In the tenth century the Celtic language began to give way to an English dialect, through the influence of Anglo-Saxons at the Scottish court, and the immigration which took place from England after the Norman conquest. Yet all the places northward of the Firth in the charters of Alexander I. bore names which were of Celtic origin; so that although the Erse had then encroached upon the Pictish, the introduction of Saxon or Lowland Scottish was of later date. It therefore seems that the British language not only was once the idiom of Eastern Scotland, namely, in the Caledonian period, but that this was probably the case during the Pictish period and down to the Scottish conquest. If the Picts came from beyond seas to Scotland, and were not a people speaking the British language, which is not impossible since they might be Cimbri or Britons who had till a late period kept their position in the Orkney or Shetland Isles, they must have been in numbers too small to enable them to supersede the language of the Caledonian inhabitants whom they conquered, and with whom they probably intermixed. It may, perhaps, be impossible to settle the long- agitated Pictish controversy, but independently of it, there seems to be sufficient evidence of the fact that the old British language continued long to prevail in Pictavia; and there is clear historical evidence, sufficient to convince the most sceptical if they are only accessible to evidence, that whoever the Picts may have been, the Old Caledonians were certainly Britons. SECTION XIV. Of the Armoricans. It is well known that a dialect nearly akin to the Welsh has been preserved in Britanny. This dialect is spoken in the communes of Vannes, Quimper, Leon, and St. Brieux. Vannes is regarded as the capital of "La Bretagne Brétonnante." In each of the above communes there is some variety in the idiom of the inhabitants, but the language is essentially the same. This language was once more widely extended; the people at least whose descendants now speak it were, in the early periods of the French history, numerous and powerful, and formed a considerable nation governed by kings or chieftains of their own race. They are termed by Gregory of Tours and other early French historians Britanni. The present Bretons term themselves Breyzads, but they are said not to have altogether forgotten their old name of Cymri.* The affinity of the Welsh and Brétonne languages is so close that the people who speak them mutually understand each other, as both would doubtless understand the old Cornish if it were still extant. A great number of local names in Britanny are identical with names of places in Wales, such as Caerphili, Caerven, Elven, Lanoe, and Penherf. A much greater number are closely analogous, or compounded of the same elements. Another circumstance which seems to connect the Bretons with the Welsh, is the fact that over many parts, if not the whole of Britanny, numerous works of ancient art are spread, similar to those which are so frequent in Wales and Cornwall, and are commonly supposed to be Druidical remains. They bear in Britanny the same terms as in Wales, such as Cromlechs, Dolmins, Meini-hirion.+ The circumstances from which this near relation between the insular Britons and the Armoricans took its rise, have been a theme of controversy. There is reason to believe that the ancient Veneti and the other tribes who inhabited Armorica, and who were, as we know, among the most civilized people of Gaul and had in Cæsar's time intercourse by sea with the Britons and even obtained aid from Britain in their wars against the Romans, really spoke a dialect nearly related to the Welsh; and it is not improbable that the native idiom of this people may have been preserved in a remote corner of Gaul, though it had ceased to be spoken in some other parts of that country, down to the period when the Roman domination ended. On this supposition the Armorican would be merely a relic of the ancient language of Gaul, as the Welsh is that of the colony which first peopled this country from the opposite coast, and the resemblance between Adelung, Mithridates, ii. 157. + Essai sur les Antiquités du Département de Morbihan, par L. Mahé, Chanoine de la Cathédrale de Vannes. Vannes, 1825. + Ibid. them might be attributed to the original affinity between the two nations. But eighteen centuries of separation could hardly have elapsed without giving rise to a greater diversity of idiom than that which exists between the present Armoricans and the British Cymri; and this leads us to look for some other explanation of the actual resemblance in their languages. The traditionary story of a migration into Britanny from the opposite island affords. such an explanation. Niebuhr treats this story as a mere fiction, invented for the sake of accounting for the fact above mentioned; but perhaps there is sufficient historical evidence that such an event took place, though there is much doubt and uncertainty as to the time and circumstances of the supposed emigration from Britain to the Continent. Indeed this opinion was so universally spread among French, English, and Welsh writers, that it must apparently have been founded on facts. Eginhard in the ninth century speaks of an emigration from this island, in which a great body of the British people went to seek a refuge in Armorica, when their country was conquered by the Saxons and Angles. He says, "Cumque Anglis et Saxonibus Britannica insula fuisset invasa, magna pars incolarum ejus mare trajiciens, in altimis Galliæ finibus, Venetorum et Curiosolitarum regiones occupavit. Is populus à regibus Francorum subactus vectigal, licet invitus, solvere solebat.” We learn also from a passage of William of Malmsbury,* that the Armorican Bretons in the time of Athelstan looked upon themselves as exiles from the land of their fathers. This is proved by a letter from Radhod, a prefect of the church at Avranches, written to King Athelstan, who is addressed as follows: "Rex gloriose, exaltator ecclesiæ, te imploramus qui in exulatu atque captivitate, nostris meritis atque peccatis, in Francia commoramus." * Guliel. Malm. de Pontiff. apud Gale, tom. ii. p. 363. The original letter to Athelstan was found preserved "in scrinio.” It related to the relics of St. Sampson, bishop of Avranches, which were translated from Britanny by King Athelstan to Malmsbury in Wilts. According to the authorities followed by the Rev. Alban Butler in his great work, the bones of St. Sampson were removed to Rome. Were there duplicates of these holy relics? These traditions are collected from a period long subsequent to the event to which they relate, and there is a want of contemporary evidence. Gildas indeed, after commenting on the misfortunes of the Britons after the departure of the Romans from the island, adds that some of them emigrated beyond seas: "Alii transmarinas petebant regiones." But these expressions would seem to point out the escape of comparatively small numbers, rather than the exulation of a whole tribe. Perhaps the strongest historical proof that such a colony really passed over the channel, is the manner in which the people of Britanny are mentioned by the early French historians, namely, those contemporary with the Merovingian dynasty, who describe them, under the name of Britanni, as a tribe distinct from the French nation, and but nominally or partially subject to the kings of France. Gregory of Tours says that after the death of Clovis the chieftains of the Bretons were always styled Comites and not Reges, Counts not Kings, and that they were no longer independent of the Franks, though they often attempted to shake off the yoke.* Fredegarius Scholasticus mentions a chieftain of the Bretons, who however at a later period was termed a king; this was Judicäel, afterwards Saint Judicäel, who promised allegiance to Dagobert, A.D. 635.+ It seems clear that there was a people in Britanny who formed an independent state, and that they were governed by kings of their own before the death of Clovis, which brings us back nearly to the origin of the French monarchy. They were termed Britanni, and looked upon as a distinct people from the other inhabitants of Gaul, and they were the same people who were afterwards, in the age of Charlemagne, recognised as a colony from Britain; and in the time of Athelstan they were themselves fully persuaded that their ancestors had emigrated from this island. All this seems to con "Semper Britanni sub Francorum potestate post obitum regis Chlodovechi fuerunt, et Comites non Reges appellati." Some of these chieftains are mentioned by name, as Chonober, Macliavus, &c. (Gregor. Turon. Hist. apud Bouquet, tom. ii. p. 205.) "Semper se et regnum quod regebat Britanniæ subjectum ditioni Dagoberti esse promisit." (Fredegar. Scholast. Chronic. apud Bouquet, tom. ii. p. 443.) stitute sufficient evidence that such was really the fact, whatever difficulties may exist as to the date of the event. These difficulties turn upon the following considerations. Gregory of Tours, who may be looked upon in the light of a contemporary annalist of the Merovingian princes, speaks of the Bretons as reduced, towards the end of the reign of Clovis, to acknowledge the supremacy of the French kings, and we are led to suppose that they had for some time before that period lived under independent kings of their own. The death of Clovis happened A.D. 511,about sixty years after the first landing of the Saxons in Kent, and only sixteen years subsequent to the invasion of the western parts of Britain which are opposite to Armorica. This is obviously inconsistent with the idea that a considerable state had flourished and declined previously to the date above mentioned. The kingdom of the Britanni in Armorica must have been anterior to the Saxon conques of this island. We have, indeed, contemporary evidence of this fact. Jornandes informs us that the Emperor Anthemius being pressed by the arms of Euric the Visigoth, obtained the assistance of Riothamus, king of the Britanni, who came to his assistance with an army of twelve thousand men. They came by sea to the Bituriges or Bourdelois. This happened in 468.* Vertôt, who contended against the existence of any such British kingdom at this period in Armorica, evaded the inference by a conjecture that the army of Riothamus consisted of insular Britons who came under a chieftain or king of their own, as auxiliaries to the Roman emperor. But the name is unknown in British history, and it is unlikely that the Britons just at the breaking out of their warfare against their Saxon invaders should send an army to the assistance of the western emperor, after the Romans, on the recall of Aetius, had relinquished all claim to their allegiance. We have, moreover, from other sources satisfactory proof that there was already a people at this era in Gaul who had the name of Britons. Sidonius Apollinaris mentions Britanni upon the Loire; and it appears that at a council held at Tours in 461, Mansuetus, bishop of the Britons, was present among the eccle * Jornandes, c. 45. See Bouquet, tom. ii. p. 27. |