CHAPTER III. THE TEUTONIC CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT OF BRITAIN. Britain. I. ABOUT the middle of the fifth century the first perma- Roman nent Teutonic settlements in Britain were made,—with that event the history of English institutions really begins. With that part of the history of Britain which precedes the making of these settlements we have no direct concern, save so far as that history is necessary to a full comprehension of their character. In order the more clearly to explain the nature of these settlements, a brief review has already been made of the precedent history of the settlers themselves. Let us now glance for a moment at the precedent history of the land that they won. Roman The great tide of Aryan migration never ceased to flow The westward until its Celtic wave, spreading over the British conquest. Isles, reached at last the western shores of Ireland. This whole island-world is found in the possession of Celtic peoples when its history begins.2 The two incursions which Cæsar; Cæsar made into Britain resulted in nothing more than the bringing of this dim and distant realm within the domain of Roman history. During the distractions of the civil war which ensued, Britain for a long time passed out of view. Not until a century after Cæsar's invasion, when the republic had become the empire, was the subjugation of Britain undertaken in earnest by the emperor Claudius by the hand of his general Aulus Plautius. Nearly forty years then elapsed be 1 "The English conquest of Britain cannot be thoroughly understood without some knowledge of the earlier history of the Celt and the Roman." Freeman, Norm. Cong., vol. i. p. 2. 2 It is more than probable, however, that the Celts were not the original in habitants of the British Isles. As to the existence of a pre-Aryan people, see W. W. Kinsley's Views on Vexed Questions, p. 151. 3 Froude's Casar, p. 237. See, also, Gneist, Eng. Parliament, p. 2 (Shee's 4 Tac., Agric., c. 13; Annals, bk. xii., Aulus and Ag- comes a province. fore the work begun by Plautius was completed by Agricola, by whom Britain was really reduced to a state of subjection. Before his recall by his jealous master the whole island had been overrun, and by far the greater part of it had passed under the rule of Rome. Although Tacitus states in his life Britain be of Agricola that the southern part of Britain was reduced to the form of a province under the auspices of Plautius and Ostorius Scapula,1 yet it is not to be supposed that its organization was fully accomplished until the peaceful age of the Antonines, when all the provinces became the objects of special care upon the part of the central administration.2 An attempt has heretofore been made to sketch the general aspects of Roman civilization in Britain for the purpose of pointing out the marked character of its influence upon the Superficial life of the cities, and the superficial character of its influence Roman civi- upon the greater mass of the rural population. And the fact lization. was then observed how the whole adventitious fabric col character of A mere military department. The defences of Britain. Barrriers against the Picts. lapsed and disappeared as soon as the foreign support, by which it had been nourished and sustained, was taken away. The very remoteness of Britain from the seat of empire, its insular position, the harshness of its climate to men of the south, its border warfare,—all conspired to make it a mere military department. It was simply a place to be plundered and enslaved. "Levies, Corn, Tribute, Mortgages, Slaves,' -under these heads was Britain entered in the vast ledger of the empire."4 And under these heads only could her contributions be recorded, for to the intellectual resources of the Roman world she contributed absolutely nothing.5 And yet, oppressive as may have been Roman rule in Britain, its masters were careful to guard it against its foes. In the north the walls of Hadrian, Antonine, and Severus were constructed to bridle the constant incursions of the Picts. Despite these barriers, however, these marauders, about the middle of the fourth century, penetrated into the very heart of the province, and almost tore it from the empire ere the general Theodosius could drive them back to their fastnesses 1 Tac., Agric., c. 14. 2 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. i. p. 42; Green's Making of England, p. 2. See Ibid., p. 7. 4 Kemble, Saxons in England, vol ii. p. 278. pear as the Channel tack Britain in the Highlands.1 But the most formidable foes of Britain were destined to appear as pirates, and to make their attacks from the sea. While the Picts were repeating their incursions from the north, ravages were being made upon the western coast by the Scots, -the name then applied to the people of Ireland.2 And about the time these attacks in the west began, a still fiercer race of pirates appeared upon the eastern coast, with whose origin and history we are somewhat familiar. The first recorded appearance of the Saxons as Saxons appirates in the Channel is in A. D. 287, when they are found pirates in ravaging the coast of Gaul. It is not, however, until the year in 287; 364 that we hear of them as taking part in an attack upon do not atBritain itself. How serious and incessant this new scourge until 364. upon the eastern coast proved itself to be, may be inferred from the measures of defence provided against it by the provincial administration. The most vulnerable part of the coast-line, extending from the Wash on the east to the Isle of Wight on the south, was guarded by a line of fortresses, and the defence of the district so organized was committed to an officer who bore the title of "Count of the Maritime Tract," or "of the Saxon Shore." 5 With the walls upon the north, and The “Saxwith this semicircle of fortresses along the southeastern coast-line, the legions were able to protect the province against both Picts and Saxons up to the moment of their final withdrawal to the centre of the empire. After the removal of the legions Britain was left to her own defence, and for a Britain left period of thirty years the abandoned province maintained an defence. equal struggle with her assailants. At last, weakened by internal dissensions, her power of resistance suddenly gave 1 Ammianus, lib. xxvii. cc. 8, 9; Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. ii. p. 569. Green's Making of England, p. 15. Ammianus, lib. xxvi. c. 4. Palgrave (English Com., p. 384), Lappenberg (Anglo-Saxon Kings, ed. 1881, vol. i. pp. 57, 58), Kemble (Saxons in England, vol. i. pp. 10-14), Skene (Celtic Scotland, vol. i. p. 151), and others have maintained that the "Saxon Shore" derived its name from Saxon settlements made along it of an earlier date than that assigned by the Chronicles to the begining of the Teutonic Conquest. But the orthodox view now 6 In 410 Honorius, in a letter ad- on Shore." to her own Importance of the pe tonic conquest, and its history. driven to the west. way; and at that moment, according to the traditional account,1 she appealed to the Teutonic pirates in the Channel to save her from her Celtic foes. 2. During the century and a half which intervened between riod of Teu- the middle of the fifth century and the end of the sixth, the Teutonic settlements in Britain were made. Within that dimness of period the whole of the island, south of the firths of Forth and Clyde, passed from the possession of the native race to that of the conquerors, with the serious exception of a broad and almost continuous strip of country extending along the entire western coast, and embracing North and West Wales, The Welsh Cumbria and Strathclyde. Within this area the entire native or Welsh population withdrew, with whatever of civilization, religion, or law they had derived from Rome. In that part of the land which the conquerors had made their own, they planted the whole fabric of Teutonic life, social, political, and heathen, which they had brought with them in their Out of the blood and bone from the fatherland. Out of the fusion of the Teutonic settlements, made within the limits and during tonic settle the period to which we have referred, has grown the English the English nation; out of the primitive political institutions embedded in these settlements has grown the English constitution. It is, therefore, impossible to exaggerate the historic importance of this period of conquest and settlement, it is the startingpoint of everything. Its importance, however, is fully equalled Period of by its obscurity. A period of historic darkness and legend fusion of the Teu ments grew nation. historic darkness intervenes between the overthrow of what had been the Roand legend. man province and the beginning of the new Teutonic society. And the difficulties which arise out of this fact are greatly increased by the further fact that such light as we do possess concerning the period which follows' is of the dimmest and most uncertain character. How to bridge this chasm which divides the old from the new is the most difficult problem in English history. The first step in the solution of this prob lem was taken when, in the last chapter, an examination was 1 As to the historic value of the traditional account of the English conquest of Britain, as contained in the English Chronicles, see Freeman, Norm. Cong., vol. i. p. 7, and Dr. Guest, E. E. Settlements, in Salisbury volume of Transactions of the Archæological Institute. 2 "The proofs of such a displace ment lie less in isolated passages from chronicle or history than in the broad features of the conquest itself.” — Green, Making of Eng., p. 132. See above, p. 85. made of the primitive Teutonic constitution as it appeared in the home land at the end of the first century. It was, however, three centuries and a half after that time before the migrations into Britain began. Just what amount of development took place in the interval it is impossible to determine. In the light of the later evidence, there is no reason to suppose that any material advance took place in the direction of civilization. ary history As to the history of the conquest itself, the written evi- Fragmentdence consists of a few scanty and uncertain fragments. of the conUpon the part of the conquered we have only the Historia quest. and Epistola of Gildas, really a single work, written probably Gildas; about the year 560.1 Upon the part of the conquerors we have, in the opening of that invaluable compilation generally known as the English Chronicle, much that is valuable in English regard to the conquests of Kent, Sussex, and Wessex, inter- Chronicle. mixed no doubt with much that is mythical. As to the conquest of Mid-Britain, or the eastern coast, there is no written account from either side; while the fragment from the Annals of Northumbria, embodied in the later compilation which bears the name of Nennius, alone throws light upon the con- Nennius. quest of the north.2 There is neither record nor tradition to guide us as to the manner in which the country was parcelled out among the conquerors; and only by the aid of local nomenclature, and by the surviving traces of the older life imbedded in the customary law, can be determined the forms in which the first settlements were made upon the conquered soil. But at the moment when the period of conquest ends, ChristianChristianity begins, and from its introduction the committing early laws. of the customary law to writing appears to have begun.3 Of the existing laws, those of Æthelberht, Hlothere and Eadric, Wihtred, Ine, Eadward the Elder, Æthelstan, Eadmund, and Fadgar are mainly in the nature of amendments of custom; while those of Ælfred, Æthelred, Cnut, and those which bear 1 See Stubbs and Haddan, Councils of Britain, vol. i. p. 44; Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. i. p. 116, note; Green, Making of Eng., p. 24, note 3. 2 For a complete statement of the authorities upon the early period, see Green's Hist. of Eng. People, vol. i., 66 Authorities for Book I." 8 The promulgation of the laws of Æthelberht took place at some time between the coming of Augustine, in 596, and his death, in 605. Bæda says these laws were enacted "cum consilio sapientium."-Hist. Eccl., ii. 5. Cf. Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. ii. p. 241; Essays in A. S. Law, p. 8. ity and the |