The Foundation of Britain’s Feudal System

By Eifion Wyn Williams

It was believed during my schooldays, that the first wave of so-called ‘Celtic’ settlers to Britain arrived in the Late Bronze Age, roughly between 1500 BC and 1000 BC. These early arrivals were thought to be the precursor for what became a long-established tradition of feudal and tribal Kingship, and which then spread across the country. Recent archeological findings, and the latest DNA analysis of Britain’s inhabitants have overturned these ‘invasion’ or ‘influx’ theories. It seems we aboriginal people of Britain have little connection to the Continental ‘Celts’, and that we have been here since the end of the last ice-age, tens of thousands of years ago!

In recent years chainmail armour was found to be a British invention, and even the iconic, curving and leaf-shaped swords attributed to the Celts, have since been proved to be a British creation. These were subsequently exported to Gaul and elsewhere around the world, along with so much more. Druidry is thought to have followed the same course, and we can only guess at what other concepts, theories and inventions from this period were British/Brythonic, and then mislabeled over following generations as Celtic.

The most obvious and most recent confirmation of this ‘aboriginal’ theory came from DNA analysis of ‘Cheddar Man’, and whose remains date back to the corresponding Mesolithic period, roughly 11,000 years ago. Mitochondrial DNA samples of this stone-age hunter have found to be a close match to a man, currently living in a village not far from the cave in the Cheddar Gorge, and where this ‘oldest-of-all complete skeletons’ was found. So, those ancient, aboriginal Brythons are still here!

These ‘heroic-age’, Brythonic Kingdoms in this ancient period, almost always came to form the ancestral birthright locations of later, post-Roman Brythonic Kings. Their histories and achievements, their land boundaries and family lineages would have been fiercely protected by their Bards and passed down through the generations. The Brythonic warrior class were known to place a great deal of importance on their paternal lineage and being able to recite one's ancestors for many generations’ past would have been a given.

My Welsh history included the writing of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who in his History of the Kings of Britain tapped into this ancient and oral history carried forward by the Druids and then later by the Bards of this country. He greatly extended this earlier ‘word-of-mouth’ knowledge, attempting to list the lineage of all the kings of Britain who had reigned after the somewhat mythical arrival of one Brutus Greenshield from Rome. This long, ruling-line of Proto-Welsh Brythons ‘officially’ remained up to AD 689, when the end of Gwynedd's (Venedotia) attempts to regain Lloygr; the territory lost to the Anglo-Saxons, signaled to many that the time of the Brythons had come to an end.

The following list is far from complete, as there were many blanks and omissions in the surviving lists. It should not then be taken as being historically accurate, but it does form a framework for the known progenitors to these king’s and their descendants. Geoffrey of Monmouth championed the untraceable Brutus Greenshield as progenitor to this line (a political proposal?), but older Welsh sources offer an alternative, and the very namesake of this country; Prydein ap Aedd Mawr.

Aedd Mawr is purported by those ancient Brythonic scholars, to be the first tribal hunter-chieftain to have arrived with the melting ice and to have successfully settled here, naming these new lands he’d discovered for his son and heir; Prydein. Who knows, it may be Aedd Mawr’s remains that were discovered in Gough’s Cave Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, back in 1903, or perhaps it was his son’s; Prydein. That just boggles the mind….

The listed lineage (with exceptions and omissions); ‘ap’ = son of.
Beli ap Manogan ap Eneid ap Cerwyd ap Crydon ap Dyfnarth (285 BC) ap Cherin ap Porrex (II) ap Millus ap Elidyr ap Peredur ap Ingenius ap Archgallo ap Kinarius ap Guithelin ap Gurguit-Barbtruc ap Belenos-Hên/Belinus (387 BC) ap Dyfnwal ap Dunfallo ap Cloten ap Rudaucus ap Staterius ap Pinner ap Ferrex/Porrex ap Corodubic ap Kimarcus ap Iago ap Sisillius ap Gurgastius ap Rifallo ap Cuneglas (750 BC) ap Marganus ap Leir ap Bladud ap Rud-Hud-Hudibras ap (Brutus Geenshield) - or, Prydein ap Aedd Mawr.

They must have been an impressive line of warlords, as their offspring became the uncontested rulers of Cymbri and all Prydein. One of these Kings name’s stands out, and he was Beli Mawr. Marrying Dôn, (the mythical Math ap Mathonwy’s daughter) Beli becomes high king of Cymru and all Britain. They blessed Britain with six impressive children, and who went on to form a cornerstone of Welsh and British history. Beli and Dôn’s five remarkable sons; Lludd Llaw Ereint, Caswallawn Fawr, Rianaw, Nynniaw and Llefelys (heroes of Mabinogion fame) wrote their own glorious history in the annals of Britain, when they banded together for the first time in history to repel the invasion forces of one Julius Caesar.

Caesar’s Invasions in 55 & 54 BC.

The Tusculum portrait. The only known bust of
Gaius Julius Caesar sculpted whilst still alive
Attribution Link

The only surviving texts from of these invasions, were written by Caesar himself and are well known. In later Welsh manuscripts, the age-old oral tradition had been written down, and their contents made contentious and controversial reading to contemporary historians;

The allies’ first, major contact with Caesar following his landing was made on at a flat plain of land, and near a stronghold known as CaerCant, (Canterbury Fort, Kent suggested). During this battle, King Nynniaw was able to bring Caesar to single combat. In this swordfight, Nynniaw was struck a terrible blow to the head and by Caesar himself, part of which was stopped by his shield and his helmet, but Caesar’s legendary Gladius had stuck-fast to Nynniaw’s shield-rim. Nynniaw then threw down his own sword and claimed the Roman gladius from his split shield. This infamous son of Beli Mawr went on to slaughter many Romans with Caesar’s own blade. Rumours were rife at the time that ‘Caesar the Treacherous’ had poisoned his blade, as all who had been injured by it on the field of battle subsequently died, as did Nynniaw himself, many days later and in fevered agony. Caesar’s poisoned gladius was labelled ‘Crocea Mors’ by the Brythons, meaning yellow or ruddy-death and was eternally cursed.  

It seems Caesar just about escaped with his life on that first incursion in 55 BC, and regardless of his later personal reports written in comfort and with the benefit of hindsight, he was given a thorough trouncing on the fields and beaches of Kent by the allied Brythons.

Sadly or happily depending on your viewpoint, Caesar’s second invasion the following year was far more successful. Caswallawn, in his infinite wisdom and his hubris had decided he didn’t need the Northern Triad to help him, even though they were declared eager and ready to make the long journey south again in defence of Britain. Caswallawn in his arrogance had declared that his forces alone could repel the Romans once and for all. This ‘Northern Exclusion’ was a massive insult to the northern tribes after all they had done in the first invasion, and it must have caused uproar and eternal resentment toward the southern states. (It may have even been the ancient inspiration for Britain’s current north-south, cultural divide). Despite Caswallawn’s fortifications of LludsDun, the Thames approaches and many parts of coastal Kent, and regardless of his courage and leadership, the shambles of this second defence, and the internecine and treacherous, shameful backstabbing which ensued remains a sad and pivotal point. 

In this writer’s humble opinion, it marked the ending of the natural development of ancient Brythonic tradition, the culture and even the way-of-life in mainland Britain. Eventually, it changed the form and manner of Britons themselves. Regardless of those southern tribes’ shameful supplication to Rome, Brythonic Britain had almost a century to organise itself prior to the true Roman invasion of 43 AD, but they spent this time mostly adopting the culture, dress and attitudes of Rome, fighting each other and manoeuvring for more personal power, land and wealth. A cynical, technological age had come to replace a mythical, magical era, and nothing in Britain would ever be the same again, but hey; at least the roads got sorted out!

Again this was the prevailing history when I went to school, and which was entirely at odds with my handed-down Welsh history. Current thinking by leading archaeologists and historians on the period have also questioned the age-old and accepted wisdom of Rome’s gifts to ancient Britain. Did Rome bring us civilisation, medicine, education, roads, law and so-much more? In this writer’s humble opinion, they only brought their own versions of these things. We had all these concepts, teachings and advancements in Britain long before the arrival of Caesar. Our traditions and our laws were developed in our own way, and in our own style over countless generations. In-fact our glorious, unmatched culture stretched back tens of thousands of years uninterrupted, long-before the arrival on one Gaius Julius Caesar and centuries before Rome was even founded. The Romans only ever brought us the ‘cross of woe’ and almost four hundred years of brutal oppression, subsuming and destroying our own forms of art, education, construction and all the other things we were brilliant at before the Roman conquest. I think our Brythonic ancestors would have flourished had the Romans not invaded us so brutally and then stayed for so long. For example; an iron-age drover’s road in Britain was equal to anything the Romans built, and these superior roads would have criss-crossed ancient Britain since the onset of farming.

From: A Bronze Age road in Shropshire (Copyright © 2015 Edward Watson)

‘Excavation of ancient trackways is relatively rare but one event recently produced some interesting finds that have a significant bearing on the argument of the origin of Roman roads in Britain.

Archaeological evidence shows that well planned structures were being built from Neolithic times, through wet areas at least, such as the Sweet Track in the Somerset levels, itself laid over an earlier track. Increasingly sophisticated structures of timber and imported stone are found during the Bronze Age, as at Eton Rowing Lake (Berkshire), Fiskerton (Lincolnshire), Fengate/Flag Fen (Cambridgeshire), and several examples in the Thames estuary. Even gridded and metalled (gravelled) streets have been found in the later Iron Age tribal centres at Danebury and Silchester (Hampshire), from around 400 BC. The Romans certainly used these pre-historic trackways that followed escarpments, banks and ditches, which they straightened and engineered, combining short sections as necessary to provide direct routes as instruments of conquest. However, archaeological excavation has revealed that carefully surveyed and engineered, all-weather rural roads were not exclusive to Roman technology.’
Source; https://clasmerdin.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-ancient-highways-of-britain.html


From: The Institute for Creation Research: ‘Archaeologists uncovered the remains of a well-maintained and well-built British road beneath an ancient Roman road in 2011. This evidence contrasts what modern texts teach about primitive-pagan peoples inhabiting the land before Caesar conquered it, and even draws into question the long ages of human development suggested by evolution.

The ancient road, just south of Shrewsbury, was cobbled and even engineered with a camber for draining off water. The Daily Mail reported, "[It] even has a kerb fence system to hold the edge in place."1 Researchers used carbon-dating to determine its pre-Roman status.’

Source; https://www.icr.org/article/british-pre-roman-roads-lead-genesis


So, we are not the mongrel offspring of stone-age Caucasian or Gael invaders after all, nor are we Roman, Saxon or Norman equivalents. We are Brythonic/British aboriginal people. We always have been, and it’s high time we adopted the term Brythonic in our history teachings regarding ancient Britain and consigned the word Celt back over the channel to Gaul where it belongs, once and for all.

~~~~~~~~~~

Eifion Wyn Williams was brought-up in Snowdonia by a family of teachers, historians and poets. His Taid (Grandfather) was an orator and a storyteller of note, and the whole family would listen to his historical tales of dark Druids, and magic, glimmering warriors like Lludd Llaw Ereint (silver hand) and Lleu Llaw Gyffes (agile handed), both of whom feature in Eifion’s recent writing. A common character in one of Taid’s tales was a huge and terrifying giant called Yspaddaden Pencawr, who incidentally lived locally and actually ate naughty children! Eifion recently turned his focus to his Taid’s stories, the result of which is a historical trilogy entitled Iron Blood & Sacrifice, He hopes that they will appeal to a broad readership, as they are novels of adventure, love and bloody conquest at the end of the day, and with a large slice of romanticism throughout from a hopelessly romantic Brython.

Amazon Author’s Page; https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B077CVBL2F

Women of the Middle Ages: Wimples, Veils, and Head-rails -Part I

By Paula Lofting                        

To Wear or not to wear a wimple

Boudicca
Public Domain

Mention women in the early middle ages and one often thinks of women wearing long silken head-rails with long braids, ribbons intertwined, but mention the dark ages, and it conjures up women with free-flowing locks that fly like banners behind them as they ride their chariots, pulled by wild, dark age ponies. This might have been so in pagan times, but even then, women would have worn some sort of head covering, especially for practical uses, like when working. These were times when long hair, if not contained, might cause life or death situations, like having your hair catch aflame when leaning over the cooking pot. I can imagine as it is now, finding long strands of hair in your stew would not have been very appealing. It was also a way of avoiding lice or getting other creepy crawlies caught up in it. However, it wasn't unknown in Christian times, when it was considered unseemly to have one's hair uncovered, to find images of unveiled women. Below is a reconstruction of Pictish stone carving with a high-status woman riding side-saddle, her hair uncovered.

 Photo Originally uploaded by
Deacon of Pndapetzim CC BY-SA 2.5 

We know that in Europe, in the medieval period, women did cover their hair, and that the origins of the moral code behind it lay in the early Christian church. This whole thing about women having to cover their hair for moralistic purposes within monotheistic religions, began in the middle-east. But what of the western nations who had only just adopted the monotheist ideology? Did they directly attempt to replicate the women of the eastern countries, or was there some other philosophy that women should cover their hair to the western provinces of the developing Christian world?

If we look back through history, the earliest documentation of the code seems to have first been promoted by St Paul. Paul, who was both a Jew and a Roman citizen, is thought to be the first apostle who spread the teachings of Christ throughout Asia Minor and Europe. He preached that women should cover their hair as submission to their husbands and when praying in church. In a letter to Timothy, he stated that women should dress modestly and not with 'broided' (meaning twined, braided) hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. But Paul was not the only one who lectured women on their modesty. Tertullian, a theologian writing in 200 AD, wrote that St Paul was not just referring to married women, but 'all women of age', most likely meaning those who had reached puberty. He admonishes those women who do not cover the whole of their head, leaving their ears and neck exposed. It seems that in covering the whole of one’s head, women were avoiding being gazed at, and were also encouraged to be ‘entirely’ covered, unless they were at home. Thus, it was the responsibility of women to ensure that they did not fall prey to sin, or to the lust of men, not the other way around, as according to the writings of Clement of Alexandria.

Alaric enters Rome [Public Domain]

The middle ages, it seems, started post the destruction of the Roman empire, so early 5thc, and ends, roughly, and depending on whose school of thought you prefer, the battle of Bosworth. Nice tidy dates there to follow without any blurring of boundaries. A sure beginning can be put in 410 AD, and the end, August 22nd 1485. I like those dates. So, what was happening in Britain at that time? According to the annals, Rome advised the administrators their most northern province, to look to their own defences, when they asked for help against invaders. Rome had left Britain’s shores for the last time, and they were not coming back. The barbarian was at their door. So those left behind would have been a mixture of British and Roman stock, but those Romans could have come from anywhere. They might have been retired legionnaires, settled, and married to British women. But just because a new epoch was about to start, didn’t mean that Roman life disintegrated overnight. Roman life in some semblance still continued into the 6thc as archaeological evidence shows.

When the exact date was of the arrival of Christianity in Britain, is not known, however, it is apparent both in archaeological and textual sourced that it was well established by the 5thc. Literature suggests that Roman women were required to cover their hair in public when walking out, but the evidence of images at this time in Britain suggests otherwise. Perhaps if the doctrine of hair-covering for modesty had reached these shores, it was not fully enforced.

The Pictish Hilton of Cadbol stone, in the picture above, which dates to around 800AD, has a Christian cross on one side of it, and a secular riding scene on the other, with a high-status lady riding side saddle, her hair uncovered. This is a reconstruction of the stone to show you clearer detail of what she is wearing and how her hair looks. It is not known who she is, but on her right are a mirror and a comb, indicative of her gender. It looks very much like a hunting scene, and the fact that she is riding side-on is intriguing, but the main delight is the way her hair is depicted in cascading waves down her back. It is fascinating, that even as late as this time, the Christian doctrine of wearing veils for modesty was not necessarily in play this far north, though it could be artistic licence. And it does not mean that the rule for church did not apply when it came to prayer time.

Reenactor, Rhydian Jones states, “If you’re on the east coast north of the Forth prior to 850 AD (ish) and doing Pictish (reenactment), the majority of evidence is that women wore their hair uncovered, and frequently wore a large cloak/shawl fastened in the centre of the chest with a penannular brooch… The bigger the brooch the posher you are.” The lady on the stone does seem to have a very large brooch. This cloak could have been pulled up over her head to provide extra warmth in inclement weather. Also, seperate hoods have been indicated also.

A cap showing the Sprang technique used by
Germanic women Photo by
Lyllyundfreya CC By-SA 30

In looking at the evidence for headdress in early the middle ages, in what was later to become England, it seems that the evidence, both archaeological and documented are scarce and what evidence there might be is debatable. That’s not to say that veils weren’t worn, just that there is a paucity of evidence. As I have said earlier, I believe that women wore head-coverings of some sort even in pagan times for the reasons I had previously mentioned, and not just for modesty. Among the dubious evidence found are small rings that might have been used for braid fasteners, but generally the consensus is that these are not practical for such a purpose. Gold brocaded fillets have also been found, but it is not known if they were worn to secure a veil, or worn without the veil.

To find evidence of what women in the British Isles might have worn on their heads, we need to look to their counterparts abroad: It is known that Germanic women in ancient Scandinavia wore caps, samples from bronze and iron age have been found to be woven in sprang, an ancient technique used in Denmark and other parts of the ancient world that made them look like hairnets. An example was found on the body of a girl recovered from the Arden Mose wearing hers over 2 coiled plaits of hair.

The Arden girl's hair [Public Domain]
via Wikimedia Commons

There is no evidence of sprang technique being used by Anglo-Saxon women though the technique was known in Britain. Drawstring-style caps were found to be worn on the figures of women wearing a Menimane Rhineland costume dated from the 5th/6th centuries. It is likely that these types of caps might have been worn in Anglo-Ssxon areas at this time.

Women in Iron Age Denmark regularly wore scarves. A bog body was found wearing a scarf at Huldremose, 1.37 metres long and 49 cm wide with fringed ends. Anglo-Saxon women may have worn similar types of veils/scarves and tabby-woven material has been found on the backs of brooches. The Merovingian queen, Arnegundis, was found in her tomb with a long red satin veil, secured by two small pins at her temples. This long veil was quite common in this period. Arnegundis seems to have favoured a longer, elaborate veil that might have been crossed over the breast and pinned, and hung over an arm. A parallel for this veil was found in the grave of the woman at Mill Hill, in Deal, Kent. Two clips have also been found like the Merovingian woman at the sides of a woman’s head in Cambridgeshire, showing that the fashion might have travelled to south-eastern parts of England. To view an reconstruction of Arnegundis' burial outfit, check this link

There is a considerable amount of linguistic evidence for head gear in Anglo-Saxon:

Haet, - AS for hat.
Cuffie - a loose fitting hood.
Scyfel - a hat or a cap with a projection.
Binde – a fillet. Binde may have been the name for the gold-brocaded fillet that a very few 6thc c women wore. Cloth ones would have left no trace.
Snod – Snood in AS in Old Norse - hofuthbond

So, in summarising, where the western world is concerned, it seems the nearer to Rome and the Orthodox Christian region, the more likely that head-covering was worn, mostly in respect of church teachings. We have seen that there is less evidence for wearing head-coverings than there is for not, and less archaeological evidence than documented or art. But we cannot discount the wearing of headwear for practical reasons, such as for work or for hygiene as opposed to following a religious moral code, but this does not increase the lack of finds.

The next post in the Wimples, Veils, and Head-rails, we venture down our time tunnel to focus on the centuries between the late 7th – 9th centuries. Please join me in this fascinating adventure to find out what we can about women in this time of so-called darkness, and shine a light on their lives.

References

Tertullian, The Veiling of the Virgins, The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol.4 pp27-29,33.

Clement of Alexandria.

Rhydian Jones

Further reading

http://www.vikingage.org/wiki/wiki/Main_Page

Owen-Crocker G.R. 2004 Dress In Anglo-Saxon England The Boydell Press, UK.

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Paula Lofting is an author and a member of the re-enactment society Regia Anglorum, where she regularly takes part in the Battle of Hastings. Her first novel, Sons of the Wolf, is set in eleventh-century England and tells the story of Wulfhere, a man torn between family and duty. The sequel, The Wolf Banner is available now. Paula is currently working on the third book in the series, Wolf's Bane

Find Paula on her Blog
on her Amazon Author Page

Foods the Romans brought to Britain

by Cindy Tomamichel

The Roman Empire spanned a great deal of the known world in ancient times, acting as a conduit for the spread of Roman culture. After the invasion and occupation of AD 43-410, Britain would never be the same. For its people and the environment, the Romans brought new ideas and foods, many of which have become staples of culinary tradition.

There are a variety of information sources by which a picture of the foods of Roman Britain may be reconstructed. There is the actual foodstuff itself, where food such as grains, nuts and bones may be preserved by charring or carbonisation such as during a fire. Preservation by waterlogging occurs within peat bogs and estuaries. Fossilised remnants may also be found in latrines and rubbish heaps, where minerals such as calcium have replaced the structure. Food was also buried in containers in the burial sites of wealthier individuals. Shrine offerings are also another source of food evidence. Food containers may also carry the imprint of their contents.

Other sources include import and export evidence, such as amphorae for wine, oil or garum. Some written sources exist, even for such things as shopping lists, for instance the Vindolanda tablets “... bruised beans, two modii, twenty chickens, a hundred apples, if you can find nice ones, a hundred or two hundred eggs, if they are for sale there at a fair price. ... 8 sextarii of fish-sauce ... a modius of olives ... To ... slave of Verecundus.”

There is some evidence of Roman foods being imported to Britain well before the invasion. However, the invasion created multiple avenues of demand for Roman foods, which expanded the importation significantly. The Roman army was a major consumer, but also the desire to be seen as Roman saw a rise in demand for exotic imports. What in the late Iron Age was a trickle, soon turned to a flood of new foods available during the occupation.

Romans also brought food related ideas. Firstly there was a need to produce food in Britain on the scale required to supply the army. This need, coupled with the Roman habits of building roads and towns soon changed the face of agriculture. From small holdings growing mostly for personal consumption, it changed to larger farms specialising in growing enough of a product for market. The spread of new foods worked a gradual path out from the towns to the surrounding countryside.

In this way many new foods became established. New fruits and nuts included apple, cherry, plum, walnut, mulberries, medlars, and chestnuts. New vegetables were grown such as carrots, beets, garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, cabbages, peas, celery, turnips, radishes, and asparagus. Herbs were both medicinal and for cooking and teas, including poppy, black mustard, rosemary, thyme, garlic, bay, basil, borage and savoury mint. All these established and stayed popular even after the Romans left. Other foods were popular only during the occupation, or just didn’t establish well, such as grapes, figs, pine nuts and olives.

Another way in which plants may arrive is by stealth. The weed seeds are harvested and are within a bag of seed grain, or they are planted and the environment suits them too well and they escape and naturalise. Plants like this include ground elder, white mustard, alexanders, stinging nettles, greater celandine, and fennel.

Grains play a major part in diet and also part of the stability of society. A poor harvest would mean cultural unrest, particularly if the invaders were seen to be consuming large amounts. Grains already in Britain were various types of wheat, barley and oats. With the Romans came both an increased demand and new technology for ploughing and agricultural tools. They also introduced rye, millet and spelt. With the development of a closed field system, cattle could be alternated with crops such as grains, pulses and vegetables, increasing productivity.

Baking ovens are a common feature of Roman fortifications. This is a loaf of bread from a bakery in Pompeii. (source: http://www.pompeii.org.uk/m.php/museo-pistrinum-di-soterico-pompei-it-117-m.htm)

Part of many affluent Roman households was a garden, and perhaps this was the start of the English love of gardens which has spread with them all over the world. A typical house layout had a central courtyard garden, and here decorative plants such as box, foxgloves, mulberries, lilies, violets, pansies and roses would have been grown.

Part of a household might have included animal husbandry areas. For those longing for a taste of home, a snail farm or “cochlea”, would have been established, where imported Roman snails were raised and fattened. They were fed on milk and oats or spelt to purge and fatten them, then cooked in wine, with garum or garlic. Roman snails are still to be found in the UK. Hare gardens with semi domesticated rabbits also existed for fur, hides and supplies of meat. They also built enclosures to keep deer, as well as pigeon enclosures and kept chickens and guinea fowl.

Edible Snail - photo credit Fred Dawson via Visual Hunt /CC-BY-ND

Britain was already exporting beef before the invasion, and goats, sheep, chickens, pigs and deer were also being eaten. Pigeons, quail, geese, pheasant and guinea fowl were likely imported with the Romans. Ham in brine and bacon with their good keeping qualities were important for soldiers on the march.

Amongst the many cultural changes the Romans brought was the change in eating habits. While in the more remote rural areas people probably continued eating stews, roast meat and porridges, in the towns more people adopted Roman dining habits. These are familiar to us today as the three meal arrangement, with breakfast being quite small, a moderate lunch and a larger dinner as evening was for entertaining. Fast food was also a Roman invention, with many small bakeries and food places available for those who could not cook at home, serving things like kebabs and burgers. Bath houses were also popular social hubs were snacks could be purchased.

However diet varied with social status, location and job. Many remote Britons would have continued eating their normal food, perhaps adding some new vegetables, herbs or grains to the mix. The elite would be the major consumers of the imported foods such as wines from Gaul (France), dried dates and olives.

The soldiers had to buy their own food, and had a routine for doing so. They often had their own bread ovens, herds of cows, pigs and managed their own purchase of grains and vegetables. A soldier’s diet was also often supplemented by food sent from home, or by hunting local animals such as boar and deer.

Imported food consisted of things that would not grow or was not available in sufficient quantities. This included dates, almonds, olives and olive oil, wine, pine cones and kernels, fermented fish sauce (liquamen or garum), pepper, ginger and cinnamon.

After the Romans left Britain in AD 410, many aspects of their culture vanished. However, the hardier or more popular of the introduced plants and animals survived, becoming an integral part of the landscape.

Recipes

The main reference for Roman food is the cookbook of Apicius, a Roman epicure of around AD 100. The book is full of recipes for main meals, and often has several variations on a dish or ingredient. While many of the ingredients are probably not to today’s tastes, many of the casserole and vegetable dishes sound interesting. Unfortunately none of the bread recipes he probably had are included.

Milk Fed Snails (Cochleas lacte pastas)–Apicius

After being purged and cleaned, the snails can be fried in oil and served with a wine sauce. Or they could be fried, then made into a soup with broth, adding pepper and cumin.

Vegetable and Brain Pudding (Patina frisilis)- Apicius

Take cooked and mashed vegetables and brains and mash to a fine paste. Add eggs, broth, and wine and place in an oiled baking dish. Bake and sprinkle with pepper when done. 

Libum - Serves 2 (A type of cheesecake) 

10 oz ricotta cheese.
1 egg.
2½ oz plain flour.
Runny honey.

Beat the cheese with the egg and add the sieved flour very slowly and gently. Flour your hands and pat mixture into a ball and place it on a bay leaf on a baking tray. Place in moderate oven (180C/400ºF) until set and slightly risen. Place cake on serving plate and score the top with a cross. Pour plenty of warmed runny honey over the cross and serve immediately. This is similar to a Greek cheesecake, which uses cottage cheese instead of ricotta. (Source: Sally Grainger The Classical Cookbook, published by British Museum Press.)

(Note: a variety of academic and website reference sources were used for this article, please contact the author if details are required.)

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Cindy Tomamichel is a writer of action adventure romance novels, spanning time travel, sci fi, fantasy, paranormal, and sword and sorcery genres. They all have something in common – swordfights! The heroines don’t wait to be rescued, and the heroes earn that title the hard way. 

Her first book, Druid’s Portal: The First Journey will be out with Soul Mate Publishing in 2017. On Amazon May 17th. An action adventure time travel with a touch of romance set in Roman Britain around Hadrian’s Wall.

A portal closed for 2,000 years.

An ancient religion twisted by modern greed.

A love that crosses the centuries.

Contact Cindy on
Website: www.cindytomamichel.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CindyTomamichelAuthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CindyTomamichel
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16194822.Cindy_Tomamichel
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Who Stole Britain’s Sixth Century?

By David Ebsworth 

I paid my first visit to Sixth Century Britain almost fifty years ago. It was Rosemary Sutcliff’s fault, since it was through the pages of A Sword at Sunset that my juvenile “King Arthur’s Round Table” image of the so-called Dark Ages first began to dissolve – the idea dawning that a more “realistic” portrayal of the period may be possible. Soon afterwards, I became an avid reader of Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave and the subsequent novels in that series. Brilliant historical fiction!

But I was troubled. Something about the language. Silly things. Like Mary Stewart’s place names - Dinas Emrys, and Maridunum, as examples. Sutcliff’s use of Yr Widdfa and Eburacum. Lots of other novels based in the period that use names such as Gwynedd or Guenhumara. And, because I have a love of languages and etymology, I began to think the unthinkable. Why would authors writing in modern English use pseudo-Welsh or Latin words for places or people and, in doing so, lose the specific descriptive images that the contemporary “Ancient Welsh” Brythonic language(s) would have conjured up?

And I was troubled by many other things too. So I picked up histories like Laing’s Celtic Britain and The Celtic Realms by Dillon and Chadwick, to find out more. Astonishment. It seemed that those beautiful Celtic manuscript illuminations may not, after all, have been the original invention of some highly creative solitary monk on Iona, but borrowed from a much earlier indigenous literacy; that Romano-Britons probably did know one end of a stylus from the other, and had not simply committed to prodigious memory all of their records in some exaggerated “oral tradition”; that the early Dark Ages may be so-named due to Romano-British documentation being lost to us, rather than never having existed; and that “Arthur” may be no more than the imaginative product of some medieval Tolkien.

These things continued to intrigue me, on and off, over the intervening years but I did little about it until circumstance recently caused me to look again at the years we would now call 540-550 AD. Most of Britain had been occupied by the Roman Empire for a period of roughly 400 years. In the aftermath, how much of Roman administrative culture survived, and how much broke down through local warlords carving out their own domains? We don’t know. And how much did people continue to live as they had done under Roman rule? We don’t know that either but, contrary to some of the “old” history, we can now see, archaeologically, that towns like Canterbury, Cirencester, Chester, Gloucester, Winchester, Wroxeter – and presumably many more – continued to be developed, with new-build taking place, well into the Sixth Century and beyond.

Possible Appearance of Post-Roman Chester

Meanwhile, we can be reasonably certain that, from the Third Century onwards, there had been increasing numbers of continental migrants settling mainly in the south and east of the Britannia provinces. We speculate that some of these may simply have been auxiliaries in the Roman army. Or that they were mercenaries, foederati, employed to fight in the various conflicts that beset the period. Or that they were simply economic migrants – Angles, Saxons and Jutes. This is often portrayed as an “invasion”, but there’s little hard evidence for this. Battles are cited. Dates given. Yet all the sources are questionable, to say the least.

The documents normally taken as “primary sources” for this period are: the De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae of Gildas, originally written, we think, in the early Sixth Century; Saint Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People), written about two hundred years later; the Historia Brittonum, compiled by some anonymous editor we now know as “Nennius”, also allegedly from the Ninth Century, though the actual manuscripts are much later; the so-called Harleian genealogies, the British Library’s Manuscript 3859, itself dating from the Twelfth Century; the Annales Cambriae (The Annals of Wales) with the earliest copy dating from the Twelfth Century; and such Irish documents as the Annals of Tigernach. And then there are even later literary manuscripts – those that are now frequently described as The Four Ancient Books of Wales, priceless as historical artefacts but entirely unreliable as historical sources for the period.

Gildas and De Excidio

That sounds like plenty of resource, yet there are very few who would be brave enough to claim these as providing the same level of “evidence” as we might expect for almost any other period of history. Only the De Excidio is contemporary and, after that, we have maybe five or six documents, scattered over the next 600 years and subject to all manner of copying errors, fashion and culture changes, political and religious tampering, literary adaptation, or simple grapevine misinterpretation. For those writing about the early Anglo-Saxon era of the late Sixth Century onwards, all of the manuscripts detailed above may provide something upon which to bite. But for those writing about the hundred preceding years, and about the very uncertain fate of the Romano-British population, they hold little of real value. So, what “new” details of the period did I discover?

Like almost everything else relating to 6th Century Britain, the extent to which Western Europe was afflicted by famines through an “Extreme Weather Event” of circa 535 AD is disputed. I was satisfied, however, that such a natural catastrophe had actually taken place, bringing widespread starvation in its wake.

Endless Winter - the Extreme Weather Event, approx. 540 AD

Similarly, I was satisfied that it was within the boundaries of possibility that Britain was struck by an outbreak of bubonic plague during the period. Procopius and other contemporaries record the plague as devastating Constantinople in 542 AD and then spreading both east and west. Gildas refers to the pestilence in Britain in the same era, though without dating the attack. The documents now known as Annales Cambriae and the Annals of Tigernach record “a great mortality” – believed to be the same plague – hitting Ireland and Wales at this time.

The third uncertainty I faced was the extent to which Rome’s occupation of Britain had left a legacy that still endured more than a hundred years after the Legions had marched away. The archaeological evidence shows that sites like Wroxeter, Chester and Birdoswald were not only still occupied as towns in the mid-Sixth Century but were also subject to the new-build developments I mentioned earlier. But it was the road system that intrigued me. We all know that the Romans built a sophisticated network of highways and byways across Britain, as they did everywhere within the Empire. So I concluded that the roads in question were likely to have still been very much in use. We are blessed that history has left us the Antonine Itinerary, which describes the Empire’s roads in great detail, including their lengths and distances between way-stations, or mansios. The Iter Britanniarum covers Britain’s section of the network, with a different itinerary for each of fifteen major routes. So, Itinerary XII, for example, covers the journey from Carmarthen to Wroxeter.

In truth, we have no real idea what most locations were called at all in Sixth Century Britain. We can speculate, using those names the Romans adopted from what they thought the locals called them, or by looking back retrospectively from accounts and stories written down only hundreds of years later. But there can be no certainty about any of this without some major new archaeological discovery and research and I still pray that Time Team, or the inestimable Mary Beard, may one day devote time to helping us re-discover the period.

Similarly, we know almost nothing about individuals who lived in Britain during the 6th Century. The same accounts and stories written down hundreds of years later leave us a patchwork of “names” that, on closer inspection, turn out to be, far more likely, titles or praise names, simple shadows, which may never have been anything more, in the first place, than folk-tale characters. My favourite, of course, is Gwenhwyfar – the character we all know as Guenivere or Guenhumara. But even a cursory examination will show us that Gwenhwyfar may not originally have been a name at all, but a title, or description. It means White Enchantress, or similar, and explains why there are so many apparently confusing legends with multiple characters all called Gwenhwyfar. Similarly, there are characters like Peredur (Hard-Spear), Vortigern (High Lord), Vortepor (Lord Protector) and scores of others – perhaps not actual names at all, but maybe praise names or self-styled titles.

And, still on language, I remained intrigued by the lack of primary sources for the period from a “Celtic” viewpoint, and the old myth that indigenous Britons must have only kept their lore, traditions and genealogies orally. Yet there are literally hundreds of inscriptions, revealed by archaeology, dating from around 500 BC onwards, in their own Celtic languages, though using Etruscan, Greek or Latin alphabets. These include entire poems, such as that found in 1887 at Deux-Sèvres – a hymn to the goddess Epona. So, literate Celtic Britons, who then lived alongside the literacy of the Mediterranean world for 400 years, and it seemed entirely inconsistent to me that Romano-Britons should have written no texts on their own history, philosophy and beliefs. And is it pure coincidence that the only fragments of Celtic language texts from the 6th Century are Christian documents, such as the famous An Cathach, attributed to St Columba? Peter Berresford Ellis, in his excellent study, A Brief History of the Celts, provides an entire chapter on Celtic literacy, and cites the references which imply that Saint Patrick, “in his missionary zeal”, burned hundreds of non-Christian texts. If true, then how widespread was the practice of Christians burning “pagan” texts?

All of which brings me back to the only contemporary primary written source for those studying Fifth and early-Sixth Century Britain. This is the text by Gildas called De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Gildas, a Welsh-Breton priest, apparently wrote one hundred and ten historical chapters and admonitions, upon which Bede drew heavily almost two hundred years later – although the oldest actual manuscript of the De Excidio dates from the Eleventh Century. For students of the Dark Ages it’s still invaluable although, over the last hundred years, a growing body of academics and researchers have questioned the authenticity of the work and, at times, whether Gildas was even the author’s real name.

My conclusion, of course, is that the period between 500 AD and 600 AD is effectively a “lost century” in British history. But at least we know with more certainty what happened next. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and other sources confirm the way in which Angles, Saxons and Jutes consolidated territory into the Kingdoms of Northumbria (most of what we now know as northern England), Mercia, Anglia, Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Kent, with the more specifically “Celtic” folk confined to the Southwest, Wales, Cumbria and the lands north of Hadrian’s Wall. According to the Chronicles, there were one or two more battles in the period, like that at Deorham around 577 AD.

But all of the foregoing contrived to give me a series of intriguing premises. What if, indeed, there was no “Arthur” – simply post-Roman warlord rivalries, filling the political vacuum and collectively inspiring the much later legends? What if the Black Hags appearing so often in Celtic mythology were actually the outward symptoms of plague? What if post-Roman Britons were also devastated by the effects of the Extreme Weather Event? What if the “invasions” by Angles, Saxons and Jutes were no more than economic migrations by which those folk, for the most part, were simply the Sixth Century’s answer to labour and skills shortage? What if most of what we’ve been taught about the period comes down to us simply from propaganda aimed essentially at further boosting the development of Christianity in Britain? What if (the corollary), for the same reason, the true record of Romano-British culture and philosophy had to be deliberately expunged?

And what if these things, together, conspired to “steal” Britain’s Sixth Century from us?
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David Ebsworth is the pen name of writer, Dave McCall, a former negotiator and Regional Secretary for Britain's Transport & General Workers’ Union. He was born in Liverpool (UK) but has lived in Wrexham, North Wales, with his wife, Ann, since 1981. Following his retirement, Dave began to write historical fiction in 2009.

His latest and fifth novel, The Song-Sayer's Lament - published earlier this year - brings to life a tale of warlord rivalry, betrayal, plague, heartbreak and famine in a detailed re-imagining of post-Roman 6th Century Britain.



Website: www.davidebsworth.com
Twitter: @EbsworthDavid
Facebook Page: David Ebsworth- Author

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Photo Tour of Nimes Ampitheatre

by Richard Denning

In the Summer of 2015, I was lucky enough to spend 2 very hot and sunny weeks in Provence, France. This area has to be one of the most fascinating locations if you are interested in history. I plan to share some of the images in this and other posts.

One of the most magnificent locations in the region is the Amphitheater at Nimes.

This is considered the best preserved Amphitheatre anywhere. Indeed, so much of the structure exists that the movie Gladiator was shot here. A visit is considerably enhanced by a very good audio tour and some nice Living History touches. 

The ampitheatre measures 133 metres long and 101 metres wide and encloses an arena of 68 by 38 metres. The building is 21 metres high, its exterior façade comprises two floors of sixty superimposed arches

All around the perimeter the top level blocks of stone were drilled in. Then long poles could stick out over the arena. These poles were used to suspend a huge canvas canopy  which provided protection for the spectators against the scorching sun. 

The amiptheatre could hold 24,000 spectators (as many as can sit today in Warwickshire Country Cricket ground at Egbaston). These were accommodated on 34 rows of terraces. 

Each terrace was accessed via a gallery and hundreds of stairwells and passages.

The design was clever so as to avoid crush and injury to spectators, but also to separate them into their classes. No sitting with the riff raff if you were of the right class!

Towards the end of the Empire gladiatorial combat was made illegal and the amphitheater fell into disuse.

In the 12th century a château was built inside the monument. Later still, a village of more than 700 inhabitants developed within the amphitheatre, and two churches were built to service the population.

Eventually the idea emerged to restore the monument. However this was not easy given the resident population, and it was not until the early 19th century that the final houses were demolished. It was the architect Henri Revoil who completed the restoration of the monument. 

In modern times it is used for Bull Fighting and concerts.

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Richard Denning is a historical fiction author whose main period of interest is the Early Anglo-Saxon Era. On this particular occasion however Richard is departing from mentioning his books here to drop in a mention of a card game he has produced called, oddly enough "Tinker Tailor". In one of his other lives Richard is an occasional game designer. Find out more about Tailor and his other games on his website medusagames.co.uk