Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY The Britons in late antiquity power, identity and ethnicity Hustwit, Edwin Award date: 2015 Awarding institution: Bangor University Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 06. Oct. 2021 THE BRITONS IN LATE ANTIQUITY: POWER, IDENTITY AND ETHNICITY EDWIN R. HUSTWIT Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Bangor University 2014 Summary This study focuses on the creation of both British ethnic or ‘national’ identity and Brittonic regional/dynastic identities in the Roman and early medieval periods. It is divided into two interrelated sections which deal with a broad range of textual and archaeological evidence. Its starting point is an examination of Roman views of the inhabitants of the island of Britain and how ethnographic images were created in order to define the population of Britain as 1 barbarians who required the civilising influence of imperial conquest. The discussion here seeks to elucidate, as far as possible, the extent to which the Britons were incorporated into the provincial framework and subsequently ordered and defined themselves as an imperial people. This first section culminates with discussion of Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae. It seeks to illuminate how Gildas attempted to create a new identity for his contemporaries which, though to a certain extent based on the foundations of Roman-period Britishness, situated his gens uniquely amongst the peoples of late antique Europe as God’s familia. The second section of the thesis examines the creation of regional and dynastic identities and the emergence of kingship amongst the Britons in the late and immediately post-Roman periods. It is largely concerned to show how interaction with the Roman state played a key role in the creation of early kingships in northern and western Britain. The argument stresses that while there were claims of continuity in group identities in the late antique period, the socio-political units which emerged in the fifth and sixth centuries were new entities. Indeed, it will emphasise that there was no return or re-emergence of a primitive form of kingship influenced by deep-seated notions of Celtic-ness. Rather, this study demonstrates that regional Brittonic groups participated in the broader cultural and socio- political transformations that mark out the late antique period across the western provinces of the failing Roman empire. CONTENTS List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Area of Study 4 2 West British Zone 5 North British Zone 10 The Sources 13 Chapter 1: Issues and Approaches 17 Names, Peoples and Places 21 Romanization 24 Britain and Late Antiquity 36 Frontier Gentes 42 Ethnicity 46 Part I: The Making of Britishness Chapter 2: Defining Britishness 54 Ethnography 54 Julius Caesar 58 Hostile Gens 66 Tacitus 70 Creating Roman Britain 79 Cassius Dio 87 Citizenship 94 Conclusion 98 Chapter 3: Tyrants and Barbarians 101 Britain and the Constantinian Dynasty 101 The Creation of Pictishness 113 Britain and the Theodosian Emperors 120 Ammianus Marcellinus 120 3 Claudian and the Honorian Court 133 Tyranny and Barbarity 143 Conclusion 151 Chapter 4: Gildas and the Creation of New Britishness 153 De Excidio Britanniae 153 Gildas 159 Sources of the DEB 162 Britannia 165 Britanni 178 Gens 182 Populus 186 Cives 190 Conclusion 200 Part II: Regionalism Chapter 5: Identity and the Epigraphic Habit 202 Approaches 202 Roman Britain 207 The Civitates 211 Villas 220 Towns 228 Conclusion 230 Post-Roman Inscriptions 232 The West 233 The North 250 Conclusion 258 4 Chapter 6: Kingship in the West 261 The Eastern Zone 262 The Western Zone 278 The Five Kings 284 Kingdoms 291 Identities in the West 293 Conclusion 305 Chapter 7: The North British Zone 307 Britannia Secunda 312 The Wall and the Bernicii 334 Ethnicity on the Wall 335 The Intramural Zone: Barbarians and Romans 343 The Intramural Zone in the Post-Roman Period 354 Conclusion 365 Thesis Conclusion 367 Bibliography 380 Primary sources 380 5 Secondary Sources 382 List of Abbreviations ASE: Anglo-Saxon England AC : Archaeologia Cambrensis 6 Arnold and Davies, REMW: C. J. Arnold and J. L. Davies, Roman and Early Medieval Wales (Stroud, 2000) BAR Brit. Ser: British Archaeological Reports, British Series BAR Int. Ser: British Archaeological Reports, International Series BBCS: Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies Bede, HE: Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1969) Blockley, FCHLRE: The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus, ed. and trans. R. C. Blockley, ARCA Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 10 (Cambridge, 2007) CMCS: Cambrian/Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons: T. M. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 350-1064 (Oxford, 2013) CQ: Classical Quarterly Dark, Civitas to Kingdom: K. R. Dark, Civitas to Kingdom: British Political Continuity, 300- 800 (Leicester, 1994) Dark, Britain: K. R. Dark, Britain and the End of the Roman Empire (Stroud, 2000) Davies, Wales: W. Davies, Wales in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester, 1982) Edwards, Corpus II: N. Edwards, A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, Volume II: South-West Wales (Cardiff, 2007) Edwards, Corpus III: N. Edwards, A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, Volume III: North Wales (Cardiff, 2013) EHR: English Historical Review EME: Early Medieval Europe Find from the Frontier: Finds from the Frontier: Material Culture in the 4th and 5th Centuries, ed. by R. Collins and L. Allason-Jones, CBA Research Reports 162 (York, 2010) 7 Gildas, DEB: De Excidio Britanniae, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom, Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and Other Documents, Arthurian Sources Vol. 7 (Chichester, 1978) GNA: Gildas New Approaches, ed. by M. Lapidge and D. N. Dumville (Woodbridge, 1984) HB: Historia Brittonum, ed. and trans. J. Morris, Nennius: British History and The Welsh Annals, Arthurian Sources Vol. 8 (Chichester, 1980) HG: Harleian Genealogies, in Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, ed. by P. Bartrum (Cardiff, 1966) JLA: Journal of Late Antiquity JRS: Journal of Roman Studies Jones, LRE: A. H. M. Jones, The LAter Roman Empire, 284-602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey (3 vols., Oxford, 1964) MA: Medieval Archaeology NH: Northern History OJA: Oxford Journal of Archaeology Pan. Lat: In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini, ed. and trans. C. E. V. Nixon and and B. S. Rogers with the Latin text of R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1994) P&P: Past and Present PSAS: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland Redknap and Lewis, Corpus I: M. Redknap and J. M. Lewis, A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, Volume I: South-East Wales (Cardiff, 2007) Rivet and Smith, PNRB: A. L. F. Rivet and C. Smith, The Place Names of Roman Britain (London, 1981) RIB: R. G. Collingwood and R. P. Wright, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, Volume I: Inscriptions on Stones (Oxford, 1965); R. S. O. Tomlin, R. P. Wright and M. W. C. Hassall, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, Volume III: Inscriptions on Stone (Oxford, 2009) SC: Studia Celtica 8 SHR: Scottish Historical Review TCWAAS: Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society TRHS: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society WA: World Archaeology White, Britannia Prima: R. White, Britannia Prima: Britain’s Last Roman Province (Stroud, 2007) WHR: Welsh History Review Note on Translations: Where an authoritative translation of either a Latin or Welsh source exists, I have used that given by the editors, as, for instance, with the Latin panegyrics in praise of later Roman emperors or Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae. This, of course, extends to the quotes from Greek authors such as Cassius Dio and Herodian, where only the modern English translations are cited. Therefore unless stated otherwise, all translations are those of the modern editors/translators. 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Huw Pryce, for his always helpful and stimulating advice. The sheer depth of his knowledge, both of primary and secondary material, never ceases to amaze me. Without a doubt his insights have aided the development of this project greatly. Similar thanks are due to Nancy Edwards, who posed questions of my thesis and provided stimulating analysis of Chapter 5, in particular. However, my gratitude towards Huw and Nancy goes beyond their professional advice. I am extremely grateful for the warm welcomed they extended to me in allowing me to stay at their home and treating me to delicious home-cooked meals. I must also thank Alex Woolf for reading draft chapters and allowing me access to an unpublished paper. Similar thanks are due to David Rollason. My experience at Durham where David was my Masters supervisor proved a challenging and demanding year which provided an excellent insight into the life of a postgraduate researcher. Thanks must also now be extended to my examiners, Fiona Edmonds and Mark Hagger, who have provided insightful criticism on how to improve future work extending from the thesis.