*Gibbon adds a footnote on his sources here, which concludes with the remark that ‘Mr Whittaker…has framed an interesting and even probable, narrative of the wars of Arthur: though it is impossible to allow the reality of the round table.’
By ‘most rational account’ he is probably referring to the Welsh author known as Nennius.
CHAPTER ONE Origin Myths: Britons, Celts and Anglo-Saxons
THE EARLY HISTORY of southern Britain has often been portrayed as particularly tumultuous and difficult. Sir Roy Strong has summarised the conventional picture in characteristically elegant fashion:
The fifth and sixth centuries still remain ones of impenetrable obscurity, fully justifying their designation as the Dark Ages. Britain was only one of many countries which suffered the consequences of the collapse of the Roman Empire. In England’s case the effect was far more dramatic, for there was no continuity as two-thirds of the eastern parts of the island passed into the hands of German pagan and illiterate warrior tribesmen. Urban society collapsed, and the Latin language was abandoned in favour of British or primitive Welsh. Under the aegis of the British Church some form of Latin learning survived, but in the east a series of Anglo-Saxon petty kingdoms emerged whose cultural status can only be categorised as barbarian.1
If we examine the archaeological record it is hard to find convincing evidence for the picture of post-Roman disjunction, anarchy and chaos that is supposed to have led to the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries ad. It is even harder to find actual evidence for these invasions themselves. Instead, archaeology paints a picture of rural stability in those parts of southern and eastern Britain that were to become Anglo-Saxon England in the early seventh century.
This stability should be set against a background of increasing contacts with the Continental mainland that had been underway since at least the Iron Age, and that continued throughout the Roman period. After the departure of the Roman field army in AD 409, order in the one-time province of Britannia was maintained by existing local élites and by elements of the erstwhile Roman army who effectively ‘privatised’ their services. The Christian Church most probably played a significant role in local administration, even in the east of England, where Anglo-Saxon paganism was once believed to have reigned supreme. This picture differs dramatically from the conventional image of the period known, inappropriately, as the Dark Ages.
I believe that a number of long-held and popular, but ultimately false beliefs are obscuring what is actually a fascinating and highly creative period of British history. It was a time of huge change, but not of chaos. It was a period which witnessed the creation of a distinctive post-Roman European civilisation, and which also gave rise to some brilliantly executed and beautiful objects. Above all, it was never a Dark Age.
In the version of the past taught at most British schools in the second half of the twentieth century, and still widely accepted by the population at large, British history begins with the Ancient Britons. One would suppose these to have been the indigenous or ‘native’ people of the British Isles, who had been living there since they became islands after the Ice Age, around nine thousand years ago. It was believed, however, that Britain had been subject to a number of invasions from the Continent in pre-Roman times: first, a wave of people who brought with them the arts of farming and pottery manufacture in the Neolithic or New Stone Age; then another, smaller, influx of new and genetically distinctive people known as the Beaker folk, who were believed to have introduced the skills of bronze-working. The third and perhaps most significant invasion, or invasions, was supposed to have taken place in the Iron Age, after about 500 bc. These newcomers were known as the Celts. In addition to these three main ‘invasions’ there were a number of others of less significance—making a total of eight or nine.
It is not the purpose of this book to examine the earlier two of these three hypothetical prehistoric waves of immigration.2 Suffice it to say that while modern archaeology does still accept that some incomers helped establish farming in Britain, the so-called ‘Neolithic Revolution’ was far more an invasion of ideas than of people. The later invasions of Beaker folk are simply discounted, although personally I believe that something was going on in the Early Bronze Age, which may well have involved high-status individuals travelling to and from Britain. This is supported by a number of scientific tests and other archaeological indications which suggest that the population of prehistoric Britain and Europe was far more mobile than would have been supposed fifty years ago. But while mobility—where people travel hither and thither—is one thing, prehistorians today are reluctant to attribute most major changes to a single cause, such as mass migration.
In the accepted picture of early British history, Iron Age (by now ‘Celtic’) Britain was visited by Julius Caesar in 55 and 54 BC, and was finally conquered by the Romans in AD 43. There was a major revolt against Roman rule, led by the East Anglian queen of the Iceni, Boadicea (today Boudica) in AD 60—61. Christianity was made legal in the Roman Empire by the Emperor Constantine the Great in AD 324, with the Edict of Milan. The Roman period in Britain ended nominally in or just before the year AD 410. There was then a period of about four decades, sometimes known as the ‘sub-Roman’ period, when a sort of insular Roman rule continued; but Anglo-Saxon migration had started, and the Romanised British population in eastern England were powerless to resist it.
The following period, of two or so centuries, was known variously as the Pagan Saxon period or the Dark Ages (today most scholars prefer the term ‘Early Saxon’). It was characterised by waves of invasion by various people, including Angles, Saxons and Jutes. This was the age of the legendary King Arthur. Arthur was supposed to have been a Romanised Briton, based in the West Country, who led British/Celtic resistance to the Anglo-Saxons, who were expanding their domination of England westwards. He won a famous victory at the Battle of Mount Baddon or Badon, some time at the beginning of the sixth century, but was eventually defeated and slain at the Battle of Camlan in AD 539.
Missionaries under St Augustine reintroduced Christianity to Britain in AD 597, and the Pagan Saxon period was followed by the Christian Saxon period, which came to an end with the Norman Conquest of 1066. Differences between St Augustine’s Roman Church and the British or Celtic Churches were resolved, largely in favour of the Roman Church, at the Synod of Whitby in 664. The Christian Saxon period witnessed the birth of England; its first widely acknowledged king was Alfred, who ruled from his capital Winchester in Wessex from 871 to 899. Alfred’s reign was largely given over to wresting eastern England back from Viking domination. Viking raids had become a serious
