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

In light of the fact that early accounts of the formation of England are often said to support the idea that the British population was largely killed or driven out, I found some very interesting statements in the "Triads of the Isle of Britain".

Here are some quotations:

"There remained none of the Loegrians (Lloegrwys) that did not become Saxons, except those that are found in Cornwall, and the Commot of Carnoban in Deria and Bernicia"

"The second was Medrod, who with his men united with the Saxons, that he might secure the kingdom to himself, against Arthur; and in consequence of that treachery many of the Lloegrians became as Saxons. Third was Aeddan, the traitor of the north, who with his men made submission to the power of the Saxons, so that they might be able to support themselves by confusion and pillage under the protection of the Saxons."

"The three arrogant ones of the Isle of Prydein: Sawl the lofty headed; Pasgen ap Urien; and Rhun ap Einiawn. Their arrogance was most arrogant above every arrogant thing, by means of which they brought anarchy in the Isle of Prydein; and those who were influenced by this anarchy, united with the Saxons, and finally became Saxons."


It seems clear that "Lloegrwys" originally meant the Britons who were under the lordship of, and so allied with, the Saxons.

The Gododdin poem also mentions the heroes fighting against masses of Lloegrians, apparently distinguishing them from their Saxon masters, who are mentioned as well. The former are apparently also referred to more specifically as "Deirans and Berneichians".

The whole thing is very much consistent with the Men of the North fighting against what were essentially British kingdoms which had been brought under the sway of "Saxons", and were now led by them.

Also:

"The Coranians and the Saxons united, and by violence and conquest brought the Loegrians into confederacy with them"

I'm not quite sure who the Coranians are, but they are said to have settled at the mouth of the Humber. Perhaps it's an alternative name for (or a people who have been confused with) an Anglian tribe.

If I am not mistaken, the versions of "Trioedd Inys Prydein" that we have today were written down in the late middle ages but are based on a much older oral tradition. From the excerpts above it seems clear that the Welsh did not believe that the native Britons had been exterminated or enslaved by the Saxons but rather that they “became as Saxons”. In other words, they adopted the language and customs of the Saxons and, over time, came to think of themselves as Saxons even though they were actually of native British (or Celtic) stock. This certainly seems to fit with what current historical, archaeological and genetic research tells us happened - at least in the southwest. I guess the big question is why so many native Britons abandoned so much of their own culture and adopted the language and ways of a militarily dominant minority. This is a great piece of supporting evidence. Thanks, Einion.

Einion and Newvonian,

“I guess the big question is why so many native Britons abandoned so much of their own culture and adopted the language and ways of a militarily dominant minority.”

I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that maybe we have neglected to consider the role of slavery in Roman Britain. It is an indisputable fact that the Roman economy—all over the empire—depended on slavery. I get the impression, reading various accounts, that the Romans enslaved a great number of native Britons during their rule and put them to work in industry and agriculture.

Wealthy or influential British who went along with the Roman agenda seem to have done very well out of the 400 years of empire, but what of the other Britons? I think it is likely that before and particularly after the Boadicea rebellion large numbers of Britons were enslaved.

There were ways of escaping slavery in the Roman world, and many slaves did become ‘free’ men. But conditions were applied to their freedom and because of the Roman society’s consciousness of social status, it was hard to gain a good position in society even after being freed.

It is unlikely that enslaved Britons who clung on their native language and customs stood much chance of being free. You were born into slavery, generation after generation, and the only hope of being legally or informally freed was to attract the master’s favour, by being a good worker, skilled in some craft, or by developing a close personal friendship or relationship with him.

The prospect of ‘manumission’ or eventual freedom was a technique the Romans used to keep slaves obedient and hard-working.

In Roman society in general, it is estimated that, at any one time, a quarter to a third of the population were slaves. I cannot see Britain being an exception, and it is highly likely that the Britons formed a large part of this slave population.

It is quite likely, that by the end of Roman rule, large numbers of Britons were still in a very low social position as “plebians” or still held in slavery.

The free Britons, “plebians” and the wealthy Romanised aristocracy would have been lived mostly in the villas, towns and cities of Roman Britain. They would mostly certainly have been Latin speakers or bilingual. Many others Britons would have been illiterate Brythonic speakers working as slave labour on the villa estates that were scattered across Roman Britain, and by the time Roman rule ended, they would have been that position for generations.

The century after the end of Roman rule in Britain seems to have accompanied by plague and civil war, as described by writers like Gildas. I believe that some semblance of Roman society survived the Roman departure in the early 5th century and was finally destroyed by the arrival in Britain of the well-documented Justinian Plague in the mid-6th century. This may have wiped out urban settlements, spreading quickly via Britain’s Roman road network. The Annales Cambriae (Welsh Annals) report two plague disasters, the first occurring in 537 after the Battle of Camlann—in which it says King Arthur was slain—and then, in 547, there followed a ‘great death’ attributed to bubonic plague.

Here the role of slavery comes into its own as an answer to “why so many native Britons abandoned so much of their own culture and adopted the language and ways of a militarily dominant minority”.

With the populations of the Romano-British towns and cities devastated by plague, the country ravaged by civil war and the added threat of the Germanic invasion, most of the Romano-British upper class who had survived simply packed up their wealth and fled to the continent. The actual Romans themselves had departed long before, and those left behind gave up on Britain in the hope of using their wealth to forge a new life in what remained of the Roman Empire—or what they imagined still remained of it.

In Britain, the villa system collapsed. Whereas on the continent it survived. The consequences of this may be very important in understanding what happened to the Britons.

On the continent the Roman villa system transmuted into the medieval feudal system. Those who worked on the villas remained employed, even if it was in a slave or serf status. This system was reintroduced to Britain, 600 years later, by the Norman invasion.

In Britain, I suggest, the upper class and land owners fled the country or died in the plague, leaving vast numbers of enslaved Britons to fend for themselves.

The slaves on villa estates were kept in their quarters, separate from the grand house where the owners lived. The slaves also would not usually have gone into town, where the plague was. What happened to these slaves when the owners died or they woke up the next day to find their masters had packed up and gone?

The Saxon word ‘wealas’ may have been adopted to describe the actual situation of the people they encountered. But in the context that many of the ‘wealas’ had not long before been Roman slaves. They were the survivors, they had not succumbed to the plague in huge numbers because they were isolated by their status and lack of contact with Roman towns and cities, and unlike their former masters they had no means and little desire to flee across the channel to places like Brittany in search of the dwindling remnants of a Roman way of life.

So “why so many native Britons abandoned so much of their own culture and adopted the language and ways of a militarily dominant minority”.

For a large number of Britons used to generations of Roman slavery, the Saxons were a replacement for the masters they had lost. Stripped by 400 years of Rome of a sense of identity, accustomed to submission and a dependency on Roman landowners, their old Celtic tribal identities destroyed, and used to owning or organising nothing in their own right, many of the surviving Britons were no longer capable of asserting themselves in an organised or meaningful way against the Saxon rulers that took over the shattered remains of Roman society in the 5th and 6th centuries.

The Saxons did not understand how to operate villas, and just stripped them for building materials and implements. They created the villages of England—the word village from ‘villa’ being a Norman term, the Saxon being ‘ham’ or ‘ton’—which were essentially groups of homesteads or settler farms. The separate terms in Saxon law for Britons and Saxons certainly do not suggest that all Britons were slaves to the Saxons, though may undoubtedly were, and the terms for Britons are unfavourable. But even so, many Britons may actually have got a better deal from the Saxons than under the rigid legal and social hierarchy of the Romans, and with it some hope of social mobility. The only qualification, however, being that they learned to speak English. The Saxons spoke neither Brythonic nor Latin, but if you did learn English you were in with a chance. Whereas, under the Roman system, as a slave even in the unlikely event that you were able to learn more than a few words of Latin, it would have made little difference to your status as a slave, unless you were able to do something particularly useful for a master who took any notice of it.