I understand that the Romans were unable to conquer Scotland so they build Hadrian’s Wall (which explains the survival of older cultures there). But as far as I know they occupied Wales and Cornwall, so how is it that the Celtic culture (language etc.) survived in those places?
As @[email protected] correctly highlighted, it wasn’t even Latin that displaced so much of the local language. It was the Germanic tribals invading the islands later on. So I’ll focus specifically on the Roman role.
The Roman process of Latinisation was rather slow. For reference: Gallia was conquered in 58-50 BCE, but odds are that Gaulish survived until the ~sixth? century of the common era, 600 years later. That’s because the Romans didn’t really give much of a fuck about what rural local folks spoke - if they rebel you kill them and done, problem solved.
Instead they were actively placing colonies in the conquered regions (to give land to Roman citizens) and converting the local elites to Roman habits and customs, because unlike the farmers the elites could be actually dangerous if rebellious.
The same applies to Britannia. Except that it was conquered ~a century after Gallia, it’s a fucking island in the middle of nowhere with harder access, it doesn’t grow grapes or olives, grain production in the Empire was mostly in Africa and Egypt so odds are that they couldn’t reliably grow their wheat variety there either… really, the island was mostly a tin mining outpost.
Another factor to consider is the distribution of the Roman settlements in the area:
Are you noticing a pattern? Most settlements were in the Southeast, specially the larger ones (in yellow, full of Roman citizens). Perhaps not surprisingly the extant Brittonic languages are spoken further West, when you couple this with the tribal invasions. (That’s simply because of the Fretum Oceani aka Strait of Dover. It was easier to reach the island by there.)Thanks for explaining this. So were there many Roman citizens in Britannia, or was it a pretty small ratio of Romans to locals? Did the Roman soldiers give commands to the local elites, who would then tell the locals what to do? And would you say that life changed much for the locals under the new rule?
So were there many Roman citizens in Britannia, or was it a pretty small ratio of Romans to locals?
Relevant detail: this changed a lot in 212.
Before that date, Roman citizenship basically implied Roman culture, language and lifestyle; but in that year Caracalla passed an edict granting citizenship to all free men in the Empire, so a lot of non-Latin-speaking locals were to be considered Roman citizens. (And taxed as such).
That said, I’d estimate the ratio of Latin speakers in the province to be 3~6% in the 4th century, based on a few Wikipedia numbers:
- Roman army, family, dependents: 125k people. Likely 100% Latin speakers. You also get a few bureaucrats but they’re numerically insignificant.
- Urban population: 240k people, including the above. The others were likely a mix of Brittonic and Latin speakers.
- Total population: 3.6 million people. Unless urban, likely to be Brittonic speakers.
Did the Roman soldiers give commands to the local elites, who would then tell the locals what to do?
Not quite. The army was responsible for the enforcement of the rules, but the ones commanding the local elites and the army were former consuls appointed as governors.
And would you say that life changed much for the locals under the new rule?
I’m not sure at all. But I guess that, for both the slaves and the general working class, there was barely a difference. You still work to the bone, and die an ungrateful death, no matter if you’re doing it for the sake of a local tribal chief or for some “imperator” in the middle of nowhere.
I understand that the Romans were unable to conquer Scotland so they build Hadrian’s Wall (which explains the survival of older cultures there).
Keep in mind it was less “unable to” and more “not interested enough to”. They could have absolutely taken Scotland if they poured enough legions into it, but then what, oats? Hadrian’s wall and all the other parallel walls were basically a way to keep the neighbors in check so they could send more troops to places like the Persian border they cared about a lot.
Here is the crazy thing about empires vs nation states. In general because empires hold vast swaths of territory. It is very common for them to be somewhat tolerant of the various groups under their control. The goal is wealth extraction not conformity. So if you let the locals keep most of their culture then they are generally more productive and less likely to get uppity.
Nation states are smaller and tend to lean on a cohesive identity to maintain power. So it is much more important for everyone to be the same. Otherwise it could lead to balkanization.
That’s certainly true for Roman and the Mongols, anyway. European naval empires were fairly likely to try and remake their new colonies in their own image.
The Romans had an impact to a greater or lesser degree across the whole of the area that they controlled in Great Britain, including Cornwall and Wales, but the Brythonic (Celtic) culture seems to survive for most ordinary people throughout that time. It was really only the arrival of the Germanic peoples - the Angles and Saxons - that seemed to displace the Brythonic language and culture from much of the lands that they went on to occupy, which was largely the land that was easier to work in the majority of England, but not the more difficult land in the West and North - including Cornwall and Wales.
Around that time, there is evidence that some Brythonic speakers were moving into Wales - presumably from England - causing changes to the existing dialects there, also some Britons seem to have migrated to Brittany on the continent, and there was an outbreak of plague that affected much of the Roman lands and caused a population decline there - but less so among the Germanic people.
No matter which had more effect, it was the Germanic people and culture that displaced the existing one - not the Romans.
That’s very insightful, thank you! I didn’t realise the Celtic tribes ‘coexisted’ with the Romans in that way
