Civitas to Kingdom: British Political Continuity 300-800

Rating:
Summary: Friends (Cymry) and Romans.....
Review: In the forward to CIVITAS TO KINGDOM, N.P. Brooks of the University of Birmingham suggests that K.R. Dark's new book may give the phrase "The Dark Ages" a new meaning. Using information from historical, archeological, and other sources available in the early 1990s, Dark has constructed a new interpretation of Britain in the years between 410 A.D. when the Roman Empire sent an official letter stating it could no longer defend the Britannia, and the germanization of most of Britannia by the Anglo-Saxons in the 800s.

Dark's study covers the provinces not immediatly subdued by the Angle and Saxon mercenaries the Romans hired to "protect" Britannia before 400 A.D. Non-Anglo-Saxon Britain included the nothern and central areas of the island, plus Cornwall and Wales. Dark says the inhabitants of this area maintained an 'Antique Roman Society' which combined political, economic and other aspects of pre-Roman and Roman eras.

Dark has assembled an enormous amount of information gleaned from recent historical studies (text anayses) and archeological studies as well as other sources. He asks, "What is Roman". After he lists and defines the characteristics most scholars agree are "Roman" he shows how material evidence supports the notion that the Roman Britannia survived what has been described as a barbaric Celtic era. One the other hand, he says, "the polities of Britain, tribes, civitates, or kingdoms, remained stable from the Pre-Roman Iron-Age to the sub-Roman period....the general picture is of overall continuity but not a static system...the conventional picture of the fifth-to-seventh-century 'Celtic West' as a reversion to Iron-Age cultural and political organization is mistaken."

This is an excellent book, quite readable, and loaded with footnotes for those who wish to go further.

Rating:
Summary: "Change versus Continuity"
Review: Most of us know, on some intellectual level, that change and continuity are both simultaneous processes. There is no period in all of history where one is entirely absent, though there are many times when one takes precedence over the other. Without a doubt, the post-Roman (often called, somewhat decievingly, the "sub-Roman") period was one such period for the British Isles. The dominant religion changed from pagan to Christian, Pictland became Scotland, Britain became England, and the Britons became Welsh or Breton or Cornish. The Roman Empire fell, and independent British kingdoms sprang up, only to be washed away in the tide of Anglo-Saxon invasion within a century or two. From 400 CE to 600 CE, in the space of a short 200 years, the makeup of the country changed almost completely.

With all this going on, it's easy to forget that there was a great deal of continuity here, as well. Kenneth Dark, in this excellent scholarly tour de force, reminds us of that little fact. He argues that the political structure of post-Roman Britain was made up of Roman civitates (cities--used as the basic unit of administration by the Roman Empire, almost like a state in the US) which, with the end of Roman authority, elevated themselves to the status of kingdoms. These civitates were themselves based on the Celtic tribes that the Romans had conquered centuries before--rather than take time and energy to create a new aristocracy (which would no doubt even further alienate the newly conquered Britons), they simply adopted the old tribal aristocracy as imperial apparatus, like so many other hegemonic empires. Kenneth Dark shows the survival of Roman traditions and culture through the "Dark Ages," and points out that many of the traits we think of as a "reversion to native Celtic customs" may, in fact, have been the natural trajectory of the way Roman culture was heading in Late Antiquity.

Though Kenneth Dark may overstate his case, it is a case that perhaps needs to be overstated. The study of post-Roman Britain, I think, has lost its equilibrium in the "Change versus Continuity" debate, making this book a valuable counter-weight. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in that murky historical gloss from the end of Roman rule, to the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Rating:
Summary: "Change versus Continuity"
Review: Most of us know, on some intellectual level, that change and continuity are both simultaneous processes. There is no period in all of history where one is entirely absent, though there are many times when one takes precedence over the other. Without a doubt, the post-Roman (often called, somewhat decievingly, the "sub-Roman") period was one such period for the British Isles. The dominant religion changed from pagan to Christian, Pictland became Scotland, Britain became England, and the Britons became Welsh or Breton or Cornish. The Roman Empire fell, and independent British kingdoms sprang up, only to be washed away in the tide of Anglo-Saxon invasion within a century or two. From 400 CE to 600 CE, in the space of a short 200 years, the makeup of the country changed almost completely.

With all this going on, it's easy to forget that there was a great deal of continuity here, as well. Kenneth Dark, in this excellent scholarly tour de force, reminds us of that little fact. He argues that the political structure of post-Roman Britain was made up of Roman civitates (cities--used as the basic unit of administration by the Roman Empire, almost like a state in the US) which, with the end of Roman authority, elevated themselves to the status of kingdoms. These civitates were themselves based on the Celtic tribes that the Romans had conquered centuries before--rather than take time and energy to create a new aristocracy (which would no doubt even further alienate the newly conquered Britons), they simply adopted the old tribal aristocracy as imperial apparatus, like so many other hegemonic empires. Kenneth Dark shows the survival of Roman traditions and culture through the "Dark Ages," and points out that many of the traits we think of as a "reversion to native Celtic customs" may, in fact, have been the natural trajectory of the way Roman culture was heading in Late Antiquity.

Though Kenneth Dark may overstate his case, it is a case that perhaps needs to be overstated. The study of post-Roman Britain, I think, has lost its equilibrium in the "Change versus Continuity" debate, making this book a valuable counter-weight. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in that murky historical gloss from the end of Roman rule, to the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading on "sub-Roman" Britain.
Review: This is an overview of archæological and textual record of Britain during this poorly understood period. Its premise on the origins of the sub-Roman kingdoms of Britain is that prior to the official withdrawal of the Legions in 410, the primarily pagan secular elite of the British provinces were replaced by a Christian administration of low status origins. After the failure of Constantine III to gain the purple, this administration adopted native British power structures based on kingship. This theory can be used to successfully explain the decline of the villas, the rise of Christian ecclesiastics (based on Martinian militancy), and the introduction of pagan mercenaries who eventually created the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the East. The work is notable for its careful inclusion of Britain in the context of the wider remnants of the Western Empire. Better attested events and evidence from Gaul, Spain, Italy, and North Africa are used to explain what occurred in Britain. This is a great read and arguably a part of the basic body of current knowledge and synthesis regarding the Dark Ages in Britain.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading on "sub-Roman" Britain.
Review: This is an overview of archæological and textual record of Britain during this poorly understood period. Its premise on the origins of the sub-Roman kingdoms of Britain is that prior to the official withdrawal of the Legions in 410, the primarily pagan secular elite of the British provinces were replaced by a Christian administration of low status origins. After the failure of Constantine III to gain the purple, this administration adopted native British power structures based on kingship. This theory can be used to successfully explain the decline of the villas, the rise of Christian ecclesiastics (based on Martinian militancy), and the introduction of pagan mercenaries who eventually created the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the East. The work is notable for its careful inclusion of Britain in the context of the wider remnants of the Western Empire. Better attested events and evidence from Gaul, Spain, Italy, and North Africa are used to explain what occurred in Britain. This is a great read and arguably a part of the basic body of current knowledge and synthesis regarding the Dark Ages in Britain.