09-30-2009, 11:25 AM
I only obliquely refer to "Arthur." My series is about young people coming of age in that period of turmoil. One, a young Alan, tries to use horse-borne warriors against Anglo-Saxon infantry. I'm trying to get the details right.
I'd hoped, for example, that the stirrup had penetrated this far west by the sixth century, but that's not so. In fact, I've seen little to indicate tactics or hardware were any different from Roman usage. And even then maybe not the best, as post-Roman Britannia disintegrated too fast to develop standing forces along the lines of the legions. There is suggestive--but only suggestive--indications that some Britons somewhere may have used mounted forces to respond to the Germans. Of course, by the six century, the Germans were well established in the East, so the Britons were not fights hit-and-run raiders, but potentially large forces drawn from many German communities.
It went in fits and starts. Assumedly the larger battles (some as much myth as fact--Germanius' "Hallelujah" victory, Badon Hill, Camlann, Salisbury, Catterick, Arfderydd, Dyrham) left both sides so exhausted that the Anglo-Saxon pressure subsided for a generation. But inevitably the pressure came again and again, until the Britons were pushed into isolated enclaves in Cornwall, Wales and the northwest. And, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, night had fallen on Britannia. When dawn rose on England three hundred years later everything was changed.
A heroic and significant time, lost to us now except for myths and legends we all love, but don't particularly believe.
I'd hoped, for example, that the stirrup had penetrated this far west by the sixth century, but that's not so. In fact, I've seen little to indicate tactics or hardware were any different from Roman usage. And even then maybe not the best, as post-Roman Britannia disintegrated too fast to develop standing forces along the lines of the legions. There is suggestive--but only suggestive--indications that some Britons somewhere may have used mounted forces to respond to the Germans. Of course, by the six century, the Germans were well established in the East, so the Britons were not fights hit-and-run raiders, but potentially large forces drawn from many German communities.
It went in fits and starts. Assumedly the larger battles (some as much myth as fact--Germanius' "Hallelujah" victory, Badon Hill, Camlann, Salisbury, Catterick, Arfderydd, Dyrham) left both sides so exhausted that the Anglo-Saxon pressure subsided for a generation. But inevitably the pressure came again and again, until the Britons were pushed into isolated enclaves in Cornwall, Wales and the northwest. And, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, night had fallen on Britannia. When dawn rose on England three hundred years later everything was changed.
A heroic and significant time, lost to us now except for myths and legends we all love, but don't particularly believe.
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil
Ron Andrea
Ron Andrea
