Saint Germanus of Auxerre and the End of Roman Britain

137 Pages·1988·3.597 MB·English

by  Edward Arthur Thompson

Studies in Celtic History VI
SAINT GERMANUS OF AUXERRE
AND THE END OF ROMAN BRITAIN
STUDIES IN CELTIC HISTORY
General editor David Dumville
I • THE SAINTS OF GWYNEDD
Molly Miller
II • CELTIC BRITAIN IN THE EARLYM^DDLE AGES
Kathleen Hughes
III • THE INSULAR LATIN GRAMMARIANS
Vivien Law
IV • CHRONICLES AND ANNALS OF
MEDIAEVAL IRELAND AND WALES
Kathryn Grabowski & David Dumville
V • GILDAS: NEW APPROACHES
M. Lapidge & D. Dumville (edd.)
Forthcoming
VII • FROM KINGS TO WARLORDS
Katherine Simms
VIII • THE CHURCH AND THE WELSH BORDER
IN THE CENTRAL MIDDLE AGES
Christopher Brooke
In preparation
GILDAS IN THE MIDDLE AGES
David Dumville (ed.)
NAVIGATIO SANCTI BRENDANI
Giovanni Orlandi
AN INTRODUCTION TO VITAE SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE
Richard Sharpe
SAINT GERMANUS
OF AUXERRE
AND
THE END OF
ROMAN BRITAIN
E. A. THOMPSON
THE BOYDELL PRESS
© E. A. Thompson 1984
First published 1984 by
The Boydell Press
an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF
ISSN 0261 - 9865
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Thompson, E.A.
Saint Germanus of Auxerre and the end of
Roman Britain.—(Studies in Celtic history,
ISSN 0261-9865; v.6)
1. Germanus, Saint, Bishop of Auxerre
2. Great Britain—History—Roman period,
55b.c.-449A.D. 3. Great Britain—
Politics and government—To 1485
I. Title II. Series
941.0L3 DA145.3.G4
ISBN 0-85115-405-0
Printed in Great Britain by
St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Contents
General Editor's Foreword vii
Preface ix
I Introduction 1
II Constantius on Britain, Gaul, and Italy 7
III Religion in Britain 15
IV Government 26
V The Battle against the Piets and Saxons 39
VI Geography Real and Imaginary 47
VII The Date of the Second Visit to Britain 55
VIII Armorica 71
IX Constantius 78
X After Germanus 91
Bibliography 116
Index 123

General Editor’s Foreword
In this sixth volume of Studies in Celtic History we return to that ever
compelling theme, the end of Roman Britain. Here we approach it from a text
which has never before been made the centre-piece of a book-length study, the
Life of St Germanus, bishop ofAuxerre by Constantius of Lyon. A fifth-century text
about a fifth-century subject, and (what’s more) one which has occasion to
refer to events in Britain, is not to be lightly set aside. It is perhaps all the more
remarkable, then, that since the controversies of the early twentieth century so
little close attention has been devoted to Constantius’s book. No doubt there is
more of importance to be discovered about the history of the text. But
Professor Thompson has taken Wilhelm Le vison’s edition as a basis for
discussion and has launched into a thorough examination of Constantius’s
evidence for the history of the fifth-century West, and of Britain in particular.
The results are fascinating. Professor Thompson has brought his accumu­
lated experience of forty years’ reading and analysis of late Latin historical
sources to bear on Constantius’s efTorts. Sometimes the reader will wince as
Constantius’s faults are exhibited for public display. But no one will come
away from this book without a fundamentally better grasp of this important
text and of the place of. its evidence in the historian’s reconstruction of
fifth-century life. The qualities which have made Professor Thompson one of
the leading — and controversial - exponents of the history of late Roman and
sub-Roman Europe are all displayed here to the full. His studies of the Huns,
of the Goths in their various manifestations, of the other Germanic peoples
who penetrated the late Empire, and of the host-provinces have become
classics. For some years now it has been becoming apparent that he has
saved up for his retirement an assault on the literary sources for the history of
fifth-century Britain. While occasional publications on this subject stretch
back into the 1950s, since 1977 a steady flow of his papers has challenge«!
assumptions and interpretations dear to students of British history. With a
fresh eye, a Continental comparative perspective, and a closeness to text
which others could well imitate, he has given a new impetus to historical
study of the period.
It is difficult to know whether ancient or modern authors have been
exposed to greater stress by this onset. Certainly, students of the period have
been greatly challenged. And that process is carried remorselessly forward in
this book. An assessment is achieved, tentatively at times but presented
vii
always in a lively and amusing style, of Constantius’s Life of St Germanus and
especially of its evidence for the history of Armorica and Britain. We are
enabled to see Constantius’s strengths and weaknesses, to discover some­
thing of his sources and methods.. And there is clear gain here for our
understanding of fifth-century Britain. Yet while this study proceeds from a
close reading and analysis of the key-text, nonetheless Professor Thompson
also allows such a consideration to form the basis for wide-ranging discussion
of critical issues. The proponents of ‘continuity’ between (sub-)Roman and
Anglo-Saxon in fifth-century Britain will find their most basic assumptions
under ferocious attack. Those who have developed extended theories of the
history of Anglo-Saxon kingship must now contend wi^i Professor Thompson’s
insistence that the evidence is against the Saxons^ living under kingly rule at
the time of their settlement in Britain.
That the Britons of southern and eastern England were for the most part
slaughtered or driven from their homes in a period beginning in the mid-fifth
century is an old and very unfashionable idea which begins to live strongly
again as a result of Professor Thompson’s ministrations. It is not the only
aspect of his book which will provoke a reaction. He does not claim to have
said the last word about Constantius’s evidence and indeed it is clear that
there are other aspects of the Life of St Germanus which will repay study.
Professor Thompson has stressed heavily a particular aspect of Constantius’s
hagiography; the author’s intentions in the work as a whole, and in
particular sections, remain a question for further research. In volume 5 of
this series, which Professor Thompson had not seen when he wrote his book,
it was questioned whether Constantius’s ‘Hallelujah victory’ was even to be
taken at face-value. The extent of the rhetorical, literary element in
Constantius’s writing remains to be determined. And some may think that
Professor Thompson’s discussion of Constantius's account of St Germanus’s
second visit to Britain could be held to provide a detailed underpinning of
Nora Chadwick’s theory that it was a mere doublet of the narrative of the
visit of429, a hypothesis which has perhaps never received from students the
detailed consideration which it deserves. That would not be Professor
Thompson’s view: indeed he locks the account of the second visit into a
compelling argument that the death of St Germanus in Italy occurred as
early as A.D. 437.
For the student of the late Roman and early mediaeval world, this book
offers much original food for thought. Among old favourites like the
Bacaudae, one will find new objects of Thompsonian criticism like the British
Pelagians. One can only wonder where the author will strike next. In the
meantime, the general editor would like to record his pleasure at being able
to act as host to this particularly fascinating contribution to an irresistibly
attractive field of study.
David Dumville
Girton College, Cambridge
September 1983
VIII
Preface
It is strange that students of Roman Britain have paid so little attention to
Constantius’s Life of St Germanus of Auxerre. We cannot afTord to ignore any
ancient author who speaks at some length about Britain, and yet British
scholars have rarely lingered over Constantius’s Life. It can hardly be that
they think this limpid narrative to call for no criticism, for the narrative is
anything but limpid. On the contrary, the monstrous difficulties of inter­
preting works of hagiography may well have discouraged even the stoutest
hearts among students of fifth-century Britain. For my part, I have more
than once almost given up in despair, feeling myself driven from time to time
to conclude that Constantius’s chapters on Britain are worthless, that we
cannot even be wholly sure (to cite one example only) that Germanus visited
the island twice, and that Nora Chadwick may have been right when she
suggested that the second visit is a mere doublet of the first. And yet, here
and there in the British narrative, there are assertions which cannot easily be
written off as mere inventions - the man of tribunician power, for instance,
and the unparalleled combination of Piets and Saxons who failed to fight at
Easter 429 (though in communicating with one another they overcame a
mountainous language-barrier), and the latinised Greek name of Elafius, the
only fifth-century Briton whom Constantius. mentions by name.
In my opinion, then, it is difficult to resist the twin conclusion that
Constantius knew certain facts about the visit or visits of Germanus to
Britain and that his account cannot be wholly written off as worthless. But
how much he knew and to what extent we can trust his words are questions
of the darkest obscurity. I have stated my general conclusions on the value of
the Life in the ‘Introduction’ to this book, but it would be folly to claim that
other judgments may not be equally, or almost equally, tenable. And so
throughout the book: the nature of the evidence is such that I have repeatedly
set out conclusions though feeling that they may be to some extent subjective
and that other students of Constantius might with much justice reach other
conclusions. But that is the common fate of those who study the Lives of the
saints; and perhaps my book will induce others to set out other and better
conclusions on the religion, politics, historical geography, and so on, of
Britain in the dismal years when, in the words of Constantius, ‘the mag­
nificent Aetius was governing the republic’.
IX
My warm thanks are due to Professor Robert Markus (Nottingham) and
to the general editor of the series. I blush to think of the number and the size
of the mistakes from which they saved me. But they are in no way to blame
for the mistakes which remain, or for the conclusions reached, or for the
heretical opinions which I have championed.
E. A. Thompson
July 1983