01-16-2007, 01:57 AM
My reason to bring up Coates was to discuss several of his point about Anglo-Saxon-British interaction. I think the article is challenging, but I have also criticism about some of his points.
His treatment of the historical sources is not correct. Starting with Gildas, who writes of Romano-Britons being driven from their cities up into the hills and caves where they starve of hunger, while behind them all their cities burn. A truly apocalyptic image, which was very common for Gildas fellow writers on the continent – if we would believe them, all the Roman provinces burned ‘like a giant funeral pyre’ (as one happy fella wrote). Of course, no-one believes that, and archaeology disproves it. Yet Coates uses this to support a ‘vacated east’. Yet when he uses Bede, he does the other thing and stresses that the British kingdoms that ARE mentioned by Bede must have been “scattered (relict) stateletsâ€
His treatment of the historical sources is not correct. Starting with Gildas, who writes of Romano-Britons being driven from their cities up into the hills and caves where they starve of hunger, while behind them all their cities burn. A truly apocalyptic image, which was very common for Gildas fellow writers on the continent – if we would believe them, all the Roman provinces burned ‘like a giant funeral pyre’ (as one happy fella wrote). Of course, no-one believes that, and archaeology disproves it. Yet Coates uses this to support a ‘vacated east’. Yet when he uses Bede, he does the other thing and stresses that the British kingdoms that ARE mentioned by Bede must have been “scattered (relict) stateletsâ€
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)