Questions about dark age Britain

archaeogeek

Banned
Arr the call for incredulity, such a great defence for theories with big names but no evidence.

The relationship between germanic languages already is totally messed up the most similar languages to English are Friesian and West Flemish, not Saxon or Danish where the Anglo Saxons are suposed to of come from and they already had considerable diferences a few short centuries after there suposed comon origin.

Okay just admit you have no clue about linguistics.
The shift from german to english is in the written record.
The curse tablets in breton have been found.
You're out of your league if you think oppenheimer has any credibility as a linguist.

The regions where "Angeln" and Saxony were are... dun dun dun, they correspond to the Frisian coast; in case you haven't paid attention, North Frisia is in Schleswig. The Jylland peninsula was conquered by the Danes somewhere in the dark ages.

Flemish is a dialect of the Dutch-Low Saxon (omg saxon) continuum.

And there is no trace whatsoever of germanic languages pre-conquest in Britain; there are of british.
 
Arr the call for incredulity, such a great defence for theories with big names but no evidence.

Science may have a hard time accepting paradigm changes, yeah, but as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence, and I find evidence in this case extraordinarily lacking. If you want a name I might suggest Leo Caesius. :p

The relationship between germanic languages already is totally messed up the most similar languages to English are Friesian and West Flemish, not Saxon or Danish where the Anglo Saxons are suposed to of come from and they already had considerable diferences a few short centuries after there suposed comon origin.

In addition to what archaeogeek said, I would add this:

- Oppenheimer is a geneticist, not a linguist. And even there, his views are practically outdated, especially the whole idea of continuity since the end of the last ice age. There is this gem:

europebeforeyd-.jpg


Now, what the picture calls "Ruisko", "Ivan" and Rostov" are presumably corresponding with Y-Haplogroups R1b, I and R1a1a.

R1b was - until recently - commonly associated with the Iberian glacial refuge due to it's high concentration in Atlantic Europe (especially with the Basques), however then it was noticed that all the ancient subclades of R1b are all found outside of Europe (R1b-V88 in the Levante and Africa, R1b-M73 in Central Asia), and that the wholly Western European clade of R1b (R1b-P310, aka R1b-L11) is only about 4000 years old, which - given the dominance of R1b in Western Europe suggests a massive population replacement taking place either in the late Neolithic or at the start of the Bronze Age. It should also be noted (interestingly) that the R1b subclades commonly found amongst the Basques (most importantly R1b-M153) are rare outside of Basque-speaking or formerly Basque/Aquitanian-speaking areas (Gascogne).

Haplogroup I is thought to be the only Y-Haplogroup to be of European origin, however the peak in the western Balkans can be explained as a result of a founder effect of the Slavic migrations, because the local Haplogroup I subclades in the western Balkans are comparably young.

Now, Haplogroup R1a probably arrived with the Indo-European migrations: it has been found in graves from the Corded Ware culture (exclusively), the Andronovo culture, graves of the early Tocharians, the Proto-Scythian Tagar culture, and it's been also found in Urnfrield culture (the latter shouldn't surprise anybody). The case for the Indo-European migrations is a very strong one, which of course has as the consequence that a massive population replacement took place, and there's nothing much of continuity.

- apart from Caesar's claim about the "Germanic" nature of several Belgic tribes (which, in my opinion can be much better explained if you take "Germanic" as a geographic concept - and then assume that they originally lived on the right side of the Rhine), there's no evidence whatsoever that Germanic was spoken in Gallia Belgica. What does it tell you when a purportedly "Germanic" tribe is called "Eburones" (compare "Eboracum" (later York), "Eburovici" (in Normandy), "Eburodunum" (later Brno, Czechia), "Eburodunum" (Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland) and "Eborodunum" (Embrun, Upper Alps department, France )) and has a chieftain named "Ambiorix"?

- In addition to the Angles, Frisians and Saxons, there was another tribe, the Jutes. Take a wild guess where the name "Jutland" comes from.

- Another linguistic argument would be: if "English" split from the rest of the Germanic language before Roman times, shouldn't it be (at least) as divergent from the rest of the Germanic languages as East Germanic (ie, Gothic, Vandalic, etc.)?
 
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Stephen

Banned
I admit I dont have a clue my point is that nobody does. To use a few names scratched into a few lead tablets at a cult in Bath to determine the languages spoken without doubt in all of the British tribes is basing too much suposition on too little fact. There simply isnt enough evidence to determine such things.

All the Romans sources seem to be completely uninterested in what languages people were speaking.

The comparison with Gothic could be nice if there origin story could be confirmed and given a date, and if there was more than a single dodgy Bible to determin there language was, and if the rate that language changes was a constant.

The genetic research is in a state of flux I will wait untill more skeletons are sequenced before jumping to conclusions.
 
Okay just admit you have no clue about linguistics.
The shift from german to english is in the written record.
The curse tablets in breton have been found.
You're out of your league if you think oppenheimer has any credibility as a linguist.

The regions where "Angeln" and Saxony were are... dun dun dun, they correspond to the Frisian coast; in case you haven't paid attention, North Frisia is in Schleswig. The Jylland peninsula was conquered by the Danes somewhere in the dark ages.

Flemish is a dialect of the Dutch-Low Saxon (omg saxon) continuum.

And there is no trace whatsoever of germanic languages pre-conquest in Britain; there are of british.

Flemish just as Brabantic and Hollandic are all dialects, which developed out of the local Low Frankish dialects; however the coastal regions (Flemish, Hollandic and Zeelandic) were also influenced by Frisian.
 
So, since records are sketchy, people were in a constant state of movement, and there doesn't seem to be any significant archeological evidence for Germanic presence in Britain before the Anglo-Saxon invasions, if there were any Germans in Britain they were either auxiliaries, or merchants, and although it is possible, there numbers would be very small.

I have decided from this thread that 1 million people for the entire population of all the British isles in the 530's is possible. As the Plague of Justinian's first historical record is the writings of a Byzantine in 541, and a four million people figure for post-roman Britain doesn't feel very likely. I posed this question because I'm planing a timeline that will involve a POD in this time period in Britain, and so I thank everyone for their responses. Even though I've decided on the figure further population insights are welcome. Insights about the era are welcome in general, but especially pertaining to this:
General Greene said:
chornedsnorkack said:
Is it verified precisely which proportion of England´s area was ploughed, which proportion was cleared of forest for pasture and which proportion was covered with forest (whether old growth or young scrub on deserted pastures), from 4th century onwards? How much did the cleared area of England fall in Dark Ages and how much did it fall in Middle Ages after Black Death?
This is a very interesting question as well, I'm sure we don't have anything at all close to concrete details on this, but are their any insights?

Also how big was the urban population? Do we have a good idea of how low it dropped in post-Roman times? Also what was the Urban population of Britain during Roman rule? And would population figures from either era include those living in towns? Finally, how big would a settlement have to be to be considered an urban area?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
I admit I dont have a clue my point is that nobody does. To use a few names scratched into a few lead tablets at a cult in Bath to determine the languages spoken without doubt in all of the British tribes is basing too much suposition on too little fact. There simply isnt enough evidence to determine such things.

The pot is, indeed, black.
 
There is some evidence for the size of military retinues, but there is little for the size of the population they defended or conquered. I tend more towards low-ball estimates, based on the impact a relatively small number of fighters could have. The limited sources we have indicate that most "kingdoms" could put about 300 fighters in the field-the only detailed account of a battle that survives is an epic poem with 300 (or 363, depending on version) fighters on one side, and a somewhat larger force on the other, and that's an attack on the "capital" of a Anglian kingdom with a picked force of troops raised from all over Britain. Given 15 or less kingdoms (depending on when and how you count them), that means there's less than 4,500 professional fighters on the entire Island. I doubt that small a military establishment is for a population of millions.

You're speaking of the Y Goddodin, of course, and one shouldn't take those figures at face value. First of all, it's a poem, and the "300" and "363" figures (or any other multiple of three) is known to have held some kind of mystical significance in Welsh lore of the time. Second, the poet was composing for a noble audience...his work was to have been sung in the hall of a king, not in the taverns frequented by the lower class people. Therefore, the poet would have been speaking of the King's personal retinue, composed of high-status noble warriors, and not of the lower-class rank and file which almost certainly made up the bulk of the army. The lower class "grunts" wouldn't have been worthy of mention, in the eyes of the bard.

Certainly by the mid-7th century (the earliest date given for the Tribal Hidage) it is likely that Mercia alone could put as many as 20,000 thegns into the field, and Wessex about as many. Northumbria has been estimated to have had as many as 50,000 warriors at the Battle of Chester (although I think that is an exaggerated figure, it might well have had 20,000 there). The smaller kingdoms could do less, of course, but even a small kingdom like Kent was probably capable of putting 3-4,000 men into the field at need.

A century earlier the numbers would certainly have been lower. But the Battle of Catterick, of which the Goddodin speaks, was fought in the early 7th century. So something like the above numbers should apply if we are speaking of that time period.
 
You're speaking of the Y Goddodin, of course, and one shouldn't take those figures at face value. First of all, it's a poem, and the "300" and "363" figures (or any other multiple of three) is known to have held some kind of mystical significance in Welsh lore of the time. Second, the poet was composing for a noble audience...his work was to have been sung in the hall of a king, not in the taverns frequented by the lower class people. Therefore, the poet would have been speaking of the King's personal retinue, composed of high-status noble warriors, and not of the lower-class rank and file which almost certainly made up the bulk of the army. The lower class "grunts" wouldn't have been worthy of mention, in the eyes of the bard.

Certainly by the mid-7th century (the earliest date given for the Tribal Hidage) it is likely that Mercia alone could put as many as 20,000 thegns into the field, and Wessex about as many. Northumbria has been estimated to have had as many as 50,000 warriors at the Battle of Chester (although I think that is an exaggerated figure, it might well have had 20,000 there). The smaller kingdoms could do less, of course, but even a small kingdom like Kent was probably capable of putting 3-4,000 men into the field at need.

A century earlier the numbers would certainly have been lower. But the Battle of Catterick, of which the Goddodin speaks, was fought in the early 7th century. So something like the above numbers should apply if we are speaking of that time period.

I'm referring carefully to the professionals, not fyrd. The full-time retinues that hang around the nobles. I'd be fascinated to see the sources for those estimates of 20,000 or 50,000 people in one place at one time for a 7th century force -- most importantly, I'd be curious to know how the hell you pay and feed that many men given the relatively simple economic system. If that's mostly militia around a core of a few thousand professionals, it might be realistic. If you pull every able-bodied man in the kingdom, you get a lot more bodies.

But at any rate, I wasn't meaning that y Goddoddin should be taken literally, at face value. Just that it was the only detailed description of a battle to survive from the Celtic side and that it was about hundreds, not thousands, and certainly not tens of thousands, of men. It's also a hand-picked force of professionals, without any militia. There's a couple fascinating books on the subject which I have at my house (several thousand miles away) that I wish I had to hand, but they come to more or less the same conclusions about the size of the average retinue.
 
Please don't use the term Celt-it really offends a good mate of mine who's a top archeologist-use the term native Briton instead?

:)

(Celts were on mainland Europe)

oh and 'Dark Ages' all of it is lazy Victorianism...just call it early Medieval if you want to call it anything-how can anything be called dark when you have the Lindisfarne Gospels and Yorvik etc etc etc
 
Please don't use the term Celt-it really offends a good mate of mine who's a top archeologist-use the term native Briton instead?

:)

(Celts were on mainland Europe)

Yes and no. If by "Celts" you mean Celts in the narrower sense (ie, whom the Greeks called "Keltoi"), then you are basically talking only about the Gauls and closely related peoples (Galatians, etc.). However, if you define "Celts" as "speakers of Celtic languages", then yes, there obviously were Celts on the British Isles. Either way, the idea of a common "Celtic identity" (which basically includes the modern Bretons, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scots and Welsh) is obviously a pure fabrication of Romanticism.

Regarding the term "dark age", while it is certainly over the top, it still is a very useful term to describe the transition phase between Late Antiquity and the Medieval Ages proper.
 
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In response to the last two posts: the term Dark Ages is perfectly acceptable, when it describes our limited fuzzy grasp of knowledge on the era, and that is why I used it. Furthermore, while the dark ages were not the nightmare that Victorian Britain made it out to be, Killer T's examples of culture for the era can't be recognized because they didn't take place in the Dark Ages. While in popular misunderstanding people use the term to describe the entire era of the Middle Ages, it is IMHO only applicable to the transition period from Late Antiquity and the Fall of Rome to the Early Middle Ages, and is why I used the term to distinguish it since my question was only interested in population figures from that era. The examples used by Killer T come a couple of centuries later, in what he appropriately called the Early Middle Ages. Since many people consider the terms interchangeable, I was hoping for predominate insights into the era in Britain just after the fall of Rome with limited views into the next century or two.
 
I'm referring carefully to the professionals, not fyrd. The full-time retinues that hang around the nobles.

But that's not what you said. You said...

Ioannes said:
The limited sources we have indicate that most "kingdoms" could put about 300 fighters in the field-the only detailed account of a battle that survives is an epic poem with 300 (or 363, depending on version) fighters on one side, and a somewhat larger force on the other, and that's an attack on the "capital" of a Anglian kingdom with a picked force of troops raised from all over Britain.

When you say a kingdom could "put about 300 fighters in the field," one has to assume you mean in total...not just a small and select part of the total. If you find that position untenable now and want to defend another position instead, by all means. But don't pretend that you haven't switched positions. ;)

Ioannes said:
I'd be fascinated to see the sources for those estimates of 20,000 or 50,000 people in one place at one time for a 7th century force -- most importantly, I'd be curious to know how the hell you pay and feed that many men given the relatively simple economic system. If that's mostly militia around a core of a few thousand professionals, it might be realistic. If you pull every able-bodied man in the kingdom, you get a lot more bodies.

The estimates I gave for Mercia, Wessex, and Kent are based on 1) The Tribal Hidage estimates of the number of hides of taxable land in each kingdom and 2) Laws from various surviving law codes that stated that for every so many hides of land (usually five), the inhabitants thereof were required to provide one fully-armed thegn for the king's army. While this is an admittedly inexact means of estimating potential forces available, it is probably better than relying on epic poetry. As for Northumbria, no source equivalent to the Tribal Hidage is available. But this article provides the arguments for the figures regarding the battle of Chester.

As for whether they could get them all in one place at one time, it might have presented a challenge, but we have to remember, battles were usually one-off affairs back then, not extended campaigns. So a kingdom putting its entire force in the field for one battle is certainly not impossible, albeit not likely. That being said, there's no reason to think the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the seventh century couldn't put thousands into the field at once, rather than hundreds.

Ioannes said:
But at any rate, I wasn't meaning that y Goddoddin should be taken literally, at face value. Just that it was the only detailed description of a battle to survive from the Celtic side and that it was about hundreds, not thousands, and certainly not tens of thousands, of men.

None of which responds to my points about why the figure is essentially meaningless in determining how many men the kingdom could put in the field. It should also be pointed out that the poem talks about the other side having 10,000 men. You can't take the figures for one army and claim they're valid while ignoring the figures provided for the other army. Taking a force of 300 to fight a force of 10,000 makes absolutely no sense...unless the 300 ONLY refers to the king's retinue and the poet is ignoring several thousand others who were not in the king's retinue because, well, they weren't his patrons, they weren't paying for the poem, so who cares about them?
 
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archaeogeek

Banned
Please don't use the term Celt-it really offends a good mate of mine who's a top archeologist-use the term native Briton instead?

:)

(Celts were on mainland Europe)

oh and 'Dark Ages' all of it is lazy Victorianism...just call it early Medieval if you want to call it anything-how can anything be called dark when you have the Lindisfarne Gospels and Yorvik etc etc etc

The native britons are linguistically classified in the celtic group. They share a cultural continuum with the continental celtic group. And they're probably retraceable with the Belgae; I have a lot of archaeologist friends including one who has worked in Britain and know few who have trouble with the celts (which is something I've only ever heard the english take exception to).
 
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