(Former Month's Feature) - May, 2006
(Former Month's Feature) - May, 2006
The middle of the 4th Century brought the long period of
prosperity in Britannia to an abrupt end in a storm of political
and religious controversy, as various factions fought for
control. A peace treaty was broken in 360 when it is said by the
seannachaidh of Clan Graham that the Roman Wall was
breached by a Graham and from that incident was named
“Graeme’s Dyke.” The Graham lands in Fife are nearby the
ancient dun of the Maeatae at Abernethie and it is likely that
they were among the leaders of that alliance of tuaths. Whatever
the Grahams’ involvement, the Gael did attack the Romans and
apparently did again in 364, each time with limited response
being made by the Roman military due to distractions elsewhere
in the Empire. In this general period, severe fire damage
occurred to forts along the Wall at Risingham, Brenemium and
Bewcastle. Brenemium, the farthest forward, was not rebuilt.
Perhaps due to their previous
successes, the Caledonii, Veniconii, Dalriadans and Attacotii
allied themselves with Franks and Saxons in 367 in a
“barbarian conspiracy.” This event was almost unique in the
barbarian history of conflict with the Romans and implied a
sophistication of leadership, as well as a level of military
intelligence not available to the Celts heretofore. Nectaridus, a senior Roman commander with the rank of
“Comes,” was killed and Fullofaudes, “Dux Britanniorum,”
(Lord of the Britons) was neutralized “by the wiles of the
enemy,” perhaps besieged in Eburacum, Lindum or Londinium.
While the Franks and Saxons attacked the coasts of Gaul, all the
outpost forts north of the Wall were taken. None of them were
occupied after this date.
Roman frontier scouts, called “Areani,” defected,
joining the raiders, and the legions picked this moment
to mutiny. The Areani were perhaps a tuath of romanized
Attacotii employed as Roman scouts to keep watch upon
the Maeatae. It may be that they came from western
Ayrshire and settled there following the revolt,
establishing the kingdom of Aeron. The northern defenses
collapsed and the Gaelic allies put northern Britannia
to the sword. Having achieved military victory in
Britannia, the Gael broke up into raiding parties,
looting the countryside, while a significant number of
Roman legionnaires deserted, some claiming to be on
leave, and became as much a menace as the Gael.
Emperor Valentinian dispatched Count Flavius
Theodosius to Britannia as “Dux Britanniorum”
with four of his best military units, Legiones
Batavi, Heruli, Jovii and Victores, to restore
peace. He assembled his forces at Rutupiae before
advancing to relieve Londinium. Theodosius made
Eburacum his headquarters and offered an amnesty to
the rebellious cohorts, but the incursion may have
lasted to some extent until 382 when the Gael and
Scots were finally driven back from Cumbria by
Magnus Maximus. Hadrian’s Wall was rebuilt, northern
towns were fortified and a system of watchtowers and
signal stations constructed along the coast of
Northumbria to give warning of seaborne raids.
The Count sent out “Praefecti
Gentium” (Popular Prefects), called “pesrut”
(red cloaks) in Alban, to replace the Areani in
southern Alba and to set up regional buffer
administrations among the pro-Roman tribes on the
frontier north of Hadrian’s Wall. Some of them are
known from later genealogies. Catellius Decianus and
Paternus were the founders of the Votadini kingdoms
of Britons at Manau (Stirling) and
Gododdin (Dunedin - Edinburgh). Quintillius
Clemens became ruler of Alt Clut (Strathclyde).
It was his grandson Coroticus who was pilloried by
Saint Patrick in the saint’s letter to him.
Luguvalium was an important player in
the history of the Gael and of Christianity. Before
48 AD it had been a capitol of the Celtic
Carvetii and became an important Roman city,
effectively hosting the senior commander of
Hadrian’s Wall by the 2nd Century. Luguvalium was
recognized as a “Civitas” under Postumus
(260-269). As capitol of the post-Roman Britannic
kingdom of Rheged, it controlled Cumbria, Dumfries
and Galloway and, more than any other Celtic
kingdom, contested with great ferocity the advance
of the Angles of Northumbria. It was from Luguvalium
that Ninian made his missionary journeys to the
Attacotii between 350 and 370, becoming established
at Whithorn Monastery (Candida Casa) in
Kirkcudbright, Galloway and perhaps founding other
congregations among the Maeatae and Caledonii,
possibly even Ninian’s Church in the Shetland
Islands. Maewyn Succat (Patrick) was born near
Luguvalium c.389-400, was captured by Irish pirates
at age 16 and taken captive to Ireland. These Irish
pirates were called “Scotti” by the Romans,
from an Irish word “Scuta” which meant
bandit, the origin of the name “Scot.” It was
also from Luguvalium that Patrick later returned to
Ireland on his missionary journeys, beginning
c.450-462 and continuing until his death c.461-493.
Roman Parade Helmet, found at Trimontium
When The Empire found itself faced with ever increasing demands for armies to defend against civil strife and against invasions of the eastern barbarians, the legions in Britannia were reduced in 350. The battle of Adrianople in 378 was a turning point for Rome, just as the battle of Telamon in 225 BC had been for the Celts. For the first time, Visigoth cavalry crushed the Roman infantry of Emperor Valens in a massive invasion from the east. After Adrianople, armored cavalry would dominate warfare in Europe for a thousand years, until gunpowder brought the next era of warfare. Wave after wave of barbarian horsemen, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Franks, Slavs, Burgundians and Vandals began to dismantle the monumental civilization of the Greco-Roman world. Emperor Theodosius the Great (379-395), son of Flavius, following the massive losses of Roman soldiers at Adrianople which brought him to power, made up the deficiency by recruiting new “foederati” into the Roman army. These were barbarian levies under their own rulers and following their own customs. Nevertheless, the legions in Britannia were reduced again in 383 when General Maximus, who commanded the field army in Britannia, made a bid for the Imperial Purple, taking some of the precious legions with him to Rome. After a brief tenure as master of Britannia, Gaul, Spain and Africa, Maximus was caught and executed on July 28, 388, but the legions did not return.
When Theodosius died in 395, Britannia was still a stable and prosperous prefecture of the Roman Empire. He was succeeded in the west by his son Honorius (395-423), during whose reign the changes noted combined with a series of crises to create one of the great turning points in European history. Honorius was chief of state in the west, but his ministers, all of whom were professional soldiers who commanded the army, held the power. The commander when Honorius succeeded to the Purple was Stilicho, a Vandal by birth who was married to Theodosius’ niece, Serena. He had been close to his uncle and, in his later years, his chief lieutenant. He became “de facto” regent in the west, claiming a secret promise to his mentor to oversee his sons. This leadership was rendered more effective in the west by the marriage of Honorius to Stilicho’s daughter, Maria. Stilicho had no practical effect on affairs in the east however, although he wasted many of his resources attempting to assert his authority there. This was particularly significant along the Danube, where Rome became disastrously involved, sometimes as an ally and sometimes as an enemy, with Alaric, King of the Visigoths.
In 404 another Gothic army under
Radagaisus invaded Italy.
Stilicho defeated him at Fiesole
near Florence in 405, the same
year that “Niall Noígiallach”
(Niall of the Nine Hostages),
“Ard Righ” of Northern
Ireland at Tara, attacked
Cumbria in Britannia. A horde of
Suebi, Vandals and Alans crossed
the Rhine on the last day of
406, defeating the Frankish
“foederati” opposing them
and invading Gaul at the same
time that a mutiny against
Stilicho occurred in Britannia,
perhaps because the soldiers had
not been paid. The Vandal
general was subsequently
executed for his failures.
Finally, in 407, when
Constantine III was declared
Emperor by the legions in
Britannia, he took the bulk of
the field army and most of the
remaining frontier garrisons
with him to Gaul in pursuit of
his claim, including the legion
whom Claudian describes as:
“the legion deployed in far-off
Britannia that curbs the savage
Irish and reads the marks
tattooed upon the bodies
of dying Picts.”
No wonder that, in 410, answering a
plea for aid, Honorius told the
Britons to provide for their own
defense. The same year, Rome
fell to Alaric the Goth and,
when Emperor Honorius was told
about it at his Ravenna retreat,
he thought he was being informed
of the death of his pet hen,
Roma. There were no longer
competent leadership or sufficient forces remaining in
Britannia to provide any
substantial protection against
the constantly intensifying
raids by Scots, Alban Gael and
Saxons. Although Britons still
thought of themselves as Roman,
they were no longer part of the
Empire.
As the legions withdrew, a political
vacuum occurred and factions
emerged which had festered in
Britannia for hundreds of years.
The romanized Britons were
generally Christian, but when it
appeared that Rome was not
likely to return, a native
independent party surfaced that
advocated a return to the old
ways and to the old religion of
the Druids. This group included
the Pelagian heretics who
appeared to Augustine to deny
the Doctrine of Original Sin.
They believed that human will
was a factor in salvation. The
heretics supported Vortigern to
rule. He was a leading citizen
of Glevum (Gloucester)
who came to prominence around
425. His name meant “Overking”
and Gildas translated it as
“Superbus Tyrannus” (Proud
Tyrant.) Vortigern was believed
to have been a son-in-law of
Maximus. Under his leadership
the pagan party achieved a
temporary ascendancy and he
acquired the powers equivalent
to a Celtic “Ard Righ.”
In about 428, Vortigern invited two warbands of Jute mercenaries under Hengist and Horsa to settle and garrison the abandoned forts of the “Saxon Shore” in Kent, setting the fox to watch the hen house, as it were. Meanwhile, Pope Celestine sent Bishop Germanus, accompanied by Bishop Lupus of Troyes, to Britannia in 429 to address the Pelagian heresy. In the same era, Coel Hen (legendary hero Old King Cole), in the early 5th Century may have been the last “Dux” and the first “Ard Righ” of Dark Age Britain at York. No fewer than eight dynasties of early Scotland claimed descent from Coel Hen, or from the “praefecti” he sent out to administer them. But when Hengist’s Saxons revolted against the Romanized Celtic Britons in 442, the Dark Ages began, ending civilized rule in eastern Britannia and rendering Christian debates moot. Gildas tells us that a Britannic appeal to Aetius in Gaul for aid against the barbarians in 446 went unanswered. The last Roman military success in the west was the halting of Attila at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains by Aetius in 451. After the murder of Aetius by Valentinian in 454, the Roman army disintegrated.
Over the
forty years
after the
departure of
the legions
from
Britannia,
large groups
of Danes,
Angles,
Saxons and
Jutes landed
and hacked
out
settlements,
some invited
by Vortigern
as a means
of
protecting
the province
against ever
more
frequent
raids by the
Alban Gael,
who now
attacked
across the
abandoned
Wall of
Hadrian,
deeper and
deeper into
Britannia.
Generally,
Danes
occupied
Northumbria
and Bernicia,
Angles were
located
between the
Humber and
the Thames,
Saxons along
the south
coast and
Jutes in
east Kent,
Hampshire
and the Isle
of Wight. As
discussed,
Northumbria
had already
acquired
considerable
Germanic
population
from
legionaries
who had
retired
there.
Gildas tells us in his “Excidio
Britorum”
(The Ruin of
Britain),
“The
barbarians,
admitted
into the
island,
succeeded in
having
provisions
supplied
them, as if
they were
soldiers and
about to
encounter .
. . great
hardships
for their
kind
entertainers.”
Later they
complained
that
“their
monthly
supplies
were not
copiously
contributed
to them . .
. and
declared
that, if
larger
munificence
was not
piled upon
them they
would break
the treaty
and lay
waste the
whole of the
island.”
Subsequently,
after
pacifying
the area,
they claimed
the Deira
Plain as
“swordland”
(by
conquest)
“until they
burned
nearly the
whole
surface of
the island
and licked
the western
ocean with
red and
savage
tongues.”
Large
numbers of
their
kinsmen from
Jutland
followed and
Northumbria
became
Danish. To
the
civilized
citizens of
Roman
Britannia,
it was the
end of the
world as
they knew
it. Their
historians
described a
time of
cataclismic
slaughter,
when the
“days were
as dark as
nights!”
Tradition
claims that
Vortigern,
fearful of
the rage of
his own
people, fled
to the tower
of a vassal
which was
set afire by
the Britons,
consuming
Vortigern in
a blaze of
retribution.
The Britons were pushed west and
north until,
by the time
of
Vortigern’s
death in
461, all the
land east of
a line
between
Edinburgh
and
Southampton
was in
German
hands.
Vortigern’s
title
apparently
lapsed with
his
authority,
as his
policies
were
rejected by
the other
Celtic
kings. By
about 480
however, a
defensive
coalition
had evolved
under the
leadership
of Ambrosius
Aurelianus
and
Luguvalium,
by now
Capitol of Rheged,
became a
place of
refuge for
the Britons,
as were
Cornwall and
“Cymru,”
with the
Britons of
Rheged as
“the men of
the left”
and southern
Cymru as
“the right
flank.”
“Welsh,”
from which
“Wales” was
derived, was
a later
Anglo-Saxon
word meaning
“slave” and
therefore
offensive to
the natives.
Ambrosius, who’s father may have been the last Roman governor appointed by Honorius and an enemy of Vortigern, was one of the Christian party. He was a resistance leader who commanded a mobile field army drawn from several Britannic kingdoms, much in the same tradition as the “Craeb Ruad,” or Red Branch, of King Conchobar of Connacht, to be discussed later. Like Theodosius, he held the Roman military title of “Dux Britanniorum” and, according to Gildas, was not a Briton, but “the last of the Romans.” His army campaigned along the frontier to discourage and defend against more Saxon raids. Archeological evidence suggests that he was a capable governor and competent military commander who was able to restore imperial roads, forts and walls in western Britannia, as well as to resume trade with the Empire and to re-establish the rule of law.
It was c.470 that Arthur Pendragon (Latin - Artorius, meaning “Bear” in both languages), the greatest Celtic warleader of the Dark Ages, living at the Roman town of Caerleon in Cymru, emerged as the successor of Ambrosius. He fought the Saxons and perhaps was the victor in a series of twelve battles culminating in that of “Mons Badonicus” (Mount Badon), where, it is said, his cavalry slaughtered nine hundred Saxon warriors in a single final charge, causing his enemies to sue for peace. The Saxons did not challenge the Britons again for thirty years. Arthur was given the title “Dux Bellorum”(Duke or Lord of Battles) and was active both in Cymru and in Strathclyde, where he fought the battle of “Cat Coit Celidon” in the Caledonian Forest north of Luguvalium. This battle was against the Alban Gael who had continued their attacks against the northern kingdoms. Arthur may have been a Damnonii, since this clan lived both in the Clyde Valley and in southern Cymru. The legends about him give the impression that he may have commanded a small army of professional warriors, similar to the forces of Ambrosius and Conchobar. He seems to have been romanized in outlook, fighting not only for hearth and home, but for Christianity and civilization as well.
There is also evidence in the 7th Century epic poem, “Gododdin,” (The North), credited to the Britannic bard, Aneirin, that places his battle of Agned close to Edinburgh in one of two kingdoms of Britons, either “Manau” or “Gododdin.” The later battle of Camlann may have been between two other kingdoms of Britons, one of them apparently Rheged and implying that civil war had erupted among the Britons. This battle at Birdoswald near Hadrian’s Wall in 539 was where Arthur, along with someone called “Modred,” according to another epic poem written in the 9th Century by a Cymry poet named Nennius, was killed or mortally wounded. William of Malmesbury suggested that Gawain was King of Galloway and Geoffrey of Monmouth made Edinburgh his “Castrum Puellarum” while he placed Merlin in the Caledonian forest. The ridge behind Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh is still known as “Arthur’s Seat.” One legend has Arthur buried in a tunnel under Richmond Castle in North Yorkshire. Interestingly, Aedan, King of Dalriada, and who also ruled a Britannic appanage in Stirling, named his eldest son Arthur, a name that was said to have been unknown among the Celts prior to the time of the great legendary warrior. Could this have been the mysterious origin of the ancient “Cineal Artair” (MacArthur)?
In spite of the efforts of heroes such as Ambrosius and Arthur, disaster followed disaster. In 541, an outbreak of bubonic plague began in Egypt. By 544, it had reached Britannia. This particularly virulent epidemic devastated those communities which were attempting to maintain a Roman lifestyle by keeping close contact with civilization. The close quarters of walled Roman towns helped to spread the disease, while having considerably less effect on the scattered barbarian settlements. The Saxons took advantage of Celtic weakness to increase their expansion, raiding and pillaging across Britannia. According to Gildas, the cities were “deserted and dismantled, they lie neglected because, although wars with foreigners have ceased, domestic wars continue.” He goes on to say that many western Britons “with loud lamentations, passed beyond the seas,” apparently fleeing to Brittany and Ireland in large numbers and further depleting remaining Celtic strength in the southwest. After 550, the Saxons pushed westward again, defeating the Celts at Sorviodunum and at Buckingham and, by the 8th Century, most of Gododdin had fallen to the Danes.
A political and military vacuum was left by the withdrawal of the Romans. Filling that vacuum brought waves of invaders to the British Isles. The Britons never found another warleader of the caliber of Arthur and Ambrosius, and the Saxon conquest of Roman Britannia was eventually complete, destroying most cities, churches, monasteries and Christians, generally returning Britannia to rustic paganism. After the Christian Britons were driven from the massive old Roman base of Legio VI at Luguvalium by the Danish Mercians in 573, the Saxons also shattered British forces at Dyrham above Aquae Sulis (Bath). Corinium and Glevum fell and the pagans reached the Bristol Channel, cutting off the Christian Damnonii of Cornwall from the Britons of Cymru. The Saxons took Devon in 614 and Somerset soon after.
The blood of Celts, Romans and Roman minions from all over Europe had been combined with “Anglo-Saxon” to create the Sasunnaich, a race possessing no common heritage with the Gael. Their culture was German and their religion was pagan, facts which future generations would suppress. Churchill said, “Night had fallen on Britannia. Dawn rose on England, humble, poor, barbarous, degraded and divided, but alive. Britannia had been an active part of a world state; England was once again a barbarian island.” What Churchill and most other English chroniclers fail to mention is that the English, their ancestors, were not Britons at all. The Germanic invaders left only a bit of Cymru, Cornwall and Alba in Britons’ hands, although when Pope Gregory The Great sent a mission to the Britons in 597 headed by Augustine, the Britannic Church was still in existence. And in the north, the Christian victory at the Battle of Ardderyd brought a few years of peace, during which the Britons built “Dunbarton” (Fortress of the Britons), strengthening the kingdom they called “Strathclyde,” with its “caput” at Alt Clut, just north of modern Glasgow. But Oswiu of Northumbria conquered part of the territory of the Maeatae in 668 and gained control of the valley of the Clyde, dominating the Britons, as well as the Maeatae, for thirty years.
Cornwall was left alone for some time but, in 926, Aethelstan received the submission of Huwal, King of Cornwall, absorbing that last bit of Romano/Celtic Britannia into England, now a ravaged land peopled by a mongrel pagan race. Saxon King Edgar, demonstrating his overlordship of what he now appropriately called Wales, was rowed on the River Dee in 973 by several Welsh and Scottish kings and c.990, Athelred II called himself “ruler of the English and governor of the adjoining nations round about,” as well as “emperor, by the providence of God of all Albion.”
Their god was he -
That Cromm, all misty, withered, wan -
Those whom he ruled so fearfully,
Are dead - and whither have they gone?
To him - oh, shame!
Their children, piteous babes, they slew,
Their blood they poured out in his name,
With wailing cries, and tears, and rue.
Celtic poem re stone circles, c.1000 AD
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Richmond Castle, North Yorkshire
One of the legendary burial sites of Arthur Pendragon
Picture courtesy of Martin Junius, Copyright © 1994-2002 www.m-j-s.net/photo/
Banna Fort, Hadrian's Wall, Birdoswald Estate, Cumbria
Traditionally believed to be the site of the Battle of Camlann, where Arthur was killed.
Roman Amphitheater, Caerleon, Cymru
Saxon Shore Fort, Port Chester, Hampshire
Hoard of
Roman coins found at Falkirk
British
Museum
In Britannia, the Romans appear to have compensated for decreasing military strength by again increasing bribes to the Gael, to the Scots and to the Saxons who raided the southeast of Britannia. There is evidence from a hoard of Roman coins found at Falkirk, that Roman silver was reaching northern Alba in appreciable quantities in the 3rd and 4th centuries, although most of what was sent to the north would have been melted down and would have found its way into hoards of silverwork such as the ones found at Norrie’s Law in Fife, or Trapian’s Law in East Lothian. In spite of the efforts of Theodosius, there was another raid in about 397 (described by the Welsh scholar Gildas (c.500-572) as The First Pictish War) which was repulsed by Stilicho. Then, in 399, after what Gildas names the “Second Pictish War,” the general withdrew still more troops to counter the attack on Italy of the Visigoths under Alaric. The last Roman coins distributed in bulk in Britannia were struck by Honorius in 402, implying no further attempt to pay the army or the civil service after that issue.
Late Roman Era Tower, Eburacum (York)
Hadrian's Wall, between Birdoswald and Willowford Bridge, Cumbria
