02-02-2015, 10:01 AM
An interesting discussion and one I feel I need to add my contribution.
My own living history group, Letavia, is focusing on the late 5th century Britons from western Britain and early Brittany so it's been a good 7 years since I'm working on that question 'how did look the sub Roman Britons?' We do have a more global interest towards the 4-7th centuries and are also working on anglo-saxon, irish and pictish impressions.
In case you are looking for some inspiration:
- blog: http://letavia.canalblog.com/
- facebook: http:///www.facebook.com/letavia.teulu/
As underlined by Matt the evidence is really thin. Save from the folios from the Vergilius Vaticanus if it's really british we don't have any depiction of them. Neither do we have a complete description of a late 5th or early 6th century briton. The Gododdin and more generally speaking the Hengerdd corpus gave interesting hints at military equipment (the lluric has been mentionned, but there are also possibly scale armor, crested helmets and so on); it's important to keep in mind debates on it's date are far from closed with two schools of thought, the positivists who saw it as a production of 9-10th century Wales (Padel, Dumville) and the authenticists who think it's genuine late 6th/7th century poetry from Northern Britain (John Koch and others).
Now when we take all hints together and look at the global picture (that is, clothing in late 5th/early 6th century western Europe) we can try reconstructions that can fit our hypothesis.
That the culture (at least for the elites) of western Britain was still heavily romanised circa 500 AD is a well known fact. Brittonic was spoken along british latin until the 7th century. The Britons imported wine, oil and ceramics from Mediterranea, all proof to roman eating fashions still in vogue then. Here and there we still regional productions of metalwork strongly influenced by late roman metalwork: Fowler penannular G brooch in the Severn valley, the 'Quoit Brooch' style in Kent and Sussex, the 'military style' (search for Fiona Gavin on academia.edu) pins and broochs in southern Scotland and Ireland. That's probably only the tip of the iceberg. At the crossing of influences between provincial roman, irish, germanic and local 'celtic' fashions Britain produced it's own material culture.
I'd tend to think there was some form of conservatism for metalwork. We do have buried exemples of late roman buckles and fittings in later, 6th century context for exemple. It could have been the same for ridge helmets and I don't think were 're-introduced' in the 7th century, the continuity may have been the case in Britain with the 7th century Wollaston or 8th century Coppergate beeing evolutions of late roman helmets. I tried to portray a 'missing link', see my helmet on my avatar, it has characters from both helmet types.
On the new fashions that came in the mid to late 5th century in western Europe, we see gold and garnet fittings on swords and belts, and spangenhelmes, both who have an eastern origin. They were likely introduced west by federates returning from eastern roman service. But when where they introduced in Britain? We have two exemples of spangenhelmes there, the 7th century Benty Grange helmet and the Shorwell helmet (for which has been postulated a frankish origin). Such fashions could have been adopted by the Britons either through the Franks or more directly under direct contact with the eastern roman empire (remember the atlantic trade). Yet we have no proof of either, and as no such find has been made so far in western Britain the Britons could have possibly kept metalwork and styles developped from 4th century roman styles.
For clothing you can easily go for late roman patterns (wide tunics, rectangular sagum cloaks fastened on the right shoulder, paenula, birrus and cucculus, braccae either ankle lenght or knee lenght, etc.) yet I think so called 'coptic' style tunics would have been a rare sight in late 5th century Britain, as they would be likely be imported. So more simple styles could be a stronger possibility.
My own living history group, Letavia, is focusing on the late 5th century Britons from western Britain and early Brittany so it's been a good 7 years since I'm working on that question 'how did look the sub Roman Britons?' We do have a more global interest towards the 4-7th centuries and are also working on anglo-saxon, irish and pictish impressions.
In case you are looking for some inspiration:
- blog: http://letavia.canalblog.com/
- facebook: http:///www.facebook.com/letavia.teulu/
As underlined by Matt the evidence is really thin. Save from the folios from the Vergilius Vaticanus if it's really british we don't have any depiction of them. Neither do we have a complete description of a late 5th or early 6th century briton. The Gododdin and more generally speaking the Hengerdd corpus gave interesting hints at military equipment (the lluric has been mentionned, but there are also possibly scale armor, crested helmets and so on); it's important to keep in mind debates on it's date are far from closed with two schools of thought, the positivists who saw it as a production of 9-10th century Wales (Padel, Dumville) and the authenticists who think it's genuine late 6th/7th century poetry from Northern Britain (John Koch and others).
Now when we take all hints together and look at the global picture (that is, clothing in late 5th/early 6th century western Europe) we can try reconstructions that can fit our hypothesis.
That the culture (at least for the elites) of western Britain was still heavily romanised circa 500 AD is a well known fact. Brittonic was spoken along british latin until the 7th century. The Britons imported wine, oil and ceramics from Mediterranea, all proof to roman eating fashions still in vogue then. Here and there we still regional productions of metalwork strongly influenced by late roman metalwork: Fowler penannular G brooch in the Severn valley, the 'Quoit Brooch' style in Kent and Sussex, the 'military style' (search for Fiona Gavin on academia.edu) pins and broochs in southern Scotland and Ireland. That's probably only the tip of the iceberg. At the crossing of influences between provincial roman, irish, germanic and local 'celtic' fashions Britain produced it's own material culture.
I'd tend to think there was some form of conservatism for metalwork. We do have buried exemples of late roman buckles and fittings in later, 6th century context for exemple. It could have been the same for ridge helmets and I don't think were 're-introduced' in the 7th century, the continuity may have been the case in Britain with the 7th century Wollaston or 8th century Coppergate beeing evolutions of late roman helmets. I tried to portray a 'missing link', see my helmet on my avatar, it has characters from both helmet types.
On the new fashions that came in the mid to late 5th century in western Europe, we see gold and garnet fittings on swords and belts, and spangenhelmes, both who have an eastern origin. They were likely introduced west by federates returning from eastern roman service. But when where they introduced in Britain? We have two exemples of spangenhelmes there, the 7th century Benty Grange helmet and the Shorwell helmet (for which has been postulated a frankish origin). Such fashions could have been adopted by the Britons either through the Franks or more directly under direct contact with the eastern roman empire (remember the atlantic trade). Yet we have no proof of either, and as no such find has been made so far in western Britain the Britons could have possibly kept metalwork and styles developped from 4th century roman styles.
For clothing you can easily go for late roman patterns (wide tunics, rectangular sagum cloaks fastened on the right shoulder, paenula, birrus and cucculus, braccae either ankle lenght or knee lenght, etc.) yet I think so called 'coptic' style tunics would have been a rare sight in late 5th century Britain, as they would be likely be imported. So more simple styles could be a stronger possibility.
"O niurt Ambrois ri Frangc ocus Brethan Letha."
"By the strenght of Ambrosius, king of the Franks and the Armorican Bretons."
Lebor Bretnach, Irish manuscript of the Historia Brittonum.
![[Image: 955d308995.jpg]](http://www.ciberupload.com/uploads/955d308995.jpg)
Agraes / Morcant map Conmail / Benjamin Franckaert
"By the strenght of Ambrosius, king of the Franks and the Armorican Bretons."
Lebor Bretnach, Irish manuscript of the Historia Brittonum.
Agraes / Morcant map Conmail / Benjamin Franckaert
![[Image: Thorsberg_Shields.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Thorsberg_Shields.jpg)
