Vortigern

Vortigern (Welsh: Gwrtheyrn ; Old English: Wyrtgeorn ; Breton: Gurthiern ; Irish: Foirtchern (n) ) was probably a Romano-British warlord of the 5th century, who died some time after the Romans withdrew from Britain around 407 AD came to a particularly powerful position in the southern part of this island. However, it is not certain whether he was a real historical personality, because the sources for him are unreliable and poor. The form of the name Vortigern used today does not appear in the sources.

Vortigern is probably identical with the superbus tyrannus ("haughty tyrant / usurper") mentioned by Gildas , who wrote about a century after the events . According to this, he is said to have invited Saxony to come to Britain as a federation to help ward off incursions by northern peoples. Later, however, the Saxons revolted and plundered the country. This is said to have been the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain. The oldest author who certainly mentions Vortigern's name is Beda Venerabilis . A source from the 9th century, the Historia Brittonum ascribed to Nennius , provides significantly more details about Vortigern , but most of its reports are to be regarded as legends. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , written in the late 9th century, tells more alleged facts about Vortigern . The report of Geoffrey von Monmouth in his Historia regum Britanniae , written around 1136, is even more legendary than in the Historia Brittonum and had a decisive influence on Vortigern's later image.

Historical context

In the first decade of the 5th century, the last of the Roman troops withdrew from Britain. The Romano-British saw their empire threatened for a long time by incursions by the Scots from the west (Ireland), the Picts from the north (Scotland) and by pirate hordes known as Saxons from the southeast. They tried several times in vain for Roman help; According to Zosimos , Emperor Honorius advised them in 410 to organize their own defense. As a result, the Roman administration gradually collapsed, replacing them with local rulers (warlords) who sought to maintain order in their respective territories and to offer resistance against intruders.

Apparently one of these warlords, Vortigern, gained a particularly significant position of power, as the literary sources report. According to Gildas, this ruler recruited Saxon mercenaries to defend the border after a last request for help from the civitates of Britanniens to the Roman army master Flavius ​​Aëtius during his third consulate (446 AD) was also unsuccessful. According to Beda Venerabilis , the Saxons who later revolted came to Britain in 449, which is consistent with Gildas' report. In contrast, the Welsh tradition available in the Historia Britonum (Chapter 66) places this event in the year 428, which was also Vortigern's fourth year of reign; and the anonymous Chronica Gallica of 452, which was written as early as the 5th century, briefly states that in 441 the island, which had been ravaged by calamity for a while, was lost to the Romans and fell to the Saxons. In 511 another nameless chronicler reported that in 440 Britain had been abandoned by the Romans and came under Saxon rule.

The archaeological evidence, however, suggests that the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain did not take place so quickly, but took a relatively long period of time and took place in several phases. Nor, as conveyed by literary tradition, would it have taken place in a coordinated manner under a common supreme command, but rather various groups of intruders undertook locally limited advances. Also, not only, as Beda claims, Saxons, Angles and Jutes took part in the invasion of Britain, but also Frisians and Scandinavians , among others . After all, according to excavation results, there was an increased presence of members of Germanic tribes in Britain since the end of the 4th century, so that the violent Anglo-Saxon land grabbing was probably preceded by a gradual peaceful immigration and settlement of groups of Saxons and other peoples.

Gildas

The earliest author to tell the story of Vortigern was the British priest Gildas in the first half of the 6th century . His De Excidio et Conquestu Britannae ( Eng . "On the fall and conquest of Britain"), which is more of a theological treatise than a historical work, offers only an insufficient basis of information, since Gildas wanted to provide less a historical account of the events announced in the title than one Blame on the moral decline of his time in the form of a sinister penitential sermon. Apparently Gildas did not mention Vortigern's name (only in two late manuscripts of the 12th and 13th centuries the name was inserted in the form Uortigerno and Gurthigerno ), but only a nameless haughty tyrant. He reports how "all the councilors, along with the proud tyrant" made the mistake of calling "the proud and wicked Saxons" to Britain to serve as soldiers of the local Roman-British aristocracy who lacked Roman help to counter to fight the Picts . Gildas does not hold the tyrant solely responsible for the recruitment of foreign mercenaries. According to his further account, a small group of Saxons came first and were settled "on the east side of the island due to the invitation of the unlucky ruler". This small group, according to Gildas, invited more and more of their compatriots to follow her, and the number of warriors grew. Eventually the Saxons demanded that "their monthly allocation" be increased and when this was refused they broke their treaty and sacked the Romano-British lands.

Gildas adds two small details that suggest that either he or his source got part of the story from the Anglo-Saxons. On the one hand: When he describes the size of the first Saxon group, he realizes that they came in three “cyulis” or “keels”, “as they call their warships” - probably the first known English word. This detail is unlikely to come from a Roman or Celtic source. On the other hand, Gildas claims that the Saxons "was prophesied by a certain fortune-teller among them that they should occupy the land to which they sailed for 300 years, in order to loot and rob it for half the time, 150 years". This motif could be both a Roman invention, as it expresses the hope that the rule of the Saxons would be limited in time, and based on Saxon tales.

Modern researchers have repeatedly discussed various details in Gildas' report and tried to analyze his text carefully in order to obtain more information. Today more effort is being made than in the past to place Gildas' statements in the context of Western Roman history. Among other things, the terms that Gildas used to describe the contributions made by the Romano-British to the Saxons (" Annona ", "Epimenia") are important, as these are legal terms from a typical support contract ( foedus ). This was a common late ancient Roman practice to recruit warrior groups from “barbaric”, i.e. non-Roman peoples, against the granting of supplies as foederati , i.e. mercenary armies under their own leaders. It is not known whether private individuals or individual civitates with their city councils adopted this practice, but it is conceivable. In addition, tyrannus denotes a usurper in late antique usage ; So it may be that the nameless ruler Gildas mentions and who was later equated with Vortigern, claimed ruling (imperial?) powers for himself and was therefore able to conclude a foedus . Another point is whether Gildas' reference to the "east side of the island" refers to Kent , East Anglia , Northumbria, or the whole of the east coast of Britain.

Incidentally, Gildas' text on the rebellion of the Saxons could well be part of an attempt to disguise a break between the foedus and the Saxons by the Romano-British aristocracy. "They (the Saxons) complained because their monthly supplies were not fully delivered ..." (Gildas, chapter 23). It is possible that the Saxon mercenaries, after warding off the danger posed by the Picts from the north, apparently no longer had any significance for the Romano-British aristocracy, which then perhaps tried to get rid of the foederati . This may have sparked the warrior mutiny. Gildas' description of the "fall of Britain" could then be read as a subsequent attempt to blame the military-political failure of Romano-Britain on the barbaric savagery of the Saxons and the malice and stupidity of a "tyrant". But it is also conceivable that after the death of the "tyrant" the Saxon warriors no longer felt bound to the old foedus and demanded a new start of the annona , which they were denied.

Whether the nameless "tyrant" Gildas mentions in this context really means Vortigern can hardly be definitively clarified. The British historian Guy Halsall, for example, has formulated the hypothesis that Gildas referred to the usurper Magnus Maximus with the tyrannus , who was called to be emperor by the Roman troops in Britain in 383 and who may have been the first to use the Angles and Saxons as foederati recruited (see Halsall 2007). Vortigern would therefore be a later invention. It remains to be seen whether Halsall's position in research will prevail.

Beda Venerabilis

The first to examine Gildas' presentation was Beda Venerabilis in the early 8th century , traditionally highly respected by modern scholars. In his works Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum and De temporum ratione , Beda mostly paraphrases Gildas' report, but added some details that must have come from other sources. Perhaps the most important addition he gives is the alleged name of the “proud tyrant”, whom, by the way, unlike Gildas, he regards as the “king”. First he describes it in his Chronica maiora as Vertigernus and then in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum as Vurtigernus , both Latin forms of the name. According to some researchers (see Traina 2009), this is the Celtic expression Gwrtheyrn , which could be translated as “overlord”: If this is the case, then it is not a name, but a title.

Bede also mentions the year 449 as the date of the Saxon revolt - " Markian was made emperor with Valentinian , and the 46th (emperor) since Augustus ruled the empire for seven years"; elsewhere, however, he gives the year 446/447, slightly different (see above). Both data apparently represent the results of approximation calculations. Beda's time-based approach was traditionally accepted, but has been called into question since the late 20th century - especially with reference to the Gallic chronicles mentioned above.

Beda also offers further information about the foreign mercenaries that Vortigern invited: He gives names to their alleged leaders, Hengest and Horsa ("stallion" and "horse"), and identifies their tribes as Saxons , Angles and Jutes .

Historia Brittonum

The Historia Brittonum , ascribed to a monk named Nennius , probably originated in the early 9th century. This source gives the name Vortigern in the old Welsh form Guorthigirn . It also provides much more, albeit largely unhistorical, details about Vortigern and presents him more negatively than the two aforementioned sources; he is said to appear as the villain who triggered the tragedy of the fall of the Romano-British.

The Historia Brittonum first reports that Vortigern graciously received the Saxons led by Hengest and Horsa, who had been exiled from their homeland, settled in Thanet and promised them food and clothing if they would help him fight his enemies. When they were already a greater burden than the country could bear, he encouraged them to let more of their compatriots catch up with them. He fell in love with Hengest's (still nameless here) daughter, who came over with the second army. To keep her hand, he gave the Kingdom of Kent to the Saxons. Then the story of Vortigern's incestuous marriage to his own daughter is inserted into the narrative, with whom he had a son, Faustus, but whose father he tried to pass off as Saint Germanus . The latter also teased Faustus.

As a result, Vortigern had to retreat to the borders of his kingdom and tried to build a fortress on the hill Eryri (ie Dinas Emrys ) in North Wales, which, however, constantly failed in a mysterious way. His wizards explained to him that he would have to find and kill a child born without a father, and that his blood would splash on the foundation of the fortress. Such a child was found, but it turned out that it was Ambrosius (or Emrys Wledig) who compelled Vortigern to cede the western provinces of Britain to him and to seek refuge in the north himself. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote in the first half of the 12th century, instead named this child Merlin .

In the meantime, Vortigern's son Vortimer fought, according to the Historia Brittonum, in four battles fought in Kent against Hengest's Saxons and was finally able to drive them completely from Britain. This representation of the course of the war presented here is evidently related to the four battles between the British and Saxons described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , but in the latter source Vortimer does not appear as the British military leader (see below).

After Vortimer's death, the Saxons returned at Vortigern's renewed invitation. Soon after, Vortigern had to cede Essex and Sussex to them after they treacherously killed 300 British nobles at a banquet, but spared Vortigern in order to receive the same ransom. Vortigern then fled with his wives from St. Germanus and finally found death by a fire falling from the sky, which Germanus had brought about through his prayers. However, the Historia Brittonum brings two other versions of Vortigern's end. Then she gives the names of four of his sons (Vortimer, Catigern , Pascent , Faustus) as well as genealogical material about his ancestors and descendants. According to this, Vortigern's father was called Vitalis and his grandfather was Vitalinus. Finally there is a chapter with chronological calculations, which mainly revolve around Vortigern and the arrival of the Saxons.

Column of Eliseg

On a fragmentary inscription on the column of Eliseg , a stone cross erected around 850 in North Wales, Vortigern is mentioned in the old Welsh form of his name, Guarthi [gladly] (since the column is now damaged, the last letters of his name are missing). It is believed to be identical to Gildas' superbus tyrannus . The above-mentioned inscription reports on this Guarthigern that he was married to Sevira, a daughter of Magnus Maximus , and an ancestor of the Princely House of Powys , which had the column built. The Historia Brittonum (Chapter 35), on the other hand, claims that this dynasty descended from a servant named Cadell Deyrnllug, who was given control of Powys by St. Germanus.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The representation in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in its oldest surviving form at the end of the 9th century is based in part on Bede. Like him, the chronicle reports that Saxony, Jutes and Angling came to Britain in 449 under the leadership of the brothers Hengest and Horsa at the invitation of Vortigern (here called Wyrtgeorn ); Ypwinesfleot is given as their landing place, which is equated with Ebbsfleet near Ramsgate in Kent. In exchange for land in the southeast of the island, they were supposed to fight the Picts, but then turned against the British. Subsequently, the Chronicle provides the dates and locations of four battles that the Germanic newcomers fought against the British in the historic county of Kent . Vortigern is said to have been the leader of the British only in the first battle that took place in 455 near Agælesþrep (perhaps today's Aylesford ) and in which Horsa was killed. The opponents of Hengest and his son Æsc in the next three meetings are alternately called "British" and "Welsh" - which is not unusual for this part of the chronicle . Hengest has always been victorious in these last three battles. Vortigern is no longer mentioned in the chronicle after 455 .

Geoffrey of Monmouth

It was then Geoffrey of Monmouth who, in his Historia regum Britanniae , written in 1136, brought the story of Vortigern into its best-known form. According to his account, the Archbishop of London Guithelinus took over the defense of Britain after the Romans withdrew. The name of this prelate is similar to that of Vitalinus, who is mentioned in the Historia Brittonum as the ancestor of Vortigern. Similar to Gildas and the authors who followed him from Vortigern, so, according to Geoffrey, Guithelinus also brought mercenaries from the mainland to Britain, whom he recruited in Brittany . From there he also brought the noble Constantinus , who became King of the British (and grandfather of the legendary King Arthur ). After Constantinus 'murder, Vortigern, who is now mentioned for the first time by Geoffrey and appears here as consul Gewisseorum (ruler of Gwent or Wessex ), made Constantinus' son Constans , a monk, the puppet king. Vortigern later instigated a group of Picts to murder Constans, after which he was able to officially take power himself.

In describing the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, Geoffrey essentially follows the Historia Brittonum , but is more detailed. Accordingly, Vortigern brought Hengest and his warriors to Britain, married Hengest's daughter, who according to Geoffrey Rowen (also Ronwen , Renwein and the like) was called, and transferred the county of Kent to Hengest. Out of anger about it, the British and even Vortigern's sons revolted, from whom Vortimer came to power and fought the Saxons. In contrast to the representation of the Historia Brittonum , Vortimer died, according to Geoffrey, of poisoning caused by his stepmother Rowen. Vortigern came back to the throne after Vortimer's death. The Saxons then treacherously murdered numerous British nobles; Geoffrey located this event in Amesbury . Vortigern then tried in vain to build a fortress, and what follows is the miracle tale of the fatherless child whose blood, according to the advice of the magicians, must be sprinkled on the foundation of the fortress in order to enable it to be built. The prophecy child brought in for this purpose is Geoffrey Merlin's name . As a result, Vortigern had to flee and was besieged by Aurelius Ambrosius , another son of Constantine, in his castle Genoreu. He was killed in the burning of his castle ordered by Ambrose, so that the previous order of succession was restored.

Wace and other Arthurian literature

After Geoffrey, Wace took the material and added more about Vortigern. However, this appears only rarely in the later stories of the Arthurian legend , including in the Estoire de Merlin (Chapters 2-5) of the Lancelot-Grail cycle . Vortigern did not find its way into German Arthurian literature.

side note

John Henry Ireland , a notorious forger of Shakespeare's manuscripts, claimed to have found a lost play by him, titled Vortigern and Rowena , which was performed on April 2, 1796 at the Drury Lane Theater . But already the premiere was drowned in the laughter of the audience and the actors.

literature

• Leslie Alcock: Arthur's Britain. History and archeology, AD 367-634. Allen Lane, London 1971, ISBN 0-7139-0245-0 .
• Horst W. Böhme: The end of Roman rule in Britain and the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England in the 5th century. In: Yearbook of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum Mainz. Vol. 33, 1986, ISSN  1861-2938 , pp. 468-574.
• Richard Burgess: The Gallic Chronicle. In: Britannia . Vol. 25, 1994, pp. 240-243, doi : 10.2307 / 527005 .
• Guy Halsall: Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 ( Cambridge Medieval Textbooks ). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-43491-1 .
• Michael E. Jones, John Casey: The Gallic Chronicle Restored: A Chronology for the Anglo-Saxon Invasions and the End of Roman Britain. In: Britannia. Vol. 19, 1988, pp. 367-398, doi : 10.2307 / 526206 .
• Michael E. Jones: The End of Roman Britain. Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY et al. 1996, ISBN 0-8014-2789-4 , especially p. 246 f.
• Steven Muhlberger: The Gallic Chronicle of 452 and its authority for British Events. In: Britannia. Vol. 14, 1983, pp. 23-33, doi : 10.2307 / 526338 .
• Christopher A. Snyder: An Age of Tyrants. Britain and the Britons, AD 400-600. Sutton, Stroud 1998, ISBN 0-7509-1928-0 .
• David E. Thornton: Vortigern. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 56, 2004, p. 598 f.
• Giusto Traina: 428 AD. An ordinary year at the End of the Roman Empire. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-691-13669-1 , pp. 77 f.

Web links

• Vortigern Studies

Remarks

1. ^ Adolf Lippold : Vortigern. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IX A, 1, Stuttgart 1961, Col. 921.
2. ^ Zosimos, Historia nea 6, 10, 2.
3. ^ Karl-Friedrich Krieger : Geschichte Englands , 1st vol. 2nd edition, CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-33004-5 , p. 32.
4. ^ Gildas, De Excidio et Conquestu Britannae 20 and 23.
5. ↑ Beda, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 1, 15 (elsewhere he puts this event in the year 446/447).
6. ^ Chronica Gallica a. ProzLII, ad annum 441: Britanniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae in dicionem Saxonum rediguntur .
7. ^ Chronica Gallica a. DXI, ad annum 440: Britanniae a Romanis amissae in dicionem Saxonum cedunt .
8. ↑ Karl-Friedrich Krieger: History of England , 1st volume, p. 35 f.
9. ^ Karl-Friedrich Krieger: History of England , 1st vol., P. 34.
10. ^ Gildas, De Excidio et Conquestu Britannae 23.
11. ↑ Beda, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 1, 14 f.
12. ↑ Historia Brittonum 31 and 35-39.
13. ↑ Historia Brittonum 40-42.
14. ↑ Historia Brittonum 43 f.
15. ↑ Historia Brittonum 45-49.
16. ↑ Historia Brittonum 66.
17. ↑ David E. Thornton: Vortigern. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 56 (2004), p. 599.
18. ↑ Thomas Honegger: Hengest and Finn, Horsa. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . 2nd edition, Vol. 14 (1999), p. 388.
19. ^ Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae. 6, 2-8.
20. ^ Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae 6, 8-8, 2.
21. ↑ Vortigern . In: Rudolf Simek , Artus-Lexikon , 2012, ISBN 978-3-15-010858-1 , p. 352.