Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Alanus]

Yes, Léon Fleuriot linked the popular breton name Alan with fox, deer or other animals with red fur. Not with the Alans at all.
Breton genealogies were mostly made up for political reasons, and lot of them are post-12th century.
Salomon for exemple, is the name of a famous IXth century breton king. Names like Riwallon or Hoel belongs to various noble breton houses of the IXth to XIIth centuries. It's easy to see someone picking up those names and making up a Salomon I and II to have a good king list. It's even more true for some of those list that dates back only to the XVth century... Even if they look archaic, they were made up or recompiled in a period when Breton dukes were competiting with french kings. Sort of "my lineage is older than yours" stuff...
So those genealogies are really not reliable at all for studying early Brittany.

Yoh, Benjamin

Leon Fleuriot interpreted "Alan" in an animalistic context. He ignored or dismissed other probabilities. Early copies of the original Brut list "Alanus" as "the first man in Europe." I might point out that Geoffrey of Monmouth also used a Brut, which he described as his "ancient book in the British tongue." Nennius mentions Alanus in the progenitor context twice, obviously working from Bruts written before 825. As such, it would have been a very old name, perhaps equated with the deer. But the tribal Alans also linked themeselves with the deer and a progenitor named Alanus. As such, the nomen Alan may be extremely ancient and obviously used by parallel cultures. Perhaps it means the "venerated one," and therefore pertains both to man and deer. In family pedigrees the name is conspicuous in the Saloman gens but nowhere else.

Bretons in the IXth century used hit-and-run tactics. That's not the heavy cavalry of lancers used by the Sarmatians or Alans. It is more common with the tactics of the Maures, also famous for their cavalry in late roman times. Magnus Maximus rallied a unit of such cavalry, and Mauri limitanei garrisonned western Armorica in the 4th century.
Even this is not obvious link for me.

Very good point. If a traditional core of the sub-Roman cavalry arrived from the two units of Equites Taifali plus a "homegrown" influence, we wouldn't see cataphract formations. Even in Alanic tradition we view hit and run tactics. Julius Frontinus' description of Queen Tomyris' battle against Cyrus doesn't sound cataphractish. At the battle of Chalons, the Alanic king Sangiban used a subtle combination of both styles. Actually, when we think about it, the units in Britain were called the Equites Taifali but they were comprised of Goths, Alans, perhaps Spaniards and a Hun or two. :roll:

Hit-and-run tactics were used by both celtic, germanic and roman cavalry for hundred of years before the stirrup came west. A 2nd (?) century roman account from Vindolanda complains about those brittunculi, fighting on horseback with javelins and never getting caught...

The Britons are unprotected by armour. There are very many cavalry. The cavalry do not use swords, nor do the wretched Britons [Brittunculi] mount in order to throw javelins.

Interesting quote, but it's from the 2nd century, perhaps before the Iazyge cavalry was sent into Britain by Marcus Aureliaus. I don't even believe that the Iazyge steppe "tradition" could have survived, untainted, into a much later post-Roman Britain. What are your thoughts on that? :wink:

I agree with you. The idea of a solid cataphract line as used by the Sassanian royal Savaran doesn't seem applicable for fighting Picts or Angles. But what I was getting at in my last post was this: the name of "Salomon" ("salt-user" or Biblical?) and the term "Tewdrig map Theithfallt" (Theodoric son of Thieudebalth) are cultural anomalies in the British pedigrees. No amount of "imaginative fudging" by medieval "pedigree artists" could change a spade from a spade. Genealogist Darrell Wolcott has noted that Theithfall was not native to the isle. These men were foreigners, outsiders. They were positioned into Britain and Armorica by the Roman hierarchy and they became British kings by Imperial decree and not by lineal descent. What is important to us, I think, is that they were "late Roman" and probably commanded cavalry units just before the so-called "Roman abandonment."