No Saxon Invasion
- Thread starter Historyfan 92
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It depends. Do you mean that no 'Anglo-saxons' are hired to act as mercenaries for the British Kingdoms after the Roman 'withdrawal'? Or that they don't revolt or if they do then it is defeated and their mates don't come over to join them?
Of course, there are historians and archaeologists (serious experienced ones) who argue there wasn't an invasion as such anyway but more a change in culture.
Flocculencio
Donor
Then presumably the Norse come smashing down from the North. Unless your POD involves the Romano-Britons managing to retain a centralised and effectively militarised state with British Legions and the like.
Considering that both the Britons and the Saxons themselves stated, in their own histories, that the Saxons were invaders, that is a rather untenable position. The genetic evidence also seems to indicate otherwise.
Most likely Britain is divided into a crazy quilt of small competing kingdoms. This had already begun before Vortigern brought in the Saxons. Coel Hen (Old King Cole), the last Roman Dux Britanniarum, for example, effectively controlled all of Northern Britain when the Romans left, and seems to have ruled the area until his death (which no doubt made him a Merry Old Soul...sorry, couldn't resist...
). At his death, the "kingdom" was divided among his many sons, who became the founders of dynasties in numerous kingdoms in the North. These were divided among Coel's grandsons, then again among his great grandsons...you see where this is going. The same process was going on everywhere in Britannia. Without the Saxons or some other outside force to shock them into uniting, it is virtually certain this process will continue. To some extent, the need to face the Saxon threat did lead many of the smaller Welsh kingdoms to unify into larger kingdoms (Dyfed, Powys, Gwynedd, primarily), which enabled the survival of the Welsh in Wales. This won't happen in the ATL. By the time the Vikings arrive ca. 800 AD, the subdivision will have gone on and become so established that Britannia will be, essentially, defenseless. The Vikings probably conquer the entire island, and the Welsh/Britons completely disappear from history.
Yeah, I think that theory is a bit hard to take. The genetic evidence isn't what it might be though, and more study needs to be done (but sadly it all costs a lot).
Most likely Britain is divided into a crazy quilt of small competing kingdoms. This had already begun before Vortigern brought in the Saxons. Coel Hen (Old King Cole), the last Roman Dux Britanniarum, for example, effectively controlled all of Northern Britain when the Romans left, and seems to have ruled the area until his death (which no doubt made him a Merry Old Soul...sorry, couldn't resist...
Without the Saxons or some other outside force to shock them into uniting, it is virtually certain this process will continue. To some extent, the need to face the Saxon threat did lead many of the smaller Welsh kingdoms to unify into larger kingdoms (Dyfed, Powys, Gwynedd, primarily), which enabled the survival of the Welsh in Wales. This won't happen in the ATL. By the time the Vikings arrive ca. 800 AD, the subdivision will have gone on and become so established that Britannia will be, essentially, defenseless. The Vikings probably conquer the entire island, and the Welsh/Britons completely disappear from history.
Firstly, there is no conclusive evidence as to whether or not Coel was Dux. It seems likely, given the monopoly on power that Roman military officials would have had in the north, but AFAIK there is no way to be sure.
Secondly, while disintegration did occur, there seems to have been an equal amount of consolidation - look at a state like Rheged or Gododdin. Again, the north was where the real progress was made, and the south may well have been a patchwork of statelets. But I think the evidence from the north does suggest a potentially different path.
Also, I don't entirely accept that a Norse invasion would have simply destroyed the British - the Norse effectively controlled Ireland, and never destroyed native culture. While it's true that the settlement in England was far more intensive, it seems likely that Wales and modern day Scotland would have been harder to subdue entirely.
Strange study.
Most evidence says the English and Welsh are virtually identical genetically- there's only so much of the population you can rape afterall.
And then theres the over 1000 years of history post anglo-saxon invasion...
I only just looked at the article there. It does seem weird - I've read articles on studies that suggest that the majority of the British Isles population has the same genetic base - with only some Scandinavian mix around the north and east coasts (particularly East Anglia).
In a very basic interpretation, how many blond people do you see in provincial England? As many as in Holland or Norway?
EDIT: Here are some more articles about genetic studies - as you can see, they draw some very different conclusions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/s...36997554ba53c6&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_b/papers/RSPB20063627.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...d=949111&md5=9edf5ce1c39d4139af4c01733282fa82
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?&id=9639
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The Anglo Saxons were not the most consolidated group either; you have Wessex, Essex, Sussex, Middlesex (all Saxon), Kent (Jutes), Norfolk, Suffolk (Angles) and Mersia and that is just the south of England.
If the Anglo Saxons could group together then so could the British. Ok so the Welsh didn't, but at the time of the Roman invasions there was a Belgic confederation in the south so they had the propensity to do so.
When the Norse do arrive on this TL, I would expect them to face a number of states similar to size to the Anglo-Saxon ones but speaking Celtic instead of English.
Also worth bearing in mind that Wales is full of high mountains and narrow valleys. Difficult to exert political control in that kind of terrain. The plains of the midlands are a very different proposition.
Thande
Donor
The genetic studies are still too fuzzy to draw many exact conclusions from - given that the two main surveys came back with contradictive results (one said that Saxon blood had never penetrated far from the east coast, so anglicisation was largely cultural; the other said that all of England+Wales except North Wales and Cornwall was genetically Saxon), I doubt we can trust either of them.
This gives me an idea for another thread...
This gives me an idea for another thread...
Well that's why I said we needed more study. On purely personal observation of physical features in the UK, I would hazard a guess that the study hypothesising limited change is the more correct one. But of course, that is just my opinion, and is subject to change.
Most of the histories of the period which I have consulted indicate that he was. The evidence may not be conclusive, but then, there is really nothing conclusive when talking about this period.
But even Rheged was split up and then reunited on more than one occasion. Gododdin wasn't, but that was north of Hadrian's wall and seems to have been the territory of one original Celtic tribe (the Votadinii), so it had a "leg up" on unification over the other kingdoms which don't seem to have been tribally based.
The Norse never actually controlled Ireland, or came close to it. The Kingdom of Dublin did hold much of Meath and Leinster at one point, but that was always tenuous, and elsewhere, the native Irish remained in control.
However, that being said, I can see a Welsh survival happening in the western mountains of Britain. But at the very least, I would expect the Norse to take over the same regions the Saxons did and exterminate or push out the Britons there.
The Saxons didn't, for the most part, divide up their kingdoms when king died and parcel them out among all the sons of the King. That may have happened on occasion in Saxon lands, but it was the exception rather than the rule. The rule for the Britons was division, not consolidation. In order to change that, you need to posit some very fundamental changes in British culture and, most importantly, in British inheritance law. Yes, they could form temporary confederacies. But they only lasted until the current king died, and then broke up again.
In my Britons Triumphant timeline, I have King Arthur solve this by forcing through the British High Council some changes to British inheritance laws which prevent the kingdom from fragmenting. But, if there is no Saxon threat, the chances that anyone will try to do that is next to nothing.
It might well happen in response to a Norse threat though, or even just as a result of good old fashioned empire building. After all, you mentioned the Welsh kingdoms, the north British and Pictish/Scottish kingdoms also consolidated and centralised. So it is possible. The fact that the 200 years or so of lowland British history saw movement in the other direction is perhaps just a sign that they didn't have long enough to change the culture. Also, it should be emphasised that our knowledge of lowland British political institutions is so sketchy that we really don't know for sure how these things panned out.