[Footnote 4: Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., v. 177. Zosimus, vi. 5 (A.D. 408), in a puzzling passage describes Britain as revolting from Rome when Constantine was tyrant (A.D. 407-11). It is generally assumed that when Constantine failed to protect these regions, they set up for themselves, and in that troubled time such a step would be natural enough. But Zosimus, a little later on (vi. 10, A.D. 410), casually states that Honorius wrote to Britain, bidding the provincials defend themselves, so that the act of 408 cannot have been final—unless, indeed, as the context of Zosimus suggests and as Gothofredus and others have thought, the name 'Britain' is here a copyist's mistake for 'Bruttii' or some other Italian name. In any case the 'groans of the Britons' recorded by Gildas show that the island looked to Rome long after 410. On Constantine see Freeman, Western Europe in the Fifth Century, pp. 48, 148 and Bury, Life of St. Patrick, p. 329.]
Such is, in brief, the positive evidence, archaeological, linguistic, and historical, which illustrates the Romanization of Britain. The conclusions which it allows seem to be two. First, and mainly: the Empire did its work in our island as it did generally on the western continent. It Romanized the province, introducing Roman speech and thought and culture. Secondly, this Romanization was perhaps not uniform throughout all sections of the population. Within the lowlands the result was on the whole achieved. In the towns and among the upper class in the country Romanization was substantially complete—as complete as in northern Gaul, and possibly indeed even more complete. But both the lack of definite evidence and the probabilities of the case require us to admit that the peasantry may have been less thoroughly Romanized. It was covered with a superimposed layer of Roman civilization. But beneath this layer the native element may have remained potentially, if not actually, Celtic, and in the remoter districts the native speech may have lingered on, like Erse or Manx to-day, as a rival to the more fashionable Latin. How far this happened actually within the civilized lowland area we cannot tell. But we may be sure that the military region, Wales and the north, never became thoroughly Romanized, and Cornwall and western Devon also lie beyond the pale (p. 21). Here the Britons must have remained Celtic, or at least capable of a reversion to the Celtic tradition. Here, at any rate, a Celtic revival was possible.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SEQUEL, THE CELTIC REVIVAL IN THE LATER EMPIRE
So far we have considered the province of Britain as it was while it still remained in real fact a province. Let us now turn to the sequel and ask how it fits in with its antecedents. The Romanization, we find, held its own for a while. The sense of belonging to the Empire had not quite died out even in sixth-century Britain. Roman names continued to be used, not exclusively but freely enough, by Britons. Roman 'culture words' seem to occur in the later British language, and some at least of these may be traceable to the Roman occupation of the island. Roman military terms appear, if scantily. Roman inscriptions are occasionally set up. The Romanization of Britain was plainly no mere interlude, which passed without leaving a mark behind.[1] But it was crossed by two hostile forges, a Celtic revival and an English invasion.
[Footnote 1: Much of the ornamentation used by post-Roman Celtic art comes from Roman sources, in particular the interlaced or plaitwork, which has been well studied by Mr. Romilly Allen. But how far it was borrowed from Romano-British originals and how far from similar Roman-provincial work on the Continent, is not very clear. (See p. 36.)]
The Celtic revival was due to many influences. We may find one cause for it in the Celtic environment of the province. After 407 the Romanized area was cut off from Rome. Its nearest neighbours were now the less-Romanized Britons of districts like Cornwall and the foreign Celts of Ireland and the north. These were weighty influences in favour of a Celtic revival. And they were all the more potent because, in or even before the period under discussion, the opening of the fifth century, a Celtic migration seems to have set in from the Irish coasts. The details of this migration are unknown, and the few traces which survive of it are faint and not altogether intelligible. The principal movement was that of the Scotti from North Ireland into Caledonia, with the result that, once settled there, or perhaps rather in the course of settling there, they went on to pillage Roman Britain. There were also movements in the south, but apparently on a smaller scale and a more peaceful plan.[1] At a date given commonly as A.D. 265-70—though there does not seem to be any very good reason for it—the Dessi or Déisi were expelled from Meath and a part of them settled in the south-west of Wales, in the land then called Demetia. This was a region which was both thinly inhabited and imperfectly Romanized. In it fugitives from Ireland might easily find room. The settlement may have been formed, as Professor Bury suggests, with the consent of the Imperial Government and under conditions of service. But we are entirely ignorant whether these exiles from Ireland numbered tens or scores or hundreds, and this uncertainty renders speculation dangerous. If the newcomers were few and their new homes were in the remote west beyond Carmarthen (Maridunum), formal consent would hardly have been required. Other Irish immigrants probably followed. Their settlements were apparently confined to Cornwall and the south-west coast of Wales, and their influence may easily be overrated. Some, indeed, came as enemies, though perhaps rather as enemies to the Roman than to the Celtic elements in the province. Such must have been Niall of the Nine Hostages, who was killed—according to the traditional chronology—about A.D. 405 on the British coast and perhaps in the Channel itself.
[Footnote 1: Professor Rhys, Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc. Kerry Meeting, 1891, and Celtic Britain (ed. 3, 1904, p. 247), is inclined to minimize the invasions of southern Britain (Cornwall and Wales). Professor Bury (Life of St. Patrick, p. 288) tends to emphasize them; see also Zimmer, Nennius Vindicatus, pp. 84 foll., and Kuno Meyer, Cymmrodorion Transactions, 1895-6, pp. 55 foll. The decision of the question seems to depend upon whether we should regard the Goidelic elements visible in western Britain as due in part to an original Goidelic population or ascribe them wholly to Irish immigrants. At present philologists do not seem able to speak with certainty on this point. But the evidence for some amount of invasion seems adequate.]
All this must have contributed to the reintroduction of Celtic national feeling and culture. A Celtic immigrant, it may be, was the man who set up the Ogam pillar at Silchester (Fig. 21), which was discovered in the excavations of 1893.[1] The circumstances of the discovery show that this pillar belongs to the very latest period in the history of Calleva. Its inscription is Goidelic: that is, it does not belong to the ordinary Callevan population, which was presumably Brythonic. It may be best explained as the work of some western Celt who reached Silchester before its British citizens abandoned it in despair. We do not know the date of that event, though we may conjecturally put it before, and perhaps a good many years before, A.D. 500. In any case, an Ogam monument had been set up before it occurred, and the presence of such an object would seem to prove that Celtic things had made their way even into this eastern Romanized town.
[Footnote 1: Archaeologia, liv. 233, 441; Rhys and Brynmor Jones, Welsh People, pp. 45, 65; Victoria Hist. of Hampshire, i. 279; English Hist. Review, xix. 628. Whether the man who wrote was Irish or British depends on the answer to the question set forth in the preceding note. Unfortunately, we do not know when the Ogam script came first into use. Professor Rhys tells me that the Silchester example may quite conceivably belong to the fifth century.]