h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Einion,

I think your theory on 'citizenship' may have some merit, although whether that is sourced from the Romans or more simply that later Saxon Kingdoms were simply based on who paid allegiance to the king rather than any ethnic identity. Interestingly some of the early kings of Wessex had (or adopted) Celtic names, perhaps to be better accepted by the majority of their people.

Certainly modern DNA evidence (eg Blood of the Vikings) shows that Celtic genes are in the majority in southwestern Britain.

It appears that up until the tenth century the Celts within Exeter were able to swear allegiance to Dumnonian kings, whilst the Saxons in the same city paid allegiance to Saxon kings. Aethelstan probably put an end to that and the expulsion from Exeter may have been only for those that would not swear allegiance to him.

What is evident is that if they did leave the Celts reentered fairly quickly, and a 'British quarter' was so known down to the eighteenth century.

As for me - I am living in Adelaide.

I originally thought of the citizenship idea when I saw an internet article titled "Militarisation of Roman society" (which can be found by typing those words into a search engine), in which the author states that ethnic identity in the post-Roman barbarian kingdoms, though certainly related to kinship, may have had little to do with one's own biological origins. He gives the example of Gundulf, a military officer, whose Frankish ethnic origin would have been beyond doubt, had not Gregory of Tours claimed that Gundulf was his mother's uncle. The author did not call it citizenship, but it seemed so much like the Roman-style custom, that it prompted me to consider whether it may have been borrowed from them. It is known that early Germanic society was radically changed through contact with Romans, and in northern germany there is archaeological evidence which indicates angles and saxons probably served in the Roman army(and gained Roman citizenship). Roman citizens were known as Romans, as if it were an ethnic identity, and yet a British or Gaulish one was, probably in the majority of circumstances, known as a Briton or Gaul, so strictly speaking it was'nt really ethnic. So an "englishman", in one context, could have been known as "welsh" in another. Basically, if i'm right, the term "english", like "Roman", could have had a range of meanings, sometimes in a loyal or legal sense, and at others a cultural and/or linguistic one. In this way, whole regions could be absorbed as client kingdoms, where the king and most of the upper class become citizens, and the rest of the freemen would gradually follow. As for the Wessex kings, I came across a website "Arthur, Cerdic and the formation of Wessex". The authors think that Cerdic was actually Arthur. It appears strange at first glance, but once you read the whole thing the evidence is fairly convincing. Perhaps I'm a bit gullible, but it seemed almost irrefutable. Anyway, it's interesting you are in Adelaide, because quite a number of Cornish and Devonians settled around there in the 19th century (largely for the mining industry). I live in the south-western part of Victoria (by Australian standards, not that far from Adelaide I suppose).

Einion,

Here is a link to an article which asks why the English did not become more British.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0293/462_115/62980101/p1/article.jhtml?term=Bede

Comparisons are drawn with the Franks behaviour in Europe.

It may be that the Franks and Anglo-Saxons, whilst having a common heritage, may have been influenced to different degrees by the Romans, and as such means it may be less likely that the Anglo-Saxons adopted Roman cultural standards before settling in Britain.

However, it doesn't rule out the possibility that the concept was picked up by the Anglo-Saxons from the native Britons once they were in Britain - especially as we now believe that the British remained in the majority in South Western and North Western (Cumbria)England, Wales, and lowland Scotland (Strathclyde)[Highland Scots and Irish being Gaelic rather than Brythonic/British]. Certainly a segment of the British seemed to consider themselves Roman influenced in the post Roman period and Latin was often used.

I would question the statement that the English would not consider themselves Celts - a significant number of Devonians do - and I know that there are some who feel the same from Somerset. Also I knew some Lancastrians who were keen to educate me about the ancient Celtic Kingdom of Elmet which existed in the Pennines.

http://www.oldtykes.co.uk/Elmethome.htm

Ozzie Exile,

I think I may have seen that article before, it looks quite familiar. The author seems to have the typical erroneous (in my opinion) alternative to the massacre theory. The reason I mentioned Angles and Saxons serving in the Roman army is because I think they may have been more greatly influenced by the Romans than is commonly thought. Now although the Franks were situated much closer to the Roman world than the Saxons, the latter were a sea-faring people who had been raiding Britain and Gaul since the third century (as you probably know), so theoretically, they could have had as much contact with Romans as the Franks had. You may be interested in the message I posted some days ago where I mentioned possible reasons for the hostility in Saxon literature against the "Welsh", and also for the lack of Celtic influence on Old English. I would question most of what that article (Why did the Anglo-Saxons etc.) says. Certainly St. Chad's father(who I also mentioned) seems to have been if anything, rather proud of his British origin. I don't think there is much reason to believe that people of Saxon descent constitute a majority in any English county (much less Devon).
That was quite interesting about Lancastrians, who, amongst what seems to be the population of most other English counties, bear a much closer resemblance to the Welsh and Scots than to any Germanic people.

I was intrigued by the discussion between Einion and Ozzie Exile while I was away in California. Concerning Einion’s thoughts that Celtic speech was in use in Wiltshire at the time of Domesday, there is certainly evidence of a cluster of late Brythonic place names in Northwest Wiltshire (according to Coates) in the book “Celtic Voices English Places”, which I have referred to previously. The incidence of Brythonic place names in Devon is greater than in Wiltshire, and is more evenly spread throughout the county, so Einion is probably justified in his belief that Brythonic speech in Devon probably persisted until after Domesday.

I am not sure I understand Einion’s objection to Ward-Perkins’s alternative to the ‘massacre’ theory, as the modern DNA findings certainly seem to rule out a massacre of Britons in the South and West. The implication is therefore that the Anglo-Saxons did indeed arrive in much smaller numbers than had previously been supposed (as Ward-Perkins suggests).

While in California, I came across the book “Domesday – A Search for the Roots of England” by Michael Wood (BBC Publications 1986). There is a chapter on the Highland Zone, which primarily uses Devon as an example. There are two quotes, which are of direct relevance to our subject matter:-

“In historical terms, the 900 years or so to the Anglo-Saxon period is not a long time, and Celtic speech survived in Devon till that period.”

“In some parts of Devon, they probably still spoke Celtic in the eleventh century.”

This account by Wood adds yet more weight to the mounting evidence of the persistence of the Brythonic tongue in Devon beyond the Norman Conquest and Domesday.

Plymouth Exile

Plymouth Exile,

My objection was not to ANY alternative to the massacre theory, but simply to Ward-Perkins particular brand of alternative. I certainly think that the massacre theory is totally erroneous. There seems to be good evidence that the Celts were not downtrodden, or at least not to the extent that Ward-Perkins suggests. You may not have read the message I posted a week or two ago in which I gave another (better, as far as I'm concerned) alternative.

Anyway, good trip to California?
Happy New Year!

I found an article written fairly recently which talks about an anglo saxon assimilation of the indiginous Britons rather than a mass displacement of them., hopefully the link will come out working.

http://www.mylife.gloucester.gov.uk/archaeology/image/GAU02.pdf

Its a pdf file so you'll need adobe acrobat to view it.

Ryan,

The article does make some interesting points and I think the 'extreme' view that the Anglo-Saxons only came to Britain in small numbers (and lived only in East Anglia) is clearly nonsense.

However the author does trip over himself in the last paragraph when he argues that French did not replace English after the Norman invasion (it pretty much did for two centuries) and that the Celts had not earlier adopted Latin after the Roman conquest(they did, and almost all writings from early Celtic times are in Latin). Of course neither meant the previous languages 'disappeared', but they were not the language of choice for those who considered themselves educated or learned.

Regarding the article on Gloucestershire, Martin Welch points out some "major problems" in the small migration theory. To get a clear view of the situation it is sometimes a good idea to look at continental experiences. For instance, fifth century Gallic, Spanish and Italian writers describe, in a very similar way to Gildas, the Barbarian ravaging of their homelands, "all of gaul is devastated" etc., and describing ruined cities with piles of slain in the streets, yet few people would suggest that the Gallo-romans, Spaniards and Italians were largely enslaved or massacred. A Barbarian invasion must have been a terrifying ordeal, but reading those accounts you would think that only an eighth of the Empire's population had survived the attacks. I think their contemporaries probably fully understood this kind of exaggeration, in much the same way that we would understand something like, "so and so ALWAYS does such and such a thing". No-one would assume that 'so and so' is never not doing it, but simply that it is very habitual for him. So ravaging the country from sea to sea would require no more invaders than the proportion who entered Gaul and Spain.
The author of that article mentions settlements called Walton, Walham and so on, and asks why they would be singled out as being different if the whole population of Gloucestershire were British. The fact is, many such 'Wal' placenames are equally explicable as walled or wald 'tun'. Another interesting fact is that French only has about 50-100 words of Gaulish origin, and English a similar number of ancient Brythonic-origin words, so it appears that by late Anglo-saxon times, the Old English written form had diverged considerably from that of the spoken form (Old English had between 10 and 30 Brythonic loan-words).
The author also seems to think it strange that Britons might have taken on Saxon fashions, but the Roman Emperors themselves were doing just that by the time of the late Empire.
However there can be little doubt that Saxons entered more of England than just East anglia, but it looks to me that their main settlements were largely confined to the more coastal areas and to the Thames.

Did anyone else manage to catch Time Team on channel 4 last night? On the programme they were examining the remains of a saxon settlement somewhere in East Anglia and Tony Robinson (the presenter) raised the point that much fewer continental peoples (Angles, Jutes etc) settled in modern day England than previously thought and that it is generally now accepted that the immigrants performed more administrative roles and so the basic people of England were the same people who were there when the Romans arrived and also remained there when they left again. This is exactly what weve been saying on this site for ages, as i see it.

In my opinion this makes England a rather unique country as it seems to be a celtic nation in all but awareness.

It also must lead to some sort of rethink of the supposed Tamar racial boundary.

Ryan, according to the DNA survey for the 'Blood of the Vikings' TV series, what you say is certainly the case for South and West England, but not so much for North and East England, where either the Angles or the Danes (or both) settled in far greater numbers than the Saxons did in the South and West.

I don't think we need to rethink the supposed Tamar racial boundary, as it only ever existed in the wishful thinking of the Cornish Nationalists, and never existed in the real world.

Plymouth Exile,

Speaking of DNA surveys, do you know of any such survey conducted in southwestern England other than 'Blood of the Vikings' (which I understand only studied the areas around Dorchester and Penzance, not Devon).

Concerning north and east England, it is interesting to note that after York, Sheringham and Southwell, Llanidloes in Wales had the highest proportion of Anglo-Saxon/Danish blood in mainland Britain. It seems likely that this is due to Danish rather than Anglo-Saxon settlement, and this could well be the case in north and east England, because York and Southwell are both well known Viking settlements. The Vikings often tended to congregate in the larger towns, so it could be that overall, if more of the countryside was represented, even in the north and east people of Celtic descent might constitute a great majority of the population.
Regardless, I would be interested to know where I can find more detail on the other towns in the survey, as the BBC 'blood of the Vikings' website did'nt provide much detail on individual towns.

In today's Western Morning News is an article titled "The Forgotten Massacres", apparently on the request of Cornish Nationalist Pol Hodge

http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=77707&command=displayContent&sourceNode=77259&contentPK=8648312

It is based around the Western (Prayer Book) rebellion of 1549.

If you read it (and didn't know better) this was the story of a purely Cornish uprising, on account of the oppression of the English fearing the strength of Celtic Cornish culture, its powerful Stannary Parliament, and its language.

Only one small problem.....

The Western Rebellion started in DEVON (at Sampford Courtenay!) not in Cornwall.

The introduction of an English prayerbook by Edward VI was opposed by many in Britain, but at Sampford Courtenay the locals convinced the priest to return to the old ways. Shortly afterwards the King's justices came to enforce the change - an altercation led to a brawl - and one of the justices was run through.

The rebellion was on and led to a general uprising in Devon and Cornwall with an army that marched east to take Crediton, beseige Exeter, and eventually do battle with Lord Russell and his army.

Many great deeds were done - farmer against soldier, pitchfork against armour - but in the end the Rebels lost, and in the retribution many priests and parishioners from Devon, Cornwall, and even Somerset were killed in battle or went to the gallows.

But the WMN article has a different insight. A Cornish uprising and a Cornish army 'invading England'.

Why does the truth have to be a casualty here??

Why does the WMN not check out the facts of its articles a little more thoroghly?!

I for one intend to write to them and correct this gross error.

For those interested here is a relevant website

http://www.devon.gov.uk/library/locstudy/bookhist/west33.html
(the relevant section is about two thirds the way down!!)

One hour later and still furious!!!

Here are a couple of other websites about DEVON's Western Rebellion

http://www.sampfordcourt.freeuk.com/Pages/Church3.html

http://www.latin-mass-society.org/martyrs.htm

(Yes, of course the Cornish were involved as well)

Einion,

DNA surveys have been carried out in the South West of England, but these have not been publicised nationally in the same way as the ‘Blood of the Vikings’ survey was. Two such studies were:-

“How Celtic are the Cornish? A Study of Biological Affinities.” by R. Harvey et al. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 21/2, 1986.

“Cornish Genes and Celtic Culture.” by M. Smith. Unpublished paper presented at Polytechnic South West, 1991.

Both of these studies showed no genetic differences between the Cornish and the other inhabitants of the South West. In a commentary on these studies, the Western Morning News (a local newspaper) stated: “The Cornish might not like it, but they are no different from the Devonians on the other side of the Tamar.” (Western Morning News, 29 August 1992).

You may well be correct in your theory that Danish rather than Anglo-Saxon settlers may have accounted for the strong continental element in North and East England, as the UCL team were unable to determine any Y-Chromosome differences between the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons. However, as UCL teams surveyed a number of other North East towns, and they all gave similar results, it is likely that the Britons did not survive as a majority in this area. The towns in the “Blood of the Vikings” survey were:-

Morpeth, Penrith, York, Wirral, Horncastle, Uttoxeter and Sherringham.

In another UCL survey, the towns covered were:-

North Walsham, Fakenham, Bourne, Southwell and Ashbourne

It seems unlikely that these twelve towns are unrepresentative of the rest of the North East. However, a more local study in the Wirral and surrounding areas revealed a strong British (Celtic) element in Mid Cheshire. So apart from the anomalous result from Llanidloes, the boundary of the Danelaw does indeed appear to be an ethnic boundary.

For your information, the Home Page for the “Blood of the Vikings” data is:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/

Plymouth Exile

Plymouth Exile,

Thankyou for that information.
As you said about the Danelaw boundary, I have noticed that Viking place names can be traced almost to an exact line in the Midlands, presumably the mark of this boundary.
Apart from those Norfolk towns (which, being fairly close to the North Sea coast, would be expected to have a high degree of Germanic blood) and the towns of well-known Viking settlement(York, Penrith, Southwell etc.), the others were all either relatively major towns or else in close proximity to a large river, favourite Viking haunts; so I still wonder whether they are not representative of the North-east as a whole.

Einion,

I have seen maps showing the Danelaw boundary and dots marking place names ending in ‘by’ (a common Danish ending). Very few of the dots are to the South West of the line, and even then only just. As many of the places with Danish names are small villages, I doubt whether the British (Celtic) population in the North East is particularly large in comparison with the Anglo-Danish element. Also the evidence of the DNA surveys in the twelve towns (which extended to a 20 mile radius around each town) makes a majority British population in the North East statistically unlikely.

Plymouth Exile,

I'm not sure that place names are necessarily an indicator of settlement of Vikings or Saxons in a particular village, but more simply that their language was widely spoken (as a first or second language) amongst the aristocracy of that area; for instance, most of Cheshire and Shropshire have few Celtic place names, but as you said, Mid-Cheshire was very Celtic in terms of DNA (and I suspect Shropshire would have a similar result). However, I take your point about the 20 mile radius, although possibly if the ancient population of a large town and some of the surrounding area were almost exclusively Danish (I don't know if that ever happened), then a DNA test would probably still indicate a majority of Danish genes within the 20 mile radius. To me, the northern English (though not so much the eastern coastal areas) are more reminiscent, in character and appearance, of their Welsh and southern Scottish neighbours than to Germans or Scandinavians.
Anyway, if you know the percentage proportion of Anglo/Danish to Celtic genes in those twelve towns, as well as in Devon and Cornwall, I would be interested to know too.

Einion,

In a Sunday Times article, Professor Goldstein of UCL (who was responsible for the "Blood of the Vikings" survey) gave some British/Saxon-Dane percentages. Unfortunately the only percentage he gave for the North East was that for York, which was 70% Invader (Anglo-Saxon/Dane) and 30% British (Celt), although he did state that the Invaders were in the majority throughout the North East.

Dr Mark Thomas (UCL), who was responsible for the North Walsham to Ashbourne survey, was less specific. He would only say that the Invaders represented 50-100% of the current population in this area.

In the South of England, Professor Goldstein stated that the Britons accounted for 50% in the East (Kent?), rising to 75-80% in the South West and Cornwall. I have seen other figures giving 80% in Cornwall. For comparison purposes, Goldstein gave a figure of 90% for the West of Wales. Did you notice the comment on the BBC site that the Celtic percentage in the South of England was not significantly different from that in the Scottish mainland? All the Scottish mainland survey sites were in the Highlands (i.e. the Celtic area).

These results definitely overturn all the neat theories of ethnic divisions of the early 20th Century, which the Cornish Nationalists have clung on to so dearly. In all probability, it would put the Celts in the majority in Britain, despite the reverse being true in the North East.

Plymouth Exile

Interesting information, Plymouth Exile.
I noticed that Mark Thomas et. al appear to have taken into account the fact that dna similarities between Britain and Northern Germany could extend into pre-Roman and (I thought) possibly even palaeolithic times. They conclude that a migration must have taken place some time after 500 b.c., and as I said previously this may have been largely a Viking migration. It occured to me that the "Blood of the Vikings" team may not have taken these similarities into account; if not, then one would probably expect that 20-30 percent of parts of Roman Britain might show some similarities with Northern Germany, which could mean (and I have'nt really seen any historical evidence to show that it should'nt) that there was virtually no movement of Saxons into Devon and Cornwall (nor, in all probability, Somerset and Dorset either), or at least no more than was required for a garrison or two.