"Anglo-Saxon genocide" contested again

[Peter Graham]

I have trouble seeing the Picts as Celts

Really? Might I ask why?

The Bretons should have just "kept it in the family" so to speak and hired other Celts (such as the Irish) to help protect from invaders.

But this is the whole point - the Irish were the invaders whom the Britons needed to be protected from, or at least they were a significant proportion of the invaders.

They being related closer than Saxons and being closer geographically would aid in preventing a rebellion (chances are there still would be a rebellion, but I think it could have been handled better).

This is where I think we disagree. We may have a modern day notion of Celtic one-ness, but it is abundantly clear that the Celts did not view their world in such simple, ethnic terms. They felt no greater kinship to Irish raiders, Scottish pirates or Pictish warbands as they did to the Saxon barbarians. In fact, they seemed to feel very little kinship with one another - they spent easily as much time fighting amongst themselves as they did fighting what we would nowadays describe as their common foe.

Even if they couldn't totally unite, even with a loose confederation of Celts from two islands, they would have intimidated and/or repelled most Saxons or other miscellaneous invaders for quite a long time.

I agree. This is why I say they threw it away. They simply couldn't hold large-scale alliances together for long enough to do anything truly useful. When they did, they were pretty unbeatable, but it only happened rarely - once in the south and once in the north.

The "Arthurian" campaigns point at Celtic alliance in the south, which resulted in Mount Badon and the recapture of massive amounts of territory in the south and east of England.

Nennius refers to a massive alliance of northern Brythonic kings under Urien of Rheged (hurrah!) who all but swept the Northumbrians into the sea. And then at the point of victory, there was treachery in the ranks. Urien was assassinated at the instigation of one of his so-called allies (Morcant Bulc of Bryneich) and the alliance descended in to feud and civil war. Within about thirty years, British York, Elmet, Dunoting and Bryneich had collapsed and both Rheged and Goddodin had been all but smashed as independent kingdoms.

I still believe that over an extended period of stability and peace (with the help of somewhat loyal hired mercenaries), eventually, some form of unification would have taken place that could hold till the Scots began establishing themselves and even then loosly ally with them as well.

Hmm. You might be right, but why the Brythonic kingdoms would have wanted to ally with what they saw as Dal Riadan raiders is a mystery. Again, I think you are seeing the struggle in purely ethnic terms - I don't think it was ever like that. There is little evidence that having your land ravaged by the Saxons was worse than having it ravaged by your Celtic neighbours.

The Bretons and other neighboring Celts could hold them off, even several at a time, if they could remain organized following the Roman military organization and taking advantage of the infrastructure.

Again, I agree. But they couldn't - or didn't.

Mmmmm, Hot Burrito.

I've never quite seen burrritos in the same light after reading what drug-addled stick-twiddler Tommy Lee used to do with them...

Regards,

Peter

 

[svalbard]

I have just a couple of points to add to here. I agree with most of what Peter is saying. There is a lot of evidence emerging of the Celts as more that just blood thirsty barbarians. Although never a single nation or one people they seem to have had a very strong trade network through out 'Celtic' Europe. Roads are another interesting aspect to be considered. In Ireland evidence has emerged of timber roads laid down to facilitate, we hope, the expansion of trade.

Peter has alluded to Caesar's accounts, biased as they were, of the slave trade. This was normal for the time and practiced by all civilisations. War I believe was no more endemic with the Celts as it would have being for any tribal group or emerging empires of the era. An interesting idea here is that our ancestors would have consumed a lot more alcohol than we do today. They would have used it as part of daily diet. I am not saying they were a bunch of raving alcoholics armed to the teeth, but a man with a spear, slightly inebriated could take offense quite easily leading to situations that could result in bloodshed.

Poetry extolled the virtues of the warrior and those stories of survived. So also have tales of magic and lust. Not all are about war. It could be that the poerty of the late sixth and early seventh centuries are mainly about war is because they really were bloody times in Britain.

 

[Peter Graham]

There is a lot of evidence emerging of the Celts as more that just blood thirsty barbarians.

Absolutely. In many ways, they were a very advanced and cultured society and their poems - or such as survive - are second to none. But I think that it is equally fair to say that the Saxons were also more than just bloodthirsty barbarians. Many people looking back at this period forget that the events described took place over many hundreds of years and that both societies - Brythonic and English, changed and developed as time went on.

By way of an example, if today is the day that the British north finally fell to the Northumbrians, the first "keels" of Saxon mercenaries would have been arriving in Kent in about 1815 - the same difference in time between us and the Battle of Waterloo. It took two hundred years for most of what is now England (together with chunks of Southern Scotland) to "fall" or to be assimilated by the English and, even then, Wales, the South West peninsula, a big chunk of Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway and all of Stratchclyde were still held by independent Brythonic kingdoms. That is ten generations of slow creep, punctuated by sporadic violence. Ten generations of people on both sides being born and raised in this country, intermarrying, trading, drinking, fighting and generally muddying the gene pool.

Peter has alluded to Caesar's accounts, biased as they were, of the slave trade. This was normal for the time and practiced by all civilisations.

Absolutely, but dear old Beresford-Ellis and those of his stripe still maintain (quite wrongly) that the Celts "abhorred slavery". It is this sort of historical re-invention that has led to the attractive, but highly woolly, way of seeing the Celts as being the inheritors of Paradise. And we should not conflate bias and dishonesty - Caesar might well have had reasons for misrepresenting the Celts, but until the counter argument can be suppported with firm evidence, let us not be to quick to dismiss as useless propoganda one of our few primary sources.

War I believe was no more endemic with the Celts as it would have being for any tribal group or emerging empires of the era.

Possibly, but it certainly wasn't any less endemic either.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Urlik]

considering the number of hill forts around Britain that predate the Roman invasion it is fairly obvious that there was enough warfare among the Celtic tribes to make such undertakings necessary.

 

[rdenning]

The ancient Celtic tribal lands were subdued by Caesar. The Celtic tribes moved away to other various parts of Europe.

The Celts arrived in Britain (not England then) about 900BC. Stonehenge was finished around 1500BC, long before the Celts. The Celts assimilated themselves throughout most of the country and into the British tribes.

The later invasions by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes drove the Celts west and north, so fled across the channel to Armorica (now named Brittany after them).

The term Scotti was used to describe Irish tribes. The term eventually embodied in the name of Scotland, was not a tribal name. It was a generic term meaning raiders. Original Celtic name for Scotland was Alba, later understood to mean England. The Irish Scotti tribes invaded Scotland and northern England. Adamnan, an Irish historian moved to Scotland and used the name Scotia to refer to Ireland and not Scotland!! In 11th century an Irish exile called Marianus Scotus refered to his Irish compatriots as Scots. The first Irish kingdom of Scotland was known as the Dal Riada, after Carbri Riada, son of King Conair. He led his men from Kerry to the coast of Scotland at the place now known as Argyle. So the Scottish clans of Cambells, MacAllens and MacCullums were actually decended from the Irish Dal Riada. From Ad850 the country was known as Scotia Minor to distinguish it from Scotia Major (Ireland). So the name of Scotia finally became known as Scotland. Later after a great battle around 891AD, some of the Dal Riada tribes moved south and settled in Northern Wales. Celtic language was divided in the P Celtic and the C Celtic. The C Celtic tribes of Ireland (Scots as they should be properly called) also invaded the coast of Wales. The P Celtic tribes stayed and lived in Scotland. The Prophecies of Merlin were P Celtic Stories. The Q Celtic language was also heard in Cornwall
All very confusing I know but just thought I would share some of my research with you.

That's pretty much as I understand it. I think the Anglo Saxons migrated to the east of what becomes England, probably originally encouraged to come by the Romano British who were having Pict and Irish "issues". Eventually the Saxons numbers grew so big that conflict with the Roman British started in the Mid 6th century. The Battle of Catreath (Catterick) around 597 was when the Anglo Saxons in Northumbria pretty much threw off any remaining British rule in the north. So in the 6th and 7th centuries the Saxons become more powerful than the British.

What then happens to the British? Some stay and are amalgamated into the population, possibly as slaves and maybe as freemen. Some migrate west into Wales and become the Welsh. Some become the Cornish. Some leave and go to Brittany.

I find this period fascinating. Its the Birth of the British nation. From these years emerge the English, Welsh and Scots. Its a confusing and brutal time.

 

[anhalo]

I was always under the impression that 4 Germanic tribes (Picts, Gaels, Angles and Saxons) made up most of the UK population, migrating there en masse in 8000 bc, after the end of the last glacial period when the UK was once again inhabitable? (With the picts and the gaels eventually merging as celts and the angles and the saxons merging to produce the anglo-saxons)

I also remember reading a report saying that a genetic analysis of the modern UK and Irish populations shown that most people were related to these tribes, and that roman/viking genetic influences had been over-egged, even though there were obvious cultural influences therefrom.

 

[Vertigo]

I remember hearing recently on the TV that it is now considered from the DNA evidence that the Celts were not actually a particular bunch people as such. The DNA evidence does suggest any group of people (Celts) migrating to Britain but there is evidence of considerable amounts of trade going on between Britain and the continent and it is supposed that the "migration" of the Celts was actually just the spread of shared cultural behaviour and art.

 

[Dave]

I remember hearing recently on the TV that it is now considered from the DNA evidence that the Celts were not actually a particular bunch people as such.

I have to preface my reply by saying I haven't read all of this thread, but I just wanted to say that you may have to throw out everything you think you know once the DNA evidence starts to build.

I am following the investigation of ancient human migrations by the study of y-DNA, and from my own y-DNA it would seem that before Scotland my great grandfathers came from Ireland, and before that either via Viking Scandinavia, or directly North from the Basque Ice Age refuge. What is clear, is that there were an incredible number of different tribes and migrations.

But that is only the start. Within 15 years they expect to start work on mapping migrations using the whole human genome. You can expect some real progress made on this with real scientific evidence to back up the theories.

 

[Tirellan]

I was always under the impression that 4 Germanic tribes (Picts, Gaels, Angles and Saxons) made up most of the UK population, migrating there en masse in 8000 bc, after the end of the last glacial period when the UK was once again inhabitable? (With the picts and the gaels eventually merging as celts and the angles and the saxons merging to produce the anglo-saxons)

The Angles and Saxons didn't show up until around the 5th century AD

 

[Boneman]

Have we demanded an apology for the massacres?

(sorry, couldn't resist...)

 

[Peter Graham]

I was always under the impression that 4 Germanic tribes (Picts, Gaels, Angles and Saxons) made up most of the UK population,

The Picts and the Gaels were not culturally Germanic - they were culturally Celtic. Celtic culture drifted into Britain in a series of waves, starting some time in the late Bronze Age, depending on your notion of what constitutes "Celtic". The last Celtic influx was probably the Belgic culture of the late Iron Age.

"Pict" was a name given to the peoples north of the Antonine Wall by the Romans. It isn't what they called themselves and, as such, isn't really a helpful term. The term is now used as convenient shorthand to describe a confederation of ancient peoples who lived in part of what is now Scotland.

"Gael" is another shorthand word, usually used to describe a culturally Celtic people who spoke a language which ultimately became Old Irish, Manx and Gaelic.

"Saxon" and "Angle" are much misused terms which refer to Germanic settlers from modern Denmark and Germany who settled in Britain from about 425 - but who may well have been here much longer.

Both the Celts and English are therefore incomers.

Regards,

Peter

 

[svalbard]

Both the Celts and English are therefore incomers.
Peter

Are we not all incomers at some stage in history

Peter is quite correct in his post(although I most get back to his 'anarchist' post on another thread)

Where I would differ is that I believe the 'Picts' were active south of the Antonine Wall. 'Picts' is a collective name to the tribes, Tacitus maybe the first referance, of Britain.

Bottom line is that nobody really knows and we are are all guessing? No written record, no facts.

 

[Brandon Pilcher]

Who came up with the idea that the Anglo-Saxons wiped out the British Celts? It sounds to me like someone confused a linguistic and cultural shift with ethnic cleansing.

Speaking of language, one of my pet peeves is the tendency for people to confuse language with other aspects of ethnicity, especially genotype or phenotype. For instance, a lot of people use "Semitic" to denote people with an olive-skinned Middle Eastern appearance, yet there are black Ethiopians who speak Semitic languages and olive-skinned Middle Easterners like the Iranians who don't. Language does not determine physical appearance.

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi Chaps,

Brandon- I rather agree with you. The massace theory is based on a handful of references in texts (of which the vast majority were written several hundred years after the events they purportedly describe) and the apparent lack of British place name elements in most of what is now England. There are also some hints that the kings of the Anglian homeland decamped pretty much wholesale by the end of the 5th century, but in all fairness the Anglian homeland is pretty tiny when compared to Britain as a whole and even if there was a mass migration (which is far from proven) there is no reason to believe that it led to genocide. There is little or no archaeological evidence to support the genocide theory - although, as proponents will argue, that doesn't mean there isn't stuff waiting to be found.

Most serious historians have always had doubts about the notion of genocide and in recent years, work by incredibly reputable chaps like Nick Higham at the University of Manchester have once again challenged the populist notions of mass slaughter. And populist is what it is - the idea of massacre and replacement seems to owe a lot to the resurgence of interest in all things Celtic and Arthurian, which flowered in the Victorian period. We like our popular history simple- good guys and bad guys. if the Celts are the good guys, the Saxons have to be the bad guys.

Lincolnshire is an interesting case study. Normally regarded as one of the most heavily settled areas, the evidence of Celtic cultural survival as discovered by archaeology (pottery, brooches, the development of an Anglo-British decorative style, cemetery evidence and the apparent survial of a christian church in Lincoln itself) and textual evidence (notably the Lindsey king list and the later Life of St Guthlac) all paint a picture totally at odds with notions of ethnic cleansing.

Svalbard - you might be right about the Picts. Attempts have been made to see certain traits in "Pictish" culture (defensive buildings, matrilinear descent and written language) and these have effectively confined the Picts to the east of Scotland, above the Antonine Wall but not getting to the top. The Irish called them the Cruithne. My guess is that the picture north of the Wall was far more complex, with various tribal confederations and language groups jostling for supremacy.

However, your idea that the Picts were living between the Walls is an interesting theory - let's hear it!

Regards,

Peter

 

[River Boy]

I've never bought that the Saxons completely destroyed all the Britons when they came here, and neither does Sir Frank M Stenton in 'Anglo-Saxon England' perhaps the most useful book on the time. Historians don't get a sense of the identity of the Britons from the time during/after the Roman Empire, so its convenient to paint that England suddenly became a Saxon nation - even though we hadn't been Roman during the Roman occupation, we didn't become Danish in the ninth century, and we didn't become Norman in 1066.

The lost identity of the Briton, to whom our roots and bloodlines probably owe more to than any of the invaders.

 

[svalbard]

Hi Peter,

My theory is half baked on the Picts. I agree with you about the possible demograhics of tribal politics north of the wall. If you look at Irish expansion into Scotland and Christianity's, they are moving against a society that might not have evolved much from tribal life of pre-Roman Britain. This is where I think a clue may lie as to who and what the Picts were. Painted People is how the name is translated from Latin. This could have being a common trait amongst all British tribes pre-Roman times, to tattoo their various tribal patterns on their bodies.

The Cruithne referance you mention is interesting. My thoughts are that they were a remnant of a people called the Fir Bolg by the Gaels or Sons of Mil during the pre-history of Ireland. Connacht, the western province of Ireland is called after them.

Flimsy I know, but I will get back to you when I have more time. Notice I make no mention of an Anglo-Saxon genocide. This I will also get back to.

Cheers,

Svalbard 'Peter Bereford-Ellis' Pendragon.

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi Svalbard,

If you look at Irish expansion into Scotland and Christianity's, they are moving against a society that might not have evolved much from tribal life of pre-Roman Britain.

This raises further interesting questions about the nature of Irish immigration. Although the Irish church was clearly a massively important import, I'm less sure that evidence of a language which one might call "Old Irish" being spoken on parts of the British mainland is evidence of immigration. A highly worthy Irish academic seems to believe that "Old Irish" may just have been a language widely spoken in both our landmasses which was largely supplanted over here by the language which became Old Welsh. Irish roots for a number of names of the early Roman period in Britannia give support to this theory.

This is where I think a clue may lie as to who and what the Picts were. Painted People is how the name is translated from Latin. This could have being a common trait amongst all British tribes pre-Roman times, to tattoo their various tribal patterns on their bodies.

I agree.

The Cruithne referance you mention is interesting. My thoughts are that they were a remnant of a people called the Fir Bolg by the Gaels or Sons of Mil during the pre-history of Ireland. Connacht, the western province of Ireland is called after them.

I think one has to be careful about conflating origins myths with historical fact - and I have always assumed that the Fir Bolg fall into the former category. Does "cruithne" not mean something like "painted ones" too? It might not!

Notice I make no mention of an Anglo-Saxon genocide. This I will also get back to.

Ready and waiting, old chap.

Regards,

Peter Dumville Koch Higham Graham

 

[svalbard]

Hi Peter,

Primary sources are used the world over to describe historical events. At times those sources can be a generation or so removed from the events chronicled. An example would be the life Alexander the Great. Yet no one debates the accuracy of his life apart from a few obscure events such as the visit to Siwa.

When it comes to the so called 'Dark Ages' of Britain we do have a primary source. He might be considered a curmudgeon, but Gildas was a recorder of the times.

Now I have never shirked from the fact that the British, Irish and Saxons killed each other with relish through out those times. Gildas, Bede and the ASC all attest to this. British kings allied themselves with Saxon kings as the need took them. The Saxons did not need to conquer the Romano-British as they were doing a pretty good job of killing themselves in their own struggles.

But and this is a big one. Gildas is sure in his writings as he denegrates the British leaders. There is only one true enemy and that is the Saxons. He is the only written word of that time in Britain that has come down to us and yet he is dismissed as a rabid preacher. We base this on a few archeological finds and the fleeting mention of Saxon kings with suspect names, which leads back to the bloody nature of the times.

Was it genocide? Not as we would describe it in today's terms. Was it a conquest? I would have to argue that it was.

Regards,

Svalbard 'Baram Blackett'

 

[J-WO]

I'm absolutley no expert on this period, so forgive me barging in, but isn't possible these 'genocides' were merely the toppling of one ruling class and the foundation of another, albeit a recently arrived one?

I mean, if I was a Saxon Lord or whatever, I'd leave the peasantry alone to get on with the already existant farming infrastructure etc- if in ain't broke why fix it?

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi Svalbard,

When it comes to the so called 'Dark Ages' of Britain we do have a primary source. He might be considered a curmudgeon, but Gildas was a recorder of the times.

Not quite, we don't. If Gildas is writing about 540 ish (give or take), he was born circa 500ish. That is anything up to 75 years (or three generations) after the so called adventus and at least 50 years after the alleged Saxon rebellion. It's rather like us setting out to write a firsthand account of the Boer War.

Not only that, but Gildas was not writing history in the sense that we understand it today. He was writing polemic - the Saxons are God's punishment on the Britons for their dissolute ways. The tone of his writing has much in common with thundering Biblical punishments such as the plagues of Egypt.

We also know that Gildas is not good on his Roman history - look at his account of the building of Hadrian's Wall.

Of course, this doesn't mean he is wrong. I accept that there must be some truth in what he is writing. The question is, how much truth? So far, we have virutally no archaeological evidence to back up Gildas' reports of the burning and sacking of cities from coast to coast. We have increasing evidence for the survival - indeed flourishing - of British power in significant chunks of what later became England (let alone Wales and Scotland). We have a growing body of evidence from some areas that points at assimilation.

So, I think what we have in the "Saxon revolt" is really just localised trouble in the south east. The Saxons were unlikely to be causing issues in the west and north at this stage and the evidence of the East Midlands points to largely peaceful intermingling.

He is the only written word of that time in Britain that has come down to us and yet he is dismissed as a rabid preacher. We base this on a few archeological finds and the fleeting mention of Saxon kings with suspect names, which leads back to the bloody nature of the times.

I don't know that we do. In Lincolnshire, for example, we base it on pottery and decorative jewellery styles, on dating English cemeteries and burial practices, on the apparent continuation of not only urban but also Christian life in Lincoln and on etymological evidence of places and people. It is way more than a few fleeting finds. A solid corpus of evidence is beginning to emerge for one region and whilst we could never say that this picture is true of everywhere, it does give the lie to the simplistic "the Saxons landed correctly at Thanet and put everyone to fire and the sword" argument.

Was it genocide? Not as we would describe it in today's terms. Was it a conquest? I would have to argue that it was.

You may be right, but what do we mean by conquest? Does conquest presuppose armed conflict, or can it come about culturally or through intermarriage? Or by any one of the above?

Regards,

Peter "Bring me the head of Sellars" Graham