I - Britannia : 380 - 480
Last days of Roman Britannia
The last sign of significative Roman presence in the island could be traced back to prior the departure of Magnus Maximus in 383 AD and his failed bid for the Imperial Purple. Maximus had first come on the island in 368 AD as a general of Comes Theodosius, his future nemesis' father, to restore the Roman rule in a province overrun by barbarian invaders, ending the Conspiratio Barbarica . From this moment, the defense of the island was divided between the Dux Britanniarum who was responsible of the defenses of the Limes Hadriani, the Comes Litoris Saxonici who had been entrusted with the watch and defense of the southern and eastern shores against saxon raids for almost a century and the Comes Brittaniarum, commanding the field armies and de facto the governor of the island. Indeed, the units of the Saxon Shore and the Limes Hadriani were only mere Limitanei, mostly auxiliaries and farmer-colonist-soldiers, and the only significative military forces on the island were the 20,000 Comitatenses under the command of the Comes Britanniarum, made up of the three legions garrisonning the island. What's more, as the province was remilitarized, the civilian administration went marginalized and the Vicarius Diocesis Britanniae was reduced to a puppet of the Comes Britanniarum. And in 380, this man was Magnus Maximus.
An ambitious man, he sought to strengthen his personal power over the province and muster every force he could for a continental venture without endangering it. He had to make arrangements with local leaders. In Britannia Prima, the Roman presence had been, since the conquest three centuries earlier, more of a military occupation and the Dumnonii had even retained a client kingdom
[ii]. Maximus extended this examples by setting in Cambria new client kingdoms in order to better manage Hibernian raids. In Southern Cambria, he had to legitimize the settlement of Hibernians and made them foederati, effectively giving way for the kingdom of Dyfed. He even went to marry Helena, the daughter of Eudaf Hen, a Britton leader of one of Segontium's most powerful clans in northern Cambria. Benefitting this policy were also the Vitali, a powerful clan of landowners from Glevum who owned large amounts of estates in the territories of the Dobunni, the Cornovii and the Ordovices. More to north, in the recently conquered Valentia, foedi with the leaders of local Britons formalized the existence of the client-kingdoms of Galgwyddel, Strathclyde and Goddodin to protect the Roman lands from Pictish raids. From the moment Maximus left the island with the bulk of the Comitatenses in 383 AD to his failed Italian campaign in 388 AD, the system he set up seemd to work and the raids were thwarted. However with the fall of Maximus, chaos spread in a Britannia deprived of leadership and the raiding parties found their way through the island's defenses. The desperate Britto-Romans then called Maximus's victor, the Eastern August Theodosius I
[iii], for help. Theodosius was at first mistrusting them but finally answered their plea, sending an expeditionary corps in 390 AD. However, the respite was short as these troops were recalled on the continent to fight Eugenius' usurpation. There was to wait almost a decade before the Magister Militum Stilicho sent another expeditionnary corps
[iv]. Still, as the Gothic threat, this corps saw its effectives progressively reduced to bolster Italia's defenses and by 406, at the eve of the crossing of the Rhine by the Germans, the Comitatenses in Britannia numbered no more than 5,000 men.
Whereas most of the Comitatenses prior to the departure of Maximus were born in Britannia proper, from families of the first legionnaries who settled here, the Comitatenses in 406 were made mostly from recruits from the continent. What's more, since they arrived in the island, they were paid their sold rather irregularly as a consequence of the poor state of the Imperial Treasury, hugely strained by the cost of defense against the Goths and the restless Germans who were angrily watching over the Rhine border, ready to attack at any sign of weakness. In mid 406, this was soldiers unpaid for sometimes who mutinied and murdered the Comes appointed by Stilicho. The mutineers proclaimed one of their leader, centurion Marcus, as their Imperator and began their way towards the Oceanus Britannicus and the continent. These news were met with shock by the Britto-Roman aristocracy and the local military leaders, namely the Dux Brittaniarum Coelius and the Comes Litoris Saxonici Gratianus, who had never been keen to ventures out of the islands, far from their power base and families. They attempted to retake control of the situation by seemingly siding with the mutineers. They managed to gather enough money to pay, or to say true corrupt, the Comitatenses and had Marcus murdered and replaced by Gratianus. The stratagems worked for a time but the Britto-Roman aristocrats quickly run out of money and the efforts of Gratianus at restraining them from leaving the island were unfruitful. Finally, the Comitatenses revolted once again and Gratianus was murdered. Centurion Constantinus, leader of this new mutiny, was proclaimed Imperator and took measures to force the local aristocracy into submission and supply the vessels to cross the sea onto Gallia.
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From the Romans to the Britto-Romans
The second mutiny was the breaking point for Roman presence in the island. The administration, already impotent, had survived only thanks to military enforcement of its rule, at least in the areas that it had not yet left as it had occured in Britannia Prima. In this latter province, the client kings which had until then nominally acknowledged Roman rule no longer answered to Londinium, de facto formalizing their independence. The new states emerged along former tribal lines as for the Silures and the Demeto-Hibernians of Dyfed but the Durotriges, never used to strong identity were quickly absorbed by Dumnonia and the Dubonni, the Cornovii and the Ordovices were federated under the Vitalis the elder in Powys. Only Maxima Caesariensis and Britannia Secunda retained some kind of integrity. Maxima Caesariensis had indeed been the most romanized place of the island and administration had remained relatively intact and in Londinium, Governor Ambrosius Aurelius, prominent member of the local Roman aristocracy, quickly filled the leadership instead of running away from the numerous peasant revolts and the bagaudae which had begun to plunder the countryside as many did; for the governor, it was better to be a master in Londinium than a servant in Roma. In North, the Limes Hadriani had been for long abandonned, excepted for a few major crossing points, as the client-kingdoms of Goddodin and Strathclyde now performed the border's defense, and the Limitanei garrisoning it had relocated in many garrisons across Britannia Secunda as a part of the military reorganization undertook by Dux Coelius, garrisons which allowed him to maintain a solid grip over the country he had become the de facto ruler.
This chaos paved the ground for devastating raids from Hibernians and especially Saxons who were pushed to the sea by the Germans fleeing the Hunnic hordes. The southern half of the island was virtually defenceless. As the country was set aflame, the harvests were significantly reduced as the peasants were either fleeing the raiding parties or revolting against landowners, abandonning fields. In a irony of fate, Britannia had been half a century earlier a net exporter of wheat, but the Brittons now found themselves importers. As the production and trade in Gallia was as much, if not more, disturbed by the Germanic invasions, sources were to be found in lands still untouched by raids and chaos and only Powys and Britannia Secunda, more often called the North, fit these criteria. These lands were favoured by a strong local administration, put in place by the Vitali for the previous thirty years in the former, maintained by Dux Coelius through force in the latter. It was at this moment that began to emerge the sidelines of the Brittonic political landscape, centered on Powys, the North and Londiniensis
[v], already marked by the division between the ''Romanist'' and ''Celtic'' factions.
Without speaking about opposition, they appeared over disagreement as to the attitude to adopt towards Roma. Headed by the governor of Ambrosius Aurelius, the Romanists were for waiting help from Roma like it happened in the previous crisis with the expeditions of 368, 390 and 398. Meanwhile, the Celtics whose King Vitalis of Powys was the main figurehead didn't expect help and preferred not to depend on a help too long for them to come to defend themselves. However, the latter were a minority even among reguli
[vi] of Britannia Prima. Aside of the the active Romanists, many ''neutral'' chieftains as Dux Coelius or King Constantinus of Dumnonia
[vii] weren't against a return of Romans to restore order and repulse the barbarians. Eventually, delegations were sent to Italia to request help from the August Honorius in Ravenna. As thunder, the answer marked the end of Roman Britain. As Italia was ravaged by the Goths and noone had been able to contain them since Stilicho was executed, there was no means to spare for an expedition to Britannia and Honorius could only tell the civitates
[viii] of Britannia to organize their own defense. De jure, the Western Roman Empire still claimed sovereignty over the island, but de facto, it had just abandonned it to its fate. When the delegates came back to Britannia with the reply, the Romanists were taken aback and the neutrals came to agree with the Celtics. It was around this time that the Brittonic Confederation was created.
The name of confederation was just used by later historians to designate the form of political regime which then appeared while to contemporaries, the Brittonic civitates were part of Britannia. The confederation was at first a military alliance of the various now independent civitates and entities of the island, including even Goddodin and Strathclyde which held key roles in the defense of Britannia. Despite reluctance of regional leaders, it was born from the need of restoring a proper army able to restore order. Indeed, at this stage, excepted for the forces of Dux Coelius in North, there was no established professional forces in South. Most of the armies of Britannia Prima's reguli were made of ragtag militia and armed peasants, not professional forces. Only rich and powerful kings such as Vitalis of Powys or Constantinus of Dumnonia were able to afford mercenaries they more often hired from Hibernia but these were men of dubious loyalty. In Londiniensis, the pro-Romans were luckier as some Limitanei from the Saxon Shore were still here. Although they were too few to set an army, they were useful to train peasant levies and they thus become very searched for and consequently rewarded. Waiting that an army deserving its name appeared, the only significative military force of the island thus remained those of Dux Coelius. Naturally, it thus befell to him to lead the Confederation. His official charge was Dux Bellorum, Pen Draig under its Britonic form, and he was allowed to take overall command of any assembled army, often formed by junction of regulian armies, each funded by its own leader. He was to undertake expeditions in the event of an invasion, if called for help by local reguli or mandated by the Concilium. The Concilium was an assembly of delegates from the civil, religious and military figures of Britannia. It had been first convened as a meeting of ambassadors of the main powers of the island to discuss solutions to the ongoing crisis in the aftermath of the Rescript of Honorius and had then been enlarged to minor leaders, even if the latter often just followed the lead of major members. It was by it that the informal confederation had been created on basis of successive agreements which would settle the modus vivendi of relations between the reguli of Britannia. In this new political system remained an oddity in the person of the Vicarius Diocesis Britanniae. Although the office had for long lost any power to the military leaders and the local chieftains, it hadn't yet been abolished, Roma still claiming overlordship over the island. Instead, it had become more symbolic like the consuls in Roma and Constantinopolis, its holder was more an ambassador than an administrator.
In 411, after Dux Coelius had finally repulsed the Picts out of Valentia, he marched south with his army to restore order in this region. The first goal was to repulse the Hibernians who in northwestern Cambria. Contrary to their brethren of southern Cambria who had been integrated the local population three decades earlier as foederati and had remained loyal, these newcomers had taken advantage of the crumbling administration and defenses to carve fiefdoms of their own. While the Brittonic reguli had mostly retreated inland, they settled the abandonned lands. Their hold was relatively uncontested and they received submission of several cities like Segontium. They were nonetheless blocked south by the Britto-Hibernians of Dyfed, north by the imposant former legionary fortress of Deva and east by Powys, and up to 411, they just mounted several raids, plundering the countryside as far as Viroconium before retreating to their bases. While there were Hibernian raiders from Valentia to Dumnonia, nowhere they had become so preoccupying, a fact partly explained by the stability of North and Dumnonia compared to the crumbling Cambria and more generally Britannia Prima. The army of Northmen gathered at Deva by Dux Coelius was reinforced by King Vitalis' army and a mercenary contingent of Votadini from Gododdin. Dumnonia and Londiniensis had pledged support but were too far away or had problems of their own. Most of the forces engaged by both sides weren't used to actual conventional warfare with ranged battles between true armies, rather to a war of skirmishes and raids. Eventually, the discipline and equipment of the Northmen made the difference and the Hibernians were routed in the few battles they delivered. Thereafter, they changed tactics to a scortched earth policy but they were only able to devastate further the countryside. Using his numerical superiority and superior discipline, Dux Coelius progressively reconquered the area and Segontium after an ultimate bloodbath. The Hibernians retreated to Mona from where they continued to raid the coast.
Behind the Hibernians was left a political vacuum as no governing structures and leaders had survived their occupation and the region had fallen into total anarchy. There was controversy as to who would befall these lands and King Vitalis, the more important regional lord, claimed it. Dux Coelius, wishing to maintain a certain balance of power in Britannia and prevent Powys from becoming too much powerful, settled his Votadini mercenaries as foederati to form their own client state, the base of Gwynedd. In this, he was making a double win. Indeed, the Votadini were under the command of Prince Cunneda, a cadet of the royal family of Goddodin. Thus, Dux Coelius won a solid ally in South grateful for having given him a crown he wouldn't have inherited in Goddodin, and strengthened his alliance with the royal family of Goddodin which was grateful of being get rid of a potential competitor for the throne. Meanwhile, this had the effect to put the civitas of Mancunium and de facto the western half of Flavia Caesariensis into North orbit, actually into a relation of vassalship, as it was flanked east by the Pennines, west by sea, south and north by Northmen lands and allies. This had the effect to seal the breakup of Flavia Caesariensis as the province was torn between its eastern part centered on Lindum fighting Saxons and its western half centered on Mancunium fighting against Hibernians.
After the campaigning season of 411 which saw the Hibernian invasion in Cambria suppressed, the campaigning season of 412 was past more east and south to put down local bagaudae, then the army disbanded and each regulian contingents returned home, the Northmen being especially eager to do so after almost a two years absence from their country. Another political settlement had meanwhile followed in Londiniensis with Londinium finally abandonning efforts at restoring controls over peripheral areas of the province. The Belgae, the Regnenses, the Cantiaci and the Iceni went to form their own states and were admitted to the annual sessions of the Concilium. The heart of Romanist Britannia was thus reduced to the valley of the Tamesis, on the territory of the Trinovantes, the Catuvellauni and the Atrebates. What's more, in the session of Concilium of late 412 where the late developments of Dux Coelius campaigns were discussed, Ambrosius Aurelius joined the fray while presenting himself as Dux Londiniensis, a position he had created by cumulating all military and civilian powers. This roman title alone was the sign that the Romanists had finally renounced to the hope of a Roman return but that they were determined to preserve their Roman cultural identity.
The following years were past in repulsing raids from various origins. In North, the main preoccupation of Dux Coelius was maintaining the defense of his northern border. As the Hibernians had eventually be repulsed in south, being finally expulsed from Mona by King Cunneda in 415, they went north to the undefended lands of Caledonia where they founded the kingdom of Dalriada. In the eyes of Dux Coelius, it couldn't have been better to see Picts and Hibernians fighting each other and he did everything to maintain the situation so
[ix]; this assured North a quiet border for years.
The end of the transition period between Roman era and full self-reliance is traditionally associated with the death of Dux Coelius in 425. When the Concilium met later on, it was to select his successor as Dux Bellorum. As peace had fallen over Britannia, there was no longer immediate need of Northmen what led to consider other candidacies than Dux Cnaeus Coelius, Coelius the Elder's only son. Politics once again came back at the forefront of considerations. Although the Romanists advanced Dux Ambrosius Aurelius, King Vitalis won the office after the withdrawal of King Constantine of Dumnonia's candidacy. King Vitalis was indeed judged a better and more representative choice by the reguli who were mainly Celtics.
As some kind of order seemed to have been restored after 4 years of chaos by the campaigns of 411 and 412, the Brittonic society undergone a new evolution. To the common folks, things hadn't yet changed a lot. Despite the withdrawal of Roman military in some areas and the decline of administration, the Roman system which had ruled their lives for three centuries was still here. When the reguli came, they often just replaced Roman magistrates and tax collectors by their own men without affecting a lot the social organization. The change intervened when after the departure of Constantinus III's comitatenses and the chaos which followed. The province had already known similar times but they weren't frequent and the Romans usually restored order rather quickly. There, the Roman army didn't come.
When they didn't rose up to become bagaudae and plunder the villae and agricultural exploitations of landowners, adding to the chaos and famine, or that they didn't migrate to Armorican Lugdunensis
[x], people had to struggle for survival, left to their own fate for several years. After Dux Coelius' campaigns, the restored order had allowed to relieve them and reestablish some kind of administration. As many landowners had fled, many lands had fallen into wilderness and crops fields had began to regress, the reguli began to enact an agrarian reform, breaking land estates and distributing them to peasants and former slaves who were often ancient workers in these lands. This reform wasn't politically uninterested as it was also seen as a means to ensure the peasants' loyalty to their new overlords. This reform was slower to come in Londiniensis. There, the Roman presence had been stronger and the decline of great agricultural domains had been less pronounced. The reform concerned the domains of landowners having fled to the continent. Actually, after things settled down, the landowners who attempted to return to their estates were lucky if they found them abandoned as many were occupied by local peasants and former bagaudae who didn't expect or want their return. During Coelius' campaigns, these people had been left quiet as long as they didn't cause problems, the Dux not caring about abandoned domains and leaving them to their fate. Facing such problems, the landowners returned beyond the walls of fortified towns they had previously settled, sometimes doing nothing, sometimes protesting. In this latter case, they fell on deaf ears as the administration and the government of Dux Ambrosius Aurelius prefered to accept the fait accompli rather than reigniting peasant unrest, de facto legitimizing the occupation.
Britannia was mostly rural and in these new times, it became more true. Many towns were abandoned and people either took refuge in the countryside of central Britannia, far from coasts, raiders and Picts, or to larger towns with defensive walls which even expanded. Abandonned towns eventually later came to host monastic communities which were flourishing in the island. The remaining towns were fortified and if they were already so, had their fortifications upgraded. Former Iron Age hill forts that the Romans had had great difficulty to conquer 350 years earlier were rebuilt and often became seats of local reguli. This phenomenon of fortification even left its mark in the names of cities, more often Britonized, such like Caer Gloui for Glevum, Caerleon for Isca Silurum, Caer Lundein or Caer Camulod ... These towns remained connected through the old Roman roads which sprung across all Britannia, still very used but which were falling in disarray as a result of neglect, although there was some local initiatives to repair them.
As the Germans had invaded Gallia, trade with the continent had been disrupted and even was so the internal trade of Britannia as a result of chaos and insecurity on the roads. Eventually, trade between civitates began to resume after the success of Dux Coelius campaigns of 411-412 and with Gallia as the fights had gone southwards and general Constantius had finally restored Roman order in Gallia in the mid-410s
[xi], but never reached levels of the Roman era, and barter trade still amounted to a large part of economy. This trend was reflected by the absence of renewal of circulating money as the last coins issued under Roman era, in the early 400s, were still in use throughout the 420's, and that coins from the continent did spread little because of limited trade exchanges.
Along the agrarian reform was a military restructuration which had a crucial role as the society became increasingly militarized to fight off barbarian incursions. Always, the manpower had been a problem and the main solution implemented by the southern reguli was to copy the limitanei system already in use and even enlarged in North. The limitanei were initially border guards, and while being soldiers, they were also colons and settlers. Dux Coelius had expanded the idea to the whole province, requiring from peasants time in military. They received some elementary training and could be mobilized for some campaigns, but they were actually hired only to compensate shortage of regular troops and replace losses. Also, it had the effect of restraining campaign seasons to accomodate the harvests' schedule and allow peasants to be present, and their call to arms during harvest season was thus exceptional.
With the Roman withdrawal, religion and Church had come to be a major force in Britton politics. Prior to this time, the bishops of Britannia had never reached the degree of temporal power achieved by the Bishop of Rome or the Patriarchs of Constantinople or Alexandria. Spiritually, the island had come to form its own religious identity, one of many which appeared throughout the Empire with religious controversies, and in Britannia, it was the doctrine of the monk Pelagius which was dominant. Pelagianism was more in agreement with the ever free minded Brittons as it was also reflected in the open architecture of villae in Britannia as opposed to enclosed domains on the continent. The fact that Pelagianism was the apocryph doctrine of a monk showed well the importance of monasticism in the region which ranked equal to the secular clerics, were them priests or bishops. As the provincial administration fell apart and the towns emptied, monasticism became even more important while turning ruins into monasteries, but their weight in public life was initially reduced as they tended to live secluded. Whereas the bishops of the continent were to stay as the local administration was generally preserved and protected by Germans, in Britannia, it wasn't so. The Church which had often acted as a relay of the imperial government with its structures copying Imperial districts and some of their office, it came down along the Roman administration. Central figures like the bishops became rarer but locally, the priests came to stay but with enlarged autonomy. Eventually, with civil peace and order returning, the monastic communities emerged as the most politically important religious institutions, having become large landowners by acquiring great swathes of abandonned lands they used as source of food and income, attracting around lot of people, artisans, smiths, traders ... Their rise, even feared by the reguli, went largely unopposed as none dared to attack religious symbol, religion having gained a new importance in these troubled times. As source of power, it was however also a source of controversies and a tool of cultural confrontation.
As the Romanists came to hold onto Londiniensis, they struggled to preserve Roman culture. This was showed in the way the decisions were taken to organize daily life, administration, but the two main stakes were language and religion. In both cases, there was to fight local corruption by vulgar latin
[xii] or even worst by resurgent Celtic language as in western Britannia. But even more, religion and Church were importants for the Romanists as a means to keep contact with Roma. As a result, they often privileged orthodox bishops
[xiii], but by doing so, they often encountered resistance from local clergy when it wasn't from the few remaining bishops who were mostly Pelagians like Bishops Agricola and Elafius. The struggle was such that Dux Ambrosius Aurelius had to call for help from the continent. It was in these circumstances that Bishops Germanus of Autissiodorum and Lupus of Tricassium
[xiv] were led to go to the island in 429, officialy in the purpose of fighting the Pelagian heresy which had been condemned by the Council of Carthage eleven years earlier. Debates were held throughout the provinve in presence of common folk to attempt convert them to orthodoxy. Bishop Germanus, himself a former soldier had even the occasion to show his skills at warfare by leading a counter-attack against raiders but generally, while the Gallic bishops were judged talented orators, their discussion received little audience and the local priests' grip over people was still too strong.
Born while the Comitatenses were mutinying in 406, Ambrosius Aurelianus was the last and only surviving child of the ageing Dux Ambrosius Aurelius. As the grandson of King Vitalis, Vitalinus, he was from the first generation of Brittons who didn't know Roman rule. In his youth, between 420 and 425, he was sent on the continent by his father to receive a proper Roman education and was housed by Italian Ambrosii. From his stay on the continent, he kept a deep emotional attachment to Roman civilization but fear as to the state decay which plagued an Empire hostage of the barbarian foederati; what he saw made him resolved to save Britannia from such a decline, joining his father's fight. But at this time, it was more idealism than anything other. Events then brought him back to reality.
In 425, when King Vitalis replaced Dux Coelius as Dux Bellorum, the young Aurelianus returned to support his father in the new political struggle that agitated Britannia. While the opposing factions were called Romanists and Celtics, as the former weren't to be found out of Londiniensis, it was quickly viewed more a struggle between Londiniensis and the confederation, but this conception was biased by Celtic propaganda. In fact, there were pragmatics such like North, Gwynedd and Dumnonia which weren't engaged in the struggle, and it occured mostly between Powys and its clients, and Londiniensis. One of the first consequences of this struggle was the position of Dux Bellorum rendered meaningless. The office was first created to coordinate defense but on Dux Coelius' passing, there wasn't anymore serious threat. Local militia were become powerful enough to repulse raids on their own. In absence of major crisis, there wasn't thus the need of assembling a pan-Britonic army, a task and command that befell to the Dux Bellorum. The position nevertheless remained one of prestige and influence, and its holder's only privilege then was to preside over the sessions of the Concilium and to speak the first, a duty often neglected by Dux Coelius but not by King Vitalis who used this tribune for his propaganda and enforced his authority over neighbouring reguli, presenting himself like a legitimate leader for Britannia, but he wasn't followed by the Romanists as by the Neutrals who went their own way. Thus, for a decade, this struggle took more the form of a competition for influence than of a frontal confrontation. To counter the ever growing influence of the Vitali, Dux Ambrosius elected to marry his eldest daughter Ambrosia to the elder son of King Cunneda of Gwynedd, Einion Yrth. It was at the occasion of his sister's wedding that Aurelianus met his brother-in-law who would become later his most trusted lieutnant and ally. Thereafter, Aurelianus himself married, Guenivere, one of King Constantinus of Dumnonia's daughters
[xv].
However, in the fall of 434, a great crisis erupted. For nearly twelve years, Cnaeus Coelius had governed North alone as he had been the only son of his father, but himself had three son had three sons. Until recently, the inheritance practices had been based on the Roman system of written will which privileged primogeniture and adoption, but with the crumbling of Roman administration, the traditional celtic practice of inheritance partition regained strength, beginning with lower people and common folk. These changes were progressive but surely made more and more gains as the first post-Roman generation appeared. There were of course disputes but they were generally ignored by the rulers who let things go their way by not enacting specific laws, not still accepting inheritance partition practice but not opposing them while it came to concern minor inheritance. But when it came to the inheritance of great lords and even reguli, it was totally different, and it was which happened when Dux Cnaeus, Ceneu from his Britton name, died in late 436. For its great part, the Brittonic rulers who were born in the last times of Roman occupation had retain some of the practices and still fluent in classic latin, but for their heirs, it was different. From the 410's onwards, the children of Britannia had grown in a world devoid from Romans and which was closer to ancient Britto-celtic culture. When his father died, Coelianus was proclaimed Dux but was immediatly contested by his two younger stepbrothers, Gorwst and Mar. They were issued from a second marriage of Dux Cnaeus to a commoner of Eboracum who was largely responsible for giving her sons a very Celtic culture as their very Britonic name proved it. Thus began what was nicknamed later as the War of the Cadets.
During the winter, Gorwst and Mar both raised heir standard, the former at his bases of the Mancunium civitas which he had governed for some times for their father, the latter from the territory of the Parisi whose main clans were interested in contesting the hegemony of the Brigantes. While Coelianus was assembling his forces at Eboracum along troops hired among the client kings of Goddodin and Strathclyde who pledged him their support, King Vitalis intervened at the occasion of the annual session of the Concilium which was held this very winter, invoking his quality of Dux Bellorum of the Brittons, to propose an invitation for a meeting to arbitrate the dispute. For long, North had ignored the new Dux Bellorum and Coelianus wasn't an exception. In fact, more than ignoring Vitalis' invitation, he castigated it as accepting the idea of any arbitration would guess he agreed on the principle of dividing his father domains, and this was out of question. Beyond, Vitalis' intervention had the effect of making the internal conflict a central matter to the whole island, especially as North was the most powerful of Britannian civitates. King Vitalis declared that his main preoccupation was about peace and stability that were necessary to the island security but his true motive here was to bring North under his influence what would totally shift the power balance in his favour, and this was naturally opposed by the Ambrosii of Londiensis. But Vitalis' arguments convinced the Neutrals and got the motion a large majority. Immediatly after the vote, the delegates of Dux Coelianus and his allies of Goddodin and Strathclyde walked out of the Concilium. It was this moment that historians consider that the War of the Cadets became a Britannian civil war in all but name.
Even before the actual war began, Coelianus' brothers began with a clear disadvantage in terms of manpower. As the rebellions broke out, Coelianus remained in control of the regulian treasury and through that of the loyalty of soldiers. Actually, they wouldn't have had the means to even rise in armed rebellion if they hadn't been both secretly supplied with money by King Vitalis, funds which allowed them to hire mercenaries and recruit in the reserves of trained peasants of the Northern army. Still, they lacked experienced officers who had almost all remained loyal to Coelianus. Thus, it was not surprise when Coelianus repulsed in the first days of spring an attack of Mar on Eboracum. Coelianus could have then destroyed the rebellion before the summer was over but it wasn't to happen as Vitalis had secretly convinced the Picts to attack in North. Deprived of a good part of his troops as the soldiers from Goddodin and Strathclyde returned home to repulse the invasion, Coelianus was weakened and while Mar's forces had been bloodied, they weren't destroyed and Gorwst forces were largely intact. Unable to face both his brothers, he had to abandon the pursuit of Mar in the lands of the Parisii to turn against Gorwst which had until then solidly anchored his support base west of the Pennines around Mancunium and had launched large raids. When summer arrived, Coelianus launched his forces in an attack against Mancunium but had to face ambushes, harassed supply lines and even a scorched earth campaign and adding to these logistic problems was the renewal of agressivity of Mar's forces. Coelianus had still been unbeaten on the field but open battles were rare since the initial attack on Eboracum but was unable to supress the guerilla set by his brothers who had quickly understood that only avoiding confrontation could avoid them destruction. When autumn came, each side had to set winter quarters and release part of their men for harvest duties.
The second year of the war began bad for Coelianus. Although the actual war had calmed down during the harvest and the winter months, raids even by reduced parties were still common and so reappeared insecurity. More north, the situation had become more preoccupying and was worsening with the Picts who went still farther south. Usually, when Picts raided Gododdin or Strathclyde, local troops were enough to deal them, and when they invaded, there still was the support of North's army, but this time, this support wasn't available. At several times, at first with Coelianus and later by Aurelianus' official chroniclers, it was claimed that Vitalis was responsible for inducing the Picts into attacking from the rear and giving him a pretext for a more direct intervention. Anyway, as the Northmen didn't come to help their clients, the Picts were free from raiding the country and carried raids even south of the former Limes, sometimes joined by Scots of Dalriada. On this background of increasing insecurity, the cities west of the Pennines, isolated from Coelianus and caught between Picts and Gorwst finally submitted to the latter, and beyond their submission, they gave the pretext of an intervention of Vitalis as the Dux Bellorum was requested to come to relieve the Northern towns from the Pictish incursions as Coelianus was unable to do it.
When the spring came, an army under Vitalis began its march north on Eboracum, officially as a step on the trip to the border. This army was commanded by Prince Vitalinus, Vitalis' grandson, as the Dux Bellorum was just entering his seventies and was physically unfit for such a task, only deciding on the political side of the matter. Coelianus avoided battle as he feared this fresh and unscathed force which looked far better than his own troop who despite being better trained and experienced were tired by constant fighting. What's more, Vitalinus' troops were made up for large parts of Saxon foederati attracted under promises of loot and lands, and after having set camp near Eboracum, they didn't leave, and worst, Gorwst and later Mar along their forces had come along. As for not leaving the area, King Vitalis took pretext of supply problems and replied that Coelianus' brothers were with him to fight the Picts and that he should like them put their difference aside, but noone was fool, and it seemed for a moment that battle would erupt. However, during a night, Dux Coelianus was assassinated at the instigation of his brothers.
Although very embarassed by the murder, Vitalis eventually proceeded to settle the Northern succession dispute
[xvi]. At the treaty of Eboracum, Gorwst and Mar partitioned the realm in two parts, Mar receiving everything east of the Pennines and Gorwst everything west. While Vitalis seemed to be the big winner, he wasn't actually. As Vitalinus' reduced army after Eboracum had reached the border, Picts and Scots ended their raids for the time being as they were met by relieve forces and were threatened on their rear by Gododdin and Strathclyde castles and retreated to their bases. As the invasions came to its term, Vitalinus didn't came further north as even the client kings north of the Limes had become hostile, not needing his help anymore and refused to acknowledge the new rulers of North they considered to be murderers. Among southern lords, shock and consternation were the common reaction.
While the autumn began, the old Vitalis, who had entered his seventies, died in his sleep. His grandson Vitalinus immediatly made his troops proclaiming him Dux Bellorum, seeing that the office was legitimately his but the southern lords didn't think so. When the news of the death were known in South, Dux Aurelius arranged a quick meeting of the Concilium and despite not everyone being present, especially Celtics, he organized the election of his son Aurelianus as Dux Bellorum as he was himself too old and that the youth of his son would give him better chance to anchor the Romanist agenda into Britannia's political landscape. This election was supported by Dumnonia, Gwynedd, Ewyas
[xvii], Gododdin, Strathclyde and Galwyddel who either saw the proclamation of Vitalinus as a clear break of the modus vivendi of the past three decades, sought revenge for what happened in the War of Cadets, or merely resented Powys' regional power. Vitalinus, despite lacking the political skill of his grandfather was supported by Lindum which saw rather well the weakening of its northern neighbour, by the Cantiaci, the Iceni, the Regnenses and the Belgae who still looked at Powys to counter Londiniensis' domination, and nominally by Gorwst and Mar in North who were busy with their new realms and too willing to return to their own affairs far from southern interference. Winter prevented conducting any operation but both sides prepared for war as Vitalinus looked resolute to defend his claim by arms.
When the spring came, each armies began to move. All armies were roughly equal in terms of training and experience but Vitalinus was the strongest. The Romanist armies were divided as Cunedda was busy fighting Hibernians and Dumnonian forces hadn't made junction with Londinian troops, while the Celtic army had been gathered for long in the event of the campaign in North. What's more, Vitalinus had at his disposal a large contingent of Saxon and Jutes. Rather than letting his opponent making junction, Vitalinus marched south down the Fosse Way from Lindum to go to the territory of the Belgae, thus placing himself between Dumnonia and Londiniensis. In this goal, he succeeded and completly suprised his foes. Both sides came to battle near the village of Guoloppum, on the road between Serviodunum
[Old Sarum] and Caer Gwinntguic
[Winchester]. Advantaged with being the first to occupy the ground, ground he precisely choose, Vitalinus had no difficulty to defeat and rout Dumnonians and Londinians in two consecutive battles. As the Saxons and Jutes were unleashed to pursue the losers, Aurelianus was cut from Londinium and had to flee to Dumnonia where his stepfather welcomed him. Politically, the defeat of Guoloppum was devastating and the Romanist attempt at contesting Britannian leadership ended as quickly as it had begun. Learning it, Dux Ambrosius suffered a stroke and died two days later, and Londiniensis' government fell in disarray with a junta of aristocrats and soldiers taking effective control of the region. Dumnonia being compelled to ask for truce, the disgraced Aurelianus was forced to flee into Armorica as his head was said to be wanted by the victor. Two months after Guoloppum, Calleva Atrebatum was brutally sacked by Vitalinus' and deserted from this day by its inhabitants
[xviii]. Terrified, facing endless raids from almost all directions, the Londinian junta sued for peace before the winter.
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The Barbarian Storm
At the eve of 438 AD, Vitalinus was the theorical master of Britain. After Dumnonia and Londiniensis, Gwynedd and Ewyas had finally recognized Vitalinus as Dux Bellorum, although Strathclyde and Gododdin still refused and remained independent. As a sign of his new power, he transformed the title of Dux Bellorum into a more royal and celtic title such like Vortigern of Prydein, High Lord of Britannia, a title already officiously used by King Vitalis
[xix]. This reflected the sudden centralization of power Vitalinus operated. First, he had won the supreme title by the strength of arms and not by election. By this same force, he was thus able to enforce his will over the different regional lords of the island, exacting tribute and hommage. But his time of absolute power went quickly to end because of the very people who had helped him to conquer it: Jutes and Saxons.
Most of these people had come along the initial wave of Germanic migration early in the century but calm had been restored in Gallia and by the 420's, the migration had considerably slowed. For reward of their service, they had been given some lands in the Tamesis valley and around the island of Tanetus in Cantium where their main base had been built, even if it was in fact only legitimization of their biggest settlements. Meanwhile, on the continent, the Huns had resumed their advance westward, triggering a new wave of migration. Lot of Saxons and Jutes landed in Britannia and came quickly to exceed capacities of the island of Tanetus and of the supplies granted by the Britons to them. By 441, the situation had become so untenable that the foederati had begun to expand inland to seek land to live on. Vitalinus had to intervene in the behalf of his local vassal, King Gwrangon of the Cantiaci. In 442, Vitalinus attacked and defeated the Jutes at the battle of Aylesford, inflicting them heavy losses, but this victory was more due to the disunity of Germanic leadership. In the wave of the defeat, the Jute chieftain Hengest who had lost his brother Horsa in the battle quickly asserted as the leader of the mass of retreating Saxons and Jutes. The new leader asked for a truce to which Vitalinus acquiesced and both were to meet to negociate it, but it was a trap of Hengest. The Germanic delegates came while hidding knives in their shoes and drew them at Hengest's signal. The Britonic delegation, totally caught by surprise, was slaughtered, excepted Vitalinus as Hengest prefered to force the Vortigern of Prydein to sign a treaty according the whole Caint to him and the Jutes and Saxons
[xx], just after he attacked and routed the Britonic army nearly encamped. Humiliated, Vitalinus reneged his signature as soon he was freed and began to assemble a new army. In 444, he was ready for another attempt. This time however, Hengest forces were stronger than two years before with several thousands more migrants having come from the continent. At Crayford, it was the turn of the Britons to be routed and face huge losses. This new defeat was the last attempt of Vitalinus to reconquer Caint.
Because of his defeats to the hands of Hengest and the loss of Caint to the Barbarians, Vitalinus had to face contestation from his vassal reguli whose some were already plotting to revert the consequences of Guoloppum. In 445, Vitalinus' old nemesis, Aurelianus, came back into Britannia. Along him were two thousands Armorican Britons, of whom almost the half were men trained for war accompanied by their families, who had chosen to follow him, fleeing the advance of the Alans. Landing in Dumnonia, they immediatly received the support of King Caradoc, Aurelianus' brother-in-law, who had recently succeded to King Constantine and who lent him his troops. Vitalinus went to encounter him near Corinum but was defeated. This time, he had lost the few support he had among the reguli, even the northern ones who merely ignored his pleas. Retreating deeper into Powys, he had also to fight in his rear Kings Einion Yrth and Ceredig, successors to Cunneda. Cornered into an isolated castle of Cambrian mountains, he was killed in the fights which followed its storming.
Contrary to the Roman practice he defended years ago, Aurelianus and his allies decided to break Powys between Vitalinus' sons to prevent it from becoming again a powerful state, while letting some troops to garrison major towns of the region. What's more, Vitalinus' sons were forced to swore an oath of loyalty to the Riothamus Aurelianus and had to give up the lands of the Dobunni including Glevum to him. Aurelianus had indeed been proclaimed leader of the Britons, but instead of the former title of Dux Bellorum, he choose Riothamus, or Rigotamos in its Brittonic form, a choice explained by his will to compromise with the Celtics he knew he couldn't ignore. At Mons Badonicus near the former Aquae Sulis, he built a base of operations for the next campaign in 446 against the Saxons and Jutes.
Meanwhile in east, taking advantage of Vitalinus withdrawal, Hengest launched raids in the aftermath of Crayford into Londiniensis and in the civitas of the Regnenses. Seeing no great resistance, he went to sack Londinium and turned on Camulodunum he besieged in spring 446. While the siege which in fact looked more like a blockade went to last into the summer of 446, the desperate defenders went to send messengers to Gallia where was Aetius
To Aetius, thrice consul, the groans of the Britons... the barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians, between these two means of death we are either killed or drowned.
However, what the defenders were unaware of was that Aurelianus was coming to relieve them.
At Mons Badonicus, he had gathered the biggest army ever seen since Coelius' campaign of 411, around 4,000 men from Dumnonia, Gwynedd and even former soldiers of Vitalinus. King Caradoc who wasn't a soldier delegated some of his officers, only keeping some troops to defend coasts from Hibernians as Ceredig did in Cambria. Aurelianus left Mons Badonicus with King Einion Yrth, his other brother-in-law, as his second and began his march eastwards. The first fights were against groups of Saxons in the upper Tamesis valley and delayed the advancing Britons who arrived at Verulamium only in early summer. Londinium was recaptured less than a month later while the Jutes who besieged Camulodunum retreated south of the Tamesis into Cantium to regroup. Hengest gathered an impressive army to repulse the Britons but the attack didn't come. Instead, Aurelianus sent him a proposal of negociation of a permanent truce between Britons and Jutes.
Back in Gallia, Aurelianus had acquired experience on migrant peoples with the Alans and knew that trying to keep them at bay indefinitely or getting them out of Britannia was impossible. He thus decided to offer them Cantium and have a place where he knew the Barbarians would come, instead of having to waste his attentions at watching over thousands of miles of coasts, looking signs of an invasion, and in this way, he copied what Maximus did sixty years earlier with the Hibernians of Dyfed. He thus offered to Hengest to recognize him the settlement and government of Cantium, in exchange for supplying the Riothamus' army with soldiers and paying homage. The negociation took place at the middle of the Medway river, between the two opposing armies, and this time of course, the Britons were also armed. The negociation was fruitful as Hengest accepted the proposal. The territory given was to correspond roughly to former kingdom of Ceint of Gwrangon and the Medway river marked the western boundary with Londiniensis. As a compensation for Gwrangon son, Aurelianus offered him the civitas of the Dobunni he had taken from Powys, a move made as an opening towards the Celtics whose Gwrangon was a member. Thanks to the treaty of the Medway, peace had finally returned after a decade of war.
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Aurelianus the Warrior High King
Immediatly after the treaty, Aurelianus disbanded half of his troops and kept the other half in a campement near Londinium to watch over the new kingdom of Kent. With this standing army which mirrored the Comitatenses' mobile field army of Roman times, the Riothamus Aurelianus reorganized and coordinated the defense of the island, and this reorganization was the most important since the formation of the confederation. This reorganization was also the pretext of centralization. Under its cover, Aurelianus was able to impose his decisions over the reguli, not unlike Vitalinus. It was with the tribute, or ''contribution'' to the common defense as it was more often called, which was used to paid Aurelianus' soldiers, to build the fortresses that the Riothamus has designed on strategic locations along the new border with Kent, to renovate former forts of the Saxon shore, to upgrade the web of alert towers which looked for signs of barbarian invasions on the seas ...
His efforts were not only focused on South. In 448, he marched north to campaign against Picts and Scots. At this occasions, he extracted tribute and homage from Gorwst and Mar, as well from Galwyddel, Strathclyde and Gododdin he helped to recover some territories lost to the Caledonian barbarians in the previous decade. Notably, this campaign was the first occasions where he made use of the supply of soldiers envisioned by the treaty of the Medway, making the Saxon participation nearly half of his troops. These troops were mostly paid with loot made while ravaging lands of the Picts over 448 and 449, before they returned to Kent.
In 451, when Aetius made a call to every allied peoples of Roma, this call was relayed in Britannia by the Vicarius Diocesis Britanniae who had acted as an ambassador for four decades. Aurelianus immediatly gathered 4,000 men, mostly Saxons from Kent and left for Gallia, leaving his brother-in-law King Einion as regent. Landing at Portus Namnetus
[Nantes], he joined one thousand Armoricans he recruited and marched to relieve the besieged Aurelianum
[Orléans] along Aetius armies. This contingent participated and distinguished itself at the battle of Campus Mauriacus
[xxi] near the village of Catalaunus
[Châlons] where Attila was defeated. As Attila retreated out of Gallia, the Riothamus began his journey back to Britannia. However, instead of coming back with the Saxons accompanying him, he settled them in the lower Liger
[Loire] valley with their base at Portus Namnetus. Under the command of Eadwacer
[xxii], they were officially to help the Armoricans to contain the Alans but it was in fact part of a new strategy of Aurelianus to divert flows of migrants from Britannia, a strategy that was to define Britannian foreign policy over the next 50 years. Thanks to it, he bought Britannia a very needed peace. There would be still migrants going to the island, but they were mostly settled by Kent which was accordingly supplied in food by the Britons, a little price for peace. Other groups counting each some dozens Saxons would travel with their boats each year, using ports of Britannia to go to Armorican Lugdunensis, sometimes to the lands west of the mouth of the Sequana in Lugdunensis III, but more often into the realm of Eadwacer which was more than willing to consolidate his hold with new soldiers. To note, among the migrants, soldiers were a minority as they went with all their family, with children, women and old parents, thus preventing a brutal increase of Eadwacer manpower. These migrants would be the nucleus for Eadwacer's West Saxon Kingdom and Ceredic's North Saxon kingdom. But the West Saxons of Eadwacer had less freedom of action as the Saxons of Britannia as the local administration was still strong and other foederati, mainly Alans, were strong enough to contain them, but were still lucky as the Huns distracted Roman armies from Gallia, preventing them to remove them.
Over the 450's and 460's, a good part of migrants had thus avoided Britannia but by late 460's, there was again a surplus. But in 469, the Western August Anthemius gave another occasion to Aurelianus for evacuating this surplus to Gallia. In the aftermath of Majorianus' assassination, the Visigoths had resumed their expansion in Gallia, capturing parts of Narbonensis and threatening Roman lands of Arvernia. Short with manpower, already confronted to the Vandals in Africa, Anthemius made a call to the only people able to stop the Visigoths, and the Riothamus Aurelianus was among them. This time, as there was the prospect of acquiring large swathes of lands in the rich and prosper Aquitania to relocate Saxons, Aurelianus had no difficulties to recruit Saxons and the Briton army which landed at Portus Namnetus during spring numbered about 12,000 men, with 2,000 Britto-Romans, 5,000 Britto-Saxons and as much Saxons from Eadwacer's army
[xxiii]. In late July, this army was at Avaricum
[Bourges], the administrative capital of Roman Arvernian Aquitania. The Visigoths of King Euric had until then launched series of raids against Arvernia and raided as far as Arvernis [Clermont-Ferrand] but had to retreat as Aurelianus threatened their supply lines. Aurelianus then launched an offensive towards Pictavium
[Potiers] where King Euric had set his supply base. The Visigoths intercepted him near Dolensi, a village midway between Avaricum and Pictavium. The opposing armies were roughly equal in number but while the Briton army was mostly heavy Saxon infantry, the Visigoths had some cavalry whom some was Alan. King Euric decided to flank the Britons with a massive cavalry trust followed by an infantry assault and could have routed the Britons if the Alan horsemen hadn't betrayed him just before the battle began and revealed Euric's plans to Aurelianus
[xxiv]. The Riothamus used the same tactic against the Visigoths and routed them. Attempting to rally his men for a counter-attack but was killed. Euric's head was brought to Aurelianus then sent to Anthemius in Roma. Within a week, Pictavium was sacked and raids were carried as far as Burdigala and Tolosa but there were not enough men to take them. As the Visigothic realm plunged into civil war as a result of Euric's death, Eadwacer established his domination over the lands of the Pictones and as far south as Mediolanum Santonum
[Saintes] where Aurelianus settled his Britto-Saxons to replace Visigoths. Aurelianus returned to Britannia during the spring of 470.
In 477, Aurelianus diverted from Britannia a third group of Saxons which had come to the island under the leadership of King Aelle, supplying them ships to transport them to Novempopulania where the South Saxons were to set up their own kingdom.
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From the confederation to the duchy
Whereas the confederation of the Britannian civitates established in the late 400's was a loose military and political alliance, the successive reigns of Vitalinus and Aurelianus transformed it into a true united state, a nation. Basing his centralization work on his army, Aurelianus had established himself as the undisputed leader of the island. But the reach of his authority was beyond military matters. Resuming the interventionnist practice of Vitalis of arbitration, he settled many civil affairs ranging from successions and inheritance to trade and justice. In the way he settled these affairs, he followed mainly the Romanist practice, trying for example to avoid partition of inheritance when it came to regulian realms. Aurelianus popularity rose among people as the peace and the trade, prosperity associated returned and famine ended and that his agents carried an intensive propaganda work, what prevented any serious dissent from reguli in the first times, guaranteeing during the 450's a relatively peaceful reign, and with the military success of 451 and 469, he was untouchable.
When the old Aurelianus returned in 470, he felt strong enough to enact a major societal reform he thought for years already. Consulting a great number of renown jurists, he encoded the Romanist laws he had de facto established as the rules of Britannian society, formally establishing them as the de jure rules: it was the Codex Ambrosianus. Along this legislative reform, he formally organized the previously ad hoc central administration. Previously, it was made up mainly of officers sent to watch over the actions of the reguli for undefined terms, of judges and courts to relay him regionally, of surveyors and engineers to repair roads and forts and establish land registration which were sent or appointed at a time or another, and these offices had never really been officially and formally instituted. After the Codex Ambrosianus was issued, Aurelianus issued a Constitutio Ambrosiana, an edict which established de jure a series of military, judiciary and civilian offices and defined their role.
Although Aurelianus had centralized the state structures of Britannia, the island remained a collection of reguli vassal to the Riothamus. When Aurelianus died at the age of 74 in spring 480, his work had been solidly been established into daily life of the Britons and accepted by the majority of the reguli. Thus, when Powys, Pengwern, Rheged and Ebrauc rose up to proclaim Pascent, son of Vitalinus, as Vortigern of Prydein, their hope that Aurelianus' work would crumble with him dead were dashed. Aurelianus' son, Aurelius, was proclaimed as Riothamus Aurelius II in Londinium by the delegates of the reguli, while Aurelius' cousin, King Owain Arth of Gwynedd marched from Viroconium to supress the rebellion. Pascent's forces were quickly defeated and Pascent was captured and executed. Rheged and Ebrauc were then quick to submit and make allegiance to the Riothamus.
As the succession was secured, it did mean the end of the chaotic political transition period since the Roman withdrawal as for the political regime definitely passed from a confederate system to a more centralized one, a regime that is commonly referred as a Duchy, a name coming from the continental official denomination used by the Western Imperial Court in Narbo which used the title Dux Britanniae to designate the Riothamus as it designated Syagrius as Dux Lutetiensis, denomination meant to show some forms of claim of sovereignty over these areas, sovereignty that the Empire had never officially given up as shown by the continued presence of a Vicarius in Britannia since 407.
However, the Saxon migrations were not yet ended and the Angles were beginning to move out of their continental lands after having subjugated the Jutes.