and Anglo-Saxon migration starting. But I can't accept any idea that after 450 it became stable? With a the wars continuing right into the 7th c? How about that supposed plague of the mid-th c., we know that hit Britain too!

Another major consideration is the late roman marine transgression which altered the landscape considerably.

Yes, we know that already startyed during the Roman period. It must have been very problematic for the low-lying areas.

[Robert Vermaat]

The germanic speakers in the east were unaffected by the plague

I've read that too, mostly as an explanation how the British could possibly lose from the Anglo-Saxons. But where on earth is it based on? Why would the Germanic speakers be unaffected, or even less affected? I have never read any scientific evidence to back that up, nor an ancient source even claim it.

Please explain why you think this would be the case. Were the rats afraid of the Germanic language?

[Robert Vermaat]

Perhaps initially, yes. Certainly moreso under Caesar than Augustus.
But by the time of Claudius, you see him wanting to introduce Gallic
senators, to widen the enfranchisement of the Empire. You can hardly
claim to see the same kind of evidence of enfranchisement being
extended from Anglo-Saxon kings towards native Britons, certainly
not within a century of the initial conquest, c. 450. English-Welsh
mutual cultural and linguistic hostility continues even today, and for
several centuries the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms remained hostile
to native Britons and vice-versa. Why, even in 1066, Harold II, the
Saxon king of England, had been busy beating-up on the Welsh only
a few months before turning his attention towards Hastings. :lol:

...

Well, ten times as much lexical copying took place as in Britain.
Give it up, Robert. No matter what spin you put on the figures,
40 is still at least ten times more than 3. 8) And it is surely important
what words are being adopted. If they are more commonly
used words, or of more prestige, then they carry more weight.
If Romans adopted Gallic words for important, everyday items, then
the adoption increases in value. But look at what words the Anglo-
Saxons adopted from Brittonic: Coombe and Brock - the words for a
type of valley, common in the west of Britain, and the word for 'Badger'. Hardly mainstream words like 'father', 'mother', 'food', 'drink' etc.

Hardly the things I am adressing Mike.
Of course the Romans treated the Celts different than the English did, but that may also provide an answer.

For one, the Romans had been in touch with Celtic people for centuries even before Caesar conquered Gaul. And during those centuries and the centuries that followed, 'just' a few hundred (let's be generous) words enetred Latin. One would expect a much higher number, even when we totally disregard any comparison with the British situation. Why so few? Maybe Coates' answer, that the Romans did not need 'new' words, applies here? I just don't know. I hope the linguists find an answer to that, because it will certainly be an aid to (in part) tell why hardly any British words entered English.

In the meantime, no-one has a lexicon of 7rth c. English words in his library, which means that anyone who claims that more British words existed in English during the 7th c. is as much hypothesising and speculating as someone who (based on 21st knowledge) claims that there were as few as we know today.

But OF COURSE no mainstream words like 'father', 'mother', 'food', 'drink' etc. would have done that. Coates is clear about that, the English never needed replacemnts words for those, so why adopt them.

[Martin Wallgren]

I have heard that Carpentum is from Gaulish origin!?! I think I read it in a book called The Celtic Empire or somethinglike that , It was the main litterature of the class of "Introduction to Celtic laguages" I took at Uppsala University some years back.

[ambrosius]

Actually, no, Robert. That is precisely the point Coates makes.
The same one Aryaman made. And as a Linguistic proffesor, you'd
think Coates would know. Linguistic borrowing only takes place by a
conqueror when there is some prestige to be gained by the
conqueror. Franks admired Roman culture - even Romano-Gauls, and
saw them as strong people to be emulated. Obviously, Anglo-Saxons
didn't think much of Britons.

I disagree, Coates points to enslavement, expulsion and genocide as probable answers, my reply was that social considerations could be enough to explain it.

Well I'm none-too-sure exactly what it is that you're disagreeing with,
here, Aryaman, as I was quoting what you said. So I was attempting
to agree with you about linguistic borrowing being the result of a
perceived gain in prestige on the part of the invaders who are doing the borrowing. If you're disagreeing with me saying that Coates also says
this (and thus, he agrees with you) then I disagree with you. :?

Here's what Coates says, p.2 of the article:

"Moravcsik identifies lexical borrowing as a prerequisite for any other
type of borrowing... Borrowing will not take place at all without the
prospect of "projected gain" for the borrower and, equally,
borrowing will be avoided in situations where the unconscious use
of borrowed material will result in stigma for the borrower."

And then on P.3:

"It is *possible that the Britons also gave some of their personal
names to the English. If so, that would be an indication that the Britons were a sufficiently positive 'outside influence' in English society, for
the English to want to imitate their naming practices and therefore
for Clark's first Law of Applied Amthroponymics to apply.
Unfortunately, we cannot tell whether a Brittonic name in an Anglo-Saxon source is truly the name of a Briton or a Saxon, even where it
is ostensibly that of a Saxon, as in the case of Cerdic."

(*N.B. see my earlier reply to Jim on why it is extremely doubtful that
Cerdic was a British name, and even less that he was a British person!)

So, Aryaman, Coates was indeed making the same point as yourself.
The only difference is that I think you used the phrase 'prestige' (which
I actually prefer, myself) whereas Coates talks of 'projected gain' in
borrowing words and of 'sufficiently positive outside influence' when in
the hypothetical situation where Saxons might have borrowed
any British names. But you'r both making the same point. And I agree
with both of you. I think. :wink:

Ambrosius / Mike

[Robert Vermaat]

Well this is precisely the point, isn't it. :lol: What Coates is comparing
is the adoption of the native Celtic language by the conquerors.
What he compares is how Franks and Romans in Gaul adopt Gallic with how Anglo-Saxons in Britain adopt Brittonic. It's the relative hostility towards (or disinterest in) the native population by the invader which
is being quantified, here; using linguitsics as a measuring-stick. You
introduce the question of Gauls not being required to forego their native
tongue and speak Latin (exclusively, you mean). But that's not the
question being asked by Coates. Nobody has ever claimed that Gauls
stopped speaking Gallic once they were Romanised, any more than
Romanised Britons stopped speaking both Brittonic and Latin, don't
forget once they were invaded by English-speaking Anglo-Saxons.
It's not the hostility of the native populations towards the invader
which is being questioned, here. It's the hostility of the invader
towards the natives. 8) There's a difference, you know. So, clearly,
there was less hostility from Romans to Gauls (as measured by this linguistic paradigm) than from Anglo-Saxons to Britons.

No no no, I'm not talking about that, I talk indeed about the invader and their adoption of words from the language of the conquered people. And then I ask why there were still so few words from Celtic (and I add the Celts from Italy and Spain and other areas to that) entered Latin.
When you see less hostility from Romans to all these Celts, over a much longer period, then why not even 200 Celtic words in Latin. What percentage are we even speaking of? A very low one. That it's more that tenfold the amount of British words that made it to English is ceratinly true - but it's still a very very low number IF you say that the reason for the latter is something as drastic as population replacement and near-invisiblity of the conquered language. And THEN the comparison fails, for the Romans did not replace the Celts from all thes e areas.

So, there must be something else going on that caused so few word of Celtic entering Latin, and even fewer words of British to enter English.

Hmmm. I'm not sure who is misunderstanding whom, here. But Coates
seems to be making the point that the Anglo-Saxons even went to the
trouble to adopt an Irish word for something that no longer even existed in mainland Britain - a druid' - rather than adopt any Brittonic words, which were closer to home, and described still extant objects. Coates is making the same point as yourself, you just don't realise it.

No, I don't think so, but that's my interpretation. I don't see Coates making the point of the Anglo-Saxons avoiding existing British vocabulary, I think he just used the wrong example here. Although I wonder where the Anglo-Saxons came into contact with Irish people speaking about druids, I thought Ireland was already well-baptised when the English came into full contact with them.

But to say that Anglo-Saxons' vocabulary sufficed is to introduce an
element of special-pleading on their behalf, surely.

You mean by me? NOt my words, it's Coates who brought that up.

As an invading Anglo-Saxon, your vocabulary may suffice for everday
things, but it would still be polite to adopt at least some native words for
things, just to show you aren't completely anti-British. 8) lol:

Oh, sure, many have. Up to the early 1970s it was very common to suggest that the Anglo-Saxons had wiped out the British in their conquered territories, a theory that is also heard when current dna-studies are discussed (next to apartheid, enslavement and ‘breeding out’ of the male British population).

But nobody is suggesting that, today, either.

Coates is arguing that the British population was no longer present in the eastern areas of Britain, either through them being massacred or through mass migration. Did you read that article or not? hock:

[quote="ambrosius":2a97eo2g] The question is why the Anglo-Saxons chose not to adopt the British language - even slightly.

That’s the million-dollar question, indeed!

Good God! You just agreed with me! What went wrong? :lol: :lol: :lol:

But I didn't! D lol:

[Aryaman2]

Mike
As I posted, Coates claims that Britons were not visible because of "emmigration, annhilation or enslavement" page 18, and I disagree with that explanation, I think social and cultural considerations could explain it without resorting to genocide or ethinic cleansing explanations.

[authun]

Please explain why you think this would be the case. Were the rats afraid of the Germanic language?

Hi Vortigern,

The reason is that the fleas kill the rats as well. It's not an airborne disease. Plague is spread by movement of the rats, via trade for example, or by humans or via the movement of farm animals. In all cases there are limits to the distance plague can travel overland as the host carriers die. A sort of grim equilibrium is reached.

This is why we see plague outbreaks jump, from port to port, and then spread inland. Once the hosts die however, the fleas cannot be spread further and the plague stops. Usually though, it has entered another port by this time and spreads inland from there. So it doesn't spread like a wave front but rather a series of outbreaks, each with a limited radial spread from each point. The better the connections/trade routes, the wider the radius.

The most likely situation is that the flea infested rats entered the British and Irish ports trading goods with the Mediterranean and people and rats spread the fleas to those British areas inland that had some sort of connection with the ports. If the germanic speaking areas are to get the plague, they have to either trade with the Mediterranean world directly, or trade with those infected British areas. The lack of plague, mediterranean imports or other british goods in the germanic speaking areas suggests neither.

The plague bacteria continues to survive in places like rat burrows even after the the rats have died. However, once the burrows are reoccupied, a new outbreak occurs but in this instance, the origin is already inland and will radiate out in all directions. However, the type of flea that best carries the bacteria does not survive well in northern europe and so repeated outbreaks are sporadic and with a much reduced capacity to be spread widely.

Nonetheless, there are mentions of plagues upto the 8th cent which may be examples of such re-occurances. These affect the AS areas too and thus may reflect contact between germanic speakers and brittonic speakers during these later centuries.

best

Harry Amphlett

[authun]

All this would actually tend to suggest that there was more archaeological evidence for christianity in the South West of 4th/5th c. Britain than in the South East! ... I could tell you where it is, but then, as they say, 'I'd have to kill you'! (says he, fingering the hilt of his spatha) laughing

Hi Ambrosius,

Your spatha can remained sheathed

Von Kalben is not suggesting that no christianised families existed at all, but that Christianity in the south west wasn't widespread amongst the population. The evidence presented is in the number of christian graveyards or christian burials in mixed graveyards that have been found.

best

Harry Amphlett

[authun]

... that would mean that the population took a sharp dive after Britain became independent (Gildas saw that as a happier time, I believe), ...

Hi Vortigern,

I don't think Gildas saw the period between the late 4th cent to the AS period as a happy time at all. He only refers to one short period of peace.

During the latter stages of roman rule he writes of Britain:

... open to be trampled upon by two foreign tribes of extreme cruelty, the Scots from the north-west, the Picts from the north; and for many years continues stunned and groaning.

It's at this point Gildas thinks the romans instructed the Britons to build the walls which:

... being made not of stone but of turf, proved of no advantage ...

to the Britons who he describes as:

... the rabble in their folly, and destitute of a leader.

The repeated devastation he describes thus:

They rush across the boundaries, carried over by wings of oars, by arms of rowers, and by sails with fair wind. They slay everything, and whatever they meet with they cut it down like a ripe crop, trample under foot and walk through.

When the romans withdrew for the last time, according to Gildas, he records that:

the terrible hordes of Scots and Picts eagerly come forth ... differing partly in their habits, yet alike in one and the same thirst for bloodshed ...

and continues:

... on learning the departure of our helpers and their refusal to return, became more audacious than ever, and seized the whole northern part of the land as far as the wall, to the exclusion of the inhabitants.

which indicates that, in some areas at least, land started to become depopulated.

As far as the Britons are concerned, Gildas thinks they had a pretty wretched time of it:

They abandon their cities and lofty wall: there ensues a repetition of flight on the part of the citizens; again there are scatterings with less hope than ever, pursuit again by the enemy, and again still more cruel massacres. As lambs by butchers, so the unhappy citizens are torn in pieces by the enemy ...


and then Gildas starts to write about how the Britons turned against each other and:

... even began to restrain one another by the thieving of the small means of sustenance for scanty living, to tide over a short time, which the wretched citizens possessed. Calamities from without were aggravated by tumults at home, because the whole country by pillagings, so frequent of this kind, was being stripped of every kind of food supply, with the exception of the relief that came from their skill in hunting.

Gildas then mentions a victory of the Britons over the Irish and Picts:

Then for the first time, they inflicted upon the enemy, which for many years was pillaging in the land, a severe slaughter ...


This is the start of Gildas' peaceful period, but he doesn't see it as a happy time:

The boldness of the enemy quieted for a time, but not the wickedness of our people; the enemy withdrew from our countrymen, but our countrymen withdrew not from their sins.

He acknowledges it as a prosperous time, but one fermenting wickedness:

While another more poisonous hunger was silently growing on the other hand, and the devastation quieting down, the island was becoming rich with so many resources of affluence that no age remembered the possession of such afterwards: along with these resources of every kind, luxury also grew.

It's at this point where, according to Gildas, the Irish and Picts returned and that the Saxons were invited to help repel their raids.

Gildas' account of the suffering British population in the early 5th cent. does have some support from St Patrick:

I was taken into captivity to Ireland with many thousands of people ...

Patrick, like Gildas blames it on sinful ways but gives an indication of the extent of the effect of Irish and Pictish raids on the british population:

the Lord brought over us the wrath of his anger and scattered us among many nations, even unto the utmost part of the earth

When Patrick escaped from Ireland and returned to Britain, he reported:

... after three days we reached land, and for twenty-eight days we travelled through deserted country ...

Having fallen into captivity again, on his second return to Britain, Patrick wrote (from memory) that:

life and property had suffered but that the land still bore it's fruits.

It seems quite reasonable to me to hypothesise a collapse in the population, together with some parts becoming wholly depopulated, between the roman and AS periods.

I think current thought has the British population already diminishing since the 3rd c., a curve that i could well accept becoming a bit steeper during the 5th c., with all the raids, civil wars and Anglo-Saxon migration starting. But I can't accept any idea that after 450 it became stable?

Perhaps I put it badly. I don't mean stable to indicate a settled population, just that steep decline from approx 4 million to around 2 million stopped.

With a the wars continuing right into the 7th c? How about that supposed plague of the mid-th c., we know that hit Britain too!

I don't think Härke is addressing the 6th and 7th cents., simply that the Anglo Saxons entered, in some parts, an empty landscape and that there wasn't a mass exodus or genocide in the 5th cent.

best

Harry Amphlett

[authun]

I thought Ireland was already well-baptised when the English came into full contact with them.

We don't know when there was first contact. The Annals of Ulster has one very intriguing entry:

U434.1

The first prey by the Saxons from Ireland or in Ireland.

best

Harry Amphlett

[Felix]

Please explain why you think this would be the case. Were the rats afraid of the Germanic language?

... If the germanic speaking areas are to get the plague, they have to either trade with the Mediterranean world directly, or trade with those infected British areas. The lack of plague, mediterranean imports or other british goods in the germanic speaking areas suggests neither.

...
Harry Amphlett

I had thought that the North did have noticeable Roman imports - the deposits in Illerup Adal showing Roman manufactures, as well as other bog sites. So the lands the germanic invaders came from would have possibly been exposed to plagues (do we know that this disease really was bubonic plague?). Were the Angles and Saxons really isolated from their Continental brethren?

[Robert Vermaat]

Please explain why you think this would be the case. Were the rats afraid of the Germanic language?

The reason is that the fleas kill the rats as well. It's not an airborne disease. Plague is spread by movement of the rats, via trade for example, or by humans or via the movement of farm animals. In all cases there are limits to the distance plague can travel overland as the host carriers die. A sort of grim equilibrium is reached.

Hi Harry,
Plague has been known to rage through Norway in winter - apparently, temperatures do not hold back the plague. Infected people can spread the disease as well, besides rodents.

So you're practically suggesting that the Germanic speakers in Britain and elsewhere were not/less affected by plague because they were completely isolated from traders with the Mediterranean and thus escaped infection.

I can't agree with that hypothesis - did they not trade with other people who traded with the Mediterranean (such as Franks and Goths)? Besides, the amount of trade between Irish/British and the Med is not shown to reach such volumes either.

We're taliking about the Justinian Plague, right? Is there even proof that it reached Britain?

[Robert Vermaat]

... that would mean that the population took a sharp dive after Britain became independent (Gildas saw that as a happier time, I believe), ...

Hi Vortigern,
I don't think Gildas saw the period between the late 4th cent to the AS period as a happy time at all. He only refers to one short period of peace.

I think you'll find that extracting a chronology of historical event is a daunting task that even dumbfounded the best experts on Gildas such as David Dumville. The consensus was and still is that Gildas chapter of 5th c. event can't be read as vague but chronological account, and what happened when is therefore extremely difficult to ascertain.

But what some scholars do, when they nonetheless try to take Gildas by his word to 'prove’ their own hypotheses, is conveniently forget that while Gildas is speaking of the British being batter and fleeing their homes to caves and hills and into slavery, is that no Anglo-Saxon is involved – Gildas is speaking only about the Picts and the Scots (DEB 14-20). It’s a bit rich to see a sharp population drop based on their incursions? A plague follows (DEB 22).
The first occasion where Gildas mentions the Anglo-Saxons is where he has three ships arrive to aid against these Pictish and Irish enemies. And only after Saxons these rebel do we see the whole island being devastated (In Gildas words: DEB 24-5). But that’s the very same time when Härke apparently sees the population drop being stabilised? When at the same time this should be the time when the areas that are vacated (according to Coates and Härke) are affected? That can’t be correct.

But at some point Gildas looks back on a time of peace when wars ceased, and later he chides the descendants of Ambrosius Aurelianus’ generation who grew up without having known the knowledge of war (DEB 26). It must therefore have been some time during which the population was no longer suffering all the hardships that Gildas had been lamenting about.

Personally though, I hold to the idea that Gildas was overdoing it, like his contemporaries were overdoing it when describing the suffering of post-Roman hard times, but each is entitled to do their own interpretation. However, that means not singling out a sentence that fancies us. The only evidence for hardships in Britain comes from Gildas, and any conclusions about a drop in population *based on that* cannot stand.

My point? Gildas’ account of the 5th c. is being misused. Use it? Use all of it.

[authun]

I had thought that the North did have noticeable Roman imports - the deposits in Illerup Adal showing Roman manufactures, as well as other bog sites.

Hi Felix,

It's a different period and a different type of trade. The 2nd and 3rd cents do show trade contacts with the roman world, but this is trading across the limes in northern europe. It's a very different situation to the 6th cent where amphorae from asia minor filled with oil and wine is shipped to Tintagel in Cornwall for example.

do we know that this disease really was bubonic plague?

The concensus is that it was. The main source for this is Procopius' detailed description:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/5 ... lague.html

It's the Black Death which is a mix of bubonic, pneumonic, and septicaemic plague, although bubonic was most common.

Were the Angles and Saxons really isolated from their Continental brethren?

No, the Anglo Saxons traded extensively with germanic speaking areas on the continent, pottery from the Rhineland and quern stones from southern germany for example. However, these areas were also unaffected. It's the lack of evidence for trade between the Anglo Saxons and Britons which may explain why the plague did not enter the germanic speaking world.


best

Harry Amphlett