Dates may not be the whole of history, nor what is most interesting about it, but they are its sine qua non, for history’s entire originality and distinctive nature lie in apprehending the relation between before and after.Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1961
There
can be no history without dates. While the date of the adventus Saxonum remains
disputed, fifth- and sixth-century Britain is effectively consigned to
the darkness of prehistory. But the evidence appears irreconcilable. The
Historia Brittonum, the two Gallic Chronicles and the archaeological evidence
would date this event to the first half of the fifth century, before 440,
whereas De Excidio Britanniae would seem to fix the date at some time after
446. But the contradiction is only apparent. It results from a naive and
literal reading of Gildas’ narratio. The key to understanding Gildas’ chronology
is to be found later in the epistle, in this line: Quis memoriam malefacti
de corde radicitus, ut Ioseph, evulsit? (Gildas 69.4)
Gildas’ biblical quotations are not pious platitudes. There is a great
deal of historical information condensed into this brief sentence. Michael Winterbottom
translates it as: “Which, like Joseph, plucked the memory of an injury
from his heart by the roots?” and gives Genesis 50.15 as Gildas’ biblical
source.[1] He is doubtless correct:
The Joseph in question is Jacob’s favourite son, he of the many-coloured
coat, who was sold by his own brothers into slavery in Egypt. This is the injury,
which he forgave so completely. But what is the parallel situation in Gildas’ day,
to which his contemporaries must apply this lesson? Who, in the context of British
history, are 'Joseph’s brothers', what was their wrongdoing and why must
it now be erased from memory?
The British Joseph
The identity of the British ‘Joseph’, whom Gildas exhorts to forgive
and forget, is obvious from the context. Michael Lapidge has shown that De
Excidio Britanniae exactly follows the Roman convention of demonstrative
oratory.[2] First,
there is the exordium (Gildas 1-2), in which Gildas explains his reasons
for
writing. This is followed by a narratio of the historia-subtype
(Gildas 3-26) which explains the circumstances of the case. Then the propositio,
the statement
of the case itself, which is bipartite, dealing separately with the two sections
of the British elite, the secular (Gildas 27-36) and ecclesiastical (Gildas 64-75).
This is followed by the argumentatio, in which the case is proved, which
is likewise bipartite (Gildas 37-63 and 76-105) and of the inartificial type
which “involves
precedents, hearsay, public records, oaths and witnesses (testes)”[3] “The
testes whom Gildas calls are the authors of Scripture, and the bulk
of De
Excidio Britanniae is taken up with their testimony against the sins and
abuses prevalent
in Britain.”[4] According
to this division, then, the reference to Joseph forms part of the propositio
relating to the ecclesiastical authorities.
I must make a slight adjustment to Lapidge’s division. Gildas’ epistle
is bipartite and primarily directed against and addressed to Britain’s
wicked rulers, with these parallel openings: “Britain has kings, but they
are tyrants"; "Britain has priests, but they are fools” (Gildas
27.1 & 66.1). But Gildas does not condemn the entire British elite. He excepts
a minority. Among the laity there are the duces, “the few who have found
the narrow path” (Gildas 50.1) who Gildas refers to but does not address.
But he does address the few among the ecclesiastics who “cannot ... be
categorised as bad”. Gildas 69 to 75 forms a separate section within his
attack on the wicked priests, being an attack on the good priests whose conduct
has fallen short of the ideal. This section opens with a nuda propositio in Gildas
69.1, followed by a list of testes involving twenty-six mostly biblical characters,
ending with Basil of Caesarea who defied the Arian tyrant Valens. The reference
to Joseph’s exemplary forgiveness is to be found among these testes against
the good priests - where it stands out like a sore thumb.
Fraternal reconciliation is not prominent in Gildas’ epistle: Its purpose
is to separate, not unite. Gildas states in his exordium that his decision to
write, despite his own unworthiness, was forced on him by his reading in the
bible that any tiny deviation from God’s Will must result in disaster,
and that the good who associate with the wicked will meet same doom. He illustrates
this point with a list of biblical testes beginning with Moses who was “prevented
by a single word’s doubt” from entering the Promised Land, (Gildas
1.3, Num 20.12) and ending with Ananias and Sapphira who joined the earliest
Christian community which “held everything in common” but failed
to follow this rule and were struck down in consequence (Gildas 1.12, Acts 5.1-10).
In between Gildas observes that there are different sheep in the same sheepfold,
a reference to the last judgement when Christ will “separate the people
one from another” (Matt. 25.32) which is further reinforced by two contrasting
pairs of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, with Judas, the one bad apple among
the Twelve and Stephen, the first Christian martyr, with Nicolas, the reputed
founder of the Nicolaitan heresy, who were both among the first seven deacons.
These paired opposites illustrate his point: the wicked Britons are within the
Lord’s flock, but they do not belong there.
Gildas’ address to the good priests starts off in exactly the same vein,
illustrating the need for a clear separation between the righteous and the wicked
with the negative exemplar of Eli, who was punished, not for his own sins, but
for those of his sons which he did not sufficiently reprove. The twenty five
positive exemplars which follow, in biblical order, include Enoch who “refused
to sit with the impious” (Gildas 69.2), Noah who “refused to admit
into the ark of salvation (now, the church) anyone who was God’s adversary” (Gildas
69.3) and, most startling to modern ears, the priest Phinehas who, in order to
turn God’s wrath away from the people, ended a mixed race marriage by slaughtering
the Israelite groom and his Moabite bride, spearing the woman through her belly
and thus “healing the emotion of lust with the medicine of penitence” (Gildas
70.1).
For a Christian moralist, Gildas is surprisingly sanguinary. Apart from the many
examples of martyrdom, self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of loved ones and the murders
of unarmed and defenceless individuals, Gildas holds up, for the edification
of the good British priests, four slaughtered armies, three mass killings and
one genocide: “Which of them imitated Joshua either in the utter uprooting
(in a moral significance) of seven races from the promised land or in the establishment
of spiritual Israel in their place?” (Gildas 70.1).
So how much of this bloodletting is to be understood ‘in a moral significance’?
I think Gildas himself answers that. Fourth in his list of exemplary biblical
characters is Melchizedek. This king of Salem and priest of God Most High has
a brief role in Genesis, blessing Abraham after a military victory. This story
begins with a rebellion by five underkings, including the rulers of Sodom and
Gomorrah, against the overlordship of King Kedorlaomer who attacks them with
three of his allies, hence, as Genesis calculates, “four kings against
five” (Gen. 14.9). The four win and take booty, which happens to include
Abraham’s nephew Lot with all his people and property. And so Abraham attacks
the withdrawing army, rescuing all the captives and goods. At this point Melchizedek
appears, bringing bread and wine, and blesses Abraham. From this, Gildas derives: “Which
like Melchizedek offered sacrifice and gave blessing to the victors only when
they had ... freed a just man and defeated the dire armies of five kings ...
?” (Gildas 69.3). The alteration bends the biblical event to the contemporary
situation. It was the four kings who were defeated by Abraham, but Gildas’ tyrants
are five in number. His denunciation of these named individuals is followed by
the testes of twenty two biblical prophets who predicted the overthrow of wicked
kings and the destruction of sinful kingdoms, starting with Samuel who, in accord
with God’s will, replaced Saul with David, and including Jeremiah who predicted
the Babylonian captivity. Gildas’ reference to the duces is within this
section, immediately after a quotation from Jeremiah beginning “Do not,
then, pray for this people” (Jer. 11.14). The duces, Gildas tells the tyrants,
are “prevented by God from pouring forth prayers on your behalf” and
he asks, rhetorically, what they will do now. There is no room for doubt. The
duces “could not have brought punishment” on the tyrants if they
had “gone back to God genuinely”, just as Jonah couldn’t punish
the Ninevites, “for all his desire to” (Gildas 50.1) because they
had genuinely repented. That is, the duces have previously attacked the tyrants
and if they do not repent they will attack them again - physically, not “in
a moral significance”. And Gildas, with his distortion of Melchizedek’s
story, exhorts the good priests to encourage this attack.
As said, Gildas is not big on fraternal reconciliation, and generally favours
bloody retribution over forgiving and forgetting. So why this one exception?
In respect of what injury are the good priests to imitate Joseph? Who are they
to regard as their brothers? We may discover them, I think, by a process of elimination.
Joseph’s Brothers
‘Joseph’s brothers’ are not the British duces. These have
inflicted an injury, but on the British tyrants, not the British Joseph, and
Gildas is far from suggesting a brotherly reunion in this case. Rather, he instructs
the good priests to incite further attacks. They should withhold their blessings,
as did Melchizedek, until the five kings are overthrown. They should encourage
the few duces to believe that they can overcome the tyrants, just as Elisha “by
fervent prayer to God opened the eyes of a boy sweating in despair of his life
and suddenly terrified at the warlike preparations of the enemy … so that
he could see the mountain full of allies from the heavenly army” (Gildas
72.2). They should share out among the duces the forfeited territories of the
tyrants in advance of their defeat, just as Joshua and Phinehas, prior to the
conquest of the Promised Land, “showed to the people of God the boundary
lines beyond Jordan, so that it should be known what properly belonged to each
tribe” (Gildas 70.2).
Likewise, ‘Joseph’s brothers’ are not the five tyrants. The
wrongs they have done, so far from being forgotten, are paraded before Gildas’ readers
in colourful detail. Forgiveness is offered them, repeatedly (Gildas 29.2; 30.3;
31.2; 36.2; 42.5). They can escape destruction as did the Ninevites. Along with
the innocent, “most worthy repenters” are to be admitted into “the
arc of salvation” (Gildas 69.3). But at the point Gildas is writing the
tyrants plainly aren’t contrite. So what are the good priests to do now?
The tyrants must be overthrown, and the good priests should participate, with
the duces, in their destruction. They should, as said, encourage the duces to
attack them. They should, like Samuel, reject a king who displeases God and anoint
a better in his royal place (Gildas 71.2). They should defy the tyrants to their
face, as Basil of Caesarea defied Emperor Valens (Gildas 75.2). They should willingly
face martyrdom at their hands, as did Abel, Jeremiah, James the first bishop,
James, brother of John, Stephen, Peter, Paul, Ignatius and Polycarp (Gildas 69.2;
72.4; 73.2 - 74.3; 75.1). They should be prepared to destroy themselves in order
to destroy the wicked, just as Samson “used the strength of his arms to
shake two columns (understood as the corrupt pleasures of soul and flesh)” (Gildas
71.1). They certainly shouldn’t pluck the memory of the tyrants’ injuries
from their hearts by the root.
‘Joseph’s brothers’ are not the bad priests. The sins of are,
likewise, neither forgiven nor forgotten. They stand in relation to the good
priests, not as brothers but as sons to a too indulgent father, in Gildas’ scheme,
and he instructs the good priests to behave towards them as Eli should have behaved
towards his sons: he merely “warned them gently and compassionately” instead
of punishing them “severely and with a zeal worthy of God” (Gildas
76.2) and in consequence he was destroyed along with them. The good priests must
separate themselves from the bad priests, no matter how dear they might hold
them, just as Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son (Gildas 69.4); as Jephthah
did sacrifice his only daughter (Gildas 70.2); as Elisha dismissed his dearest
follower (Gildas 72.1).
If 'Joseph’s brothers' are not among the British elite, who’s left?
Perhaps the common people, the vulgo irrationabili? (Gildas 15.3) But these are
acted upon, rather than acting, in Gildas’ scheme. They may suffer with
and for their wicked rulers - though “pity is granted to the small” (Gildas
63) - but there is no suggestion they might be separately liable, or separately
forgiven, for any offence. The Saxons “hated by man and God” (Gildas
23.1), can hardly count as ‘brothers’ to the good priests, and nor
can the Picts and Scots, “readier to cover their villainous faces with
hair than their private parts and neighbouring regions with clothes” (Gildas
19.1). So we must conclude that ‘Joseph’s brothers’ are not
in Britain.
The sin of the Britons
This leads to one further elimination: Since we know where the perpetrators aren’t,
we know what the injury wasn’t. We can rule out that congenital sin of
the Britons which provoked Gildas to write (Gildas 1.14). But what, exactly,
was that?
It was not civil violence. We must beware of viewing Gildas’ denunciation
of his contemporaries through the lens of later scholarship. Historians from
Bede onwards have held that De Excidio Britanniae denounced the moral and social
collapse of contemporary Britain and correctly predicted this would pave the
way for the English conquest. But this is history written backwards, natural
enough in a providential account but lacking any textual support. If the British
sin which so exercises Gildas were civil violence, the duces would not be among
the saved. True, he condemns specific violent acts committed by the five tyrants,
but he condemns their sexual sins with equal vehemence, which is to say, their
violence is not the reason he condemns them. Gildas Sapiens deserves no credit
for political wisdom or prescience. His Jeremiad was not intended to warn the
British of the dangers of civil war. Gildas is in fact an advocate of civil war:
what he abhors is the current peace, the accommodation between the good and the
wicked prevailing at the time of his writing. He even cautions the good priests
to “avoid the curse of the prophet on one preventing the sword and the
shedding of blood” (Gildas 69.4, Jer. 48.10).
So, Gildas objects to where and with whom the British tyrants made love and war,
but the congenital sin of the Britons is not restricted to these five. Both clergy
and laity are
infected, indeed bound together (Gildas 67.2), by this evil. So what have the
wicked
priests
done?
Gildas’ denunciation of Britain’s churchmen is much less personalised
than his attack on the tyrants. He names no individuals, gives no specific incidences;
he just asserts, in the most vituperative language, that they are the inverse
of everything a priest should be. But we can discern, under the rhetoric, what
their real crime is.
It is stated simply at the start of Gildas’ address to the good priests,
which is inserted, as said, into his diatribe against the bad priests. What distinguishes
the one from the other? “But, it may be said: not all bishops and presbyters
as categorised above are bad, for they are not all stained with the disgrace
of schism, pride and uncleanness” (Gildas 69.1): The bad priests are schismatic.
Gildas is quite clear, and he further elaborates: “the error they are most
prone to - and the error that leaves least hope for them - is that they buy priesthoods,
which are tainted and cannot avail them, not from the apostles or their successors
but from the tyrants and their father the devil” (Gildas 67.2). The bad
priests are not the successors of the Apostles. Gildas states this repeatedly
and unequivocally: “O you are enemies of god and not priests, veterans
in evil and not bishops, traitors and not successors to the holy apostles (Gildas
108.3). “To Peter and his successors the Lord says: ‘And I shall
give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven’: but to you: ‘I do not
know you, depart from me, workers of iniquity’ ... And again every holy
priest is promised: ‘And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven too: and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven too’.
But how will you loose anything so that it is loosed in heaven too, seeing that
you are removed from heaven because of your crimes and bound with the ropes of
dreadful sins“ (Gildas 109.5).
Dark Age historians who are not well versed in theology might assume Gildas is
here claiming that the sins of the wicked priests have rendered them unfit for
the priesthood. But if Gildas were saying that, he would be a heretic.
In Gildas’ day the orthodox view on this subject was that developed by
Augustine of Hippo in his struggle against the anti-Imperial Christians of North
Africa - Donatists to the orthodox; the Church of the Martyrs in their own appellation.
In essence, these maintained the traditional Christian opposition to the Roman
Empire: “What has the Emperor to do with the Church?" was Donatus’ rhetorical
question. The split arose during the Diocletian persecution, which was not everywhere
as bloody as Church tradition remembered. Even priests and bishops could sometimes
avoid all physical punishment by simply giving up their scriptures to be burned.
The view of the African rigourists, however, was that Christians who thus succumbed
had left the church, and required baptism for readmission. The sacraments performed
by lapsed priests were invalid, including the ordination of their successors,
whose authority the Donatists rejected. The result was, inevitably, two separate
Churches in North Africa.
A century later St. Augustine set out to reunify African Christianity, taking
as his text Luke’s conclusion to the parable of the great banquet, “compel
them to come in” (Luke 14.23). To his novel recommendation of state force
to suppress Christian dissent he added a new theology which disposed of the Donatists’ objections
to the orthodox church authorities. Augustine claimed that all humanity was infected
at conception by an original sin, inherited from Adam, which must damn every
individual to hell unless redeemed by God’s grace. This grace was conveyed
through the sacraments administered by the heirs to the Apostles, that is the
priests of the orthodox, Roman Church who alone could claim an unbroken line
of ordinations stretched back to the Twelve who were granted that power by Christ
himself. It was conveyed regardless of the spiritual state of the administering
clergy: No sin, no crime of a properly ordained priest could wipe away the power
to bind and loose which was given to Peter and all his successors.
It is not the British priests’ moral failings which invalidate their sacraments,
it is their ordinations. At the time of his writing the British Church, in Gildas’ view,
has been schismatic for generations: “those who ordain these candidates
for priesthood (or rather degrade them and curse them for a blessing, making
of sinners not, as would be better, repenters, but sacrilegious and desperate
men, and, in a sense, placing Judas, betrayer of the Lord, in the seat of Peter,
and that contriver of a filthy heresy, Nicholas, in the place of the martyr Stephen)
were themselves called to the priesthood in just the same way: and so do not
greatly detest (and even respect) in their sons something which certainly happened
in their own case and that of their fathers too.” (Gildas 67.4)
Most historians of this period are not theologians, and have perhaps been distracted
by Gildas’ failure to mention Pelagius, Pelagians or St. Germanus’ missions
to Britain. Yet in his narratio he does blame Britain’s separation from
the Empire on heresy. True, the only heresy he names is Arianism, but he links
it here with all the others, cuiuslibet haereseos. He has no reason to name the
specific, British heresy. In his scheme, details of doctrine are irrelevant,
since all heresies amount to the same crime, a refusal to submit to the rightful
authorities: “As one of us well says, it is not a question of the nature
of the offence, but of the breaking of an order”. (Gildas 38.1).
It is perfectly plain in Gildas’ text what that “rope of congenital
sins that has been stretched far and wide for so many years together” (Gildas
1.14) actually consists of. His narratio illuminates it throughout, but it is
stated quite simply at the start of it: “Ever since it was first inhabited,
Britain has been ungratefully rebelling, stiff-necked and haughty” (Gildas
4.1). The sin Gildas calls upon his countrymen to renounce, on pain of spiritual
and temporal destruction, is insubordination: in ecclesiastics that’s heresy,
in lay rulers it’s rebellion.
Which begs the question. If Rome ‘withdrew’ from Britain in the early
fifth century, and Gildas is writing in the early to mid sixth century, who is
Maglocunus, “dragon of the island”, “mightier than many”, “higher
than almost all the generals of Britain” (Gildas 33.1-2) rebelling against?
Who, in Gildas’ view, holds rightful authority over Britain in his day?
But I’m getting ahead of myself. At this point we can add to our knowledge
of 'Joseph’s brothers' that they are not heretics or rebels. The good Britons
have sustained some kind of injury from their own side, from orthodox, Roman
imperialists resident outside these islands. The nature of that injury, and the
identity of its perpetrators, lies in Gildas’ ‘historical’ introduction.
Joseph’s Enslavement
A narratio of the historia-subtype, this part of Gildas' epistle is designed
to explain how the contemporary situation which he denounces came into being.
It purports to recount the sequence of events from the Roman invasion to the
battle of Badon, but for the bulk of that period, where Gildas is dealing with
known history, his account is demonstrably a-historical. So it is only when he
reaches the fifth century that historians begin to treat his account as a valid
historical source. This is a mistake. Gildas’ narratio is woven as a whole
garment and no part of it is history. It is an anti-national myth, denying Britain’s
right to exist outside the Roman Empire and its Church.
Gildas himself tells us that his version of British history deviates from that
known and accepted by his countrymen - it is derived from transmarina relatione
- and that it is an account of the injuries which the Britons suffered at the
time of the Roman Emperors and inflicted on others, “even those far away” (Gildas
4.4). The injury inflicted on ‘Joseph’ by his ‘brothers’ is
not on the surface of Gildas’ story, but it is not too deeply disguised.
To discover it we have only to observe the distortions Gildas deliberately introduces.
There are no accidental errors in Gildas’ narratio. It is composed of fragments
taken from mostly traceable sources, adapted, sometimes reversed, and chronologically
rearranged to suit his purpose. Conveniently summarised at the end of his exordium,
it divides neatly into three sections as follows:
Gildas 4 - 13, Roman Britain
de contumacia (4), de subiectione (5), de rebellione (6), item
de subiectione
ac diro famulatu (7), de religione (8), de persecutione (9), de
sanctis martyribus (10-11), de diversis haeresibus (12), de
tyrannis (13).
Gildas 14 - 20 The war against the Picts and Scots
de duabus gentibus vastatricibus (14), de defensione (15), itemque
vastatione(16), de secunda ultione (17-18), tertiaque vastatione,
de fame (19), de epistolis
ad agitium, de victoria (20).
Gildas 21 - 25, The war against the Saxons
de sceleribus (21), de nuntiatis subito hostibus, de famosa
peste, de consilio(22), de saeviore multo primis hoste (23), de
urbium subversione (24), de reliquis,
de postrema patriae victoria (25),
The story opens with the insolent pagan Britons in possession of the island of
Britain. Gildas informs us that he knows more about this period than he is saying,
but leaves us to guess what he knows. The first action he relates is the Roman
invasion, which occurs after Rome has imposed peace on the whole world. The Romans
meeting no resistance, impose obedience on the imbellum, infidelem Britons,
and
then go back to Rome “allegedly for want of land”. As many historians
have observed, there is no Roman occupation in Gildas’ narratio.
Is this
evidence that “knowledge of the past had been wiped out of men’s
minds” in Gildas’ day, as E A Thompson asserts? [5] The
presence of "Caratauc
map Cinbelin map Teuhant"[6] in
later British tradition
(Harleian
3859), surely
proves otherwise.
Caratacus and his ancestors are of course missing from Gildas’ narratio.
Indeed Gildas explicitly denies the British resistance, for reasons that are
perfectly explicable. In Roman jurisprudence slavery originated in war, defeated
enemies who saved their lives at the expense of their honour became the absolute
possessions of the victors. In denying the British resistance Gildas denies any
treaty between the Britons and the Romans, and thus any suggestion of mutual
obligation. Their cowardly surrender reduces the Britons to a slave race, absorbed
into the Roman familia in perpetuity, their cultural and legal existence terminated.
The Britons’ subsequent rebellion under the leaena dolosa is thus a slave
revolt leading to diro famulatu. After this the very name of Britain
is obliterated
and all the island’s coinage is stamped with the image of Caesar - contemporaries
would have heard the echo of Christ’s words in the Synoptic Gospels, and
grasped the implication, “render unto Caesar...” (Matt. 22.21; Mark
12.16-17; Luke 20.25). Rome’s taxes are thus sanctioned by Christ himself,
in Gildas’ political myth, but the Britons must expect nothing in return,
not even defence, as there is no social contract between master and slave . This
point becomes relevant later in Gildas’ story.
After suppressing this revolt the Romans again return whence they came, according
to Gildas, not for want of land this time but because of a dearth of wine and
oil. If his readers really were unaware that Roman troops were stationed in Britain
throughout the period of the Empire, Gildas would not need to offer these trite
explanations.
Britain’s contumacia thus corrected, the next phase is religione: Christianity
spreads through the empire, protected from persecution by emperor Tiberius, and
reaches this distant island. The story is not Gildas’ invention: Orosius,
Augustine’s pupil, first suggested that the Roman Empire was God’s
tool to facilitate the spread of Christianity throughout the world; Tiberius
Caesar, Defender of the Faith, is from Tertullian, via Eusebius. All Gildas adds
to the mix is the Britons’ tepid reception of the new faith.
Next comes persecutione: the Diocletian persecution. Gildas admits only
this one Roman persecution of Christians in Britain, and he minimises both its
duration
and Rome’s culpability. During it the British martyrs met their deaths,
he tells us, but then in his account they must, for he has left no other option.[7] In
his source, Eusebius, this ten-year persecution is the winter of discontent before
the glorious summer of Constantine’s rule: Gildas fails to mention
this first Christian emperor, who was raised to the purple in Britain - as was
Maximus.
After sanctis martyribus comes diversis haeresibus: the British Church that emerges
from this one persecution is completely orthodox; “all her sons exulted,
as though warmed in the bosom of the mother church.” (Gildas 12.2) But
this pleasant agreement between the head and limbs of Christ does not last; the
brothers who had lived as one are sundered by the arrival of the foreign Arian
heresy, which opens the door to every other heresy. In contrast to the Britons’ lukewarm
reception of the original pure faith, Gildas tells us these heresies are welcomed
with open arms by a people who always prefer to hear something new and who hold
steadfastly to nothing. This statement, indeed everything from chapter 8 up to
this point, is directed against a British Church of the Martyrs which claimed
to preserve the Christian tradition she had originally received in the days of
Imperial persecution, undefiled by Augustine’s innovations.
Then comes tyrannis: the growth of heresy causes the wicked usurpation
of Maximus. Now Britain, though still Roman in name, was not so by law and custom.
Gildas
clearly knows of other British usurpers, and he elsewhere quotes Porphyry’s
statement that “Britain is a province fertile of tyrants” (Gildas
4.3), but he only names this one. He includes details which demonstrate a knowledge
of Maximus’ genuine history: his capital was Trier; he caused the death
of one emperor and the flight, from Rome, of another; he was executed at Aquileia.
There are signs, indeed, that he knew Sulpicius Severus’ Vita Martini.[8] In
sum, he knew perfectly well that Maximus was orthodox.
And so ends Roman Britain, in Gildas’ account. Corrected of her contumacia ,
reduced to Romania, Britain had received the pure faith which alone provides
salvation. Heresy had overturned this happy ordering of society. The rest of
Gildas’ narratio tells the story of the failed state of Britannia, incapable
of self-rule and continually in need of Rome’s protection and guidance.
Gildas blames Maximus for the end of Roman Britain, thus dating the separation
to the 380s. Of course we know better, but the point is, so did Gildas. It is
accepted that he had read Orosius, and therefore he knew of Constantine III,
but chose not to mention him.[9]
I’d argue he knew the whole story of
the end of Roman Britain that has come down to us and has reworked it into myth.
Historically, the beginning of the end was Stilicho’s withdrawal of troops
from Britain and the Rhine frontier for the defence of Italy against Alaric,
which led to a serious a barbarian incursion into Gaul and the raising of three
British usurpers. Gildas elaborately denies this. In his narratio there
are no Roman troops stationed in Britain in the period of Rome's rule. The
soldiers who conquered Britain all went back to Rome and Italy, he tells us,
even inventing
reasons
why
they did so. As they were never here, Rome cannot have withdrawn them. It was
the British usurper, Maximus, who stripped Britain of her defences: Rome
is
entirely
exonerated in Gildas' account.
Our historical sources tell us that Britain, threatened, elevated three usurpers
in rapid succession, first Marcus, then Gratian, and finally Constantine III.
Gildas works this into a later part of his narrative: in chapter 21, sceleribus, he
tells us that kings were anointed and soon after slain, to be replaced by others
still more cruel. He knows also that the Britons succeeded in freeing
themselves of the barbarian threat, but places victoria in chapter 20, after
Britain’s third, unsuccessful appeal to Rome, where it serves the purpose
of his myth.
In Gildas' story, after tyranos, ie Maximus, comes duabus gentibus
vastatricibus.
Britain, having divested herself of her military and her governors, falls prey
to the
savage Picts and Scots. Chastened and contrite, the Britons send envoys to Rome
with letters begging for rescue and promising subiectionem sui romano imperio
continue tota animi virtute (Gildas 15.1). The Romans, praeteriti mali
immemor (Gildas 15.2), do rescue them, and advise the building of a wall
across the island linking the two seas: but the Britons built in turf, not stone
(as indeed they
did in Gildas’ day). Thus, being the work of a “leaderless and irrational
mob” (Gildas 15.3) this wall failed in its purpose. There was another ferocious
attack, another British appeal to Rome "like fightened chicks huddling under
the wings of their faithful parents" (Gildas 17.1), another effortless Roman
rescue, another
wall
built from sea to sea but this time solito structurae more (Gildas 18.2),
that
is, in stone. Then a third devastation, a third appeal, but no third rescue.
This neat pattern is an artificial construct built from recognisable fragments.
There were two Roman expeditions against the barbarian oppressors of Britain
which were particularly celebrated by Roman writers, that of Theodosius the Elder
in 368 and Stilicho, around 398. There were, and are, two walls - first century
constructions as all subsequent insular historians knew. But as these obviously
were built to defend Britain from the incursions of northern barbarians, once
Gildas had moved the northern barbarians to the post-Roman period, the walls
had to follow.
In Gildas’ story there is no barbarian threat to Britain in the Roman period,
and no barbarian attacks at all on any other part of the empire, since these
are a punishment for wicked rebellion against legitimate authority. But a knowledge
of fifth-century history can sometimes cloud historians’ reading of Gildas’ text.
Thus David Dumville tells us that Gildas presents the Romans as “intermittent
rescuers, unable, after the conclusion of the Second Pictish War even to undertake
that limited role”[10] But
this is exactly what Gildas does not say. The fifth-century collapse of Roman
power does not happen in Gildas’ narratio.
The two Roman rescues of Britain are easily effected. The Romans announce during
the second rescue that they won’t be wasting any more time on these imbelles
erraticosque latrunculos (Gildas 18.1) and instead they arm, train and encourage
the Britons to do the job themselves. And then, Gildas tells us, “they
said goodbye, meaning never to return”: clearly we are in the realm of
myth.
Gildas’ artificial construction, in 14 - 20, is directed to a single point,
Rome’s
perfectly justified rejection of the Britons’ third appeal. These disloyal
rebels had no right to expect rescue, they had brought their doom down on themselves.
They had no reason to expect it, the Romans had already said goodbye. They had
no need of it, the Romans had assisted in the building of the necessary fortifications,
advised the Britons on the manufacture of armaments, and pointed out to the natives
that they were perfectly capable of defending their own families and property
if they could only overcome their fear and torpor - as, indeed, proved to be
the case. Independent Britain’s first victory over the barbarians follows
after this last appeal, the letter addressed to Agitio ter consuli (Gildas
20.1).
It is generally accepted that this is Aëtius, who was consul for the third
time in 446. That first British victory occurred during the reign of Constantine
III, around 410. Gildas has transposed this event by a generation.
This first British victory brings to an end Gildas’ account of the war
with the Picts and Scots, just as the second British victory, Badon, ends his
story of the war with the Saxons. In Gildas’ scheme the two wars, and the
two sets of enemies, are neatly divided, and separated in time. The historical
reality was, we know, a lot messier. Yet it is because Gildas positions this
tidily encapsulated Saxon war, including advent, revolt and eventual defeat,
all after Aëtius’ third consulship, that fifth-century British history
is deprived of dates. For some historians insist that, for this period, Gildas’ witness
trumps all other evidence: “He alone seems to have had access to contemporary
sources for the fifth century.”[11] Doubtless
Gildas had sources: but how has he used them? To determine that we must observe
what he stresses, what he
omits, and where he strains credulity.
There is an obvious stress on Aëtius, who is mentioned three times. Gildas
is not big on names. In narrative spanning roughly five hundred years, from the
Roman conquest to the battle of Badon, he names only eight individuals, apart
from Christ, and alludes to just two more. Even Ambrosius Aurelianus, almost
the last of the Romans, sole author of the British resistance to the Saxons,
is only named once. But Aëtius is named twice in the narratio and once in
the exordium - the only name mentioned in Gildas 1.2. What was his role in British
history? Gildas presents him as the passive recipient of a letter, to which he
did not respond.
The letter to Aëtius forms a watershed in Gildas’ story of independent
Britain. Before it, Rome’s aid might be expected, after it, that hope had
vanished. Before it, the barbarian oppressors are Picts and Scots, after it,
Saxons. The Saxons do not appear in Britain until long after the Romans have
said goodbye. Gildas tells us the Britons feared them worse than death - prior
to first contact! He mentions the Saxon Shore forts, though not by that name,
and claims they were constructed after the second Roman rescue on the south coast
as defence against the Picts and Scots - who, he says, attacked from the north
and the north-west respectively. He then tells us that the Saxons recruited to
oppose these two races were positioned, against all geographical logic, in the
east of the island. He presents the Saxon recruitment as an anomalous and aberrant
act - the proud tyrant and council responsible for this insane invitation were
struck blind by God - and seems quite unaware of Roman precedent in this matter.
Yet he knows the appropriate Roman terminology: annona, foedus, hospites.
In Gildas’ narratio the Saxons were invited into Britain, not
to counter an actual threat, but in response to a mere rumour. Gildas stresses
this: nuntiatis
subito hostibus (Gildas 2), auditu tantum tribulationis; non
ignoti rumoris penniger (Gildas 22.1). This rumour was sent by God, the
intention being to purge His family without applying any physical punishment.
But this mere threat didn’t
have the desired effect and the Saxon assault became necessary because, as Gildas,
quoting Solomon, explains: “The stubborn servant is not corrected by words” (Gildas
22.2, Prov. 29.19) One would have thought God would have known that.
The Saxon revolt was not provoked by the Britons, Gildas is at pains to assure
us. From the start the treacherous barbarians intended to conquer the whole island.
Few in number at first, they invited others of their rascally kind to join them,
then finally they put their plan into effect. They complained of insufficient
supplies, deliberately misrepresented events - occasiones de industria colorantes- threatened to break the treaty if their demands were not met but gave the Britons
no time to respond - nec mora, minas effectibus prosequuntur (Gildas 23.5): that
is, Gildas elaborately informs us the Britons did not refuse the annona demanded.
In Gildas’ scheme the Britons are usually held responsible for every evil
which befalls them, not excluding plague, famine and other ‘acts of God’.
Only in this particular case are they blameless.
To make sense of this we’ve only to add the witness of the two Gallic chroniclers
for the mid-fifth century. We have no good reason to discount them. In contrast
to Gildas’ narratio these are, intentionally, records of events which actually
happened, in due order. And they agree with each other: Britain fell to the Saxons
before Aëtius’ third consulship.
I believe we can reconstruct the history from which Gildas created his myth.
He tells us in his narratio that the Romans said goodbye precisely because they
did not. The “neighbouring lands and provinces” (Gildas 13.2) which
joined the British revolt against Rome - in 410, not 382 - were retaken by 418.
The reconquest of Britain was an obvious next step. The rumour which should have
corrected British Pelagianism but which instead led to the adventus Saxonum was
news of a planned Roman invasion. The Saxons were noted sailors. They were stationed,
according to insular tradition, not just vaguely in the east of the island but
in the extreme south-east, in Kent, where the channel is at its narrowest and
a Roman fleet might be expected to land.
It was not the Saxons who broke the treaty. A section of the British elite, intriguing
for the restoration of the empire, did withhold the annona. Why else would Gildas
mention it? The Saxon duces, unable to pay or feed their men, had little choice
but to raid their ex-hosts. Order broke down, but no Roman fleet appeared off
the now unguarded coast. The loyal imperialists appealed to Aëtius. There
was no third rescue, Gildas tells us, for none was deserved, or needed. Bede,
attempting to make sense of this, tells us Aëtius was busy at the time waging
two serious wars against the Huns. But the real key to resolving Gildas’ narratio
into history lies in the Gallic Chronicle of 452.
Britain is here grouped with four other Roman territories which came under German
dominion around the same time, the list being intended, Ian Wood suggests, “to
explain the end of the west Roman empire.”[12] These
four were all given into the power of the barbarians by Roman authority: three
were deliberately settled with
German federates and though the Vandals took Africa by force their dominion was
confirmed by treaty. Why should Britain, in the same list, have been an exception?
The chronicler treats these territories as alienated from the empire, but his
perspective, shared by many historians since, is completely at odds with the
Roman view at the time: Aëtius’ German federates were not, officially,
carving up the Empire, they were restoring it. The Alans were planted in Gallia
Ulteria, for example, to quell native revolt. .
It was native revolt which had separated Britain from the Empire. An imperial
recovery was anticipated, the Saxon federates positioned to oppose it. Once these
had been detached from their alliance, a Roman fleet could land, but didn’t.
The British loyalists were unable to master the chaos they had created. Their
letter to Aëtius was an admission of failure, of incapacity. How did Aëtius
respond? The Gallic Chronicler informs us: Britain was no exception, just one
more casualty on his list, betrayed, like the others, into the hands of the barbarians.
The Saxons did not conquer the island from sea to sea in the 440s. Their dominion
was acquired by treaty. Britain was ceded to them by the Roman authorities, that
is, by Aëtius. This is the malefacti which Gildas refers to in 69.4. The
orthodox, Roman Christians, having intrigued for the return of the empire, were
given into the power of the pagan Saxons by their own side, just as Joseph was
sold to the heathen Egyptians by his brothers. Gildas, in his narratio, has done
exactly what he instructs the good, orthodox priests to do in their hearts; his
chronological rearrangement of British history has plucked out by the root all
memory of Aëtius’ betrayal.
Dating the adventus Saxonum
The adventus Saxonum preceded Aëtius third consulship, and must be dated
to the first half of the fifth century. There is no contrary evidence. But can
we be more precise? I think we can. We still have one question left to ask of
Gildas 69.4: Why? Why must the British ‘Joseph’ erase this Roman
injury from memory, or more exactly, why now?
When is ‘now’? “The text of the De Excidio must be the starting
point for any discussion of its date”,[13] so
what does Gildas tell us? He is writing forty-three years and one month after
Badon, which doesn’t
help much. But he also refers us to another event, a little over ten years previously,
which might have caused him to write but didn’t.
De Excidio is a carefully crafted work, and every statement in it is there for
a reason. Gildas is not here discussing some earlier draft which was never published,
he is referring to a specific event which his readers might have expected him
to respond to with a letter such as this, a letter whose purpose, as clearly
stated in the exordium, is to denounce the accommodation between the orthodox
and the heretics in Britain: In the same fold there are different sheep, and
this situation must be brought to an end. That event is not lost to history.
The same accommodation had once prevailed in Gaul; the semi-Pelagians, those
who denounced Pelagius the man whilst rejecting Augustine’s theology, remained
within the Gallic Church until hereticised by the Council of Orange, which met
on the 3rd July, 529.
Gildas is writing spatio bilustri temporis uel eo amplius (Gildas 1.2) after
this event, that is, some time in the second half of 539. If Badon was fought
forty-three years and one month previously - and he ought to know, as that was
the year of his birth (Gildas 26.1) - then we can date that battle to 496. The
Annales Cambriae place Badon in ‘year 72’, in which case year 1 is
425, the year Valentinian III became co-emperor with Theodosius II, the year
of their joint consulship - the year Vortigern came to power in Britain according
to the Historia Brittonum. This source dates the adventus Saxonum to the fourth
year of Vortigern’s reign, to the consulship of Felix and Taurus, that
is, 428.
The evidence is coherent. British fifth century history can be dated as follows:
Vortigern came to power in 425; the adventus Saxonum occurred in 428; in the
sixty-ninth year after that, Badon was fought, in 496; in the forty-fourth year
after Badon, Gildas wrote De Excidio Britanniae, in 539. If we have correctly
solved this part of the puzzle, other pieces should fall into place.
Why now? The British Joseph, Gildas’ good, orthodox minority, were sold
into the power of the Saxons some time between 446 and 454. Gildas is writing,
at a minimum, 85 years after this event. Why does he bring up the subject? Why
remind his co-religionist of Aëtius’ treachery, only to instruct them
to pluck that memory out of their hearts by the root? Because history is about
to repeat itself.
Rome never withdrew from Britain. Procopius, writing in the mid sixth century,
states that, after the overthrow of Constantine III “the Romans never succeeded
in recovering Britain, but it remained from that time under tyrants.”[14] Tyrants,
as opposed to duces, is the term Gildas applies
to the five lay protectors of the British Pelagian church, from whom, he claims,
these
wicked men bought their priesthoods. The congenital sin of the Britons is insubordination.
Barring a small minority, her priests are heretics and her rulers rebels. But
against whom were the British tyrants rebelling? Who, in Gildas’ day, and
in Gildas’ view, is the rightful overlord of Maglocunus, dragon of the
island? The answer is Justinian - or whomever that emperor should designate.
Britain still belonged to Rome in the time of Justinian; that, we know, was
Justinian’s
perspective, for it is preserved in the written record. In 538, as the war against
the Goths in Italy appeared to be drawing to a close, Belisarius offered to exchange
Sicily for “the whole island of Britain, which belongs to us from of old”.[15]
Britain had been Rome’s, therefore it was Rome’s:
as Gildas’ narratio expresses it, the Britons were slaves forever.
Justinian crusade against the insolent heretics who had alienated imperial
territories certainly did encompass Britain. This is what Gildas is telling
us. This is why
he confounds the native British heresy with the arriana perfidia, and
blames
the latter for Britain’s departure from the Empire (Gildas 12.3). It seems
improbable that Justinian seriously intended to replace Pelagian dominion over
Britain with that of the Arian Goths. But forcing the British rebels to fight
on two fronts would be perfectly in keeping with Justinian’s modus operandi,
as described in Procopius’ History of the Wars.
Prior to the Roman invasion of Vandal Africa, King Gelimer was distracted by
two revolts, both of which Justinian had a hand in, so that Belisarius’ forces
were able to land unopposed, the Vandal fleet being then in Sardinia. The Roman
recovery of Italy was preceded by a feud within the Gothic royal family, and
Justinian intrigued with both parties. The eventual winner, King Theodahad, was
almost intimidated into surrendering Italy without a fight, persuaded by Justinian’s
ambassador of the hopelessness of his position. Meanwhile Justinian wrote to
the Frankish king Theudebert, inviting his participation in the coming war on
the grounds of their common religion and their mutual hatred of the Goths. A
present of gold accompanied the letter.
We have further evidence of Justinian’s diplomatic use of gold in Procopius’ Secret
History, where he complains that the emperor emptied the treasury buying the
friendship of barbarians from “as far as Britain, and over all the inhabited
earth; so that nations whose very names we had never heard of, we now learned
to know, seeing their ambassadors for the first time.”[16] Angili from
Britain were included in one of these barbarian embassies to
Justinian’s
court, sent by a king of the Franks to “establish his claim that the island
was ruled by him.”[17] Clearly
this king was not
challenging Justinian’s dominion over Britain, but seeking his endorsement.
Did he receive it?
The Britons’ situation at the time of Gildas was more parlous than in the
days of Aëtius. The German invaders were now well established in Britain
and in close and friendly contact with their relatives the Franks, who were the
dominant power on the other side of the channel, and who had crushed the independent
Gallo-Roman kingdom of Syagrius with no protest from the empire or its church.
The Franks had converted to the faith of the Empire, and the Empire endorsed
their rule over Gaul. Gildas tells us the Saxons were hated by God and man, but
as the Franks’ example showed one simple change would render them acceptable
to both God and His earthly deputies – baptism.
In this pass, civil war among the Britons would be unwise. Whoever won, the
ultimate victors would be the Saxons. This, indeed, is the lesson history taught
Gildas’ contemporaries,
the lesson of Aëtius’ choice. It is exactly this lesson which Gildas
instructs them to erase from memory. The orthodox priests should withhold their
blessings (the sacraments?) in order to initiate a war against the five tyrants
(Gildas 69.3). They must persuade the duces this will result in a redistribution,
not a reduction, of British-held lands (Gildas 70.2), that the victory of the
orthodox minority is certain since reinforcements will shortly arrive (Gildas
72.2). Gildas, with this reference to Elisha and the frightened boy, is not suggesting
his readers should look to the heavens for succour; he is informing them that
Justinian’s forces are already mobilising.
If the orthodox Britons fail to plunge their country into civil war in advance
of Justinian’s intervention, what then? Gildas is quite explicit. The righteous
will be punished along with the sinners, just as Eli was punished with his sons.
If the orthodox minority do not make themselves useful to the empire they also
will be swept aside, since they are “so small in number that, as they lie
in her lap, the holy mother church in a sense does not see them” (Gildas
26.3). And they should willingly submit to this, just as Moses prayed over the
sinful Israelites: “Lord, this people has committed a great sin: but if
you forgive them, forgive them; otherwise, blot me out of your book” (Gildas
69.5).
British dominion over Britain was not swept aside by Rome’s great and splendid
army in 540. So what went wrong? Plague stalled Justinian’s crusade against
the heretics, but as this did not reach the Empire until 541 it could hardly
have prevented an Imperial assault on Britain had this been immanent in 539.
Clearly Gildas exaggerates. But in his account of Rome’s intentions towards
the Britons there is no deception. And these did not change over time. When Pope
Gregory sent Augustine to the court of Aethelbert of Kent, with instructions,
from that position, to take control of the British Church, he made the same choice
which Aëtius made in the mid-fifth century, and Justinian made in the mid-sixth.
Britain in these two centuries is not as politically dark as some historians
would have us believe. Our prime source, De Excidio Britanniae, casts
a blazing light on the essential features of this period. But its witness has
been misunderstood
because its author’s motives have been misconstrued. Gildas is no Dark
Age Jeremiah, no clear-sighted patriot wringing his hands over the folly and
incompetence of his feuding countrymen, he is a Late Roman Lord Haw Haw, the
agent and mouthpiece of a foreign power bent on Britain’s destruction.
Heretic Emperor: The Lost History of King Arthur
Copyright © V M Pickin 2009
1 Gildas,The ruin of Britain and other works. ed. and trans. Michael Winterbottom. Chichester, England: Phillimore and Co. 1978.
2 Michael Lapidge, 'Gildas's Education', pp 41-44. In: Lapidge, M. and Dumville, D. (eds.). Gildas: New Approaches. Woodbridge, Boydell. 1984.
3 Ibid p41.
4 Ibid p44.
5 E A Thompson, Saint Germanus of Auxerre and the End of Roman Britain, p115. Woodbridge, Boydell, 1984.
6 “Caratauc is Caratacus, the famous king of the Catuvellauni captured and taken to Rome in AD 51, as recorded in Tacitus. Dio Cassius informs us that his father was the king Cunobelinus (d. c. 42), here Cinbelin. His father appears to have been Tasciovanus, here Teuhant, but the most remarkable fact is that this name is not recorded in any extant classical source except coins unearthed by archaeologists.” Harleian Genealogies 16; The Heirs of Caratacus - Cunobelinus and his relatives in medieval Welsh genealogies. http://www.webcitation.org/5kmkmsdXx
7 Alban, it seems, was martyred during Emperor Severus’ visit to Britain, that is, between 208 and 211. see see John Morris, Arthurian Period Sources, Vol. 6, p145-154. Phillimore, Chichester, 1995.
8 “There is a striking resemblance between Gildas' way of describing the double crime of Maximus and the language of Sulpicius Severus in his Vita Martini. It seems impossible that it could be accidental.” Robert Vermaat, The sources on Vortigern - The Text of Gildas: de Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, footnote 20. On: Vortigern Studies 2005.
9 “We know from Orosius, as Gildas must have done, since he too read that author, that there were more British usurpers, including, in the year 407, Constantine III. But Dr. Miller has recently shown us that the reason why Gildas ignored Constantine III after his account of Maximus in I 13-14 was that the structure of his narrative would render mention of Constantine irrelevant to his account (in I 14-21) of the northern (sic) wars of the end of the fourth and first half of the fifth century.” David N Dumville, Sub-Roman Britain: History and Legend, p180. In: History 62, 173-192, 1977.
10 Ibid p179
11 Ibid p191
12 Ian Wood, 'The end of Roman Britain: Continental evidence and parallels', p19, In: Lapidge, M. and Dumville, D. (eds.). Gildas: New Approaches. Woodbridge, Boydell. 1984
13 Ibid p22
14 Procopius, History of the Wars, III.2.38
15 Procopius, History of the Wars, V.3.30
16 Procopius, Secret History, 19
17 Procopius, History of the Wars, VIII.20.10