19.3 Europe: a.d. 401 to 500  (Page 6/7)

France and netherland and belgium

We have seen above (See ITALY) that Stilicho, in effect King of Italy, withdrew troops from the Rhine to fight various Germanic tribes in central Europe and then the Marcomanni-Quadi group, collectively known as Suevi, easily crossed the defenseless, frozen Rhine into France. (Ref. 137 ) Meanwhile the Franks had settled on the western slope of the Rhine, had captured Cologne and were in Franconia on the east. By 430 Gaul was about half Frankish and half Gothic and Celtic, and it was the most prosperous and intellectually advanced of the western provinces. The agriculture of the Germanic tribes was better suited to that climate than the Roman Mediterranean style of agriculture so a German style of life took its place.

As recorded above, in A.D. 451 Attila and his German auxiliaries, possibly at the request of Gaeseric

BRITISH ISLES

England

Roman evacuation of England was probably complete by 407, and in 410 the Roman Emperor Honorius wrote to the leaders of British towns telling them to look after their own defence. This was almost simultaneous with the revolt of peasants, rampant disease and raids by Picts, Irish, Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians. (Ref. 136 ) In the 420s Vortigern, one of the British tyrants, rose some in power and used the previously tried Roman policy of using German mercenaries to swell his armies. Others soon did likewise and the fate of Celtic England was probably sealed. There was a continuous influx of new Saxon immigrants and from 440 on they occupied the eastern and southern coastal areas of Essex, Kent and Sussex and controlled the mouth of the Thames. The Angles came from Slesvig and brought with them to England a knowledge of Nordic mythology, as found in the "Song of Beoweulf ". In the southwest the Britons kept out the Saxons, under the leadership of King Ambrosius and the shadowy King Arthur. In A. D. 500 these Britons won a pitched battle at Mount Badon, somewhere in the southwest. (Ref. 43 ) Some Britons escaped the Germans by going to the Brest peninsula of France, subsequently becoming known as Bretons. (Ref. 137 , 222 )