Dark Ages Britain

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>Sarmatian knights
I find this one to be one of the more interesting things.

Bump before work. I'd drop some content but gotta dash

Friendly reminder that the Romano-Celts actually invented the Anglo-Saxons in and even gave them land.

>Top 10 anime betrayalls

Well, Vortigern. He thought it would help, but it didn't end up working out.

Obviously we don't know much about it for a reason, but Romano-Britain was relatively similar even after the armies withdrew. It was only after the Anglos assimilated their own culture that great organization and traditional changes occurred.

What were some of the big cultural changes?

The Romano-British adopted Germanic culture after the Romans left. There is evidence that native Romano Britons adopted more Germanic traditions over multiple generations (Romano-British farms adopting Saxon styles over time). The genetic studies on the English population actually back this up. Only around 30% of English today are of Anglo-Saxon descent. This number would have been smaller generations ago and this 30% number is mixed and not pure. There is no evidence of genocide or forced migrations. Latin was adopted by the Anglo-Saxons and their runes were abandoned. It was a mixture of culture not an invasion.

>but the great populated cities of Britain full of Romans

They saw rapid decline in the same way many cities including Rome saw rapid depopulation. The wealthier land owners fled out of the cities and adopted a more rural agricultural existence and hired Germanic mercenaries to protect them. They were followed by everyone that could. When any society collapses people flee from the cities because cities aren't self sufficient and are full of angry people.

Celtic names in some Anglo-Saxon dynasties also indicates that some Romano-British weren't over thrown but adopted a more Germanic culture over time. Cerdic of Wessex (first King) is a good example of this, Cerdic is a Briton name not a Saxon one. However he is meant to be the founder of the famous house of Wessex, many of the early Kings of Wessex this famous Saxon Kingdom curiously have Briton names. This either means they used native names to appeal to their local native Briton subjects or they were a native family that adopted Saxon customs over time through close relations.

Most of us are busy being hungover lad.

>standing on an ancient stone nobody knows much about anymore

>it's old though so like symbolic and shit

>dude swear an oath to me while I'm on it I bet it's what our fathers fathers did before them Roman cunts came

The feels.

Not him but language and land ownership were a big deal. Saxons had a way of assessing land that we don't fully know the details of anymore, except that it was apparently useful enough that the Normans continued using it for some time after they conquered them. They did this with a concept called "hides", which were units of taxable land. 1 hide was of equivalent value to sustain a single household for a year. Hides were not of a fixed size though, they could be large or smaller depending on their productivity or what sort of infrastructure they had. The exact way they assessed this value is unknown, all that remains is several recorded lists and records of hidages and their tax output, continuing even into the Norman conquest.

Also, farms were typically owned by free men in Saxon culture, while under Roman rule much of the farmland in Britain was developed into slave plantations or tenant farms, since in the Republican era family owned farms became scarce as the aristocracy bought up more and more land and converted the failed peasant farms into profitable sharecropping businesses. Meanwhile, in Anglo-Saxon society, to own land meant you had to be an arms-bearer so that you could defend it. Thus you can see the seeds of feudalism within their culture even though it was still very much tribal.

>Brits were beurocratic even in the dark ages

I'd make a joke but I'm American.

Man you have no idea. They had census records going on back then too. The peasants were also contentious as fuck. That Monty Python and the Holy Grail skit with Dennis the constitutional peasant is closer to reality than you might think. Peasants might have been largely illiterate and tied to their land, but if they knew anything it was farming and paying taxes, and if they thought their landlord was screwing them on their taxes there was hell to pay.

>Celtic speaking Romano Brits

No. Most Britons spoke Latin by this time, it was only the poorly assimilated wildmen living in what was to become Wales who spoke Celtic, the citizens of Lloegyr were wholly Romanized.

Roman civilization survived in Britain until the total conquest of the lowlands some hundred+ years after the first English invasions. The so-called "subroman" period was characterised by decline and loss, but there is evidence that attempts where made to maintain and repair Roman buildings, using wood in place of Roman brick or stone, and cities like Calleva Atrebatum were inhabited by Latin-speaking "Cumbrogi" (a corruption of Latin Civitates, ie, Roman citizens) as late as the 7th century.

This is a good thread, Veeky Forums.

Where would I read more? Book recommendations?

Also I am under the impression that at the time the movie seemed to take place England was heavily divided and had a million different political entities so "who are the britons?" may have been a reasonable question.

Bump.

I want to know, too.

Yes exactly. There were I think 35 different Anglo-Saxon tribes in the 5th through 7th centuries and that's mainly how the Saxons identified themselves in those days rather than by whatever ponce declared himself king of wherever.

what subject in particular?

For primary sources start with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There's a ton of different versions of it but if you're cheap you can read a version for free here: gutenberg.org/ebooks/657

Also look up the Domesday Book. From there you can pursue more primary or historical secondary sources or else read modern secondary sources.

Tell me about Dumnonia and why they're apparently unique.

>Arturia
Post Mordred, she's the objectively better seiba.

Yeah but the lady in the the lake gave Excalibur to Arthur making him the de facto king

And will tell you very little about the actual state of immediately post-Roman Britain. There are a lot of books summarising the archaeology of post Roman Britain. A good start would be Higham/Ryan's The Anglo Saxon World, and there are a few useful case sites such as Yeavering, Mucking and Flixborough that are worth looking at in more detail.

It's actually possible that many of the Saxons were already there before 410 as Foederati.
An interesting feature of some forts on Hadrian's Wall is that the block rooms had dividers and porches installed in the 4th century, suggesting that they were being used by families as opposed to contibernii.

In short, the Dumnonians were a tribe from pre-Roman times who welcomed Roman rule and became quasi-fœderati, and thereby were not heavily reliant on Rome but still adopted Roman technology. They were the longest lasting of the southern British kingdoms, lasting all the way to the time of King Alfred, pretty much. It's also a strong candidate as to where Arthur was from.

t. man who majors in Sub-Roman history

>lasting until King Alfred
Not quite. Kernow !=Dumnonia

Eh, Cornwall was a rump state of Dumnonia, still remained somewhat independent after Devon had fallen to the Saxons, if I remember correctly Dungarth was of the same lineage of the Dumnonian kings anyways