Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

132 5. the western kingdoms
Under his successor the Frankish threat receded, and the Lombard
kingdom became more securely established.
ix. the british isles: anglo-saxon, irish and pictish
kingdoms, 410,597
The collapse of Roman provincial administration in Britain following the
usurper Constantine III’s departure from the island in 407 seems to have
been followed fairly rapidly by the fragmentation of political authority. The
principal problem to be faced in trying to understand these processes is the
almost total lack of reliable evidence. 31 The testimony of the early-ninthcentury
Historia Britonum, also known from its supposed author as
‘Nennius’, is now largely discredited. There are no good evidential grounds
for believing in the existence of a king Vortigern, let alone of an Arthur,
but rulers of a still more or less united Britain may have existed for some
decades after the end of imperial control. It is at least clear from the testimony
of the De Excidio Britonum of Gildas (520/40) that a certain
Ambrosius Aurelianus served at least as military leader of the Britons in the
later fifth century. 32 By the time Gildas himself was writing there existed,
certainly in western Britain from Cornwall through the Severn valley and
up to Gwynedd, a series of small kingdoms ruled by dynasties whose
members had Celtic names.
The military problems that the public authorities in Britain, whatever
their character might have been, had to face came firstly in the form of seaborne
raiding by the Picts and by the Irish (the Scotti). An appeal to Aetius,
probably in the period 446–54, failed to provide imperial assistance, and it
seems, on the basis of Gildas’ narrative, that increasing recourse had to be
made to the Saxons for defence against these attacks. Although much
debated, the dating of the start of this process cannot be given more precisely
than c. 410–42. 33 The Saxons who came to settle, probably under
some form of treaty of federation, in turn became a problem in their own
right, demanding increased annona, in other words pay for their services.
This led to a revolt and fighting between the Saxons and the British provincials,
before a victory, probably of the latter, at the siege of Mons
Badonius (c. 490) led to a peace that had still not been broken when Gildas
was writing forty-four years later.
Just as the history of the British has been obscured by later legendary
traditions, so too was that of the Anglo-Saxons affected by subsequent distortion
and rationalization. By the middle of the seventh century a series
of distinct, and in some cases quite substantial, kingdoms had come into
31 Dumville (1977) 173–92. 32 De Excidio 25.3, ed. M. Winterbottom (Chichester 1978) p. 98.
33 Chron. Gall. A cccclii 126, ed. Mommsen, p. 660.
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