British Leadership
If there had been any remnants of centralized government in the wake of the Roman withdrawal, it rapidly dissolved into rival factions. Then, in about 425, one leader achieved enough control to declare himself "High King of Britain": Vortigern. Although Vortigern did not govern the entire territory, he did defend against invasion, particularly against attacks by Scots and Picts from the north.
According to the sixth-century chronicler Gildas, Vortigern invited Saxon warriors to help him fight the northern invaders, in return for which he granted them land in what is today Sussex. Later sources would identify the leaders of these warriors as the brothers Hengist and Horsa. Hiring Barbarian mercenaries was a common Roman imperial practice, as was paying them with land; but Vortigern was remembered bitterly for making a significant Saxon presence in England possible. The Saxons rebelled in the early 440s, eventually killing Vortigern's son and exacting more land from the British leader.
Instability and Conflict
Archaeological evidence indicates that fairly frequent military actions occurred across England over the rest of the fifth century. Gildas, who was born at the end of this period, reports that a series of battles took place between the native Britons and the Saxons, whom he calls "a race hateful both to God and men." The successes of the invaders pushed some of the Britons west "to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests, and to the rocks of the seas" (in present-day Wales and Cornwall); others "passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations" (to present-day Brittany in western France).
It is Gildas who named Ambrosius Aurelianus, a military commander of Roman extraction, as leading a resistance against the Germanic warriors, and seeing some success. He does not provide a date, but he does give the reader some sense that at least a few years of strife against the Saxons had passed since the defeat of Vortigern before Aurelianus began his fight. Most historians place his activity from about 455 to the 480s.
A Legendary Battle
Both the Britons and the Saxons had their share of triumphs and tragedies, until the British victory at the Battle of Mount Badon (Mons Badonicus), a.k.a. Badon Hill (sometimes translated as "Bath-hill"), which Gildas states took place in the year of his birth. Unfortunately, there is no record of the writer's birth date, so estimates of this battle have ranged from as early as the 480s to as late as 516 (as recorded centuries later in the Annales Cambriae). Most scholars agree it occurred close to the year 500.
There is also no scholarly consensus for where the battle took place, since there was no Badon Hill in Britain in the following centuries. And, while many theories have been put forward as to the identity of the commanders, there is no information in contemporary or even near-contemporary sources to corroborate these theories. Some scholars have speculated that Ambrosius Aurelianus led the Britons, and this is indeed possible; but if it were true, it would require a reconfiguration of the dates of his activity, or an acceptance of an exceptionally long military career. And Gildas, whose work is the sole written source for Aurelianus as commander of the Britons, does not name him explicitly, or even refer to him vaguely, as the victor at Mount Badon.
A Short Peace
The Battle of Mount Badon is important because it marked the end of the conflict of the late fifth century, and ushered in an era of relative peace. It is during this time -- the mid-6th century -- that Gildas wrote the work that gives scholars most of the details they have about the late fifth century: the De Excidio Britanniae ("On the Ruin of Britain").
In the De Excidio Britanniae, Gildas told of the past troubles of the Britons and acknowledged the current peace they enjoyed. He also took his fellow Britons to task for cowardice, foolishness, corruption, and civil unrest. There is no hint in his writings of the fresh Saxon invasions that awaited Britain in the last half of the sixth century, other than, perhaps, a general sense of doom brought on by his bewailing of the latest generation of know-nothings and do-nothings.
Continued on page three: The Age of Arthur?
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