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Title: The Ethnology of the British Islands
Author: Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon), 1812-1888
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note:
Archaic, dialect and variant spellings (including quoted proper
nouns) remain as printed, except where noted. Minor typographical
errors have been corrected without note; significant amendments have
been listed at the end of the text. Greek text appears as originally
printed.
THE
ETHNOLOGY
OF
THE BRITISH ISLANDS.
THE
ETHNOLOGY
OF
THE BRITISH ISLANDS.
BY
R. G. LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S.,
CORRESPONDING MEMBER TO THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY, NEW YORK, ETC.
[Device]
LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCLII.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY T. E. METCALF, 63, SNOW HILL.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Preliminary Remarks.--Present Populations of the British Isles.--
Romans, &c.--Pre-historic Period.--The Irish Elk.--How far
Contemporaneous with Man.--Stone Period.--Modes of Sepulture.--
The Physical Condition of the Soil.--Its Fauna.--Skulls of the
Stone Period.--The Bronze Period.--Gold Ornaments.--Alloys and
Castings.--How far Native or Foreign.--Effect of the Introduction
of Metals.--Dwellings. 1
CHAPTER II.
Authorities for the Earliest Historical Period.--Herodotus.--
Aristotle.--Polybius.--Onomacritus.--Diodorus Siculus.--Strabo.--
Festus Avienus.--Ultimate sources.--Damnonii.--Phœnician Trade.--
The Orgies.--South-Eastern Britons of Cæsar.--The Details of his
Attacks.--The Caledonians of Galgacus. 38
CHAPTER III.
Origin of the Britons.--Kelts of Gaul.--The Belgæ.--Whether
Keltic or German.--Evidence of Cæsar.--Attrebates, Belgæ, Remi,
Durotriges and Morini, Chauci and Menapii. 58
CHAPTER IV.
The Picts.--List of Kings.--Penn Fahel.--Aber and Inver.--The
Picts probably, but not certainly, Britons. 76
CHAPTER V.
Origin of the Gaels.--Difficulties of its Investigation.--Not
Elucidated by any Records, nor yet by Traditions.--Arguments from
the Difference between the British and Gaelic Languages.--The
British Language spoken in Gaul.--The Gaelic not known to be
spoken in any part of the Continent.--Lhuyd's Doctrine.--The
Hibernian Hypothesis.--The Caledonian Hypothesis.--Postulates. 83
CHAPTER VI.
Roman Influences.--Agricola.--The Walls and Ramparts of Adrian,
Antoninus, and Severus.--Bonosus.--Carausius.--The Constantian
Family.--Franks and Alemanni in Britain.--Foreign Elements in the
Roman Legions. 90
CHAPTER VII.
Value of the Early British Records.--True and Genuine Traditions
Rare.--Gildas.--Beda.--Nennius.--Annales Cambrenses.--Difference
between Chronicles and Registers.--Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.--Irish
Annals.--Value of the Accounts of the Fifth and Sixth
Centuries.--Questions to which they apply. 104
CHAPTER VIII.
The Angles of Germany: their comparative obscurity.--Notice of
Tacitus.--Extract from Ptolemy.--Conditions of the Angle Area.--
The Varini.--The Reudigni and other Populations of Tacitus.--The
Sabalingii, &c., of Ptolemy.--The Suevi Angili.--Engle and
Ongle.--Original Angle Area. 142
CHAPTER IX.
The Saxons--of Upper Saxony--of Lower, or Old Saxony.--
Nordalbingians.--Saxons of Ptolemy.--Present and Ancient
Populations of Sleswick-Holstein.--North-Frisians.--Probable
Origin of the name Saxon.--The Littus Saxonicum.--Saxones
Bajocassini. 165
CHAPTER X.
The Angles of Germany--Imperfect Reconstruction of their
History--Their Heroic Age.--Beowulf.--Conquest of Anglen.--
Anecdote from Procopius.--Their Reduction under the Carlovingian
Dynasty.--The Angles of Thuringia. 200
CHAPTER XI.
Recapitulations and Illustrations.--Propositions respecting the
Keltic Character of the Original Occupants of Britain, &c.--The
Relations between the Ancient Britons and the Ancient Gauls,
&c.--The Scotch Gaels.--The Picts.--The Date of the Germanic
Invasions.--The names Angle and Saxon. 219
CHAPTER XII.
Analysis of the Germanic Populations of England.--The Jute
Element Questionable.--Frisian Elements Probable.--Other German
Elements, how far Probable.--Forms in -ing. 232
CHAPTER XIII.
The Scandinavians.--Forms in -by: their Import and
Distribution.--Danes of Lincolnshire, &c.; of East Anglia; of
Scotland; of the Isle of Man; of Lancashire and Cheshire; of
Pembrokeshire.--Norwegians of Northumberland, Scotland, and
Ireland, and Isle of Man.--Frisian forms in Yorkshire.--Bogy.--
Old Scratch.--The Picts possibly Scandinavian.--The Normans. 244
ETHNOLOGY
OF
THE BRITISH ISLANDS.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.--PRESENT POPULATIONS OF THE BRITISH
ISLES.--ROMANS, ETC.--PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.--THE IRISH ELK.--HOW FAR
CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH MAN.--STONE PERIOD.--MODES OF SEPULTURE.--THE
PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE SOIL--ITS FAUNA.--SKULLS OF THE STONE
PERIOD.--THE BRONZE PERIOD.--GOLD ORNAMENTS.--ALLOYS AND
CASTINGS.--HOW FAR NATIVE OR FOREIGN.--EFFECT OF THE INTRODUCTION OF
METALS.--DWELLINGS.
The ethnologist, who passes from the history of the varieties of the
human species of the world at large, to the details of some special
family, tribe, or nation, is in the position of the naturalist who rises
from such a work as the _Systema Naturæ_, or the _Règne Animal_, to
concentrate his attention on some special section or subsection of the
sciences of Zoology and Botany. If having done this he should betake
himself to some ponderous folio, bulkier than the one which he read
last, but devoted to a subject so specific and limited as to have
scarcely found a place in the general history of organized beings, the
comparison is all the closer. The subject, in its main characteristics,
is the same in both cases; but the difference of the details is
considerable. A topographical map on the scale of a chart of the world,
a manipulation for the microscope as compared with the preparation of a
wax model, are but types and illustrations of the contrast. A small
field requires working after a fashion impossible for a wide farm; often
with different implements, and often with different objects. A
dissertation upon the Negroes of Africa, and a dissertation upon the
Britons of the Welsh Principality, though both ethnological, have but
few questions in common, at least in the present state of our knowledge;
and out of a hundred pages devoted to each, scarcely ten would embody
the same sort of facts. With the Negro, we should search amongst old
travellers and modern missionaries for such exact statements as we might
be fortunate enough to find respecting his geographical position, the
texture of his hair, the shade of his skin, the peculiarities of his
creed, the structure of his language; and well satisfied should we be if
anything at once new and true fell in our way. But in the case of the
Briton all this is already known to the inquirer, and can be conveyed in
a few sentences to the reader. What then remains? A fresh series of
researches, which our very superiority of knowledge has developed;
inquiries which, with an imperfectly known population, would be
impossible. Who speculates to any extent upon such questions as the
degrees of intermixture between the Moors and the true Negroes of Nubia?
Who grapples with such a problem as the date of the occupation of New
Guinea? Such and such-like points are avoided; simply because the _data_
for working them are wanting. Yet with an area like the British Isles,
they are both possible and pertinent. More than this. In such countries
there must either be no ethnology at all, or it must be of the minute
kind, since the primary and fundamental questions, which constitute
nine-tenths of our inquiries elsewhere, are already answered.
Minute ethnology must be more or less speculative--the less the better.
It must be so, however, to some extent, because it attempts new
problems. Critical too it must be--the more the better. It often works
with unfamiliar instruments, whose manipulation must be explained, and
whose power tested. Again, although the field in which it works be wide,
the tract in which it moves may be beaten. An outlying question may have
been treated by many investigators, and the results may be extremely
different. In British ethnology, the history of opinions only, if given
with the due amount of criticism, would fill more than one volume larger
than the present.
The above has been written to shew that any work upon such a subject as
the present must partake, to a great degree, of the nature of a
disquisition: perhaps indeed, the term _controversy_ would not be too
strong. The undeniable and recognized results of previous investigators
are truisms. That the Britons and Gaels are Kelts, and that the English
are Germans is known wherever Welsh dissent, Irish poverty, or English
misgovernment are the subjects of notice. What such Kelticism or
Germanism may have to do with these same characteristics is neither so
well ascertained, nor yet so easy to discover. On the contrary, there is
much upon these points which may be well _un_-learnt. Kelts, perchance,
may not be so very Keltic, or Germans so very German as is believed; for
it may be that a very slight preponderance of the Keltic elements over
the German, or of the German over the Keltic may have determined the use
of the terms. Such a point as this is surely worth raising; yet it
cannot be answered off-hand. At present, however, it is mentioned as a
sample of minute ethnology, and as a warning of the disquisitional
character which the forthcoming pages, in strict pursuance to the nature
of the subject, must be expected to exhibit.
The extent, then, to which the two stocks that occupy the British Isles
are pure or mixed; the characteristics of each stock in its purest form;
and the effects of intermixture where it has taken place, are some of
our problems; and if they could each and all be satisfactorily answered,
we should have a Natural History of our Civilization. But the answers
are not satisfactory; at any rate they are not conclusive. Nevertheless,
a partial solution can be obtained; a partial solution which is
certainly worth some efforts on the part of both the reader and the
writer. Other questions, too, curious rather than of practical value,
constitute the department of minute ethnology; especially when the area
under notice is an island. The _date_ of its occupancy, although
impossible as an absolute epoch, can still be brought within certain
limits. Whether, however, such limits would not be too wide for any one
but a geologist, is another question.
Now, if I have succeeded in shewing that criticism and disquisition must
necessarily form a large part of such an ethnology as the one before us,
I have given a reason for what may, perhaps, seem an apparent
irregularity in the arrangement of the different parts of the subject.
With the civil historian, the earliest events come first; for, in
following causes to their consequences, he begins with the oldest. The
ethnologist, on the other hand, whenever--as is rarely the case--he can
lay before the reader the whole process and all the steps of his
investigations, reverses this method, and begins with the times in which
he lives; so that by a long series of inferences from effect to cause,
he concludes--so to say--at the beginning; inasmuch as it is his special
business to argue backwards or upwards. Yet the facts of the present
volume will follow neither of these arrangements exactly; though, of
course, the order of them will be, in the main, chronological. They will
be taken, in many cases, as they are wanted for the purposes of the
argument; so that if a fact of the tenth century be necessary for the
full understanding of one of the fifth, it will be taken out of its due
order. Occasional transpositions of this kind are to be found in all
works wherein the investigation of doubtful points preponderates over
the illustration of admitted facts, or in all works where discussion
outweighs exposition.
The period when the British Isles were occupied by Kelts only (or, at
least, supposed to have been so) will form the subject of the earlier
chapters. The facts will, of course, be given as I have been able to
find them; but it may be not unnecessary to state beforehand the nature
of the principal questions upon which they will bear.
The date of the first occupancy of the British Isles by man is one of
them. It can (as already stated) only be brought within certain
wide--very wide--limits; and that hypothetically, or subject to the
accuracy of several preliminary facts.
The division of mankind to which the earliest occupants belonged is the
next; and it is closely connected with the first. If the Kelts were the
earliest occupants of Britain, we can tell within a few thousand years
when they arrived. But what if there were an occupation of Britain
anterior to theirs?
The civilization of the earliest occupants is a question inextricably
interwoven with the other two; since the rate at which it advanced--if
it advanced at all--must depend upon the duration of the occupancy, and
the extent to which it was the occupancy of one, or more than one,
section of mankind. But foreign intercourse may have accelerated this
rate, or a foreign civilization may have altogether replaced that of the
_indigenæ_. The evidence of this is a fourth question.
So interwoven with each other are all these questions, that, although
the facts of the first three chapters will be arranged with the special
view to their elucidation, no statement of the results will be given
until the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons, or the introduction of the great
Germanic elements of the British nation, leads us from the field of
early Keltic to that of early Teutonic research; and that will not be
until the details of the Britons as opposed to the Gaels, of the Gaels
as opposed to the Britons, and of the Picts (as far as they can be made
out) have been disposed of.
One of the populations of the British Isles, at the present moment,
speaks a language belonging to the Keltic, the other one belonging to
the Teutonic class of tongues. However, it is by no means certain that
the blood, pedigree, race, descent, or extraction coincides with the
form of speech: indeed it is certain that it does so but partially.
Though few individuals of Teutonic extraction speak any of the Keltic
dialects as their mother-tongue, the converse is exceedingly common; and
numerous Kelts know no other language but the English. Speech, then, is
only _primâ facie_ evidence of descent; nevertheless, it is the most
convenient criterion we have.
The Keltic class falls into divisions and subdivisions. The oldest and
purest portion of the Gaelic Kelts is to be found in Ireland, especially
on the western coast. Situated as Connaught is on the Atlantic, it lies
beyond the influx of any new blood, except from the east and north; yet
from the east and north the introduction of fresh populations has been
but slight. Here, then, we find the Irish Gael in his most typical form.
Scotland, like Ireland, is _Gaelic_ in respect to its Keltic
population, but the stock is less pure. However slight may be the
admixture of English blood in the Highlands and the Western Isles, the
infusion of Scandinavian is very considerable. Caithness has numerous
geographical terms whose meaning is to be found in the Danish, Swedish,
Norwegian, and Icelandic. _Sutherland_ shews its political relations by
its name. It is the _Southern Land_; an impossible name if the county be
considered English (for it lies in the very _north_ of the island), but
a natural name if we refer it to Norway, of which Sutherland was, at one
time, a southern dependency, or (if not a dependency), a robbing-ground.
Orkney and Shetland were once as thoroughly Norse as the Faroe Isles or
Iceland.
The third variety of the present British population is in the Isle of
Man, where a language sufficiently like the Gaelic of Ireland and
Scotland to be placed in the same division, is still spoken. Yet the
blood is mixed. The Norsemen preponderated in Man; and the constitution
of the island is in many parts Scandinavian, though the language be
Keltic.
In Wales the language and population are still Keltic, though
sufficiently different from the Scotch, Irish, and Manx, to be
considered as a separate branch of that stock. It is conveniently called
_British_, _Cambrian_, and _Cambro-Briton_. It is quite unintelligible
to any Gael. Neither can any Gael, talking Gaelic, make himself
understood by a Briton. On the other hand, however, a Scotch and an
Irish Gael understand each other; whilst, with some effort, they
understand a Manxman, and _vice versâ_. So that the number of mutually
unintelligible languages of the Keltic stock is two; in other words, the
Keltic dialects of the British Isles are referable to two branches--the
British for the Welsh, and the Gaelic for the Scotch, Irish, and Manx.
The other language of the British Isles is the English, one upon which
it is unnecessary to enlarge; but which makes the third tongue in actual
existence at the present moment, if we count the Irish, Scotch, and Manx
as dialects of the same language, and the fifth if we separate them.
By raising the Lowland Scotch to the rank of a separate language, we may
increase our varieties; but, as it is only a general view which we are
taking at present, it is as well not to multiply distinctions. I believe
that, notwithstanding some strong assertions to the contrary, there are
no two dialects of the English tongue--whether spoken east or west--in
North Britain or to the South of the Tweed--that are not mutually
intelligible, when used as it is the usual practice to use them. That
strange sentences may be made by picking out strange provincialisms,
and stringing them together in a manner that never occurs in common
parlance, is likely enough; but that any two men speaking English shall
be in the same position to each other as an Englishman is to a Dutchman
or Dane, so that one shall not know what the other says, is what I am
wholly unprepared to believe, both from what I have observed in the
practice of provincial speech, and what I have read in the way of
provincial glossaries.
The populations, however, just enumerated, represent but a fraction of
our ethnological varieties. They only give us those of the nineteenth
century. Other sections have become extinct, or, if not, have lost their
distinctive characteristics, which is much the same as dying out
altogether. The ethnology of these populations is a matter of history.
Beginning with those that have most recently been assimilated to the
great body of Englishmen, we have--
1. The Cornishmen of Cornwall.--They are Britons in blood, and until the
seventeenth century, were Britons in language also. When the Cornish
language ceased to be spoken it was still intelligible to a Welshman;
yet in the reign of Henry II., although intelligible, it was still
different. Giraldus Cambrensis especially states that the "Cornubians
and Armoricans used a language almost identical; a language which the
Welsh, from origin and intercourse, understood in _many_ things, and
_almost_ in all."
2. The Cumbrians, of Cumberland, retained the British language till
after the Conquest. This was, probably, spoken as far north as the
Clyde. Earlier, however, than either of these were--
3. The Picts.--The Cumbrian and Cornish Britons were simply members of
the same division with the Welshmen, Welshmen, so to say, when the Welsh
area extended south of the Bristol Channel and north of the Mersey. The
Picts were, probably, in a different category. They may indeed have been
Gaels. They have formed a separate substantive division of Kelts. They
may have been no Kelts at all, but Germans or Scandinavians.
But populations neither Keltic nor Teutonic have, at different times,
settled in England; populations which (like several branches of the
Keltic stock) have either lost their distinctive characteristics, or
become mixed in blood, but which (unlike such Kelts) were not indigenous
to any of the islands. Like the Germans or Teutons, on the other hand,
they were foreigners; but, unlike the Germans or Teutons, they have not
preserved their separate substantive character. Still, some of their
blood runs in both English and Keltic veins; some of their language has
mixed itself with both tongues; and some of their customs have either
corrupted or improved our national character. Thus--
1. The battle of Hastings filled England with Normans, French in
language, French and Scandinavian in blood, but (eventually) English in
the majority of their matrimonial alliances. And before the Normans
came--
2. The Danes--and before the Danes--
3. The Romans.--Such is the general view of the chief populations, past
and present, of England; of which, however, the Keltic and the Angle are
the chief.
The English-and-Scotch, the Normans, the Danes, and the Romans have all
been introduced upon the island within the Historical period--some
earlier than others, but all within the last 2,000 years, so that we
have a fair amount of information as to their history; not so much,
perhaps, as is generally believed, but still a fair amount. We know
within a few degrees of latitude and longitude where they came from; and
we know their ethnological relations to the occupants of the parts
around them.
With the Kelts this is not the case. Of Gael or Manxman, Briton or Pict,
we know next to nothing during their early history. We can guess where
they came from, and we can infer their ethnological relations; but
history, in the strict sense of the term, we have none; for the Keltic
period differs from that of all the others in being pre-historic. This
is but another way of saying that the Keltic populations, and those
only, are the aborigines of the island; or, if not aboriginal, the
earliest known. Yet it is possible that these same Keltic populations,
whose numerous tribes and clans and nations covered both the British and
the Hibernian Isles for generations and generations before the discovery
of the art of writing, or the existence of a historical record, may be
as well understood as their invaders; since ethnology infers where
history is silent, and history, even when speaking, may be indistinct.
At any rate, the previous notice of the ethnology of the British Isles
during the Historical period, prepares us with a little light for the
dark walk in the field of its earliest antiquity.
Nothing, as has just been stated, in the earliest historical records of
Britain, throws any light upon the original occupation of the British
Islands by man; indeed, nothing tells us that Britain, when so occupied,
was an island at all. The Straits of Dover may have existed when the
first human being set foot upon what is now the soil of Kent, or an
isthmus may have existed instead. Whether then it was by land, or
whether it was by water, that the population of Europe propagated itself
into England, is far beyond the evidence of any historical memorial--far
beyond the evidence of tradition. Nothing at present indicates the
nature of the primary migration of our earliest ancestors. Neither does
any historical record tell us what manner of men first established
themselves along the valleys of the Thames and Trent, or cleared the
forests along their watersheds. They may have been as much ruder than
the rudest of the tribes seen by Paulinus and Agricola, as those tribes
were ruder than ourselves. They may, on the other hand, have enjoyed a
higher civilization, a civilization which Cæsar saw in its later stages
only; one which Gallic wars, and other evil influences, may have
impaired.
For the consideration of such questions as these it matters but little
whether we begin with the information which the ambition of Cæsar gave
the Romans the opportunity of acquiring, or such accounts of the
Phœnician traders as found their way into the writings of the Greeks;
Polybius (for instance), Aristotle, or Herodotus. A few centuries, more
or less, are of trifling importance. The social condition in both cases
is the same. There was tin in Cornwall, and iron swords in Kent; in
other words, there was the civilization of men who knew the use of
metals, both on the side of the soldiers who followed Cassibelaunus to
fight against Cæsar, and amongst the miners and traders of the
Land's-end. In both cases, too, there was foreign intercourse; with
Gaul, where there was a tincture of Roman, and with Spain, where there
was a tincture of Phœnician, civilization. This is not the infancy of
our species, nor yet that of any of its divisions. For this we must go
backwards, and farther back still, from the domain of testimony to that
of inference, admitting a pre-historic period, with its own proper and
peculiar methods of investigation--methods that the ethnologist shares
with the geologist and naturalist, rather than with the civil historian.
In respect to their results, they may be barren or they may be fertile;
but, whether barren or whether fertile, the practice and application of
them is a healthy intellectual exercise.
It must not be thought that the use of metals, and the contact with the
Continent, which have just been noticed, invalidate the statement as to
the insufficiency of our earliest historical notices. It must not be
thought that they tell us more than they really do. It is only at the
first view that the knowledge of certain metallurgic processes, and the
trade and power that such knowledge developes, are presumptions in
favour of a certain degree of antiquity in the occupancy of our island
on the parts of its islanders; and it is only by forgetting the
_insular_ character of Great Britain that we can allow ourselves to
suppose that, though our early arts tell us nothing about our first
introduction, they at any rate prove that it was _no recent event_.
"Time," we may fairly say, "must be allowed for such habits as are
implied by the use of metals to have developed themselves, and,
consequently, generations, centuries, and possibly even millenniums must
have elapsed between the landing of the first vessel of the first
Britons, and the beginning of the trade with the Kassiterides." As a
general rule, such reasoning is valid; yet the earliest known phenomena
of British civilization are compatible with a comparatively modern
introduction of its population. For Great Britain may have been peopled
like Iceland or Madeira, _i.e._, not a generation or two after the
peopling of the nearest parts of the opposite Continent, but many ages
later; in which case both the population and its civilization may be but
things of yesterday. In the twelfth century, Iceland had an alphabet and
the art of writing. Had these grown up within the island itself, the
inference would be that its population was of great antiquity; since
time must be allowed for their evolution--even as time must be allowed
for the growth of acorns on an oak. But the art may be newer than the
population, or the population and the art may be alike recent. Hence, as
the civilization of the earliest Britons may be newer than the stock to
which it belonged, the testimony of ancient writers to its existence is
anything but conclusive against the late origin of the stock itself. It
is best to admit an absolutely pre-historic period, and that without
reservation; and as a corollary, to allow that it may have differed in
kind as well as degree from the historic.
There is another fact that should be noticed. The languages of Great
Britain are reducible to two divisions, both of which agree in many
essential points with certain languages or dialects of Continental
Europe. The British was closely, the Gaelic more distantly, allied to
the ancient tongue of the Gauls. From this affinity we get an argument
_against_ any extreme antiquity of the Britons of the British Isles. The
date of their separation from the tribes of the Continent was not so
remote as to obliterate and annihilate all traces of the original
mother-tongue. It was not long enough for the usual processes by which
languages are changed, to eject from even the Irish Gaelic (the most
unlike of the two) every word and inflection which the progenitors of
the present Irish brought from Gaul, and to replace them by others. So
that, at the first view, we have a limit in this direction; yet unless
we have settled certain preliminaries, the limit is unreal. All that it
gives us is the comparatively recent introduction of the _Keltic_ stock.
Varieties of the human species, _other than Keltic_, may have existed
at an indefinitely early period, and subsequently have been superseded
by the Kelts. Philology, then, tells us little more than history; and it
may not be superfluous to add, that the occupancy of Great Britain by a
stock of the kind in question, earlier than the Keltic, and different
from it, is no imaginary case of the author's, but a doctrine which has
taken the definite form of a recognized hypothesis, and characterizes
one of the best ethnological schools of the Continent--the Scandinavian.
For the ambitious attempt at a reconstruction of the earliest state of
the human kind in Britain, we may prepare ourselves by a double series
of processes. Having taken society as it exists at the present moment,
we eject those elements of civilization which have brought it to its
present condition, beginning with the latest first. We then take up a
smaller question, and consider what arts and what forms of
knowledge--what conditions of society--existing amongst the earlier
populations have been lost or superseded with ourselves. The result is
an approximation to the state of things in the infancy of our species.
We subtract (for instance) from the sum of our present means and
appliances such elements as the knowledge of the power of steam, the art
of printing, and gunpowder; all which we can do under the full light of
history. Stripped of these, society takes a ruder shape. But it is
still not rude enough to be primitive. There are parts of the earth's
surface, at the present moment, where the metals are unknown. There was,
probably, a time when they were known nowhere. Hence, the influences of
such a knowledge as this must be subtracted. And then come weaving and
pottery, the ruder forms of domestic architecture, and boat-building,
lime-burning, dyeing, tanning, and the fermentation of liquors. When and
where were such arts as these wanting to communities? No man can answer
this; yet our methods of investigation require that the question should
be raised.
Other questions, too, which cannot be answered must be suggested, since
they serve to exhibit the trains of reasoning that depend upon them. Was
Britain (a question already indicated) cut off from Gaul by the Straits
of Dover when it was first peopled? If it were, the civilization
required for the building of a boat must have been one of the attributes
of the first aborigines; so that, whatever else in the way of
civilization may have been evolved on British ground, the art of
hollowing a tree, and launching it on the waves was foreign.
Now it is safe to say that the writers who are most willing to assign a
high antiquity to the first occupation of the British Isles by Man,
have never carried their epoch so high as the time when Britain and
Gaul were joined by an isthmus. On the contrary, they all argue as if
the islands were as insular as they are at present, and attribute to the
first settlers the construction and management of some frail
craft--rude, of course, but still a seaworthy piece of mechanism--after
the fashion of the boats of Gaul or Germany; and this is the reasonable
view of the subject.
In Mr. Daniel Wilson's "Pre-historic Annals of Scotland," we have the
best _data_ for the next portion of the question, viz., the extent to
which geological changes have occurred since the first occupancy of our
islands. In the valley of the Forth,[1] alterations in the relations of
the land and sea to the amount of twenty-five feet have occurred since
the art of making deers' horns into harpoons was known in Scotland. Such
at least is the inference from the discovery, in the Carse lands about
Blair Drummond Moss, of the skeleton of a whale, with a harpoon beside
it, twenty-five feet above the present tides of the Forth. As much as
can be told by any single fact is told by this; its valuation being
wholly in the hands of the geologists.
Then, the bone of an Irish elk, according to one view (but _not_
according to another), gives us a second fact. A rib, with an oval
opening, where oval openings should not be, and with an irregular
effusion of callus around it, is found under eleven feet of peat. Dr.
Hart attributes this to a sharp-pointed instrument, wielded by a human
hand, which without penetrating deep enough to cause death, effected a
breach on the continuity of the bone, and caused inflammation to be set
up. But Professor Owen thinks that a weapon of the kind in question, if
left in, to be worked out by the _vix medicatrix_ of Nature, would be
fatal, and consequently he prefers the notion of the wound having been
inflicted by a weapon which was quickly withdrawn, _e.g._, the horn of
some combative rival of its own kind, rather than the human. Now if it
be a difficult matter to say what will, and what will not kill a man in
the year '52, much more so is it to speak chirurgically about Irish elks
of the Pleiocene period. Hence the evidence of man having been
cotemporary with the Megaceros Hibernicus is unsatisfactory.
That a certain amount, then, of change of level between the land and
sea, in a certain part of Scotland, has taken place since Scotchmen
first hunted whales is the chief fact, relative to the date of our
introduction, that we get from geology. From archæology we learn
something more. Those sepulchral monuments which have the clearest and
most satisfactory signs of antiquity, contain numerous implements of
stone and bone, _but none of metal_. When metal is found, the
concomitant characters of the tomb in which it occurs, indicate a later
period. If so, it is a fair inference for the ethnological archæologist
to conclude, that although the earliest colonists reached Britain late
enough to avail themselves of boats, their migration was earlier than
the diffusion of the arts of metallurgy. And this has induced the best
investigators to designate the earliest stage in British ethnology by
the name of the STONE PERIOD, a technical and convenient term.
It is the general opinion, that during this period the practice of
inhumation, or simple burial, was commoner than that of cremation or
burning, though each method was adopted. Over the remains disposed of by
the former process, were erected mounds of earth (_tumuli_ or
_barrows_), heaps of stone (_cairns_), or cromlechs. There are strong
suspicions that the practice of _Suttí_ was recognized. Around a
skeleton, more or less entire, are often found, at regular distances,
the ashes of bodies that were burnt; just as if the chief was interred
in the flesh, but his subordinates given over to the flames. The posture
is, frequently, one which, on the other side of the Atlantic, has called
forth numerous remarks. Throughout America, it was observed by Dr.
Morton, that one of the most usual forms of burial was to place the
corpse in a half upright position, or a sitting attitude, with the
knees and hams bent, and the arms folded on the legs. Now this is a
common posture in Britain--a clear proof of the extent to which similar
practices are independent of imitation. If any ornaments be found with
the corpse, they are chiefly of cannel coal. The implements are all of
stone, or bone--the celt, the arrow, the spear-head, the adze, and the
mallet.
What was the physical aspect of the country at this time? The present,
_minus_ the clearings--wood and fen, fen and wood, in interminable
succession; woods of oak in the clay soils; of beech on the chalk; of
birch, pine, and fir in the northern parts of the island. The boats were
essentially _monoxyla_, _i.e._, single trees hollowed out, sometimes by
stone adzes, oftener by fire. The chief dresses were the skins of
beasts.
Such is what archæology tells us. The other questions belong to the
naturalist. What was the ancient Fauna? Whether the earliest men were
cotemporaneous with the latest of the extinct quadrupeds, has been
already asked--the answer being doubtful. How far the earliest beasts of
chase and domestication were the same as the present, is a fresh
question. The sheep may reasonably be considered as a recent
introduction; but with all the other domestic animals there are,
perhaps, as good reasons for deriving them from native species as for
considering them to be of foreign origin. The hog of the present breed,
may indeed be of continental origin; so may the present cat, horse, and
ass. Nevertheless, the hog, cat, horse, and ass, whose bones are found
in the alluvial deposits, may have been domesticated. The Devonshire,
Hereford, and similar breeds of oxen may be new; but the _bos
longifrons_ may have originated _some_ native breeds, which the
inhabitants of even the earliest period--the period of stone and bone
implements--may have domesticated. The opinion of Professor Owen is in
favour of this view; and certainly, though it cannot be enforced by mere
authority, it is recommended by its simplicity,--avoiding, as it does,
the unnecessary multiplication of causes. The goat was certainly
indigenous, but no more certainly domesticated than the equally
indigenous deer. This indigenous rein-deer may or may not have been
trained. The miserable aliments of the beach, shell-fish and crustacea,
constituted no small part of the earliest human food; and so (for the
northern part of the isle at least) did eggs, seals, and whales. Surely
in these primitive portions of the Stone period our habits must have
approached those of the Lap, the Samöeid, and the Eskimo, however
different they may be now.
But metals, in the course of time, were introduced; first bronze, and
then iron; gold and lead being, perhaps, earlier than either, earlier
too than silver. Of gold we take but little notice. It was not a useful
metal; but subservient only to the purposes of barbaric ornament. The
next fact is of great importance.
_In those tombs where the implements are most exclusively of stone, and
where the other signs of antiquity correspond, the skulls are of
unusually small capacity. In the next period they are larger. There are
also some notable points of difference in the shape._ Such at least is
the current opinion; although the proofs that such difference is not
referable to difference of age or sex, is by no means irrefragable.
Still we may take the fact as it is supposed and reported to be.
If we do this, we are prepared for another question. How far is the
introduction of metal implements and of new arts, a sign of the
introduction of a fresh stock or variety of the human species? How far,
too, is the difference in the capacity of the skulls? How far the fact
of the two changes coinciding? The answer has generally been in the
affirmative. The men who used implements of bronze were Kelts; the men
who eked out their existence with nothing better than adzes and
arrow-heads of stone, were other than Keltic. They were ante-Keltic
aborigines, whom a Keltic migration annihilated and superseded. Such is
the widely-spread doctrine. Yet it is doubtful whether the premises bear
out the inference--far as it has been recognized. I doubt it myself;
because, admitting (for the sake of argument) that there is a difference
in the size and the shape of the skulls, it by no means follows that a
difference of stock is the only way of accounting for it. Improved
implements, taken by themselves, merely denote either a progress in the
useful arts, or, what is more likely, some new commercial relations. The
same improved implements, if considered as means to an end, denote an
improvement in the nutrition of the individuals who used them. The bones
of a man who hunts stags and oxen with bronze weapons will carry more
flesh, and consequently be more fuller developed than those of a man
who, for want of better instruments than flint and bone arrow-heads,
feeds chiefly upon whale blubber and shell-fish. Now, what applies to
the bones in general, applies--though perhaps in a less degree--to the
skull. In the difference, then, between the crania of the Stone and
Bronze periods I see no introduction of a new variety of our species,
but merely the effects of a better diet, arising from an improvement in
the instruments for obtaining it. If the assumption, then, of a
_pre_-Keltic stock be gratuitous, the question as to the date of our
population is considerably narrowed. Its introduction (as already
indicated) must have been sufficiently late to allow the original
affinities between the Keltic dialects of the British Isles, and the
Keltic dialects of the European Continent, to remain visible. But as
many millenniums would be required for the opposite effect of
obliterating the original similarity, this is saying but little. All
that it is safe to assert is--
1. That the primitive Britons occupied the islands sufficiently _early_
to allow of the relative levels of the land and sea on the valley of the
Forth to alter to the amount of twenty-five feet--there or thereabouts.
2. That they occupied it sufficiently _late_ to allow the common origin
of the Gaelic and British tongues to remain visible in the nineteenth
century.
This latter position rests upon the supposition that the early
inhabitants in question were of the same stock as the present Welsh and
Gaels--the contrary doctrine being held to be, not erroneous, but
gratuitous and unnecessary.
We are now prepared to find that in certain monuments, less ancient than
those of the Stone period, the enclosed relics are of metal, and that
this metal is an alloy of copper and tin--_bronze_--not _brass_, which
is an alloy of copper and zinc. Not only are such relics more elaborate
in respect to their workmanship, but the kinds of them are more varied.
They are referable indeed to the three classes of warlike instruments,
industrial implements, and personal ornaments, but the varieties of
each sort are comparatively numerous. Swords and shields, which would be
well-nigh impossible accoutrements during the Stone period, now come
into use; so do moulds for casting, as well as bracelets and necklaces.
In short, the signs of a higher civilization and fresh means for the
conquest of either Man or Nature appear.
The evidence that the Bronze period succeeded the Stone, is on the whole
satisfactory; indeed its _a priori_ likelihood is so great, as to make a
little go a long way. At the same time, it must not be supposed that in
each individual case the newest monuments wherein we find bone and stone
are older than the oldest wherein we find bronze. No line of demarcation
thus trenchant can be drawn; and no proofs of absolute succession thus
conclusive can be discovered. Upon the whole, however, there was a time
when the early Britons were in the position of the South Sea Islanders
when first discovered, _i.e._, ignorant of the use of metals. As long as
the arts of metallurgy are unknown, the notice of the physical
conditions of the country is confined to its Flora, its Fauna, and its
stone quarries. What was there to cultivate? What was there to hunt or
to domesticate? What was there to build with? Now, however, the
questions change. What were the mineral resources of the soil? It is not
necessary to enlarge on these. The use of coal as a fuel is wholly
recent. On the other hand, certain varieties of it were used as
ornaments--the cannel coal, and the bituminous shale of Dorsetshire
(Kimmeridge clay). So was jet.
The metal first worked was _gold_; and its use dates as far back as the
Stone period; indeed it may belong to the very earliest age of our
island; since the localities where it has been found in Great Britain
are by no means few; and in early times each was richer than at present.
In England, from Alston Moor; in Scotland, from the head-waters of the
Clyde; and in Ireland, from the Avonmore, gold for the adornment of even
the hunters of the bone spear-head, and the woodsmen of the
stone-hatchet might have been procured; and the simple art of working
it, although it may possibly have been Gallic in origin, may quite as
easily have been native. The chief gold ornaments, torcs, armillæ, and
fibulæ have been found in association with bronze articles, but not
exclusively.
With those archæologists and ethnologists who believe that the
introduction of bronze implements coincided with the advent of a new
variety of mankind, the question whether the art of alloying and casting
metals was of native or foreign origin, is a verbal one; since it was
native or foreign just as we define the term--native to the stock which
introduced it on the British soil, foreign to the soil itself. But as
soon as we demur to the notion that the earliest Britons were a separate
and peculiar stock, and commit ourselves to the belief that they were
simply Kelts in a ruder condition, the problem presents itself in a
different and more important form. Was the art of making an alloy of tin
and copper self-evolved, or was it an art which foreign commerce
introduced? Was the art of casting such alloys British? It is well to
keep the two questions separate. The preliminary facts in respect to the
history of the bronze metallurgy are as follows:--
1. The peculiar geographical distribution of tin, which of all the
metals of any wide practical utility is found in the fewest localities,
those localities being far apart, _e.g._, Britain and Malacca--
2. The wide extent of country over which bronze implements are found.
Except in Norway and Sweden, where the use of iron seems to have
immediately followed that of stone and bone, they have been found all
over Europe--
3. The narrow limits to the proportions of alloy--nine-tenths copper,
and one-tenth tin--there or thereabouts--in the majority of cases.
4. The considerable amount of uniformity in the shape of even those
implements wherein a considerable variety of form is admissible. Thus
the bronze sword--a point hereafter to be noticed--is almost always
long, leaf-shaped, pointed, and without a handle.
The last three of these facts suggest the notion that bronze metallurgy
originated with a single population; the first, that that population was
British. Yet neither of these inferences is unimpeachable.
The notion that the bronze implements themselves were made in any single
country, and thence diffused elsewhere, has but few upholders; since, in
most of the countries where they have been found, the moulds for making
them have been found also. Hence the doctrine that the raw material--the
mixed metal only--was brought from some single source is the more
important one. Yet chemical investigations have modified even this.[2]
The proportions in question are the best, and they are easily discovered
to be so. Seven parts copper to one of tin has been shewn by experiment
to be too brittle, and fifteen parts copper to one of tin too soft, for
use. Within these proportions the chief analyses of the ancient bronze
implements range. The exact proportion of ten copper to one of tin, Mr.
Wilson has shewn to be an overstatement. All then that we are warranted
to infer is, that Britain was the chief source of the tin.
This is a great fact in the annals of our early commerce, but not
necessarily of much importance in the natural history of our inventions;
since it by no means follows that because Cornwall supplied tin to such
adventurous merchants as sought to buy it, it therefore discovered the
art of working it.
The chief reason for believing that the art of working in any metal
except gold was as foreign to Britain as the alphabet was to Greece,
rests on a negative fact, of which too little notice has been taken.
Copper is a metal of which England produces plenty. It is a metal, too,
which is the easiest worked of all, except gold and lead. It is the
metal which savage nations, such as some of the American Indians, work
when they work no other; and, lastly, it is a metal of which, in its
unalloyed state, no relics have been found in England. Stone and bone
first; then bronze or copper and tin combined; but no copper alone. I
cannot get over this hiatus--cannot imagine a metallurgic industry
_beginning with the use of alloys_. Such a phenomenon is a plant without
the seed; and, as such, indicates transplantation rather than growth.
This view assists us in our chronology. If the art of working in bronze
be a native and independent development, its antiquity may be of any
amount--going back to 3000 B.C. as easily as to 2000 B.C., and to 2000
B.C. as easily as to 1000 B.C. It may be of any age whatever, provided
only that it be later than the Stone period. But if it be an exotic art,
it must be subsequent to the rise of the Phœnician commerce. Such I
believe to have been the case. That the Britons were apt learners, and
that they soon made the art their own, is likely. The existence of
bronze and stone moulds for adzes and celts proves this.
The effects of the introduction of metal implements would be two-fold.
It would act on the social state of the occupants of the British Isles,
and act on the physical condition of the soil. The opportunities of
getting stones and bones for the purposes of warfare, would be pretty
equally distributed over the islands, so that the means of attack and
defence would be pretty equal throughout; but the use of bronze would
give a vast preponderance of power to certain districts, Cornwall,
Wales, and the copper countries. The vast forests, too, upon which stone
hatchets would have but little effect, would be more easily cleared, and
their denizens would be more successfully hunted.
_Amber_ ornaments are found along with the implements of bronze. Do
these imply foreign commerce--commerce with the tribes of Courland and
Prussia--the pre-eminent amber localities? Not necessarily. Amber, in
smaller quantities, is found in Britain.
_Glass_ beads, too, are found. This, I think, _does_ imply commerce. At
any rate, I am slow to believe that the art of fusing glass was of
indigenous growth. The use of it was, most probably, a concomitant of
the tin trade.
Undoubted specimens of weaving and undoubted specimens of pottery, occur
during the Bronze period. Lead, too, is found in some of the bronze
alloys; the word itself being, apparently, of Keltic origin. Whether the
same could not be referred to the Stone period is uncertain. It is
probable, however, that whilst the implements were of stone and bone,
the dress was of skin.
Nothing has yet been said about the dwellings of the early islanders.
This is because it is difficult to assign a date to their remains. They
may belong to the Bronze--they may belong to the Stone period. They may
be more recent than either. At any rate, however, relics of ancient
domestic architecture exist. A foundation sunk in the earth, with stone
walls of loose masonry, and covered, most probably, with reeds and
branches, suggests the idea of a subterranean granary, for which the old
houses of the earliest Britons have been mistaken; but, nevertheless, it
belonged to a house. On the floor of this we find charred bones, and
enormous heaps of oyster and mussel shells. Stone handmills, too, denote
the use of corn; though from the character of the ancient Flora,
vegetable forms of food must have been rarer than animal.
Iron was known in Cæsar's time. How much earlier is doubtful. So was
silver. Both were of later date than gold and bronze; and more than this
it is not safe to say. Of the great monolithic buildings, it is
reasonable to suppose that they are later than the Stone, and earlier
than the Historical, period. Druidism, however, in its germs may be of
any antiquity; not, however, if we suppose that the first introduction
of bronze coincided with the first introduction of the Kelts.
An Iron period succeeds the Bronze; but it will not be the subject of
our immediate consideration, inasmuch as it coincides pretty closely
with the historic epoch. The sequence, however, requires further notice.
That there should be a period in the history of mankind when the use of
metals, and the arts of metallurgy were wholly unknown, and that during
such a period, imperfect implements of bone and stone should minister to
the wants of an underfed and defenceless generation, is not so much a
particular fact in British ethnology as a general doctrine founded upon
our _a priori_ views, and applicable to the history of man at large. For
if each of the useful arts have its own proper origin, referrible to
some particular place, time, and community, there must have been an era
when it was wanting to mankind. Hence, an ante-metallic age is as much
the conception of the speculator, as the discovery of the investigator.
The _order_ in which the metals are discovered, the leading problem in
what may be called the natural history of metallurgy, is far more
dependant upon induction. Induction, however, has given the priority to
copper, just as is expected from the comparative reducibility of its
ores--lead and gold being put out of the question. So that it is not so
much the general fact of the order of succession in respect to the
Stone, Copper, and Iron periods that the laudable investigations of
British archæologists have established as the nature of the concomitant
details, the modifications of the periods themselves, and the exact
character of their sequence. Under each of these heads there is much
worth notice. The difference between the shape and size of the skulls of
the Stone and Bronze periods has been broadly asserted--perhaps it has
been exaggerated, at any rate it has formed the basis of an hypothesis.
The substitution of a Bronze for a Copper period in Britain is an
important modification, mainly attributable to the existence of tin. The
comparative completeness of the sequence is interesting. It by no means
follows that it should be regular. In Norway there is no Bronze period
at all; but Bone and Stone in the first instance, and Iron immediately
afterwards.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _See_ Wilson's "Pre-historic Annals of Scotland."
[2] This is well worked out by Mr. Wilson, in his "Pre-historic Annals
of Scotland."--Pp. 238 &c.
CHAPTER II.
AUTHORITIES FOR THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL PERIOD.--HERODOTUS.--
ARISTOTLE.--POLYBIUS.--ONOMACRITUS.--DIODORUS SICULUS.--STRABO.--
FESTUS AVIENUS.--ULTIMATE SOURCES.--DAMNONII.--PHŒNICIAN TRADE.--
THE ORGIES.--SOUTH-EASTERN BRITONS OF CÆSAR.--THE DETAILS OF HIS
ATTACKS.--THE CALEDONIANS OF GALGACUS.
The _extant_ writers anterior to the time of Julius Cæsar, in whose
works notice of the British islands are to be found, are, at most, but
four in number. They are all, of course, Greek.
Herodotus is the earliest. He writes "of the extremities of Europe
towards the west, I cannot speak with certainty ... nor am I acquainted
with the islands Cassiterides, from which tin is brought to
us."[3]--iii. 115.
Aristotle is the second. "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules," he tells us,
"the ocean flows round the earth; in this ocean, however, are two
islands, and those very large, called Britannic, Albion and Ierne, which
are larger than those beforementioned, and lie beyond the Celti; and
other two not less than these, Taprobane, beyond the Indians, lying
obliquely in respect of the main land, and that called Phebol, situate
over against the Arabic Gulf; moreover not a few small islands, around
the Britannic Isles and Iberia, encircle as with a diadem this earth;
which we have already said to be an island."--_De Mundo_, §. 3.
Polybius comes next. "Perhaps, indeed, some will inquire why, having
made so long a discourse concerning places in Libya and Iberia, we have
not spoken more fully of the outlet at the Pillars of Hercules, nor of
the interior sea, and of the peculiarities which occur therein, nor yet
indeed of the Britannic Isles, and the working of tin; nor again, of the
gold and silver mines of Iberia; concerning which writers, controverting
each other, have discoursed very largely."--iii. 57.
Lastly come half-a-dozen lines of doubtful antiquity, which the editors
of the "_Monumenta Britannica_" have excluded from their series of
extracts, on the score of their being taken from a non-existent or
impossible author--a bard of no less importance than Orpheus. The ship
Argo is supposed to speak, and say--
"For now by sad and painful trouble
Shall I be encompassed, if I go too near the _Iernian Islands_.
For unless, by bending within the holy headland,
I sail within the bays of the land, and the barren sea,
I shall go outward into the Atlantic Ocean."
An important sentence occurs a few lines lower. The British Isles are
spoken of--
----"where (are) the wide houses of Demeter."
This will be noticed in the sequel.
No reason for excluding these lines lies in the fact of their being
forgeries. Provided that they were composed before the time of Cæsar,
the authorship matters but little. If, as is the common practice, we
attribute them to Onomacritus, a cotemporary of Mardonius and Miltiades,
they are older than the notice of Herodotus.
It cannot be denied that these _data_ for the times anterior to Cæsar
are scanty. A little consideration will shew that they can be augmented.
Between the time of Julius Cæsar and Claudius--a period of nearly a
hundred years--no new information concerning Britain beyond that which
was given by Cæsar himself, found its way to Rome; since neither
Augustus nor Tiberius followed up the aggressions of the Great Dictator.
Consequently, the notices in the "_Bellum Gallicum_" exhaust the subject
as far as it was illustrated by any Roman observers. Now if we find in
any writer of the time of Augustus or Tiberius, notices of our island
which can not be traced to Cæsar, they must be referred to other and
earlier sources; and may be added to the list of the _Greek_
authorities.
If we limit these overmuch, we confine ourselves unnecessarily. Inquiry
began as early as the days of Herodotus; and opportunities increased as
time advanced. The Baltic seems to have been visited when Aristotle
wrote; and between his era and that of Polybius the intellectual
activity of the Alexandrian Greeks had begun to work upon many branches
of science--upon none more keenly than physical geography.
From the beginning of the Historical period, the first-hand
information--for it is almost superfluous to remark that none of the
Greek authors speak from personal observation--flows from two sources;
from the inhabitants of western and southern Gaul, and from the
Phœnicians. The text of Herodotus suggests this. In the passage which
has been quoted, he speaks of the _Kassiterides_; and _Kassiterides_ is
a term which a Phœnician only would have used. No Gaul would have
understood the meaning of the word. It was the Asiatic name for either
tin itself, or for some tin-like alloy; and the passage wherein it
occurs is one which follows a notice of _Africa_.
In two other passages, however, the consideration of the populations and
geography of Western Europe is approached from another quarter. The
course of the Danube is under notice, and this is what is said:--
"The river Ister, beginning with the Kelts, and the city of Pyrene,
flows so as to cut Europe in half. But the Kelts are beyond the Pillars
of Hercules; and they join the _Kynesii_, who are the furthest
inhabitants of Europe towards the setting-sun."--ii. 33.
"The Ister flows through the whole of Europe, beginning with the Kelts
who, next to the _Kynetæ_, dwell furthest west in Europe."--iv. 49.
The _Kynetæ_ have reasonably been identified with the _Veneti_ of Cæsar,
whose native name is _Gwynedd_, and whose locality, in Western Brittany,
exactly coincides with the notice of Herodotus. If so, the name is
Gallic, and (as such) in all probability transmitted to Herodotus from
Gallic informants. So that there were two routes for the earliest
information about Britain--the overland line (so to say), whereon the
intelligence was of Gallic origin; and the way of the Mediterranean,
wherein the facts were due to the merchants of Tyre, Carthage, or Gades.
Direct information, too, may have been derived from the Greeks of
Marseilles, though the evidence for this is wanting.
The two foremost writers to whose texts the preceding observations have
been preliminary, are Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, both of whom lived
during the reign of Augustus, too early for any information over and
above that which was to be found in the pages of Cæsar. Yet as each
contains much that Cæsar never told, and, perhaps, never knew, the
immediate authorities must be supposed to be geographical writers of
Alexandria, one of whom, Eratosthenes, is quoted by Cæsar himself; the
remoter ones being the Phœnician and Gallic traders. The thoroughly
Phœnician origin of the statement of these two authors is well
collected from the following extracts, which we must consider to be as
little descriptive of the Britannia of Cæsar and the Romans, as they are
of the Britannia of the year 51 B.C. Cæsar's Britain is Kent, in the
last half-century before the Christian era. Diodorus' Britain is
Cornwall, some 300 years earlier. "They who dwell near the promontory of
Britain, which is called Belerium, are singularly fond of strangers;
and, from their intercourse with foreign merchants, civilized in their
habits. These people obtain the tin by skilfully working the soil which
produces it; this being rocky, has earthy interstices, in which, working
the ore and then fusing, they reduce it to metal; and when they have
formed it into cubical shapes they convey it to certain islands lying
off Britain, named Ictis; for at the low tides, the intervening space
being laid dry, they carry thither in waggons the tin in great
abundance. A singular circumstance happens with respect to the
neighbouring islands lying between Europe and Britain; for, at the high
tides, the intervening passage being flooded, they seem islands; but at
the low tides, the sea retreating and leaving much space dry, they
appear peninsulas. From hence the merchants purchase the tin from the
natives, and carry it across into Gaul; and finally journeying by land
through Gaul for about thirty days, they convey their burdens on horses
to the outlet of the river Rhone."--v. 21, 22.
So is Strabo's.--"The Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each
other in the ocean, towards the north from the haven of the Artabri. One
of them is a desert, but the others are inhabited by men in black
cloaks, clad in tunics reaching to the feet, and girt about the breast.
Walking with staves, and bearded like goats; they subsist by their
cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life. And having metals of
tin and lead, these and skins they barter with the merchants for
earthenware, and salt, and brazen vessels. Formerly the Phœnicians
alone carried on this traffic from Gadeira, concealing the passage from
every one; and when the Romans followed a certain ship-master, that they
also might find the mart, the ship-master, out of jealousy, purposely
ran his vessel upon a shoal, and leading on those who followed him into
the same destructive disaster, he himself escaped by means of a fragment
of the ship, and received from the State the value of the cargo he had
lost. But the Romans, nevertheless, making frequent efforts, discovered
the passage; and as soon as Publius Crassus, passing over to them,
perceived that the metals were dug out at a little depth, and that the
men being at peace were already beginning, in consequence of their
leisure, to busy themselves about the sea, he pointed out this passage
to such as were willing to attempt it, although it was longer than that
to Britain."--Lib. iii. p. 239.
Pliny is, to a great degree, in the same predicament with Strabo and
Diodorus. Some of the statements which are not common to him and Cæsar,
are undoubtedly referrible to the information which the conquest of
Britain under Claudius supplied. Yet the greater part of them is old
material--Greek in origin, and, as such, referrible to Western rather
than Eastern Britain, and to the era of the Carthaginians rather than
the Romans. Solinus' account is of this character; his _Britain_ being
Western Britain and Ireland almost exclusively.
A poem of Festus Avienus, itself no earlier than the end of the fourth
century, concludes the list of those authors who represent the
predecessors of Cæsar in the description of Britain. Recent as it is, it
is important; since some of the details are taken from the voyage of
Himilco, a Carthaginian. He supplies us with a commentary upon the word
_Demeter_, in the so-called Orphic poem--a commentary which will soon be
exhibited.
The points then of contact between the British Isles and the Continent
of Europe, were two in number. They were far apart, and the nations that
visited them were different. Both, indeed, were in the south; but one
was due east, the other due west. The first, or Kentish Britain, was
described late, described by Cæsar, commercially and politically
connected with Gaul, and known to a great extent from Gallic accounts.
The second, or Cornish Britain, was in political and commercial relation
with the Phœnician portions of Spain and Africa, or with Phœnicia
itself; was known to the cotemporaries of Herodotus, and was associated
with Ireland in more than one notice. Both were British. But who shall
answer for the uniformity of manners throughout? It is better to be on
our guard against the influence of general terms, and to limit rather
than extend certain accounts of early writers. A practice may be called
British, and yet be foreign to nine-tenths of the British Islands. There
were war-chariots in Kent and in Aberdeenshire, and so far war-chariots
were part of the British armoury; but what authority allows us to
attribute to the old Cornishmen and Devonians? Better keep to
particulars where we can.
As the ancient name for the populations of Cornwall and Devonshire was
_Damnonii_, the _Damnonii_ will be dealt with separately. It will be
time enough to call them Britons when a more general term becomes
necessary. Two-thirds of the notice of them have been given already in
the extracts from Strabo and Diodorus, in which the long beards and
black dress must be noticed for the sake of contrast. No such
description would suit the Britons of the eastern coast.
The so-called _Orphic_ poem places the _wide houses of the goddess
Demeter_ in Britain. Standing by itself, this is a mysterious passage.
But it has been said that an extract from Avienus will help to explain
it--
----"Hic chorus ingens
Faminei cœtus pulchri colit orgia Bacchi.
Producit noctem ludus sacer; aera pulsant
Vocibus, et crebris late sola calcibus urgent.
Non sic Absynthi prope flumina Thracis alumnæ
Bistonides, non qua celeri ruit agmine Ganges,
Indorum populi stata curant festa Lyæo."
There were maddening orgies amongst the sacred rites of the
Britons--orgies, that whilst they reminded one writer of the Bacchic
dances, reminded another of the worship of Demeter. That these belonged
to the western Britons is an inference from the fact of their being
mentioned by the Greek writers, _i.e._, from those who drew most from
Phœnician authorities. Avienus, as we have seen, thinks of the Bacchæ
as a parallel. So does Pausanius--
"Nec spatii distant Nesidum litora longe;
In quibus uxores Amnitum Bacchica sacra
Concelebrant, hederæ foliis tectæque corymbis."
So does Dionysius Periegetes; indeed the three accounts seem all
referrible to one source. But not so Strabo. That writer, or rather his
authority Artemidorus, finds his parallel in Ceres. "Artemidorus states,
with regard to Ceres and Proserpine, what is more worthy of credit. For
he says, that there is an island near Britain wherein are celebrated
sacred rites, similar to such as are celebrated in Samothrace to these
goddesses."
Strabo's--or rather Artemidorus'--parallel is the same as that of the
Orphic poem, and, probably, is referrible to the same source. Damnonian
Britain, then, or the tin-country, had its orgies--orgies which may as
easily have been Phœnician as indigenous, and as easily indigenous as
Phœnician: orgies, too, may have been wholly independent of Druidism,
and representative of another superstition.
[Sidenote: B.C. 57.]
Between the Damnonian Britons of the Land's-end and the Britons of Kent,
as described by Cæsar, there may or there may not have been strong
points of contrast. That there were several minor points of difference
is nearly certain. The _a priori_ probabilities arising from the
peculiarities of their industrial occupations and commercial relations
suggest the view; the historical notices confirm rather than invalidate
it. Fragments, however, of this history is all that can be collected. We
have followed the Alexandrian critics in the west; let us now follow a
personal observer in the east, Cæsar--himself _a great part of the
events_ that he describes. The Britons of Kent first appear as either
tributaries or subjects to one of the Gallic chiefs, Divitiacus, king of
the Suessiones, or people of Soissons in Champagne; so that they are the
members of a considerable empire, or at least of an important political
confederation, before a single Roman plants his foot on their island.
But the vassalage is either partial or nominal, nor is it limited to the
members of the Belgic branch of the Gauls; for the Veneti were a people
of Brittany, whose name is still preserved under the form Vannes, the
name of a Breton district, and who were true Galli. Yet, in the next
year, they call upon the Britons for assistance, which is afforded them,
in the shape of ships and sailors; the Veneti being amongst the most
maritime of the Gallic populations.
[Sidenote: B.C. 56.]
In looking at these two alliances it may, perhaps, be allowed us to
suppose that the parts most under the control of Divitiacus were the
districts that lay nearest to him, Kent and Herts; whereas it was the
southern coast that was in so intimate a relation with the Veneti. This
is what I meant when I said that the sovereignty of Divitiacus might
have been partial.
[Sidenote: B.C. 55.]
Cæsar prepares to punish the islanders for their assistance to his
continental enemies; partly tempted by the report of the value of the
British pearls, a fact which indicates commerce and trade between the
two populations. The Britons send ambassadors, whom Cæsar sends back,
and along with them Commius the _Attrebatian_, a man of the parts about
_Artois_. _Commius_ the _Crooked_, as, possibly, he was named, from the
Keltic _Cam_, and a namesake of the valiant Welshman David _Gam_, who
fought so valiantly more than 1300 years afterwards at Agincourt. He was
a king of Cæsar's own making, and had had dealings with the Britons
before; with whom he had, also, considerable authority. From him Cæsar
seems to have obtained his chief preliminary information. But he applied
to traders as well; telling us, however, that it was only the coast of
Britain that was at all well known. He is resisted and cut off from
supplies at landing, and unexpectedly attacked after he has succeeded in
doing so. So that he finds reason to respect both the valour and the
prudence of his opponents; and, eventually leaves the country for Gaul,
having demanded hostages from the different States. Two, only, send
them.
[Sidenote: B.C. 54.]
The following year the invasion is repeated. In the first we had a few
details, but no names of either the clans, or their chief. The second is
more fruitful in both. It gives us the campaign of Cassibelaunus. The
most formidable part of the British armoury was the war-chariots. These
were driven up and down, before and into, the hostile ranks, by
charioteers sufficiently skilful to keep steady in rough places and
declivities, to take up their master when pressed, to wheel round and
return to the charge with dangerous dexterity. Meanwhile the master,
himself, either hurled his javelins on the enemy from a short
distance, or jumping from the chariot--from the body or yoke
indifferently--descended on the ground, and fought single-handed. When
pressed by the cavalry they retreated to the woods; which, in many
cases, were artificially strengthened by stockades.
About eighty miles from the sea, Cæsar reached the boundaries of the
kingdom of Cassibelaunus, now the head of the whole Britannic
Confederacy; but until the discordant populations became united by a
sense of their common danger, an aggressive and ambitious warrior,
involved in continuous hostilities with the populations around. His name
is evidently compound. The termination, -_belaunus_, or -_belinus_, we
shall meet with again. The _Cass_- is not unreasonably supposed to exist
at the present moment in the name of the Hundred of _Cassio_, in Herts
(whence _Cassio_-bury).
This is the first British proper name. The next is that of the
_Trinobantes_--beginning with the common Keltic prefix (_tre_-) meaning
_place_. Imanuentius, the king, had been slain in some previous act of
aggression by Cassibelaunus, and his son Mandubratius had fled to Cæsar
whilst in Gaul. He is now restored upon giving hostages.
In the list which follows of the population who sent hostages to Cæsar,
we find the name of the _Cassi_; which suggests the notion of
Cassibelaunus' own subjects have become unfaithful to him. The others
are Cenimagni, the Segontiaci, the Ancalites, and the Bibroci.
Cæsar seems now to be in Hertfordshire, west of London, _i.e._,
about Cassio-bury, the stockaded village, or head-quarters, of
Cassibelaunus--Cassibelaunus himself being in Kent. Here he succeeds in
exciting four chiefs, Cingetorix (observe the Keltic termination,
-_orix_), Carvilius, Taximagulus, and Segonax, to attack the ships; in
which attempt they are repulsed with the loss of one of their principal
men, Lugot-_orix_.
The campaign ends in Cæsar coming to terms with Cassibelaunus,
forbidding any attacks during his absence on Mandubratius and the
Trinobantes, and returning to Gaul with hostages.
From an incidental notice of the British boats in a different part of
Cæsar's books, we learn that those on the Thames, like those on the
Severn, were made of wicker-work and hides--_coracles_ in short; and
from a passage of Avienus we learn that the Severn boats were like
those of the Thames--
Non hi carinas quippe pinu texere
Acereve norunt, non abiete, ut usus est,
Curvant faselos; sed rei ad miraculum
Navigia juncta semper aptant pellibus,
Corioque vastum sæpe percurrunt salum.
Cæsar's conquest was to all intents and purposes no conquest at all.
Nevertheless, Augustus received British ambassadors, and, perhaps, a
nominal tribute. Probably, this was on the strength of the dependence of
the Eastern Britons on some portion of Gaul. At any rate, there was no
invasion.
[Sidenote: A.D. 20 to 43.]
The latter part of the reign of Tiberius, and the short one of Caligula,
give us the palmy period for native Britain--the reign of Cynobelin, the
father of Caractacus, the last of her independent kings.
Coins have been found in many places; but as it is not always certain
that they were not Gallic, the proofs of a very early coinage in Britain
is inconclusive. Indeed, the notion that the tin trade--to which may be
added that in fur and salt--was carried on by barter is the more
probable. But the coins of Cynobelin are numerous. They have been well
illustrated;[4] are of gold and silver; and whether stamped in Gaul or
Britain, indicate civilization of commerce and industry. The measure of
the progress of Britain from the Stone period upwards, partly referrible
to indigenous development, partly to Gallic, and partly to Phœnician,
intercourse, is to be found in these coins. It is the civilization of a
brave people endowed with the arts of agriculture and metallurgy,
capable of considerable political organization, and with more than one
point of contact with the continent--their war-chariots, their language,
and their Druidism being their chief distinctive characters. Iron was in
use at this time--though, perhaps, it was rare.
The conquests under Claudius carry us over new localities; and they are
related by a great historian, with more than ordinary means of
information. In Tacitus we read the accounts of Agricola. Yet the
information, with the exception of a few interesting details, is
confirmatory of what we have been told before, rather than suggestive of
any essential differences between the Britons of the interior and the
Britons of the southern coast. The war-chariot was limited to certain
districts. The rule of a woman was tolerated. The wives and mothers
looked-on upon the battles of the husbands and daughters. They may be
said, indeed, to have shared in them. Their cries, and shrieks, and
reproaches, their dishevelled hair, all helped to stimulate the
warriors, who opposed Suetonius Paulinus in the fastnesses of the Isle
of Anglesey. The Druids added fuel to the fiery energy thus excited.
There was the political organization that consolidates kingdoms. There
was the spirit of faction which disintegrates them. As were the
Brigantes, so were the Iceni; as were the Iceni, so were the Silures and
Ordovices. The same family likeness runs throughout; likeness in
essentials, difference in detail. In Caledonia the hair was flaxen; in
South Wales curled and black. The complexion too was florid, from which
Tacitus has drawn certain inferences.
The conquests under Vespasian carry us further still into Scotland, and
to the Grampians, against the _Caledonians_ under Galgacus. The extent
to which they differed from the Britons is not to be collected from the
account of Tacitus. We expect that they will be as brave; but ruder.
Still, the details which we get from the life of Agricola are few. They
fought from chariots, and their swords were broad and blunt. As the
swords of the Bronze period were thin and pointed, this is an argument
in favour of iron having become the usual material for warlike weapons
as far north as the Grampians. The historical testimony to the inferior
civilization of the North Britons, or Caledonians, is to be found in a
later writer, Dio Cassius, in his history of the campaigns of Severus.
"Amongst the Britons the two greatest tribes are the Caledonians and the
Mæatæ; for even the names of the others, as may be said, have merged in
these. The Mæatæ dwell close to the wall which divides the island into
two parts; the Caledonians beyond them. Each of these people inhabit
mountains wild and waterless, and plains desert and marshy, having
neither walls nor cities, nor tilth, but living by pasturage, by the
chase, and on certain berries; for of their fish, though abundant and
inexhaustible, they never taste. They live in tents, naked and
barefooted, having wives in common, and rearing the whole of their
progeny. Their state is chiefly democratical, and they are above all
things delighted by pillage; they fight from chariots, having small
swift horses; they fight also on foot, are very fleet when running, and
most resolute when compelled to stand; their arms consist of a shield
and a short spear, having a brazen knob at the extremity of a shaft,
that when shaken it may terrify the enemy by its noise; they use daggers
also; and are capable of enduring hunger, thirst, and hardships of every
description; for when plunged in the marshes they abide there many days,
with their heads only out of water; and in the woods they subsist on
bark and roots; they prepare, for all emergencies, a certain kind of
food, of which, if they eat only so much as the size of a bean, they
neither hunger nor thirst. Such, then, is the Island Britannia, and such
the inhabitants of that part of it which is hostile to us."
Of Ireland, we have no definite accounts till much later, so that, with
the exception of a few details, the characteristics of the social
condition of that island must be inferred from the analogy of Great
Britain, and from the subsequent history of the Irish. Now a rough view
of even the British characteristics is all that has been attempted in
the present chapter. No historic events have been narrated, except so
far as they elucidate some national or local habit; and no such habits
and customs have been noted unless they could be referred to some
particular branch of our populations; for the object has been
specification rather than generalization, the indication of certain
_Cornubian_, _Kentish_, or _Caledonian_ peculiarities rather than of
_British_ ones. At the same time, the fact that all the occupants of the
British Islands are referrible to the great Keltic stock, implies the
likelihood of these differences lying within a comparatively small
compass.
The step that comes next is the history of the stock itself.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The translations of this and all the following Greek extracts are
from the "_Monumenta Historica Britannica_."
[4] _See_ the papers of Mr. Beale Post in the "Archæological Journal."
CHAPTER III.
ORIGIN OF THE BRITONS.--KELTS OF GAUL.--THE BELGÆ.--WHETHER KELTIC
OR GERMAN.--EVIDENCE OF CÆSAR.--ATTREBATES, BELGÆ, REMI, DUROTRIGES
AND MORINI, CHAUCI AND MENAPII.
Of the two branches of the Keltic stock the British will be considered
first, and that in respect to its origin.
It is rare that the population of an island is without clear, definite,
and not very distant affinities with that of the nearest part of the
nearest continent. The Cingalese of Ceylon can be traced to India; the
Sumatrans to the Malayan Peninsula; the Kurile Islanders to the
Peninsula of Sagalín; the Guanches of Teneriffe to the coast of Barbary.
The nearest approach to isolation is in the island of Madagascar, where
the affinities are with Sumatra, the Moluccas and the Malay stock rather
than with the opposite parts of Africa, the coasts of Mozambique and
Zanguibar. But Madagascar has long been the great ethnological mystery.
Iceland, too, was peopled from Scandinavia and not from Greenland.
It is in Gaul, then, that we must look for the mother-country of Kelts;
at least in the first instance, for Gaul is the nearest point--the
white cliffs of Folkstone being within sight of the opposite shore. Yet
(as an example of the extent to which one ethnological question depends
upon another) the Gallic origin of the earliest Britons has been
objected to. For a _Keltic_ population, indeed, it has been admitted to
be the natural area; but we have seen that a population other and
earlier than the Keltic has been inferred from the shape of the skulls,
and other phenomena of the Stone period. Now for such a population as
this, Jutland or Sleswick has been considered the more likely locality,
since the skulls in question have been compared to those of the
Laplanders and Finns; and, if this be true, the further north we carry
the home of the British aborigines, the less we find it necessary to
bring the Finn or Lap families southward. This reasoning is valid if the
original fact of any _pre_-Keltic population be true. Those, however,
who doubt the premises, have no need to refine upon the current notion
of Gaul being the original home of the Britons. Gaul, then, is the
ground from which we take our view of the great Keltic division of the
human species in its integrity; for, hitherto, we have seen but the
western offsets of it.
That the country between the Seine and Garonne, corresponding with the
provinces of Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Poitiers, the Isle of
France, and the Orleannois, was Keltic, has never been doubted. The
evidence of Cæsar is express; and there is neither objection nor cavil
to set against it. There it is, where, at the present moment, the Keltic
Breton of Brittany continues to be the language of the common people.
The central and south-eastern parts of France--the Nivernois, Burgundy,
the Bourbonnois, the Lionnois, Auvergne, Dauphiny, Languedoc, Savoy, and
Provence--were _chiefly_ Keltic. Perhaps they were wholly so; but as the
Ligurians of Italy, and Iberians of Spain are expressly stated to have
met on the lower Rhone, it is best to qualify this assertion. At the
same time, good reasons can be given for considering that the Ligurians
were but little different from the other Gauls.
South of the Garonne the ancient population was _Iberic_.
Switzerland, or the ancient Helvetia, was Keltic, and beyond
Switzerland, along the banks of the Danube, and in the fertile plains of
Northern Italy, intrusive and conquering Kelts were extended as far east
as Styria, and as far south as Etruria; but these were offsets from the
main body of the stock, whose true area was Gaul and the British isles.
The parts between the Seine and Rhine, the valleys of the Marne, the
Oise, the Somme, the Sambre, the Meuse, and the Moselle were _Belgic_.
Treves was Belgian; Luxembourg, Belgian; the Netherlands, Belgian. Above
all, French Flanders, Artois, and Picardy--the parts nearest
Britain--the parts within sight of Kent--the parts from whence Britain
was most likely to be peopled--were Belgian.
Now, as Britain was originally Keltic, unless Belgium be Keltic also, we
shall meet with a difficulty.
In my own mind Belgium _was_ originally Keltic; and, perhaps, nine
ethnologists out of ten hold the same opinion. At the same time, fair
reasons can be given for an opposite doctrine, fair reasons for
believing the _Belgæ_ to have been German--as German as the Angles of
old, as German as the present Germans of Germany, as German as the Dutch
of Holland, and, what is more to the purpose, as German as the present
Flemings of Flanders, possibly occupants of the ancient, and certainly
occupants of the modern, Belgium.
Upon the latter fact we must lay considerable weight. Modern Belgium is
as truly the country of two languages and of a double population as
Wales, Ireland, or Scotland. There is the French, which has extended
itself from the south, and the Flemish, which belongs to Holland and
the parts northwards; a form of speech which differs from the true Dutch
less than the Lowland Scotch does from the English, and far less than
the Dutch itself does from the German. More than this. South of the line
which separates the French and Flemish, traces of the previous use of
the latter language are both definite and numerous, occurring chiefly in
the names of places such as _Dunkirk_, _Wissant_, &c.
Now, as the French language has encroached upon the Flemish, and the
Flemish has receded before the French, nothing is more legitimate than
the conclusion than that, at some earlier period, the dialects of the
great Germanic stock extended as far south as the Straits of Dover; and,
if so, Germans might have found their way into the south-eastern
counties of England 2000 years ago, or even sooner. Hence, instead of
the Angles and Saxons having been the first conquerors of the Britons,
and the earlier introducers of the English tongue, Belgæ of Kent, Belgæ
of Surrey, Belgæ of Sussex, and Belgæ of Hampshire, may have played an
important, though unrecorded, part in that long and obscure process
which converted Keltic Britain into German England, the land of the
Welsh and Gaels into the land of the Angles and Danes, the clansmen of
Cassibelaunus, Boadicea, Caractacus and Galgacus into the subjects of
Egbert, Athelstan, and Alfred.
Such views have not only been maintained, but they have been supported
by important testimonies and legitimate arguments. Foremost amongst the
former come two texts of Cæsar, one applying to the well-known Belgæ of
the continent, the others to certain obscurer Belgæ of Great Britain.
When Cæsar inquired of the legates of Remi, the ancient occupants, under
their ancient name, of the parts about Rheims, what States constituted
the power of the Belgæ, and what was their military power, he found
things to be as follows--"_The majority of the Belgæ were derived from
the Germans (plerosque Belgas ortos esse ab Germanus)._ Having in the
olden time crossed the Rhine, they settled in their present countries,
on account of the fruitfulness of the soil, and expelled the Gauls, who
inhabited the parts before them. They alone, with the memory of our
fathers, when all Gaul was harassed by the Teutones and Cimbri, forbid
those enemies to pass their frontier. On the strength of this they
assumed a vast authority in the affairs of war, and manifested a high
spirit. Their numbers were known, because, united by relationships and
affinities (_propinquitatibus ad finitatibusque conjuncti_), it could be
ascertained what numbers each chief could bring with him to the common
gathering for the war. The first in numbers, valour, and influence were
the Bellovaci. These could make up as many as 100,000 fighting men. Of
these they promised 40,000; for which they were to have the whole
management of the war. Their neighbours were the Suessiones, the owners
of a vast and fertile territory. Their king Divitiacus was yet
remembered as the greatest potentate of all Gaul, whose rule embraced a
part of Britain as well. Their present king was Gallus. Such was his
justice and prudence, that the whole conduct of the war was voluntarily
made over to him. Their cities were twelve in number; their contingent
50,000 soldiers. The Nervii, the fiercest and most distant of the
confederacy, would send as many; the Attrebates 15,000, the Ambiani
10,000, the Morini 22,000, the Menapii 9,000, the Caleti 10,000, the
Velocasses and Veromandui 10,000, the Aduatici 29,000; the Condrusi,
Eburones, Cærasi, and Pæmani, who were collectively called _Germans_
(_qui uno nomine Germani appellantur_) might be laid at 40,000."--Bell.
Gall., ii. 4.
Let us consider this as evidence (to a certain extent) of the north of
Gaul having been German, without, at present, asking how far it is
conclusive. If we look to Cæsar's description of Britain we shall find
the elements of a second proposition, viz., that "what is true of the
northern coast of Gaul, is true of the southern coast of Britain."[5]
So that if the Belgæ were Germans in the time of Cæsar, the populations
of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex were German also.
Cæsar's statement is, "that the interior of Britain is inhabited by
those who are recorded to have been born in the island itself; whereas
the sea-coast is the occupancy of immigrants from the country of the
_Belgæ_, brought over for the sake of either war or plunder. All these
are called by names nearly the same as those of the States they came
from, names which they have retained in the country upon which they made
war, and in the land whereon they settled."--B. G., v. 12.
I submit that these two statements would give us unexceptionable
evidence in favour of the Belgæ being Germans, and the south-eastern
Britons being Belgæ, in case they stood with no conflicting assertions
to set against them, and no presumptions in favour of an opposite
doctrine; in which case the inference that Kent was German would be
irrefragable, and would stand thus--
The Belgæ were Germans--
The south-eastern Britons were the same class with the Belgæ--
Therefore they were Germans.
Such a syllogism, I repeat, would be in proper form, and the inference
satisfactory.
But there is a great deal to set against both: so much as to make it
extremely probable that the utmost that can be got from the first
statement is, that a part of the Belgæ, and more especially the
Condrusi, Eburones, Cærasi, and Pæmani were Germans only in the way that
the people of Guernsey and Jersey are English, _i.e._, politically but
not ethnologically; and that the second only proves that certain
national names occurred on both sides of the channel.
If we look at the numerous local, national, and individual names of the
Belgæ, we find that they agree so closely in form with those of the
undoubted Gauls, as to be wholly undistinguishable. The towns end in
-_acum_, -_briva_, -_magus_, -_dunum_, and -_durum_, and begin with
_Ver_-, _Cær_-, _Con_-, and _Tre_-, just like those of Central Gallia;
so that we have--to go no farther than the common maps--Viriovi-_acum_,
Minori-_acum_, Origi-_acum_, Turn-_acum_, Bag-_acum_, Camar-_acum_,
Nemet-_acum_, Catusi-_acum_, Gemini-_acum_, Blari-_acum_, Mederi-_acum_,
Tolbi-_acum_; Samaro-_briva_; Novio-_magus_, Moso-_magus_; Vero-_dunum_;
Marco-_durum_, Theo-_durum_; _Ver_-omandui; _Cær_-asi; _Con_-drusi;
_Tre_-viri--all Gallic compounds on Belgian ground, and all forms
either wholly foreign to any German area, or else exceedingly rare. Now
it is no objection to this remarkable and exclusive preponderance of
Gallic names in Belgian geography, to say that there is no proof of the
designations in question being native; and that, although they existed
in the language of Cæsar's informants, who were Gauls, they were
strange to the Belgæ, even as the word _Welsh_ is strange to a
Cambro-Briton--being the name by which he is known to an Englishman, but
not the true and native denomination. I say that all argument of this
kind, valid as it is in so many other cases where it is never applied,
has no place here; since Cæsar's informants about the Belgic populations
were the Belgæ themselves, and it is inconceivable that they should have
used nothing but Gallic terms when they spoke of themselves, if they had
not been Gauls.
The names of the individual Belgic chiefs are as Gallic as those of the
towns and nations, _e.g._, _Commius_ and _Divitiacus_, and so are those
of such Britons as _Cassibelaunus_.
I submit that this is, as far as it goes, a reason for limiting rather
than extending all such statements as the ones in question. And it is by
no means a solitary one. A statement of Strabo confirms it:--"The
Aquitanians are wholly different" (_i.e._, from the other Gauls) "not
only in language, but in their bodies,--wherein they are more like the
Iberians than the Gauls. The rest are Gallic in look; but not all alike
in language. Some differ _a little_. Their politics, too, and manners of
life differ _a little_."--Lib. iv. c. 1.
With the external evidence, then, of Strabo, coinciding with the
internal evidence derived from the geographical, national, and
individual names, it seems illegitimate to infer from the text of Cæsar
more than has been suggested.
Unless we believe the Belgæ of Picardy to have been Germans, the second
fact stated by Cæsar, viz., the Belgic origin of the south-eastern
Britons is comparatively unimportant, since it merely shews that between
the Britons of the south-eastern coast, and those of the interior, there
were certain points of difference, the former being recent immigrants,
and Belgium being the country from which they migrated. Nevertheless,
this introduces a difficulty; since, by drawing a distinction between
the men of Kent, and the men of the Midland Counties, we are precluded
from arguing that the Britons in general belonged to the same class as
the Gauls; inasmuch as Cæsar's description may fairly be said to apply
to the _Belgic Britons only_.
I think, myself, that Cæsar's statement must be taken as an _inference_
rather than as _evidence_; in other words, he must not be considered to
say that certain _Attrebates_ and _Belgæ_ crossed the Straits of Dover
and settled in Britain, but that, as certain portions both of Belgium
and Britain bore the same names, a migration had taken place; such being
the explanation of the coincidence. Or, if we suppose Cæsar himself to
have been too acute a reasoner to confound a conclusion with a fact (as,
perhaps, he was), we may attribute the inference to his informants.
Whoever is in the habit of sifting ethnological evidence, is well aware
that a confusion of kind in question is one of the commonest of the
difficulties he must deal with.
At the same time, that there were some actual Belgæ in Britain is likely
enough; but that they were a separate substantive population, of
sufficient magnitude to be found in all the parts of Britain where
Belgic names occurred, and still more that they were Germans, is an
unsafe inference; safe, perhaps, if the two texts of Cæsar stood alone,
but unsafe, if we take into consideration the numerous facts,
statements, and presumptions which complicate and oppose them.
The Belgic names themselves, which occurred in Britain, were as
follows:--
_a._ _Attrebates._--There were Attrebates both in Belgium and Britain;
the Gaelic ones in _Artois_, which is only _Attrebates_ in a modern
form. Considerable importance attaches to the fact, that before Cæsar
visited Britain in person, he sent _Commius_, the Attrebatian, before
him. Now, this Commius was first conquered by Cæsar, and afterwards set
up as a king over the Morini. That Commius gave much of his information
about Britain to Cæsar is likely; perhaps he was his chief informant.
He, too, it was who, knowing the existence of Attrebates in Britain,
probably drew the inference which has been so lately suggested, viz.,
that of a Belgæ migration, or a series of them. Yet the Attrebates of
Britain were so far from being on the coast, that they must have lain
west of London, in Berkshire and Wilts; since Cæsar, who advanced, at
least, as far as Chertsey, where he crossed the Thames, meets nothing
but Cantii, Trinobantes, Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci and
Cassi. It is Ptolemy who first mentions the British _Attrebatii_; and he
places them between the Dobuni and the Cantii. Now, as the Dobuni lay
due west of the Silures of South Wales, we cannot bring the Attrebatii
nearer the coast than Windsor.
_b._ The _Belgæ_.--These--like the Attrebatii, first mentioned by
Ptolemy--are placed south of the Dobuni, and on the sea-coast between
the Cantii and Damnonii of Devonshire; so that Sussex, Hants, and
Dorset, may be given them as their area.
_c._ The _Remi_ are mentioned by no better an authority than Richard of
Cirencester, as Bibroci under another name.
_d._ The _Durotriges_, too, or people of _Dor_-set, are stated by the
same authority to have been called _Morini_.
_e._ _f._ In Ireland we have two populations with German names; the
_Menapii_ and the _Chauci_, both in the parts about Dublin, and in the
neighbourhood of one another. And these are mentioned by Ptolemy.
Now, whatever these Belgic names prove, they do not prove Cæsar's
statement that it was the _maritime parts of Britain which were Belgic_;
since the Menapii and Chauci must have been wholly unknown to him, and
the _Attrebatii_ lay inland.
At the same time, they prove something. They also introduce difficulties
in the very simple view that Britain was solely and exclusively British.
This leads to a further consideration of the details. The _Remi_ may be
disposed of first. They stand on bad authority, viz., that of a monk of
the twelfth century.
So may the _Morini_. Though I admit the ingenuity and soundness of the
doctrine that the existence of a double nomenclature such as that by
which the Durotriges are called Morini, and the Morini, Durotriges, is
well explained by the assumption of a second language, and the notion
that the inhabitants of certain districts were sometimes called by a
British, sometimes by a German, name, the hypothesis is not valid where
the facts can be more easily explained otherwise. No one would thus
explain such words as _Lowlander_ and _Borderer_ applied to the people
of the Cheviot Hills. Yet both are current; one being given when their
relation to England, the other when their difference from the Highland
Gaels, is expressed.
Now, it so happens that _Morini_ and _Durotriges_ are words that can as
little be considered as synonymous terms belonging to different
languages as _Lowlander_ and _Borderer_; since good reasons can be given
for referring them _both_ to the Keltic. Their _exact_ import is
difficult to ascertain; but if we suppose them to mean _coasters_ and
_watersidemen_, respectively, we get a clear view of the unlikelihood of
one being German and the other Keltic. Thus--
_Duro-triges_ coincides with the Latin compound _ponticolæ_, since _dwr_
in Welsh, Cornish, and Armorican means _water_, and _trigau_ means _to
remain_ or _to inhabit_; _trig-adiad_ denoting _dwellers_, or
inhabitants, as is well remarked by Prichard, v. iii. 128.
_Môr_, in _Morini_, is neither more nor less than the Latin word
_mare_.[6] Surely this sets aside all arguments drawn from the supposed
bilingual character of the words _Morini_ and _Durotriges_.
The _Cauci_ and _Menapii_ of Ireland tell a different tale. One name
without the other would prove but little; but when we find _Cauci_ in
Germany not far from _Menapii_, and _Menapii_ in Ireland not far from
_Chauci_, the case becomes strengthened. Yet the likelihood of _Menap_,
being the same word as the _Menai_ of the _Menai Straits_ in Wales,
suggests the probability of that word being a geographical term.
Nevertheless, the contiguity of the two nations is an argument as far as
it goes.
And here I must remark, that the process by which words originally very
different may become identified when they pass into a fresh language is
not sufficiently attended to. _Cauci_ is the form which an Irish,
_Chauci_ that which a German, word takes in Latin. And the two words are
alike. Yet it is far from certain that they would be thus similar if we
knew either the Gaelic original of one, or the German of the other. A
dozen forms exceedingly different might be excogitated, which, provided
that they all agreed in being strange to a Roman, would, when moulded
into a Latin form, become alike. Still the argument, as far as it goes,
is valid.
Such are the reasons for believing, at one and the same time, that the
Britons came from Belgic Gaul, and that the Belgæ from whence they came
were Kelts.
We cannot, however, so far consider the origin of the British branch of
the Keltic stock to be disposed of, as to proceed forthwith to the
Gaelic; another population requires a previous notice. This is the
Pict.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] These are the exact words of one of the ablest supporters of the
Germanic origin of the south-eastern Britons, Mr. E. Adams, in a paper
entitled, "Remarks on the probability of Gothic Settlements in Britain
Previously to A.D. 450."--_Philological Transactions_, No. ciii.
[6] This root is important. As it means _sea_ in more European languages
than one, it has created a philological difficulty in the case of a very
interesting gloss, _Mori-marusa_, meaning _dead sea_; where by a strange
coincidence the same consonants (_m-r_) are repeated, but with a
difference of meaning.
Prichard, who drew attention to this remarkable compound, having stated
that a passage in Pliny informed us that the _Cimbri_ called the sea in
their neighbourhood _Mori-marusa_, inferred that the name was Cimbric;
and further argued, that as _mor mawth_ in Welsh meant the same, the
Cimbric tongue was Welsh, Cambrian, or British. As far as it went the
inference was truly legitimate; but the reasoning which led to it was
deficient. The likelihood of there being more languages than one wherein
both _mor_ meant _sea_, and _mor_ meant _dead_, was overlooked; though
one of the languages that supplied the coincidence was the Latin--_mare
mort-uum_.
Another such a tongue was the Slavonic; and to that tongue I imagine
_Morimarusa_ to be referrible. I also imagine that by the _Cimbri_ of
Pliny were meant the _Cimmerii_; so that the Sea of Azof was the true
Dead Sea; or, perhaps, the Propontis; in which case its present name,
the _Sea of Marmora_, is explained.
The name of the Province, _Ar-mor-ica_, means the _country on the sea_,
and if rendered in Latin would be _ad mare_. _Ar-gail_ is such another
word; and it was the name of the landing-place of the _Gael_=_ad
Gallos_.
To the Gaelic _Ar-mor-ica_, the Slavonians have an exact parallel in the
word _Po-mor-ania_; where _po_ means _on_, and _mor_ the _sea_.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PICTS.--LIST OF KINGS.--PENN FAHEL.--ABER AND INVER.--THE PICTS
PROBABLY, BUT NOT CERTAINLY, BRITONS.
The Picts have never been considered Romans; but, with that exception, a
relationship with every population of the British Isles has been claimed
for them. As Germans on the strength of Tacitus' description of their
physical conformation of the Caledonian, and as Germans on the strength
of the supposed Germanic origin of the Belgæ, the Picts have been held
the ancestors of the present Lowland Scotch. They have been considered
Scandinavians also. On the other hand, they have been made Gaels, in
which case it is the Highlanders who are their offspring. They have been
considered Britons, and they have been considered a separate stock.
That they were Kelts rather than Germans is the commonest doctrine, and
that they were Britons rather than Gaels is a common one; the arguments
that prove the latter proving the first _a fortiori_.
We approach the subject with a notice of the Irish missionary St.
Columbanus, whose native tongue was, of course, the Irish Gaelic. This
was unintelligible to the Northern Picts, as is expressly stated on in
Adammanus:--"Alio in tempore quo Sanctus Columba in Pictorum provincia
per aliquot demorabatur dies, quidam cum tota plebeius familia, verbum
_vitæ_ per interpretatorem, _Sancto prædicante viro_, audiens credidit,
credensque baptizatus est."--_Adamn. ap. Colganum._ l. ii. c. 32.
This, however, only shews that the Pict was not exactly and absolutely
Irish. It might have approached it. It might also be far more unlike
than the Welsh was.
A document known as the Colbertine MS., from being published from the
Colbertine Library, contains a list of Pictish kings. This has been
analysed by Innes and Garnett; and the result is, that two names only
are more Gaelic in their form than Welsh--viz., _Cineod_ or _Kenneth_,
and _Domhnall_ or _Donnell_. The rest are either absolutely contrary to
what they would be if they were Gaelic, or else British rather than
aught else. Thus, the Welsh _Gurgust_ appears in the Irish Annal as
_Fergus_, or _vice versâ_. Now the Pict form of this name is _Wrgwst_,
with a final T, and without an initial F. _Elpin_, _Drust_, _Drostan_,
_Wrad_, and _Necton_ are close and undoubted Pict equivalents to the
Welsh names _Owen_, _Trwst_, _Trwstan_ (_Tristram_), _Gwriad_, and
_Nwython_.
The readers of the Antiquary well know the prominence given to the only
two common terms of the Pict language in existence _pen val_, or as it
appears in the oldest MSS. of Beda _peann fahel_. This is the _head of
the wall_, or _caput vall_, being the eastern extremity (there or
thereabouts) of the Vallum of Antoninus. Now the present Welsh form for
_head_ is _pen_; the Gaelic _cean_. Which way the likeness lies here, is
evident. For the _fahel_ (or _val_) the case is less clear. The Gaelic
form is _fhail_, the Welsh _gwall_; the Gaelic being the nearest.
But some collateral evidence on this subject more than meets the
difficulty. "In the Durham MSS. of Nennius, apparently written in the
twelfth century, there is an interpolated passage, stating that the spot
in question was in the Scottish or Gaelic language called _Cenail_.
Innes and others have remarked the resemblance between this appellation
and the present Kinneil; but no one appears to have noticed that
_Cenail_ accurately represents the _pronunciation_ of the Gaelic _cean
fhail_, literally _head of wall_, _f_ being quiescent in construction. A
remarkable instance of the same suppression occurs in _Athole_, as now
written, compared with the _Ath-fothla_ of the Irish annalists.
Supposing, then, that _Cenail_ was substituted for _peann fahel_ by the
Gaelic conquerors of the district, it would follow that the older
appellation was _not_ Gaelic, and the inference would be obvious."[7]
In thus making _pen val_ a Pict gloss, I by no means imagine that any of
the three forms were originally Keltic at all; since _val_, _gwal_,
_fhail_ all seem variations of the Roman _vallum_, at least, in respect
to their immediate origin. Still, if out of three languages, adopting
the same word, each gives a different form, the variation which results
is as much a gloss of the tongue wherein it occurs, as if the word were
indigenous. Hence, whether we say that _pen val_ are Pict glosses, or
that _pen_ is a Pict _gloss_, and _val_ a Pict _form_ is a matter of
practical indifference.
The _Vallum Antonini_ was a work of man's hands, and its name is of less
value than those of natural objects, such as _mountains_, _rivers_, or
_lakes_. Nevertheless, these latter have been examined: thus the _Ochel_
Hills in Perthshire are better explained by the Welsh form _uchel_ than
by the Gaelic _nasal_. But the most important word of all is the first
element of the words _Aber_-nethy, and _Inver_-nethy. Both mean the
same, _i.e._, the _confluence of waters_, or something very much of the
sort. Both enter freely into composition, and the compounds thus formed
are found over the greater part of the British Isles as the names of the
mouths of the larger and more important rivers. But it is only a few
districts where the two names occur together. Just as we expect _a
priori_ _aber_ occurs when _inver_ is not to be found, and _vice versâ_.
Of the two extremes Ireland is the area where _aber_, Wales where
_inver_ is the rarer of the two forms; indeed so rare are they that the
one (_aber_) rarely, if ever, occurs in Ireland, the other (_inver_)
rarely, if ever, in Wales. Now as Ireland is Gaelic, and Welsh British,
the two words may fairly be considered to indicate, where they occur,
the presence of these two different tongues respectively.
The distribution of the words in question has long been an instrument of
criticism in determining both the ethnological position of the Pict
nation, and its territorial extent; and the details are well given in
the following table of Mr. Kemble's:
"If we now take a good map of England and Wales and Scotland, we
shall find the following data:--
"In Wales:
"Aber-ayon, lat. 51° 37′ N., long. 3° 46′ W.
Aber-afon, lat. 51° 37′ N.
Abergavenny, lat. 51° 49′ N., long. 3° 0′ W.
Abergwilli, lat. 51° 51′ N., long. 4° 16′ W.
Aberystwith, lat. 52° 24′ N., long. 4° 6′ W.
Aberfraw, lat. 53° 12′ N., long. 4° 30′ W.
Abergee, lat. 53° 17′ N., long. 3° 17′ W.
"In Scotland:
"Aberlady, lat. 56° 1′ N., long. 2° 52′ W.
Aberdour, lat. 56° 4′ N., long. 3° 16′ W.
Aberfoil, lat. 56° 11′ N., long. 4° 24′ W.
Abernethy, lat. 56° 20′ N., long. 3° 20′ W.
Aberbrothic, lat. 56° 33′ N., long. 2° 35′ W.
Aberfeldy, lat. 56° 37′ N., long. 3° 55′ W.
Abergeldie, lat. 57° 5′ N., long. 3° 10′ W.
Aberchalder, lat. 57° 7′ N., long. 4° 44′ W.
Aberdeen, lat. 57° 8′ N., long. 2° 8′ W.
Aberchirdir, lat. 57° 35′ N., long. 2° 34′ W.
Aberdour, lat. 57° 40′ N., long. 2° 16′ W.
Inverkeithing, lat. 56° 2′ N., long. 3° 36′ W.
Inverary, lat. 56° 15′ N., long. 5° 5′ W.
Inverarity, lat. 56° 36′ N., long. 2° 54′ W.
Inverbervie, lat. 56° 52′ N., long. 2° 21′ W.
Invergeldie, lat. 57° 1′ N., long. 3° 12′ W.
Invernahavan, lat. 57° 2′ N., long. 4° 12′ W.
Invergelder, lat. 57° 4′ N., long. 3° 15′ W.
Invermorison, lat. 57° 14′ N., long. 4° 34′ W.
Inverness, lat. 57° 29′ N., long. 4° 11′ W.
Invernetty, lat. 57° 29′ N., long. 1° 51′ W.
Inveraslie, lat. 57° 59′ N., long. 4° 40′ W.
Inver, lat. 58° 10′ N., long. 5° 10′ W.
"The line of separation then between the Welsh or Pictish, and the
Scotch or Irish, Kelts, if measured by the occurrence of these
names, would run obliquely from S.W. to N.E., straight up Loch Fyne,
following nearly the boundary between Perthshire and Argyle,
trending to the N.E. along the present boundary between Perth and
Inverness, Aberdeen and Inverness, Banf and Elgin, till about the
mouth of the river Spey. The boundary between the Picts and English
may have been much less settled, but it probably ran from Dumbarton,
along the upper edge of Renfrewshire, Lanark and Linlithgow till
about Abercorn, that is along the line of the Clyde to the Frith of
Forth."[8]
It cannot be denied that, in the present state of our knowledge, the
inference from the preceding table is that, whether Pict or not, more
than two-thirds of Scotland exhibit signs of _British_ rather than
_Gaelic_ occupancy.
This is as much as can be said at present: for it must be added that all
the previous criticism has proceeded upon the notion that PENN FAHEL,
&c., are Pict words. What, however, if they be Pict only in the way that
_man_, _woman_, &c., are Welsh; _i.e._, words used by a population
within the Pict area, but not actually Pict? The refinement upon the
opinion suggested by the present chapter, which arises out of the view,
will be noticed after certain other questions have been dealt with.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Mr. Garnett, _Philological Transactions_, No. II.
[8] Saxons in England.--Vol. ii. pp. 4, 5.
CHAPTER V.
ORIGIN OF THE GAELS.--DIFFICULTIES OF ITS INVESTIGATION.--NOT
ELUCIDATED BY ANY RECORDS, NOR YET BY TRADITIONS.--ARGUMENTS FROM
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BRITISH AND GAELIC LANGUAGES.--THE
BRITISH LANGUAGE SPOKEN IN GAUL.--THE GAELIC NOT KNOWN TO BE SPOKEN
IN ANY PART OF THE CONTINENT.--LHUYD'S DOCTRINE.--THE HIBERNIAN
HYPOTHESIS.--THE CALEDONIAN HYPOTHESIS.--POSTULATES.
The origin of the Britons has been a question of no great difficulty.
They could not well have come from the west, because Britain lies almost
on the extremity of the ancient world; so we look towards the continent
of Europe, and find, exactly opposite to the Britons, the Gauls,
speaking a mutually intelligible language. On this we rest, just pausing
for a short time to dispose of one or two refinements on the natural
inference.
But if no such language as that of the ancient Gauls, a language
_closely_ akin to the British, had been discovered, the ethnologist
would have been put to straits; indeed, he would have had to be
satisfied with saying that Gaul was the likeliest part of Europe for the
Britons to have come from. No more. A strong presumption is all he would
have obtained. The similarity, however, of the languages has helped him.
Now the difficulty which has just been noticed as a possible one in the
investigation of the origin of the Britons, is a real one in the case of
the Gaels. The exact parallel to the Gaelic language cannot be found on
any part of the continent. Hence, whilst the British branch of the
Keltic is found in both England and Gaul,--on the continent as well as
in the Islands,--the Gaelic is limited to the British Isles exclusively.
Neither in Gaul itself, nor the parts either north or south of Gaul can
any member of the Gaelic branch be found.
Even within the British Islands the Gaelic is limited in its
distribution. There is no British in Ireland, and no Gaelic in South
Britain. In Scotland both the tongues occur, the Gaelic being spoken
north of the British. Now this position of the Gaelic to the west and
north of the British increases the difficulty--since it is cut off from
all connexion with the continent, and unrepresented by any continental
tongue.
The history, then, of the Gaels is that of an isolated branch of the
Keltic stock; and it is this isolation which creates the difficulties of
their ethnology. No historical records throw any light upon their
origin--a statement which the most sanguine investigator must admit. But
tradition, perhaps, is less uncommunicative. Many investigators believe
this. For my own part I should only be glad to be able to do so. As it
is, however, the arguments of the present chapter will proceed as if the
whole legendary history of Ireland and Scotland, so far as it relates to
the migrations by which the islands were originally peopled by the
Gaels, were a blank--the reasons for the scepticism being withheld for
the present. But only for the present. In the seventh chapter they will
be given as fully as space allows.
The present arguments rest wholly upon a fact of which the importance
has more than once been foreshadowed already, and which the reader
anticipates. Let us say, for the sake of illustration, that the British
and Gaelic differ from each other as the Latin and Greek. The parallel
is a rough one, but it will suffice as the basis of some criticism.
Languages thus related cannot be in the relation of mother and daughter,
_i.e._, the one cannot be derived from the other, as the English is from
the Anglo-Saxon, or the Italian from the Latin. The true connexion is
different. It is that of brother and sister, rather than of parent and
child. The actual source is some common mother-tongue; a mother-tongue
which may become extinct after the evolution of its progeny. Hence, in
the particular case before us, the Gaelic and British must have
developed themselves, each independently of the other, out of some
common form of speech. And the development must have taken place within
the British Islands; the doctrine being that out of a language which at
some remote period was neither British nor Gaelic, but which contained
the germs of both, the western form of speech took one form, the
southern another--the results being in the one case the British, in the
other the Gaelic, tongue.
But that common mother-tongue at the remote period in question, the
period of the earliest occupancy of Britain, must have been spoken on
both sides of the Channel--in Gaul as well as the British Islands. And
here (_i.e._, in Gaul) it may have done one of two things. It may have
remained unaltered; or, it may have undergone change. Now in either case
it would be different from both the Gaelic and the British. In the
former alternative it would have been stereotyped as it were, and so
have preserved its original characters, whilst the Gaelic and British
had adopted new ones. In the latter it would have altered itself after
its own peculiar fashion; and those very peculiarities would have made
it other than British as well as other than Gaelic. Yet what is the
fact? The ancient language of Gaul, though as unlike the Gaelic as a
separate and independent development was likely to make it, was _not_
unlike the British. On the contrary, it was sufficiently like it to be
intelligible to a Briton. Now I hold this similarity to be conclusive
against the doctrine that the British and Gaelic languages were
developed out of some common mother-tongue _within the British Islands_.
Had they been so the dialects of Gaul would have been far more unlike
the British than they were.
The _British_ then, at least, did not acquire its British character in
Britain, but on the continent; and it was introduced into England as a
language previously formed in Gaul.
For the Gaelic there is no such necessity for a continental origin;
indeed at the first view, the probabilities are in favour of its having
originated in Britain. It cannot be found on the continent; and, such
being the case, its continental origin is hypothetical. One thing,
however, is certain, viz., that if the Gaelic were once the only
language of the British Isles, the conquests and encroachments of the
Britons who displaced it, must have been enormous. In the whole of South
Britain it must certainly have been superseded, and in half Scotland as
well: whilst, if, before its introduction into Great Britain, it were
spoken on any part of the continent, the displacement must have been
greater still.
Now, the hypothesis as to the origin of the Gaels may take numerous
forms. I indicate the following three.--
1. The first may be called _Lhuyd's_ doctrine, since Humphrey Lhuyd, one
of the best of our earlier archæologists, suggested it. Mr. Garnett has
spoken of it with respect; but he evidently hesitates to admit it. And
it is only with respect that it should be mentioned; for, it is highly
probable. It makes the original population of all the British
Isles--England as well as Scotland and Ireland--to have been Gaelic,
Gaelic to the exclusion of any Britons whatever. It makes a considerable
part of the continent Gaelic as well. In consequence of this, the
Britons are a later and intrusive population, a population which
effected a great and complete displacement of the earlier Gaels over the
whole of South Britain, and the southern part of Scotland. Except that
they were a branch of the same stock as the Gaels, their relation to the
aborigines was that of the Anglo-Saxons to themselves at a later period.
The Gaels first; then the Britons; lastly the Angles. Such is the
sequence. The general distribution of these two branches of the Keltic
stock leads to Lhuyd's hypothesis; in other words, the presumptions are
in its favour. But this is not all. There are certainly some words--the
names, of course, of geographical objects--to be found in both England
and Gaul, which are better explained by the Gaelic than the British
language. The most notable of these is the names of such rivers as the
_Exe_, _Axe_, and (perhaps) _Ouse_, which is better illustrated by the
Irish term _uisge_ (_whiskey_, _water_), than by any Welsh or Armorican
one.
2. The second doctrine may be called the _Hibernian_ hypothesis. It
allows to the Britons of England, and South Scotland any amount of
antiquity, making them aboriginal to Great Britain. The Gaels of the
Scottish Highlands it derives from Ireland; a view supported by a
passage in Beda.[9] Ireland is thus the earliest insular occupancy of
the Gael. But whence came they to Ireland? From some part south and west
of the oldest known south-western limits of the Keltic area, from Spain,
perhaps; in which case a subsequent displacement of the original Kelts
of the continent by the Iberians--the oldest known stock of the
Peninsula--must be assumed. But as there must be some assumptions
somewhere, the only question is as to its legitimacy.
3. The third hypothesis--the _Caledonian_--reverses the second, and
deduces the Irish Gaels from Scotland, and the Scotch Gaels from some
part _north_ of the oldest known Keltic boundary and in the direction of
Scandinavia. Like both the others, this involves a subsequent
displacement of the mother-stock.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] _See_ Chapter viii.
CHAPTER VI.
ROMAN INFLUENCES.--AGRICOLA.--THE WALLS AND RAMPARTS OF ADRIAN,
ANTONINUS, AND SEVERUS.--BONOSUS.--CARAUSIUS.--THE CONSTANTIAN
FAMILY.--FRANKS AND ALEMANNI IN BRITAIN.--FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN THE
ROMAN LEGIONS.
The steady and continuous operation of Roman influences may be said to
begin in the reign of Claudius, A.D. 43; the sceptre of Cynobelin having
passed into the hands of his sons. Against these, and against the other
princes of Britain, such as Caradoc (Caractacus) and Cartismandua, the
active commanders Aulus Plautius and Ostorius Scapula are employed.
Three lines diverging from the parts about London give us the direction
of their conquests. One running along the valley of the Thames takes us
to the Dobuni of Gloucestershire, and the Silures of South Wales; both
of which are specially enumerated as subdued populations. The other,
almost at right angles with the last, gives us the operations against
the town of Camelodunum in Essex, the Iceni who afterwards revolted, and
the Brigantes of Yorkshire. The third is indicated by Paulinus'
campaigns in North Wales, and his bloody deeds in the Isle of Anglesey,
a line of conquest which probably arose out of the reduction of the
midland counties of Northampton, Leicester, Derby, Stafford, and
Shropshire. I do not say that these give us the actual movements of the
Roman army. They serve, however, to note the points where the special
evidence of Roman occupation is most definite.
In the reign of Vespasian the conquests were not only consolidated but
extended. Agricola builds his line of forts from the Forth to the Clyde,
and penetrates as far north as the Grampians. Whether the warriors whom
he here met under Galgacus were Britons, like those whom he had seen in
the south, or Gaels, is a matter which will be considered hereafter; but
he fought against them with foreign as well as with Roman soldiers. The
German Usipii formed one, if not more, of his cohorts; a circumstance
which shews what will be illustrated, with fuller details, in the
sequel, viz., that the Roman conquerors of Britain were far from being
exclusively Roman. The Usipii, however, are the first non-Roman soldiers
mentioned by name. On the west coast of Britain, Agricola had to deal
with the pirates from Ireland--undoubted Gaels whatever the warriors of
the Grampians may have been.
Roman civilization took root rapidly in Britain, though in a bad form.
The early existence of lawyers and money-lenders shew this. During the
reign of Domitian the advocates of Britain were known to the satirists
of Rome; and, as early as that of Nero, the calling-in of a loan by the
philosopher Seneca helped to create the great revolt under Boadicea. But
except in respect to the use of the Roman language, it is doubtful
whether the culture was much different from that which had developed
itself under Cynobelin--a civilization which though being due, in a
great degree, to Gaul, was also, more or less indirectly, Roman as well;
but, nevertheless, a civilization which was unattended with any loss of
nationality.
The rampart from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway is referred to the
reign of Adrian; the conversion of Agricola's line of forts into a
continuous wall to that of Aurelius Antoninus. These boundaries give us
two areas. North of the Antonine frontier the Roman power was never
consolidated, although the eastern half was occasionally traversed by
active commanders like the Emperor Severus. It was the county of the
Caledonians and Mæatæ.
Between the frontier of Agricola and the rampart of Adrian, the
occupation was less incomplete. Incomplete, however, it was; even when,
in the fourth century, it was made a province by Theodosius, and in
honour of the Emperor of Valens, called Valentia. A.D. 211, Severus,
after strengthening the Antonine fortifications, dies at York; his
reign being an epoch of some importance in the history of Roman Britain.
In the first place, it is only up to this reign that our authorities are
at all satisfactory. Cæsar, Tacitus, and Dio Cassius, have hitherto been
our guides. For the next eighty years, however, we shall find no
cotemporary historian at all, and when our authorities begin again, the
first will be one of the worthless writers of the Panegyrics. In the
next place, the great divisions of the Britannic populations have
hitherto been but two--the Britons proper and the Caledonians. The next
class of writers will complicate the ethnology by speaking of the Picts.
The chief change, however, is that in the British population itself. The
contest, except on the Welsh and Scotch frontiers, is no longer between
the Roman invader and the British native; but between Britain as a
Romano-Britannic province, and Rome as the centre and head of the
empire: in other words, the quarrels with the mother-country replace the
wars against the aborigines. This, however, is part of the civil history
of Rome, rather than the natural history of Britain. The contests of
Albinus against Severus, and of Proculus and Bonosus against Probus, are
the earliest instances of the attempts upon the Imperial Purple from
these quarters; attempts which give us the measure of the extent to
which the island was Roman rather than Keltic--at least in respect to
its political history.
Bonosus, himself, had British blood in his veins although born in Spain,
for his mother was a Gaul; but as he is called "Briton in origin," we
may infer that his father was from our own island. Probus allowed the
Britons the privilege of _growing vines and of making wine_.
In the last ten years of the third century events thicken. The revolt of
Carausius, the assumption of the empire by Allectus, and the adoption of
Constantius Chlorus by Diocletian as Cæsar, are events of ethnological
as well as political influence. This they are, because they indicate
either the introduction of foreign elements into Britain, or the
infusion of British blood in other quarters. Carausius, for instance,
was a Menapian, and he is not likely to have been the only one of his
times. The Constantian family, I believe, to have been more British than
even the usual opinion makes them.
A little consideration will tell us that the three names of this
important pedigree--Constans, Constantius, and Constantinus, have no
etymological connexion with the substantive _Constantia_; in other
words, that _Constans_ does not mean the _constant Man_, just as
_prudens_ means the _prudent_, or _sapiens_ the _wise_. No such
signification will account for the forms in -_ius_ and -_inus_. To this
it may be added that the family was of foreign extraction, as were the
families of nearly half the later emperors. The name, I believe, was
foreign also. If so, it was most probably Keltic; since _con_, both as a
simple single term, and as an element of compounds is a common Keltic
proper name. The only fact against this view is the descent of the first
of the three emperors--Constantius. He was not born in either Gaul or
Britain. On the contrary, his father was a high official in the Diocese
of Illyricum, and his mother, a niece of the Emperor Claudius;[10]
circumstances which, at the first view, seem to contradict the inference
from the name. They do so, however, in appearance only. The most
unlikely man to have been high in office in Illyricum was a native
Illyrian; for it was the policy of Rome to put Kelts in the Slavonic,
and Slavonians in the Keltic, provinces; just as, at the present moment,
Russia places Finn regiments in the Caucasus, and Caucasian in Finland.
If this view be correct, a Keltic name is evidence, as far as it goes,
of Keltic blood.
In the next generation we have to deal with both historical facts and
traditions connected with the pedigree of Constantine the Great. That he
was born in Britain, and that his mother was of low origin, are the
historical facts; that she was the daughter of King Coel of Colchester
is the tradition. The latter is of any amount of worthlessness, and no
stress is laid upon it. The former are considered confirmatory of the
present view. The chief support, however, lies in the British character
of the name.
In the Panegyric of Mamertinus on the Emperor Maximian, one of the
Augusti, who shared the imperial power with Diocletian, we have the
first mention of the Picts. Worthless as the Panegyrists are when we
want specific facts, they have the great merit of being cotemporary to
the events they allude to; for allusions of a tantalizing and
unsatisfactory character is all we get from them. However, Mamertinus is
the first writer who mentions the Picts, and he does it in his notice of
the revolt of Carausius.
More important than this is a passage which gives us an army of Frank
mercenaries in the City of London, as early as A.D. 290--there or
thereabouts. It is a passage of which too little notice has, hitherto,
been taken--"By so thorough a consent of the Immortal Gods, O
unconquered Cæsar, has the extermination of all the enemies, whom you
have attacked, _and of the Franks more especially_, been decreed, that
even those of your soldiers, who, having missed their way on a foggy
sea, reached the town of London, destroyed promiscuously and throughout
the city the whole remains of that mercenary multitude of barbarians,
that, after escaping the battle, sacking the town, and, attempting
flight, was still left--a deed, whereby your provincials were not only
saved, but delighted by the sight of the slaughter."
One German tribe, then at least, has set its foot on the land of Britain
as early as the reign of Diocletian; and that as enemies. How far their
settlement was permanent, and how far the particular section of them,
mentioned by Mamertinus, represented the whole of the invasion, is
uncertain. The paramount fact is the existence of hostile Franks in
Middlesex nearly 200 years before the epoch of Hengist.
Were there Saxons as well? This is a question for the sequel. At
present, I remark, that Mamertinus mentions them by name but without
placing them on the soil of Britain. They merely vexed the British Seas.
Were there any other Germans? Aurelius Victor suggests that there were.
A.D. 306, Constantius dies at York, and Constantine, his son, "assisted
by all who were about, but especially by Eroc, King of the Alemanni,
assumes the empire." Now Eroc had accompanied Constantius as an ally
(_auxilii gratii_); so that there were Alemanni in Yorkshire, as well
as Franks in Middlesex, with powers, more or less, approaching those of
independent populations; at any rate, in a different position from the
mere legionary Germans, of whom further notice will soon be taken.
In Julian's reign the Picts, Scots, and Attacotti harass the South
Britons. This is on the cotemporary and unexceptionable evidence of
Ammianus Marcellinus. And the same cotemporary and unexceptionable
evidence adds the _Saxons_ to his list of devastators--"Picti,
_Saxonesque_, et Scoti, et Attacotti Britannos ærumnis vexavere
continuis." Mark the word _continuis_.
The _Alemanni_ of Britain are noticed by the same writer in a passage
which must be taken along with the notice of the Alemanni under Eroc.
"Valentinian placed Fraomarius as king over the Buccinobantes, a nation
of the Alemanni, near Mentz. Soon afterwards, however, an attack upon
his people devastated their country (_pa-_ _gum_, _gau_). He was then
translated to Britain, and placed over the Alemanni, _at that time
flourishing both in numbers and power_, as tribune."
We may now ask what foreign elements were introduced into Britain by the
Roman legions; since nothing is more certain than that the Roman armies
consisted, but in a small degree, of Romans. The Notitia[11] Utriusque
Imperii helps us here; indeed it may be that it supplies us with a
complete list of the imperial forces in all their ethnological
heterogeneousness. Some of the titles of the regiments and companies
(_alæ_, _numeri_, _cohortes_) are unexplained: several, however, are
taken from the country of the soldiers that composed them.
The list gives us settlers in Britain of Germanic, Gallic, Iberic,
Slavonic, Aramaic, and Berber extraction.
GERMANS.
_Tungricani._--Either soldiers who had distinguished themselves in
the parts about Tongres, or true Tungrian Germans, under a
Præpositus, and stationed at Dubris (_Dover_).
_Tungri._--True Tungrian Germans. At Borcovicum. A cohort.
_Turnacenses._--Either soldiers who had distinguished themselves in
the parts about Tournay, or true Tournay Germans, under a Præpositus,
and stationed at Lemanus (_Lymne_).
_Batavians._--A cohort stationed at Procolitia.
GAULS.
_Nervii._--A numerous cohort under a Prefect at Dictum.
_Nervii._--A cohort at Aliona.
_Nervii._--A cohort at Virosidum. How far these were Gauls, or, if
Gauls, of unmixed blood, is uncertain. During the wars of Cæsar, the
brave nation of the Nervians was said to have been exterminated.
Such was not the case. Portions of it remained. At the same time,
the reduction was so great, and the subsequent influx of Germans
from the Lower Rhine was so considerable, that the soldiers in
question were, probably, as much Roman and German as Gallic.
_Morini._--Gauls from the parts about Calais. A cohort, stationed at
Glannobanta.
_Galli._--A cohort at Vendolana.
IBERIANS.
_Hispani._--A cohort. Stationed at Axellodunum.
SLAVONIANS.
_Dalmatæ._--Cavalry. Stationed at Brannodunum.
_Dalmatæ._--A cohort, at Præsidum.
_Dalmatæ._--A cohort, at Magna.
_Daci._--A cohort, at Amboglanna.
_Thraces._--A cohort, at Gabrosentum.
_Thaifal(?)_--Cavalry. Perhaps German, but more probably Slavonians,
infamous for the turpitude of their habits.
ARAMÆANS.
_Syri._--Cavalry.
BERBERS.
_Mauri._--Under a Prefect, at Aballaba.
If we ask what proportion these foreign and miscellaneous elements in
the Roman Legions of Britain bore to the true Romans, we wait in vain
for an answer. This is because the constitution of the other portions of
the army is unknown. Who (for instance) composed the _Fortenses_, the
_Stablesiani_, the _Abulci_, and numerous other companies? Perhaps,
Romans; in which case the proportion of Syrian, Slavonian, and other
non-Roman elements is diminished. Perhaps, Syrians, Slavonians, or
Germans; in which case it is increased. That the above-named troops,
however, belonged to the ethnological divisions which are denoted by the
names, is in the highest degree probable. It is also probable that the
list may be increased; thus the _Pacenses_, the _Asti_, the _Frixagori_,
and the _Lergi_, although there are doubts, in every case, about the
reading, and still greater about the signification, have reasonably been
thought to have been regiments, or companies, named from the localities
where they were levied; but, as already stated, these localities are
doubtful.
As blood foreign to both the British and Roman was introduced into
Britain, so was British blood introduced elsewhere. All the foreign
stations of the British troops are not known; but that there was, at
least, one in each of the following countries is certain--Illyricum,
Egypt, Northern Africa. The history of foreign blood in Britain, and of
British blood in foreign countries are counterpart questions.
The lines of Roman road are the best _data_ for ascertaining the parts
of our island where the mixture of Roman and foreign blood was greatest:
since it is a fair inference that those districts which were the least
accessible were the most Keltic. These are North Wales, Cornwall and
Devonshire, the Wealds of Sussex and Kent, Lincolnshire, and the
district of Craven. On the other hand, the pre-eminently Roman tracts
are--
1. The valleys of the Tyne and Solway, or the line of the wall and
rampart which divided South Britain from North.
2. The valley of the Ouse, or the parts about York.
3, 4. The valleys of the Thames and Severn.
5. Cheshire and South Lancashire.
6. Norfolk and Suffolk.
The Roman blood, then, in Britain seems to have been inconsiderable,
even when we class as Roman everything which was other than British.
That the language, however, was chiefly Latin--more or less
modified--is what we infer from the analogies of Gaul and Spain. The
history, too, of four centuries of civilization and corruption is Roman
also. That there was a bodily evacuation of Britain by the Romans, a
concealment of treasures, and a migration to Gaul, rests upon no
authority earlier than that of the Anglo-Saxon writers, some five
centuries later. The country was rather a theatre for usurpers and
rebels; none of whom can be shewed to have either left the island, or to
have been exterminated by the Anglo-Saxon invasion--an invasion to
which, in a future chapter, an earlier date, and a more gradual
operation than is usually assigned will be attributed.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Niebuhr's Lectures, p. iii, 312.
[11] Referred to some time between the reigns of Valens and Honorius.
CHAPTER VII.
VALUE OF THE EARLY BRITISH RECORDS.--TRUE AND GENUINE TRADITIONS
RARE.--GILDAS.--BEDA.--NENNIUS.--ANNALES CAMBRENSES.--DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN CHRONICLES AND REGISTERS.--ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.--IRISH
ANNALS.--VALUE OF THE ACCOUNTS OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH
CENTURIES.--QUESTIONS TO WHICH THEY APPLY.
Not one word has hitherto been said about the early traditions of either
Briton or Gael. No word, either, about their early records. Nothing
about the Triads, Aneurin, Taliessin, Llywarch Hen, and Merlin on the
side of the Welsh; nothing about the Milesian and other legends of the
Irish. Why this silence? Have the preceding investigations been so
superabundantly clear as to lead us to dispense with all rays of light
except those of the most unexceptionable kind?
It is an unusual piece of good fortune when this happens anywhere; and
assuredly it has not happened on British or Irish ground as yet. Or has
the evidence of such early records and traditions been incompatible with
the doctrines of the previous chapters, and, on the strength of its
inconvenience, been kept back? If so, there has been a foul piece of
disingenuousness on the part of the writer. But he does not plead guilty
to this. He attaches but little weight to the evidence of the early
British records; and the contents of the present chapter are intended to
justify his depreciation of them.
The writer who asserts that the oldest work in any language is of such
antiquity as to be separated from the next oldest by any very long
interval--by an interval which leaves a wide chasm between the first and
second specimens of the literature which no fragments and no traces of
any lost compositions are found to fill up--makes an assertion which he
is bound to support by evidence of the most cogent kind. For it is not
always enough to shew that no intrinsic objections lie against the
antiquity of the work in question. It may be so short, or so general in
respect to its subject as to leave no room for contradictory and
impossible sentences or expressions. It is not enough to shew that there
were no reasons against such a literature being developed; since it is
difficult to say what conditions absolutely forbid the production of a
work stamped by no very definite characteristics. Nor yet will it
suffice to say that the preservation of such a work is probable. All
that can be got from all this is a presumption in its favour. The great
fact of a work existing without giving this impulse to the production of
others like it, and the fact of the same means of preservation being
wholly neglected in other instances, still stand over. They are not
conclusive against certain positions; but they are circumstances which
must be fairly met; circumstances which if one writer overlook, others
will not; circumstances which the critic will insist on; and
circumstances which, if the dazzle of a paradox, or the appeal to the
innate and universal sympathy for antiquity keep them in the background
for a while, will, sooner or later, rise against the author who
overlooked them.
Neither are arguments from the antiquity of language conclusive. When
two works differ from each other in respect to the signs of antiquity
exhibited in their phraseology, the inference that the oldest in point
of speech is _proportionably_ old in point of time is not the only one.
It is an easy thing to say that in the Latin literature the language of
Ennius represents a date a hundred years earlier than that of Cicero,
and that of Cicero a date 400 earlier than the time of Boethius, and
that when we meet elsewhere compositions which differ from each other as
the Latin of Ennius does from that of Boethius, there is 500 years
difference between them. It is by no means certain that any two
languages alter at the same rate.
But an average may be struck, and it may be said that greater antiquity
of expression is _primâ facie_ evidence of a greater antiquity of date.
It is: but is only so when we are quite sure that the _dialects_ of the
two specimens are the same. There are works printed this very year in
Iceland which, if their dates were unknown, would pass for being a
hundred years older than the Swedish of the eleventh century.
It is only when the supporter of the authenticity of a work of singular
and unique antiquity can begin with an epoch of comparatively recent
date, and argue backwards through a series of continuous works, each
older than the other, to one still older than any, that he can
reasonably accuse the critic who demurs to his deductions of
captiousness. In this way the antiquity of the oldest Chinese annals is
invalidated: in this way the date of the Indian Vedas (1400 B.C.). But
the great classical literatures stand the test, and from the present
time to Claudian, from Claudian to Ennius, and from Ennius to
Archilochus we trace a classical literature with all its works in
continuity; each pointing to some one older than itself. Even this
forbids an excessive antiquity to Homer.
Again--the likelihood of forgery must be continually kept in mind; so
much so, that even in the unexceptionable literature of the classics, if
it could be shewn that any age between the present and the eighth
century B.C., were an age in which the Greek drama, the Greek epics,
the Greek histories, or the Greek orations could be forged, a great deal
would be subtracted from the proofs of their antiquity. I do not say
that it would set them aside; because everything of this kind is a
question of degree; but the argument in their favour would be less
exceptionable than it is.
For it cannot be too strongly urged that the preservation of records of
high antiquity, in and of itself, is naturally and essentially
improbable. More than half of the antiquities of the world have
been lost; and this alone gives us the odds against an instance
of survivorship. This has been insisted on by more than one
archæologist--more cautious and candid than the majority of his
brotherhood. Whoever doubts this should look around him. How few nations
have a literature! How thoroughly is the non-development of a permanent
literature the exception rather than the rule! And, even when records
come into existence, how numerous are the chances against their
preservation. Destruction is the common law: continuance a happy rarity.
For extraordinary phenomena we must have extraordinary proofs.
From the present time to the eleventh century we may trace the native
Welsh literature continuously; but no farther. If any thing be older
than the laws of Hoel Dhu, they must be so by four centuries, with
nothing in the interval. This is the measure of the value of Welsh
evidence to the events of the fifth century. Writers, however, in Latin
existed earlier. Still, this is unsufficient to be conclusive to the
validity of a fact in the fourth. Such a statement must be tested by its
own intrinsic probability. It cannot come before us invested with the
dignity of a historically authenticated event. What this is will soon
appear.
If this be the spirit in which we must scrutinize documentary evidence,
with what eyes must we look upon traditions--traditions wherein the
record, instead of being permanently registered, is transmitted from
mouth to mouth, from father to son, from the old man to the young, from
generation to generation? The mere etymological import of the word will
mislead us. It is not enough for a thing to have been _handed down_ from
father to son. A relic may be so transmitted; indeed, written papers and
printed books are traditions of this kind. Heirlooms of any
sort--whether belonging to a nation or an individual--are such
traditions as these.
In a true tradition we must consider the _form_ and the _origin_. A
narrative which has taken a definite shape, either as a formula or a
poem, can scarcely be called a tradition. It is a specimen of
composition handed down by tradition, but not a tradition itself. It is
an unwritten record--as much a record in form and nature as a written
document, but differing from a written document in the manner of its
transmission to posterity. Many a good judge believes that the Homeric
poems are older than the art of writing, and, consequently, that they
were handed down to posterity orally. Yet no one would say that the
Iliad and Odyssey were Greek traditions.
The fact of a narrative having taken a permanent form, inasmuch as that
permanent form both facilitates its transmission, and ensures its
integrity, distinguishes an unwritten record from a tradition.
A true account of a real event transmitted from father to son in no set
form of words, but told in a way that a nursery tale is told to
children, or the way in which a piece of evidence is given in a court of
justice, constitutes a tradition; for in this form only is it liable to
those elements of uncertainty which distinguish tradition from
history--elements which we must recognize, if we wish to be precise in
our language.
Such is its _form_, or rather its _want of form_. But this is not
enough. A tradition, to be anything at all, must have a basis in fact,
and represent a real action, either accurately described or but
moderately misrepresented. I say _moderately misrepresented_, because
the absolute transmission of anything beyond a mere list of names, and
dates, without addition, omission, or embellishment, is a practical
impossibility. Hence we must allow for some inaccuracy; just as in
mechanics we must allow for friction. But, allowing for this, we must
still remember that the event and the account of it, are correlative
terms. An opinion--an account of an account--only takes the appearance
of a tradition. It is a _tradition_ so far as it is _handed down_ to
posterity, but it is no tradition with corresponding facts as a basis.
It is generally a theory--a theory, perhaps unconsciously formed, but
still a theory. Certain phenomena, of which there is no historical
explanation, excite the notice of some one less incurious than his
fellows, and he attempts to account for them. On the two opposite coasts
of a sea--for instance--two populations with the same manners and
language, are observed to reside. A migration will account for this;
and, consequently, a migration is assumed. The view, being reasonable,
is generally adopted; and the fact of a migration having absolutely
taken place becomes the current belief. The men who speak of this in the
fourth or fifth generation, speak of it as an actual occurrence. So,
perhaps, it is. But it is no tradition notwithstanding; since the record
cannot be traced up to the event. All that posterity has had
handed-down from its ancestors, is an _inference_; which, even if it be
as good as the historical account of an absolute event (as it sometimes
is), is anything but a tradition in the strict sense of the term. Of
course, the existence of the inference itself can be reduced to a fact,
and, as such, produce a tradition. But this is not the tradition which
is wanted--not the tradition which gives the fact in question.
These _ex post facto_ traditions may be of any amount of value, or of
any degree of worthlessness. They may be inferences of such accuracy and
justice as to command the respect of the most critical; or they may
involve impossibilities. The extremes are the best; the former for their
intrinsic value, the latter from their unlikelihood to mislead. The most
dangerous are the intermediate. Possibly, plausible, or, at any rate,
without any outward and visible marks of condemnation--
"They lie like truth, and yet most truly lie."
What proportion do these _ex post facto_ traditions bear to the true
ones? This is difficult to say. A nickname, a genealogy, a tune may well
be transmitted by tradition. So may charms, formulæ, proverbs, and
poems; yet when we come to proverbs and poems we are on the domain of
unwritten literature, a domain which can scarcely be identified with
that of tradition. A local legend, when it is not too suspiciously
adapted to the features of the place to which it applies, may also be
admitted as traditional. These and but little beyond. Men rarely think
about transmitting narratives until it is too late for an authentic
account.
On the other hand, the very mental activity which employs itself upon
the attempt to account for an unexplained phenomenon is a sign of
attention; and where there is the attention to speculate, there is
likely to be the desire to transmit. If so, it is probable that the
proportion of transmitted speculations to true traditions is
immeasurably large. But there is an other reason for ignoring the
so-called traditions. When there is a tradition, and a true historical
record as well, the tradition is superfluous. When a tradition stands
alone, there is nothing to confirm it. What can we do then? To assume
the fact from the truth of the tradition, and the truth of the tradition
from the existence of the fact, is to argue in a circle. Two independent
traditions, however, may confirm each other. When this happens the case
is improved; but, even then, they may be but similar inferences from the
same premises.
If, then, I allow no inference which I feel myself justified in drawing
to be disturbed by any so-called tradition; and, if instead of seeing in
the accounts of our early writers a narrative transmitted by word of
mouth in lieu of a record registered in writing, I deal with such
apparent narratives as if they were the inferences of some later
chronicler, I must not be accused of undue presumption. The statements
will still be treated with respect, the more so, perhaps, because they
rest on induction rather than testimony; and, as a general rule, they
will be credited with the merit of being founded on just premises, even
where those premises do not appear. In other words, every writer will be
thought logical until there are reasons for suspecting the contrary. For
a true and genuine tradition, however, I have so long sought in vain,
that I despair of ever finding one. If found, it would be duly
appreciated. On the other hand, by treating their counterfeits as
inferences, we improve our position as investigators. A fact we must
take as it is told us, and take it without any opportunity of
correction--all or none; whereas, an inference can be scrutinized and
amended. In the one case we receive instructions from which we are
forbidden to deviate; in the other we act as judges, with a power to
pronounce decisions. Nor does it unfrequently happen that our position
in this respect is better than that of the original writer; since,
however, many may be the facts which he may have had for his opinion
beyond those which he has transmitted to posterity, there are others of
which he must have been ignorant, and with which _we_ are familiar.
Changing the expression, where there is anything like an equality of
_data_, the means of using them is in favour of the later inquirer as
against the earlier; in which case he understands antiquity better than
the ancients--presumptuous as the doctrine may be. With a _bonâ fide_
piece of testimony, however traditionary, documentary, or
cotemporaneous, the case is reversed, and the modern writer must listen
to his senior with thankful deference. And this it is that makes the
distinction between inference and evidence so important. To mistake the
former for the latter is to overvalue antiquity and exclude ourselves
from a legitimate and fertile field of research. To confound the latter
with the former, is to raise ourselves into criticism when our business
is simply to interpret.
Proceeding to details, we find that the _Historia Gildæ_ and the
_Epistola Gildæ_ are the two earliest works upon Anglo-Saxon Britain.
For reasons which will soon appear, these works are referred to A.D.
550. The class of facts for which the evidence of a writer of this date
is wanted, is that which contains the particulars of the history of
Britain during the last days of the Roman, and the beginning of the
Anglo-Saxon domination. Amongst these, the more important would be the
rebellion of Maximus, the Pict and Scot inroads, the earliest Germanic
invasions, and the subordination of the Romans to the Saxons. But all
these are deeds of devastation, and, as such, unfavourable to even the
existence of the scanty literature necessary to record them. Again,
there were two other changes, equally unfavourable to the preservation
of records, going on. Pagan or Classical literature was becoming
Christian or Medieval, whilst the Latin or Roman style was passing into
Byzantine and Greek. Ammianus Marcellinus, the last of the Latin Pagan
historians, was cotemporary with the events at the beginning of the
period in question. Procopius, one of the last Pagan writers of
Byzantium, died about the same time as Gildas.
Hence, the 150 years--from A.D. 400 to 550--for which alone the history
of Gildas is wanted, is an era of excessive obscurity. Are the merits of
the author proportionate? Is the light he brings commensurate with the
darkness? What could he know? What does he tell? He tells so little that
the question as to the value of his authorities is reduced to nearly
nothing; and, of that little which we learn from his wordy and turgid
pages, the smallest fraction only is of any ethnological interest.
Indeed, Gildas is most worth notice for what he leaves unsaid. The
rebellion of Maximus he mentions; but he is not answerable for the
migration from Britain to Brittany, on which (as already stated) so much
turns. The Saxons, too, he mentions, and the name of Vortigern--but he
is not answerable for the derivation of the name from the word
_Sahs_=_dagger_. In regard to the important question as to the date of
the invasion, and the number of the invaders, he fixes 150 years before
his own time, and gives _three_ as the number of their vessels
(_cyulæ_). Aurelius Ambrosius and the Pugna Badonica are especially
alluded to, the date of the latter event being the date of his own
birth. As this is an event which he might have known from his parents,
and as the later Roman writers are our authorities until (there or
thereabouts) the death of Honorius, it remains to inquire upon what
testimonies Gildas gave the few events which he notices between the
years 417[12] and 516. Is there anything which by suggesting the
existence of native cotemporary documents should induce us to consider
his evidence as conclusive? I think not. Such may or may not have
existed, the presumption being for or against them, according to the
view which the inquirer takes respecting the literary and civilizational
influences of the expiring Paganism of the Romans, and the incipient
Christianity of the early British Church, combined with the antiquity of
the earliest British and Irish records--a wide and complex subject, if
treated generally, but if viewed with reference to the specific case
before us (the authorities of Gildas), a narrow one.
In the case of Gildas it is perfectly unnecessary to assume anything of
the kind. The only material facts which he gives us are the letter to
Ætius for assistance, and a notice of the place which Vortigern finds in
the downfall of the Romano-British empire. The first of these points to
Rome rather than to Britain; the second is from the life of a Gallic
missionary--St. Germanus of Auxerre. To this may be added the high
probability of Gildas' work having been written in Gaul; a fact which,
undoubtedly, subtracts from the little value it might otherwise possess.
The next is an author of a very different calibre, the venerable Beda;
concerning whom we must remember that he stands in contrast to Gildas
from being Anglo-Saxon rather than British. Now, his history is
Ecclesiastical and not Civil; so that ethnological questions make no
part of his inquiries, and, as far as they are treated at all, they are
treated incidentally. Whatever may have been the records of the
Romano-British Church, or the compositions of Romano-British writers,
they form no part of the materials of Beda. The most he says that, from
_writings and traditions_ along with the information derived from the
monks of the Abbey of Lestingham, he wrote that part of his work which
gives an account of the Christianity of the kingdom of Mercia. For the
other parts of the kingdom he chiefly applied to the Bishop of the
Diocese; to Albinus for the antiquities of Kent and Essex; and to Daniel
for those of Wessex, the Isle of Wight, and Sussex. For Lincolnshire he
had _viva voce_ information from Cynebert, and the monks of the Abbey of
Partney; and for Northumberland he made his inquiries himself. Now as
Christianity was first introduced into Anglo-Saxon England by Augustine,
A.D. 597, the era of the Germanic invasions lies beyond the evidence of
either Beda or his authorities. Gildas, and the sources of Gildas he
knew; but of access to native records of the fifth century--the century
for which they are most wanted--or of the existence of such, no trace
occurs in the Historia Ecclesiastica, except in the two doubtful cases
which will appear in the sequel.[13]
In Nennius, more than in any other writer, do we find it necessary to
assume the existence of any previous historians, upon whose authority
the facts of the times between the cessation of the Roman supremacy, and
the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon power may be received; and in
Nennius we must, for many reasons, admit it. In the first place, he
mentions more than one circumstance which he could not well have got
from any other source; in the next, the preface says that what has been
done has been done "partim majorum traditionibus; partem scriptis;
partim etiam monumentis veterum Britanniæ incolarum; partim et de
annalibus Romanorum. Insuper et de chronicis sanctorum Patrum, Ysidori,
scilicet Hieronymi, Prosperi, Eusebii, necnon et de historiis Scotorum
Saxonumque, inimicorum licet, non ut volui, sed ut potui, meorum
obtemperans jussionibus seniorum, unam hanc historiunculam undecunque
collectam balbutiendo coacervari." But, it should be added that the
authenticity of the preface is doubtful.
Nennius, then, most introduces the question as to the value of the
narratives of the events of the fifth century. I cannot but put it
exceedingly low. Of any _historian_, properly so called, there is not a
trace. Neither is there of regular annals, a point which will soon be
considered more fully. Nor yet of any of even the humbler forms of
narrative poetry; though this is a point upon which I speak with
hesitation. I base my opinion, however, upon the notices of the two
chief epochs--that of Vortigern and that of King Arthur. The first is
from the life of St. Germanus, the second is an unadorned enumeration of
three campaigns, with as little of the appearance of being derived from
a poetic source as is possible.
Several genealogies occur in Nennius; and it often happens that
genealogies are useful elements of criticism. British ethnology,
however, is not the department in which their value is most conspicuous.
How far were the traditions of Nennius of any worth? The following is a
specimen of them. "The Britons were named after Brutus; Brutus was the
son of Hisicion, Hisicion of Alanus, Alanus of Rea Silvia, Rea Silvia of
Numa, Numa of Pamphilus, Pamphilus of Ascanius, Ascanius of Æneas, Æneas
of Anchises, Anchises of Tros, Tros of Dardanus, the son of Flire, the
son of Javan, the son of Japhet. This Japhet had seven sons; the first
Gomer, from whom came the Gauls; the second Magog, from whom came the
Scythians and Goths; the third Aialan, from whom came the Medes; the
fourth Javan, whence the Greeks; the fifth Tubal, whence the Hebrews;
the sixth Mesech, whence the Cappadocians; the seventh Troias, whence
the Thracians. These are the sons of Japhet, the son of Noah, the son of
Lamech. I will now return to the point whence I departed.
"The first man of the race of Japhet came to Europe, Alanus by name,
with his three sons. Their names were Ysicion, Armenon, and Neguo.
Ysicion had four sons, their names were Frank, Roman, Alemann, and
Briton, from whom Britain was first inhabited. But Armenon had five
sons. These are Goth, Walagoth, Cebid, Burgundian, Longobard. Neguo had
four sons, Wandal, Saxon, Bogar, Turk. From Hisicio the first-born of
Alan, arose four natives, the Franks, the Latins, the Alemanns, and the
Britons. From Armenon, the second son of Alan, came the Goths, the
Vandals, the Cebidi, and the Longobards. From Neguo, the third, the
Bogars, Vandals, Saxons, and Tarinci. But these nations were subdivided
over all Europe. Alanius, however, as they say, was the son of Sethevir,
the son of Ogomnum, the son of Thois, the son of Boib, the son of
Simeon, the son of Mair, the son of Ethac, the son of Luothar, the son
of Ecthel, the son of Oothz, the son of Aborth, the son of Ra, the son
of Esra, the son of Israu, the son of Barth, the son of Jonas, the son
of Jabath, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the
son of Methusalem, the son of Enoch, the son of Jareth, the son of
Malalel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of
Adam, the son of the living God."
Surely this is but a piece of book-learning spoilt in the application.
Yet what says the author?
"This genealogy I found in the traditions of the ancients, who were the
inhabitants of Britain in the earliest times."--_Historia Britonum_,
cap. xiii.
The next two works are chronicles, so-called; one British and one
Anglo-Saxon; the _Annales Cambriæ_ and the _Saxon Chronicle_.
The notices of the _Annales Cambriæ_ are remarkably brief and scanty. It
has scarcely one for every second year, and what it has is short and
unimportant.
It begins with A.D. 447, and ends with the Norman Conquest. It is
closely confined to the events of Wales.
The date and authorship are uncertain. Of the three MSS. which supply
the text, one is said to be as old as A.D. 954.
When the entries began to be cotemporary with the events registered is
uncertain; indeed, there is no proof that they are so anywhere. On the
other hand, they cannot be earlier than A.D. 521, since the event
registered there is the _birth of St. Columba_. Now the entry of the
birth of an illustrious personage is not likely to be a cotemporaneous
entry; since his greatness has yet to be achieved, and it is only the
spirit of prophecy and anticipation that such a record would be made at
the time he merely came into the world.
The year 522, then, is the earliest possible cotemporary entry, and this
is, most likely, much too early.
But the work has not the appearance of being a register of
cotemporaneous events at all. In such a composition the idlest
chronicler would find something to say under each year, and notices of
either local events, or the great events of general interest, could
scarcely fail to be entered. No one, however, will say that such a
series of entries as the following from A.D. 501 to A.D. 601, can ever
have constituted cotemporary history.
LVII. Annus. Episcopus Ebur pausat in Christo, anno cccl. ætatis
suæ.
LVIII. Annus.
LXXI. Annus.
LXXII. Annus. Bellum Badonis in quo Arthur portavit crucem Domini
nostri Jesu Christi tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in humeros
suos, et Brittones victores fuerunt.
LXXIII. Annus.
LXXVI. Annus.
LXXVII. Annus. Sanctus Columcille nascitur. Quies Sanctæ Brigidæ.
LXXVIII. Annus.
XCII. Annus.
XCIII. Annus. Gueith Camlann, in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere; et
mortalitas in Brittannia et Hibernia fuit.
XCIV. Annus.
XCIX. Annus.
C. Annus. Dormitatio Ciarani.
CI. Annus.
CII. Annus.
CIII. Annus. Mortalitas magna, in qua pausat Mailcun rex Genedotæ.
CIV. Annus.
CXIII. Annus.
CXIV. Annus. Gabran filius Dungart moritur.
CXV. Annus.
CXVII. Annus.
CXVIII. Annus. Columcille in Brittania exiit.
CXIX. Annus.
CXX. Annus.
CXXI. Annus. [Navigatio Gildæ in Hibernia.]
CXXII. Annus.
CXXIV. Annus.
CXXV. Annus. [Synodus Victoriæ apud Britones congregatur.]
CXXVI. Annus Gildas obiit.
CXXVII. Annus.
CXXVIII. Annus.
CXXIX. Bellum Armterid. [Inter filios Elifer et Guendoleu, filium
Keidiau, in quo bello Guendoleu cecidet; Merlinus insanus effectus
est.]
CXXX. Annus. Brendan Byror dormitatio.
CXXXI. Annus.
CXXXV. Annus.
CXXXVI. Annus. Guurci et Peretur [filii Elifer] moritur.
CXXXVII. Annus.
CXXXIX. Annus.
CXL. Annus. Bellum contra Euboniam, et dispositio Danielis
Banchorum.
CXLI. Annus.
CXLIV. Annus.
CXLV. Annus. Conversio Constantini ad Dominum.
CXLVI. Annus.
CXLIX. Annus.
CL. Annus. [Edilbertus in Anglia rexit.]
CLI. Annus. Columcille moritur. Dunaut rex moritur. Agustinus
Mellitus Anglos ad Christum convertit.
CLII. Annus.
CLVI. Annus.
CLVII. Annus. Synodus Urbis Legion. Gregorius obiit in Christo.
David Episcopus Moni judeorum.
The notices between the brackets are not found in the Harleian MS.--one
of three.
The years are counted from the commencement of the Annals, which, from
circumstances independent of the text, is fixed A.D. 444. Hence, lvii
and clvii, coincide with A.D. 501, and A.D. 601, respectively. It is not
until the last quarter of the tenth century that the entries notably
improve in fulness and frequency; during which period the table was
probably composed,--the earlier dates being put down not because they
were of either local or general importance, but because they were known
to the writer. Such, at least, is the inference from the style. Lives of
Saints may have furnished them all. They agree more or less with the
Irish Annals, and, probably, are to a great extent taken from the same
sources.
The _Annales Cambrenses_ contain few or no facts directly bearing upon
the ethnology of Great Britain, except so far as the existence of a
literary composition, of a given antiquity, is the measure of the
civilization of the country to which it belongs.
One of its entries, however, has an indirect bearing. The value of
Gildas depends upon the time at which he wrote. We have already seen
that a small piece of autobiography in his history tells us that he was
born in the year of the _Bellum Badonicum_. Now the date of this is got
from the Annales Cambrenses, A.D. 516. There is no reason to believe it
other than accurate.
It were well if such a composition as the _Annales Cambriæ_ were called
(what it really is) a list of dates; since the word _chronicle_ has a
dangerous tendency to engender a very uncritical laxity of thought. It
continually gets mistaken for a _register_; yet the two sorts of
composition are wholly different. That the habit of making
cotemporaneous entries of events as they happen, just as incumbents of
parishes, each in his order of succession, enter the births, deaths, and
marriages of their parishioners, should exist in such institutions as
religious monasteries or civil guild-halls, is by no means unlikely.
But, then, on the other hand, there is an equal likelihood of nothing of
the sort being attempted. Hence, when a work reaches posterity in the
shape of a chronicle or annals, its antiquity and value must be judged
on its own merits, rather than according to any preconceived opinions.
In mechanics _nothing is stronger than its weakest part_, and it would
be well if a similar apothegm could be extended to the criticism of such
compositions as the Annales Cambriæ, and the Saxon Chronicle. It would
be well if we could say that in chronological tables _nothing was
earlier than the latest entry_. In common histories we do this. The
common historian is always supposed to have composed his work subsequent
to the date of the latest event contained in it--a few exceptions only
being made for those authors whose works treat of cotemporary actions.
So it is with the annalist whose Annals, more ambitious in form than the
bare chronicle, emulate, like those of the great Roman historian, the
style of history. But it is not so when the notices pass a certain
limit, and become short and scanty. They then suggest a comparison with
the parish register, or the Olympic records, and change their character
altogether. No longer mere chronological works, emanating from the pen
of a single author, and referrible to some single generation,
subsequent, in general, to a majority of the events set down in them,
they are the productions of a series of writers, each of whom is a
registrar of cotemporary events. By this an undue value attaches itself
to works which have nothing in common with the register but the form.
Now, if genuine traditions are scarce, real registers are scarcer. In
both cases, however, the false wears the garb of the true, and, in both
cases, writers shew an equal repugnance to scrutiny. This is to be
regretted; since with nine out of ten of the chronicles that have come
down to us, it is far more certain that their latest facts are earlier
in date than the author who records them, than that the earliest
possible author can have been cotemporary with the first recorded
events. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may illustrate this. It ends in the
reign of Stephen; yet the writer of even the last page may have been
anything but a cotemporary with the events it embodies. It begins with
the invasion of Julius Cæsar. A cotemporary entry--the essential element
of registration--is out of the question here.
The general rule with compositions of the kind in question is, that they
fall into two parts, the first of which cannot be of equal antiquity
with the events recorded, the second of which may be; and we are only
too fortunate when satisfactory proofs of cotemporary composition enable
us to convert the possible into the probable, the probable into the
certain--the _may_ into the _must_. Even when this is the case, the
proportions of the cotemporary to the non-cotemporary statements are
generally uncertain--a question of _more_ or _less_, that must be
settled by the examination of the particular composition under
consideration.
Whatever may be the other merits of the _Annales Cambriæ_, it has no
claim to the title of a register during the sixth century--and, _a
fortiori_ none during the fifth.
Neither has the Saxon Chronicle. We infer this from the extent to which
it follows Beda. We infer it, too, still more certainly from the
following passage--a passage which, if made in the year under which it
is found, would be no record but a prophecy.
A.D. 595.--"This year Æthelbriht succeeded to the kingdom of the Kentish
men, and held it fifty-three years. In his days the Holy Pope Gregory
sent us baptism. That was in the two-and-thirtieth year of his reign;
and Columba, a mass-priest, came to the Picts and converted them to the
faith of Christ. They are dwellers by the northern mountains. And their
king gave him the island which is called Hi. Therein are fine hides of
land, as men say. There Columba built a monastery, and he was abbot
there thirty-two years, and there he died when he was seventy-seven
years old. His successors still have the place. The Southern Picts had
been baptized long before; Bishop Ninias, who had been instructed at
Rome, had preached baptism to them, whose church and monastery is at
Hwithern, hallowed in the name of St. Martin; there he resteth with many
holy men. Now, in Hi there must ever be an abbot and not a bishop; and
all the Scottish bishops ought to be subject to him, because Columba was
an abbot, not a bishop."
Similar notices, impossible, without a vast amount of gratuitous
assumption, to be considered cotemporaneous, are of frequent occurrence
until long after the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon power in England;
but as the events of the fifth and sixth centuries are the only events
of ethnological importance, the notice of them is limited.
The Welsh poems attributed to the bards of the sixth and seventh
centuries, contain no facts that will make part of any of our reasonings
in the sequel. Their existence is, of course, a measure of the
intellectual calibre of the time (whatever that may be) to which they
refer. But this is not before us now.
In respect to the value of the Irish annals, the civil historian has a
far longer list of problems than the ethnologist; since the latter wants
their testimony upon a few points only, _e.g._, 1. The origin of the
proper Irish themselves; 2. the affinities of the Picts; 3. the
migration (real or supposed) of the Scots. These, at least, are the
chief points. Others, of course, such as the details concerning the
Danes, can be found; but the ones in question are the chief.
In respect to the first, whoever reads Dr. Prichard's[14] account of the
contents of the earliest chronicles, consisting, amongst other matters,
of an antediluvian Cæsar; a landing of Partholanus with his wife Ealga,
on the coast of Connemara, twelve years after the Deluge, and on the
14th of May; the colony of the Neimhidh, descendants of Gog and Magog;
the Fir-Bolg from the Thrace; the Tuatha de Danann from Athens; and,
above all, the famous Milesians, amongst whom was Nial, the intimate of
Moses and Aaron, and the husband of Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, will
soon satisfy himself that, with the exception of a little weight which
may possibly be due to the prominence which the Spanish Peninsula takes
in the several legends, the whole mass is so utterly barren in
historical results, that criticism would be misplaced.
But the Pict and Scot questions are in a different predicament. Like the
Roman and Anglo-Saxon conquests of Britain, the events connected with
them may have occurred within the Historical period--provided only that
that period begin early enough.
How far this may be the case with the Irish annals is a reasonable
question.
That any existing series of Irish annals anterior to the time of the
earliest extant annalist, Tigernach, who lived in the eleventh century,
is cotemporary with the events which it records, so as to partake of the
nature of a register, is what no one has asserted; and hence their
credit rests upon that of such earlier records as may be supposed to
have served as their basis.
These may be poems, genealogies, or chronicles; all of which may be
admitted to have existed. How long? In a more or less imperfect form
from the introduction of Christianity. Is this the extreme limit in the
way of antiquity? Probably; perhaps certainly. Out of all the numerous
pieces of verse quoted by the annalists, one only carries us back to a
Pagan period, and even this is referred to a year subsequent to the
introduction of Christianity. An extract from the annals of the Four
Masters is as follows, A.D. 458, twenty-seven years after the first
arrival of St. Patrick "after Laogar, the son of Nial of the Nine
Hostages, had reigned in Ireland thirty years, he was killed in the
country of _Caissi_ (?) between Eri and Albyn, _i.e._, the two hills in
the country of the Faolain, and the Sun and Wind killed him, for he
violated them; whence the poet sings--
"Laogar M'Nial died in Caissi the green land,
The elements of divine things, by the oath which he violated,
inflicted the doom of death on the king."
The genealogies are generally contained in the poems.
As to annals partaking of the nature of registers the language of the
extant compositions is unfavourable. They are mentioned, of course; but
it is always some one's collection of something before his time--never
the original cotemporary documents. Now the compiler is Cormac McArthur,
now St. Patrick. The manner of their mention in the Four Masters is as
follows:--
"A.D. 266 was the fortieth year of Cormac McArthur McConn over the
kingdom of Ireland, until he died at Clete, after a salmon-bone had
stuck in his throat, from old prophecies which Malgon the Druid had made
against him, after Cormac turned against the Druids on account of his
manner of adoring God without them. For that reason the Devil (_Diabul_)
tempted him (Malgenn) through the instigation, until he caused his
death. It was Cormac who composed the precepts to be observed by kings,
the manners, tribute, and ordinations of kings. He was a wise man in
laws, and in things chronological and historical, for it was he who
invented the laws of the judgments, and the right principles in all
bargains, also the tributes, so that there was a law which bound all men
even unto the present time. This Cormac McArthur was he who collected
the Chronicle of Ireland into one place, Tara, until he formed from them
the Chronicles of Ireland in one book, which was called (afterwards) the
Psalter of Tara. In that book were the events and synchronisms of the
kings of Ireland with the kings and emperors of the world, and of the
kings of the provinces with the kings of Ireland."
A work of this kind, possible enough in Alexandria, is surely in need of
very definite and unexceptionable testimony to make it credible as a
piece of Irish history. The truly historical fact contained in the
extract is the existence of a book, at the time of the Four Masters,
with a Christian title, and Pagan contents.
To assume anything beyond the existence of early biographies of the
early propagators of Irish Christianity is unnecessary. These had an
undoubted existence; sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse; and it is
these that the annalists themselves chiefly refer to; the character of
whose notices may be collected from the following extracts relating to
the first arrival of St. Patrick.
"A.D. 430.--The second year of Laogar. In this year Pope Celestine first
sent Palladius, the bishop, to Ireland, to preach the faith to the
Irish, and there came with him twelve companions. Nathe, the son of
Garchon, opposed him. Going onwards, however, he baptized many in
Ireland; and three churches, built of wood, were built by him, the White
Church, the House of the Romans, and _Domnach Arta_ (_Dominica Alta_).
In the White Church he left his books, and a desk with the relics of
Paul, Peter, and many other martyrs. He left, too, in the churches after
him these four, Augustinus, Benedictus, Silvester, and Solonius, whilst
Palladius was returning to Rome, because he found not the honour due to
him, when disease seized him in the country of the Picts (_Cruithnech_),
and he died there."--_Annals of the Four Masters._
Again--
"A.D. 431. The fourth year of Laogar. Patrick came to Ireland this year,
and imparted baptism and blessing to the Irish, men, women, sons, and
daughters, except those who were unwilling to receive baptism or faith
from him, as his life relates (_ut narrat ejus vita_). The church of
Antrim was founded by Patrick, after its donation from Felim the son of
Laogar, the son of Nial, to him, to Loman, and to Fortchern. Flann of
the monastery has sung--
"Patrick, abbot of all Ireland, McCalphrain, McFotaide,
McDeisse, the withholder of testimony to falsehood, McCormac Mor,
McLeibriuth,
McOta, McOrric the Good, McMaurice, McLeo of the church,
McMaximus the Mournful, McEncret, the Noble, the Illustrious,
McPhilist the Best of All, McFeren the Blameless,
McBritain the Famous by Sea, whence the Britons strong by sea,
Cochnias his mother the Noble, Nemthor his city, the Warlike;
In Momonia his portion is not denied, which he acquired at the
prayers of Patrick."
In the Books of the Schools on Divine Things the rest of this poem is to
be found, _i.e._, De Mirabilibus Familiæ Patricii Orationum.
The value due to a series of Lives of Saints may be allowed to the Irish
Annals subsequent to A.D. 430; and isolated events, without much
reference to their importance, is what we get from them. As soon as
Christianity introduces the use of letters, we see our way to the
preservation of the records, and the dawning of history begins.
If the annals of the Christian period rest almost wholly on Christian
records, what can be the authority of the still earlier histories?
Separate substantive proof of the existence of early historians, or
early poets there is none. We only assume it from the events narrated.
We also assume the event from the narrative; and, so doing, argue in a
circle. The fact from the statement, and the statement from the fact.
Such is too often the case.
An additional century of antiquity may be gained by admitting the
existence of an imperfect Christianity in Ireland anterior to the time
of St. Patrick--though the evidence to it is questionable. The annals
anterior to A.D. 340 will still stand over. They fall into two
divisions; the impossible, or self-confuting, and the possible. The
latter extend over seven centuries from about B.C. 308 to A.D. 430. The
former go back to the Creation, and are given up as untrustworthy by the
native annalists themselves.
The early annals of the class in question which give us possible events,
if they existed at all, must have been in Irish. They must also have
been more or less known to King Cormac McArthur. They imply, too, the
use of an alphabet. St. Patrick, too, must have known them; as is
implied by the following extract:--
[Sidenote: A.D. 438.]
"The tenth year of Laogar. The history and laws of Ireland purified and
written out from old collections, and from the old books of Ireland
which were brought together to one place at the asking of St. Patrick.
These are the nine wise authors who did this. Laogar, King of Ireland,
Corcc, and Daire, three kings; Patrick, Benin, Benignus (Benin), and
Carnech, three Saints; Ros, Dubthach, and Fergus, three historians, as
the old distich--
"Laogar, Corccus, Daire the Hard,
Patrick, Benignus, Carnech the Mild,
Ros, Dubthach, Fergus, a thing known,
Are the nine Authors of the Great History."
The Welsh antiquarian may, perhaps, observe that this likeness to the
Triads is suspicious, a view to which he may find plenty of confirmation
elsewhere.
Neither is it too much to say that such old poems as are quoted in
respect to the events of the second and third centuries, are apparently
quoted as Virgil's description of Italy under Evander might be quoted by
a writer of the Middle Ages.
The events recorded are, as a general rule, probable; but they cannot be
considered real until we see our way to the evidence by which they
could be transmitted. The probable is as often untrue, as the true is
improbable. The question in all these points is one of testimony.
The most satisfactory view of that period of Irish antiquity, which is,
at one and the same time, anterior to the introduction of Christianity,
and subsequent to the earliest mention of Ireland by Greek, Latin, and
British writers, is that the sources of its history were compositions
composed out of Ireland, but containing notices of Irish events; in
which case the Britons and Romans have written more about Ireland than
the Irish themselves. This is an inference partly from the presumptions
of the case, and partly from internal evidence.
Prichard, after Sharon Turner, has remarked that the legend of
Partholanus is found in Nennius.
The Welsh name Arthur, strange to Ireland, except during the period in
question, is prominent in the third century.
The Druidical religion, which on no unequivocal evidence can be shewn to
have been Irish, has the same prominence during the same time.
The _Fir-Bolg_ and _Attecheith_ are also prominent at this time, _but
not later_. Now the _Belgæ_ and _Attacotti_ might easily be got from
British or Roman writers. The soil of Ireland, as soon as its records
improve, ceases to supply them.
This is as far as it is necessary to proceed in the criticism of our
early authorities of British, Irish, and Saxon origin, since it is not
the object of the present writer to throw any unnecessary discredit over
them, but only to inquire how far they are entitled to the claim of
deciding certain questions finally, and of precluding criticism. It is
clear that they are only to be admitted when opposed by a very slight
amount of conflicting improbabilities, when speaking to points capable
of being known, and when freed from several elements of error and
confusion. The practical application of this inference will find place
in the eleventh chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] This is the year in which Orosius concludes his history. It leaves,
as near as may be, a century between the last of the Roman informants
and the birth of the earliest British.
[13] The origin of the Picts and Scots.
[14] Vol. iii, pp. 140-147.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ANGLES OF GERMANY: THEIR COMPARATIVE OBSCURITY.--NOTICE OF
TACITUS.--EXTRACT FROM PTOLEMY.--CONDITIONS OF THE ANGLE AREA.--THE
VARINI.--THE REUDIGNI AND OTHER POPULATIONS OF TACITUS.--THE
SABALINGII, ETC., OF PTOLEMY.--THE SUEVI ANGILI.--ENGLE AND
ONGLE.--ORIGINAL ANGLE AREA.
There are several populations of whom, like quiet and retiring
individuals, we know nothing until they move; for, in their original
countries, they lead a kind of still life which escapes notice and
description, and which, if it were not for a change of habits with a
change of area, would place them in the position of the great men who
lived before Agamemnon. They would pass from the development to the
death of their separate existence unobserved, and no one know who they
were, where they lived, and what were their relations. But they move to
some new locality, and then, like those fruit-trees which, in order to
be prolific, must be transplanted, the noiseless and unnoticed tenor of
their original way is exchanged for an influential and prominent
position. They take up a large place in the world's history. Sometimes
this arises from an absolute change of character with the change of
circumstances; but oftener it is due to a more intelligible cause. They
move from a country beyond the reach of historical and geographical
knowledge to one within it; and having done this they find writers who
observe and describe them, simply because they have come within the
field of observation and description.
It is no great stretch of imagination to picture some of the stronger
tribes of the now unknown parts of Central Africa finding their way as
far southward as the Cape, when they would come within the sphere of
European observation. On such a ground, they may play a conspicuous part
in history; conspicuous enough to be noticed by historians,
missionaries, and journalists. They may even form the matter of a blue
book. For all this, however, they shall only be known in the latter-days
of their history. What they were in their original domain may remain a
mystery; and that, even when the parts wherein it lay shall have become
explored. For it is just possible that between the appearance of such a
population in a locality beyond the pale of their own unexplored home,
and the subsequent discovery of that previously obscure area, the part
which was left behind--the parent portion--may have lost its
nationality, its language, its locality, its independence, its name--any
one or any number of its characteristics. Perhaps, the name alone, with
a vague notice of its locality, may remain; a name famous from the
glory of its new country, but obscure, and even equivocal in its
fatherland.
How truly are the Majiars of Hungary known only from what they have been
in Hungary. Yet they are no natives of that country. It was from the
parts beyond the Uralian mountains that they came, and when we visit
those parts and ask for their original home, we find no such name, no
such language, no such nationality as that of the Majiars. We find
Bashkirs, or something equally different instead. But north of the old
country of the Majiars--now no longer Majiar--we find Majiar
characteristics; in other words, we are amongst the first cousins of the
Hungarians, the descendants not of the exact ancestors of the conquerors
of Hungary, but of the populations most nearly allied to such ancestors.
And it is in these that we must study the Majiar before he became
European. The direct descendants of the same parents have disappeared,
but collateral branches of the family survive; and these we study,
_assuming that there is a family likeness_.
All this has been written in illustration of a case near home. The
Majiar of the Uralian wilds, the Majiar of the Yaik and Oby, the Majiar,
in short, of Asia, is not more obscure, unknown, and unimportant when
compared with the countrymen of Hunyades, Zapolya, and Kossuth, than is
the Angle of Germany when contrasted with the Angle of England, the
Angle of the great continent with the Angle of the small island. When we
say that the former is named by Tacitus, Ptolemy, and a few other less
important writers, we have said all. There is the name, and little
enough besides. What does the most learned ethnologist know of a people
called the _Eudoses_? Nothing. He speculates, perhaps, on a
letter-change, and fancies that by prefixing a _Ph_, and inserting an
_n_ he can convert the name into _Phundusii_. But what does he know of
the Phundusii? Nothing; except that by ejecting the _ph_ and omitting
the _n_ he can reduce them to _Eudoses_. Then come the _Aviones_, whom,
by omission and rejection, we can identify with the _Obii_, of whom we
know little, and also convert into the _Cobandi_, of whom we know less.
The _Reudigni_--what light comes from these? The _Nuithones_--what from
these? The _Suardones_--what from these? Now, it is not going too far if
we say that, were it not for the conquest of England, the Angles of
Germany would have been known to the ethnologist just as the _Aviones_
are, _i.e._, very little; that, like the _Eudoses_, they might have had
their very name tampered with; and that, like the _Suardones_ and
_Reudigni_ and _Nuithones_, they might have been anything or nothing in
the way of ethnological affinity, historical development, and
geographical locality.
This is the true case. Nine-tenths of what is known of the Angli of
Germany is known from a single passage, and every word in that single
passage which applies to Angli applies to the _Eudoses_, _Aviones_,
_Reudigni_, _Suardones_, and _Nuithones_ as well.
The passage in question is the 40th section of the Germania of Tacitus,
and is as follows:--
"Contra Langobardos paucitas nobilitat: plurimis ac valentissimis
nationibus cincti non per obsequium sed præliis et periclitando tuti
sunt. Reudigni, deinde, et Aviones, et Angli, et Varini, et Suardones,
et Nuithones fluminibus aut sylvis muniuntur; neque quidquam notabile in
singulis nisi quod in commune Hertham, id est, Terram Matrem colunt,
eamque intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis arbitrantur. Est in
insula Oceani castum nemus, dicatum in eo vehiculum, veste contectum,
attingere uni sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse penetrali deam intelligit,
vectamque bobus feminis multa cum veneratione prosequitur. Læti tunc
dies, festa loca, quæcunque adventu hospitioque dignatur. Non bella
ineunt, non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum; pax et quies tunc tantum
nota, tunc tantum amata, donec idem sacerdos satiatam conversatione
mortalium deam templo reddat: mox vehiculum et vestes, et si credere
velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant, quos statim
idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit
id, quod perituri tantum vident."
Let us ask what we get from this passage _when taken by itself_, _i.e._,
without the light thrown upon it by the present existence of the
descendants of the Angli as the English of England.
We get the evidence of a good writer, that six nations considered by him
as sufficiently Germanic to be included in his _Germania_, were far
enough north of the Germans who came in immediate contact with Rome to
be briefly and imperfectly described and near enough the sea to frequent
an island worshipping a goddess with a German name and certain
remarkable attributes. This is the most we get; and to get this we must
shut our eyes to more than one complication.
_a._ Thus the country that can most reasonably be assigned to the
_Varini_, is in the tenth century the country of the _Varnavi_, who are
no Germans, but Slavonians.
_b._ Another reading, instead of _Hertham_, is _Nerthum_, a name less
decidedly Germanic.
All we get beyond this is from their subsequent histories; and of these
subsequent histories there is only one--the _Angle_ or _English_.
Truly, then, may we say that the Angles of Germany are only known from
their _relations to the Angles of England_.
Let us inquire into the geographical and ethnological conditions of the
Angli of Tacitus; and first in respect to their geography.
1. They must be placed as far north as the Weser; because the area
required for the Cherusci, Fosi, Chasuarii, Dulgubini, Chamavi, and
Angrivarii must be carried to a certain extent northwards; and the
populations in question lay beyond these.
2. They must not be carried very far north of the Elbe. The reasons for
this are less conclusive. They lie, however, in the circumstance of
_Ptolemy's_ notices placing them in a decidedly _southern_ direction;
and, as Tacitus has left their locality an open question, the evidence
of even a worse authority than Ptolemy ought to be decisive,--"of the
nations of the interior the greatest is that of _Suevi Angili_, who are
the most eastern of the Longobardi, stretching as far northwards as the
middle Elbe." The same writer precludes us from placing them in Holstein
and Sleswick by filling up the Peninsula by populations other than
Angle, one of which is the Saxon. But these Saxons we are not at liberty
to identify with the Angli of Tacitus, because, by so doing, we
separate them from the more evidently related _Angili_ of Ptolemy.
Ptolemy draws a distinction between the two, and writes that "after the
Chauci on the neck of the Cimbric Chersonese, came the Saxons, after the
Saxons, as far as the river Chalusus, the Pharodini. In the Chersonese
itself there extend, beyond the Saxons, the Sigulones on the west, then
the Sabalingii, then the Cobandi, above them the Chali, then above
these, but more to the west, the Phundusii; more to the east the
Charudes, and most of all to the north, the Cimbri."
3. They must not come quite up to the sea, since we have seen from
Ptolemy that the Chauci and Saxones joined, and as the Saxons were on
the neck of the Peninsula, or the south-eastern parts of Holstein, the
Chauci must have lain between the Angli and the sea, probably, however,
on a very narrow strip of coast.
4. They must not have reached eastwards much farther than the frontiers
of Lauenburg and Luneburg, since, as soon as we get definite historical
notices of these countries, they are _Slavonic_--and, whatever may be
said to the contrary, there is no evidence of this Slavonic occupancy
being recent.
These conditions give us the northern part of the kingdom of Hanover as
the original Angle area.
Their ethnological affinities are simpler. They spoke the language
which afterwards became the Anglo-Saxon of Alfred, and the English of
Milton. In this we have the first and most definite of their
differential characteristics--the characteristics which distinguished
them from the closely allied Cheruscans, Chamavi, Angrivarii and other
less important nations.
Their religious _cultus_, as far at least as the worship of _Mother
Earth_ in a Holy Island, was a link which connected the Angli with the
populations to the north rather than to the south of them; and--as far
as we may judge from the negative fact of finding no Angles in the great
confederacy that the energy of Arminius formed against the aggression of
Rome--their political relations did the same. But this is uncertain.
Such was the supposed area of the ancient Angles of Germany, and it
agrees so well with all the ethnological conditions of the populations
around, that it should not be objected to, or refined upon, on light
grounds. The two varieties of the German languages to which the
Anglo-Saxon bore the closest relationship, were the Old Saxon and the
Frisian, and each of these are made conterminous with it by the
recognition of the area in question--the Old Saxon to the south, the
Frisian to the west, and, probably, to the north as well. It is an area,
too, which is neither unnecessarily large, nor preposterously small; an
area which gives its occupants the navigable portions of two such rivers
as the Elbe and Weser; one which places them in the necessary relations
to their Holy Island (an island which, for the present we assume to be
Heligoland); and, lastly, one which without being exactly the nearest
part of the continent, fronts Britain, and is well situated for descents
upon the British coast.
During the third, fourth, and fifth centuries we hear nothing of the
Angli. They re-appear in the eighth. But then they are the Angles of
Beda, the Angles of Britain--not those of Germany--the Angles of a new
locality, and of a conquered country--not the parent stock on its
original continental home. Of these latter the history of Beda says but
little. Neither does the history of any other writer; indeed it is not
too much to say that they have no authentic, detailed, and consecutive
history at all, either early or late, either in the time of Beda when
the Angles of England are first described, or in the time of any
subsequent writer. There are reasons for this; as will be seen if we
look to their geographical position, and the relations between them and
the neighbouring populations. The Angles of Germany were too far north
to come in contact with the Romans. That we met with no Angli in the
great Arminian Confederacy has already been stated. When the Romans
were the aggressors, the Angli lay beyond the pale of their ambition.
When the Romans were on the defensive the Angli were beyond the
opportunities of attack.
All attempts to illustrate the history of the Angles of Germany by means
of that of the nations mentioned in conjunction with them by Tacitus, is
_obscurum per obscurius_. It is more than this. The connexion creates
difficulties. The Langobardi, who gave their name to Lombardy, were
anything but Angle; inasmuch as their language was a dialect of the High
German division. Hence, if we connect them with our own ancestors we
must suppose that when they changed their locality they changed their
speech also. But no such assumption is necessary. All that we get from
the text of Tacitus is, that they were in geographical contiguity with
the Reudigni, &c.
The Varini are in a different predicament. They are mentioned in the
present text along with the Angli, and they are similarly mentioned in
the heading of a code of laws referred to the tenth century. Every name
in this latter document is attended with difficulties.
_Incipit Lex Anglorum et Werinorum, hoc est Thuringorum._--To find
_Angli_ in Thuringia by themselves would be strange. So it would be to
find _Werini_. But to find the two combined is exceedingly puzzling. I
suggest the likelihood of there having been military colonies, settled
by some of the earlier successors of Charlemagne, if not by Charlemagne
himself. There are other interpretations; but this seems the likeliest.
That the Varini and Angli were contiguous populations in the time of
Tacitus, joining each other on the Lower Elbe, even as they join each
other in his text, is likely. It is also likely that when their
respective areas were conquered, each should have supplied the elements
of a colony to the conqueror.
At the same time, I do not think that their ethnological relations were
equally close. The Varini I believe to have been Slavonians. There is no
difficulty in doing this. The only difficulty lies in the choice between
two Slavonic populations. Adam of Bremen places a tribe, which he
sometimes calls _Warnabi_, and sometimes _Warnahi_ (Helmoldus calling it
_Warnavi_), between the river Havel in Brandenburg and the Obotrites of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He mentions them, too, in conjunction with the
_Linones_ of _Lun_-eburg. Now this evidence fixes them in the parts
about the present district of _Warnow_, on the Elde, a locality which is
further confirmed by two chartas of the latter part of the twelfth
century--"silva quæ destinguit terras Havelliere scilicet et Muritz,
eandem terram quoque Muritz et Vepero cum terminis suis ad terram
_Warnowe_ ex utraque parte fluminis quod Eldene dicitur usque ad castrum
Grabow." Also--"distinguit tandem terram Moritz et Veprouwe cum omnibus
terminis suis ad terram quæ _Warnowe_ vocatur, includens et terram
_Warnowe_ cum terminis suis ex utraque parte fluminis quod Eldena
dicitur usque ad castrum quod Grabou vocatur." Such is one of the later
populations of the parts on the Lower Elbe, which may claim to represent
the Varini of Tacitus.
But the name re-appears. In the Life of Bishop Otto, the Isle of Rugen
is called _Verania_,[15] and the population _Verani_--eminent for their
paganism. To reconcile these two divisions of the Mecklenburg
populations is a question for the Slavonic archæologist. Between the two
we get some light for the ethnology of the Varini. _Their_ island is
_Rugen_ rather than Heligoland. The island, however, that best suits the
Angli is _Heligoland_ rather than Rugen. Which is which? The following
hypothesis has already been suggested. "What if the Varini had one _holy
island_, and the Angli another--so that the _insulæ sacræ_, with their
corresponding _casta nemora_, were two in number?" I submit that a
writer with no better means of knowing the exact truth than Tacitus,
might, in such a case, when he recognized the _insular_ character
common to the two forms of _cultus_, easily and pardonably, refer them
to one and the same island; in other words, he might know the general
fact that the _Angli_ and _Varini_ worshipped in an island, without
knowing the particular fact of their each having a separate one.
This is what really happened; so that the hypothesis is as follows:--
_a._ The truly and undoubtedly Germanic _Angli_ worshipped in
Heligoland.
_b._ The probably Slavonic Varini worshipped in the Isle of Rugen.
_c._ The _holy island_ of Tacitus is that of the Angli--
_d._ With whom the _Varini_ are inaccurately associated--
_e._ The source of the inaccuracy lying in the fact of that nation
having a _holy island_, different from that of the Angles, but not known
to be so.[16]
We have got now, in the text of Tacitus, the Angli as a Germanic, and
the Varini as a Slavonic, population. The Langobardi may be left
unnoticed for the present. But round which of the two are the remaining
tribes to be grouped, the Reudigni, the Aviones, Eudoses, the Suardones,
and Nuithones.
_The Reudigni._--Whether we imagine the Latin form before us to
represent such a word as the German Reud-_ing-as_, or the Slavonic
Reud-_inie_[17] (of either of which it may be the equivalent), the two
last syllables are inflexional; the first only belonging to the root.
Now, although unknown to any Latin writer but Tacitus, the syllable
_Reud_ as the element of a compound, occurs in the Icelandic Sagas.
Whoever the Goths of Scandinavia may have been, they fell into more than
one class. There were, for instance, the simple _Goths_ of _Got_-land,
the _island_ Goths of _Ey-gota_-land, and, thirdly, the Goths of
_Reidh-gota_-land. Where was this? Reidhgotaland was an old name of
_Jutland_. Reidhgotaland was also the name of a country _east of
Poland_. Zeuss[18] well suggests that these conflicting facts may be
reconciled by considering the prefix _Reidh_, to denote the Goths of the
_Continent_ in opposition to the word _Ey_, denoting the Goths of the
_Islands_; both being formidable and important nations, both being in
political and military relations to the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians,
and both being other than Germanic.
In the Traveller's Song a more remarkable compound is found;
_Hreth_-king--
He with Ealhild,
Faithful peace-weaver,
For the first time,
Of the _Hreth_-king
Sought the home,
_East of Ongle_,
Of Eormenric,
The fierce faith-breaker.
Now, although the usual notions respecting the locality of the great
Gothic empire of Hermanric are rather invalidated than confirmed by this
extract, the relation between the _Hreths_ and _Ongle_ is exactly that
between the _Reudigni_ and _Angli_. Neither are there other facts
wanting which would bring the rule of Hermanric as far north as the
latitude of the Angli, though not, perhaps, so far east. His death is
said to have been occasioned by the revolt of two _Rhoxalanian_ princes.
Now the Rhoxalani were, at least, as far north as the Angli, however
much farther they may have lain eastwards.
But in the same poem we meet with the name in the simple form _Hræd_;
for, when we remember that one of the Icelandic notices of Reidhgotaland
is that it lay to _the east of Poland_, we may fairly infer that
Reidhgotaland was the country of the nation mentioned in the following
passage:--
Eadwine I sought and Elsa,
Ægelmund and Hungar,
And the proud host
Of the With-Myrgings;
Wulfhere I sought and Wyrnhere;
Full oft war ceas'd not there,
When the _Hræds'_ army,
With hard swords,
About _Vistula's_ wood
Had to defend
Their ancient native seat
Against the folk of Ætla.
Such faint light then as can be thrown upon the Reudigni of Tacitus
disconnects them with the Angli both geographically and ethnologically,
connecting them with the Prussians, and placing them on the Lower
Vistula.
_The Aviones._--The Aviones are either unknown to history, or known
under the slightly modified form of _Chaviones_. Maximian conquers them
about A.D. 289. His Panegyrist Mamertinus associates them with the
Heruli. Perhaps, the _Obii_ are the same people. If so, they cross the
Danube in conjunction with the Langobardi, and are mentioned, as having
done so, by Petrus Patricius.
The _Eudoses_ will be noticed when Ptolemy's list comes under
consideration.
So will the _Suardones_.
No light has ever been thrown on the _Nuithones_.
Over and above the Saxons, to whom a special chapter will be devoted,
_Ptolemy's_ list contains:--
1. _The Sigulones._--The Saxons lay to the north of Elbe, on the neck of
the Chersonese, and the Sigulones occupied the Chersonese itself,
westwards. Two populations thus placed between the Atlantic and the
Baltic, immediately north of the Elbe, leave but little room for each
other.
"Then," writes Ptolemy, "come--
"2. _The Sabalingii._--then--
"3. _The Kobandi._--above these--
"4. _The Chali._--and above them, but more to the west--
"5. _The Phundusii._--more to the east--
"6. _The Charudes._--and most to the north of all--
"7. _The Cimbri._"
8. _The Pharodini_ lay next to the Saxons, between the Rivers Chalusus
and Suebus.
Tacitus' geography is obscure; Ptolemy's is difficult. One wants light.
The other gives us conflicting facts. Neither have the attempts to
reconcile them been successful. The first point that strikes us is the
difference of the names in the two authors. No Sigulones and Sabalingii
in Tacitus. No Nuithones and Reudigni in Ptolemy. Then there is the
extremely northern position which the latter gives the Cimbri. His
Charudes, too, cannot well be separated from Cæsar's Harudes.
Nevertheless, their area is inconveniently distant from the seat of war
in the invasion of Gaul under Ariovistus, of whose armies the Harudes
form a part. The River Chalusus is reasonably considered to be the
Trave. But the Suebus is not the Oder; though the two are often
identified: inasmuch as the geographer continues to state that after the
Pharodini come "the Sidini to the river Iadua" (the Oder?), "and, after
them, the Rutikleii as far as the Vistula."
Zeuss has allowed himself to simplify some of the details by identifying
certain of the Ptolemæan names with those of Tacitus. Thus he thinks
that, by supposing the original word to have been Σφαρόδ-ινοι, the
Φαρόδιν-οι and _Suardon_-es may be made the same. _Kobandi_, too, he
thinks may be reduced to _Chaviones_, or _Aviones_. Thirdly, by the
prefix Φ, and the insertion of N, _Eudos_-es may be converted into
Φουνδοῦσ-ιοι.
Those who know the degree to which the modern German philologists act
upon the doctrine that _Truth is stranger than Fiction_, and, by
unparallelled manipulations reconcile a so-called iron-bound system of
scientific letter-changes with results as extraordinary as those of the
Keltic and Hebraic dreamers of the last century, will see in such
comparisons as these nothing extraordinary. On the contrary, they will
give them credit for being moderate. And so they are: for it is
extremely likely that whilst Tacitus got his names from German, Ptolemy
got _his_ from Keltic, or Slavonic, sources; and if such be the case, a
very considerable latitude is allowable.
Yet, even if we make the Cobandi, Aviones; the Phundusii, Eudoses; and
the Pharodini, Suardones (probably, also, the _Sweordwere_, of the
Traveller's Song), the geographical difficulties are still considerable.
Saxons on the neck of the Chersonese (say in Stormar) with Sigulones
(say in Holstein) to the west of them are fully sufficient to stretch
from sea to sea; but _beyond_ (and this we must suppose to be in a
_westerly_ direction) are the Sabalingii, and then the Kobandi; above
(north of) these the Chali (whom we should expect to be connected with
the river Chalusus), and west of these the Phundusii. Similar
complications can easily be added.
The meaning of the word _Sabalingii_ is explained, if we may assume a
slight change in the reading. How far it is legitimate, emendatory
critics may determine; but by transposing the B and L, the word becomes
_Sa-lab_-ingii. The Slavonic is the tongue that explains this.
1. The Slavonic name of the _Elbe_ is _Laba_; and--
2. The Slavonic for _Transalbian_, as a term for the population _beyond
the Elbe_, would be _Sa-lab-ingii_. This compound is common. The Finns
of Karelia are called _Za-volok-ian_, because they live beyond the
_volok_ or _watershed_. The Kossacks of the Dnieper are called
_Za-porog-ian_, because they live beyond the _porog_ or _waterfall_.
The population in question I imagine to have been called
_Sa-lab-ingian_, because they lived beyond the Laba, or Elbe.
Now a name closely akin to _Salabingian_ actually occurs at the
beginning of the Historical period. The population of the Duchy of
Lauenburg is (then) Slavonic. So is that of south-eastern Holstein;
since the Saxon area begins with the district of Stormar. So is that of
Luneburg. And the name of these Slavonians of the Elbe is _Po-lab-ingii_
(_on the Elbe_), just as _Po-mor-ania_ is the country _on the sea_. Of
the _Po_-labingians, then, the _Sa_-labingii were the section belonging
to that side of the Elbe to which the tribe that used the term did _not_
belong. Such are the reasons for believing the name to be Slavonic.
There are specific grounds, of more or less value, then, for separating
the Angli from, at least, the following populations--the Varini, the
Reudigni, the Eudoses, the Phundusii, the Suardones, the Pharodini, and
the Sabalingii (Salabingii?); indeed, the Sigulones and Harudes seem to
be the only Germans of two lists. The former, I think, was Frisian
rather than Angle, the latter _Old_ Saxon rather than Anglo-Saxon; for,
notwithstanding some difficulties of detail which will be noticed in
another chapter, the _Charudes_ must be considered the Germans of the
_Hartz_. The Sigulones, being placed so definitely to the _west_ of the
Saxons, were probably the Nordalbingians of Holsatia.[19]
The last complication which will be noticed is in the following extract
from Ptolemy.--"But of the inland nations far in the interior the
greatest are that of the _Suevi Angeili_, who are east of the
Longobardi, stretching to the north, as far as the middle parts of the
river Elbe, that of the _Suevi Semnones_, who, when we leave the Elbe,
reach from the aforesaid (middle) parts, eastwards, as far as the River
Suêbus, and that of the Buguntæ next in succession, extending as far as
the Vistula."--Lib. ii. c. xi.
This connexion of the Angles with the Suevi requires notice; though it
should not cause any serious difficulty. The term _Suevi_, or _Suevia_,
is used in a very extensive signification, denoting the vast tracts east
of the better known districts of Germany; and in a similar sense it is
used by both Tacitus and Cæsar. The notion of any specific connection
with the _Suevi_ of Suabia is unnecessary.
It has already been stated that in the Traveller's Song the Kingdom of
Hermanric is placed _east of Ongle_. Either this means that the one
country was east of the other, in the way that Hungary is east of the
Rhine, or else an unrecognized extension must be given to one of the
two areas.
In one part of the poem in question the form is not _Ongle_ but
_Engle_--
"Mid _E_nglum ic wæs, and mid Swæfum--
With _E_ngles I was, and with Sueves."--_Line_ 121.
The result of the previous criticism is--
1. That the Angli of Germany distinguished, by the use of that form of
speech which afterwards became Anglo-Saxon, from the Slavonians of
south-eastern Holstein, Lauenburg, Luneburg, and Altmark, from the Old
Saxons of Westphalia, and from the Frisians of the sea-coast between the
Ems and Elbe, occupied, with the exceptions just suggested, the northern
two-thirds of the present Kingdom of Hanover.
2. That they were the only members of the particular section of the
German population to which they belonged, _i.e._, the section using the
Anglo-Saxon rather than the Old Saxon speech.
Their relations to the population of the Cimbric Chersonese will form
the subject of the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Zeuss ad vv. _Rugiani_, _Warnabi_.
[16] From the "Germania of Tacitus with Ethnological Notes."
[17] As a general rule, I believe that the combination -_ing_,
represents a German, the combination -_ign_ a Slavonic, word.
[18] In v. _Jutæ_.
[19] See Chapter ix.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SAXONS--OF UPPER SAXONY--OF LOWER OR OLD SAXONY.--
NORDALBINGIANS.--SAXONS OF PTOLEMY.--PRESENT AND ANCIENT POPULATIONS
OF SLESWICK-HOLSTEIN.--NORTH-FRISIANS.--PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE NAME
SAXON.--THE LITTUS SAXONICUM.--SAXONES BAJOCASSINI.
The ethnologist of England has to deal with a specific section of those
numerous Germans, who, in different degrees of relationship to each
other, have been known, at different times, under the name of _Saxon_; a
name which has by no means a uniform signification, a name which has
been borne by every single division and subdivision of the Teutonic
family, the Proper Goths alone excepted. At present, however, he only
knows that the counties of Es-_sex_, Sus-_sex_, and Middle-_sex_ are the
localities of the East-_Saxons_, the South-_Saxons_, and the
Middle-_Saxons_, respectively; that in the sixth and seventh centuries
there was a Kingdom of Wes-_sex_, or the West-_Saxons_; that _Angle_ and
_Saxon_ were nearly convertible terms; and that Anglo-_Saxon_ is the
name of the English Language in its oldest known stage. How these names
came to be so nearly synonymous, or how certain south-eastern counties
of England and a German Kingdom on the frontier of Bohemia, bear names
so much alike as Sus-_sex_ and _Sax_-ony, are questions which he has yet
to solve.
The German Kingdom of Saxony may be disposed of first. It is chiefly in
name that it has any relation to the Saxon parts of England. In language
and blood there are numerous points of difference. The original
population was Slavonic, which began to be displaced by Germans from the
left bank of the Saale as early as the seventh century; possibly
earlier. The language of these Slavonians was spoken in the
neighbourhood of Leipsic as late as the fourteenth century, and at the
present time two populations in Silesia and Lusatia still retain it--the
Srbie, and Srskie. Sorabi, Milcieni, Siusli, and Lusicii, are the
designations of these populations in the time of Charlemagne; and,
earlier still, they were included in the great name of Semnones. It is
only because they were conquered from that part of Germany which was
called _Saxonia_ or _Saxenland_, or else because numerous colonies of
the previously reduced Saxons of the Lower Weser were planted on their
territory, that their present name became attached to them. Slavonic in
blood, and High German in language, the Saxons of the Upper Elbe, or the
Saxons of Upper Saxony, are but remotely connected with the ancestors of
the Anglo-Saxons of Britain.
In Upper Saxony, at least, the name is not native.
_Lower_ Saxony was the country on the _Lower_ Elbe, and also of the
_Lower_ Weser, and until the extension of the name to the parts about
Leipsic and Dresden, was simply known as _Saxonia_, or the Land of the
_Saxones_; at least, the qualifying adjective _Lower_ made no part of
the designation. _Saxony_ was what it was called by the Merovingian
Franks, as well as the Carlovingians who succeeded them. Whether,
however, any portion of the _indigenæ_ so called itself is uncertain. In
the latter half of the eighth century it falls into three divisions, two
of which are denoted by geographical or political designations, and one
by the name of a native population.
The present district of _West_-phalia was one of them; its occupants
being called _West_-falahi, _West_-falai, _West_-fali. These were the
Saxons of the Rhine. Contrasted with these, the _East_-phalians
(_Ost_-falai, _Ost_-falahi, _Ost_-fali, _Oster_-leudi, _Austre_-leudi,
_Aust_-rasii), stretched towards the Elbe.
Between the two, descendants of the _Angri_-varii of Tacitus, and
ancestors of the present Germans of the parts about _Engern_, lay the
_Angr_-arii, or _Ang_-arii.
An unknown poet of the eighth century, but one whose sentiments
indicate a Saxon origin, thus laments the degenerate state of his
country:
"Generalis habet populos divisio ternos,
Insignita quibus Saxonia floruit olim;
Nomina nunc remanent virtus antiqua recessit.
Denique _Westfalos_ vocitant in parte manentes
Occidua; quorum non longe terminus amne
A Rheno distat? regionem solis ad ortum
Inhabitant _Osterleudi_, quos nomine quidam
_Ostvalos_ alii vocitant, confinia quorum
Infestant conjuncta suis gens perfida Sclavi.
Inter predictos media regione morantur
_Angarii_, populus Saxonum tertius; horum
Patria Francorum terris sociatur ab Austro,
Oceanoque eadem conjungitur ex Aquilone."
The conquest of Charlemagne is the reason for the language being thus
querulous; for, unlike Upper Saxony, the Saxony of the Lower Weser, the
Saxony of the Angrivarii, Westfalii, and Ostfalii, was truly the native
land of an old and heroic _German_ population, of a population which
under Arminius had resisted Rome, of a population descended from the
Chamavi, the Dulgubini, the Fosi, and the Cherusci of Tacitus, and,
finally, the land of a population whose immediate and closest affinities
were with the Angles of Hanover, and the Frisians of Friesland, rather
than with the Chatti of Hesse, or the Franks of the Carlovingian
dynasty.
How far are these the Saxons of Sus-_sex_, Es-_sex_, and Middle-_sex_?
Only so far as they were Angles; and, except in the parts near the Elbe,
they were other than Angle. This we know from their language, in which a
Gospel Harmony, in alliterative metre, a fragmentary translation of the
Psalms, and a heroic rhapsody called Hildubrant and Hathubrant have come
down to us.
The parts where the dialects of these particular specimens were spoken
are generally considered to have been the country about Essen, Cleves,
and Munster; and, although closely allied to the Anglo-Saxon of England,
the Westphalian Saxon is still a notably different form of speech. It
was the Angle language in its southern variety, or (changing the
expression) the Angle was the most northern form of it.
We have seen that _Saxony_ and _Saxon_ were no native terms on the Upper
Elbe. Were they so in the present area--in Westphalia, Eastphalia, and
the land of the Angrivarii? Tacitus knows no such name at all; and
Ptolemy, the first writer in whom we find it, attaches it to a
population of the Cimbric Peninsula. Afterwards, in the third and fourth
centuries it is applied by the Roman and Byzantine writers in a general
sense, to those maritime Germans whose piracies were the boldest, and
whose descents upon the Provinces of Gaul and Britain were most dreaded.
Yet nowhere can we find a definite tract of country upon which we can
lay our finger and say _this is the land of Saxons_, saving only the
insignificant district to the north of the Elbe, mentioned by Ptolemy.
From the time of Honorius to that of Charlemagne, _Saxo_ is, like
_Franc_, a general term applied, indeed, to the maritime Germans rather
than those of the interior, and to those of the north rather than the
south, yet nowhere specifically attached to any definite population with
a local habitation and a name to match. Whenever we come to detail, the
Saxons of the Roman writers become Chamavi, Bructeri, Cherusci, Chauci,
or Frisii; while the Frank details are those of the Ostphali, Westphali,
and Angrivarii.
But the Frank writers under the Merovingian and Carlovingian dynasties
are neither the only nor the earliest authors who speak of the
Hanoverians and Westphalians under the general name of _Saxon_. The
Christianized Angles of England used the same denomination; and, as
early as the middle of the eighth century, Beda mentions the Fresones,
Rugini, Dani, Huni, _Antiqui Saxones_, Boructuarii.--_Hist. Eccles._ 5,
10. Again--the Boructuarii, descendants of the nearly exterminated
Bructeri of Tacitus, and occupants of the country on the Lower Lippe,
are said to have been reduced by the nation of the _Old Saxons_ (_a
gente Antiquorum Saxonum_). In other records we find the epithet
_Antiqui_ translated by the native word _eald_ (=_old_) and the
formation of the compound _Altsaxones_--Gregorius Papa universo populo
provinciæ _Altsaxonum_ (vita St. Boniface). Lastly, the Anglo-Saxon
writers of England use the term _Eald-Seaxan_ (=_Old-Saxon_). And this
form is current amongst the scholars of the present time; who call the
language of the _Heliand_, of the so-called _Carolinian Psalms_ and of
_Hildebrant and Hathubrant_, the _Old_-Saxon, in contradistinction to
the _Anglo_-Saxon of Alfred, Cædmon, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The
authority of the Anglo-Saxons themselves justifies this compound; yet it
is by no means unexceptionable. Many a writer has acquiesced in the
notion that the Old-Saxon was neither more nor less than the Anglo-Saxon
in a continental locality, and the Anglo-Saxon but the Old-Saxon
transplanted into England. Again--the Old-Saxons have been considered as
men who struck, as with a two-edged sword, at Britain on the one side,
and at Upper Saxony on the other, so that the Saxons of Leipsic and the
Saxons of London are common daughters of one parent--the Saxons of
Westphalia.
The exact relations, however, to the Old-Saxons and the Anglo-Saxons
seem to have been as follows:--
The so-called Old-Saxon is the old _Westphalian_--
The so-called Anglo-Saxon the old _Hanoverian_ population.
Their languages were sufficient alike to be mutually intelligible, and
after the conversion of the Angles of England, who became Christianized
about A.D. 600, the extension of their own creed to the still Pagan
Saxons of the Continent became one of the great duties to the bishops
and missionaries of Britain; who, although themselves of Hanoverian
rather than Westphalian extraction, looked upon the whole stock at large
as their parentage, and called their cousins (so to say) in Westphalia,
and their brothers in Hanover, by the collective term _Old-Saxon_.
All the Angles, then, of the _Saxonia_ of the Frank and British writers
of the eighth century were Saxon, though all the Saxons were not Angle.
Eastphalia, the division which must have been the most _Angle_, reached
as far as the Elbe.
But there was, also, a Saxony beyond Eastphalia, a Saxony beyond the
Elbe; the country of the _Saxones Transalbiani_; other names for its
occupants being _Nord-albingi_ (=_men to the north of the Elbe_), and
Nord-leudi (=_North people_). The poet already quoted, writes--
Saxonum populus quidam, quos claudit ab Austro
Albis sejunctim positos Aquilonis ad axem.
Hos _Nordalbingos_ patrio sermone vocamus.
In this case as before, _Saxon_ is a generic rather than a particular
name. The facts that prove this give us also the geographical position
of the Nordalbingians. They fell into three divisions:
1. The _Thiedmarsi_, _Thiatmarsgi_, or _Ditmarshers_, whose capital was
Meldorp--_primi ad Oceanum Thiatmarsgi_, et eorum _ecclesia
Mildindorp_--
2. The _Holsati_, _Holtzati_, or _Holtsætan_, from whom the present
Duchy of Holstein takes its name--_dicti a sylvis, quas incolunt_.[20]
The river Sturia separated the Holsatians from--
3. The _Stormarii_, or people of _Stormar_; of whom Hamburg was the
capital--_Adam Bremens_: _Hist. Eccles._ c. 61.
These are the Nordalbingians of the eighth century. Before we consider
their relations to the Westphalian and Hanoverian Saxons the details of
the present ethnology of the Cimbric Peninsula are necessary. At the
present moment Holstein, Stormar, and Ditmarsh are Low German, or
Platt-Deutsch, districts; the High German being taught in the schools
much as English is taught in the Scotch Highlands. Eydersted also is Low
German, and so are the southern and eastern parts of Sleswick. Not so,
however, the western. Facing the Atlantic, we find an interesting
population, isolated in locality, and definitely stamped with old and
original characteristics. They are as different from the Low Germans on
the one side as the Dutch are from the English; and they are as little
like the Danes on the other. They are somewhat bigger and stronger than
either; at least both Danes and Germans may be found who own to their
being _bigger if not better_. They shew, too, a greater proportion of
blue eyes and flaxen locks; though these are common enough on all sides.
That breadth of frame out of which has arisen the epithet _Dutch-built_,
is here seen in its full development; with a sevenfold shield of thick
woollen petticoats to set it of. So that there are characteristics, both
of dress and figure, which sufficiently distinguish the _North-Frisian_
of Sleswick from the Dane on one side and the German on the other.
It is only, however, in the more inaccessible parts of their country
that the _differentiæ_ of dress rise to the dignity of a separate and
independent _costume_. They do so, however, in some of those small
islands which lie off the coast of Sleswick; three of which are supposed
to have been the _three islands of the Saxons_, in the second and third
centuries. A party, which the writer fell in with, from _Föhr_, were all
dressed alike, all in black, all in woollen, with capes over the heads
instead of bonnets. "Those," says the driver, who was himself half Dane
and half German, "are from Föhr. They have been to Flensburg to see one
of their relations. He is a sailor. They are all sailors in Föhr. Some
of them, perhaps, smugglers--they all dress so--I can't speak to
them--my brother can--he has been in England, and an Englishman can talk
to them--they talk half Danish and half Platt-Deutsch, and half
English--more than half. They were Englishmen once--a good sort of
people--took no part in the war--did not much care for the Danes, though
the Danes took pains to persuade them--so did the Germans, but they did
not much care for the Germans either--strong men--good soldiers--good
sailors--Englishmen, but not like the Englishmen I've seen myself. My
brother's been in London and America, and can talk with them."
What is thus said about their English-hood is commonly believed by the
Danes and Germans of the Frisian localities. They are English in some
way or other, though how no one knows exactly. And many learned men hold
the same view. It is a half-truth. They are more English, and, at the
same time, more Dutch, than any of their neighbours; more so than either
Dane or German, but for all that they are something that is neither
English nor Dutch. They are _Frisians_ of the same stock as the
Frisians of Friesland, whom they resemble in form, and dress, and
manners, and speech, and temper, and history. But from the Frisians of
the south they have been cut off for many centuries, partly by the hand
of man, partly by the powers of Nature, partly by invasions from
Germans, and partly by overwhelming inbreaks of the Ocean. There is a
Frisian country in the south (the present Province of Friesland), and
there is a Frisian country in the north (the tract which we are speaking
of); and these are parts of the _terra firma_. But the Friesland that
lay between the two is lost--lost, though we know where it is. It is at
the bottom of the sea: forfeited, like the lava-stricken plains of
Sicily, of Campania, and of Iceland, in the great game of Man against
Nature--for it is not everywhere that Man has been the winner. The war
of the Frisians against the sea has been the war not of the Titans
against Jove, but of the Amphibii against Neptune.
Every Frisian--_Friese_ as he calls himself--is an agriculturist, and it
is only in the villages that the Frisian tongue is spoken. In the towns
of Ripe, Bredsted, and Husum, small as they are, there is nothing but
Danish and German. But in all the little hamlets between, the well-built
old-fashioned farm-houses, with gable-ends of vast breadth, and massive
thatched roofs that make two-thirds of the height of the house, and a
stork's nest on the chimney, and a cow-house at the end, are Frisian;
and, if you can overhear what they say amongst themselves, you find
that, without being English it is somewhat like it. _Woman_ is the word
which sounds strangest to both the German and the Dane, and, it is
generally the first instance given of the peculiarity of the Frisian
language. "Why can't they speak properly, and say _Kone_?" says the
Dane. "_Weib_ is the right word," says the German. "Who ever says
_woman_?" cry both. The language has not been reduced to writing;
indeed, the little that has been done with it is highly discreditable to
the Sleswick-Holstein Church Establishment. It is spoken by upwards of
thirty thousand individuals; and when we remember that the whole
population of Denmark is less than that of London and the suburbs, we
see at once that a large proportion of it has been less heeded in
respect to its spiritualities than the Gaels and Welsh of Great Britain.
You may distinguish a Frisian parish as the Eton grammar distinguishes
nouns of the neuter gender. It is _omne quod exit in -um_; for so end
nine out of ten of the Frisian villages. Now, throughout the whole
length and breadth of the Brekkel_ums_, and Stad_ums_, &c., that lie
along the coast, from Ripe north to Hus_um_ south, there is not one
church service that is performed in Frisian, or half-a-dozen priests who
could perform it. No fraction of the Liturgy is native; nor has it ever
been so. Danish there is, and German there is; German, too, of two
kinds--High and Low. The High German is taught in the schools, and that
well; so well, that nowhere are the answers of the little children more
easily understood by such travellers as are not over strong in their
language than in the _Friese_ country. Nevertheless, it is but a
well-taught lesson; and by no means excuses the neglect of the native
idiom.
As things are at present, this is, perhaps, all for the best. The
complaint lies against the original neglect of the Frisian; and its
_gravamen_ is the sad tale it so silently tells of previous
centralization--by which is meant arbitrary and unjustifiable
oppression; for at no distant time back, the Frisians must have formed a
very considerable proportion of the Sleswickers, and, at the beginning
of the Historical period, the majority. And yet it was not thought of
Christianizing them through their own tongue; a tongue which, because it
has never been systematically reduced to writing, conscientious
clergymen say is incapable of being written. As if the Frisian of
Friesland, the Frisian of the south, had not been the language of law
and poetry for more than eight hundred years, and, as if it were a bit
harder to write, or print, the northern dialect of the same, than it was
for Scotland to have a literature. For the tongue is no growth of
yesterday. It may, possibly, be as much older as any other tongue of the
Peninsula as the Welsh is older than the English. That it is older than
some of them is certain. Amateur investigators of it there are, of
course. Outzen, the pastor of Brekkelum, was the father of them; and
honourable mention is due to the present clergyman in Hacksted. As a
general rule, however, the religion of Sleswick has been centralized.
The literature, as far as it has been collected, consists of a
wedding-song of the fifteenth century, to be found in Camerarius, with
addition of, perhaps, a dozen such _morceaux_ as the following
approaches to song, epigram, and ballad, respectively.
1
Læt foammen kom ins jordt to meh,
Ik hêv en blanken daaler to deh,
Di væl ik deh vel zjönke,
Dæ sjællt du beh meh tjönke,
Læt foammen, &c.
2
Ik[21] væl for tusend daaler ej
Dat ik het haad of vaas,
Den lüp ik med den rump ombej
En vöst ekj vær ik var.
3
DER FREYER VOM HOLSTEIN.
Diar kam en skep bi Sudher Siöe
Me tri jung Fruers ön di Floot.
Hokken wiar di fördeorst?
Dit wiar Peter Rothgrun.
Hud säät hi sin spooren?
Fuar Hennerk Jerkens düür.
Hokken kam tö Düür?
Marrike sallef,
Me Krük en Bekker ön di jen hundh,
En gulde Ring aur di udher hundh.
Jü nöödhight höm en sin Hinghst in,
Död di Hingst Haaver und Peter wün.
Toonkh Gott fuar des gud dei.
Al di Brid end bridmaaner of wei,
Butolter Marri en Peter allüning!
Jü look höm ün to Kest
En wildh höm nimmer muar mest.
_Translated._
1.
Little woman come in the yard to me,
I have a white dollar for thee;
I will give it you
So that you think of me.
2.
I would not for a thousand dollars,
That my head were off,
Then should I run with my trunk,
And know (wiss) not where I was.
3.
There came a ship by the South Sea,
With three young wooers on the flood;
Who was the first?
That was Peter Rothgrun.
Where set he his tracts?
For Hennerk Jerken's door.
Who came to door?
Mary-kin herself,
With a pitcher (crock) and beaker in the one hand,
A gold ring on the other hand.
She pressed him and his horse (to come) in,
Gave the horse oats and Peter wine.
Thank God for this good day!
All the brides and bridesmen out of the way!
Except Mary and Peter alone.
She locked him up in her box,
And never would miss him more.
This was what became of Peter; who is, perhaps, the most legendary and
heroic of the North-Frisians--so that the development in this line lies
within a small compass.
The Isle of Nordstand is Low German (Platt-Deutsch) in language, but in
blood and pedigree is Frisian; as, indeed, it was in speech up to A.D.
1610. Then came a great inundation, which destroyed half the cattle of
the island, and beggared its inhabitants; who were removed by their
hard-hearted lord the Count of Gottorp to the continent, and replaced by
Low Germans.
The island of Pelvorm is in the same category with Nordstand, the
population being essentially Frisian though the Platt-Deutsch form of
speech has replaced the native dialect; which was spoken in both islands
A.D. 1639.
Amrom partially preserves it; though the Frisian character is less
marked than in--
_Föhr._--Here all the names which in English would end in -_ham_, in
High German in -_heim_, in Low German in -_hem_, and in Danish in -_by_
(as Threking-_ham_, Mann-_heim_, Arn-_hem_, Wis-_by_) take the form in
-_um_, the vowel being changed into _u_-, and the _h_- being omitted, as
Duns-_um_, Utters-_um_, Midl-_um_, &c.--and this is a sure sign of
Frisian occupancy. In Föhr, too, the language is still current.
Of _Sylt_, the southern part has its names in the Frisian form; as
Horn-_um_, Mors-_um_, &c. The northern half, however, is Danish, and the
villages end in -_by_.
Such is the present area of North-Frisians; which we shall see lies
north of that of the Nordalbingians.
Nevertheless, the present writer believes that, either there was no
difference whatever between the Angles and the Saxons, or that the
Saxons were North-Frisians.
Let us, for a while, allow the name _Saxon_ to be so little conclusive
as to the ethnological position of these same Nordalbingians as to leave
the question open.
The first fact that meets us is the existence of the Frisians of Holland
not only south of the Elbe but south of Weser.
East Friesland, as its name shews, is Frisian also; although, with a few
exceptional localities in the very fenny districts, the language has
been replaced by the German.
Notwithstanding, too, its sanctity in the eyes of the Angle worshipper
of the Goddess Hertha, Heligoland at the beginning of the Historical
period was not exactly Angle. It was what the opposite coast
was--Frisian. And Oldenburg was Frisian as well; indeed the whole area
occupied by the two great nations of antiquity--the Frisii and
Chauci--was neither Old-Saxon nor Angle-Saxon. It differed from each
rather more than they differed from each other, and, accordingly,
constituted a separate variety of the German tongue.
So that there were, and are, two Frisian areas, one extending no farther
north than the Elbe, and the other extending no farther south than the
Eyder.
And between these two lies that of the Nordalbingians. This alone is
_primâ facie_ evidence of their being Frisian; for we should certainly
argue that if Norfolk and Essex were English, Suffolk was English also.
Of course, it might not be so: as intrusion and displacement might have
taken place; but intrusion and displacement are not to be too lightly
and gratuitously assumed. The Frisian of Oldenburg can be traced up to
the Elbe, and the Frisian of Sleswick can be followed down to the Eyder.
Eydersted, however, and Holstein are Low German. Were they always so? Of
Eydersted, Jacob Sax, himself a Low German of the district, writes, A.D.
1610, that "the inhabitants besides the Saxon, use their own
extraordinary natural speech, which is the same as the East and West
Frisian."
For Ditmarsh the evidence is inconclusive. But one or two names end in
-_um_.
As early as A.D. 1452 the following inscription which was found on a
font in Pelvorm was _un_-intelligible to the natives of Ditmarsh, who
carried it off--"disse hirren Döpe de have wi thön ewigen Ohnthonken
mage lete, da schollen össe Berrne in kressent warde"="this here dip
(font) we have let be made as an everlasting remembrance: there shall
our bairns be christened in it." Clemens translates this into the
present Frisian of Amrom, which runs thus--"thas hirr döp di ha wi tun
iwagen Unthonken mage leat, thiar skell üs Biarner un krassent wurd."
Still, Clemens thinks that the dress and domestic utensils of the
present Ditmarshers are more Frisian than Platt-Deutsch. Now whatever
the ancient tongue of Ditmarsh may have been, it was not the present
Platt-Deutsch; yet, if it were Frisian, it had become obsolete before
A.D. 1452.
That we are justified in assuming an original continuity between the
North and South Frisian areas may readily be admitted. There are, of
course, reasonable objections against it--the want of proof of Frisian
character of the language of Ditmarsh being the chief. Still, the
principle which would lead us to predicate of Suffolk what we had
previously predicated of Norfolk and Essex, induces us to do the same
with the district in question, and to argue that if Eydersted, to the
North, and the parts between Bremen and Cuxhaven, to the South, were
Frisian, Ditmarsh, which lay between them, was Frisian also.
But this may have been the case without the Nordalbingians being
Frisian; since an Angle movement, northward and westward, may easily
have taken place in the sixth, seventh, or eighth centuries; in which
case the _Stormarii_, _Holtsati_, and _Ditmarsi_ were Angle; intrusive,
non-indigenous, and, perhaps, of mixed blood--but still Angle.
I am not prepared, however, to go further at present upon this point
than to a repetition of a previous statement, viz.: that if the Saxons
of Anglo-Saxon England were other than Angles under a different name,
they were North-Frisians.
_Saxony_ and _Saxon_ we have seen to be, for the most part, general
names for certain populations of considerable magnitude, populations
which when investigated in detail have been Ostphali, Angrarii,
Stormarii, &c., &c. Ptolemy alone assigns to the word a _specific_
power, and in Ptolemy alone is the country of the Saxons the definite
circumscribed area of a special population. Ptolemy, as has been already
shewn, places the _Saxons on the neck of the Chersonese_ to the north of
the Chauci of the Elbe, and to the East of the Sigulones--there or
thereabouts in Stormar. He also gives them three of the islands off the
coasts of Holstein and Sleswick; though it is uncertain and unimportant
which three he means. Hence, the Saxons of Ptolemy, truly
Nord-albingian, coincide in locality with the subsequent Stormarii, the
Sigulones being similarly related to the Holsatians. Yet neither the
Saxones nor the Sigulones may have been the ancestors to their
respective successors, any more than the Durotriges, or Iceni of England
were the ancestors to the Anglo-Saxons of Dorsetshire and Norfolk.
Before this point comes under consideration we must ask a question
already suggested as to the _Saxons_ of the ninth century. Were they
Frisians or Angles?
Strongly impressed with the belief that no third division of the Saxon
section of the Germans beyond that represented by the Angles of Hanover
and the Old Saxons of Westphalia can be shewn to have existed or need
be assumed, I have thus limited the problem, although the third question
as to the probability of their having been something different from
either may be raised. I also believe that the Frisians reached Sleswick
by an extension of their frontier, this being the reason why the
original continuity of their area is assumed,--at the same time
admitting the possibility of their having come by sea, in which case no
such continuity is necessary. What we find on the Eyder, and also on the
Elbe may fairly be supposed to have once been discoverable in the
intermediate country.
Assuming, then, an original continuity of the Frisian area from Sleswick
to the Elbe anterior to the conquest of Ditmarsh and Holsatia by the
present Low German occupants to be a fair inference from the present
distribution of the North Frisians, and the history of their known and
recorded displacements, we may ask how far it follows that this
displacement was effected by the ancestors of the present Holsteiners;
in other words, how far it is certain that the present Holsteiners
succeeded immediately to the Frisians. There is a question here; since
the continuity may have been broken by a population which was itself
broken-up in its turn. It may have been broken by Angle inroads even as
early as the time of Tacitus. If so, the order of succession would not
be 1. Frisian, 2. Low German, but 1. Frisian, 2. Angle or Anglo-Saxon,
3. Low German.
The Holsati, Stormarii, and Ditmarsi were, most probably, _Angle_. That
they were not the ancestors of the present Low-Dutch is nearly certain.
The date is too early for this. It was not till some time after the
death of Charlemagne that the spread of that section of the German
family reached Holstein. That they were not Frisian is less certain, but
it is inferred from the manner in which they are mentioned by the native
poet already quoted; who, if he had considered the Frisians to have been
sufficiently Saxon to pass under that denomination, would have carried
his Nordalbingian Saxony as far as the most northern boundary of the
North-Frisians.
The evidence, then, is in favour of the Nordalbingians having been
Anglo-Saxon in the ninth century, and that under the name Stormarii,
Holsati, and Ditmarsi. Were they equally so in the third, _i.e._, when
Ptolemy wrote, and when the names under which he noticed them were
Saxones and Sigulones? I should not like to say this. The encroachment
upon the Frisian area--the continuity being assumed--may not have begun
thus early. Nay, even the northward extension of the Frisian area may
not have begun. I should not even like to say positively that the Saxons
of Ptolemy were German at all. They may have been Slavonians--a
continuation of the Wagrian and Polabic populations of Eastern Holstein
and Lauenburg.
To say, too, that Ptolemy's term _Saxon_ was a native name would be
hazardous. We can only say that when we get definite information
respecting the districts to which it applied it was _not_ so. It was no
Nordalbingian name to the _Stormarians_, no Nordalbingian name to the
_Holsatians_, no Nordalbingian name to the men of _Ditmarsh_, no
Nordalbingian name to any of the islanders. It was no native name with
any specific import at all. It was a general name applied to the
countries in question, as it was to many others besides; and it was the
Franks who applied it. It had been specific once; but, when it was so,
no one knew who bore it, or who gave it. It may have been Slavonic
applied to Slavonians, or German applied to Germans, or German applied
to Slavonians, or Slavonic applied to Germans. Which was it?
Who bore it? In the first instance the occupants of the northern bank of
the Elbe, and some of the islands of the coast of Holstein and Sleswick;
men of the _wooded districts_ of _Holt_-satia, whose timber gave them
the means of building ships, and whose situation on the coast developed
the habit of using them to the annoyance of their neighbours. This is
all that can be said.
Who spread it abroad? The Romans first, the Franks afterwards. They it
was who called by the name of _Saxon_ men who never so called
themselves, _e.g._, the Angrivarians, the Westphalians, the Saxons of
Upper Saxony.
How did the Romans get it? From the Kelts of Gaul and Britain.
How came the Kelts by it? The usual answer to this: that they got it
from the Saxons themselves, the Saxons being, of course, Germans. But
the main object of the present chapter has been to shew the extremely
unsatisfactory nature of the evidence of any Germans having so called
themselves. Assuredly, if they stopped at the present point, the reasons
for believing the name to have been native would be eminently
unsatisfactory. The best fact would be in the language of Beda, who, as
we have seen, called the Westphalians _Old-Saxons_. But Beda often
allowed himself to use the language of his authorities, most of whom
wrote in Latin, and some of whom were Gauls or Britons.
But four fresh ones can be added--
1. There is the element -_sex_ in the names Es-_sex_, Wes-_sex_,
Sus-_sex_, and Middle-_sex_.
2. The name _Sax_-neot was that of a deity, whom the Old Saxons, on
their conversion to Christianity, were compelled to foreswear. This
gives us the likelihood of its being the name of an _eponymus_.
3. The story about _nimeþ eowre Seaxas_=_take your daggers_, and the
deduction from it, that _Saxons_ meant _dagger-men_, is of no great
weight; with the present writer, at least. Still, as far as it goes, it
is something.
4. The Finlanders call the Germans _Saxon_.
The necessity of getting as far as we can into the obscure problems
connected with this word is urgent. One part of England is more
evidently _Saxon_ than another; at least, it bears certain outward and
visible signs of Saxonism which are wanting elsewhere. What are we to
say to this? That Es-_sex_ is Saxon, and, as _Saxon_, something notably
different from Suffolk which is _Angle_? It may have been so; yet the
minutest ethnology ever applied has failed in detecting the
_differentiæ_. They have, indeed, been assumed, and an unduly broad
distinction between the dialect of Angle and the dialects of Saxon
origin has been drawn; but the distinction is unreal. Angle
_North_umberland and Saxon _Sus_sex differ from each other, not because
they are Angle and Saxon, but because they are _north_ern and _south_ern
counties. And so on throughout. The difference between Angle and Saxon
Britain has ever been assumed to be _real_, whereas it may be but
_nominal_.
Let us suppose it to be the latter, and _Saxon_ to have been the British
name of the _Angle_--nothing more. What do names like Sus-_sex_, &c.,
indicate? Not that the population was less Angle than elsewhere, but
that it was more Roman or British--an important distinction.
Again--certain Frisians are stated by Procopius to have dwelt in
Britain; though Beda makes no mention of them. Assume, however, that the
Saxons of the latter writer were the Frisians of the former, and all is
plain and clear. But, then, they should be more unlike the Angles than
they can be shewn to have been.
But why refine upon these points at all? Why, when we admit the
Nordalbingians to have been Angle, demur to their having called
themselves Saxons? I do this because I cannot get over the fact of the
king who first decreed that his kingdom should be called _Angle_-land
having been no _Angle_ but a West-_Saxon_. That he should give the
native German name precedence over the Roman and Keltic is likely; but
that, by calling himself and his immediate subjects _Saxon_, he should
change the name to _Angle_, is as unlikely as that a King of Prussia
should propose that all Germany should be known as _Austria_. Of course,
if the evidence in favour of the word _Saxon_ being native was of a
certain degree of cogency, we must take the preceding improbability as
we find it; but no such cogent evidence can be found. _Saxon_ is always
a name that some one _may_ give to some one else, never one that he
necessarily bears himself.
Were the conquerors, then, of Sus-_sex_, &c., other than Nordalbingian?
I do not say this. I only say that the evidence of their coming from the
special district of Holstein does not lie in their name. Germans from
the south of the Elbe would--according to the preceding hypothesis--have
been equally _Saxon_ in the eyes of the degenerate Romans and the
corrupted Britons whom they conquered.
We are still dealing with the origin of the _name_. The Franks and
Romans diffused and generalized, the Kelts suggested, it. That the name
was Keltic is undenied and undeniable. The Welsh and Gaels know us to
the present moment as _Saxons_, and not as _Englishmen_. The only doubt
has been as to how far it was _exclusively_ Keltic--_i.e._,
non-Germanic.
Will the supposition of its being Keltic account for _all_ the facts
connected with it? No. It will not account for the Finlanders using it.
They, like the Kelts, call the Germans _Saxon_. This, then, is a fresh
condition to be satisfied. The hypothesis which does this is, that the
name _Saxo_ was applied by the Slavonians of the Baltic as well as by
Kelts of the coasts of Gaul and Britain to the pirates of the neck of
the Chersonese,--the Slavonic designation being adopted by the
Finlanders just as the Keltic was by the Romans.
And this supplies an argument in favour of the name having been native,
since a little consideration will shew that, when two different nations
speak of a third by the same name, the _primâ facie_ evidence is in
favour of the population to whom it is applied by their neighbours
applying it to themselves also.
Yet this is no proof of its being German: nor yet of the men of
Wes-_sex_, &c., being Nordalbingian. All that we get from the British
counties ending in -_sex_ is, that in certain parts of the island, the
British name for certain German pirates prevailed over the native,
whereas, in others, the native prevailed over the British.
If this be but a trifling conclusion in respect to its positive results,
it is one of some negative value; inasmuch, as when we have shewn that
_Angle_ and _Saxon_ are, to a great extent, the same names in different
languages, we have rid ourselves of the imaginary necessity of
investigating such imaginary differences as the difference of name, at
the first view, suggests. We have also ascertained the historical import
of the spread of the names _Saxon_ and _Saxony_. They spread, not
because certain Saxons originating in a district no bigger than the
county of Rutland, bodily took possession of vast tracts of country in
Germany, Britain, and Gaul, but because a great number of Germans were
called by the name of a small tribe, just as the Hellenes of Thessaly,
Attica, and Peloponnesus were called by the Romans, _Greeks_. The true
_Græci_ were a tribe of dimensions nearly as small in respect to the
Hellenes at large as the Saxons of Ptolemy were to the Germans in
general (perhaps, indeed, they were not Hellenic at all); yet it was the
_Græci_ whom the Romans identified with the Hellenes. No one, however,
believes that the Græci extended themselves to the extent of the term
_Græcia_. On the contrary, every one admits that it was only the import
of the name which became enlarged. And this I believe to have been the
case with the word _Saxon_.
_Saxon_, then, like _Greek_, was a general name. Nevertheless, they were
specific _Saxons_ just as they were specific _Græci_. These were the
_Saxons_ of Ptolemy. When that author wrote, I believe them to have been
either _Frisian_ or _Slavonians_, without saying which--Frisians, if we
look for their affinities to the south of the Elbe; Slavonians, if we
seek them to the east of the Bille.
Between the time of Ptolemy and the end of the fourth century, the name
grew into importance, and became a name of terror to the Romans, Gauls,
and Britons, who applied it to the northern Germans of the sea-board in
general.
The spread of the name along the sea-coast began in the fourth century.
Claudian alludes to a naval victory over them
----"maduerunt _Saxone_ fuso
Orcades."
This gives them a robbing-ground as far north as the Orkneys.
Ammianus notices their descent upon Gaul; and writes that in the reign
of Valentinian "Gallicanos vero tractus Franci et _Saxones_ iisdem
confines, quo quisque erumpere potuit, terra vel mari, praedis acerbis
incendiisque et captivorum funeribus hominum violabant."
Again--"Valentinianus Saxones, gentem in Oceani litoribus et paludibus
inviis sitam, _virtute et agilitate terribilem_, periculosam Romanis
finibus, eruptionem magna mole meditantes, _in ipsis Francorum finibus_
oppressit." Oros. 7, 32.
A victory over the Saxones at Deuso (Deutz, opposite Cologne) is
referred by more than one of the later writers to the same reign.
The banks of the Loire are their next quarters, Anjou being their chief
locality, and their great captain bearing a name of which the Latin form
was _Adovacrius_--"igitur Childericus Aurelianis pugnas egit:
_Adovacrius_ vero cum _Saxonibus_ Andegavos venit ... (Aegidio) defuncto
Adovacrius de Andegavo et aliis locis obsides accepit ... Veniente vero
Adovacrio Andegavis, Childericus rex sequenti die advenit; interemtoque
Paulo Comite, civitatem obtinuit." Greg. Tur. 2, 18; "his itaque gestis,
inter _Saxones_ atque Romanos bellum gestum est, sed Saxones terga
vertentes multos de suis, Romanis insequentibus, gladio reliquerunt:
_insulae eorum_ cum multo populo interemto a Francis captae atque
subversae sunt ... Adovacrius cum Childerico foedus iniit, Alamannosque
subjugarunt." id. 2, 19.
Of Saxons who joined the Lombards in the invasion of Italy we also hear
from the same author--"Post hæc _Saxones qui cum Langobardis in Italiam
venerant_, iterum prorumpunt in Gallias, ... scilicet ut a Sigiberto
rege collecti in loco, unde egressi fuerant, stabilirentur ... Hi vero
ad Sigibertum regem transeuntes, in locum, unde prius egressi fuerant,
stabiliti sunt." 4, 43.
The best measure, however, of the Saxon piracies is to be found in two
terms, each of which has always commanded the attention of
investigators--the names _Saxones Bajocassini_ and _Littus Saxonicum_.
1. _Saxones Bajocassini_ or the _Saxons of Bayeux_ are mentioned under
that name by Gregory of Tours (§. 27. 10. 9); and in a charter of
Charles the Bald there is the notice of a _pagus_ in the same district
called _Ot linguæ_. Zeuss reasonably suggests, as an emended reading,
_Otlinga_; in which case we have one of the numerous equivalents of
those local names which, in the modern English, end in -_ing_, and in
the Anglo-Saxon, in -_ingas_--Palling, Notting, Horbling,
Billing--Æsclingas, Gillingas, &c., &c. Who were these? When we hear of
Bayeux again, _i.e._, in the tenth century, it is alluded to as the most
_Scandinavian_ or _Norse_ town of Normandy, the only one indeed where
the Norse language and customs were decidedly retained. These Saxons,
then, may have been Norsemen. But they may equally easily have been
Angles, or Frisians; since a Norse conquest in the tenth is perfectly
compatible with a German in the fifth century; and, in Britain, such was
actually the case.
2. The _Littus Saxonicum_ is a term in the _Notitia Dignitatum_, which
appears in three places. In chapter xxxvi, where we have the details of
the sea-coast of Gaul, under the denomination of the _Tractus
Armoricanus_, the first officer--
[§. 1.] Sub dispositione viri spectabilis Ducis Tractus Armoricani et
Nervicani--
Is--
[A] [1.] Tribunus Cohortis Primæ Novæ Armoricæ Grannona in Littore
Saxonico.
_b._ CAP. xxxvii. [§. 1.] Sub Dispositione viri spectabilis Ducis
Belgicæ Secundæ--
[1.] Equites Dalmatæ Marcis in Littore Saxonico.
_c._ These but give us a _Littus Saxonicum_ in Gaul. The 25th chapter
supplies one for Britain, and that with considerable detail--
[§. 1.] Sub dispositione viri spectabilis comitis Littoris Saxonici per
Britanniam:
[1.] Præpositus Numeri Fortensium Othonæ.
[2.] Præpositus Militum Tungricanorum Dubris, &c.
It is not necessary to go through the detail. It is sufficient to say
that we find stations at the following undoubted localities--Brancaster,
Yarmouth, Reculvers, Richborough, Dover, Lymne, and the mouth of the
Adur. Putting this together it is safe to say that the whole line of
coast from the Wash to the Southampton water was, in the reign of
Honorius, if not earlier, a _Littus Saxonicum_--whatever may have been
the import of that term.
Looking over the preceding details we find how hazardous it would
be to predicate concerning the several populations designated as
_Saxons_ any single statement beyond that of their having been
pirates from the north-German sea-board. Some may have been Angle,
some Frisian, some Platt-Deutsch, some Scandinavian. Nay, the name
_Adovacrius_=_Odoacer_=_Ottocar_, may have belonged to a Slavonian
captain, whatever may have been the country of the crew.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] The compound is of the same kind with the English words Dor-_set_,
and Somer-_set_, _i.e._, from the Anglo-Saxon _sætan_=_settlers_.
[21] This is so mixed up with Danish as scarcely to be Frisian.
CHAPTER X.
THE ANGLES OF GERMANY--IMPERFECT RECONSTRUCTION OF THEIR HISTORY--
THEIR HEROIC AGE.--BEOWULF.--CONQUEST OF ANGLEN.--ANECDOTE FROM
PROCOPIUS.--THEIR REDUCTION UNDER THE CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY.--THE
ANGLES OF THURINGIA.
As the previous chapter has shewn that a Saxon population, considered
simply as such, and without reference to the particular fact of its
date, locality, and similar important circumstances, may be in any or no
ethnological relation to the Angle (_i.e._, absolutely Angle under a
Keltic name, or, on the other hand, as little Angle as the Slavonians),
the attempt at the reconstruction of the history of all the Germanic
conquerors of Britain during the period of their occupation of Germany,
although, perhaps, not impracticable as the subject of a special
investigation, and as the matter of an elaborate monograph, must, in a
sketch like the present, be limited to that of the unequivocal and
undoubted Angles--this meaning those who are not only _Angle_ in
reality, but whose actions are described under the name of _Angle_. It
is only when this is the case that we can be sure of our men. A Saxon,
as aforesaid, may be anything, provided he be but a pirate. The greater
part, too, of the actions of the _Saxons_ can be shewn to have been
effected by the _Old_-Saxons rather than the _Anglo_-Saxons, and even by
Franks and Frisians. Indeed, it is not too much to assert that, with the
exception of the invasion of Britain and Sleswick, there is no recorded
act of any Saxon population which cannot be more fairly attributed to
some of the other allied sections of the Germanic stock than to the
Angle. That this was the case with the Saxons of the Gallic
frontier--the Saxons that, in the earlier periods of their history, came
into collision with Julian, and, in the later ones, with Charlemagne, is
undoubted; and, that it was also the case with the earlier Saxon pirates
of the coasts of Gaul and Britain is likely--though I do not press this
point. What I am considering now is the _unequivocal_ history of the
Angles of Germany under their own proper name. I have said that it is
fragmentary. It is more than this. The fragments themselves are
heterogeneous.
An Englishman, representing as he does the _insular_ Angles, and looking
to the part that _they_ have played in the world, may, with either pride
or regret, as the case may be, say that on their native soil of Germany,
the Angle history is next to a non-entity. It is like that of the
Majiars of Asia. What our ancestors did at home before they became the
Englishmen of Great Britain may have been of any amount of importance,
or, of any amount of insignificance. They were deeds without a record.
As to our own collateral relations, they suffered rather than acted.
They have, indeed, a history, but it is a history neither full nor
glorious.
The poem of Beowulf, an extract from Beda, and a similar extract from
Procopius constitute the notices that continue the history--if so it can
be called--of the Angles from the time of Ptolemy to the beginning of
the seventh century, and even these are doubtful in their
interpretation.
Beowulf is a poem in the Anglo-Saxon language, and, in the alliterative
metre of the Anglo-Saxon compositions in general, of unknown date and
authorship, of upwards of six thousand lines; a poem which, although
preserved in England, and in a form adapted to English hearers
subsequent to the conversion of our island to Christianity, is
essentially pagan and German--pagan in respect to its superstitions and
machinery, and German in respect to the scene of action; for in Germany,
and not in England, are all its actions achieved. This being the case,
it cannot but tell us _something_ of the ancient Germans; and, as the
hero is an _Angle_, the ancient Germans of whom this _something_ is
told, are, more or less, the _Angle_ ancestors of the English in their
original continental home.
Much more than this it is unsafe to say. The composition itself is a
poem--a romance--an epic. This is against the historical value of its
subject-matter. Then, it has taken its present form under the hands of a
Christian. This is against its value as cotemporaneous evidence.
Thirdly, it has the character, to no small extent, not only of a
rhapsody, but of a rhapsody of which the elements are heterogeneous.
This is against its value as a piece of _Anglicism_.
Nick and Grendel--the old Nick of the present English, and
Grendel--probably, the Geruthus of Saxo Grammaticus--are the chief
supernaturals, demons of the swamp and fen. These best localize the
legends in which they appear; for which most parts of Hanover and the
Cimbric Chersonesus suit indifferently, the Frisian portions
pre-eminently, well. The more exalted mythology of Woden, Thor, and
Balder, so generally considered to have been all-pervading in Germany
and Scandinavia, finds no place in Beowulf. Our Devil and the Devil's
Dam are rough analogues of Nick and Grendel.
Heort is the great palatial hall of Hroðgar, the kingly personage of the
poem, Beowulf being the hero. It stands in some part of the Cimbric
Chersonese. Seeing in this, as a _word_, only another form of the name
Hartz, I also see in it a proof of the rhapsodical character of the
poem, and the heterogeneous character of its elements.
An episode, of which Sigmund is the hero, gives us a narrative in which
we have, in an altered form, and an obscure outline, a portion of the
Nibelungenlied cycle--an element from the Rhine.
Another gives us an adventure apparently without a hero, or rather an
adventure whose hero has no proper name, but only a designating
adjective. Considering the indistinct shape which all legends take in
Beowulf, I cannot but think that the individual whose name stands in the
text as _Stearc heart_, and in the translation as _Strong-heart_, is
neither more nor less than the great Danish hero _Starcather_, of a not
unlike legend in Saxo.
Danes, Geats, Frisians, and Sweas (Swedes), are the populations with
whom the Angles are most brought in contact; and the following extract
shews the manner of their mention. The parties, here, are Jutish Danes
and Frisians.
1. "Hroðgar's poet after the mead-bench must excite joy in the hall,
concerning Finn's descendants, when the expedition came upon them;
Healfdene's hero, Hnæf the Scylding, was doomed to fall in
Friesland. Hildeburh had at least no cause to praise the fidelity of
the Jutes; guiltlessly was she deprived at the war-game of her
beloved sons and brothers; one after another they fell wounded with
javelins; that was a mournful lady. Not in vain did Hoce's daughter
mourn their death, after morning came, when she under the heaven
might behold the slaughterer of her son, where he before possessed
the most of earthly joys: war took away all Finn's thanes, except
only a few, so that he might not on the place of meeting gain any
thing by fighting against Hengest, nor defend in war his wretched
remnant against the king's thane; but they offered him conditions,
that they would give up to him entirely a second palace, a hall, and
throne, so that they should halve the power with the sons of the
Jutes, and at the gifts of treasure every day Folcwalda's son should
honour the Danes, the troops of Hengest should serve them with
rings, with hoarded treasures of solid gold, even as much as he
would furnish the race of Frisians in the beer-hall. There they
confirmed on both sides a fast treaty of peace. Finn strongly,
undisputingly, engaged by oath to Hengest, that he would graciously
maintain the poor survivors according to the judgment of his Witan,
that there no man, either by word or work, should break the peace,
nor through hostile machinations ever recall the quarrel, although
they, deprived of their prince, must follow the slaughterer of him
that gave them rings, since they were so compelled: if, then, any
one of the Frisians with insolent speech should make allusion to the
deadly feud, that then the edge of the sword should avenge it. The
oath was completed, and heaped up gold was borne from the hoard of
the warlike Scyldings: the best of warriors was ready upon the pile;
at the pile was easy to be seen the mail-shirt coloured with gore,
the hog of gold, the boar hard as iron, many a noble crippled with
wounds: some fell upon the dead. Then at Hnæf's pile Hildeburh
commanded her own son to be involved in flames, to burn his body,
and to place him on the pile, wretchedly upon his shoulder the lady
mourned; she lamented with songs; the warrior mounted the pile; the
greatest of death-fires whirled; the welkin sounded before the
mound; the mail-hoods melted; the gates of the wounds burst open;
the loathly bite of the body, when the blood sprang forth; the
flame, greediest of spirits, devoured all those whom there death
took away: of both the people was the glory departed.
"Thence the warriors set out to visit their dwellings, deprived of
friends, to see Friesland, their homes and lofty city; Hengest yet,
during the deadly-coloured winter, dwelt with Finn, boldly, without
casting of lots he cultivated the land, although he might drive upon
the sea the ship with the ringed prow; the deep boiled with storms,
wan against the wind, winter locked the wave with a chain of ice,
until the second year came to the dwellings; so doth yet, that which
eternally, happily provideth weather gloriously bright. When the
winter was departed, and the bosom of the earth was fair, the
wanderer set out to explore, the stranger from his dwellings. He
thought the more of vengeance than of his departing over the sea, if
he might bring to pass a hostile meeting, since he inwardly
remembered the sons of the Jutes. Thus he avoided not death when
Hunláf's descendant plunged into his bosom the flame of war, the
best of swords; therefore were among the Jutes, known by the edge of
the sword, what warriors bold of spirit Finn afterwards fell in
with, savage sword-slaughter at his own dwelling; since Guðláf and
Osláf after the sea-journey mourned the sorrow, the grim onset: they
avenged a part of their loss; nor might the cunning of mood refrain
in his bosom, when his hall was surrounded with the men of his foes.
Finn also was slain. The king amidst his band, and the queen was
taken; the warriors of the Scyldings bore to their ships all the
household wealth of the mighty king which they could find in Finn's
dwelling, the jewels and carved gems; they over the sea carried the
lordly lady to the Danes--led her to their people. The lay was sung,
the song of the glee-man, the joke rose again, the noise from the
benches grew loud, cupbearers gave the wine from wondrous vessels."
Hengist appears here as a Jute. Another English name, that of Offa,
occurs in the following:
2. "Hæredh's daughter; she was nevertheless not condescending, nor
too liberal of gifts, of hoarded treasures, to the people of the
Geáts; the violent queen of the people exercised violence of mood, a
terrible crime; no one of the dear comrades dared to venture upon
that beast, save her wedded lord, who daily looked upon her with
his eyes, but she allotted to him appointed bonds of
slaughter,--twisted with hands: soon after, after the clutch of
hands, was the matter settled with the knife, so that the excellent
sword must apportion the affair, must make known the fatal evil:
such is no womanly custom for a lady to accomplish, comely though
she be, that the weaver of peace should pursue for his life, should
follow with anger a dear man: that indeed disgusted Hemming's
kinsman. Others said, while drinking the ale, that she had committed
less mighty mischief, less crafty malice, since she was first given,
surrounded with gold, to the young warrior, the noble beast: since
by her father's counsel she sought, in a journey over the fallow
flood, the palace of Offa, where she afterwards well on her throne
in good repute living, enjoyed the living creations, and held high
love with the prince of men, the best between two seas of all
mankind, of the whole race of men, so far as I have heard: for Offa
the spear-bold warrior was far renowned both for his liberalities
and his wars, in wisdom he held his native inheritance, when he the
sad warrior sprang for the assistance of men, he the kinsman of
Hemming, the nephew of Garmund, mighty in warfare."
Beowulf approaches his end; the ceremonies of his funeral are described
in detail, the political complications created by his death are alluded
to:--
3. "Now is the joy-giver of the people of the Westerns, the Lord of
the Geáts, fast on the death-bed, he dwelleth in fatal rest: by him
lieth his deadly foe, sick with seax-wounds; with his sword he could
not by any means work a wound upon the wretch. Wigláf, Wihstán's
son, sitteth over Beówulf, one warrior over the other deprived of
life holdeth sorrowfully ward of good and evil: now may the people
expect a time of war, as soon as the fall of the king becomes
published among the Franks and Frisians: the feud was established,
fierce against the Hugas, after Hygelác came sailing with a fleet to
Friesland, where his foes humbled him from his war, boldly they went
with a superior force, so that the warrior must bow, he fell in
battle, nor did the chieftain give treasure to his valiant comrades:
ever since peace with the sea-wicings denied us: nor do I expect
peace or fidelity from Sweeden, but it was widely known that
Ongentheów deprived of life Hætheyn the Hrethling, beside
Hrefna-wood when for their pride the war-Scylfings first sought the
people of the Geáts. Soon did the prudent father of Ohthere, old and
terrible, give him a blow with the hand; he deprived the sea-king of
the troop of maidens, the old man took the old virgin, hung round
with gold, the mother of Onela and Ohthere, and then pursued the
homicides until they escaped with difficulty into Hrefnes-holt,
deprived of their Lord: then with a mighty force did he beset those
that the sword had left, weary with their wounds: shame did he often
threaten to the wretched race, the whole night long: he said that he
in the morning would take them with the edges of the sword, some he
would hang on the gallowses, for his sport: comfort came again to
the sad of mood, with early day, since they perceived the horn and
trumpets of Hygelác, when the good prince came upon their track with
the power of his people.
"For him then did the people of the Geáts prepare upon the earth a
funeral pile, strong, hung round with helmets, with war-boards and
bright Byrnies, as he had requested: weeping the heroes then laid
down, in the midst their dear lord; then began the warriors to awake
upon the hill the mightiest of bale fires; the wood-smoke rose
aloft, dark from the foe of wood; noisily it went, mingled with
weeping: the mixture of the wind lay on till it had broken the
bonehouse, hot in his breast: sad in mind, sorry of mood they moaned
the death of their lord:--The people of the Westerns wrought then a
mound over the sea, it was high and broad, easy to behold by the
sailors over the waves, and during ten days they built up the beacon
of the war-renowned, the mightiest of fires; they surrounded it with
a wall, in the most honourable manner that wise men could devise it:
they put into the mound rings and bright gems,--all such ornaments
as the fierce-minded men had before taken from the hoard; they
suffered the earth to hold the treasure of warriors, gold on the
the sand, there it yet remaineth as useless to men as it was of old.
Then round the mound rode a troop of beasts of war, of nobles,
twelve in all: they would speak about the king, they would call him
to mind, they would relate the song of words, they would themselves
speak: they praised his valour, and his deeds of bravery they judged
with praise, even as it is fitting that a man should extol his
friendly Lord, should love him in his soul, when he must depart from
the body to become valueless. Thus the people of the Geáts, his
domestic comrades, mourned their dear Lord; they said that he was of
the kings of the world, the mildest and gentlest of men, the most
gracious to his people, and the most jealous of glory."
That Norse, Frisian, Angle, and other Germanic elements are combined in
this poem is certain; and, looking to the extent to which Beowulf, the
hero, besides other points of indistinctness in respect to his
personality, is Geat as well as Angle, I cannot but suspect an
incorporation of some Slavonic and Lithuanic ones as well. _Finn_, too,
as a hero, not of the Laps and Finlanders (to whom he would be the
proper eponymus), but of the Frisians, creates a further complication.
Hroðgar, too, the Dane or Jute, has a name inconveniently unlike that of
the more historical Radiger who will soon come under notice.
The chief fact we get from Beowulf is, as is generally the case with
early poems, one in the history of Fiction; and, to guard against
disparaging such facts as these, let us remember that the history of
Fiction is the history of the Commerce of Ideas.
Now Beowulf tells us that, at the time of its composition, at latest,
and, probably, much earlier, there was a certain interchange of legend
or history between the Danes, Swedes, Lombards, Franks, Angles,
Frisians, and Geats. We may say, then, that the Angli had an Heroic Age.
In respect to their historic epoch, a well-known notice in Beda, freely
adopted by most of his after-comers, deduces the Angles from that part
of Germany which he calls _Angulus_, between the provinces of the Jutes
and Saxons, and which up to his own time remained a waste--"patria quæ
_Angulus_ dicitur, et ab eo tempore usque hodie desertus inter
provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur."
The Saxon Chronicle simply translates this. Alfred strengthens it,
writing that there "the English dwelt before they came hither."--_i.e._,
to England.
Ethelweard speaks of "Anglia vetus, sita inter Saxones et Giotos, habens
oppidum capitale, quod sermone Saxonico _Sleswic_ nuncupatur, secundum
vero Danos, _Hathaby_."
A well-known locality in the Duchy of Sleswick supplies the commentary
on these texts. A triangular block of land, about the size of the county
of Middlesex, is bounded on two of its sides by the Slie and the Firth
of Flensburg, and on the third by the road from that town to Sleswick.
Many writers think that the Angles should be placed here; and, thinking
this, maintain that no population except that of the Angles or some
closely allied tribe has a claim to be considered as the early occupants
of Holstein and Sleswick. They overlook, however, the important fact
that Ptolemy, who places the _Angili_ in a locality far south of the
parts in question, places, in those parts, populations which he
separates from his _Angili_. They also overlook the still more important
fact that the only populations earlier than the present of which
definite traces can be discovered in either Holstein or Sleswick, are
the Frisians and the Slavonians--the Frisians on the west, and the
Slavonians on the east.
In another point of view this district is important, although the line
of criticism upon which it has its bearing is gradually becoming
obsolete. When the direct influence of the Danes and Norwegians upon the
language of Britain was less recognized than it is now, it was by no
means uncommon to explain such Scandinavian words as occurred by the
assumption that they were _Angle_ as opposed to _Saxon_, the Angle being
the most Danish of all the proper German dialects--transitional,
perhaps, to the Teutonic and Scandinavian divisions of the so-called
Gothic stock. This was a line of criticism difficult to refute; since
the advocate of the Angle origin of Danish words might fairly argue that
it was not enough to shew that a word was Scandinavian. It must also be
shewn to have been non-existent in the North-German dialects. This
brought in the proverbial difficulty of proving a negative assertion.
Hence, the district of Anglen and Beda's statement concerning it are
important.
Now, at the present moment, this district of Anglen is just as _Angle_
or _English_ as the rest of Germany--that is, next to not at all. It is
Low German, tinctured with Danish; having once been more Danish still,
as is shewn by the geographical names ending in -_by_, -_skov_, and
-_gaard_.
The only piece of truly cotemporary evidence in Beda is the statement of
its being a _waste_ when he wrote, and this is better explained by
supposing it to have been a March, or Debateable Land, between the
Germanic and Danish occupants of Sleswick, than by the notion that it
was left empty by the exodus of its occupants to Great Britain. The
deduction of the Angli from an improbably small area, on the wrong side
of the Peninsula, must be looked upon as an inference under the garb of
a tradition. Such I believe it to have been; freely, however, admitted
that if Anglen poured forth upon England even half the Angles that
England contained, it was likely enough to have been most effectually
emptied.
At one time I went further than the mere denial of _Anglen_ being the
original home of the _Angles_ in the exclusive manner that Beda so
evidently considers it, and looked upon the word as a mere translation
of the word _Angulus_--since the area in question is certainly one of
the nooks and corners of the Peninsula. But the fact of there being one
or two small outlying districts, retaining (I believe) certain
privileges, beyond the area bounded by the Slie, the Firth of Flensburg
and the road to Sleswick, in the parts about Leck and Bredsted, and on
the North-Frisian frontier, has modified this view, and inclined me to
the notion that the _Anglen_ districts of Sleswick were really
_Angle_--though Angle only in the way that Britain was Angle, _i.e._,
from the effect of an invasion from Hanover. If so, although we fail in
finding in Sleswick the mother-country of the English, we get a detail
in the history of the Angles of Germany instead--this being that certain
Angles, probably at the time they were reducing Britain, may have turned
their faces northwards, and effected settlements in certain parts of
Sleswick, having, previously, reached the Trave. Hence they achieved a
small maritime conquest on the coast of the Baltic, just as they
effected certain large ones on the shores of Britain. Why do I suppose
this to have been by sea? Because, when true history begins, whatever
the men of _Anglen_ in Sleswick may have been, the intermediate parts of
Holstein are Wagrian. The settlement, then, in Anglen, is just a detail
in the naval history of the Angles, during the period of their rise and
progress--that is, if it be anything Angle at all.
A notice of Procopius now finds place. An Angle princess betrothed to
Radiger, prince of the Varni, is deserted by her promised husband for
Theodechild, his father's widow, and avenges herself by sailing for the
mouth of the Rhine with a large fleet, conquering her undervaluer,
forgiving him as women are likely, and dismissing her rival, as they are
sure to do in such cases. To deny "all historical foundation to this
tale," writes Mr. Kemble,[22] "would perhaps be carrying scepticism to
an unreasonable extent. Yet the most superficial examination proves that
in all its details, at least, it is devoid of accuracy. The period
during which the events described must be placed, is between the years
534 and 547; and it is very certain that the Varni were not settled at
that time where Procopius has placed them; on that locality we can only
look for Saxons. It is hardly necessary to say that a fleet of four
hundred ships and an army of one hundred thousand Angles, led by a
woman, are not data upon which we could implicitly rely in calculating
either the political or military power of any English principality at
the commencement of the sixth century, or that ships capable of carrying
two hundred-and-fifty men each, had hardly been launched at that time
from any port in England. Still I am not altogether disposed to deny the
possibility of predatory expeditions from the settled parts of the
island adjoining the eastern coasts."
From this criticism I only differ in thinking that, instead of Procopius
having mistaken Saxons for Varni, he has mistaken the Elbe for the
Rhine.
It is a point of some uncertainty, but of no great importance to
ascertain whether the Angle subjects of the insulted but forgiveful
princess were from Britain or from Hanover--islanders already in a state
of reaction against their continental fatherland, or simply Angles of
the Elbe. The accounts of Procopius respecting both countries are
eminently obscure and contradictory. It is only certain that as early as
the ninth century there were continental writers who attributed to the
Germans of Britain movements from the Island to the Continent as far
back from their own time as the fifth century. Nay, later still, there
were some historians who wholly reversed the order of Anglo-Saxon
migration, and deduced the true Fatherland Germans from England.
And now the history of the rise and progress of the Angles on the soil
of Germany ends. Even if it can be increased there is but _modicum_ of
information. Yet we could scarcely expect more. On the contrary, why
should not the Angles have shared the total obscurity of the Nuithones,
Sigulones, and others? What population amongst those with which they
came in contact could have recorded their alliances, their victories, or
their defeats? Not the Frisians, who were unlettered as long as they
were Pagan, and Pagan until the tenth century. Not the Slavonians, whose
spiritual and intellectual darkness was equal. Not the Romans, for
reasons already given. There only remained the Gauls and Britons. But,
unfortunately, in the eyes of the Gauls and Britons, although all Angles
were Saxons, all Saxons were not Angles--so that the proportion of
proper Angle history which we have in the Gallic and British accounts of
the Saxons cannot be determined.
The history of the Saxons of the continent has been stated to have been
the history of the _Old_-Saxons. And up to the time of Beda, and about
half a century later, such was the case. Hence, the rule is as
follows--where we hear of Saxon actions by sea, the actors may be
Old-Saxons, Angles, Frisians, Scandinavians, or Slavonians, and where
we hear of actions on the _Terra Firma_ of Germany, and also in the
times anterior to B.C. 800, the actors are Old-Saxons rather than
Anglo-Saxons. In this case, except in Britain, we have little or no
Angle history under the name of Saxon; and, as there is equally little
under the name of Angle, we have, as has been already seen, next to no
Angle history at all--_i.e._, _in Germany_.
But with the reign of Charlemagne the criticism changes. The _Saxon_
history, even in Germany, becomes _Anglo_-Saxon, as well as _Old_-Saxon,
and it may be that the events are pretty equally distributed between the
two divisions. The reason is clear. The arms of Southern and Middle
Europe have penetrated to the parts beyond the Weser, and it only
requires the _Angles_ to be described under their own proper name
(instead of that of Saxon) for us to have the materials of an average
history. It is a sickening and revolting history, and a history that few
nations but the English can afford. Throughout the whole length and
breadth of Germany there is not one village, hamlet, or family which can
shew definite signs of descent from the continental ancestors of the
Angles of England. There is not a man, woman, or child who can say, _I
have pure Angle blood in my veins_. In no nook or corner can dialect or
sub-dialect of the most provincial form of the German speech be found
which shall have a similar pedigree with the English. The Angles of the
Continent are either exterminated or undistinguishably mixed up with the
other Germans in proportions more or less large, and in combinations
more or less heterogeneous. And the history of the Conquest and
Conversion of the Saxons by Charlemagne is the history of this
extinction. It is this that makes it so impossible to argue backwards
from the present state of the Angles of Germany to an earlier one, and
so to reconstruct their history. They have _no_ present state. Neither
have the _Old_-Saxons--their next of kin. Of the Frisians only, the next
nearest, there are still fragments; for, although the enemy of the
Old-Saxons and the Anglo-Saxons was the enemy of the Frisians also, he
was not equally their exterminator. They may or may not have been braver
than the Angles and Old-Saxons. They certainly occupied a more
impracticable country. To this period--the period of their
reduction--the Angli and Werini of Thuringia are attributed. They may,
indeed, have got there as they did to Sleswick, by conquest, and at an
earlier period. If so, there was an alliance. They were, however, more
probably transplanted.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Saxons in England, i. 24.
CHAPTER XI.
RECAPITULATIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.--PROPOSITIONS RESPECTING THE
KELTIC CHARACTER OF THE ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS OF BRITAIN, ETC.--THE
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE ANCIENT BRITONS AND THE ANCIENT GAULS,
ETC.--THE SCOTCH GAELS.--THE PICTS.--THE DATE OF THE GERMANIC
INVASIONS.--THE NAMES ANGLE AND SAXON.
Of the British Isles at the time of the Angle invasion we have effected
a sketch, rather than a picture; a sketch indistinct in outline, and
with several of its details almost invisible. Nevertheless, it is a
sketch in which some of the points are pretty clear. Germans of one or
more varieties, Kelts either Gaelic or British, Picts who may be
anything, Romans and Roman Legionaries are the chief elements. These we
have had to distribute in Time and Space as we best could. We have also
had, as we best could, to investigate their relations to each other.
Let us look back upon what has been attempted in this respect.
And first in respect to our _data_. The statements of the early authors,
and the value which is due to them, have formed the subject of a
separate chapter;[23] and it is hoped, that, without any undue
disparagement, they have been shewn to be valid only when they are
opposed to a very small amount of either conflicting facts or _a priori_
improbabilities. I also lay but little stress upon them when they assert
a negative, and equally little when their apparent testimony may be
reduced to an inference. Their absolute testimony, however, must be
taken as we find it.
Partly for the sake of recapitulation, and partly with the view to give
a further investigation to certain questions which could not well be
considered until certain preliminary facts had been laid before the
reader, the more important inferences are put in form of the following
propositions, to some of which a commentary is attached.
I.
_The British Isles were peopled from the Keltic portion of the continent
originally and exclusively._
This implies an objection to the doctrine of any _pre_-Keltic
population, and to the inferences deduced from certain real or supposed
peculiarities in the shape of the skulls from the tumuli of the Stone
period. (_See_ pp. 26-27.)
II.
_The Gaels cannot be derived from the Britons, nor the Britons from the
Gaels; on the contrary, each branch must have been developed from some
common stock._
This rests upon the differences between the British and Gaelic
languages. (_See_ Chapter V.)
III.
_Of this common stock the British branch, at least, must have been
developed on the continent._ (_See_ Chapter VI.)
This, of course, assumes that the Galli of Gaul were not derived from
Britain; a view which has never been adopted, and which probably has so
little to recommend it as to make its investigation superfluous.
The British language of Britain and the Gaelic of Gaul would not have
been so much alike as they were had they developed themselves
separately, each after their own fashion.
This last proposition depends, however, to a great extent, upon the
following, viz., that--
IV.
_The similarity between the ancient language of Gaul and the ancient
language of Britain is measured by that between the present Welsh and
the Armorican of Brittany._
The arguments of pp. 86-87, resting as they do upon the close
relationship between the ancient language of Gaul[24] and the
British--would be materially impaired by any thing which subtracted from
the evidence in favour of that relationship.
Now the present Welsh and the present Armorican of Brittany are
languages that are very nearly mutually intelligible.
And as the Armorican represents the ancient Gallic, and the Welsh the
ancient British, the affinity between the two old tongues must have
been, at least, equal to that between the two new ones.
But what if the Armorican do not represent the ancient Gallic, but be
merely so much Welsh or Cornish transferred to Brittany in the fifth
century? In such a case the argument is materially weakened.
Now there is a certain amount of statements to this very effect, viz.,
to the Welsh origin of the Armorican. Let them be examined.
Gildas, who mentions the rebellion of Maximus, says nothing of any
British migration to Brittany.
Nennius gives us an account beset with inaccuracies, being to the effect
that Maximus the seventh _imperator_ in Britain, left the island with
all the British soldiers it contained, killed Gratian King of Rome, and
held rule over all Europe; that he would not dismiss the soldiers who
went with him, but gave them lands in Armorica or the country _over-sea_
(_Ar-mor_-); that, then and there, these soldiers of Maximus slaughtered
all the males, married the females, and cut out their tongues lest the
children should learn the language of their parents instead of that of
their conquerors. For this reason we call them _Letewicion_, or,
_half-silent_ (_semi-tacentes_). Thus was Brittany peopled, and Britain
emptied; so that strangers took possession of it.
Beda's account is equally unsatisfactory. The Britons were the first who
came into the island, and they came _from_ Armorica. It was _from_
Armorica that they came, it was in the south of England that they
landed, and it was they who gave the name to the island.
Now there is an error somewhere--if not in Beda, in Nennius; if not in
Nennius, in Beda.
Traditions are uniform, inferences vary; and when Nennius brings his
Armoricans from Cornwall, and Beda his Cornishmen from Armorica, we have
a presumption against a _tradition_ being the basis of their statements.
The real basis was the existence of the British language on both sides
of the Channel, a fact which being differently interpreted by the
different writers gave us two separate and contradictory
inferences--each legitimate, and each (for want of further _data_)
wrong.
The present similarity, then, between the Welsh and Armorican remains
unaffected by the statements of Beda and Nennius; and the commonsense
inference as to the latter language representing the ancient Gallic
takes its course.
V.
_The Belgæ were Kelts of the British branch._
This implies an objection to all the arguments in favour of a Germanic
population occupant of Britain anterior to the Christian era, which are
based on the name _Belgæ_. (_See_ pp. 61-75.)
VI.
_The Gaelic branch of the Keltic stock may have been developed in either
the British Isles or on the continent._--(Chapter V.)
The following list of words in Professor Newman's _Regal Rome_, shewing
that a remarkable class of words in Latin were Keltic rather than native
and Gaelic rather than Welsh, and which was unpublished when the fifth
chapter was written, favours the doctrine of the Gaels having been
continental as well as insular to an extent for which I was previously
unprepared:--
ENGLISH. LATIN. GAELIC.
_Arms_ arma arm.
_Weapon_ telum tailm.
_Helmet_ galea galia.
_Shield_ scutum sgiath.
_Arrow_ sagitta saighead.
_Coat of Mail_ lorica liureach.
_Spoils_ spolia spuill.
_Necklace_ monile fail-muineil.
_Point_ cuspis cusp.
_Spear_ quiris[25] coir.
It also favours Lhuyd's hypothesis rather than the Hibernian. (_See_ pp.
88-89.)
VII.
_The earliest ethnology of Scotland was that the earliest Britons,
_i.e._, either British as opposed to Gaelic, or Gaelic which,
subsequently, became as British as South Britain itself._
This means that the present Gaels were not aboriginal to the Scotch
Highlands, except in the sense that they were aboriginal to Kent or
Wales. (_See_ pp. 88-89.)
VIII.
_The present Scotch Gaels are of Irish origin._
These two propositions go together; involving an objection to the
so-called "Caledonian hypothesis" (p. 89), with which they are
incompatible. Nevertheless, anything confirmatory of that hypothesis
would, _pro tanto_, invalidate the present.
The chief facts upon which this doctrine rest are--
1st. The absence of the term _sliabh_, the current Gaelic form for
_mountain_, throughout Scotland--even in the Gaelic parts of it.
2nd. The great extent to which the forms in _aber_ are found northwards
(see p. 81). These occur so far beyond the Pict area, that, although so
good a writer as Mr. Kemble has allowed himself to make it commensurate
with the British, and although his list of compounds of _aber_ has been
placed in the present writer's chapter on the Picts, as an illustration
of a certain line of criticism, the inference that they were Britons in
North-Briton _other than Pict_ is highly probable. Hence in the northern
parts, at least, the word _aber_ was used not because the country was
Pict, but because it was British.
It is well known that the doctrine is, in respect to its results, the
current one; from which it differs in resting on ethnological inference,
rather than on a piece of history.
The historical account is to the effect, that the _Scots_ of Scotland
were originally Irish, so that _Ire_land was the true and proper
_Scot_land. It was Ireland where the Scots dwelt when the Picts came
from Scythia, Ireland whence the Picts took their Scottish wives; and,
finally, Ireland that gave its present Gaelic population to North
Britain. Under a leader named _Reuda_ the Scots of Ireland sailed across
the Irish Sea, penetrated far into the Firth of Clyde, settled
themselves to the north of the Picts, drove that nation southwards,
multiplied their kind in the Highlands, and called themselves _Dalriads_
(_Dalreudini_), since _Reuda_ was the name of their chief, and _daal_
meant _part_. The point where the Scots landed was just where
the British and Pict areas joined, the parts about Alcluith or
Dumbarton--"procedente autem tempore, Britannia post Brittones et
Pictos, tertiam Scottorum nationem in Pictorum parte recepit, qui duce
Reuda de Hibernia progressi vel amicitia vel ferro sibimet inter eos
sedes quas hactenus habent, vindicarunt; a quo videlicet duce usque
hodie _dalreudini_ vocantur, nam eorum lingua 'daal' _partem_
significat."--Hist. Eccl. i. 1.
To agree with Beda in making the Gaels of Scotland intrusive, but to
demur to his evidence, is, apparently, to substitute a bad reason for a
good one without affecting the conclusion, _i.e._, gratuitously. We
shall soon see how far this is the case.
At present, I remark that all Scotland may have been British without
having been wholly Pict; and that--
The parts of Scotland which were not Gaelic at the beginning of the
Historical period and have not been so since, never were.[26]
IX.
_The Picts may or may not have been the British Kelts of Scotland: this
depending upon the extent to which the gloss _penn fahel_ is a word
belonging to the Pict tongue, or only a word belonging to a language
spoken within the Pict territory._
Why should it not be Pict? Why disturb the inference by suggesting that
they may be Pict only as _man_ or _woman_ are Welsh, _i.e._, words other
than Pict, but words used in a Pict area just as English is spoken in
the Welsh town of Swansea? I admit that, if we look only to the plain
and straight-forward meaning of Beda, this refinement is unnecessary.
There are, however, certain complications.
_Daal_=_part_, is suspiciously like the German _theil_, the English
_deal_, the Anglo-Saxon _dæl_, the Norse _del_, _dal_; indeed, it is a
wonder that Beda took it for a foreign word. Hence, gloss for gloss, it
is _nearly_ as good evidence for the Picts being German or Norse as
_penn fahel_ is for their being Briton. I say _nearly_, because it is
expressly stated to have been _Scotch_. But this it is not. What, then,
is our next best explanation? To suppose it to have been a word used by
a population other than Scotch, but on the Scotch frontier. Now this
population was Pict.
X.
_The Dalriad Conquest may or may not have been real. Being real, it may
or may not have given origin to the Gaelic population of Scotland._
This means that Beda's evidence, being exceptionable, may be wholly
false--except so far as it is an inference from the existence of Gaels
in both Ireland and the Western Highlands.
Even if true as to the fact, its ethnological importance may be
over-valued, since the investigation of the origin of the Scotch Gaels
inquires, not whether any Irish Scots ever appropriated any part of
Scotland, but whether such an appropriation were the one which accounts
for the Gaelic population of North Britain. This is the difference
between _a_ conquest and _the_ conquest--a difference too often
overlooked.
I should not like to say that the Picts were not Scandinavians, a point
which will be treated more fully in the thirteenth chapter. Hence--
XI.
_Scandinavian settlements may have taken place as early as the earliest
notices of the Picts._
In this case the lines would be--Norway, North Scotland, the Hebrides,
Ireland and Galloway.
XII.
_Germanic elements existed in Britain in the reign of Diocletian._
The notices of the Franks in Kent and Middlesex suggest this. (_See_ p.
96.)
XIII.
_The Littus Saxonicum must have been ravaged by Germans as early as the
reign of Honorius._
This must be admitted even if we construe _Saxonicum_ as _ravaged by
Saxons_, rather than _occupied by Saxons_--a construction which is so
little natural, that I doubt whether it would ever have been resorted to
if the language of Gildas had not been supposed to preclude the notion
of any Saxon invasion anterior to A.D. 449. We have seen, however, how
little that writer was in the position to make a negative statement,
_i.e._, to state, not only that Hengist and Horsa came over in a given
year, but that none of their countrymen ever did so in a previous one.
XIV.
_No distinction need be drawn between the Angles and the Saxons of Great
Britain on the strength of the difference of name._
This, however, by no means implies that they are to be identified. It
merely means that the name goes for but little; and that the difference
of origin between the different portions of the Germanic population of
Britain is to be determined by the facts of each particular case.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Chapter vii.
[24] Here is one out of the thousand-and-one inconveniences arising from
our present philological nomenclature. I am _contrasting_ two languages
with each other: yet their _names_ are as like as _Gallic_ and _Gaelic_.
[25] _Sabine_--Sive quod hasta _quiris_ priscis est dicta
Sabinis.--_Ovid._
[26] This contravenes an opinion to which I have elsewhere committed
myself (_Man and his Migrations_, pp. 161-162). Acting upon the doctrine
that Ireland must be considered to have been peopled from the nearest
part of the nearest land of a more continental character than itself,
unless reason could be shewn to the contrary, I ignored the statement of
Beda altogether, and peopled Ireland from the parts about the Mull of
Cantyre. The present change of opinion has arisen out of no change in
the valuation of Beda's statement. The extent to which the forms in
_aber_ are found in Scotland, and the extent to which the name _sliabh_
(with a few others) is wanting, are the real reasons.
CHAPTER XII.
ANALYSIS OF THE GERMANIC POPULATIONS OF ENGLAND.--THE JUTE ELEMENT
QUESTIONABLE.--FRISIAN ELEMENTS PROBABLE.--OTHER GERMAN ELEMENTS,
HOW FAR PROBABLE.--FORMS IN -ING.
The present chapter will examine the extent to which certain Germanic
populations mentioned by Beda and other writers as having taken part in
the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Great Britain actually did so; it will also
inquire whether certain other populations _not_ so mentioned may not,
nevertheless, have joined in those invasions, although their share in
them has been unrecorded.
_The Jutes._--Did Jutes, rather than Angles or any other allied
population, effect the conquest and occupancy of parts of Hampshire and
the Isle of Wight as they are said to have done?
Let us suppose the case of an American archæologist, in the absence of
any authentic history, reasoning about the origin of the three
populations of Plymouth, New Jersey, and Portsmouth, three populations
lying within no great distance of each other. He knows that, as a
general rule, they are to be deduced from England; and he studies the
map of England accordingly. On the south-coast he finds a Jersey, which
he reasonably infers is the _Old_ Jersey, the mother-country of the
Americans of the _New_. He also finds a Plymouth, from which he draws
the same equally reasonable inference. Lastly, he sees a town named
Portsmouth--and here he repeats his reasoning--reasoning which is
eminently logical, cogent, and apparently conclusive. It passes without
challenge or objection, and the origin of the three populations
gradually loses its inferential character, and assumes that of a fact
founded upon evidence. A writer who adopts his views, perhaps the very
writer himself, more or less unconsciously, next believes that his
doctrine has an historical rather than a logical basis, and it passes
for a fact founded upon records, or at least on tradition. In such a
case a sentence like the following might easily be written--"they"
(viz., the populations of New Jersey, Plymouth, and Portsmouth) "came
from three of the more powerful populations of England, _i.e._, those of
Jersey, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. From those of Jersey came the men of
New Jersey, from those of Plymouth the men of Plymouth, and from those
of Portsmouth the men of the parts so-called." I say that such a
sentence might be written, might pass as a fact, and whether fact or
not, would contain an argument so legitimate as to stand against nine
hundred and ninety-nine objections out of a thousand. Yet the
thousandth might set it aside, since certain facts might have been
overlooked.
What if the name of an original Indian tribe had been Jersey (or some
name like it), or Portsmouth, or Plymouth? The chances, I admit, are
against such an occurrence. But what if it really happened? It cannot be
denied that it would materially shake the inference. Nay more, however
much that inference took the guise of a tradition or record, it would
shake the statement of the author who made it, however unexceptionable.
Still the doctrine might be correct, and not only correct, but capable
of having its correctness demonstrated. Let the name in question be the
one last mentioned--New Jersey. Let the Old Jersey people of England be
like those of Plymouth, but different from them in some definite
characteristics. Let those characteristics re-appear in the New Jersey
men of America. In such a case, the exceptions taken to the statement
from the present existence of an aboriginal Indian population called
_Nujersi_ (for such we will suppose the name to be) would fall to the
ground.
But what if no ethnological acuteness, no etymological sagacity, no
minute analysis of names, traditions, or dialect had ever succeeded in
detecting such _differentiæ_, so that, despite of the endeavours of
learned antiquarians, the men of New Jersey could not be shewn to differ
from those of Plymouth and Portsmouth, whilst all the while the _Old_
Jersey men did so differ. In such a case the objection that was
originally taken from the previous name of the Indian tribe would stand
valid.
_Mutatis mutandis_, this applies to Beda's statement concerning the
Jutes--the statement being as follows:--"Advenerant autem de tribus
Germaniæ populis fortioribus, id est _Saxonibus_, _Anglis_, _Jutis_. De
_Jutarum_ origine sunt _Cantuarii_ et _Vectuarii_, hoc est ea gens, quæ
Vectam tenet insulam, et ea, quæ usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium
Saxonum _Jutarum_ natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam.
De _Saxonibus_, id est ea regione, quæ nunc antiquorum Saxonum
cognominatur, venere _Orientales Saxones_, _Meridiani Saxones_, _Occidui
Saxones_. Porro de _Anglis_, hoc est de illa patria, quæ Angulus dicitur
et ab eo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et
Saxonum perhibetur, _Orientales Angli_, _Mediterranei Angli_, _Mercii_,
tota _Nordhumbrorum_ progenies, id est illarum gentium, quæ ad boream
Humbri fluminis inhabitant, ceterique Anglorum populi sunt orti."--Beda
1, 15.
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes occurred within comparatively narrow limits
in Great Britain, and, within equally narrow limits, Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes occurred in Northern Germany and Denmark.
The Angles of England undoubtedly came from Germany; so did the Saxons.
But did the _Jutes_? Let us look to the different forms their name took;
and also to those of that of the Jutes of Jutland; and, when we have
seen that occasionally they both took the same, let us ask whether the
objection which has just been suggested against the supposed American
speculations do not apply to the real English one.
The Jutes of England were called _Jutna-cyn_, or the _Jute-kin_; their
locality was the Isle of Wight, and from that island they were called
_Wiht_-ware, _Vect_-ienses or _Vecti_-colæ. Beda himself identifies
these two populations, saying that the _Vect-uarii_ (_Wiht-ware_), "who
held the Isle of Wight, were of Jute origin." And, lest this be
insufficient, both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Alfred repeat (or
rather translate) the assertion:--
1
Of Jotum comon Cantware and | Of Jutes came the Kent-people,
Wihtware, þæt is seo mæiað, þe nú | and the Wiht-people, that is the
eardeþ on Wiht, and that cynn on | race which now dwells in Wiht,
West-Sexum ðe man gyt hæt | and that tribe amongst the
Jútnacynn. | West-Saxons which is yet called
| the Jute tribe.
2
Comon di of þrym folcum þa | Came they of three folk the
strangestan Germaniæ; þæt of | strongest of Germany; that of the
Seaxum, and of Angle, and of | Saxons, and of Angle, and of the
Geatum; of Geatum fruman sindon | Geats. Of the Geats originally
Cant-wære and Wiht-sætan, þæt is | are the Kent-people and the
seo þeód se Wiht þat ealond on | Wiht-settlers, that is the people
eardað. | which Wiht the Island live on.
Now this name _Wiht_ never came from the Jutes at all; since it existed
three hundred years before their supposed advent, as the word
_Vectis_=_the Isle of Wight_; and was a British, rather than a German,
term.
And the _Wiht-ware_ were, partially at least, no Germans but Britons,
and as Britons, rather than as Jutlanders, did they stand in contrast
with the Saxons of the neighbourhood. The proof of this is in Asser, who
says that Alfred's mother "Osburg nominabatur, religiosa nimium fæmina,
Nobilis ingenio, nobilis et genere; quæ erat filia Oslac--qui Oslac
Gothus erat natione, ortus enim erat de Gothis et Jutis; de semine
scilicit Stuf et Wihtgar--qui acceptâ potestate Vectis Insulæ--paucos
Britannos, ejusdem insulæ accolas, quos in eâ invenire potuerant, in
loco qui dicitur _Gwitigaraburgh_ occiderunt, cæteri enim accolæ ejusdem
insulæ ante sunt occisi aut exules aufugerant."--Asserius, _De Gestis
Alfredi Regis_.
So that Gwit-_garaburg_ is now _Caris-brook_, and _Caris-brook_ in the
time of Stuf and Wihtgar, was the last stronghold of the _Gwitæ_,
_Vitæ_, _Vecticolæ_ or _Vectienses_, who were simply Britons confounded
with _Jut-æ_.
Who then were the _Jutnacyn_, who lived in Hampshire, as opposed to
those of Carisbrook in the Isle of Wight? I imagine, without pressing
the point, or supposing that anything important depends on it, that they
were the _Exules_ of Asser, the remnants who escaped from the
exterminating swords of Stuf and Wihtgar, in their conquest of the
island. That they existed in the time of Beda is true; not however as
Danes from Jutland, but as Britons from the land of the _Wiht-ware_.
I do not profess to say why there was the double form _Vit_, and
_Jut_--nor should I have identified them myself. It is not I who have
done this, but Beda and Alfred; as must be admitted by any one who
cannot shew a difference between the _Wiht-ware_ and the
_Jutna-cyn_--both authors deriving each from the _Jutes_.
Neither can I say how _Jutland_ came to be called _Vit-land_; I can only
say that the change is no _assumption_. In a document of A.D. 952 we
find it so called--Dania Cismarina quam _Vitland_ appellant.--_See_
Zeuss in _v_.
As stated above, all this falls to the ground if any separate
substantive reasons for considering the _Wiht-ware_ to be _Jutlanders_
can be shewn. But such are wanting. If either they or the Jutnacyn of
the opposite coast of Hants were Danes in the time of Alfred and Beda,
where were the signs of their origin? Not in their language; since no
mention is made of the Danish in Beda's list of British tongues. Not in
the names of geographical localities. Neither -_ware_, nor -_burgh_, (in
_Gwith -wara -burg_) are Danish terms. Where are such signs now? The
Danish termination for towns and villages is -_by_. There is no such
ending in either Hampshire or the Isle of Wight.
Did Jutes rather than Angles or any other allied population effect the
conquest and occupancy of Kent, as they are said to have done?
It is only the Jute origin of the _Jutnacyn_ or _Wihtware_ of Hants that
the preceding reasoning impugns. The Jute origin of the Cantware, or
people of Kent, is a separate question.
I only suspect error here: the reasons for doing so being partly of a
positive, partly of a negative nature:--
1. As far as traditions are worth anything, they make Hengist a
_Frisian_ hero.
2. No name of any Kentish King is Danish.
3. No Danish forms for geographical localities occur in the county.
That the Kentish population has certain peculiarities is highly
probable; and it is also probable that similar peculiarities on the
part of the population of Hants brought the two within the same
category. And hence came the extension of the Jute hypothesis to the
_Cantware_.
_Were there Frisians in England?_--The presumption is in favour of the
affirmative; since the Frisians were eminently the occupiers of the
German sea-coast.
Again--
1. A native tradition makes Hengist a Frisian.
2. Procopius writes that "three numerous nations occupy Brittia--the
Angili, the Phrissones, and the Britons."--B. G., iv. 20.
3. In one of Alfred's engagements against the Danes the vessels are said
to have been "shapen neither like the Frisian nor the Danish," and that
there were killed in the engagement "Wulfheard the Frisian, and Æbbe the
Frisian, and Æthelhere the Frisian--and of all the men, Frisians and
English, seventy-two."--Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 897.
In Mr. Kemble's "Saxons in England," a fresh instrument of criticism is
exhibited. A local name like that of the present town of _Kettering_ is
in Anglo-Saxon _Cytringas_. Here the -_as_ is the sign of the plural
number, and the -_ing_- a sort of Anglo-Saxon patronymic, or, (if this
expression be exceptional) a Gentile form. Hence, _Cytr-ing-as_ means
the _Cytrings_, and is the name of a _community_--_i.e._, it is a
political or social rather than a geographical term.
Now nearly two hundred such terms occur in the Anglo-Saxon Chartas as
names of places.
But besides the simple form in -_ing_ (Anglo-Saxon -_ing-as_) there is a
series of compounds in -_wíc_, -_ham_, -_weorð_, -_tun_, -_hurst_, &c.,
as Bill-_ing_, Billing-_ham_, Billing-_hay_, Billing-_borough_,
Billing-_ford_, Billing-_ton_, Billing-_ley_, Billings-_gate_,
Billing-_hurst_, &c., most of which it is safe to say mean the -_hurst_,
the -_town_, &c., of the _Billings_. Now--
1. The distribution of these forms, either simple or compound, over the
counties of England is as follows. There are in--
York, 127; Norfolk, 97; Lincolnshire, 76; Sussex, 68; Kent, 60; Suffolk,
56; Essex, 48; Northumberland, 48; Gloucester, 46; Somerset, 45;
Northampton, 35; Shropshire, 34; Hants, 33; Oxford, 31; Warwick, 31;
Lancashire, 26; Cheshire, 25; Wilts, 25; Devon, 24; Bedford, 22; Berks,
22; Nottingham, 22; Cambridge, 21; Leicester, 19; Durham, 19; Stafford,
19; Surrey, 18; Bucks, 17; Huntingdon, 16; Hereford, 15; Derby, 14;
Worcester, 13; Middlesex, 12; Hertford, 10; Cumberland, 6; Rutland, 4;
Westmoreland, 2; Cornwall, 2; Monmouth, 0.
In valuing this list the size of the county must be borne in mind.
Subject to this qualification, the proportion of the forms in -_ing_, is
a measure of the Germanism of the population. It is at the _maximum_ in
Kent and Norfolk, and at the _minimum_ in Cornwall and Monmouth.
2. The simple forms (_e.g._, _Billings_) as opposed to the compounds
(Billing-_hay_) bear the following proportions:--
In Essex as 21 to 48 | In Northumberl. as 4 to 35
" Kent 25 -- 60 | " Nottinghamsh. 3 -- 22
" Middlesex 4 -- 12 | " Northamptonsh. 3 -- 48
" Hertford 3 -- 10 | " Derbyshire 2 -- 14
" Sussex 24 -- 68 | " Dorsetshire 2 -- 21
" Surrey 5 -- 18 | " Cambridgeshire 2 -- 21
" Berks 5 -- 22 | " Oxfordshire 2 -- 31
" Norfolk 24 -- 96 | " Gloucestersh. 2 -- 46
" Suffolk 15 -- 56 | " Bucks 1 -- 17
" Hants 3 -- 16 | " Leicestershire 1 -- 19
" Hunts 6 -- 33 | " Devonshire 1 -- 24
" Lincolnshire 7 -- 76 | " Wilts 1 -- 25
" Yorkshire 13 -- 127 | " Warwickshire 1 -- 31
" Bedfordshire 4 -- 22 | " Shropshire 1 -- 34
" Lancashire 4 -- 26 | " Somersetshire 1 -- 34
Now the simple forms Mr. Kemble considers to have been the names of the
older and more original settlements with the "further possibility of the
settlements distinguished by the addition of -_hám_, -_wic_, and so
forth, to the original names, having being filial settlements, or, as it
were, colonies, from them."--_Saxons in England_, i. 479.
3. The same names appear in different localities, _e.g._:
Æscings in Essex, Somerset, Sussex.
Alings " Kent, Dorset, Devon, Lincoln.
Ardings " Sussex, Berks, Norths.
Arlings " Devon, Gloucester, Sussex.
Banings " Herts, Kent, Lincoln, Salop.
Beádings " Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Isle of Wight, &c.
This leads to the doctrine that either one community was deduced from
another, or that both were deduced from a third; this being more
especially the case when--
4. The name is found in Germany as well as in Britain. This happens
with--
The _Walsingas_ inferred from _Walsing_-ham,
" _Harlingas_ " _Harling_,
" _Brentingas_ " _Brenting_-by,
" _Scyldingas_ " _Skelding_,
" _Scylfingas_ " _Shilving_-ton
" _Ardingas_ " _Arding_-worth
" _Heardingas_ " _Harding_-ham
" _Baningas_ " _Banning_-ham
" _Thyringas_ " _Thoring_-ton, &c.
If all these names are to be found not only in Germany but in the
_Angle_ part of it, the current opinion as to the homogeneous character
of the Anglo-Saxon population stands undisturbed. Each, however, is
found _beyond_ the Angle area, and so far as this is the case, we have
an argument in favour of our early population having been slightly
heterogeneous.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SCANDINAVIANS.--FORMS IN -BY: THEIR IMPORT AND DISTRIBUTION.--
DANES OF LINCOLNSHIRE, ETC.; OF EAST ANGLIA; OF SCOTLAND; OF THE
ISLE OF MAN; OF LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE; OF PEMBROKESHIRE.--
NORWEGIANS OF NORTHUMBERLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND, AND ISLE OF
MAN.--FRISIAN FORMS IN YORKSHIRE.--BOGY.--OLD SCRATCH.--THE PICTS
POSSIBLY SCANDINAVIAN.--THE NORMANS.
[Sidenote: A.D. 787.]
In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle we find the following notices:--"This year
King Beorhtric took to wife Eadburg, King Offa's daughter; and in his
days first came three ships of Northmen, out of Hæretha-land. And then
the reeve rode to the place, and would have driven them to the king's
town, because he knew not who they were; and they there slew him. These
were the first ships of Danish-men which sought the land of the English
race." Again:--
[Sidenote: A.D. 793.]
"This year dire forewarnings came over the land of the North-humbrians,
and miserably terrified the people; these were excessive whirlwinds, and
lightnings; and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great
famine soon followed these tokens: and a little after that, in the same
year, on the 6th of the Ides of January, the ravaging of heathen men
lamentably destroyed God's church at Lindisfarn, through rapine and
slaughter. And Siega died on the 8th of the Kalends of March."
After this the notices of the formidable Danes become numerous and
important. But it is not in the pages of history that the influence of
their invasions is to be found. The provincial dialects of the British
Isles, the local names in the map of Europe, the traditions and (in some
cases) the pedigrees of the older families are the best sources.
If we study the local names of Germany and Scandinavia, we shall find
that when we get North of the Eyder a change takes place. In Sleswick
the compound names of places begin to end in -_gaard_, -_skov_, and
-_by_; in -_by_ most especially, as Oster-_by_, Wis-_by_, Gammel-_by_,
Nor-_by_, &c. In Jutland the forms in -_by_ attain their _maximum_. They
prevail in the islands. They prevail in Sweden. They are rare (a fact of
great importance) in Norway. In Germany they are either non-existent or
accidental. In respect to its meaning, _by_=_town_, _village_,
_settlement_; and _By-en_=_the town_, is a term by which Christiania or
Copenhagen--the metropoles of Norway and Denmark--are designated. Such
forms as Kir-_ton_, Nor-_ton_, and New-_ton_ in German would, in Danish,
be Kir-_by_, Nor-_by_, New-_by_.
Now the distribution of the forms in -_by_ over the British Isles has
the same import as its distribution in Germany and Scandinavia. It
indicates a Danish as opposed to a German occupancy. Again--the
Anglo-Saxon forms are _Church_ and _Ship_, as in Dun-_church_ and
_Ship_-ton; whereas the Danish are _Kirk_ and _Skip_, as in Orms-_kirk_
and _Skip_-ton. The distribution of these forms over the British Isles
closely coincides with that of the compounds in -_by_.
With these preliminaries we will follow the lines which are marked out
by the occurrence of the places in -_by_; beginning at a point on the
coast of Lincolnshire, about half-way between the entrance to the Wash
and the mouth of the Humber; the direction being south and south-west.
Ander-_by_ Creek, Willough-_by_ Hills, Mum-_by_, Or-_by_, Ir-_by_,
Firs-_by_, Reves-_by_, Conings-_by_, Ewer-_by_, Asgar-_by_,[27]
Span-_by_, Dows-_by_, Duns-_by_, Hacon-_by_,[27] Thurl-_by_,
Carl-_by_[27] take us into Rutlandshire, where we find only Grun-_by_
and Hoo-_by_. Neither are they numerous in Northamptonshire; Canons'
Ash-_by_, Cates-_by_, and Bad-_by_ giving us the outline of the
South-eastern parts of their area. For Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Beds,
nothing ends in -_by_, whilst the other forms are in _sh_, and _ch_--as
_Charlton_, _Shelton_, _Chesterton_ rather than _Carlton_, _Skelton_,
_Casterton_. Leicestershire is full of the form, as may be seen by
looking at the parts about Melton, along the valleys of the Wreak and
Soar; but as we approach Warwickshire they decrease, and there is none
south of Rug-_by_. More than this, the form changes suddenly, and three
miles below the last named town we have Dun-_ch_ur_ch_ and
Coa_ch_-bat_ch_. Tradition, too, indicates the existence of an old March
or Debateable Land; for south of Rug-_by_ begins the scene of the deeds
of Guy Earl of Warwick, the slayer of the _Dun_ Cow. Probably, too, the
Bevis of Hampton was a similar[28] North-_amp_-_ton_-shire hero,
notwithstanding the claim of the town of Southampton.
The line now takes a direction northwards and passes through Bretby (on
the Trent) to Derby, Leicestershire being wholly included. And here the
frontier of the forest which originally covered the coal-district seems
to have been the western limit to the Danish encroachments, Rotherham,
Sheffield, and Leeds lying beyond, but with the greater part of
Nottinghamshire and a large part of Derby within, it. In Yorkshire the
East Riding is Danish, and the North to a great extent; indeed the
western feeders of the Ouse seem to have been followed up to their
head-waters, and the watershed of England to have been crossed. This
gives the numerous -_bys_ in Cumberland and Westmoreland[29]--Kirk-_by_,
Apple-_by_, &c.
So much for the very irregular and remarkable outline of the area of the
forms in -_by_ on its southern and western sides. In the north-east it
nearly coincides with the valley of the Tees--nearly but not quite;
since, in Durham, we have Ra-_by_, Sela-_by_, and Rum-_by_. The
derivatives of _castra_, on the other hand, are in -_ch_-; _e.g._,
Eb_ch_ester, _Ch_ester-le-street, Lan_ch_ester (Lan-_c_aster). In
Northumberland there are none.
I look upon this as the one large main Danish area of Great Britain, its
occupants having been deduced from a series of primary settlements on
the Humber. It coincides chiefly with the water-system of the Trent,
makes Lincolnshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire the
mother-countries, and suggests the notions that, as compared with the
Humber, the rivers of the Wash, and the river Tees were unimportant. The
oldest and most thoroughly Danish town was Grimsby. The settlements were
generally small. I infer this from the extent to which the names are
compounded of -_by_ and a noun in the genitive case _singular_
(Candel-_s_-_by_, Grim-_s_-_by_, &c.). Danish names such as Thorold,
Thurkill, Orme, &c., are eminently common in Lincolnshire; and, at
Grimsby, a vestige of the famous Danish hero Havelok is still preserved
in _Havelok-street_. On the other hand, the number of Danish idioms in
the provincial dialects is by no means proportionate to the
preponderance of the forms in -_by_. In Lincolnshire it is but small,
though larger in Yorkshire and Cumberland.
The extent to which the rivers which fall in the Wash are _not_
characterized by the presence of forms in -_by_ is remarkable. The
Witham and Welland alone (and they but partially) have -_bys_ on their
banks. Again--
Just above Yarmouth, between the Yare, the North River and the sea, is a
remarkable congregation of forms in -_by_. These are more numerous in
this little tract than the rest of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex
together--Mault-_by_, Orms-_by_[30] (doubly Danish), Hemes-_by_, &c.
This may indicate either a settlement direct from Scandinavia, or a
secondary settlement from Lincolnshire.
However doubtful this may be, it is safe to attribute the -_bys_ on the
West of England, to the Danes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, the Danes
of the Valley of the Eden. These spread--
A. Northwards, following either the coast of Galloway or the
water-system of the Annan, Locker-_bie_, &c.--
B. Westwards into the Isle of Man--
C. Southwards into--
_a._ Cheshire, Lancashire, and Carnarvonshire (_Orms_-head), always,
however, within a moderate distance of the sea--Horn-_by_,
Orms-_kirk_,[31] Whit-_by_, Ire-_by_, Hels-_by_, &c.--
_b._ Pembrokeshire; where in Haver-_ford_ and Mil-_ford_ the element
_ford_ is equivalent to the Danish _Fiord_, and the Scotch _Firth_, and
translates the Latin word _sinus_--not _vadum_. _Guard_- in Fish-_guard_
is Danish also; as are Ten-_by_ and _Harold_-stone.
Such is the distribution of one branch of the Scandinavians, viz.: those
from Jutland, the Danish Isles, and (perhaps) the South of Sweden. That
of the Norwegians of Norway is different. Shetland, the Orkneys,
Caithness, and Sutherland, the Hebrides, and Ireland, form the line of
invasion here. In Man the two branches met--the Danish from the east,
and the Norwegian from the north and east.
The numerous details respecting the Scandinavians in Britain are to be
found in Mr. Worsaae's "Danes and Northmen;" and, besides this, the
proof of the distinction just drawn between the Danes of South Britain
and the Norwegians of Scotland, the Hebrides and Ireland. It lies in the
phenomena connected with the form -_by_.
_a._ Common as they are in Denmark and Sweden, they are almost wholly
wanting in Norway.
_b._ Common as are other Scandinavian elements, the forms in -_by_ are
almost wholly wanting in Scotland and Ireland.
Hence--_Northman_ or _Scandinavian_ means a _Dane_ in South Britain, a
_Norwegian_ in Scotland and Ireland, and a Dane _or_ Norwegian, as the
particular case may be, in the Isle of Man, Northumberland, and Durham.
This is well shewn, and that for the first time, in the valuable work
referred to.
Can this analysis be carried further? Probably it can. Over and above
the consideration of the Frisians of Friesland,[32] there is that of the
North-Frisians.[33] Some of these may easily have formed part of the
Scandinavian invasion. The nearest approach to absolute evidence on this
point is to be found in the East Riding of Yorkshire; where in
Holdernesse we have the Frisian forms News-_om_, Holl-_ym_, Arr-_am_,
and the compound Fris-_marsh_. The Leicestershire Fris-_by_ is more
evidently _North_-Frisian.
Again, a writer who, like the present, believes that, until a
comparatively recent period, South Jutland, the Danish Isles, and the
South of Sweden, _at least_, were Sarmatian, is justified in asking
whether members of this stock also may not have helped to swell the
Scandinavian host. The presumption is in favour of their having done so;
the _a posteriori_ evidence scanty. Two personages of our popular
mythology, however, seem Slavonic--Old _Bogy_ and Old _Scratch_. _Bog_
in Slavonic is _God_, or _Dæmon_; so that Czerne-_bog_=_Black God_, and
Biele-_bog_=_White God_; whereas no Gothic interpretation is equally
probable.
Old _Scratch_ is the _Hairy one_, or _Pilosus_, as his name is rendered
in the glosses. In Bohemian we have the forms _scret_, _screti_,
_scretti_, _skr'et_, _s'kr'jtek_=_demon_, _household god_; in Polish,
_skrzot_ and _skrzitek_; in Slovenian, _shkrátie_, _shkrátely_. On the
other hand, in the Old High German, the Icelandic, and some of the Low
German dialects, the word occurs as it does in English. Still the
combination of sounds is so Slavonic, and the name is spread over so
great a portion of the Slavonic area, that I look upon it as essentially
and originally belonging to that family.
The ethnological analysis of the Scandinavians is one question; the date
of their first invasion, another. The statements of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle opened the present chapter. Is there reason to criticize
them? For the fact of Danes having wintered in England A.D. 787 they are
unexceptionable. For the fact of their having never done so before, they
only supply the unsatisfactory assertion of a negative.
For my own part I should not like to deny the presence of Scandinavians
in certain parts of Great Britain, even at the very beginning of the
Historical period. That this was the case with Orkney and Shetland few,
perhaps, are inclined to deny. But the gloss _dal_[34], combined the
exception which can be taken to the words _penn fahel_,[35] gives a
probability to the Scandinavian origin of the _Picts_ which has not
hitherto been generally admitted--the present writer, amongst others,
having denied it.
When the Britons had occupied the greater part of the Island they were
met by the _Picts_ from _Scythia_. It was not, however, on any part of
Great Britain that the Picts first landed.
It was on the north coast of Ireland, then held by Scots. But the Scots
had no room for them, so they told them of the opposite island of
Britain, and recommended them to take possession of it; which was done
accordingly. "And as the Picts had no wives, and had to seek them from
the Scots, they were granted on the sole condition, that whenever the
succession became doubtful, the female line should be preferred over
the male; which is kept up even now amongst the Picts." This peculiarity
in the Pict law of succession is interesting; and as Beda speaks to it
as a cotemporary witness, it must pass as one of the few definite facts
in the Pict history. Another statement of true importance is, that the
Scriptures were read in all the languages of Great Britain; there being
five in number: the Latin, the Angle, the British, the Scottish, and the
_Pict_.
Could this _Pictish_ have been Scandinavian, a language closely allied
to the Anglo-Saxon, without Beda knowing it? I once answered hastily in
the negative, but the fact that he actually overlooks the Gothic
character of the word _dal_ (=_part_), has modified my view.
On the other hand, their deduction from Scythia goes for nothing. The
text which supplied Beda with his statement has come down to us, though,
unfortunately, with three different readings. It is from Gildas, and
seems to be one of that author's least happy attempts at fine writing.
He calls the German Ocean the _Tithic Valley_, or the Valley of _Tithys_
(_Thetis?_). In one out of the two MSS. which deviate from the form
_Tithecam Vallem_, the reading is _Aticam_, and in the other _Styticam_.
I give the texts of Gildas in full. They may serve to shew his
style:--"Itaque illis ad sua remeantibus, emergunt certatim de curucis,
quibus sunt trans Tithecam vallem vecti, quasi in alto Titane
incalescente caumate de aridissimis foraminum cavernulis fusci
vermiculorum cenei, tetri Scotorum Pictorumque greges, moribus ex parte
dissidentes, et una eademque sanguinis fundendi aviditate concordes,
furciferosque magis vultus pilis, quam corporum pudenda pudendisque
proxima vestibus tegentes, cognitaque condebitorum reversione, et
reditus denegatione, solito confidentius, omnem Aquilonalem extremamque
terræ partem, pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt."--_Historia_, §. 15.
But, perhaps, Gildas readily wrote Scythica; for there _was_ a reason,
as reasons went in the sixth century, for his doing so. It was,
probably, the following lines in Virgil:--
"Aspice et extremis domitum cultoribus orbem,
Eoasque domos Arabum, _pictosque Gelonos_."--G. xi. 115.
That either Gildas or Beda knew of the line or translated it as if the
_Picts_ were _Geloni_ cannot be shewn; but that an author not very much
later than Beda did so is shewn by the following extract from a Life of
St. Vodoal, written about the beginning of the tenth century--"The
Blessed Vodoal was (as they say) sprung from the arrow-bearing nation of
the _Geloni_, who are believed to have drawn their origin from
_Scythia_. Concerning whom, the poet writes _Pictosque Gelonos_; and
from that time till now they are called _Picts_."[36] _Sagittiferi_ is
as Virgilian as the word _Picti_--
"Hic Nomadum genus et discinctos Mulciber Afros,
Hic Lelegas, Carasque sagittiferosque Gelonos
Finxerat."--Aen. viii. 725.
Another element in the reasoning upon the date of the earliest
Scandinavians is the fact that more than one enquirer has noticed in the
nomenclature of a writer so early as Ptolemy, words with an aspect more
or less Scandinavian--_e.g._, Ar-_beia_, Leucopi-_bi_-um, _Vand_-_uarii_
(Aqui-colæ), _Lox_-ius fluvius (=Salmon River), and, perhaps, some
others.
To argue that there were Scandinavians amongst us in the second century,
because certain words were Norse, and then to infer the Norse character
of the words in question from the presence of Scandinavians is a vicious
circle from which we must keep apart. At the same time, the
insufficiency of the early historians to give a negative, the oversight
of Beda in respect to the word _dal_, and the exceptions which can be
taken to the gloss _penn fahel_, are all elements of importance. The
present writer believes that there _were_ Norsemen in Britain anterior
to A.D. 787, and also that those Norsemen _may_ have been the Picts.
The Danish and Norwegian subjects of Canute give us a _direct_, the
Normans of William the Conqueror an _indirect_, Scandinavian element.
"The latest conquerors of this island were also the bravest and the
best. I do not except even the Romans. And, in spite of our sympathies
with Harold and Hereward, and our abhorrence of the founder of the New
Forest and the desolator of Yorkshire, we must confess the superiority
of the Normans to the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Danes, whom they met here
in 1066, as well as to the degenerate Frank _noblesse_, and the crushed
and servile Romanesque provincials, from whom, in 912, they had wrested
the district in the north of Gaul, which still bears the name of
Normandy."[37]
This leads us to the analysis of the blood of the _Norman_, or
_North-man_. Occupant as he is of a country so far south as Normandy,
this is his designation; since the Scandinavians who in the eighth,
ninth, and tenth centuries ravaged Great Britain, extended themselves
along the coasts of the Continent as well. And here they are subject to
the same questions as the Scandinavians of Lincolnshire, Scotland, and
the Isle of Man. They are liable to being claimed as Norwegians, and
liable to be claimed as Danes; they may or they may not have had
forerunners; their blood, if Danish rather than Norwegian, may have been
Jute or it may have been Frisian; they may have been distinct from
certain allied conquerors known under the name of _Saxon_, or they may
be the Saxons of a previous period.
They seem, however, in reality, to have been Norwegians from Norway
rather than Danes from Jutland and the Danish Isles; Norwegians,
unaccompanied by females, and Norwegians who preserve their separate
nationality to a very inconsiderable extent. They formed French
alliances, and they adopted the habits and manners of the natives. These
were, from first to last, Keltic on the mother's side; but on that of
the father, Keltic, Roman, and German. That this latter element was
important, is inferred from the names of the Ducal and Royal family:
William, Richard, Henry, &c., names as little Scandinavian as they are
Roman or Gallic.
Hence, the blood of even the true Norman was heterogeneous; whilst (more
than this) the army itself was only partially levied on the soil of
Normandy--Bretons, who were nearly pure Kelts, Flemings who were
Kelto-Germans, and Walloons who were Kelto-German and Roman, all helped
to swell the host of the Conqueror. What these effected at Hastings, and
how they appropriated the country, is a matter for the civil rather
than the physical historian; the distribution of their blood amongst the
present Englishmen being a problem for the herald and genealogist. The
elements they brought over were only what we had before--Keltic, Roman,
German, and Norse. The manner, however, of their combination differed.
There was also a slight variation in the German blood. It was Frank
rather than Angle.
* * * * *
Kelts, Romans, Germans, and Scandinavians, then, supply us with the
chief elements of our population, elements which are mixed up with each
other in numerous degrees of combination; in so many, indeed, that in
the case of the last three there is no approach to purity.
However easy it may be, either amongst the Gaels of Connaught, or the
Cambro-Britons of North-Wales, to find a typical and genuine Kelt, the
German, equally genuine and typical, whom writers love to place in
contrast with him, is not to be found within the four seas, the nearest
approach being the Frisian of Friesland.
It is important, too, to remember that the mixture that has already
taken place still goes on; and as three pure sources of Keltic, without
a corresponding spring of Gothic, blood are in full flow, the result is
a slow but sure addition of Keltic elements to the so-called Anglo-Saxon
stock, elements which are perceptible in Britain, and which are very
considerable in America. The Gael or Briton who marries an English wife,
transmits, on his own part, a pure Keltic strain, whereas no Englishman
can effect a similar infusion of Germanism--his own breed being more or
less hybrid.
The previous pages have dealt with the retrospect of English ethnology.
The chief questions in the prospect are the one just indicated and the
effects of change of area in the case of the Americans.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] These are Danish forms throughout--_Asgar_-, _Hacon_-, and _Carl_-
being as little Anglo-Saxon as -_by_. _Carl-by_ in Anglo-Saxon would be
_Charl-ton_.
[28] North-_avon_-ton-shire.
[29] Also _Caster_-ton=_Chester_-ton. The numerous forms in _thwaithe_
are shewn by Mr. Worsaae to be Norse.
[30] Doubly Danish: the Anglo-Saxon form of _Orm_ being _Worm_.
[31] Doubly Scandinavian: the Anglo-Saxon form would be _Worm-church_.
_Generally_ in compounds of this kind the Danish form _Kirk_ is a
prefix, the Anglo-Saxon _church_ an affix; _e.g._, _Kirk_-by,
Off-_church_.
[32] See p. 240.
[33] See p. 177, &c.
[34] See p. 226.
[35] See p. 229.
[36] From Mabillon.--Zeuss, p. 198.
[37] The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.--By Prof.
Creasy,--_Hastings_.
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Transcriber's Amendments:
p. 9, 'Feroe' amended to _Faroe_: 'Faroe Isles'.
p. 17, 'milleniums' amended to _millenniums_.
p. 28, 'milleniums' amended to _millenniums_.
p. 47, 'Periegeta' amended to _Periegetes_: 'Dionysius Periegetes'.
p. 48, 'Prosepine' amended to _Proserpine_: 'Ceres and Proserpine'.
p. 52, 'boats' amended to _books_: 'different part of Cæsar's books'.
p. 61, 'Luxumbourg' amended to _Luxembourg_.
p. 64, 'potenate' amended to _potentate_.
p. 67. 'Diviaticus' amended to _Divitiacus_.
p. 76, 'PEANN FAHEL' amended to _PENN FAHEL_ (in heading).
p. 79, fn. 7, 'Philogical' amended to _Philological_.
p. 89, 'Oose' amended to _Ouse_: 'such rivers as ... Ouse'.
p. 92, 'phisopher' amended to _philosopher_: 'philosopher Seneca';
'Servius' amended to _Severus_: 'Emperor Severus'.
p. 95, '-uis' amended to _-ius_: 'the forms in -_ius_ and -_inus_'.
p. 98, 'Britains' amended to _Britons_: 'harass the South Britons'.
p. 107, 'there' amended to _their_: 'if their dates were'.
p. 124, second entry for 'LXXVII' amended to _LXXVIII_.
p. 125, 'XCLIV' amended to _XCIV_.
p. 126, 'CXLIX' amended to _CLVI_.
p. 149, 'Lunenburg' amended to _Luneburg_.
p. 153, 'Hevel' amended to _Havel_: 'river Havel'.
p. 154, 'Verini' amended to _Varini_: 'Varini of Tacitus'.
p. 167, 'Francs' amended to _Franks_: 'Merovingian Franks'.
p. 171, '(vita St. Bonifac:)' amended to _(vita St. Boniface)_;
'Ceadmon' amended to _Cædmon_.
p. 173, 'Dutchy of Holstein' amended to _Duchy of Holstein_.
p. 184, 'cristened' amended to _christened_.
p. 193, 'Briton' amended to _Britain_: 'coasts of Gaul and Britain'.
p. 195, 'Peloponessus' amended to _Peloponnesus_.
p. 202, additional 'and' removed: 'and _and_ in a form adapted'.
p. 204, 'Nibelungen-Lied' amended to _Nibelungenlied_.
p. 222, 'Britain' amended to _Brittany_;
'Britanny' amended to _Brittany_.
p. 227, added 'a': 'a bad reason for _a_ good one'.
p. 228, duplicate text removed: '_disturb the inference_'.
p. 231, 'Hengest' amended to _Hengist_.
p. 238, 'Britains' amended to _Britons_: 'as Britons from'.
p. 242, 'Glostershire' amended to _Gloucestersh._ (in table).
p. 243, 'Gloster' amended to _Gloucester_.
p. 245, 'Scandanavia' amended to _Scandinavia_.
p. 246, 'Willoug-by' amended to _Willough-by_.
p. 254, 'pars' amended to _part_.
Further Notes:
p. 169, 'Hildubrant' and p. 171, 'Hildebrant': With no clear preference
shown by the author, both variant forms remain as printed.
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