The Fall of Roman Britain
And the Rise of the Arthurian Legend
Ten years after the Crucifixion Claudius officially annexed the Britannia as a Roman province. But it took almost 45 years of brutal battles before the Romans finally gained control of Britannia. Even then they were unable to seize control of the mountainous north where the Picti ruled. That border remained contentious for generations to come, but most of what we call modern-day England and Wales settled down and grudgingly accepted their new rulers.
Once they had won the terrain by force, later Roman governors pacified their Britannia subjects with auditoriums and roads. Roman rule reduced piracy and banditry and provided better access to western European goods and markets. Cities like Londinium and Camulodunum (Colchester) became prosperous centers of trade. Roman bureaucracy brought farmers into towns to pay taxes and shop at local markets.
Prosperous Roman politicians and native leaders constructed villas that rivaled the luxurious lodgings of Herculaneum and Pompeii. They bathed in water piped in by British lead and warmed by British coal. They ate with tableware made with British silver. British mines also produced the iron used for ploughs and axes, as well as armor and swords for Roman soldiers. And they put aside coins minted with Welsh gold.
In addition to goods, Rome brought Gods. The hot springs at Badon (Bath) had long been sacred to Sulis. Much as they had built temples to Zeus Amon-Ra in Egypt, the Romans erected a shrine to Minerva-Sulis. They also built shrines and temples to imported deities like Isis and Mithras. And, of course, the new Christian craze that was sweeping the empire soon found its way to Albion’s shores. But as the Empire waned, Rome grew increasingly incapable of pacifying Britannia with either prosperity or force.
In 376 Hunnic raids drove several Germanic groups into Roman territory. 378 saw the Goths slaughter over half the Roman forces and Emperor Valens in the Battle of Adrianople. Stretched for manpower, the Romans concentrated on their Eastern holdings and started withdrawing troops from the West to meet the threat. In 410, the year Visigoths sacked Rome, the last Roman troops left Britannia.
Writing a century later, St. Gildas describes the subsequent chaos:
[H]aving heard of the departure of our friends, and their resolution never to return, [the Scots and Irish] seized with greater boldness than before on all the country towards the extreme north as far as the wall. To oppose them there was placed on the heights a garrison equally slow to fight and ill adapted to run away, a useless and panic-struck company, who slumbered away days and nights on their unprofitable watch. Meanwhile the hooked weapons of their enemies were not idle, and our wretched countrymen were dragged from the wall and dashed against the ground. Such premature death, however, painful as it was, saved them from seeing the miserable sufferings of their brothers and children.
But why should I say more? They left their cities, abandoned the protection of the wall, and dispersed themselves in flight more desperately than before. The enemy, on the other hand, pursued them with more unrelenting cruelty than before, and butchered our countrymen like sheep, so that their habitations were like those of savage beasts; for they turned their arms upon each other, and for the sake of a little sustenance, imbrued their hands in the blood of their fellow countrymen.
Thus foreign calamities were augmented by domestic feuds; so that the whole country was entirely destitute of provisions, save such as could be procured in the chase.
The Britons faced chaos from all sides. From the north they faced raids from the Picti; the Scoti (who, despite the name, came from Ireland, not Scotland) sailed east in search of slaves on Britannia’s shorelines. In the countryside landowners faced challenges from peasant rebel warbands. And Germanic pirates who had been kept in check by the Romans now plundered with impunity.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles tell us that in 443 the Britons sent a request for help to the Romans, but were denied as Rome faced its own troubles with Atilla. Finally, in 449, Wurtgern, King of the Britons, invited two Germanic warlords named Hengist and Horsa for assistance in exchange for gold and land. Hengist and Horsa’s warriors helped the Britons, but they also sent word to their countrymen of “the worthlessness of the Britons and the richness of the land.”
Says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
Then came the men from three powers of Germany; the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the men of Kent, the Wightwarians (that is, the tribe that now dwelleth in the Isle of Wight), and that kindred in Wessex that men yet call the kindred of the Jutes. From the Old Saxons came the people of Essex and Sussex and Wessex. From Anglia, which has ever since remained waste between the Jutes and the Saxons, came the East Angles, the Middle Angles, the Mercians, and all of those north of the Humber.
Many Britons (including St. Gildas) emigrated across the Channel to northeastern France. The region where they settled is still called Brittany and Breton (Brezhoneg), a close relative of Cornish, is still spoken there today. Others retreated to Cornwall and Wales, where the mountainous terrain was easier to defend. And still others groaned under the burden of tyranny between duel contending forces. But finally, after a lengthy and hard-fought campaign, the Britons triumphed in a decisive battle at Badon Hill.
According to Gildas. the battle of Badon Hill took place “forty-four years and one month after the landing of the Saxons, and also the time of my own nativity.” If by “landing of the Saxons” Gildas meant the 449 arrival of Hengest and Horsa, Badon Hill took place around 493. But though it lists many Saxon victories over Briton forces from 455 through the late 9th century, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles remain silent about any Badon Hill battles.
The Annals Cambriae (Annals of Wales), compiled in the 10th Century, place the Battle of Badon in 516. Gildas called the warlord Ambrosius and claimed that the son of Roman nobles who had been slain by Saxon invaders. The Cumbrian chroniclers say that he was “Arthur [who] carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors.”
But after a brief respite Britannia faced a new crisis. 536 marked the beginning of a series of volcanic eruptions that sparked the Late Antique Little Ice Age. Studies of tree rings and ice cores suggest that average temperatures at that time dropped as much as 4ºC (7.2ºF). We find reports of famines from Mesoamerica to China. The Eastern Roman Empire was wracked with the Plague of Justinian and crop failures. As Byzantine historian Procopius reports it:
And it came about during this year that a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during this whole year, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed. And from the time when this thing happened men were free neither from war nor pestilence nor any other thing leading to death. And it was the time when Justinian was in the tenth year of his reign.
According to Cambriae, in 537 we saw “The battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell: and there was plague in Britain and Ireland.” A battle between competing warlords in a time of disease and crop failure would be expected. Unfortunately, the Annals and Chronicles were first written down centuries after Gildas provided his account of the Badon Hill battle and contain only a few tantalizing sentences. And the archaeological record offers little in the way of more useful information.
The location of Badon Hill remains a matter of great controversy. Many believe the battle took place on Solsbury Hill, not far from Bath. Others say it took place in Dorsetshire, where the ruins of a 5th century fort are famous as the “Badbury Rings.” Still others favor Liddington Castle in Wiltshire, near the hamlet of Badbury.
Solsbury Hill is topped with an Iron Age hillfort that was abandoned over a century before the Romans arrived. At 191 meters (627 feet) high, Solsbury offers a clear view of the surrounding countryside, making it an obvious choice for warriors seeking an advantage. But while Solsbury Hill was associated with Arthur as early as the 9th Century, we have to date found no archaeological evidence of a late 5th or early 6th Century conflict.
To the north and east of the Badbury Rings we find early medieval Anglo-Saxon pagan burials. To the west are the graves of Christian Britons. This shows that the area marked a border between the contending forces, and one which was contested for some time. And a 2004 archaeological dig revealed charcoal dated back to 480-520, so we have reason to believe it was occupied during the time of the Badon Hill battle.
Liddington Castle sits on a hill overlooking the village of Baydon, an ancient Briton settlement. A Roman road between Silchester and Gloucester, two Roman towns, passes straight through Baydon. This route would have been important to Saxon raiders looking to move into Briton-occupied lands. But while each location has its partisans, archaeologists have yet to recover a smoking Excalibur that might settle the Badon Hill debate.
More promising is St. Gildas’ claim that Ambrosius Aurelanius was the son of Roman nobles killed by Saxons. After the Romans left Britannia, former Roman officials often took over many ruling duties in their town or village. And while Gildas’ account would suggest that Britannia fell into chaos almost immediately afterwards, Romanized civilization continued in many parts of Britain for decades after the Roman departure.
At the Chetworth Villa dig, archaeologists have determined by carbon-14 dating that several rooms, and at least one elaborate mosaic floor, were built between 424 and 544. Former National Trust archaeologist Martin Papworth notes that the mid-range date for the mosaic’s construction would be AD 475-495. While this is several generations after the fall of Rome, it would place the mosaic’s construction within the lifetime of Ambrosius.
The Chetworth Villa is around 45 miles (80 km) from Solsbury Hill, 30 miles (55 km) from Liddington Castle, and 85 miles (150 km) from the Badbury Rings. And while it is the largest ruined villa, archaeologists have found 22 other Roman villas within a 10-mile (18 km) radius of Chetworth. These large homes were most likely built by Roman soldiers who received land grants upon their retirement.
Many of the Briton soldiers who fought against Rome wound up fighting for Rome after the conquest. These late antiquity Briton villa-holders identified as both Britons and Romans. They would hire Briton soldiers trained in Roman military tactics to protect them against the violence in post-Roman Britannia. They would fight boldly and they would die bravely in the hope that Christ would welcome them into heaven and their sons would avenge them.
Gildas, who was also reported to be of noble Brythonic birth, claimed that Ambrosius’ family “wore the purple.” This would suggest that Ambrosius was descended from military tribunes, senior officers who wore their clothing trimmed with a purple band. It’s not surprising that a wealthy Romanized Briton from a military background would organize resistance against the invaders who threatened his life and livelihood.
Unlike later tales, the stories told by Gildas and the chroniclers are largely believable. The Empire had been officially Christian for over a century, when Theodosius issued the 380 Edict of Thessalonica. The Saxons were Pagan, so it stands to reason that a Briton warlord fighting against Pagans would march beneath a Christian banner or paint a cross on his shield.
We have no way of knowing whether Ambrosius was a benevolent or a cruel ruler. But we know that his holdings and his court were considerably less luxurious than later accounts would have you believe. His hardscrabble life would have been barely more comfortable than that of the peasants he and his men protected. And two decades after Badon Hill he fell in battle to a man the Cumbrians called Medrault and later generations would call Mordred. Which brings us to the story of a man who has been identified as both the King and the Kingslayer.
I’ve never heard that Arthurian attribution before.