I was making the point that if there were any bilingual Latin speakers, they would have been driven out with the rest of the Celtic-speakers, but your point makes sense.
But was Latin ever the primary vernacular language (as opposed to that of the army and the ruling elite) in most of the Roman Empire? In most areas of the former Roman Empire, the people today do not speak Romance languages. Perhaps what really needs explanation is not why the British do not speak a Romance language, but why the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanians (and pretty much just them) do. (I guess there is not much mystery as to why the Italians do.) Why is French more descended from Latin than it is from Gaulish, or Frankish, or whatever else it was that most of their ancestors spoke during and after the Roman era?
Note that the Germanic people in the british isles were pure invaders, while in other parts of the empire they had already close ties with the Roman empire, were accustomed to the roman ways, organization, customs, etc…and were in part “romanized” themselves. That’s espaciallyu true for the foederati, like for instance the Franks in Gaul who have already been living there for quite some time (being in charge of the defense of the border regions) when Rome fell, often held roman titles or ranks, etc… When they took over or moved in, they just kept the institutions that they deemed useful (say, bishops, some semblance of administration, roman laws for their non-germanic “subjects”, etc…).
What you’re saying, essentially, is that the Western Empire - except for Britain - was Germanized by osmosis.
You can also check out The Birth of Britain, which is Vol. 1 of Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. I don’t know how well regarded it is critically, but it does deal with the period you’re interested in.
Roman military forces had been repeatedly dragged away from Britain in the century leading up to the end of Roman rule, including by Constantine the Great and Maxentius, amongst others. Then over the period 408 to 411 AD the British provinces may have staged some sort of rebellion and gone their own way, while at the same time Rome was being besieged by the Visigoths, which pretty much ended Roman rule quite quickly.
Roman Imperial rule, that is, as your question contains the assumption that the Romans were once reigning Britain and then left, which is a matter of interpretation.
By the fifth century there were no invaders, the main parts of government were run by local bigwigs, possibly the descendants of pre-Roman chieftains dressed up with togas and villas, while the military had become a hereditary institution whose soldiers were the descendants of other soldiers who’d served in the same place.
By the fifth century it’s probably Britain had few if any people from the City of Rome, whereas the entire free population of the empire had been granted citizenship, so depending on how you look at it either next to none or two/three million ish.
The natives were Romans. Undoubtedly Roman ways of life continued after the fall of Imperial rule, for a certain period of time. BAths were maintained, Britain’s uniquely well fortified cities were kept up, some system of government by the cities probably survived. Eventually things went downhill, famines, loss of external trade, Pictish and Irish raids, inter-tribal conflict, loss of government revenue, rather large plagues, resultant emigration to the continent.
The English Settlements by Myers, I quite like. Warlords by Laycock isn’t bad.
That’s a matter of debate. It could be that Latin failed to catch on or it could be that only the more civilised parts of Britain took up Latin in numbers, and were then conquered and their Latin displaced by the Saxons.
Of course the Eastern Empire had its lingua franca in Greek and the North African parts o fthe Western Empire were later conquered by Arabic speaking armies of Islam, hence no romance languages left there.
No? Well, not in Latium maybe, but in Etruria, Gallia Togata and Magnae Graecia?
Most of their ancestors spoke Latin, or some similar language, during and after the Roman era, or from some point during the Roman occupation onward. Of course, even Italian had started to differ from Classical Latin by the fall of Rome.
You don’t support the theory, put forward by Laycock and others, that the Saxons were foederati or laeti then? Laycock puts forward quite a convincing case, and elsewhere I’ve heard the theory that the “Saxon Shore” was so named because it was manned BY Saxons rather than against them. Then, of course, there’s the traditional belief in the hiring of Saxon mercenaries by Vortigern and the involvement of men with Welsh names in the founding of various Saxon royal lines, such as Cerdic of Wessex.
Certainly places in, for example, France were more likely to keep their place names, the names of their tribal capitals in the Roman period, the territorial contiguity of noble estates and, of course, their vernacular languages, indicating a shallower settlement by foreign culture.
Interesting topic-we must not forget that the late Roman Empire had very sophisticated communications, and of course, good roads.
So news from Brittania must have been known (in Rome) in a few weeks (at most).
It is hard for me to accept that Brittania melted down quickly-Londonium was a major city, and Brittania had valuable exports (lead, copper, tin, pearls).
Of course, once the soldiers left, Brittania was open to pirat attacks, and life probably got pretty dangerous.
It would be nice to think that some places kept Roman culture (togas and orgies) into the 7th century.
Were there N. African Romance languages prior to the Islamic invasion?
For what it’s worth, Wikipedia has a very brief article on African Romance, which may have survived as late as the 17th century. However, information seems sketchy at best, and none of the primary references given in the Wiki article are in English — otherwise I would look into it more.
Sorry. I just have to do it.
Sheffield. When the walls fell.
We’re talking about centuries of decline, not an instant poof, they’re gone
Look here:
Thanks, everyone! Some great leads here to help me get started!
That’s one movie version (King Arthur, 2004) that I know of, but not an element of most tellings. Like most iterations, the film combines historical tidbits from at least two separate periods with fantasy.
Among historical figures whose real deeds were incorporated somewhere into the overall body of Arthurian stories, sure, some of those men were from the Roman era, but others weren’t.
“The Saxons, at Londinium.”
It was traditionally thought that the Romans never actually made it to Ireland but it seems there is archeological evidence to the contrary. However, it doesn’t seem that the Romans had as significant a presence here as they had in England.
Another more recent movie called* The Last Legion* alludes to this but it’s not a great movie.