Make the Saxons the bad guys!

Philip

Donor
That makes sense, the great early medieval plague seems to be very late sixth/early seventh century. Sixth century plague pits don't seem to exist.

I think the plague he had in mind was the Plague of Justinian. IIRC, the effect it had in the Empire disrupted trade with Britain and is often blamed for weakening sub-Roman Britain.
 
I think the plague he had in mind was the Plague of Justinian. IIRC, the effect it had in the Empire disrupted trade with Britain and is often blamed for weakening sub-Roman Britain.

Got here before you, squire:
Yeah, it seems to have hit Britain in the 660s-680s. Bede talks about it a little, although there's only scanty evidence otherwise. It was probably an offshoot of the "Plague of Justinian", or the First Pandemic. That started in 541, so maybe he was thinking of that, although the Saxons were already pretty dominant in England by that time.
 
Really excellent read, actually Aelle is not really a bad guy in that book, and Derfel, the hero is half Saxon. The baddies in that series are actually the Christians (as so often in Cornwell's ouevre).

He actually missed a trick, Cerdic, the bad, rat-faced king of the saxons was historically almost certainly a Briton who led a mixed Saxon/British force. Having him as Romano-British traitor would have been a cool addition to the book.

Cerdic's name was British (Ceredig), as were many of the names of his early descendents. Richard Coates argues that his people were the Gewisse, meaning "the known ones", and that they were a group of Britons allied to the Saxons, based around the old Roman city of Dorchester on Thames. If that is true, they almost certainly converted to Paganism from Christianity.

Also, Penda of Mercia's name means "Good chief" in Welsh, and his father's name was Pybba, neither name has a Saxon etymology.

It makes you wonder what exactly was going on in 6th and 7th century Britain.

Researchers have determined that the genetic makeup of Welsh (Briton) and English (Saxon) people is almost entirely the same. In an area where the Saxons took over, only the nobility changed, the people slowly became Saxon in language and culture
 
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