Romano-Britains repulse the Saxon invasions

I dread going off-topic, but is a more native Briton reversal of the Anglo-Saxon invasions possible? Yeah, maybe it's not very Romano-, those regions being among the first to fall, but an Alt Clut (or whatever was extant in this period) dominated northern Britain would be interesting.
 
I'm not sure that's entirely true. There is rather strong evidence that Vulgar Latin was spoken in Britain, incontrovertible evidence actually. It can't be proven that there were regions where there was no rural British spoken, but it has been theorised by Schrijver that the South East was almost entirely Latin-speaking, and had large numbers of Vulgar Latin monolinguals.

Nor is it entirely clear that Romanian is actually descended from the Latin colonies implanted briefly in Dacia. It seems equally plausible that it developed from the Latin spoken further south and West in the Balkans, where it first appears historically, tied to a nomadic pastoral culture.

Can you point me to sources for this? Because it's news to me, all I've heard of is Kenneth Jackson's dialect theory that Wollman's book claimed to be faulty, and a handful of curse tablets. To me, that's not a rigorous enough lexical body to conclusively prove a stable foundation for a surviving British Romance dialect, given the aforementioned shambles of what was left after Rome pulled chocks. As for Schrijver, what does he base this theory on when we don't have that attestation? If Latin was spoken beyond the Legions that much, should we not have a relatively extensive corpus in hand by now (especially given historical British obsession with the Greco-Roman era)?
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
Well,
Can you point me to sources for this? Because it's news to me, all I've heard of is Kenneth Jackson's dialect theory that Wollman's book claimed to be faulty, and a handful of curse tablets. To me, that's not a rigorous enough lexical body to conclusively prove a stable foundation for a surviving British Romance dialect, given the aforementioned shambles of what was left after Rome pulled chocks. As for Schrijver, what does he base this theory on when we don't have that attestation? If Latin was spoken beyond the Legions that much, should we not have a relatively extensive corpus in hand by now (especially given historical British obsession with the Greco-Roman era)?

It's rather strange, I'm not aware of any source that claims British Latin wasn't widely spoken. Jackson's suppositions on its nature are a stretch as little popular written material survives, but the fact that some does shows Latin was widely used. It can hardly have been otherwise, given the degree of Roman presence in Britain. There is a thesis here which argues:

Robert Jackson Woodcock. MA Thesis said:
In consideration of the numerous pieces of evidence of the widespread use of writing in Roman Britain it seems very likely that there were lower status civilians in Roman Britain who used written Latin in public contexts and written Celtic in private contexts. This evidence demonstrates the widespread use of Latin throughout the province of Britain, and suggests that there was a substantially bilingual population.

Many high and middle status civilians would, of course, be ethnically British, but also either bilingual, or perhaps in the 2nd and 3rd century, monolingual, Latin-speakers. It is worth noting that at the same time we have substantial evidence of Latin-Gaulish bilingualism, in fact there is much more evidence of the use of Gaulish than the use of British at this time. The dissertation also summarises Schrijver's argument in "What the Britons spoke around 400AD" (this text is very important and murder to get hold of) rather well:

Robert Jackson Woodcock. MA Thesis said:
The indigenous Celtic languages of both Britain and Gaul survived throughout the Roman period, but these languages were only used in specific contexts. Schrijver uses language reconstruction to conclude that Latin had become the predominant spoken language in Roman Britain by the end of the Roman period.323 Latin was also the predominant spoken language in Gaul. In the Roman period in Britain the linguistic landscape did not differ from other provinces where Latin had displaced the native languages in speech and writing in all but the peripheral and inaccessible regions. 324 In the Pyrenees mountains Basque has come down from the [pre-?]Celtic language that survived Latin, and so has Albanian in the Balkans, just as Welsh, Cornish, and Breton survived Latin in Britain.

(THE TECHNICAL STUFF)

It is commonly the case that prestige languages donate words. Schrijver proposes that when the widespread phonetic and syntactic shifts mentioned above happened in Highland British Celtic it was not the result of Britons adopting a prestigious Latin accent, but of an overwhelming migration of Latin speakers. 329 The cause of this migration was the Anglo-Saxon settlement in the Lowland Zone. This displaced a large population of Latin speakers to the Northern Highlands where their speech was phonetically influenced by the influx of Latin speakers. Latin soon became extinct among this population.

Schrijver’s conclusion presupposes that Latin was the spoken language of the Lowland Zone. Schrijver explains the distinction between the Celtic of the Lowland Zone and the Highland Zone, demonstrating that Lowland British Celtic was undergoing the same language death that Gaulish was during the Roman period. Although Highland British Celtic was phonetically influenced by low prestige Latin speaking migrants after the elimination of Roman power, phonetic changes in Lowland British Celtic occurred beforehand.
 
Well,

1) It's rather strange, I'm not aware of any source that claims British Latin wasn't widely spoken. Jackson's suppositions on its nature are a stretch as little popular written material survives, but the fact that some does shows Latin was widely used. It can hardly have been otherwise, given the degree of Roman presence in Britain. There is a thesis here which argues:


2) Many high and middle status civilians would, of course, be ethnically British, but also either bilingual, or perhaps in the 2nd and 3rd century, monolingual, Latin-speakers. It is worth noting that at the same time we have substantial evidence of Latin-Gaulish bilingualism, in fact there is much more evidence of the use of Gaulish than the use of British at this time. The dissertation also summarises Schrijver's argument in "What the Britons spoke around 400AD" (this text is very important and murder to get hold of) rather well:

1) I fear we may be talking past each other here, so if you will allow me to clarify: I don't deny that Latin was spoken in Britannia. It would be stupid to consider otherwise, given that we know there were legions and outposts there for several centuries. But as to claims British Latin wasn't widely spoken, I will first admit that we don't have written evidence in great detail of spoken Brittonic either. But then there's the problem with determining the difference between Latin that happened to be spoken in Britain by Romans and immediate confederates, and anything resembling a Vulgar Latin descendant that could evolve into a Romance language. The few* sources I've noticed (the Vindolanda and Bath curse tablets) don't really betray any linguistic "localisms". That, combined with the near total replacement in the lowland zones by Old English (which shouldn't have happened if the Romans were still at least nominally in control, or so the logic seems to go), to me undermines the notion that Latin was anything more than a language of the Legion, and an interface between Roman politicians living there.

2) Would they? Not to be combative, but there seems to be (in your linked thesis as well) a fair amount of assumption without examples. I can buy bilingualism in Britannia on its face, but what evidence have we of a statistically significant Latin-only populace? And again, the dearth of British examples doesn't help establish a large Celtic-speaking population on its face, but then again didn't Gaul out-number Britannia in population by a fairly wide margin? Seems like a case of a much larger sample size than anything else (combined with a proximity issue with Britannia, compared to Gaul).

*And I do mean "few". For being a Roman province for several centuries, the fact that we only have a handful of tablets (only one of which apparently even addressing the Britons rather than being used by them, and in a derogatory way circa AD 100 no less) again does not convince me that Latin was widely spoken.
 
I wonder,
Would a surviving Romano-british culture use a Romance or a more purely Celtic language?

IOTL the Romano-Brits seem to have mainly spoken a Celtic language, so probably Celtic, although (depending on how many Roman soldiers and administrators stay behind) possibly with a bigger Romance element than OTL's Welsh.

My other idea (which really requires some sort of united government) is the Romano-Britons getting mercenaries to counter the Saxons. I'm imagining a war council in Londinium, someone grumbling about these Saxon barbarians, then someone else suggests siccing their own barbarians on the Saxons. How about making a deal with some Irish or Pictish chief? Probably Irish - they would have been Christianized at this point, which would make dealing with them more palatable. Of course, this might just lead to an Irish takeover instead of a Saxon one, but I'm still counting that as an improvement.

They kind of tried that already -- the Saxons originally came over as mercenaries to fight off the Picts and Irish, at least according to Gildas.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
1) I fear we may be talking past each other here, so if you will allow me to clarify: I don't deny that Latin was spoken in Britannia. It would be stupid to consider otherwise, given that we know there were legions and outposts there for several centuries. But as to claims British Latin wasn't widely spoken, I will first admit that we don't have written evidence in great detail of spoken Brittonic either. But then there's the problem with determining the difference between Latin that happened to be spoken in Britain by Romans and immediate confederates, and anything resembling a Vulgar Latin descendant that could evolve into a Romance language. The few* sources I've noticed (the Vindolanda and Bath curse tablets) don't really betray any linguistic "localisms". That, combined with the near total replacement in the lowland zones by Old English (which shouldn't have happened if the Romans were still at least nominally in control, or so the logic seems to go), to me undermines the notion that Latin was anything more than a language of the Legion, and an interface between Roman politicians living there.

2) Would they? Not to be combative, but there seems to be (in your linked thesis as well) a fair amount of assumption without examples. I can buy bilingualism in Britannia on its face, but what evidence have we of a statistically significant Latin-only populace? And again, the dearth of British examples doesn't help establish a large Celtic-speaking population on its face, but then again didn't Gaul out-number Britannia in population by a fairly wide margin? Seems like a case of a much larger sample size than anything else (combined with a proximity issue with Britannia, compared to Gaul).

*And I do mean "few". For being a Roman province for several centuries, the fact that we only have a handful of tablets (only one of which apparently even addressing the Britons rather than being used by them, and in a derogatory way circa AD 100 no less) again does not convince me that Latin was widely spoken.

I think perhaps you should look at the evidence before making your assumptions, the paper I linked contained rather a lot of evidence based on detailed argument, reflecting the state of the art in historical linguistic studies. Your assumptions appear to be based on the idea that, if direct evidence is scarce, then you can choose to believe that Latin was marginal in Britain for most of the population. You actually need to provide evidence for your view, which you haven't as yet.

The evidence for Latin as a widespread spoken language is actually very strong. Just as strong as it is for Gaul in this period.

1. Textual evidence, curse tablets, graffiti, pottery inscriptions all attest popular use of written Latin. Funerary inscriptions attest to popular public ceremonial use of Latin.
2. Latin loanwords in Welsh and Cornish. These are incredibly frequent, there are about 700. These words include incredibly basic concepts like "dry", "fish", "arm", "green". Without widespread bilingualism, it is difficult to understand how this could have happened. It is best explained as an arrested process of language death, similar to that which was not arrested in Gaul.
3. The absence of Celtic loanwords in early Old English, but presence of Latin ones. The AS and Romano-Britons spoke Vulgar Latin as a common language in the early contact period, later switching to Anglo-Saxon.
4. The Bath curse tablets demonstrate phonetic features which are later attested in Welsh, suggesting that Latin speakers switched to Welsh influencing Welsh phonology (see Schrijver)
5. The Welsh word "Lloegr" ("England") came into existence prior to the arrival of Anglo-Saxons, clearly indicating a cultural distinction perceived by the Celtic highland zone. If England was largely Welsh speaking, why identify its inhabitants with an exonym?
6. Latin was the language of the British upper classes as late as the 5th century, the quality of Latin written by Gildas and Patrick is that of educated classical writers, they are not writing in the medieval latin of Bede and Nennius. The cultural and linguistic evidence from Roman villas and towns shows a thoroughly Latinised population, literate in Latin (documentary and funerary evidence included).
7. The population. Large numbers of merchants, civil servants, landowners, colonists, and soldiers were resident permanently in Britain. They lived in both urban and rural areas. All across the empire these people were the driving force in the adoption of vernacular Latin, why not in Britain?

For British Latin to exist, it is not necessary to prove substantial "non-standard" localisms, and widespread British Latin is all you need to create a situation where England speaks a Romance language. Of course, you need a POD that allows British Latin political control, which is practically difficult as we know so little about 5th century Britian.
 
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The key seems to be creating a unified Romano-British state. I'd suggest a POD around the time of the withdrawal, or slightly earlier.

The most likely possibility I can come up with is an ambitious and capable figure to unite Britain. Perhaps the commander of one of the legions decides to defy orders and not leave? He realizes that a power vacuum is about to appear in Britain, and he has a loyal military force at his disposal. He co-opts some of the local nobility, kills a few problematic ones (replacing them with his own officers), and the rest fall in line behind the new Rex Britannia.


What date is the withdrawl? and what unit are taken?
 
My understanding of the Latin-Celtic linguistic border:
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire were Latin, Northumberland and Lancashire Celtic.
Most of Midlands spoke Latin, including the Severn valley and Glamorgan. Latinate areas include the East Anglia, Home Counties and most of Wesssex, while Cornwall, Devon, and possibly Dorset and the neighboring county was Celtic.
This practically means that you have a Latin speaking area roughly corresponding to England, with exception of Lancashire coast, Cumbria, Northumberland and the Cornwall peninsula.

Should there be an Anglo-Saxon invasion, the Severn valley could be the place of a Latin language
 
If not the German tribes, the Norse would have later invaded them.

However, it would have been interesting a long-lasting Roman Britain up to the 8th century, maybe the Carolingians would have been more interested in them than IOTL.
 

dcharleos

Donor
I'm not sure that native paganism still had much clout among the Britons (yet another area open for speculation) but it's pretty certain that there were some heresies (Pelagianism, Priscillianism) that had significant followings in Britain. In the 5th century this was another dividing factor.

"Four centuries of the most diligent and intelligent scholarly investigation have failed to establish consensus on the extent, nature, and success of Christianity in Roman Britain. In the period since 1980, William Frend, Martin Hening, and Dorothy Watts have argued for a resurgence of Paganism in the late fourth century, coinciding with the acession of Julian...Ken Dark and Martin Millet have contested this idea. Edward James and Kenneth Hyson-Smith have concluded that it is unlikely that the bulk of people in the province had converted before the Empire fell, while Michelle Brown, David Petts, and Barbara Yorke have emphasized the flourishing nature of the Romano-British Church. Neil Faulkner, however, has declared it to be a religion of the Romanized upper class, with no large popular following, a view which echoes that of Frend. Malcom Lambert has called it a faith of the minority, but one that was well established and particularly strong in the south-east. To some extent these are differences of emphasis, though important differences: Lambert's view, for example, could reconcile a number of the other views stated above. Still, there is a distinct gap between Petts' conclusion that Christianity was a dynamic and successful force in Britain by the time Roman rule ended, paving the way for success in subsequent centuries, and the one proposed by Faulkner, Frend, and Watts, that it was dependent on imperial sponsorship and was enfeebled as son as the Empire fell."

--Pagan Britain, by Ronald Hutton.

I think that about sums it up.
 
Still, there is a distinct gap between Petts' conclusion that Christianity was a dynamic and successful force in Britain by the time Roman rule ended, paving the way for success in subsequent centuries, and the one proposed by Faulkner, Frend, and Watts, that it was dependent on imperial sponsorship and was enfeebled as son as the Empire fell."

By the mid-6th century, Gildas implies pretty strongly that the Britons were quite uniformly Christian -- he refers to the Saxons as "pagani", for example, which wouldn't make much sense if the Britons were pagan too, and, despite accusing his countrymen of every other vice and sin under the sun, he never once faults them for paganism or heresy.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
By the mid-6th century, Gildas implies pretty strongly that the Britons were quite uniformly Christian -- he refers to the Saxons as "pagani", for example, which wouldn't make much sense if the Britons were pagan too, and, despite accusing his countrymen of every other vice and sin under the sun, he never once faults them for paganism or heresy.

The Welsh later thought there were pagans around in the period 400-600, but there is no strong contemporary evidence. The Picts were definitely pagan at the start of the period, and Gildas was writing around 500, so there is space for careful paganism in ATL's. It's just so difficult to say anything with certainty about this time.
 
I think perhaps you should look at the evidence before making your assumptions, the paper I linked contained rather a lot of evidence based on detailed argument, reflecting the state of the art in historical linguistic studies. Your assumptions appear to be based on the idea that, if direct evidence is scarce, then you can choose to believe that Latin was marginal in Britain for most of the population. You actually need to provide evidence for your view, which you haven't as yet.

The evidence for Latin as a widespread spoken language is actually very strong. Just as strong as it is for Gaul in this period.

1. Textual evidence, curse tablets, graffiti, pottery inscriptions all attest popular use of written Latin. Funerary inscriptions attest to popular public ceremonial use of Latin.
2. Latin loanwords in Welsh and Cornish. These are incredibly frequent, there are about 700. These words include incredibly basic concepts like "dry", "fish", "arm", "green". Without widespread bilingualism, it is difficult to understand how this could have happened. It is best explained as an arrested process of language death, similar to that which was not arrested in Gaul.
3. The absence of Celtic loanwords in early Old English, but presence of Latin ones. The AS and Romano-Britons spoke Vulgar Latin as a common language in the early contact period, later switching to Anglo-Saxon.
4. The Bath curse tablets demonstrate phonetic features which are later attested in Welsh, suggesting that Latin speakers switched to Welsh influencing Welsh phonology (see Schrijver)
5. The Welsh word "Lloegr" ("England") came into existence prior to the arrival of Anglo-Saxons, clearly indicating a cultural distinction perceived by the Celtic highland zone. If England was largely Welsh speaking, why identify its inhabitants with an exonym?
6. Latin was the language of the British upper classes as late as the 5th century, the quality of Latin written by Gildas and Patrick is that of educated classical writers, they are not writing in the medieval latin of Bede and Nennius. The cultural and linguistic evidence from Roman villas and towns shows a thoroughly Latinised population, literate in Latin (documentary and funerary evidence included).
7. The population. Large numbers of merchants, civil servants, landowners, colonists, and soldiers were resident permanently in Britain. They lived in both urban and rural areas. All across the empire these people were the driving force in the adoption of vernacular Latin, why not in Britain?

For British Latin to exist, it is not necessary to prove substantial "non-standard" localisms, and widespread British Latin is all you need to create a situation where England speaks a Romance language. Of course, you need a POD that allows British Latin political control, which is practically difficult as we know so little about 5th century Britian.

Bolded part: I'm still making my way through the essay you linked (the fact that I had a test this morning to study for sort of forced me to put it on the back-burner), but I must read more of this Schrijver fellow. I admit I'm not much on historical linguistics compared to the contemporary, so I haven't heard of the man until now. And as for evidence of Common Brittonic, I admit I understood the presence of place names prior to the development of recognizable Welsh, combined with commentary in Agricola comparing the Britons' tongue closely to Gaulish, to be the more attested sample of languages in Britain (again, under the impression of Latin samples in Britain belonging to non-native soldiers, politicians, scribes, etc.). It seems that I was mistaken in that regard. As for your listed points;

1) As I said, mis-identifed as spoken by Roman immigrants as opposed to local Britons. Which as I type it, sounds less and less plausible.
2) Now THIS I'm incredibly glad to see, as I've long wondered just how big the Latin vocabulary in Welsh was! As for how widespread it was, I frankly chalked it up to Latin being a written language, and the Brittonic dialect(s) not so, thus importing words that might be a common denominator between Celtic dialects.
3) I could see how that might answer (at least in part) the dearth of Brythonic words in Old English. That being said, do we have any attestation of A-S usage of Latin in that manner? I'm honestly curious.
4) I found a list of the tablets online here, still working through them to find where those examples are.
5) Wait, was the word "Lloegr" coined prior to the 5th. century? I thought it didn't enter usage until between the 10th and 12th centuries in either Armes Prydain or Historia Regnum Britanniae?
6) Again, thought that was due to the upper-class being non-Briton (I might be anachronistically projecting angst towards Norman rule, since I'm a bit more well-read on that period).
7) The logic is sound. I then have to wonder why it went away at all with that kind of demographic base; for some reason, I don't see the Britannians being copacetic with joining the Celtic Nor'Western Cymru, and I doubt the Anglo-Saxons Latinized enough for said Britannians' tastes a la the Franks.

And at the end of the day, I'm not opposed to the notion of a Latin *England per se, just misinformed on how well-set Roman influence was in the face of how Roman British society went ker-ploof so thoroughly....at least, to the extent that we can know at this time. So I'll put it to you; should some "Arthur" figure manage to keep the Saxons at bay for good, would Britain regain its "Latin-ness", or be a Celtic nation(s)?
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
The question in (3) is interesting, we don't have direct evidence of AS use of Latin during pagan times. However, we can certainly say they were borrowing some vocab from Latin while they were still on the continent, as some words borrowed underwent sound changes that occurred before the AS arrived in Britain. Everything we know about analogous situations suggests that prior to the collapse of Roman power German tribes would have used Latin to communicate, as the dominant more technologically advanced culture usually imposes its language in contact situations. I personally suspect there was a pidgin register of Vulgar Latin used at the fringes of the empire, but that is just speculation.

(5) is based on my understanding of a topic I'm not 100% sure of, people talk about this like it was certain, but I don't know the evidence first hand.

The upper classes included non-Britons, but Celtic elites were also romanised, so its a half-half situation. The same thing happened in Gaul.

In *Artorius situations, I think we are looking at what happened afterwards. Maybe he can fight off the Saxons, but can he fight off the Britons? For me, the end of Roman power in Britain owes most to the chaos in Gaul in the 5th century. Trade across the channel was made impossible by Saxons, bandits, pirates, rampaging warlords (British/Latin/Frankish) and rogue "emperors". What evidence of trade we have comes from Cornwall, where ships could trade quickly then get the hell out of dodge. The Roman economy collapsed, and tribal Britons and Saxons filled the vacuum.
 
i THINK I can generate rough ORBATS for the late 500s for the various post-Roman Rectorates. I mean I have the Notitia Dignitatum for the 430s. While the Southern units get smashed up during the Vortigen Period I noted above. So when Aelle made his move things were much weaker in the south than the north - Which is probably why they used German Mercs as Heavy armoured Inf in the south of Britannia in the 450s-500s; while the Military District of the Linear Vallum still had there Heavy armoured Inf as late as the 590s. Which would explain when the Saxon Takeover happened in the 590-610s the Wall was not affected.
 
So what I'm gathering, with regards to the language, is that with the breakdown of trade with the west, urban collapse, and the A-S control of the more strongly latinized areas, ment that the Brittonic Languages that survived were those that had stayed more celtic.

Yes/No?
 
So what I'm gathering, with regards to the language, is that with the breakdown of trade with the west, urban collapse, and the A-S control of the more strongly latinized areas, ment that the Brittonic Languages that survived were those that had stayed more celtic.

Yes/No?
Mostly yes.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
So what I'm gathering, with regards to the language, is that with the breakdown of trade with the west, urban collapse, and the A-S control of the more strongly latinized areas, ment that the Brittonic Languages that survived were those that had stayed more celtic.

Yes/No?

I think yes, but what appears to have happened is that the Anglo-Saxons and Britons both split the Latin area between them. Or else something completely different happened because we are really guessing.
 
I think yes, but what appears to have happened is that the Anglo-Saxons and Britons both split the Latin area between them. Or else something completely different happened because we are really guessing.
Class might play a role since the Angles and Saxons had a more fluid class system.
So a mix of elite and peasant replacement followed by slow Brittonic peasant withdrawal as Angle/Saxon peasants are favoured - basically the Brittonic farms begin to be outnumbered by Angle/Saxon farms and excess sons have a choice between adoption into the neighbours or migration west.
 
Class might play a role since the Angles and Saxons had a more fluid class system.
So a mix of elite and peasant replacement followed by slow Brittonic peasant withdrawal as Angle/Saxon peasants are favoured - basically the Brittonic farms begin to be outnumbered by Angle/Saxon farms and excess sons have a choice between adoption into the neighbours or migration west.

While this accurate, it probably wasnt as peaceful as you make it seem, just based on the genetic differences between the English and Welsh.
 
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