07-29-2006, 07:36 PM
My current take on this debate (my position has changed a few times over the years) is that there is a tendency for people to view it as a binary question - either it was a wholesale invasion and displacement or there was substantial continuity. I feel that the answer may lie somewhere between these two extremes.
Hi Thiudareiks, that's my point too. I'm definately against the 'no invasion at all' theory. So far I've tried to point out the point that can be made against the 'mass migration and large-scale replacement' theory, which was the satrt of this bout of discussion. As I see it, there had to be migration to give the impetus to the cultural influences that turn up in Britain. There may in some areas indeed have been more immigrants then Romano-British inhabitants, we just have not identified yet. My two main points are just these:
1) don't trust the 'historical accounts' of the Anglo-Saxon invasions as written down many centuries later, and
2) don't trust the opinion of the researchers who claim that by testing modern humans they can prove that the Anglo-Saxons killed off or displaced 50-80% of the male population in post-Roman Britain.
The adoption of 'Germanic' names, dress-styles, weaponry, political organisation and building styles is paralleled in parts of post-Roman Europe where we know that the numbers of the Germanic invaders were actually very small: Frankish Gaul, Ostrogothic Italy and Visigothic Gaul and Spain, for example. So these things in themselves aren't neccessarily signs of wholesale displacement. But Britain is significant in the way language was affected.
Exactly.
The language is different in the sense that less Brythonic words suvive in modern English. But even there no mass extinction is needed to achieve that.
In Gaul, Italy and Spain we find a scattering of Germanic loan words entering the languages - largely to do with war and political organisation for obvious reasons - but the languages remained substantially post-Latin/Romance. But in Britain we do see a fairly wholesale adoption of a Germanic language.
Especially in Gaul we see a new ruling class that want to become Romanised. The thing you should look at is how many Gallic words are still found in French. We know from Sidonius Appolinaris and others that Celtic was still a much-spoken language among the 5th-c. Gallo-Roman citizens. Did words from their language survive into modern French?
Old English has a few Latin loan words, but most of these are either (i) pre-invasion words which had found their way into West Germanic through contact with the Roman Empire before the Fifth Century or (ii) ecclesiastical terms which found their way into Old English via the Church. It also has a tiny number of Celtic words, names and place names (especially, for some reason, the names of rivers - Avon, Thames etc). But otherwise Old English remained stubbornly Germanic until the Norman Invasion.
I can recommend Brian Ward-Perkins (2000): Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become more British?, in: English Historical Review 115: pp. 513-533. to explain a possible reason.
Other examples of wholesale replacement of the native language tend to reveal different circumstances to what probably happened in post-Roman Britain. In North Africa, for example, Berber, Punic and Latin were certainly replaced by Arabic. But there the Arab invaders didn't just bring a new political order, but also brought a religion which was based on a Holy Book and worship in Arabic. Non-Arabic languages survived the invasion for some centuries, but it seems that it was the central place that Arabic held in the form of Islam brought to North Africa that led to their eventual demise and the wholesale adoption of Arabic.
My point exactly. But Berber was never replaced (see below). And where you see the religion as a difference, I mainly look at the lack of coercion that still brought about the language change.
In Britain, on the other hand, the invaders didn't bring a religion which was as 'aggressive' in its dominance or as linked to the newcomer's language.
Ah, Islam was not brought agressively in any way. Early Islam was purely a matter of soft coercion and many opportunities. In my opinion that could also have been the case for Britain, where Germanic culture and Anglo-Saxon language were seen as an opportunity.
The wholesale adoption of Old English in the areas of Britain settled and dominated by Germanics does, in my opinion, indicate a substantial colonisation by newcomers. But I don't go so far as to say it supports wholesale displacement of the local population. Clearly it means there were more Germanic-speakers coming to Britain than there were in Ostrogothic Italy or Frankish Gaul, but other evidence indicates that the imposition of Old English was also due to political and cultural domination by these newcomers of the locals.
Odd, your position on the Roman colonisation of Gaul, etc. seems opposed to this conclusion. But even if there were sufficient colonists to replace the language, I think that even the most stauch supporters of mass migration theories never see more than 800.000 German colonist, while most experts seem convinced that lowland Britain had 4 to 6 million inhabitants. In any case that would mean the newcomers were outnumbered heavily. I think (with Francis Pryor) the main difference is that in the areas that some see as colonised and others as culturally altered, is also the area that was most Romanised, i.e. where the inhabitants were already adapted earlier and maybe were less opposed to new influeces and changes.
The newcomers came in sufficient numbers to dominate the locals politically and then linguistically, but many of the people of 'Angalaland' in the Sixth to Eleventh Centuries would still have been people of Celtic descent who simply adopted Germanic names and language.
I agree.
Hi Thiudareiks, that's my point too. I'm definately against the 'no invasion at all' theory. So far I've tried to point out the point that can be made against the 'mass migration and large-scale replacement' theory, which was the satrt of this bout of discussion. As I see it, there had to be migration to give the impetus to the cultural influences that turn up in Britain. There may in some areas indeed have been more immigrants then Romano-British inhabitants, we just have not identified yet. My two main points are just these:
1) don't trust the 'historical accounts' of the Anglo-Saxon invasions as written down many centuries later, and
2) don't trust the opinion of the researchers who claim that by testing modern humans they can prove that the Anglo-Saxons killed off or displaced 50-80% of the male population in post-Roman Britain.
The adoption of 'Germanic' names, dress-styles, weaponry, political organisation and building styles is paralleled in parts of post-Roman Europe where we know that the numbers of the Germanic invaders were actually very small: Frankish Gaul, Ostrogothic Italy and Visigothic Gaul and Spain, for example. So these things in themselves aren't neccessarily signs of wholesale displacement. But Britain is significant in the way language was affected.
Exactly.
The language is different in the sense that less Brythonic words suvive in modern English. But even there no mass extinction is needed to achieve that.
In Gaul, Italy and Spain we find a scattering of Germanic loan words entering the languages - largely to do with war and political organisation for obvious reasons - but the languages remained substantially post-Latin/Romance. But in Britain we do see a fairly wholesale adoption of a Germanic language.
Especially in Gaul we see a new ruling class that want to become Romanised. The thing you should look at is how many Gallic words are still found in French. We know from Sidonius Appolinaris and others that Celtic was still a much-spoken language among the 5th-c. Gallo-Roman citizens. Did words from their language survive into modern French?
Old English has a few Latin loan words, but most of these are either (i) pre-invasion words which had found their way into West Germanic through contact with the Roman Empire before the Fifth Century or (ii) ecclesiastical terms which found their way into Old English via the Church. It also has a tiny number of Celtic words, names and place names (especially, for some reason, the names of rivers - Avon, Thames etc). But otherwise Old English remained stubbornly Germanic until the Norman Invasion.
I can recommend Brian Ward-Perkins (2000): Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become more British?, in: English Historical Review 115: pp. 513-533. to explain a possible reason.
Other examples of wholesale replacement of the native language tend to reveal different circumstances to what probably happened in post-Roman Britain. In North Africa, for example, Berber, Punic and Latin were certainly replaced by Arabic. But there the Arab invaders didn't just bring a new political order, but also brought a religion which was based on a Holy Book and worship in Arabic. Non-Arabic languages survived the invasion for some centuries, but it seems that it was the central place that Arabic held in the form of Islam brought to North Africa that led to their eventual demise and the wholesale adoption of Arabic.
My point exactly. But Berber was never replaced (see below). And where you see the religion as a difference, I mainly look at the lack of coercion that still brought about the language change.
In Britain, on the other hand, the invaders didn't bring a religion which was as 'aggressive' in its dominance or as linked to the newcomer's language.
Ah, Islam was not brought agressively in any way. Early Islam was purely a matter of soft coercion and many opportunities. In my opinion that could also have been the case for Britain, where Germanic culture and Anglo-Saxon language were seen as an opportunity.
The wholesale adoption of Old English in the areas of Britain settled and dominated by Germanics does, in my opinion, indicate a substantial colonisation by newcomers. But I don't go so far as to say it supports wholesale displacement of the local population. Clearly it means there were more Germanic-speakers coming to Britain than there were in Ostrogothic Italy or Frankish Gaul, but other evidence indicates that the imposition of Old English was also due to political and cultural domination by these newcomers of the locals.
Odd, your position on the Roman colonisation of Gaul, etc. seems opposed to this conclusion. But even if there were sufficient colonists to replace the language, I think that even the most stauch supporters of mass migration theories never see more than 800.000 German colonist, while most experts seem convinced that lowland Britain had 4 to 6 million inhabitants. In any case that would mean the newcomers were outnumbered heavily. I think (with Francis Pryor) the main difference is that in the areas that some see as colonised and others as culturally altered, is also the area that was most Romanised, i.e. where the inhabitants were already adapted earlier and maybe were less opposed to new influeces and changes.
The newcomers came in sufficient numbers to dominate the locals politically and then linguistically, but many of the people of 'Angalaland' in the Sixth to Eleventh Centuries would still have been people of Celtic descent who simply adopted Germanic names and language.
I agree.
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)
