Arthur's dykes

[Erpingham]

Though dated, this listing of dykes may be useful.

I was struck by the numbers and spread but also the degree of archaeological uncertainty about many e.g. on dating or structure.

Given the amount of effort in building these, one might reasonably suggest that they belong to periods of stability, rather than fluidity e.g. they would mark a frontier or boundary for a generation or more.  The idea that they are a solution of a time, rather than an integrated system, seems to fit. 

[Jim Webster]

Thanks Justin 

[aligern]

Ah, but Viriconium   , Cirencester and Gloucester are all good potential. and are set well enough back to be strong against the dangerous conditions in the East Midlands . They also make sense of the Saxon combined  thrust that is defeated at Badon ( Baydon) . Cirencester, of course, was once capital of a Roman diocese ( and thus had imposing civic buildings and Roman walls and was a town too small for its circuit so had intra mural fields that would provide grazing. ) Viriconium  had the advantage of  substantial build in this period Of  course, we ought to be careful not to make up our minds which Arthurian capital we want to back as there is no conclusive evidence and its rather easy to  build a case out of 'likely' features of an Arthurian capital we might favour.
Oh and I agree York fits well, especially with the Battle list which favours Southern Scotland , but the battle list itself might be a Votadinian praise poem  that has been appropriated into the British chronicles. Thise British scribes and poets being as unscrupulous as any modern picking about tge wirks has f a twefth century novelist 😉

[Imperial Dave]

What we are assuming is that there was an arthur or at least an arthur in line with our 'expectations'. If we concentrate on the dykes and the potential polities and forget arthur for a minute we may getting a better view of things...

[aligern]

I agree with you Dave. the Dykes have been rather ignored by archaeology. I wonder if this s because dating is so difficult and , if course sequence is everything, thrre dies on a ridge going in one direction is possibly a very different story from three in the other direction.
I think Storry and tge other book on dykes  which I have do a good job of showing tgat we are generally not dealing with estate boundary markers or state frontiers, but with tactical military earthworks. However, we still have to vest guess at the precise function they represented when created.
They do, imo, give an indication that events were very fluid and often quite small scale. After all, how big was tge kingdom of Elmet?
Roy

[Erpingham]

I am at a disadvantage in not having read the book, so can't evaluate its claims directly.  But Roy's suggestion that many of these were tactical military earthworks does suggest a very different military set up than we usually think of for this period.  No more small mobile cavalry armies,  Instead large infantry forces prone to dig in.  It would be interesting to see parallels from the time to see the origins of this tactical entrenchment.  Did the Late Roman army do this?  Or was it a Germanic thing?  Or both?

I'm also not convinced that a lot of these weren't territorial boundaries, either manned or unmanned, that helped delineate agreed boundaries or claimed territory you would defend if crossed into.

[Nick Harbud]

One of Storr's assertions is that at least some of the dykes show a distinct resemblance (such as construction using straight lines) to sundry Roman limes to be found elsewhere in Europe.  Hence, they had to have been constructed by the 'Roman' inhabitants of Britain as opposed to Angles, Saxons or other invaders.

[Imperial Dave]

although we know that the Late Roman army was a conglomerate of different ethnic troops 'badged' together under the Roman Eagle. Engineering techniques can be learned and passed on to anyone especially if in, or in close proximity to, the state run military

[Imperial Dave]

.... and building dykes isn't like laying bricks.   

very true....

[Justin Swanton]

Here, for interest, is the section from Storr's book on the exactitude of the dykes' dimensions. These are for the Cambridge dykes. Later dykes were much more flexible in their measurements.

I've also included his diagram of the dykes sizes compared to a human figure.

[Nick Harbud]

Engineering techniques can be learned and passed on to anyone especially if in, or in close proximity to, the state run military

However, having practised as a professional engineer for the last 40 years, I can assure you that the relevant techniques cannot be learned by simply standing in close proximity to another engineer.  According to the Engineering Council, they require a minimum 4 years study at university and a similar period of time must be spent working in an engineering environment before one is considered competent.

Therefore, whilst moving earth about requires no particular skills, the design of one's fortification is significantly more technical.  I mean, the same skills used for creating straight dykes are those used for constructing the pyramids, and how many Egyptians should one stand next to in order to master this engineering technique?

[Anton]

I think sticking to the dykes is the way forward here. 

Some of them could be territorial boundaries. If they are do the guard against casual lifting of livestock as well as proclaiming a border?  Or are they in place against an existential threat? Possibly the nature of the dyke depends on circumstances.

Also, the bigger British kingdoms were, in my opinion, comprised of smaller micro polities who would also delineate their boundaries.  I'd note here that many of the British towns under the later Empire fortified themselves with dykes.

It's easy to imagine polities constructing dykes to block the ready access points into their heartlands and defending the same.  Likewise I could see dykes being used aggressively to threaten and annex territory.

Can we lay Storr's data over where we think the kingdoms were and construct some sort of plausible narrative?  It might be worth taking a single kingdom and seeing what we get.

[Erpingham]

While not downplaying Nick's practical experience, we know that major earthwork building had been practiced in Britain since the Neolithic and would continue to be practiced in the Early Middle Ages.  It doesn't require the full battery of professionally trained Roman engineering.  The Cambridge dykes may be a special case in their precision and might, according to the dates given, even be Roman.  However, one alarm bell did ring reading that section of book.  I was taught archeology when Thom's "megalithic yard" was all the rage.  Pages of tables showing precise correlations in measurement which "proved" the existence of an engineer priesthood carrying physical bits of wood of the right length across Europe.  Later, better surveying and statistics showed really it was no more precise than pacing.   So, not saying he is wrong about Cambridge (he could well be right) but caution about saying that the norm was Roman trained military engineers laying these things out everywhere.

[Jim Webster]

With regard to accuracy of digging, when it comes to widths, it's probably easier to be accurate with a spade than with a JCB 

With the spade you can just put your string down on the grass and you can be sure the digger will not go half a spade width over it, with a JCB because it's so easy to dig holes can grow 

[Nick Harbud]

we know that major earthwork building had been practiced in Britain since the Neolithic and would continue to be practiced in the Early Middle Ages.  It doesn't require the full battery of professionally trained Roman engineering. 

The key item in Storr's book, as highlighted by Justin's excerpts above, are that the Romans always tended to build their earthworks according to certain formulae, whereas others did not.  Rectilinear fortifications in Britain are unknown until the coming of the Romans.  Therefore, whilst one might argue that any fool could construct dykes in this manner, the only ones who methodically did so were Roman trained, who in the context of 5^th-7^th century Britain would have been the 'Roman' inhabitants, not Saxons, et al.

Incidentally, I completely disagree with anyone who underestimates the achievements of Roman engineering or the learning that went behind it.  Let us not forget that the European Renaissance was partly brought about by visitiors to Rome who realised that they could not construct many of the buildings whose ruins they could see before them.