Northern British 5-7th Century Army composition?

[Imperial Dave]

What we need to remember is that 200 odd years is an awful long time and thus the forces around at the start of the 5th century will be quite different to those in the 7th century. I see a general decline of forces in the area in terms of numbers and quality.

There is an inference that the cavalry tradition is maintained to a degree by the emergent Bernician kingdom as it had absorbed/taken over fro the previous Bryneich kingdom based along the southern edge of hadrians wall

[Anton]

Yes 200 years is a very long time in terms of the composition of forces.

I think the cavalry tradition both pre and post dates Roman rule.  Off the top of my head we have two Brythonic poetic mentions of heroes breeding horses and making gifts of them.

We have 'the King's Welsh horsemen' in the Laws of Ine.  We also have an an analysis of how the disparity in wergild values in the same laws would prevent such horsemen from maintaining their noble status.  So native cavalry in Bernicia? maybe, but not for very long  I'd say.

[Imperial Dave]

so Bernicia has cavalry when the 'ruling house' becomes Anglian as opposed to British late in the  6th Century but this slowly declines/disappears in the 7th? I wonder what the reasons would be for this if accepted?

[Anton]

Koch sees the earliest Anglians in what became Bernicia as conforming to Brythonic high culture citing the recorded Christian mission of Rheged with its mass baptisms and royal intermarriages etc as evidence of, for want of a better phrase, a 'Britishizing' current among high status Germans in the Old North.  Who those folks were is something that interests me.  Had they arrived from further afield or were they the successors of communities established under Roman defensive policy arrangements? The amount of land that had previously been under the control of the Roman army but was now available might allow for either option without disturbing the interests of the elite of Bryneich.  I'd see that as a tenable argument for enabling a short term presence of British cavalry in Bernician armies.  Had that situation continued its not hard to imagine that the Anglians would simply have become assimilated into local politics and culture.  We know it didn't continue and once Brythonic high culture is rejected its hard to see a lasting place for the cavalry supplying elite of Bryneich.

[Imperial Dave]

so potentially (as is my thought process), we could have 'Germanic' laeti settled in/around the Wall and certainly in Bryneich with a Brythonic (largely non militarised) population as well and a cavalry based Brythonic ruling elite. This would then allow for a usurpation of the ruling class from Brythonic to Germanic in the late 6th Century. Cavalry traditions carry on for a short while but then 'regress' to a more traditional Germanic infantry model 

[Anton]

I think the population was militarised you will recall Koch's treatment of Marwanad Cunedda, Cunedda fights alongside the men of Bryneich who I'd take to be the free men of Bryneich not just the high status cavalry. Also the poet does not think any Anglian laeti in the area worth a mention which perhaps speaks to their lack of importance at the time.

It begs the question how did Bryneich become Bernicia?  I'd say it requires a new influx of Angles and that the name Lindisfarne is a clue to where they came from.  Certainly the original dynasty of Bryneich is around long enough for one of them to murder Urien when he had the Angles bottled up on Lindisfarne.

Koch, back in '97, thought the adoption of Irish as an elite Bernician court language was the end of the line for Brythonic high culture in Bernicia but these things are more of a process than an event.

[Imperial Dave]

true, I too ponder the mechanism of the usurpation so was trying to think it through and obviously transposing one elite for another makes sense but would carry more weight if the Germanic elite also had a biggish base of Germanic muscle to back it up....unless it was a marriage transition which is also the potential model for Wessex as previously discussed

[Anton]

Wessex is interesting, when Cerdic's Woden born pedigree had to be written down the Chroniclers were stuck as he didn't have one, so they substituted the Bernician one, inserting Cerdic and his father and their successors at the appropriate juncture.

I think the break in Wessex comes with Ine and in Bernicia with Ida. Peter Heather's view that successful  kingdoms needed an open/hostile border comes to mind.  This enables the king to appropriate new lands to reward his noble followers and consequently attracts lots of young noble warriors to his following.

In both Bernicia and Wessex I would see an influx of new Angles and Saxons respectively as being needed to tip the balance of military power. It's not hard to imagine Ine benefiting from Kentish and South Saxon nobles looking to improve their situation and the East Anglians, if you buy the Lindisfarne connection, seem to have done the same thing in Bernicia. 

[Imperial Dave]

I think the break in Wessex comes with Ine and in Bernicia with Ida. Peter Heather's view that successful  kingdoms needed an open/hostile border comes to mind.  This enables the king to appropriate new lands to reward his noble followers and consequently attracts lots of young noble warriors to his following.

In both Bernicia and Wessex I would see an influx of new Angles and Saxons respectively as being needed to tip the balance of military power.

very interesting indeed and could be (one of) an explanation for the proliferation of Germanic languages in 'conquered' areas. Laeti with Germanic roots would either speak a Germanic language or at least be bilingual....the tipping point would come as you suggest, when newly anglicised kingdoms wanted to expand their domains and attracted fresh Germanics from where-ever as part of the heroic age/ warband leader ethos and modus operandi. If there is a lot of 'new men' into the kingdom who only speak a Germanic language then this might push other languages firmly into the background

[Anton]

I think that's about right, Koch sees the earlier (British speaking) Angles in Bryneich having to weigh up where their best interests lay once the newcomers arrived.

I think the other thing to consider is that polygamous elites expanded very quickly due to better food, non exposure to toil and wide sexual access.  All those new young nobles needed land.  I think Heather makes the point that the newcomers brought women and children with them ensuring the survival of their language.

I also wonder about the impact of the plague of 500 AD which likely hit those, the British, with trade links to the Empire hardest.

[Imperial Dave]

I also wonder about the impact of the plague of 500 AD which likely hit those, the British, with trade links to the Empire hardest.

and potentially the 'nth' generation Germanic laeti or foederati who aligned more closely with the British (and their ruling classes) might also have been more afflicted by the plague. This in turn might have allowed more freshly minted Germanics to succeed from the older generation of 'settlers' with all that entails language wise etc

[Anton]

Yes that would make sense.  In Wessex the preservation of the Cerdic link might indicate the descendants of original laeti came out on top or at the least that a Cerdic connection was important for political legitimacy.

[Imperial Dave]

The Wessex situation is indeed very interesting. Cerdic being British but being used as a political/legitimacy ancestor for successive Saxon leaders.

[Jim Webster]

The Wessex situation is indeed very interesting. Cerdic being British but being used as a political/legitimacy ancestor for successive Saxon leaders.

You would wonder at what point the difference between the two groups faded. Obviously differently in different areas, but after a century would some of the leading families be so intermingled that it was no longer possible to tell?

[Imperial Dave]

The Wessex situation is indeed very interesting. Cerdic being British but being used as a political/legitimacy ancestor for successive Saxon leaders.

You would wonder at what point the difference between the two groups faded. Obviously differently in different areas, but after a century would some of the leading families be so intermingled that it was no longer possible to tell?

good point Jim. I have been pondering this and my initial conclusion is that the Wessex 'Saxons' were laeti or foederati who slowly became Britannicised but kept some of their own institutions and language. The degree of intermingling could have been at the very top ie in the fact that Cerdic was a local king/judge/protector etc of British stock who took personal charge of the Saxon/Germanic element in his area, even possibly originating as his personal retinue. The key to survival of this group would be to claim descent from this (potentially) well connected leader.