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The Roman Evacuation of Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

H. Stefan Schultz
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Extract

Some apology may seem to be required for re-opening a question that has already been discussed by so many first-rate scholars. If so, it must be found in the hope that an examination of the points I propose to raise may possibly throw fresh light on the problem as a whole, and so bring about a greater measure of agreement as to the true date of the so-called evacuation of Britain.

To begin with, I should like to make it clear that, in my opinion, there must have been in fact something like a ‘departure of the Romans.’ It is difficult to see what justification there is for Haverfield's view that this departure did not mean any great departure of persons, Roman or other, from the island. If that had been so, we should have to suppose that all the Romans who were left, whether private individuals or military and government officials, were absorbed into the new régime, out of which there gradually developed a state that became England. Everything, however, indicates that there was a distinct break between Britain as a Roman province and Britain as it was under its Saxon rulers. It is almost a contradictio in adiecto to say : ‘No one went. Some persons failed to come.’ Why did they fail to come ? Obviously because nothing remained for them to go to. Thus the only point to be determined is exactly when this severance of the far northern province from the official western government took place. Was it in 407 or 410, as has usually been supposed, or was it at some later time ?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , 1933 , pp. 36 - 45
Copyright
Copyright ©H. Stefan Schultz 1933. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Cambridge Medieval History i, 379.

2 Cf. Gibbon-Bury, , Decline and Fall, ch. xxxi (vol. iii, 353 f.)Google Scholar, and Bury, in JRS x (1920), 150.Google Scholar

3 Histoire des Empereurs (Venice, 1732), v, 585. So, too, Wietersheim-Dahn, , Gesch. der Völkerwanderung, ii (2) (1881), 166.Google Scholar

4 P-W iii, 874. Cf. Albertini, E., L'Empire romain (1929), 419Google Scholar: ‘Cette évacuation de la Bretagne par sa garnison signifiait la fin de l'autorité impériale dans l'île (407).’

5 England before the Norman Conquest (1910), 174. Sir Charles cites as his authorities Zosimus (vi, 6) and, per incuriam, Prosper Tiro. The second passage which he quotes is not taken from the Epitome Chronicon of Prosper Tiro, but from the Chronica Gallica, 61–63 (Mon. Germ., Auctt. Antt. ix, 652 f.). In JRS XII (1922), 75 and 89, Mr. R. G. Collingwood makes a precisely similar mistake when he attributes to Prosper Tiro the famous passage which Bury had cited (JRS x (1922), 153, n. 3) from the Chronica Gallica.

6 De Excidio, c. zo (Mon. Germ., Auctt. Antt., XIII, 36).

7 Niese-Hohl, in Iwan-Müller's, Handb. der klass. Altertumswissensch. iii, 55 (1923), 413 ff.Google Scholar

8 Gibbon-Bury, ch. xxxi (vol. iii, 353 f.).

9 La fin du monde antique (1927), 236Google Scholar.

10 Mon. Germ., Ser. Rer. Merov. vii, 263, 18 f., and n. 1.

11 126, not 128 as in Bury l.c. (Mon. Germ., Auctt. Antt. ix, 660).

12 JRS x (1920), 131 ff. Dalmatia, however, was not transferred to the East in A.D. 437, as Bury seems to think (l.c. 142). In Wiener Studien 36 (1914), 344 ff. E. Stein has proved to demonstration that Dalmatia always belonged to the West. Moreover, he has elsewhere (Rhein. Mus. lxxiv (1925), 354 ff.) made it quite clear that in A.D. 437, when Valentinian III married Eudoxia, only the town of Sirmium passed to the East. With the exception of that town, Pannonia Secunda belonged to the Huns from A.D. 433 onwards. This enables Bary's limits to be narrowed and the date of the Notitta to be placed between A.D. 427, when Pannonia Secunda and Valeria were recovered, and A.D. 433, when these provinces again came into the power of the Huns. Bury's date of c. 428 is probably right.

13 It may be added that there is no reason why the changes in the military units, which are reflected in the differences between section vii and sections v and vi, should have taken place between 427 and 433. It is, of course, quite possible that they did so. But the alternative explanation suggested by E. Stein (RGK Bericht xviii (1928), 95) is equally compatible with the record of the Notitia. He considers that sections v and vi may be somewhat earlier than section vii, that they may belong to the years preceding A.D. 428, when the actual copy on which the text of our Notitia is based was drawn up, and that section vii was inserted about this time as ‘Berichtigungs- und Ergänzungsliste’ (l.c. 105), whereas it was not thought necessary to bring sections v and vi up to date. Grenier, A. in an interesting paper on the ‘Notitia Dignitatum et les Frontières de I'Est et du Nord de la Gaule’ (Mélanges Paul Thomas (Bruges, 1930), p. 378 ff.)Google Scholar, was unable to profit by Stein's remarks, since his manuscript was already in the press.

14 Bury is inconsistent in so far as he admits the possibility of dating the loss of Hadrian's Wall either to the years that followed the rebellion of Maximus (A.D. 395) or to the time of Constantine's revolt (A.D. 407). This will be dealt with later on.

15 Just as were the comits Italiae, Illyrici, tractus Argentoratensis and Hispaniarum, and the duces Mogontiacensis and tractus Armoricani. See Stein, E., RGK Bericht xviii (1928), 92 ff.Google Scholar, especially 96, an article which refutes by anticipation the remarks of Egger, in Jahresh. des österr. archäol. Inst. xxv (1929), Beibl. 209 ff.Google Scholar

16 Cf. Stein, E., Gesch. des spätröm. Reiches, i, 310.Google Scholar

17 See above, p. 37, n. 5.

18 Second Report on the Excavation of the Roman Fort at Richborough (1928), 106 ff. Cf. Ant. Journ. vii (1927), 268 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 Undoubtedly, however, there is a difficulty The Richborough coin has on the reverse a ‘camp gate crowned by two towers,’ whereas the reverse of Valentinian III (Cohen, no. 1) apparently shows a ‘porie de camp,’ pure and simple, not one ‘surmontée de deux tours’.

20 JRS XII (1922), 82.

21 Ant. Journ. vii (1927), 271Google Scholar.

22 Eugipp. Vita Severini 4, 2; cf. 20, 1.

23 ibid. 3, 3.

24 Cod. Theod. vii, 4, 35 (Feb. 14, 423), and Cod. Just., i, 52 (May 30, 439). Cf. Gesch. des spätröm. Reiches i, 178.

25 Collingwood in JRS XII (1922), 98.

26 Germania xiii (1929), 185.

27 Prof. Egger has been good enough to tell me that not a single coin, has been found at Feistritz (Käraten), a fort in use from A.D. 400 to 600. The explanation which he offers is that after A.D. 400 hardly any copper coins were in circulation at all, while gold and silver were seldom lost. The gold coins at Maglern, a site very similar to Feistritz, are of Justinian.

28 So, too, Bury, in JRS XIII (1923), 149 n. 3.Google Scholar

29 Gesch. des spätröm. Reiches, i, 407 and 472 f., and RGK Bericht xviii (1928), 92 ff. In his review of the latter article in Byzantion v (1930), i, 765 f., Professor Henri Grégoire cordially approves of Stein's conclusions.

30 Germania xiii (1929), 182Google Scholar.

31 Ant. Journ., vii (1927), 268 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. also SirMacdonald, George in RGK Bericht xix (1929), 52.Google Scholar

32 P. 92, n. 2. Mr. Salisbury's statement that Arcadius was ‘nominal governor of the three Gauls, at all events till the elevation of Honorius,’ is extraordinarily difficult to understand. I do not see how it is possible to reconcile it with the evidence. It is well known that Arcadius never left the East and in particular that he remained as regent of the East at Constantinople during his father's absence in the years 388–391: see Stein, E., Zeitschr. der Savigny-Stiftung, Roman. Abt. xl (1920), 215–218Google Scholar, and Gesch. des spätröm. Reiches i, 319 and 323 f.

33 Bury, in JRS XIII (1923), 149Google Scholar, n. 3, says: ‘To what I have said in support of this date, I may add here that the appeal of the Britons to Aetius in A.D. 446, recorded by Gildas, is more natural and intelligible if the evacuation had occurred a few years before then than if it had occurred thirty-five years before.’

34 Against this date, cf. Fabricius in P-W xiii, 634.

35 Hist. Jahrh. d. Görresges. li (1931), 213 ff.

36 Ὁνωρίου δέ γράμμασι πρὸς τὰς ἐν Βρεττανίᾳ χρησαμένου πόλεις ϕυλάττεσθαι παραγγέλλουσι.

37 Cf. Mommsen, , Introd. to Mon. Germ., Auctt. Antt. xiii, 10.Google Scholar

38 Op. cit. ix, 629 ff.

39 He says: Honorius regnavit annis xxxii, duodecim cum fratre et post fratris excessum xx, xi, when the true numbers are xxvii, xiii and xv.

40 Cf. Mommsen, op. cit. ix, 617Google Scholar: Commentarium scriptum esse a Theodosii II aequali et admiratore.

41 Stein, E., Gesch. des spätröm. Reicbes i, 394Google Scholar, and Lot, La fin du monde antique, 237.

42 c. 21 (Migne, , Patr. Lat. li, 271Google Scholar).