Euphemisms

The Viking Age.   Today, under a pagan-like insistence on political correctness--or at least the present day conceptualization of "correctness"--the Viking invasion and occupation of Scotland is now called "Scandinavian Scotland".  Certainly, that style invokes softer sentiments.  In reality though, it was an age of systematic rape, genocidal murder, mindless destruction, pillage and plunder...things typically associated with the term "Viking". 

March 26, 2018  Iona Abbey overlooking Martyrs Bay

Viking incursions into the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland) began in the late 700s.  The term "rapid deployment" should be mentioned.  From some Norwegian fjords under favorable conditions, Viking longboats could reach the Northern Isles in 24 hours.  Even by today's military standards, that is a remarkable projection of force in-theater.

From the Northern Isles, the Norsemen expanded southward, down the western seaboard of present day Scotland and into the thalassocracy of Dal Riada--the Inner Hebrides and the Argyll dominions of the Lords of the Isles.

March 26, 2018  Restored St. John's Cross, Iona

In 795, two years after their infamous sack of Lindisfarne, Vikings struck the spiritual heart of Dal Riada--the Holy Isle of Iona.  In its heyday, Iona had amassed possibly the greatest library in all of Europe.

Vikings struck Iona again in 802, and then again in 806 when they slaughtered nearly 70 monks on Iona's shore, a heinous act that is commemorated by what today is called Martyrs Bay.  In the face of the relentless onslaught by Norsemen, monks from Iona sailed west to Ireland with the Book of Kells--that priceless masterpiece of Celtic art--and established the monastery at Kells in County Meath.

The Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels drawn upon calf skin vellum, however, was created by scribes at Iona.  In some respects, it shows the "cosmopolitan" connections, or at least trade routes, existing to the Isles in the late 8th century.  The pigments and ochres of the Book of Kells were sourced  from the Mediterranean.  Its lapis lazuli was from Afghanistan.

Iona was then essentially abandoned.  By 849 A.D., when the relics of St. Columba were removed to Ireland for safe keeping, Vikings had essentially conquered the whole of the Inner Hebrides.

Although the history of the 9th century remains obscure, a number of sources suggest the Vikings had completed their conquests.  For example, the replacement of former Gaelic names by Norse--the linguistic study of which is called toponymy.  For the next several hundred years, the Hebrides were Viking, er, Scandinavian Scotland.

March 26, 2018  The Abbey at Iona

Dark Ages time boundary

The year 383 A.D. has often been used as the beginning of the Dark Ages.  It is a clean cut date, albeit too clean.  It is based upon accepting the account as written by Gildas, a Briton monk with a few axes to grind in his multi-volume "histories" written in 540 A.D., about 150 years after.

Gildas assigned blame for Rome's abandonment of Britannia squarely upon Flavius Magnus Maximus.  According to Gildas, Maximus emptied Britainnia of all Roman forces in 383 A.D., and Rome never returned.

Actually, Roman troops remained in Britannia for 25 years following Maximus' withdrawal of some of the island's forces in 383 A.D. .  Maximus sailed over the Channel with his Britannia forces to fight (successfully) Emperor Gratian in Gaul for the throne of the Western Roman Empire.  His was a temporary success.  Typical for Roman Emperors who seized power with the sword, Maximus also lost power five years later when he was defeated and executed by Theodosius.

Regardless, Gildas' date of 383 A.D. for Rome's abandonment of Britannia is incorrect.  Though documentary evidence is somewhat sketchy, Flavius Stilchio, "last of the Roman generals," made a punitive strike with Roman army and naval assets deep into Caledonia (Scotland) in 398 A.D. during Stilchio's Pictish War.  After which, he made repairs to Hadrian's Wall in 400 A.D.

Direct physical evidence of Roman "abandonment" of Britain much later than Gildas' claim is today routinely being unearthed in Britain by "metal detectionists".  Many bronze Roman coin hoards are found that date at least as late as 402 A.D.  That said, bronze Roman coins that date after 402 A.D. are relatively rare in Britain.  But, they are not unknown.  Thirteen have been discovered so far.

In 2007, metal detectionists unearthed a bronze coin hoard (8 coins, dated from 402 to 406 A.D.) about a mile north of Hadrian's Wall.  This recent find changed the prevailing view on when Hadrian's Wall was abandoned...logically, that had to occur sometime after 406 A.D.

Bronze AE3 follis obverse; 19mm (Constantine--struck 307-337 A.D.); personal collection  

Gold and silver coinage continued to be sent to Britannia until the time of Constantine III 407-411, as evidenced in several unearthed hoards.  But these numismatic discoveries indicate that bronze coinage had essentially stopped being sent to Britain after 402 A.D.  Bronze Roman coinage is thus a key to date the onset of the Dark Ages--which is to say the abandonment of Britannia.

Roman troops were paid in bronze coin.  Therefore, the relative absence of bronze coins in hoards that date after  402 A.D. implies that Roman troops essentially were not paid, or were paid irregularly from about 403 A.D.   Unpaid, operating under a broken chain of command, Rome's remaining Britannia legions eventually dissolved into the local population.

Bronze AE3 follis reverse; (Constantine, Glory of the Army); ASIS mintmark; personal collection 

Rome's constant civil wars had emboldened Scotti (Irish), Saxon pirates and Pict raiders into Britannia.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Stilicho's assault into Caledonia in 398 A.D. did temporarily check "barbarian" raids.  But without continued Roman military vigilance, attacks grew in fury and frequency with each new Roman draw down of its military assets in Britannia and the provinces of continental Europe.

Having been abandoned, and left with no other options, the remaining Roman-Britons "dispensed" with imperial authority and raised arms to defend themselves.  The lamp of classical Rome, already flickering in Britannia by the late 4th century, was finally extinguished in 410 A.D. when Romano-Britons expelled Constantine III's remaining magistrates.  Britons then rejected Roman law, replaced it with native customs and seceded from the Roman Empire in revolt.  Thus, the Dark Ages began in former Roman Britannia by "about" 411 A.D., roughly coincident with the sack of Rome by Goths under King Alaric (August 24, 410 A.D.).

"About" 411 A.D. is a hedge.  The Anglo Saxon Chronicles, written several hundred years after the facts, stated that in 409 A.D. "This year the Goths took the city of Rome by storm, and after this the Romans never ruled in Britain."  Here, the Chronicles are off by about one year.

Curiously (and seemingly contradicting its date of Rome's abandonment), the Anglo Saxon Chronicles go on to state that in 418 A.D.:  "This year the Romans collected all the treasures that were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth, so that no one has since been able to find them; and some they carried with them into Gaul."

The account for 418 A.D. in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles accurately describes the hoarding of Roman coins and valuables...hoards which have only recently begun to be discovered by metal detectionists across Britain in our modern age. 

So, the absolute date of the start of the Dark Ages is 418 A.D.  The axiom is...hordes equal hoards.

As we have noted, bronze coins later than 402 are extremely rare in Britain (there are 13 recordedby PAS),

35

 and no hoards of bronze coins were known until a small group of eight

nummi

 was dis-covered at Whittington in Northumberland, just about one mile north of Hadrian’s Wall, in 2007.

36

 This contained a GLORIA ROMANORVM three emperors type which is dateable to 402–06 (fig. 6.3).This hoard changed our perceptions of the date of the abandonment of Hadrian’s Wall.