Gildas: New Approaches 0851154034, 9780851154039

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Studies in Celtic History V

GILDAS: NEW APPROACHES

S T U D IE S IN C E L T IC H IS T O R Y G eneral e d ito r D avid D um ville

A lre a d y p u b lish e d I • T H E SA IN T S O F G W Y N E D D M olly M iller II • C E L T IC B R IT A IN IN T H E E A R L Y M ID D L E A G E S K athleen H ughes III • T H E IN S U L A R L A T IN G R A M M A R IA N S Vivien Law IV • C H R O N IC L E S A N D A N N A L S O F M E D IA E V A L IR E L A N D A N D W A L E S K athryn G rabow ski & D avid D um ville

F o rth co m in g VI • S A IN T G E R M A N U S O F A U X E R R E A N D T H E E N D O F R O M A N B R IT A IN E. A . T h o m p so n V II • FR O M K IN G S T O W A R L O R D S K atharine Sim m s

In p rep a ra tio n TH E C H U R C H A N D T H E W ELSH BORDER IN T H E C E N T R A L M ID D L E A G E S C h risto p h e r B rooke G IL D A S IN T H E M ID D L E A G E S D avid D um ville (ed .) N A V IG A T IO SA N C T I B R E N D A N I G iovanni O rlandi A N IN T R O D U C T IO N T O V IT A E S A N C T O R U M H IB E R N IA E R ichard Sharpe

GILDAS NEW APPROACHES

Edited by M IC H A E L L A P ID G E a n d D A V ID D U M V IL L E

T H E B O Y D E L L PR E S S

© Contributors 1984 First published 1984 by The Boydell Press an imprint o f Boydell and Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF and 51 Washington Avenue, Dover, New Hampshire

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Gildas.—(Studies in Celtic history, ISSN 0261-9865 ; 5) 1. Gildas I. Lapidge, Michael II. Dumville, David III. Series 941*.0072024 D A 3.G / ISBN 0-85115-403-4

Set by MS Typesetting, Castle Camps, Cambridge. Printed by St Edmundsbury Press. Bound by Woolnough Bookbinding, Wellingborough, Northants.

CONTENTS

General E ditor's Foreword E ditors'P reface I

The end of Roman Britain: Continental evidence and parallels IAN w o o d

II

85

Gildas’s prose style and its origins NEIL WRIGHT

VII

61

Gildas’s geographical perspective: some problems NEIL WRIGHT

VI

51

The chronology of De Excidio Britanniae, Book I DAVID N. DUMVILLE

V

27

Gildas and Maelgwn: problems o f dating DAVID N.DUMVILLE

IV

1

Gildas’s education and the Latin culture o f sub-Roman Britain MICHAEL LAPIDGE

III

viii x

107

Clausulae in Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae GIOVANNI ORLANDI

129

VIII Britain’s iudices PAULSCHAFFNER

IX

The imagery o f Gildas’s D e Excidio Britanniae A. C. SUTHERLAND

X

169

Gildas as a Father o f the Church RICHARD SHARPE

X II

157

Gildas and vernacular poetry PATRICK SIMS-WILLIAMS

XI

151

191

Gildas and Uinniau DAVID N. DUMVILLE

207

Bibliography Index

215 237

magistris elegantibus E. A. Thompson et M. W interbottom quorum admonitiunculae nobis, asinis (ut ita dicamus) eatenus elinguibus, rectum licet artum iter digito quodammodo, cessante umbra ac ueritate firmius inlucescente, demonst rauerunt.

GENERAL EDITOR'S FOREWORD THIS fifth volume of Studies in Celtic H istory is larger than most o f its fellows in the series: it marks no change in policy, merely the conviction on the part of both publisher and general editor that the following collection o f papers has sufficient coherence, scholarly weight, and novelty to justify the exercise. The immediate circumstances which brought about the creation o f this volume are explained by the editors in their preface. The work has its roots in the increasing difficulties faced in recent years by students of sub-Roman Britain as they have come to realise the desperate depths o f their ignorance o f the period. (It is perhaps even fair to say that the downward spiral — the continuing rejection o f merely apparent knowledge — has not yet concluded, as the arguments in one or two papers below may suggest.) As in the case o f St Patrick, the study of whose work had previously gone through a comparable traum a, almost every possible advance in knowledge of Gildas’s world now depends on achieving the closest possible scrutiny of the author’s text and on attempts to create from new textual approaches a picture of that writer’s total context. Gildas’s own role in the changes affecting sub-Roman British society has long been perceived (in so far as it has been comprehended at all) not through his writings but from subsequent (and often very late) references which have then allowed interpretations of passages o f his De Excidio Britanniae and of their alleged effects on his fellow-countrymen and coreligionists. Did Gildas cry in the wilderness or did he become a major force in the context of the developing strength of Insular monasticism? Historians have long known from a reference in one o f St Columbanus’s letters that Gildas had been consulted by another Insular cleric on some questions of monastic discipline. In this volume it is argued that we still have Gildas’s letter answering these questions and that the form of its presentation, as citations of authority in the early eighth-century CoUectio Canonum Hibernensis, is sufficient evidence for Gildas’s impact on and continuing reputation among the early Insular Christian community. If Gildas is to be seen as a figure who looms large in, and whose words largely determine our perceptions of, the history o f sub-Roman Britain, nonetheless for all our attention both Gildas and his context remain insuffi­ ciently understood. Our grasp on the course of British history in the fifth century — the century whose development produced in Britain the society from which Gildas emerges with such sudden force — still remains insecure. It is the hope o f all those concerned with this volume that the variety of textually based approaches attempted here will help to render that context significantly more intelligible. Readers of this book may be interested to know o f two further volumes VIII

of Studies in Celtic H istory on related subjects. Already in the press is Professor E. A. Thompson’s Saint Germanus o f Auxerre and the E nd o f Rom an Britain, which proceeds from a close analysis o f Constantius’s Vita Sancti Germani to a study o f the more general political and social problems o f earlier Fifth-century Britain. And to follow soon is a further collection of studies o f Gildas, edited by David Dumville, to illuminate the transmission o f Gildas’s name and literary oeuvre to the mediaeval and modern worlds. Other aspects o f Celtic history have not been lost sight of, however, as may be seen from a glance at the list o f titles printed at the beginning of this volume. David Dumville Girton College, Cambridge

IX

EDITORS' PREFACE FOR many years the study of Gildas ran along narrow and predictable paths. The principal scholarly concern was with the historical narrative o f sub-Roman Britain which might be extracted from De Excidio Britanniae: how did Gildas’s account of British history square with that which could be gleaned from other early mediaeval sources? what was the true sequence o f invasions of Romans and barbarian peoples described by Gildas? when was the battle of Badonicus Moris'! when did the aduentus Saxonum take place? which were the ciuitates described by Gildas? and so on. Unfortunately, the answers to these and similar questions proved unsatisfactory, largely because of the nature of De Excidio Britanniae itself: whatever its original purpose and audience, it was not intended as narrative history. In a word, such historical questions have remained unanswered because they them­ selves were too narrowly based. More recently, however, valuable new light has been shed on Gildas by the studies of Edward Thompson and Michael Winterbottom — the former by considering Gildas in the context of fifthcentury Continental historians, the latter by considering Gildas in the con­ text of Late Latin prose. Their work has enlarged the horizons o f research on Gildas and has pointed the way to a new assessment of the context in which he wrote. It is in gratitude for their pioneering studies that we dedicate this book to them. We have called the present volume Gildas: New Approaches in the belief that it can help set Gildasian studies on a number of new and potentially profitable paths. None o f the contributors would wish to assert that his con­ tribution represents a final or definitive statement o f the topic discussed; the essays should rather be seen as probings, from different angles, with different instruments, and sometimes with contradictory results, of the formidably difficult but extraordinarily alluring texts which may be assign­ ed to the mysterious figure of Gildas. In particular the literary approaches to Gildas’s oeuvre mark, we believe, a significant step forward in displaying the author as stylist and creative writer: much o f ultimately historical significance will emerge from increasing refinement of our understanding o f Gildas’s intentions in writing and of his methods o f exposition. Scholars’ principal difficulty in understanding Gildas has always been ignorance o f his context. This is true in respect o f chronology, geography, politics, social structure, education, language, and the whole thought-world which he inhabited. O f these, chronology and geography remain perhaps the most elusive problems, and no attempt is made here finally to resolve the questions of when and where Gildas wrote. Inevitably, many o f these papers have a bearing on the question of chronology, and the reader will no doubt draw his own conclusions about the direction in which all this research is tending; if, however, he were to deduce that the editors or other x

had developed firm or resolute views as to Gildas’s date and location, he would be quite mistaken. W hat we have tried to do is to determine the ques­ tions which must be asked, the techniques which can legitimately be applied to the evidence, and some o f the limits of reasonable inference in dealing with a very obscure age. The principal questions which close study of the text can hope to answer, and which have scarcely been asked before in a direct and deliberate fashion, concern the nature o f Gildas’s intellectual for­ mation — what his schooling and his reading gave him o f Latin and Chris­ tian culture, what he may have inherited or learned o f the native British language and its oral literature, and what his education was intended to equip him for. Once some ideas about that issue have been formulated, arguments can be made concerning both the institutional context within which Gildas grew up and the possible nature o f the audience to which his writing was addressed. What emerges from these twelve papers, then, is that there are a good many more fruitful approaches than have been attempted before, and that close study o f text remains the essential and most produc­ tive preliminary form of enquiry. Gildas: New Approaches originated in a seminar on Gildas given by DD and ML for students o f the Department o f Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic o f the University of Cambridge in the Lent Term, 1980. Seven o f the nine contributors to this book presented papers to that seminar. The results o f the seminar — both the papers themselves and the ensuing discussion — seemed worth taking further, as a volume of Studies in Celtic H istory, and the editors began assembling the volume. In the following Lent Term Giovanni Orlandi, Professor o f Mediaeval Latin in the University o f Milan, was a Visiting Fellow o f Clare Hall, Cambridge, during which time he worked closely with members o f our Department. The editors resolved to invite him to contribute a paper to the volume, considering Gildas within the context of a subject which he had already very much made his own; his article appears here as chapter VII, translated by ML from the author’s original Italian. And in the Michaelmas Term 1981, Dr Ian Wood gave a paper to the Research Seminar of our Department which was o f such evi­ dent importance and relevance to our previous work on Gildas that the editors immediately urged him to include it in the collaborative volume. Accordingly, in spite of the varying circumstances in which the contribu­ tions were first made, the several authors are united in their determination to explore and open new approaches to Gildas. M.L. D.D. Spring 1983

xi

NOTE: throughout this volume, references to Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae incorporate both book- and chapter-numbers (for example, 1.26, 11.27, or III.66). The chapter-numbers are simply those o f previous editors (Stevenson, Mommsen, Williams, W interbottom). The book-numbers have not usually been cited hitherto, but they are given here both in accordance with manuscript-evidence and in the belief that they are helpful. The divi­ sions are as follows. Book I: §§1—26: Preface and H istoria Book II: §§27—65: denunciation o f the tyranni Book III: §§66— 110: denunciation of British sacerdotes

I T H E E N D O F R O M A N B R IT A IN : C O N T IN E N T A L E V ID E N C E A N D P A R A L L E L S ' Ia n W o o d MEN o f the fifth and sixth centuries were not o f one mind when it came to dating the end o f the west-Roman empire. Salvian, writing in southern Gaul in the 440s, foreshadows Gildas in his moral tone and his emphasis on the excidium orbis; for him the Republic is dead or dying and the Emperor is o f no significance.12 In the Vita Seuerini Eugippius could still portray the migration of Romans from Noricum to Odouacer’s Italy in 488 as a libera­ tion from Egyptian captivity.3 Apparently he did not share the view that Odouacer’s deposition of Romulus Augustulus marked the end o f the Empire in the West; this is a view which seems first to have been pro­ pounded in the politically conscious world o f early sixth-century Byzan­ tium. Confusingly enough, Marcellinus comes, the first chronicler to emphasise the year 476, associated the fall of the West with the death o f Aftius in 4S4.45 Discussed in these terms the end o f the western Empire is a topic in the histoire des m entalités. It is, of course, possible to approach the subject more factually in terms of administration and armies; for the historian o f the end of Roman Britain, however, there is little alternative but to discuss the history of ideas.3 The archaeologist can tell us about discontinuity in pottery-production and the presence o f black earth in urban sites;6 but even when these topics have been elucidated they will not illuminate the history o f political authority and provincial loyalty. Ultimately the end of Roman Britain is the history of fifth- and sixth-century opinion and, because of the 1 This is a version of a paper delivered at a seminar organised by Robert Markus at the University of Nottingham and, in revised form, at a seminar organised by David Dumville at Cambridge. 1 am indebted to the participants at both seminars for their criticisms. 1 am also indebted to many friends for their advice on particular points, especially to the late Denis Bethell, to Peter Brown, Roger Collins, Wendy Davies, Richard Fletcher, Robin Moss, lan Moxon, Leslie Webster, and to Patrick Wormald who kindly lent me an unpublished paper of his own on the same topic. 2 Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, especially IV.6,30 (ed. Pauly, p. 73). 3 Eugippius, Vita Seuerini, §44,5 (ed. Knoell, p. 63). See also Markus, T he end’. 4 Marcellinus comes, Chronicle, sub annis 454, 476 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 11.86 and 91). On Marcellinus, see Croke, ’The Chronicle of Marcellinus', especially chapter 5, for an abstract of which see his 'A. D. 476, the view from Constantinople’. This supersedes the arguments of Wes, Das Ende. 5 For some observations on the administrative importance of the year 409 in Britain, see, however, Salway, Roman Britain, p. 434. 6 See in particular Reece, Town and country'; also The End o f Roman Britain, ed. Casey.

1 Gildas: New Approaches, edd. M. Lapidge& D. Dumville, Studies in Celtic History V (Boydell Press, 1984), pp. 1—25.

W ood

nature o f our sources, Continental opinion at that. One concomitant of this is that even the facts which do survive have to be disentangled from the interpretations o f Late Antique authors. Writing from the viewpoint of Justinian’s Constantinople, which was only too sensitive on the question of the barbarian West, Procopius is the first to say explicitly that after Constantine I ll’s revolt the Romans never regained Britain, but that it was ruled by tyrants from then o n .78Procopius was not close enough to the event for his account to rank now as a primary source and we do not know where his information came from. Nevertheless Bede, in one of his allusions to the end of Roman Britain, records that Imperial rule ceased in Britain after the sack of Rome by Alaric.* Although Bede did have access to the Byzantine chronicle o f Marcellinus contes,9 he was not (as far as I know) dependent on Procopius here or anywhere else. His account would appear to suggest the existence o f a Western tradition recording the emergence o f an independent Britain ca 410, thus corro­ borating Procopius’s. In order to clarify the importance o f this date, the historian is unfortunately forced to turn to Zosimus who was, if we are to believe Walter G offart, yet another sixth-century Byzantine.101The distance between Zosimus and the events which he records might be offset by the fact that for much of his history he is dependent on the seemingly impressive work of Olympiodorus." But even if he did have a good source for Britain in 410, that does not mean that he used his source accurately; Book VI o f his H istory, which includes the material in question, is desperately muddled. For instance, Constantine asks forgiveness for the execution of Didymus and Verenianus in chapter 1, but the execution itself is not recorded until chapter 5, ominously enough the chapter which is crucial for the study of Britain. Zosimus tells us that, at the time when the usurper Constantine was powerless to defend Britain and Gaul because o f sedition stirred up among the Celtic barbarians (seemingly in Gaul) by his general, Gerontius, the barbarians above the Rhine (presumably Saxons) drove the Britons and some Celts to defect from Roman rule. The Britons took up arms, pushed out the Saxons, setting an example to the Armoricans and Gallo-Romans, and, having expelled their magistrates, set up independent rule. The Chronicle o f 452 corroborates the presence of Saxons in Britain at this time; but unfortunately it sheds no light on the rejection o f Roman law and the 7 Procopius, Wars, 111.2,31 and 38 (ed. Dewing, 11.18—21). See also Zosimus, Historia Nova, VI.3 (ed. Mendelssohn, pp. 286—7; transi. Buchanan & Davis, pp. 232—3). 8 Bede, Historia Ecciesiastica, 1.2 and V.24. But compare the silence of Bede, Chronica Maiora, §469 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, III.300). 9 Bede, Chronica Maiora, §493 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, III.304—3), citing Marcellinus comes. Chronicle, sub anno 434 (ed. Mommsen, ibid., 11.86). 10 Goffart, ‘Zosimus’. 11 In fact, comparison between Zosimus and Olympiodorus over Gerontius’s behaviour does not suggest accurate copying; see Gordon, The Age o f Attila, pp. 36—7. Compare also Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, in Gregory of Tours, Decern Libri Historiarum, II.9 (edd. Krusch & Levison, pp. 53—7). On Olympiodorus, see Matthews, 'Olympiodorus of Thebes*.

2

The End o f Roman Britain

ejection o f Roman m agistrates.12 Nevertheless, given th at Zosimus specifically says that the Armoricans copied the Britons, some elucidation o f these events may be sought for in the Continental sources. Exact parallels do emerge; Querolus, a play written during this period, talks about dissidents who reject Roman law and flee from Roman magistrates,13145while Salvian, writing in the 440s, attributes similar attitudes and actions to men whom he describes as Bacaudae a word which refers in earlier usage to the rebellious peasantry of third-century G aul.13 It is, therefore, possible to see Roman Britain as coming to an end in peasant-uprisings which resulted from Constantine’s failure to defend the country against the Saxons.16 Such an interpretation implies a cataclysm and against this it must be argued that there is no indication, in any of the fifth-century Western chronicles, of total disaster in Britain during this period. In particular, although both Constantius o f Lyon and the author o f the Chronicle o f 452 have much to say about British history, neither they nor others explicitly associate Bacaudae with B ritain.17189Moreover, it is difficult to understand the evidence o f Constantius, Prosper o f Aquitaine, and the Chronicle o f 452 without assuming some continuity in relations between Britain and the Continent after 410. Similarly the narrative of Gildas, no later in date than Procopius and geographically infinitely closer to the events which he describes,16does not compel the historian to postulate a radical break at this time. In other words, if there was a peasant uprising, it was not successful enough to impinge on the consciousness o f fifth-century writers, despite the fact that it may have taken on crucial significance in the eyes of the sixthcentury Byzantines. One solution to the contradictions in the surviving historical accounts is to adopt a rather more subtle interpretation o f the word B a c a u d a while the parallels between Zosimus’s account of the rebels and Salvian’s descrip­ tion of Bacaudae are too striking to be ignored,20 it may be wrong to

,M

12 Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCXCVII, XVI (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, I.6S4). On the reliability of this work and on Mommsen’s marginal dates, see below, pp. 17—19. Because of the difficulties I shall refer simply to the Olympiads and regnal dates. 13 Querolus (ed. Peiper, pp. 16— 17). The significance of this text is revealed by Thompson, ’Peasant revolts’, pp. 18—19. 14 Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, V.5—6 (ed. Pauly, pp. 107—10). 15 Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, s.v. Bagaudae. 16 Most recently and most cogently argued by Thompson, ’Britain, A.D. 406—410’. Addi­ tional instances of slave-uprisings may be found in Gerontios’s Life o f Melania the Younger, $11 (ed. Gorce, pp. 146—7); Paulinus of Pella, Eucharisticon, 333—6 (ed. & transi. White, Ausonius, 11.330—I). Matters cannot have been helped by Honorius’s arm­ ing of slaves in 406 (Codex Theodosianus, VII. 13,16, ed. Mommsen, 1.2, p. 340). 17 Constantius, Vita Germani: on Britain, $$12—18 and 25—7; on Tibatto’s revolt (described as Bacauda in the Chronicle o f 452), $$28 and 40 (edd. IKrusch &] Levison, Passiones, VII.259—65,269—72, and 280). The British entries in the Chronicle o f 452 are collected by Miller, ‘The last British entry’; for its entries on Bacaudae, see ol. CCCIIII.XII; CCCV.XIIII; CCCVII.XXV (ed. Mommsen. Chronica Minora, 1.660 and 662). Another notably silent source is Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu Suo (ed. Doblhofer). 18 Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, 1.16—18. 19 See the approach of van Dam, ‘Heretics, Bandits and Bishops’. 20 See, for example, Thompson, ‘Peasant revolts', p. 19, n. 49.

3

Wood

assume that the fifth-century Bacaudae were analogous to their thirdcentury counterparts. The word does not seem to be used in official sources and its occurrence is in any case rare. It is perfectly possible that it was being revived in fifth-century circles as a term of opprobrium which deliberately tarred current dissident movements with servile associations. That the word did change its meaning is implied by the fact that before the end o f the sixth century it had lost enough o f its undesirable connotations to appear as a personal name.21 The one fifth-century writer who both uses the word and gives some detailed indications as to what it meant for him is Salvian, aristocrat, priest, and moralist. Like many writers o f the fifth and sixth centuries Salvian associated current disasters with sin; like the Pelagians before him (although he disassociated himself from them 22) and like numerous hagiographers after him, he saw faith and good works as the remedy.23 For him, as for the Pelagians, the chief sinners were the rich, and it is with them that his writings are primarily concerned, not with their yictims.2425The Bacaudae themselves are depicted primarily as the victims o f evil judges, under whom they have lost their liberty, and because o f whom they can no longer call themselves Romans; either they flee to the barbarians or they face torture at home. Their poverty is a secondary issue which Salvian relates to their political and legal oppression. Since he uses the oppressed as a counterbalance to his description of the powerful, it is difficult to know how closely his evidence is to be followed. But while his picture of the Bacaudae and those who flee to live under the barbarians is rhetorical and generalised, it also has a certain amount o f nuance. He draws no hard and fast lines between the different groups o f oppressed — they are alike in suffering at the hands of the rich and of tyrants — but he does not see them exclusively as peasants. Among the destitute are nobles, widows, and orphans.23 Other descriptions o f the fifth-century Bacaudae paint a similar picture; one individual whose background is known is Eudoxius, a doctor,26 while the hero of Querolus, who contemplates joining the free men o f the Loire, is a dispossessed heir. It is reasonable, therefore, to see the Bacaudae as including not only peasants but also failed local magistrates and landowners who had been driven out by rivals — that is, any victim o f political oppres­ sion. The successful magistrates, on the other hand, could become petty tyrants and these are precisely the people who are expelled — in Zosimus’s

21 See Jones el al., The Prosopography, Il.xxxvii and 207—8; Gregory 1, Registrum, 1.4,1.8, 1.9, II.6, IV.42, VII. 16 (edd. Ewald & Hartmann, 1.5, 8, 9, 105, 278, and 459). 22 Cf. the citation of II Corinthians XII.9 in De Gubernatione Dei, 1.2,8 (ed. Pauly, p. 7); and compare the attack on self-righteousness in 111.2,12 (ed. Pauly, pp. 45—6) with the prayer in the Pelagian De Vita Christiana, SU (cd* Migne, Patrologia Latina, XL.1041—2, or L.396). 23 De Gubernatione Dei, IV. 1 (ed. Pauly, pp. 63—5). 24 Ibid., IV.3 and 5 (ed. Pauly, pp. 6 7 -7 0 and 71-2). 25 Ibid., V.5,21 (ed. Pauly, p. 108). 26 Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCCVII.XXV (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.662).

4

The End o f Roman Britain

account.27 We are not dealing with a simple class-conflict of honestiores and hum iliores but with a situation com plicated by local rivalry and factionalism. Conflict o f this sort can be glimpsed in Salvian’s description of the aristocracy and officials of G aul.2* The usurpations o f the early fifth cen­ tury must have given political opponents plenty o f scope to pay off debts; doubtless Constantine’s witch-hunt against the family of Honorius had its local reverberations,29 while the later emergence of ACtius must have affected political life in the provinces.30 It is also probable that Constan­ tine’s failure to defend Britain against the Saxons would have undermined the credibility of the magistrates of the province, especially if they were his appointees, which is quite likely since he was elected emperor there.31 Granted that the Bacaudae constituted more than just a peasant-movement, the expulsion o f magistrates and rejection of Roman law in 410 might be seen as an attack specifically on Constantine’s government; rapprochement with Honorius would not have been out of the question. According to Zosimus, the Britons did wish to return to the Imperial fold, but Honorius was unable to help them and instead ordered that they look to their own defence. The association o f this order with Britain has occasionally been rejected since it occurs somewhat incongruously at the end of a description o f war in Italy.32 This criticism is especially damaging, given that Zosimus was capable of mixing up names and misplacing facts and also because in 406 the Emperors had issued an edict renewing encouragement for the prouinciaies to take up arm s.33 Although Gildas’s statement that the Romans told the Britons to defend themselves might be seen as corroboration o f Zosimus’s reference to the letter of Honorius, it scarcely proves that it was sent in 410.34 Nevertheless, Zosimus's account is not completely inconsequential; on the one hand Honorius wrote to the cities o f Britain, on the other he paid his soldiers and he felt secure. That is, he had organised the Empire’s defence, paying soldiers where there were any and, where there were none, encouraging the provincials to look to their 27 Historia Nova, VI.5 (ed. Mendelssohn, pp. 286—7; transi. Buchanan & Davis, pp. 252—3). Compare Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, IV.4, and especially V.4,17—18 (ed. Pauly, pp. 70—1 and 107), on tyranny. 28 On humiliores, honestiores see De Gubernatione Dei, V.7 (ed. Pauly, pp. 110—12); but compare V.5,21 (ed. Pauly, p. 108). 29 Zosimus, Historia Nova, VI.I (ed. Mendelssohn, p. 282; transi. Buchanan & Davis, p. 249). 30 For a convenient account of his rise to power see Gordon, The Age o f Anita, pp. 47—50. Is Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, IV.4 (ed. Pauly, pp. 70—1), a veiled attack on Aétius? 31 Zosimus, Historia Nova, VI.5 (ed. Mendelssohn, p. 287—8; transi. Buchanan & Davis, pp. 252-3). 32 Zosimus, Historia Nova, VI. 10 (ed. Mendelssohn, pp. 291—2; transi. Buchanan & Davis, p. 256). Matthews, Western Aristocracies, p. 320(—I), n. 7. Thompson, ‘Britain, A.D. 406—410', p. 315, n. 43, rejects the substitution of Bruttium for Britain. 33 See above, p. 2. Codex Theodosianus, VII.13,16 (ed. Mommsen. 1.2, p. 340); Salway, Roman Britain, p. 427. 34 Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, 1.18. If we assume that Gildas was right to associate the letter with the second Pictish war, its date must be rather earlier; see Miller, ‘Stilicho’s Pictish war*.

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own p r o te c tio n w h ic h is — as Zosimus admits — what Britain had already done.3536 The evidence for 410 is certainly not satisfactory, but the events o f this period seem not to have been interpreted by contemporaries as marking the end of Roman Britain. Honorius would not have relinquished authority over a province without a murmur, nor would any Roman senators with estates in Britain willingly have abandoned all hope o f regaining them .37 At the same time, according to Gildas, some Britons, at least, continued to expect Imperial aid.3' Zosimus’s account gives us a glimpse o f the sort o f ambivalent situtation which would have led Procopius retrospectively to see Roman Britain as ending in 410,39 while closer observers noticed nothing o f such a sort.40 In retrospect, it was clear that the Imperial government failed to regain secular control o f Britain, even though it may have provided support for the papacy and the Gallic Church during their interventions in the island in the ensuing decades.41 The first clearly dated episode after 410 is the arrival of Germanus o f Auxerre to combat the Pelagians in Britain in 429;42 this visit presupposes a background of doctrinal deviance which requires comment. Unfortunately we cannot date the emergence of British Pelagianism but, since recent studies have put increasing emphasis on the development o f Pelagius's own ideas in Rome,43 while, for the Church at large, condemnation o f these views as heresy began only in 418,44 it is clearly absurd to associate Victricius o f Rouen's journey to solve religious problems in Britain ca 400 35 But see Thompson, ‘Britain, A.D. 406—410*, p. 316. 36 Zosimus, Historia Nova, VI.5 (ed. Mendelssohn, pp. 286—7; transi. Buchanan & Davis, pp. 252—3). Gildas did not know of, or chose to ignore, this. 37 The evidence of the Notifia Dignitatum suggests continuing Imperial interest; see Salway, Roman Britain, pp. 437—8. Britain, however, is placed significantly out of order (at the end of the list of provinces) in the Laterculus of Polemius Siluius, copied in northern Gaul in 448; see Harries, ‘Church and state*, p. 26. For British involvement in Imperial politics, see Salway, Roman Britain, pp. 435—6. Melania the Younger possessed estates in Britain; Gerontios, Life o f Melania, §11 (ed. Gorce, pp. 146—7). Nevertheless the use of Britain as a place of exile — on which see, for example, Ammianus Marcellinus, XXII.3,3 and XXVIII.3,4 (ed. & transi. Rolfe, II.192—3 and III.132—3) — may suggest that Britain was socially detached from the Empire. 38 Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, 1.20,1. 39 Procopius, Wars, 111.2,38 (ed. & transi. Dewing, 11.20—1). 40 If 410 is not taken to represent an absolute break, the decurionate of Patrick’s father — Patrick, Epistola ad Coroticum, §10 (ed. Bieler, 1.96) — is not a useful dating point in the history of the apostle of Ireland, contra Hanson, Saint Patrick, His Origins and Career, pp. 176—9.1 prefer to see Patrick’s career as extending considerably into the second half of the Fifth century; it is difficult to place the reference to the Franks in the Epistola ad Cor­ oticum, §14 (ed. Bieler, 1.98), before Childeric's campaigns in the 460s; on these see Gregory of Tours, Decern Libri Historiarum, 11.18 (edd. Krusch & Levison, p. 65), and Vita Genouefae, §26 (ed. Krusch, Passiones, 111.226); on this Life, see below, n. 107. 41 Recent work on the Notifia Dignitatum has tended to invalidate the opinion espoused by Collingwood (apud Collingwood & Myres, Roman Britain and the English Settlements, pp. 295—8) that Britain was reoccupied after 410. See the comments of Hassall, ‘Britain in the Notitia*, pp. 103—4. 42 Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronicle, sub anno 429 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.472). 43 See, for example, Hammond, ‘The last ten years’. 44 The evidence is collected by Wermelinger, Rom und Pelagius, pp. 199—209.

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with Pelagian ism.45 Further evidence for the spread of Pelagius’s ideas in Britain has been discovered in the corpus of writings edited by Cas pari,46 especially in the writings of the so-called ‘Sicilian Briton’.47 The surviving biographical details of this man are all collected in his letter H onorificentiae tuae.4* a document which can reasonably be claimed for the period before 418 since he confidently expects to be able to return to Rome despite his theological views;49501234678 to have done so after that date would have been dangerous. Apart from stating that he was writing from Sicily, the author is often said to reveal that his homeland is Britain,’0 but he does nothing o f the sort. His claim that God can be found in Francia, Saxonia and throughout Barbaria does not prove a British or north Gallic origin;’1 indeed the only moment at which he does talk about his patria is in association with the phrase ad Urbem?2 which would seem to imply that the author was a Roman. Against this it could be objected that the writer’s journey to Sicily had involved lengthy land- and sea-crossings,” but even this can be explain­ ed away; perhaps the route taken was an indirect one and, if it was not, the problems of Italian travel in the second decade o f the fifth century, as revealed in Rutilius Namatianus’s account of his journey from Rome to G aul,’4 should not be forgotten. If the ‘Sicilian Briton’ did not come from Rome it might be suggested that he came from Spain, since he and the Spaniard Prudentius share a curious notion of celestial consulships.” Nor can the Pelagian De Vita Christiana be associated with Britain without question,” for, although Gennadius ascribes a work on that theme to the British Bishop Fastidius,’7 the two need not be connected. The individual objections to this attribution are slight, but taken together they are powerful; Fastidius wrote his treatise to a man, while De Vita Christiana has a preface to a woman, although at times the text itself forgets this.’1 45 Victricius, De Laude Sanctorum, $1 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XX.443). Myres, 'Pelagius', pp. 23—4, does not pay attention to the chronology of the opposition to Pelagianism. 46 Caspari, Briefe. 47 In addition to Myres, *Pelagius*, note Morris, 'Pelagian literature*. But see also the critical comments of Liebeschuetz, 'Did the Pelagian movement have social aims?' and 'Pelagian evidence*. 48 Edited by Caspari, Briefe, pp. 3—13; for a more recent edition of this and other Pelagian writings see Hamman, Patrologia Latina, Supplementum, 1.1687—94. 49 Honorificentiae tuae, §5 (ibid., col. 1692). See Wermelinger, Rom und Pelagius, pp. 204—9 and 249—53, for the situation after 418. 50 Morris, 'Pelagian literature’, p. 37. 51 Honorificentiae tuae, $1 (ed. Hamman, Patrologia Latina, Supplementum, 1.1687); for this and what follows I am indebted to Roger Collins. 52 Honorificentiae tuae, §5 (ibid., col. 1693). 53 Honorificentiae tuae, §5 (ibid., col. 1692). 54 De Reditu Suo, 1.37—42 (ed. Doblhofer, 1.90—1). 55 Cameron, 'Celestial consulates*. Honorificentiae tuae is usually accepted as being by the same author as Humanae referunt. 56 Despite Morris, 'Pelagian literature', pp. 32—6. 57 Gennadius, De Viris IUustribus, §57 (ed. Herding, p. 95). 58 For a woman as addressee, De Vita Christiana, preface and §15; but see the use of the masculine in §§l and 2 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XL. 1032, 1033, 1034, and 1045, or L.383, 385, 386, and 400).

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Further, if Fastidius is placed in chronological sequence in Gennadius’s De Viris Illustribus, he must have been active in the 420s and later, while De Vita Christiana was certainly written before 415, when it was discussed at the synod of Diospolis.59 Finally, it is impossible to think that Gennadius would have regarded De Vita Christiana as orthodox had he read it, but he certainly considered Fastidius as such. Cumulatively these points suggest that Fastidius was not the author o f De Vita Christiana, and if another text must be assigned to him M orin’s suggestion, A dm oneo te, is the most likely..60Nevertheless there were Pelagian texts circulating later on in Britain and Ireland;61 for instance, Gildas seems to have known the Pelagian De Virginitate, whose author he probably regarded as a Briton,626345although he may well have been mistaken. W hat Gildas reveals is the fact that Pelagian texts and ideas continued to circulate in Britain throughout the fifth cen­ tury, nothing more. In order to achieve a close understanding of the early history of the heresy in Britain we are thrown back on Prosper o f Aquitaine and the Vita Germani. In his annal for 429 Prosper records that Agricola, son o f the Pelagian Bishop Seuerianus, had infected the British Church with his father’s heresy and that, as a result, Germanus visited Britain. Although Agricola’s mission is not dated, it seems fair to assume that it had not antedated Germanus’s visit by many years. It would be perfectly reasonable to suggest that Seuerianus was a pro-Pelagian Italian bishop61 and that Agricola’s appearance in Britain was caused by the anti-Pelagian legislation o f 418—25.MAs a parallel one might turn to the entry in the Chronicle o f 452 which records (for ca 405) that Arians fled from the Empire to the bar­ barians, who gave them support.61 The implications of such a hypothesis would be that between 418 and 429 Britain was a safe place for Pelagians who were under threat of persecution on the Continent. Further, the 59 Augustine, De Geslis Pelagii, VI. 16 and 19 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XLIV.329 and 331); Jerome, Dialogi contra Pelagianos, 111.14 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXIII.611), on De Vita Christiana, §11 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XL. 1042, or L.396). This episode has been most fully discussed by Evans, 'Pelagius, Fastidius’. 60 Edited by Morin, ‘Fastidius ad Fatalem?', and reprinted by Hamman, Patrologia Latina, Supplementum, 1.1699—1704. 61 Zimmer, Pelagius in Irland. 62 Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, 11.38,2; De Virginitate (’Jerome', Ep. 13), §6 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXX. 167). The reference to this in Morris, ’Pelagian literature’, p. 36, is inaccurate. There are other parallels to be drawn between Gildas and the Pelagian authors; for Gildas, gratia sometimes has the implications of corruption so emphasised by Myres, ’Pelagius* (but cf. Liebeschuetz, 'Did the Pelagian movement have social aims?’) — see De Excidio Britanniae, 111.66,1 and 111.108,3. Compare also the idea, present in the Pelagian authors as well as in Salvian and Gildas, that names are useless unless backed by deeds: De Vita Christiana, §1 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, XL. 1033, or L.385); Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, IV. 1 (ed. Pauly, pp. 63—5), and Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, 111.73,1,74,5, and 108,1. Pelagian ideas might also be seen in the emphasis on perfection in De Excidio Britanniae, III.74.4 (although this is tempered by 111.74,6 and 111.110,1; compare Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, 111.2,12—13, ed. Pauly, pp. 45—6), and in the remark on good works in De Excidio Britanniae, III.93.3. 63 Although Lanzoni, Le origini, offers no support for this. 64 Wermelinger, Rom und Pelagius, pp. 196—209. 65 Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCXCVI,XI (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.652).

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mission o f Germanus, whether prompted by Palladius in Rome (as in Prosper)“ or by the Britons (as in the Vita Germ ant),61 might be regarded as a sign o f growing papal confidence, an ecclesiastical counterpart to the signs o f that secular resurgence in Gaul noted by John Matthews.“ Before examining the course o f Germanus’s first visit in 429 it is necessary to make some observations about the Vita Germani, its author, audience, and purpose. Constantius, the author, was a well respected priest and poet; he was the dedicatee o f Sidonius’s first collection o f letters;“ he had composed verses to be inscribed in a church dedicated by Patiens o f Lyon;6678970 and Sidonius found his preaching to be at least momentarily effec­ tive in raising the morale of the people of Clermont during the Visigothic siege.71 Clearly a saint’s Life written by such a man would be carefully con­ structed and the author might be expected to have an eye to the rôle which a cleric might play in times o f political crisis. The work was dedicated not to Censurius, bishop o f Auxerre — indeed its connexions with the shrine of Germanus are entirely secondary7273 — but to Patiens,71 notable, like Constantius himself, for his capacity to rise to the problems posed by the barbarian expansion in Gaul, above all in his arrangements for faminerelief.7475 Doubtless other bishops o f this calibre, Sidonius for instance, would have received copies o f the Vita Germani. The author and audience, therefore, might lead the historian to expect a work whose central concern was episcopal behaviour in a period of crisis, almost a handbook for bishops in the 470s or 480s. And this is indeed what the Vita Germani is, the work of a master-writer stretching the conventions of hagiography. The opening, admittedly, seems traditional enough, with its brief survey o f Germanus’s family, birth, early career, indications of sanctity, and his election as bishop, although already Constantius has begun to prepare the reader for one of the most bizarre set-pieces of episcopal hagiography by letting drop the word ducatus to describe Germanus’s provincial governor­ ship.71 The ensuing section on exorcisms confirms the author’s control of his material; the first exorcism benefits a tax-collector, the second the whole population of Auxerre, the third a monk, the fourth a ghost, and the fifth some cockerels.76 The reader is thus taken from the official world to the public in general, then to the enclosed society of the monastery, before moving on to the dead and the animal world. There follows the first of the British missions, then a successful plea for tax-remission, and next the second British mission, which leads into the intervention to spare Armorica 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronicle, sub anno 429 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.472). Constantius, Vita Germani, §12 (edd. [Krusch &) Levison, Passtones, VII.259). Matthews, Western Aristocracies, pp. 329—51. Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistolae, 1.1. 111.2, VII. 18, VIII. 16, IX. 16.1 (ed. Loyen, II.2 and 84; 111.79, 127, and 178). Sidonius, Epistolae, II. 10.3 (ed. Loyen, 11.69). Sidonius, Epistolae, III.2 (ed. Loyen, 11.84—5). Constantius, Letter to Censurius (edd. (Krusch &) Levison, Passiones, VII.248—9). Constantius, Letter to Patiens (edd. IKrusch &] Levison, Passiones, VII.247—8). Sidonius, Epistolae, VI. 12,5 (ed. Loyen, 111.27). Vita Germani, §1 (edd. [Krusch &) Levison, Passiones, VII.251). See below, pp. 11— 12. Vita Germani, §§7—11 (ibid., pp. 254—9).

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from G oar’s Alans — a section o f text which is so carefully constructed as to lead the reader, by demonstrations of Germanus’s reputation and sanctity, into overlooking the fact that the legation was useless. Finally, the death of Germanus in Ravenna and his funeral cortège confirm the reverence in which this patron of the Gauls was held. The care o f Constantius’s construction is especially apparent in the first British section, which begins blandly enough with the legation o f the British to the Gallic bishops to ask for help against the Pelagians.77 Already the account presents certain problems and raises certain questions. In the Vita Germant it is the Britons in general — not just the Church — who appeal for help; this may imply that laymen were involved, or it may be a question of style and of the need to avoid repeating the word episcopus. Prosper, who was rather better placed to understand events, reveals nothing o f this and, as already noted, sees Palladius as the prime mover.7' One solution is to accept Constantius’s view that Germanus o f Auxerre and Lupus o f Troyes were sent to Britain by a Gallic synod, but to see Palladius as respon­ sible for obtaining papal approval of the mission. While the saints were crossing the Channel, demons tried to prevent their arrival; but Germanus called upon Christ to calm the storm798012— it is interesting how often Constantius finds his models in the Bible rather than in earlier hagiography. A symbolic point may be involved here as well; the conquest of the demons who are hostile to the mission could be taken as prophetic o f the success o f the enterprise. Once in Britain Germanus and Lupus preach, and eventually the Pelagians are induced to attend a public disputation.10 When they arrive, their vanity is instantly apparent in their clothing. It is possible that Constantius wished to imply that the heretics were members of the secular aristocracy; certainly they are never described as clergy. Nor does Prosper suggest that Agricola, the instigator o f the heresy, is a cleric. Nevertheless the prime concern o f Constantius at this moment is to contrast the vanity of the Pelagians — free will is, after all, an arrogant doctrine — with the humility of Germanus. Once the heretics have been defeated in argument, a man o f tribunician power" and his wife bring forward their daughter who has been blind for ten years.'2 Germanus asks the Pelagians to cure her; they refuse; so he and Lupus pray. Germanus puts his bag of relics against her eyes which, in Constantius’s words, he filled with the light o f truth, the darkness having been removed. The girl, it seems, has become an allegory o f Britain; the restoration o f true doctrine is instantly paralleled by the restoration o f true sight. It is tempting to see the 77 Ibid., §12 {ibid., p. 259). 78 On Palladius, see the comments of Hanson, Saint Patrick, His Origins and Career, pp. 5 2 -4 . 79 Vita Germani, §13 (edd. (Krusch &J Levison, Passiones, V1I.259—60). 80 Vita Germani, §14 (ibid., pp. 260—1). 81 In a British context this office is obscure, but Constantius and his readers would surely have understood it in its Gallic context; see Sidonius, Epistoiae, 1.3,2; 1.11,5; IV.24,1; VII. 11(10),2 (ed. Loyen, 11.9, 36, and 165; 111.63). 1 am grateful to Richard Fletcher for drawing these parallels to my attention. See also Salway, Roman Britain, pp. 466—7. 82 Vita Germani, §15 (edd. [Krusch &] Levison, Passiones, VII.261—2).

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The End o f Roman Britain

ten years o f blindness as a deliberately chosen figure and it is one that fits exactly with the conjecture that it was Pelagian refugees who infected Bri­ tain after 418. The refutation concluded, Germanus and Lupus decide to visit the shrine o f St Alban to give thanks; but on the way Germanus injures his leg and has to rest until he is fit to travel again. Immobilised as he is, when a fire breaks out and threatens the building in which he is staying, he refuses to allow himself to be moved; the fire itself leaps over the dwelling, leaving the saint unharm ed.'3 Nor does he make any attempt to heal himself, despite the fact that Christ works miracles for others through him; his cure coincides with a vision. Constantius is still primarily concerned with theology and not with narrative — the story demonstrates the importance of complete passivity before the will of God; as a result o f this, safety is granted. The question o f the proportion o f allegory to historical fact in Constantius’s account becomes acute in the ensuing section, the so-called ‘Alleluiavictory*. Suddenly we are given a precise indication of time — it is Lent.*4 One implication of this is that the mission of Germanus began (surprisingly) in winter, but this is a fact which is corroborated by the L ife o f Lupus of Troyes.'3 The bishops are called to help against the Saxons and the Piets; they preach to the troops, of whom many are baptised. The enemy, discovering about the baptisms, decides to attack, since the Britons are unprepared; but the movements of the enemy are observed by spies. The Britons arm themselves, and Germanus, taking over the leadership, perhaps as a new Moses (signifer), prepares an ambush. On a prearranged signal the Britons shout ‘Alleluia’ three times (a clear reference to Joshua and the chosen people o f Israel at Jericho); the enemy troops flee, many o f them being drowned, while the Britons look on innocently. There is scarcely a phrase in the whole section which does not contribute to the balance of factual detail and allegorical interpretation. Baptism ought to be performed only at Easter; thus the precise indication that the episode begins in Lent provides a context which is canonically correct. We are told explicitly that as a result of baptism the Britons have no need for arms — religion is enough. When the battle takes place, the newly baptised play no part in the bloodshed; and because there is no direct fighting Germanus, even though he is a bishop, is entitled to act as general. Constan­ tius has already prepared us for Germanus’s military abilities by attributing a ducatus culmen to him ;'6 but since his secular training and career were as a lawyer one may question whether this is to be taken at face-value, especially since the word dux is used without military connotations elsewhere in the 834*6 83 Vita Germani, $16 (ibid., pp. 262—3). Such fire-miracles are standard in Gallic hagiography: Sulpicius Severus. Vita Martini, $14,1—2 (ed. Fontaine. 1.283); Verus, Vita Eutropii (ed. Varin, pp. 60—I); Vita Caesarii, 11.26 and 28 (ed. Krusch, Passiones, 111.494); see also Sidonius, Epistoiae, VII. 1,4 (ed. Loyen, 111.32). 84 Vita Germani, $$17—18 (edd. [Krusch &) Levison, Passiones, VII.263—5). 83 Vita Lupi, $4 (ed. Krusch, ibid., p. 297). Krusch saw this Life as a late compilation and in his eyes the description of the mission had no independent value; I prefer to follow Ewig, ‘Bemerkungen’, where he sees the Vita as being early or containing early material. 86 Vita Germani, $1 (edd. [Krusch &] Levison, Passiones, VII.2S1).

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Vita Germani — for instance, to describe the ghost which reveals its unburied body to Germanus.*7 It is possible that there was a campaign against the Piets and Saxons in 429, presumably (on this argument) in eastern Britain,” but it would be rash to associate it with Germanus; Constantius’s account of the Alleluia-victory is primarily an allegory about a bishop leading a people to true faith and therefore to physical safety. As such it has parallels in Eugippius’s Vita Seuerini*9 and it is, to some extent, the counterpart to the picture, of the fall of irreligious societies, in Gildas and Salvian. In the context o f the Vita Germani itself it is an extension o f the balance of doctrine and health which is emphasised throughout the work and which we have already seen, in the culmination o f the debate with the Pelagians, in the cure of the blind girl, as well as in the depiction of Germanus’s faith and his deliverance from fire. The closing comments o f the section make the point absolutely clear; Britain is safe from spiritual and physical enemies. The author o f the Vita Lupi is slightly less impressed by the religious achievement of the mission, and rightly so.878990 When one reads the Vita Germani it seems appropriate to think o f Patiens in Lyon faced with the expansion of Burgundian power, or o f Constantius himself travelling to raise the morale of the people o f Clermont, rather than to keep the history of Britain in the forefront o f one's mind. A bishop's duty, Constantius seems to be saying, is to provide his flock with spiritual weapons; God will provide safety. If the Vita Germani proves to be less informative on the visit o f 429 than is usually assumed, there is more to be said about the Passio A lbani than is to be found in most discussions of the end of Roman Britain. At the end o f the Passio there is an account o f Germanus's visit to the grave o f St Alban, in which, according to one recension, the martyr reveals himself to the bishop;91 it may be that Germanus actually discovered the tomb; certainly he had it opened and had relics, collected from elsewhere, placed inside, while he took some dust from the shrine for himself.92 Then by his preaching, helped by miraculous manifestations o f St Alban, Germanus converted many. It is tempting to see this whole episode as a deliberate attempt to associate the cult of the British martyr with Continental ortho­ doxy. That there is a connexion between the cult of St Alban and the attack on Pelagianism might also be argued from a study o f the narrative of the martyr-acts. The Passio A lbani, as it survives in its earliest version, is a merovingian 87 Vita Germani, §10 (ibid., p. 258). 88 Ammianus Marcellinus, XXVII.8,5 (ed. Rolfe, III.52—3) mentions contemporary action by Piets and Saxons in 367/8 but does not actually state that the Saxons were in Britain. Sidonius, Carmina, VI1.90 (ed. Loyen, 1.59), mentions these peoples in the same line, but in the context of Caesar*s campaigns. Gildas makes no clear reference to the Alleluiavictory, although there might be an allusion to the campaign in De Excidio Britanniae, 1.14-23. 89 Especially in §2 (ed. Knoell, p. 15). 90 Vita Lupi, §4 (edd. Krusch (& Levison), Passiones, VII.297). 91 Passio Albani, §§21—2 (ed. Meyer, ‘Die Legende’, pp. 44—5). 92 Germanus’s interest in relics is also attested in Vita Germani, §15 (edd. [Krusch &) Levison, Passiones, VII.262).

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text which cannot have been written much before the sixth century and which is probably not much later than that either.93 More likely than not, it was composed at Auxerre, but it was certainly not the first recension of the Passio, since A lban's interlocutor has already been transformed into the Emperor Severus himself, although later versions o f the legend retain a judge in this rôle.94 While it belongs to a well established genre, the Passio A lbani seems to put more emphasis on faith and grace at the expense of good works than do its models which include the Passio o f St Fides herself.95 The conversion o f Alban takes place simply because a priest, flee­ ing from persecution, enters Alban’s house;96 before being interrogated by the Emperor, Alban prays that his confession and blood will make up for the grace of baptism, which he lacks;97 on being questioned, he announces that confession is more important than good works.98 The miraculous dry­ ing up of the river appears not to have been attributed originally to the saint,99 although Gildas associates it with a prayer spoken by A lban.100 Nor does the Passio explain the conversion of the executioner; and, once again, when Alban does pray for the man, he asks that a good confession might merit grace.101 Even by the standards o f martyr-acts there is little emphasis on human action, while the emphasis on faith, confession, and grace is striking. If the original recension of the Passio A lbani was an anti-Pelagian work, which seems possible given the theological priorities of the surviving versions, it might reasonably be attributed to the circle o f Germanus and this in turn might suggest that the description of the town, arena, and tomb, albeit in a merovingian text, reflect fifth-century conditions. The literary form of the Passio is better suited to the promotion o f ideas o f grace and faith than are the various forms o f saint’s Life in which the reader might justifiably expect a survey o f the hero’s good works. Never­ theless it may not be too far-fetched to recognise a similar emphasis in certain passages o f the Vita Germani, particularly in the account o f the first visit to Britain, where Constantius seems at pains to emphasise the importance o f faith rather than action. Most notable is the aforementioned account of Germanus’s journey to the tomb o f St Alban. The pilgrimage 93 Meyer (‘Die Legende’, p. 29) argues for a date between 304 and 330 for the Turin recen­ sion. Levison ('St. Alban’, p. 348) argues for a date ca 313—40, although his use of Gildas to provide a terminus ante quern can carry no weight in dating the surviving recen­ sions in view of the uncertainty about the dating of the De Excidio. 94 Levison, ‘St. Alban’, p. 349. 93 Meyer, ‘Die Legende’, pp. 72—81, listed several of the parallels between this Passio and others, but the list was considerably expanded by Levison, ‘St. Alban’, pp. 343—6. For the Acta of St Fides, see [Bollandists (ed.)l, ‘De S. Fide’, pp. 288—9. 96 Passio Albani, §4 (cd. Meyer, ‘Die Legende', p. 48). 97 Passio Albani, §6 (ibid., pp. 48—30). Pelagians, of course, accepted the importance of baptism. 98 Passio Albani, §10 (ibid., p. 32). 99 Passio Albani, §14 (ibid., p. 54). 100 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.11: Gildas's whole emphasis is on the miracles performed by Alban — his theological approach is thus radically different from that of the author of the Passio. 101 Passio Albani, §15 (ed. Meyer, ‘Die Legende’, p. 56).

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itself serves to remind the reader that Germanus attributed his success against the Pelagians to supernatural aid; the saint’s admittedly traditional refusal both to be removed from the path of the fire and to heal himself might be regarded as further confirmation of the theme. For the events of 429 the Vita Germant must be used with caution, since it is primarily an allegorical account intended to instruct Patiens and his contemporaries; nevertheless it is possible to argue that the cult of St Alban was promoted by Germanus in the context o f his anti-Pelagian campaign. As for the Alleluia-victory, although there may well have been battles between British, Piets and Saxons at this time, it is unlikely that Germanus’s activity had a military side to it. On the other hand it is probable that the bishop did take note of dangers posed by the neighbours of the British; Prosper’s annal on the subsequent mission of Palladius to the Christians living among the Irish102103and his clear juxtaposition of Celestine’s work in Britain and Ireland in Contra C ollatorem i0i lead plausibly to the conclusion that the two policies were related and that it was as a result o f observations made by Germanus on the relations between Britain and Ireland that Palladius set out in 431.104105All in all, these events suggest that Britain was still subject to the Roman Church if not to the Emperor and that papal policy was being pursued with confidence on the fringes of the world. The second mission of Germanus to Britain implies a continuation of such optimism. Before pursuing this question, it is necessary to face certain problems of detail raised by the Vita Germani. The first is the question o f the authenticity of this episode, since some have argued that it is no more than a doublet o f the journey o f 429.10) Against this it can be said that the change of Germanus’s companion from Lupus to Severus is suggestive,1061078as is the reference to both British missions in the Vita G enoue/ae.107 Further support can be provided only by demonstrating the plausibility o f the journey and for this an examination of its date is necessary. Since Constantius portrays as a rapid series of events10* the second mission to Britain, Germanus’s journey to Ravenna, and his death, it seems fair to use the saint’s death-date as a guide to the preceding episodes. Any calculation o f the chronology o f Germanus’s episcopate depends upon the Gesta P ontificum o f Auxerre, which states that the saint held office for thirty years and twenty-five days, taken together with the evidence o f the Vita A m atoris, which records the death of Germanus’s predecessor as

102 103 104 105 106 107

Prosper, Chronicle, sub anno 431 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.473). Prosper, Contra Collatorem, XXI.2 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, LI.271). Hanson, Saint Patrick, His Origins and Career, p. 54. For example, Chadwick, Poetry and Letters, pp. 255—6. Vita Germani, §25 (edd. IKrusch &] Levi son, Passiones, VII.269). Vita Genouefae, §§2—3 and 11 (ed. Krusch, Passiones, III.215—16 and 219). I am indebted to Richard Fletcher for drawing this to my attention. Krusch saw the Vita Genouefae as a carolingian forgery; I hope to argue elsewhere that an earlier recension of this work was known to Cogitosus and Muirchu in seventh-century Ireland and 1 am therefore inclined to think that the surviving text is dependent on a sixth-century original. 108 Vita Germani, §§25—46 (edd. (Krusch &1 Levison, Passiones. VII.269—82).

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taking place on Wednesday May 1st.1091023This limits the possible accessiondates to 407,412, and 418. In addition, the L ife o f Hilary of Arles is usually cited"0 to prove that Germanus was still alive at the time of Hilary’s deposi­ tion of Chelidonius, bishop o f Besançon, which took place ca 444;'" thus 448 becomes the only plausible obit. For various reasons, however, the Vita H ilarii should be treated with caution. Although the work was written within a century of the saint’s d eath ,"2 its author is concerned to exonerate Hilary from various charges of usurpation of ecclesiastical power, one o f which occurred during the Chelidonius affa ir."1 In fact, Germanus is not mentioned as being involved in this dispute in the papal literature on the case, while the Vita H ilarii is somewhat half-hearted in including him. It announces that the bishops of Arles and Auxerre co-operated with each other, says that the accusations made against Chelidonius were brought to both o f them, but after that forgets about Germanus. It is certainly possible that the author of the L ife was attempting to justify Hilary's actions by associating them with the less controversial and well revered Figure o f Ger­ manus. By contrast, the Vita Seueri, though a much later work, has no axe to grind when it comes to describing the funeral procession o f Germanus, which passed through Vienne on its way from Ravenna to Auxerre.114This it dates to the pontificate o f Pascentius whose successor Claudius is known to have attended the council o f Orange on November 8 ,4 4 1 .11516If the evidence o f the Life of Severus is taken in preference to that o f the Life o f Hilary, the episcopate of Germanus is firmly dated to the years 407 to 437. Since the Gesta Pontificum , Vita Am atoris, and Vita Seueri are none of them fifth-century texts, it is worth looking for corroborative evidence, and for this purpose the careers of Sigisuult, Goar, and Tibatto, all mentioned by Constantius in the closing sections of the Vita G erm ani,U6 may be 109 $31 ([Bollandists (ed.)l. De Sancto A matore, p. 60); Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium, §7 (cd. Dura, Bibliothèque historique, 1.315). Mathisen (The last year*, p. 152) denies the validity of this evidence, but since the days of a bishop’s consecration and death were liturgically significant they are likely to have been remembered accurately. Mathisen’s own case depends on a citation in a panegyric and on an inscription; but no panegyric can be treated as a factual account of the preceding year, while the inscription might at best be used to corroborate an established case. The traditional chronology for Germanus is most authoritatively set out by Levison, 'Bischof Germanus’, p. 100, and in the introduction to his edition (apud Krusch & Levison, Passiones, VII.225—6). 110 Vita Hilarii, §21, most recently edited by Cavallin, Vitae Sanctorum Honorati et Hilarii, p. 98. 111 Thus Levison, apud Krusch & Levison, Passiones, VII.227. For the Chelidonius affair, see Leo I, Epistola 10 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, LIV.628—36), and Mathisen, 'Hilarius, Germanus’, although he advances no reason for thinking that Germanus's role was significant. 112 For the problems of authorship, see Cavallin, Vitae Sanctorum Honorati et Hilarii, pp. 35-40. 113 Mathisen ('Hilarius, Germanus’) ignores the propagandist aspect of the Vita Hilarii. On Hilary's other usurpations, see Leo, Epistola 11 (ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, LIV.636—40). 114 Vita Seueri, $6 (ed. [Bollandistsl, p. 420). 115 For the proceedings of the Council of Orange, see Munier, Concilia Galliae A. 314— A . 506, pp. 76—93. 116 Vita Germani, §§28, 38, and 40 (edd. (Krusch &) Levison, Passiones, VII.271, 278, 280).

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considered. Sigisuult first comes into the limelight in about 427, when he was sent against Boniface by Felix; in 437 he was ordinary consul and in 440, as com es et magister utriusque m ilitiae, was the recipient o f Nov. Val 6, 1.9, where he was addressed as p .k.a . — parens karissim e amantissime, though not as patricius. The only reference outside the Vita Germani to his holding this title comes from a list, relating perhaps to the year 445, in the forged Gesta de purgatione X ysti episcopi.117 Strictly speaking, Constantius’s description o f Sigisuult as patricius ought to date the death o f Gernjanus to the period after 440, although it is possible that Constantius was mistaken about the precise chronology of Sigisuult’s career. Apart from being involved in the events which precede Germanus’s death, Goar is only known to have been active ca 4 10;'" his career as a war-leader is more likely to have continued into the late 430s than the late 440s. The history o f Tibatto also seems to belong to the earlier decade. In the Vita Germani it was G oar’s advance against Armorica which Germanus wished to prevent by travelling to Ravenna and his plea would have been successful but for the perfidy o f T ibatto.117819 The Chronicle o f 452 records the rebellion o f Tibatto and then his capture together with the suppression o f the Bacaudae.120 Looking at the regnal dates rather than the olympiads used by the chronicler, Mommsen dated these events to 435 and 437;121 the olympiads provide a chronology o f 439 and 441. In general the regnal dates in the C hronicle coincide better with other known evidence; M ommsen’s chronology might therefore reasonably be preferred. Together with the Vita Germani, the Chronicle o f 452 would seem to place Tibatto’s conspiracy, G oar’s commission to suppress the rebellion, Germanus’s voyage to Ravenna to avert the massacre, followed by his death, Tibatto’s renewed infidelity and capture, and the destruction of the Bacaudae all within the years 435 to 437. It must be admitted that the evidence for Germanus’s death-date is contradictory but, although it is difficult to choose between the years 437 and 442, the final possibility, 448, is untenable. Granted that the Chronicle o f 452 supports Constantius’s account of Germanus’s life after his return from Britain, it seems reasonable to con­ sider the evidence for the second British mission, treating it as having taken place ca 435. The greater part o f the relevant section of the Vita Germani is taken up with a juxtaposition o f doctrinal error and physical sickness such as we have already noted in the case of the blind girl in the account o f the mission of 429.122 On this occasion Germanus, answering the call of the 117 Jones el at.. The Prosopography, II.1010. 118 Gregory of Tours, Decern Libri Historiarum, 11.9 (edd. Krusch & Levison, p. 5$; the editors date Goar’s arrival to 406). 119 Vila Germani, §40 (edd. (Krusch &) Levison, Passiones, VII.280). 120 Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCCIIII.XII; ol. CCCV.XIIII (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.660). The reference to the cession of Gallia Ulterior to the Alans, ol. CCCVI.XVIlll, may further complicate the picture. 121 On the dates in the Chronicle o f 452 see Miller, ‘The last British entry'. Following Miller’s observations the dates might be amended to 439 and 441 which would support a chronology of 412 to 442 for Germanus’s episcopate. 122 Vita Germani, §§15 and 25—7 (edd. (Krusch &] Levison, Passiones, VII.260—1 and 269—71).

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whole British Church, discovers rapidly that the majority o f the people have remained faithful. The heretics are sought out and condemned, when suddenly Elafius, the head man of the district, asks Germanus and Severus to cure his withered son. Germanus cures the boy by running his right hand down his back; this miracle confirms the faith o f the crowd and is instantly followed by the handing over o f the heretics. According to Constantius, when everything had thus been set to rights, the faith in Britain now remained pure until his own day. The cure of Elafius’s son is scarcely the cause o f Germanus’s victory which is already assured, but a direct parallel to it; the debility of the boy is a symbol of the weakness o f Britain infected by heresy. But if the episode is largely a return to allegory on Constantius’s part, it is worth noticing that in some o f the circumstantial details the dispute o f ca 435 is radically different from that o f 429. On the second occa­ sion the heretics are actually condemned, while on the first they are merely confounded. Moreover they are handed over to Germanus and Severus to be exiled from Britain. Constantius and his contemporaries could envisage an aggressive orthodoxy backed by secular consensus in Britain in the 430s. To pursue this enquiry it is necessary to turn to the Chronicle o f 452; and, since the authenticity o f this document has recently been called into question,121 it is necessary to begin with its value as a source. Certainly its chronology is suspect — when it is possible to check the dates provided for events, they are frequently erroneous, even though for the period before 433 the chronicler might have had access either to the first recension of Prosper o f Aquitaine’s Chronicle or to Prosper’s sources.123124 In some measure the chronological problems relating to the Chronicle o f 452 are caused by the allocation of four years (one olympiad) too many to the reign of Honorius, which creates a consistent discrepancy between olympiads and regnal dates after 423; but comparison of all the entries with those o f other annalistic texts o f the fifth century indicates that the problems are not merely those of confusion over two dating systems. Despite these difficulties there are indications in both the earliest manuscript o f the Chronicle and the Chronicle's contents to suggest that the work belongs to the fifth or early sixth century. Before we look at the internal evidence of the Chronicle itself, it is worth noting that the earliest manuscript o f the text, London, British Library, MS. Add. 16974, suggests that the compilation is earlier than the carolingian period. In this ninth- or tenth-century manuscript a group of chronicles is put together to form a coherent account from the beginning of the world to a date which is variously identified as 616, 617, and 624. The sequence starts with a carolingian redaction of Jerome’s Chronicle, at the end o f which the compiler announces that the Chronicle of Prosper follows; but the text transcribed is in fact that of the Chronicle o f 452. When 452 is 123 Miller, ‘The last British entry', whose conclusions have been questioned with regard to the evidence on Magnus Maximus by Casey, ‘Magnus Maximus in Britain’, especially p. 78, n. 17. 124 Compare, for example, Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCXCllII.il (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.650) with Prosper, Chronicle, sub anno 395 (ed. Mommsen, ibid., p. 463).

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reached, the Chronicle of Prosper is actually copied for the next three annals,l2} followed by Marius and Isidoran additions.125126This large scheme is not repeated in the other manuscripts containing the Chronicle o f 452. Nevertheless, at least for the years from 434 to 432 there is no evidence o f interpolation or emendation resulting from P ro sp ers evidence. Moreover, the synchronising compiler of BL MS. Add. 16974 made no attempt to regularise the eccentric dating-methods of the Chronicle o f 452 by making them conform to those o f Jerome or Prosper or Marius. All in all, the Chronicle must have been in existence as a separate text before its earliest manuscript. Turning to the evidence o f the text itself, we find that the annals include attacks not just on Pelagius but also on Augustine, who is condemned as the author of the predestinarian heresy.1271289In keeping with this is the praise o f Cassian, the opponent of the augustinian Prosper o f A quitaine.I2S Com­ patible with these hints of semipelagian authorship are a significant number of references to the lower Rhône valley, especially to Valence.12* The coherence o f the theological position of the Chronicle suggests that it is the com pilation o f a single author, who must have been alive when semipelagianism was still flourishing; that is, before ca 330. The author pro­ vides further indications o f composition when he announces that Africa has been held by the Vandals since the capture o f Carthage until the present day, that is sometime before 333.130The dating systems used also suggest an early date; olympiads are not common in later annalistic texts, and dating by the senior augustus is curious.131 Moreover, although lengths of Imperial reigns down to Theodosius II are listed, there is no indication o f how long either Valentinian III or Marcian survived. The conclusion must be that, despite his chronological errors, or perhaps his inability to correlate two dating systems, the compiler was active before 333, and that some, if not all of the material had been gathered together before Valentinian's murder in 455. The reliability or otherwise o f the Chronicle o f 452, however, need not affect the authenticity of its annal-record o f the Saxon conquest of Britain since the event is recorded in a second text, the Chronicle o f 511 — the two annals may have had a common source.132 In the former text the event is dated to 445/6 by Miller, and 441/2 by Mommsen;133 the Chronicle o f 511 125 Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.482—4: MS. D. 126 Ibid., 11.489-90. 127 Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCXCV.VI; ol. CCXCVIIIl.XXV (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.650 and 656). 128 Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCCI1I,V1 {ibid., p. 658). 129 Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCXCVIII.XVIIII; ol. CCCV,XVII (ibid., pp. 654 and 660). 130 Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCCVI,XXI (ibid., p. 660). 131 See Casey, 'Magnus Maximus in Britain’, p. 71: 'Regnal years are calculated from the time that the emperor became senior augustus’. 132 Chronicle o f 511, sub anno XVI, Theodosius II (cd. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.661). This seems to me to contradict as much as support Miller’s case for interpolation ('The last British entry’, p. 317). 133 For Miller’s dates, see ibid., but Miller fails to explain why her dating based on olympiads is preferable to Mommsen’s chronology based on regnal years. See Casey, 'Magnus Maximus in Britain’, pp. 71 and 78, n. 17.

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The End o f Roman Britain

provides a date o f 440. There is no means o f discovering which is more accurate, but there is no doubt that the Chronicle o f 452 is confused at this point since it places the event before the capture o f Carthage, which can be dated either to 439, or perhaps to the official cession o f the city to the Vandals, which seems to have taken place in 442.1)4 The juxtaposition of entries in the Chronicle o f 452 is itself worthy of attention. First we are told that the city of Valence is handed over to be divided among those Alans who are under the leadership o f Sam bida.134135 After a blank year, ‘the Britons, having hitherto been overrun by various calamities and events, are subjected to Saxon authority*. Then ‘the Alans, to whom the lands o f Gallia Ulterior had been given by the patrician Aëtius, to be divided up with the inhabitants, subject those who resist them, by arms, and, once the masters have been driven out, obtain control of the lands by force’. 136 Next ‘Sapaudia is given to the remainder o f the Burgun­ dians to be divided up with the local inhabitants’. 137Finally, ‘Carthage, cap­ tured by the Vandals at the same time as the whole o f Africa, overthrew the power of the Roman empire with lamentable disaster and destruction, for from now on it is held by the Vandals’. 138 Further disasters in both East and West follow. Looked at as a group these events are a coherent account of the destruction of Roman power; the chronicler, who had already juxta­ posed material relating to the year 410 in a similar w ay,139 seems to have been interpreting his material in order to explain the end of the west Roman empire, and the alienation of Britain was for him part o f the process of collapse. His observations seem to have been far in advance o f those of his Western contemporaries, although they agree only too well with the conclu­ sions of Valentinian III who before stabbing Aëtius is said to have accused him of treason;140if Aëtius was the last o f the Romans, it was because he left nothing to his successors. Three o f the Chronicle's entries clearly state cession o f land to the bar­ barians — of Valence and Gallia Ulterior to the Alans and of Sapaudia to the Burgundians. A fourth describes a straightforward conquest, but we know from other sources that the Vandal seizure o f Carthage was con­ firmed by a treaty.141 The British entry is less clear. The phrase in dicionem redigere would normally imply conquest. If it does, however, it only exacer­ bates the difficulties of squaring the evidence o f the Chronicle o f 452 (and the Chronicle o f 511) with the narrative of Gildas. On the one hand the Continental evidence suggests that Britain was subjected to the Saxons in 134 135 136 137 138 139

Courtois, Les Vandales, pp. 171, especially n. 4, and 173. Chronicle o f 452, ol. CCCV.XVII (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.660). Ibid., ol. CCCVI.XVIIH. Ibid., ol. CCCVI.XX. Ibid., ol. CCCVI.XXI. Ibid., ol. CCXCVII.XVI (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 1.652—4). The chronicler’s tendency to group material thematically might suggest that the Chronicle o f 452 is an abridgement of a narrative history, perhaps in origin a list of chapter-headings; the dating system would then be secondary. 140 John of Antioch, fragments 201(2) and 200(1), conveniently translated in Gordon, The Age o f Attila, p. 52. 141 Courtois, Les Vandales, pp. 171—3.

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440, 441/2, or perhaps in 44S/6, and on the other Gildas claims that the British appealed for help to Aëtius in 446 (or perhaps between 446 and 454) because o f Pictish and Irish threats, and that, when no aid was forth­ coming, they brought Saxons into Britain as federates. Any reconstruction must decide how much authority to attribute to each o f the sources, and, since none of them is beyond reproach, this is no simple matter. There are three major possibilities; the first is that the Chronicle o f 452 and Gildas are both basically accurate, but that the Chronicle records a Saxon settlement in the South-east, while Gildas’s narrative is essentially a Northern one.142143In this interpretation Vortigern would not have needed to look far to find his federates — they were already in Britain. All that was required was to resettle them in the North as a defence against the Piets.142 The second possible reconstruction is to dismiss the Chronicle o f 452 outright and to accept the account o f the De Excidio, although the problem of the geography o f Gildas’s narrative would still need to be solved.144145In either of these first two interpretations it would be possible to place the Saxon revolt as late as 455 when, as a result o f the murder o f Valentinian III, the Vandals sacked Rome, and, according to Sidonius Apollinaris, Saxons terrorised the tractus arem oricus.'*s The third reconstruction involves accepting that the Chronicles are correct, while assuming that Gildas misplaced the settlement of the Saxons and mistook the appeal to Aëtius as being prompted by Pictish and Irish threats, whereas the enemy was in reality the rebellious Saxon federates.146 In this last case the hypothesised date o f 445/6 for the Saxon conquest becomes more attrac­ tive; did the chronicler know o f the event because he had heard about the appeal to Aëtius? The dates 440 or 445/6 are not impossibly early for the Saxon revolt — as we have seen, Germanus’s second visit to Britain took place in the 430s. Nor does the reference in the Annales Cambriae to Pope Leo’s calculation of Easter illustrate communication between Rome and Britain in 455, although this has sometimes been suggested. The paschal en­ tries in the annals are a reflexion of the compiler’s own concern with the spread o f orthodox religious practice from Rome to the Saxons and to the British. They tell us nothing about fifth-century contacts.147

142 Thompson, ‘Gildas*, p. 215. The case argued by Miller (‘Bede’s use*) seems less satisfac­ tory: in particular, it is doubtful whether interea (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.22,1) will bear the weight which she placed on it; compare Gildas’s use of interea in De Excidio Britan­ niae, 1.20,2. 143 Compare the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, §§31 and 38 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, III.171 and 179—80). 144 This is the implication of Miller, ‘The last British entry*. 145 Marcellinus comes, Chronicle, sub anno 454 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, 11.86); Sidonius, Carmina, VII.369 (ed. Loyen, 1.68). For the continuing threat posed by the Saxons, see Sidonius, Epistolae, VIII.6,13 and Vlll.9,5, line 21 (ed. Loyen, III.96 and 105). 146 Stevens, ‘Gildas sapiens*, pp. 360—3. 147 Contra Hanson, Saint Patrick, His Origins and Career, p. 68. Compare Annales Cam­ briae, sub anno (453) with the entries sub annis [6651 and 1768) (ed. Phillimore, pp. 152—3, 158—9, and 162). See O’Sullivan, The De Excidio o f Gildas, pp. 40—1.

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The End o f Roman Britain

There are no clear grounds on which to decide between these interpreta­ tions; what is more certain is that until the 440s Britain was still within the Roman sphere of influence; such at least is the implication o f the request for help addressed to Aëtius. In the light of this, it also seems reasonable to regard Vortigern’s defensive policies as being based on Roman precedent. The use of the Saxons as federates — assuming that Gildas is right on this point — could have been inspired by a variety o f Imperial models. The Visigoths had been settled in Aquitaine in 418/19, perhaps to overawe the Bacaudae and protect Provence;14* Gallia Ulterior had certainly been ceded to the Alans in order to tame the local population. Strategic intentions may also be seen in the grants o f Valence to Sambida’s men and of Sapaudia to the Burgundians.148149 The precise arrangements involved in the settlement of barbarians elude us at present, but if, rather than actual alienation o f land, they involved no more than billeting coupled with an allocation o f fiscal in­ come, Gildas’s reference to annona reinforces the case for Vortigern’s dependence on Imperial practice.150 Other parallels in military policy are perhaps more surprising. Walter G offart has argued that Vegetius was writing in the reign of Valentinian III (425—55) and has seen in his military manual advice on the building o f hillforts.151 Although this advice was directed primarily at legionaries, there is some evidence that civilians on the Continent retreated to defensible hill-top sites during this period. In the Vita Lupi, Lupus, Germanus’s companion on the mission o f 429, evacuates the townspeople of Troyes to a hillfort for two years.15215346The reoccupation of such sites in Britain might owe something to late Roman military ideas'” and not just reflect post-Roman circumstances and Celtic traditions. The Saxon revolt, whether placed in 440,445/6, or as late as 455, marks a major dislocation in British history. According to Gildas many fled overseas, perhaps to Ireland194 or, despite Saxon activity in the English Channel, to Gaul. It may even be that the presence of three Britons in Gaul (though not specifically in Brittany) in the 460s and 470s reflects this. O f these three men, the most puzzling is Riotamus who, according to Jordanes, had with him at Bourges a force of 12,000 m en.1” Doubtless this is an exaggeration intended to enhance the prestige o f Euric, but Riotamus did have a force large enough for the Emperor Anthemius to seek him as an ally in 469,l}6 a fact which makes his presence on the Continent all the more 148 Thompson, 'The settlement’, pp. 70—1. See also the comments of Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-haired Kings, pp. 26—9. 149 Thompson, ‘The settlement’, pp. 71—4. 130 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.23,5. As Patrick Wormald suggests to me, this might be seen as additional support for the view of Goffart, Barbarians, that barbarians were not given lands, but rather tax-revenue from the fisc, when they were settled in the Empire. 131 Goffart, ‘The date’, especially p. 96; but see also Barnes, ‘The date’. 152 Vita Lupi, $6 (edd. Krusch [& Levison), Passiones, VII.298). 153 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.18, exempiaria instituendorum armorum, might suggest the use of military manuals, following Winterbottom’s translation (Gildas, p. 22); but see Salway, Roman Britain, p. 421. On hillforts see also ibid., p. 453. 154 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.25,1; Thompson, ‘Gildas’, pp. 222—3. 155 Jordanes, Getica, XLV.237 (ed. Mommsen, pp. 118—19). 156 Jordanes's evidence is confirmed by Sidonius, Epistoiae, 1.7,5 (ed. Loyen, 11.22).

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curious — if he had a substantial war-band, he was presumably strong enough to face Saxons at home. Nevertheless he was defeated by the Goths and appears to have fled with his following to the district o f Lyon.1)7 The second figure is Riocatus, who is described by Sidonius in 471 as twice exiled.15* O f his base on the Continent we know nothing, except that he passed through Clermont when returning from a visit to Faustus o f Riez, who was himself British in origin but had lived for many years in southern Gaul. Finally there is Mansuetus, bishop of the Britons, who attended the Council o f Tours in 461.1571859160Probably he, like Riocatus, was an exile, but since Gildas complains about men o f his own day going abroad for con­ secration,140 it is possible that the presence of Mansuetus at Tours does not imply that he had emigrated across the Channel with his congregation. Gildas’s comment on men seeking consecration abroad suggests that however considerable were the disruptions o f the mid-fifth century, and it was a period of crisis on the Continent as well as in Britain,161 contact with the Gallic Church had survived or had at least been renewed by his own day. Writing perhaps about 480, Constantius was able to state that the Church was flourishing in Britain.162163Before we dismiss this out o f hand, it is as well to emphasise Constantius’s friendship with Sidonius who in turn had close connexions with the Briton Faustus o f Riez. In all probability Constantius and Faustus had no direct contact (their theology differed too much), but the former might well have had access to information about the British Church. The possibility that there was peace in Britain already by ca 480 reintro­ duces the problem of Gildas’s account. The most obvious period o f peace mentioned in the De Excidio as occurring after the Saxon revolt is that o f Gildas’s own lifetime; this in turn raises the whole problem of the dating o f the De Excidio, which has its own significance for the histoire des m entalités in the post-Roman period, since Gildas, unlike Patrick,143 certainly did not regard himself as a Roman; indeed, for all his criticism of British treachery, he shows no great liking for the Romans. The text of the De Excidio must be the starting point for any discussion of its date and in this the one obvious chronological passage, whose mean­ ing is unfortunately obscure, is to be found in 1.26. It is usually translated to mean that the wars between Britons and Saxons lasted until the siege o f Badon which took place forty-four years before Gildas wrote. 157 Jordanes, Getica, XLV.238 (cd. Mommsen, p. 119). Sidonius, Epistolae, 111.9 (ed. Loyen, 11.98). 158 Sidonius, Epistolae, IX.9,6 (ed. Loyen, III. 149). 159 Munier, Concilia GalliaeA. 314—A. 506 pp. 142—9. The first clear reference to Britons in northwestern Gaul comes in Gregory of Tours, Decern Libri Historiarum, 1V.4 (edd. Krusch & Levison, pp. 137—8); presumably British migration to the Continent was not concentrated upon Brittany until the Franks took over the whole area north of the Loire. 160 De Excidio Britanniae, 111.67,5. 161 In southern Gaul there was Visigothic expansion under Euric; for northern Gaul see Gregory of Tours, Decern Libri Historiarum, 11.18—19 (edd. Krusch & Levison, p. 65). 162 Vita Germant, §27 (edd. (Krusch &] Levison, Passiones, VII.271). 163 Gildas always depicts the Romans as outsiders; compare Patrick, Epistola ad Coroticum, §2 (ed. Bieler, 1.92).

,

22

The End o f Roman Britain

There are, however, problems with this. Nouissim ae is an odd word to describe an event forty-four years in the past; the phrase mense uno emenso also seems curious — why should Gildas bother about the month in which Badon was fought, or was he writing in February?164 If one assumes that the difficulties in this passage lie in excessive compression of information, one might offer an interpretation which accounts for the difficult words in the following rough translation: ‘From that time [sc. Ambrosius’s victory]. . . until the year of the siege o f mount Badon, the most recent and certainly not the least slaughter of the trouble-makers, forty-three years have passed [lit. ‘the forty-fourth year begins’], as 1 know, for it is the forty-fourth year since my birth; and now a month has passed (since Badon)’. In other words, Gildas was born in the same year as Ambrosius’s victory, while the siege o f Badon and the composition of the De Excidio took place forty-three years later. Gildas has simply avoided repeating himself. This chronology receives further support from the fact that Ambrosius’s grandchildren were conspicuous in Gildas’s day.165 Assuming that Ambrosius was at least thirty when he defeated the Saxons, one can well imagine that his grandchildren were mature forty-three years on. Moreover, Bede seems to have under­ stood Gildas's chronology in this way, for he dates Badon to around fortyfour years after the coming of the Saxons.166 It is difficult to see where he could have found that interval o f time, except in Gildas; the only assump­ tion that he has made is that the Saxon settlement was followed quickly by their revolt and Ambrosius’s first victory. Bede’s compression of events may be wrong, but there is a further indication in the D e Excidio that the period involved was not great; Gildas tells us that a previous generation witnessed the double miracle o f the Saxon revolt and Am brosius’s victory.167168If the latter event is rightly dated to the year of Gildas’s birth, the chronological limits emerge as follows: the Saxon revolt 440 x 4SS; Ambrosius’s victory perhaps shortly after and probably not more than thirty years later (Constantius’s evidence on the British Church would support a picture o f peace existing already by ca 480); Badon, together with the composition o f the D e Excidio forty-three years after that. At the earliest the De Excidio would belong to the last fifteen years of the fifth century, at the latest to the 520s. The Continental writers o f Gildas’s period provide different perspectives on the new situation; suddenly Britain (perhaps best interpreted as Kent) is in the sphere o f Frankish hegemony.166 The earliest suggestion of this is to be found in the Pactus Legis Salicae, compiled probably during the reign o f Clovis (481—51l ) ,169 and which contains a clause concerning the procedure to be adopted to retrieve a slave who has been stolen and taken across the sea.170 It is difficult to interpret trans mare as meaning anything other than 164 16$ 166 167 168 169 170

Miller, 'Relative and absolute publication dates’, p. 173. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.23,3. Historia Ecclesiastica, 1.16. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.26,3. Contra Thompson, 'Procopius on Brittia and Britannia’, p. SOI. Pactus Legis Salicae, ed. Eckhardt, p. xl. Pactus Legis Salicae, $39.2 (ed. Eckhardt, pp. 142—4).

23

W ood

‘to Kent* — the fact that the Pactus lays down a procedure for retrieving one’s slaves through a foreign m allus publions suggests close legal arrange­ ments between the Franks and the English. The second possible reference comes in a letter written by King Theudebert (534—47) to the Emperor Justinian, claiming jurisdiction over the E ucii,'11 although this might refer only to the Continental Jutes. More certain is Procopius’s reference to a Frankish embassy of ca 553,172 which included a number o f Angles whose presence was intended to prove Frankish authority in England. Some support for these assertions of hegemony might be found in the range o f artefacts from Kentish cemeteries.173 Literary and archaeological evidence together provide a background to the marriage of Bertha to Æ thilberht whom Gregory of Tours, as late as 589, described not as a ruler, but only as the son o f a king.174 Procopius records several tales about Britain which raise enormous problems o f distinguishing between fact and fantasy based on traditional ethnography,173 but there is a chance that some o f his information came from the Angles in the embassy of ca 553. Naturally there would have been problems o f communication; the Angles would hardly have spoken Greek or Latin, perhaps not even Frankish. W hat lies behind Procopius’s knowledge of Brittia and Britannia is open to question, although the existence o f linguistic problems might strengthen the identification of Procopius’s Island o f Dead Souls with T hanet.176The description o f sailors who, if they obeyed ghostly voices, were able to effect their journey to this mysterious island with much greater speed than was otherwise possible, may reflect a Mediterranean man’s incomprehension when faced with a nor­ therner’s description of arrangements to exploit the Channel-tides.177 On the whole, Britain seemed hopelessly alien to Procopius but, although some things bewildered the Byzantines, about other things they were certain. It was in sixth-century Constantinople that the fall of the western Empire became a matter of concern. The emphasis on 454 and 476 in the Chronicle of Marcellinus com es might almost be seen as part of the intellec­ tual background to Justinian’s reconquest o f the West. The same environ171 Epistoiae Austrasiacae, 20 (cd. Gundlach, apud Dümmler et al., Epistolae, 1.133). For the merovingian kingdoms of this period see Ewig, Spätantikes und fränkisches Gallien, 1.114—15 and 128—35. 172 Procopius, Wars, VIII.20,10 (ed. A transi. Dewing, V.254—5); for the date, Thompson, 'Procopius on Brittia and Britannia’, p. 501. 173 Compare Theudeberts claims in Epistolae Austrasiacae, 20 (see above, n. 171), with the comments, particularly on Thuringian objects at Bifrons, of Hawkes, 'Early AngloSaxon Kent*, pp. 190—1. I am indebted to Leslie Webster for this reference. Continuing Frankish influence at a cultural level is readily seen in the evidence presented by Grierson, ‘The Canterbury (St. Martin’s) hoard’. 174 Gregory of Tours, Decern Libri Historiarum, IV.26 and IX.26 (edd. Krusch A Levison, pp. 157 and 445). I have discussed the relations of Francia and England in this period at greater length in The Merovingian North Sea, pp. 12—17. 175 For traditional ethnography on Britain see also the contemporary comments of Jordanes, Getica, 11.10—15 (ed. Mommsen, pp. 56—7). 176 Procopius, Wars, VIII.20,47—58 (ed. A transi. Dewing, V.266—7). See Burn, ‘Procopius’. 177 Channel tide-tables, though not supporting Procopius's detail, make it dear that much time can be gained by adroit use of the tides.

24

The End o f Roman Britain

ment may explain the emergence o f an idea of the end o f Roman Britain in the work of Zosimus and, above all, in that of Procopius, who was convinc­ ed o f the importance of 410. Italy, Africa, and even parts o f Spain would be recovered, but Britain was too far away. Recognising this, Belisarius was prepared to cede the island to the Goths and he felt entitled to do so because it had once been R om an.IT* W hat the Frankish reaction to this would have been is open to conjecture, but they would scarcely have seen in it the gesture of a traditional ally. Westerners did not share the Byzantine view o f the fifth century; perhaps they were too close to the events to be perceptive. Even after 410 the Britons continued to expect Imperial protection. Seemingly for this they rejected Constantine III and offered to return to Honorius, while even as late as the 440s, the decade which the Gallic chroniclers came to see as fatal, they asked for Roman help. Moreover, if the state paid no attention to Britain in the 420s and 430s, the Church did. It was only in the middle decades o f the Fifth century that any hopes o f rapprochement became obsolete. This was not just because o f the Saxon wars in Britain; the period between 435 and 476 made plain the limitations of Imperial authority on the Continent. After the murder of Valentinian III in 433, emperors succeeded each other in quick succession, and those federates who remained faithful to one regime found themselves to be traitors to the next.178179 In time they realised that they were better o ff without an official master. There is nothing to suggest that the people of Britain were worried by these developments; already they had passed out of the Imperial orbit, but they had done so slowly and without any d ear awareness o f the significance of the changes taking place.

178 Procopius, Wars, VI.6,28—9 (cd. & transi. Dewing, 111.344—5). 179 See, for example, Sidonius on the Burgundian King Childeric, in Epistolae, V.7,1 (ed. Loyen, 11.183).

25

II

GILDAS’S EDUCATION AND THE LATIN CULTURE OF SUB-ROMAN BRITAIN Michael Lapidge IT is usual to regard Gildas as an eccentric and idiosyncratic writer. Because o f the difficulty of his Latin he has customarily been categorised with cer­ tain early mediaeval authors o f notoriously difficult Latin — with the seventh-century Irish authors (as we now think them to be) o f the Hisperica Famina, or with the Anglo-Saxon Aldhelm (ob. 709 or 710). This categorisation has tended to obscure Gildas’s very real links with the Latin authors of late Antiquity. Worse, perhaps, it has encouraged the (unspoken) assumption that Gildas’s Latin training was similar in kind to that o f the faminators or Aldhelm, an assumption which might appear to be confirmed by accounts of his training found in mediaeval hagiography. Yet if this assumption can temporarily be suspended, it quickly becomes apparent that we have little idea of how Gildas acquired his competence in Latin. It may well be, as a distinguished scholar has recently remarked, that ‘we can know little about Gildas’s education’;1but scepticism about the cer­ tainty of answers should not preclude the asking of questions. The purpose of the present essay is, first, to ask what may legitimately be inferred from the Latin of the De Excidio Britanniae about how Gildas was educated, and then to enquire whether such inferences may throw any light on our understanding of Latin culture in sub-Roman Britain. 1 shall begin by drawing a broad distinction between the traditional, Classical education of the late Roman schools on the one hand, and the monastic education of late Antiquity and the early middle ages on the other. First, let us consider the traditional Roman education.2 The pattern of Roman education was adapted from that of Hellenistic schools and remained essentially unchanged from the third century B.C. to the last years o f the Roman empire in the late fifth or early sixth century A .D .. In this traditional system the student, after primary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, passed into the care of a gramm aticus for some five years (roughly from the age o f eleven to sixteen) from whom he was expected to acquire an articulate knowledge of ‘correct’ Latin, the recte loquendi scien­ tial and ‘correct’ Latin was adjudged to be that employed by the venerated 1 Winterbottom, ‘The preface’, p. 287. 2 The classic study of Roman education is that by Marrou, A History, there is also a useful and accessible account by Bonner, Education.

27 Gildas: New Approaches, edd. M. Lapidge & D. Dumville, Studies in Celtic History V (Boydell Press. 1984), pp. 27—50.

Lapidge

curriculum-authors, pre-eminently the poetry o f Vergil. Hence the curriculum o f the grammaticus consisted in minute and painstaking analysis of Vergil, line by line and word by word; hence the writings o f many ancient grammarians (notably Donatus and Servius) consist in little more than minute analysis of Vergil’s diction. If he came away from the grammaticus with nothing more, the student of the traditional Roman school would have the ability to express himself in ’correct’ Latin and would have an intimate familiarity with Vergil’s poetry. At approximately the time when he became a uir togatus (about the age of sixteen), the young Roman proceeded from the care of the gramm aticus to that of the rhetor, from whom he was to learn proficiency in what we should call ’public speaking* — the technique of declamation. Through the repetition o f preliminary exercises (called progym nasm ata) the student first became adept at handling the elements o f declamation (narrative, fable, maxim and the rest) and then gradually the various means o f embellishing these elements, the numerous rhetorical schemata (epanaphora, antistrophe, antithesis, apostrophe, and so on). He was then able to proceed to learning the composition and delivery of the speech itself. Training at this stage consisted almost entirely in the composi­ tion o f practice-speeches on specified topics; the topics of deliberative orations or suasoriae were chosen from Classical literature (for example: debate, in the person of Achilles, the pros and cons o f selling the body o f Hector), and those of judicial orations or controuersiae were based on tenets of Roman law. Sometimes the topics chosen for practice-declamation were remote from normal life, and the rhetorical schools were frequently criticised for the irrelevance of their teaching. Nevertheless, the object o f the teaching was to make the student readily familiar with the structure and delivery of an oration. It was the function of the rhetorical schools to provide the Roman civil administration with advocates adept at pleading under any circumstance.3 For many provinces of the Roman empire, there is sound evidence for the operation o f grammatical and rhetorical schools. For Gaul in particular we have the abundant testimony o f the fourth-century poet Ausonius.45For Roman Britain, unfortunately, there is no such testimony. But in so far as Britain was then a diocese o f the Roman empire, there is no difficulty in the assumption that here as elsewhere in the Empire gramm atici and rhetores would have been involved in the instruction of the local population and would have occupied teaching posts paid for by the state. In fact several scattered pieces o f evidence serve to confirm the assertion made by Tacitus in the first century A .D ., namely that, soon after the conquest o f Britain by Agricola, the Romano-British population, far from showing a distaste for the Latin language, very quickly evinced a passion to command it.$ Early in the second century we have evidence o f a Greek rhetor named Demetrius

3 See Parks, The Roman Rhetorical Schools, especially pp. 61—107; Stroux, Römische Rechtswissenschaft; and Bonner, Education, pp. 309—27. 4 Haarhoff, Schools o f Gaul, especially pp. 39—52. 5 Agricola, §21: ‘ut qui modo linguam romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent*.

28

G ildas’s Education

active in Britain,6 and at approximately the same time the poet Juvenal could write that ‘eloquent Gaul has taught the Britons to plead’7 — appar­ ently implying that Gaulish rhetores were at that time being imported for the purpose of establishing rhetorical schools on the Roman model. In the third century there is a fleeting reference to a Romano-British rhetor who was the father of the military leader Bonosus.8 In the fifth century the writings of St Patrick, a Romano-Briton who had been abducted at the age o f sixteen by Irish raiders (at precisely the age, we might suppose, when he would in different circumstances have passed from the school of the gramm aticus to that of the rhetor), contain ample evidence that trained rhetori­ cians were still be to found in Britain. Patrick in his C onfessio addresses his seniores in Britain somewhat defensively in that they (unlike himself) were 'clever rhetoricians’ (C onfessio, §13: cati rhetorici), accomplished in mat­ ters pertaining to the law (legis periti) and expert in that rhetorical concision known technically as breuitas’ (C onfessio, §10: breuitate diserti). But even without Patrick’s explicit testimony we should be obliged to suppose the presence o f rhetores in late Roman Britain, for Roman Britain like every province o f the Empire had need of civil servants and administrators, skilled in declamation and law, to sustain the huge bureaucracy of Roman government; and it was the function o f the rhetorical schools to provide these administrators. The function o f the monastic schools, on the other hand, was utterly different.101Monasteries were established as a retreat from (and repudiation of) the secular world and its administration. The earliest Egyptian monks, the pattern of whose lives served as model for Western monasticism, were for the most part illiterate peasants such as St A nthony." So far from admitting or tolerating the study o f rhetoric and secular literature, the Egyptian monks actively rejected it. Their sole concern was with the Scrip­ tures, psalmody, and prayer. Accordingly, when monasticism was first practised in the West, it incorporated the Eastern prejudice against secular learning — a prejudice which inevitably was confirmed by the prejudice of Western intellectuals such as Jerome or Paulinus of Nola who, in an effort to strengthen their Christian resolve, forced themselves to reject outright the

6 7 8

9 10

Plutarch, De Defectu Oraculorum, §2; sec also discussion by Frere, Britannia, pp. 128, 134, and 139. Juvenal, Saturae, XV.l 11—12: ‘Gallia causidicos docuit fecunda Britannos / de conducendo loquitur iam rhetore Thule*. Historic Augusta, XXIX. 14 ( = Flauius Vopiscus, Firmius, Saturninus, Procains et Bonosus, $14): ‘Bonosus . . . origine Britannus . . . ut ipse dicebat, rhetoris filius, ut ab aliis comperi, paedagogi litterarii*. The point turns on whether Bonosus was merely flattering himself in describing his father as a rhetor, whereas in fact he was a kindergarten teacher; in any case the father must have taught in Roman Britain where Bonosus was born. See Lausberg, Handbuch, 1.169—71. On monastic education see Roger, L 9Enseignement%pp. 144—69; Leclercq, 'École*, cols 1824—31; Marrou, A History, pp. 439—51; and Riché, Education and Culture, pp.

100- 22. 11

Athanasius, Vita Sancti Antonii, $72.

29

Lapidge

Latin classics on which they had been nurtured.12 The contempt for letters was reasserted by the earliest monks of Gaul. Thus Sulpicius Severus reminds us in his Vita S. M artini that salvation was not preached by orators, but by fishermen, and that the kingdom of God is not to be found in eloquence but in faith.13The responsibility of the Christian is to live in a holy and religious manner; to imitate secular letters is simply stu ltitia .'4 St Martin was a praiseworthy subject because he was above all a rude, unlettered (inlitteratus) soldier.1516The same contempt for letters, and par­ ticularly for rhetoric, is expressed by Cassian who, in his Institutiones, equates accomplishment in rhetoric with the sin o f vainglory (cenodoxia)" and asserts that ‘the syllogisms of dialectic and Ciceronian eloquence are unworthy of the simple truths o f faith’.1718Cassian’s Institutiones constituted one of the principal texts in the establishment of monastic discipline (and hence monastic education) in the Latin West. In other words, although early Western monasteries undertook the task o f instructing in the Scrip­ tures and ancillary writings the oblates committed to them, it is quite clear — given the violent prejudice of the monastic founders against secular letters and especially against rhetoric — that this instruction was based entirely on (and restricted to) biblical and liturgical texts." There is no evidence whatsoever that rhetoric, the mainstay o f traditional Roman education, was ever taught in a monastery in late A ntiquity.19 A similar conclusion may be reached with regard to the so-called ‘episcopal’ or ‘presbyteral’ schools o f late Antiquity.20The function o f such schools was simply utilitarian: at a time in the sixth century when municipal schools in Gaul were in ruin and no longer able to provide an adequate supply of adequately literate bishops and priests, there is evidence that certain literate bishops who had had the advantage o f a thorough training in Latin (that is, in traditional schools at an earlier period of their lives) under­ took to provide elementary instruction for their clergy with the aim of ensuring a supply of bishops and priests able at least to pronounce the mass. I may cite one well known example: Gregory of Tours (born 538) was com­ mitted as an oblate to the bishop o f Lyon, by whom he was taught to read 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20

See Hagendahl, Latin Fathers, especially pp. 309—28, and Ellspcrmann, The Attitude. Vita Sancti Martini, praefatio: ’. . . quia regnum Dei non in eloquentia, sed in fide constat. Meminerit etiam salutem saeculo non ab oratoribus . . . sed a piscatoribus praedictam* (ed. Fontaine, 1.248). Ibid., $1 (ed. Fontaine. 1.250—2). Ibid., §25 (ed. Fontaine, 1.312): ‘Nisi quod mirum est homini inlitterato ne hanc quidem gratiam defuisse’. Institutiones, V.l and 4 (ed. Petschenig, pp. 81—4). Ibid., XII. 19 (ed. Petschenig, p. 220): ‘qui simplicem piscatorum fidem corde simplici retinentes non earn syllogismis dialecticis et Tulliana facundia spiritu concepere mundano’; cf. also Cassian’s repudiation of his early training in secular letters, Collatio XIV.12 (ed. Petschenig, p. 414). See Riche, Education and Culture, pp. 113—22. See Roger’s painstaking analysis of references to secular learning in Gaulish saints’ Lives: L ’Enseignement, pp. 161—9. See Leclercq, ‘École’, cols 1831—9; Marrou, A History, pp. 444—7; and Riché, Educa­ tion and Culture, pp. 122—9.

30

Gildas ’s Education

and write through study of the psalms;21 he was subsequently ordained a bishop, although his Latin was never ‘correct’ by the standards of a tradi­ tional school.2223It hardly needs to be stressed that there was no place in the curriculum of an episcopal school for the study o f Classical texts, and cer­ tainly none for rhetoric. Indeed, the Statuta Ecclesiae A ntiqua, pro­ mulgated in Provence sometime in the second half o f the fifth century, expressly forbid a bishop to read ‘books of the pagan authors’.21 In this connexion one need only recall the famous letter o f Pope Gregory (590—604) to Bishop Desiderius of Vienne, in which the bishop is severely chastised for undertaking to teach grammar to some members of his episcopal school (grammaticam quibusdam exponere), where by ‘grammar’ the pope is evidently thinking of secular letters (nugis et saecularibus litteris).2425Again, there is no need to stress how remote the traditional teaching o f rhetoric, with its progym nasm ata, suasoriae and controuersiae, would have been from the work o f the episcopal schools. To the modern observer, one of the most curious aspects o f the repudia­ tion o f Classical letters by the proponents of Western monasticism is that, in nearly every case, the author in question had received a thorough training in traditional Roman schools before entering the service of the Church. O f the aforementioned authors, Sulpicius Severus, Paulinus of Nola, and Cassian had all been thoroughly instructed in Classical schools so that they could write correct and elegant Latin; yet they scorned the system which had instructed them. Even Pope Gregory the Great was said to have been train­ ed in ‘grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric’ to such a standard that his accom­ plishment was second to none in Rome.21 Wherever we find a Christian monk in the Late Latin period whose Latin is correct and who is easily familiar with the devices of rhetoric, we may be quite sure that he did not receive his education in the monastery. Such would be the case with Jerome, or with his Romano-British opponent, the heresiarch Pelagius, who, given his formidable accomplishments in forensic oratory, must surely have been trained in Britain in a rhetorical school before departing for Mediterranean regions (probably during the 380s).26 A similar conclusion is to be drawn 21 22 23 24 25

26

Gregory of Tours, Liber Vitae Patrum, §6. See the exhaustive study of Gregory’s Latin by Bonnet, Le Latin. Statuta ecclesiae antiqua, $5 (ed. Morin, Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, 11.91): ‘ut episcopus gentilium libros non legat’. Epistola Xl.xxxiv (edd. Ewald & Hartmann, 11.303). On Gregory’s attitude to grammar see further De Lubac, ‘Saint Grégoire*; Riché, Education and Culture, pp. 145—57; and Dagens, Saint Grégoire, pp. 31—54. Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum X.l (edd. Krusch & Levison, p. 478): ‘Litteris grammaticis dialecticisque ac rhetoricis ita est institutus ut nulli in urbe ipsa putaretur esse secundus’; see further Riche, Education and Culture, pp. 139—45, and Courcelle, ‘Grégoire’. Pelagius went to Rome, it would seem, in order to study law; but while at Rome he was baptized and abandoned the law-courts for a career in the Church (Jerome, Epistula L.2 [ed. Hilberg, 11.389—901: ‘forum neglegens se ad eedesiam transtulit’). His rhetorical training can de deduced both from the fact that he was able to speak Greek and because his Latin writings betray at every turn the devices of public oratory. Jerome referred to him as ‘homo latinissimus et facundissimus* (ibid.). See further De Plinval, Pélage, pp. 60—74, and Essai, pp. 49—72.

31

Lapidge

from the accomplishments o f Faustus o f Riez. Faustus was by origin a Briton (Alcimus Auitus refers to him as ortu Britannus),27 but he became abbot of the monastery at Lérins ca 433 and subsequently bishop of Riez ca 460. His colleague and contemporary Sidonius Apollinaris had great admiration for Faustus’s accomplishments in philosophy — he referred to Faustus as an Athenaei consors, no light words for a man o f Sidonius’s learning — and rhetoric, remarking that in earlier life Faustus had engaged in public displays o f forensic oratory (in palaestris exerceris urbanis).2* We can be certain that Faustus did not acquire his expertise in philosophy and declamation at Lérins before he became abbot: such disciplines were anathema at Lérins as at other Gaulish monasteries.2930The most reasonable explanantion is that Faustus acquired his training at the hands of a rhetor in Roman Britain before departing for the monastic life at Lérins. This inference, taken in combination with the evidence o f Patrick’s writings mentioned earlier, suggests that rhetorical schools were flourishing in Britain as elsewhere in the Empire during the first half o f the fifth century. It remains to be seen whether such an inference has any relevance to the case o f Gildas. Our problem is to determine whether Gildas was the product o f a tradi­ tional Roman education, or whether he had acquired his training in a monastery of the sort which was being established throughout western Europe during the fifth and sixth centuries. Before turning to the De Excidio Britanniae, however, it is necessary to consider the evidence o f the earliest uita of Gildas by the eleventh-century monk o f Ruis (Brittany), for it is this uita, in its extant form a text o f the eleventh century, which supplies the received account of Gildas’s education. According to the uita,20 then, Gildas was educated as follows. At a very young age (puerulum ) he was taken into a monastery by one Hildutus. There he was put to the study o f both holy scripture and the liberal arts; not surprisingly, given his later career, he inclined more to the former than to the latter.31 While living at the monastery (in coenobio), young Gildas perform ed two outstanding miracles. He continued to study with Hildutus both in secular letters — but 27 28

29

30 31

Auitus, Epistula IV (ed. Peiper, p. 30). Sidonius, Epistula IX.ix (ed. Luetjohann, p. 138). In another letter (IX.iii) Sidonius com­ pliments Faustus on his prose style ‘rich in tropes and figures and distinguished by the varied elegance of its vocabulary* — istud in uobis tropoiogicum genus ac ftguratum limatisque plurifariam uerbis eminentissimum — and praises him for having delivered a speech which steered a middle course between religious and forensic conventions — spiritales régulas uelforenses quiddam contionantem — conventions of which, according to Sidonius, Faustus was a past master (ed. Luetjohann, p. 132). Once again, such mastery of the conventions of forensic oratory could not have been learned in a monastery. See Riche, Education and Culture, pp. 100—6, especially 102: ‘Lérins was first and foremost a center of asceticism. This is what the clergy and laymen sought when they came to Lérins for a short stay or to retire there forever’; see also Courcelle, ‘Nouveaux aspects’. Ed. Williams, Gildas, 11.317—89. Ibid., 11.328: 'Beatus igitur Gildas sub magistrali in schola diuinae scripturae et liberalium artium constitutus, conspiciens utriusque doctrinam elocutionis diuinis curauit magis erudiri doctrinis . . .’.

32

Gildas’s Education

only as far as was necessary (prout res suppetebat) — and in holy scripture, but then he set o ff for Ireland so that he might seek the learning o f other wise men ‘both in philosophy and in divine learning*.32 When he had wandered through the schools of several scholars, Gildas decided to renounce the flesh utterly; whence from that day until the last day o f his life Gildas ‘chastised his body with fasting and vigils’.33 The monk o f Ruis is at pains here to explain that this conversion to the stricter way o f life took place when Gildas was aged fifteen.3435How is this hagiographical account to be interpreted? Although the uita clearly explains that Hildutus was respon­ sible for the monastic education o f his charges, there is mention o f liberal arts and philosophy; some commentators have even concluded from this that Hildutus was himself a rhetor. But in fact the text itself gives the lie to any such interpretation: it is most unlikely that any traditional schools (teaching philosophy and rhetoric) were to be found in Ireland in the first half o f the sixth century, for Ireland had never been part o f the Roman empire; and in any case Gildas — according to his hagiographer — re­ nounced all learning at the age o f fifteen, precisely the point at which a Roman teenager would have passed from the care of a gramm aticus to that o f a rhetor. Whatever the hagiographer is trying to tell us about Gildas’s education, he is not saying that Gildas was trained by a traditional Roman rhetor. His vague words about philosophy and the liberal arts are best taken as an example o f the empty topos, concerning education in the liberal arts, which occurs so frequently in hagiography from the sixth century onwards.33 According to his hagiographer, then, Gildas’s education was monastic. Let us return to the question raised earlier: our problem is now to ask whether evidence based on the De Excidio Britanniae, and particularly on its latinity, can be squared with the hagiographer’s account o f Gildas’s monastic education. As I mentioned in connexion with other fifth-century Christian Latin authors, the marks o f the traditional Roman education were indelible: from the grammaticus, a command o f correct latinity and fluent familiarity with the best Latin authors, particularly Vergil; and from the rhetor, a knowledge of how to plead a case and a familiarity with the tech­ niques for so doing. By contrast, we should not expect to find such features in the Latin o f an author trained in a monastery or an episcopal school. Are these features attested in the Latin of De Excidio Britanniae? First, let us consider the marks of training at the hands o f the gram­ maticus: correct Latin and fluent familiarity with Vergil. In assessing the correctness of the latinity of a Late Latin author, however, a further factor needs to be borne in mind, namely whether or not the author in question was a native speaker of Latin. A Latin speaker might betray his knowledge 32 33 34 35

Ibid., 11.334: ‘Iren perrexit, ut el aliorum doctorum sententias in philosophicis atque in diuinis litteris inuesligator curiosus exquireret’. On this alleged trip to Ireland, see also the remarks of Richard Sharpe, below, p. 200. Ibid. Ibid.: 'a quinto dccimo aetatis suae anno per totum uitae praesentis spatium quo in hoc uixit mundo . . . *. Roger, L ’Enseignement, pp. 161—9; Leclercq, ‘École’, cols 1829—31.

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of spoken Latin by allowing himself to employ vulgarisms not permissible in ‘correct’ Latin. On the other hand, an author whose native language was not Latin, would — unless his training had been comprehensively thorough, and conducted by a native speaker — betray his linguistic background by grammatical and lexical solecisms. At a certain point in the Late Latin period — when and where precisely is not easy to define — a clearly percep­ tible distinction emerges between authors whose native language is Latin and those who have learned Latin as a foreign language.16 It is not easy to ascertain whether Gildas was a native speaker of Latin. The assumption is normally made that the population o f Roman Britain would have consisted o f three linguistic classes: those who spoke only Latin (aristocrats, officials of the Roman government), those who spoke both Latin and British (mer­ chants, estate-owners), and those who spoke only British.3637 Gildas has generally been taken as a member of the second class: a Briton, a native speaker of British who subsequently acquired a training in Latin. This may well be right; but there is little evidence to support it. Gildas does not describe himself as a speaker of British; quite to the contrary he describes Latin as lingua . . . nostra.3* Nowhere in De Excidio Britanniae is there to be found a caique on a British word or phrase of the sort which later become characteristic in British Latin authors from the ninth century on­ wards (such as pars dextralis for Welsh parth deheu).39Gildas reveals some knowledge o f etymology of British names,40 but this is not incontrovertible evidence that he was a native speaker of British (he was also familiar enough with Old English to cite one word o f that language — cyuiis — correctly, but no one, 1 take it, would be prepared to argue that he was a native speaker o f Old English). Similarly, it has been suggested that Gildas’s addresses to the British tyranni betray knowledge of British panegyric poetry;41 but this evidence is equivocal at best, and may as well betray familiarity with Latin poetic tradition.42 In short, if someone were to argue that Gildas was a native speaker of Latin, I doubt that he could be refuted on the evidence of De Excidio Britanniae itself. On the other hand, however, Gildas’s Latin betrays no influence o f spoken, or vulgar, Latin. O f the numerous phonological and morphological vulgarisms which dis­ figure (say) the Latin of Gildas’s Roman-British predecessor Patrick,43 none is found in Gildas: no example of loss of final -m following a vowel, no nominative absolute, no confusion o f active and deponent verb, no com­ pound preposition. It is true that a few minor features of Gildas’s Latin may reflect the influence of the spoken language (such as the use of proprius 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Lot, ‘A quelle époque*; Norberg, ‘A quelle époque’ and ‘Latin scolaire*. Jackson, Language and History, pp. 97—106. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.23: ‘tribus ut lingua eius exprimitur cyuiis, nostra longis nauibus*. Sec, for example, Asser, De Rebus Gestis Aeifredi Regis, §§35 and 78(791 (ed. Stevenson, pp. 27 and 64). See Jackson, ‘ Varia: II’; Wright, *A note’; and Sims-Williams, below, pp. 186—8. See Lewis, ‘The tradition’. See the remarks of Patrick Sims-Williams, below, pp. 169—92. See Mras, ‘St. Patricius*.

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for suus or of quidam for aliquis), but such features are widely attested in even the most correct Latin authors of the fifth century.4445On the question of the correctness of Gildas’s Latin, then, it is worth repeating the conclu­ sion reached by François Kerlouégan after an exhaustive study o f Gildas’s latinity: that Mike the most correct authors, Gildas most often uses the Classical diction whose survival was guaranteed by schools and books'.43 Another aspect of the ‘correctness’ of Gildas’s Latin which needs to be considered here is his alleged use of glossary-words. Gildas, in common with many other Late Latin authors, affected the use o f unusual vocabulary — grecisms, poeticisms, neologisms. It is also true that some of the more unusual items in Gildas’s vocabulary reappear in early Mediaeval Latin writings such as the Hisperica Famina or those o f Aldhelm.46478With respect to unusual words, however, it is essential to bear in mind the difference in usage between an author who was a speaker of Latin (or someone who had been trained by, or who had frequent contact with, a native speaker of Latin), and a non-Latin-speaking author who was obliged to draw his vocabulary from glossaries and word-lists without having any means o f determining whether he correctly understood the exact denotation and many connotations o f a particular word. An example will illustrate this distinction. In Classical Latin, the plural substantive fa sti (-orum ) was used to denote a calendar or almanac which enumerated all festivals o f the year, but the word subsequently acquired the more specific meaning o f books containing a list o f the consuls who have given their names to particular years. At some point, no doubt in the Late Latin period, the word fa s ti was glossed accurately as libri ubi sunt nornina consulum.*1 But when the tradi­ tion of naming consuls had itself been discontinued and the significance of recording their names forgotten, an early mediaeval scribe copying the ex­ planation o f fa s ti assumed that the supplementary information concerning consuls’ names could be dispensed with, and accordingly produced the much abbreviated (and downright misleading) gloss fa s ti: libri.4* Now it would easily be possible for an author ignorant of the true meaning of the word fa s ti (plural) incorrectly to infer from the abbreviated glossary-entry that the word fa stu s (singular) was nothing more than a synonym for 44 Cf. Kerlouégan, 4Le latin’: Mes faits . . . montrent bien que le DEB reproduit l'état de langue couramment attesté chez les écrivains du Ve siècle . . . Vue dans son ensemble, la syntaxe du DEB ne paraît donc pas plus marquée par la langue parlée que celle de la ma­ jorité des auteurs du Ve siècle’ (p. 156); and again. Ml Isc. Gildas] emploie sans doute des vulgarismes, mais ce sont les vulgarismes qu’il a appris à l’école, les vulgarismes intégrés dans la langue littéraire* (p. 159). 45 Ibid., p. 156: Ml faut noter . . . que, comme les auteurs les plus soignés, Gildas utilise le plus souvent le tour classique dont l’école et les livres assuraient la survie’. Kerlouégan’s ex­ haustive study of Gildas’s language is found in his (unfortunately unpublished) doctoral dissertation, 'Les Destinées*. 46 See Kerlouégan, 'Une liste’; bear in mind, however, that Aldhelm certainly and the Hisperic faminators probably were familiar with Gildas's De Excidio Britanniae (see below, n. 50). 47 Goetz et at., Corpus Ciossariorum Latinorum, IV.237, and V.293 and 568. Cf. IV.341: 'libri ubi nornina consulum scribuntur’. 48 Ibid., V.419, 428, and 552.

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'book’. Accordingly, the occurrence o f the singular form fa stu s to mean simply ‘book’ will indicate at once that an author has derived this lexical item from a Latin glossary rather than from contact with the living language. Thus, for example, Aldhelm in the preface to his Carmen de Virginitate describes his earlier prose work on the subject o f virginity as a ‘fasti seriem . . . priorem’ (Carmen de Virginitate, line 21), where clearly he thinks that fa stu s satisfactorily describes his earlier treatise as a ‘book*. From this and similar examples we know that Aldhelm’s unusual vocabu­ lary is for the most part glossary-based, o f second-hand derivation.495012 The point is this: as far as I have been able to determine, Gildas employs no words which are manifestly derived from glossaries — no words, that is, which are used in such a way that their inappositeness can best be explained on the assumption that they were derived from a glossary by an author ignorant of living Latin. This is not to deny that there are words in Gildas which later found their way into glossaries, for it is easily demonstrable that De Excidio Britanniae served as a quarry for compilers o f glossaries and for later authors in search of unusual words.30 But there is no reason for sup­ posing that Gildas himself drew any o f his extensive vocabulary from glossaries, a point which may be illustrated by a few examples. The word catasta in Classical Latin meant a platform on which slaves were exposed for sale. Now at one point Gildas uses the word to mean a ‘troop’ (‘mittit satellitum canumque prolixiorem catastam’: 1.23), a meaning which is at­ tested in glossaries and mediaeval authors.31 Here, one might argue, Gildas was drawing on a glossary. But it is certain that Gildas knew what the word meant, for elsewhere he uses it in its correct Classical denotation (‘ut ad carcerem uel catastam poenalem . . . traheremini’: III. 109). Rather, he seems to have taken some poetic liberty with the word such that it became a pointed term of abuse — *a larger troop o f followers and dogs’, all no doubt worthy (in Gildas’s estimation) to be sold as slaves on the auctionblock or platform. It is interesting that Gildas’s use o f catasta as à term of abuse is echoed by the fifth-century Roman poet Rutilius Namatianus, who uses the word contemptuously in reference to a ‘troop’ of Jews (De Reditu Suo, 1.393: ‘cetera mendacis deliramenta catastae’). In the case o f Rutilius, who was praefectus urbi in 414, there can be no doubt that as a Latin speaker he knew the correct denotation o f the word but allowed himself the liberty o f using it as a term o f contempt. Gildas, I should argue, did likewise. Other apparent glossary-words in Gildas may be explained in the same manner32 — as an aspect of his search to embellish his prose with 49 On the use of glossary-words by mediaeval authors, cf. the remarks of Lindsay, The Cor­ pus, Épinal, Erfurt and Leyden Glossaries, pp. 97—105, and his introduction to Stevenson, Early Scholastic Colloquies, pp. vi—viii; see also Marenbon, 'Les sources*, pp. 79—82. 50 For the use of Gildas or a Gildas-based glossary by the Hisperic faminators, see Herren, The Hisperica Famina, 1.20—3; for Aldhelm*s use of Gildas, see Ehwald, Aldhelmi Opera, p. 301, n. 1, and Kerlouégan, 'Une liste*; for Gildas-batches in glossaries of the AngloSaxon period see Lindsay, The Corpus, Épinal, Erfurt and Leyden Glossaries, p. 15, and Hessels, A Late Eighth-century Latin—Anglo-Saxon Glossary, pp. 240—1. 51 On Aldhelm's use of catasta, see Kerlouégan, 'Une liste*, p. 559. 52 For example, the word molossus (11.34), commonly found in mediaeval glossaries to mean 'dog*, is used as a poeticism by Vergil, Georgies, III.405.

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poetic vocabulary.” For this reason, it is quite misleading to associate the vocabulary of Gildas with that o f the Hisperic faminators or of Aldhelm, as some commentators have done. Kerlouégan, for example, points to the word macero, which in Classical Latin meant ‘to soften* or ‘to weaken* and hence ‘to vex* or 'to torment*, but was misunderstood by the faminators and Aldhelm to mean ‘to strike or pierce (with a sword)*.94 Gildas uses the word twice, but in each case he uses it in its correct Classical Latin sense: ‘dereiinque exitiabilem ac temetipsum maceraturum . . . furorem ’ (11.32: ‘abandon the rage . . . which will some day waste you*) and ‘non tarn militari manu quam flagris callidam gentem maceraturos’ (1. 7 : ‘torm ent a cunning people with scourges rather than military force*). It is entirely possible that the meaning given to the word by the faminators and Aldhelm derives from misunderstanding of the second of these passages in Gildas (perhaps via a Gildas-based glossary); but it is impossible that Gildas himself misunderstood the word’s meaning. Analysis o f the alleged glossary-words in De Excidio Britanniae strongly suggests, therefore, that Gildas did not derive his Latin vocabulary at second-hand from glossaries,” but rather from first-hand knowledge of Latin as a living language. This suggestion is corroborated by consideration o f other aspects of his vocabulary, such as technical terminology. A scholar thoroughly familiar with the prosopography of the late Roman empire recently had occasion to remark that ‘Gildas is a writer who consistently and carefully uses technical terms precisely and accurately; foederati, annona, hospites, praepositi, consilium and consiliarii are late Roman terms correctly used, as is cuneus for a military formation’.96 Other words, such as epimenia to mean 'military provisions* (1.23), might be added to this list.97 One might also point to the technical terminology for Roman weights and measures which Gildas employs in his ‘Penitential’:9* him ina romana lactis (‘a Roman half-pint o f milk’) or tenuclae uel battuti lactis romanus sextarius (‘a Roman pint o f whey or buttermilk*). Such terms could scarcely be derived from a glossary, for Gildas’s stipulations would have no meaning for an audience which did not clearly understand the exact amount specified by him ina or sextarius. Gildas’s ‘Penitential’ was evidently intended for an audience among which the Roman terms for weights and measures were still534678

53 On Gildas’s poeticism, see the remarks of Neil Wright, below pp. 113—IS. 54 Kerlouégan, ‘Une liste*, pp. 554—5. All Gildas’s unusual usages as described by Kerlouégan may be simply explained as pocticisms (ambro, caespes, clustellum, commanipularis, conuolatus, cuneus. propalo, prolelo, and refacillo) and do not, therefore, provide evidence that Gildas derived his vocabulary from glossaries. The great value of Kerlouégan’s study lies in showing how Aldhelm and the Hisperic faminators, lacking first­ hand knowledge of Latin as a living language, were unduly influenced by the exotic, poetic nature of Gildas’s language. 55 I thus dissent from the opinion of Thompson, that ‘in his vocabulary IGildasI must have drawn on glossaries for his rare words rather than on extensive reading’ (‘Gildas’, p. 210). 56 Morris, The Age o f Arthur, p. 132; cf. also Thompson, ‘Gildas’, pp. 217—18. 57 Stevens, ‘Gildas sapiens', p. 369, and Thompson, ‘Gildas’, p. 217. 58 On the attribution of this text to Gildas, see the remarks of Richard Sharpe, below, pp. 196—8.

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current.’9The implication must be that the audience in question was one for which Latin was a living language. In other words, Gildas’s Latin should not be assessed by the standards of Mediaeval Latin authors whose knowledge o f the language derived from books; rather, Gildas’s often highly ornate vocabulary is best to be understood in the context of the stylistic predilections of Late Latin prose authors for whom Latin was a living language." It is not possible here to undertake an exhaustive study o f those features o f Gildas’s vocabulary which link him to the tradition of Late Latin prose style, but several points may be mentioned. Gildas, for example, has a pronounced penchant for unusual agentive nouns terminating in -or: adinuenlor (111.67), adstipulator (11.39 and 43), am bitor(III.67), com m essor(III.67 and 87), condebitor (l.l and 19), contem ptor (11.32), delator (1.8), depressor (11.32), depulsor (11.33), fabricator (1.21), grassator (1.21), m ulcator (III.67), sessor (11.32), speculator (1.1), stabilitor (11.38), subuersor (1.21), unctor (1.21), and uindem iator (1.24). Several o f these words are rarities indeed and appear to be coinages by Gildas,61 whereas others may derive from identifiable sources;62 in any case, the penchant for such nouns is well attested in other Late Latin prose writers, particularly Sidonius Apollinaris,61 Alcimus Auitus,64 and Ennodius.65 One might also point to Gildas’s use of nouns in •m en, -m entum , -tas, and -tudo, of adjectives in -bundus, o f inchoative

59 Bieter (The Irish Penitentiab, p. 241) argues that the word ferculo in Gildas’s ‘Penitential’ is not the common Latin word ferculum meaning *a dish of food’ but is rather a misreading of serculo, a hypothetical latinised form of Old Irish sercol, ’titbit'. Bieler's argument is not compelling without further evidence (Latin ferculum makes perfectly good sense in context) but, if accepted, would have bearing on the case for a Roman audience for Gildas's ‘Penitential*. 60 On the Late Latin stylistic predilection for unusual vocabulary see in general Hofmann & Szantyr, Lateinische Syntax, pp. 740—71, as well as the following individual studies: Goelzer & Mey, Le Latin; Zimmerman, The Late Latin Vocabulary; Loyen, Sidoine Apollinaire et Tesprit précieux; and Gualandri, Furtiva Lectio. 61 Notably condebitor and depressor. 62 The word uindemiator possibly derives from Horace, Saturae%l.vii,30; note that Horace and Gildas agree in the spelling uindemiator, whereas the word is usually spelled uindemitor. 63 I note the following unusual forms in Sidonius: appétitor, consiliator, derogator, despector, distributor, duplicator, effractor, elicitor, falsator, fractor, frequentator, incentor, inhiator, inspector, inuitator, murmurator, negator, oblatrator, pot or, precator, publicator, pugillator, relator, reparator, repensâtor, rimator, satisdator, suscitator, suspector, and tractator. 64 Auitus uses the following unusual forms: adiurator, censetor, contradictor, destructor, dissolutor, diuisor, duplicator, erogator, exactor, fideiussor, frequentator, iactitator, in­ centor, laniator, mansor, negator, nominator, peruasor, redditor, speculator, subuersor, succisor, taxator, temerator, tractator, and transmissor, see further Goelzer & Mey, Le Latin, pp. 463—5, and Goelzer, ‘Remarques’, pp. 179—81. 65 Ennodius uses the following unusual forms: admissor, adstipulator, aestimator, cohabitator, comisator, concussor, commissor, compulsor, decoctor, dictor, effusor; elocutor, exceptor, fideiussor, impugnator, impulsor, irrisor, maledictor, mansor, occisor, pacator, patrator, perlâtor, potator, praestitor, precator, profligator, promulgator, quaesitor, remediator, repensor, retentator, supplantator, trutinator, Usurpator, uenerator, and uulgator.

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verbs in -esco and (grecising) verbs in -izo, or o f adverbs in -iter and -tint.“ Gildas’s use of grecisms also links him with Late Latin stylistic tendencies. In addition to a large number o f words ultimately of Greek origin which had become common coin in ecclesiastical Latin by the fifth century, Gildas uses several less common grecisms: am phibalum (11.28), cauma (1.19), celeuma (1.25), fantasia (1.11, 11.34, and 111.67), flegm a (11.34), mastigia (1.7), neuma (11.34), organum (11.34 and 37, and III.67), plasm a (III.67), and stigm a (1.18). Each of these grecisms, however, is attested in other Late Latin authors.666768It is perhaps worth noting as well that Gildas’s grecisms show none of the orthographic mutilation which frequently occurs in Mediaeval Latin texts where grecisms are extracted from glossaries by authors possessing no knowledge whatsoever o f Greek.66 In this as in other respects Gildas’s Latin style most closely resembles that of Continental authors of the fifth and early sixth centuries, and reveals that like them he had learned to write Latin regarded as correct by Late Latin standards: presumably he had been taught by a Roman grammaticus. This supposition receives some support from consideration o f the range of reading revealed in Gildas’s writings. It has often been stated that the range o f Gildas’s reading was narrow and restricted, perhaps never more emphatically than by E.A. Thompson, who credits Gildas with mere knowledge of ‘a passage of Orosius and . . . a couple of phrases of St Jerome’, and even asserts that ’there is certainly no evidence that [Gildas] had ever read the complete works from which he extracted his quotations’. In Thompson’s view, Gildas is ‘like a man who is citing a “ Dictionary o f Q uotations” or o f “ Notable Sayings” rather than a scholar who is drawing spontaneously on his reading’.69 Assessment of the breadth o f another m an’s learning must always be a matter of subjective opinion; but Gildas is not, in my opinion, a writer of limited reading. He seldom quotes verbatim from a work which he has read (excepting the Bible, o f course), but the tex­ ture of his Latin suggests a background o f wide and easy familiarity with Classical and Christian literature — an impression which is confirmed as more and more allusions are identified in his writing.70 Certainly he was 66 On these aspects of Gildas's vocabulary, see Kerlouégan, ‘Les Destinées'. 67 The possible exception is neuma, whose derivation and meaning are unclear in context. Gildas states that the 'praises of God are not heard, nor is the neuma ecclesiasticae melodiae' (11.34). None of the normal meanings of Greek veupa ('sign', 'command', 'inclination') is entirely appropriate here; on the other hand the far commoner word frvedjjcr ('breath' or 'spirit') is not appropriate either. Williams misunderstands the construction of the sentence, taking neuma as if it wertpneumate, and translates the phrase inaccurately as 'the song of church melody' (Gildas, 1.81); Winterbottom accurately reproduces the con­ struction but translates the phrase somewhat evasively as 'the melodious music of the church* (Gildas, p. 34). Until the word’s meaning has been clarified, it cannot be taken as evidence for ignorance of Greek on Gildas's part. 68 See Berschin, Griechisch-lateinisches Mittelalter, pp. 44—5. Note that Gildas is always able to give the correct form of oblique cases of Greek-derived words: haereseos (1.13), stigmata (1.18), caumate (1.19), celeumatis (celeumatos would be slightly more correct) (1.25), and plasmata (III.67). 69 'Gildas', p. 210. 70 See discussion by Neil Wright, below, pp. 107—14.

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easily familiar with Vergil.71 At many points his diction is indebted to recollection of Vergilian phrasing, as (for example) where he describes how the Britons, first frozen in terror, then turned tail and ran from Roman swords: ‘dantur et colla gladiis, gelido per ossa trem ore currente’ (1.6). The diction here is unmistakably derived from similar passages in the A eneid: ‘gelidusque per ima cucurrit / ossa trem or’ (A eneid, 11.120— 1); ‘gelidus Teuer is per dura cucurrit / ossa trem or’ (A eneid, VI.S4); and ‘gelidusque per ima cucurrit / ossa trem or’ (A eneid, XII.447). Adumbration of Vergilian diction is one means by which Gildas heightened the poetic effect of his prose. But it would be misleading to think that Gildas knew Vergil and no other Latin poet. There are many passages in D eE xcidio Britanniae which reveal indefinable but unmistakable debts to traditional Latin poetic diction. I choose one example of many: Gildas prefaces his discussion of the martyrs Alban, Aaron, and Iulius by stating that God sent these luminaries lest Britain be ‘plunged deep in the thick darkness of black night* (crassa atrae noctis caligine: 1.10). The word-order here is that o f prose, but the last three words fall easily into the pattern of an hexametrical cadence — atrae caligine noctis — and Gildas no doubt had this or a similar cadence in mind as he wrote his sentence. He may have been thinking (say) of Lucan’s phrase atra caligine cursus (Pharsalia, 1.541), the notion of ‘black darkness’ perhaps being reinforced by Vergilian lines such as ‘quis globus o ciues caligine uoluitur atra’ (A eneid, IX .36) or ‘uoluitur ad muros caligine turbidus atra / puluis’ (A eneid, X I.876—7). Alternatively, an hexametercadence such as one from Silius Italicus — nigrae caligine noctis (Punica, XI.513) — may have been Gildas’s model; in any case the cadence caligine noctis was common in Late Latin poetry.72 Finally, the notion o f the thickness of blackness may ultimately owe something to an expression of Lucretius, caliginis aër / crassior (IV.349—50). I am not suggesting that any one of these passages was Gildas’s model, simply that Gildas’s words crassa atrae noctis caligine are only explicable on the assumption that he was thoroughly familiar with Latin poetic diction. Such familiarity does not come from reading one or two books in excerpt. The evidence o f Gildas’s Latin, particularly the correctness o f his gram­ mar and the accuracy of his knowledge of the Latin lexicon in combination with his ready familiarity with Vergil and Latin poetic diction, places him Firmly in the context of Late Latin authors of the Fifth and early sixth cen­ turies and suggests that, like them, Gildas may have received his education in a traditional Roman school at the hands of a grammaticus. We must now

71 Gildas purports to quote Vergil directly on only one occasion (1.25), where the quotation is introduced by the phrase ut dicitur (‘innumeris onerantes aethera uotis* = Aeneid, IX.24). But Gildas’s text contains numerous reminiscences of Vergilian diction; see, in addition to the parallels in Mommsen’s apparatus, the list provided by Winterbottom (Gildas, p. 10) and the further parallels noted by Neil Wright, below, pp. 112—14. Many more remain to be identified, no doubt; for example, the phrase mucrone corusco (111.71) is clearly in­ debted to Vergil (Aeneid, 11.333) or to Statius (Thebaid, 1.614, IX.542, and X.774). 72 Prudentius, Psychomachia, line 483; Paulinus of Nola, Carmina, XIX.422; Hilary of Poitiers, In Genesim, line 30; and Paulinus of Périgueux, Vita Sancti Martini, IV. 194.

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ask if there is any evidence in Gildas’s writings o f training at the hands o f a rhetor. The principal distinguishing marks of the proficient orator — and hence of training in rhetoric — were the clarity of structure o f the speech and the expertise in drawing on an arsenal o f verbal devices in order to make the case with elegance, emphasis, and wit (obviously the technique o f oral delivery was also important, but it is irrelevant to the present discussion).73 We are very well informed on what the Romans considered desirable as regards structure and verbal expression, for a number of rhetoricians stretching in date from Cicero and the anonymous author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium in the first century B.C. to Martianus Capella in the fifth century A.D. discussed these matters with what now seems to be inter­ minable length and unnecessary detail. We may begin with the question o f structure.7475For convenience 1 shall summarise the discussion o f Martianus Capella (as being the nearest in date to Gildas), although in fact it matters little which rhetorical treatise serves as basis for discussion,73 given that the tradition of Roman rhetoric was essentially conservative and admitted almost no change during the six or seven centuries o f its florescence, and given that Martianus Capella was in any case relying heavily on earlier authorities (principally Cicero’s De Inuentione and De Oratore, and the third-century rhetor Aquila Roman us).767In the discussion o f rhetoric which constitutes Book V of his De N uptiis Philologiae et M ercurii,11 Martianus supplies a description of the parts of a properly structured speech. First, it must have an exordium , in which the orator explains his reasons for speak­ ing and attempts to make his audience receptive to his arguments (§545). The exordium is followed by the narratio, which explains the circumstances o f the speech (§550). The narratio may be one of four sorts: historia (an historical account of the circumstances o f the case in the manner of, say, Livy), fabula (recounting a story neither true nor credible), argumentum (a fiction explaining not what has happened but what could have happened), or iudicialis assertio (a factual statement o f the circumstances from the legal point of view). The narratio is followed by the propositio (§553), the state­ ment o f the speaker’s case, which may be either a bare statement (nudapro­ positio) or may be accompanied by reasoning (ratione subiecta). The state­ ment is followed by the detailed argument of the case, the argumentatio (§557), with which that case is proved. The argumentatio could be one of two sorts: artificial or inartificial. Artificial argumentatio might involve tales, allegories, and the like, whereas the inartificial involves precedents, hearsay, public records, oaths, and witnesses (testes) (§560). Finally, the 73 Cf. Rhetorica ad Herennium, I.iii,4; Cicero, De inuentione. I.vii,9; and on Roman declamation in general, see Bonner, Roman Declamation, especially pp. 51—70, and Kennedy, The Art, especially pp. 313—22. 74 A concise account of the various Roman authorities on the structure of a speech is given by Lausberg, Handbuch, 1.146—240. 75 Cf. Rhetorica ad Herennium, l.iii,4; Cicero, De Inuentione, I.xiv, 19; and Quintilian, institutio Oratorio, Ill.ix, 1. 76 Stahl et al., Martianus Capella, 1.118—19. 77 I quote from the edition of Dick & Préaux, Martianus Capella.

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argumentation may be summed up by recapitulation (anacephalaeosis) (§564) before the orator proceeds to the epilogus (§565), in which he incites the audience either to indignation or to mercy for his client. The operation of structural divisions within a forensic speech may be con­ veniently illustrated by reference to one of Cicero’s greatest speeches.7*The speech Pro Sestio,19 delivered in 56 B.C., is a (successful) defence-plea delivered at the trial of Publius Sestius, who had earlier been a supporter of Cicero during the latter’s exile in 58—57 B.C., and who was being pro­ secuted by Cicero’s arch-enemy Clodius under the lex Plautia de ui for having employed an armed bodyguard during his tribunate (a more or less trumped-up charge, according to Cicero). The speech is a long one (it is pro­ bable that the speech in its present form represents a written elaboration o f what was actually delivered at the trial), and much o f it is taken up with ex­ position of Cicero’s political viewpoint. The structure o f the speech, however, is readily discernible.*0 In the exordium (§§ 1—5), Cicero explains that he will speak not (as he had wished) to thank his supporters (such as Sestius) but to drive away further danger; accordingly, his tone will be one o f lament rather than eloquence, of sorrow rather than wit (§3), atque ego sic statuo, iudices, a me in hac causa atque hoc extremo dicendi loco pietatis potius quam defensionis, querellae quam eloquentiae, doloris quam ingenii partes esse susceptas. Accordingly, the judges are invited to believe that the bitterness o f his speech is to be attributed to dutiful sorrow and just indignation (§4): itaque si aut acrius egero aut liberius, quam qui ante me dixerunt, peto a uobis, ut tantum orationi meae concedatis, quantum et pio dolori et iustae iracundiae concedendum putetis. Cicero concludes his exordium by listing (in a string of phrases beginning with de) the topics relative to Sestius which he will treat: ’dicam ego de omni statu P. Sesti, de genere uitae, de natura, de moribus, de incredibili amore in bonos, de studio conseruandae salutis communis’, etc. (§5). The next division of the speech, the narratio, consists o f a lengthy account o f Sestius’s career and in particular of the political events of the preceding four years and their bearing on Cicero’s own career (§§6—95); it is d ear that this narratio is of the subtype called historia. The historical account of the events leading up to the trial of Sestius encourages Cicero to propose, in the propositio of his speech (§§96—8), that there are in effect two classes of men in public affairs, one allying itself with the people (populäres), the other with the aristocracy (optimales); it is the optim ales who desire what is best for the state, namely peace with honour (cum dignitate otium , a much discussed Ciceronian theme). The subsequent argumentatio is of the 7890 78 On the structure of Cicero’s speeches in general, see Neumeister, Grundsätze, pp. 71—7. 79 I quote from the edition of Klotz [& Schoell), M. Tulli Ciceronis Scripta, VII. 161—250. 80 On the structure of Pro Sestio, see Kennedy, The Art, pp. 195—6; see also the brief account of this speech by Nisbet, ‘The speeches’, pp. 64—6.

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inartificial type, and consists in lengthy citation of evidence first against the populäres, then in favour of the optim ales (§§98— 143); here Cicero ex­ coriates the populäres in characteristically abusive language, and adduces witnesses of many sorts (even including the frequent citation of Latin poets) in support o f the cause o f the optim ales. Cicero concludes his speech with a brief epilogus (§§144—7) in which he asks mercy for his client Sestius. It will be seen that, although Pro Sestio is a very bulky and apparently ram­ bling speech, it nevertheless adheres to a strictly defined form. Many centuries later, Gildas began his De Excidio Britanniae by stating that he would be ’weeping rather than declaiming’ (deflendo potius quam declamando). But was Gildas declaiming at all? In other words, is it fruitful to analyse De Excidio Britanniae in terms of the traditional structure o f a Roman declamation?" In the first place, Gildas’s work is not a speech, but rather (as he states explicitly) a letter: in hac epistola . . . However, by late Antiquity, epistolography had come to occupy a central position in rhetorical teaching. The fourth-century rhetor C. Iulius Victor, for example, taught that many of the rhetorical devices employed in speeches were also pertinent to letters;'2 in other words, the structure o f a public letter was expected to follow that of a speech.“ Furthermore, there is the problem that the circumstances of Gildas’s work are apparently remote from that of a trial-speech such as Cicero’s Pro Sestio. But Roman rhetorical teaching recognised several categories o f declamation besides the purely judicial; in particular, a speech might be ’dem onstrative’ (dem onstratiuum ), so called because it expounded something ‘either by praise or blame’ (aut laudando aut uituperando), whence there were said to be two sorts o f demonstrative oratory, praise (laudatio) or blame (uituperatio).“ The structure of Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae may be con­ vincingly interpreted in terms of demonstrative oratory: a uituperatio, let us say, in patriam uitiosam . De Excidio Britanniae begins with an exordium (1.1—2) in which Gildas sets out to bewail ’the general loss o f good’ in tearful lamentation. Interest­ ingly, Gildas’s mention of querelis recalls the querelae of Cicero’s exordium to the speech Pro Sestio, just as Gildas’s sadness (condolentis) corresponds to Cicero’s dolori; and as Cicero’s bitterness was to be attributed to his sorrow (d o lo ri. . . concedendum putetis), so Gildas’s lament is to be attri­ buted (edicturum putet) to sorrow for his country. Again like Cicero, Gildas ends his exordium with a list o f phrases dependent on de and setting 81234 81 Winterbottom (‘The preface’, p. 277) briefly suggested that ‘the structure of the book as a whole might remind us . . . of a forensic speech*; my following remarks were inspired by this fruitful suggestion. 82 Halm, Rhetores, p. 447: ‘Epistolis conueniunt multa eorum, quae de sermone praecepta sunt’. 83 Ibid., where Iulius Victor explains that there are two sorts of letter, private (familiäres) and public (negotiates), and then adds concerning the latter: ’in hoc généré et sententiarum pondéra et uerborum lumina et figurarum insignia conpendii opera requiruntur atque omnia denique oratoria praecepta’. 84 On these various divisions, see the list of authorities cited by Lausberg, Handbuch, 1.85—138; for sake of concision I quote here from Isidore, Etymologiae, Il.iv.S.

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out the contents o f the account, o f his country’s vices, which is to follow (‘de situ, de contumacia, de subiectione, de rebellione . . . [e tc ]. . . dicere conamur’). Then follows a narratio (1.3—26) o f the historic-subtype in which Gildas first gives a physical description o f the island and then follows it with the potted historical summary of Britain and its waves o f invaders which has so frequently attracted the attention o f historians. Next comes the p ro p o sitio n Just as Cicero had directed his propositio at two political classes (the populäres and optim ates), so Gildas directs his attack at two targets: the holders o f secular and o f ecclesiastical office. Accordingly, the structure o f his propositio (and its accompanying argumentatio) is bipartite: the propositio against holders o f secular office is found in 11.27—36, that against holders o f ecclesiastical office in 111.64—73. In each instance Gildas’s case is that those entrusted with power and responsibility have betrayed that trust. In support of his allegations against them, Gildas in his bipartite argumentatio of the type called inartificial (11.37—63 against secular, III.76— 103 against ecclesiastical office) calls witnesses: ‘ut in ore multorum testium omne comprobetur Britanniae malum’ (11.39). The testesMwhom Gildas calls are the authors of Scripture, and the bulk o f De Excidio Britanniae is taken up with their testimony against the sins and abuses prevalent in Britain. Gildas closes the work with an epilogus (III. 106— 10) in which, with an eye on the judgement which is to follow his case, he first reminds the offenders o f the punishments (aeterna supplicia) attendant upon their evil deeds, and finally ends with a prayer to the Deus totius consolationis et misericordiae (III. 110) for mercy for his clients (as it to re ), the few good shepherds active in Britain. Although not technically a speech, therefore, De Excidio Britanniae has a structure which is that o f a declamation pronounced by the prosecution against a vice-ridden country. The choice, manipulation, and control o f this structure would have come most naturally to someone who had been trained in declamation by a rhetor. It is not only the structure of D e Excidio Britanniae which reveals Gildas’s debt to rhetorical training; the entire conception and style o f the work is rhetorical. Consider the apostrophes to the five tyranni, addressed almost as if they were present (in the courtroom, as it were).*7 The violence of Gildas’s language has been thought surprising, but it is o f a piece with the violent invective with which Cicero frequently addresses his opponents in his speeches — for example, Catiline (In Catilinam I, §6), Piso (In Pisonem , § § 1— 3 ) or the Catiline conspirators en masse (Pro Sulla, §27). The same 8 567 85 It is perhaps worth remarking that, as Gildas sums up his propositio against ecclesiastical offices (III.75) before moving on to the argumentatio, he ‘returns to his theme* — sedad propositum reuertar — where he clearly has the technical term for the theme of his speech in mind; cf. Cicero, Brutus, §82 ('ut egrederetur a proposito ornandi causa*); De Oratore% §203 (*ad propositum reuertamur’); and Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae, 1.7 ('itaque ad pro­ positum reuertar*). 86 Cf. 111.65 (the evils of the clergy are metaphorically to be stoned by Gildas and his testes, 'witnesses*); and III. 106, 'sed quid sparsim positis amplius utentes testimoniis*. 87 Cf. the remarks of Winterbottom who observes that the addresses to the tyranni are 'in the manner of forensic apostrophe* (‘The preface*, p. 279, n. 11).

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Catiline conspirators are addressed in Cicero’s Pro Sestio in language reminiscent in its violence, use o f animal-imagery, and detailed cataloguing o f sins of Gildas’s denunciations of the tyranni. Thus Cicero says of Clodius: Mlle nefarius ex omnium scelerum colluuione natus parum se foedus uiolaturum arbitratus est, nisi ipsum cautorem alieni periculi suis propriis periculis tenuisset. Hanc taetram immanemque beluam . . .’ (Pro Sestio, §§ 1S— 16); or of Gabinius, ’alter unguentis affluens, calamistrata coma, despiciens conscios stuprorum ac ueteres uexatores aetatulae suae . . . hominem emersum subito ex diuturnis tenebris lustrorum ac stuprorum , uino, ganeis, lenociniis adulteriisque confectum . . .’, etc. (ibid., §§18—20). Diatribe such as this is clearly in the same tradition as Gildas’s denunciation o f Vortiporius — ‘diuersis parridiciis et adulteriis constuprato’ . . . ‘quasi culminis malorum omnium stupro’, etc. (11.31). So too Gildas’s diction reveals at every turn an awareness of the conventions of oral delivery (a feature which stands out prominently in comparison with the speeches, which of course were delivered orally). Thus we find the fre­ quent verbal interjections used for emphasis and to hold attention — age, quaeso, inquam, im m o and others; or antitheses drawn by means of the simple verbal contrast non solum . . . sed etiam or uerum etiam ;99 or the orator’s favourite device of mentioning a fact while purportedly bypassing it (the device is called paraleipsis), most often with the verb m itto and its compounds.*9 In fact Gildas is brilliantly proficient in using the full arsenal o f rhetorical figures of speech. It would be a tiresome chore to list all such figures of speech in Gildas (for almost every sentence contains one), but it might be helpful to set down a few examples alongside parallels in the speeches o f Cicero. For example, one can mention Gildas’s frequent out­ bursts o f indignation (called apostrophe or exclam atio) to his imagined audience: ‘Quo utique nihil ei usquam perniciosius nihilque amarius factum est. O altissimam sensus caliginem! O desperabilem crudamque mentis hebetudinem!’ (I.23);8899091or his use of a long string o f questions (called erotem a), such as that which constitutes the whole of 111.69—74;9' or a 88 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.22, 'non solum ucro hoc uitium, sed el omnia quae humanae naturae accidere soient*; 111.65, ‘quorum uitam non solum laudo, uerum etiam cunctis mundi opibus praefero*; cf. Cicero, In Catilinam /, §5, ‘nihil cogitas quod ego non modo audiam sed etiam uideam'; In Catilinam II, §8, ‘Nunc uero quam subito non solum ex urbe uerum etiam ex agris ingentem numerum . . . conlegerat’; ibid., $22, ‘postremum autem genus est non solum numéro uerum etiam genere ipso . . and also the long train of such contrasts, ibid., §14. 89 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.4, ‘igitur omit tens priscos illos . . . errores . . nec enumerans patriae portenta . . .*; cf. Cicero, In Catilinam /, §§14—15, ‘praetermitto ruinas fortunarum tuarum . . . ad ilia uenio quae non ad priuatam ignominiam uitiorum tuorum . . . pertinent. . . Ac iam ilia omitto — neque enim sunt aut obscura aut non multa commissa postea’; In Pisonem, §90, ‘mitto diplomata tota in prouincia passim data; mitto numerum nauium . . . mitto rationem exacti imperatique frumenti; mitto ereptam libertatem populis ac singulis . . .*. 90 Cf. Cicero, Pro Sulla, §23: ‘O miserum et infelicem ilium diem . . . o falsam spem, o uolucrem fortunam, o caecam cupiditatem, o praeposteram gratulationem . . .'. Examples of apostrophe abound in Cicero’s speeches. 91 Examples of erotema also abound in Cicero's speeches; note, for example, the string of questions in In Pisonem, §§87—8.

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sequence of question-and-answer in which the direction of the reasoning is cleverly anticipated (the device is called ratiocinatio), ‘Num centennis tu ob religiosa mérita uel coaeuus Mathusalae exceptus paene omni prole seruaberis? nequaquam’ (II.30);92 or o f insistent repetition o f the one word or phrase (called epanaphora), such as ‘tunc quantae fugae, quantae strages, quantae diuersorum mortium poenae, quantae apostatarum ruinae, quantae gloriosorum mart yrum coronae, quanti persecutorum rabidi furores, quantae econtrario sanctorum patientiae fuere, ecclesiastica historia narrat . . (I.9);’3 or the jamming together o f words without distinction or connective (called asyndeton): ‘et ob hoc reges publici priuati sacerdotes ecclesiastici suum quique ordinem seruarunt* (1.26).9495Examples o f rhetorical figures could, as I have said, be multiplied indefinitely. The simple point is that Gildas reveals a masterly dexterity in the manipulation o f such devices — dexterity which is best explained on the assumption that Gildas was well trained in the art o f declamation. Let us consider one final aspect of Gildas’s rhetorical training, as it emerges from his writing. I have stressed that the principal aim of rhetorical education in the Roman empire was to provide skilled orators able to plead effectively in the law-courts, and to this end a good part o f rhetorical educa­ tion was taken up with study of the law (notably in the composition o f controuersiae). Now it is striking that one o f the prevailing concerns o f De Excidio Britanniae is with law and jurisprudence. Gildas complains, for example, that Britain has iudices, but that they are wicked (11.27); here as elsewhere he uses the word iudex in such a way as to make clear that he fully understood what the office entailed in the late Roman legal system.93 At one point he refers explicitly to a régula recti iudicii, where his reference is presumably to a written lawcode.96 He upbraids Constantinus, tyrannus o f ‘Damnonia’, for having broken an horribile iuram enti sacramentum which had been established Deo prim um iureque iurando (11.28). In his indictment of the holders of secular office, he quotes Sapientia 1.1 (‘diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram ’) and then remarks tartly, ‘hoc unum testimonium si toto corde seruaretur, abunde ad corrigendum patriae duces sufficeret’ (11.62). Most interesting is the fact that Gildas was thoroughly familiar with the technical vocabulary of the law-courts. Two examples may be mention­ ed. As he summons his witnesses (testes) in what I have described as the argumentatio o f his declamation, he writes ‘respondeant itaque pro nobis sancti uates’ (11.37). Here respondeo does not simply mean ‘reply’, but is 92 Cf. also De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1. (the passage beginning ‘Quid? — mihimet aio — tibine, miser . . examples of ratiocinatio abound in Cicero, but note especially that in In Catiiinam I, §§20—1. 93 Cf. Cicero, In Catiiinam It, $7: ‘Quis tota Italia ueneficus, quis gladiator, quis latro, quis sicarius, quis parricida, quis testamentorum subiector, quis circumscriptor, quis ganeo, quis nepos, quis adulter, quae mulier infamis, quis corruptor iuuentutis, quis corruptus, quis perditus inueniri potest qui se cum Catilina non familiarissime uixisse fateatur?’ 94 Cf. also De Excidio Britanniae, 1.12 (‘fundunt construunt perficiunt’), and Cicero, In Catiiinam I, §32, *ut Catilinae profectione omnia patefacta inlustrata oppressa uindicata esse uideatis’; In Catiiinam II, §1, ‘abiit excessit euasit erupit*. 95 Cf. the remarks of Paul Schaffner, below, pp. 151—5. 96 Cf. Morris, The Age o f Arthur, p. 134.

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used in a technical sense, to denote the giving o f evidence by those qualified as jurisconsults.97 In Roman law, those who pleaded were not normally experts in legal technicalities, and were obliged therefore to resort to the expert opinions of jurisconsults; in using the word respondeo, Gildas is subtly adumbrating the expertise of his witnesses. Elsewhere he writes con­ cerning the evidence to be given by his witnesses, ‘in ore multorum testium omne comprobetur Brittanniae malum’ (11.34). The word com probo here is a technical, legal term, and means ‘to establish by means o f judicial evidence’.9* Gildas’s use o f such terminology indicates that he was familiar with the language (and procedure) of Roman law-courts. It is not easy to see how such familiarity can be explained except on the assumption that Gildas had undergone training at the hands of a rhetor in preparation for a career in the law-courts. Consideration o f the structure and rhetorical figures of speech in De E xcidio Britanniae thus confirms the impression gained from consideration of the purity of Gildas’s Latin grammar and vocabulary, namely, that he was the product of late Roman schools and as such is rightly to be compared with those Late Latin authors who had received a similar schooling. This conclusion is corroborated by other independent investigations: for example, that of Neil Wright, who has convincingly demonstrated99 that Gildas’s highly mannered, poetic prose is best to be explained by com­ parison with that o f Caelius Sedulius, a Gallo-Roman rhetor probably o f the mid-fifth century; or that of Michael W interbottom, who observed that the epistolary conventions manipulated by Gildas in De Excidio Britanniae are best to be understood through comparison with those observed in the D e G u b ern a tio n e D ei o f the fifth -c e n tu ry G allo -R o m an Salvian o f Marseilles;100 or that o f Giovanni Orlandi, who shows that Gildas’s use of clausulae affiliates him with other authors of the late Em pire.101 In short, it is time to relinquish the opinion (fostered by mediaeval hagiography) that Gildas was the product o f a monastic education o f the sort received at a later time by (say) the Hisperic faminators or by Aldhelm, whose works Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae has been thought to resemble. On the con­ trary, Gildas’s writings furnish suggestive evidence that he received a rhetorical training in the traditional Roman manner. Subsequent work on the Latin o f Gildas, therefore, should look backwards to late Antiquity rather than forwards to the middle ages, for it is by consideration of the careers of certain Late Latin authors that the rhetorical features of Gildas’s Latin are best to be understood. A few examples102 are: Faustus o f Riez, who probably received rhetorical training in Britain but became abbot of Lérins by ca 433, probably in his early thirties; Salvian o f Marseilles, whose writings give abundant evidence of rhetorical and juridical training but who 97 98 99 100 101 102

Gradenwitz et al., Vocabuiarium lurisprudentiae Romanae, V, cols 170—8. Ibid., I. cols 854—5. Below, pp. 114—28. ‘The preface’. Below, pp. 129—49. Details of the careers of the authors mentioned below may be found in Schanz et al., Geschichte, IV.

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renounced this secular training and spent some period o f his life at the monastery of Lérins before becoming priest and episcoporum magister at Marseilles; or Sidonius Apollinaris, born of a noble Gallo-Roman family, who received a traditional rhetorical training and pursued a secular career to its highest office, that of prae/ectus urbi in 468, but then became bishop o f Clermont-Ferrand (ca 470) and renounced the writing of the secular praise-poetry which had been the mainstay o f his brilliant career; or Magnus Felix Ennodius (ca 473—521), a distinguished rhetor from whose pen a number o f dictiones or scholastic declamations survives (including both controuersiae and suasoriae), but who subsequently became bishop o f Pavia (ca 513); or Dracontius, author of the influential Christian Latin poem De Laudibus D ei, whose proficiency and training in rhetoric (at the hands of the African Felicianus) is shown by the fact that he composed several poems in the form of rhetorical school-exercises, including a controuersia de statua u irifo rtis and a deliberative oration placed in the mouth o f Achilles, debating whether or not to sell the body o f Hector; or Alcimus Auitus, author of a lengthy Christian Latin poem on the Creation and Fall, whose letters show him to have had a thorough training in rhetoric and whose epitaph described him as an orator of unparalleled eloquence; or Cassiodorus, who attained to the high secular offices of consul (514) and thereafter to magister officio rum , whose collected administrative des­ patches (called Variae) are overburdened with exuberant rhetoric, and who subsequently founded a monastery whither he retired to devote himself to the study of Christian literature; or Arator, a student of the rhetor Ennodius mentioned above, whose poem De A ctibus Apostoiorum was a staple o f the mediaeval curriculum, but who was admired by his contemporary Cassio­ dorus for his proficient knowledge of Roman law; or Venantius Fortunatus, who was trained in grammar, rhetoric, and law at Ravenna in the mid-sixth century, but who subsequently became bishop of Poitiers. The list of such men could be protracted to great length. It is on the example o f careers such as these that any hypothetical reconstruction o f Gildas’s career must be based. Their example permits the following hypothesis: that Gildas was trained at the hands of a gramm aticus and then a rhetor (in the traditional Roman manner) in preparation for a secular administrative career; that he was subsequently ordained (and, perhaps, converted to the monastic order,103 with the renunciation of his earlier secular training which such a conversion would imply); that he then followed a career in the British Church as an outspoken critic of corruption in Church and State alike. What relevance does such a hypothesis have for our understanding o f Latin culture in late Roman Britain? Let us assume, for the sake o f discus­ sion, that Gildas was a native Romano-Briton who had been trained in his homeland104 and that his floruit fell during the middle years o f the sixth 103 If that is what is meant by his words in 111.65 (nostro quoque ordine); cf. Chadwick, ‘Gildas’. 104 If, for sake of argument, Gildas had been trained elsewhere — in Gaul, let us say — my following remarks would have no relevance to sub-Roman Britain. Note that Caradog of Llancarfan in his Vita S. Gildae (composed near the middle of the twelfth century) states that Gildas studied in Gaul for seven years: 'transfretauit Mare Gallicum, in ciuitatibus

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century.10’ I have stressed throughout that Roman rhetorical training had the severely practical aim of supplying administrators and advocates for the huge bureaucracy of Roman government; to meet this end, the government endowed schools and chairs o f rhetoric throughout the Em pire.105106 Roman government and rhetorical education went hand in hand; without the one, there was little use for the other. During the course o f the late fifth century, when the fabric of Roman government began to disintegrate, statesupported schools began to close. Pierre Riché has observed that the latest datable attestation for the operation o f a state-supported school in Gaul is 474.107108 With the disappearance of state-schools, those members o f the aristocracy who wished to pursue a secular career were obliged to seek education, by private means, from an ever-diminishing number o f rhetores willing to accept students. This makeshift system o f private education in the traditional manner endured in Gaul into the early sixth century, and in Rome itself throughout the sixth century.IMIt would be unwise to suppose a priori that state-supported schools survived in Britain later than in Gaul (if indeed they had survived that long); Gildas, accordingly, must have received his rhetorical training through private instruction from a rhetor. That he was willing and able to do so must imply that a career in secular administration was still a feasible undertaking — in short, that some facsimile o f Roman government was still in operation during his youth (in fact Gildas’s correct use of terminology pertaining to Roman government points in the same direction).109 If the conventional dating o f Gildas is correct, some recognisable form of Roman government must have existed in Britain in the early years o f the sixth century, a century after the time when the Britons, according to the sixth-century Greek historian Zosimus, ’ejected the magistrates of the Romans and, so far as they could, set up their own government’. 110A century seems a long time for Roman institutions to have survived; but here too our picture of Romano-British society has perhaps been unduly influenced by the picture of Dark-Age Wales gained from mediaeval sources. In any case, Gildas’s D eE xcidio Britanniae implies an audience literate enough in Latin to take the point of his criticisms. There are no grounds for imagining Gildas as a lone voice speaking to an

105 106 107 108 109 110

Galliae rcmansit studcns optime spatio .vii. annorum* (Williams, Gildas, 11.394); but this is not evidence for the history of the sub-Roman period. The conventional dating of Gildas is based on entries in Annales Cambriae. How much reliance may be placed on these entries is discussed by David Dumville, below, pp. 51—9. On the state’s support of education under the Empire see Marrou, A History, pp. 400—12, and Bonner, Education, pp. 146—62. ‘La survivance', p. 436. The last rhetor at Rome known by name was one Securus Melior Felix, who in 534 added a subscription to a manuscript of Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis (see Préaux, 'Securus Melior Felix*); see also Riché, Education and culture, pp. 17—51. Morris, The Age o f Arthur, pp. 132—4. The passage of Zosimus is translated by Rivet & Smith, The Place-names, p. 102; cf. Thompson, 'Zosimus 6.10.2'.

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uncomprehending audience o f illiterate barbarians."1 His work is highly polished and sophisticated and implies an audience (no matter how great or how small) o f similar sophistication. Interesting light is thrown on the sophistication of Gildas’s audience by a remark of Alcimus Auitus in a letter to one Sigismund (a Burgundian, and hence a native speaker o f Ger­ manic) datable roughly within the first two decades of the sixth century."2 The less polished one's Latin style, Auitus remarks, the more likely it is to be intelligible; hence even grammatical errors may be admitted with impunity. Gildas apparently felt unable to take such liberties. One of the tyranni named by Gildas, Maglocunus, had received training from a magister elegans (11.36). I take it that the man in question was a rhetor who accepted students for private tuition and that, in as much as he was praeceptor paene totius Britanniae, his reputation for this teaching was con­ siderable. That he was a rhetor is implied by Gildas’s adjective elegans, a word which is naturally used to describe an orator or an author with a polished, rhetorical style"3 but which could scarcely be used to describe a monastic instructor. We know that Maglocunus at some point entered a monastery and became a monk o f exemplary faith, but this conversion must have taken place after his instruction by the magister elegans.'1* It is tempt­ ing to think that Gildas’s audience included more than just one man capable of appreciating the rhetorical structure and polish o f his diatribe. But to think in such terms is to imply that much more o f the fabric o f Roman civilisation was still visible in sixth-century Britain than has hitherto been assumed.

111 An interesting parallel is the case of Venantius Fortunatus who in the 560s addressed a number of Latin praise-poems to various Frankish nobles. Unlike Gildas, however, Venantius avoided the conventions of ancient rhetoric; he adopted those of his hosts (see Meyer,4Der Gelegenheitsdichter', pp. 3—12), so that one is always aware that Venantius is addressing himself to a barbarian audience. Cf. also the remarks of Patrick SimsWilliams, below, pp. 169—70. 112 Epistola XLVII1 (ed. Peiper, p. 77): 4Ac cum in lingua nostra hoc magis habituri sint intelligibile, quod minus fuerit expolitum, in litteris, quas per conseruum meum fieri praecepistis, possum uitia cum securitate dictari*. 113 Cf. Cicero, De Inuentione I.xxxv,61,4a rhetoribus eis, qui elegantissimi atque artificiosissimi putati sunt’; ibid., I.xxxvi,63, ‘causidicum . . . subtilem et elegantem’; ibid., l.xliii,8l, 'orator modo sit elegans’; Seneca, Controuersiae I.iv.ll, % elegans magis declamator quam uehemens'; Quintilian, Institutio Oratorio X.i,78, 'Lysias . . . subtilis atque elegans’; ibid., X.i,93, 'tersus atque elegans maxime . . . auctor'; Jerome, De Viris IUustribus, §24, ‘elegans et declamatorium ingenium’. 114 It is unlikely that the magister elegans would have been giving his instruction in a monastery, for the adjective elegans would be utterly inappropriate to a monk who had relinquished the world and its accomplishments.

50

Ill GILDAS AND MAELGWN: PROBLEMS OF DATING David N . Dumville IN the whole of De Excidio Britanniae Gildas makes only one chronological statement which would in principle enable us to date his activity. In 1.26 he tells us that he was writing ‘in the February of a calendar year from which, counting backwards and inclusively, the forty-fourth calendar year was that in the course of which [the battle of Mount] Badon was fought and Gildas born’. 1 The problem with which Gildas’s text has confronted both mediaeval and modern scholars is that he gave no absolute date for the battle of Mount Badon, and those of his birth and date o f writing therefore remain effectively incalculable. To circumvent this difficulty students o f early mediaeval British history have had recourse instead to dating by reference to the Welsh kings who were the targets of Gildas’s verbal assaults in Book II of the De Excidio. In principle such rulers are datable and their reigns or lifespans, if known or calculable, can be used to provide an approximate dating for our author’s endeavours. The result of consequent investigation has been to place the writing of the De Excidio in the first half of the sixth century:23while a more precise chronological location has from time to time been a matter for dispute, the academic consensus has long since settled on a date ca A.D. 540. More recently, two further difficulties have begun to be appreciated. One interpretation o f 1.1, Gildas’s preface, has given rise to the view2that Gildas prepared a publishable draft of his work ten years before his conscience provoked the act o f publication: ‘silui, fateor, cum inmenso cordis dolore . . . spatio bilustri temporis uel eo amplius praetereuntis’. It is doubtful that such an interpretation is negated by the immediately following words, ‘imperitia (sicut et nunc) cum uilibus me mentis inhibentibus ne qualemcumque admonitiunculam scriberem’, since an argument that he did not write ten years ago because of his demerits is inhibited by the phrase sicut et nunc: now he has certainly written. While the interpretation which creates a ten-year-old draft text at the moment of provocation to publish is by no means certainly established, it obviously cannot be overlooked in any discussion of the dating of the work. 1 Miller, 'Relative and absolute publication dates', p. 173. 2 The most recent discussion of the question (O'Sullivan, The De Excidio o f Gildas) is best passed over in silence here. I have described its faults in my review in Anglia. The book con­ tains a bibliography of publication on the subject down to about 1974. 3 Miller, 'Relative and absolute publication dates*.

51 Gildas: New Approaches, edd. M. LapidgeA D. Dumville, Studies in Celtic History V (Boydell Press. 1984). pp. 51-59.

Dumville

The second difficulty arises from 11.33. Addressing King Maelgwn, Gildas accusingly describes him as ‘multorum tyrannorum depulsor tarn regno quam etiam uita supradictorum’. Who the m ulti tyranni were is a question which will occupy our attention further in the next c h a p te r/ but we cannot overlook the possibility that it includes one or more of the four other kings denounced by Gildas in 11.28—32. If so, the argument about the ten-year-old draft is likely to be accurate, for there would be little point in Gildas’s addressing denunciations and calls to repentance to kings who had already been killed by Maelgwn. It is difficult to know how much further to press this argument: would there be a point in addressing kings who had already been driven from regnum but not (yet) from u ita li O f the five rulers denounced by name, and with lurid detail, by Gildas in Book II only one, Maglocunus (11.33—36), identified as King Maelgwn o f Gwynedd, has precise dates attached to him. If we accept for the moment the terminus apparently attached to his reign by British scholars of the ninth to twelfth centuries, viz S34 and 5 4 9 / the full extent of the termini for the writing o f the De Excidio may be seen as ca 524 (a draft, not including 11.33—36, with publication taking place 'spado bilustri temporis uel eo amplius praetereuntis’ in 534/5 with the addition of new chapters recording Maelgwn’s present vigour and continuing misdeeds) and ca 560 (an un­ revised draft o f 549, published with the addition o f the preface explaining his delay).45678 This generous allocation of some thirty-five years within which the possi­ ble ten-year history o f the publication of De Excidio might be accom­ modated may be thought sufficiently comprehensive for even the most cautious scholar. However, the doubts raised in the previous chapter, where Michael Lapidge has urged reasons which might cause some o f his readers to feel profoundly uncomfortable with the conventional sixth-century dating of Gildas’s c a re e r/ naturally lead the historian to enquire whether the sources which have offered the now disputed dating have been evaluated with sufficient care. Two principal classes o f Welsh evidence have been employed in the dating o f Gildas’s tyranni and hence his own floruit:9 the Welsh annals, 4 See below, pp. 79—81. 5 This situation may explain the curious address to Constantine of ‘Damnonia’: although he had committed sacrilege hoc anno (within the last month?), Gildas says to him, ‘quasi praesentem arguo, quem adhuc superesse non nescio’ (11.29). Cf. Miller, ‘Relative and absolute publication dates’, p. 173. 6 Ibid., pp. 173—4. 7 In this last case, we should presumably have to suppose that the multi tyranni of 11.33 were among those generally referred to in 11.27, rather than the four specifically mentioned in 11.28—32. In stating termini for the dating of De Excidio as ca 524 x ca 560, I have made Miller's dates a little more elastic to take full account of Gildas’s uel eo amplius. 8 See above, pp. 27—50. 9 I exclude from consideration here the question of linguistic evidence arising from the Brittonic names given by Gildas: these are discussed by Jackson, Language and History, passim, and ‘ Varia: II*. Their dating forms part of a scheme which rests on the assumption of a secure date for the De Excidio and, inter alia, an inscription commemorating Uo(r)tepor of Dyfcd whose conventional floruit derives from the date of De Excidio. Any uncertainty about the date of Gildas’s text will necessarily have repercussions on percep­ tions of the early history of the Brittonic languages, particularly Welsh.

52

Gildas and Maelgwn

represented by the several versions of Annales Cambriae and Brut y Tyw ysogion,101and the Welsh royal pedigrees, available in various collec­ tions." Neither of these exists now in a form which is datable before the middle of the tenth century. Research which would define their sources and refine our appreciation of the historical value o f sources and collections is still in its infancy. We are therefore seeking to provide crucial dates for the history of sub-Roman Britain with the almost exclusive aid o f inadequately examined texts belonging to a period up to five centuries later. Let us begin with the Welsh annals, since Maelgwn's floruit is determined by his death-date as recorded in the A-text of Annales Cambriae, sub anno 103, calculated as A.D. 347. It was noted by both Kathleen Hughes1213and John M orris" that this annal, which reads ‘M ortalitas magna in qua pausat Mailcun rex Genedotae’, is part of the group which one of the early com­ pilers of Annales Cambriae drew from an Irish annalistic text. We may compare the reading of the Annals of Ulster for 349: *M ortalitas magna in qua isti pausant, Finnio maccu Telduib . . .'. It is apparent that Maelgwn’s name and title have been substituted for the sancti whose deaths are record­ ed in the Irish text. The date offered by the Annals o f Ulster has been accepted as the most likely historical date for the plague in the British Isles and for the consequent fatalities. Therefore the date generally accepted for Maelgwn’s death results from a mixture o f textual and historical argument. We may note, however, that at least the textual work has been left incom­ plete. Three difficulties seem immediately apparent. (1) How reliable is the dating and factual content o f the Irish annal in question? (2) Is it not possi­ ble to be more precise about the nature and date o f the Irish source-text? (3) How reliable is the Welsh information with which the Irish annal was adapted? There is, as yet, no agreement as to the dates o f the earliest strata within the Irish annalistic collections and, even when there is, one is unlikely to be able to guarantee that any given entry constitutes a contemporary record. The year 349 represents, by any reckoning, the earliest possible element of contemporary recording, however.1415The factual content o f the entry in the Annals of Ulster has not gone unchallenged," and acceptance o f the date has rested on a general argument from very little evidence about the history of the plague which ravaged the rest of Europe at about that time. Equally, the chronological structure and accuracy o f the Irish annals for the fifth to seventh centuries (at least) is not well understood, and is difficult to check in 10 For these, see the discussion by Hughes, Celtic Britain, pp. 67—100, where details of edi­ tions may be found. 11 The most convenient collection of the relevant texts is Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts', sec also, however, his Welsh Genealogies. For some cautions to be observed in the use of genealogical material, see Miller, ‘Date-guessing and pedigrees* and 'Forms and uses', and Dumville, 'Kingship*. 12 Celtic Britain, p. 91. 13 Apud Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 153. 14 Proponents of this view have included Byrne, ‘Seventh-century documents*; Smyth, ‘The earliest Irish annals’; Harrison, 'Epacts*. For a quite different view, see Hughes, Early Christian Ireland, pp. 115—28. 15 As will appear from my chapter ‘Gildas and Uinniau*. below, pp. 211 — 12.

53

Dumville

view of the many layers of which the extant annalistic texts are composed. We are on somewhat safer ground in asking about the Irish text used by the Welsh compiler, and about the date o f that compiler’s activity. The pretenth-century Irish annals are witnessed by two principal collections — on the one hand the Annals o f Ulster, and on the other the various components and derivatives o f the so-called ‘Clonmacnoise group’ o f texts. Recent close investigations of the Irish element in Annales Cambriae has been able to establish that the Welsh compiler drew on a version o f the ’Clonmacnoise group’ whose distinctive features seem to have been acquired at Clonmac­ noise after 911. Since the A-text of Annales Cambriae, which embodies these borrowings, seems unlikely to be later than the mid-tenth century (its last entry is for 954, the last blank annal for 977), the borrowing in fact helps to date the source-text to 911 x ca 954.“ It also dates the Welsh com­ piler’s activity and suggests, o f course, that he belongs most naturally to the stage of work which produced the extant A-text, probably ca 954. We are faced, therefore, with the proposition that our information derives from a Welsh adaptation, in the mid-tenth century, o f an Irish annal which in the form in which it was employed was less than half-a-century old and which had an uncertain history before that date. We have no grounds whatever for supposing an antecedent Welsh annal161718which has been con­ flated with the Irish source-text. Rather we must suppose that the tenthcentury compiler, knowing from legend that Maelgwn had died in a plague, made some approximate calculations (whether from a pedigree or from whatever synchronistic information was available to him) and concluded that that noted at ‘549’“ in his Irish annals was most likely the one in question. In short, it would be most unwise to rely too heavily on the entry in Annales Cambriae. It is a tenth-century Welsh adaptation o f an Irish annal, of uncertain date, with the aid of information derived possibly — indeed probably — from an oral source. The Welsh text, into which the informa­ tion is incorporated, itself has no detectable history as a text before the 790s. Both the date and the information o f the entry for 547 are therefore open to severe doubt. They cannot be substantiated. Before any challenge they will fall immediately and unconditionally. We come therefore to the genealogical evidence for the rulers castigated by Gildas. The outlines of this are best presented in tabular form. All the dates given are annalistic.

16 For all this, see Dumville, apud Grabowski & Dumville, Chronicles and Annals, pp. 207-26. 17 Had there been such grounds, we should still have no evidence for Welsh annalistic activity before the very end of the eighth century. We have even less reason to suppose that Maelgwn was noticed in the earlier north British annals hypothesised as a source for Annales Cambriae. 18 I place ‘549’ in inverted commas for there is no assurance that the corrected date of the Annals of Ulster was that in the Irish source used by the Welsh compiler. The source-text could equally well have read ‘547’, for example, as in Annales Cambriae. For a relevant Breton annal, see my chapter ‘Gildas and Uinniau’, below, p. 211 and n. 32.

54

Gildas and Maelgwn GILDAS’S TYRANN! AS ILLUSTRATED BY MEDIAEVAL WELSH PEDIGREES

DYFED

GWYNEDD

Triphun

Cunedda

POWYS

I

I

Aircol

Guorthigirn/Catell

Enniaun

J _____

r

i

Guoritpir

Catguolaun +534

Eugein

Cincar

Mailcun +547/9

Cinglas

Run

Meic

I

Pedr

Bcli

I

I

Cloten/ Gwlyddicn

I

Cinnin

Catgual

I

I

Cincen

I

I

I

Maucann

Millo

Cangan

lacob +613

Nougoy

CaJuir

I

I

I

Arthur

Cattegirn ____ I____ — r .r Pascent Brittu

Brochfael

I

Catman

Ytigoy

Elbodgu

Cynan

Catguollaun +631/4

Enniaun

Gurhaierm

Selyf +613

Catgocaun

Catgualart +682

Rumaun

Regin

lutguaul

Meriaun

Guilauc

Rotri +754

Caratauc +798

Elict

Higuël +825

Brocmayl

I Cathen

* (Biel.

(H)esselis

I Teudos

I

I Margetiut +796 Cinnan +816

I Rcgin +808

I

Triphun +814

Catell +808

Ouein+811 Gwriad = Etthil

____!

.

I—

Tancoyslt = Bleddri Mermin +844 = Nest Himeyt +893

Rotri +878

Loumarch +903

Catell +909

I

I

Higuel +950

Elen Ouein +988

55

—

H

Cincenn +855

Grippiud +814 Elized (fl. 814)

Dumville

No useful pedigree for the royal line of Dumnonia has been found, and discussion o f Constantine is therefore appropriately restricted. We come first to the question of identification. O f the five kings, only two are given territorial or tribal designations ensuring the correct identi­ fication of their kingdoms. However, Constantine o f ‘Damnonia’ cannot be placed convincingly in the extant pedigree of the Dumnonian royal line, and that pedigree itself cannot be attached to any exact dates so that no floruit may be computed for him .19 U ortipor o f Dyfed does not present such dif­ ficulties, however. Formally speaking, the other three kings remain uniden­ tified. Maglocunus, or Maelgwn, is most easily identifed as the Maelgwn, king o f Gwynedd, represented to us in a variety of sources from the ninth century onwards as a very powerful ruler o f the sub-Roman period.20 Cuneglasus — in Modern Welsh guise, Cynlas — has been generally ac­ cepted as a ruler of Rhos, but the identification raises a variety of difficult questions which demand discussion. And the name Aurelius Caninus has been recognised as concealing in its second element the Welsh name Cynin; a candidate for identification presents himself as a Powys dynast. The genealogical table presents a series of pedigrees based principally on the mid-tenth-century Harleian collection. It therefore offers, with however many early mediaeval scribal errors, a single mid-tenth-century view o f the principal lines o f three major kingdoms, Dyfed, Gwynedd, and Powys. Each o f the pedigrees is bound, however, by a separate (if occasionally interlocking) series of problems of interpretation, and this form o f presen­ tation is therefore potentially very misleading in parts. The generational alignment is controlled, within a dynasty, by the ultimate common ancestor of the lineages and, between dynasties, by the marriages with members of the Venedotian dynasties. While the genealogical details for the ninth cen­ tury are generally convincing in our tenth-century text, the marriage of Nest and Merfyn belongs to a group which does attract some suspicion because o f the behaviour o f the Second Dynasty o f Gwynedd in the ninth century. Let us turn first, and very briefly, to Constantine of ‘Damnonia*, Gildas’s first target (11.28—29). In the year o f writing (and publication?) Constantine had killed two regiipueri before the altar, presumably as being a potential threat to his throne. Neither this parricide (11.28) nor his victims can be placed in any useful genealogical context. If Aurelius Caninus (11.30) is correctly identified under the Welsh name Cynin,21 a possible candidate for identification may be found in one of the royal lineages of Powys. But one must remember that, here as (notoriously) 19 Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, pp. 39 (MG 5), 45 (JC 11), 58 (ByS 26, 27), 65 (ByS 76), and 93 (ByA 30b), for the texts, and pp. 137, 140, 150, for comment; see also Bromwich, Trioedd, pp. 314—16, 355—60. The discussion by Pearce, ‘The traditions’, is too speculative, and too cavalier with the pedigree-sources, to be of any value. 20 See Bromwich, Trioedd, pp. 437—41, and Miller, ‘The foundation-legend’, pp. 515—17. The identification is rendered yet more probable by the remarks of Patrick Sims-Williams, below, pp. 184—92. 21 This is argued by Jackson, ‘ Varia: II’, pp. 32—4. Cf. Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 123; WadeEvans, ‘The origin of Cornwall’, and Welsh Christian Origins, p. 260; and Jackson, Language and History, p. 464.

56

Gildas and Maelgwn

in the case of Cynlas, one runs great risks in making an identification based principally on mere identity o f name. Our records are skeletally exiguous for this period and there may have been a hundred royal Cynins in Wales during the early middle ages. According to Gildas, Cynin’s patres and fratres had all died in their youth; Cynin has survived (perhaps to middleage — ‘relictus. . . iam solus ac si arbor in medio campo arescens’) but can­ not expect to survive to any great age. He too is a parricide but also a for­ nicator and adulterer. He suffers from ‘ciuilia . . . bella et crebras iniuste praedas sitiens’. If he is to be taken as a king of Powys,22 a notable gap in previous perceptions of Gildas’s Welsh polity can now be closed. But the identification remains very uncertain. In the table, Cynin appears to be located in a quite different generation from the other three rulers named by Gildas. The main Powysian trunk-line is severely defective in its seventhcentury section, however, causing a notable foreshortening by up to four generations; if this were corrected on the table Cynin would stand in exactly the right position. Because of the lacunose quality o f the main pedigree, we are deprived of the possibility of calculating a generation-average for the Powys royal line. If, however, we reckon two generations from Selyf (ob. 613), Cynin's floruit can be placed safely in the middle of the sixth century. Uortiporius, Demetarum tyrannus (11.31), is the best attested o f these rulers. Apart from the existence o f a bilingual Irish and Latin memorial stone found within the boundaries o f his quondam kingdom,23245the pedigree is exceptionally well preserved. For twelve generations, down to the second half of the eighth century (and contemporaneity o f record), there is agree­ ment between the principal Welsh sources and the genealogical evidence provided by the Irish text Indarba na nDéissi;u evidently this line retained its contacts with its ultimate Irish homeland; scholars have generally accepted that the two sources are independent and mutally confirm atory.23 If Guortepir (as he is in Old Welsh) is to be placed in the first half of the sixth century, then a generation-average of about 23 years brings us down to recorded dates for members of this old dynasty at the end o f the eighth and beginning of the ninth century; thereafter, to 988, with two further dynasties, an average of 33 years seems most appropriate. Gildas tells us that Uortipor was an old man, by the standards of the age, at the time of writing. Cuneglasus (11.32), or Cynlas, presents the most problems o f Gildas’s rulers. In the Venedotian pedigrees a Cynlas may be found as a first cousin

22 Identifying him with the Cynin of HG 23: Bartrum, Eariy Welsh Genealogical Tracts, p. 12. 23 Nash-Williams, The Early Christian Monuments, p. 107 (no. 138); cf. Jackson, Language and History, pp. 169—70, 175—7, 749. 24 Cf. Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, p. 4; cf. Ô Cathasaigh, ‘On the LU ver­ sion*. The Dyfed pedigree is discussed by Miller, ‘Date-guessing and Dyfed', and by SimsWilliams, ‘The significance*, pp. 618—19. 25 But this requires reinvestigation. Can the Irish text in fact be assigned to the later eighth century? Are there no language-forms which would suggest Welsh transmission of the pedigree? ISee now also Ô Cathasaigh, ‘The Déisi and Dyfed*.)

57

Dumville

to Maelgwn.26 A very late pedigree-text2728tells us that his line belonged to (the cantref of) Rhos, in eastern Gwynedd. In the enthusiasm to adopt this Cynlas into Gildas’s narrative, scholars have overlooked obvious diffi­ culties. We can learn little o f Cynlas from Gildas’s notice: Gildas calls him lanio fu lu e ,M and tells us of his oppressive government and his marital delicts. The only hint at further identification comes from the phrase, applied to him by Gildas, ‘multorum sessor aurigaque currus receptaculi ursP; it has been argued29 that this must represent a place-name Dinarth which would occur within his kingdom. But this is a difficult identification to insist upon and, in any case, places called Dinarth (Din Eirth) are not, it seems, otherwise unknown.30 The first difficulty is that, if we judge by the position during the declining years of the First Dynasty of Gwynedd — the closing decades o f the eighth century and the beginning of the ninth — Cynlas’s descendents and Maelgwn’s were rivals for control of the kingdom o f Gwynedd, alternating uneasily in the kingship. Both lines terminated at much the same time, ca 820. If that rivalry was true also of Gildas’s day, then we are faced with a complicated series of choices: either Cynlas preceded Maelgwn in the kingship, or vice versa31 (according to Gildas, 11.33, Maelgwn in early youth killed his uncle, the king, who could, on the evidence o f the extant genealogies, have been Cynlas’s father Owain); or Gwynedd was then divi­ ded between two or more rulers, to avoid a constant civil war; or the prin­ cipal king of Gwynedd was an overlord with a series o f dependent Venedotian kings (who may or may not have been relatives of the overlord) in what are now Venedotian cantrefi. None o f these can be rejected. But a quite different approach is possible. At some juncture, the royal lines, of the kingdoms which subsequently became dependent adminis­ trative units o f Gwynedd, were affiliated to the main Venedotian patriline. Cynlas’s line, perhaps hereditary rulers of Rhos,32 may have been so affili­ ated between the sixth century and the tenth. We would then most naturally suppose the Venedotian Caradog (ob. 798) and his son Hywel to be falsely affiliated to a local pedigree to give them standing in the locality (the Venedotian eponymic names Einion, Rhufon, and Meirion may mark the point of affiliation33). Alternatively, the descendants o f the local line might indeed have become so assimiliated to the Venedotian dynasty by the eighth

26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

HG 3: Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, p. 10. ABT 25: ibid., p. 108. On which phrase see now Wright, 'A note’.’ By John Morris, for example: apud Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 152. For Dineirth in Rhos, see ByS 25: Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, p. 58. For Dineirth in Ceredigion, see Lloyd, A History, 11.472,506,617, and 621. Cf. King, ‘The castles’, pp. 57—8; Brown, *A list’, p. 266 and n. 5 (no. 94); Hogg & King, ‘Early castles’, p. 110. For the independent suggestion that Gildas’s Cynlas belonged in Ceredigion, see Thomas, Christianity, p. 251. Which would have interesting implications for the discussion of the ten years’ delay in publication of De Excidio. If we do follow ABT 25. HG 3.

58

Gildas and Maelgwn

century that they could be successful claimants to the kingship o f all Gwynedd. Whatever we may conclude about the pedigree, and about the place of Caradog and Hywel in it, it is open to us to conclude, on rejecting its affilia­ tion to Einion Yrth and Cunedda, that if Cynlas was indeed king of Rhos (the identification is very far from sure, however) it was not in Maelgwn’s day (and Gildas’s) part of Gwynedd but an independent kingdom (or even a dependency of Powys). In effect, the possibilities are legion. We cannot be sure that Gildas’s Cuneglasus is the very Cynlas of the genealogy; even if so, we cannot be cer­ tain that he or his line belonged to Rhos, or that he is correctly affiliated to the Venedotian dynasty. And one may note that a generation-average of twenty-five years, counting back from the death o f Hywel ap Caradog in 825, would suffice to set Cynlas’s death ca 550. However, although it is almost impossible — for lack of data — to criticise Hywel ap Caradog’s pedigree, we may note that it is suspiciously consistent with the main Gwynedd line which has been demonstrated to be seriously unsatisfactory in at least two places;14 it may therefore be of relatively recent construction. Finally, we may note of the pedigree of the First Dynasty of Gwynedd that, given its ten generations back from the death o f Cynan ap Rhodri in 816 to that of Cadwallon in 534, the resulting average of 28.2 years is by no means incredible, although the precise dates which can be assigned to seven of the eleven names indicate difficulties in sections of the pedigree which strongly imply construction to a Chronographie formula. On the other hand, the average of the Second Dynasty over five generations from 826 to 988 is 32.4 years, a significant difference which needs to be accounted for. In short, neither the pedigrees nor the absolute dates at the earlier end o f the scale offer a sufficiently reliable basis on which we can compute dates for the four kings. The Powys pedigree is defective; the Venedotian shows signs o f construction; that of ‘Rhos’ is suspect and, in any case, uncertainly the descent o f the right Cynlas; the Dimetian, while potentially accurate, lacks any absolute dates before the end of the eighth century and so pro­ vides no secure basis for computation. All that said, there is nothing here specifically against the received dating of Gildas’s contemporaries, but there are no reliable grounds for it either, and the risk of construction which relied on a knowledge of Gildas must ever be kept in mind. The conclusion of our enquiry must therefore be a simple one. In neither the annalistic nor the genealogical evidence have we sufficiently early or reliable data to enforce the traditional identification and datings of Gildas’s kings. If other considerations demand that the conventional dating of Gildas be revised, then these sources are not strong enough to inhibit such a process of re-evaluation.’5345

34 See Miller, Date-guessing and pedigrees', for a valuable study of the Venedotian royal pedigrees. 35 I am most grateful to Patrick Sims-Williams for reading and commenting upon a draft of this chapter.

59

IV

THE CHRONOLOGY OF DE EXCIDIO BRITANNIA E, BOOK I David N. Dumviile

•

IF the customary grounds for the dating o f Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae are to be considered too insubstantial to command confidence,1we must, in view of the other potential doubts about the usual dating o f his activity,23 return to his narrative account of British history which constitutes Book I of De Excidio. No objection has been entered to the view that in §26 Gildas brings the narrative down to his own time; but there is dispute as to whether he does the same in §21.} For our present purpose, it is necessary to study Gildas’s account of events in Britain from the time of Magnus Maximus (§13) onwards. Since Gildas eschews the use of absolute dates, or the statement of specified periods o f time, the historian’s problem is to equip the text with a chronology, however elastic, and to identify the real points o f difficulty in gaining such chronological comprehension. In this process the student is now materially aided by a characteristically incisive paper by Professor E. A. Thompson; in as much as I have felt compelled to differ from some of his conclusions, it is because of the different aims of this study and occa­ sionally different perceptions of the context. The study o f Gildas has suddenly moved so far forward in less than a decade because fresh minds with very different backgrounds and attitudes have been applied first to the text, and only then to the context; Thompson’s paper is the latest brilliant contribution.4 At the outset, the problem of Gildas’s own ideas o f chronology must be faced. We do not know what kind of calendar Gildas followed. We do not know whether he could have assigned any absolute dates — according to whatever era — to any o f the events which he describes. But he clearly had some relative dating in mind: the potential fluidity of his mental chronology is here deliberately held within bounds for the sake o f the present exercise. I have built on our ability to date the reign of Magnus Maximus (383—8), the Honorian Rescript (410), and the third consulship o f Aëtius (446), all o f 1 See (he preceding chapter (pp. 51—9). 2 See Michael Lapidge’s remarks, above, pn. 27—50. 3 That view was advanced by Miller, ‘Bede’s use'; it was denied by Thompson, ‘Gildas’, p. 216, n. 66, and is discussed further below, pp. 69—70. 4 Thompson, ‘Gildas*. The various papers by Michael Winterbottom, by the late Molly Miller, and by Edward Thompson — three classicists by training, albeit of very different sorts — are the splendid results of this new attention to the text.

61 Gildas: New Approaches, edd. M. Lapidge& D. Dumviile, Studies in Celtic History V (Boydell Press, 1984), pp. 61—84.

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which are parts o f Gildas’s narrative. It is o f course possible that Gildas knew no temporal era, that he lived in a chronological fog. But, in my view at least, it is foolish to start from such a presupposition; I have preferred to attempt the experiment which follows. There is a further complexity, moreover. Even if Gildas had an era and information which allowed him to date these events in relation to his present time, he may have misplaced them in the general sequence o f his narrative. Given the nature of our sources for the period, however, this hypothesis is by definition unprovable: especially unhelpful, it therefore seems to me, is the old theory — periodically revived — that Gildas misplaced the letter bearing the gem itus Britannorum to ‘Agitius’.5 We take up the story with the usurpation of Magnus Maximus. We can assign his im perium to the years 383—8, which gives us a secure terminus from which to begin our study. We know,6 although Gildas does not tell us, that Magnus Maximus began his reign by defeating an invasion o f Piets and Irish, and one is bound to wonder whether the threat or actuality o f this irruption had something to do with the coup d 'état which brought him to power.7 For Gildas, Maximus is important as the evil usurper who stripped Britain of its soldiery to assist in his Continental adventures, with the result that the land was left defenceless in face of barbarian attack. At once it becomes important to understand precisely which territory Gildas is speak­ ing about. §14 and the first sentence of §15 (which must have the same sub­ ject) make it clear that it is Britannia which has suffered in this way. The en­ tire subsequent literary tradition, Welsh, Latin, and English, has been in no doubt that the whole Roman diocese was Gildas’s meaning. Have we here, as in so many other cases, allowed a literary tradition continuous down to our own day to colour our reading of an early mediaeval author? If we are to depart from this tradition we have two ways of interpreting Gildas’s words: either he spoke of Britannia, generalising his interest in a part o f the diocese to the whole; or else he is the first witness to the mediaeval usage of Britannia in Celtic Latin writers, meaning that part o f the island o f Britain which was under British (as opposed to English, Irish, or Pictish) rule, and using it, as it would be applicable in his own day, to refer principally to the more northerly and westerly parts of Britain south of the Forth-Clyde (Antonine Wall) frontier with the Piets. We may even come to see grounds for supposing that by Britannia he meant still less than that — the patria or regio o f his own account. Dr Miller has argued that in §§14—21 Gildas speaks only of the northern part o f ‘cisantonine’ Britain and Professor Thompson has in effect followed her (extending this conclusion to cover §§22—26 also). What are the consequences of such an interpretation? The principal objection which this view must face is that, given Giidas’s identification of the threat to Britain in this period — the Piets and Irish —, it is inevitable that his account refers to northern Britain. There is no 5 On all this, contrast the recent opinions of Sims-Williams. ‘Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons’, pp. 4—5, and ‘The settlement’, pp. 6—9. Cf. below, pp. 67—8. 6 From the Gallic ‘Chron. ad CCCCLII': ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, III.646 (§7). 7 Compare the events of A.D. 406—10, as studied by Thompson, ‘Britain, A.D. 406—410’.

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reason, within these terms o f reference, to speak of the Midlands or South (or perhaps even of Wales and the West). It is only when the Saxons are introduced into the story that that possibility arises (§§23—26). Under these circumstances it is perfectly conceivable that Gildas’s generalisations refer to Britain, while of necessity the specific military details concern the North alone. However, let us proceed for the moment with Miller and Thompson, for a prim a fa cie case may certainly be said to have been made for their view. The problem which has confronted scholars is why Gildas placed such emphasis on Magnus Maximus, ignoring further usurpations (and restora­ tions o f legitimate Imperial rule), if that is indeed what he does, between 388 and 410. How are we to take Gildas’s insistence that the military exodus o f 383—8 removed from the island whatever regular Roman soldiery (and effective Roman administration) was available for defending Britain? Gildas stands here at the head of a legend which had a profound effect on mediaeval Welsh political thought.' But was he himself heir to a legend formed even nearer Magnus Maximus’s own time rather than its originator? Either solution has seemed a difficult choice, for Gildas’s apparent knowledge of Orosius’s H istoria has left scholars wondering why he chose to ignore much o f Orosius’s other information on Romano-British history.89 Thom pson’s denial of Gildas’s indebtedness to Orosius may provide an escape from this particular difficulty,101although his denial is challenged by Neil W right." But we may now be rescued from potentially embarrassing arguments from silence about why Gildas ignored or suppressed apparently relevant Orosian information. In fact, the thesis of Miller and Thompson that Gildas’s narrative refers to the North alone can perhaps begin to point the way, by returning us to redefine and limit older theories, to an explanation of Gildas’s attitude. We must ask what happened to the garrisons of H adrian’s Wall and other nor­ therly military settlements in these years. It has been argued that Roman military activity at Carnarvon and Chester, for example, ceases in the time o f Magnus M aximus.12 The dating o f the last archaeologically identifiable phase of H adrian’s Wall is disputed, as is its significance, but a change in the character of the frontier-defences in these years seems quite possible. Unfortunately any argument from absence of archaeological evidence is doomed to failure in view of the very nature of archaeological discovery. One option of interpretation would yet seem to be that in Maximus’s reign northern Britain was brought to rely for its defence not on regular Imperial 8 This effect is examined briefly by Dumville, ‘Sub-Roman Britain*, pp. 179—81. 9 Miller, ‘Bede’s use’, and Dumville. ‘Sub-Roman Britain’, are the latest. Cf. also n. 17 below. 10 Thompson, ‘Gildas’, pp. 206, 210—11. He is supported by Sims-Williams, 'Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons’, p. S. 11 Below, pp. 110—II. 12 This is now denied by some. For some discussion see Casey, ‘Magnus Maximus in Britain'. These disputes must turn largely on how to interpret numismatic evidence. Does the presence of coinage necessarily imply the presence of regular soldiery, as some seem to think? Cf. Kent, ‘Coin evidence’; and Mann, ‘The Northern frontier’.

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armies but on locally settled paramilitary forces.13 We are prohibited, however, from pushing this argument too far, especially with regard to the H adrian’s Wall defensive system, since we must be careful not to deny the logical development of the argument o f our only narrative source, the De Excidio itself. For, according to Gildas, the Roman walls had not yet been built. It was the appreciation of this same logic which led Thompson to deny the reality of the two Imperial military expeditions to Britain between 388 and 410 which Gildas relates in §§13— 18. In Gildas’s account, the two expeditions exist to explain the exis­ tence of the two frontier-walls.14 Since we reject that explanation as wrong, we must also, with Thompson, reject the vehicles which Gildas employs to explain them. It is, o f course, perfectly possible that the two expeditions related by Gildas in fact refer to a legitimist expedition after the fall o f Maximus in 38815and to that o f Stilico in 398, and that Gildas has been able to employ them as a means of explaining the existence o f the two walls. But we cannot show this and there is accordingly no option but to reject them. That units o f the Trier field-army were periodically dispatched ad hoc to Britain16in the fourth century does not o f itself provide the justification for retaining Gildas’s account when the very motivation o f that account can be shown to be mistaken. With the two legionary expeditions and the two walls must go the two Pictish-Irish invasions, at first successful but subsequently defeated by Roman intervention. Similarly we must reject the building (§18) o f the south-coast harbour-turres (Saxon-Shore forts?), although while so doing we must note that the mention of these would seem to give the lie to the notion that Gildas is writing of the North only.17 That which can be salavaged from §18 is the memory o f the Honorian rescript o f A.D. 410. We need it here merely as a chronological indicator in the development of Gildas’s narrative. This means that, if Gildas’s sequence is historical, the events of §19 belong to the years 410 x 446 (uelpaulo post)But again we must note that we have no reason to doubt that Gildas was speaking o f the Britons as a whole when reporting that the Romans told them that they would not in future be able to return to help them. §19 is a crucial section of Book I, in respect o f both chronology and the geographical interpretation o f G ildas’s narrative. Let us begin with chronology. In a single chapter we cover about 35—40 years. Following Gildas’s account (§18) of the final Roman departure, which is best associated with the H onorian rescript o f 410, the Irish and Piets assaulted 13 Cf. the similar argument for a Theodosian (post-367) reorganisation: Richmond, Roman and Native, pp. 121—4. 14 One is bound to wonder whether Gildas feels the necessity to explain the walls because they were such a prominent feature of the northern landscape. Would a southerner have felt the same compulsion? 15 Although, interestingly, such is not otherwise attested, as far as I have been able to discover; cf. Thompson, 'Gildas*, pp. 205—8. 16 And perhaps this is how we should see Stilico*s apparent expedition of 398: Salway, Roman Britain, pp. 419—25; Miller, 'Stilicho*s Pictish war*. 17 But Gildas*s statement of their motives — fear that the Piets and Irish would attack there too — does suggest that he had a Pictocentric view which would be proper to one concerned with the North.

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Britain once again." They seized from its native inhabitants ‘omnem aquilonalem extremamque terrae partem . . . muro tenus’, ‘the whole nor­ thern and extreme part of the land . . . as far as the wall’. The wall was held by a military force, but it was incompetent; it did not take the offensive and was itself attacked. The dues then abandoned both duitates and m urum for flight. Further assaults and massacres took place and, under the stress of barbarian attack, internal dissension broke out; as a result o f all the disorder food became desperately scarce throughout om nis regio. In this situation the miserae reliquiae wrote to Agitius who (accepting for the moment the equation with Aëtius) is described as ter consul, dating their letters to 446 at the earliest. In this passage, replete with potential difficulties, we have an account o f a generation of warfare. It is here for the first time that it becomes crucial to know precisely whether Gildas is talking about northern Britain or about ‘Roman’ Britain as a whole. There are various lessons for us here. This is the only passage in Gildas’s account of sub-Roman Britain of which we can reasonably ask pointed and intelligent questions. The reason is that we have chronological termini: in no other section is this true. After the appeal to Agitius we move o ff into uncharted seas. From ca 4S0 to the end of Gildas’s narrative we can only follow where he leads and try to guess at a chronology and about the loca­ tion and degree o f applicability o f the events which he narrates. The date o f writing o f the De Excidio and consequently the end o f Gildas’s narrative is not a given terminus: it is what we are trying to discover from Gildas’s scarcely pellucid account. In §19, then, we are blessed with a degree of chronological certainty. But what do we find? O f a much more actionpacked sequence of events Professor Thompson says: ‘All these events did not necessarily occupy more than twelve or fifteen years’; 1’ or o f the War o f the Saxon Federates he tells us ‘it would not be inconsistent with Gildas’s words to suppose that those ferocious campaigns were all over in a single summer, perhaps even in part o f a summer’.20We might almost say either of §19. But either of these chronologically minimal interpretations would be wrong: the period is one o f 35—40 years, 410—446 (x 454). True, it could be argued that these events did all take place in a hurry, in the mid-440s, but that would be special pleading to meet a difficulty in another part o f the text, and would in any case pervert Gildas’s words. How then must we imagine the sequence of events in §19? It seems plain that (1) the seizure of the lands m uro tenus21 took place rapidly after the withdrawal of Roman support (‘illis ad sua remeantibus, emergunt . . . Scottorum Pictorumque greges’).22 There followed (2) a period in which the 18920 18 On Gildas and the Rescript, see Thompson ‘Zosimus 6.10.2’. My following references to ’the wall’ are henceforth to the stone wall (viz Hadrian’s) as being the only effective (and the more recent) one in Gildas's view. 19 ’Gildas’, p. 220. 20 Ibid., p. 219. 21 In view of the variety of interpretation of this phrase, we need a study of the possible range of meaning of tenus. 22 Thompson implies (‘Gildas’, p. 214 and n. $4), but does not actually say, that all the events of $19 took place immediately preceding 446.

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wall-frontier was threatened. Eventually (3) the defences o f wall and ciuitates (which ones we are left to conjecture) were abandoned, allowing further enemy attacks, this time on the former Roman diocese. These in turn gave rise to (4) civil disorders (during which time the barbarian attacks continued). Because o f huiuscem odi (sc. ‘disasters from abroad and inter­ nal disorders’] tarn crebris direptionibus (3) the food-supply ran out. It seems to me that periods (2) and (4), and just possibly (3), can have been, and very likely were, quite lengthy. As the situation became absolutely disastrous, with devastation and famine destroying civilised life and much o f the population, the miserae reliquiae made their appeal to Agitius. In this way we see how the events can span a generation, as is required by the pro­ gress o f the narrative. We must turn now to the scene of these events. The natural interpretation o f the first stage of these events is that some part o f northern Britain as far south as the wall23 was seized by the barbarians.2425 This is perfectly straightforward and credible. The territory was occupied by British tribes and represented the natural first target o f invaders. In periods o f Roman strength, this area would have been closely supervised from Roman Britain, south o f the wall; in periods o f weakness, as (on Gildas’s testimony) after 410, it was the expendable buffer-state area. The remaining events follow in a natural sequence. But Professor Thompson has given a new and astonish­ ing interpretation to the first stage, in which Northumbria as far north as the wall is seized by the barbarians (who must therefore be made to attack from the south — say at the Ribble and Humber — and drive north); but then, because be believes that Gildas’s narrative always concerns only the north of ‘Rom an’ Britain, he is obliged to make the succeeding sentences o f §19 into commentary on what is said in the first sentence (‘Itaque illis . . . muro tenus capessunt’) — in effect, to make the remainder o f §19 precede what is narrated at its outset. We must reject this scenario as unnatural and excessively complicated. If we can take the m um s always to be H adrian’s Wall, then it is d e ar that the Irish and Piets seized control o f the territory between the Forth-Clyde line and H adrian’s W all.23They kept up the pressure and eventually managed to carry their preying expeditions into ‘Roman’ Britain, bringing unpleasant immediate results and causing such strains in the political and social fabric that chaos resulted. How far did this chaos extend? Gildas links the abandonment o f ciuitates with that o f the wall. I am not sure that it is clear what he means by a

23 The parallel with the language of §21 cannot be brushed aside, as by Thompson (‘Gildas’, p. 214 and n. 55). 24 That the barbarians came by sea (curucis) is hardly an obstacle to this view: Thompson, ‘Gildas*, p. 214. 25 Against this, Thompson urges the view that Gildas would be uninterested in what happened there. This is extraordinary in itself, but is part of Thompson’s repeated attempts to sunder the north Britons from their more southerly cousins in the fifth century. The native evidence is wholly against this: the Britons appear as a single polity and a single race.

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ciuitas;26 if he means a defensible urban settlement the number of these in the North would have been limited. But Gildas specifies no numbers, and we must be careful not to paint a more lurid picture than he does. The only other hint is his statement that, because o f the disorders, om nis regio came to lack foodstuffs. This naturally implies some previous understanding o f the area involved. But there are two difficulties: regio is a vague word; and while Gildas may have felt that he had made it sufficiently clear what region he was talking about we cannot enjoy the same confidence — he was not obliged to spell it out in such a way that we, wrestling with rival theories, could understand it. He could be speaking of the whole of ‘Roman’ Britain. He could be referring to the territories dependent on the towns which had now been abandoned by their dues. We have not the means to decide. It is a reasonable conjecture that we are dealing with cisvallate Northumbria, but we must be aware that this is our extension or interpretation of Gildas’s geographically inexplicit remarks: we cannot therefore legitimately build a further hypothesis upon this conjecture. It is not a ‘fact [that] Gildas is speaking of the very north of Roman Britain’.27 We come to §20 and the appeal28 o f the miserae reliquiae (of the regio of §19, however widely or narrowly defined) to Agitius, ter consul and romanae potestatis uir. The first question to be faced is the identification of Gildas’s A gitius with the Roman patrician Aëtius. There are several aspects to this matter. If there are any other equivalent or similar spellings of Aëtius’s name in Continental sources of the period, they have not been in­ troduced into the discussion o f Gildas’s text.29 In the absence o f such spell­ ings we can draw one of three conclusions. ( 1) The spelling is scribal, deriving from an early mediaeval (6th— 10th cen­ tury) copyist of the De Excidio. In view o f the unanimity o f the manuscripts this seems improbable, although it cannot be disproved.30 (2) The spelling originates with Gildas. This is perhaps the least likely option. It requires us to assume that Gildas changed a spelling in a document from which he was quoting directly. To draw this conclusion we should have to suppose that Gildas had a d ear idea of how to pro­ nounce the name in question and felt that the inherited spelling would not convey such a pronunciation. If Gildas wrote in the second quarter of the sixth century, and copied a document of ca 4S0, that interpreta­ tion is possible, given the changes in the British pronunciation of Latin hypothesised as occurring during that period. Alternatively we could conclude that Gildas (unlike his source) did not mean Aètius at all, and 26 The implication, in view of what is said in §§21 and 23, is perhaps that the whole system of city-state government broke down in this period. If the De Excidio has internal cohesion, the abandoned ciuitates must be all or some of the twenty-eight ciuitates of §3. 27 And therefore I cannot think doubt to be either ‘wrong* or 'wrong-headed*: Thompson, •Gildas*, p. 215. 28 Gildas specifies a plurality of letters: epistolas (§§2, 20). 29 An example may occur in some manuscripts of the GenealoRiae Gentium: ed. Goffart, 'The supposedly "Frankish** table of nations', p. 110. 30 I find unhelpful the remarks of John Morris on the spelling: apud Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 149.

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had ‘corrected’ his source in the belief that its spelling was corrupt; the obvious alternative name is Aegidius. (3) The spelling is original to Gildas’s source(s) (or is scribal, o f ca 430 x lea 323), and may or may not stand for Aëtius. It if does, we are left to draw some unflattering conclusions about the writers o f the letter. The implication is that its authors had never seen Aëtius’s name written. Yet from at least 437 Aëtius had been master o f the western Empire, and had been a notable figure in Imperial politics from 423. If his British correspondents were sufficiently well informed to appeal to him, why could they not spell his name? The severance o f Britain from normal relations with the rest o f the Empire in 410 may have meant that no official documents reached Britain thereafter. But we can hardly sup­ pose that all intercourse with the Continent ceased, and this ignorance seems particularly surprising. In fact, what makes the equation with Aëtius seem reasonably secure is the appellation ter consul.*1Aëtius was consul in 432, 437, and 446. From then until his death in September 434 he could presumably have been addressed as ter consul;3 312534the formal limits for the writing o f the letter are therefore 446 x 434. How much these dates can safely be narrowed is uncertain: attempts at greater definition must necessarily employ arguments which attribute knowledge o f Aëtius’s movements” or circumstances o f the authors o f the gem itus Britannorum . Such knowledge is quite possible but, if we hypothesise from it, we cannot then use the hypothesis to speculate further about the dating of the British appeal. While the British waited in vain for help from Aëtius the impending famine (§19) struck wholeheartedly” (§20). In face o f this some Britons sur­ rendered themselves to the barbarians; but others fought on against them ‘from mountains, caves, heaths, and thorny thickets'.” The barbarians had been ‘per multos annos praedas in terra agentibus’, but now for the first time they were badly and repeatedly36defeated by the Britons and withdrew. It is possible that §20 moves us on chronologically for a substantial period: but per m ultos annos looks back especially over the events described in §19; we do not need to insist on m ulti anni in §20 too. By the mid-430s, we might say, and perhaps earlier, Britain, or the relevant part of it, was 31 One might. I suppose, consider the possibility of separate consuls existing in the regnum Romanorum of north-west Gaul. If the equation with Aëtius were to fall, there could be considerable implications for our comprehension of the text’s chronology. Some scholars have insisted that Gildas placed the letter to Agitius at the wrong point in his narrative (see, most recently, Sims-Williams, ’The settlement’, pp. 6—9): I find this unhelpful. 32 A collection of parallel usages would be desirable. On an alleged fourth consulship of Aütius, the view (against) of Otto Seeck, supported by Thompson (‘Gildas’, p. 215, n. 60) is also that of Jones et al.. The Prosopography, 11.21—9. 33 Ibid., pp. 27—8. He was in Gaul in 447/8, in 451 (to fight the Huns), and again in 451 x 453 (but probably not in 452). 34 As Thompson points out (‘Gildas’, p. 215), the description famosissima implies that the famine was still spoken of in Gildas's own day. What are the implications of this? 35 Taking the force of the imperfect dabant, as Thompson notes (‘Gildas’, p. 216, n. 65). 36 See the discussion below, pp. 85—105, by Neil Wright for a different interpretation of this passage.

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free o f Pictish and Irish armies. The Irish returned home (§21), ‘post non longum temporis reuersuri’. The Piets in future contented themselves with the occasional (nonnum quam ) ‘praedas et contritiones’ from their north British homeland (‘in extrema parte insulae . . . requieuerunt’).37 Peace brought unprecedented abundance and, with it, luxuria; what Gildas includes within the latter term is immediately specified — fornicatio; odium ueritatis; am or mendacii; and so on. In this atmosphere o f moral depravity and material affluence (sicut et nunc est, notes Gildas) cruel kings ruled — is it Gildas’s implication that this was the beginning o f kingship in this territory? — and were deposed and killed, being replaced by other such tyrants (in short, there was civil war); the clergy, and Christians in general, were for the most part caught up in sin (drunkenness, envy, and so on). In talibus indutiis says Gildas, speaking of this period; quiescente autem uastitate. This is the full extent of the indications which Gildas gives us of the length of this period (which is no help at all, o f course). Bede got himself into great difficulty with this passage,37 and we must not follow him; but, for the same reasons, modern scholars have felt it to be a problem .38 If we follow Miller and Thompson in believing the preceding events, and these, to belong to Northumbria we have no reason artificially to cut short this period o f affluence because of the necessity to get Saxons into the country in the mid-fifth century. But even if we do not follow this particular geographical interpretation and suppose Gildas to be speaking instead in §21 of Britannia as a whole we must still not be stampeded, for it is far from d e a r that we should prefer Bede’s interpretation and consequent chronology to what we can deduce for ourselves from Gildas’s text.39 Thompson insists40 that ‘three or four good harvests would account for’ the period o f unexampled prosperity; it is hard to believe that this interpreta­ tion could command even formal acceptance, and it is unnecessary since Thompson has already rejected the presuppositions which make necessary the abbreviation of this period.41 We may also note that Gildas begins and ends §21 by comparing that time o f abundantiarum copiae and luxuria with his own: sicut et nunc est he says in the first sentence, speaking o f the addiction o f the Britons to civil war and sin and their weak inability to defeat foreign aggressors; sicut et nunc est, he repeats in the last sentence, speaking of the moral aimlessness of the leaders42 of British society.43 In Gildas's own day (§26), civil wars and moral turpitude were again the rule, a situation which may have lasted for about a 37 Nonnumquam could indeed even be translated as ‘frequent'. For further discussion of this passage and its treatment by later writers, see Neil Wright, 'Gildas's geographical perspec­ tive: some problems', below, pp. 85—100. 38 There is a good summary of the position in Fisher, The Anglo-Saxon Age, pp. 16—24. 39 Cf. Miller, 'Bede’s use’. 40 'Gildas', p. 220. 41 However, Thompson ('Gildas*, p. 220) has unnecessarily lengthened the period (after the appeal to Aêtius) by 5—7 years by believing that the multos annos of enemy plundering happened after the appeal. This is not what Gildas says. 42 So I should render Gildas's principes. 43 Note also the et nunc quoque in the middle of the chapter.

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generation by the time when Gildas was writing. This, it seems to me, would also be the most natural chronological interpretation of §21. Gildas's message for his own time could not, we may think, have been clearer:44456that corrupt generation suffered a terrible fate because o f its vices and its inabili­ ty to heed warnings; if our generation does not heed current admonitions (like that of the De E xcidiol) it too will suffer comparably. In §22 Gildas specifies the divinely inspired warnings which the Britons would not heed.49 First, a rumour circulated through ‘arrectas omnium . . . au res’ concerning an ‘aduentus ueterum uolentium’, the Irish and Piets,44 ‘penifus delere et inhabitare — solito more — a fine usque ad terminum regionem’; the enemies would, in their accustomed fashion, utterly devastate the whole region and then settle it. We are left to conclude, from what follows, that this process did indeed begin.47 A disastrous plague4* was the sequel (sent, says Gildas, because the people persisted in sin). The leaders of the beleaguered people then held a meeting (‘Initur namque consilium . . .’) to thrash out a military solution ('quid ad repellendas’) to the invasions of the Irish and Piets (‘tarn ferales et tarn crebras supradictarum gentium irruptiones praedasque’). Here, chronologically minimal interpretation is quite in order. A single year, two at most, could suffice for the events of §22. Gildas's use o f regio for the area in question automatically reminds us of the end o f §19, and strongly suggests — although it does not prove — that Gildas is speaking o f the same territory. But to the extent that the definition of the regio was open to dispute in §19, it remains so here. Gildas is unforthcoming about the identity or standing o f those who took counsel together. I do not think49 that in the two sentences in question (end o f §22; beginning of §23, where he calls them consiliarii) Gildas gives us warrant to assume the summoning of a formal council, whether o f rulers or o f leading citizens. Gildas speaks simply o f a single ruler, an arrogant usurper of legitimate authority — it must remain for the moment a matter of dispute, I think, what conferred legitimacy in Gildas's eyes — who naturally had advisers (courtiers, ministers, counsellors — call them what one will) with whom he devised a plan. The more extravagant interpretation — the superbus tyrannus as overlord, chairing a convention o f kings or leaders of city-states or both — is not impossible: there is merely no

44 Cf. Winterbottom, Gildas, Introduction. 45 God conceives the plan meanwhile (interea) — that is, in the period of abundance — seeing the sins of the people. 46 I see every reason to differ from Thompson’s assertion ('Gildas', p. 215) that the Irish are not again mentioned after the beginning of §21. The ueteres uolentes here and the supradictae gentes of the end of §22 are surely both Irish and Piets (likewise the aquilonales gentes of §23?). 47 The description of this chapter in §2 (de nuntiatis subito hostibus) makes this point too, I think; the enemies followed rapidly on the rumour. 48 Famosa, says Gildas; again, as Thompson points out ('Gildas', p. 216), it was still talked about in Gildas's day. 49 As even Thompson does: 'Gildas', pp. 216, 218.

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necessary warrant for it in Gildas’s words,30 and it is probably best aban­ doned. The minimal interpretation also has implications for the extent o f the regio o f which Gildas has been speaking. Since we know nothing o f the political constitution o f late fifth-century Britain we should be unwise to deny absolutely that there was a superbus tyrannus who controlled all or most o f it. But in Gildas’s time some of the local royal lines were in at least their second or third generation; it is a preferable hypothesis that Gildas is talking of just one kingdom, although its extent could perfectly well have been greater than those of the British kingdoms which we can identify in the historical period. The plan devised (§23) was excidium patriae. Again we are faced with a substantial imponderable: what did Gildas intend to convey by patrial — the whole o f Britannia, or the ‘kingdom’ of the superbus tyrannus and his consiliariP. Certainly it was the ruin o f the latter area, but was it also that of all BritanniaV1 Invitation of the feared Saxones, Germanic barbarians whose raids the Roman and sub-Roman provincials had long had cause to fear, was the preferred means of driving back the invaders. Gildas is awe-struck that ‘Quos propensius morte, cum abessent, tremebant, sponte — ut ita dicam — sub unius tecti culmine inuitabant’. The principal difficulty for us in this account is now Gildas’s remark that for this purpose ‘Saxones . . . in insulam intromitterentur’. He does not actually say here that this is the first such occasion,32 but that seems to be the plain implication of his words.33 Is he ignorant of developments elsewhere in Britain (thus necessarily implying that his account is devoted to a mere part of Britannia)? Has he simply got his chronology wrong? Does he think that Germanic tribesmen settled else­ where in Britain are not Saxones? The first may seem the most acceptable solution, but all are hypothetical and, in effect, special pleading. The Saxons came by sea in three ships and were settled first — iubente infa u sto tyranno — in eastern Britain ('in orientali parte insulae’). Since the Saxons were to be the instrument 'ad repellendas . . . supradictarum gen­ tium irruptiones praedasque’ (§22), ‘ad retundendas aquilonales gentes’ (§23), we must presume them to have been stationed in the North-east, whether of the former Roman province or of British Britain as a whole.34 In501234 50 Isaiah XIX. 11, quoted here by Gildas, does not seem to me to be a sufficiently convincing objection. 51 The full extent of the use of excidium elsewhere in the work may, if defined, help to establish the sense of patria here. Sec further pp. 74—5 below, (cf. also n. 37 above), and Neil Wright, 'Gildas's geographical perspective’, below, pp. 100—5. 52 Although he uses primum when speaking of their settlement in eastern Britain. 53 I wish I could believe Thompson (’Gildas*, p. 216 and n. 70) when he writes that Gildas's words clearly imply the contrary; but I cannot credit this. Here the Saxons 'in insulam . . . intromitterentur'. The Britons would have had good reason for perhaps two centuries to know who the Saxons were from their piratical and raiding activities. That they feared the Saxons even in their absence suggests precisely this. 54 Thompson (’Gildas*, pp. 215 and 218, n. 78) makes too much, I think, of the fact that the Irish are lost to view. A company of 180 men can hardly be dispersed with profit: it was evidently decided that, of the supradictarum gentium, the aquilonales gentes, the Piets, merited their attention as presenting perhaps the greater threat.

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other words we should most naturally see them located either near New-castle (but we have no reason to believe H adrian's Wall to have been any longer a frontier, abandoned as it was (§19) before the appeal to Agitius and cutting as it did across tribal frontiers) or in eastern Lothian. That Gildas merely says 'the East’ is worthy of note.” Would this have made sense if he had lived in Dorset, Somerset, Glamorgan, or even in the English midlands? If we can press his words closely it suggests a northern vantage-point, such that the 'n orth' o f north-east does not need to be specified. This seems to me to be one of the strongest arguments for a northern location for the events of Gildas’s history and perhaps even more for Gildas himself, although I am not aware that it has been recognised and used as such. If we wish both to continue to credit Gildas’s narrative and to retain our belief in the extensive settlement o f Anglo-Saxons in the east Midlands and the South before the last quarter of the fifth century, we have little option but to regard him as one distant in both time and place from the areas o f fifth-century settlement. Geographically this could place him anywhere in the West (or in Brittany or Ireland with the expatriate British communities there), but his concern with the Piets would be most naturally explained if he could be placed in what is now northern England or southern Scotland. Again, however, we must bear in mind that these would be hypotheses devised to meet difficulties in interpreting Gildas’s evidence. We have also to remember that he saw the Irish as coming from the North-west (§14).36 It would also be open to us to conclude, as many have done in the course o f the last century, that these tensions are greatly damaging to Gildas’s credit as a reliable witness of fifth-century affairs. The terms on which the first, small, group37 o f Saxons was settled is not stated by Gildas. As this group prospered, a second and larger group arrived by sea. Now we are told of the federate arrangements which were made.38 These were successful m ulto tem pore (‘for a fair space o f time’?).3’ We are left to conclude that the Pictish threat was thus disposed of. We pass now to Gildas’s account of the Saxon wars, de saeuiore m ulto prim is hoste as he puts it in §2. The federates demanded better epim enia and (in face o f a 56789 55 Thompson's choice ('Gildas', p. 217) of the East Riding of Yorkshire or the Vale of York seems far too far south for a force of 180 men to be stationed to deal with Pictish assaults. This would be appropriate if those assaults were only of a seaborne nature. But it is plain from §19, and from the gemitus Britannorum, that they conducted extensive land-based operations as well. We must also ask what Gildas's mental map of Britain looked like: did he see the east coast as running approximately north-to-south? If not, the northern inter­ pretation will need reconsideration. 56 But the force of this point depends to a large degree on where in Ireland one sees the raids as coming from: for example, Déisi, Ui Liathàin, both southern tribes! 57 Thompson's discussion ('Gildas', pp. 216—17) of the size of the group, if Gildas's detail be allowed, is mandatory reading. His remarks on the size of the prolixior catasta are of course speculation. 58 Thompson hints — without actually saying it — that Attius recommended this course of action ('Gildas', p. 218). But if we reject anything but the briefest span for §§20—22 this is hardly likely. 59 We need a detailed comparative study of this little phrase, of frequent occurrence in historical writers of the late Latin and early mediaeval periods. Thompson ('Gildas', p. 218, n. 77) thinks of three or four years: I agree.

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British hesitation or refusal, unspecified by Gildas) then rebelled.60 We now have the information necessary for consideration o f the chronology o f §23. The invitation is issued to the Saxons: they come ‘to the island’, and we are left to suppose that an invitation has been sent to Den­ mark, north Germany, or Frisia: ‘de cubili leaenae barbarae’ seems clearly to imply the Germanic homeland. Nothing here is incredible but, as 1 have noted elsewhere, Gildas’s credibility is most severely strained if we are to take this to be the First Saxon arrival in Britain. A group o f Saxons responds to the invitation and is settled in eastern Britain. Word gets back to their homeland that they have prospered and a much larger group is sent; formal arrangements are now in evidence. Up to this point no more than three years need have passed (although a longer period is o f course possible) — to organise the first group, their First (apparently successful) campaigning season61 and its rewards, and the arrival of the second group (following transmission of the favourable reports back home) to enter a formal treaty of federation. This arrangement lasted m ulto tem pore: in view of the military reasons for the treaty, one might expect this time-span to express a sense o f a number o f campaigning-seasons; for such an arrangement as this, one would not think that m ulto tem pore would convey the idea of less than a few years. A reasonable conjecture might be that about a decade passed between the invitation by the superbus tyrannus and the revolt of the federates. That notional period could be shortened, but for the whole pro­ cess to have been completed in less than five years, reading m ulto tem pore as a mere two years, seems unacceptably unreal. §24 is devoted to the effects of the federate rebellion. The rebels are described as an orientalis m anus creating a fire which burned from sea to sea, devastating ciuitates and agros, and indeed ‘cunctam p aen e. . . insulae superficiem’, until it reached the occidentalem oceanum. It was a disaster comparable with that o f the Assyrian assault on Judea. But this is not all. Gildas elaborated on his description. ‘Cunctae coloniae . . . omnesque coloni, cum praepositis ecclesiae, cum sacerdotibus ac populo’ were killed. Bodies and destroyed buildings lay all around. §23 is concerned with those who survived the onrush o f this ‘fire’. Some fled to the mountains but even there were caught and killed. Others, without food, surrendered to death or enslavement at the enemy’s hands. Others migrated overseas. Others held out in patria, living in constant fear in the most inaccessible places — mountains, the densest forests, and sea60 Thompson’s discussion (ibid., pp. 217—18) of the foedus is essential reading. (See now also Goffart, Barbarians.) As Thompson notes, this passage is replete with the technical ter­ minology of foedus (but Sims-Williams, ’Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons*, p. 22 and n. 97, wonders whether the technicality of the vocabulary has not been exaggerated). Mrs S.C. Hawkes has, in conversation, contributed the useful idea that these all came from a con­ temporary document which Gildas here quotes. That is perfectly possible, but we must bear in mind the apparent continuation of foedus in Gildas’s own day (111.92): see below, pp. 81—2. 61 Although it must be noted (as Neil Wright points out to me) that Gildas nowhere tells us that the Saxons ever actually fought for the British; §23 is full of intentions (future par­ ticiples) and lies. The success of the first contingent would therefore be the gaining of a toehold in Britain, not a victory over the Piets.

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cliffs. T em pore igitur interueniente aliquant o’, continues Gildas, when these very cruel plunderers had returned home (‘cum recessissent domum’), the survivors began to pull themselves together. Before we continue to the end of §25 with its account o f the recovery under Ambrosius Aurelianus, some points must be picked up from the foregoing account. §24 and the first half o f §25 contain perhaps the most lurid writing to be found in Book I. It is a question whether this leads to sufficient distortion or error as to render the account o f doubtful value to a historian studying the fifth century. The barbarian assault extended from sea to sea, reaching the ‘western ocean*. Unless they ravaged across Wales to Ceredigion, the Saxons would most easily have achieved the occidentaient oceanum in north-east Wales, Cheshire, or Lancashire; but we cannot rule out the possibility that either side o f the Bristol Channel would qualify for the description. W hat route would allow them to find ciuitates to destroy on the way? An answer is inhibited by uncertainty as to Gildas’s use o f ciuitas. If Britain had twenty-eight ciuitates (§3) some fairly small places were included.62 Various ciuitates had been abandoned in §19: had they been repopulated or are these other ciuitates? A similar problem attends coionia: how technical is Gildas’s use of his vocabulary? Cunctae coloniae, ‘all the coloniae', are destroyed. The coloniae were York, Lincoln, Col­ chester, Gloucester, probably London, and perhaps Caerleon and Chester.63 Gloucester had not flourished and was perhaps now o f no significance. Colchester had passed early into Anglo-Saxon hands.64 Lon­ don’s fate remains a mystery. Caerleon was inaccessible in Gildas’s day because of the diuortium barbarorum (§10).6$ That leaves York, London, and Chester: it is by no means incredible that these are what Gildas m eant.66 Gildas is insistent that almost the whole o f the island was affected. Wherever we place his Saxon settlement — and himself — he seems to allow us to look outside a single region for the ciuitates and coloniae.61 T hepatria o f those attacked, if it was not Britanniar6*as a whole, contained mountains, dense forests, and sea-cliffs. On a restricted interpretation o f patria, the North would make better sense than the South, considering the mountains mentioned. But if Gildas spoke o f Britannia as a whole, we must suppose that people fled to mountainous and afforested regions, even over con­ siderable distances. The overseas migration, if from the North (and 6234578 62 63 64 65

Stevens, ‘Gildas and the civitates*, studies this question. Salway, Roman Britain, pp. 574—5. Crummy, ‘Colchester*, and Aspects, pp. 22—3 and 70. What this implies for the period of the rebellion is disputable. Gildas recognises a division of territory with the English which prevents his dues from reaching Caerleon. Given his narrative, this diuortium has no place, and perhaps we can therefore accept that he writes about the history of a limited area, ignoring in his narrative events in the Midlands or South. For this passage, see further Sims-Williams, ‘Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons*, p. 27. 66 In §2 Gildas summarises this whole process as de urbium subuersione. 67 Thompson ('Gildas*, pp. 218—19) argues that the Saxons now turned south into the north Midlands; given his basic premise, this is not at all unreasonable. 68 In 11.64, Gildas speaks of reges patriae as the people whom he has addressed in Book II. The equation of patria and Britannia seems strongly supported here, as indeed throughout Books II and III. But the precise force of Gildas*s Britanniae remains unclear.

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therefore almost necessarily from the North-west, since the Saxons were set­ tled in the East), would then most naturally be to Man and Ireland rather than to Brittany, the natural destination if Gildas’s narrative refers to or includes south or south-west Britain. By far the most interesting aspect of this part o f Gildas’s account emerges from his explanation of how the British revival could begin. The Saxons, after some time (it is not entirely clear whether the ’tem p o re. . . aliquanto’ is to be taken as following or including the events of §24, although the former is perhaps suggested in interueniente), returned hom e. There is no suggestion that they returned to the Continent, and it therefore becomes absolutely plain that the contract with the superbus tyrannus had given them their own territory over which they had control. In short, the area ’in orientali parte insulae’ had in effect been ceded to their jurisdiction. This interpretation can be read into §23, but it becomes certain only with this passage in §23. The second important point is that their assault on their former employers’ territory was a raid. They had said (§23) that they would plunder the whole island (cuncta in sulae. . . depopulaturos): they did just that. However damaging, indeed disastrous, the raid was, it was nonetheless a raid.69 The implication is that we are speaking o f a single campaigningseason. It could have been more, especially in view o f the scale of devasta­ tion reportedly achieved, but that is not a necessary conclusion, particularly as we do not know the numbers of Saxons involved. Thompson has attemp­ ted a minimal interpretation also of Saxon federate numbers. But Gildas’s words give no warrant for th a t.70 When the first three shiploads come, Gildas says nothing o f federate arrangements;71 but when the second con­ tingent ('satellitum canumque prolixiorem catastam’) arrived these arrange­ ments are specified by Gildas. They are a sufficient contingent for such an arrangement (with effective cession of territory) to be appropriate: the prolixior catasta may therefore have been a very substantial group indeed; accordingly we must not underrate the rebellious federates’ powers of destruction in a single campaign. The intention of this raid is not stated by Gildas, although the description of the raiders as praedones may indicate booty as a primary concern. The point to grasp here, however, is that no intention to annex and settle territory is noted (as, on the contrary, it has been with the Irish and Piets in §22); whatever the motives of the assault — plunder, revenge, encouragement to increase the epim enia, the establish­ ment o f overlordship, or any number of possibilities hidden from us — the Saxons withdrew, having inflicted the most terrible wounds on their opponents’ country. 69 Perhaps this is not what Thompson means when he says ('Gildas', p. 219) that 'The War of the Saxon Federates* seems to have been a relatively minor one'. But that remark gives a misleading impression. We can hardly conclude that Gildas’s lurid language has no basis if we are to credit him as a source at all. The war was serious, indeed disastrous, but perhaps short-lived. No one would describe the brief and devastating Israeli-Arab wars of 1967 and 1973 as 'relatively minor’. Ca 500 it took longer to do so much damage. In short, Thomp­ son wants to reject Gildas’s language as the stock-in-trade of the rhetorician. 70 Unless a technical sense can somehow be read into prolixior catasta. 71 But his words certainly can be taken to suggest cession of territory.

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We must turn now to the survivors of this devastation. They fall into two groups, reliquiae and dues. The miserrimi du es seek leadership from the reliquiae, and we may remind ourselves that it was the miserae reliquiae from the Irish-Pictish wars who wrote to Agitius in §20. Evidently the people on whom Gildas is concentrating are the leaders of society; the sur­ vivors of this group receive his attention each time the necessity o f reconstruction is apparent. The m iserrimi dues come from ‘undique de diuersis locis’: were they merely emerging from their scattered but local refuges, or did the reliquiae provide a focus for a geographically wider political movement? The reliquiae were themselves led by ‘Ambrosio Aureliano uiro modesto, qui solus forte romanae gentis . . . superfuerat’: he alone of a Roman gens11 had survived the events of §§24—25, his parents also being among the victims. We are told a little more o f his background, ‘parentibus purpura nimirum indutis’: we can perhaps stop worrying about this phrase if Professor Thompson documents his view that it offers merely conventional praise,727374and if we can gauge correctly the force o f n im iru m 1* Under Ambrosius Aurelianus, the dues reorganised and recovered — we are given no indication at all as to how long this took — and then sought to reverse their defeat; they challenged the rebellious Saxon federates to battle and won. §26 opens with a famous clause, 'Ex eo tempore nunc ciues, nunc hostes, uincebant . . .’. This situation continued until the year in which the great battle of Mount Badon was fought. Again we are given no direct help with the chronology, but it seems that we must suppose a number, perhaps a small number, o f years in which the two sides were fairly evenly matched; not merely is this implied by the imperfect of uincebant and by the general situation which one must mentally reconstruct, but the specification o f the ‘annum obsessionis Badonici montis’ implies that the year was preceded by anni of other military encounters in this series. The slaughter of the siege of Mount Badon, ‘nouissimaeque ferme de furciferis non minimae stragis’, was, as non m inim a, a significant military event, Gildas implies to us. But was it more significant for him because it marked the year of his birth, forty-four years ago? As a Saxon defeat, it was ‘nouissima ferme’; if the force o f ferm e is that it was not the very last,75then the 'postrem a patriae uictoria’ of §2 was presumably the whole sequence o f events leading up to the present long-lasting relief from Saxon attack; that this 'eventual victory’ was granted 'temporibus nostris’ (§2) is an indication of how chronologically loosely such a phrase as the latter may be used, since it refers to an event, or a process largely culminating in an event, now some forty-four years in the past. Finally, Gildas turns to a description of the present, as if by way o f 72 So I should interpret this, as against the usual ‘of the Roman race'. 73 ‘Gildas’, p. 73. But cf. Salway, Roman Britain, pp. 461—2. 74 It seems awkward to me to take it with occisis, as Winterbottom (Gildas, p. 28) does — presumably to avoid the traditional difficulty. 75 Does ferme in fact apply to nouissimael Neil Wright points out to me that, to secure con­ sistency with §2, one should perhaps translate ferme in its less usual sense of ‘entirely*. Cf. also Ian Wood, ‘The end of Roman Britain’, above, pp. 22—3.

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immediate prologue to Books II and III, the accounts o f secular and ecclesiastical government in his own day. The ciuitates patriae have never been repopulated; they have remained deserted, ruined, and uncared fo r.76 The natives have turned their energies once again to civil war, falsehood and injustice. But civil war seems to be a recent development, for while the generation survived which witnessed the events of §§24—26 everyone favoured an ordered, self-disciplined society. Only with the coming to power of Gildas’s own generation,7778which had not experienced the sudden shifts of fortune in the preceding period, were these restraints cast aside. In his brief description, at the end of §26, o f the current moral failings o f his Britons, he hints that he is aware of the attitude o f surrounding nations to this turpitude: ‘exprobant iam in circuitu nationes’. We are left to speculate about Gildas's possible foreign contacts, the source, perhaps, o f the transmarina relatio (§4) on which he relied for part o f his historical narrative. If it is now interpreted correctly, §26 tells us that, as Gildas wrote, the forty-fourth year since the battle o f Mount Badon was one month old.7* This valuable chronological indication is helpfully supplemented by another in §25: Gildas knows of the descendants in his own day o f Ambrosius Aurelianus, the victor of the first battle againt the Saxons, which occurred an uncertain period (although I conjectured, above, that it was brief) before Mount Badon. Poor representatives of his virtue — ‘cuius nunc temporibus nostris suboles magnopere auita bonitate degenerauit’ — these descendants are in fact his grandchildren (auita makes the relationship clear). They (or he, if singular) may be ruler(s) of the area which Ambrosius Aurelianus defended and led to victory: if so, they are the third generation o f now presumably hereditary rulers in the area; but this is to push Gildas’s words too far, for he says nothing of the present situation of any Aureliani. If we suppose that Ambrosius had ceased to lead (or rule) before Mount Badon — although that is an inference from Gildas’s silence, and not a mandatory conclusion — the first subsequent generation, and the second, alive now, would hardly have lived so long as to require much more than the forty-four years assigned to the period since Mount Badon. In sum, if we assign about fifty years to the period from Ambrosius’s victory to the present that will not be at all too much. Finally, we are left to consider the position o f the Saxons in Gildas’s own time. After the notice of Mount Badon, Gildas says no more of them; they vanish from the pages of his work. But there is one passage, an aside in an earlier chapter (§10), which throws some light, however obliquely, on the issue. Speaking o f the loca sancta of the British Christian martyrs, he observes that they would be of great moral use in the circumstances o f his own time, were it not that ‘loca . . . lugubri diuortio barbarorum 76 This is noted too in §4. 77 Which would have occurred an absolute maximum of twenty years before, and very pro­ bably a great deal less. 78 I follow with conviction the interpretation of Miller, 'Relative and absolute publication dates', pp. 171—3.

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quamplurima . . . ciuibus adimerentur’, and he picks out for special men­ tion the shrines o f St Alban of Verulamium (Hertfordshire) and SS. Aaron and lulius of legionum urbs. If the latter is correctly identified with Caerleon (Gwent), we are invited to suppose that the division of territory with the barbarians, presumably the Anglo-Saxons, prevented access for Gildas’s fellow-citizens to these two centres. He does not say, although it is an obvious (if possibly false) deduction, that one or both of these places lay in Anglo-Saxon hands. We are left to imagine where Gildas would have liv­ ed such that Anglo-Saxon settlement would have prevented him and his fellow-citizens from travelling to these shrines. Verulamium798012does not pre­ sent a very great problem. But Caerleon (or Chester) is more problematic: where in Britain could Gildas or his dues have lived such that they could not travel by a westerly land-route to Caerleon? This problem urgently demands a solution, for it suggests that much of western England was in AngloSaxon hands in Gildas’s day.10 A few issues remain to be discussed concerning Gildas’s own context. We may start, briefly, with chronology. There are three indications,*1 in the concluding chapters o f Book I, that Gildas stood at two generations’ remove from the generation of the British recovery under Ambrosius Aurelianus: he notes in §25 how the current descendants o f Ambrosius Aurelianus cannot compare with their grandfather, in §26 he tells us that Mount Badon (at some remove from Ambrosius’s first victory) was fortyfour years ago; and in the same chapter he expounds his view that a genera­ tion — his own — which had never known the trials o f invasion was behav­ ing in an immoral way. Ambrosius’s generation participated; their children would have been witnesses and have known of it directly from their parents; only when the third generation assumed control of public affairs could and did vice sprout. The one other chronological indication arises, as Thompson has astutely noted,*2 from Gildas’s account of the two Roman walls. His explanation o f them — that they were built at the end of the Romano-British period, the Antonine Wall between 388 and 410, say in the 390s, and H adrian’s being completed in 410 — is wrong; Gildas could not have said this if that period had been within living memory in his lifetime. In other words, Gildas lived at at least two generations’ remove from A.D. 410, certainly not before the 460s at the meanest estimate.83 We have asked many times which part of Britain Gildas was writing about, if not about the whole. No conclusive answer is possible, it seems to 79 I do not take John Morris*s point (apud Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 148) that §11 shows Gildas to have been ignorant of the Thames valley. 80 John Morris (ibid., p. 154) draws attention to a fascinating remark in 111.92. See further below, pp. 81—2. 81 Discussed also above, p. 77. 82 ‘Gildas’, p. 206. 83 Miller (‘Bede's use’, pp. 244—6) supported the view of Stevens (‘Gildas sapiens’, p. 359, n. 6) that Gildas relied at least partly on epigraphic evidence for his view of the stone-wall, and went on to wonder (‘Bede’s use’, p. 246, n. 1) whether craft-traditions might lie behind Gildas's words. Again, a local. Northern viewpoint would be suggested.

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me. But such indications as we may legitimately deduce from both text and context suggest a northwesterly orientation within what is now England. We have no legitimate means, however, of defining such a vaguely stated area: could it, for example have reached as far south as W roxeter?8485Are we deal­ ing with what was to become a kingdom of Powys stretching from the midWelsh border up into Lancashire.89 The moment we ask such questions we are far into the domain o f speculation. W hat is nonetheless clear is this: that, however great the difficulties of adopting such a view o f the geography of Gildas’s narrative, the problems involved in viewing his account as a straightforward history o f sub-Roman Britain as a whole are so appalling as to imperil any credence which we may give to Gildas as a source for any period before his own adult lifetime. What this means, in turn, is that ideas of the place o f Vortigern, Hencgest and Horsa, Ambrosius Aurelianus, the battle o f Mount Badon (and a consequent casting back of Anglo-Saxon settlement86and a reverse migration to the Continent) in the development of southern English history must be abandoned, completely and at once, not because we must transfer them all to the North or north Midlands, but because Gildas's words give us no assurance that we can yet place these people and events in a credible geographical and political context. All this brings us to the matter o f where Gildas himself was writing. We are offered a number of options. (1) Later hagiography makes him a north Briton o f Pictish ancestry;87 hence the n ineteenth-century academ ic legend th at he was a Strathclyder writing in the North. (2) His main mediaeval cult is in south-east Brittany. He could have migrated to the Ruis area and written there.88 (3) There are possible traces of a cult in south(-east) Wales.89 Welsh hagiographical legend locates him there, if unclearly.90 (4) We can locate him by considering his treatment o f contemporary kings, [a] He was a devotee of King Maelgwn o f Gwynedd, about whom he is very well informed;91 or, more generally, he lived in Wales or the 84 For the current excavations at Wroxeter, see Barker, Wroxeter Roman City. 85 From the early mediaeval Powys of east-central and north-east Wales to the Powys of northwestern England; but we have to remember that Powys derives from the Latin common noun/adjective, pagenses. One would also do well to hesitate before concluding that the mediaeval equation of Gwrtheyrn of Powys-Gwrtheyrnion with Gildas’s superbus tyrannus has anything to do with such a background. 86 In any case, this is probably wrong, for Ambrosius Aurelianus is defeating a people which has its own home in eastern Britain; there is no certainty in Gildas's account that that home was ever reduced or abolished. 87 On all this see Bromwich, Trioedd, pp. 301—3 ($.n. Caw). 88 The principal literary manifestation is the Vita / S. Gildasii, a Ruis text of the eleventh cen­ tury (ed. & transi. Williams, Gildas, 11.317—89). For modern fanciful writing, see Fonssagrives, Saint Gildas. And for a recent study of the Breton context of the cult of Gildas, see Marsille, 'Saint Gildas'. For Gildas and Taliesin in Brittany, see Fleuriot, 'Sur quatre textes', pp. 207—11. 89 6 Riain, ‘The Irish element’, p. 297. 90 See, for example, Wade-Evans, Vitae, pp. 84—7, 94—7, and 208—9; Evans & Rhys, The Text, pp. 138—9. 91 Davies, ‘The Church in Wales', p. 139, has noted ‘the fuller and more intimate treatment of Maelgwn'.

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South-west in the areas ruled by the kings whom he knows about. Constantine o f Damnonia committed sacrilege hoc anno, he tell us us in an up-to-date report. [b] He wrote in an area not represented among the kingdoms o f the rulers whom he excoriates — hence, perhaps in south-east Wales.92 (5) Some Welsh and Irish sources show him to have connexions with Ireland.93 He could have been an expatriate British cleric in Ireland. (6) Observation of his familiarity with or concentration on one main area in Book I, arguably the North-west, places him there. It is-difficult to reject any of these, except 4a, and some mesh neatly with others.94954a must be rejected, as Professor Thompson has rightly urged, for we cannot accept that the rulers denounced by Gildas would have been indifferent. 11.37 has not, I think, been called in evidence in this question: Gildas states quite plainly, after completing his denunciation o f the five kings, that he expects hostile reaction to his published work; an army o f biblical quotations will protect ‘opusculi nostri molimen, ita ut ne certatim irruituris inuidorum imbribus extet penetrabile . . .’. The limitations o f our external evidence, and the difficulties o f textual interpretation, force us to accept for the moment the not unreasonable, but scarcely demonstrable, hypothesis that Gildas wrote about the history of the area to which he belonged and in which he probably lived. In the pages o f this study we have edged closer and closer to the view that Gildas's outlook was hopelessly provincial, and that this attitude was probably a reflexion o f his society, hemmed in as it now was by the English settlements o f which Gildas hardly takes notice. But we have been driven into this attitude by occasional desperation in our attempts to interpret Gildas’s narrative. There is some evidence that Gildas’s world-view was not at all as restricted as the northern interpretation o f Book I would suggest. The first, and most obvious, evidence for this point is his treatment of the British kings in Book II. These kings rule territory amounting to a substan­ tial part o f west and south-west Britain; in particular Gildas can be seen to be up-to-date about ’Damnonia’, where King Constantine has committed sacrilege hoc anno.™ But they are not the only kings known to Gildas. The descendants o f Ambrosius Aurelianus may also have been kings and, if so, perhaps in the same area in which he came to power in the wake of the Federates’ War. Maelgwn o f Gwynedd is described (11.33) as ‘multorum tyrannorum depulsor tarn regno quam etiam uita supradictorum’ where the 92 For this argument see, for example, Thompson, 'Gildas*, p. 225; it is neatly demolished by Sims-Williams, ‘Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons*, p. 3. 93 Sims-Williams, ibid., pp. 1—4, for a convenient summary. See further my chapter ‘Gildas and Uinniau', below, pp. 207—14, and the forthcoming Gildas in the Middle Ages, ed. Dumville. 94 For example, 3 with 4b, and 1 with 6. 95 In view of the chronological detail offered in §26, this could even mean within the last month! But we do not know how Gildas's calendar worked, and the passage might in any event have been written ten years previously. That may be further suggested by 11.29, ad­ dressing Constantine ('quasi praesentem arguo quem adhuc superesse non nescio’) in a way which would be very odd if close in time to the sin in question.

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use o f m ulti naturally makes one wonder whether the tyranni supradicti are merely the four kings named in 11.28—32 or are rather all the tyranni of Britannia, referred to in 11.27. In 11.37 Gildas seems again to refer to others besides the five named in 11.28—36: ‘his supradictis lasciuientibus insanisque satellitum Faraonis eorum que sim ilibus quinque equis’. Gildas has a definite contact with some overseas land, as is evidenced by his use (§4) o f transmarina relatio as a source for the narrative o f Book I. H e believes that whatever native sources of British history may once have existed have been carried abroad by British emigrants (of the sort men­ tioned in §25, no doubt) or destroyed by the barbarians. He tells us no more o f the transmarina relatio, and we accordingly have no idea whether it com­ prised information derived from British emigrants or from foreigners or both. He knows — or gives the impression that he knows — o f the opinion o f foreigners about Britain’s current moral condition (§26), and he is aware96 (111.67) that some who cannot gain episcopal office in Britain are going overseas for ordination and then returning to flaunt their new status at home. Gildas is not uninformed about the surrounding barbarian peoples. The Britons o f his own day must after all have had contacts with these, partly at a secular level and, in the case o f the Irish, certainly also at the ecclesias­ tical. To what extent Gildas’s violently and offensively hostile references to the Irish, Piets and Saxons reflect current racial (or perhaps religious) pre­ judices, or are rather to be taken purely in terms of their historical activities in the context o f Gildas’s narrative, is effectively impossible to say. But a sentiment expressed by Gildas in III.92 suggests a current hostility justified on religious grounds (and presumably therefore directed above all against the English, but perhaps also the Piets), but a hostility which — at least at the political or diplomatic level — is not shared by all sections o f the con­ temporary British ruling class. The point at issue in III.92 is whether or not one should contract a fo ed u s with hostes ecclesiae. In §23 we are left in no doubt as to what Gildas thinks about the fifth-century fo ed u s by which the superbus tyrannus settled Saxons in Britain. In III.92 he quotes an uniden­ tified quidam nostrorum to the effect that ‘optabiliter cupimus ut hostes ecclesiae sunt notris quoque absque ullo foedere hostes, et amici ac defensores nostri non solum foederati sed etiam patres ac domini habeantur’. It is doubtful whether one can push this passage as far as did John Morris, to whom the credit is due for recognising its potential importance. If the late Imperial technical meanings of fo ed u s and foederati are to be read here, it is difficult to see who could be identified as ‘amici ac defensores nostri Isc. ec­ clesiae]’ who could also be employed as foederati. It is perhaps easier to take fo ed u s simply as ‘treaty’ and foederati as those with whom one has a treaty; but the passage still implies, assuming that this quotation refers to secular diplomacy and ‘foreign’ policy, that there are other and Christian kingdoms with which defensive alliances can be concluded; more than that, Gildas’s quidam nostrorum appears to be arguing that one should not merely be making allies o f such people but even accepting their overlord­ 96 Though in fact quite probably simply from observation in Britain.

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ship.9798The impression created by this passage is that in Gildas’s time some Britons were prepared to ally themselves with pagan barbarians, perhaps just as Cadwallon o f Gwynedd and his successors) were to ally with Penda o f Mercia in the mid-seventh century. Gildas mentioned in §10 a ‘lugubri diuortio barbarorum ’, apparently meaning that one part o f Britannia was controlled by the barbarians (apparently the English) and the other by the Britons.9* We have already considered the geographical difficulties involved in the idea that the legionum urbs is C aerleon," and we must not be mesmerised by this uncer­ tain identification. But if it is, and if Gildas’s d u es cannot reach it because o f barbarian annexation o f territory, we must suppose either that AngloSaxon settlement extended much farther westwards at that time than we have ever supposed, or that his meaning is that the normal route is impeded by Anglo-Saxon settlement and that political rivalries o f the Britons make it impossible for the d u es of Gildas’s own area to travel through the British kingdom(s) between there and legionum urbs. The latter hypothesis is a large and speculative structure to erect on such a small foundation, however. Gildas incidentally displays his knowledge of two things which could only have proceeded from English mouths, a prophecy (§23) allegedly current among the first Saxons summoned by the superbus tyrannus (and possibly about their omens and auguries, although this is much more doubtful, being perhaps a conventional notice of pagan behaviour), and the Primitive Old English word for ‘ship’ which in his Latin becomes dula. It is perhaps more than coincidence that when speaking o f the Irish and Piets Gildas uses (§19) the word curucis (ablative) of their boats. It has been supposed that this word is a borrowing from Brittonic100 but one may perhaps think that, given the context (and the parallel with dula), a borrow­ ing from the ancestor of Old Irish currach would be much more appro­ priate.101 Another interesting passage which hints that Gildas has a greater knowledge of the barbarians than we might have supposed is also to be found in §19. His mention of their long hair and lack of decent clothing may be conventional for a ‘Rom an’ and Christian writer, but his remark o f the Irish and Piets that they were ‘mores ex parte dissidentes’ implies some knowledge of the social structure o f the two peoples. We cannot elaborate on this, for Gildas did not, but we cannot afford to overlook such sugges­ tions of knowledge. 97 Morris, apud Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 154. Could quidam nostrorum mean ‘a Christian author*? The passage is discussed further by Sims-Williams, ‘Gildas and the AngloSaxons*, pp. 27—8. 98 But I am troubled by the dependent genitive: would not the meaning 'opposition* be better than 'separation* or ‘division’? 99 If we base this identification on the subsequent Welsh form, Chester has an equally good claim. 100 For example, by John Morris, apud Winterbottom. Gildas, p. 149. 101 Details of this vessel, which had both oars and sails, may be found in Severin, The Bren­ dan Voyage, and Marcus, The Conquest.

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Chronology

In sum, it is difficult to believe Gildas to have been quite as isolated and uninformed about affairs outside his own region as we were occasionally tempted to conjecture in earlier sections of this discussion.102 The more often we are impressed by such awareness, the more difficult it becomes to credit the view that he knew nothing but the North and its history and the nearer we are brought to rejecting his account of fifth-century British history. We must now, for clarity but at the risk of foolish over-simplification, attempt a chronological tabulation o f Gildas’s narrative o f the period from A.D. 383 to his own day. A .D . R evolt o f M agnus M axim us. R em oval o f Im perial soldiery to C o n tin en t. 388 D eath o f M axim us. §§14— 17 388 x 410 B ritain left n ak ed an d w ithout governm ent. F u rth er R o m an intervention. §18 410 H o n o ria n rescript. §19 410 x ca 450 Irish an d P ictish invasions. Seizure o f S. S cotland to th e wall. Ciuitates an d wall ab a n d o n ed . F u rth er assaults a n d m assacres. Civil w ars. B eginning o f fam ine. §20 446 x 454 T h e miserae reliquiae appeal by letter to AgitiusA ètius, ter consul. ca 450 x ca 455? F ailure o f appeal. Full force o f fam ine. F ates o f su r­ vivors. B ritons fight back, an d gain repeated su b stan ­ tial victories. B arb arians w ithdraw . ca 455? x ca 480? P eace, u n p reced en ted ab u n d an ce, an d luxuria. §21 ? B eginning o f kingship. ca 480 §22 T h e w arnings: th e ru m o u r, an d plague. B arb arian invasion. Superbus tyrannus takes counsel. ca 480 x ca 490? In v itatio n to the Saxons. §23 A rrival o f th ree shiploads, settled in n o rth eastern Britannia to repel P iets. T heir success. A rrival o f th e prolbcior catasta o f Saxons: federate treaty. S u ccess o f th e a rra n g e m e n t m u lto tem pore. Rebellion o f federates. §24 ca 490? E xtent o f the w ar. D estruction o f u rb a n life. §25 Fates o f survivors (including overseas m igrations). Tempore aliquanto interueniente, return hom e to n o rth eastern B ritain o f Saxon rebels. R e o rg a n is a tio n o f B rito n s , u n d e r A m b ro siu s A urelianus. ca 495? First successful British battle against Saxons w on by A m brosius A urelianus &c. §26 ca 495 x ca 500 + C han g in g fo rtu n es o f w ar. ca 500 + B attle o f M o u n t B adon. Slaughter o f the Saxons. ca 500 x ca 545 G ild as’s lifetim e. U p to his 44th year, th at o f w riting. §13

383

102 Sec above, pp. 71. 72. 78—80.

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Scholars may wish to reject a table o f this sort as an unacceptable way o f representing a text as rhetorical as Book I o f the De Excidio. But some such attempt has to be made, it seems to me. On an exercise o f this sort (or many such exercises) must rest our perception of Gildas’s view o f the fifth-century history of his homeland and the only textually based approach to the dating o f Gildas’s time of writing. The figures suggested, and the results arrived at, were achieved without preconceptions; and until I had finished adding up my figures I did not know where I should be placing Gildas from the later fifth century to the later sixth! Obviously there are large areas o f uncer­ tainty of interpretation and much scope for dispute. I have discussed the question at length and in detail in the belief that it is only by the recognition and thorough discussion of areas of uncertainty that we shall make any pro­ gress in understanding what Gildas has to tell us. Such presentation is laborious but, I think, very necessary. For the moment, it has satisfied me that the usual broad dating o f Gildas’s literary activity to the second quarter o f the sixth century is correct, although an argument for the third quarter might well be possible too. W hat we must make o f Gildas’s statement that he kept silent for ten years is an obvious complicating factor. Book II offers at least one hint that the work was not written all at one tim e.I0} Was the hoc anno of 11.28 the year o f publication? — presumably so, but one still hesitates.103104105Much remains obscure in this fascinating and unique text. In the illumination o f that obscurity lies an important hope for greater knowledge of at least some part o f Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. In the end, however, the historian must remember that Gildas is a primary witness only of his own time and place. If his narrative rests on transmarina relatio (perhaps oral), various local or regional oral legends, and perhaps a single document, a copy of a letter to Aëtius, we must reckon with the use of his considerable literary powers and his explicit, strongly-motivating religious purpose in the creation of a history which may be incredible in part or as a whole. But the time for such a judgement has not yet com e.>os

103 The description of Maelgwn in 11.33 as 'multorum tyrannorum depulsor tarn regno quam etiam uita supradictorum*. 104 Cf. above, pp. 51—2; on all this see Miller, 'Relative and absolute publication dates*. Cf. Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 152 (on 11.28), who conjectures on quite different grounds that the work has been inefficiently redrafted here. 105 I wish to record my indebtedness to Simon Keynes, Patrick Sims-Williams, lan Wood, and especially Neil Wright for reading drafts of this paper and for extended discussion of this difficult but compelling author.

84

V

GILDAS’S GEOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVE: SOME PROBLEMS N eil W right IT has been argued persuasively that Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae is the product of a rhetorician.1As such it is carefully structured. Its core consists o f the twin attacks on the corruption o f kings and clergy in Books II and III. These attacks are essentially hortatory. Although Gildas savagely denounces his regal and ecclesiastical victims, he hopes thereby to persuade them to return to the fold. His message is simple: the effects o f sin are deadly and can be averted only by repentance and piety. The historiasection of Book I (§§2—26), which presents a narrative o f British history from the Roman invasions down to Gildas’s own times, is subordinate to this message. Gildas portrays his country’s past as a series o f moral exempta — principally of the dangers o f tyranny and impiety. In Gildas’s view history could teach; and its lessons, as he conceived them, were o f vital importance for the impact of his epistula on his countrymen.2 The basically rhetorical character o f Gildas’s narrative o f the British past has presented modern historians with certain obstacles. Its Latin is in the high style and abounds with artistic and emotive language which is both difficult and apparently imprecise. The account itself is impressionistic with a few personalities and no recoverable dates. Gildas can, moreover, be con­ victed of historical errors — as, for example, when he assigns the construc­ tion of the Antonine and Hadrianic walls to the period following the depar­ ture o f Magnus Maximus in 383.3 Yet De Excidio Britanniae must com­ mand respect as the only extant nearly contemporary British source for the events o f the sub-Roman period. The reaction of modern historians to this dilemma has been, in the words of Molly Miller, ‘to rewrite Gildas’s narra­ tive, or to rearrange his narrative sequence, according to the doctrines o f current knowledge’.4 The purpose of the present study is to explore some of the dangers of distortion implicit in such rewriting and rearrangement o f the historiasection of De Excidio Britanniae. My aim is not so much historical as literary, in that I do not attempt to reinterpret Gildas’s account, but rather 1 See Michael Lapidge, ’Gildas’s education’, above, pp. 27—50. 2 Cf. Davies, ‘The Church in Wales’, pp. 138—9. 3 The most incisive discussion of the thinking behind Gildas’s account of the two walls is that of Thompson, ‘Gildas’, pp. 206—7. 4 ‘Bede’s use’, p. 241.

85 Gildas: New Approaches, edd. M. Lapidge & D. Dumville, Studies in Celtic History V (Boydell Press. 19841. on. 85—105.

Wright

to establish to what extent he, as a writer, presents a narrative internally coherent on its own terms. To this end, two problems of Gildas’s geographical perspective will be discussed. The first concerns the difficulties o f establishing the geography of Gildas’s account o f the Pictish wars, the second the implications of ascribing a Northern outlook to this account and that of the war with the English foederati. 56 I:

THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE PICTISH WARS

A.

GILDAS

In De Excidio Britanniae, 1.13—22, Gildas relates the sufferings o f the British at the hands of the Piets and Irish after the departure o f the usurper M axim us/ The contents of these chapters may be briefly tabulated as follows: 13 Maximus’s expedition to the Continent; 14 Britain, denuded of her defences, is attacked by the Piets and Irish; 13 first Roman intervention; construction of an ineffective turf wall; 16 second incursion of the Piets and Irish; 17 second Roman intervention; 18 instructions of the Romans to the British; construction o f a stone wall; 19 third incursion of the Piets and Irish; stone wall assaulted and aban­ doned; situation aggravated by civil strife and hunger; 20 failure o f the appeal to Agitius; famine; first British victory unaided by the Romans; 21 interval of peace and prosperity accompanied by moral degeneration; 22 rumour o f the return of the old enemy; plague; council to discuss counter-measures. The basic framework of Gildas’s narrative is thus tolerably clear. The difficulties lie in trying to determine some of its details. In particular, three questions arise: where, according to Gildas, were the homelands o f the Piets and Irish? where did their attacks fall? what, if any, territorial gains did they make? In order to answer these questions, the relevant passages of De Excidio Britanniae must be examined more closely. 1. De Excidio Britanniae 1.147 Exin Britannia omni armato milite, militaribus copiis, rectoribus licet immanibus, 5 Both problems are also touched upon by Sims-Williams, 'Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons'; I find myself largely in agreement with him. 6 Strictly speaking, De Excidio Britanniae 1.22 belongs to the narrative of the English wars. I have included it here because of its importance for interpreting the problems relating to the Piets. 7 'Then Britain was stripped of all her armed soldiery, her military forces, her governors (although they were inhumane), and her robust youth which followed in the footsteps of the aforesaid usurper and never again returned home. Completely ignorant of the ways of war, she was downtrodden at first by two extremely fierce overseas peoples, the Irish from the North-west and the Piets from the North, and groaned in amazement for many years.' All quotations from De Excidio Britanniae are from the text of Winterbottom, Gildas. Translations are my own, although I have constantly referred to Winterbottom's version.

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ingenti iuuentute spoliata, quae comitata uestigiis supra dicti tyranni domum nusquam ultra rediit, et omnis belli usus ignara penitus, duabus primum gentibus transmarinis uehementer saeuis, Scotorum a circione Pictorum ab aquilone calcabilis, multos stupet gemitque annos. The Piets and Irish are here introduced as overseas (transmarinae) peoples who attack Britannia respectively from the North-west (a circione) and North (ab aquilone);* but what exactly does Gildas mean by the terms transmarinus and Britannia? Let us first try to resolve these difficulties solely by reference to the text o f De Excidio Britanniae. Elsewhere in the historia-section transmarinus appears on four other occasions, always — it seems — signifying Ireland or the Continent:89 areas, that is, overseas from mainland Britain. Far more important, however, is the meaning o f Britannia. Gildas begins his narra­ tive with what can only be a clear definition of this term. De Excidio Britan­ niae 1.3 commences with two nouns in apposition Britannia insula, ‘the island of Britain’. Gildas’s statement later in the same chapter that Britan­ nia is eight hundred miles long by two hundred wide makes it clear that he equates the term with the entire island. Moreover, Gildas throughout the narrative uses the terms Britannia and insula interchangeably for his native land. He never at any point indicates that he has modified his initial defini­ tion. If, then, Gildas uses transmarinus and Britannia consistently, in De Excidio Britanniae 1.14 he describes the Piets and Irish as overseas people living outside the island of Britain. In the case of the Irish, this interpretation offers no problems. They launch their attacks from mainland Ireland (which, if we adopt the geographical overview o f De Excidio Britanniae 1.3, can be described as lying to the north-west of Britannia). For Gildas to locate the Piets similarly overseas, however, must present a major difficulty for the modern historian. It may be that he was aware o f a version o f the Pictish originlegend which, as recorded by Bede and Irish sources, represents that people as immigrants into the British Isles, usually from Scythia.10There is never­ theless no possibility that the Piets were not natives of the north o f Britain by the fourth century. If Gildas indeed portrays them as external foes from overseas after the departure of Maximus, he is unquestionably guilty of an error of chronology. If the historian wishes to avoid attributing such an error to Gildas, he 8 Aquilo should, strictly, denote the North-east, but Gildas’s phrase at De Excidio Britanniae 1.19.1, ‘omnem aquilonalem cxtremamque terrae partem’ (discussed below) suggests that he is using it in the looser sense of ‘the North*. 9 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.3,1, transmarinae deticiae (as these luxury-goods are transported by the Thames and Severn, they are presumably imported from the Continent and Ireland); 1.4.1, transmarinis regibus (against whom Britain rebels and therefore probably an impre­ cise reference to Roman emperors); 1.4,4, transmarina relatione (this may mean Gildas’s Continental sources — Rufinus and Orosius — or, as Thompson (‘Gildas’, p. 2091 suggests, oral traditions from British colonies in Armorica or Ireland); 1.23,1, transmarinas petebant regiones (the phrase is conventionally understood to refer to British emigration to Armorica, but Thompson (‘Gildas’, pp. 221—31 argues that their destination may have been Ireland). 10 For this origin-legend, see Mac Eoin, ‘On the Irish legend’.

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must seek to redefine the terms Britannia and transmarinus. O f these, the first, Britannia, can also signify the area of the Roman diocese o f Britain. It may, therefore, be argued that, although Gildas employed the word o f the whole island in De Excidio Britanniae 1.3, he may in De Excidio Britanniae 1.14 be silently modifying its meaning to the more limited sense of Britain south of the Forth-Clyde line. If this is the case, transmarinus may here be used in the literal sense o f ‘coming across the sea*. The passage may then be reinterpreted as follows. The Piets and Irish are transmarinae gentes only in the sense that their attacks on the province of Britain are seaborne. They are external to the province, but not necessarily to the island o f Britain. Thus, the Piets can be properly located to the north of the province, while the Irish to the North-west may be based in British Dâl Riata rather than on the mainland o f Ireland." De Excidio Britanniae 1.14 is, then, open to two possible interpretations. The first assumes that Gildas employs Britannia consistently to mean the island of Britain, but involves representing the Piets as an overseas nation located to the north of the British Isles in the late fourth century. The second restores the Piets to their accepted geographical position at that time, but supposes that Gildas had two interchangeable usages for Britan­ nia, the island or the diocese. How far is either interpretation borne out by the remainder o f his narrative of the Pictish wars? 2. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1511213 legio . . . cominus cum grauibus hostibus congressa magnamque ex eis multitudinem sternens . . . omnes e finibus depulit. This chapter, which relates the first intervention o f the Romans against the Britons* enemies, tells us nothing of the location or extent of the raids o f the Piets and Irish. The Romans drive them e fin ib u s, ‘from [British] boun­ daries’. The phrase is imprecise: it may mean that the invaders are driven from the island entirely or else merely over an undefined northern border.11 3. De Excidio Britanniae 1.1614 . . . illi priores inimici ac si ambrones lupi profunda fame rabidi, siccis faucibus ouile transilientes non comparante pastore, alis remorum remigumque brachiis ac uelis uento sinuatis uecti, terminos rumpunt caeduntque omnia et quaeque obuia maturam ceu segetem metunt calcant transeunt. Although the language o f this chapter is high-flown, two details are dear. The second attack of the Piets and Irish is initially launched by sea and suc­ ceeds in 'bursting through the frontiers (terminos)*. This phrase, like 11 According (o written sources of the tenth century and later, Irish migrants created British Dâl Riata early in the sixth century (see Bannerman, Studies, pp. 122—6); but they could in fact have been there considerably earlier. 12 ‘The legion . . . came to grips with our harsh foes, killed a great number of them . . . and drove them from our boundaries.' 13 Cf. n. 15 below. 14 ‘The old foes were like greedy wolves maddened by extremes of hunger, which with dry jaws leap over into the sheep-fold, unseen by the shepherd. Carried on the wings of oars and the arms of oarsmen, their sails swelling to the wind, they burst through the frontiers and, destroying everything, cut down all in their path like ripe corn, trample it and pass on.‘

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e ftn ib u s (1.15), is inexact but Gildas is probably referring to the turf-wall whose construction (and ineffectiveness) was described in I.IS .15 Modern historians identify the turf-wall as the Antonine wall o f the Forth-Clyde line.16 If the Piets and Irish are envisaged as inhabitants o f Britain north o f that line, their ships must be used to outflank the wall by sea. This is not entirely satisfactory. In De Excidio Britanniae, 1.15,3, Gildas ascribes the failure of the defensive work not to its being by-passed, but to its construc­ tion from turf rather than stone. Moreover, the vivid simile, ultimately derived from Vergil,1718in which the enemies are compared to wolves leaping into the sheep-fold (ouile transilientes), is more effective if they are ima­ gined as crossing the turf-wall. This chapter, therefore, suggests that the Piets and Irish arrive by sea before crossing the wall, although it offers no clue to their point(s) o f departure. 4. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1711 ita aemulorum agmina auxiliares egregii, si qua tarnen euadere potuerant, praepropere trans maria fugauerunt, quia anniuersarias auide praedas nullo obsistente trans maria exaggerabant. In this description of the second Roman defeat of the Piets and Irish we are told that their raids were yearly and that their booty was stored ‘across the seas’ (trans maria). The phrase is emphatically repeated and suggests — unless it is a bold poeticism — that Gildas thought of both the Piets and Irish as based outside mainland Britain. 5. De Excidio Britanniae 1.19,1—319 Itaque . . . emergunt certatim de curucis, quibus sunt trans Tithicam uallem euecti, . . . tetri Scottorum Pictorumque greges, . . . omnem aquilonalem extremamque terrae partem pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt. Statuitur ad haec in edito arcis acies, segnis ad pugnam, inhabilis ad fugam, trementibus praecordiis inepta, quae diebus ac noctibus stupido sedili marcebat. . . . Quid plura? Relictis ciuitatibus muroque celso iterum ciuibus fugae, . . . . Before they depart, the Romans advise the British to build a more effective wall from stone. This is usually identified as H adrian’s wall. After the Roman withdrawal the Piets and Irish make a third attack. Like the second, it is, initially at least, seaborne (trans Tithicam uallem). On this occasion, however, the raiders seize from the inhabitants a large area as far as the 15 If this is so, it may be that the fines of De Excidio Britanniae, 1.15,3, are identical with the termini on which the turf-wall was constructed. 16 So Thompson, ‘Gildas’, p. 206, and Miller, ‘Bede’s use’, p. 244, n. I; but Stevens (‘Gildas sapiens’, p. 358) argues that Gildas is thinking of the earthen uattum of the Hadrianic wall. 17 Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 10, n. 8. 18 ‘And so our sterling helpers put such hostile bands as were able to escape to hasty flight across the seas; for it was across the seas that they used in their greed to pile up unopposed their yearly spoils.’ 19 ‘S o . . . the foul throngs of Irish and Piets. . . vied to leave thecurraghs which had carried them across the sea-depths . . . and took from the inhabitants all the farthest northern part of the land as far as the wall. To oppose them, a battle-line was stationed on the heights of that stronghold. Reluctant to fight, too clumsy to run, undermined day and night by fearful hearts, it withered on its foolish perch. . . . In short, the citizens abandoned their towns and the lofty wall and fled again.’

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stone wall (m uro tenus). What exactly does Gildas mean by the phrase om nem aquilonalem extrem am que terrae partem , ‘all the farthest northern part o f the land’? Since the Piets and Irish employ their curraghs, it might be maintained that they by-pass the wall by sea and then take all the far North of the diocese as far north as the wall.20The remainder o f the chapter makes this reading most unlikely. For the Piets and Irish proceed to make a direct assault on the wall — a completely unnecessary step if they had already outflanked that defensive line and their motive was still, as in De Excidio Britanniae 1.17,3, plunder. A more acceptable narrative sequence is obtained if we suppose that they arrive by sea and capture ‘all the farthest northern part of the land’ as far south as the stone wall. This they assault. The British manning the wall are dislodged and flee, abandoning both it and unspecified ciuitates to their foes. Once again, however, the point o f departure o f the enemy curraghs remains debatable. If by om nem aquilonalem extrem am que terrae partem Gildas means the whole of the island north of H adrian’s wall, then the attack must be launched from external overseas bases. Conversely, if the phrase signifies only the area between H adrian’s wall and the Forth-Clyde line, then the Piets and Irish may have arrived by sea from farther north in the island. 6. De Excidio Britanniae 1.21,121 Reuertuntur ergo impudentes grassatores Hiberni domos, post non longum temporis reuersuri. Picti in extrema parte insulae tunc primum et deinceps requieuerunt, praedas et contritiones nonnumquam facientes. Eventually with God’s aid, Gildas tells us, the British defeat their enemies who then retire (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.20,3: recesserunt hostes a ciuibus). The exact details of their withdrawal, however, are clarified only in the above passage. While the meaning of Gildas’s Latin here is crucial to our understanding o f his narrative, it is not immediately obvious what he envisages. Certainly, the Irish, who only on this occasion are termed grassatores H iberni (‘Irish freebooters’), return home, although the loca­ tion o f this home is not specified: it may be Ireland or British Dâl Riata. The Piets in extrema parte insulae tunc prim um et deinceps requieuerunt, ‘then for the first time, and therafter, rested in the farthest part o f the island’. Any interpretation of the passage must turn on the meaning o f requieuerunt, literally ‘rested’. Does Gildas mean that the Piets simply kept quiet, or that for the first time they remained in the island o f Britain as opposed to returning to their overseas homeland? If Gildas thought of the Piets as already occupying the north o f the island, requieuerunt must be understood as ‘kept quiet’. This, however, involves serious problems of interpretation. The verb is modified by the words tunc prim um et deinceps, ‘then for the first time and thereafter’. This 20 This is the view of Thompson, 'Gildas’, p. 214. 21 'Therefore the impudent Irish freebooters went home, intending to return in a short time. The Piets then for the first time — and thereafter — rested in the farthest part of the island, not infrequently plundering and raiding.’

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is highly incongruous if we take requieuerunt as signifying peaceful behaviour. For the Piets continue to make frequent damaging raids (praedas et contritiones nonnum quam facientes). It might be maintained that Gildas is drawing a distinction between these raids and the more dramatic ravages which followed the breaching of the stone wall. Yet in De Excidio Britanniae 1.22,1 (see below) the Piets have ‘the intention of com­ pletely destroying . . . the area from one end to the other’, and their incur­ sions are described as ‘brutal and repeated invasions and plunderings’ {De Excidio Britanniae, 1.22: ferales et . . . crebras . . . irruptiones praedasque).22423These are strange terms to apply to a people who allegedly ‘kept quiet then for the first time, and thereafter’. If on the other hand we understand in extrema parte insulae tunc prim um et deinceps requieuerunt as ‘remained then for the first time, and thereafter, in the farthest north of the island’, this difficulty is removed: tunc prim um et deinceps does not qualify the supposed inactivity o f the Piets, but rather the location of their resting, in extrem a parte insulae 2i This reading has the further advantage of supplying a contrast between the actions of the Piets and Irish. The Irish go home. If by this Gildas means that they return to British Dàl Riata, then the Piets, who ‘rest in the farthest part o f the island’, must also have gone home. This seems very lame writing. If, instead, the Irish return overseas to Ireland, as they had always done after their annual raids {De Excidio Britanniae, 1.17,3, above), the Piets, by contrast, abandon this pattern and remain for the first time in mainland Britain. It seems, therefore, that De Excidio Britanniae 1.21,1 is most naturally understood to mean that the Piets, who were previously — like the Irish — based overseas from the British Isles, only at this point occupy the far North. 7. D e Excidio Britanniae, 1.22,124 non ignoti rumoris penniger ceu uolatus arrectas omnium pénétrât aures iamiamque aduentus ueterum uolentium penitus delere et inhabitare solito more a fine usque ad terminum regionem. This passage provides very strong evidence that Gildas’s meaning in De Ex­ cidio Britanniae, 1.21,1, was indeed that the Piets established themselves for the first time on the British mainland. That chapter ends with an account of the growth of luxury and corruption in Britain. The following chapter deals with the motives behind the invitation extended to English foederati. One of 22 It might be objected that the Piets' intention is never acted on, in which case 'ferales e t . . . crebras . . . irruptiones praedasque’ would refer back to the three previous incursions. This is, however, unlikely, for at De Excidio Britanniae 1.23,1 the English are brought into the island ad retundendas aquilonales gen tes, 'to throw back the northern peoples'. The phrase certainly suggests that the invasion has begun. 23 The strong verbal parallel between this expression and De Excidio Britanniae, 1.19,1, 'omnem aquilonalem extrememque terrae partem* is, pace Thompson ('Gildas', p. 214, n. 55), a strong indication that the latter signifies the whole of the island north of the stone wall. 24 'The feathered flight of a familiar report pierced the pricked ears of all (the British): the im­ minent return of their old enemies intending completely to devastate and, in the usual way, to settle the region from one end to the other.’

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these is the rumour o f the return o f the old enemies described in the passage cited above. The British fear that their foes will penitus delere et inhabitare solito m ore a fin e usque ad term inum regionem, 'completely devastate and, in the usual way, settle the region from one end to the other.* W hat is meant by inhabitare solito m orel It is d ear from De Excidio Britanniae, 1.17,3 (above), that the Piets and Irish conducted yearly raids, returning home trans maria with their booty. There is no mention of settlement. And, as we have seen, in their third assault they take from the inhabitants northern Bri­ tain as far south as H adrian's wall. After penetrating the wall and ravaging beyond it, they are eventually defeated and withdraw. The Irish return home. Whether this be Ireland or British Dâl Riata, clearly they do not settle any new territory; nor do the Piets if we imagine them as 'resting* in extrem a parte insulae in their original territory. If, however, as I have sug­ gested above, they were, according to Gildas, originally based outside mainland Britain, their resting ‘now for the first time, and thereafter* in the far North is precisely the kind of territorial encroachment demanded by the phrase inhabitare solito m ore. This interpretation is, therefore, essential if the rumour which reaches the British is to have any coherent meaning. This examination o f Gildas’s narrative o f the Pictish wars has necessarily been long and complex. On balance it appears that, if the account is to be internally consistent, Gildas must have represented the Piets as living out­ side Britain at the time o f Magnus Maximus. His narrative may be recapitulated as follows. At De Excidio Britanniae 1.14 the Piets and Irish are introduced as overseas enemies whose homes lay outside the island o f Britain. The Irish come from the North-west, from Ireland, the Piets from an unspecified area to the North. Together they launch annual raids on Bri­ tain by sea, always returning to their bases with their spoils. Twice they are driven off by Roman forces summoned from the Continent. On the first occasion the Romans advise the construction of a turf-wall which proves ineffective, on the second that of a stone wall. The Piets and Irish return a third time by sea and take all the area north o f the stone wall. This is aban­ doned by the British, and their foes pillage the diocese. After the failure of the appeal to Agitius, the British, unaided, defeat the enemy, who retreat. The Irish retire to Ireland intending to return, but the Piets for the first time stay behind in the far north o f Britain. After a period of prosperity, it is partly the rumour of another major offensive and further settlement which prompts the British to invite the English foederati. Such, whatever diffi­ culties it entails for the historian, appears to be the narrative sequence of De Excidio Britanniae, 1.14—22.

B.

BEDE

This literal interpretation of Gildas’s account o f the Pictish wars (or rather elements of it) has been advocated by some scholars — Charles Plum m er,25 25 Venerabitis Baedae Opera Historica, 11.23—4.

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T. F. O ’Rahilly,26 and particularly A. W. Wade-Evans27 who was its strongest supporter. They are not, however, without opponents. While C.E. Stevens2* did not investigate the problem, Hugh Williams,29 Molly Miller,30 and (by implication, at least) E. A. Thompson reject this reading,3132pre­ ferring the weaker, but more *historically’ accurate view that Gildas located the Piets in mainland Britain from the outset. These rejectionists were, moreover, not the first to do so. They were anticipated in the eighth century by the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede. When writing the H istoria Ecclesiastica Gent is Anglorum , Bede relied heavily in Book I on Gildas’s account of sub-Roman Britain. In particular §§12 and 14 of that Book contain a narrative o f the Pictish wars based on De Excidio Britanniae, 1.14—22. Bede’s reading of the events o f these diffi­ cult chapters is clear in his treatment of three key passages: (1) the first attacks o f the Piets and Irish; (2) their third attack (on the stone wall); (3) their final retirement. 1. H istoria Ecclesiastica, 1.12:32 the first attacks exin Brittania in parte Brettonum, omni armato milite, militaribus copiis uniuersis, tota floridae iuuentutis alacritate spoliata, quae tyrannoram temeritate abducta nusquam ultra domum rediit, praedae tantum patuit, utpote omnis bellici usus prorsus ignara; denique subito duabus gentibus transmarinis uehementer saeuis, Scottorum a circio, Pictorum ab aquilone multos stupet gemitque per annos. Transmarinas autem dicimus has gentes, non quod extra Brittaniam essent positae; sed quia a parte Bret­ tonum erant remotae, duobus sinibus maris interiacentibus, quorum unus ab orientali man, alter ab occidental), Brittaniae terras longe lateque inrumpit, quamuis se inuicem pertingere non possint. In this passage Bede makes two crucial additions to the information which he draws from Gildas. He modifies Britannia which, according to Molly Miller,33 he normally uses in the sense of the island o f Britain, with the phrase in parte Brettonum , ’in the area of the British’. In this way he effec­ tively limits Britannia to the sense of the diocese. Furthermore, he is careful to redefine transm arinus. The Piets and Irish (by the latter Bede 26 Early Irish History and Mythology, pp. 377—8 (and 530—2). 27 ‘The “ Picti” and “ Scotti" ’; Nennius’s ”History o f the Britons”, pp. 134—45; The Emergence, pp. 124—32. 28 ‘Gildas sapiens'. 29 Gildas, 1.32, n. 1. 30 ‘Bede's use’, p. 250. 31 ‘Gildas*, p. 214, where his interpretation of omnem aquilonalem extremamque terrae partem demands that the Piets be located in the far North. 32 ‘Then Britain (in the territory of the British) was stripped of all her armed soldiery, her complete military forces, and the whole of her swift and blooming youth, which was lead away by the rashness of the usurpers and never again returned home. Since she was totally ignorant of every military practice, she was open only to plundering. Finally she groaned in amazement for many years at the sudden attacks of two very fierce overseas peoples, the Irish from the North-west and the Piets from the North. These races are termed overseas not because they were situated outside (the island of] Britain, but because they were separated from the territory of the British by two interlying sea-bays. These make extensive inroads into mainland Britain, one from the eastern, one from the western sea, although they do not meet each other.' The Historia Ecclesiastica is quoted from Plummer’s text. 33 ‘Bede’s use’, p. 243.

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clearly means the Irish of British Dàl Riata) are overseas from the diocese o f Britain simply by virtue of living beyond the Firths o f Forth and Clyde.34 2. H istoria Ecclesiastica, I.12:35 the third attack Quibus ad sua rcmeantibus, cognita Scotti Pictique reditus denegatione, redeunt confestim ipsi et solito confidentiores facti omnem aquilonalem extremamque in­ sulae partem pro indigents ad murum usque capessunt. Statuitur ad haec in edito arcis acies segnis, ubi trementi corde stupida die noctuque marcebat. . . . Quid plura? Relictis ciuitatibus ac muro fugiunt, disperguntur. Bede, it will be noted, omits any mention of the arrival by sea o f the Piets and Irish. They merely seize the north of the island36378as far south as the stone wall (which Bede expressly identifies as H adrian’s wall). 3. H istoria Ecclesiastica, I.I4 :3Tthe final retirement of the Piets and Irish Reuertuntur impudentes grassatores Hiberni domus, post non longum tempus reuersuri; Picti in extrema parte insulae tunc primum et deinceps quieuerunt, praedas tarnen nonnumquam exinde et contritiones de Brettonum gente agere non cesserunt. Again Bede makes two important modifications to his source. By substituting quieuerunt (‘were quiet’) for requieuerunt (‘rested’), he removes any question of settlement. Here the Piets are simply quiet once and for all in their northern homeland. Bede recognises the apparent con­ tradiction o f their subsequent raiding, but solves the problem by the addi­ tion o f the adversative tarnen. The Piets did make some raids, he concedes; but, he implies, they never launched another invasion. Significantly, the problems raised by the rumour o f further enemy-invasion and settlem ent in De Excidio Britanniae, 1.22,1, do not arise for Bede, since he omits this detail entirely. It is clear that in the H istoria Ecclesiastica Bede has no time for any sug­ gestion that the Piets were based outside Britain as late as the fourth cen­ tury. The H istoria Ecclesiastica is not, however, the only work in which Bede employed De Excidio Britanniae as an historical source. A few years earlier, in 723, he had also drawn on Gildas’s account o f the Pictish wars when compiling his Chronica M aiora o f world-history,3' incorporated in his 34 Both Bede's great editor Plummer (VenerabUis Baedae Opera Historica, 11.23—4) and O’Rahilly (Early Irish History and Mythology, p. 378, n. 1) find Bede's interpretation of Gildas 'forced’. 35 'When they [the Romans] left for home, the Irish and Piets, learning that they had ruled out any return, themselves swiftly returned. Rendered more confident than usual, they took the whole farthest northern part of the island from the inhabitants as far as the wall. To oppose them, a battle-line was stationed on the heights of that stronghold where, stupified by fearful hearts, it withered night and day . . . In short, abandoning their towns and the wall, they fled and were scattered.' 36 There is an incongruity in Bede's use of the word insula in this phrase; it ought, on his inter­ pretation, to mean the far north of the British territory, viz the area between the ForthClyde line and Hadrian's wall. Either Bede is using the word very imprecisely or the incon­ sistency is caused by a reminiscence of his earlier interpretation of Gildas's narrative (see below, pp. 94—5). 37 'The impudent Irish freebooters went home, intending to return in a short time. The Piets then for the first time — and thereafter — were quiet in the farthest part of the island, although from then on they did not cease frequently to plunder and harry the British*. 38 Edited by Mommsen, Chronica Minora, III.247—327.

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work De Temporum Ratione. If we examine his version of the same three events in this earlier work, it is found to differ considerably. 4. Chronica M aiora, §§461, 483, 484w §461: Qui (Maximus) quoniam Britanniam omni paene armata iuuentute copiisque militaribus spoliauerat, quae tyrannidis eius uestigia secutae in Gallias numquam ultra domum rediere, uidentes transmarinae gentes saeuissimae, Scottorum a circio Pictorum ab aquüone, adueniunt et uastatam direptamque earn multos per annos opprimunt. §483: Recedente a Britannia romano exercitu cognita Scotti et Picti reditus denegatione redeunt ipsi et totam ab aquüone insulam pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt. Nec mora caesis captis fugatis custodibus mûri et ipso interrupto etiam intra ilium crudelis praedo grassatur. §484: Reuertuntur Scotti domum post non multum temporis reuersuri. Picti extremam insulae partem tunc primum et deinceps inhabitaturi detinent. In §461 Bede made no modification to either Britannia or transmarinus. If he thought of the Piets and Irish as anything other than attackers external to the island, he gave no clear indication of it. Indeed §483 effectively rules out this possibility. For although he again omits their arrival by sea, Bede represents the Piets and Irish as capturing the whole island north o f the stone wall, not just an area to the south of their historical territory. Moreover in §484 Bede's interpretation of requieuerunt as inhabitaturi deti­ nent ('they retained for settlement') is completely at variance with that which he was later to make in the H istoria Ecclesiastica. Here Bede, follow­ ing Gildas,3940 states clearly that the Piets occupied and settled the farthest part of the island for the first time only at the end of the fourth or the begin­ ning o f the fifth century. Between 723 and 731, then, Bede changed his mind. In Chronica M aiora he follows a literal interpretation of Gildas’s narrative, while in the H istoria Ecclesiastica he rejects this reading. It might be argued that Bede's reason for this volte-face was a critical reassessment of his source itself.41 Yet, only Bede’s earlier version is, as I have argued, consistent with a close examina­ tion of Gildas’s account of the Pictish wars. It is more probable that Bede was motivated solely by historical considerations. In H istoria Ecclesiastica, 39 §461: 'Since he (Maximus) had stripped Britain of almost all her armed youth and military forces, which followed the footsteps of his tyranny into the provinces of Gaul and never again returned home, very fierce overseas peoples saw their chance; the Irish from the North-west and the Piets from the North devastated, plundered and oppressed Britain for many years'. §483: 'When the Roman army left Britain, the Irish and Piets, learning that they had ruled out any return, themselves returned and took the whole island to the North from the inhabitants as far as the wall. Its defenders were without delay slaughtered, cap­ tured or put to flight. The wall itself was breached and the cruel raiders even ravaged beyond it.* §484: 'The Irish went home, intending to return in a short time. The Piets then for the first time — and thereafter — retained the farthest part of the island for settlement.* 40 Indeed the word inhabitaturi at §484 was probably extrapolated by Bede from Gildas’s rumor at De Excidio Britanniae 1.22,1. 41 As, for example, by Miller, ‘Bede’s use’, pp. 259—60; she does not, however, note the dif­ fering interpretations of Gildas’s account of the Pictish wars in the Chronica Maiora and Historia Ecclesiastica.

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1.1, he described the arrival in Ireland o f the Piets, who originated in Scythia, and their subsequent colonisation of the far north o f Britain. He does not date this event precisely, but ascribes it to a period before the Roman conquests. This is, however, contradictory to Gildas’s narrative o f the Pictish wars as Bede had understood it when writing Chronica M aiora. Bede therefore reworked details of the Pictish attacks in such a way as to eliminate this contradiction. He is the first of a long line of historians to ‘rewrite Gildas’s narrative, or to rearrange his narrative sequence, accord­ ing to the doctrines o f current knowledge’.4243

C. GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH

Another historian of a different character who made much use o f Gildas’s narrative was Geoffrey of Monmouth in his H istoria Regum B ritanniae*2 This work, probably published in 1138, was long ago shown not to be a serious history, but its literary achievement is considerable. From disparate sources Geoffrey created a largely unified and allegedly authoritative account of areas of British history unknown to Gildas and Bede. His treat­ ment of the Pictish wars provides a further example o f this recasting of D e Excidio Britanniae, in this case as much for literary as for historical pur­ poses. At the outset of his H istoria Geoffrey indicates the role which he intends for the Piets. After introducing his narrative proper with a geographical sketch of Britain based largely on De Excidio Britanniae, 1.3, he describes its inhabitants:44 postremo quinque inhabitatur populis Normannis uidelicet, atque Britannis, Saxonibus, Pictis et Scotis. Ex quibus Britones olim ante ceteros a mari usque ad mare insederunt, donee ultione diuina propter ipsorum superbiam interueniente, Pictis et Saxonibus cesserunt. In this passage Geoffrey clearly espouses the literal interpretation o f De Ex­ cidio Britanniae already discussed: that the British originally occupied the whole island before losing portions o f it to foreign peoples as a punishment for their arrogance. The subsequent narrative of H istoria Regum Britanniae does not entirely conform to Geoffrey’s initial plan. While his treatment o f the establishment of the English in Britain is consistent with its demands, that o f the arrival o f the Piets is less coherent. At H istoria Regum Britanniae §70, Geoffrey describes the immigration of the Piets from Scythia into Britain, but he assigns it to the reign of the British King Marius whose father, Aruiragus 42 Cf. n. 4 above. 43 Edited by Faral, La Légende, 111.63—303; for a discussion of Geoffrey's borrowings, see Wright, 'Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas*. 44 Historia Regum Britanniae, §5: 'Finally it is inhabited by five peoples, that is the Normans and British, the English, Piets and Irish. Of these, the British once occupied it from sea to sea before the others, until by a visitation of divine retribution for their pride they suc­ cumbed to the Piets and English.' Although the spirit of the passage is thoroughly Gildasian, it should be noted that there is also a verbal debt to the Historia Brittonum, $9: 'Britones olim implentes earn a mari usque ad mare iudicauerunt*.

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Geographical Perspective

he regards as a contemporary of the Emperors Claudius and N ero.43 According to Geoffrey, the Piets were defeated by Marius and settled in Caithness in the far N orth.4546 They asked the British for wives and on being refused obtained them instead from the Irish. A version o f this last episode is found also in the Pictish origin-legend which was recorded in Bede's H istoria Ecclesiastica, a work well known to Geoffrey. It seems likely, therefore, that in placing the settlement of the Piets, from Scythia, in Caithness in the first century A.D. Geoffrey was influenced by Bede. Moreover it is difficult to reconcile the event with Geoffrey’s original, Gildasian plan: in what sense is this settlement o f the Piets a visitation of divine retribution for British pride? Furthermore, Geoffrey’s subsequent treatment o f the Piets is markedly ambivalent. In H istoria Regum Britanniae, §74, the Briton Fulgentius, hard pressed by the Emperor Severus, turns to the Piets for aid. However, he visits them not in Caithness but in Scythia.47On Fulgentius’s death in battle, the Pictish forces which he brought to Britain48 transfer their allegiance to Bassianus, Severus’s son. Eventually they betray him to Carausius and are for a second time rewarded with territory in Albania — that is Britain north of the wall — ‘where they afterwards remained, mixed with the British’.4950123 Yet even despite this second settlement in Britain, when the Piets next attack the British — after the departure of the usurper Maximianus (as Geoffrey terms Maximus) — they are introduced as raiding Germany and maritime nations in the company o f H uns.30 In Geoffrey’s account o f their attacks on Britain, which draws heavily on Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae,ix there is no suggestion that the Piets were already natives o f the island. Initially they land in Albania and, when repulsed, flee to Ireland. From there they return in league with Irishmen, Norwegians, and Danes, and are eventually re­ pelled by the Romans.32 On the departure of the Romans, the Piets return afresh from Ireland and only then, in a phrase closely modelled on that of Gildas, ‘take all Albania as far as the wall’.33 Geoffrey’s H istoria Regum Britanniae clearly betrays the influence of both Gildas and Bede. From a literal reading of De Excidio Britanniae Geoffrey drew both his account of the Pictish wars and the assertion that after Maximus’s Continental expedition the British lost territory as a 45 Historia Regum Britanniae, §§65—69. 46 Ibid., §70: ‘dédit deuicto populo . . . partem Albaniae ad inhabitandum quae Catenesia nuncupatur’. 47 Ibid., §74: ‘At Fulgentius cum diutius Seuero resisterc nequiuisset, transfretauit in Siciam, ut Pictorum auxilio dignitati restitueretur’. 48 Ibid., §75: 'Picti quos dux Fulgentius . . . in Britanniam conduxerat’. 49 Ibid.: ‘Dedit Pictis locum mansionis in Albania ubi cum Britonibus mixti per subsequens aeuum permanserunt’. 50 Ibid., §88: ‘exercitum Gwanii et Melgae qui iussu Gratiani nationes maritimorum et Germaniae dira clade opprimebant. Erat autem Gwanius rex Hunnorum, Melga uero Pic­ torum.’ 51 Wright. ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas’, pp. 9—10 and 36—8. 52 Historia Regum Britanniae, §89. 53 Ibid., §91: ‘omnem Albaniam muro tenus capessunt’; compare De Excidio Britanniae, 1.19,1, ‘omnem aquilonalem terrae partem pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt’.

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punishment for their pride to these aggressors from outside the island. From Bede’s H istoria Ecclesiastica he borrowed the Pictish origin-legend, including the arrival of the Piets from Scythia at a much earlier date. His two sources were fundamentally incompatible and, despite Geoffrey’s attempts to integrate them, their inherent contradictions can still be detected in his narrative.

D.

‘VITA S. T E IL IA U r

A further sidelight on the literary adaptation o f De Excidio Britanniae is afforded by the Vita S. Teiliaui. This Life of St Teilo is transmitted in two recensions. One is contained in British Library MS. Cotton Vespasian A.xiv, a collection o f Vitae of Welsh saints, compiled around 1200.MThe rubric which there precedes the Vita suggests that its author, Geoffrey, belonged to the fam ilia o f Urban, bishop o f Llandaf from 1107 to 1134.” The second, longer version is found in Liber Landauensis56 — which was assembled in the mid-twelfth century at Llandaf; that volume contains hagiographical texts and documents promoting the interests o f that church. The two Vitae o f Teilo are for the most part identical. The version con­ tained in Liber Llandauensis, however, includes material, intended to sup­ port the claims of Llandaf, which is not found in that explicitly attributed to Geoffrey. Both versions o f the Vita contain an identical passage, dealing with the immigration of the Piets, which refers the reader to Gildas’s account.” In illorum” autem sanctorum [sc. Teilo, David, and Dyfrigl diebus quidam populi de Scithia, qui siue a pictis uestibus siue propter orum stigmata Picti dicebantur, innumera classe ad Britanniam deuenerunt et capti amore terrae potiundae propter bonarum rerum copiam, qua super omnes insulas tunc temporis pollebat, magis fraude quam uiribus Britannos inuaserunt, et in eos miram tirannidem ad tempus exerceront. Nec mirum istam superari ab ilia; nam Picta gens erat subdola et multis conflictionibus terra et mari exercitata, ista autem, quamuis uiribus corporis esset praedita, tarnen simplex et pacifica et, quia nondum esset a quoquam54678 54 See Hughes, Celtic Britain, p. 53; this Vita has been partially edited by Wharton, Anglia Sacra, 11.662—6. 55 Wharton, Anglia Sacra, 11.662: ‘lncipit uita Teliaui episcopi a magistro Galfrido 1glossed id est Stephanoi fratre Urbani Landauensis ecclesie episcopi dictata’. 56 Edd. Evans & Rhys, The Text, pp. 97—117, and Loth, ’La Vie’. 57 Wharton, Anglia Sacra, 11.663; Evans & Rhys, The Text, pp. 99—100; Loth, ‘La Vie’, pp. 279—80. ‘In the time of these saints [sc. Teilo, David, and Dyfrigl a certain people from Scythia arrived in Britain with a huge fleet. They were called Piets either because of their embroidered clothes or because of tattoos made by needles. They were attracted to take the country by the abundance of goods in which at that time it excelled all islands. They attack­ ed the British with trickery rather than strength and for a time exercised a striking domina­ tion over them. The Piets’ superiority was not surprising as they were cunning and well versed in many land- and naval conflicts. The British, although they were physically strong, were trusting and peaceful. Since they had never been attacked, they were almost ignorant of war and only too easy to conquer. Should further details be required, they can be found in the account of Gildas, the British historian.’ I have accepted Loth’s perceptive conjec­ ture aculeorum for the manuscript-reading oculorunr, for his reasons, see ‘La Vie’, pp. 68—9. 58 istorum, Wharton.

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temptata, quasi bellandi nescia leuius subiugari potuil. Siquis autem inde plenius scire desiderat, in historia Cildae Britannorur.: historiographi reperiet. According to the hagiographer, the Piets first arrived (from Scythia) in Bri­ tain in the Age o f the Saints, a date later even than that implied by Gildas’s narrative. Was the author, then, familiar with De Excidio Britanniae, as his express allusion to Gildas’s *historia' asserts?59 It could be objected that the author, like other Welsh writers o f the earlier middle ages, used Britannia to denote Wales rather than Britain60 and is thus speaking only o f an irruption o f the Piets into Wales. However, the clause ‘propter bonarum rerum copiam, qua super omnes insulas tunc temporis pollebat’ clearly demon­ strates that the author intends the island of Britain which the Piets attack from Scythia; in this respect his account mirrors that of De Excidio Britan­ niae. Moreover, in recounting the richness o f the island and the Piets’ superiority over the British people because they were quasi bellandi nescia, he follows Gildas closely.6162It could be argued that he drew this information from Bede, who was probably his source for the Scythian origin of the Piets, rather than directly from Gildas; but in that case it is difficult to see why he assigned a late rather than an early date to the arrival o f the Piets. Despite the dubious historicity of Vita S. Teiliaui, it is most likely that its account of the Pictish migration to Britain in the Age of the Saints reflects, albeit dimly, the literal interpretation of Gildas’s narrative o f the Pictish war. That the author of Vita S. Teiliaui was familiar with De Excidio Britan­ niae is corroborated by passages in two other Vitae in Liber Landauensis: Vita S. Dubricii and Vita S. Oudocei.“ Near the end of the first of these the writer explains why he has set down only a few of Dyfrig’s many miracles:63645 Pauca miraculorum quidem de multis scripto commendata sunt, quippe cum fuerint aut ignibus hostium exusta aut exilii ciuium classe longius deportata. The same passage is repeated with only minor variations in Vita S. Oudocei In both Vitae the two reasons for the lack of written sources are borrowed almost verbatim from Gildas:63 non tam ex scriptis patriae scriptorumue monumentis, quippe quae, uel si qua fuerint, aut ignibus hostium exusta aut ciuium exilii classe longius deportata non compareant.

.M

59 It i$ unlikely that he means the Historia Brittonum, which is ascribed to Gildas in many manuscripts, since its account does not correspond with that of De Excidio Britanniae', it assigns the arrival of the Piets in the Orkneys to British prehistory. 60 Wade-Evans, Vitae, p. vii. 61 Cf. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.21,2: ‘lands abundantiarum copiis insula affluebat’; 1.14, ‘Britannia . . . omnis belli usus ignara penitus’. 62 Edd. Evans & Rhys, The Text, pp. 78—86 and 130—9 respectively. 63 Ibid., p. 84: ‘Only a few of his many miracles have been committed to writing, seeing that they have either been burned by the fire of our enemies or carried far away by the fleet of our exiled citizens’. 64 Ibid., p. 139: ‘Pauca quidem miracula illius sancti uiri et beatae memoriae de multis scripto commendata sunt, quippe cum fuerint aut ignibus exusta aut exilii ciuium classe longius deportata'. This parallel suggests that the two Vitae may be the work of the same author. 65 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.4,4: ‘not so much from the writings of my country or the records of its writers, seeing that, if they ever existed, they have either been burned by the fire of our enemies or carried far away by the fleet of our exiled citizens and are lost’.

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It seems certain, then, that a copy o f De Excidio Britanniae was known to the author or authors of these Vitae. Since they very probably worked at Llandaf itself, this lends further support to the argument that Geoffrey, the author of Vita S. Teiliaui who, as we have seen, had strong connexions with that church also knew Gildas’s work as he claimed. Finally — to return to the question o f Gildas’s narrative proper — one literary point should be raised. Whatever the historical difficulties in regarding both the Piets and the Irish as overseas races in the period follow­ ing the expedition of Magnus Maximus, they do, as such, play an important role in reinforcing one of the moral lessons of the historia-section of De E x­ cidio Britanniae: that tyranny lays a country open to attack from without. It is only after the tyrant Maximus has stripped Britain o f its troops in a mutinous attempt to oust the legitimate Emperors (the bias is Gildas’s) that the island, now defenceless, falls prey at first to two overseas peoples (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.14: duabus prim um gentibus transmarin is).66 Why ‘at first’? Because in Gildas’s view history repeated itself. It is the folly o f another proud tyrant (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.23,1: superbus tyrannus) which brings another race from overseas, the English, into the island of Bri­ tain with even more catastrophic results. That the Piets and Irish be transmarinae gentes is essential to Gildas’s argument, both to foreshadow the role of the English and to underscore the historical lesson — a lesson, Gildas implies, which the warring petty kings o f his own day would do well to take to heart. II:

GILDAS’S ‘NORTHERN PERSPECTIVE’

In her examination of Bede’s use of Gildas, Molly Miller has argued that D e Excidio Britanniae 1.14—26 fall into two sections. 1.14—21 concern the Pictish wars in the north of Britain, bringing the narrative in that area down to Gildas’s own time; 1.22—26, ‘with a chronological overlap marked by interea' deal with the events o f the war with the English in the South.6667 This view finds little support in a close reading of Gildas’s text. There is no clear­ ly defined geographical transition from north to south between De Excidio Britanniae 1.21 and 22. The period o f prosperity which heralds moral decline is not limited solely to the North, but affects the whole island (D e Excidio Britanniae, 1.21,2, tantis abundantiarum copiis insula affluebat: ‘the island overflowed with such plentiful goods’). Moreover, the narrative sequence o f D e E x c id io B rita n n ia e elsew here p ro ceed s s tric tly chronologically and hence does not support the view that the interea of D e Excidio Britanniae 1.22,1 denotes any considerable temporal overlap. 66 So Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 21; other scholars — Williams, Gildas, 1.32—3; Wade-Evans, The Emergence, p. 125; and Thompson, 'Gildas*, p. 206 — take primum with calcabilis in the sense 'exposed for the first time’. However, the word-order duabus primum gentibus argues very strongly in favour of Winterbottom’s rendering. 67 ‘Bede’s use’, p. 241.

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Rather, it simply marks the resumption of the military narrative o f De Excidio Britanniae, 1.20, which has been interrupted by a passage o f moralis­ ing and denunciation.6869 Indeed, there are d ear indications that Gildas envisaged the wars against the English foederati, which Miller locates in the South, as a judgement on the moral degeneration of the British, which she would limit to the North. Gildas explicitly states the role o f the English as agents o f divine retribution in De Excidio Britanniae, 1.24,1 :w Confouebatur namque ultionis iustae praecedentium scelerum causa de mari usque ad mare ignis orientali sacrilegorum manu exaggeratus, . . . These praecedentia scelera must refer to the sins enumerated in De Excidio Britanniae 1.21. The aduentus Saxonum is therefore represented by Gildas as a direct consequence o f the period o f luxury after the Pictish wars. It seems, then, most likely that the events of De Excidio Britanniae 1.22 direct­ ly follow the excursus o f 1.21 without any significant shift o f geographical emphasis. It is, however, true that De Excidio Britanniae 1.14— 21 and 21—26 fall into these two sections; but this is by virtue o f their parallel structure, as I have already suggested. The unexpected victory which the British with G od’s aid win over the Piets and Irish is followed by luxury and degenera­ tion. This God punishes by means of the English. By Gildas’s time they too had been contained (after Badon), but a brief period of stability had given way to even worse corruption.70 The implication for Gildas’s audience is clear: further impending divine retribution. Molly Miller’s interpretation has been considerably modified by another historian, E. A. Thom pson.71 He rejects — rightly in my view — her asser­ tion that De Excidio Britanniae 1.21 brings events down to Gildas’s own time, but develops the idea that the Pictish wars are limited solely to the North. Thompson maintains that Gildas’s account o f the English wars also shows this northern bias. In D e Excidio Britanniae, 1.23, Gildas tells us that a superbus tyrannus first settled the English ‘in the eastern part of the island’ (in orientali parte insulae). Thompson rejects the mediaeval identification of this area as Kent and argues that, if the English were to be employed against the Piets (ad retundendas aquilonales gentes), they would have been better stationed in the North-east. 68 Cf. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.19, 2, 'Interea non cessant uncinata nudorum tela'; 1.20,2, 'Interea famis dira ac famosissima*. Gildas's use of interea in this sense is part of his striv­ ing for the high style. The word often means no more than 'and then* in Latin poetry; see Reinmuth, 'Vergil’s use', pp. 328—30. I owe this reference to Patrick Sims-Williams. 69 'As a just punishment for our previous crimes, the fire piled up by the impious band from the east was nurtured from sea to sea . . . .* 70 Indeed, at De Excidio Britanniae 1.21,1 and 3, Gildas explicitly compares the corruption after the Pictish wars with that of his own time (sicut et nunc est and quod et nunc in ea totius boni euertit statum); but this does not mean, as Miller ('Bede's use*, pp. 251—2) thought, that this degeneration continued uninterrupted. At De Excidio Britanniae 1.26,2—3, Gildas tells us that a period of order and co-operation continued for a generation after the English wars. Only afterwards was stability perverted. 71 'Gildas*, especially pp. 214—20.

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To support his assertions Thompson argues that on two occasions Gildas employs the word regio specifically to signify the North. At De Excidio Britanniae 1.19,4 Gildas relates that, after the British abandoned the wall to the Piets and Irish, civil disorder was caused by hunger:72 et augebantur externae clades domesticis motibus, quod huiuscemodi tarn crebis direptionibus uacuaretur omnis regio totius cibi baculo, excepto uenatoriae artis solacio. 'R egio' also appears at De Excidio Britanniae 1.22,1 where Gildas relates the rumour of the return o f the Piets:73 non ignoti rumoris penniger ceu uolatus arrectas omnium pénétrât aures iamiamque aduentus ueterum uolentium penitus delere et inhabitare solito more a fine usque ad terminum regionem. In the first passage Thompson would limit the food-shortages to the North, and in the second interpret Pictish encroachment as a threat for the same area. On both occasions, however, Gildas may be using the term regio more loosely to denote the whole of Britain.7475The food-shortages need not have affected only the North, since the full extent of Pictish penetration is not made clear by Gildas. Moreover, at De Excidio Britanniae 1.22,1 the threat o f further territorial expansion on the part o f the Piets is motivated by God’s desire to ‘purge his family’ (purgare fam iliam suam ). Since, in D e Excidio Britanniae 1.26, Gildas terms Britannia ‘the latter-day Israel* (praesentem Israelem), G od’s family is here most likely to include all the inhabitants of Britannia and the fear inspired by the rumour is not therefore to be restricted to the North alone. The major argument, however, against the proposed northern bias o f Gildas’s narrative of the Pictish and English wars must be its context in the historia-section. At the very outset, in De Excidio Britanniae 1.3, Gildas sets his account in its geographical perspective — the island of Britain in its entirety. Throughout the narrative Britain is variously referred to as Britan­ nia, insula, and patria. Indeed, Gildas’s frequent personification o f Britan­ nia is indicative of his attitude to his patria as a single entity. He similarly terms its inhabitants dues (‘fellow-citizens’): he does not think of them in terms of various successor-states.73 In short, Gildas’s view of British history is of one Britannia — Britannia insula. The first event of Gildas’s impressionistic narrative is the Roman occupa­ tion o f Britain (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.3—7). This is painted in broad strokes and its effect, according to Gildas, is completely to romanise his patria (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.7, ita ut non Britannia, sed Rom ania 72 ‘disaster from without was worsened by disorders at home, since the whole region was emptied of the support of every food; the art of hunting was the only relief.* 73 See n. 24, above. 74 Gildas uses the word on three other occasions in the historia-seciion: De Excidio Britan­ niae, 1.4,3, aiiis longe positis regionibus; 1.5,1, subiugatis fin itimis quibusque regionibus\ 1.25,1, transmarinas petebant regiones. There is no indication that he is employing it in any technical sense. 75 The opening statements of Books II and III (11.27, ‘Reges habet Britannia . . .*; 111.66, ‘Sacerdotes habet Britannia . ..*) also make the point that, despite his references to various local rulers, Gildas was still thinking of Britannia as a whole.

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censeretun ‘so that it was held to be not Britannia, but Romania*). D e Excidio Britanniae 1.8— 12 turn to ecclesiastical history. Gildas tells o f the arrival of Christianity in Britain, persecution under Diocletian and a brief recovery before the country — fickle as ever — falls victim to heresy. He records the martyrdom of, among others, Albanus o f Verulamium. Would Gildas mention him if his writing had a northern bias? At De Ex­ cidio Britanniae 1.10,2 he comments o f these martyrs (including St Alban):76 quorum nunc corporum sepulturae et passionum loca, si non lugubri diuortio bar­ barorum quam plurima ob scelera nostra ciuibus adimerentur, . . . The implication is that Verulamium had in Gildas’s day been occupied by the English, or at least was in imminent danger o f such occupation. That Gildas records this detail is an indication that he did not regard the English encroachments as restricted to the North nor did he concern himself solely with that area. De Excidio Britanniae 1.13 deals with Magnus Maximus, who is dis­ patched against the Continent by Britannia herself. The Pictish wars (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.14—21) ensue as a direct consequence. Although the foe is northern, Gildas places the struggle in a wider context. In De Excidio Britanniae 1.14 it is Britannia herself who is downtrodden and in 1.15 it is she who also summons the Romans. When the defeated enemies return, British ambassadors beg the Romans ne penitus misera patria deleretur (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.17,1: ‘lest their wretched country should be com­ pletely destroyed*). When the Romans have again defeated the Piets and Irish, before leaving they (in De Excidio Britanniae, 1.18,1) give advice patriae, ‘to our native land*. At De Excidio Britanniae 1.18,2—3, in addi­ tion to supervising the construction o f a stone wall, they construct towers in lito re . . . oceani ad meridianam plagam (‘on the shore o f the ocean to the south*). It has been disputed whether these towers were those erected on the Yorkshire coast or rather represent the Saxon-Shore forts. If, however, we return to De Excidio Britanniae 1.3,1 (which constitutes a verbal map o f Britain), we find that Gildas there describes Britain as follows:7778 oceani. . . diffusiore et, ut ita dicam, intransmeabili undique circulo absque meridianae freto plagae, quo ad Galliam Belgicam nauigatur, uallata, . . . As Molly Miller has observed,7* the verbal echo is unmistakable. At De Ex­ cidio Britanniae 1.18,3, then, Gildas is most probably referring to the forts o f the Saxon Shore. If this is so, his inclusion of this detail in the narrative o f the Pictish wars is another indication that it is not restricted to the North alone. After the departure of the Romans, the Piets and Irish return, penetrate the stone wall and ravage beyond it. Famine ensues which leads to civil 76 ‘if the resting places of their bodies and the scenes of their martyrdoms were not for the most part being lost by our citizens, because of our sins, to the sad encroachment of the barbarians.’ It is impossible to overstress the importance of recognising that the imperfect subjunctive in this remote conditional clause has the force of a present. For Gildas, the diuortium with the English was a continuing process. 77 ‘fortified on all sides by the spreading and, so to speak, impassible circle of the ocean, except for the straits to the south, where one can sail to Belgic Gaul.' 78 ‘Bede’s use’, p. 246, n. 1.

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strife. Unexpectedly the enemy is defeated and retires. Then, at D e Excidio Britanniae 1.21,2, Gildas tells us that quiescente autem uastitate tantis abundantiarum copiis insula affluebat: ‘as their depredations ceased, the island overflowed with such plentiful goods’. Clearly he means that the whole island had suffered from enemy devastations, and he contrasts its unexpected economic recovery with the starvation which preceded it. There are, therefore, indications through Gildas’s account of the Pictish wars that he is concerned not with their effects in the North alone, but in Britain as a whole. The narrative o f the English wars (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.22—26) is similarly conceived. The extent o f the jurisdiction o f the super bus tyrannus, who settles the English as foederati in the east o f Britain is not clear: he may be a local or national leader. But the arrival o f the foederati is certainly a disaster for all o f Britain. At De Excidio Britanniae 1.23,4 their mission is described as quasi pro patria pugnaturus sed earn certius im pugnaturus: ‘allegedly to fight for our country but rather with fixed intention o f fighting against it’. They threaten to sack cuncta insulae (‘the whole island’). At De Excidio Britanniae 1.24,1 their words become deeds and the English are metaphorically depicted as a flame:7980 . . . non quieuit accensus donee cunctam paene exurens insulae superficiem rubra occidentalem trucique oceanum lingua delamberet. The English are now responsible for the sack (and eventual desolation) o f British cities. Their activities are restricted to neither the North nor the South; rather Gildas portrays them as excidium patriae (De Excidio Britan­ niae, 1.23,1: ‘the ruin of our country’). After the English defeat at the hands o f Ambrosius Aurelianus, the con­ tinuing struggle is a national affair. At De Excidio Britanniae 1.26,1 Gildas comments:*0 Ex eo tempore nunc ciues, nunc hostes, uincebant, ut in ista gente experiretur dominus solito more praesentem Israelem, utrum diligat eum an non . . . Among the effects of the English incursions in Gildas’s own day is the desolation of the British cities, which he terms ciuitates patriae (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.26,2). Further, he terms the memory o f the wars as tam desperati insulae excidii insperatique m entio auxilii (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.26,2: ‘the recollection o f so hopeless a ruin of the island and o f so un­ expected a [divine) aid’). In short, whether the sources of the historia-seetion o f De Excidio Britan­ niae are northern, or southern, or originate with the British on the Conti­ nent or in Ireland, Gildas in that section relates the history o f all o f Britain as opposed to any one area thereof. The four main sections — the Roman invasions, the persecutions, and the Pictish and English wars — are all plac­ ed firmly in the context of Britain as a whole. The framework o f Gildas’s narrative o f the history of Roman and post-Roman Britain is, as I have 79 ‘once kindled, lit) did not die down until, burning almost the whole surface of the island, it licked at the western ocean with a tongue red and grim.* 80 'From that time, now our citizens, now the enemy triumphed, so that the Lord might, as He is accustomed, test in this people whether the latter-day Israel loves Him or not.’

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suggested, subordinated to the overall rhetorical purposes o f De Excidio Britanniae: the historia presents a moralising interpretation of the British past which aims to warn Gildas’s audience of the dangers o f their own situa­ tion by means of parallels drawn from their history.81

81 I am extremely grateful to Patrick Sims-Williams for reading a draft of this paper and for many valuable suggestions, and am especially indebted to Kathryn Grabowski for her unstinting help and encouragement.

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VI GILDAS’S PROSE STYLE AND ITS ORIGINS N eil W right RECENT scholars have questioned the view that the De Excidio Britanniae of Gildas is an example of bizarre Insular latinity unparalleled by earlier Latin works. The seminal study was that of François Kerlouégan.1 He demonstrated that Gildas’s Latin, though rhetorical, is correct and almost unaffected by the peculiarities characteristic of Vulgar Latin. In the use of unusual words and neologisms — particularly nouns in -amen and adjec­ tives in -fer or -ger and -osus — the De Excidio Britanniae is not directly comparable with the exotic practices of the Hisperica Famina or with the flamboyant artistic prose of the Anglo-Saxon Aldhelm. Kerlouégan con­ cluded that Gildas’s Latin prose is more akin to the elegant style o f fifthcentury Gallic rhetoricians, such as Sidonius Apollinaris. Moreover, as far as subject-matter is concerned, R. W. Hanning has pointed out that one of the major themes of De Excidio Britanniae, the representation of foreign invaders as a visitation o f the Lord upon the sins o f the author’s people, can be closely paralleled in the De Gubernatione Dei o f Salvian of Marseilles, just such a fifth-century Gallic writer.2 Further­ more, Michael Winterbottom has stressed the links o f the preface of De Ex­ cidio Britanniae with the conventions of the Late Latin prose preface and epistolary genre.3 Gildas’s familiarity with the tenets o f rhetorical theory is also indicated by the structure of the work as a whole, as Michael Lapidge has argued.4 It seems, then, that De Excidio Britanniae is the product of a mind well versed in the Latin literary tradition. This conclusion naturally raises the question of the extent o f Gildas’s familiarity with earlier Latin writings and the effect of such writings on his style. Since external evidence is lacking, the range of Gildas’s reading can be determined only by an examination of quotations and reminiscences con­ tained in De Excidio Britanniae itself. This method involves the inherent weakness that Gildas may have known many more texts than those which he quotes; it has the advantage, however, of demonstrating which authors were directly influential on De Excidio Britanniae itself. The text most frequently cited by Gildas is, of course, the Bible. This pro­ vides him with the battery of authoritative quotations on which he bases his 1 2 3 4

4Le latin*. The Vision o f History, pp. 46—8. ‘The preface*. Above, pp. 27—50.

107 Gildas: New Approaches, edd. M. Lapidge & D. Dumville, Studies in Celtic History V (Boydell Press, 1984), pp. 107—128.

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diatribes against the British kings and clergy in Books II and III.5 Moreover, as Hanning has argued, Gildas’s historical perspective was markedly biblical in character.6 Despite this dependence, Gildas was not in­ fluenced by the Bible as a stylistic model. The simple prose of the Bible with its affinities to Vulgar Latin is far removed from the complex style o f D e Excidio Britanniae, which has its roots in the rhetorical tradition. More important for this investigation is Gildas’s knowledge o f other Christian and Classical Latin texts, both prose and poetry. Let us begin with his use of Christian Latin prose writers, in particular patristic authors and historians. O f the Church-Fathers, Gildas quotes only Jerome, but his familiarity with Jerome’s works is rather more extensive than has been allowed. In one passage he makes two verbal borrowings from Jerom e:78 ita ut Porphyrius rabidus orientalis aduersus ecclesiam canis dementiae suae ac uanitatis stilo hoc etiam adnectcret: ‘Britannia’, inquiens, ‘/ertilis prouineia tyrannorum'. The description of the third-century Greek philosopher Porphyry as an ‘eastern dog, rabid against the Church’ stems from the preface o f Jerome’s De Viris IHustribus, where Porphyry, Celsus and Iulianus are termed rabidi aduersus Christum canes.9 Similarly, the phrase ‘a province rich in tyrants’ is applied to Britain by Jerome in one of his letters. Modern critics, notably E. A. Thompson, have maintained that Gildas completely misunderstood this passage in that he attributes the remark to Porphyry, whom Jerome had mentioned a few lines before in the same letter.9 Since such an error must lower our estimation of Gildas as a latinist, this passage o f Jerome merits close attention. In it, Jerome discusses the accusation that God is unjust. After citing the sins of Achar, of the sons of Eli, and of David, which un­ fairly brought destruction on many innocent victims, he continues:10 Et ad extremum (quod solet nobis obicere contubernalis uester Porphyrius) qua ratione Clemens et misericors Deus ab Adam usque ad Moysen et a Moyse usque ad aduentum Christi passus sit uniuersas gentes perire ignorantia legis et mandatorum Dei. Neque enim Britannia fertilis prouineia tyrannorum et scoticae gentes, omnesque usque ad Oceanum per circuitum barbarae nationes Moysen prophetasque cognouerant. Quid necesse fuit Eum in ultimo uenire tempore, et non priusquam innumerabilis periret hominum multitudo? In this passage the objection that many people died in ignorance o f chris­ 5 De Excidio Britanniae, 11.37—64 and 111.69—110. 6 The Vision o f History, pp. 49—62. 7 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.4,3: *so that Porphyry, an eastern dog, rabid against the Church, added even this to his mad and empty work: “ Britain, a province rich in tyrants” ’. The text of De Excidio Britanniae is quoted from the edition of Michael Winterbottom. The transla­ tions are my own, but I have kept Winterbottom’s version constantly at hand. 8 Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXIII.603: ‘dogs rabid against Christ*. 9 ‘Gildas’, p. 209. 10 Epistula 133.9 (Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXII. 1157): ‘and finally (an objection frequent­ ly made against us by your comrade Porphyry) why God, supposedly merciful and compas­ sionate, allowed all the gentiles from Adam to Moses and from Moses until the birth of Christ to perish in ignorance of His law and commandments. Nor had Britain, a province rich in tyrants, the people of Ireland, and all the uncivilised races lying in a circle up to the ocean even heard of Moses and the prophets. Why did He have to come in the last age, and not before a countless number of men perished?’

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tianity before the advent of the Saviour runs from et ad extrem um to m ultitudo and thus includes the phrase Britannia fertilis prouincia tyrannorum ; Jerome attributes this argument to Porphyry, but does not make it d ear whether Porphyry was the source o f all or only part o f it, or whether he is translating Porphyry’s words or merely paraphrasing them. Gildas quite legitimately, though perhaps misguidedly, assumes that the entire passage, and with it the words Britannia fertilis prouincia tyrannorum , is translated from Porphyry and so quotes them at second-hand through Jerome. At worst, Gildas is guilty of an insufficently critical approach, but he certainly did not simply misunderstand this highly ambiguous passage in Jerome’s letter. Gildas echoes another o f Jerom e’s letters later in De Excidio Britanniae. He describes an attack by the Picti and Scotti with the words ‘quaeque obuia maturam ceu segetem metunt calcant transeunt’." This is an elabora­ tion of the phrase obuia quaeque m etit which Jerome uses in the context o f the sword o f G o d .11231Gildas, then, knew at least two letters o f Jerome, if not the entire collection o f the Epistolae. 15 In addition to De Viris Illustribus and the Epistolae, Gildas also makes a borrowing from another work o f Jerome which has not so far been noticed in this context. Gildas’s rhetorical word-picture of Britain includes the vivid detail ‘pernitidisque riuis leni murmure serpentibus’. 14A very similar stream appears in Jerome’s Vita S. Pauli: ‘cum leni iuxta murmure aquarum serperet riuus’. 15 In the same chapter o f De Excidio Britanniae, Gildas depicts Britain as ‘insula in extremo ferme orbis limite’. 16 It may be that this constitutes an echo of a further important saint’s L ife, Euagrius’s transla­ tion o f Athanasius’s Vita S. A ntonii. At §50 Euagrius describes his hero as ‘hominem in extremo mundi limite conditum’. 17 11 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.16: ‘they cut down all in their path like ripe corn, trample it. and pass on’. 12 Epistula 14.2: ’cuts down everything which stands in its way*. In turn, Jerome's phrase is derived from Aeneid, X.513, proximo quaeque metit gladio. While Gildas probably knew this passage too, his wording is closer to Jerome’s. The context is also similar: Jerome applies the phrase to a destructive agent of God, a role which Gildas allots to the barbarian enemies in De Excidio Britanniae. 13 Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 156, notes the image summis labiis, ’with lips only’, shared by Epistula 125.14 and De Excidio Britanniae, 11.35,3. In his ‘Variations’, p. 57, nn. 8 and 13, Winterbottom quotes Epistula 1.2, *si me ad optatos portus aestus adpulerit', and De Ex­ cidio Britanniae, 11.65,1, ’in optato euectus portu remis’ as being ’in the same tradition*. Both may be direct borrowings. In the same article, pp. 56 and 57, n. 11, Winterbottom cites the phrases fragilis ingenii cumba from the prologue of Cassian’s Collationes and despecta ingenii nostri cymbula from De Excidio Britaniae, 111.106,1, but does not suggest that Gildas may have known Cassian's work directly. 14 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.3,4: ’brilliant streams gliding with a soft murmur’. 15 Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXIII. 19; ’while nearby a stream of water glided with a soft murmur*. This work may also have provided Gildas with the expression penniger uolatus, ‘a winged flight’; cf. Vita S. Pauli, §8 (Migne, Patrologia Latina, XXIII.24), ‘et quasi pennigero uolatu petulcum animal aufugit’, and De Excidio Britanniae, 1.22,1, ’non ignoti rumoris penniger ceu uolatus arrectas omnium pénétrât aures’. Both phrases of Jerome have a distinctly poetic feel, but are not, to my knowledge, derived from any Classical or Christian poet. 16 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.3,1: ’an island almost at the farthest limit of the world*. 17 Migne, Patrologia Latina, LXXI1I.162: ’a man hidden at the farthest limit of the earth’.

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Another hagiographical text known to Gildas was the Vita S. M artini of Sulpicius Severus. In that work Sulpicius describes the Spanish usurper Maximus with the words ’qui imperatores, unum regno, alterum uita expulisset’.1* On this Gildas bases a similar antithesis in his own description o f M aximus, ‘ut duos im peratores legitimos, unum Roma, alium religiosissima uita pelleret', and another in a phrase applied to the tyrant Maglocunus, ‘multorum tyrannorum depulsor tarn regno quam etiam uita supradictorum’. 189 Gildas may also have used a lost Passio S. A lbani as the source of his account of that saint.20 Finally, Gildas quotes from a Pelagian tract on virginity which may have been composed by a British author.21 O f the Christian historians, Gildas makes frequent use of Eusebius’s H istoria Ecclesiastica which he knew in the Latin translation by Rufinus. This provided him with information on general events, such as the coming o f Christianity and the persecutions o f Diocletian, and more precise details o f early martyrs, such as Ignatius, Polycarp and Basil.22 It is also from the H istoria Ecclesiastica that Gildas derives at second-hand a quotation attri­ buted to the Jew Philo: ‘necesse est adesse diuinum, ubi humanum cessât auxilium’.23 This provides a striking parallel with his indirect citation o f Porphyry via Jerome. The H istoria aduersum Paganos of Orosius, another Christian historian, shares common details with a passage of De Excidio Britanniae describing the geographical location and extent of Britain. E. A. Thompson, however, has argued that Gildas may not have known Orosius directly — on the grounds that he makes only minimal use o f a work which could have served as a major source for later British history.24 Thompson maintains that the parallels between the works of the two authors may be explained by a common, possibly oral, tradition. Neither argument need be convincing. First, Gildas’s limited use of Orosius’s history may have been dictated by the selective nature of the narrative section of De Excidio Britanniae, sub­ ordinated as it is to the structure of the work as a whole.25 Moreover, the relationship between the descriptions of Britain given by both writers is far 18 Vita S. Martini, 20.2: ‘who had driven one emperor from rule, the other from life’. Grosjean (*Romana stigmata’, p. 129, n. 5) also notes a slight parallel between De Excidio Britanniae, 1.11,1 (‘coram impiis romana turn stigmata cum horribili fantasia praeferentibus’) and Vita S. Martini, 24.7 (‘nisi crucis stigmata praeferentem’). 19 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.13,2, 'that he drove one of the two rightful emperors from Rome, the other from his most holy existence’, and 11.33,1, ‘who has driven many of the said usurpers not only from their kingdoms but also from life’. A similar antithesis is also found in Rufinus’s Historia Ecclesiastical see Winterbottom, ‘The preface’, p. 279, n. 13. 20 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.11. Grosjean, 'Notes’, pp. 190—3, discusses further apparent quotations by Gildas from lost or untraced works. 21 Morris, 'Pelagian literature’, p. 36; but note the reservations of Winterbottom ('The preface’, p. 280, n. 15) and Thompson (‘Gildas’, pp. 212—13) about the meaning of quidam nostrum — cf. Ian Wood, ‘The end of Roman Britain’, above, pp. 7—8. 22 See Winterbottom, Gildas, pp. 7 and 156—8. Winterbottom (‘The preface’, p. 279, n. 13) lists further possible reworkings by Gildas of the Historia Ecclesiastica. 23 Historia Ecclesiastica, 11.5,5, and De Excidio Britanniae, 1.20,3: 'when the aid of men fails, that of God is needed*. 24 ‘Gildas’, p. 209. 25 Lapidge, above, p. 44.

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closer than Thompson allows. Orosius gives the following details:26 Britannia oceani insula per longum in Boream extenditur, a meridie Gallias habet . . . habet in longo milia passuum DCCC, in lato milia CC. Gildas’s account is longer, but contains unmistakable similarities:27 Britannia insula. . . boreali propensius tensa axi, octingentorum in longo milium, in lato ducentorum spatium . . . tenens . . . absque meridianae freto plagae, quo ad Galliam Belgicam nauigatur, uallata. Far from being a cousin, this passage is a direct elaboration o f Orosius’s, employing much o f his vocabulary, and is typical o f Gildas’s treatment of his sources.2* I must also draw attention to a reminiscence o f Orosius in De Excidio Britanniae which has not previously been noticed. On one occasion Orosius employs the sententia, ‘impius enim flagellatur et non sentit’.29 The same sententia, with a minor variation, is used by Gildas: ‘flagellatur stultus et non sentit’.30 The phrase is not biblical; unless it originates from an as yet unidentified patristic source, it too must confirm that Gildas knew the H istoria aduersum Paganos directly. Compared with his familiarity with Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus and very probably Orosius, Gildas’s debt to Classical Latin prose is more problematical to estimate. Certainly his competence in handling Latin rhetoric31 might suggest that he had read Classical prose authors; but evidence for such reading is very slight. Ferdinand Lot stressed that Gildas relies on none o f the Classical historians as sources.32 It is, therefore, probably a coincidence that Gildas shares with Livy the expression spatium respirandi, ‘a breathing space’.33 Is the same true o f a parallel between Gildas and Cicero? In the preface o f De Excidio Britanniae Gildas terms the Old Testament ‘a kind of mirror of our life’:34 ista ego et alia multa ueluti speculum quoddam uitae nostrae in scripturis ueteribus intuens. Cicero employs a very similar conceit in his speech against Piso:35 (uersus) in quibus, si qui uelit, possit istius tamquam in speculo uitam intueri. Was Gildas, then, familiar with the In Pisonem , or did he arrive at this figure of speech independently? Such questions must await the results o f a comprehensive investigation o f Gildas’s knowledge o f Classical prose texts. 26 Historia aduersum Paganos, 1.2,76: ‘Britain, an island of the ocean, stretches extensively to the north; on the south it has Ga ul . . . it is eight hundred miles in length, two hundred in width’. 27 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.3,1: ‘The island of Britain . . . stretches rather more towards the north pole. It measures eight hundred miles in length, two hundred in width . . . it is sur­ rounded [by the ocean] apart from straits on the south, where one can cross to Belgic Gaul'. 28 Cf. Gildas’s adaptation of Rufinus discussed by Winterbottom, Gildas, p. 7. 29 Historia aduersum Paganos, VII.26,10: ‘for the wicked man is flogged, but feels nothing’. 30 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.22,2: 'the fool is flogged, but feels nothing*. 31 Lapidge, above, pp. 43—6. 32 ‘De la valeur’, p. 233. 33 A b Urbe Condita, X.28,11, and De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1,14. 34 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1,7: ‘I scrutinised these things and many others in the Old Testa­ ment as if they were a kind of mirror of our life*. 33 In Pisonem, 29.71: ‘(verses) in which anyone who wishes can scrutinise his life as though in a mirror’.

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Conversely, the extent o f Gildas’s use o f Classical Latin poetry is relative­ ly easy to determine. Mommsen suggested that De Excidio Britanniae con­ tains echoes of Juvenal, Persius or Martial, and Claudian;36 but all are far from convincing, since each case consists of only one w ord.37 The case of Vergil, however, is much stronger. Mommsen recognised three citations (none of them verbatim) o f the A eneid in De Excidio Britanniae:3®gelido per ossa trem ore currente and gelidusque per ima cucurrit / ossa trem or,39 ast uno sibi obiectas euincit gurgite m oles and oppositasque euicit gurgite m oles;4041et, ut dicitur, innum eris onerantes aethera uotis and onerauitque aethera uotis.*' W interbottom has rightly observed how unfair it is to regard these bor­ rowings as misquotations, commenting that ‘Gildas does not quote Vergil, but adapts him to his own purposes’.42435Furthermore, W interbottom adds a list o f several more echoes of Vergil: presso in altum cordis dolore and prem it altum corde dolorem;** ensem . . . lateri eius accom odaturos and laterique Argiuum accom odat ensem;** agmine denso;** magna com itante caterua;.4674ac si m ontanus torrens and rapidus m ontano flu m in e torrens.*1 W interbottom also calls attention to another passage o f De Excidio Britan­ niae:4849 ac si am b ro n es lupi p ro fu n d a fam e rabidi, siccis faucibus ouile transilientes non co m p aran te pastore.

The simile is epic in tone and echoes a very similar example in the Aeneid:*9 lupi ceu rap to res a tra in neb u la, q u o s im p ro b a uentris exegit caecos rabies ca tu liq u e relied faucibus expectant siccis. 36 Chronica Minora, 111.6. 37 epimenia (De Excidio Britanniae, 1.23,5), calasta (ibid., 1.23,4), and Tithicus (ibid.,1.19,1) respectively. 38 Chronica Minora, 111.6. 39 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.6,2: ‘a chill shudder running through the bones'; and Aeneid, II.120-1. 40 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.17,2: 'yet it overcomes the opposed masses in one surge*; and Aeneid, 11.497. 41 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.25,2: 'and, to quote, "loading the air with countless prayers" '; and Aeneid, IX.24. 42 Gildas, p. 10, n. 8. 43 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.5,2: 'with the pain smothered deep in their hearts’; and Aeneid, 1.209. 44 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.7: 'ready to apply the sword to its side’; and Aeneid, 11.393: ‘he fits an Argive sword to his side’. It is interesting that, in this case, Gildas changes the mean­ ing of his borrowing to match its new context. 45 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.9.2, and Aeneid, 11.450. 46 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.13,1, and Aeneid, 11.40. 47 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.17,2, and Aeneid, 11.305. 48 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.16: 'like greedy wolves maddened by relentless hunger, who leap with dry jaws into the sheepfold, unseen by the shepherd’. 49 Aeneid, 11.355—8: 'like predatory wolves in a black fog, who are driven blindly on by the evil madness in their bellies, while their cubs, left behind, await them with dry jaws’. Winterbottom (Gildas, p. 10, n. 8) also calls attention to a parallel simile at Aeneid, 1X.57 scq..

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The combined evidence of Mommsen’s and W interbottom’s lists indi­ cates how strong was the influence of the A eneid on Gildas. Indeed, the number o f his borrowings can be expanded. Phrases such as im m atura mors,*0 strages dare,*' nec mora,*2 and longe lateque33 may well be no more than mere Vergilian clichés, the common stock of artistic prose; but on other occasions Gildas derives more striking phrases or images from the Aeneid. He describes the miraculous parting of the Thames by St Alban with the words ‘suspensis utrimque modo praeruptorum fluuialibus montium gurgitibus’.5051234 The comparison of water with mountains and the vivid adjective praeruptus both stem directly from a line in a Vergilian stormscene: ‘insequitur cumulo praeruptus aquae mons’.55 Again, Gildas depicts Britannia after the departure of Maximus as om ni arm ato m ilite . . . spoliata .,6 These 'arm ed soldiery’, a poetic collective singular, are the very same as those who manned Vergil’s wooden horse: utrum que arm ato m ilite comptent.*1*Another Vergilian image favoured by Gildas is that o f 'pricked ears’, which appears twice: ‘non ignoti rumoris penniger ceu uolatus arrectas omnium pénétrât aures’ and, with variation, 'arrecto aurium auscultantur captu . . . Dei laudes’.5* Vergil uses the m etaphor o f Aeneas: atque arrectis auribus adsto.*9 When in De Excidio Britanniae the Saxons sack the cities of Britain, Gildas paints an emotive word-picture: ‘cunctae coloniae crebris arietibus omnesque coloni . . . simul solo sternerentur’.6061 This ‘repeated battering by rams’ also accompanies the sack o f Priam ’s palace in the A eneid: labat ariete crebro / ianua.“ A further metaphor which Gildas employs on two occasions is that of 'the public breeze’: ‘dein popularis aurae cognitioni proferens’ and 'popularis aurae potius quam praecepti gratia factum’.62 This image, signifying the unreliable nature o f p o p u la r s u p p o rt, o rig in a lly a p p e a re d in th e d e sc rip tio n 50 51 52 53

54 55 $6 37 38 39 60 61 62

De Excidio Britanniae, 1.19.2, and 11.30,2; and Aeneid, XI. 166—7. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.20,3, and Aeneid, XII.4S4 (inter alia). De Excidio Britanniae, 1.23,5, and Aeneid, V.368; also haud mora, passim. De Excidio Britanniae, 11.33,3 and Aeneid, VI.378. In this case, however, Gildas signals his debt to poetry with a hexameter cadence: löhge làlèque pér Iduras. Zimmer, Nennius Vin­ d ica te, pp. 313—14, first called attention to Gildas's use of ‘dactylische Satzausgang’. Other examples are De Excidio Britanniae, 1.3,2 and 1.12,1: bis denis bisque qua ternis and temperikm lùcemqüe setenam respectively. These portions of hexameters embedded in Gildas's prose are important evidence that he understood Classical metrical quality. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.11,1: ‘the river-pools hanging on either side like jagged moun­ tains'. Aeneid, I.10S: ‘a jagged mountain of water follows in a mass’. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.14: 'despoiled of all her armed soldiery’. Aeneid, 11.20: ‘and they fill its belly full of armed soldiery. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.22,1 — 'the winged flight of a familiar rumour penetrated the pricked ears of every man'; and De Excidio Britanniae, 1.34,6 — ‘the praises of God are . . . heard with ears pricked to listen*. Aeneid, 11.303: 'and I stand with ears pricked’; cf. Grosjean, ‘Remarques’, p. 177, n. 6. The phrase also appears at Aeneid 1.132 and XII.6I8. De Excidio Britanniae, 1.24,3: ‘all the towns along with every inhabitant. . . were laid low by repeated battering by rams’. Aeneid, 11.492—3: ‘the door gives under repeated battering by the ram’. De Excidio Britanniae, 11.34.1 and III. 108,3: ‘then, making it known to the public breeze’ and ‘enacted for the sake of the public breeze, not the command’, respectively.

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of Ancus in Vergil’s catalogue o f great Romans in the underworld: ‘nunc quoque iam nimium gaudens popularibus auris’.63 These Vergilian echoes, taken together with the quotations and remin­ iscences already noted by Mommsen and W interbottom, serve to underline Gildas’s ready familiarity with the Aeneid. W interbottom has remarked that most of the borrowings have been drawn from the first two books (par­ ticularly Book II) of the poem; but this need not imply, as he suggests, that Gildas’s reading was narrow in scope. Gildas also echoes Books VI and IX. Rather, it may be that he regarded these books o f storm and destruction, especially the sack of Troy in Book II, as ready sources o f vivid imagery for the often violent rhetoric o f De Excidio Britanniae. There is also some evidence that Gildas may have known Vergil’s Georgies. He describes the arrogance of British priests ordained abroad in these terms: ‘nunc recte ad aethera uel ad summa nubium uellera luminum semidormitantes acies librant’.6465The metaphorical connection of uellera, ‘fleeces’, with clouds is made also by Vergil: ‘tenuia nec lanae per caelum uellera ferri’.iS Gildas’s use of the metaphor may well indicate familiarity with the Georgies.** This completes our examination of the quotations and echoes contained in De Excidio Britanniae, although further study may well bring other literary debts to light. Let us recapitulate: Gildas’s knowledge of Classical prose writers must remain uncertain, but he was familiar with works by the Christian authors Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, and very probably Orosius. O f these, the historians Rufinus and Orosius provide him with details of the early Church and the geography of Britain respectively. From Jerome and Rufinus he draws at second-hand alleged quotations from Por­ phyry and Philo. Sulpicius Severus and Jerome also supply apt descriptive phrases for the tyrant Maximus, for Porphyry and for Britain itself. Yet the impact of these prose texts on the style o f De Excidio Britanniae is limited. True, Gildas borrows a picturesque element in his description o f Britain from Jerome’s Vita S. Pauli and a pointed antithesis from Sulpicius Severus’s Vita S. M artini, but it is to the Aeneid, and Book II in particular, that Gildas turns most frequently for inspiration. A part from the Bible, the Aeneid exerts the greatest single influence on De Excidio Britanniae, since Gildas’s frequent parading of Vergilian phrases and images, especially in the narrative section of the work, lends his prose style a distinctly poetic quality. This overt poeticism is part o f Gildas’s striving after the grand style. 63 Aeneid, VI.816: ‘even now still too fond of the public breezes’. 64 De Excidio Britanniae, 111.67,6: 'now they lift the half-sleeping gaze of their eyes directly to the sky and the highest fleeces of the clouds'. 65 Georgies, 1.399: ‘nor are fine fleeces of wool borne through the sky’. Servius’s commentary (edd. Thilo & Hagen, III. 1, p. 208, line 8) remarks nubes tenues pro uelieribus accipiendae, 'for fleeces understand fine clouds'. 66 Gildas may also have derived the phrase sinuosis flexibus, 'sinuous twists', from the Georgies; cf. De Excidio Britanniae, 11.34,2, 'saeuosque rapidi harpagones accipitris sinuosis flexibus uitantem', and Georgies, 1.244, ‘maximus hie flexu sinuoso elabitur anguis*.

Gildas’s Prose Style

Allied to it is Gildas’s often startling use o f imagery, o f striking metaphors and vivid similes,67 as, for example, when he compares the Picti and Scotti to maggots:68 emergunt certatim de curucis, quibus sunt trans Tithicam uallem euecti, quasi in alto Titane incalescenteque caumate de artissimis foraminum cauerniculis fusci uermiculorum cunei, tetri Scottorum Pictorumque greges. Gildas’s elevated tone also depends on frequent recourse to the schemes and tropes of rhetoric. Kerlouégan comments, ‘quant aux figures de style, anti­ thèses, parallélismes, allitérations, rimes, anaphores, chiasmes, disjonc­ tions, figures étymologiques et jeux de mots se présentent à chaque page’.69 All of this — poeticising, violent imagery, and extensive use o f rhetorical figures — places Gildas firmly in a tradition with a long and respectable pedigree stretching back to the authors of Silver Latin and beyond. One feature o f Gildas’s style, however, has led critics to express divergent opinions: word-order. While there is general agreement that complex wordorder or hyperbaton is characteristic of De Excidio Britanniae, there is uncertainty as to whether this should be seen as an outlandish innovation on Gildas’s part or another point o f contact with Late Latin artistic prose. François Kerlouégan has discussed Gildas’s use o f two types of hyperbaton.70 In the first, one adjective/noun-pair is separated by another:71 querulas sanctorum prophetarum uoces. This order can be conveniently represented as abBA (Kerlouégan refers to it as *1A’).72 The second type is similar except that the adjective/noun-pairs are interlaced:73 quid tali huius atramento aetatis facturus est? This pattern can be termed abA B (Kerlouégan refers to it as ‘2A’). Kerlouégan demonstrated that both these types o f hyperbaton are common in a series of Latin prose texts which he regards as Celtic. Chronologically they range from the De Excidio Britanniae itself to the ninth-century Vita of Paul Aurelian by the Breton writer Wrmonoc. He also considers the pat­ terns to be linked to a characteristic linear form o f the Hisperica Famina — probably composed in seventh-century Ireland. In this, two adjectives are separated from their nouns by a verb:74 ampla pectoralem suscitât uernia cauernam. Kerlouégan concluded that these hyperbata are a peculiar trait, o f Celtic latinity, which was initiated by De Excidio Britanniae. 67 See A.C. Sutherland, below, pp. 157—68. 68 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.19,1: 'from the curraghs in which they had been carried across the valley of the sea, there eagerly emerged foul crowds of Scotti and Picti, like dark hordes of maggots from the narrowest cracks of recesses when the sun is overhead and its rays grow warm’. 69 ‘Le latin’, pp. 157—8. 70 ’Une mode’. 71 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1,4. 72 Kerlouégan has other types, depending on whether adjective or noun comes first in its group; as this is not of great importance, I simply classify these variants (which I represent as aBbA, AbBa, and ABba) as subordinate to abBA. 73 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1,13. 74 Hisperica Famina: A-text, line I (ed. Herren, p. 64).

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In a reply Michael W interbottom has made valuable criticisms both o f Kerlouégan’s classifications of hyperbaton and o f his argum ent.79 In the case o f the type abBA he notes the importance o f the grammatical relation­ ship of the words involved. The example quoted above — in which the second, enclosed adjective/noun-pair comprises genitives dependent on the first — is less striking than a case in which the words are not so closely linked:7576 fortia formiduloso populo monita tradunt. Similarly, examples of the type ab A B are not so singular when one o f the adjectives is predicate:77 tam sceleratorum sint perpeti immortales igni animae quam sanctorum laetitiae. W interbottom also points out that the central verb, which in the Hisperica Famina is always enclosed within the lines, is conspicuously absent in the majority of Kerlouégan’s prose examples; he goes on to suggest other more complex origins for the characteristic forms of the Hisperica Famina. More importantly for our assessment o f De Excidio Britanniae, W interbottom produces parallel examples of Kerlouégan’s allegedly ’Celtic’ hyperbaton in the Latin prose of Sidonius, Ennodius, Boethius, and Venantius Fortunatus. In short, he reaffirms Kerlouégan’s earlier assertion o f the close affinities of De Excidio Britanniae with the traditions o f fifth-century Con­ tinental rhetoric. Yet in the introduction to his recent translation o f De Excidio Britanniae W interbottom has adopted a surprisingly different stance when discussing G ildas’s use o f hyperbaton.77980* Despite his im portant refinements o f Kerlouégan’s method, he returns to a less clearly defined, more general examination of hyperbaton. He notes Gildas’s readiness to interweave ad­ jectives and nouns artfully:79 rubra occidentem trucique oceanum lingua delamberet and exceptis diuersorum prolixioribus promontoriorum tractibus. These, together with other patterns related to the so-called ’golden line’ o f the hexameter,*0 W interbottom sees as another aspect o f Gildas’s debt to poetry. He comments: ‘That sort of thing might do in verse . . . . Gildas seems to be the fir st to think it could be a systematic ornament to prose. His word order, indeed, at times seems alm ost com pletely arbitrary* (my italics). It is difficult to reconcile this assessment with the contradictory con­ clusion of his earlier study. 75 ‘A “ Celtic” Hyperbaton?’; Winterbottom returns to the same issue with further examples in ‘Aldhelm’s prose style’, pp. 50—1. 76 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.18,2. 77 Ibid. 11.32,5. 78 Gildas, pp. 8—9. 79 De Excidio Britanniae. 1.24,1 and 1.3,1. 80 For example, Aeneid, IV. 139, aurea purpuream subnectit fibula uestenr, the pattern is parallel to that found in the Hisperica Famina. Despite Winterbottom’s assertion, abBA or abAb patterns with a centrally enclosed verb are rare in Gildas’s prose, being limited to De Excidio Britanniae, 1.17,2, ‘uno obiectas sibi euincit gurgite moles’ (directly based, as we have seen, on Vergil), and 11.37,2, ‘pcriturus mari prouocatur exercitus strenue rubro*.

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Gildas’s Prose Style W hat is required at the outset is a simple method o f classifying the various hyperbata which appear in Gildas’s prose style. I begin with a definition of the term ‘hyperbaton’. Although as a term o f Latin rhetoric it can have wider significance, for the purposes o f this investigation ‘hyperbaton’ will denote the artistic separation of adjective and noun. Examples o f such separation can be divided into two main groups. In the first, adjec­ tive and noun frame another noun, an adjective/noun-pair, or a preposi­ tional phrase, or else two adjective/noun-pairs are interlaced. This first group thus includes the various types o f hyperbaton discussed by Kerlouègan and W interbottom. The second group consists o f separation of an adjective/noun-pair by a verb or participle, including cases where an entire clause can be framed by adjective and noun. Such types have been discussed by J. N. Adams, who examines the origins o f the form and its increasing frequency in Silver and later Latin prose." He maintains that its function was twofold: first, simple decorative effect, and second, at the end o f a sentence, to secure the various cadences o f the metrical clausulae o f Classical rhetoric. Some examples will serve to elucidate these two major groups. Although examples abound throughout De Excidio Britanniae, the following have been drawn from one single passage (namely the initial address to the five British kings),'2 in order to illustrate the frequency with which Gildas uses all types o f hyperbaton; a full list of all the examples of hyperbaton in this section o f De Excidio Britanniae is included in the Appendix. The simplest form o f the first group is the separation of adjective and noun by a depen­ dent noun in the genitive (aBA):w in tam uetusto scelerum atramento.

This type need not detain us; it is neither very striking nor very uncommon in Latin prose in general. Gildas uses it very frequently. Much more unusual is the related pattern in which a noun is framed by an adjective/noun-pair in the genitive (in this case B A b):94 q u id stupes, animae carnifex propriael

Gildas uses this type more sparingly and examples are heavily outnumbered by the simpler pattern aB A .K Another more complex variant o f this simple pattern is the addition o f an adjective to the framed genitive noun (here aBbA ):96 o q u am profusus spei c a e le stis/o m e s.

As W interbottom has observed, such examples are less violent than those in which the internal adjective and noun are not directly dependent gram­ matically on the external:'7 o qualia quantaque an im am tu am regni C h risti praemia in die iudicii m anerent. 81234*67

81 82 83 84 83 86 87

‘A type’. De Excidio Britanniae, 11.28—36. Ibid., 11.33,1; note that only the more complex examples of hyperbaton will be translated. Ibid., 11.29,1. See the Appendix, below, p. 127. De Excidio Britanniae, 11.34,3. Ibid., 11.34,2: ‘what fine, great rewards from the kingdom of Christ would await your soul on the day of judgement’.

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In De Excidio Britanniae the genitive pattern is by far the more frequent. More complex still are examples in which two adjective/noun-pairs are interlaced. Gildas employs this type o f hyperbaton both with dependent genitives and with groups less closely related grammatically, as in this twofold example (baBA and abAB ):M tete ac si stridulo cauum lapsu aerem ualide secantem saeuosque rapidi harpagones accipitris sinuosis flexibus u itan tem .

Again, Gildas uses this much more elaborate word-order less frequently than the simpler patterns; but, as Kerlouégan has demonstrated, it is a notable characteristic o f his style.8889 A simple, enclosing word-order also occasionally favoured by Gildas is the parenthetic:90 ad horribilem m o re m olossi aegri uomitum n e fa n d a reuersio.

Most hyperbata o f the first group belong to the above types; however, the interlaced type is sometimes so sustained that it can only be classified as complex, as in the following case:91 amarissima enim quoddam de uite S o d o m o ru m in co rd is sui infructuosa b o n o sem ini gleba surculamen incredulitatis et insipientiae p lan tau e rat.

Here the ‘natural’ order might be as follows: q u o d d am enim surculam en in cred u litatis et insipientiae de am arissim a u ita S o d o m o ru m in in fru c tu o sa b o n o sem ini gleba cordis sui p lan tau e rat.

The second group of hyperbata also ranges from the simple to the com­ plex. At its most simple level, adjective and noun frame a verb either within or, as in this case, at the end o f a clause or sentence:92 sceieratissimo adsciuisti conubio.

The same pattern is found also with gerunds, gerundives, and regularly with participles:93 cuius igitur sancti uiscera tali stim u lata historia n o n statim in fletus singultusque p ro ru m p an t.

In more elaborate form the pattern is used to give a definite shape to Gildas’s often rough-hewn sentences.94 The stressed word, usually but not invariably the noun, is placed at the end o f a clause or period, while its part­ ner is often far removed, as in this combined example o f a simple and a more complex hyperbaton of this type:95 sin alias, aeternae te m an eb u n t poenae co n teren d u m saeua co n tin u e et nequa-

88 / bid., 11.34,2: ‘as if you were boldly cutting the empty air in a shrill dive and escaping with sinuous twists the predatory hawk's savage talons*. 89 See Kerlouegan's lists of examples: ‘Une mode*, pp. 280, 285, and 287. 90 De Excidio Britanniae, 11.34,5. 91 Ibid., 11.28,4: 'for in the soil of his heart, barren to the good seed, he had planted a shoot of unbelief and folly from the bitterest vine of the Sodomites*. 92 Ibid., 11.35,3. 93 Ibid., 11.35,4: ‘which saint's heart, when moved by such a story, would not immediately burst into tears and sobs?*. Note that this pattern, when positioned as here, next to the noun which it qualifies, produces a less impressive species of interlace. To qualify as a true abAB type, however, the order stimulata tali uiscera historia (that is, the adjective/nounpair should be separated by the noun, not by the participle) would be necessary. 94 For Gildas’s sentence-structure, see Kerlouégan, ‘Le latin', pp. 156—7, and Winterbottom, Gildas, pp. 6—7. 95 De Excidio Britanniae, 11.30,3: ‘if not, eternal punishments will wait to crush you remorselessly in the savage jaws of hell, without consuming you*.

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Sustained hyperbaton such as this can become as complex as that o f the first group, as for example:96 q u a re tantas peccam inum regiae ceruici sp o n te, ut ita dicam , ineluctabiles, celsorum ceu m o n tiu m , innectis moles ?

Again, the ’natural’ order might be: q u a re ta n ta s ineluctabiles, ut ita dicam , m oles p eccam inum ceu celsorum m ontium regiae ceruici sp o n te innectis?

Finally, while dealing with complex hyperbaton, we must note that Gildas sometimes mixes the characteristic patterns of the two groups in order to achieve a highly convoluted word-order. In the following example baBA is combined with aVA in the company o f a pair o f adverbs:97 q u o ru m in d u b ita ta m ae q u an im iter co n u icio ru m a u sc u lta to p aru m p e r adstipulationem .

Separation of adjective and noun, then, is a fundamental element o f Gildas’s artistic prose. Three types are very frequent: separation by a genitive; separation by a verb or participle; the framing o f all or part o f a clause or sentence to give it recognisable shape. Less common, but still an all-pervasive element of Gildas’s prose style as a whole, are more complex patterns: interlacing o f adjective/noun-groups, delayed nouns whose adjec­ tives are skilfully interwoven into the preceding clause, and complex com­ binations o f hyperbaton of adjectives, nouns, and verbs. All in all, these features o f word-order make Gildas’s Latin at once difficult and rich. It is perhaps not surprising that scholars have failed to agree on the precise affinities, of the style o f De Excidio Britanniae, with earlier and subsequent Latin texts. Some certainty regarding Gildas’s stylistic affiliations can be gained by using the various types of hyperbaton outlined above as a yardstick against which to measure the practice o f other Late Latin authors. Four such authors, ranging in date from the later fifth to the early seventh century, have been selected. The passages chosen are necessarily short (usually one to five chapters according to their length); they have been selected quite at ran­ dom. The first example is the Getica of the Goth Jordanes, a work which was composed at Constantinople in the mid-sixth century and was based on an earlier history by Cassiodorus, now lost.9* §57 o f the work supplies the following examples of hyperbaton.99 1. dignoque suscipiens honore [aVA] 2. magnisque ditatum m uneribus dimisit a se la VA] 3. senatum que populum que ei commendans rom anum \A A Va] 4. Odoacer armatum contra eum direxit exercitum [aVA] Since the chapter in question is a long one, it is d e ar that Jordanes is sparing 96 ibid., 11.33,2: ‘why do you willingly encircle your royal neck with such, as it were, in­ escapable masses of sin, like lofty mountains?’ 97 ibid., 11.33,3: ‘attend with an open mind for a while to the indisputable affirmation of these remonstrances’. 98 ed. Mommsen, pp. 53—138. 99 ibid., pp. 132—4.

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in his use o f Hyperbaton. Moreover, it is striking that all these examples belong to what I have designated the second group: in 1. and 2. the adjective and noun surround a participle for decoration; in 3. the delayed adjective rom anum at the end o f the sentence is stressed, emphasising that the people and senate of Rome are entrusted to a Goth; in 4. the hyperbaton secures a metrical clausula at the sentence-end.100 In short, Jordanes is restrained and methodical in his use of hyperbaton. Only in his use o f a VA does Jordanes have anything in common with Gildas. Jordanes apparently has no interest in interlace or complex hyperbaton. He also employs hyperbaton in connex­ ion with metrical clausulae which seem to have no place in D e Excidio Britanniae.m The Getica, then, presents a basic and unpretentious, though not unadorned, narrative. To find a parallel to the practice of De Excidio Britanniae, the work o f a more elaborate author must be consulted. Ennodius, bishop o f Pavia, who was educated in Gaul and died in 521, wrote extremely rhetorical prose — prose which Kerlouégan claims as resembling that of Gildas. §§190—5 o f Ennodius’s Vita S. E pifani yield the following examples o f hyperbaton:102 1. per om nes Aemiliae ciuitates IaBA ) 2. Parmam tarnen eiusdem uiae ingressus est ciuitatem labBVA] 3. patulas Carybdis fauces fragoso discrimina m urm ure minitantes [aBA and bA B ] 4. grandior per dies singulos appareret infirm itas [aBbVA] 5. beatissim us cerneret p o n tifex sarcina carnis abiecta maturius se ad purum aetheris euolare fulgorem [aVA and aBVA] Obviously Ennodius’s practice resembles that of Gildas more closely than does that of Jordanes. Like Gildas, Ennodius indulges in hyperbaton freely and sometimes combines aBA or abBA with aVA; unlike Gildas, however, his Hyperbata are not of the interlaced ab A B type nor are they very com­ plex. For the most part, adjective and noun are separated by genitives or verbs, or they frame the end of the sentence; in the latter case they almost always, as in the examples given, contribute to the cadences o f metrical clausulae, the use of which is a characteristic o f Ennodius’s style.IMPerhaps the closest he approaches to Gildas’s bold Latin is in 3., where an adjective and noun in the ablative are separated by an accusative noun (fragoso discrimina m urm ure).'0* Yet even here the adventurous word-order may be dictated as much by sound — alliteration o f the two in itia l/’s and m’s — as by desire for experiment. At best, Ennodius’s prose style can serve as a reminder of the affinities of De Excidio Britanniae with Late Latin rhetoric; but it cannot provide a direct parallel with the more idiosyncratic features 100 101 102 103

dirèxiï exercFtum (two crctics). See G. Orlandi, below, p. 130. ed. Vogel, p. 108; in 2. Parmam and ciuitatem are nouns in apposition. As in 2. ingressus est ciüitàtèm (cretic and two trochees); 4. appareret infirmitas (two cretics); 5. euolare fulgorem (cretic and trochee). 104 Elsewhere in the Vita Epifani, Ennodius twice uses the pattern analogous to the golden line: 'cotidiana et ipsos pascebat humanitate raptores’ (ed. Vogel, p. 98), and 'idoneus aptissima carperet poma possessor* (ed. Vogel, p. 99); there are, however, no other interlace-patterns in the work.

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of Gildas’s word-order. The career of Venantius Fortunatus followed that o f Ennodius in reverse. Born in Italy, Fortunatus travelled to Merovingian Gaul and died in Poitiers around 600. He was almost the last product of the traditional Roman educational system. How closely may his Latin be seen to parallel that of Gildas, particularly since, as W interbottom has demonstrated, Fortunatus occasionally employs the interlace-pattern of hyperbaton?105 The first three chapters o f the Vita S. Radegundis contain the following examples of hyperbaton.106 1. ipsas reddat fem inas [aVA] 2. laudem sui cumulent creatoris la VA] 3. breui mansisset tem pore [aVA] 4. regalis puella fit contentio de capiiua laBVAb] Like that of Jordanes, Fortunatus’s use o f hyperbaton is restrained and most often involves symmetry around a verb. The final example, however, is interesting since it exhibits interlace of two adjective/noun-pairs around a central verb. This pattern, which is akin to the golden line o f hexameterpoetry, is unusually complex. Again, however, this is not simply an experi­ ment in word-order for its own sake; it is also an exercise in antithesis, separating as far as possible the contrasting words regalis and captiua. Such antithesis is a keynote of Fortunatus’s style, as is homoeoteleuton, or the rhyming of words stressed at the end o f their clause.107This technique is well illustrated by the opening sentence of the Vita S. Radegundis:108 redem pto ris nostri ta n tu m diues est la rg ita r / u t in sexu m uliebri celebret fortes uicto rias / et co rp o re fragiliores ipsas re d d at fem inas / u irtu te m entis in d ita e gloriosas.

Indeed, although it entails some use of hyperbaton, Fortunatus’s style is characterised more by antithesis and homoeoteleuton. Both are also frequent in De Excidio Britanniae; nevertheless, Fortunatus’s prose does not provide a close parallel to Gildas’s flamboyant use o f hyperbaton. Finally, we may compare the De G ubernatione Dei o f Salvian,10* which, as Hanning has pointed out, shares a similar treatment o f theme with the De Excidio Britanniae."0 In spite of that thematic similarity, however, Salvian’s work provides no model for Gildas’s word-order. Salvian uses very little hyperbaton and relies for emphasis on frequent rhetorical questions and pointed antithesis, the only evident features which he shares with the artistic Latin of G ildas.1" It would seem, therefore, that the conclusions of Kerlouègan, in his arti­ cle, and W interbottom, in his edition, come closest to the facts — namely,1056789

105 106 107 108

'A “ Celtic" hyperbaton?’, p. 209, n. 5. ed. Krusch, Fredegarii et Aliorum Chronica, pp. 38—9. See Memoli, ‘Rima’, pp. 431—6. ‘So rich is the beneficence of our Saviour that He wins signal victories among the female sex and makes even women, though weaker in body, renowned by virtue of a famous mind.’ 109 ed. Halm, pp. 1—108. 110 The Vision o f History, pp. 46—8. 111 Cf. O’Sullivan, The De Excidio o f Gildas, pp. 60—I.

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that the extreme complexities o f word-order in De Excidio Britanniae repre­ sent a considerable innovation. Although, as W interbottom himself stressed in his article, some parallels to Gildas’s extravagant hyperbaton can be discovered in Late Latin prose authors, they cannot be pressed. These Con­ tinental writers use hyperbaton less often than Gildas, very often employ it for metrical reasons alien to De Excidio Britanniae, and only very infre­ quently display the complex hyperbaton common in that text. Is Kerlouêgan correct, therefore, to claim that Gildas’s use o f such hyperbaton, and par­ ticularly o f interlace, provided the inspiration for a phenomenon typical o f Celtic latinity and which can be seen in the Hisperica Famina and in the works of the Irishman Columbanus and the Anglo-Saxon Aldhelm? In one sense, o f course, Kerlouêgan is correct: Gildas does stand at the beginning of the surviving Insular Latin tradition. W interbottom has illustrated the parallels between Gildas and Columbanus, who also uses complex patterns of hyperbaton."2 Gildas-based glossaries (if not the text o f De Excidio Britanniae itself) were among the sources o f the Hisperica Fam ina. 113 D e Excidio Britanniae was known to Aldhelm ;"4 and, also in the seventh cen­ tury, Adomnàn o f Iona decks out his prose with complex hyperbaton. Yet in all these cases De Excidio Britanniae was by no means the only influence at work. Columbanus’s extant works stem from his time on the Continent and are therefore not certainly representative o f the Hiberno-Latin tradi­ tio n ."5 The Hisperica Famina with their linear form are a peculiar mixture o f prose and poetry and, as W interbottom has suggested, their origins are more complex than Kerlouêgan allow s."6 Recently, W interbottom has also called into question the alleged Irish influence on Aldhelm’s education."7 He gives proper weight to Aldhelm’s time at Canterbury and stresses the links o f his elaborate prose style with the Continental rhetorical tradition. Finally, any direct knowledge of De Excidio Britanniae on Adom nàn’s part remains debatable. To speak o f a ‘Celtic’ hyperbaton in isolation is patently misguided. Gildas is an author who looks both forward and back. Is it possible to parallel his rich use o f hyperbaton elsewhere in the Latin rhetorical tradi­ tion? A solution to the problem may be provided by the highly sophisticated Opus Paschale of Caelius Sedulius, an author probably o f Italian origin writing in the mid- to late-fifth century."8 One chapter (II1.6) o f his work contains the following examples o f hyperbaton."9 1. litoreas arenosi callis oras obambulans [abBA] 2. turbauerat m aestos salus desperata discipulos [bAaB] 3. scopulosis credebant naufragos iitoribus conlidendos IbVABa] 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

‘Columbanus and Gildas*. Herren, Hisperica Famina, 1.22—3. Winterbottom, 'Aldhelm’s prose style’, pp. 48—9. Epistuiae and perhaps Sermones; the verse probably belongs to a Carolingian poet of the same name — see Lapidge, 'The authorship’. ‘A “ Celtic” hyperbaton?', pp. 210—11. 'Aldhelm’s prose style’. Huemer, De Sedutii Poetae Vita, pp. 8—37. ed. Huemer, pp. 235—7.

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4. fluctuant! dormiens quiescebat in puppi [aVA] 5. praesentiae proditrix fit diuinae \B A b\ 6. numquidnam pelagus saeuas erexit procédas in dominum aut seditiosum flabra luciam en contra suum mouere nisa sunt conditorem [aVA, bA B and aV A \ 7 . om ne creditur f return dominica nauigatione laetissimum [aVA] 8. leuium praepes natura uentorum [baA B ] 9. im perioso facile creditur oboedire dom ino la VA] 10. cursus rapida commotione praecipites languenti subito deposuere torpore [AbBa and a VA] As in the case o f Ennodius, Sedulius relies heavily on separation o f adjec­ tive and noun by a verb and often uses this pattern at the end o f a sentence or clause to give a cadence of the metrical clausulae.'20 The chapter, however, which is not excessively long, also reveals much experimentation with word-order comparable to that o f De Excidio Britanniae. Noticeable is Sedulius’s tendency to place one adjective/noun-pair around another (as in 1., 2., 8., and 10.). Moreover, in 3. and 6. the preciosity o f word-order recalls some of Gildas’s bolder efforts. In short, although Sedulius has much in common with the techniques of late rhetorical style, the high frequency and complexity o f his use of hyperbaton suggest that he, like Gildas, thought ’that it might be a systematic ornament to prose’, to use W interbottom’s description. Such a suggestion can be supported by an examination o f the remainder of Sedulius’s Book III. This is comparatively short and consists o f twentyseven small chapters. Along with a multitude o f other hyperbata, it contains the following examples of striking, interlaced, or complex word-order. III. 1 111.3 III.7

ac p er omnium iucunda mensarum captos suauitate conuiuas hau stu s flum inei nectaris eb rieb an t \bcB aC A ].m uaria leprosus infelicitäte perfusus et obscaeno factu s candore miserior IbABa an d a related in te rla c e )'22 gregem peruasit im pulit ac n ecau it in marina praecipitem fluenta porcinum

IA VbaBa\m III. 10 ab extrem apendentis ora laciniae furtiuam su bito rap u it sospitatem [abAB an d a V A \n i III. 14 ad ouium indaginem perditarum \BAb\ 1 2034

120 For example, 4. quiescebat in puppi (cretic and trochee); 6. nisà sunt conditorem (cretic and two trochees); 10. deposuere torpore (cretic and trochee). 121 ‘and among the guests of every table, who were entranced by pleasant jollity, the draughts of watery nectar grew drunk.’ Here two adjective/noun-pairs and one consisting of a participle and noun are combined to produce a formidable hyperbaton worthy of the pen of Gildas himself. The ‘natural’ order might be: ‘ac per conuiuas omnium mensarum captos iucunda suauitate’. 122 ‘a leper covered with spotted misfortune and rendered more miserable by an ill-fated whiteness’; the second interlace is less striking as it consists of aVA with a predicative adjective. 123 ‘it invaded the herd of pigs, drove them headlong, and drowned them in the sea-eddies’; fluehtdporcinum is a cretic and trochee. 124 ‘unnoticed she suddenly snatched salvation from the very hem of the hanging cloak.’

123

Wright III. 19 discipuli marinum soli petiere nauigium [AbaB an d aVA com bined];

calcatas dominus super undas obambulans [bABa] 111.22 organa debilium sta tu it temperata membrorum [AbaB w ith cen tral v erb ]123 II I .24 nec ardens cauo p o n itu r lucem a sub m odio lab A B with cen tral v erb ]125126

These examples serve to underline the similarity between De Excidio Britanniae and Opus Paschale.121 Although the works differ in other respects — Sedulius uses neither the long, majestically sprawling sentence-structure often favoured by Gildas nor his violent metaphors and similes — the pro­ fusion o f hyperbaton which graces Sedulius’s pages and in particular the more experimental word-patterns employed by him do provide a touchstone by which to judge the apparent anomalies of De Excidio Britanniae. It need not be suggested that Gildas knew the Opus Paschale directly and took it for his model. The work was paired by Sedulius with his hexametrical Carmen Paschale. O f the latter there are many manuscripts (usual­ ly without the prose counterpart); of the former comparatively few.12* It would appear that, in later centuries at least, the poem was generally popular while the prose was less so. Gildas appears not to have known Sedulius’s poem .129 It is therefore improbable, though not impossible, that he had read the O pus Paschale. Far more important for the question o f Gildas’s word-order is the manner in which Carmen Paschale and Opus Paschale were composed, a process recorded by Sedulius in his dedications to the presbyter M acedonius. Carm en Paschale was w ritten first as a hexametrical paraphrase of the biblical narrative o f Christ’s life; the parallel Opus Paschale was added later. It did not return to the Bible, but was a direct reworking of the poetry in prose. Thus its frequent complex hyperbaton is part o f an attempt to represent in artistic prose the refinements o f hexameter-verse. Its adventurous and interlaced word-order is further ex­ plained by the elegance of Sedulius’s poetic style which relies heavily on the golden line and other related symmetry o f adjective/noun-groups. The striking similarity between Opus Paschale and De Excidio Britanniae, therefore, underlines the perspicacity o f W interbottom’s remark that Gildas’s hyperbaton is ’all of a piece with his pillaging o f Vergil’. 130 For, although the overall literary aims of De Excidio Britanniae are quite 125 'He restored to health the use of crippled limbs’; temperata mèmbforùm is a cretic and trochee. 126 'nor is a burning lamp placed beneath a hollow bushel.’ 127 Nor is Book III unique: for examples of interlace in Book I, see Winterbottom, ‘Aldhelm’s prose style’, pp. 51—2. 128 Huemer, Sedulii Opera, pp. iv—xxiv. 129 Grosjean, 'Romana stigmata', p. 138, n. 1, suggests that Gildas drew the vivid word lanio from Sedulius, but it is found also in Rufinus’s Historia Ecclesiastica, X.8,17, a source definitely known to Gildas. There is, however, a possible parallel between Gildas’s and Sedulius’s descriptions of the provision of manna and water to the Chosen People in the wilderness. At De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1,3, Gildas has ‘cibus caelestis panis, potus nouus ex rupe uiator’; the phrase has a poetic ring, since it closes with the hexameter-cadence râpé uiàtbr, and it shares striking vocabulary with Carmen Paschale, 1.148—9, 'quid referam innumeras caelesti pane cateruas / angelicos sumpsisse cibos’, and 1.156—7, ‘sterilique latex de rupe manauit / et ieiuna nouum uomuerunt marmora potum '. 130 Gildas, p. 9.

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different from those of Sedulius’s work, Gildas’s ornate word-order is also, like the Vergilian borrowings discussed above and his forceful imagery, part of an attempt to lend to his prose style the emotive power of poetry. In this sense Gildas stands in a tradition which goes back to the early Empire and beyond: that o f the influence o f hexameter-poetry on prose. Kerlouégan and W interbottom, then, were right to stress the links o f D e Excidio Britanniae with Late Latin rhetoric, and W interbottom ’s assertion o f its poetic quality was also accurate; but what o f W interbottom ’s com­ ment that Giidas's word-order ‘at times seems almost completely arbi­ trary’? 1,1 De Excidio Britanniae as a whole is a well planned piece o f literature. Its long sentences may seem straggling, but Gildas expends much art on their rough-hewn architecture. Passages depending on antithesis are carefully constructed. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Gildas’s use o f elaborate word-order, although it may at first sight appear extravagant, is also subordinate to various effects. In addition to the all-pervasive poetic impact, Gildas on occasion employs hyperbaton for other conceits also, in the manner of rhetoricians such as Ennodius and Sedulius. Unlike them, he does not favour the Classical system of metrical clausulae; instead he seems intermittently to use the accentual cadences o f the cursus.1 1332 Sometimes, though not regularly, at the end of a clause or sentence he employs hyper­ baton, particularly o f the a VA type, not only to emphasise the final word but also to secure a curjus-rhythm, as in the following example:133 rectores sibi relictos a d e n u n tia n d a plenius uel co n firm a n d a rom ani regni m olim ina

leaena tru cid âu it dolôsa.

other times complex hyperbaton is combined with alliteration to give patterns o f sound as well as of word-order:134 At

creb ro u eracium u o lam u o liten t conw iciorum caufes.

On occasion, Gildas uses complex hyperbaton in a way which relates the subject-matter to the recherché word-order, as in this double example o f interlace:135 tete ac si stridulo cauum lapsu aerem ualide secantem saeuosque rapidi harpagones accipitris sinuosis flexibus u itan tem .

O f the two hyperbata, the first graphically portrays the idea o f cutting (secantem) and the second the sinuous twists (sinuosis flexibus) with which the tyrant Maglocunus, here metaphorically a dove, avoids danger. These more specialised effects achieved by hyperbaton are, however, less 131 Ibid. 132 See G. Orlandi, below, p. 133; Kerlouégan, ‘Le latin', p. 169, and Winterbottom, ‘Aldhelm’s prose style’, pp. 71—3, also discuss Gildas’s use of the cursus; for the system itself, see Janson, Prose Rhythm. 133 De Excidio Britanniae, 1.6,1: *a treacherous lioness butchered the officials left behind to reveal more completely or strengthen the undertakings of Roman rule’, trucidâuit dolôsa is a planus (p3p in Janson's shorthand). Other examples are: De Excidio Britanniae, 1.1,4, quadrupliciplangéntis alphabéto {trispondaicus, p4p); 1.9,2, iota festin&ret ecclésia {tardus, p4pp); 1.19,3, strages acceleràntur crudeliôres (uelox, p3p); 11.30,3, saeua . . . tàrtari faüce {planus, pp2p); 11.35,3, sceleratissimo adsciuisti conmibio {tardus, p4pp); III. 107,2, prauissimis uestris . . . despiciiintur eximplis {planus, p3p). 134 Ibid., 11.65,2: ’let the stones of my truthful remonstrances fly in repeated flights’. 133 Ibid., 11.34,2: for a translation, see n. 88 above.

125

Wright

common in D e Excidio Britanniae than its use for dramatic impact and poetic feel. Complex hyperbaton is a device which Gildas employs in some of his most rhetorically emotive passages to ensure the empathy o f his audi­ ence with the dreadful events related. In his account o f Constantinus’s sacrilegious assassination o f royal princes and their guardians he uses both metaphorical and forceful language and a pair o f interlaces to underscore the full horror o f the deed:116 in duarum uenerandis matrum sinibus , ecclesiae carnalisque, sub sancti ab b atis am ph ib alo , latera regiorum tenerrima puerorum uei praecordia crudeliter duum to tid e m q u e n u trito ru m . . . n efa n d o ense h astaq u e p ro d en tib u s lacerauit.

The two striking hyperbata, the latter particularly elaborate, throw into relief the plight o f the two princes. They are noble, since they are themselves regal and their mother venerable; yet they are helpless, since they are tender and snatched from their m other’s bosom, and that o f the church, without regard for their rights o f sanctuary. Similarly, the overt poeticism o f Gildas’s hyperbaton is well illustrated by his description of Britain, which contains a lyrical passage owing, as W interbottom has noted,117 ‘much to the common ekphraseis o f pleasant places’: 11* fon tibu s lucidis crebris undis niueas ueluti glareas pellentibus p ernitidisque riuis leni m u rm u re serp en tib u s ip so ru m q u e in ripis accu b an tib u s suauis soporis pignus p raeten d en tib u s, et lacubus frigidum aquae torrentem uiuae exundantibus irrigua.

The two interlace-pattirns and the poetic vocabulary (some o f it borrowed, as we have seen, from the artistic prose of Jerom e119) combine with the idyllic image, o f sweet slumber pledged on the banks o f brilliant streams, to lend an almost pastoral quality to this picture. Complex and often convoluted word-order, then, is an important element o f the literary texture o f De Excidio Britanniae. Although the extent to which Gildas exploits the figure might at first reading give an impression of idiosyncratic preciosity, artistic separation of adjective and noun had in fact long been sanctioned in the rhetorical tradition. Simple patterns of hyperbaton abound in Late Latin prose texts. W hat is more, even Gildas’s most extreme interlaces and dislocations of words find their counterparts in Caelius Sedulius’s Opus Paschale. Like Sedulius, Gildas relies on such hyperbaton to charge his prose with the elevated tone o f hexameter-poetry. In this way complex hyperbaton serves much the same function in De E x­ cidio Britanniae as Gildas’s extensive borrowings from the A eneid; both contribute to the emotional and dramatic impact o f his ornate yet rich Latin style.1*0 136 /£/-

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II. G ildas, D e Excidio Britanniae : classification o f types o f m etrical clausulae