The Ethnology of the British Islands Part 5

"The line of separation then between the Welsh or Pictish, and the Scotch or Irish, Kelts, if measured by the occurrence of these names, would run obliquely from S.W. to N.E., straight up Loch Fyne, following nearly the boundary between Perths.h.i.+re and Argyle, trending to the N.E. along the present boundary between Perth and Inverness, Aberdeen and Inverness, Banf and Elgin, till about the mouth of the river Spey. The boundary between the Picts and English may have been much less settled, but it probably ran from Dumbarton, along the upper edge of Renfrews.h.i.+re, Lanark and Linlithgow till about Abercorn, that is along the line of the Clyde to the Frith of Forth."[8]

It cannot be denied that, in the present state of our knowledge, the inference from the preceding table is that, whether Pict or not, more than two-thirds of Scotland exhibit signs of _British_ rather than _Gaelic_ occupancy.

This is as much as can be said at present: for it must be added that all the previous criticism has proceeded upon the notion that PENN FAHEL, &c., are Pict words. What, however, if they be Pict only in the way that _man_, _woman_, &c., are Welsh; _i.e._, words used by a population within the Pict area, but not actually Pict? The refinement upon the opinion suggested by the present chapter, which arises out of the view, will be noticed after certain other questions have been dealt with.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Mr. Garnett, _Philological Transactions_, No. II.

[8] Saxons in England.--Vol. ii. pp. 4, 5.

CHAPTER V.

ORIGIN OF THE GAELS.--DIFFICULTIES OF ITS INVESTIGATION.--NOT ELUCIDATED BY ANY RECORDS, NOR YET BY TRADITIONS.--ARGUMENTS FROM THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BRITISH AND GAELIC LANGUAGES.--THE BRITISH LANGUAGE SPOKEN IN GAUL.--THE GAELIC NOT KNOWN TO BE SPOKEN IN ANY PART OF THE CONTINENT.--LHUYD'S DOCTRINE.--THE HIBERNIAN HYPOTHESIS.--THE CALEDONIAN HYPOTHESIS.--POSTULATES.

The origin of the Britons has been a question of no great difficulty.

They could not well have come from the west, because Britain lies almost on the extremity of the ancient world; so we look towards the continent of Europe, and find, exactly opposite to the Britons, the Gauls, speaking a mutually intelligible language. On this we rest, just pausing for a short time to dispose of one or two refinements on the natural inference.

But if no such language as that of the ancient Gauls, a language _closely_ akin to the British, had been discovered, the ethnologist would have been put to straits; indeed, he would have had to be satisfied with saying that Gaul was the likeliest part of Europe for the Britons to have come from. No more. A strong presumption is all he would have obtained. The similarity, however, of the languages has helped him.

Now the difficulty which has just been noticed as a possible one in the investigation of the origin of the Britons, is a real one in the case of the Gaels. The exact parallel to the Gaelic language cannot be found on any part of the continent. Hence, whilst the British branch of the Keltic is found in both England and Gaul,--on the continent as well as in the Islands,--the Gaelic is limited to the British Isles exclusively.

Neither in Gaul itself, nor the parts either north or south of Gaul can any member of the Gaelic branch be found.

Even within the British Islands the Gaelic is limited in its distribution. There is no British in Ireland, and no Gaelic in South Britain. In Scotland both the tongues occur, the Gaelic being spoken north of the British. Now this position of the Gaelic to the west and north of the British increases the difficulty--since it is cut off from all connexion with the continent, and unrepresented by any continental tongue.

The history, then, of the Gaels is that of an isolated branch of the Keltic stock; and it is this isolation which creates the difficulties of their ethnology. No historical records throw any light upon their origin--a statement which the most sanguine investigator must admit. But tradition, perhaps, is less uncommunicative. Many investigators believe this. For my own part I should only be glad to be able to do so. As it is, however, the arguments of the present chapter will proceed as if the whole legendary history of Ireland and Scotland, so far as it relates to the migrations by which the islands were originally peopled by the Gaels, were a blank--the reasons for the scepticism being withheld for the present. But only for the present. In the seventh chapter they will be given as fully as s.p.a.ce allows.

The present arguments rest wholly upon a fact of which the importance has more than once been foreshadowed already, and which the reader antic.i.p.ates. Let us say, for the sake of ill.u.s.tration, that the British and Gaelic differ from each other as the Latin and Greek. The parallel is a rough one, but it will suffice as the basis of some criticism.

Languages thus related cannot be in the relation of mother and daughter, _i.e._, the one cannot be derived from the other, as the English is from the Anglo-Saxon, or the Italian from the Latin. The true connexion is different. It is that of brother and sister, rather than of parent and child. The actual source is some common mother-tongue; a mother-tongue which may become extinct after the evolution of its progeny. Hence, in the particular case before us, the Gaelic and British must have developed themselves, each independently of the other, out of some common form of speech. And the development must have taken place within the British Islands; the doctrine being that out of a language which at some remote period was neither British nor Gaelic, but which contained the germs of both, the western form of speech took one form, the southern another--the results being in the one case the British, in the other the Gaelic, tongue.

But that common mother-tongue at the remote period in question, the period of the earliest occupancy of Britain, must have been spoken on both sides of the Channel--in Gaul as well as the British Islands. And here (_i.e._, in Gaul) it may have done one of two things. It may have remained unaltered; or, it may have undergone change. Now in either case it would be different from both the Gaelic and the British. In the former alternative it would have been stereotyped as it were, and so have preserved its original characters, whilst the Gaelic and British had adopted new ones. In the latter it would have altered itself after its own peculiar fas.h.i.+on; and those very peculiarities would have made it other than British as well as other than Gaelic. Yet what is the fact? The ancient language of Gaul, though as unlike the Gaelic as a separate and independent development was likely to make it, was _not_ unlike the British. On the contrary, it was sufficiently like it to be intelligible to a Briton. Now I hold this similarity to be conclusive against the doctrine that the British and Gaelic languages were developed out of some common mother-tongue _within the British Islands_.

Had they been so the dialects of Gaul would have been far more unlike the British than they were.

The _British_ then, at least, did not acquire its British character in Britain, but on the continent; and it was introduced into England as a language previously formed in Gaul.

For the Gaelic there is no such necessity for a continental origin; indeed at the first view, the probabilities are in favour of its having originated in Britain. It cannot be found on the continent; and, such being the case, its continental origin is hypothetical. One thing, however, is certain, viz., that if the Gaelic were once the only language of the British Isles, the conquests and encroachments of the Britons who displaced it, must have been enormous. In the whole of South Britain it must certainly have been superseded, and in half Scotland as well: whilst, if, before its introduction into Great Britain, it were spoken on any part of the continent, the displacement must have been greater still.

Now, the hypothesis as to the origin of the Gaels may take numerous forms. I indicate the following three.--

1. The first may be called _Lhuyd's_ doctrine, since Humphrey Lhuyd, one of the best of our earlier archaeologists, suggested it. Mr. Garnett has spoken of it with respect; but he evidently hesitates to admit it. And it is only with respect that it should be mentioned; for, it is highly probable. It makes the original population of all the British Isles--England as well as Scotland and Ireland--to have been Gaelic, Gaelic to the exclusion of any Britons whatever. It makes a considerable part of the continent Gaelic as well. In consequence of this, the Britons are a later and intrusive population, a population which effected a great and complete displacement of the earlier Gaels over the whole of South Britain, and the southern part of Scotland. Except that they were a branch of the same stock as the Gaels, their relation to the aborigines was that of the Anglo-Saxons to themselves at a later period.

The Gaels first; then the Britons; lastly the Angles. Such is the sequence. The general distribution of these two branches of the Keltic stock leads to Lhuyd's hypothesis; in other words, the presumptions are in its favour. But this is not all. There are certainly some words--the names, of course, of geographical objects--to be found in both England and Gaul, which are better explained by the Gaelic than the British language. The most notable of these is the names of such rivers as the _Exe_, _Axe_, and (perhaps) _Ouse_, which is better ill.u.s.trated by the Irish term _uisge_ (_whiskey_, _water_), than by any Welsh or Armorican one.

2. The second doctrine may be called the _Hibernian_ hypothesis. It allows to the Britons of England, and South Scotland any amount of antiquity, making them aboriginal to Great Britain. The Gaels of the Scottish Highlands it derives from Ireland; a view supported by a pa.s.sage in Beda.[9] Ireland is thus the earliest insular occupancy of the Gael. But whence came they to Ireland? From some part south and west of the oldest known south-western limits of the Keltic area, from Spain, perhaps; in which case a subsequent displacement of the original Kelts of the continent by the Iberians--the oldest known stock of the Peninsula--must be a.s.sumed. But as there must be some a.s.sumptions somewhere, the only question is as to its legitimacy.

3. The third hypothesis--the _Caledonian_--reverses the second, and deduces the Irish Gaels from Scotland, and the Scotch Gaels from some part _north_ of the oldest known Keltic boundary and in the direction of Scandinavia. Like both the others, this involves a subsequent displacement of the mother-stock.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] _See_ Chapter viii.

CHAPTER VI.

ROMAN INFLUENCES.--AGRICOLA.--THE WALLS AND RAMPARTS OF ADRIAN, ANTONINUS, AND SEVERUS.--BONOSUS.--CARAUSIUS.--THE CONSTANTIAN FAMILY.--FRANKS AND ALEMANNI IN BRITAIN.--FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN THE ROMAN LEGIONS.

The steady and continuous operation of Roman influences may be said to begin in the reign of Claudius, A.D. 43; the sceptre of Cyn.o.belin having pa.s.sed into the hands of his sons. Against these, and against the other princes of Britain, such as Caradoc (Caractacus) and Cartismandua, the active commanders Aulus Plautius and Ostorius Scapula are employed.

Three lines diverging from the parts about London give us the direction of their conquests. One running along the valley of the Thames takes us to the Dobuni of Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and the Silures of South Wales; both of which are specially enumerated as subdued populations. The other, almost at right angles with the last, gives us the operations against the town of Camelodunum in Ess.e.x, the Iceni who afterwards revolted, and the Brigantes of Yorks.h.i.+re. The third is indicated by Paulinus'

campaigns in North Wales, and his b.l.o.o.d.y deeds in the Isle of Anglesey, a line of conquest which probably arose out of the reduction of the midland counties of Northampton, Leicester, Derby, Stafford, and Shrops.h.i.+re. I do not say that these give us the actual movements of the Roman army. They serve, however, to note the points where the special evidence of Roman occupation is most definite.

In the reign of Vespasian the conquests were not only consolidated but extended. Agricola builds his line of forts from the Forth to the Clyde, and penetrates as far north as the Grampians. Whether the warriors whom he here met under Galgacus were Britons, like those whom he had seen in the south, or Gaels, is a matter which will be considered hereafter; but he fought against them with foreign as well as with Roman soldiers. The German Usipii formed one, if not more, of his cohorts; a circ.u.mstance which shews what will be ill.u.s.trated, with fuller details, in the sequel, viz., that the Roman conquerors of Britain were far from being exclusively Roman. The Usipii, however, are the first non-Roman soldiers mentioned by name. On the west coast of Britain, Agricola had to deal with the pirates from Ireland--undoubted Gaels whatever the warriors of the Grampians may have been.

Roman civilization took root rapidly in Britain, though in a bad form.

The early existence of lawyers and money-lenders shew this. During the reign of Domitian the advocates of Britain were known to the satirists of Rome; and, as early as that of Nero, the calling-in of a loan by the philosopher Seneca helped to create the great revolt under Boadicea. But except in respect to the use of the Roman language, it is doubtful whether the culture was much different from that which had developed itself under Cyn.o.belin--a civilization which though being due, in a great degree, to Gaul, was also, more or less indirectly, Roman as well; but, nevertheless, a civilization which was unattended with any loss of nationality.

The rampart from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway is referred to the reign of Adrian; the conversion of Agricola's line of forts into a continuous wall to that of Aurelius Antoninus. These boundaries give us two areas. North of the Antonine frontier the Roman power was never consolidated, although the eastern half was occasionally traversed by active commanders like the Emperor Severus. It was the county of the Caledonians and Maeatae.

Between the frontier of Agricola and the rampart of Adrian, the occupation was less incomplete. Incomplete, however, it was; even when, in the fourth century, it was made a province by Theodosius, and in honour of the Emperor of Valens, called Valentia. A.D. 211, Severus, after strengthening the Antonine fortifications, dies at York; his reign being an epoch of some importance in the history of Roman Britain.

In the first place, it is only up to this reign that our authorities are at all satisfactory. Caesar, Tacitus, and Dio Ca.s.sius, have hitherto been our guides. For the next eighty years, however, we shall find no cotemporary historian at all, and when our authorities begin again, the first will be one of the worthless writers of the Panegyrics. In the next place, the great divisions of the Britannic populations have hitherto been but two--the Britons proper and the Caledonians. The next cla.s.s of writers will complicate the ethnology by speaking of the Picts.

The chief change, however, is that in the British population itself. The contest, except on the Welsh and Scotch frontiers, is no longer between the Roman invader and the British native; but between Britain as a Romano-Britannic province, and Rome as the centre and head of the empire: in other words, the quarrels with the mother-country replace the wars against the aborigines. This, however, is part of the civil history of Rome, rather than the natural history of Britain. The contests of Albinus against Severus, and of Proculus and Bonosus against Probus, are the earliest instances of the attempts upon the Imperial Purple from these quarters; attempts which give us the measure of the extent to which the island was Roman rather than Keltic--at least in respect to its political history.

Bonosus, himself, had British blood in his veins although born in Spain, for his mother was a Gaul; but as he is called "Briton in origin," we may infer that his father was from our own island. Probus allowed the Britons the privilege of _growing vines and of making wine_.

In the last ten years of the third century events thicken. The revolt of Carausius, the a.s.sumption of the empire by Allectus, and the adoption of Constantius Chlorus by Diocletian as Caesar, are events of ethnological as well as political influence. This they are, because they indicate either the introduction of foreign elements into Britain, or the infusion of British blood in other quarters. Carausius, for instance, was a Menapian, and he is not likely to have been the only one of his times. The Constantian family, I believe, to have been more British than even the usual opinion makes them.

A little consideration will tell us that the three names of this important pedigree--Constans, Constantius, and Constantinus, have no etymological connexion with the substantive _Constantia_; in other words, that _Constans_ does not mean the _constant Man_, just as _prudens_ means the _prudent_, or _sapiens_ the _wise_. No such signification will account for the forms in -_ius_ and -_inus_. To this it may be added that the family was of foreign extraction, as were the families of nearly half the later emperors. The name, I believe, was foreign also. If so, it was most probably Keltic; since _con_, both as a simple single term, and as an element of compounds is a common Keltic proper name. The only fact against this view is the descent of the first of the three emperors--Constantius. He was not born in either Gaul or Britain. On the contrary, his father was a high official in the Diocese of Illyric.u.m, and his mother, a niece of the Emperor Claudius;[10]

circ.u.mstances which, at the first view, seem to contradict the inference from the name. They do so, however, in appearance only. The most unlikely man to have been high in office in Illyric.u.m was a native Illyrian; for it was the policy of Rome to put Kelts in the Slavonic, and Slavonians in the Keltic, provinces; just as, at the present moment, Russia places Finn regiments in the Caucasus, and Caucasian in Finland.

If this view be correct, a Keltic name is evidence, as far as it goes, of Keltic blood.

In the next generation we have to deal with both historical facts and traditions connected with the pedigree of Constantine the Great. That he was born in Britain, and that his mother was of low origin, are the historical facts; that she was the daughter of King Coel of Colchester is the tradition. The latter is of any amount of worthlessness, and no stress is laid upon it. The former are considered confirmatory of the present view. The chief support, however, lies in the British character of the name.

In the Panegyric of Mamertinus on the Emperor Maximian, one of the Augusti, who shared the imperial power with Diocletian, we have the first mention of the Picts. Worthless as the Panegyrists are when we want specific facts, they have the great merit of being cotemporary to the events they allude to; for allusions of a tantalizing and unsatisfactory character is all we get from them. However, Mamertinus is the first writer who mentions the Picts, and he does it in his notice of the revolt of Carausius.

More important than this is a pa.s.sage which gives us an army of Frank mercenaries in the City of London, as early as A.D. 290--there or thereabouts. It is a pa.s.sage of which too little notice has, hitherto, been taken--"By so thorough a consent of the Immortal G.o.ds, O unconquered Caesar, has the extermination of all the enemies, whom you have attacked, _and of the Franks more especially_, been decreed, that even those of your soldiers, who, having missed their way on a foggy sea, reached the town of London, destroyed promiscuously and throughout the city the whole remains of that mercenary mult.i.tude of barbarians, that, after escaping the battle, sacking the town, and, attempting flight, was still left--a deed, whereby your provincials were not only saved, but delighted by the sight of the slaughter."

One German tribe, then at least, has set its foot on the land of Britain as early as the reign of Diocletian; and that as enemies. How far their settlement was permanent, and how far the particular section of them, mentioned by Mamertinus, represented the whole of the invasion, is uncertain. The paramount fact is the existence of hostile Franks in Middles.e.x nearly 200 years before the epoch of Hengist.

Were there Saxons as well? This is a question for the sequel. At present, I remark, that Mamertinus mentions them by name but without placing them on the soil of Britain. They merely vexed the British Seas.

Were there any other Germans? Aurelius Victor suggests that there were.