THE BRITONS IN LATE ANTIQUITY

425 Pages·2015·2.03 MB·English

by  Edwin Richard Hustwit

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Secondary Sources 382

List of Abbreviations
ASE: Anglo-Saxon England
AC : Archaeologia Cambrensis

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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)

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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

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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.

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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.
This thesis further owes a debt of inspiration to Leslie Alcock and John Morris, whose
respective works, Arthur’s Britain and the Age of Arthur, demonstrated to a (much) younger
Arthurian enthusiast that the study of ‘Dark Age’ Britain was both fascinating and possible.
Thanks are also due to my fellow Bangor postgraduates, who were always ready to distract
me with trips to the pub and other delights.
Last and by no means least, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my parents, Alison and Britain,
without whose love and support none of this would be possible. This thesis is dedicated to
them. Oh, yes, and, of course, the Pooch: who on earth could forget her!

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