the Saxons

Saint Patrick

Written accounts

There is very little written material available for this period. Only two contemporary British sources exist: the Confessio of Saint Patrick and Gildas' De Excidio Britanniae ("On The Ruin Of Britain").[1] Patrick's Confessio reveals aspects of life in Britain, from where he was kidnapped. It is particularly useful in highlighting the state of Christianity at the time. Gildas' De Excidio Britanniae is a jeremiad; it is written as a polemic to warn contemporary rulers against sin, demonstrating through historical and biblical examples that bad rulers are always punished by God - in the case of Britain, through the destructive wrath of the Saxon invaders. The historical section of De Excidio is short, and the material in it is clearly selected with Gildas' purpose in mind. There are no absolute dates given, and some of the details, such as those regarding the Hadrian and Antonine Walls are clearly wrong. Nevertheless, Gildas does provide us with an insight into some of the kingdoms that existed when he was writing, and to how an educated monk perceived the situation that had developed between the Anglo-Saxons and the British.

There are more continental sources, though these are highly problematic. The most famous is the so-called Rescript of Honorius, in which the Western Emperor Honorius tells the British civitates to look to their own defence. The first reference to this rescript is written by the sixth-century Byzantine scholar Zosimus and is located randomly in the middle of a discussion of southern Italy; no further mention of Britain is made, which has led some, though not all, modern academics to suggest that the rescript does not apply to Britain at all, but to Bruttium in Italy.[2] The Gallic Chronicle provides us with information about St Germanus and his visit(s) to Britain, though again this text has received considerable academic deconstruction.[3] The work of Procopius, another sixth-century Byzantine writer, makes some references to Britain though the accuracy of these is uncertain.

There are numerous later written sources that claim to provide accurate accounts of the period. The first to attempt this was the monk Bede, writing in the early eighth century. He based his account of the Sub-Roman period in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum heavily on Gildas, though he tried to provide dates for the events Gildas describes. Later sources, such as the history attributed to Nennius, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Annales Cambriae are all heavily shrouded in myth, and can only be used as evidence for this period with the greatest caution.[4]