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Pelagius and the End of Roman Rule in Britain1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

J. N. L. Myres
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Extract

The circumstances in which Roman rule over Britain came to an end have always been something of a puzzle to historians. There is of course no contemporary record giving a continuous narrative of the relevant events, and the few brief notices in ancient sources about British affairs in the first two decades of the fifth century come from writers of various dates and degrees of authority, none of whom seems to have had any first-hand knowledge of what took place. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that what they say should be subject to wide differences of interpretation, differences all the wider because some of the interpreters have been viewing the events from the standpoint of later English history and without an intimate knowledge of the Roman Empire in the fifth century. And it must further be admitted that, among scholars familiar with the conditions of this age, there has been something of a gap between those concerned with matters of history, whether political, administrative, social, or economic, and those concerned with thought and opinion, and primarily, of course, as theologians with the development of Christian doctrine in the great age of Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. It is easy for theologians to forget that the immense creative achievement of these thinkers was carried out at a time when the foundations of the society they knew were collapsing under external pressure and internal strain, and it is easy for historians to forget that a society riddled with corruption and precariously held together by the barbarous methods of a repressive tyranny was yet the seed-bed for an extraordinary flowering of the human spirit. It is difficult for either to remember that the forms which that flowering took and the imagery within which it found expression inevitably reflected the social and political conditions, the legal and judicial practices, familiar to those who gave it birth.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1-2 , November 1960 , pp. 21 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © J. N. L. Myres 1960. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

1

I wish to acknowledge assistance received in the composition of this article from many friends, particularly Professor H. Chadwick, Professor D. Daube, Miss Rosalind Hill, Professor I. A. Richmond, Miss Margaret Roper, and Mr. G. de Ste. Croix.

References

2 Zosimus VI, 5 … Τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἀρχῆς ἀποστῆναι καὶ καθ᾿ ἑαυτὸν βιοτεύειν, οὐκέτι τοῖς τούτων ὑπακούοντα νόμοις.

3 Vita Germani 12. ‘Eodem tempore ex Britannis directa legatio gallicanis episcopis nuntiavit pelagianam perversitatem in locis suis late populos occupasse et quam primum fidei catholicae debere succurri.’

4 In what follows I have adopted the chronology given by G. de Plinval, Pelage (1943), 13–15.

5 Souter, A. (Texts and Studies IX (1922), 147Google Scholar) has shown that the text of the Pauline epistles used by Pelagius in his commentary was similar to that used by Ambrose, who was brought up in the Rhineland, and unlike that used in Spain or western Gaul. This suggests strongly that Pelagius came from, or at least was educated in, south-eastern Britain rather than the west country where the natural continental contacts were with Armorica and Spain.

6 Liber subnot. Iuliani (PL 48, III).

7 Liber Apol. 12.

8 Ep. 186.

9 Souter, o.c. 3–4 ‘It is perfectly clear that he had received a first-rate education and it may thus be presumed that he was of wealthy family’. Jerome (Ep. 50) calls him in disputando nodosus et tenax.

10 Ep. 50.

11 ibid. rumigerulum monachum.

12 Bell. Vand. 1, 2, 38. Βρεττανίαν μέντοι Ῥωμαῖοι ἀνασώσασθαι οὐκέτι ἔσχον ἀλλ᾿ οὗσα ὑπὸ τυράννοις ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἔμεινε.

13 PL 20, 443 ‘…ad Britannias profectus sum … pacis me faciendae consacerdotes mei … evocarunt’.

14 As suggested below, pp. 31 f.

15 Ep. 50.

16 Comment. in Ierem., prolog.

17 ibid.

18 Dial. adv. Pel. III, 16.

19 Liber Apol. 2, 16, 31.

20 Cod. Theod. XI, 30, 5; 1, 16, 3.

21 ibid. II, 1, 6; VI, 24, 3; VII, 2, 2; XI, 1, 26; XI, 30, 48; XII, 19, 3; XIII, 3, 13; XIII, 10, 8; XIII, 11, 8; XV, 1, 41.

22 ibid. VI, 18, 1; X, 3, 7; XI, 8, 3; XIV, 4, 10; XVI, 5, 46; Const. Sirm. 16.

23 Cod. Theod. XII, 3, 8; XIV, 17, 6.

24 ibid. VII, 18, 4; XVI, 5, 40.

25 ibid. X, 17, 3.

26 ibid. VI, 33, 1; VII, 4, 29; XI, 1, 1; XI, 16, 11; XI, 30, 51; XII, 1, 172; XIII, 11, 5; XV, 10, 12; XVI, 5, 13.

27 ibid. I, 28, 2.

28 ibid. XII, 16, 5.

29 ibid. IX, 40, 16.

30 ibid. XVI, 10, 12.

31 ibid. XIII, 11, 8.

32 ibid. XIII, 3, 8.

33 ibid. VI, 18, 1.

34 ibid. II, 1, 6.

35 ibid. VI, 33, 1.

36 ibid. VII, 18, 4; XVI, 5, 40.

37 ibid. VI, 24, 3.

38 ibid. XI, 16, 11.

39 ibid. XV, 1, 41.

40 e.g. ibid. XII, 1, 172.

41 The pejorative usage of ‘prepotente’ in modern Italian, meaning a tyrant or bully, carries on this traditional sense.

42 Cod. Theod. VI, 4, 22.

43 ibid. VI, 24, 3.

44 De Gub. Dei. IV, 21.

45 ibid. I, 11.

46 ibid. IV, 74.

47 A significant passage in the Pelagian treatise De Castitate (C.P. Caspari, Briefe, Abhandlungen … (1890), 146–7 ) includes in a list of natural hazards to human life (collapsing walls, lightning, shipwreck, poison, etc.) the risk of ruin cuiuscunque potentioris iniqua sententia.

48 G. de Plinval, Pelage (1943), 17–46, conveniently lists these works and discusses their relationship to each other.

49 De Viris Illustribus 57.

50 Roman Britain and the English Settlements (ed. 1937), 309–10.

51 Briefe, Abhandlungen … (1890), 382–9.

52 o.c. 17–46.

53 PL 40, 1042.

54 C. P. Caspari, o.c. 31–2.

55 ibid. 152.

56 ibid. 102–11.

57 e.g. Cod. Theod. IX, 21, 5 (a false moneyer ‘omni dilatione submota flammarum exustionibus mancipetur’); IX, 24, 1 (abettors of rape: ‘qui vero raptori solacia praebuerint … ignibus concrementur’).

58 From the Pelagian commentary on Job (PL 23, 1475).

59 As pointed out by G. de Ste. Croix in his illuminating article on Suffragium (British Journal of Sociology V (1954), 33–48Google Scholar).

60 e.g. De Gratia Christi VI (8). ‘Hanc autem naturalem possibilitatem quod adiuvari Dei gratia confitetur, non est hic apertum vel quam dicat gratiam, vel quatenus ea naturam sentiat adiuvari: sed … non vult aliud accipi quam legem et doctrinam qua naturalis possibilitas adiuvetur’. ibid. VII (8): ‘In his omnibus non recessit a commendatione legis atque doctrinae, hanc esse adiuvantem gratiam diligenter inculcans …‘

61 De Spiritu et Littera, passim.

62 De Gestis Pelagii VI (16).

63 Vita Augustini XX. ‘Novimus eum … intercessum apud saeculi potestates postulatum non dedisse … illud nihilominus suum addens; Quoniam plerumque potestas quae petitur premit.’ It is clear from this that Augustine's reluctance to intervene with judges on behalf of criminals was due to considerations of tactics not of principle.

64 Ang. Ep. 152–3.

65 In the CSEL edition of Augustine's Letters III, 395–427.

66 Vita Augustini XX.

67 Cod. Theod. XI, 16, 11.

68 Augustine himself records Pelagian complaints that the Catholics had bribed the populace and officials to take action against them both in Rome and Africa. Opus Imperf. contra Iulianum III, 35: ‘Cur seditiones Romae conductis populis excitastis ? Cur de sumptibus pauperum saginastis per totam paene Africam equorum greges, quos prosequente Alypio tribunis et centurionibus destinastis ? Cur matronarum oblatis haereditatibus potestates saeculi corrupistis ?’

69 Cod. Theod. X, 10, 26.

70 PL 48, 379.

71 ibid. 406.

72 ibid. 409.

73 G. de Plinval, Pelage (1943), 347–8.

74 PL 51, 915.

75 Zosimus VI, 5. σφῶν σὐτῶν προκινδυνεύσαντε ς ἠλευθέρωσαν τῶν ἐπικειμένων βαρβάρων τὰν πόλεις.

76 I cannot agree with Baynes, N. H. (JRS XII, 218Google Scholar) that the barbarians crossed the Rhine at the end of 405. For this and much of what follows see the penetrating analysis by Stevens, C. E. (‘Marcus, Gratian, Constantine’, in the Pavia Athenaeum XXXV (1957), 316–47Google Scholar).

77 Verulamium is the only civitas in Britain for which municipal status has been claimed. But by the fifth century such technical distinctions were wearing thin, and a municeps might be a member of any civic ordo. Nevertheless Verulamium has a better claim, both on archaeological and literary evidence, than any other British city to be the main focus of the urban revival at this time. cf. Antiq. Journ. XL (1960), 21.

78 By Stevens, l.c.

79 ex infima militia, Orosius VII, 40.

80 Arch. Journ. XCVII (1941), 125–54.

81 MGH Chron. min. I, 618.

82 Zosimus VI, 10. Ὁνωρίου δὲ γράμμασι πρὸς τὰς ἐν Βρεττανίᾳ χρησαμένου πόλεις φυλάττεσθαι παραγγέλλουσι.

83 As noted by Stevens, , Arch. Journ. XCVII (1941), 148–9.Google Scholar

84 Pavia, Athenaeum XXXV (1957), 333–5.Google Scholar

85 Antiquity 119 (1956), 163–7.

86 Zosimus VI, 5. καὶ ὁ ᾿Αρμόριχος ἅπας καὶ ἕτεραι Γαλατῶν ἐπαρχίαι Βρεττανοὺς μιμησάμεναι…κατὰ τὸν ἴσον σφᾶς ἠλευθέρωσαν τρόπον, ἐκβάλλουσαι μὲν τοὺς Ῥωμαίους ἄρχοντας, οἰκεῖον δὲ κατ᾿ ἐξουσίαν πολίτευμα καθιστᾶσαι.

87 MGH Chron. min. 1, 660.

88 G. de Plinval, Pelage (1943), 214–6.

89 Dial. adv. Pel. 1, 25.

90 Aug. Ep. 179.

91 De Civ. Dei V, 15 ‘De mercede temporali quam Deus reddidit bonis moribus Romanorum’.

92 c. 14.

93 PL 30, 45–50.

94 Vita Germani 14.

95 Hist. Britt. 31 ‘Guorthigirnus regnavit in Brittannia et dum ipse regnabat urgebatur a metu Pictorum Scottorumque et a Romanico impetu necnon et a timore Ambrosii’.

96 Dark Age Britain, ed. D. B. Harden (1956), 94.

97 J. N. L. Myres in Aspects of Archaeology … presented to O. G. S. Crawford, ed. W. F. Grimes (1951), 231–4.

98 It has not generally been noticed that the name Ambrosius Aurelianus was certainly derived from the family of St. Ambrose, whose father was Aurelius Ambrosius.

99 De Excidio 25 ‘… duce Ambrosio Aureliano viro modesto, qui solus forte Romanae gentis tantae tempestatis collisione occisis in eadem parentibus. purpura nimirum indutis superfueraat’ …

100 ibid. 21 ‘… susceptio mali pro bono, veneratio nequitiae pro benignitate, cupido tenebrarum pro sole, exceptio Satani pro angelo lucis.’

101 As shown by Radford, C. A. R. (Antiquity 125 (1958), 23Google Scholar).