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+--- Thread: Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc) (/showthread.php?tid=6780)
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Astiryu1 - 07-18-2010
In Florida also; goes for commercial fishing as well.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 07-19-2010
In Maine, it also goes for sportfishing. But we're getting "ahead" of the game. Now back to sub-Roman Britain. :lol:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Conal - 07-19-2010
Quote:modern Celtic breeds can live off low value foods, the horses, at least, may be possible,
A 13 hand pony can live off grazing. Apparently 2 acres for the 1st horse and 1 acre per extra horse thereafter. Thats roughly
;130 yards x 66 yards = 1 hos
130 yards X 130 yards = 3 hos
260 yards x 260 yards = 14 hos
Now that aint a lot of land. Maiden castle is 47 acres and could have housed 30 hos very comfortable and 46 at a push..
Sorry about the hos, i read a lot of westerns :roll:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Ron Andrea - 07-19-2010
Some of those Iron Age hill forts may have been so large because whole communities lived in them--including their dogs and horses--er, hosses. However, you could hardly graze them there. Maybe on the outer slopes though.
Your point, however, is that horses could be economically maintained. Maybe, but if sub-Roman Britain was sliding back toward subsistence living, horses may have been a luxury they couldn't afford--no matter how useful mounted warriors might be against the invading Germans. I'm all for the idea of some form of sub-Roman cavalry (obviously) but see it as more ad hoc and defused than anything Imperial.
That's the big unknown: how far and how fast did sub-Roman Britain degenerate? Apparently they were still importing pottery (and things in the pots) from the Mediterranean. Wonder if they were still exporting tin? Socially they re-adopted tribal groupings, though who knows how close their governance resembled what had existed before AD 47. They probably didn't know and didn't care. They were clinging to whatever seemed to be working because Herman (the German) were at their gates.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - ArthuroftheBritons - 07-19-2010
True, which is why Ambrosius was such a big hero. He brought order, peace, and stablility. Not to mention keeping the trading links to the continent open. And he used this cavalry to do it.
PS: Hurray! I've finally contributed something useful!
PPS: Long time, no see Alanus! Are we still continuing our discussions via PM?
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Conal - 07-19-2010
Quote:, but if sub-Roman Britain was sliding back toward subsistence living, horses may have been a luxury they couldn't afford--no matter how useful mounted warriors might be against the invading Germans. I'm all for the idea of some form of sub-Roman cavalry (obviously) but see it as more ad hoc and defused than anything Imperial.
That's the big unknown: how far and how fast did sub-Roman Britain degenerate?
Dont confuse subsistance living with kitchen gardening :wink: If wealth could be created by breeding the hos (or any animal) for whatever use then folks will do it. The Massai in African consider a cattle heard of 50 to be reasonable and they dont grow crops at all relying on trading livestock to get grain etc. Their acreage per cow must be more than for the hos in Britain but they still manage 50+ heards
My point with Miaden castle was that it was unoccupied in the 450s so thereby establishing free land available on which to keep hosses, as not all of Britain had been planted with cabbages.
I see no physical obsticle to having "enough" horses for a reasonable cavalry force .... only cultural or political reasons for not having one.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Ron Andrea - 07-19-2010
True. I can't imagine political impediments, other than who would control the cavalry, but culture is another matter. If Celtic culture was resurgent, the Celtic parties would have had an incentive to eschew all things Roman--like cavalry, even if it worked. But would they have? There doesn't seem to be much evidence--as we've discussed exhaustively--for said cavalry.
Not to mention the occasional two-headed calf.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 07-20-2010
Ron and Nicholas,
You both make good points. The ties to the Med, particularly the Eastern Empire continued into the 7th century. I wonder how fast this so-called British backsliding occurred. Change creeps slowly, or it used to until Edison invented the light bulb. The wagons used in the 19th century were no different than the Gallic ones made during the Roman era. We hear of a mini-ice-age, a yellew-death, yet Gildas was sounding a lot like a Roman almost 150 years after the legions pulled out of Britain. Seems to me that horses could have fared well enough, especially considering they were tougher than today's pampered breeds.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - ArthuroftheBritons - 07-21-2010
Ron,
The Celts were a horse culture. Most of the equipment and tactics we've described go back to the Celts but the problem with the Celtic parties was their administration. In a tribal setting of constant civil war there is no way an elite cavalry force could be maintained and that means that as soon as the Roman party was dead and gone order and unity fell apart and the Saxons picked the kingdoms off, one by one. A few coallitions are all that saved Wales. Most famously the one under Tewdric at Tintern.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Matthew Amt - 07-21-2010
Quote:The Celts were a horse culture. Most of the equipment and tactics we've described go back to the Celts but the problem with the Celtic parties was their administration. In a tribal setting of constant civil war there is no way an elite cavalry force could be maintained...
Aren't you contradicting yourself? The earlier Celtic cultures were tribal with a mounted elite, and thrived on constant warfare. If post-Roman Britain went back to a basically tribal arrangement with constant warfare, that's no inherent bar to a cavalry elite. (Wouldn't be "civil war" in either case, by the way, since it's warfare between *different* groups!)
I'd also be careful about thinking that any "backsliding" after Roman administration ended might involve any sort of concious revival of Late La Tene cultural elements. People didn't say, "Well, those Roman guys are gone, so we can get back to wearing plaid and liming our hair!" They simply went on with their lives as they could, making local administrative changes as needed. Local militia units would go on being local militia units. There would already be aristocrats, and they'd go on ruling. Sure, if they found that they needed fortifications and it was easier just to move into an old hill fort, they'd go for it. But it wasn't like they deliberately did that as a "revival" of the "old ways" or anything like that.
Valete,
Matthew
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - ArthuroftheBritons - 07-21-2010
A bit but maybe I explained it wrong. To my mind in the tribal arrangment an effective amount of mounted warriors couldn't be reached as each man was out for himself instead of just one goal that they all shared. And by civil war I'm envisioning warlords fighting over the carcass of the united land Ambrosius built. Also I don't believe any of us are saying that they went back to wearing plaid and liming their hair. Though likely some older styles of dress and hair may have creeped in. (However don't forget your woad! :lol: )
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Matthew Amt - 07-21-2010
Quote:A bit but maybe I explained it wrong. To my mind in the tribal arrangment an effective amount of mounted warriors couldn't be reached as each man was out for himself instead of just one goal that they all shared.
Well, there was some emphasis on individual prowess, single combat, and that sort of thing, but every warrior in a tribe fought for his tribe. All the tribal people of Europe fielded effective cavalry, to the point where Caesar and all the other Romans had to recruit their own cavalry from among the locals in order to win.
Quote:And by civil war I'm envisioning warlords fighting over the carcass of the united land Ambrosius built.
Ah, gotcha. I'll have to bow out, because it's out of my area and I don't know how much infighting there was (that we know about). The occasional imperial usurper probably isn't quite the same thing. And there may have a certain amount of fighting between local authorities in any case, even before the Romans left.
Quote:Also I don't believe any of us are saying that they went back to wearing plaid and liming their hair. Though likely some older styles of dress and hair may have creeped in. (However don't forget your woad! :lol: )
The Romans never dicated fashions, though there was certainly influence in all directions. So again, why would anyone start to dress differently simply because the provincial government changed? Remember, these folks had been Roman turf for a good 350 years, so none of them would have had the slightest clue about what was worn before Claudius' legions hit the beach.
Gotta run!
Matthew
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Conal - 07-22-2010
As an indication of how a clan mentality can progress through the ages I have recently read a book called "King of the Gypsies" the life of Bartley Gorman a champion bare knuckle figher. His clan or "breed" as they call it encompasses several families, of different names, with a number of breeds making up an Irish traveller continjent in the UKs travelling community. They believe that they are decendents of Irish clans displaced centurys past who had to travel and make a living as best they could. This is very reminicient of the Scottish clans, which itself was a holdover from earlier days.
Now it is 265 years since 1745 and the battle of Culloden and there is still a small section of modern society who follow a long gone system in amongst those who have subsumed all other traces of this.
They also follow a sort of internecine warefare through the ability to fight in bare knuckle contests. They also deal extensively in horses, despite them not being needed as transport any more, breed them for sale & profit and show them off through trotting competitions and races.
It indicates that a sub culture of pre-Roman Celticness "could" have survived 350 years of dominance by Rome, no doubt changed accordingly by Roman influences.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Robert Vermaat - 07-22-2010
Quote:It indicates that a sub culture of pre-Roman Celticness "could" have survived 350 years of dominance by Rome, no doubt changed accordingly by Roman influences.I beg to differ. Your example describes a group which is extremely closed-off towards the rest of society, so it's a strange duck in the pond. True, given the same circumstances such a group could exist during the Roman occupation. But the discussion was I think about British society as a whole and traditions that ‘could’ have survived within a far larger group that this relatively small one.
So I’d say that if we are arguing for traditions with a group of 20 families in west Yorkshire I’d say yes. But if we’re arguing for traditions within the larger part of Romano-British society (I know Stuart Laycock does), I’d say no.
Not without any proof, at least. :wink:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Ron Andrea - 07-22-2010
Yes, while the Romans seldom dictated local customs--in fact seemed to favor local power structures--they did try to maintain a monopoly on military force. Until late in the Roman period, there wouldn't have been "local militia" to go on being what they were. The Romans basically marched out and said, "Oh, by the way, see to defending yourselves." The Britons would have looked around and found some retired Roman soldier, some local lordling's house guard and some quasi-militia's in the fringe.
Mounted warriors would have been small bands with local loyalties, hardly the type to ride from one end of the isle to the under rallying local defenders. Some one like Ambrosius may have tried to raise such a force, but apparently it was not a long-lasting attempt. Y Godiddin indicates that, after a couple of centuries, the mounted warrior ideal was alive (but failed to defeats the Germans).
They did the best they could with what they had, which is why Vortigern employed the Roman practice of hiring federati against the Picts. It wasn't a bad idea, he just didn't have the depth of treasure to fund it.