The Ethnology of the British Islands Part 7

Neither are arguments from the antiquity of language conclusive. When two works differ from each other in respect to the signs of antiquity exhibited in their phraseology, the inference that the oldest in point of speech is _proportionably_ old in point of time is not the only one.

It is an easy thing to say that in the Latin literature the language of Ennius represents a date a hundred years earlier than that of Cicero, and that of Cicero a date 400 earlier than the time of Boethius, and that when we meet elsewhere compositions which differ from each other as the Latin of Ennius does from that of Boethius, there is 500 years difference between them. It is by no means certain that any two languages alter at the same rate.

But an average may be struck, and it may be said that greater antiquity of expression is _prima facie_ evidence of a greater antiquity of date.

It is: but is only so when we are quite sure that the _dialects_ of the two specimens are the same. There are works printed this very year in Iceland which, if their dates were unknown, would pa.s.s for being a hundred years older than the Swedish of the eleventh century.

It is only when the supporter of the authenticity of a work of singular and unique antiquity can begin with an epoch of comparatively recent date, and argue backwards through a series of continuous works, each older than the other, to one still older than any, that he can reasonably accuse the critic who demurs to his deductions of captiousness. In this way the antiquity of the oldest Chinese annals is invalidated: in this way the date of the Indian Vedas (1400 B.C.). But the great cla.s.sical literatures stand the test, and from the present time to Claudian, from Claudian to Ennius, and from Ennius to Archilochus we trace a cla.s.sical literature with all its works in continuity; each pointing to some one older than itself. Even this forbids an excessive antiquity to Homer.

Again--the likelihood of forgery must be continually kept in mind; so much so, that even in the unexceptionable literature of the cla.s.sics, if it could be shewn that any age between the present and the eighth century B.C., were an age in which the Greek drama, the Greek epics, the Greek histories, or the Greek orations could be forged, a great deal would be subtracted from the proofs of their antiquity. I do not say that it would set them aside; because everything of this kind is a question of degree; but the argument in their favour would be less exceptionable than it is.

For it cannot be too strongly urged that the preservation of records of high antiquity, in and of itself, is naturally and essentially improbable. More than half of the antiquities of the world have been lost; and this alone gives us the odds against an instance of survivors.h.i.+p. This has been insisted on by more than one archaeologist--more cautious and candid than the majority of his brotherhood. Whoever doubts this should look around him. How few nations have a literature! How thoroughly is the non-development of a permanent literature the exception rather than the rule! And, even when records come into existence, how numerous are the chances against their preservation. Destruction is the common law: continuance a happy rarity.

For extraordinary phenomena we must have extraordinary proofs.

From the present time to the eleventh century we may trace the native Welsh literature continuously; but no farther. If any thing be older than the laws of Hoel Dhu, they must be so by four centuries, with nothing in the interval. This is the measure of the value of Welsh evidence to the events of the fifth century. Writers, however, in Latin existed earlier. Still, this is unsufficient to be conclusive to the validity of a fact in the fourth. Such a statement must be tested by its own intrinsic probability. It cannot come before us invested with the dignity of a historically authenticated event. What this is will soon appear.

If this be the spirit in which we must scrutinize doc.u.mentary evidence, with what eyes must we look upon traditions--traditions wherein the record, instead of being permanently registered, is transmitted from mouth to mouth, from father to son, from the old man to the young, from generation to generation? The mere etymological import of the word will mislead us. It is not enough for a thing to have been _handed down_ from father to son. A relic may be so transmitted; indeed, written papers and printed books are traditions of this kind. Heirlooms of any sort--whether belonging to a nation or an individual--are such traditions as these.

In a true tradition we must consider the _form_ and the _origin_. A narrative which has taken a definite shape, either as a formula or a poem, can scarcely be called a tradition. It is a specimen of composition handed down by tradition, but not a tradition itself. It is an unwritten record--as much a record in form and nature as a written doc.u.ment, but differing from a written doc.u.ment in the manner of its transmission to posterity. Many a good judge believes that the Homeric poems are older than the art of writing, and, consequently, that they were handed down to posterity orally. Yet no one would say that the Iliad and Odyssey were Greek traditions.

The fact of a narrative having taken a permanent form, inasmuch as that permanent form both facilitates its transmission, and ensures its integrity, distinguishes an unwritten record from a tradition.

A true account of a real event transmitted from father to son in no set form of words, but told in a way that a nursery tale is told to children, or the way in which a piece of evidence is given in a court of justice, const.i.tutes a tradition; for in this form only is it liable to those elements of uncertainty which distinguish tradition from history--elements which we must recognize, if we wish to be precise in our language.

Such is its _form_, or rather its _want of form_. But this is not enough. A tradition, to be anything at all, must have a basis in fact, and represent a real action, either accurately described or but moderately misrepresented. I say _moderately misrepresented_, because the absolute transmission of anything beyond a mere list of names, and dates, without addition, omission, or embellishment, is a practical impossibility. Hence we must allow for some inaccuracy; just as in mechanics we must allow for friction. But, allowing for this, we must still remember that the event and the account of it, are correlative terms. An opinion--an account of an account--only takes the appearance of a tradition. It is a _tradition_ so far as it is _handed down_ to posterity, but it is no tradition with corresponding facts as a basis.

It is generally a theory--a theory, perhaps unconsciously formed, but still a theory. Certain phenomena, of which there is no historical explanation, excite the notice of some one less incurious than his fellows, and he attempts to account for them. On the two opposite coasts of a sea--for instance--two populations with the same manners and language, are observed to reside. A migration will account for this; and, consequently, a migration is a.s.sumed. The view, being reasonable, is generally adopted; and the fact of a migration having absolutely taken place becomes the current belief. The men who speak of this in the fourth or fifth generation, speak of it as an actual occurrence. So, perhaps, it is. But it is no tradition notwithstanding; since the record cannot be traced up to the event. All that posterity has had handed-down from its ancestors, is an _inference_; which, even if it be as good as the historical account of an absolute event (as it sometimes is), is anything but a tradition in the strict sense of the term. Of course, the existence of the inference itself can be reduced to a fact, and, as such, produce a tradition. But this is not the tradition which is wanted--not the tradition which gives the fact in question.

These _ex post facto_ traditions may be of any amount of value, or of any degree of worthlessness. They may be inferences of such accuracy and justice as to command the respect of the most critical; or they may involve impossibilities. The extremes are the best; the former for their intrinsic value, the latter from their unlikelihood to mislead. The most dangerous are the intermediate. Possibly, plausible, or, at any rate, without any outward and visible marks of condemnation--

"They lie like truth, and yet most truly lie."

What proportion do these _ex post facto_ traditions bear to the true ones? This is difficult to say. A nickname, a genealogy, a tune may well be transmitted by tradition. So may charms, formulae, proverbs, and poems; yet when we come to proverbs and poems we are on the domain of unwritten literature, a domain which can scarcely be identified with that of tradition. A local legend, when it is not too suspiciously adapted to the features of the place to which it applies, may also be admitted as traditional. These and but little beyond. Men rarely think about transmitting narratives until it is too late for an authentic account.

On the other hand, the very mental activity which employs itself upon the attempt to account for an unexplained phenomenon is a sign of attention; and where there is the attention to speculate, there is likely to be the desire to transmit. If so, it is probable that the proportion of transmitted speculations to true traditions is immeasurably large. But there is an other reason for ignoring the so-called traditions. When there is a tradition, and a true historical record as well, the tradition is superfluous. When a tradition stands alone, there is nothing to confirm it. What can we do then? To a.s.sume the fact from the truth of the tradition, and the truth of the tradition from the existence of the fact, is to argue in a circle. Two independent traditions, however, may confirm each other. When this happens the case is improved; but, even then, they may be but similar inferences from the same premises.

If, then, I allow no inference which I feel myself justified in drawing to be disturbed by any so-called tradition; and, if instead of seeing in the accounts of our early writers a narrative transmitted by word of mouth in lieu of a record registered in writing, I deal with such apparent narratives as if they were the inferences of some later chronicler, I must not be accused of undue presumption. The statements will still be treated with respect, the more so, perhaps, because they rest on induction rather than testimony; and, as a general rule, they will be credited with the merit of being founded on just premises, even where those premises do not appear. In other words, every writer will be thought logical until there are reasons for suspecting the contrary. For a true and genuine tradition, however, I have so long sought in vain, that I despair of ever finding one. If found, it would be duly appreciated. On the other hand, by treating their counterfeits as inferences, we improve our position as investigators. A fact we must take as it is told us, and take it without any opportunity of correction--all or none; whereas, an inference can be scrutinized and amended. In the one case we receive instructions from which we are forbidden to deviate; in the other we act as judges, with a power to p.r.o.nounce decisions. Nor does it unfrequently happen that our position in this respect is better than that of the original writer; since, however, many may be the facts which he may have had for his opinion beyond those which he has transmitted to posterity, there are others of which he must have been ignorant, and with which _we_ are familiar.

Changing the expression, where there is anything like an equality of _data_, the means of using them is in favour of the later inquirer as against the earlier; in which case he understands antiquity better than the ancients--presumptuous as the doctrine may be. With a _bona fide_ piece of testimony, however traditionary, doc.u.mentary, or cotemporaneous, the case is reversed, and the modern writer must listen to his senior with thankful deference. And this it is that makes the distinction between inference and evidence so important. To mistake the former for the latter is to overvalue antiquity and exclude ourselves from a legitimate and fertile field of research. To confound the latter with the former, is to raise ourselves into criticism when our business is simply to interpret.

Proceeding to details, we find that the _Historia Gildae_ and the _Epistola Gildae_ are the two earliest works upon Anglo-Saxon Britain.

For reasons which will soon appear, these works are referred to A.D.

550. The cla.s.s of facts for which the evidence of a writer of this date is wanted, is that which contains the particulars of the history of Britain during the last days of the Roman, and the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon domination. Amongst these, the more important would be the rebellion of Maximus, the Pict and Scot inroads, the earliest Germanic invasions, and the subordination of the Romans to the Saxons. But all these are deeds of devastation, and, as such, unfavourable to even the existence of the scanty literature necessary to record them. Again, there were two other changes, equally unfavourable to the preservation of records, going on. Pagan or Cla.s.sical literature was becoming Christian or Medieval, whilst the Latin or Roman style was pa.s.sing into Byzantine and Greek. Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, the last of the Latin Pagan historians, was cotemporary with the events at the beginning of the period in question. Procopius, one of the last Pagan writers of Byzantium, died about the same time as Gildas.

Hence, the 150 years--from A.D. 400 to 550--for which alone the history of Gildas is wanted, is an era of excessive obscurity. Are the merits of the author proportionate? Is the light he brings commensurate with the darkness? What could he know? What does he tell? He tells so little that the question as to the value of his authorities is reduced to nearly nothing; and, of that little which we learn from his wordy and turgid pages, the smallest fraction only is of any ethnological interest.

Indeed, Gildas is most worth notice for what he leaves unsaid. The rebellion of Maximus he mentions; but he is not answerable for the migration from Britain to Brittany, on which (as already stated) so much turns. The Saxons, too, he mentions, and the name of Vortigern--but he is not answerable for the derivation of the name from the word _Sahs_=_dagger_. In regard to the important question as to the date of the invasion, and the number of the invaders, he fixes 150 years before his own time, and gives _three_ as the number of their vessels (_cyulae_). Aurelius Ambrosius and the Pugna Badonica are especially alluded to, the date of the latter event being the date of his own birth. As this is an event which he might have known from his parents, and as the later Roman writers are our authorities until (there or thereabouts) the death of Honorius, it remains to inquire upon what testimonies Gildas gave the few events which he notices between the years 417[12] and 516. Is there anything which by suggesting the existence of native cotemporary doc.u.ments should induce us to consider his evidence as conclusive? I think not. Such may or may not have existed, the presumption being for or against them, according to the view which the inquirer takes respecting the literary and civilizational influences of the expiring Paganism of the Romans, and the incipient Christianity of the early British Church, combined with the antiquity of the earliest British and Irish records--a wide and complex subject, if treated generally, but if viewed with reference to the specific case before us (the authorities of Gildas), a narrow one.

In the case of Gildas it is perfectly unnecessary to a.s.sume anything of the kind. The only material facts which he gives us are the letter to aetius for a.s.sistance, and a notice of the place which Vortigern finds in the downfall of the Romano-British empire. The first of these points to Rome rather than to Britain; the second is from the life of a Gallic missionary--St. Germa.n.u.s of Auxerre. To this may be added the high probability of Gildas' work having been written in Gaul; a fact which, undoubtedly, subtracts from the little value it might otherwise possess.

The next is an author of a very different calibre, the venerable Beda; concerning whom we must remember that he stands in contrast to Gildas from being Anglo-Saxon rather than British. Now, his history is Ecclesiastical and not Civil; so that ethnological questions make no part of his inquiries, and, as far as they are treated at all, they are treated incidentally. Whatever may have been the records of the Romano-British Church, or the compositions of Romano-British writers, they form no part of the materials of Beda. The most he says that, from _writings and traditions_ along with the information derived from the monks of the Abbey of Lestingham, he wrote that part of his work which gives an account of the Christianity of the kingdom of Mercia. For the other parts of the kingdom he chiefly applied to the Bishop of the Diocese; to Albinus for the antiquities of Kent and Ess.e.x; and to Daniel for those of Wess.e.x, the Isle of Wight, and Suss.e.x. For Lincolns.h.i.+re he had _viva voce_ information from Cynebert, and the monks of the Abbey of Partney; and for Northumberland he made his inquiries himself. Now as Christianity was first introduced into Anglo-Saxon England by Augustine, A.D. 597, the era of the Germanic invasions lies beyond the evidence of either Beda or his authorities. Gildas, and the sources of Gildas he knew; but of access to native records of the fifth century--the century for which they are most wanted--or of the existence of such, no trace occurs in the Historia Ecclesiastica, except in the two doubtful cases which will appear in the sequel.[13]

In Nennius, more than in any other writer, do we find it necessary to a.s.sume the existence of any previous historians, upon whose authority the facts of the times between the cessation of the Roman supremacy, and the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon power may be received; and in Nennius we must, for many reasons, admit it. In the first place, he mentions more than one circ.u.mstance which he could not well have got from any other source; in the next, the preface says that what has been done has been done "partim majorum traditionibus; partem scriptis; partim etiam monumentis veterum Britanniae incolarum; partim et de annalibus Romanorum. Insuper et de chronicis sanctorum Patrum, Ysidori, scilicet Hieronymi, Prosperi, Eusebii, necnon et de historiis Scotorum Saxonumque, inimicorum licet, non ut volui, sed ut potui, meorum obtemperans jussionibus seniorum, unam hanc historiunculam undecunque collectam balbutiendo coacervari." But, it should be added that the authenticity of the preface is doubtful.

Nennius, then, most introduces the question as to the value of the narratives of the events of the fifth century. I cannot but put it exceedingly low. Of any _historian_, properly so called, there is not a trace. Neither is there of regular annals, a point which will soon be considered more fully. Nor yet of any of even the humbler forms of narrative poetry; though this is a point upon which I speak with hesitation. I base my opinion, however, upon the notices of the two chief epochs--that of Vortigern and that of King Arthur. The first is from the life of St. Germa.n.u.s, the second is an unadorned enumeration of three campaigns, with as little of the appearance of being derived from a poetic source as is possible.

Several genealogies occur in Nennius; and it often happens that genealogies are useful elements of criticism. British ethnology, however, is not the department in which their value is most conspicuous.

How far were the traditions of Nennius of any worth? The following is a specimen of them. "The Britons were named after Brutus; Brutus was the son of Hisicion, Hisicion of Ala.n.u.s, Ala.n.u.s of Rea Silvia, Rea Silvia of Numa, Numa of Pamphilus, Pamphilus of Ascanius, Ascanius of aeneas, aeneas of Anchises, Anchises of Tros, Tros of Darda.n.u.s, the son of Flire, the son of Javan, the son of j.a.phet. This j.a.phet had seven sons; the first Gomer, from whom came the Gauls; the second Magog, from whom came the Scythians and Goths; the third Aialan, from whom came the Medes; the fourth Javan, whence the Greeks; the fifth Tubal, whence the Hebrews; the sixth Mesech, whence the Cappadocians; the seventh Troias, whence the Thracians. These are the sons of j.a.phet, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech. I will now return to the point whence I departed.

"The first man of the race of j.a.phet came to Europe, Ala.n.u.s by name, with his three sons. Their names were Ysicion, Armenon, and Neguo.

Ysicion had four sons, their names were Frank, Roman, Alemann, and Briton, from whom Britain was first inhabited. But Armenon had five sons. These are Goth, Walagoth, Cebid, Burgundian, Longobard. Neguo had four sons, Wandal, Saxon, Bogar, Turk. From Hisicio the first-born of Alan, arose four natives, the Franks, the Latins, the Alemanns, and the Britons. From Armenon, the second son of Alan, came the Goths, the Vandals, the Cebidi, and the Longobards. From Neguo, the third, the Bogars, Vandals, Saxons, and Tarinci. But these nations were subdivided over all Europe. Alanius, however, as they say, was the son of Sethevir, the son of Ogomnum, the son of Thois, the son of Boib, the son of Simeon, the son of Mair, the son of Ethac, the son of Luothar, the son of Ecthel, the son of Oothz, the son of Aborth, the son of Ra, the son of Esra, the son of Israu, the son of Barth, the son of Jonas, the son of Jabath, the son of j.a.phet, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methusalem, the son of Enoch, the son of Jareth, the son of Malalel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of the living G.o.d."

Surely this is but a piece of book-learning spoilt in the application.

Yet what says the author?

"This genealogy I found in the traditions of the ancients, who were the inhabitants of Britain in the earliest times."--_Historia Britonum_, cap. xiii.

The next two works are chronicles, so-called; one British and one Anglo-Saxon; the _Annales Cambriae_ and the _Saxon Chronicle_.

The notices of the _Annales Cambriae_ are remarkably brief and scanty. It has scarcely one for every second year, and what it has is short and unimportant.

It begins with A.D. 447, and ends with the Norman Conquest. It is closely confined to the events of Wales.

The date and authors.h.i.+p are uncertain. Of the three MSS. which supply the text, one is said to be as old as A.D. 954.

When the entries began to be cotemporary with the events registered is uncertain; indeed, there is no proof that they are so anywhere. On the other hand, they cannot be earlier than A.D. 521, since the event registered there is the _birth of St. Columba_. Now the entry of the birth of an ill.u.s.trious personage is not likely to be a cotemporaneous entry; since his greatness has yet to be achieved, and it is only the spirit of prophecy and antic.i.p.ation that such a record would be made at the time he merely came into the world.

The year 522, then, is the earliest possible cotemporary entry, and this is, most likely, much too early.

But the work has not the appearance of being a register of cotemporaneous events at all. In such a composition the idlest chronicler would find something to say under each year, and notices of either local events, or the great events of general interest, could scarcely fail to be entered. No one, however, will say that such a series of entries as the following from A.D. 501 to A.D. 601, can ever have const.i.tuted cotemporary history.

LVII. Annus. Episcopus Ebur pausat in Christo, anno cccl. aetatis suae.

LVIII. Annus.

LXXI. Annus.

LXXII. Annus. Bellum Badonis in quo Arthur portavit crucem Domini nostri Jesu Christi tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in humeros suos, et Brittones victores fuerunt.

LXXIII. Annus.

LXXVI. Annus.

LXXVII. Annus. Sanctus Columcille nascitur. Quies Sanctae Brigidae.

LXXVIII. Annus.

XCII. Annus.

XCIII. Annus. Gueith Camlann, in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere; et mortalitas in Brittannia et Hibernia fuit.

XCIV. Annus.