North British Warrior

[Alanus]

Where's Robert on this one. I thought he was back from "vacation."
What can we use if not medieval stuff? :roll: Even Gildas wrote after the demise of the Western Empire, and Nennius entered the party a little late, about 350 years worth. Amazingly, it may be the songs themselves that can tell us a little something about the North British warrior. They were composed in the north and then went south into Wales along the "western corridor." The Institutional Triads, mentioned above, are also nearly pure. True, the oldest ms we have of both-- the songs and social triads-- are the surviving medieval copies... but they are helpful. Yet many classicists balk at using them.

A new thread? Dark Age Post-Roman? We'll have Barber, Pykitt, Wilson, Blackett, Manfredi, Franzoni, and Guinevere in a leather bikini. hock:

Britain had no Tacitus, no Pliny, no Ammianus. How sad.

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Alan,

Where's Robert on this one. I thought he was back from "vacation."

Yuhu.
Well, actually you were doing quite well, so...

Amazingly, it may be the songs themselves that can tell us a little something about the North British warrior. They were composed in the north and then went south into Wales along the "western corridor." The Institutional Triads, mentioned above, are also nearly pure. True, the oldest ms we have of both-- the songs and social triads-- are the surviving medieval copies... but they are helpful.

Ah, the songs.. Well, the poetry is.. poetry. It's like using Claudian as a source for the battle-plans of Stilicho in Britain. And amazingly, some have done just that.

What do you mean that the Triads are 'pure'? Pure of what?

Yet many classicists balk at using them.

Surprised? It's known these days through research of the work of the last known oral poets (ask Jona) that, opposite to what was thought for a long time, the contents of oral poetry varies with each performance, however slight. That means that Homer did not write down the contents of songs that had changed little troughout centuries, but merely the last of many many versions.
The same goes for medieval songs that are passed on orally. each performer adds his own stuff, so we cannot possibly rely on this material as conveying actual details. And if they do, it's coincidental.

A new thread? Dark Age Post-Roman? We'll have Barber, Pykitt, Wilson, Blackett, Manfredi, Franzoni, and Guinevere in a leather bikini. hock:

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo [..] oooooooooooooo :twisted:

Britain had no Tacitus, no Pliny, no Ammianus. How sad.

Well, come to think of it, neither had Gaul, Spain, Africa, Greece, Syria... the list is long.

Combrogi! Right on. That's the old old word in itself! And we see a common ethnos that welded a culture. Chieftains/kings had no property, it was "in common" with the extended Combrogi.

I REALLY hope you were being sarcastic here, and not painting a picture of Early Communist Britain. :mrgreen:

They don't even contain a Christian pollution, although written down in the medieval era.

Christian pollution? Explain?

[Robert Vermaat]

Do you think we're allowed to keep going with all this early medieval stuff here? Won't the guys with little swords and toothbrushes on their helmets come to throw us out? :wink:

Hmm.. As long as we keep it smallish. or maybe we should move here.

[Medicus matt]

Hmm.. As long as we keep it smallish. or maybe we should move here.

I've been there. It's very quiet.

[Agraes]

What about something like "The Successors of Rome" or "The Heirs of Rome"? The title may be not that evocative but it would refers both to the fall of the west and to the various early medieval kingdoms. Or simply "The Migrations Era". "Early Medieval" is good but we may end up speaking of the IX and Xth centuries.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Somebody mention us short sworded, tooth brush sporting chaps?
Who need throwing out? Point me in the right direction...... :wink:

Why not call it the 'Hazy' Period?

[Alanus]

It's known these days through research of the work of the last known oral poets (ask Jona) that, opposite to what was thought for a long time, the contents of oral poetry varies with each performance, however slight. That means that Homer did not write down the contents of songs that had changed little troughout centuries, but merely the last of many many versions.
The same goes for medieval songs that are passed on orally. each performer adds his own stuff, so we cannot possibly rely on this material as conveying actual details.

Hi, Robert

You are correct-- "oral poetry varies with each performance."

Thirty years ago, I wrote and performed oral poetry (songs) and they did vary each time, BUT the meter and rhyme remained the same, only the timing changing. The important part-- the information or tale-- did not vary. I moved on to become a national writer and gave up performing folk music. My brother-in-law (a professional), impressed with one of my songs, still sings it. He first heard it orally, and the "information" within that song remains unchanged.

"For tens of thousands of years before humans had writing, they had important information they needed to preserve... Anthropology has taught us that most of this information is encapsulated in song. Out ancestors discovered that if they set words to music they were easier to remember. The internal constraints of music-- the meter, the accent structure-- not to mention poetic elements like alliteration and rhyme, limit the possible words that will fit." (Professor Daniel Levitin, 2009)

We remember songs with uncanny precision; and as adults we are able to recall verses not sung since childhood. "Mares eat oats, and does eat oats," etc. Even children living in differing countries do not change it. This marvelous capacity of the human brain allows us to encode musical information and pass it verbatim to the next generation: the accurate transmission of tribal memory. I believe it because I did it and I lived it... as a once-professional bard.

Yes, there is some "pollution" in the material, but a careful scan can pick it out: things that DON'T FIT. One example is the Arthurian verse added to the "Death of Geraint." Its meter and structure are obvious intrusions in what I consider a "historical text," even though it was once verbal.

As for creating a new thread under the banner of "Late Antiquity?" :roll: I bought a huge Oxford book with that title, hoping to find good grit. Its contributors included a dozen prestiegious professors, yet everything was centered on Egypt, the Lavant, and Constantinople, all of it mosty covering religious subjects. Where was the info on Western Europe?

When your house is burned, your wife is raped, and your children sold into slavery, you are not living in Late Antiquity. That term, perhaps the product of weeping liberals, seems to hold no relevance to post-Roman Britain in the period under discussion. Just a thought. :|

[Robert Vermaat]

Yes, there is some "pollution" in the material, but a careful scan can pick it out: things that DON'T FIT. One example is the Arthurian verse added to the "Death of Geraint." Its meter and structure are obvious intrusions in what I consider a "historical text," even though it was once verbal.

There's the ability to rember (and reproduce) songs, and there's the work of a professional bard who adds material for the pleasure of the lord he works for at that particular time. Such as battles which become ascribed to different men, etc. The same is visible in the early to later medieval treatment of source material like pedegrees and charters. The attitude was different then (meaning there was no drive to preserve the material in the orginial state), and we lack the ability to discern the changes, because we lack the original. We only have the latest version of that particular version of the song, the moment it's written down.

Good bards would have chnged the songs without meddling with meter and structure. :wink:

As to a new thread, we could do that, but I'm not in favour of a new section. This is RAT, after all, and discussions that consistantly fall outside the scope of the forum (at least, as we define it at this moment :! should be held elsewhere. Like the Batavi forum, or others.

[Conal]

RAT roll: ... show your Byzantines here :|

Maybe a section head which links to the Batavi bits ?

[Alanus]

I agree with you both. Not anything wrong with the way it is; and the use of such phrases as "Dark Age" or "Late Antiquity" gives me the willy-nillies. :wink:

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

Well you could say "Britain in the Arturian Age" or some such. I don't think the mods would let it get out of hand. Never failed us yet.
Interesting thread, guys.

[Ron Andrea]

We were trying to avoid that name. :oops:

Historians tend to call that period sub-Roman Britain, though I'm not sure why they don't call it post-Roman Britain. :wink:

[John Conyard]

The Batavi are a good solid late Roman re-enactment group. Would they welcome post Roman activity on their site?
Or is the suggestion to stimulate more activity on their site?

I've recently spent a week back home in Cornwall, showing my sons Tintagel and other post Roman sites. It was interesting to speculate on the possible differences between a "North British Warrior" and his south western counterpart.

But that's for another time.

[Ron Andrea]

The Batavi seem like a nice group of folks (judging from their website), but their site doesn't have quite the lively discussion for which RAT is so famous.

[Robert Vermaat]

My suggestion had a bit of both - the Batavi forum is I think better suited for the 5th/6th c. military discussions and I'm sure Nick would mind the extra traffic. :wink: