The English and the Celts - no genocide?

[Robert Vermaat]

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.

Hi Harry,

I refer to my earlier post today – it cannot be assumed that the british were hit because they traded with the Med and the Germanic speakers were not hit because they did not trade with the Med.

You see, to me all this talking about British suffering from plague and Anglo-Saxons not, seems more to do with explaining why the British lost, or that no Briton spoke to no Saxon. No one seems interested to dig up any evidence if the plague was even real or not, or the supposed consequences existed in reality.

Again, I ask the questions:

- Did the Germanic speakers not trade with the Med at all, nor with other groups that traded with the Med? Were the Goths in Spain not affected? How about the Goths in Italy? The Franks?


- Do we even know for sure that this bubonic (Justinian) plague even made it as far as Britain?

- Do we even know that large amounts of Britons were affected by the plague?

- Is the plague described by Procopius the same as a plague reported by Irish and Welsh annals?
The plague that may have killed Maelgwn Gwynedd for instance was later described as Vad Velen, which I wrote something about here: http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/gildwhen.htm

Plague
It has become usual for scholars to date DEB as close as possible to Maglocunus’s death, which is conventionally dated to AD 547. This date is provided by the Annales Cambrae (Welsh Annals, c. AD 955):

Annales Cambriae, annus ciii (AD 547)
Mortalitas magna, in qua pausat Mailcun rex Guenedotae

That Maglocunus is meant here is beyond doubt, but the year is not. However, the entry itself is suspect. It was almost certainly copied from the earlier Chronicle of Ireland, which originally mentioned a list of Leinster names (not Maglocunus). The Welsh copyist may have had authority to substitute these names, but this is unknown to us. If not, the whole entry is false and any discussion bound to be useless.

However, should we accept (but on no real basis) that the Welsh copyist indeed had access to reliable information, we can concentrate on the year itself. If we compare it with the date for the battle of Badon (AD 516), we would end up with a publishing-date for DEB in AD 560, which is 13 years too late (below, Badon). One of the years must be wrong, but which?

The Mortalitas magna is usually seen as the ‘Great Plague of Justinian’, which started in the east in AD 542, and which could easily have reached Britain by AD 547. But how sure are we that Maglocunus indeed died in that plague?

Yellow fever
There is a problem, because Procopius (ca. 550) mentions this plague as a bubonic plague, whereas (much) later tradition such as Welsh vernacular texts mention only a ‘Yellow Pestilence’ (Vad Velen), which is definitely different from the bubonic version. Maglocunus, cursed by Taliesin the poet, fled to a church in Rhos, were he was followed by Vad Velen. The doomed king peeped through the keyhole, saw the monster and died. The Story of Taliesin describes it as a curse:

Mabinogion, Hanes Taliesin
A most strange creature will come
From the sea marsh of Rhianedd,
As a punishment of iniquity,
On Maelgwn Gwynedd;
His hair and his teeth,
And his eyes being as gold;
And this will bring destruction
On Maelgwn Gwynedd

Alas, all references of this Vad Velen, come to us through Edward Williams, a.k.a. Iolo Morganwg (1745-1820), who, according to Ifor Williams, was "the greatest forger of Welsh documents ever known. The damage that man has done! Maybe he was mad - let us be charitable" (..). Early MSS of the Mabinogion do not include these references to Vad Velen, but there are other sources that do. One is the Vita Teiliavi (Life of St.Teilo, 12th century), which confirms the death of Maelgwn in a Pestis Flava, while a second MS of the Annales Cambriae mentions Hir hun Wailgun en llis Rhos (‘The long sleep of Maelgwn in the court of Rhos’). To sum up, we have no evidence at all that Maglocunus died of the bubonic plague, but only that he might have died in a pestilence that turn victims yellow. If not a plague, what could this disease be?

The ‘Yellow Pestilence’ is recorded for Ireland in the sixth century as the Cron Chonaill, which was mentioned by the Annals of Ulster for 548, which would fit the entry concerning Maglocunus. This disease was no plague, but might best be identified with ‘relapsing fever’, which occurs often together with a plague. Relapsing fever was common in Ireland together with famine, and its modern name is still fiabhras buidhe (yellow fever). And if we consider that famine fever can spread from people lacking food to those with plenty of it (as it spreads through lice), we might have found a good candidate for the death of the king of Gwynedd.

Which leaves us with a circular argument: We cannot prove that Maglocunus died in AD 547, nor that he died of plague, so his death may not have been confirmed by the Great Plague of Justinian in 542 at all. The date of 547-8 may be confirmed by Irish annals, but they speak only of Yellow Fever, while the Annales Cambriae speak of plague. Which leaves us with an unconfirmed date that is provided only by an untrustworthy source. With these attempts to date Maglocunus and the British kings finalized, we must come to the conclusion that it is not possible to date DEB to a few years before 547, for the simple reason that it is not possible to date the death of Maglocunus/Maelgwn Gwynedd to that year.

[authun]

Infected people can spread the disease as well, besides rodents.

Hi Vortigern,

Yes, I said that. Anything which will act as a host carrier to the flea can spread plague.

It can also be transmitted by handling an infected person/animal. Again though, as the hosts die, the spread of the bacteria is limited by the movement of people. No contact stops the spread.

The oriental rat flea can host the disease without the disease killing it off. Consequently, it can remain in the population. This is not the case with humans or animals.

As the northern european climate is hostile to this type of flea, the only host where the disease can survive dies. The primary source is then effectively eradicted. This then leaves only the infected hosts which will eventually die themselves . The only way the disease can continue to spread is by infected hosts infecting those who are not infected before they die. If this happens, the disease continues to spread. If there is no contact, the spread stops.

The only caveat to this is that the bacteria can survive, without a host, in places like rat burrows. This is the most likley cause of recurrent outbreaks.

Plague has been known to rage through Norway in winter - apparently, temperatures do not hold back the plague.

Pneumonic plague is more easily transmitted, sneezing for example. Its mortality rate is much higher than bubonic plague. The Black Death contained Bubonic, Pneumonic and Septicaemic plagues. It's important to know which one we are talking about and it's a common mistake to equate the Black Death solely with bubonic plague.

Even so, flea borne bubonic plague could have entered Norway via the ports of the western coast and spread via the movement of people/animals, even in winter. The important point is that the fleas, the only hosts not to die of the disease, won't breed. As the other hosts, the humans and animals, die, at some point we reach an equilibrium whereby enough of them die to stop spreading the disease.

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.

This is not my hypothesis. You can find it in many publications.

Robert Gottfried, 'The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe', argues that the Justinian plague was limited, probably by the lack of a significant trade infrastructure north of the alps during the dark ages.

A paper entitled "Climate, Archeology, History, and the Arthurian Tradition: A Multiple-Source Study of Two Dark-Age Puzzles" by Elizabeth Jones in Joel D. Gunn's (ed.): The Years without Summer: Tracing A.D. 536 and its Aftermath, specifically deals with Britain. Jones' hypothesis is that disease attributable to the climate shift selectively decimated the Celtic British population in the mid 6th century, thereby facilitating the Anglo-Saxon conquest of most of Britain between 550 and 600 AD.

Jones cites Davis (1982) and others "There is general
agreement that the plagues struck the Britons hard without affecting
the Anglo-Saxon populations to any extent.", though I haven't read that myself.

Others such as Malcolm Todd, 'Famosa Pestis' and Britain in the Fifth Century have written about it too.

Besides, the amount of trade between Irish/British and the Med is not shown to reach such volumes either.

Again there is a lot written about the large volumes of BI amphorae sherds from Tintagel and the trade in olive oil and wine with Tintagel, the western British and Irish ports.

We're taliking about the Justinian Plague, right?

Yes.

Is there even proof that it reached Britain?

Only contemporary accounts:

Annales Cambriae:

547 The great death [plague] in which Maelgwn, king of Gwynedd died.

Annals of Ulster:

U549.3 A great mortality in which these rested: Finnia moccu Telduib, Colam, descendant of Crimthann, Mac Táil of Cell Cuilinn, Sinchell son of Cenannán, abbot of Cell Achaid Druimfhata, and Colum of Inis Celtra.

U556.2 A great mortality this year, i.e. in chron Chonaill (in buide Chonaill).

It's not proof in itself of course and would need to be firmly tied in to trade routes to present a picture of the Justinian plague travelling via those trade routes into Wales and Ireland, but the dates appear to tally with the spread of the disease from the eastern med.

Jones cites archaeological evidence for disease of some type at
British Cirencester in the form of "unburied bodies lying in the
streets of an abandoned town", presumably she is referring to the bodies in the street ditch. She reports that there are records of British refugees who came to Brittany expressly to escape contagion. I haven't seen the referencesbut assume she refers to The Book of Llandav telling how St. Teilo sailed to Brittany to escape the Plague.

best

Harry Amphlett

[authun]

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

Vortigern,

I was only answering your point that "Gildas saw that as a happier time, I believe". I disagree, I don't read his words and see it the same way. Perhaps you could explain why you believe that Gildas saw it as a happy time.

It’s a bit rich to see a sharp population drop based on their incursions? A plague follows (DEB 22).

I don't think the argument for a population crash is solely based on Irish and Pictish incursions. Gildas also mentions famine. The plague you mention above would also reduce numbers.

However, that means not singling out a sentence that fancies us.

Then please tell us why you think Gildas sees the period before the adventus as a happy one.

The only evidence for hardships in Britain comes from Gildas, and any conclusions about a drop in population *based on that* cannot stand.

I don't think they do solely rely on Gildas' words. You'd have to read their arguments to be fully informed.

As to your statement that the only evidence for hardships in Britain comes from Gildas, again I have to disagree. The report of a seminar about the archaeological evidence at West Heslerton published in Antiquity claims:

No links could be found between the late Roman pottery and the Anglian that followed -- nothing `sub-Roman'; the general impression is still of a social and economic collapse in the latest 4th-early 5th century, with a parallel collapse of Crambeck and other pottery industries. (Philip Rahtz)

I mentioned earlier too Kevin Leahy's work in North Lincolnshire, the number of coin depositions and the construction of defensive works. Again, the period is between Rome and the adventus.

best

Harry Amphlett

[authun]

I refer to my earlier post today – it cannot be assumed that the british were hit because they traded with the Med and the Germanic speakers were not hit because they did not trade with the Med.

Hi Vortigern,

You seemed to have jumped the gun here. You will see my answer to your original post above.

I agree that, given the dating problems and the problems of exact diagnosis, it cannot be proven. There is nothing unusual about that in history. I simply answer the point that it is not my hypothesis but is one held by others and that it has its merits.

best

Harry Amphlett

[varistus]

In my area they are really pushing Spanish to the students,( this was not an American practice a few years ago-language isolationism)however, my son and his German transfer student friend say that English is much more complex than 'old time' linguistic experts use to say. For example, so many Spanish words are similar to English that it is easy for Spanish speakers to learn English. They say their is more similarity with Spanish in matching words than German, whatever that means.
To complicate matters his Friend says Latin is similar to German in the linguistic tree and sounds more Germanic than smooth sounding 'Romance 'languages.
History so complicated in the British Isles that English is the one true international language they claim.
I am not a linguistic expert but more on the genetic side and I will not even no where to begin to lecture on this, way too complicated. However, I am surprised to find that linguistic research is complicate too....seems on the surface a simple science- am wrong again I guess.

[ambrosius]

Hi Harry,

As you know, the placename 'Walton' is an Old English one meaning 'Welsh settlement'. Interestingly, there is a Walton Castle which is the Saxon Shore Fort near to Felixtowe in Suffolk.

Care has to be taken with 'wal' names because germanic also uses the same for wall. A 'Walton' may be a settlement with a wall or even a settlement in a forest 'w(e)ald'. Harry Amphlett

[/quote]

Hmmm. Yes, 'wal' can also mean 'Wall' in Old English. :lol:

In fact, nobody is sure exactly what Hadrian's Wall was known as
in Latin, either. However, we do know that the frontier was called
the 'Vallum' - I think previous generations had assumed this referred
only to the ditch running behind the Wall, but is is now thought
that Vallum referred to the frontier overall. If so, then 'Vallum
Hadrianus', or even 'Vallum Aelianus' in Latin could easily have
become 'Hadrian's Wall' in Old English. Just an observation. :wink:

But to come to your original point about 'wal' having the alternative meaning of 'Wall' in OE, that's true. However, I think that would be
the wrong connotation in the context of Walton Castle. Most other
Roman forts - either on Hadrian's Wall or the Saxon Shore, or even
walled-towns, like Silchester, Chichester, Rochester, Alchester, etc -
are given the borrowed Latin suffix caster/chester (from Castra)
to denote a walled settlement. This is so when we look at other
forts of the Saxon Shore: Brancaster, Caistor, Portchester. So I
think it rather unlikely that Walton Castle would be the odd-one-out
in being called: *Walled-settlement, when all the others which were
given OE names relating to their being walled strongholds actually
have the caster/chester suffix. So I think that Walton, here, is
actually referring to the ethnicity of the fort's garrison. Otherwise,
why not just call it *Caistor (like the one in Norfolk) or *Chester,
rather than Walton. I think that the other locations named 'Walton'
across the country were not, actually, late-forts or walled-towns.

Cheers,

Ambrosius/ Mike

[ambrosius]

Hi Authun,

Then you get cities in the West, like Ilchester, which still show evidence of importing Byzantine coins and Tintagel-ware pottery (most likely through the still British controlled harbours of Tintagel, Bantham etc) into the 520s, but not as late as 550 AD.

This may be due to the Justianian plague. Procopius' description is informative, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/5 ... lague.html

It may have affected the western parts more severely than we think. The irish annals do refer to a 'great mortality'. It may be the point at which the last ties with the roman world were severed.

Oh sure; apparent ending of imports from Byzantium between 520 &
550 ish may indeed be due to the plague. And this might in some way
go towards explaining any depopulation of the Romanized Britons in
the West and/or abandonment of cities which had previously been in
receipts of Byzantine imports. However, it does nothing to explain the
abandonment of British cities in the East, though. 8) From Canterbury
and Colchester (apparently abandoned about the time of the Adventus
Saxonum (c. 450) to St. Albans and Silchester (abandoned c. 500 ish)
we have cities which, as far as archaeological evidence goes, were
not in receipt of Byzantine imports. Yet they were abandoned. And over
a rolling-period of 450-500 which predated the Justinian plague. :wink:
So I don't see the Justinan plague as explaining the abandonment of
Eastern cities, only possibly the ones in the West which were in receipt
of said imports. Though I still think they were abandoned for the same
reason as the Eastern ones. That is, the reason Gildas gives us.

The germanic speakers in the east were unaffected by the plague but may have received a fresh wave of immigration from Scandinavia caused by drought and cold. Merowingian mercenaries too may have come to take advantage of the situation and/or flee the plague which was affecting southern Gaul. Hence, in the latter half of the 6th cent. we see renewed attacks on the weakened romano british population in the west.

Absulutely, Harry. I'm with you there! 8)

Cheers,

Ambrosius / Mike

[ambrosius]

Hi Vortigern,
Germanic settlers of the 5th and 6th cents. had little interest in towns. They are only of use where there is production, markets and an economic system. They do make sense in the west where there is continued trade with the roman world.

Hi Harry,

I don't agree. Look at what happened in Gaul, where the Goths, Franks and Burgundians had a very keen interest in towns. Read Bachrach's study: Bachrach, Bernard S. (1994): The Anatomy of a Little War, History and Warfare Series, (Oxford) about the strategic role of the civitates of former Roman Gaul.

Yeah, but that Roman Gaul, Robert. For one thing, Gaul retained
its link with the rest of the Empire - especially Rome! - more than
Britain, due to its land-linkage with the rest of the continent. And for
another thing, your talking about the Franks and Burgundians, here.
These may have been Germanic peoples, but they were not Saxons.
As we have seen from the linguistic evidence, the Franks adopted 120
Gallic words (and God knows how many Latin ones) to the Anglo-Saxon
adoption of three Brittonic words. There is a clear difference
between the attitudes of Germanic tribes on the Continent towards
residual Roman culture and the attitude of sea-going Anglo-Saxons
towards insular, Romanized Britons. Perhaps their sea-going nature
had something to do with it, being more akin to that of the Vikings
who followed them than to the thoroughly land-lubbing Burgundians
and Goths.

The towns in post-Roman Britain were no longer real towns. As Mike pointed out in the case of Viroconium [Wroxeter] towns that were defendable functioned more like forts than as towns.

Yeah, but, again: ALL large towns had been defended with
stone walls since the 3rd c. precisely to defend the population from
just the same kind of pirate-raiding as the Saxon Shore Forts were
built to defend against. If you'd like to compare this aspect with life
in Gaul, then you'll see how often those town-defences were needed
to protect the local-population against Saxons, Goths, Huns etc.
Heck, the Gauls even resorted to leaving their low-lying walled-towns
to re-occupy old Iron-Age hillforts and refurbish their dry-stone walled
defences (either in dry-stone or mortared-masonry), as they were
more easily defended against a concerted attack. We see this at sites
like St. Bertrand de Comminges, in South-West France. And don't we
see exactly the same in the British West, at places like the walled-town
of Ilchester, where the administrative centre for the area moves uphill
to the nearby Cadbury Castle? (Guess who may have lived there...) :lol:

So at this time, ALL large towns are built like forts (for very
essential reasons) and all forts probably funtioned, additionally, like
towns, as well. The Anglo-Saxons made no distinction between them
in Britain, of course, calling both towns and Saxon Shore Forts 'castra',
or 'fortresses'. There can have been little - in the non-urbanised Anglo-
Saxon mind - to distinguish between Portchester (as a true Saxon Shore
Fort) and Chichester (the large walled-town just down the coast.

In Britain, most towns had ceased to function as towns in the sense of the word already during Roman times - I think I recall it's Neil Faulkner who made that point: Faulkner, Neil (2000): The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain, (Tempus).

Oh yes. We all know that Faulkner is at one extreme of the continuum
of belief in Romano-British cultural survival into the 5th & 6th c., and
people like Ken Dark are at the other (they don't get on with each
other, by the way). So we can safely take with a pich of salt any points
which Faulkner makes about the functioning of British towns, I think.
He is as much anti-Roman as anyone you're likely to find, you see. 8)

Ambrosius / Mike

[ambrosius]

Or were the Saxons under one ruler? (not my area at all but humour me)

It is argued there that the future English kingdoms coalesce out of a myriad of very small groups. This is of course totally opposite to what we are told by the historians of those later kingdoms, who suggest (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) that most dynasties were a direct continuation of the invasion groups.

Actually, I'm not sure that follows at all. Why would the above two
scenarios necessarily be mutually exclusive? They seem to be exactly
the same, to me. There are an awful lot of different invasion-groups
to begin with, after all. Look at all the king-lists in the ASC and
elsewhere. It wasn't only Angles Saxons & Jutes. We have Swedes in
East Anglia and possibly Norwegians (from the names of kings like
Cerdic of the 'West Saxons' and Winta of the 'Lindsay Angles'). We can guess that, if there really was a large-scale immigration of hundreds of thousands over 150 years, then many smaller kins and tribes would
have arrived here being subservient to more powerful ones, but never
actually got distinguished from the ruling house in that region, before
the full Anglo-Saxon heptarchy took shape.

Ambrosius / Mike

[authun]

But to come to your original point about 'wal' having the alternative meaning of 'Wall' in OE, that's true. However, I think that would be the wrong connotation in the context of Walton Castle.

Hi Ambrosius,

Yes, I'm not suggesting which 'wal' names are walls or which are britons. There are good books to consult for that.

best

Harry A

[authun]

However, it does nothing to explain the abandonment of British cities in the East, though. ... And over a rolling-period of 450-500 which predated the Justinian plague.

Hi Ambrosius,

I've only really read about York and Lincoln and then, only is so much as they related to the surrounding areas. Yes, these cities declined much earlier than mid 6th cent. Here, Bede hints at the Humbrenses, a people of who we know nothing, but possibly living either side of the Humber. The name gets lost, as a people, by the time we talk in terms of the Deirans and those from Lindsey. Kevin Leahy writes of defensive measures in north Lincolnshire but, whether these are British defences against Pictish raids, or defences against Germanic raids, or Germanic defenses against Picts or other germanic speakers, we simply don't know.


best

Harry Amphlett

[ambrosius]

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. Whereas he clearly speaks of hard times and occupying saxons, he never accuses them of persecuting Christians. Instead, he confirms that the British still have a functioning clerical organisation, more than half a century after the point where some want to see a Saxon wave of immigrants driving all before them. Gildas never ever indicates that the Britons or the Christian Britons have been driven from vast trackts of the east.

Why Robert! And you've just got done telling us all that Gildas must
have been wrong when he tells us exactly that thing! Didn't you just
complain that archaeology supposedly doesn't support Gildas's claim
that Britons were driven into exile in the West after their cities were
destroyed by fire? Now you're trying to cofuse us all. 8)

Of course, Britain would not be the only place where Christian, under pressure of pagans, reverted back to paganism.

Ah, but you've no evidence for that in post-Roman Britain; do you. 8)
And there was me thinking it would be much harder than that :!:
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Ambrosius / Mike[/quote]

[Treveri Gaul]

Hello.

Conal wrote:

"My father spoke Gaelic as a boy but English was pre-eminent as he would get the strap if caught doing it in school. "

Why? I Tell you this much. The gaelic / celtic / language never like in the indoeuropian language. This language come from East, circa 4000-5000 years ago, as the Hungaryan language. :wink: Same old Gibb but true.

See the own or as a word root:


Gaelic Hungaryan English

Falla Falu incircling Wall
Baila Falu willage
Baila-Ta Palota castle
/Pluta:breton/

Dublin name: Baila Ã

[ambrosius]

In fact, as I have posted before, there is no genetic evidence to support anything like an ethnic cleansing, genetic studies seems to be very heavily influenced by politics in Britain, and totally opposed conclusions have been draught from the same data. The real problem is that while there is a degree of genetic variation in a West/East axis, it is not very significant, there is nothing like the genetic wall we see across the Gibraltar Straits, Anglo-Saxons are not a clearly differentiated genetic population as were the Arabic conquers in Spain, where Arabic genetic print can be easily traced. If we take a world wide genetic map, the whole of Britain fits into a “Western European” genetic province. Eastern England population genetically is more closely related to Northern France than to Denmark

But Aryaman, that's hardly surprising, now is it. After 1,500 years of
intermingling due to aculturation between Britons and Anglo-Saxons
living in England and (especially in the last 200 years, since the industrial
revolution) economic migration for better jobs within the British
Isles, you should not be expecting to see the regional genetic variation
between East and West which would originally have existed, should you.
There might conceivably have been an enormous genetic cline between
East and West in the year 500, which, due to the above factors of
evening-out, might be scarcely visible today. Which is what you are
saying is the case.

Ambrosius / Mike

[ambrosius]

Hi Authun,

It looks like the Anglo-Saxons were intent on replacing British culture completely.

I don't think intent is the correct word. Intent suggests a planned aim or objective and implies that there was such a thing as British culture after Rome.

Come now, Harry. We can only judge peoples intent (in the absence
of any written statement - the 5th/6th c. Anglo-Saxons couldn't
write, I believe :lol: ) by their behaviour. The Anglo-Saxons
evidently did not adopt Brittonic as Franks adopted Gallic. Nor did they
adopt Christianity from 450-597 (and only then very fitfully after the
advent of Augustine, constantly reverting to paganism - in both
Aethelbert's Jutish Kent and Raedwald's Wuffing Anglia). The Wessex
Saxon king, Ine, later still published his law stating that a native Briton
was worth less wergild than an Anglo-Saxon. Now, not only does this
show that Wessex Saxons regarded Britons as a lower life-form than
themselves, but also - importantly - it shows that Britons were still
very easily distinguishable from Anglo-Saxons. Otherwise, how on Earth
would they have been able to make this law workable? So I think you
can quite acceptably atribute intent to the early (first 250 years)
Anglo-Saxons in both wanting to dismiss and replace British culture
with their own. As for British culture, this is evident in the archaeology
in Western England & Wales at least until 550. Nor is it a case of
British culture being different from that of Rome. Hardly a surprise,
when we realis that there are cultural links between the British West and
not only Gaul but Byzantium. In fact, most of the archaeology in the
British West from 400 is decidedly Roman/Byzantine in character.

Certainly in parts there was, but surely not everywhere. If the term 'Britunculi', nasty little Brits, found at Vindolanda was typical of the roman attitude towards the locals, probably some would have had no desire to continue being romanised. But what sort of culture did they have?

Aw, Harry! Your being decidedly anachronistic with that remark! :lol:
You do know that those writing tablets from Vindolanda are dated from
AD85-AD120, I hope. And as a consequence, when discussing the
period around the year 500AD, that comment is 400 years out of date!
Actually, we have recently been discussing the meaning of that passage
on RAT, and nobody is quite sure what it means. Is it saying that the
unconquered Brigantians and Caledonii still to the North of the Stanegate
(the original border before Hadrian's Wall) were 'nasty little Brits -
which would be a perfectly understandable comment for the advancing
Roman army - or, is it saying that the local British recruits to the
auxiliary units from the pacified British tribes to the South have
a weird tactic of dismounting before throwing their javelins at
the enemy? Nobody actually knows! 8)

But I've got another susprise for you, Harry: The units in garrison at
Vindolanda from 85-120 were actually... GERMANS. :wink:
That's right. According to the exact date of that particular writing-tablet,
the unit in residence was either of Batavians or Tungrians. :lol:
Which puts a rather different complexion on these comments, now,
doesn't it. :wink: Because if it was actually newly recruited and imported
Germanic troops who were describing the Brits as Brittunculi,
then it is no more of a foreshadowing of the attitude of the conquering
Anglo-Saxons 400 years hence, and nothing at all to do with the
comments of etnically Italian Roman soldiers in Britain at all!
By the way, Flavius Cerialis - the unit commander - was likely not
ethnically Italian, himself, but a Romanized Batavian. And it was actually
the Roman practise to allow Batavian and Tungrian cohorts to be
commanded by their native nobles and kings. There's an interesting
book on the subject:

'Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier (Vindolanda and its people)'

by Alan Bowman, 2003, The British Museum Press.

So you see, that Vindolanda Tablet - when read with a little background
knowledge, actually reinforces the Germanic attitude towards Celts
which we see expressed 400 years later in Britain, rather then detracting
from it. :wink:

Ambrosius / Mike