>>18289740
How exactly do you think this fringe territory could survive when the inner territories were already getting fucked so hard they had to withdraw ALL troops from this fringe to survive?

>>18289740
Serves them right - they trusted germans.

>>18289740
The British have always been unruly and anti-authority. They saw their chance to be rid of RomoHomo and took it. Remember it took the normans hundreds of years to rape them into submission, whereas most peoples accept a new occupier within years to decades.

>>18289740
>excellent trade access across Europe
Trade effectively ended with the end of Roman rule until the 8th century
>their military strength just from locals should have been enough to repel the natives from the north at minimum
The Romans demilitarised the Britons. They did attempt to militarise them in an ad hoc fashion as they left according to Gildas. It worked well enough that the Britons were capable of defending themselves
>Just seems like a strong anglo-Roman successor state
The Anglo-Saxons entered Britain after the Romans left, they were invading post-Roman states.

Read Gunnar Heinsohn.
the first millenium is fraudlent, vast amounts of duplication and fraud ignoring environmental catastrophe even though it was recorded by contemporary scholars and the archeology

>>18289775
meds

>>18289777
Yeah, the meds got steamrolled too.
Rome got buried under black dirt.

>>18289740
>I understand that Rome pulled their legions out as they could no longer afford to defend
Not quite, rather there were a succession of usurpers who arose from Britain, and used the British legions to try and conquer the empire, taking them away from their forts and defenses and onto the continent. After Magnus maximus the north of England and Wales was effectively abandoned by the empire, leading to this area seeing increased raids from the Irish, Picts and Saxons. With Londonium no longer having the resources to support the north, local areas were forced to look to their own defense. And so you got multiple little warlords forming little militias or organising the last few remaining soldiers in some fort. Rome continued withdrawing more soldiers in the following, not because they couldn't afford them, but to yse them in the continental wars, and this trend continued slowly southward until encompassing the whole island. It didn't happen instantly, but over a 40 year period between 388 and 430
Or so roughly goes the theory, we don't really know what happened and there are competing viewpoints.
>being on an island meant little fear from large scale invasion
The sea is both a barrier and a road, large scale invasions are hard, raids are very easy
>>18289774
>The Anglo-Saxons entered Britain after the Romans left, they were invading post-Roman states.
We don't know this, they may or may not have already been in Britain as foederati

>>18289800
Is it true that there's no actual evidence of invasion?

>>18289740
the civilian populations of the roman empire couldn't defend themselves.

>>18289740
>Why did Roman Britain collapse so quickly?
it didn't
Saxon england = romano british

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>>18289775
Well, I’m genuinely interested in the mud flood stuff but I just looked that guy up, and uhh, that’s a nope from me dog

>>18289800
>We don't know this
The narrative we have is from Gildas, who states they invaded after the Roman withdrawal from Vortigen's invitation, nor is there any evidence that there were any foederati in Britain. It wouldn't make much sense either considering that in the West they did not practice inviting independent peoples in, all foederati agreements in the West were post hoc agreements after a group had already invaded.

>>18289825
Oh the jewish stuff is more than a bit retarded but a lot of germans get twisted up like that.
However I think some of his takes on architechtural trends and soil deposition are very replicable and stand for themselves

>>18289805
Pretty much, yeah
>>18289843
>Gildas
Gildas wasn't born until after all this had happened, and he himself says that the saxons were initially invited in rather than invaded.
>in the West
The fall of Rome in Britain isn't comparable to the rest of the western empire in a number of ways (Latin being replaced by a Germanic language for one). I really don't think it's good enough to simply say "it didn't happen elsewhere so it could never have happened there", something was clearly different.

>>18290050
>The fall of Rome in Britain isn't comparable to the rest of the western empire in a number of ways (Latin being replaced by a Germanic language for one)
Franks spoke Old Frankish for about 400 years after establishing a kingdom in France. It only went by the wayside as they accrued more and more territory to the South

>>18290150
Oh fuck off, that's like claiming England spoke french in the 14th century. And Clovis had conquered southern Gaul within a couple decades of taking power in the north.

>>18290050
Britain was not a Latin speaking region. They continued to use their own language. I’m not sure why you are willing to accept one part of Gildas’ narrative and then reject its context and the rest of the content. Gildas is our only source for post Roman Britain, without him it is only speculation other than what can be gleamed from archeology. Rejecting him based on him not being a firsthand witness doesn’t make sense either, most historians weren’t. Is Tacitus and Suetonius not longer legitimate sources of the Julio-Claudians because they were removed from them by at least 50 years?

>>18290477
>Britain was not a Latin speaking region. They continued to use their own language
Yes it was, or the south east at least. Your second sentance is meaningless, there was more than one person in Roman Britain, there was space for multiple languages
>accept one part of Gildas’ narrative and then reject its context and the rest of the content.
I only corrected the other anon who claimed Gildas said the Saxons "invaded" Britain. Gildas did not say this, he said they were invited. Perhaps I could've been clearer, but that point had no bearing on how trustworthy I think the text is overall. Gildas' age was meant seperately.
>Gildas is our only source for post Roman Britain
This does not mean we accept it unquestionly. It's age and purpose must be taken into consideration.
Gildas made mistakes, for instance he states one of the two northern walls was built following the barbarian conspiracy and the other around the time of the groans of the Britons. 200-300 years after they actually were, explicitly claiming the second one was built in the timeframe we're talking about. What else did he get wrong? The book is a religious polemic, not a history, and makes constant comparisons to the bible. Was his "Proud Tyrant" really badly advised by his council, much like Pharoh was by the princes of Zoan, or is this a clumsy attempt to rewrite history to match up with that biblical story?
>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2019&version=NIV
(consider the similarities of how Gildas describes Britain to was is said of Egypt here)
all this can and should be debated.
>Tacitus and Suetonius
Brilliant example, did Calgacus exist? Did he utter those famous lines "the Romans make a desert and call it peace"?
Possibly he did, but the generally accepted view is that these texts are full of exaggerations, if not outright falsehoods. I do not think they should be thrown out, but nor can you unthinkingly accept everything written in them.

The legions they pulled out were made up primarily of native Britons.

Which meant there were that fewer military men left on the island to defend it.

>>18289764
It took only one battle and the harrying of the north

>>18290641
> Yes it was, or the south east at least.
There is no evidence for this. You have just made this up.
> Gildas did not say this, he said they were invited.
If you actually read my post you would see that I did in fact say that they were invited by Vortigen and then later invaded in more numbers.
> This does not mean we accept it unquestionly.
The issue here is that you are picking and choosing what to believe. You reject the basic narrative of Gildas and turn it into something that it is not. It was not the Romans who invited the Saxons to Britain, it was the Britons. As is outlined by Gildas. Being a religious polemic does not mean he was outright lying about everything and it does not mean that your unsubstantiated claims are supported by him when he clearly does not state them.
> Brilliant example, did Calgacus exist? Did he utter those famous lines "the Romans make a desert and call it
Except that speeches are recognised by even ancient authors to by constructs by the author and not a legitimate retelling of what was said. Thucydides outright states this and authors did not copy speeches even when they had access to the real copies like with Appian and the Phillipics of Cicero. A more apt comparison is that Tacitus fabricated the entire narrative of Galba and half of Tiberius’. In any case you are still making a nonsensical claim based off of evidence which does not exist by both rejecting evidence provided by Gildas and simultaneously using it to support you.

Britain was never truly "civilized" the way other provinces on the mainland were. Even during the height of the Pax Romana, Britain still required a heavy garrison presence to keep the locals pacified. This heavy garrison presence distorted the local economy of the island. Pretty much the only thing of value Britain produced was tin. There were other precious metals, including gold and silver, and an abundance of iron, in addition to timber and wool But Rome had many places to get timber, wool, and iron, much closer and cheaper to order from. Tin was the only thing they couldn't really get in quantity from any other province, but tin alone didn't cover the cost of pacifying Britain. Rome spent more money occupying Britain than it ever made back in resources or tax.

And the reason for that isn't just the constant unrest, it's the present of a huge, oversized garrison. This garrison was actually the main source of employment for most Britons living as Roman subjects. The garrison needed to be housed, fed, and its equipment maintained. The legions were responsible for these things on campaign, but while on garrison duty, the locals provided for the soldiers. This meant as long as there were several legions in Britannia, many thousands of Britons could find reliable employment working for the garrison, or by providing the garrison soldiers with goods and services to spend their pay on.

So what would happen, theoretically, if there was a civil war or some other crisis on the mainland, and the governor of Britannia decided to intervene? He did, after all, have an unusually large garrison compared to most other provincial governors. This gave him a tempting opportunity to make a political play every time there was a major dustup on the continent. So many governors would strip the British garrisons and head to Europe, and as a result the economy of the Roman settlements on Britain would implode. Lawlessness would start very quickly once people lost their jobs.

>>18290823
So what this caused to happen on Britain is for the island to never truly be developed on par with Gaul, Iberia, Africa, Ilyria, and so on. The British economy kept getting hard reset, and the people were just never really romanized to the same degree as other Roman provinces. Oh to be sure, Rome's main settlements were made in the spitting image of Rome, there were fairly large Latin-speaking populations, but outside these settlements and the sprinkling of countryside villas the local elite maintained, the country was straight up barbaric: barbarian tribal villages speaking barbaric tongues, worshiping barbaric gods. It was most obviously worse to the north, beyond the boundary marked by the fortifications built by Hadrian and others. The Romans actually tried several times to push into the lands of the Picts and other tribesman, but never had any lasting impact there. Even despite Hadrian's famous wall and the other forts they couldn't completely stop the raids by the northerners.

So Britain was never fully romanized, even at the peak of Roman civilization there, and the Romans occupying Britain were halfhearted at best in their attempts to develop its economy. All they really wanted from the province was tin, which, by the way, was mostly located at the southwestern most bit of the island, in modern day Cornwall. So there was not a great deal of need to actually pacify the northern portions, except to make them livable for the local administrators and their families.

Add to this the fact that the local economy was destroyed every time the legions were stripped from their garrison by the governor for the latest military adventure to Europe, and it's not a wonder things went to pot really fast. Basically every time a governor did this, his revenue from Britain would almost immediately dry up and within a year or two he'd have widespread unrest in the province.

>>18289740
>A) a great central large population hub in Londinium
It was pretty much the only major population hub and right next to where the Jutes and later Saxons first settled so fell relatively quickly.

>B) excellent trade access across Europe
Not really. If you want to go from Britain to Italy for example you have to travel by boat to France and then by land to Italy or travel all the way around Spain.

>C) their military strength just from locals should have been enough to repel the natives from the north at minimum, if not expand more
The locals weren't very militarized or used to endemic warfare, so when raids started systems began to collapse.

>D) being on an island meant little fear from large scale invasion of conquest again like the romans did before, so you’d think this would make it EASIER to unite and expand
They didn't need large scale invasions to collapse, the average battle during the early Anglo-Saxon migrations generally involved merely dozens to hundreds of soldiers. The difficulty of the Britons defending the island from the Anglo-Saxons almost mirrored the difficulty of the English defending the island from the Norse. The enemy is scattered and can attack anywhere. Unless you have an organized decentralized militia like the later fyrd than you're pretty much hoping you can catch the enemy quickly.

>>18289800
>Irish raided England constantly for centuries
>later cries about how they’re the real victim when England conquers them

>>18289805
If you mean the anglo Saxon invasions then yeah. It was more of a mass migration with occasional skirmishes. Plenty of evidence shows they also had a lot of peaceful interactions with the native celts, traded and intermarried.

People really underestimate just how empty England was for most of history. Plenty of space to live in and cultivate crops and cattle

>>18290215
>England spoke french in the 14th century
England was triglossic in the 15th century, yes
In fact, it still uses French today in some situations, so persistent was it

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>>18290823
This is very interesting. Because unlike a lot of the expansions of the Roman republic/empire. The conquest of Britain was NOT planned out or even justified for good strategic reasons to begin with.

Caesar invaded Britain twice, publicly he stated this was to stop the native celts supposedly supporting the Roman enemies the Gauls.

But the real motivations were fairly personal and entirely unjustified. Caesar wrote much propaganda reports of his various battles and movements during his time in the Gallic wars to prepare for his return to Rome and political ascension, building up a support base amongst the people and detain senators through these reports which covered him in glory.

Caesars invasions of Britain actually provided very little prosperity, they didn’t take many slaves, nor treasure, and the rumours there was a ton of gold and silver turned out to be bullshit.

However Britain was known as a mysterious island unknown to Roman knowledge prior to the invasion, so simply going there and staking a claim for Rome was impressive in itself, plus adding on the idea you were showing off Roman military and logistical might. Kind of the Roman equivalent of the USA landing on the moon. Didn’t actually accomplish anythjng but a huge PR win

>>18291157
>Kind of the Roman equivalent of the USA landing on the moon
sounds more like it was the Roman equivalent of the US occupation of Afghanistan 2bh

>>18291157
Then it was almost a century after Caesars death that the Roman Empire actually did conquer Britain, rather than the invasions that amounted to just raids under Caesar.

And once again, it was not due to strategic reasons for the most part. Emperor Claudius was seen as an unexpected emperor, weak and untested. So conquering Britain served to make him look strong and capable.

The existing system was that the tribes living in Britain were Roman tributary’s and client states, functionally independent, just servile to Rome in terms of not attacking them and regularly paying tribute.

Claudius used the excuse there were some tribes who didn’t fall in line and attacked Roman merchants and Roman allied tribes to conquer the region outright.

So yeah, the reason for conquering the places at all was never for good reasons, so as soon as good times turned bad for the empire, it was never going to last

>>18290807
>There is no evidence for this.
There is retard. The extent is debatable, the existence is not.
>https://academic.oup.com/book/55329/chapter/434347840
>If you actually read my post
I was referring to this post. >>18289774
>The issue here is that you are picking and choosing what to believe
And you're ignoring everything I said. Again, I don't believe Gildas' mention of invitation is any more or less trustworthy than the other things he wrote, I only mentioned it because someone brought it up. Hell, the example I gave of a possible religious twisting of the text is literally from when Gildas talks about this invitation.
Tell me, when were the Hadrian and Antoine walls built? Should we take Gildas word for that?
No? Then you accept the possibility he made mistakes, even mistakes about this time period we're talking about. Placing events some ~300 years after they actually occurred. We cannot blindly trust Gildas.
>Being a religious polemic does not mean he was outright lying
Not outright lying, but twisting the events into a biblical framework, and caring more about that than accuracy. This was a recognised literary device much like;
>Except that speeches are recognised by even ancient authors to by constructs by the author
Yes I am aware, and it shows that antique writers INVENTED things to suit their narrative, and that we cannot take everything they wrote at face value.
Are you unable to understand this simple idea of not automatically believing whatever's written on a piece of paper? And because it is the only source of it's kind we must be more, not less, scrutinising since we have nothing to confirm it against.
>>18291153
You know what I meant, Frankish was an elite language.

>>18291216
>There is retard. The extent is debatable, the existence is not.
So a speculative possible existence of Latin speakers has been extrapolated by you to mean that Britain was Latin speaking despite the overwhelming evidence that Brittonic survived which every single argument presented in the paper accepts.
>Yes I am aware, and it shows that antique writers INVENTED things to suit their narrative
Except you are taking a statement not fitting into any literary device which would indicate that it was a piece of authorial invention and are pretending that it is. This is just being dishonest.
>Are you unable to understand this simple idea of not automatically believing whatever's written on a piece of paper?
Because you are outright rejecting what Gildas has written as a whole and inserting your own headcanon with absolutely no evidence in its place. This is not a case of just literary devices but the entire content. It is no different from rejecting everything Tacitus ever said because he got the order of some things wrong and used literary devices. If you do not work with Gildas, you are working with nothing. The issue being that you reject Gildas' narrative and insert one of your own which is backed by nothing. There are no Roman or British sources which suggest that the Saxons were in Britain before the end of Roman rule. You cannot construct any narrative without Gildas' and simply making up one because you personally disagree with the main part of his narrative which is not part of his main polemic which comes later but rather his attempt at history or something else erroneous.

>>18291240
>in the paper
You didn't read it did you. And idk what your retard brain thinks I'm arguing but I never said bythonic stopped existing. Certainly though it disproves your strange claim that there is "no evidence"
>Except you are taking a statement not fitting into any literary device
Biblical analogy is a very common literary device. My other argument has nothing to do with literary devices.
>Because you are outright rejecting what Gildas has written
I'll focus in on the bit you're trying to ignore
Yes or no, did Gildas get the timeline of when the Antonine and Hadrian walls were built correct?
If your answer is yes, then you are irredeemably retarded.
If your answer is no, then you must accept the possibility that Gildas got other parts of his narrative wrong or placed them in the wrong order. This then throws open the doors to alternative theories. Especially considering he claims one of the walls was built at the same time the Romans left Britain, the time period we're talking about.
>You cannot construct any narrative without Gildas'
I have constructed no narratives, only presented already existing alternative theories. Everything I have said I have qualified with "possibly" or something similar. I have stressed the lack of evidence and that we cannot know for certain. What do you think I'm arguing for?
Your entire arguement is because there is no other written evidence we must accept everything Gildas says. But there are many problems with Gildas, he is as unreliable as everything else, and is little different to educated speculation. To polemicise it as Gildas would've, you are building your church on loose sand. The difference is I recognise this.
I don't want to repeat myself using even simpler English. I won't reply again unless you say something worthwhile.

>>18291278
>Biblical analogy is a very common literary device.
Vortigen inviting the Britons in is not a Biblical analogy. You are conflating Gildas' attempt at a history with his later polemic which are very clearly two different genres
>I'll focus in on the bit you're trying to ignore
>Yes or no, did Gildas get the timeline of when the Antonine and Hadrian walls were built correct?
I already addressed that inaccurate information being in the text does not somehow make the entire thing invalid, as you are suggesting. You can always reread my posts until you comprehend what I have written.
>I have constructed no narratives, only presented already existing alternative theories.
You argue against one thing and provide absolutely no evidence to the contrary. There is no point in even saying these things if there is no viable alternative other than 'I said so'. Your argument was that the Saxons might have been in Britain before the Romans left as foederati. There is no Roman evidence for this, both literary and archeological evidence from Britain show evidence of the exact opposite. What you have said is completely pointless and not substantiated by anything. Couching it in a maybe does not mean that you can just get away with it.
>Your entire arguement is because there is no other written evidence we must accept everything Gildas says.
I never said that. You are just arguing in bad faith. I am saying that complete dismissal of Gildas' narrative is nonsensical and your argument is equally as nonsensical. You cannot dismiss an entire work because it contains literary techniques which are not completely truthful and attack passages which are not even part of these techniques.
>I don't want to repeat myself using even simpler English.
You are incapable of even understanding that I addressed your arguments and somehow think you are playing at some higher level of comprehension?

A military force capable of holding britain was also large enough to invade and control rome.

>>18289843
Iirc there are some sort of Germanic permanent settlements in Kent dating back to 4th century AD but it has to be noted that while nowadays you think of south-eastern England as a population hub but back then the island's population was more western-biased.