Reference on Numbers of Saxons

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/3/00 3:01:12 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU writes:

>Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples of
>Britanna before settleing in new areas.

-- they wouldn't have to.  Simple general vandalism and terror would have
about the same effect and be a lot less work than physically killing enormous
numbers of people.  Hunger and disease are more efficient, although it _is_
possible to slaughter huge numbers with hand weapons; we've seen a recent
example of that in Rwanda.

One has to keep in mind that preindustrial subsistence-peasant economies are
inherently fragile; they're always on the verge of a demographic crash.

Losing one harvest means severe hunger; losing two or three means mass
famine, and the epidemic disease which always accompanies it; and both are
made worse if people feel compelled to flee their homes.

If the loss of a couple of harvests is accompanied by the loss of capital
assets -- working livestock, seed grain, wagons, tools, herds, farm buildings
-- you get a catastrophe which may take centuries to recover from.
Populations can crash to a small percentage of their original size.
Successful farming requires a fair degree of physical security; you may be
able to hide your cattle for a short while, but you can't move fields,
grain-stores, plows or barns.

There are numerous examples of this in European and Middle Eastern history;
eg., the enormous population lossess suffered in Central Europe during the 30
Years War, or in Ireland during the mid-17th century.  Again, it's not battle
and massacre which do the real damage; it's the aftermath of lost food
production and refugee movements.

Historical sources from the late Roman period indicate widespread
depopulation in coastal areas subject to repeated raids by Saxon pirates --
along the coast of Brittany and around the mouth of the Loire, for example,
where settlement was abandoned except for a few defended sites.

Judging from those sources, and from the extensive defensive works the Romans
put up along the "Saxon Shore" in Britain, together with archaeological
evidence from the source areas of the "Saxons" (the modern Netherlands,
Frisia, Schleiswig and southern Denmark) there must have been at least
hundreds, and possibly several thousand, war-boats operating in the area
throughout the fourth and fifth centuries.  Besides sea-born attacks on Roman
territory, raiding against other Germanic tribes was incessant.

It was a fairly close analogue of the Viking period, although the ship
technology was less advanced.  Still, the vessels recovered from the period
were quite large -- up to 60 feet and better -- and capable of carrying 40-80
people each.  They could also make it from the mainland to Britain quite
quickly, and once there travel far up the rivers.  Say 20 round trips a year,
or over a thousand people moved per vessel.

And Britannia was getting it from both directions; Irish ("Scotti") pirates
raided and laid waste all along the western shores, and Irish Gaels made
settlements in the vacated territories in the wake of the reivers.

The one in Argyle which later became the core of the Scottish kingdom of
Dalradia was the best known, but there were smaller nests all along the coast
of the Roman province southward.

So the Romano-Britons were being squeezed from both directions, and by
Pictish raiders coming overland and along the coasts from the north.  There
was a massive eruption in the late 4th century that saw devastation as far
south as London, and another shortly thereafter; and after 406 CE, the
central government structure broke down completely.

Most of the more Romanized portions of the province were utterly defenseless;
they'd been demilitarized for centuries.