Britain Is More Germanic than It Thinks

[gilius]

Even more strange... after the Dark Ages came to end, half of England was owned by the Crown--the other half by the Pope! The Roman Empire ruled England before the dark ages, after the dark ages, and right up until now!

Edited July 13, 2011 by gilius

[caldrail]

Owned by the Pope? That's not true at all, though he obviously had considerable influence over land owned by religious orders in the wake of catholic colonisation of Dark Age Britain. Religion of course was a hugely important issue for people back then. Even Ine, an aggressive west saxon king of the 8th century, stressed the role of christianity in his revised laws. Catholic colonisation began in ad597 with the arrival of Augustines mission (although Germanus of Auxerre had suppressed the Pelagian Heresy in 429, possibly re-visiting in 440). It struggled against pagan religions of native Britons, saxon and viking migrants, and the virulent irish christianity that alarmed the catholic church in the first place.

 

The catholic church was from the very start a political entity ("Catholic" is derived from the latin for "Universal") and the question of land ownership was a feature of medieval period long after the Dark Ages had gone. In other words it's easy to see the early Catholic Church as a monolithic enterprise (as I have previously). That's a view coloured by events developing toward the crusades, when the political power of the church was enough to excommunicate national leaders for not doing as they were told, never mind inspiring mass migrations of well meaning peasants and greedy soldiers. Land ownership was still a matter of of the mundane world despite the religious motives of that time, so it's unlikely the dark ages saw the Pope as 'owning' half of Britain.

[Northern Neil]

 

No, the earlier idea of a pre-Roman

[caldrail]

There were saxon populations in the Thames Valley during Roman times and I know that sdaxon burials have been found in Wiltshire (not far south of me) that confirm habitation of the area at the same time. As far as I know however there are no older germanic settlements in Britain. It appears the Gauls did that first with two succesive migrations that heralded in the Iron Age in Britain.

 

That doesn't discount small numbers arriving individually, just that there's no evidence to show for it. In fact, although Britain is visible from the Pas De Calais coastline, it was the gauls who occupied those sites and who had problems with the german tribes further east, thus the germanic tribes of inner europe at least had other things to worry about.

 

Further, it's questionable whether the saxons had any tradition of sailing and piracy before the Romans came to their attention. If they did, it was so small scale to avoid our attention. I have sometimes speculated that the saxons learned about ship-building from Roman contact, and that later that knowledge reached the vikings who developed it further and used it so notoriously.

[Northern Neil]

As far as I know however there are no older germanic settlements in Britain. It appears the Gauls did that first with two succesive migrations that heralded in the Iron Age in Britain.

 

That doesn't discount small numbers arriving individually, just that there's no evidence to show for it. In fact, although Britain is visible from the Pas De Calais coastline, it was the gauls who occupied those sites and who had problems with the german tribes further east, thus the germanic tribes of inner europe at least had other things to worry about.

 

This is indeed correct, if we regard the predominance of la tene objects over Germanic objects as evidence for a lack of germanic people. There is nothing in the archaeological contexts which tells us wether or not these people spoke a germanic language however. Oppenheimer seems to believe that there is plenty of evidence that lowland Britons were Germanic in origin, even though their grave goods are of a type associated with celtic settlements - just as people buried in saxon graves later on have been found by DNA evidence to have been native Britons. An assumption that people wearing torcs and wearing checked trousers must be Celtic is I suppose like an assumption that people driving BMWs are Germans.

 

The Gauls which were having problems with Germans further east were Belgae, or related to Belgae - themselves described as resembling Germans (If being tall and having fair hair is an indicator of German - ness!), and, more tellingly, speaking a language different from that spoken in the west of Gaul and Britain. Could it be that when Caesar referred to Germans he was referring to people living in the geographical area called Germania, as opposed to specifically being ethnic Germans?

 

I admit I find oppenheimer's theory attractive (which is why I mention it ad nauseam on here!) but I do find it more logical and convincing than the rather cut and dried idea of sudden Germanic influx within a couple of centuries. In addition, Oppenheimer refers to linguistic evidence, which states that the degree of separation of German and English is greater than one would expect over a 1600 year period. Dr. H

[caldrail]

The problem with DNA evidence is that it creates problems as much as solves them. It does not tell us why indiividuals were there, whether they were slaves, settlers, or conquerors. For that we need contextual evidence. We know that the Romans had some saxons amongst them in southern england at least, both through graves and their own accounts in which they describe the saxons as 'good citizens'. Even at that late stage, to be described as a citizen is an important distinction from the unpredictable barbarians sailing up and down the channel looking for loot. We cannot tell if remains are slaves, settlers, or conquerors unless we obtain this contextual evidence. The overall impression is one of increasing uncertainty, dissatisfaction of the britons with their increasingly fragile hold over power, and a growing threat from germanic opportunism, a feature common to the empire in that period.

 

Britain was of course attractive to the saxons by virtue of their enthusiasm for farming and the fertile land available. It was also seen as an increasingly vulnerable corner of the wealthy Roman empire. The political ambitions of the later provincial governors didn't help matters of course and after 383 the withdrawals of troops to support campaigns in europe must have made themselves felt. It is noticeable that the populations of saxons only begin to attract our attention from around 400, suggesting opportunistic migratiions in small numbers.

 

it's one thing to stop a few saxons here and there from settling, which I doubt the Romans concerned themselves with, but when numbers start increasing there are clearly governmental, financial, and security issues to resolve in an empire that relied on obedient co-operation with the prospect of armed retaliation against those who didn't. Even as late as 440 we the Romans rooting out religious evils in Britain, or making adventurous attempts to see off pagan tribal threats, and even renewed calls to Rome to help defend their former province. Although we usually see the the Roman occupation ending in 409, the issue is clearly more one of a crumbling relationship, but in it's wake we see an increasingly strident germanic presence in the isles. It does illustrate the change from a subliminal osmotic settlement to more aggressive tribal migrations that sought to profit from the power vaccuum left by the 'independence' demanded by Britons in the wake of what they saw as unsufferable failings in Roman administration.

[Northern Neil]

 

Britain was of course attractive to the saxons by virtue of their enthusiasm for farming and the fertile land available. It was also seen as an increasingly vulnerable corner of the wealthy Roman empire. The political ambitions of the later provincial governors didn't help matters of course and after 383 the withdrawals of troops to support campaigns in europe must have made themselves felt. It is noticeable that the populations of saxons only begin to attract our attention from around 400, suggesting opportunistic migratiions in small numbers.

Linked to this discussion, although admittedly possibly straying off topic, How do you view the presence of named characters in the sub - Roman period? I refer particularly to figures such as Vitolinus and Cerdic, people who appear to have fought for the Anglo Saxons, but seem to have Roman or British names.

Edited August 27, 2011 by Northern Neil

[caldrail]

That's difficult. With the limited information we have the details of people motives and actions are usually only to be guessed at. What we have to be wary of is assuming that a name in a particular style requires the person belongs to a particular faction. We know from the line of Wessex kings that intermarriage brought members of factions together and that names were sometimes applied from what appears to be the wrong faction. To complicate matters, the issue of names is garbled because our sources are so retrospective and prone to errors in copying, misinterpretation, or I hate to say, but complete fiction.

 

The nature of the ancient world was very factional in any case. We see a plethora of examples where an individual leads his followers against the regime, or simply tries to create his own, in which case the leader might well be choosing whatever followers he could get and making allies as suited his needs.

 

Incidentially, regarding your ideas about saxon settlement, it occurs to me that there's little basis to believe this was happening in the iron age. My reasoning is that the saxons do not appear to have had any expertise at sailing or ship-building before their contact with the Romans, and indeed, although travellers did journey to Britain before Caesar, the island was pretty much a mysterious place said to be full of monsters and strange tribes. It does seem, at least superficially, that the Saxons were enlightened about Britain via the Roman experience.

[Onasander]

Britian a mysterious place inhabited by monsters and strange tribes! Any more strange that the other lands the Saxons could move off into.

 

It needs to be remember, there was a pretty decent ocean trade bewteen England and the rest of Europe in raw goods, like tin. I think the concept of wood floats on water was present throughout europe.....

 

This link is a german docked roman ship from the first century:

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/14/science/ancient-roman-ships-found-at-german-site.html

 

The Pesse Canoe:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesse_canoe

 

The Poole Longboat:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poole_Logboat

 

The Hanson Logboat:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanson_Log_Boat

 

And if I recall, the basque populated england early on.

[caldrail]

Also we have to allow for pre-migration settlers under the aegis of the Roman Empire (the Romans called saxo-britons "good citizens"), and interestingly enough, also the germanic inheritance of the Belgae who had settled in southern England.

[Onasander]

I recall a german mercany ship, greek styled with chain metal armor, being found in Germany, in a town starting with a H..... there is a museum today, but couldnt record it in my list as I couldnt remember its name.

 

The site in Spain where they think Atlantis is (best candidate for it, but skeptical its them, though hopeful), as it appears to be a arlantic shipping hub past Gibraltar, likely had alot of contact with both North and West Africa and England.... theory is they got wiped out by a Tsunami in 9th century BC...... I dont doubt the settlement is there, just its Atlantis link...... it bothers me there are no obvious

sister sites in the region..... those ships traded with someone, who? Where is the genetic and widespread archeological evidence in Atlantic North Africa and Western Europe? It really bothers me.