AS Conquest the result of a Plague

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/13/2000 11:16:43 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<< My impression is that the AS conquest was as much a reinforced
revolt of federates as anything else. >>

There is a new theory going around based on evidence of a sixth century
global event and consequent plague.  This is an excerpt from a public post
w/o signature on the EuroArch list:

"A more recent and more measured presentation and hypothesis is
provided by Elizabeth Jones of the University of North Carolina. She
has published an article titled "Climate, Archeology, History,
and the Arthurian Tradition: A Multiple-Source Study of Two Dark-Age
Puzzles" in "The Years Without Summer: Tracing A.D. 536 and
Its Aftermath", Edited by Joel D. Gunn, also of UNC.  (British
Archaeological Reports, www.archaeopress.com
http://www.archaeopress.com , ISBN 1 84171 0741 and
http://www.mindspring.com/~multisci/ad536.htm.)

Jones' hypothesis is that disease attributable to the climate
shift selectively decimated the Celtic British population in the mid
6th century, thereby facilitating the Anglo-Saxon conquest of most of
Britain between 550 and 600 AD.  Roughly summarized, her starting
points are the statements that "It is well-established that
drastic, relatively sudden changes in average global temperature -
whether warmer or colder - cause imbalances in populations of
bacteria, viruses, insects, rodents, and other animals that result in
plagues and other epidemics, which are then spread to human
populations (1: Linden 1996:56)", and "There is general
agreement that the plagues struck the Britons hard without affecting
the Anglo-Saxon populations to any extent." (2: Davis, 1982, and
others.) Among additional points, Jones argues that:

1)  It appears unlikely that the conquering Anglo-Saxons
assimilated the British because there is little evidence of
linguistic or cultural borrowing in the archaeological record of
Anglo-Saxon settlements.  At the same time, extermination of the
British seems unlikely because there is no evidence of violent
destruction of British towns, which appear to have been abandoned.

2)  There is archaeological evidence for disease of some type at
British Cirencester in the form of "unburied bodies lying in the
streets of an abandoned town".

3)  Before 550 AD, the Anglo-Saxon settlements in England were
dispersed family farms tied exclusively to a North Sea economy, which
did not even include Frankish areas in Gaul.  In sharp contrast, the
more urban Celtic Britains were still tied into the eastern
Mediterranean trade network, making them more likely to be affected
by the Justinian plague than the Anglo-Saxons.

4)  The disease hypothesis helps to explain the massive
migrations of Britains to Wales and Brittany at this time.   Jones
reports that there are records of British refugees who came to
Brittany expressly to escape contagion.

5)  The majority of invaders of late 6th century Britain "came
from more northerly areas than in the fifth century - from Denmark
and even from Sweden".  This could well be caused by the cold
produced by the 5th century climate change, "which was more
pronounced and longer-lasting in Scandinavia than in the British
Isles".

Although this was an academic response, I know it doesn't prove
anything. And Jones herself readily admits that the climate/plague
factor was probably only one factor among many driving the change in
Britain. However, Jones maintains that it provide a parsimonious
explanation for the sudden success of the Anglo-Saxons after 550A.D.,
when their previous expansion in England had been halted and even
driven back over the previous century by Celtic British resistance.
Jones' arguments are supported by another article in the same
collection by Bailey Young of the Department of History, Eastern
Illinois University, titled "Climate and Crisis in Sixth-Century
Italy and Gaul".  In that article, Young cites the multiple
instances of plague in Gaul mentioned by Gregory of Tours."

S. Long