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The Gallic Chronicle of 452 and its Authority for British Events

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Steven Muhlberger
Steven Muhlberger
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

The chronology of the Saxon conquest of Britain is notoriously obscure. Among its most controversial aspects is the date of the adventus Saxonum, the appearance of the Saxons as an independent force in Britain. Only two sets of literary sources throw light on the question. A single contemporary, the anonymous Gallic Chronicler of 452, briefly noted under the year XVIII of Theodosius II (equated by Mommsen to A.D. 441–2) that ‘The British provinces, which up to this time had suffered various disasters and misfortunes, were reduced to Saxon rule’. Bede, writing in the eighth century, and basing his calculations on Gildas’ sketchy sixth-century account, supplied two somewhat later dates for the coming of the English to Britain: the first, A.D. 446–7, and the second ‘in the reign of Marcian and Valentinian’, that is, between 449 and 455. Bede's dates were generally accepted in the first part of this century, and the testimony of the Chronicler of 452, which records the end, and not the beginning, of a Saxon conquest, was dismissed as unreliable. In the last few years, there has been a tendency among scholars to consider Bede's dates mistaken, and to base the chronology of the adventus on the entry in the Chronicle of 452. Bede has not lacked defenders, however. Recently, Dr Molly Miller suggested not only that the date of 441-2 for the adventus was a figment of Mommsen's edition of the Gallic Chronicle, but also that the Chronicle itself could not be considered as a fifth-century source because it had been edited and interpolated at a later date. Miller's article raises serious questions about the value of the Chronicle of 452. Can it be used as a contemporary account of fifth-century events? Or must it be treated as a compilation contaminated by Carolingian editors?

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 14 , November 1983 , pp. 23 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Steven Muhlberger 1983. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Chronica Minora, i [ = Mon. Germ. Hist., Auct. Anliqq. ix, (1892)], 660 (c. 126): Brittanniae, usque hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae in diclonem Saxonem rediguntur. Mommsen's edition puts chapter 126 at XIX Theodosius II. It will be seen below that the authoritative MSS date the notice to the previous year.Google Scholar

2 The first date is found in Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum [in Plummer, C. (ed.), Venerabilis Bedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896)] i, 23; ii, 14; v, 23; the second date is given by Hist. Eccl. i, 15; v, 24; and by Bede, Chronica Maiora [in Chronica Minora, iii], c. 489. For discussion of Bede's dates, seeGoogle ScholarMyers, J. N. L. in Grimes, W. F. (ed.), Aspects of Archaeology in Britain and Beyond (London, 1951), 221–41, andGoogle ScholarMiller, M., English Historical Review xc (1975), 241–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Chadwick, H. M., ‘The End of Roman Britain’, in Chadwick, H. M. et al. , Studies in Early British History (Cambridge, 1954), 9–20;Google ScholarMyers, J. N. L. in Collingwood, R. G. and Myers, J. N. L., Roman Britain and the English Settlements (2nd ed., Oxford, 1937), 352–3. Myers has since modified his opinion; see Myers, loc. cit. (note 2).Google Scholar

4 Morris, John in Jarrett, Michael G. and Dobson, Brian (eds.), Britain and Rome (Kendal, 1965), 155;Google ScholarAlcock, Leslie, Arthur's Britain: History and Archaeology, A.D. 367–634 (London, 1971), 105–9.Google Scholar

5 Miller, M., Britannia ix (1978), 315–18; hereafter referred to by the author's name alone. Miller's arguments and conclusions have recently been used by Philip Bartholomew in his discussion of the sources for the last years of Roman Britain. SeeCrossRefGoogle ScholarBartholomew, , Britannia xiii (1982), 261–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Chron. Min., i, 617–19.

7 Miller, op. cit. (note 5), 316.

8 Ibid., 316–17.

9 On the MS tradition of the Chronicle of 452 and the contents of MS L, see Chron. Min., i, 620–5; Chron. Min., ii, 231, 397, 489–90. Two other important MSS are Bamberg Staatsbibliothek MS E III 18 (Mommsen's B) and Munich University MS 6 (Mommsen's M). I have personally inspected L and M.

10 Chron. Min., i, 648 n. 1.

11 For a recent discussion see Mosshammer, Alden, The Chronicle of Eusebius and Greek Chronographic Tradition (Lewisburg, N.Y., 1979); alsoGoogle ScholarHelm, Rudolf (ed.), Die Chronik des Hieronymus, in Eusebius Werke, vii (2nd ed., Berlin, 1956).Google Scholar

12 Mosshammer, op. cit. (note 11), 39, 44–7, 70–1; Schoene, Alfred, Die Weltchronik des Eusebius in ihrer Bearbeitung durch Hieronymus (Berlin, 1900), 34–6; Miller, op. cit. (note 5), 315–16.Google Scholar

13 The colour-coding system was explained to the reader by a paragraph interpolated into Jerome's preface; see Schoene, op. cit. (note 12), 37–9, and Helm, op. cit. (note 11), 5 n. 6. Not even L, the earliest MS, preserves all the complexities of the system. This fact argues that the scribe of L did not originate the new format.

14 Helm, op. cit. (note 11), 232 (Olymp. 377). See note 22 below.

15 Schoene, op. cit. (note 12), 136.

16 Fotheringham, Iohannes Knight, Eusebii Pamphili Chronici Canones latini vertit… Hieronymus (London, 1923), xv, xxii.Google Scholar

17 Miller, op. cit. (note 5), 316; but see note 13 above.

18 The entries involved are at c. 27–8, 49–50, 76–81, 87–8, 105–7 and 125–6 in Mommsen's edition.

19 Miller, op. cit. (note 5), 317. Miller also objects to the usage Britanniae ‘the [five provinces of] Britain’ in this and other British entries in the Chronicle. She states that while these entities were definitely known in Jarrow after the arrival of Polemius Silvius’ Laterculus in 725, the persistence of the five British provinces into the fifth century is doubtful. The Gallic Chronicler, however, makes no reference to five provinces or to the details of British administration; he, like Polemius Silvius (both a contemporary and a compatriot) and other fifth-century writers (see note 37 below), was merely availing himself of a consecrated usage.

20 Chron. Min., i, 620 n. 27, 652 n. 50, 654 n. 77, 656 nn. 78, 8l, 88, 658 n. 106, 660 n. 126.

21 A serious flaw in Mommsen's edition is that he nowhere discusses either the assumptions or the method behind his emendations, which are themselves only incompletely recorded in his footnotes. A similar criticism can be made of his edition of Hydatius; see Thompson, E. A., ‘The End of Roman Spain’, Pt. IV, Nottingham Medieval Studies xxiii (1979), 19–21.Google Scholar

22 Two examples will suffice. At years XI–XIII of Constantine (ab Abr. 2333–6; Helm, op. cit. (note 11), 230), Jerome permitted an entry that discusses the elevation of Crispus and the younger Licinius as Caesars, Crispus' education by Lactantius, and finally Lactantius himself to take up three years and extend into a fourth. At XXII-XXIII Constantine (ab Abr. 2344–5; Helm, op. cit., 232) a notice describing the succession of bishops begins in the Olympiad break (see note 14 above) continues through year XXII and extends into year XXIII, which is not an empty year.

23 The best MS of Hydatius leads us to believe that the Spanish chronicler did the same. See Thompson, loc. cit. (note 21).

24 Chron. Min., i, 650 (c. 27–8), 656 (c. 80–1); cf. 658 at c. 101–3, where three events of 425 or earlier have been dated to 426, 427 and 428, apparently filling a hole in the Chronicler's knowledge.

25 Chron. Min., i, 658 (c. 105–7). The date for the Spanish defeat recorded by c. 107 is quite erroneous. See Clover, Frank M., Geiseric the Statesman (Ph.D. dissertation, Chicago, 1966), 9 n. 1.Google Scholar

26 The following chapters of Mommsen's edition should be redated:

c. 28 from VIIII Theodosius I to VIII

c. 50 from XI Honorius to X

c. 76 from XXII Honorius to XXI

c. 78 remains in XXI Honorius

c. 81 from XXV Honorius to XXIIII

c. 88 from XXX Honorius to XXVIIII

c. 106 from VIII Theodosius II to VII

c. 107 from VIII Theodosius II to VII

c. 126 from XVIIII Theodosius II to XVIII.

27 Miller, op. cit. (note 5), 316–17.

28 Adapted from Mommsen's chart in Chron. Min., i, 618.

29 Edited by Mommsen in Chron. Min., i, 621, 629–30. The Narratio was written by an anonymous Westerner soon after the death of Honorius. Mommsen suggested in Chron. Min., i, 617, that the Narratio derived from a fuller version of the Chronicle of 452 that he considered to have been the source for both the extant version of the latter and the Chronicle of 511. There is, however, little evidence that a fuller Chronicle of 452 existed.

30 The most consistent error of this type is the Chronicler's misdating of papal accessions.

31 Chron. Min., i, 618.

32 Chron. Min., i, 618–19.

33 See above, note 6.

34 Chron. Min., i, 646 (c. 6, 7).

35 Chron. Min., i, 652–4.

36 Chapter 61 is corrupt in the MSS, reading: Hac tempestate praevaletudine Romanorum vires attenuatae. Mommsen suggests the correction: Hac tempestate praevale[nte hostium multi]tudine Romanorum…, Chron. Min., i, 652.

37 Chron. Min., i, 630: Multa in huius [Honorii] principatu gravia rei publicae vulnera contigerunt, sed illud acerbissimum fuit, quod urbs Roma per Alaricum Gothorum regem capta atque subversa est. Soror imperatoris Augusta Placidia primum captiva, deinde uxor regis quidem sed barbari statum temporum decolorat. Galliae Hispaniaeque a barbaris nationibus Wandalis Suebis Alanis excisae funditusque deletae sunt. Brittaniae Romano nomini in perpetuum sublatae. idem tamen princeps cum adversum externos hostes nihil umquam prospere gesserit, ad excidia tyrannorum felicissimus fuit…

38 Chron. Min., i, 660.

39 Maenchen-Helfen, Otto, The World of the Huns (Berkeley, 1973), 456–7, thought that this notice and three others were interpolations originating in an Eastern source. His arguments, however, do not stand up to close scrutiny.Google Scholar