Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[marka]

Was life in Sub -Roman Britain a subsistence existance??? I find that hard to accept as from what I understand farming practices changed little in the periods before, during and after the 5th centrury..

near subsistence farming still existed in remote areas of scotland until last century.
i would say (pure speculation)that if there was a huge agricultural surplus you would see towns and cities once again developing on roman scale-which we don't.

[Ron Andrea]

Subsistence farming in Scotland in the nineteen century does not preclude cash crop farming in Britain fifteen hundred years earlier.

Without a doubt, most of Britain was reduced to subsistence farming by the seventh and eighth centuries. The question is, how steep was the decline from Roman practice? We don't know, but apparently for a few generations the Britons held the structure and trappings of Roman life. That it eventually--some would say, inevitably--slipped from their grip gives their effort even greater pathos.

[Alanus]

Perhaps Britain was reduced to subsistance farming in the 6th or 7th centuries, but not in the 5th. Recent studies actually show an increase in agrarian farming during the period we're looking at. Perhaps Germanus found the churches in eastern Britain diminished, yet they thrived in the southwest-- the area that would have produced a post-Roman cavalry. There are numerous references to food-rents being turned over to the early churches in Wales. One individual, Saint Illtyd, was actually credited with "inventing" an improved plow, his lands so prospered. This was not a bleak world of people going hungry.

Horses? :?: The Welsh cob was and is an all-around worker, and it's now ridden by John Conyard and his Equites Taifali. As for tyrants (aka tyrannus), Morgan's bodyguard was a Celt... and a well-off one. The number of working villas in this region, the rise of the "primitive" Church, and the evident excesses of food-rents and 70-cow swords, do not paint a dismal picture. hock:

PS: Hey, Guys. I've been working hard on improving my kit, even picking up one of those digital cameras that I don't know how to use. If I can ever figure out how to post my "mug-shot," then I'll do it.

[Conal]

Francis Pryor (of Time Team fame) indicates that pre Roman, Roman and post Roman agriculture changed very little. The Saxons either adopted existing methods or the local population stayed and carried on for thier new landlords.

Apparently in some areas grain productrion reduced and those areas given over to animal farming.

With ref to 6th & 7th centuries does anyone have any references to confirm a purely subsitance existence? I was under the impression, along with Alanus, that tythes were common to both church and lord.

[Medicus matt]

With ref to 6th & 7th centuries does anyone have any references to confirm a purely subsitance existence? .

Unlikely. You need something more productive than subsistance farming to produce the surplus neccesary to feed all those non-productive people from the chap at the top and his military and civilian retinue down to the craftsmen who made all that shiny stuff that they pull out of the ground.

[Conal]

Unlikely. You need something more productive than subsistance farming to produce the surplus neccesary to feed all those non-productive people from the chap at the top and his military and civilian retinue down to the craftsmen who made all that shiny stuff that they pull out of the ground

My thoughts too.

[Ron Andrea]

I agree. I don't have specific support for subsistence farming as the six or seventh century norm. It just seemed unlikely that whatever was going on would support much of an administrative or military superstructure. It wasn't an all-or-nothing situtation, but a continum from famished to opulent, with the norm probably sliding toward the hungry pole for several centuries.

[Medicus matt]

with the norm probably sliding toward the hungry pole for several centuries.

Why? I doubt very much that the people working the land, living outside of big towns, noticed much of a difference. Sure, the man that they had to give stuff to dressed differently and spoke differently. Not that they ever spoke to the man in charge anyway. I suppose there might even have been a period where they got to keep anything they grew all to themselves....seems unlikley though. Somebody always fills a power vacuum, even if it's only on a very small, temporary level.

Towns yes, big changes there. Towns rely on being able to buy your food from someone else, leaving you free to do your pottery, mosaic making, acting...whatever. BIG shock for them. They're the ones who starved to death in the forests, not Mr and Mrs Muddy.

Getting a long way off cavalry now.

[Ron Andrea]

Because with the disintegration of the villa culture--the Roman equivalent of big-acreage land barons--Britain no longer produced enough grain to export. That is hardly the same as starving, but it indicates a slide away from agricultural plenty, which--along with a highly-structured society--is necessary to support large, well-equipped militaries.

I certainly don't argue that Britannia ever had large numbers of heavy cavalry, but the question we were exploring was whether sub-Roman Britain might have supported some sort of mounted force in the face of the Saxon invasion, and what that force might have looked like: equipment, organization and tactics. :?

I think we unanimously agree that such a force could not possibly have looked like the heavy chivalry Malory depicts in Morte d'Arthur. Beyond that, we don't seem to agree to much of anything. :roll:

[Medicus matt]

Because with the disintegration of the villa culture--the Roman equivalent of big-acreage land barons--Britain no longer produced enough grain to export. That is hardly the same as starving, but it indicates a slide away from agricultural plenty, which--along with a highly-structured society--is necessary to support large, well-equipped militaries.

But widespread farm villa culture isn't the be all and end all of farming during the period of roman occupation. It serves a specific purpose: to handle the adminstration and logisitics of large scale surplus production for the export market. There was a farming/rural economy outside of the villa system. Otherwise how were people outside of the central south west of Britain being fed?

[Medicus matt]

I certainly don't argue that Britannia ever had large numbers of heavy cavalry, but the question we were exploring was whether sub-Roman Britain might have supported some sort of mounted force in the face of the Saxon invasion, and what that force might have looked like: equipment, organization and tactics. :?

Me neither, but I don't think that lack of food was the reason. :wink:

[Ron Andrea]

No, but it might have been a cultural indicator. Like GDP today.

[Alanus]

Because with the disintegration of the villa culture--the Roman equivalent of big-acreage land barons--Britain no longer produced enough grain to export. That is hardly the same as starving, but it indicates a slide away from agricultural plenty, which--along with a highly-structured society--is necessary to support large, well-equipped militaries.

One way to look at it is-- "when" are we talking about? :?
When did the post-Roman cavalry exist, if it did exist? All indicators point to a period earlier than previously thought, in the era of Gildas and even before him. This would lead to a plausible Roman military connection (except for Littleton & Malcor's unlucky Iazyges :roll: ). Then when we proceed into the next centuries-- the sixth and seventh-- we find a gradual deterioration of the economy. Certainly in the lifetimes of Illtyd, Dubricus, and Cadoc, we have a healthy and magnanimous villa economy. Then things go to Hell.

Within this early period, we are looking at Celts who believed they were Romans and who considered themselves "good Christians" on some level. This appears in Gildas as "cultural shock," as those nasty, and specifically PAGAN, Saxons and Jutes took over the eastern lands. In this early post-Roman society, it is certainly easy to find a continuing Roman perspective. Such an outlook would have re-created a Roman-styled cavalry... even though it might not have been neccessarily large. What would be needed to stop a half dozen raiding keels from pillaging the local (increasingly southwestern) populace? Two hundred horsemen? Three hundred? hock: Hmmm. That sounds like a familiar number. :wink:

[Ron Andrea]

Exactly my thinking, Alanus.

Earlier in his Jeremiad, Gildas refers to the Romans sending "forward, like eagles in their flight, their unexpected bands of cavalry" against invading Socts and Picts. (Assumed to refer to Stilicho's second rescue, circa 418.) That places effective mounted Roman soldiers in Britannia in the corporate memory of Britons of the fifth and sixth century. (Gildas wrote circa 545.) Such a memory may have influenced the rub-Roman Britons to try to emulate the Roman practice.

Gildas is also who we have to thank for our earliest "Arthur" reference, that of the Briton victory at "the seige of Bath hill". Despite Gildas having named many other names which have appeared in this thread, he neglected to tell us who led the Britons in that victory which brought Britannia a generation of peace--perhaps their last before the Saxons gradually pushed the Briton remnant into Cornwall and Wales.

Except Gildas reports, "our foreign wars having ceased, but our civil troubles still remaining, the Britons fell to fighting among themselves."

It is not hard to see why later Britons might look back on that time, that unity, victory and unnamed leader with nostalgia, and maybe even exaggerated both the victory and the leader.

[marka]

with the norm probably sliding toward the hungry pole for several centuries.

Why? I doubt very much that the people working the land, living outside of big towns, noticed much of a difference. Sure, the man that they had to give stuff to dressed differently and spoke differently. Not that they ever spoke to the man in charge anyway.

true they probably wouldn't
if the 'saxons' and 'angles' had any sense the kept as much as possible the same and the 'british'lords in newly conquered saxon lands probably retained their positions.the british lords simply forwarding part of their tribute to their new overlords.they could also have used 'british' overseers as well.