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the north-western provinces 509
from Penmachno, in the mountains of north Wales. 76 Already in the mid
to late fifth cetury Britain could boast at least one more warlord, Patrick’s
bête noire, Coroticus – probably a pirate rather than a representative of any
legitimate institutional power, but nevertheless another example of the military
life made possible by the withdrawal of the Roman army, and the
exhortation to self-help. The continental counterpart to Coroticus may not
have been Aegidius, but rather a bagaudic leader, such as the Spaniard
Basilius. 77 Yet British pirates are only one end of a spectrum of military
possibilities opened up by the failure of the imperial government to protect
its citizens.
In certain areas of northern Gaul, as in Britain, military failure was
accompanied by governmental failure. Although the Merovingian kings of
the Franks managed to govern with something like a Roman administration,
and even to tax their Gallo-Roman subjects in the late sixth century,
there is no reason to assume that there was absolute governmental continuity
throughout northern Gaul up to that time. 78 In discussing the period
of barbarian invasion Salvian records the destruction or devastation of
Cologne, Mainz and Trier. 79 His account may be largely hyperbolic, and
there was certainly some continuity in all three places: in Cologne it may
have been considerable. 80 In Aremorica the normal structures of government
and society are likely to have failed during the fifth century, even if
the Franks managed to put the clock back to the east of modern Brittany
half a century later. Salvian’s picture of the free society north of the Loire
suggests anything but the normal functioning of administrative institutions,
and the narrative of events in the Loire valley in the 460s provided
by Gregory of Tours, who was apparently dependent on a chronicle compiled
in Angers, suggests something like total military chaos in the region
of Angers, Bourges and Déols. 81 By the last quarter of the century there
were Frankish enclaves not only in Tournai, where Childeric was buried,
but also in Cambrai, and perhaps, although by no means certainly, as far
west as Le Mans. 82 Further, gaps in some episcopal lists may suggest that
there was some disruption in the ecclesiastical organization of northeastern
Gaul at the time, although other interpretations of the lacunae are
possible. 83 Certainly it should be noted that such a gap may be no more
than an evidential hiccup. Nevertheless, other societies have been temporarily
broken apart by war, and patched together again subsequently. It is
as well to remember that the continuities apparent from the vantage point
76 Dark (1994) 110. 77 Hydat. Chron. 133.
78 The fullest discussion of Merovingian taxation is Goffart (1989).
79 Salv. De Gub. Dei vi.39, 72–7, 82, 85–9.
80 Ewig (1954) 56–60; Heinemeyer (1979); Wightman (1985); Schütte (1995).
81 Greg. Tur. Hist. ii.18–19; for the Angers origin of the material, note the use of the verb venire in
ch. 18. 82 Greg. Tur. Hist. ii.42. 83 Griffe (1964–6) ii.134–6.
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