Germanic names

[Ron Andrea]

We can not seek certainty in a period justly called the Dark Ages. The few written sources of those times were biased and unreliable to start with.

We'll probably never know who Arthur was or even if he was. But the period is interesting for another phenomena: the birth of England. To quote Winston Churchill from History of the English-Speaking Peoples,

"A red sunset; a long night; a pale, misty dawn! But as the light grows it becomes apparent to remote posterity that everything has changed. Night had fallen on Britannia. Dawn rose on England, poor, humble, barbareous, degraded and divided, but alive."

Which is why we peer back through the mists of time at those Germanic names, trying to make sense of what happened during that long twilight, night, then dawn between the departure of the legions and the reign of Alfred of Wessex.

Names are almost all we have. Names of kings; names of clerics, seldom names of the common folk on whose back fell the struggle itself.

And occasionally, just when it would be most helpful, we don't even have the names. For example, a cleric we call Gildas wrote a rant against the lack of virtue of five then-current Briton kings sometime in the sixth century. But in paragraph 26 of that wandering document, he refers to "until the siege of Bath-hill ("Badonius Mons"), when took place also the last almost, though not the least slaughter of our cruel foes." What victory was Gildas refering to? Some suggest Badonius Mons refers to the legendary Arthur's great victory. If so why didn't Gildas name the victorious general? I don't know. It is tantalizing, but nowhere near definitive.