THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS

EPISODES 26 - 30

Presented by Kevin W. Stroud

©2012-2017 Seven Springs Media, Inc. EPISODE 26: IMPERIAL CRISIS AND THE GOTHS

Welcome to the History of English Podcast – a podcast about the history of the English language. This is episode 26 - Imperial Crisis and the Goths. This time, we’re going to explore a period of Roman history which is sometimes called the Imperial Crisis. And this period coincides with the rise of a group of Germanic tribes who invaded Rome during the same time frame. And these tribes included the ancient Goths. And the Goths are particularly important to us – because they were the first Germanic tribe to provide us with a detailed written account of their own language. And that makes their language very important in the overall context of the Germanic languages.

But before I begin, let me note that this episode turned out a little longer than usual. And that’s part of the reason for the delay in getting it to you. But rather than break it into two separate episodes, I have decided to present it to you in one part. And that’s because the overall subject matter relates to events that were taking place at the same time around the 3rd and the 4th centuries.

By this point in history, the original common Germanic language had begun to fracture into various regional dialects. And for the first time in recorded history, we have references to the Saxons. So by now, was can safely assume that the earliest Saxon dialects were being spoken in and around northern Germany. And remember that what we call Old English was really just a particular Saxon dialect spoken in southwestern England a few centuries later. So we’re very close to Old English.

But let’s begin this episode by picking up where we left off last time in the Danube region at the end of the 2nd century. This is where Germanic tribes began to cross into Roman territory and battle the Romans within the Empire itself. And it’s also where the first Germanic-speakers likely encountered the alphabet.

In terms of political and military history, the events during this period marked a turning point for the Roman Empire. For more than six centuries, Rome had been the aggressor, constantly expanding outward, increasing the size and scope of the Empire. But by the beginning of 3rd century, that expansion had stopped. And now, Rome actually found itself on the defensive. As it turned out, the Germans weren’t content to remain on the other side of the river. And that meant the Romans were going to have fight if they wanted to maintain what they had acquired over the past few centuries.

And that was the real problem for the Romans. At a time when they were going to have to fight to defend their Empire, they weren’t in a good position to do that. Rome was increasingly racked by problems. And the problems were both internal and external.

We’re now entering the period of the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire. The events of the next few centuries are very complicated because they involve a lot of moving parts. But the importance of these events can’t be overstated. These events were a major factor in the ultimate fall of the Western Roman Empire, and they set the stage for many of the nation-states of modern Europe. And they also ensured the spread of Germanic culture and language into Roman territory. This is the backdrop for the migration of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain. So let’s take a closer look at what was happening to cause these migrations or invasions.

1 The first part of this story is what was happening within Rome. Simply stated, Rome was having a lot of internal problems. In the year 235, the Roman Emperor Severus was assassinated. And that set in motion a period of civil wars, rebellions, assassinations and general chaos which lasted for the next 50 years. This was a period in which various Roman leaders fought for power, and it’s the period that’s sometimes called the “Imperial Crisis.” During this period, over 20 different leaders assumed power in various parts of the Empire.

As you might imagine, this created serious instability within the Empire and within the Roman military itself. And as the infighting continued, it also forced troops to be withdrawn from the border regions. And that left the border regions more vulnerable to invasions from across the border.

By the end of the 3rd century, all of these factors meant that there were hardly any Roman troops left along most of the Rhine and Danube border. In their place, the Romans had begun to rely more and more upon foreign tribes as mercenaries. That included Germanic warriors, but it also included peoples on the eastern fringe of the Empire like the Slavs. So, from the Roman perspective, they were hiring barbarians to defend Rome against other barbarians.

Now this trend of relying on foreign armies actually increased over time. And that meant that Rome inevitably lost some of the loyalty and discipline which had been associated with the Roman legions. It also meant that Rome had to maintain the loyalty of these foreign armies by paying them or working out some other type of arrangement with them. One type of arrangement which Rome occasionally implemented was a deal in which the foreign tribe was allowed to cross into Roman territory and remain there in exchange for their agreement to defend the region against other tribes. This was essentially the deal that the Romans made with the Franks in the north. And as we’ll see, it was a deal the Romans made with the Goths in the east as well.

But most of the time, Rome simply paid the mercenaries. And this too became a problem in the 3rd century. In an effort to increase the size of the Roman army, and increasingly to pay mercenaries, the Romans had to come up with more money. And they did this by issuing lots of new Roman coins, but there was only so much silver available to put in those coins. So the Romans began to cut back on the amount of silver in the coins, and they replaced the silver with cheaper metals like bronze and copper. And that meant there were lots of new coins available, but they weren’t worth as much anymore. So you needed a lot more coins to buy the same goods and services. Economists call this inflation. And when it’s really bad, they call it hyperinflation. And that was what Rome had to deal with throughout this period. By the end of the 3rd century, the Roman currency had lost most of its value. And barter had returned as the standard way to pay for goods and services. Not only did those economic problems contribute to the internal disruptions, it also made it more difficult to pay the salaries of mercenaries in the border regions.

So you can see why this period is sometimes called the “Imperial Crisis.” Rome had suddenly become an economic, political and military mess. And all of these internal problems just happened to coincide with new developments which were occurring across the border in Germania. And these developments were going to cause even more problems for the Romans.

2 Throughout the 2nd and 3rd centuries, many of those smaller tribes mentioned by Tacitus had begun to join together and form much larger tribes or confederations of tribes. So we start to see the emergence of bigger and more powerful Germanic tribes, and therefore, more powerful Germanic armies. And it’s during this period that we have the first mention of tribes like the Saxons and the Franks who were both confederations of tribes that were beginning to emerge as powerful forces in the northern Rhine region.

So why was all of this happening in Germania? Why were these tribes suddenly forming alliances and creating new mega-tribes. Well, a big part of the answer was population growth.

This growth had begun in the Germanic homeland in Scandinavia a few centuries earlier. And that population growth in northern Europe that had caused the initial expansion of Germanic tribes southward out of Scandinavia.

As some of those tribes migrated to the region around the Rhine, they ran up again the Roman Empire and couldn’t expand any further. So those tribes settled down, and they began to switch from nomadic herding to crop farming. As their populations continued to grow, their settlements grew larger and larger. Small settlements turned into villages. And the surrounding farms were expanded outward further and further to sustain the population. This process continued until – one day – small isolated tribes suddenly became next door neighbors. And eventually these neighboring tribes began to coalesce and form alliances. These new tribal confederations eventually grew into mega-tribes. And that meant these tribes were much more powerful. And when you combine this process which was taking place in Germania with the ‘Imperial Crisis’ taking place in Rome, you can see the balance of power shifting from the Romans to the Germans.

And as I noted, this process produced the first mention of tribes like the Franks and the Saxons around this time. But just to the south of the emerging Franks and Saxons, there was another new tribe emerging. This was in the region where the Rhine and the Danube both originate in southwestern Germany. And this new confederation of tribes was called the Alamanni. And that name – Alamanni – actually tells us a lot about what was happening at this time.

It is generally believed that Alamanni meant ‘all men’ – ala meaning ‘all’ and manni meaning ‘men.’ So the name of this Alamanni tribe reflects the fact that it was a group of different tribes which had banded together into a new confederation. Modern scholars are still not entirely sure which tribes contributed to this new group, but many believe that it included remnants of the Marcomanni and Quadi tribes that I mentioned in the last episode. As I noted last time, these tribes eventually migrated from the region which had become known as Bohemia, and they moved westward along the Danube into the region which came to be known as Bavaria. Well this happens to be the same general region where the Alamanni tribe began to emerge during the 3rd century.

Now if you’ve studied French or Spanish, that name Alamanni may seem a bit familiar to you. It is actually the root of the name of the modern nation of Germany in both of those languages. In French, Germany is called Allemagne, and in Spanish it’s Alemania. This same Germanic tribe is also the root of the name of Germany in Portugese, Welsh, Turkish, Arabic and Persian, as well as

3 a variety of other languages. And that should give you an idea of how powerful and important this tribe was for a period of time in the 3rd century.

And in fact, if you’re a fan of square dancing, you’ve probably danced to the name of this tribe. You might ‘docey doe,’ but you also probably allemande left or right. And this particular square dancing step comes from the name of this ancient Germanic tribe – the Alamanni. It actually comes from a dance which originated in Germany and passed to France in the 17th century. Since the French name for Germany was Allemagne, the French called this particular German dance the allemande. And when the French colonized the region of Louisiana, the name passed to North America. And from there, one of the steps in the allemande was incorporated into square dancing.

So the name of the Alamanni tribe is still with us today. And in the 3rd century, the Alamanni became a major problem for the Roman army. In the year 260, the Alamanni crossed the Roman border and invaded deep into Roman territory. In fact, they crossed the Alps and passed all the way down to Milan. As a result, they forced the Romans to abandon the traditional frontier which ran along the Rhine and the Danube. And this actually created a wedge in the Roman border.

During this period, the Romans were distracted by other invading tribes which I’m going to talk about later. But eventually, the Romans were able to push the Alamanni back across the border. And for a while, it looked like the Alamanni threat was over. But in the 4th century, their invasions began again. And in fact, it wasn’t until the early 8th century – long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire – that they were finally defeated by the Franks. And it was only then that they ceased to be an independent kingdom. And even today, Alemannic German is a prominent dialect of the modern High German languages.

Now as I noted, it was ultimately the Franks – not the Romans – who permanently defeated the Alamanni. Both of these tribes were new confederations formed by uniting smaller tribes together. In fact, during the 3rd century, the Alamanni appeared to be a bigger threat to Rome that the Frankish tribes further north along the Rhine. But over the next couple of centuries, the power of the Franks would eventually eclipse the Alamanni, as well as most of the other Germanic tribes in the region.

Around the time of that first great invasion by the Alamanni, the Franks were a brand new confederation which had just appeared on the scene. One theory is that the various tribes which came together to become the Franks did so because of the rising power of the Alamanni to their south. The first references to the name Franks actually occurred shortly before that great Alamanni invasion in 260. The name appeared in a Roman army marching song from that period. But by the time the Alamanni were invading the Roman Empire, it had become evident that the new Franks also wanted to settle across the Rhine in Roman territory. And they sought to do that by taking advantage of Rome’s gradual loss of control over its borders.

Around the year 250, a group of Franks crossed the Rhine and penetrated deep into Gaul – all the way to modern-day Spain. And from that point on, the Franks were a constant threat in the northern Rhine region. And as I’ve noted before, the Franks would eventually succeed in this objective. They would eventually establish a Frankish kingdom in northeastern Gaul, and as Roman power in Gaul

4 waned, it was the Franks who filled that vacuum and came to dominate the entire region. And of course, they thereby provided us with the name of the modern nation of ‘France.’

But the origin of the name Franks is uncertain. Lots of theories have been suggested by etymologists, but no one knows for certain what the original name meant. Links have been made to the Old Norse word frakka and the Old English word franca which meant ‘hunting spear, or lance or javelin.’ But many scholars think that these words came from the name of the Frankish tribe – not the other way around.

The name of the Franks also resulted in the Late Latin word francus which initially meant ‘free or unrestrained.’ This meaning is probably derived from the fact that the Franks cut that deal with the Romans that I mentioned earlier. They were eventually permitted to settle across the Rhine where that lived as free tribe in exchange for their agreement to defend the border. So francus came to mean ‘free and unrestrained.’ This word later passed into early French as franc. And over time, the meaning of the word expanded from it’s original sense of ‘free’ to a much broader sense of being ‘open, sincere and genuine’ – as in ‘to speak freely.’ And that’s the version which we still have in modern English in the word frank – as in “Let me be frank with you” or “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

If you’re familiar with politics – especially American politics – you may have heard of ‘franking privileges.’ That term basically refers to the right of politicians to send mail from their office to their constituents without having to pay postage, which is a nice benefit if you happen to hold a political office.

Well, that use of the term ‘frank’ or ‘franking’ can also be traced back to this same French root word, and it originally meant that a letter ‘free to be sent or delivered’ because the postage had been paid for it. So it didn’t mean ‘free’ as in no cost. It meant ‘free’ as in ready to be delivered. But again, it ultimately comes from the name of this Germanic tribe – the Franks.

The old French word franchise meant that you were ‘free to do something without legal restriction.’ This term eventually passed into English as franchise and its meaning shifted to mean a particular legal right – specially the right to vote. So today when we speak of someone be disenfranchised, we mean that they have had their vote or rights taken away.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that the term franchise came to refer to a different type of legal right – specifically the ‘right to sell a company’s products or services.’ And this is the source of the modern sense of the word franchise as a type of business. So if you buy a franchise, you are ‘free to sell a particular company’s goods and services,’ and you are usually free to use the company’s name and logos. All of that originating from the sense of the word franc – meaning ‘free.’

The same use of the word franc as ‘free’ also appears in the family name Franklin. That name first appeared in the 12th century after the Norman French invaded England – and it meant a land-owner who was free by means other than noble birth.

5 And the name of the Franks also appears in the name of the modern city of Frankfurt in Germany which originally mean the ‘Frank’s ford’ – or shallow river crossing – on the river Main. And Frankfurt also gave us the frankfurter. And even today, we sometimes call a frankfurter – a frank. So we’re right back at the beginning. By the way, that’s the same way we get hamburger in Modern English as well. Hamburgers are not made from ham, but they come from – or at least the name comes from – Hamburg in Germany.

So the name of the Frankish tribe ultimately gives us the words France, French, frank, franking, franchise, disenfranchise, Franklin, Frankfurt and frankfurter.

Now, as I’ve noted, the Franks and the Alamanni we’re making life very difficult for the Romans along the Rhine in the 3rd and 4th centuries. But further east along the Danube, there were even bigger problems brewing.

In fact, the ultimate cause of a lot of these problems along the Roman border could be found much further away in eastern Europe – in places like modern-day Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and Romania. I’ve noted in past episodes that there was a very early division of the Germanic tribes into the Northern tribes, the Western tribes and the Eastern tribes. Well, by this point, those Eastern Germanic tribes were spread throughout this part of eastern Europe. And they had also developed a very distinct dialect by this point. These tribes included tribes like the Vandals and the Goths. By the 3rd century, these tribes had migrated down into the Balkans and the lower Danube region.

And as some of these Eastern Germanic tribes began to move westward, a domino effect ensued. So this was indirectly pushing those western tribes that I just mentioned – like the Franks and the Alamanni – into the Rhine and across the Rhine into Roman territory. And this process would actually accelerate over the next couple of centuries as a new group arrived from the Eurasian steppes to the east, and that was the Huns. But more about them later.

Now at this point, around the same time the Alamanni and the Franks were crossing the Rhine in the west, the Vandals were threatening middle Danube region in the south. Remember that the Vandals were an eastern Germanic tribe speaking an eastern Germanic dialect. They had migrated out of Scandinavia a few centuries earlier, and now they were sitting along the middle Danube. The Romans encountered the Vandals, and for now, they were able to hold the Vandals back. And they even made a temporary peace. But as with many of these tribes – peace treaties didn’t tend to last very long.

Over the next couple of centuries, the Vandals would re-group and head west straight for Gaul. This time they were spurred on by the Huns who were pouring in from the east and causing a chain- reaction. The Vandals eventually reached the Rhine, where they busted through the Romans defenses and traveled straight through Gaul itself. They eventually traveled south into modern-day Spain, and from there they crossed into North Africa where they set up a kingdom there. And in fact, this Germanic tribe – the Vandals – maintained a very powerful kingdom in North Africa in the 5th Century. They even launched an invasion from the site of ancient Carthage, and they did something that Carthage was never able to do. They crossed the Mediterranean and sacked Rome. This happened around the same time that the Anglo-Saxons began migrating to Britain, so it’s a little later

6 in our story. But I wanted you to get a sense of the territory covered by this tribe – the Vandals. They started out in Scandinavia, traveled into eastern Europe, encountered the Romans in the Balkans, invaded modern-day France and Spain, conquered North Africa, and then invaded and sacked Rome from across the Mediterranean.

So from all of that, you might be able to see why we still have the name of the Vandals in modern English. And in fact, unlike the names of other Germanic tribes, their name comes too us virtually unchanged from the use of the name by the Romans.

Like many of the Germanic tribes, the Romans considered the Vandals to be very dangerous barbarians. But after the Vandals sacked Rome, the name of the Vandals came to mean looters, robbers and pillagers. As we’re going to see, the Vandals weren’t the first to sack and loot Rome during this period, the Goths beat them to it. But for some reason, the later Romans writers had a particular distaste for the Vandals. And they seemed to blame the Vandals more than any other group for the destruction of the city of Rome itself. The term vandalism was actually coined in France after the French Revolution to describe the destruction and violence which occurred in France during that period. The term harkened back to the fall of Rome, and it probably seemed quite appropriate at the time. From the French, the term spread into English where it still retains it meaning as the “willful destruction of property.”

By the way, if you’re curious, the origin of the name Vandals was an original Germanic word *Wandal which meant ‘wanderer.’ And that Germanic word ultimately gives us the modern English word wander as in to ‘roam around.’ So that name was very appropriate for this tribe. And that also makes the term wander and vandal cognate – both coming from the same Germanic root word.

And once again, we see that Late Latin sound shift which converted the ‘w’ sound into the ‘v’ sound in many Latin words. So just as weenum – meaning ‘wine’ – became vinum – the same thing happened here. The wandals became the vandals.

The later French also used this same Germanic root word – now pronounced with the ‘v’ at the beginning. And they used it to create another word – vagrant. Vagrant still has that same meaning as a ‘wanderer,’ but it’s now acquired a more negative sense as in ‘a beggar or tramp.’

And in Medieval Latin, if you wandered around outside of a specific place where you were supposed to be, you were extra vagrant – or as we know it today extravagant. Of course, today the term refers to anything that is ‘excessive’ or ‘beyond the normal expectations.’

The Medieval French also created another word from this same root word which was very similar to vagrant, and that’s the word vagabond. And that work also has made it’s way into Modern English.

And if you’re trying to explain something and your thoughts wander around without being specific and to the point, well you’re being vague – another word the French created from that same Germanic root.

7 So all of that means the words wander, vandal, vandalism, vagrant, vagabond, extravagant and vague are all cognate. They all came from the same Germanic root word. And also note that all of those words – except for wander – came through French or Latin before they got to English. And that’s why they all have a V at the beginning instead of a W. But it also shows that borrowing is a two-way street. The Romans sometimes borrowed Germanic words, and over time the Romans and French created lots of new words from those original Germanic words. So some of our Latin words in modern English are actually Germanic words if we trace them back far enough.

So we’ve looked at the Alamanni, the Franks and the Vandals. And we’ve seen how they took advantage of the deteriorating situation in Rome, and they made repeated efforts to invade Roman territory. But now we need to turn our attention even farther east – all the way to the Black Sea region and the Eurasian steppes. The same region which was once the home of the first Indo- Europeans.

A completely separate Germanic tribe had found its way to this region. This tribe was the Goths. The important thing to understand about the Goths is their longevity. The Greek traveler Pytheas wrote about a tribe called the Gutones in northern Europe in the 4th century BC. Tacitus then mentions them in the region of modern-day Poland in the 1st century AD. He called them the Gotones. By the time of the ‘Imperial Crisis’ in the 3rd Century, they were in the area north of the Black Sea, and they were called the Goths. Over the next 5 centuries they would expand across southern Europe. They would fight for the Romans. They would fight against the Romans. They would sack Rome for the first time since the creation of the Roman Empire. They would control a large portion of Gaul. They would establish a kingdom in Italy that lasted until the 6th century. And they would establish a kingdom in Spain which would last until the Moors arrived in the 8th century. By the time these Gothic kingdoms finally collapsed, the Goths had left a recorded legacy which lasted for more than a thousand years. So they have a long and fascinating history. In terms of their political and miliary history, I’m just going to cover the first part of their story in this episode. And we’ll look at the rest of that history next time when we wind up our look at the Germanic tribes.

But for our purposes, the real importance of the Goths was their language and the fact that it was written down in the 4th century. A Gothic translation of the Bible and other religious texts from this period still survive to this very day. And that makes Gothic the first Germanic language to be written down in detail. And since these Gothic texts are a translation of the Bible, linguists have found it relatively easy to translate the language and compare it – word for word – with Latin and Greek.

This research enables scholars to essentially go back in time and examine this particular Germanic language as it existed in the 4th century. And since this period is only 3 or 4 centuries removed from the common proto-Germanic period, it allows linguists to examine the evolution of the Germanic languages over time. So we can actually examine the vocabulary, and syntax, and grammar of a Germanic language for the first time without having to rely on reconstructions.

Now before we look closer at the Goths, it is important to keep in mind that their language was not an early version of English. The Anglo-Saxons and the Goths were separate groups of tribes who lived in different parts of Europe at the same time. The Angles and Saxons spoke West Germanic

8 languages, and the Goths spoke an East Germanic language. But their respective languages were still very similar at this early point.

Now in terms of the history of English, if we had Anglo-Saxons texts from the same time fame as the Gothic Bible, we probably wouldn’t find the Gothic language all that interesting. It would be interesting to compare the languages, just like it’s interesting to compare the early High German dialects with Old English, but it would really be more of an academic exercise. But the problem is we don’t have Anglo-Saxon texts from this period. And we don’t have texts in any other Germanic language from this period either. And we won’t have texts in any other Germanic languages for several more centuries.

So you can see why historical linguists are so fascinated with the Gothic language. It is the ‘missing link’ between the original common proto-Germanic language and the later Germanic languages that were written down from around the 7th century onwards. But again, it’s not the mother of English. It is really more like a sister of English.

So let’s take a closer look at the Goths. Having migrated from Scandinavia through eastern Europe, the Goths arrived in the region north of the Black Sea shortly after the time of Tacitus.

We should keep in mind that it is probably a mistake to think of the Goths as some kind of completely unified and homogenous tribe. The Goths were likely a collection of tribes, war bands, and other nomadic peoples who were collectively referred to as Goths by the Romans. So in many respects, they were similar to the Alamanni and the Franks in the west. They were sort of a like a snowball rolling down a hill and getting bigger and bigger as they moved southward.

The first Goths reached an area north of the Black Sea by around the year 170 – so around the time of Marcomannic Wars which is described in the last episode. Over the next century, other Goths continued to move into this region, and they became well entrenched around the northern and western side of the Black Sea. And that put them just north of the Roman border.

Once in place, the Goths were joined by waves of other migrating peoples. So there was no single migration. It was a series of migrations over a period of several decades. And despite the label, there was probably no distinctive “Gothic” culture at this point. It was really just a collection of culturally- mixed groups. But the sheer size of the group made it a potentially powerful force. And that coincided with the Imperial Crisis in Rome, so Rome was distracted by events within the Empire and along other portions of the border.

Now, up to this point, I have noted that the Danube was the border between Rome and the Germania, but that’s really a simplified version of events. In reality, shortly after the time of Tacitus, the Romans had crossed the eastern Danube nearer the Black Sea – around modern-day Romania. And there they had established a Roman territory there called Dacia. But Roman control of this region had always been tenuous. And now the Goths were sitting right on the northern border of Dacia.

In the 3rd century, the Goths unleashed an ongoing assault on Dacia, and in fact the entire Black Sea region. They actually built ships and crossed the Black Sea itself where they raided the Black Sea

9 coast – including the coast of modern-day Turkey. They even traveled through the Bosporus Strait and attacked Greece and the Aegean. And this is very important because remember that Greek was the dominant language in Black Sea region during this period. It was basically the lingua franca of the region. Well, after a few years – and a lot of success – the Goths decided to re-focus on expansion by land, and they largely abandoned their maritime campaigns across the Black Sea and the Aegean. But they returned to their Gothic base with a large number of Greek-speaking captives, included many from central Anatolia – modern-day Turkey.

And some of those captives ultimately served as mediators between the Goths and the Greek world to the south. And one of the descendants of those captives was a man named Wulfilas. And he is the person who translated the Greek Bible into Gothic.

Now throughout this period of the 3rd century, the Romans were able to score some occasional victories, but they weren’t able to keep the Goths out of Dacia north of the Danube – especially after the Goths began to focus more and more on campaigns by land. And remember that all of this Gothic expansion was taking place at the same time as the Imperial Crisis in Rome, and at the same time as the invasions of the Alamanni and the Franks along the Rhine in the west. So it was all too much for the Romans to deal with. And in the year 270, the Romans finally retreated back across the Danube – thereby leaving Dacia to the Goths.

As I noted, Dacia was part of modern-day Romania. And even though the borders of Dacia varied over time, it was generally centered around the region we know today as Transylvania. So keep that little bit of information in the back of your mind because the Goths now called it home.

And with Dacia occupied by the Goths, there were now two separate groups of Goths. The group which had remained north of the Black Sea – further east – were called the Ostrogoths. And the group which settled along the north side of the Danube in Dacia were called the Visigoths. Both of these groups shared a common language – the Gothic language. But from this point forward, their history and their culture will start to diverge, and we can begin to think of them as separate and distinct tribes.

Now the name Ostrogoths meant “Eastern Goths.’ If fact that Germanic prefix Ostro may seem a little familiar to you. You might remember from the episode on Germanic mythology that the Indo- Europeans has a word *aus which meant "to shine" – especially ‘shining at dawn.’ And so, this word came to be associated with the sun rising in the morning and eventually came to be associated with the direction in which the sun rose. And that Indo-European root word produced the original Germanic word *austra meaning ‘east towards the sunrise.’ In English, that Germanic word eventually produced the word east that we have today. But in the separate Gothic language it produced the word Ostro. So the Ostro-Goths were the Goths in the east along the northern Black Sea – in the steppe region.

So if Ostrogoths means ‘Eastern Goths,’ you might assume that Visigoths means ‘Western Goths.’ But the etymology here is a bit more complicated. Originally, this Dacian group were simply called the Visi – not the Visigoths. And it wasn’t until the 6th century that the Romans coined the term Visigoths apparently influenced by the term Ostrogoths. And many assumed that this term Visigoths

10 meant ‘Western Goths,’ just like Ostrogoths meant ‘Eastern Goths.’ But the prefix Visi actually came from the original tribal name of this Dacian group of Goths. So what did that name Visi mean? Well, the ‘v’ at the beginning appears to be another example of that later Latin sound shift from the ‘w’ sound to the ‘v’ sound because the tribe was called the Wisi by earlier Roman sources and Visi by later sources after the sound change. So there are some scholars who think that the original name Wisi meant ‘west,’ and therefore, Visigoths does in fact meant ‘Western Goths’ if we trace the name back to its original meaning. But there are other scholars who think that Wisi simply meant ‘good,’ and that the name of the original tribe meant ‘good or worthy people.’

At any rate, it is very common today to see the term Visigoth interpreted as ‘Western Goth,’ but I just wanted to note that there is still some debate about that name.

Now shortly after the Goths – or more specifically the Visigoths – took control of Dacia from the Romans, Rome finally started to get it’s house in order. The Imperial Crisis in Rome, and all of the chaos of the preceding 50 years, finally came to an end – at least for a while.

And the key to ending this crisis was a new Emperor in Rome – named Diocletian. He became Emperor in the year 284 – 14 years after the Romans abandoned Dacia which had been the first Roman province to fall to the Germans. Under Diocletian’s leadership, Rome began to reorganize the way its provinces were administered. It had become obvious that centralized power in Rome was no longer effective. The Empire was too big, and it faced too many challenges. So Diocletian decided to abandon the idea of centralized rule in Rome. There was a natural linguistic division within the Empire. To the west, Latin was the dominant language. In the East, Greek was the dominant language. And this provided the basis for dividing the Empire into separate western and eastern sections.

The Empire was ultimately divided into 4 regions – each having its own capital and its own emperor. Two regions were established in the east, and two regions were established in the west. So at this early point, we can begin to see the division of the Empire into the eastern and western portions. And at this point, the city of Rome ceased to be the capital of the Empire. After Diocletian retired, the Empire actually devolved into civil war again for a couple of decades. But by the year 324, Constantine had emerged as the sole Emperor of the Roman Empire. The Empire was briefly re- united under his leadership, and thanks to his religious conversion, the Empire now had a new official religion – Christianity. Constantine also settled in the Greek city of Byzantium in western Anatolia, and he made it his new capital. It came to be known as Constantinople – after Constantine. And of course when the Empire was permanently split, it became the capital of the east.

Since the time of Diocletian a few decades earlier, the relationship between Rome and the Germanic tribes had started to settle down somewhat. As Rome became more stable, it was a less inviting target for the Germans. So for example, once the Goths took control of Dacia, there was no significant battle between them and the Romans for several decades. In fact, this was a period in which the Romans were increasingly relying upon Germanic mercenaries. So many Goths actually sided with Rome during this period.

11 After Constantine became Emperor, conflicts between the Empire and the Goths briefly re-occurred, but a treaty was negotiated in the year 332 which stabilized the relationship. Rome agreed to make annual payments to the Goths in return for the resumption of trade across the Danube, and in return for the Goth’s agreement to provide Rome with troops as needed. In fact, Rome was busy cutting similar deals with other tribes like the Franks and the Alamanni and the Saxons.

Throughout this period, and especially the treaty in 332, trade became much more regular between the Goths and the Romans across the Danube. And that movement of goods also meant there was a corresponding movement of people back and forth. And with the movement of people, there was an exchange of cultures, and part of that exchange included that new official Roman religion – Christianity.

As I noted earlier, the Gothic missionary Wulfilas had been born to a family of Anatolian origin that had been taken into captivity by the Visigoths as part of an earlier raid. But Wulfilas was born among the Visigoths, and he was reared as a Goth speaking the Gothic language. As a boy, he was sent to Constantinople as a hostage. And there he was exposed to Christianity, and he was eventually consecrated a bishop for the purpose of spreading Christianity back to the Goths. Wulfilas then traveled to Dacia. And there, he converted many Goths to Christianity.

In order to secure the conversion of Goths to Christianity, Wulfilas needed a Gothic verison of the Bible. Very few Goths spoke Latin or Greek. So he undertook the translation of the Bible. We know that the Germanic runic symbols had started to be used for brief inscriptions by this period, but they weren’t really suited for translating the Bible. And even if they were, many Greek religious names and other terms were going to have to be maintained. And the runes couldn’t capture all of the sounds of the Greek language. So Wulfilas created his own Gothic alphabet which was a combination of the runic alphabet and the Greek alphabet. And the final product of all of his work was the Gothic Bible. Unfortunately, the entire Bible didn’t survive the ages, but much of it did. And a few other miscellaneous religious texts also exist in Gothic.

As I’ve noted, the Gothic translation of the Bible preserved the Gothic language of the 4th century for future generations to examine. So that makes Gothic the oldest attested Germanic language. And given its age, it gives us a glimpse of what the Germanic languages looked and sounded like shortly after the end of the original proto-Germanic period.

So let’s take a closer look at the Gothic language. In the last episode, I noted that the original Germanic language had a ‘z’ sound which eventually shifted to an ‘r’ sound. Linguists call this tendency of certain sounds to shift to an ‘r’ sound rhotacism. Well, this sound never shifted within the Gothic language. So the Goths held on to that original sibilant sound – and it appears as a /s/ or /z/ in many Gothic words where we have an ‘r’ sound in other Germanic languages.

So for example, the Goths had a word which meant to ‘accumulate or store something’ And that word was pronounced huzd. The Old English equivalent of that word was hord. And that word had actually changed very little over the years within English. We still have it as ‘hoard’ - H-O-A-R-D - as in ‘to hoard food’. So between Gothic huzd and Old English hord, you can hear that shift to the ‘r’ sound that never occurred within Gothic.

12 And I’ll give you another example. The Goths had a word which meant ‘to acquire knowledge or skills.’ That word was láisjan (/lays-yan/). And the Old English version of that word was læran. And læran is the Old English version of ‘learn.’ So between láisjan and læran, you can hear the newer ‘r’ sound in Old English. And again, as we look at other early Germanic languages, we also see the ‘r’ sound. It’s only Gothic which held on to the original sibilant.

Also, the Gothic word maiza is equivalent to the Old English word mâra. And that word eventually became more in Modern English. So we can see in the Modern English words most and more that one retains an original sibilant sound – the ‘s’ sound (/s/) – and the other has the later ‘r’ sound.

And Gothic wçsun is equivalent to Old English wæron which eventually became were – W-E-R-E – in Modern English. So again, in Modern English we have two variations of this word. In the case of was, we see an original sibilant sound – the ‘s’ sound. And in were, we see the later ‘r’ sound which developed prior to Old English.

So Gothic never developed that particular sound shift. But outside of that sound difference, you’ll note that the Gothic words and the Old English words are very similar.

The Gothic language also had a unique consonant sound that didn’t exist in other Germanic languages. It was basically a combination of the ‘th’ sound the ‘l’ sound. So it came out as a ‘thl’ sound. And it’s a little hard to represent that sound in Modern English, but think about the name ‘Kathleen.’ That group of consonants in the middle - /thl/ - is a rough example of this sound. But within Gothic words, the sound could appear anywhere – even at the beginning. Now in other Germanic languages – including Old English – the tendency was to use an ‘fl’ sound instead of this Gothic ‘thl’ sound.

So the Goths had a word which meant ‘to run away’ and it was pronounced þliuhan (/thl-ee-oo- hahn/). But in Old English the word was fleon (/flay-on/). And that word eventually became flee – F-L-E-E – in Modern English. So you can hear the difference in sounds at the beginning of those two words – Gothic þliuhan (/thl-ee-oo-hahn/) and Old English fleon (/flay-on/).

And not to make this sound too technical, but Gothic had a dual pronoun form in first person and second person which doesn’t generally exist in any other Germanic languages except Old Norse. So for example, in English we have a first person singular pronoun (‘I’) and a plural pronoun (‘we’). But Gothic also had a dual version which only applied to two people – me and someone else – so it basically meant ‘we two’ or ‘the two of us.’ In Gothic, the dual version was wit and the plural version was weis.

Now what we see here is a simplification of the original Indo-European pronouns that was taking place within the early Germanic languages. The original Indo-European language had those dual forms as well. But most of the early Germanic languages were getting rid of the dual versions and only using a singular and a plural verison. But Gothic held on to that Indo-European dual form in first person.

13 And it also held on to that dual version in third person. And in third person, we can see how Modern English has taken this idea of simplifying the pronouns even further. In fact, it may have taken it a little too far, because many modern English speakers still struggle with that change.

In modern English, we have third person singular you and third person plural you (as in ‘all of you’). So we use the same word for singular and plural. And many Modern English speakers seem to have an innate sense that this is a little awkward. So some dialects have a tendency to want to change that plural version to make it distinctive. So in some English dialects, it becomes you all, or y’all, or you- ins, or youse guys or some other stereotype. We sometimes make fun of these regionalisms, but it really represents Modern English speakers trying to make a distinction between singular and plural that was always made in earlier forms of English, and is still made in most other European languages.

Now back to Gothic. While other Germanic languages like Old English were busy simplifying the pronouns by getting rid of the dual third person pronoun, as I said Gothic held onto it. So Gothic had a singular verison of you, a dual version meaning ‘you too’ or ‘the two of you,’ and a plural version meaning ‘you all’ or ‘all of you.’

So we’ve looked at some differences between Gothic and Old English. But, as you might imagine, there were also lots of similarities. So let’s compare some of the vocabulary of the two languages. And let’s begin by listening to the basic numbers ‘1 through 10' in both languages.

In Gothic the number 1 was ains (/eye-nz/). In Old English it was an (/ahn/). So between ains (/eye- nz/) and an (/ahn/), you can hear the similarities.

Now the number 2 in Gothic was twai (/tw-eye/). In Old English, it was twegen (/tway-yen/). So again, twai (/tw-eye/) – twegen (/tway-yen/), you can see the similarities.

The number 3 in Gothic was þreis (/three-s/). In Old English, it was þrie (/three-yeh/).

The number 4 in Gothic was fidwor (/feed-wor/). In Old English, it was feower (/fay-o-wer/).

The number 5 in Gothic was fimf (/feemf/). In Old English, it was fif (/feef/).

The number 6 in Gothic was saihs (/say-hks/). In Old English, it was siex (/seex/).

The number 7 in Gothic was sibun (/see-wun/). In Old English, it was seofon (/say-o-von/).

The number 8 in Gothic was ahtau (/ahk-taw/). In Old English, it was eahta (/ehk-tuh/).

The number 9 in Gothic was niun (/nee-un/). In Old English, it was nigon (/nee-yon/).

The number 10 in Gothic was taihun (/tay-hk-un/). And in Old English, it was tien (/tee-yen/).

So as you can hear, the numbers in Gothic and Old English were very similar.

14 We can also compare Gothic to Old English by listening to portions of their respective versions of the Lord’s Prayer. As you may recall from way back in Episode 1, the Lord’s Prayer exists in many ancient languages. So the various versions of the Prayer provides a convenient way to compare the structure of those early languages. But we have to keep in mind that even though Gothic and Old English were sister languages, the attested version of the Gothic Prayer pre-dates the Old English version by three or four centuries. So the differences between the two versions of the Prayer are a combination of dialect differences and time differences.

And I should also note that I can be somewhat generous in my pronunciation of Gothic because no one knows for certain how it pronounced. Obviously, the spelling of the words in the original Gothic alphabet provides strong evidence. But unlike later languages like Old English, the material we have in Gothic is much more limited. So the actual Gothic speakers of the 4th century may well have had some unique pronunciations or sounds which we can’t detect in the written language.

So with that caveat out of the way, let’s look at the first line of the Lord’s Prayer. In Modern English, it’s, “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed by they name.”

In Old English, the same passage was, “Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod.”

In Gothic, that passage was, “Atta unsar, þu in himinam, weihnai namo þein.”

So let’s look a little closer at those passages. In Modern English, we say “Our Father” – with the pronoun our before father. But early Germanic languages reversed that order and put father first. So it was father our.

In Old English, that was “Fæder ure.” In Gothic, it was “Atta unsar.” So between ure and unsar, you can hear the differences between the word our in both of those languages.

But what about father? Well, Old English was faeder, as we’ve seen before. But the Gothic word was atta. By now we know that the original Indo-European word for ‘father’ had a ‘p’ sound represented in the Latin and Greek forms of the word – pater. And that ‘p’ switched to an ‘f’ in the Germanic languages. But for some reason, Gothic had lost that consonant altogether in the word father. The resulting word was atta. And a ‘little father’ in Gothic was attila. And when the Huns invaded the Ostrogoths from the Eurasian steppes, many of the Ostrogoths fled to the west. But some of the Ostrogoths joined the Huns as mercenaries. And the Ostrogoths called the Hunnic leader ‘little father’ – Attila. And of course, we know him today as Attila the Hun. And we’ll talk more about Attila and the Huns in the next episode. Because their invasion of central Europe was one of the primary causes for the mass invasion of western Europe by Germanic tribes – which we will discuss next time.

Before we move on, let’s look at a few of the other words in the passage I just read.

The word heaven in Old English was heofonum. In Gothic, it was himinam. And the word name in Old English was nama. In Gothic, it was namo.

15 So we can definitely see the similarities. But as we look at the second line of the Lord’s Prayer, the differences between the two versions become more apparent.

The second line in Modern English is, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.”

In Old English, the passage read, “to becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.”

In Gothic, that passage was: “qimai þiudinassus þeins, wairþai wilja þeins, swe in himina jah ana airþai.”

Now all of that may sound completely foreign too you, and they may not even sound similar. But if we listen closely, we can detect the similarities. For example, take the portion that reads ‘in earth as it is in heaven.’ In Old English, Earth was eorðan. And roughly speaking, Old English used the Middle English word order for this passage. So it was, “on eorðan swa swa on heofonum” – “on earth as it is in heaven.”

In Gothic, the word for ‘Earth’ was similar to Old English. It was airþai. But Gothic reversed the word order of the passage, so it read more like “as it is in Heaven, it is on Earth” – “swe in himina jah ana airþai.”

So I hope you found that interesting. As you can probably hear, the original Germanic dialects that evolved from that common Proto-Germanic language were very similar. It is essentially that same process that was beginning to happen to Latin at the same time. As Rome began to falter and fall apart, it began to break into regional entities. And without a strong central government in Rome, the factors that held Roman Latin in place were also disappearing. Now, regional variations of Latin were beginning to take root.

And those dialects would eventually evolve into the modern Romance languages. But they would also retain some basic similarities. And the same thing was happening within the Germanic languages as well.

Before I wrap up this episode, I wanted to explore the ultimate evolution of the word Gothic from its original reference to this particular Germanic tribe, to a specific type of architecture, and now a certain sub-culture or lifestyle which was called ‘Gothic.’

To understand the evolution of the word, we have to begin with the Germanic period that we looked at in this episode, and that we will continue to explore in the next episode. As we now know, there were lots of Germanic tribes. But the Goths had a particularly long history. Remember that the Goths were attested in written histories for over 1,000 years. And the Goths actually became two separate tribes – the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths. And when the Roman Empire eventually collapsed in the west, the Germanic tribes rushed in and filled the vacuum. And that included the Goths.

16 The Ostrogoths, you’ll remember, eventually established a kingdom in Italy. And the Visigoths established a completely separate kingdom in Spain. But after those two kingdoms eventually collapsed and disappeared, the term Goth basically fell out of use. And when it was used, it was used to refer to these specific Germanic tribes.

And during the following centuries, Christianity spread throughout Europe. And during the 11th and 12 century, a new style of fancy, ornate architecture developed. It was primarily used for churches and cathedrals, and it featured pointed arches, flying buttresses, large stain glass windows, and so on. Think about the Notre Dame in Paris. And this architectural style was meant to impress and overwhelm worshipers. And this style of architecture spread to castles and other buildings during the Medieval period.

But in Medieval Europe, this particular style of architecture wasn’t called Gothic. The architectural style had developed in France, so it was often called French work.

Now even though the Western Roman Empire had collapsed and given way to various Germanic kingdoms, the Eastern Roman Empire had continued on as the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople – in western Turkey.

But in 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire. And that led to the disbursement of Greek scholars in Constantinople throughout western Europe. They brought with them manuscripts which had been written in ancient Greek and which were previously unknown in the West. And that discovery of this pre-Christian Greek and Roman culture caused an intellectual and cultural revolution in the West – which was call the Renaissance. Suddenly, everything associated with Classical Greece and Rome was fashionable, and everything associated with the period after the fall of the Western Roman Empire was considered crude, uncultured and uncivilized. And that included architecture. Greco-Roman architecture was the way to go. Large white columns, arches and domes. This reflected the Greek emphasis on geometry and proportions. And all those older Medieval castles and cathedrals were considered old-fashioned and part of a ‘Darker Age.’

And this is where we start to get terms like the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages. There was that wonderful Greco-Roman Period, and there was this Modern Renaissance, and then there was all that barbaric stuff in the ‘middle’ – that ‘Dark’ Period. And it’s kind of hard to believe that all those beautiful cathedrals were now considered barbaric or primitive, but they were because they weren’t Greco-Roman. And you can see why some modern historians are still reluctant to use the term ‘Dark Ages.’ But nevertheless, that’s what they were considered at the time.

Well, since the Goths were such a prominent Germanic tribe during the later Roman period and the period after the fall of Rome, some people during the Renaissance began to use the term Gothic to refer to certain things associated with this middle period – the period before the Renaissance. This supposedly darker, primitive, uncivilized period. And all of those beautiful castles and cathedrals began to be called Gothic because they were built during that earlier period.

We can now skip forward a couple of centuries to the 18th and 19th centuries when a new style of literature began to appear. These novels and stories were often set in dark Gothic castles and

17 cathedrals. They typically involved dark or eerie themes. They relied on suspense, and often featured supernatural elements. But it was the setting of the stories which was really the key. Castles, cathedrals, dungeons, dark corridors, winding stairs, darkness, moonlight, candlelight. And because of the darkness of the literature, and its associated with Gothic castles and cathedrals, it came to be called Gothic literature. This included the writings of Horace Walpole, Edgar Allen Poe and even the Brothers Grimm. It also included works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, and Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

It also included Bran Stoker’s Dracula. And that novel was particularly influential. Of course, it featured a vampire who lived in Transylvania – which as we know from earlier in this episode was once called Dacia and had been the home of the original Visigoths. And of course, Dracula was famously portrayed in the motion pictures by Bela Lugosi – from Hungary – the same general region of Eastern Europe.

So we now have the use of the term Gothic to describe this particular type of literature – primarily because of its dark, gloomy Gothic settings. But the term now came to refer to actual subject matter of those novels as well, so it came to refer to vampires, monsters, gouls, and other creepy characters.

And that takes us to the 20th century, specifically the year 1979. In that year, a band called Bauhaus released a song called “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” This is considered one of the first – and arguably the very first – example of a musical style called Gothic. It was dark and creepy kind of like Gothic novels and movies. Soon, music critics were using the term to refer to bands like Joy Division and The Cure who were also producing music in that style.

And thanks to the popularity of those Gothic bands – at least the underground popularity of those bands – it sparked a whole-new generation of ‘Goths’ who listened to the music, and dressed in black, and wore make-up to make themselves look like characters out of Gothic novels. So that’s how we got from the ancient Germanic Goths to the modern Goths.

So with the modern part of the Gothic story out of the way, next time, we’ll finish looking at the ancient Goths. And we’ll look at the Angles and Saxons as well. Because, next time I’m going to focus on the fall of Rome and the establishment of Germanic kingdoms in western Europe. And of course, one of this kingdoms was in Britain. So the next episode may very well be the final episode in our look at the development of Pre-English. And then we’ll be able to begin Volume 2 – Old English.

So until then, thanks for listening to the History of English Podcast.

18 EPISODE 27: BROKEN EMPIRE AND FRACTURED LANGUAGES

Welcome to the History of English Podcast – a podcast about the history of the English language, This is Episode 27: Broken Empire and Fractured Languages. This time we’re going to look at the final years of the Western Roman Empire, and the rise of new Germanic Kingdoms in its place. And these political events coincided with the division of Latin and the Germanic languages into new dialects and languages. And these newly-emerging languages evolved into many of the languages of modern Western Europe – including English.

But before we begin, let me mention a couple of things about the podcast. A couple of listeners have contacted me and indicated that they are having problems downloading the episodes to their iPhone. I’m not exactly sure why this is happening, but I wanted to give you a couple of options if you having this problem. First, you can always go to the main website for the podcast – historyofenglishpodcast.com. Most of the episodes there – especially the most recent episodes – are saved to a different server. So you should be able to listen there without any problem.

Also, there is a separate website for the podcast, and that’s historyof englishpodcast.podbean.com. That where the main episodes are hosted, and that’s what iTunes uses as well. If you go to that website, there is a link on the main page that says ‘mobile.’ If you click that link, you can actually add an app to your iPhone for the podcast. So be sure to check that out if you listen to the podcast with an iPhone.

So with all of that out of the way, let’s turn to this episode. And I should note that there is a lot of late Roman history in this episode. But I wanted to go through the events which culminated in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire because they really set the stage for everything that happened later including the Anglo-Saxon migrations to Britain.

Of course, we’ve already started to look at the gradual decline of the Roman Empire over the past few episodes. And as we’ve seen, there was no single cause for this decline. It was a combination of infighting, civil war, economic disruptions and external pressures from across the borders. All of these factors contributed to the decline of the Empire in the West.

And at the same time that Roman power was declining, the Germanic tribes were becoming more powerful. And some of those tribes were also beginning to learn how to read and write. First, there were those Germanic runes, then the Gothic translation of the Bible. But literacy was still very, very rare within Germania.

But, as we know, literacy was very common across the border in the Roman Empire. The Greeks had been writing with their alphabet since around the year 800 BC, and the Romans had been writing with their version of the same alphabet since about 600 BC. So by this point, writing had been in common use throughout much of the Roman Empire for around 1,000 years, and I’m not even counting the earlier forms of writing like cuneiform and heiroglyphics which had been around for even longer in the eastern Mediterranean.

19 There are so many different ways to look at the conflicts between the Romans and the Germanic tribes, but we sometimes forget that it was a conflict between a literate world and an illiterate world.

And when we look back at the history of that type of conflict, the literate world has a major advantage. They get to write the history for later generations to read. And that’s part of the reason why so many historians of the past lamented the collapse of the Roman Empire, and they described the period that followed as the ‘Dark Ages.’ These historians made the mistake of equating writing with civilization. So when writing began to decline after the fall of Rome that must have meant that civilization itself had declined, and a dark period of barbarian rule must have been ushered in. Again, we know today that many of those assumptions were false, or at least were greatly exaggerated. But it illustrates how important writing is to our view of history, and especially the events during this period.

So I want to begin this episode by taking a look at the state of literacy and writing within the Roman Empire as we enter the last century of its existence. And during this period, around the end of the 4th century, a significant event related to writing was taking place. And that event was the replacement of scrolls with books.

Up to this point, people generally used papyrus scrolls or parchment for writing. The Romans also sometimes used waxed-covered tablets. But the Romans had figured out a way to tie several tablets together at the side. So you could flip from one tablet to the next. And by the time of Tacitus at the end of the 1st century, the Romans had started to take several pieces of papyrus or parchment and bind them together in an early version of what we would call a ‘book’ today. By the 4th century, these early books had largely replaced scrolls. So why did that happen? And why did happen at this point?

Well, for centuries, papyrus had been one of the most common materials used for writing. The process for making papyrus for writing involved cutting strips of the papyrus plant and laying them side by side horizontally, and then adding a second layer on top vertically, and so on. When it was thick enough, it was pressed and left to dry. And this dried-out papryus was rolled into scrolls. When we see references to ‘ancient books’ from the Mediterranean, this is what they are referring to – papyrus scrolls – not books as we know them today. But as the Roman Empire began to fracture and fall apart, it became increasingly difficult for people in Europe to obtain papyrus from Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean.

So they began to switch to parchment which was typically made from calf or sheep skin, but sometimes the skin of other animals as well. Parchment had actually been around for centuries, but only now did it start to replace papyrus as the dominant writing material. Parchment was smoother than papyrus. It was also thin, durable and flexible. It was also much easier to bind pages of parchment together than it was for papyrus. But parchment was also very expensive because it was made from animal skins, and therefore there was a much more limited supply of it. The finest quality of parchment was called vellum because it came from a calf’s skin. The word vellum comes from an older Latin word vel which meant ‘calf,’ and it’s the same root word that gives us the word veal in Modern English also meaning a ‘calf’ – usually one that you have for dinner.

20 Now even though parchment was expensive, at least there were animals around which could be used to make it. Since it was becoming almost impossible to import papyrus into Europe with the decline of Rome, parchment was the only practical alternative. So parchment gradually replaced papyrus. And with the shift from papyrus to parchment, another shift occurred. And that was the shift from scrolls to individual pages bound together into a book-form. But the Romans didn’t call a bound collection of pages a book. They called it a codex.

The popularity of these very early books quickly became apparent. It was much easier to read a book than a rolled up piece of papyrus – especially for longer works. Books could also be printed on both sides of the page, whereas papyrus could only be printed on one side since it was rolled up and had to be handled on one side. With a book, you could simply flip through the pages rather than trying to manage a series of scrolls.

And Christian monks soon came to prefer this type of document since it was much easier to read scriptures in a book form than in a long scroll. At this point, all documents – both scrolls and books – were handwritten. And as the Roman Empire fell apart, the art and skill of writing became increasingly confined to monks and monasteries. So most writing tended to be religious in nature. And since these monks came to prefer books over scrolls, scrolls were quickly phased out. In fact, the oldest surviving complete book in Greek is a Greek version of the Bible from this very time frame – the 4th century.

As I noted, the Romans called these bound collections a codex. That word had evolved from the Latin word caudex which meant ‘tree trunk.’ Which raises an interesting question. If these early books were made from parchment – animal skins – why did the Romans named them after the word for ‘tree trunk.’ Well, remember that the early Romans used wooden tablets covered with wax for writing as well. And remember that the first version of a book – or codex – was several of these wooden tablets which were tied together at the side. So the Latin word for ‘tree trunk’ was used for these early books because the ‘pages’ – if we can call them that – were literally pieces of wood. The name stuck even as the technology later evolved to parchment.

Now within later French, the word codex came to refer to a specific type of book – a law book. As written laws were gradually adopted, the written collection of laws was called a codex. And from there we got the word code – as in a legal code – or tax code – or dress code. By the way, the term codicil also came from this same root word. Codicil refers to an amendment to a document – usually a Last Will and Testament – and it originally meant a ‘small writing tablet,’ but it then came to mean a ‘short or abbreviated writing,’ and later came to mean a short amendment tacked on to on original document. Both code and codicil came into English from French after the Normal Invasion in 1066, and as we will see when we get to that period, the Normans had to impose law and order on the Anglo-Saxons. So most of the legal terms in modern English come from this period of French. And of course, most of those French words originated in Latin.

So the Latin word codex came from an earlier Latin word for ‘tree trunk.’ Well, guess what – our Germanic word book has a similar origin. The English word book comes from an original Germanic word boc, which is actually cognate with the word beech – as in ‘beech tree.’ It is believed that the first Germanic tribes carved runes onto beech wood, and they may also have carved runes into actual

21 living beech trees. This seems to be the source of the word boc meaning something you write on. In Old English, the term boc meant any written document. It later took the meaning of book as we know it today.

So speaking of writing materials that come from trees, you may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned paper yet. Well, that’s because paper technology hadn’t found its way to Europe yet. In fact, it would be several more centuries before Europeans began to write on paper. But the knowledge and technology required to make paper did exist at this point in the 4th and 5th centuries. It just happened to exist in far to the east in China.

The process of making paper is a lot more complicated that making papyrus scrolls. Paper is made by breaking down plants into individual fibers, and then through a process of wetting and drying, the fibers bond together to form an entirely new substance – paper – which can be very thin and very smooth. It has characteristics that are similar to parchment, but it doesn’t come from animal skins. It comes from trees and other plants, so it can be produced in abundance. And that meant that when paper technology was introduced, it was much cheaper that parchment. And eventually, paper replaced parchment even in Europe. But it took many centuries for that technology to spread westward from China to western Europe.

But interestingly, there was something else spreading from China to Western Europe during this same time frame. Or maybe I should say ‘someone’ else was spreading from China to Europe. I’m referring to the Huns. And since the Huns were so skilled on horseback, they beat the arrival of paper in Europe by several centuries. In fact, it was arrival of the Huns into Europe that served as the catalyst for many of the events which led to final collapse of the Western Roman Empire. And the Huns brought with them some technological innovations of their own, and their technology is also part of this story. So let’s turn our attention the Huns and the events which followed their arrival in Europe.

And to understand the Huns, we should probably think back to the original Indo-Europeans because, like the first Indo-Europeans, the Huns were nomadic people who lived in the Eurasian steppe region. Their overall lifestyle was actually very similar to those first Indo-Europeans. They were nomadic. They were very skilled on horseback. They were proficient at raiding. They were war-like at times, and they were constantly on the move looking for new regions to settle in and conquer if necessary.

But I should note that the Huns were not Indo-Europeans. We’re now about 3,000 years beyond the period in which the original Indo-Europeans lived. And the Huns spoke a completely different language. But culturally, not much had changed on the Eurasian steppes over the centuries. So, as we look at the expansion of the Huns, we can draw some parallels with the expansion of the Indo- Europeans from the same region about 3,000 years earlier.

Now the Huns – and for that matter the original Indo-Europeans – they were not unique. The steppe region was home to many powerful nomadic tribes over the centuries. In fact, as late as the 13th century, we have the rise of the Mongol Empire under Ghengis Khan which originated in the same region. And that Empire would eventually include much of modern China and stretch westward all

22 the way into Eastern Europe – making it the largest Empire the world has ever known in terms of contiguous land mass. So the peoples of this steppe region were a constant threat throughout much of human history – really until the rise of modern nation-states with standing armies equipped with gunpowder. Until then though, the nomadic tribes of the steppes were a never-ending problem for people who lived in adjacent areas, and that included not only the people of Eastern Europe, it also included the early Chinese kingdoms.

In the 3rd century BC, the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty in China began the construction of huge wall to protect themselves from nomadic tribes from the steppe region. Of course, we know that wall today as the Great Wall of China. And it had mixed success against those tribes. But over time, the steppe tribes found it increasingly difficult to penetrate the wall, and they began to turn westward. They moved westward across the steppes until they finally found themselves in the western steppe region in the 4th century. That put them in the area north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. And these people came to be known as the Hunni by the Romans, and of course we know them today as the Huns.

There is another interesting parallel between the Huns and the original Indo-Europeans. As we know, small technological innovations gave the Indo-Europeans huge advantages relative to their neighbors. So horse domestication, dairy farming, wheeled wagons and horse-riding – all of these innovations gave the early Indo-Europeans an advantage which they exploited over time. Well, another technological innovation had been developed on the steppes, and the Huns had mastered this little bit of technology. And with it, the Huns became one of the most feared peoples from Asia all the way to central Europe. And in fact, a compelling argument can be made that this little piece of technology was indirectly responsible for the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, and with it, the expansion of Germanic tribes into the region to fill the vacuum. So in a way, it’s ultimately responsible for the spread of Anglo-Saxons and their Old English language into southern Britain. And what was this little innovation? Believe it or not, it was the stirrup.

Now you may say, so what. But it’s important to keep in mind that horse-riding was now very common. So the fact that someone could ride a horse wasn’t a big deal anymore. Even the Romans had a cavalry, but they relied on their foot soldiers – their infantry. And over time, the Germanic tribes mimicked the Roman military strategies. So the Germans also relied primarily on their infantry. Now a cavalry was good for support – but part of the reason why the Europeans didn’t generally wage war on horseback is because they didn’t have stirrups. Without them, it was hard to brace yourself or support yourself on horseback. So you had to avoid a sudden turn or sharp contact because you would fall off. So fighting on horseback against an infantry was limited. But all of that changed once you had the stirrup.

Now you could brace yourself, and when necessary, you could literally stand up while riding. You could shoot arrows with deadly aim. And you could maneuver your horse in ways that were impossible before. Once the Huns had mastered this technology, they would attack quickly, and they could retreat just as quickly, and sometimes that sudden retreat would turn into another quick attack. The Europeans had never experienced that kind of warfare before.

23 The stirrup had actually been developed a few centuries earlier in the steppe region, and it began as a way to make it easier to mount a horse. It was basically a loop which extended on one side of the horse, and it enabled the rider to step into the loop and then pull himself up onto the saddle. So it was like a step. But over time, this innovation was added to both sides of the saddle, and that was really the key to use of the stirrup in warfare. And the first archaeological evidence of the stirrup on both sides of the saddle comes from a tomb in China which dates to the early part of the 4th century.

So the use of stirrups on both sides of the horse was a brand new innovation when the Huns arrived in eastern Europe a few decades later – late in the 4th century.

After arriving in the western steppe region, the Huns spread over southern Russia. And they then turned southward where they encountered the Goths who had been living in the region north of the Black Sea for about a century. Remember that these were the eastern Goths – the group which came to be known as the Ostrogoths. And by this point, the Goths had become settled farmers in this region. But they were no match for the powerful Huns and their cavalry. When the Huns arrived from the east, they tore through the Ostrogothic Kingdom, and they quickly conquered it. They actually slaughtered many of the Gothic people who were living in the region. Some Goths fled, and some remained. The ones that remained became part of a new Hunnic Empire. And many of those Goths ended up fighting with the Huns in later battles – including battles several decades later under the Hunnic leader Attila. But the one’s who fled went in the only direction they could go – to the west. And that set in motion a chain reaction.

Now you would think that the use of stirrups would have quickly spread to the Romans and the Germans. But it actually took a couple of centuries before Europeans began to realize the effectiveness of the technology. And by that point, the Western Roman Empire was long gone, and the feudal system was just starting to emerge. And in fact, many historians believe that the adoption of stirrups by the Europeans was an essential part of the development of the later feudal system because the feudal system relied heavily on knights in armor mounted on horseback. And of course that required stirrups.

But it appears that the first Romans and Germans to encounter the stirrup didn’t actually understand the full effectiveness of the technology. Apparently, they only saw it as a way to help the rider mount the horse. They didn’t fully understand how it could be used in warfare. And part of the reason why we think the early Germans had this simplistic view of the technology is based upon the word they created to describe it. Stirrup is a Germanic word. And it’s actually a combination of the early Germanic words for stair – as in a step – and rope. And of course we can still hear the roots of stair and rope in stirrup. So they simply viewed the technology in its original use as a step to enable the rider to get into the saddle. And by the time they realized the full potential of the technology – and began to use it themselves – well they were already overrun by the Huns by that point.

The one exception to this rule was the Goths, specifically the Visigoths in Dacia in southeastern Europe. They had observed the destruction of their cousins to the east – the Ostrogoths. And many of those Ostrogoths had fled into the Visigothic territory as refugees. The Visigoths soon encountered the Huns on the eastern fringes of Dacia. Apparently, the Visigoths quickly realized two things. First, stirrups gave the Huns a major advantage in battle. And second, there was no way

24 they were going to defeat the Huns in warfare. So did two things in response. They began using stirrups, and they asked the Romans if they could cross the Danube into Roman territory to avoid annihilation by the Huns. And both of these decisions ultimately changed the face of Western Europe.

The Romans were faced with a dilemma of their own. Did they let the Visigoths into the Empire, or did they refuse them entry and leave them to be carved to pieces by the Huns?

As the Romans pondered this decision – a decision which would have major long-term implications – its important to consider the situation in Rome since the death of Constantine about 40 years earlier. Constantine had brought an end to the Imperial Crisis which I discussed in the last episode. And his reign provided a brief reprieve from the general decline of the Empire in the west.

And when Constantine died in the year 337, new fighting broke out within the Empire – and new fighting also broke out along the Rhine and Danube borders. In the Rhine region, the Romans had some success in the middle part of the 4th century. The Franks and the Alamanni were on the move again, but the Romans scored some victories and fortified their defenses along the Rhine. It was around this time that Rome allowed the Franks to settle across the Rhine as ‘federates.’ That meant that the Franks were free to live within Roman territory, and they would now serve in the Roman army and fight to defend Rome.

So the situation with the Visigoths was similar to that of the Franks. The Romans could just bring in the Visigoths as federates. In other words, let the Visigoths come in and fight for Rome. And in fact, as far as the Roman army was concerned, the lines between the Romans and the Germans was already becoming blurred. The Franks were fighting in defense of the Empire. And as I’ve noted before, the Romans were relying more and more on Germanic mercenaries for troops. And increasingly, these Germans were rising to the highest ranks of the Roman army, and they were starting to hold many of the top military commands. At least with respect to the military, the old distinction between ‘Romans’ and ‘Germans’ had largely disappeared. The Roman army wasn’t really all that Roman anymore. And that meant that the Roman population had become accustomed to relying on Germans for their defense.

So the Romans realized that a group like the Visigoths could be a potential asset to the Empire – especially at a time when they needed new soldiers. And so, the Romans agreed to let the Visigoths cross the Danube into Roman territory. And they basically worked out the same arrangement that they had made with the Franks a few years earlier. The Visigoths were settled legally into Roman territory, and they agreed to become Roman subjects and all that that meant – including paying taxes and serving in the Roman army. In exchange, the Romans agreed to provide the Goths with food and supplies and eventually new farmlands. The only problem was that the Romans didn’t keep their side of the bargain. They weren’t prepared to accept 80,000 or more Goths into the Empire. All of this had happened very quickly and Rome couldn’t – or wouldn’t – provide adequate food and shelter. Within a few months , the Visigoths were beginning to starve, and the conditions started to become unbearable. They had avoided a quick destruction at the hands of the Huns only to experience a slow starvation at the hands of the Romans.

25 The Visigoths were eventually forced to sell themselves and their children into Roman slavery for food. The Romans even established a price for these sacrifices. For each child offered to Rome as a slave, Rome would provide a dog in return. The dog to be used for food.

The Visigoths finally reached a breaking point in the year 378 – a couple of years after crossing into Roman territory. With nothing left to lose, the Visigoths rose in rebellion throughout the Balkans. The Roman army led by the Emperor Valens engaged the Visigothic army at Adrianople in modern- day Turkey).

Valens underestimated the size of the Visigothic army. He also underestimated a new technology which the Visigoths had picked up from the Huns – the stirrup. And the result was the complete annihilation of the Roman army by the Gothic cavalry. Rough estimates suggest that about 2/3 of the Roman soldiers were killed in the battle including the Emperor Valens himself. It was the worst defeat for the Roman army in 400 years. And it was one of those landmark battles in world history as well because it was the first time that a foreign army was able to permanently occupy Roman territory. Other Germanic tribes had invaded, but the Romans had always been able to eventually turn them back. But the Goths were here to stay.

After the defeat of the Romans by the Visigoths, a cycle ensured which was repeated over and over again for the next 30 years. The Goths and the Romans would fight for a while. They would then agree to a treaty in which the Goths agreed to provide service and troops to the Romans in exchange for land and autonomy. But the Romans would always fail to provide the agreed upon land, or resources, or autonomy. Or sometimes the Romans would just use the Gothic solders as disposable troops on the front line to thereby preserve the Romans troops. Over time, the Goths lost thousands of soldiers fighting Rome’s wars. Eventually, the Goths would reach a breaking point and rise in rebellion – and the cycle would repeat itself. This happened over and over again until the Goths finally decided to head for Italy itself.

In the year 402, the Visigoths and the Romans fought each other in northern Italy. The off and on battles extended into the following year when Rome finally began to withdraw troops from the Rhine region and brought them home to protect Rome. And that was the really the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire in the West. With the Rhine border left undefended, the Germanic tribes were basically free to cross the Rhine directly into Roman Gaul. And that is exactly what they did. Without the Rhine border to hold them back, a collection of Germanic tribes began to storm across the Rhine. And this may ultimately be the most significant consequence of the Visigoth invasion of Italy. The tribes which bolted across the Rhine into Gaul included West Germanic tribes like the Sueves. It included East Germanic tribes like the Vandals. And it even included non-Germanic tribes like the Alans who had been driven westward by the Huns.

These tribes invaded northern Gaul and plundered the region before turning southward and heading towards southern Gaul. I noted in the last episode that the Vandals traveled southward into modern- day Spain, and then crossed into northern Africa where they established their own kingdom there.

And while all of this was going on, another Germanic tribe called the Burgundians took advantage of all these distractions, and they too crossed the Rhine. In time, they came to occupy a significant

26 portion of eastern Gaul. They eventually established their own Burgundian Kingdom there which later became the region of Burgundy in France. So that French ‘Burgundy’ wine is actually named after a Germanic tribe.

The Roman army was simply unable to deal with all of these incursions. Revolts began to break out within the Roman army itself. Many Romans blamed the declining state of the Empire on the invading Germans. And in retaliation, a large number of Germans were slaughtered in the border regions and within Italy itself.

In the aftermath of this turn of events, many Germans and other non-Romans joined the Gothic army for protection. And by the year 408, the Gothic army was big enough and powerful enough that it began to set his sights on the city of Rome itself.

Under the Gothic king Alaric, the Goths made camp outside of Rome, but the Romans paid them off with gold and silver, and the Goths withdrew. But they were back again 2 years later, and this time they didn’t withdraw. They invaded and sacked Rome which had been unconquered for 800 years. You might remember the episode about the ancient Celts, and how the very early city of Rome was sacked by Celtic-speaking tribes, and how that invasion forever changed the way the Romans viewed the people they considered to be barbarians in the north. Well for 800 years, the city of Rome had defended itself against those barbarians. And in the process, Rome had emerged as one of the most powerful Empires in the history of the world. But now, in the year 410, all of that ended. And it ended at the hands of the Visigoths.

The Visigoths assailed Rome and burned and plundered the city. It was a devastating blow to the psyche of the Romans. The Visigoths actually only stayed for three days, and they carried away as much wealth as possible. In that same year – 410 – the Roman military leaders who were left in Britain requested assistance to fend off invaders from northern Britain – groups like the Scots and the Picts from the region of modern-day Scotland. Rome denied the request. Britain was too far away, and there were too few troops to spare. So 410 was an extremely important year in the crumbling of the Empire. It saw Rome sacked by the Goths, and it also saw Rome basically give up on Britain. A few Roman troops were left behind in Britain, but they were only a token force, and there was no way for them to fend off the invaders which would soon be coming from all directions.

After they sacked Rome, the Visigoths left and eventually migrated northward across the Alps, and then moved westward into southwestern Gaul. Remember that the Romans had abandoned the Rhine defenses by this point. So those Germanic tribes that had poured across the Rhine a few years earlier – like the Vandals, the Sueves and the Alans – well they had made it down into modern-day Spain.

The Romans actually enlisted the Visigoths to help them regain control of the Spanish peninsula. The Visigoths agreed and had some success against the various Germanic tribes in the region. In the year 418, the Romans rewarded the Visigoths by giving them land in Aquitania in southern Gaul – or southern France as we know it today. Though Rome considered the Visigoths to be federates of the Empire – living with Roman permission on Roman soil – the Visigoths didn’t view it that way at all. They viewed the territory as a new independent Visigothic Kingdom.

27 By the year 423, Roman control of Western Europe had largely collapsed. There were now three separate Germanic kingdoms in Gaul. There was the new Visigothic kingdom in Aquitaine. There was the Burgundian kingdom in southeastern Gaul. And there was the Frankish kingdom in the northeast along the Rhine. Meanwhile, down in modern-day Spain, there were two other Germanic kingdoms: the Suevians in the northwest, and the Alans had merged with the Vandals in the south.

Roman power was quickly collapsing and Germanic tribes were filling the void. As Roman power collapsed, the Franks took advantage of the situation, and they began to expand southward from northern Gaul. As the Franks expanded southward, they began to push the Visigoths southward as well. Increasingly, the Visigoths settled in northern Spain. And that eventually forced the Vandals from southern Spain into north Africa as I mentioned in the last episode. So we can see how this type of chain reaction would occur. When one tribe moved, it caused a domino effect, and ended up pushing many other tribes out in front of it.

For the next three centuries, the Goths in Spain flourished under a succession of kings in what would come to be known as the Visigothic Kingdom. The Visigothic kingdom expanded over time to include most of Spain, as well as Aquitania in southern Gaul. But the expanding Franks eventually took Aquitania back from the Goths. But in Spain, the Goths continued to rule for a couple of more centuries until the Muslim Moors invaded from northern Africa.

At this point, we have to return to the Huns. They had conquered the territory of the Goths in Eastern Europe a few decades earlier, and they had set in motion a chain-reaction of their own. And they now had a new leader named Attila, and they were beginning to look to the west. The Eastern Roman Empire was still relatively strong, but the Western Empire was falling apart. So the West was the place to be if you a were a Hun looking to expand into a new territory.

In the middle of the 5th Century, the Huns moved westward into the Germania. And by the year 451, they had actually crossed the Rhine, and they were now in Roman territory in Gaul. By this point, the Empire of the Huns almost equaled the Roman Empire in physical size. And Attila’s army included not only Huns, but many other Germanic allies – including many Ostrogoths who were now forced to provide service to the Huns.

Atilla laid waste to the northern region of Gaul. In response, the Romans enlisted the Visigoths and the Franks to form a unified front in order to repel the Huns. After all, the Huns were a threat to everybody in the region. Together, the Romans, the Visigoths and Franks were able to force Attila to withdraw from the region and return back across the Rhine. In the following year, Attila set his sights on Italy. He was headed straight for Rome when Leo, the bishop of Rome, intervened. The exact details are unknown, but Leo persuaded Attila to spare Rome and retreat. Maybe Attila was too superstitious to attack the home of the Catholic Church. Or maybe he was paid off. We may never know. But we do know that Rome was spared from the Huns. And we also know that Attila died the following year. In his absence, and without his strong leadership, the Hunnic Empire quickly collapsed. The Empire was divided among Attila’s brothers and son, and then, the divided Empire had to deal with an uprising by Germanic peoples who saw an opportunity to overthrow the Huns with the death of Attila. Within a year after Attila’s death, the Hunnic Empire was gone.

28 Though Rome was spared from attack by the Huns, it was of little consequence. Because the Vandals arrived from Northern Africa just three years later. And they remained for two weeks and basically stripped the city bare of everything movable and valuable. To deal with the Vandals, the Romans had to withdraw even more troops from Gaul. And that allowed the Germans – especially the Franks – to expand even further throughout Gaul.

By this point, the Roman imperial government in the West was just a nominal government. It no longer had any real power. The real power in Western Europe lay with the Germanic kingdoms that had taken over.

The only vestige of Roman power in the West was within Italy itself. And most of the remaining Roman troops there was composed of Germanic mercenaries. At some point, around the year 476, these troops apparently decided , ‘What’s the point?’ Why are we fighting FOR the Romans.’ There wasn’t really an Empire left anymore. All the benefit of fighting FOR Rome was gone. So in that year – 476 – the Germanic soldier Odoacer overthrew the completely powerless teenage Roman Emperor. Technically, Odoacer became the last Roman emperor in the west. But he had no use for the title. It was really just a hollow title at that point. He recognized the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople as the true successor to the original Roman Empire. He sent the imperial cloak and crown to Constantinople. And that was it. The official end of the Roman Empire in the West.

But there’s a little more history beyond this date of 476 which is often cited as the official end of the Empire. The Eastern Empire wasn’t exactly happy that the Western Roman Emperor had been overthrown by Odoacer. Meanwhile, after the collapse of the Huns, the Ostrogoths had once again emerged as an independent tribe. And over time, they followed basically the same path that their cousins – the Visigoths – had followed a few decades earlier. They traveled throughout southeastern Europe. And found themselves on the border of the Eastern Roman Empire.

It was at this point that the Eastern Empire offered the Ostrogoths a deal. If they went to Italy and removed Odoacer from power, then they could rule Italy in his absence. This allowed the Eastern Empire to kill two birds with one stone. They could get rid of Odoacer in Italy, and they could get rid of the Ostrogothic threat at the same time.

The Ostrogoths accepted the offer, and they invaded northern Italy in the year 488 – about 12 years after Odoacer had taken over there. The Ostrogoths eventually emerged victorious, and they established a kingdom in Northern Italy. In the end, that kingdom was short-lived. It only lasted about 50 years. The Eastern Roman Empire under the Emperor Justinian eventually swept in took the region back from the Goths around the middle of the 6th Century. An official in Justinian’s court named Procopius wrote three histories during his lifetime. All of them were written in Greek which was the language of the Eastern Empire. One dealt specifically with the Eastern Empire’s wars against the Ostrogoths in Italy as well as the Vandals in North Africa. Another one dealt with the buildings built during Justinian’s reign. But the third one was titled Anekdota, which literally meant ‘unpublished things’ in Greek. This collection wasn’t published during the lifetime of Procopius because it contained attacks on the Emperor Justinian, the Emperor’s wife, and other officials. It also contained a lot of scandalous stories and allegations. But this third book was published after Procopius died. And it’s title – Anekdota – came to mean a short story about someone or something,

29 usually an amusing story. And of course, we know it today as anecdote in Modern English.

So all of this history basically takes us to the end of the 5th century – around the year 500. And we can finally stop and catch our breath.

Over the preceding century, we’ve seen the fall of Western Rome. We’ve seen the rise of the Gothic and other Germanic kingdoms, and we’ve seen the rise and fall of the Huns.

Needless to say, the political and military changes during this period were enormous. And there were linguistic changes as well. But compared to the political changes, the linguistic changes were not as great as you might expect. With Germanic kingdoms now in control of much of the Latin- speaking territory in Western Europe, we might expect Germanic languages to gradually replace Latin there. But with one notable exception, that’s not what happened. Of course, that one exception is notable because it’s English. We’ll look at why the Anglo-Saxon dialects took root in Britain in the next few episodes, but in continental Europe, the Germanic languages didn’t replace Latin.

The new Germanic kingdoms like the Visigoths in Spain, the Franks in Gaul and the Ostrogoths in Italy – they were all ruled by an elite Germanic-speaking ruling class. But they ruled over a native population that spoke Latin. Latin was too ingrained by this point. But there was more to it than that.

Though the Roman Empire had collapsed, Latin was still held in very high regard. It was still associated with the glory days of Rome. It was the language of Roman culture and Roman scholarship. In most of these cases, the new Germanic rulers saw themselves as extensions of the earlier Romans rulers. And the evidence suggests that rulers like the Visigoths actually sought to learn Latin since it held such a high status and was associated with Roman culture and power.

Of course, there were other factors at work as well. The rapidly expanding Catholic Church was centered in Rome. Early on, most Christian texts had been written in Greek. But since the Catholic Church was headquartered in Rome, the Roman Church chose to translate the Greek texts into Latin. By the end of the 4th century, Latin was the official language of the Catholic Church, and that meant that all Church business was being conducted in Latin. This gave a Latin an additional prestige above regional Germanic languages.

But there was also another factor at work. With so much turmoil in Europe, and with so many people on the move, it became important for people in different regions to find a common language for communication. And for all the reasons which I just mentioned, Latin was the obvious choice as a lingua franca. In fact, it was already a lingua franca due to the power and prestige of the Roman Empire. So it was natural for people to gravitate to Latin as a common international language.

The need for a common language was further heightened by the fact that both Latin and the Germanic languages were beginning to fracture into distinct regional dialects and languages.

As we know by now, languages are constantly evolving. And as people become isolated from each other, the natural process of language change means that regional variations start to emerge. And

30 over time these differences will continue to evolve until the dialects cannot be mutually understood, and we can then call them distinct languages.

Well that process can be slowed if there is an education system that imposes a standard version of the language on everyone – or almost everyone. So if everyone is required to study a common standardized form of English in school, that tends to keep us all on the same page – speaking the same language. Regional variations will still occur and develop over time, but we all have a common anchor which slows that process down a bit.

And that was what had helped to preserve a standardized form Latin throughout the Roman Empire. As long as the Roman educational system was in place, a standardized form of Latin was taught and regional variations were minimized. But when the Roman Empire collapsed in the west, the Roman educational system also collapsed. And when that went away, the anchor that was holding a common form of Latin in place also gave way. And as we might expect, with the fall of Rome, those regional Vulgar Latin dialects quickly evolved in separate and distinct languages. Within three or four centuries, we’ll start to refer to these regional dialects by new names – French, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, and so on.

Of course, the Germanic regions never had a standardized education system akin to the Roman system. So there was never anything in place to keep the Germanic dialects from rapidly evolving into new languages. So that process was well under way within the Germanic regions as well.

So linguistic diversity was increasingly common throughout Western Europe. And as each region began to evolve its own dialect and its own language, it became even more important for these people to find ways to communicate with each other. And that brings us back to Latin. The standardized form of Latin remained a useful lingua franca even as the language itself was in the process of fracturing and evolving out of existence. The early French speakers could still communicate with the early Spanish speakers and the early Italian speakers, as long as they all reverted back to the original Latin.

So we can see how Latin maintained its footing in Western Europe. And we can see why the new Germanic rulers in this region ultimately learned to speak Latin rather than trying to force the natives to learn a foreign Germanic language.

But if we look close enough, we can see that some of the words from those Germanic languages did filter down into the various Romance languages. And the number of Germanic words which survived in the respective Romance languages is directly related to the amount of time in which the Germanic kingdoms were in place in those regions.

For example, the Franks established the modern nation of France. So their influence on early French was substantial. We’ll look a little more closely at the Franks in the next episode. With respect to the Goths, the Ostrogoths were only in charge of Italy for a few decades. So the influence of the Gothic language in Italy is very limited. Perhaps only a handful of Gothic words survive into modern Italian. And even then, it’s difficult to determine if the Germanic words which passed into early Italian came from the Goths or from another Germanic tribe. As we’ll see next time, the Gothic

31 kingdom in Italy was later succeeded by another Germanic kingdom – the Lombards. And Germanic tribes were a regular presence in and around Italy during this period. So the etymology of those Italian words is tricky.

But in Spain, the Visigothic kingdom was in place for over two centuries. So it’s a little easier to identify Gothic words in modern Spanish.

In earlier episodes, I discussed the fact that the Goths had a word – reiks – which meant ‘powerful, ruler, or kingdom’. The Old English version of that word was rice (/ree-kuh/), and it eventually evolved into the word rice (/ree-chuh/). And it later evolved into the word rich in Modern English. Well, the Gothic version of that word – reiks – passed into the Latin spoken in Spain during the time of the Visigoths. And from there, it passed into later Spanish.

We see it in the word rico which means rich in Spanish. For example, Puerto Rico means ‘rich port.’ Well, Spanish rico sounds similar to English rich because they have a common Germanic origin – not a common Latin origin.

That word was also part of the name of the last Visigoth ruler of Spain. His name was Roderic. It was a combination of the Gothic word hrod meaning ‘renown’ and reiks meaning ‘powerful or ruler.’ Well, the name Roderick passed into Spanish, and we see it in modern Spanish names like Rodrigo, and very common surnames like Rodriguez and Ruiz. Again, those names have Gothic origins.

There was another Gothic name that used this suffix ric or reek. It was Amalric. And that name passed into both Italian and Spanish. The Spanish name was Americo, and the Italian version of the name was Amerigo. And you might know that an Italian explorer with the name Amerigo Vespucci concluded shortly after Columbus’s voyage across the Atlantic that Columbus didn’t actually reach eastern Asia as originally thought. Vespucci realized that Columbus had actually discovered a new continent – what ended up being two continents. And both of those continents were named after him – North and South America. So America is a word derived from an Italian name which ultimately came from a Gothic name. So if the Ostrogoths hadn’t established a kingdom in Italy in the 5th century, we probably wouldn’t have the name America today.

By the way, the Spanish words guardia meaning ‘guard,’ ganso meaning ‘goose,’ banda meaning ‘band or group,’ and atacar meaning ‘attack,’ all came from Gothic words. And that’s why all of those word resemble the modern English version of those words.

Ultimately, the Gothic language disappeared after the collapse of the Ostrogoth and Visigoth kingdoms. In fact, it may have disappeared before then because, as we’ve seen, Latin remained the dominant language within those kingdoms.

But there is one little footnote to this story. In the 1500s, a Flemish ambassador in the Crimean region in the northern part of the Black Sea claimed to have discovered people speaking Gothic. He believed it to be a vestige of the original Ostrogthic language from the time when the Ostrogths had lived there over a thousand years earlier. He recorded about a hundred words from the language in

32 a letter which was published a few years later. The words are actually very similar to the words used by Wulfilas in the Gothic translation of the Bible. Linguists later traveled to the region to investigate the purported language, but none of them were able to confirm that it actually existed. So this still remains a bit of a mystery. But it is certainly possible that the Gothic language survived in some form in the northern Black Sea region as recently as five centuries ago.

So that concludes our look at Gothic and the end of the Roman Empire in the West. Next time, we going to begin the transition to Old English. We’re going to turn our attention northward to the coastal regions around northern Germany and Demark. It is here that a handful of Germanic tribes known as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians sought to take advantage of the Roman collapse in the West. And one of their targets was the formerly Roman territory of southern Britain. So we’ll look at who these tribes were and how their continental languages became the language we know as Old English.

So until next time, thanks for listening to the History of English Podcast.

33 EPISODE 28: ANGLES, SAXONS, JUTES AND FRISIANS

Welcome to the History of English Podcast - a podcast about the history of the English language. This is Episode 28 – Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians. This time, we’re going to turn our attention northward to the peoples of northern Europe who spoke the Germanic dialects which became Old English. These were the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, and we can probably add in the Frisians, as well as some Franks. All of these people spoke closely related West Germanic languages, and they all lived in the same general region near the North Sea before the migrations to Britain began around the 4th and 5th Centuries.

It probably goes without saying that the historical events described over the next couple of episodes are some of the most important and significant events in the overall history of the English language. And that’s because these events represent the origin of the language. If these events had not occurred, there would be no England or English language. The Germanic dialects of the early Anglo-Saxon tribes would have remained on the continent, and there, they would have likely blended into the modern Low German and Dutch dialects. And in fact that’s what happened to the language of the Saxons who actually remained on the continent. And even if the language of the Anglo-Saxons had somehow survived as a distinct language on the continent , it wouldn’t be a language that we would recognize today. Meanwhile, in the British Isles, the Celtic languages would have continued to dominate the entire region, at least until the arrival of the Vikings and the Normans. But of course, that’s not what happened.

Instead, the Anglo-Saxons moved to Britain where there they developed a new culture and, eventually, a new language. So this basically marks the beginning of the transition to the second volume of the podcast – the period of the Anglo-Saxons and Old English. But before we make this transition, let me make a few preliminary notes.

First, up to this point we have explored the background of English – what we might call ‘pre- English.’ The basic idea of the first 27 episodes was to explore the period from the original Indo- European language to the fall of the Roman Empire, and the impact that these events had on the languages of western Europe. So obviously, I’ve taken a very broad approach to the topic of English. And I’m going to continue to do that as we move forward. The emphasis will shift to the British Isles, but I’m going to continue to look at developments elsewhere, especially in continental Europe, and specifically within the region which we will come to know as France, because the developments there will have a huge impact on English after 1066. If fact, those developments will change English from an unrecognizable Germanic language into a language that we can actually read and understand today.

I will also continue to look at political and cultural developments as they impacted the language over time. But this is not going to be a full, proper history of England. I don’t have the expertise to deliver that kind of history, and frankly, there are much better podcasts out there if you are interested in the overall history of England. In fact, let me recommend David Crowther’s excellent History of England Podcast if you want a more complete history of England. Not only do I enjoy listening to David’s podcast, but he was actually one of the first podcasters to reach out to me when I began this

34 podcast to give me some words of encouragement. And this is a good time to mention David’s podcast since it begins with the arrival of Anglo-Saxons in Britain.

You might also check out The British History Podcast by Jamie Jeffers which begins with the arrival of the Romans in Britian. And if you want an enjoyable ‘monarch-by-monarch’ look at English history, you can try the Rex Factor podcast which I also recommend.

So with the plugs out of the way, let’s turn to the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons and the people who gave us the Old English language.

Over the past few episodes, most of our attention has been focused on southern Europe. It was in this region that th Goths challenged the Roman Empire and eventually established Gothic kingdoms in Italy and Spain. And we looked at other Germanic tribes like the Franks, the Alamanni and the Vandals. While these tribes were busy crossing the Rhine and the Danube into Roman territory, there was another group of Germanic tribes living in the north along the North Sea coast – basically the Netherlands, northern Germany and southern Denmark. And those tribes were sort of in the background – more focused on expanding along the North Sea than expanding southward down into Gaul. Obviously, geography was a factor here. These tribes had direct access to the North Sea, and the powerful Franks stood between them and the Rhine. So when the Roman Empire began to collapse, their focus was always going to be more on expansion by sea rather than by land.

So who were these people?

Well, remember that Tacitus had identified this group of West Germanic tribes as the Ingvaeones. And he placed them in this same North Sea region at the end of the first century.

Tacitus mentioned a tribe among these people called the Frisii who lived along the coast of the modern Netherlands. And this was the region that was the home of the Frisians during the later centuries. He also mentioned a tribe called the Anglii who lived around southern region of modern- day Denmark. If you’re not familiar with the geography of Denmark, the mainland part of Denmark is a peninsula which sticks out into the sea. It basically forms the dividing line between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. This peninsula is called Jutland, and the Angles lived in the southern part of that peninsula.

By the way, Louis Henwood has been kind enough to prepare a map for this episode which shows the locations of these various tribes in northern Europe. So check out the website historyofenglishpodcast.com if you want to see where the tribes were initially located.

So where did the name of the Angles come from? Well, the answer may lie in the geography of the Jutland peninsula where the early Angles lived. Now there is no universal agreement regarding the etymology of the name of the Angles. But the most prominent theory holds that the name comes from the fact that the peninsula where the Angles lived happens to stick out into the ocean – forming a hook shape. The early Germans called a fishhook an ‘anga.’ So they may have used that term for the name the tribe that lived in that region which resembled a hook shape. So ‘anga’ – meaning

35 ‘hook’ – came to mean the people who lived in the hook-shaped region of the Jutland peninsula – the Anglii.

That Germanic word anga meaning ‘hook’ or ‘fishhook’ passed into Old English as angle where it retained its original meaning. And that word still exists in Modern English. We sometimes call a fisherman an angler, and fishing with a fishhook as angling.

By the way, you may be wondering what the connection is between this word angle meaning ‘hook’ or ‘fishhook’ and the use of the word angle in geometry as in ‘90 degree angle’ or ‘the angle of the Sun.’ Well, angle is one of those words that comes to us in modern English from two completely different sources, but today they both have the same spelling and same pronunciation, and they have related meanings.

As I’ve noted, the use of angle as ‘hook’ comes from the Germanic languages. But the use of angle in Geometry comes from Greek – via Latin and later French. And as you may have figured out by now, when we have two very similar words coming to us from different language families, we can suspect a common Indo-European origin. And that is the case here. Germanic angle and Greek angle both come from the same Indo-European root word – ang – which meant ‘to bend.’ So within the Germanic language family, it was used to described something ‘bent or curved’ like a hook. But within early Greek, it was used to describe something that was ‘bent or crooked’ like a ‘crooked road or a corner.’ And from there, it was used in early Greek Geometry to mean the ‘measurement of intersecting lines.’ So the curvy nature of the word angle as in ‘fishhook’ is Germanic, and the sharp nature of the word as in ‘45 degree angle’ is Greek. But both come from the same Indo-European root word.

By the way, that Indo-European root gave us another word as well. The place where your foot protrudes from your leg is an ankle. Again, this goes back to that same Indo-European root word meaning ‘to bend,’ and it comes to us via the Germanic languages. So in the same way that the bend where the Jutland Peninsula extends into the ocean is called the home of the Angles, the bend where your foot extends from your leg is called your ankle.

And that word ankle also shows us the close links between the Angles and the Frisians. The original Old English version of the word was ancleow. And it appears that ancleow was a combination of that Indo-European root word ang meaning ‘bend’ and cleow meaning ‘claw’ – in fact, it’s the original verison the word claw. But at some later point, after the Viking invasion of Britain and the heavy influence of Old Norse, the pronunciation changed from ancleow to ankle. This later pronunciation resembled the Old Norse pronunciation, but it was almost identical to the Frisian pronunciation. And many modern linguists still believe that the Frisian version of ankle somehow influenced this later pronunciation change in Middle English.

Both ankle and angle received their modern pronunciations after the English vowels shifted shortly before the time of Shakespeare. The pronunciation of the vowel ‘A’ shifted from the pronunciation in continental Europe – which was /ah/ – to the modern long pronunciation – /ay/.’ So ankle (/ahn- kul/) and angle (/ahn-gul/) became ankle (/ain-kul/) and angle (/ain-gul/).

36 So we’ve seen where the name Angles comes from. And, as I’ve noted, Tacitus mentioned both the Angles and the Frisii in the North Sea region. But he didn’t mention the Saxons or the Franks at all.

You might remember that both of those groups were tribal coalitions or confederations which formed in the years after Tacitus. The first mention of a tribe called the ‘Saxons’ occurred in the middle of the 2nd century. The Greek geographer Ptolemy placed them along the North Sea coast around modern-day Holstein in Northern Germany. So between the time of Tacitus and Ptolemy, several of the smaller tribes in the region had started to coalesce into this larger unified tribe known as the Saxons.

This coalition probably included a prominent tribe mentioned by Tacitus called the Chauci. And part of this coalition likely included the remnants of another tribe in the region called the Langobards or Lombards. Shortly after the time of Tacitus, the Lombard tribe began a general migration southward, but some of the Lombards remained in northern Germany. And those that remained were likely incorporated into this new Saxon confederation. This is actually a very important point because it means that the Lombards probably spoke a dialect which was very similar to the Saxon dialect during this early period. As we’ll see in an upcoming episode, the other group of Lombards which traveled southward eventually settled in northern Italy and established a kingdom there after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. And that is actually the origin of the modern Lombardy region of Northern Italy. And by the time the Lombards reached Northern Italy, their language had changed significantly. And in fact, by that later date, in the 6th century, their language reflected the changes which had started to distinguish the Low German dialects in northern Germany from the High German dialects in the mountainous regions of southern Germany. So the migration of the Lombards provides some compelling evidence about the evolution of the Germanic languages shortly after the Anglo-Saxons headed to Britain. But again, I’ll look at that in a little more detail in an upcoming episode. The key point here is that some of the remnants of the early Lombards in northern Germany likely became part of the original Saxon tribe.

Once the original Saxon tribe was formed, it continued to grow as other small neighboring tribes also joined the coalition. It’s not known if these other tribes joined the Saxons voluntarily or if they were conquered, but most modern historians believe it was a combination of both. And that’s because the Saxons were viewed as a war-like tribe and as a tribe which sought to expand into neighboring regions. And part of that tendency is reflected in the name Saxons.

It’s generally believed that the name of the tribe came from the type of sword they commonly-used which was called the saks.

The word saks actually comes from an earlier Indo-European root word sek which meant ‘to cut.’ That word passed into the Germanic languages as saks meaning ‘a knife or sword which cuts.’ And a Sax-on was a swordsman – someone who wielded the saks. By the way, that original Indo- European root word also passed into Latin and later French where it was used to mean ‘something that had been cut off.’ That word was section. So Saxon and Section are cognate – both coming from the same Indo-European word meaning ‘to cut.’

37 So those were the early Angles and Saxons, but early historical sources tell us that there were other people who joined in the later migration to Britain. Supposedly, these people included the Jutes. But who were the Jutes? Well, they actually remains a bit of a mystery.

The only evidence as to the identity of the Jutes is the Jutland peninsula in Denmark which I mentioned earlier. As I noted, the Jutland Peninsula extends into the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The Angles lived in the southern part of this peninsula. And the Jutes were their immediate neighbors to the north. In fact, the name of the peninsula – ‘Jutland’ – basically means land of the Jutes. So if this region of modern Denmark was the home of the Jutes, were these the same Jutes who joined the Angles and Saxons in the migration to Britain? Well, maybe or maybe not.

Geography would suggest that the answer is ‘yes.’ They lived in Jutland. And they were neighbors of the Angles. And they had direct access to the North Sea along their western coast. But there are a couple of problems which have perplexed later historians.

First, the people who lived in the central and northern portions of Jutland probably spoke a North Germanic language. Remember that the Germanic languages had become divided into three distinct groups by this point. The East Germanic languages included the language of the Goths. The West Germanic languages included the languages of the Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Franks and other tribes further south. But in the north – in the Scandinavian homeland – a distinct North Germanic language family had emerged. This was the origin of Old Norse – the language of the Vikings – and it’s the ultimate origin of the modern Scandinavian languages.

Geography would strongly suggest that the Jutes spoke a North Germanic dialect which would have been quite different from the West Germanic languages of the Angles and Saxons. This poses some problems for language historians who have assumed that the languages of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were very closely related – so closely related that they could probably communicate with each other without too much difficulty. But if the Jutes were from Jutland in Denmark, they probably would have had spoken a language that was quite a bit different from the early Anglo-Saxon dialects. There are some explanations for this language issue. Maybe there was a transitional region in between the Angles and Jutes where the dialects were more similar, and maybe these were the ‘Jutes’ who accompanied the Angles and Saxons. Another possibility is that we’re still close enough to the original Germanic language that the dialect differences were manageable.

But beyond the language issue, there’s another reason why some scholars question whether the Jutes actually came from Jutland. Supposedly, the Jutes settled in Kent on the eastern coast of England. But archaeological research in this region has uncovered grave goods which are the type typically found in Frankish sites along the lower Rhine. So one modern theory holds that Jutes was a name given to Franks or a Frankish-Saxon hybrid group that settled in Kent. Linguistically this may make more sense because the Frankish language was closely related to the Anglo-Saxon dialects. And geographically, the area of Kent is located directly across the English Channel from the region where the Frankish tribes lived.

Now a variation of this theory is that a group of Jutes originated in Jutland, and then traveled along the North Sea coast down to the Frankish coast where they settled for a while. There they adopted

38 some of the culture of the Franks, and their language evolved to become more like the West Germanic dialects spoken in that region. From there, they migrated across the English Channel to Britain directly from the Frankish territory, but they still retained the name Jutes. This ‘hybrid’ theory would help to explain some of the archaeological evidence, but again, it’s just a theory.

There are some other theories about the Jutes as well. Another theory links them with the Geats in southern Sweden who feature prominently in Beowulf. You might remember that Beowulf was a Geat, and was later the King of the Geats. For purposes of this episode, we can just assume that the Jutes originated in Jutland, but they may or may not have traveled directly from there to Britain.

Now, despite the uncertainty concerning the Jutes, we have a pretty good idea as to the origins and locations of the other tribes along the North Sea coast. And, at least in the case of the Saxons, these tribes actually extended pretty far inland as well. But beginning around the time of Tacitus in the 1st Century, and continuing for a period of about 500 years afterwards, the sea levels began to rise in the North Sea coastal region. And that meant the region experienced a great deal of flooding. Archaeological research confirms that settlements in this region began to be built on elevated mounds during this period. And flooding would have meant that good farmland would have become more limited. And, as I mentioned last time, population growth in this region was another factor which was causing many of these tribes to look elsewhere for land. So the combination of flooding and population growth forced these tribes to expand outward in order to survive.

By the 3rd Century, there was another factor at work – the Imperial Crisis in Rome. The Alamanni and the Franks were making their first incursions across the Rhine into Gaul. And around this same time, there is strong evidence that the early Anglo-Saxons took to the sea to find places to raid and new places to settle. The ships which they used were not as advanced as the ships of the later Vikings about 5 or 6 centuries later. So they probably had to hug the coast as they traveled westward, and that meant they probably had to stop along the way in Frisia along the coast of the Netherlands. And this is part of the evidence that some Frisians were included in these excursions.

These North Sea people were not only exploring the coastal regions along Frisia and Northern Gaul, they were also making some brief excursions across the English Channel into southern Britain. And part of the evidence of this early period of expansion was a system of defenses constructed by the Roman Empire in the late 3rd Century. Those defenses were built along the shores on both sides of the English Channel. And the key is what the Romans called those defenses. They called them the ‘Saxon Shore.’ So that is pretty much a confirmation that the defenses were built to deal with Saxons who were exploring and raiding along the coasts.

Now we have to be a little careful with the use of that name ‘Saxon Shore’ coined by the Romans. We probably can’t take the title too literally. It appears that the term Saxon was sometimes used a general reference to any migrant or raider from across the North Sea. So it could have included Angles, Frisians, Franks or Jutes.

There are some strong parallels here to the later Viking invasion from just a little further up the northern coast. The first Vikings came as raiders. Then they began to arrive in greater numbers as

39 invaders. And then they began to carve out entire regions where they settled. Well, the earlier ‘Saxons’ did the same thing.

But again, even though the Romans called these defenses the ‘Saxon Shore,’ the invading tribes probably included the neighbors of the Saxons as well. For example, we know that the language and culture of the Angles was very similar to the Saxons. So it is almost impossible to distinguish the movements of the Angles from the movements of the Saxons. And the Franks were also expanding westward during this same time frame. So some of these Roman defenses were probably aimed at invading Franks as well.

These various tribes first appeared as a collection of raiders and war-bands with no centralized political organization. So these were not efforts to establish ‘colonies’ as we would come to know them in more recent history. A colony is established by a motherland and maintains a political connection to that mother country. But that wasn’t the case here. These were individual raiders and settlers just looking for new lands in which to settle. Or in some cases, they were just looking for valuables to steal. The only real difference between stealing land and stealing goods is how long you intend to stay. You can take goods and leave, but if you’re going to take land, you have to stay and defend it. And that takes a lot more people, especially in an era of hand-to-hand combat.

So early on, the Saxon focus was more on raiding and leaving and taking anything of value with them. But as the Roman Empire began to decline, the Roman troops began to be called back to the continent, and Roman defenses in northern Europe began to weaken and crumble. Well now it became increasingly possible to take some land as well. So we start to see a move from an era of raiding to an era of settlement.

By the late 4th Century, the Saxon Shore defenses had been largely abandoned across northern Gaul as Rome increasingly withdrew troops from the region to deal with problems elsewhere. And with those defenses abandoned, Saxon settlements began to appear along the coast of Gaul. Over time, as the Franks expanded into this region, the Saxon coastal settlements were assimilated into the new Frankish kingdom. And this might help to explain the mystery of the Jutes. It’s possible that some of these coastal settlements along the coast of Gaul included Jutes, and then some of those Jutes later migrated across the channel to Britain. That would explain why there are Frankish artifacts in the area supposedly settled by the Jutes in eastern England.

Now even though the Romans abandoned the Saxon Shore defenses in northern Gaul, they continued to maintain the defenses in southern Britain. Of course, somebody had to man those defenses, and that was an increasing problem for the Romans during this period. So they did what they often did in these situations, they brought in Germanic mercenaries. This included the Franks and Alamanni, and it may have included Saxons as well. If Saxons were included as mercenaries, that would made them the first Saxon settlers in Britain.

Archaeology suggests that Saxons were present in eastern Britain during this period of the 4th Century. Archaeologists have excavated Roman cemeteries from this period in the region along the lower Thames. And they have discovered belt-fittings of the type and style typically worn by Frankish and Saxon mercenaries. And in the same region, sunken huts have been discovered which

40 are believed to have been built around the year 400. These huts are constructed in a style typically associated with later Anglo-Saxon huts. So these may have been the first Saxon settlers in Britain. And they may have been in contact with other Saxons on the continent.

Roman records also indicate that Frisians were stationed in Britain during this period as well. They were also there as mercenaries in other parts of the island. These Frisians would have known about the weaknesses of the Roman defenses in Britain. And this information could have been communicated back to Frisia. So the general picture which is emerging in Britain during the 4th Century is the gradual withdrawal of Roman troops to the continent and the gradual increase of Germanic mercenaries to deal with the local threats. These threats not only included the Germanic tribes who were threatening the coast, but included threats from northern Britain as well. In the regions north of the Roman territory in the area of modern-day Scotland, there was a native tribe called the Picts. And there was another tribe in the region with ultimate origins in Ireland called the Scots. As I said, the Picts were a native people who spoke their own language. We know virtually nothing abut that language other than a few place names with Pictish origins. Some modern scholars think that long-term Celtic influences may have resulted in a Pictish language which was basically Celtic or a pre-Celtic language with strong Celtic influences. At any rate, we’ll probably never know much about their language. But the Scots did speak a Celtic language. And over many centuries, the power of the Picts declined as the Scots expanded throughout the region. So eventually, the Picts became assimilated into the Scots and basically disappeared as a distinct group. But for now, during the last few centuries of Roman Britain, the Picts were the major threat in northern Britain.

So Roman Britain had to deal with Picts and Scots invading by land from the north, as well as Saxons and other Germanic tribes arriving by sea from the east and the south.

And in a fascinating little piece of Dark Age history, it actually appears that all of these various tribes somehow coordinated a universal attack on Roman territory in the year 367. Again, the details are unclear, but in that year, invaders descended from all directions. Picts and Scots from the north, and Saxons and Franks from the east. There was a period of looting and pillaging. The Romans dispatched troops from the continent to take back control and impose law and order. And the Romans repelled the invaders. They rebuilt the damaged forts and repaired the damaged towns. Perhaps it was just a big coincidence that all of those invaders descended at the same time, but Romans sources report a general belief that the attacks were somehow coordinated. Remember there were a lot of Germanic tribes in Britain as mercenaries, and many of them had contact with the tribes back home. So maybe they were able to coordinate their attacks.

Of course, the threat of barbarian invasions in Britain was only a small part of the overall threat to the Roman Empire, as we’ve seen in the past couple of episodes. As we know, the Romans had to deal with Goths, and Franks, and Alamanni, and Vandals, and the other continental tribes around this same time. And those threats were actually much closer to home for the Romans.

So in the first decade of the 5th century, the Romans began to withdraw more troops from Britain to deal with the problems on the continent. The Romans also stopped sending money to Britain to pay the mercenaries that remained there. Alarmed for their own safety, and despairing the lack of help

41 and money from Rome, the mercenaries in Britain rose in rebellion and appointed three successive leaders or ‘tyrants’ as later historians called them.

The last of the three tyrants calling himself Constantine III took his troops to Gaul where they were defeated, and he was eventually executed. But when these troops left for Gaul, there was a vacuum of power in Roman Britain. Around the year 408, the Saxons apparently became aware that the Roman army had vacated Britain, and they launched another major raid along the British coast. Two years later– in the year 410 – the Goths invaded and sacked Rome. And as you may recall from the last episode, at the same the Goths were invading Rome, the Roman Britons were asking for help from Rome to deal with the increasing threats coming at them from the south, the east and the north. The Romans basically said, “Sorry, you’re going to have fend for yourselves.” And that effectively ended official Roman rule of Britain.

But some Roman troops still remained in Britain. And in the next episode, I’m going to look at what happened in the 5th Century as they tried to defend the island from invaders coming at them from all directions. Of course, they ultimately failed, and the Anglo-Saxons soon came to control the area of Roman Britain. But the details of that part of the story are still the subject of ongoing debates.

So that takes through the year 410, when Britain effectively ceased to be part of the Roman Empire. And in the decades that followed – especially after the year 450 – the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain began in earnest. In fact, most general histories of England tend to focus on the invasions which began around the year 450 and continued for the next couple of centuries.

But in this episode, I wanted you to see that the arrival of the Germanic tribes was actually much more gradual than that. The Anglo-Saxons didn’t just wake up one day and decide “Hey, let’s all go to Britain.” It was actually a continuation of an on-going process. And once the Romans pulled out, that process was accelerated.

And when the Romans pulled out, that meant that writing went them. As we’ve established by now, the Germanic tribes were illiterate except for a few occasional runic inscriptions. For purposes of our story, that will become a problem as we move forward. It basically means that we don’t have any contemporary written accounts of what happened for first century or so after the Romans left. And even after then, the accounts are very limited. Next time, we’ll try to piece together what happened as the Anglo-Saxons began to carve out their own region of Britain – the region which will eventually become known as England with a language which will come to be known as English.

But for the rest of this episode, I want to explore what the languages of the North Sea tribes sounded like when the first tribes began to settle in southern Britain. These languages were not written down at the time, but based on later versions of the languages that were written down – like Old English, Old Saxon and Old Frisian – linguists have been able to compare the languages and determine just how similar they were early on.

For example, all three languages had continued to simplify the Germanic system of inflections on the end of words. As we know by now, the original Germanic language had lots of different word endings which we call inflections. And over time, English has gotten rid of most of those endings.

42 And that process actually began within this family of North Sea languages before Old English emerged as a distinct language.

And we can see this process of simplifying the word endings in the way all of these North Sea languages handled verb endings. In English, when we have a verb, it stays the same in all of its plural forms.

So let’s look at the verb jump. In first person plural, we have ‘we jump.’ In second person plural, we have ‘you jump’ – or ‘you all jump.’ In third person plural, we have ‘they jump.’ But notice that the verb jump stays the same in all of the these cases.

We jump – you jump – they jump. We sing – you sing – they sing. We study – you study – they study. We think – you think – they think.

The verb doesn’t change. There are no specific endings to put on the end. Well, this feature of English was also found in Old Saxon and Old Frisian. But within other Germanic languages, there verbs varied in each of those plural forms. So this indicates that the Angles, Saxons and Frisians were not only using similar words, they were also sharing a similar Grammar.

The similarities between the languages of the Angles, Saxons and Frisians can also been seen in certain sound changes that happened very early on within all three languages, and which were unique to those three languages. For example, the three languages dropped the ‘m’ or ‘n’ sound in certain words. Specifically, when the ‘m’ or ‘n’ sound appeared between a vowel on one side – and an ‘f’ sound or a ‘th’ sound or an ‘s’ sound on the other side. In those cases, the ‘m’ or ‘n’ sound was dropped. Again, this was a very specific change, and it happened within all three North Sea languages:

So, for example, the Old High German word for ‘five’ was fimf with a ‘m’ sound in the middle. The word was basically the same in Gothic. But the word was fif in Old English and Old Saxon without the ‘m’ in the middle.

We can also see it in the word for ‘us.’ In Old High German, the word was unsih with an ‘n’ sound. And the Gothic version was unsis also with an ‘n’ sound. And you might remember from the Gothic version of the Lord’s Prayer that it began with ‘Atta unsar’ which meant ‘Father Our.’ So in unsar for ‘our’ we can also hear that ‘n’ sound in Gothic. Well, in Old English and Old Saxon the word became us (/oos/) – without the ‘n’ sound. And of course, it later became us after the English vowel sounds shifted around. But again, we can hear in that example how the early English, Saxon and Frisian dialects dropped that middle ‘n’ or ‘m’ sound.

We can also look at a word like goose. For example, modern German pronounces the word as gans (/gahns/). In Dutch, it’s gans (/hahns/). Both have that ‘n’ sound at the end. But English has dropped it. In English, it’s goose. And in modern Frisian, it’s goes (/goo-es/). So the word is almost identical in English and Frisian, and both have lost the ‘n’ sound.

43 Well, we haven’t completely lost the ‘n’ sound. We still do have a version of the word with the original ‘n’ sound. Of course that’s gander meaning a male goose – as in “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” That later verison of the word retained the ‘n’ sound, but the more generic English word goose has lost it.

Now these sound changes may seem like technical points, but the reason they’re important is because they show us the similarity between early English, Saxon and Frisian. These languages not only made many of the same changes to their respective grammars, but they also made many of the same changes to their words.

The strong similarities between these old languages is still reflected in the modern versions of those languages – Modern English and Modern Frisian. In fact, many linguists place those two together in their own unique branch of the West Germanic languages.

Now over time the two languages have become much more distinct. English was heavily influenced by Old Norse and Norman French, and Frisian was heavily influenced by Dutch. And of course, all languages evolve over time on their own. But despite these changes and outside influences, the two languages still have some remarkable similarities.

For example, many Germanic languages have a ‘g’ or ‘k’ sound in many words. These are sounds that are called velar consonants by linguists. But it basically refers to consonants produced in the back of the mouth or throat region. Well, both English and Frisian have dropped those sounds in many words and replaced them with a vowel sound like /ay/ or /eye/.

So for example, take the English word day. In German, it’s Tag (/tahg/). In Dutch, it’s dag (/dahx/). By the way, as is always the case, my pronunciations are intended to be approximate – not necessarily exact. I just want to illustrate the point. So both the German and Dutch versions of the word end with a velar consonant – that ‘g’ or ‘k’ sound. But in English, that consonant is gone, and it has been replaced with the /ay/ sound – day. In Frisian, that consonant is also gone, and it’s been replaced with an /eye/ sound – so the word is dei (/die/). So whereas Tag (/tahg/) and dag (/dahx/) sound foreign to us, day and dei (/dye/) are much closer to each other and the Frisian version sounds more familiar us.

We see the same relationship in the various words for rain. In German, it’s Regen (/reagan/). In Dutch, it’s regen (/ray-xun/). Both have two syllables with a velar consonant in the middle. But in English, we have rain. One syllable and no consonant in the middle. And in Frisian, the word in rein (/rhine/). Again, one syllable and no consonant in the middle.

In some other words, the Germanic languages have retained a hard ‘g’ sound where English and Frisian have developed a ‘y’ sound. So for example the German word for yarn is Garn (/gar-en/). But in English it is yarn. And the Frisian version is jern (/yearn/).

So as we compare words, we can see that Frisian and English made the a lot of the same sound changes over time. And there are many, many more of examples of these common changes, but I just wanted to give you a few examples here.

44 And as I noted back in Episode 3, the modern similarities between English and Frisian are so strong that we can read entire sentences the same way in both languages. You might remember the saying “Bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Friese.” That phrase remember is read almost identically in English and Frisian.

Here are some more words that are very similar in both languages today. I’ll read the English word first, then the Frisian equivalent.

Book - boek (/boo-ek/) is - is in - yn (/een/) ice - iis (/eesh/) out - ut (/oot/) ear - ear (earrr) hundred - hundert (houn-dert) honey - huning (hoo-ning) salt - salt good - goet (gou-et/) blood - bloed (/blou-et/) foot - foet (/fou-et/) fish - fisk (/fish-k/) young - jong (/yoh-ng/) heart - hert (like ‘wear’)

So these are just a few examples.

We can also see that the Frisians still tend to use the ‘e-n’ suffix to makes word plural which Old English once used much more prominently. So we had one ox an several oxen. And we have one brother and several brethren. Well, modern Frisian still tends to do this.

So one lion is a liuw (/lyoo/). But several are a liuwen (/lyoo-wuhn/). And one calf is a keal (/kih-uhl/). But several are a keallen (/kih-uhl-uhn/).

Comparing English and Frisian also presents us with some interesting etymology.

Take the word sky in English. The Frisian word is loft (/loaf-t/). And in that word loft (/loaf-t/), e can see a connection to our modern English word ‘loft.’ In fact both words are spelled exactly the same, we just have a different vowel pronunciation. But loft once meant ‘sky’ in Old English, just like it does in Modern Frisian. Over time, the meaning has changed to mean an upstairs room, like a hayloft in a barn. But we still have that original meaning when we speak of something being aloft. Of course, the German word is also very similar – luft – as in the WWII air force Luftwaffe or Lufthansa Airlines. By the way, we also get the word lift from that same Germanic root word. And of course, we lift something in the air toward the sky.

45 Another interesting example is the Frisian word for ‘flower.’ The Frisian word is blom (/bloam/). Again, if we listen closely, we can hear the connection to English. Of course, we have essentially the same word bloom which means ‘a flower blossom’ or, as a verb, ‘the process of a flower blossoming.’ But that word came into English thanks to the Vikings and their Old Norse language. The original Old English version of the word was blostma which gave us the word blossom. So bloom and blossom are synonyms in Modern English. Oone comes from Old English (blossom) and one comes from Old Norse (bloom). And both are very similar to the Frisian word for ‘flower’ – blom (/bloam/).

Let me also take this opportunity to mention a great blog if you’re interested in comparing English and Frisian. It’s funwithfrisian.blogspot.com/

So in concluding my look at English and Frisian, the main point I wanted to make was that both languages are very similar today, but they were even more similar in the distant past. And during the time of the first Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain, the languages of the Angles, Saxons and Frisians were so close that they could settle in the same general region and, over time, their languages could quickly meld together into a new more-or-less common language. And of course, that’s exactly what happened.

And next time, we’re going to look at how these tribes became permanent residents of Britain – not just raiders or temporary mercenaries. And we’ll explore how they began carve out their own regions, and in the process, how they laid the foundation for many of the Modern English dialects in Britain. And we’ll also keep a close eye on the events which were taking place at the same time back on the continent.

So until next time, thanks for listening to the History of English Podcast.

46 EPISODE 29: THE ANGLO-SAXON INVASION

Welcome to the History of English Podcast - A Podcast about the History of the English Language. This is Episode 29: The Anglo-Saxon Invasion. In this episode, we’re going to explore the invasion of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons. And specifically we’re going to look at the period from around the year 410, when the Roman Empire abandoned Britain, until around the year 600. These two centuries are sometimes called the lost centuries of British history because so little is known about what happened with any certainty. As we know by now, the Anglo-Saxons were illiterate, so they didn’t keep a chronicle of events as they happened. The few written accounts we do have come from a small handful of individuals, mostly monks and bishops who wrote in Latin. So in this episode, we’ll explore those bits and pieces of information, and we’ll try to piece together what happened during those two centuries in which a large portion of Britain passed to the Anglo-Saxons, and in the process, began to speak the language of the Anglo-Saxons.

But before I begin, I wanted to mention that I’ve completely redesigned the website for the podcast – historyofenglishpodcast.com. The new website is specifically designed to work with any media device, so it will automatically work with a PC, tablet, smart-phone, or any other media device with access to the web.

I’ve also taken the opportunity to reconfigure and remaster some of the old episodes. And I saved them to a new server. Now I’m going to release a bonus episode before the next regular episode of the podcast. And I would like you to listen to that episode. Because I’m going to be changing the feed for the podcast, and that explain what that means to you if you’re a subscriber. For most of you, it won’t mean very much at all, but for some of you, it could affect your current subscription. So again, just be sure to check out that next bonus episode and all will be explained.

OK, so let’s turn to the Anglo-Saxons, the people who brought us the language which we call Old English. As I noted, it’s very common for many histories of Britain to sort of ‘skip through’ these next two centuries. They often note that the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain around the year 450, and over the next century and half, they displaced the native Celtic-speaking people and established several new Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. And while there are some very interesting stories about what happened during this period, its difficult to determine how much is legend and how much is actual history. For example, the ultimate origins of the story of King Arthur date from this period. But even today, historians disagree as to whether there really was a leader named Arthur who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons. Ironically, Arthur was originally said to be a leader who fought against the English – or Anglo-Saxons. It would take many centuries for the stories of Arthur to develop into the full-fledged legend of King Arthur that we have today. And that’s the real problem with this period of history – separating fact from legend.

So I’ve decided to approach this period of history by turning to the actual sources. I’m going to take you through what we actually know about this period based upon the various scraps of evidence that we have, including both the limited written evidence and the archaeological evidence. So this episode will be a true history episode.

47 We’ll begin the story with the year 410 – the year that the crumbling Roman Empire abandoned Britain. With the Romans focused on events taking place in continental Europe, the Romanized Britons had to fend for themselves. And there were lots of challenges on the horizon. The Picts and the Scots were threatening from the north and various Germanic tribes like the Angles and Saxons were threatening from the south and the east.

So let’s consider what things were like around this time in southern and central Britain.

First of all, since this is a podcast about language, let’s consider what the region was like linguistically. Since the arrival of the Romans a few centuries earlier, the use of Latin has spread throughout Roman Britain. But its influence was greatest in the towns and cities where Roman influences in general were greater. Latin was made the official language of Roman Britain. And that meant that the governing classes and administrators spoke Latin. And many of the soldiers stationed there spoke Latin as well. And the traders who passed through the region, a lot of them also spoke Latin. And even some of the better educated natives learned and spoke Latin. But all of that basically meant that Latin was spoken in and around the Roman-occupied towns and cities.

But outside of the towns and cities – out in the rural areas – most Britons continued to speak the native Celtic languages. And even though Latin was more common in the towns and cities, we have to keep in mind what we mean by the term ‘city’ during this period. Even during this early period, London was the most important city in Britain. But it only had a population of about 30,000 people. And the entire city only covered about 300 acres. So cities were just small towns by today’s standards. And the number of people who lived in towns and cities as a percentage of the overall population was much smaller than it is today. So that meant that even though Latin was the ‘official’ language of Britain, it was always a minority language. The Celtic languages were spoken by far more people even during the heyday of Roman Britain.

And this is a very important point as we compare the situation here to the situation in continental Europe. On the continent, where the Romans had arrived earlier, and where the Roman influence was greater, the Latin language had begun to replace the native Celtic languages by this point. But in Britain, Latin never enjoyed the same degree of influence. It was a prominent language among the elite, the educated, and the bureaucrats, but those people mainly lived in the towns and cities. And when those towns began to decline after the Roman Empire abandoned the island, Latin slowly gave way to the native Celtic languages which dominated the rural areas. And that process was accelerated when the Anglo-Saxons arrived and began to sack the towns and cities and, in the process, displaced many of those Latin-speaking elites.

And this is a very important reason why the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons took root in Britain. And remember that Britain is really the exception to the rule here. Pretty much everywhere else in the former Western Roman Empire, Latin held firm. When the Franks conquered Gaul, and the Goths conquered modern-day Spain and Italy, Latin continued to be the dominant languages in those regions. But Latin was never as ingrained in Britain. It was a minority language, and it would continue to be a minority language.

48 Before we move on from the language issue, let me mention a few things about the native Celtic languages in the British Isles. Though all of these languages are generally grouped together under the general heading of ‘Celtic’ languages, linguists have noticed distinct differences between the Celtic languages that were spoken in Britain and the Celtic languages which were spoken to the west in Ireland. And this is not really surprising because we’re dealing with two different islands and both groups were somewhat isolated from each other over many centuries. But keep in mind that the northern part of Britain was home to the people called the Picts who were likely native people who pre-dated the arrival of the Celtic-speaking people.

Now around the time the Romans were leaving Britain, a group of Celtic-speaking people from Ireland called the ‘Scots’ began to settle in northwestern Britain. Over several centuries, the Scots overcame the Picts, and the Picts were assimilated into the Scots. And this is the ultimate origin of Scotland. And that means that the Celtic-language of the Scots – called Gaelic – is very closely related to the Celtic-language of the Irish. And the Celtic-language spoken in the Isle of Mann in this same general region – called Manx – is also part of this sub-family. So all of these are descended from that original form of Celtic which was spoken in Ireland.

But remember that that particular form of Celtic was different from the Celtic dialects spoken in Britain. So the Gaelic language of the Scots displaced the native language of the Picts in the north. And the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons displaced the native Celtic languages in central and southern Britain. That left the Celtic language in the far west of Britain in the region we know today as Wales. And it also left a Celtic language in the southwestern peninsula of Britain known as Cornwall. Now Welsh still survives today, but Cornish no longer exists as a spoken language.

So these languages of western Britain were descended from the Celtic languages spoken in Britain when the Anglo-Saxons arrived, and they form part of a separate sub-family of Celtic languages. And I wanted to make that point because even though Scottish Gaelic is spoken today in northern Britain, it isn’t actually descended from the original Celtic languages of Britain. Its roots are in Ireland.

So we’ve looked at the general decline of Latin relative to the native Celtic languages. But it wasn’t just the language of the Romans that was beginning to decline during this period around the year 410. The economy and the culture of the Romans was also beginning to experience a general decline.

Back in Episode 19, I discussed the Romanization of Britain, and I mentioned how the economy of the region had actually flourished in the decades and centuries that followed the arrival of the Romans. Roman-style marketplaces were built. New roads were constructed. Trade with the Empire increased. And Roman coins poured into Britain, which meant that the Romanized Britons began to use a common, international currency. And this currency largely replaced the older barter system. But after 410, when the Roman Empire pulled out of Britain, all of those developments gradually began to fade away. Roman coins began to disappear since Roman mints were no longer providing Britain with new coins. Within a couple of decades, Roman coins had stopped being used on a regular basis, and the people had returned to barter as the primary means of exchange.

49 In the years after the Romans arrived, a massive pottery industry had developed in Britain. But shortly after 410, the pottery industry collapsed. And the high-quality Roman pottery stopped being produced.

During the Roman period, the people of Britain had become accustomed to all of the benefits and comforts of Roman civilization. At least in the cities, they had running water, public baths, and a variety of luxury items. But many of these things were starting to disappear, and they wouldn’t return for over 1,000 years.

They might not have realized it at the time, but the native Britons had really become dependent on the Romans. The Romans provided them with the benefits of Roman civilization, but just as importantly, they provided them with the benefits of Roman troops and defenses. So the native Romano-Britons weren’t accustomed to fighting in their own defense. And this was in stark contrast to the warriors who had been invading from the north and the west – the Picts and the Scots – especially the Picts.

The Picts up in modern-day Scotland had been a long term threat even to the Roman troops. The Romans had constructed Hadrian’s Wall across the entire width of the island to keep the Picts out. And as long as the Romans manned the wall, it was effective. But when Rome left Britain to its own defenses in 410, the wall was abandoned and the Picts poured across it. And the Celtic-speaking Scots from Ireland were also joining in the invasions and adding to those problems.

Keep in mind that the reason why 410 is often cited as the year when Rome abandoned Britain is because that was the year when the Britons asked Rome for help in fighting the Picts. And Rome said, “Sorry, we’ve got our hands full with the Goths and the other tribes here on the continent.”

Now even though the Pictish threat was growing to the north, the native Romano-Britons fared pretty well for a while. And even the economy held on for a couple of decades. And the reason why we know that the decline we actually very gradual at first is because we have a written account from around the year 429 which gives us our first insight into the situation in Britain in the years after the Romans abandoned the island.

Around that year 429 – a couple of decades after the Romans left – a bishop named Germanus arrived in Britain from Gaul, and a second-hand written account of his trip provides some details about the situation on the ground. The account was written a few decades later as part of a general biography of Germanus. And it indicates that he encountered a “most wealthy island” (that’s a quote) with communities that were still thriving. Trade at the port in London, which was then called Londinium, was still active. People were still making and selling local crafts. The biography also indicates that there were many highly educated people and that many of them could speak Latin. So at least a couple of decades later, things hadn’t changed all that much. But the account also indicates that there were foreign invaders on the horizon, and that included both Picts and Saxons. The Britons were actively engaged in fighting them, but the Picts were only a threat in the northern border regions and the Saxons were only a threat along the coast. They weren’t really considered a threat to the fortified towns at this point.

50 Now Germanus arrived as a preacher, but he had previously been a soldier and military governor in Gaul. And while in Britain, he reorganized the local militias and he taught them how to fight battles in the traditional Roman fashion. According to his biography, he actually led a group of Britons in a successful battle against Saxon invaders during this period. Now we don’t know for certain whether that story is true, but we can take from this account that the Britons were fighting the invaders and apparently having some success at this early point.

Now unfortunately, that’s about all we get about from the biography of Germanus, but it’s enough to get a general sense that Britain was still doing OK a couple of decades after the Empire abandoned the region.

And this account is consistent with the archaeological evidence as well. There is no evidence of any permanent Saxon settlements in Britain until around the years 430 to 440, so that would be the decade after Germanus visited. And even then, those original settlements were very sparse. So for a few decades, the decline in Britain was very gradual and the outside threats were managed.

After Germanus left, we don’t have a contemporary written account from within Britain itself for over a century. So it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened next. But it appears that the Saxon and Pictish invasions increased significantly in the next few years after Germanus left. And for the first time, the archaeological evidence confirms the existence of permanent Saxon settlements. Those settlements began to pop up during the decade that followed that visit by Germanus.

So what happened after Germanus left? Did the Saxons simply overwhelm the Britons? Well maybe. Our next piece of evidence is a letter written sometime between 446 and 454 by a group of Britons to a Roman General in Gaul who was busy trying to repel Atilla the Hun from that region. The letter was a plea for help and it was quoted by later writers like Gildas and Bede who I will discuss later. The letter was addressed to this particular general in Gaul who was in power there from 446 to 454, so that’s why we have a general time frame for the date of the letter. So that means the letter was written around 20 years after Germanus left – give or take a few years. The letter was titled ‘The Groans of the British.’ And it read: “The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians. Thus two modes of death await us; we are either slain or drowned.”

So obviously, the Romano-Britons were under attack around this time, around the year 450, and this letter was a desperate plea for help. But the Roman General in Gaul had his hands full with Attila. So once again, the Romans were of no help.

Now we don’t have a copy of this particular letter today. We only know it through these later writers, but since it was quoted, historians believe the letter actually existed and those later writers had access to it – or at least a copy of it. And this particular letter may actually be pinpointing the time during which the Anglo-Saxon invasion was beginning to explode across eastern and southern Britain. And as we’ll see shortly, later historians also identify this period – the middle of the 5th century – as the real beginning of the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

51 So from the account of Germanus’s visit around 429 to this particular letter which was written sometime around 450, the situation had changed dramatically in Britain. So what happened during this intervening 20 year period to cause the situation to deteriorate so much? At the beginning of that period, Roman society still existed in Britain – at least in the inland cities. And the foreign threats were manageable. But now, they were desperate for help. But who were these invaders? Were they Picts and Scots pouring in from the north. Or were they Saxons invading from the coast. Or were they both?

Well, we have another written source from this same general time frame which sheds some light on this question. Around this time in Gaul, a chronicle was being maintained. We don’t know for certain who wrote the chronicle, but it likely originated from a monastery in southern Gaul. The original manuscript has long since been lost, but it survives in the form of a later Medieval French copy from the 9th or 10th Century. The chronicle is called the Gallic Chronicle of 452 because that is the year of the last entry. But it contains entries for earlier years as well. And for the year 441, the chronicle contains the following entry: “The Britains, which to this time had suffered from various disasters and misfortunes, are reduced to the power of the Saxons.”

So according to this chronicle – the Gallic Chronicle – it was the Saxons who were in the process of conquering the island, and presumably it was the Saxon threat which led to the letter to the Roman general in Gaul around this same time. Now modern historians have a ‘field day’ with these dates. As I said the chronicle itself is dated to the year 452, so that time is completely consistent with that letter pleading for help. But the chronicle places the entry I just read under the year 441 – a decade earlier. Now most later historians have tended to dismiss this date of 441 as being a little too early given the other sources. And in fact, the dates for other events in the Gallic Chronicle are indeed off by a few years given other more reliable sources. But I just wanted to note that this is one of the sources relied upon by those who believe the Saxon conquest happened a little bit earlier. For our purposes, it isn’t really important to put a specific date on the events, and as I discussed in the last episode, the Anglo-Saxon conquest was a gradual event. It didn’t just begin in one particular year.

So rather than focusing on the dating inconsistencies, the more important point it that this Gallic Chronicle confirms that the plea for help around 450 occurred at the same time that the Saxons were conquering the island. And both of those documents paint the same picture of native Britons rapidly falling to invading Saxons. But again, they don’t provide us with any real details. But we do have some archaeological evidence from this same time period.

As I noted, the archaeological evidence confirms the existence of the first permanent Saxon settlements in Britain during this period. So we know that the Saxons were no longer just raiding. They were now settling in Britain and becoming permanent residents.

In fact, about 30 years ago, a small gold medallion was found in a field near Suffolk in eastern England. Archaeologists believe the medallion was dropped or buried there between the years 450 and 480, so right in this same time frame. The same time frame as the Gallic Chronicle and that letter to the Roman general in Gaul pleading for help.

52 Now what’s interesting about this particular medallion is that it bears a Germanic runic inscription which reads “This she-wolf is a reward to my kinsmen.” Now, it may not be Shakespeare, but it is the earliest known Anglo-Saxon inscription in Britain, and that makes it the first known sentence in the English language. And that means that English was on the ground – literally on the ground – around the year 450 or soon thereafter.

The archaeological evidence also shows that some Britons were beginning to flee the southern coast of Britain during this period, and actually beginning to head south across the channel to northern Gaul. If the Roman general in Gaul wouldn’t come to their aid, then they would just head to Gaul where maybe they would be safe from the Anglo-Saxons. These Britons established a new home in the northwestern part of Gaul. And this region came to be known as Brittany, and that name is not a coincidence. The name Brittany comes from the fact that it was settled by refugees from Britain. In fact, there is evidence that both regions were called Brittania very early on.

Now, in an upcoming episode I’m going to look at the expansion of the Franks throughout northern Gaul and the impact that their language had on French – and then later had on English. In fact, I’m going to explore the etymology of a lot of English words which can be traced back to the Germanic Franks. But for now, we just need to keep in mind that the Frankish invasion of Gaul was happening around the same time as the early Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain.

But at the same time that the Franks were expanding westward, the fleeing Britons were expanding into the same general region in the northern part of Gaul. So the emerging region of Brittany in northwestern Gaul remained distinct from the expanding Frankish territory.

And we get another scrap of written evidence from around this same time period which confirms that the exodus from Britain to northern Gaul was occurring. The evidence come to us in the form of two letters written by a Bishop in Gaul. The bishop’s name was Sidonius Apollinaris. Now Sidonius was very active in the Catholic Church, and he corresponded with many of the prominent people of his day throughout Western Europe. And fortunately many of his letters have survived the centuries.

One of his letters is dated in the year 468. And again, as with so many of these sources, we can’t be 100% sure if that date is accurate, but given the time in which he lived and wrote, it can’t be off by very much. This particular letter was written to a friend named Vincentius. And in it, Sidonius notes that a government official in Gaul had sent a message to the Gothic King – not the Frankish King – but the Gothic King, Eeuric, and that letter had been intercepted. And the official’s secretary had been arrested and the secretary confirmed that the letter did indeed come from that particular official in Gaul. According to Sidonius, the intercepted letter was “evidently addressed to the King of the Goths, whom it dissuaded from concluding peace with 'the Greek Emperor', urging that instead he should attack the Bretons north of the Loire, and asserting that the law of nations called for a division of Gaul between Visigoth and Burgundian. There was more in the same mad vein, calculated to inflame a choleric king, or shame a quiet one into action. Of course the lawyers found here a flagrant case of treason.”

53 So it sounds like this particular official found himself in a bit of trouble, but what’s interesting from this account is that Sidonius specifically mentions the “Bretons north of the Loire.” So he is confirming that the British refugees were in place in northern Gaul around this time – around the year 468. And of course, the Britons had to be fleeing something, and based on that Gallic Chronicle entry from a couple of decades earlier, we know that they were fleeing the Saxons.

So you can start to see how historians have pieced together scraps of information here and there to figure out what happened.

Now Sidonius also wrote another letter which is interesting and provides a little more information about the situation in Gaul. This other letter was dated 470 – a couple of years after that first letter I just discussed. And it was written to a British military leader who was busy fighting against the Visigoths who remained in northern Gaul. The British leader’s name was Riothamus. And the late Roman historian Jordanes actually called Riothamus the ‘King of the Britons.’ In fact, the name Riothamus is a Latin version of a Celtic name which meant ‘king-most’ or ‘highest king.’ So why was such a supreme British king active in northern Gaul during this period. Well, part of the answer has to do with the general exodus of Britons from southern Britain. The exodus was so great that even prominent generals had apparently made the trek. But for some later historians who are intrigued with the legendary figure of Arthur who pops up in some later accounts of this period, they think that there might be a connection to this leader named Riothamus. In fact, it is possible that he was the same person who was later referred to as Arthur in some of those accounts. But I’ll look at that issue in more detail in the next episode.

For now, we just need to focus on this particular letter written to Riothamus around the year 470. Apparently Sidonius – who wrote the letter – knew someone who had his slaves enticed away by a group of armed Bretons in northern Gaul. He wrote the following:

“I will write once more in my usual strain, mingling compliment with grievance. Not that I at all desire to follow up the first words of greeting with disagreeable subjects, but things seem to be always happening which a man of my order and in my position can neither mention without unpleasantness, nor pass over without neglect of duty. Yet I do my best to remember the burdensome and delicate sense of honour which makes you so ready to blush for others' faults. The bearer of this is an obscure and humble person, so harmless, insignificant, and helpless that he seems to invite his own discomfiture; his grievance is that the Bretons are secretly enticing his slaves away. Whether his indictment is a true one, I cannot say; but if you can only confront the parties and decide the matter on its merits, I think the unfortunate man may be able to make good his charge . . .”

So this letter once again confirms the presence of British refugees in and around the region of Brittany around the year 470. And remember that that’s about 20 or 30 years after the other sources we looked at which indicated that the native Britons had started to be conquered by the Saxons.

Now before we move on from the Bretons in northern Gaul, let me note that since they came from Britain during this period, their Celtic language is closely related to the Celtic languages of southern Britain.

54 So we can place Breton in the same Celtic sub-family as Welsh and Cornish. All of those are descended from the early Celtic languages of Britain. And remember that those are all distinct from the other Celtic subfamily which includes Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

OK, so by now we’ve established that there was a great Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain, that the Anglo-Saxons had begun to settle there, that outside sources refer to a Saxon conquest of Britain, and that there was a massive migration of Britons out of southern Briton into northern Gaul. But we still don’t know much about that actual Anglo-Saxon invasion. We don’t know exactly what led to that invasion. And we don’t know much about the actual conquest of Britain.

So we might be led to assume that the Saxons had just begun to arrive in greater numbers, and that they had simply overwhelmed the native Romano-Britons. But it turns out that things were a little more complicated than that.

Our next written account actually comes about 70 or 80 years after the letters of Sidonius. So that puts us around the year 550 – or maybe a few years before. And this particular written account is probably the most important contemporary account of the events during this period that we have. Even though it was written around a century after that initial Saxon invasion around 450, it’s still the first detailed account we have which describes what had happened over those intervening years. So needless to say, it’s a pretty important document.

The document is a three-part extended sermon written by a British monk named Gildas the Wise. And according to Gildas, the Saxons didn’t just show up one day and start looting and pillaging. In fact, believe it or not, they were actually invited in by the native Britons. According to Gildas, the Picts to the north had become such a tremendous threat that the Saxons were invited in as mercenaries to fight the Picts. So let’s consider what Gildas has to say, and why and when he says it.

The first potential problem with Gildas is the time frame. As I noted, his account was written about 100 years after that Gallic Chronicle entry which says the Saxons conquered the Britons. And in keeping with the tradition of the church, it was written in Latin. In its English translation, the sermon was called ‘On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain.’

So what about that 100 year time frame? Well, obviously Gildas wasn’t old enough to have been around for over a century and have first-hand knowledge of what happened. So he had to rely at least in part on other evidence, probably stories passed down in the oral tradition.

And he also had access to some documents which we don’t have today. One of those documents was that letter to the Roman general in Gaul around the year 450 because he was the first writer to actually quote the letter. And it’s very likely that the later writers simply quoted it directly from him. So he may have been the only person with direct access to the letter to leave a written account of it for future generations.

Now even though he may have had access to some documents and oral accounts of what happened a century earlier, we still have to consider the fact that he was writing at a much later date.

55 The other potential problem with Gildas was his motivation and purpose. As I noted, Gildas was a monk and a native Briton. And it is very clear from his writing that he was trying to convey a moral message, that it had been wrong to invite in pagan barbarians to fight the Picts. And he believed that the people of Britain had been punished for that decision. They had experienced a great deal of suffering, but it was all a consequence of their own misdeeds. So the account of Gildas is primarily a sermon – not a literal record of history. So we have to keep that in mind as we consider what he has to say.

Gildas begins his sermon with a summary of the events which had taken place in Britain from the time the Romans first arrived until the time of his writing shortly before the year 550. Some of his early history of Roman Briton is clearly wrong, but as he describes events closer to his own time, it is believed that his accounts are more accurate.

According to Gildas, the native Britons came under increasing attacks from the Picts and the Scots, and in an effort to defend the region, they turned to the Saxons. Here is a portion of the sermon:

“Then all the councillors, along with the proud tyrant, were so blinded, that, as a protection to their country, they sealed its doom by inviting in among them (like wolves into the sheep-fold), the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations. Nothing was ever so pernicious to our country, nothing was ever so unlucky. What palpable darkness must have enveloped their minds – darkness desperate and cruel! Those very people whom, when absent, they dreaded more than death itself, were invited to reside, as one may say, under the same roof.”

So according to Gildas, a ‘proud tyrant’ invited the Saxons. As we’ll see shortly, later sources identified this tyrant or leader as a man named Vortigern.

Gildas then says that the Saxons were given lands in eastern Britain, and soon their relatives back on the continent heard of their successes and many more flocked to Britain. But at a later date, the Saxons turned on their British hosts, and fighting broke out between the two groups. This is how he described the root of the conflict between the Saxons and the Britons:

“The barbarians being thus introduced as soldiers into the island, to encounter, as they falsely said, any dangers in defense of their hospitable entertainers, obtain an allowance of provisions, which, for some time being plentifully bestowed, stopped their doggish mouths. Yet they complain that their monthly supplies are not furnished in sufficient abundance, and they industriously aggravate each occasion of quarrel, saying that unless more liberality is shown them, they will break the treaty and plunder the whole island. In a short time, they follow up their threats with deeds.”

So basically, the Saxons began to complain about their provisions and supplies. This is very reminiscent of the complaints of the Goths after they were allowed to cross the Danube in Roman territory. And as we know, the Goths began to starve and soon rose up and defeated the Romans. Now we don’t know if the Saxons were as desperate as the Goths, but it’s possible that the same basic process was happening again here in Britain. And it’s also possible that the Saxons just wanted an excuse to plunder.

56 According to Gildas, the fighting between the Saxons and the Britons lasted for many years. And he described the consequences in great detail. In one passage, he writes:

“For the fire of vengeance, justly kindled by former crimes, spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east, and did not cease, until, destroying the neighboring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red and savage tongue in the western ocean.”

And then he writes in graphic detail:

“Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press; and with no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds.”

And then he notes the following:

“Some, therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken into the mountains, were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves forever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation.”

So from all of that, Gildas confirms that many of the native Britons fled the Saxon onslaught. He says that some of them fled to the western mountains – basically modern-day Wales. And he said that some of them fled ‘beyond the seas, ’ so that presumably that means across the channel to Brittany in norther, Gaul.

Gildas then notes that the fighting lasted for many years. Eventually though, the Britons began to fight back under the leadership of a man named Ambrosius Aurelianus. And they eventually won a decisive victory at a place called Mons Badonicus. He says that the victory occurred about 44 years earlier in the same year in which he was born. And that victory at Mons Badonicus ushered in a period of peace between the two groups that had lasted until the time of Gildas’s writings about 44 years later. So that means the British victory at Mons Badonicus took place sometime around the year 500.

He then states the following: “And yet neither to this day are the cities of our country inhabited as before, but being forsaken and overthrown, still lie desolate; our foreign wars having ceased, but our civil troubles still remaining.”

So Gildas is indicating that the region has been devastated and the native Britons had been largely displaced. In the next episode, we’ll look at the legacy of the Celtic-speaking Britons – especially their legacy on the English language. And one of the great on-going debates is whether the Britons were wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons or whether they were just consumed within the new Anglo- Saxon society. Gildas suggests the former – that they were basically wiped out with the regions

57 occupied by the Saxons. But as we’ll see, modern evidence suggests that this view may be an exaggeration.

Now Gildas concludes his history by describing a period of relative peace during his lifetime, and since he was writing for a contemporary audience, we can assume that he was somewhat accurate in this part of his description. But what about the rest of it?

Is there any actual evidence of an invitation being extended to the Saxons? Well, no.

And who was the ‘proud tyrant’ who invited the Saxons in? Well, Gildas doesn’t say, though later sources provide the name of Vortigern.

When did this alleged invitation to the Saxons occur? Again, Gildas doesn’t tell us.

When did the Anglo-Saxons begin to arrive? Well, again, we don’t know.

And where is this place called Mons Badonicus where the Britons supposedly won a decisive victory? Again, we don’t know.

And that’s the problem with Gildas. He wasn’t writing as a historian. He was writing as a preacher. But while we are left with lots of questions, we have to assume that his account is roughly based on facts. And the reason for that assumption that is because Gildas was writing for a contemporary audience. He was writing about events were taking place during his lifetime and which had taken place over the prior century, and he was writing to the people of his time. So it appears that his description reflects the common knowledge and understanding of the people of Britain at the time.

And the events described by Gildas are actually very consistent with Roman practice at the time – especially the basic idea of using the Saxons to fight the Picts. As we’ve seen over the past few episodes, the Romans had come to rely heavily on Germanic mercenaries. Tribes like the Goths and the Franks had been invited into Roman territory to fight Rome’s enemies. In fact, by this point, a large portion of the Roman army in western Europe was composed of Germanic mercenaries, and Germans were rising to the highest ranks of the Roman army. So it’s not surprising that those Romano-Britons left behind in Britain would do exactly what Rome had been doing for decades. Bring in some mercenaries to fight the invaders. Let the barbarians fight the barbarians. Let their enemies fight each other while they stood on the sidelines. That was all very Roman, and so the account of Gildas may be accurate in this respect.

Now before we move on from Gildas, let me note a few more things about his account. First, he described the Germanic tribes simply as ‘Saxons.’ He doesn’t use the terms Angles, Jutes, Frisians or Franks. It’s just Saxons. And the Gallic Chronicle did the same thing a century earlier. It only refers to ‘Saxons.’ But this appears to have been a common practice at the time. Remember the ‘Saxon Shore’ which I discussed in the last episode. It appears that all of the North Sea Germanic tribes were sometimes collectively referred to as the ‘Saxons.’

58 Another key point about Gildas is that he did make a few mistakes in his narrative. For example, he attributed the construction of Hadrian’s Wall to a period much later that the period when it was actually constructed.

Also, earlier I mentioned that letter from a group of Britons to the Roman General in Gaul pleading for help. Well, Gildas quotes that letter and that is part of the reason why we believe that letter actually existed. And we know from the dates in which that General was in power that it had to have been written around the year 450. But the letter didn’t mention who the invaders were. So Gildas assumed that the invaders were the Picts and the Scots. But we know from that Gallic Chronicle written about the same period that it was the Saxons who were invading. So Gildas also apparently made a mistake in that regard.

He also concluded his history by noting that at the time of his writings – around the year 550 – that there had been an extended period of ‘peace’ between the Saxons and the Britons. But archaeology suggests that the term ‘peace’ used by Gildas must have been a relative term – maybe it was peaceful compared to the earlier period of warfare. Because the archaeological evidence suggests that skirmishes were still occurring during the time in which Gildas lived. Cemetery evidence indicates that the Saxons (or Anglo-Saxons) were still expanding westward and northward during that period. Hilltop sites in the west were also re-fortified during that period. And that also suggests an ongoing threat.

So that’s Gildas. And while we can be skeptical about some of his purported history, we also have to consider that his is really the closest thing we have to a contemporary account of the history of the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

Now after Gildas, the only other contemporary account of the events in Britain during this period comes from the Byzantine writer and historian Procopius.

I actually mentioned Procopius a couple of episodes back. He was the Byzantine writer and historian in Constantinople during the time of the Emperor Justinian. And he wrote three histories during his lifetime, one of which was a series of scandalous stories published after his death called ‘Anekdota’ – which is the origin of the word anecdote in Modern English. Remember that? Well he also wrote a history of wars of the Eastern Roman Empire. And he wrote that history around the same time that Gildas wrote that sermon we just looked at. So Procopius was a contemporary of Gildas. And in his history, Procopius mentioned a couple of things about events in Britain.

Now in order to understand what Procopius has to say, we have to consider the context in which he wrote. Remember that he was writing from Constantinople – modern-day Istanbul in Turkey. So needless to say, he wasn’t exactly providing a first-hand account of events in Britain. But remember that at the same time the Anglo-Saxons were conquering parts of Britain, the Franks were expanding across northern and central Gaul.

And by this point, around the year 550, the Franks had effectively conquered most of Gaul, except for that region of Brittany with the British refugees in the northwest. Around the year 553, the Franks sent some emissaries to Constantinople. And these Frankish emissaries were accompanied

59 by some Angles as well. And this was the source of the information which Procopius included in his history. So again, we’re dealing with second-hand accounts, and we have to consider the possibility of hearsay and the impact of the personal opinions of the Franks and the Angles.

One thing that was confirmed by the sources, is that many Britons were now living in northern Gaul – in Brittany. Procopius writes:

“Three very populous nations inhabit the Island of Brittia, and one king is set over each of them. And the names of these nations are Angles, Frisians, and Britons who have the same name as the island. So great apparently is the multitude of these peoples that every year in large groups they migrate from there with their women and children and go to the Franks. And they [the Franks] are settling them in what seems to be the more desolate part of their land, and as a result of this they say they are gaining possession of the island. So that not long ago the king of the Franks actually sent some of his friends to the Emperor Justinian in Byzantium, and despatched with them the men of the Angles, claiming that this island [Britain], too, is ruled by him. Such then are the matters concerning the island called Brittia.”

So Procopius confirms the settlement of Britons in Brittany, but we already knew that. What’s more interesting is the way he describes the inhabitants of Britain. Keep in mind that, up until this point, other writers just use the term ‘Saxons.’ But Procopius doesn’t use the term ‘Saxons’ at all. He describes the residents of Britain as Britons, Angles and Frisians. This is the first specific reference we have to those two groups settling in Britain. In fact, it is the only historical reference which specifically mentions the Frisians And again, there is no mention of the ‘Saxons’ which is interesting. And he doesn’t mention the ‘Jutes’ either. But at least we’re starting to get specific references to other North Sea tribes in Britain. I should also note that Procopius uses the term ‘Brittia’ which has led some later scholars to wonder if he was using that term to refer to the island Britain or the region of Brittany in Northern Gaul. But I’m not going to get into that debate here.

So that really concludes out look at the contemporary sources who wrote during the period of the actual Anglo-Saxon invasions.

The period of the Anglo-Saxon invasions – or uprising – lasted from the early 400s through the very early 600s. So the last sources we have from this period, Gildas and Procopius, were writing around the year 550, so about three-quarters of the way through that period. And as we know today, the story was far from over when they were writing. That period of relative peace mentioned by Gildas would soon come to an end because the Anglo-Saxons soon conquered all the territory which today as modern England.

And with respect to the Britons who were fleeing to Northern Gaul, the archaeological evidence suggests that there were two general periods of migrations. There was that initial period around the year 450 when the first Anglo-Saxon onslaught began. And most of those refugees came from the central coast of Southern Britain. But around the year 575, shortly after the time of Gildas and Procopius, a second period of migration occurred. Most of this second wave of refugees came from the western regions of Britain – around Devon and Cornwall.

60 So that suggests that shortly after the time of Gildas, the period of relative peace ended, and the native Britons who had fled to the west came under attack again. And many of them fled from those regions down into Northern Gaul.

As I noted earlier, later historians wrote about the Anglo-Saxon invasion and filled in some of the details which were missing from these contemporary accounts. But that’s the real dilemma as we look at this period of history. Many of the details come from accounts which were written many years after the fact – usually several centuries later. And without knowing the sources of those extra details, it can be difficult to determine what is fact and what is legend.

But we can’t leave the topic of the Anglo-Saxon invasion without discussing a couple of these later sources because they provide many of the missing details of this story.

The first source is the history of England which was written by the Bede in the 8th Century. The other is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which began to be compiled around the year 900. These are generally considered to be THE two definitive sources of Anglo-Saxon history since they were both written during the Anglo-Saxon period. But as it relates to the initial Anglo-Saxon invasion, both of these sources had to deal with the same problem of time – the fact that they were written so many years after the fact.

Let’s start with Bede – or ‘the Venerable Bede’ as he came to be known in later centuries. Bede was a monk who lived in Northumbria in northern England. In the year 731, he completed a history of England and the English church called the “Ecclesiastical History of the English People.” And this is still generally considered to be the definitive history of Anglo-Saxon England up to that point.

Bede begins his history with the following description:

“In the year of our Lord 449, Martian being made emperor with Valentinian, and the forty-sixth from Augustus, ruled the empire seven years. Then the nation of the Angles, or Saxons, being invited by the aforesaid king, arrived in Britain with three long ships, and had a place assigned them to reside in by the same king, in the eastern part of the island, that they might thus appear to be fighting for their country, whilst their real intentions were to enslave it.”

So Bede gives us a specific year for the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons – the year 449. And because Bede and his history were so influential, that year has become the traditional date often given for the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. But this particular date – 449 – was almost certainly a reconstructed date, and probably more of a guesstimate. In reality, as we know by now, there probably wasn’t a specific date that we can look to. It was a very gradual process, not a dramatic event like the arrival of the Romans in the year 43 or the Normans in the year 1066. In fact, as I noted earlier, the archaeological evidence confirms that there were permanent Anglo-Saxon settlements in place over a decade before the date given by Bede.

But it also appears that, what was initially a gradual immigration, did accelerate at some point. We know that a group of Britons wrote a letter to a Roman general pleading for help around the year 450.

61 And the Gallic Chronicle also mentions a Saxon conquest of Britain around this same time frame. So Bede was probably ‘in the ballpark’ with that year of 449.

Bede then follows the account of Gildas by stating that the Anglo-Saxons were invited in. He writes:

“The newcomers received of the Britons a place to inhabit, upon condition that they should wage war against their enemies for the peace and security of the country, whilst the Britons agreed to furnish them with pay. Those who came over were of the three most powerful nations of Germany – Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, and those also in the province of the West Saxons who are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight. From the Saxons, that is, the country which is now called Old Saxony, came the East Saxons, the South Saxons, and the West Saxons. From the Angles, that is, the country which is called Anglia, and which is said, from that time, to remain deserted to this day, between the provinces of the Jutes and the Saxons, are descended the East Angles, the Midland Angles, the Mercians, all the race of the Northumbrians, that is, of those nations that dwell on the north side of the river Humber, and the other nations of the English.”

So there is the definitive statement that Britain was invaded by Angles, Saxons and Jutes. And he also gives us the traditional regional breakdown for those groups. The Jutes settled in the east in Kent. The Angles settled in the central regions. And the Saxons settled in the south. The area of the East Saxons became Essex. The area of the South Saxons became Sussex. The area of the West Saxons became Wessex.

Once again, Bede was working from a vantage point almost three hundred year later. By this point, there were certainly regional differences in the dialects of the Anglo-Saxons. And the kingdoms that had emerged within these regions had distinct names as well. Sussex, Essex and Wessex all had names which clearly derived from the name of the Saxons. And they all spoke similar dialects. Meanwhile, in the east there was the region known as ‘East Anglia.’ And that name clearly derived from the name of the ‘Angles.’ And the people in that region also spoke a distinctive dialect. And those differences in dialects persisted through the years and could be detected by later generations. And some of those differences persist to this day.

And Bede’s description reflects those regional differences as they existed at the time – the time when he was writing. But historians still debate whether those differences were there from the beginning or whether they developed later from an initial mixture of tribes.

After describing the initial settlement of Angles, Saxons and Jutes, Bede continued his history, and in doing so, he basically followed the same narrative as Gildas. It seems clear that Gildas was one of Bede’s primary sources, but Bede adds some additional details as well. For example, the ‘proud tyrant’ who invited the Anglo-Saxons to Britain was named Vortigern. And the early leaders of the Anglo-Saxons were Hengest and Horsa. So were these real people or just legendary figures? Well, that still a matter of debate. And I’ll leave it to the professional Anglo-Saxon historians to figure that out.

62 But the bottom line is that Bede’s summary of the Anglo-Saxon invasion has secured its place as the traditional view of the invasion in the minds of most historians. It was so influential, that when the Anglo-Saxons began their own annual chronicle around the year 900, they largely deferred to Bede’s history of the period. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle follows Bede’s narrative, as well as Bede’s time frame. And this is not really surprising. While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the most important source for late Anglo-Saxon history, the chroniclers obviously had to rely on other sources for events which had occurred over 400 years earlier.

So as you can probably see by now, we have a very general idea of what happened around the 5th and 6th Ccenturies in Britain, but lots of questions remain and there are a lot of details which we may never know.

One of the biggest mysteries from this period concerns the legacy of the native Celtic-speaking Britons in the region which fell to the Anglo-Saxons. Were they wiped out as many of the early historians originally thought? Linguistically, there is very little Celtic influence in English. So that’s been the traditional view. But that view has been challenged by recent research in both linguistics and genetics. So next time, I’m going to explore the legacy of the Celts in Anglo-Saxon England – and in the English language.

So until next time, thanks for listening to the History of English Podcast.

63 EPISODE 30: THE CELTIC LEGACY

Welcome to the History of English Podcast - a podcast about the history of the English language. This is Episode 30: The Celtic Legacy. In this episode, we’re going to explore the impact of the Celtic languages on Modern English. And we’re going to look at the ultimate fate of the native Britons when they encountered the Anglo-Saxons. Now this may seem like a straight-forward topic. But actually, it’s a topic that has perplexed historians for centuries. The true legacy of the Celts in Anglo-Saxons England is still the subject of much debate. So I’ll try to put the pieces together for you as best I can to determine how much Modern English owe sto those original Celtic Britons.

Last time, we looked at the actual evidence from the period of the Anglo-Saxon invasion to try to determine what happened between the years 410 and 600. That two-century period marks the time during which the Anglo-Saxons conquered much of the area we know today as England. Based upon that evidence and the accounts of later writers, a very general view emerged.

That view was that an Anglo-Saxon onslaught began sometime around the year 450 – give or take a few years. Over the next few decades, the Anglo-Saxons conquered much of the region of eastern Britain. And in the process, the native Romano Britons and Celtic Britons were either killed or displaced. The result was the complete Anglo-Saxon dominance and control over eastern Britain. And then the Anglo-Saxons began to move westward expanding their territory. But sometime around the year 500, the native Britons began to piece together some significant victories in these border regions. Around that time, they won a decisive victory at a placed called Mons Badonicus in Latin – or Mount Badon or Badon Hill in later English. And that victory basically stemmed the tide of the Anglo-Saxons.

For a while, there was a period of relative peace between the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons. But sometime around the year 550, another onslaught began and the Anglo-Saxons began a new campaign into western Britain. And that meant a new round of killing and displacement occurred. Most of the native Celtic-speaking Britons who survived fled to the west to Cornwall and Wales, and north in to modern Scotland, or even south across the Channel into Brittany in northern Gaul.

The net result of all of this was a large portion of central and southern Britain under the control of the Anglo-Saxons. And along the way, the native Celtic-speaking Britons were effectively ‘wiped out’ from these regions. So that’s the traditional view of events during this period.

So why did these historians assume that the native Celts has been completely displaced from these regions? Well, it was based in part of the descriptions of people like Gildas. He described how many of the native Britons had been killed by the invaders and how most of those who survived had fled to the west or across the seas. And he noted that most of the towns and cities had been devastated and abandoned. So we have a contemporary account which was very compelling. But there is no evidence that Gildas actually traveled into the regions which had been conquered by the Anglo- Saxons. And even he noted that he was writing several decades after those initial battles had occurred. And keep in mind that he wasn’t really writing a proper history, he was writing a sermon

64 about how bad the Anglo-Saxons were and how much of a mistake it had been to invite them in to begin with.

And we know that some of his early history was wrong, especially his account of the construction of Hadrian’s Wall. So for much of his history, he was basing his accounts on the descriptions of others. And it’s possible that these accounts were exaggerated, or that he exaggerated his account in order to emphasize his point.

Beyond the writings of Gildas, some of the best evidence that the Celts had been wiped out was the fact that there are so few Celtic words in English.

As a general rule, when two groups of people encounter each other, and they each speak different languages, there is a significant amount of borrowing between the languages. Over time, one language may die out, but the surviving language usually retains a large number of words from the other language, and it may even borrow some grammar from the other language.

So theoretically, English should have a heavy Celtic influence. The Anglo-Saxons conquered a Celtic-speaking people on a Celtic-speaking island. And Celtic languages have continued to exist next door on the island to this day. So where is all of that Celtic influence that we should expect to see? Well, the traditional view is that it’s not really there.

According that view, the Anglo-Saxons only borrowed a handful of Celtic words. Depending on who you ask, maybe a dozen, maybe a couple of dozen, but very few no matter how you count them.

Now compare this to Latin as it slowly replaced the Celtic languages in Gaul. Of course, the Latin spoken in Gaul eventually evolved into French. And it’s estimated that there are over 500 Celtic words in modern French. But again, the Anglo-Saxons in Britain only borrowed a dozen or so.

So let’s try to identify those Celtic words in English. And let’s begin by noting that the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons – the original Germanic tribes – they encountered Celtic-speaking tribes on the continent. And back in Episode 17, we looked at some of those Celtic words which were acquired by the Germanic tribes very early on long before the Anglo-Saxons headed to Britain. That included words like breeches and bin. We also have the word rich from the Celtic word rix meaning ‘king, ruler or powerful.’ We’ve come across that word several times, and we’ll see it again a little later in this episode.

So the Anglo-Saxons had a few Celtic words in their vocabulary when they first arrived in Britain. And then, once they were in Britain, they picked up a few more words. A few of those words existed in Old English, but have since disappeared. For example, the Old English word bannuc meant a ‘bit or small piece of something.’ It came from an almost identical word in the Celtic languages which meant a small cake.

The Old English word brocc meant ‘badger,’ and it too was borrowed from the Celts.

65 And the Old English word dunn meant a dull, grayish brown color. It was also borrowed from the Celts. But all of those words have long since disappeared from English.

Another possible borrowing from the Celtic languages was the word bratt – as in ‘Don’t be a little brat.’ This etymology is disputed, but the Celtic languages had a word bratt which meant a ‘cloak.’ And according to some etymologies, it later came to mean a makeshift or ragged garment, and then came to be associated with beggars, and later came to mean a ‘beggar’s child,’ and later an ‘annoying child.’ So if this etymology is correct, the word ‘brat’ can also be traced back to the native Celtic- speaking Britons.

But most of the Celtic words which were borrowed by the original Anglo-Saxons, and which still exist in Modern English, were terms related to the geography of region. As the Anglo-Saxons settled in, they borrowed local words for certain places and geographical features.

So for example, the word crag meant ‘rock’ and can still be found in English.

The word torr meant ‘hill or mound or rock.’ That word still exists in English, mainly in certain parts of England. Interestingly, that word torr was probably borrowed from the Romans during the period of Roman rule. Latin had the word turris which meant ‘high structure.’ And that Latin word ultimately gave us the English word tower. So Celtic tor and English tower are cognate if that etymology is correct.

Some other Celtic words for locations or geological features can still be found buried within other words. The Celtic word lynn or lindo meant ‘lake.’ And the Romans combined that word lindo with the Latin word colonia meaning ‘colony.’ The result was the name Lincoln – the name of a town which is the ultimate origin of the surname Lincoln.

The Celtic word cumb meant a ‘valley.’ And that word still exists in a handful of place names that end in combe (either C-O-M-B or C-O-M-B-E).

The Celtic word for ‘river’ was avon. And that word appears in a variety of river names in Britain.

And a lot of other modern place names derive from Celtic names, names like London, Devon, Dover, Kent, York, Carlisle, Lancaster, Cornwall, Cumberland, the River Thames (which meant ‘dark river’ in Celtic)

So the fact that we have a lot of place names borrowed into English isn’t really surprising. The Anglo-Saxons tended to use existing words for place names. When Europeans settled in North America, they did basically the same thing. That is why is so many place names in the United States are derived from Native American names.

But while English borrowed Celtic words for certain place names, it didn’t borrow Celtic words into the basic vocabulary of English. And except for a few more place names, there don’t appear to be any other Celtic words in the original vocabulary of Old English during the first few centuries after the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain. And that’s why the traditional view has been that the native

66 Celtic-speaking populations were generally wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons. The Germanic tribes arrived, they picked up a few Celtic words for the names of places around them, and that was about it. The Celts were then killed or driven out, and no more Celtic words entered the vocabulary of Old English.

Well, that traditional view has been challenged in recent years. The modern view is a bit more complicated. And there are still as many questions as there are answers.

As scholars have poured over the evidence from this period – the 5th and 6th Centuries – they increasingly believe that the relationship between the native Celtic-speaking Britons and the Anglo- Saxon invaders was for more complicated. And what happened varied from one region to the next.

So let’s examine the evidence, and then let’s try to piece together what happened to the native Celtic- speaking Britons.

Let’s begin with some of the archaeological research. Through the years, archaeologists have uncovered many Anglo-Saxon settlements. They have also uncovered a lot of cemeteries. And this research is important for two reasons. It provides obvious archaeological evidence. But with respect to the bones that have been studied within some of those graves, it also reveals some genetic evidence.

The archaeological evidence provides mixed results – depending on the region where the settlements were located. Within those settlements, researchers have found pottery, and jewelry and other items which are distinct from those associated with Roman Britain before the Anglo-Saxon invasion. And those newer artifacts tend to match the types used in the North Sea region of the continent. But what’s interesting is that researchers don’t generally find a sharp contrast between earlier Roman and Celtic objects and the later Anglo-Saxon objects. In other words, we don’t go from Roman and Celtic objects one day, and then all of a sudden there is a clean break, and we just have Anglo-Saxon objects the next day. But we would expect to see that type of clean break if the Romano-Britons were wiped out. But instead, the evidence tends to show a gradual introduction of Anglo-Saxons objects mixed in with older objects.

But what about those cemeteries? Well, we would expect to see mass graves of dead Romano- Britons if something akin to a genocide had occurred, but those have never been discovered.

And within the graves that have been discovered, the bones that have been analyzed also reveal a much more complex result. Within many of the supposedly ‘Anglo-Saxon’ cemeteries, the bone evidence isn’t always Anglo-Saxon. Isotope analysis of teeth found in those cemeteries has revealed that some of those corpses were indeed immigrants from northern Europe, but others were local people – not Germanic invaders.

Now many researchers thought that modern DNA evidence would finally provide us with some definitive answers to these questions. If the native Britons had been wiped out by Anglo-Saxon invaders from northern Germany and Denmark, then DNA evidence on these ancient bones should confirm that. And in fact, since people didn’t tend to move around very much during the Middle

67 Ages, many researchers believed that there should still be noticeable differences in the DNA of people in England and the DNA of people in other parts of Britain. But the DNA research has also yielded mixed results.

One of the first DNA studies was conducted back in 2002. And it actually appeared to confirm some of these traditional assumptions. This 2002 study used y-chromosome DNA samples from men living in central England, Wales, Norway and modern Frisia or Friesland. And this study concluded that DNA evidence was consistent between the various English towns, and also consistent between the English towns and the Frisian towns. But there were very distinct differences between the English/Frisian groups and the Welsh groups, and the Norwegian groups were different as well. So this particular study concluded that there had been a substantial migration of people from the Germanic regions of northern Europe to southern and central Britain – enough to affect well over half of the gene pool of England. Now again, this was what a lot people expected to find.

But several more studies have been conducted in the years since 2002, and none of them really confirm the results of that first study.

A 2003 study used a lot more samples and a much larger sampling area. It concluded that there were some genetic differences noticeable between the populations of England and Wales, but the differences were minor. And while there was some evidence of Germanic invasions in England, the evidence suggested a much smaller invasion. It also suggested that Viking influence on the overall DNA was just as great, if not greater, that the Anglo-Saxon influence. The bottom line is that this study didn’t match the traditional view of the Anglo-Saxon conquest at all.

A 2005 study used mitochondrial DNA as well as Y-chromosome DNA, so that meant that it included females as well as males. It also used modern DNA as well as the DNA from bones found in ancient burial sites. And this study also failed to establish connections between the English DNA samples and the samples from northern Germany.

In 2006, an Oxford genetics professor named Bryan Sykes published a book called “Blood of the Isles.” He also looked at both mitochondrial DNA as well as Y-chromosome DNA. He found that the overall genetic makeup of the entire British Isles was basically the same – that there were no significant differences between the populations of England and Wales, nor was there any significant differences between those people and the people of Scotland and Ireland. He even concluded that the genetic evidence suggests a massive migration shortly after the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 BC, and that most of that original DNA came from the modern Basque region in northern Spain. Remember that the Basque language is one of the few non-Indo-European languages in Europe.

Sykes also concluded that as Britain was invaded by various peoples over the centuries speaking many new languages – like the original Celts, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings – none of them had a significant impact on the overall DNA of the British Isles. The languages may have changed, and the power may have shifted among the different groups, but the overall genetic makeup remained basically the same. And this implied that the overall number of invaders was always very small. And specifically, with respect to the Anglo-Saxons, Sykes concluded that their contribution

68 to the overall genetic pool was less than 20% – even in the heart of the original Anglo-Saxon regions of eastern Britain.

Sykes’ study was basically confirmed by a separate book released by the British doctor and geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer. He released his book, “The Origins of the British,” the same year as Sykes’ book and he basically took the same view as Sykes.

And just to show you how all of this research leads to conflicting results, in 2011, a study suggested that British DNA was the primary result of an even earlier migration by early hunter-gatherers from the Middle East. But then the very next year – 2012 – another study refuted those findings.

So, the bottom line is that the DNA research has yet to reveal a definitive answer as to whether the native Britons were wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons. But the vast majority of the DNA studies suggest that the overall DNA of the British Isles is much more alike than it is different. And it doesn’t provide any clear evidence of a geographical divide between the Celtic regions and the English regions. So all of that research has tended to chip away at that traditional view of the Anglo- Saxon conquest.

So we’ve looked at the archaeological evidence and the DNA evidence, but what about the linguistic evidence. As we’ve already seen, the Anglo-Saxons adopted very few words from the native Celtic- speaking Britons. But that doesn’t mean that the native Britons were vanquished. They could have still been there, just in the background, relegated to second-class or lower status and pushed to the fringes of Anglo-Saxon society. The Anglo-Saxons could have rejected Celtic words and Celtic culture, except where they needed it to survive. They might have borrowed words for towns and rivers and other locations. Those where basic landmarks. But when it came to the actual language itself, Celtic influences were rejected.

So let’s try to put all of the pieces together, and see of we can make some sense out of this linguistic mystery. And as we do that, a more complex picture starts to emerge.

It appears that the Anglo-Saxon invasion – or uprising – began in the eastern part of Britain. We know that from both the written accounts and the archaeological record. By the year 500, the Anglo- Saxons had conquered and occupied most of the eastern one-third of Britain. The western one-third was still occupied by native Celtic-speaking Britons. And the middle one-third was a transitional region.

Another piece of evidence which confirms this settlement pattern is the names of the various towns and cities throughout Britain. One of the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons identified a particular place was with the ending ‘-ing.’

The suffix ‘-ing’ and its related suffix ‘-ling’ meant ‘of’ or ‘from,’ and it was used to indicate that someone or something originated from a particular place. If you enjoy science-fiction movies, you’re probably familiar with the term earthling. It refers to the people from planet Earth. What you might not know though is that the word earthling is an Anglo-Saxon word from Old English. It’s context has changed through the years. It originally meant a ‘plowman’ or ‘someone who lived on the land

69 and worked the earth or the soil.’ The modern use of the term as ‘an inhabitant of planet Earth’ originated in the 16th Century, but it is one of the few words which still exists in Modern English with that original Anglo-Saxon suffix to indicate the place where someone was from.

By the way, certain people in Scandinavia sailed up and down rivers and creeks and small bays, and those waterways were called viks. Well these people sometimes robbed and plundered. And since they were from the viks, they were called vikings (/vee-kings/) or – thanks to the later English vowel shift – the vikings (/vy-kings/). But again, we see that same Germanic ‘-ing’ ending to indicate where they originated.

Well, the Anglo-Saxons used the same suffixes for place names. For example, Hastings meant ‘the people of Haesta’ or ‘the home of Haesta’s people.’ Haesta may have been an early leader or founder of the settlement. Reading meant ‘the people of Reada’ or ‘the home of Reada’s people.’ Again, Reada may have been an early leader who founded the settlement.

Sometimes the suffix was combined with ton – ‘T-O-N’ – which meant a ‘fenced off estate or enclosure,’ and it’s an early version of the modern English word town. So ‘-ing - ton’ meant ‘the people from the town of or estate of someone.’ And this gives us town names like Wellington, Donnington, and Washington. In fact, the small town of Washington in northern England meant ‘the estate of the descendants of Hwæsa.’ We don’t know who Hwæsa was, but we do know that the name of the town is the ultimate origin of the surname of George Washington, and that means that it is the origin of Washington, DC, Washington state, and the many other towns and cities named after George Washington in the United States.

Sometimes, the Anglo-Saxons combined the ‘-ing’ ending with ‘-ham’ – H-A-M. Ham is an early version of the word home or homestead. So ‘ing - ham’ meant ‘the people from the home of’ someone.’ So Birmingham meant ‘the home of Beorma’s people.’ And that same ending gives us town names like Buckingham and Nottingham in the same manner.

Well, all of those towns with that Anglo-Saxon suffix ‘-ing’ – whether it be ‘-ing’ or ‘-ington’ or ‘- ingham’ – they tend to be heavily concentrated in the eastern one-third of the Britain, especially in the southeast. There are certainly exceptions, but the fact that those endings are so concentrated in the east indicates very early settlements in those regions by Anglo-Saxons. And it also indicates that they didn’t use existing Celtic place names. In fact, they often didn’t even use existing Celtic towns at all. They established new settlement with their own Anglo-Saxon names. In other words, they lived in their own separate enclaves.

It is very likely that the Saxons largely displaced the native Celts in the southeast of Britain. The earliest invasions occurred there and the total number of Anglo-Saxons was probably at its greatest in that region. The concentration of town names with the ‘-ing’ ending in that region also suggests that this is where the early Anglo-Saxons settled in the greatest numbers early on. But as you move westward, the likelihood of a complete displacement of Celts is much lower.

70 Some of the native Romano-Celtic-Britons fled westward to escape the Anglo-Saxons in the east. And as they moved west, they helped the western Britons fortify their defenses. So that when the Anglo-Saxons began to move westward later on, they likely encountered more resistence.

We have some evidence of this process in the writing so Gildas. He had described the devastation by the Anglo-Saxons early on, but then he mentioned a series of British victories under a leader named Ambrosius Aurelianus. And he mentioned that victory at Mount Badon which halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for several decades. Later Britons in the west thought that the leader who defeated the Saxons at Mount Badon was named Arthur, but we’ll explore this connection a little later.

Now with respect to those battles mentioned by Gildas, we don’t know where they were fought, but many historians think those battles occurred in and around this transitional region in the middle of Britain. And in this transitional region between the Anglo-Saxon east and the Celtic-speaking west, we should expect to see evidence of blended communities in which both groups lived in close proximity to each other. And if we look closely, we can see some evidence of that.

Once again, the town names provide some clues. In his book, The Etymologicon, Mark Forsyth notes than there are several towns in this region – the West Midlands and central Britain – where the town names are a blend of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon names. And that suggests that Celtic-speaking Britons were living with or at least in close proximity to the Anglo-Saxons. So let’s look at some of those blended names.

A Celtic word for ‘hill’ was pen. The word appears in the name of the town of Pensax in this particular region. As I said, pen meant ‘hill,’ and sax was a references to the Saxons, and it was used to indicate a Saxon settlement. So this town name combined the Saxon suffix with the Celtic prefix. Some linguists and historians believe that this type of combined name indicates that Saxon settlers were living in close proximity to the native Celtic-speaking people. And in the process, the Saxons took a Celtic word for ‘hill’ which they heard and knew, and they added it to their own Saxon name. And the result was Pensax.

By the way, these same two words also form part of the name of a town in southern England called Sixpenny Handley. The Sixpenny part comes from the same two root words as Pensax, they’re just reversed to create Sax-Penn, and then they were further Anglicized to Sixpenny.

Very near the town of Pensax is a village called Menith Wood. Menith was another Celtic word for ‘hill or mountain.’ And wood is obviously an English word. So once again, we see in the name Menith Wood a blending a Celtic word and an Anglo-Saxon word.

Another example of this type of blending is the name of a large hill in northern England called Pendle Hill. Once again, we have that same Celtic word pen meaning ‘hill.’ But the Angles – who were the dominant Germanic tribe in this region – they apparently interpreted pen as the actual name of the hill, so they called it Pen hill, which eventually became Pendle. By the late Middle Ages, this original meaning was once again lost, and the people started calling it Pendle Hill – apparently

71 unaware that ‘hill’ was already part of the name Pendle. So today, Pendle Hill literally means ‘hill hill hill.’ But once again, we see Celtic terms blending in with English terms.

As we can see by now, the Celts had a lot of words for hills. They also had the word bre which also meant ‘hill.’ And they had another word din which meant the same thing.

That word din was part of the original name of London – which was ‘Lon-din-ium.’ Well, that Celtic word was a very old Celtic word, and it was also used by the early Celtic-speaking tribes back on the continent. And the early Germanic tribes had picked it up along the way as well. So this was another word which passed from the continental Celts to the early Germanic tribes. And that word actually passed into Old English as dun with the same original meaning – hill or mountain. So the Anglo-Saxons brought the word dun with them when they arrived in Britain.

When the Anglo-Saxons encountered a large hill in the West Midlands of England, they called it Bredon. Once again, they combined the Celtic word bre meaning ‘hill’ with the Old English word dun meaning ‘hill.’ And the result was Bredon. And just as with Pendle Hill, the original meaning was lost through the years, and eventually people starting calling it Bredon Hill. So again, the literal meaning of the hill’s name is ‘hill hill hill.’ And once again, we see Celtic words mixing with Old English words implying some degree of contact between the two groups.

By the way, the Old English pronunciation of dun changed through the years. It eventually became down in Modern English. As a noun, it still has its original meaning. In its plural form – as hills – we see it in place names like Berkshire Downs, Dorset Downs, and the Kentucky horse-racing track – Churchill Downs.

The Anglo-Saxons used the term of dune to mean the process of traveling from the top of a hill to the bottom. Of dune was eventually shorted to just dune. And that is also the origin of the preposition down, as in ‘down the hole’ or ‘down the hatch.’

And you may be wondering if there is a connection to the modern English word dune as in sand dune. And the answer is yes, there is a connection in a round-about-way. The early French borrowed that same word from the Germanic tribes back on the continent, and that French version of the word came into English after the Norman Conquest as dune – D-U-N-E – and that is the version which is typically used in the context of a ‘sand dune.’

So all of that means that words like down, downs and dune all come from the same root as the don in London. They all come from a Celtic word meaning ‘hill.’

So as we see this type of blending of Celtic and Old English terms, we may have evidence of Celtic- speaking Britons living in close proximity to the Anglo-Saxons. In the east, Anglo-Saxon names dominate – like those ending in ‘-ing.’ And in far west, Celtic names dominate. But we find these blended names in the central regions in between. So this was likely a transitional region with Celtic speakers and Germanic speakers living side by side.

72 And we may have additional evidence of this in the words which the Anglo-Saxons used to refer to the Celtic-Britons. As we know by now, the Anglo-Saxons were a mixture of West Germanic tribes. But despite whatever tribal differences may have existed between them back on the continent – when they arrived in Britain, they found themselves surrounded by people who were very different from themselves.

From the Anglo-Saxon perspective, the native Celts spoke an odd language, they worshiped strange Gods, they had unusual religious practices, and they had different legal traditions and political structures. So it appears that an ‘us versus them’ attitude developed very quickly among the Anglo- Saxons. They viewed the native Britons as different and perhaps even a little strange. And they soon developed a word for those native Celtic-speaking Britons with their strange Gods, and languages and customs. Ironically, the Anglo-Saxons called them ‘foreigners.’

And this is significant for two reasons. It illustrates how the subtle differences between the various Anglo-Saxon groups began to disappear very quickly once they were on the ground in Britain and they were mixing together. But is also illustrates how they perceived the native people who they encountered. For the Anglo-Saxons, Britain was now ‘Anglo-Saxon’ land, and those other people who were already there with their strange culture, well ‘they’ were now the foreigners. The tables had basically been turned.

The Old English word for foreigner was wealh. And this was what the Anglo-Saxons called the native Celtic-speaking Britons. They called them wealhs. And the term later evolved from wealhs to Welsh. Early on, that term was applied to the Celtic Britons throughout the island – no matter where they lived. But over the centuries, as the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms grew, and the Celtic regions shrank, the only places where the native Britons held on was in the west and in the far north. And that’s why today this western region of Britain is known as Wales and its inhabitants are the Welsh. But early on, the term Welsh wasn’t associated with any particular region of Britain. It could refer to the natives regardless of where they lived.

Now if you’re familiar British history and Celtic history, you may be saying, “What about Cornwall?” Many Celtic-speaking Britons held on there as well, and a Celtic language continued to be spoken there until very recently. So why wasn’t this place also called Wales. Well, it kinda was.

The wall in Cornwall comes from that same Old English word – wealh – which gives us Welsh and Wales. The original Celtic tribe that inhabited the region of Cornwall was called the Cornowii. That was their native Celtic tribal name. Now the corn part meant horn, and in fact that root word corn was cognate with the Latin word cornu which also meant ‘horn.’ And if we go all the way back to Grimm’s Law, Latin cornu and English horn are cognate thanks to that sound shift where the ‘k’ sound became an ‘h’ sound in the Germanic languages. So obviously we’re looking at a word with very deep Indo-European roots. And so the corn in the name of the Cornowii tribe meant ‘horn,’ and the tribal name meant ‘the people of the horn.’ Now if that sounds kinda weird, look at Cornwall on a map. It’s a peninsula that sticks out into the ocean and it resembles a horn. So just like the name of the Angles came from the fact that their homeland looked like a fishhook, the name of the Cornowii came from the fact that their homeland looked like a horn.

73 When the Anglo-Saxons encountered these people, they called the Cornowii the Corn-wealhs – literally the ‘Corn Welsh’ or ‘Corn foreigners.’ Over time, the name evolved into Cornwall.

So within the modern names Wales and Cornwall, we can still see how the original Anglo-Saxons viewed the native Celts as foreigners.

By the way, as a quick digression, the hazel nut was a very common and popular nut back in Germania, but the Romans had introduced a new nut there which was grown in Italy and Gaul. The Germanic tribes back in Germania called this new imported nut a ‘foreign nut’ using this same word – wealh. They combined wealh meaning ‘foreign’ and hnutu meaning ‘nut,’ and this produced the word walnut.

So Welsh, Wales, Cornwall and walnut all have the same Germanic root meaning ‘foreign’ or ‘foreigner.’ And if you’re a fan of the movie Braveheart, you’ll know that the Scottish leader who fought the English was William Wallace. Well, there really was a William Wallace, and ironically, even though the surname Wallace is a Scottish surname, it originates from the same Germanic root word meaning ‘foreigner.’

Now you might be inclined to believe that Anglo-Saxons applied this word meaning ‘foreigner’ to the native Britons after several centuries – after the Anglo-Saxons had established their own kingdoms, and they began to concern themselves with outside threats. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. In fact, it appears that the Anglo-Saxons used this term for the Britons very early on. In fact, we see evidence of this early use in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – the historical record maintained by the later Anglo-Saxons. Now even though the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was written many years later, its account of this period provides clear shift in terminology from Britons to Welsh. The native people are initially referred to as the Britons in the entries up through the year 456. But after that date, the terminology shifts to Welsh, and that term is used from that point on. So if the later chroniclers were relying upon old records, and if they were maintaining the original terminology, then this term Welsh meaning ‘foreigner’ was adopted very early on. In fact, based on that evidence, the term Welsh appeared shortly after the initial Anglo-Saxon invasion or uprising around the year 450.

So the Anglo-Saxons called the native Britons Wealhas or Welsh to mean ‘foreigners,’ but over time, the meaning expanded, and it eventually was used to mean ‘slave’ – especially in southwestern Britain. And that shift in meaning is picked up from later Old English texts.

And the fact that the term Welsh was being used by Anglo-Saxons to mean a ‘slave or a serf’ is very important because it implies that the Anglo-Saxons were the masters and the native Britons were the slaves, and that means the Britons were still living ‘among’ the Anglo-Saxons. And if we go back to the last episode, one of the passages from Gildas stated that some of the most unfortunate Britons had been taken into slavery by the Saxons rather than being killed on the spot. So we have strong evidence that some native Britons remained in the Anglo-Saxon regions as forced servants.

And we have even more confirmation of this in a set of laws which were issued by the Anglo-Saxon King of Wessex in southwestern Britain in the late 600s. The king was Ine. And his laws were some

74 of the first laws issued in the English language, and those laws made specific provisions for the “Welsh” who were living there. The Welsh were divided into different categories depending on whether they were free or unfree, and depending on whether they owned land, and how much land they owned. So we know that Celtic Britons were living under Anglo-Saxon rule in Wessex, but we don’t know how many were there.

The later historian Bede also made reference to the fact that native Britons were living under the rule of the Anglo-Saxons. He noted that around the time of Ine’s laws, many of the Britons who were the subjects of the West Saxons began to celebrate the Catholic Easter. So by referring to these ‘British subjects,’ we have further confirmation that the native Britons were living among the West Saxons in Wessex.

Another piece of evidence is that fact Welsh names were common among the political and religious leaders of Wessex – names like Ceadwalla, Mul, Cadda, Conbran, Catwal. And the existence of those names among people in prominent positions in Wessex implies some degree of intermarriage between Celts and Saxons, and family names were thereby passed on. Interestingly, those names began to disappear after the 8th Century implying that the power of Celts faded over time. A few Celtic names also appear in other areas – even in Kent in the east and Northumbria in the north. And there may have been Celtic names in the other regions as well, but early written records are more lacking in those other areas.

By the 10th Century, the laws of London sentenced a runaway slave to be stoned “like a Welsh thief.” And in 11th Century Cambridge, the compensation for slaying a Welshman was set at half of the compensation required for killing an Englishman. So all of these Anglo-Saxon laws imply that Celts were still living among the Anglo-Saxons.

But unfortunately, there’s no evidence of the language spoken by those native Britons. But it’s unlikely that their Celtic language would have died out overnight. So we can conclude that, at least for a while, Celtic languages were being spoken in the vicinity of Old English – especially in these western regions.

But that leaves us with that original mystery. If the Anglo-Saxons were exposed to the Celtic languages, why aren’t there more Celtic influences in English? Well, maybe there are. Maybe we’re just looking in the wrong places.

In the book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, John McWhorter argues that the Celtic influence is there. Maybe not in the vocabulary, but in the grammar. He points to two aspects of Modern English grammar which can only be found elsewhere in the Celtic languages.

The first example is the way Modern English uses the word do and its variations, did and does. Of course, we can use do to express emphasis as in “I DO like it – I really DO.” And that isn’t necessarily unique to English, but what is unique is the way we use it in so many other contexts. It really permeates the English language in a way that’s very unusual compared to other languages.

75 Whenever we ask questions, there’s often a do in there somewhere. “How do you do that?” “Where did you go?” “Why did he say?” “What do you like to eat?” “When does she get here?” “Did you go outside?” “Does it surprise you?” “Do you like it?” So there always seems to be a do hanging around.

And when we make negative statements, we routinely stick a do or did in there somewhere. “I do not like it.” “He does not have any.” “You do not look well.” “It does not work.” “She did not see him.”

Again, English has this persistent use of do. But if you really think about, that do doesn’t really do anything in those examples. In fact, it wasn’t there in Old English, at least not in the many ways that we tend to use it today. And in fact, no other language uses do like English does today, except – you guessed it – Celtic languages like Welsh and Cornish. Those Celtic languages in Britain had this same type of grammatical feature when the Anglo-Saxons arrived, and after several centuries, by the period of Middle English, this piece of Celtic grammar may have spread to English. And today, it’s a very prominent feature of English.

And John McWhorter also points to another aspect of English grammar to show the Celtic influence. This other aspect has to do with our basic present tense verbs. If you were asked to conjugate a basic verb like listen in present tense, you would probably say “I listen,” “you listen,” “he/she/it listens.” That is technically the way to conjugate that verb in English. But if I asked you what you’re doing right now. You wouldn’t say, “I listen.” You would say, “I am listening.” And I wouldn’t say, “I speak.” I would say “I am speaking.”

That basic verb form – like “I speak,” “I listen,” “I read,” “I sleep” – that was the basic verb form of present tense in Old English, and it is the basic verb form of present tense in other languages, including other Indo-European languages. But in Modern English, we rarely use it. We almost always use that verb phrase ‘am speaking’ or ‘am listening.’

Now we do sometimes use that basic form of the verb, if you want to indicate that you do something on a regular basis. So if I asked what you do whenever you find out that there is a new episode of the podcast, you might say “I listen.” And if you ask Paul McCartney what he does for a living, he might say “I sing,” or “I play guitar,” or “I write songs.” So we do use that basic form of the verb in present tense, but it’s been relegated to this limited situation where we are indicating that something happens on a regular basis. Otherwise, the default form in Modern English is that longer more complicated verb phrase ‘am singing,’ ‘am playing’ or ‘am writing.’

Again, this ‘-ing’ verb phrase wasn’t used in that way, as the default form, in Old English. And it’s not used that way in other Indo-European languages – with one exception. Of course, it’s the Celtic languages. The Celtic languages in Britain had this same type of present tense conjugation. So McWorter argues that this feature of Modern English occurred when the Anglo-Saxons encountered the Celtic-speaking Britons. That in fact, they did live together, at least in parts of Britain, and that some of the aspects of the Celtic languages changed English during the period of late Old English and Middle English. So that by the time we get into the Middle English period, this feature of English had emerged.

76 Again, if you’re interested in exploring this research further, check out John McWhorter’s book, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue. It’s available as an ebook and as an audiobook.

Now all of this research – the genetic research, the archaeological research, and the linguistic research – it all suggests that the traditional view of the Celtic legacy was wrong. The Celtic Britons were not completely wiped out in England. And Old English was not immune from Celtic influences.

Instead, at least in parts of England, there was a blending of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon peoples, and languages and cultures. But make no mistake, the Anglo-Saxon influences dominated. There might be a bit more Celtic influence on English than was once thought, but it still pales in comparison to the influences of Old Norse and Norman French. And that suggests that the Celts were not fully integrated into the Anglo-Saxon society. They likely lived at the margins as slaves and serfs. And even when they were free, they held a far inferior status in Anglo-Saxon society.

But their influences still came through, and if we look close enough we can see those influences. And those influences sometimes found their way into English culture in strange and round-about ways. In fact, when we think of Medieval England after the Norman Conquest, many of us instinctively think of the legendary figure of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. Those legendary stories have become synonymous with Medieval Britain. Yet these stories didn’t originate with the Anglo-Saxons. They originated with the Celts. And in fact, they originated as stories of resistence against the Anglo-Saxons during this early period in the 5th and 6th Centuries.

So I want to conclude this episode about the Celtic Legacy by exploring how the early Celtic resistence movement gave rise to the legendary figure of King Arthur – a King of ALL of Britain.

In the aftermath of the Anglo-Saxon invasions, many Celtic Britons had apparently been relegated to slaves within the new Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and the only places where they maintained their independence were on the western fringes of the island, and in the far north, and across the sea in Brittany. But many of these Celtic Britons saw this as a temporary condition. They imagined that the tide would one day turn, and the Britons would once again rise up and reclaim their island. But in order for this to happen, the Celtic Britons needed a hero – a hero that would one day return to fight the Saxons. And this appears to be the origin of the early legends in Wales and Cornwall and Brittany about a military leader named Arthur – a leader who had supposedly fought the Saxons, and a leader who would one day return to fight them again.

As we saw in the last episode, the actual written accounts from this period are very limited. And none of the sources from this period actually mention a king or military leader named Arthur. But shortly after this period, written references to Arthur start to pop up throughout the Celtic regions. And at least early on, the references suggest that Arthur was an actual person – a real life historical figure. So was there really a Celtic leader named Arthur who fought the Saxons? Well there have been numerous books written about this subject , and I’m certainly not going to provide a definitive answer here, but let’s look at the evidence to see how this mysterious figure emerged.

There seems to be a general agreement among historians that ‘something’ happened in the late 5th Century and early 6th Century which led to the creation of these later stories and legends.

77 As we know by now, the only contemporary account of events from within Britain during this period was the sermon of Gildas. And Gildas mentioned that the Britons had fought back against the Saxons, and that they had won a great victory at a place called Mons Badonicus in Latin – or Mount Badon in English. But he didn’t say where that battle occurred, and he didn’t say who the military leader was who won that battle. Perhaps he didn’t mention the name because he was writing to the people of his day, and they all knew who the leader was. But based on later writings, it becomes apparent that the Celtic Britons considered this a monumental victory. It became legendary in the minds of many Britons because it proved that the Saxons could be turned back. And those later sources gave credit for the victory to a leader named Arthur.

In the years after Gildas, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms began to rise again. As the Celtic kingdoms squabbled amongst themselves, they were unable to mount an effective defense. They soon lost the remainder of western Britain to the Saxons, except for Cornwall and Wales. And it was in these regions and in Brittany that the legend of Mount Badon and Arthur really started to grow.

Just as the Anglo-Saxons completed their conquest in the 7th Century, the first historical references to Arthur appear. A Welsh poem from the early 7th Century called Y Gododdin makes reference to shadowy figure named Arthur. In praising a soldier who had fought bravely against the Saxons, it conditions the praise by noting that “he was no Arthur.”

A later chronicle of events compiled from a variety of Welsh sources also makes reference to Arthur. The Chronicle called the Welsh Annals probably began in the 9th Century, but the first entries date back to the 5th Century. So they were written down at a later date, and we don’t know what the original sources were, so we don’t know how reliable those early entries are. But for the year 518, the Welsh Annals specifically state that a military leader named Arthur won the Battle of Badon against the Saxons. If this entry is accurate, it is the first reference to Arthur being the victor as Badon. The Annals also state that Arthur and Medraut were killed at a separate battle in the year 539. Now many historians believe that Medraut was an early verison of Mordred – the traitor who challenged Arthur’s power and who was the primary villain in the later legends.

Again, we can’t say with certainty how accurate these references are, but it seems clear that the legend of Arthur was in place and growing quickly.

And then we get the BIG reference to Arthur, the source that is often cited as the first real reference to the figure that we would come to know in the later accounts. And that reference comes to us via a Welsh monk named Nennius. In the year 828, he published a history which he called The History of the Britons.

It’s a fascinating book, but it’s a bit of stretch to call it a ‘history.’ It actually mixed folklore with history. But despite the fact that Nennius takes a lot of liberties, he does appear to mix in some actual history with his stories. So it’s difficult to determine what’s history and what’s legend. The reason why the book is important to the history of Arthur is because it provides a specific list of Arthur’s battles.

78 The list of battles probably came from a long-lost battle song which commemorated certain British victories. Nennius says that Arthur fought “with the kings of Britain,” but he doesn’t identify Arthur himself as a King. Nennius then lists each battle, and of the last one, he writes, “The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself, and in all the wars he emerged as victor.”

So by this point, in the 9th century, Arthur had clearly become associated with that legendary victory at Mount Badon. Tales of Arthur and his victory at Badon thrived not only in western Britain, but also in Brittany in northern Gaul. In fact, the legend of Arthur may have been greater in Brittany than in Britain itself.

In the 11th century, a monk in Brittany named William wrote about the life of a Breton bishop and later saint who was one of the many who migrated from southern Britain in the wake of Anglo- Saxon invasions. In his history, William wrote that the Saxons’ pride was “limited for a while through the great Arthur, king of the Britons.” He then writes that this same Arthur won many glorious victories “in Britain and in Gaul.”

William’s history is notable because it’s the first source to describe Arthur as a ‘king’ and it says he won victories in Britain and in Gaul. Now this has led some historians to conclude that William was actually referring to British king who was hanging out in Gaul named ‘Riothamus’ (/Ry-o-tha-mus/) – or ‘Riothamus’ (/Ree-o-tha-mus/) using the Latin pronunciation at the time.

I mentioned Riothamus in the last episode because a bishop in Gaul named Sidonius wrote a letter to him which referenced the Bretons in northern Gaul. And I noted that the later Frankish historian Jordanes called Riothamus the ‘King of the Britons’ even though he was fighting in Gaul. So is there a possible link between this guy Riothamus and the later figure of Arthur. Well, there is an interesting linguistic connection. And to understand this connection we have to consider the name Arthur.

First, where did the name Arthur come from? Well, no one knows for sure. It could be a personal name or a family name. There is a Celtic name Artur which means ‘bear.’ Maybe that was the source of the name. And there is also a Roman family name – Artorius. So maybe that was the source.

But is also possible that the name Arthur wasn’t initially a personal name at all. It may have been a title. In fact, many prominent people of this period were named after their title, and later generations often mistakenly assumed that the title was a personal name. According to later writers, the British king who invited the Saxons into Britain in the first place was named Vortigern. And some later linguists have concluded that the name Vortigern was really a title which meant ‘overlord.’

Well, some historians believe that Arthur was also initially a Celtic title. In the Celtic languages, the word ardu (/arthu/) meant ‘high or supreme,’ and rix meant ‘king. ‘ In fact, we’ve come across rix a lot in this podcast. It’s cognate with rex meaning ‘king’ in Latin, where it produced later words like royal and regal. And it’s cognate with the English word rich. And you might also remember

79 form our look at the Goths that it ultimately produced the ‘ric-’ in Puerto Rico and even the ‘-ri-’ in America. Well, here it is again. The Celts used their version of the word rix to mean ‘king’ as well.

And again the ‘supreme king’ in the Celtic languages was a combination of the word arthu and rix. And that produced the new word Ardd Ri (/Arth-ri/). Arth-ri meant the ‘supreme king,’ and it may have been the original title of a prominent figure who was considered a king of the Britons – either a real person or a legendary figure. Arth-ri may have become Arthur.

So you may be asking what does all of that have to do with that guy ‘Riothamus’ who was also called a ‘King of the Britons.’ Well, Riothamus is also a title – not an actual personal name. And the title also means ‘supreme king.’ And in fact, it is composed of the same two Celtic words which make up the title Arth-ri.

And if you have a hard time hearing the connection between Arth-ri and Riothamus. All you have to do is reverse the two Celtic root words.

‘High King’ is Arthu plus ri producing Arthri. But when you reverse those two root words, you get Ri plus Arthu, and that gives you Ri-arthu, or thanks to a Latin translation – Riothamus.

So Arthur and Riothamus can both be derived from the same Celtic title meaning ‘High King’ or ‘Supreme King,’ with the two Celtic root words simply being reversed between the two titles.

And we can combine that linguistic connection with Jorandes who described Riothamus as ‘King of the Britons’ even though he was in Gaul. And we can then add in William’s history who talks about Arthur and gives Arthur the same title as Riothamus – ‘King of the Britons.’ And William specifically notes that Arthur won victories in both Britain and Gaul. So when we put all of those pieces together, you can see why some historians have concluded that this guy Riothamus was in fact the original Arthur. And maybe he was. But the reality is that there probably was no single Arthur. The legendary figure of Arthur was likely a combination of several prominent figures associated with the Celtic resistence during this period. And Riothamus was likely one of those figures, especially in the versions of stories told in Brittany.

As I noted earlier, the legends surrounding this mysterious figure of Arthur were as popular in Brittany in northern France as anywhere in Britain itself. Throughout Brittany during this period, it is recorded that people sang songs about Arthur and his battles against the Saxons. And by the 11th century, the Bretons has become allied with their neighbors – the Normans. And these were same Normans who invaded England in 1066 under the leadership of William, Duke of Normandy. And here is where the story of Arthur comes full circle.

We always refer to the ‘Norman Conquest’ of the Anglo-Saxons in 1066. But in actuality, about one-third of William’s army was actually Breton – not Norman. In fact, the entire left flank of William’s army at the Battle of Hastings was Breton. They were William’s allies in northern France, and they were the descendants of the Britons who had fled the Anglo-Saxons several centuries earlier. And throughout that period in exile in northern France, they had developed songs and poems

80 and stories about the legendary figure of Arthur. Part of their support of William was based on political alliances and, perhaps, opportunism. But for the rank and file Breton soldiers, it may also have been a matter of vengeance. As the descendants of Britons who had fled the Saxon onslaught over five centuries earlier, they now had their opportunity to return to their ancestral homeland – to bring the fight back to Saxons – and they did so singing the songs of Arthur. After the Norman Conquest, the songs of the Bretons blended with the poems and legends of the Cornish and the Welsh. The story of Arthur was now almost fully realized. In the figure of Arthur, the Normans didn’t choose a Norman hero or a Saxon hero, they adopted a Celtic British hero. And whether it was intentional or not, it was definitely good propaganda. It helped the Normans to depict the Saxons as treacherous occupiers.

And in the wake of the Norman Conquest, the feudal system was introduced into Britain, and that included a new class of military leaders called ‘knights,’ and it included the Medieval concept of chivalry. And we now have the full transition of Arthur from a Dark Age Celtic warrior fighting against the Anglo-Saxons to a Medieval British king, surrounded by castles and knights, and bound by the Medieval code of chivalry.

From here, the Welsh writer Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his History of the Kings of Britain in 1138. And this was the first proper telling of the myth of Arthur. His History covers the early Anglo- Saxon period from the Roman withdrawal to the Saxon uprising, and he tells the story of Arthur as he bravely fought and defeated the Saxons. In fact Arthur defeats almost everyone along the way. He defeats the Picts and the Scots. And after he marries Guenevere, he sails to Iceland and Ireland where he conquers the peoples of those regions as well. Then he invades Norway and Denmark and adds them to his empire.

He then turns his attention southward to Gaul. And, as we might expect by this point, he conquers Gaul too. Then he decides that it’s time to teach Rome a lesson as well. So he fights and defeats a giant, and then he leads his soldiers into battle against the Romans, and – you guessed it – he beats the Romans too. He even decides to cross the Alps and invade Rome itself, but then he gets news that Mordred has seized power back in Britain and is living with Guenevere. Mordred has formed an alliance with the Saxons, the Picts and the Scots. So Arthur returns to Britain and fights several battles against Mordred. And Mordred is killed, but ultimately so is Arthur. And at death, Arthur’s body was taken to the Isle of Avalon. And that’s Geoffrey’s story in a nutshell.

And Geoffey’s story was expanded by later writers. But the popularity of Geoffrey’s story was so great that almost all of the later version are roughly based around his original version. Of course, Geoffrey wasn’t really a historian. He only used history as a backdrop – to set the scene. His main focus was on telling a good story. And perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that Geoffrey himself was part-Welsh and part-Breton. He had grown up with the legend of Arthur on both sides of the Channel. And he fused those elements together into the first proper telling of the legend of Arthur.

The later French poet Chretien de Troyes added the characters of Lancelot, Galahad and Percival, and he introduced the quest for the Holy Grail. He also invented the name Camelot and said that Arthur’s court was located there. And all of these stories ultimately culminated with Sir Thomas

81 Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur in 1485. And Malory gives us final version of the story – complete with Merlin, the sword Excalibur, and the affair of Guenevere and Lancelot.

So as we look back at the most legendary of British kings – the once and future King of ALL of Briton – we see part of the legacy of the Celts. They didn’t really disappear from Anglo-Saxon England. They were always there. We see it the ancient legends, we see it in DNA research, we see it in the place names and old legal codes, and we even see it in the English language if we look hard enough for it.

So with that, I’m going to conclude this episode. Next time, we’ll complete our look at the 5th and 6th Centuries by turning our attention back to continental Europe to see what was happening to the Saxons who remained back in northern Germany. And we’ll examine the emergence of the modern High German dialects during this period. And then we’ll look at the rise of the Frankish kingdom in Gaul, and – with it – we’ll look at the surprising number of English words which can be traced back to the Franks. So all of that will be in the next episode.

So until next time, thanks for listening to the History of English Podcast.

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