The collapse of Roman authority in the western provinces during the fourth and fifth centuries CE was one of the most consequential events in the history of the European continent. For the Celtic-speaking peoples of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, the fall of Rome was a turning point that ended four centuries of imperial rule, transformed the political and linguistic map of the islands and the continent, and set the stage for the medieval world that would follow. To follow the post-Roman Celtic survival is to trace the long, complex, and uneven process by which the Celtic world adapted to the new conditions of the post-Roman era, a process in which some Celtic societies flourished, others declined, and a few disappeared altogether. The story of the post-Roman Celtic world is part of the broader history of the Celtic civilization and is essential to understanding the medieval and modern Celtic-speaking societies of the British Isles, Brittany, and beyond.
The End of Roman Gaul
The Roman province of Gaul, which had been part of the Roman Empire for nearly five centuries, entered a period of crisis in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. The crossing of the Rhine by the Vandals, the Alans, and the Suevi on the last day of 406 CE is conventionally taken as the beginning of the end, and the period that followed saw the gradual dissolution of the Roman provincial system in Gaul. The Visigoths established a kingdom in southwestern Gaul, the Burgundians established a kingdom in the southeast, and the Franks established a kingdom in the north. By the early sixth century, when the Frankish king Clovis defeated the Roman governor Syagrius at the battle of Soissons in 486 CE, the independent Roman administration of Gaul had effectively come to an end.
The Celtic-speaking population of Gaul, which had been gradually Romanized over the previous four centuries, was heavily affected by these changes. The Celtic language of Gaul, known to scholars as Gaulish, was still widely spoken in the rural areas of the province in the fifth century, and the Celtic religious traditions, including the worship of the old gods and the activities of the Druidic order, were still very much alive.
The Survival of Gaulish
The survival of the Celtic language of Gaul, in the centuries after the fall of Rome, is a story of slow decline rather than sudden collapse. The Celtic-speaking population of Roman Gaul, estimated to have been a substantial minority of the total population in the fourth century, was gradually absorbed into the Latin-speaking majority over the next several centuries. The process was uneven, with some regions retaining a Celtic-speaking majority for much longer than others, and the end result was a Gaul that was predominantly Latin-speaking by the early medieval period.
The last surviving evidence of the Celtic language of Gaul is fragmentary and difficult to interpret. Place names of Celtic origin survive in the French countryside in large numbers, and personal names of Celtic origin continued to be used in Gaul well into the medieval period. The survival of Gaulish into the early medieval period is one of the most active areas of research in Celtic studies, and the question of when the last Celtic speaker of the continental Celtic languages died is one that scholars continue to debate.
Sub-Roman Britain
The collapse of Roman authority in Britain, the most important of the post-Roman transformations of the Celtic world, took place against a background of internal political fragmentation and external invasion. The traditional date for the end of Roman rule in Britain is 410 CE, when the Roman emperor Honorius, in response to a plea from the Britons, sent a letter to the cities of Britain telling them that they could no longer expect help from the imperial government and that they should look to their own defense. The letter, preserved in the work of the sixth-century historian Zosimus, famous documents of late antiquity, and it marks the beginning of a new phase in the history of the British Isles.
The sub-Roman period in Britain, the decades and centuries between the end of Roman rule and the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, is a period of which we have very little direct evidence. The De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae of Gildas, written in the early sixth century, is the most important contemporary source, and it paints a picture of a society in crisis, beset by barbarian invasions and internal divisions.
The Brittonic Kingdoms of the West
The post-Roman Celtic world of Britain was organized into a number of Brittonic Celtic-speaking kingdoms that emerged in the regions beyond the reach of the Anglo-Saxon advance. The most important of these kingdoms were those of what would later become Wales, including Gwynedd in the northwest, Powys in the east, and Deheubarth in the south, but there were also important Brittonic kingdoms in the north, including Strathclyde in the region of modern Glasgow, and in the southwest, including the British kingdom of Dumnonia that covered modern Devon and Cornwall. The Brittonic kingdoms were the direct political successors of the Celtic-speaking population of Roman Britain, and they preserved the language, the legal traditions, and the religious practices of the post-Roman Celtic world.
The Arrival of the Anglo-Saxons
The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in post-Roman Britain is one of the most consequential events in the history of the British Isles. The traditional account, derived largely from Gildas and from later sources, presents the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons as a sudden and violent invasion that swept away the post-Roman Celtic civilization of lowland Britain. The archaeological and linguistic evidence, however, suggests a more complex process, in which the Germanic-speaking settlers of the fifth and sixth centuries gradually established their control of lowland Britain through a combination of conquest, settlement, and cultural assimilation.
The Brittonic Celtic-speaking population of lowland Britain was either pushed westward and northward by the Anglo-Saxon advance, or it was gradually absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerged in the region. By the end of the sixth century the linguistic map of Britain had been fundamentally transformed, and the Brittonic Celtic-speaking regions of the west and north became the nucleus of the medieval Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric, and Breton-speaking societies.
The Conversion of Ireland and the Insular Celtic World
The most distinctive development in the post-Roman Celtic world was the conversion of Ireland to Christianity in the fifth century CE, traditionally attributed to Saint Patrick. The conversion of Ireland was a gradual process, and the traditional account, which credits Patrick with the conversion of the entire island in a single generation, is a simplification of a much more complex reality. The actual conversion was the work of multiple missionaries, including Palladius, who was sent to Ireland by the pope in 431 CE, and various British missionaries, and it took several generations to complete.
The conversion of Ireland was followed by an extraordinary flowering of monastic, literary, and artistic culture. The great Irish monasteries of the sixth through ninth centuries, including Armagh, Kildare, Clonmacnoise, Glendalough, and Bangor, became centers of learning, art, and craft production that attracted students from across Europe. The Irish monastic tradition, with its emphasis on learning, on the preservation of classical and Christian texts, and on missionary activity, became one of the most important cultural forces in early medieval Europe. Irish monks such as Columba, Columbanus, and Aidan founded monasteries in Scotland, northern England, and continental Europe, and the Irish missionary tradition played a major role in the Christianization of much of early medieval Europe.
The Legacy of the Post-Roman Celtic World
The post-Roman Celtic survival important chapters in the history of the Celtic civilization. The collapse of Roman authority in the western provinces was a catastrophe for the institutional fabric of the ancient world, but the Celtic-speaking peoples of Britain and Ireland, freed from the Roman military and political framework, were able to develop their own distinctive forms of society. The Brittonic kingdoms of the west and north preserved the Celtic languages of Britain and gave them a secure territorial base from which they would eventually produce the medieval Welsh, Cornish, and Cumbric societies. The Irish, never part of the Roman Empire, developed a Christian civilization that was in many ways unique in European history. The post-Roman Celtic world also had a profound effect on the development of European culture more broadly, with the Irish monastic tradition playing a major role in the intellectual life of the early medieval west.
Related Topics
- The Viking impact on the Celtic world traces the next major transformation
- The Celts in the British Isles provides the broader context
- The Celtic encounter with Rome provides the background to the fall of Roman authority
- The Celtic mythology and religion survived in the Christianized Celtic world
- The medieval Celtic literature of the post-Roman period