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Famosa Pestis and Britain in the Fifth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Malcolm Todd
Malcolm Todd
Affiliation:
The University, Nottingham
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Extract

In the upsurge of interest in the condition of the cities of Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries, and in the causes for their severely reduced circumstances, several facets of the problem are currently undergoing scrutiny in the light of increasing knowledge. One such facet is the part supposedly played by plague and other outbreaks of disease in extinguishing town life in Britain during the fifth century. This has been most fully discussed by Mr J. S. Wacher in the final chapter of his work on Romano-British cities, but the idea is at large, growing, and becoming less and less restrained. In his assessment of the role of epidemic disease in bringing about the collapse of Romano-British urban culture, Wacher argues with some force that it was decisive, comparing its influence with ‘the appalling effects over the whole of Europe of the Black Death in the fourteenth century and of the Great Plague two centuries later’. Many of the literary sources of the fifth and sixth centuries which mention major outbreaks of disease in various parts of the Empire are assembled to compose a picture of which Gildas himself would have approved, a tale of epidemics and progressive weakness which ‘could spell the end of a society which was already disintegrating’. Again, ‘in the disease-ridden world of antiquity, a pestilence which attracted the attention of a contemporary writer would indeed have been serious …In a world where death from disease was commonplace, a reference to a mortalitas rnagna probably meant just that’.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 8 , November 1977 , pp. 319 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © Malcolm Todd 1977. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 The Towns of Roman Britain (London 1974), esp. pp. 414–22Google Scholar: hereafter referred to as Wacher (1974).

2 op. cit. 415.

3 op. cit. 416.

4 loc. cit.

5 Conveniently reviewed by Gilliam, J. F., American Journ. Phil, lxxxii (1961), 225–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The fullest account of plague is that of Shrewsbury, J. F. D., A History of Bubonic Plague in the British Isles (Cambridge 1970)Google Scholar. Though an immensely detailed and valuable work, it tends to underestimate the effects of the major epidemics: see criticism by Morris, C., The Historical Journal xiv (1971), 205–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most recent treatment of the subject is McNeill, W. H., Plagues and Peoples (New York 1976)Google Scholar, esp. chapter III.

7 de excidio Britanniae preface ii (famosa pestis); xxii (pestifera lues). The edition of Williams, H., Cymmrodorion Record Series No. 3 (1899–1901Google Scholar) is here referred to.

8 Recently expressed opinions are in favour of a date about 430 for Vortigern's invitation: Morris, J., The Age of Arthur (London 1973), 49Google Scholar; Ward, J. H. in Britannia iii (1972), 277–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 This is the earliest possible date for Gildas, not the most likely one.

10 Continuatio Chronicorum Hieronymianorum 126 (edition of T. Mommsen reproduced in Chronica Minora ii (1894, re-issued 1961) of Monumenta Germaniae Historica. See now, Thompson, E. A., Nottingham Medieval Studies xx (1976), 4–18Google Scholar.

11 Chronicon Marcellini Comitis xiii (also edited by Mommsen in the volume referred to in note 10).

12 Wacher (1974), 415. It seems to have been C. E. Stevens who first identified the famosa pestis with the plague mentioned by Hydatius: EHR lvi (1941), 363Google Scholar. ‘The interlock between Gildas, as corrected, and the continental annals is almost perfect.’ (My italics.) Stevens, too, notes (n. 6, p. 363) that there are few references to plague in fifth-century writers.

13 Wacher (1974), 417.

14 Hydatius, , Chronica Minora ii, 26Google Scholar. But see now E. A. Thompson op. cit. (note 10), 18, n. 10 for a revised view.

15 Evagrius ii, 6. It is noteworthy that Evagrius stresses the localised character of this out break.

16 There are several likely contexts for such reports if Salvian had had anything to say on the matter, e.g. de gubernatione Dei vi, 8 and vi, 14.

17 Ammianus (xxxi, 6, 24) has an interesting comment on the plague of the 160s. He says that it spread from the frontiers of the Persians to the Rhine and Gaul. Might not Britain have escaped this outbreak, probably the most destructive in antiquity before the plague of Justinian's time? Had Ammianus really intended to say that the whole Empire was affected it is odd that he leaves out ultimi Britanni.

18 Cirencester: these are unpublished in detail. See Antiq. Journ. xliii (1963), 21–2Google Scholar; TBGAS lxxviii (1959), 53Google Scholar. But the excavator's account specifically says that this skeleton was associated with medieval pottery. Even if this means no more than that medieval pottery lay in the ditchfilling, it clearly throws doubt on the date at which this body was deposited here.

Wroxeter Baths: Wright, T., Uriconium (London 1872), 68, 118–9Google Scholar. Comment by Frere, S. S. in Civitas Capitals of Roman Britain, ed. by Wacher, J. S. (Leicester 1966), 94–5Google Scholar.

Caerwent: for the large number of skeletons within the walls, Archaeologia lxiv (1912–1913), 437–8Google Scholar. Note that these burials lie close to the medieval church. Thomas Ashby was firmly of the opinion that the burials dated long after the ruin of the Roman buildings in this part of the site: op. cit. 437, n. 1. An extraordinary number of skeletons and parts of skeletons were found elsewhere at Caerwent, some of them well within the Roman period: e.g. Archaeologia lvii (1901), 311Google Scholar (House 3); lviii (1902), 151 (House 8).

19 Atkinson, D., Report on Excavations at Wroxeter, 1923–7 (Oxford 1942), 112–3Google Scholar. Atkinson argued that the body had probably been left lying by the side of the street, but quotes no good reason for saying so. Since he wrote, it has become clear that decapitation is a fairly common late Romano-British burial-rite.