8/8/2019 03 2009 - Dark Ages

1/2

Lecture 3: The Dark Ages (Fifth to Ninth Centuries)

The meaning of Dark Ages

The period of history following the end of the Western Roman Empire (i.e.

after 407 in Britain) has often been referred to as the Dark Ages. Many historians

think this has too negative connotations, and prefer terms like the early MiddleAges. However Dark Ages may still be an acceptable term, as long as we are

clear that it simple means an obscure period, for which we do not have many

sources to shed light on what was happeningit does not necessarily mean that

people then were living in darkness (ignorance, misery etc.)

Peoples of the British Isles in the Dark Ages

1. Britons. In 400, these were the native people of Roman Britain. By about 600.

they had lost control of most of modern England, but remained in control insouthern Scotland, north-west England, Wales and Cornwall, and some of them

had settled in Brittany. They spoke a Celtic language whose modern forms areWelsh, Breton and Cornish. The Britons kept their independence longest in

Wales, the land which they came to call Cymru, meaning compatriots

(Wales and Welsh come from an Old English word meaning

foreignersthe Anglo-Saxons name for the Britons).2. Picts. The natives of the northern part of Britain, which had never been under

Roman control (Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde). They probably spoke asimilar Celtic language to the Britons, but had a distinct cultural and political

identity. Apart from place names, their language has completely disappeared(replaced in later times by Gaelic and still later by English), but their art

survives, especially in the form of stone-carving.

3. Irish (also known as Gaels, or, in late Roman Britain, as Scots). The people of

Ireland spoke a different Celtic language, which is the origin of modern Irish,Scottish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic.1 By fifth century (perhaps long before), Irish

was also spoken in the west of Scotland, where the kingdom of Dl Riata was

established (the origin of the later kingdom of Scotland). There were also Irish

settlements in Wales. Ireland had never been in the Roman empire. It was arural society of small local kingdoms, gathered together under the kings of the

four provinces of Ulster, Connaught, Leinster and Munster. The most powerful

king at any time held court at the prehistoric site of Tara in the Midlands of

Ireland, and might claim the title of High King of Ireland. From the fifth to thetenth century, kings of Tara generally came from the U Nill family, the

descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages, who took control of many local

1 The Celtic languages are classed as P-Celtic (Welsh etc.) or Q-Celtic (Irish etc.) becausecognate words often have /p/ in the one group and /k/ in the other. For example Welsh

penn / Irish ceann = head

kingdoms. Another important aspect of Irish society is the survival of thelearned orders of Celtic society, including professional poets, legal experts

and (before Christianity) druids. Their culture was almost entirely orally

transmitted, although an alphabet called ogham was used for short inscriptions.

4. Anglo-Saxons. In origin, these were Germanic peoples from northern Germanyand Denmark, traditionally named as Angles, Saxons and Jutes. They probably

began to settle in Britain in later Roman times. In the fifth and sixth centuries

they migrated in larger numbers, took control from the Britons, and formed

kingdoms over much of what is now England (Angle Land). The mostimportant of these were Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Mercia and

Northumbria. They spoke the Germanic language that we call Old English.

5. Vikings (also known in England as Danes). Viking raiders from Denmark and

Norway are first mentioned in chronicles from the British Isles at the very endof the eight century. In the ninth century, many settled, particularly in the

Scottish islands, the Isle of Man, and in northern and eastern England.

The coming of the Anglo-Saxons

The events of the fifth century in Britain are very obscure. According to the

sixth-century British monk Gildas, author ofThe Ruin of Britain, some time after

the Roman withdrawal, a leader of the Britons invited Saxons to help with defence

against invading Picts and Scots (from Ireland), and then could not control themwhen they rebelled and began their conquest. The Northumbrian monk Bede (c.

671-735) retells the story in hisEcclesiastical History of the English People,

naming the British leader Vortigern and the Saxon leaders Hengest and Horsa.

If there was a historical figure behind the later legends of King Arthur, then heprobably belongs to the following period, when the Britons were resisting the

expansion of the Angles and Saxonsbut there are only a few brief references to

him in literature before Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century.

Language change

In contrast to what happened in most of the former Western Roman Empire

(where the modern language are mostly Romance), the use of Latin died out in

Britain, except as the language of the Church. Possibly it had never been widely

adopted among ordinary Britons anyway, as even in the parts of former RomanBritain which were not conquered by the Germanic invaders, the language that

survived was the native Celtic language (nowadays Welsh). It may also be

significant that the Germanic invaders of Britain, unlike the Franks and Goths who

took control of the Roman provinces on the Continent, belonged to peoples whohad had very little contact with Rome, had no interest in maintaining Roman

administration, and were not Christian.

The spread of Christianity

English 1A British Culture and Civilization 2009-2010

8/8/2019 03 2009 - Dark Ages

2/2