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History of Medieval England - Thursday 6th Period: Discussion 1: Introduction and Pre-history to 500

Good afternoon, class. Now I get to torture you all by making you all stand up and introduce yourselves to your classmates. This is because I'm ~~sadistic~~ want to get you used to the concept of talking during our discussion sessions. Please give your name and what one thing you'd like to find out in this class.

Your homework, due next Tuesday ~~but to be posted in this post~~ is to pick a topic from the once-optional-now-mandatory reading list I gave you on Prehistoric Britain and Roman Britain and give me ETA a minimum of one hundred ~~Wikipedia~~ words on it. Got it? Good.

[[OOC comment threads are done!]]

[[ETA: OOC: At some point I stopped receiving comment notifications for this post. I'm scanning and trying to jump into discussions. But since I'm trying to foster discussion *amongst* all of you, I try not to jump in everywhere.]]

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Hand in next Tuesday's homework here. You must have it in by next Tuesday.

"Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico gives the fullest account of the Druids. Caesar notes that all men of any rank and dignity in Gaul were included either among the Druids or among the nobles, indicating that they formed two classes. The Druids constituted the learned priestly class, and as guardians of the unwritten ancient customary law they had the power of executing judgments, among which exclusion from society was the most dreaded. Druids were not a hereditary caste, though they enjoyed exemption from military service as well as from payment of taxes. The course of training to which a novice had to submit was protracted.

All instruction was communicated orally, but for ordinary purposes, Caesar reports that the Gauls had a written language in which they used Greek characters. In this he probably draws on earler writers; by the time of Caesar, Gaulish had moved from the Greek script to the Latin script.

As a result of this prohibition - and of the decline of Gaulish in favour of Latin - no druidic documents, if there ever were any, have survived. "The principal point of their doctrine", says Caesar, "is that the soul does not die and that after death it passes from one body into another" (see metempsychosis). This observation led several ancient writers to the unlikely conclusion that the Druids may have been influenced by the teachings of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras. Caesar also notes the druidic sense of the guardian spirit of the tribe, whom he translated as Dispater, with a general sense of Father Hades."

The Saxon Shore Forts were built by the Romans in the late 3rd century AD along the southeast coast of Britain to guard against increasing invasion and piracy by Germanic tribes including the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Our only written source for this system of forts is a late 4th century document called the Notitia Dignitatum (Latin for "worthy of record"). The Notitia records that the military commander known as the Count of the Saxon Shore controlled nine forts, the names of which are given as well as the units garrisoned in each.

Around AD 270, Roman army units moved into Dover to construct a new fort. They ignored the old Classis Britannica Fort and built a new one, although the corners of the two forts did overlap. The new fort enclosed a number of civilian buildings to the north of the earlier fort and the west wall went straight through the west end of the Painted House.

(The military engineers simply smashed through end of the house and built the great stone wall of the fort right across it from north to south. The back wall of the fort was then covered by a high bank of clay and rubble to form a rampart bank. It was this quick demolition and burial of the wall paintings, while still in good condition, which led to their survival. The wall paintings are the best preserved in Britain, or almost anywhere outside Pompeii or Rome)

Over 1000 feet of the south and west wall of the fort have been traced. The massive defensive wall was nearly 10 feet thick, reinforced at intervals along its length by great stone bastions and a ditch nearly 40 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Within the walls have been found the remains of at least 11 timber built structures, metalled roads and a postern gate with footbridge. It also appears that the military bath-house dating from about AD 140-160 was reused within the walls of the fort which now enclosed it.

The fort seems to have been occupied at least until the first half of the 5th century and there is some evidence of occupation into the 6th century.

The Druids' influence was as much social as religious. They not only performed roles similar to modern priests, but were often the philosophers, scientists, lore-masters, teachers, judges and counsellors to the kings. The Druids linked the Celtic peoples with their numerous gods, the lunar calendar and the sacred natural order. They were suppressed in Gaul and Britain after the Roman conquests, but retained their influence in Ireland until the coming of Christianity. The Druids' roles were then assumed by the bishop and the abbot, who were usually not the same individual, however, and might find themselves in direct competition.

Nevertheless, much traditional rural religious practice can still be discerned from Christian interpretations and survives in practices like Halloween observances, corn dollies and other harvest rituals, the myths of Puck, woodwoses, "lucky" and "unlucky" plants and animals and the like. Orally-transmitted material may have exaggerated deep origins in antiquity, however, and is constantly subject to influence from surrounding culture.

Topic: The particulars of how Rome governed Britain

Under the Roman Empire, administration of peaceful provinces was ultimately the remit of the Senate but those like Britain that required permanent garrisons of troops were placed under the Emperor's control.

On the ground however imperial provinces were run by resident governors who were former senators who had held the consulship. These men were carefully selected often having strong records of military success and administrative ability. In Britain, a governor's role was primarily military but numerous other tasks were also his responsibility such as maintaining diplomatic relations with local client kings, building roads, ensuring the public courier system functioned, supervising the civitates and acting as a judge in important legal cases. When not campaigning he would travel the province hearing complaints and recruiting new troops.

To assist him in legal matters he had an adviser, the legatus iuridicus, and those in Britain appear to have been distinguished lawyers perhaps because of the challenge of incorporating tribes into the imperial system and devising a workable method of taxing them. Financial administration was dealt with by a procurator with junior posts for each tax-raising power. Each legion in Britain had a commander who answered to the governor and in time of war probably directly ruled troublesome districts. Each of these commands carried a tour of duty of two to three years in different provinces. Below these posts was a network of administrative managers covering intelligence gathering, sending reports to Rome, organising military supplies and dealing with prisoners. A staff of seconded soldiers provided clerical services.

Colchester was probably the earliest capital of Roman Britain but it was soon eclipsed by London with its strong mercantile connections.

Hadrian's wall, extent of the Roman Empire

At the time of Julius Ceasar's first small invasion of the south coast of Britain in 55 BC, the British Isles, like much of mainland Europe was inhabited by many Celtic tribes loosely united by a similar language and culture but nevertheless each distinct. He returned the next year and encountered the 4000 war chariots of the Catevellauni in a land "protected by forests and marshes, and filled with a great number of men and cattle." He defeated the Catevellauni and then withdrew, though not before establishing treaties and alliances. Thus began the Roman occupation of Britain.

Nearly 100 years later, in 43 AD, the Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Plautius and about 24,000 soldiers to Britain, this time to establish control under a military presence. Although subjugation of southern Britain proceeded fairly smoothly by a combination of military might and clever diplomacy, and by 79 AD what is now England and Wales were firmly under control, the far North remained a problem. However, the Emperor Vespasian decided that what is now Scotland should also be incorporated into the Roman Empire. Under his instructions the governor of Britian, Julius Agricola, subdued the Southern Scottish tribal clans, the Selgovae, Novantae and Votadini by 81 AD. Further to the North lived loose associations of clans known collectively as the Caledonians. Agricola tried to provoke them into battle by marching an army into the Highlands eventually forcing a battle with the Caledonian leader Calgacus in present day Aberdeenshire at a place called Mons Graupius. 30,000 Caledonians were killed, but the Roman victory was a hollow one, for the next day the surviving clansmen melted away into the hills, and were to remain fiercely resistant and independent.
The Roman Empire

By the time Hadrian became Emperor in 117 AD the Roman Empire had ceased to expand. Hadrian was concerned to consolidate his boundaries. He visited Britain in 122 AD, and ordered a wall to be built between the Solway Firth in the West and the River Tyne in the east "to separate Romans from Barbarians".

The Iceni were a Celtic tribe living in eastern Britain. Due to flourishing trade across the English Channel with the Roman empire, King Prasutagus became a rich and powerful client of the Romans.

After his death, his widow Boudicca became Queen of the Iceni. But Roman administrators started treating the people like slaves, publicly whipping Boudicca and raping her two daughters in an effort to break the peoples' spirit.

Instead these actions caused Boudicca to lead a revolt of the Iceni and several other tribes which lasted for several months. The Boudiccan forces burned and destoyed three major towns of Londinium (London), Verulamium (St. Albans), and Camulodunum (Colchester), killing many thousands of citizens.

The revolt was eventually suppressed by the Roman military governor, Suetonius Paullinus, at which point Boudicca killed herself rather then be taken captive. The Iceni were relocated and kept under close military guard. The story is told in the Annals of Tacitus, written about forty years later.

The Celtic Druids were one of the more intriguing societies in western civilization. The Celts, actually a mix of races with similar cultures, first appeared in Britain as early as 2000 B.C. In fact, some scholars hold that they were the ones responsible for Stonehenge. Their society was fairly rigid, though just; a complicated system determined how land was distributed among its members, and the old, the sick, and the poor were given ample assistance by the rest of the community.

Although the Celts were really a rabble of disparate tribes, they were bound together by their religion, that of the Druids. Their Druid priests taught that the soul was immortal, thus implying reincarnation, but more importantly they were the magistrates and knowledge-keepers of the land, holding civilization together.

((ooc: I knew I'd forgotten something...))

Most people believe the Celtic peoples to be the true natives of Britain, but in fact they were the first of the several waves of invaders of the small, damp isle. During the Iron Age, prior to the Celtic invasion (circa 500-100 BCE), Britain was occupied by the native people of what is now considered Wales. The Celts were, in fact, part of a large conquering empire that stretched across much of northern Europe, known as the Keltoi by the ancient Greeks. All of this is conjecture from archaeological finds, as none of the pre-Roman peoples of Britain had a written language.

Megalithic Monuments

The term can be used to describe buildings erected by people from many parts of the world living in many different periods. In the early 20th century, some scholars believed that all megaliths belonged to one global "Megalithic culture" (Hyperdiffusionism, e. g. by Grafton Elliot Smith and William James Perry), but this has long been disproved by modern dating methods.

In Western Europe and the Mediterranean, megaliths are generally constructions erected during the Neolithic or late stone age and Chalcolithic or Copper Age (4500 - 1500 B.C.E). Perhaps the most famous megalithic structure is Stonehenge in England, although many others are known throughout the world.

The French Comte de Caylus was the first to describe the Monuments of Carnac. Legrand d'Aussy introduced the terms menhir and dolmen, both taken from the Breton language, into antiquarian terminology. He interpreted megaliths as gallic tombs.

Many megalithic monuments were burial mounds which were often re-used by different generations. The chambered cairn is a common type of collective tomb. Some of these are passage graves generally built of drystone walling and/or megaliths often with a round burial chamber in a round mound with a straight passage leading out. Gallery graves have a long megalithic chamber with parallel sides often in a long mound with an entrance at one end.

Many megaliths were thought to have a purpose in determining important astronomical events such as the solstice and equinox dates (see archaeoastronomy). Cup marks on megaliths have been thought by some to represent stars and thus to show the stellar orientation of megalithic sites.

Not long after the beginning of Stone Age agriculture, something dramatic but mysterious took place along the western coasts of Europe. From the Canary Islands, Spain, and Portugal to Brittany, Ireland, Britain up to the northern Scottish isles, and parts of Scandinavia, large, skillfully built stone structures began to appear from early in the fifth millennium B.C.

Among the oldest and most impressive are great chambered mounds, such as New Grange in Ireland, Maes Howe on the main Orkney island, and the smaller Bryn Celli Ddu in Anglesea. Their main feature is a passageway, walled and roofed with large stones, leading to an inner stone cavern, sometimes with side chambers, buried deep within a dome-shaped mound of earth and stone. Archaeologists refer to them as tombs, but that was certainly not the limit of their function. Westminster Abbey, for example, is full of old bones but cannot be described as a mere tomb or reliquary. Particularly in Ireland, some of the stones within and around the mounds are inscribed with patterns or symbols. Their meaning is unknown, but in Martin Brennan's book "The Stars and the Stones," it is shown that some of the symbols are picked out by rays of light or shadow at particular times of the year. Brennan also shows that the passages into the mounds are so oriented that at a certain date they allow a light beam from the sun or moon to penetrate into the inner recesses of the chamber. New Grange, for example, receives the light of the rising sun at midwinter. This interplay of light and darkness with the carved symbols on the walls of the inner chamber suggests that the buildings were used for purposes other than burials: for recording seasons and astronomical cycles and as places of vigil and initiation. Rather than tombs, perhaps, they might be called temples.

Lily turns in her homework.

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History of Medieval England - Thursday 6th Period: Discussion 1: Introduction and Pre-history to 500

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