Episode 5 - Brian Burnett

[Wes Owsley]

Brian is a scholar of Orthodox History and provides us with a fascinating look at christianity in the British Isles in the 5th and 6th Century.

[Andrew]

Brian was very interesting - a few historical bloopers but then I'm British-based and have had 20 more years to get some of this stuff into line. I'm impressed by his general knowledge and he made some points I'll definitely be following up myself. A few little hints that he may or may not have come across which could help his explorations -

1) The tonsure in the Celtic church. I believe that it was basically the old druidic tonsure - which might support the thesis that the druids converted as a class.

2) 'Peaceful' conversion. This was generally true among the Anglo-Saxons (Wight seems to have been the closest thing to an exception to that rule).
However, the two religions seem to have strolled along in tandem rather more than later Christians liked to admit (I suspect the same was true with the Irish).

3) Anglo-Saxon refugees part I. Brian's right about connections with Kiev but its a little larger than that. Gytha, the daughter of Harold Godwinson, married Vladimir Monomakh, the Prince of Kiev. Their son, Prince Mstislav was known in the Norse sagas as 'Harald' (after his grand-dad) and that perhaps reflects his 'family name' (the late Kievan Rus aristocracy were pretty bilingual I think with strong ties to Scandinavia. It would make sense that her brothers (at least two of whom were with her in Denmark earlier) might have gone with her since they were 'unemployed' so to speak.

4) Anglo-Saxon refugees part 2. Edgar Atheling and his family went to Scotland and basically anglicised the court there even as England was falling under the Norman yoke. You should remember that the Borders and Lothian were part of Northumbria for centuries before these events and the people there spoke Old Welsh followed by Old English. They were never Gaelic. These refugees provided the English bloodlines of many leading lowland Scots families rather than earlier refugees from the Vikings. Since Bernicia (i.e. the Lothians and far north of Northumberland) never fell to the Vikings they were the haven of any refugees in the 700s-900s rather than the source of them.

5) Anglo-Saxon refugees part 3. The rest of the Anglo-Saxon refugee warrior class followed the example of old vikings like Harald Hardrada and went where the money was for those with swords and axes for hire. They joined the Varangian Guard. Sadly most of them came to a sticky end at the Battle of Durrazzo in 1081. This has often been called the re-run of the Battle of Hastings, i.e. the shield-wall saw off the much vaunted heavy cavalry with very little trouble (cavalry horses would no more charge a disciplined shield wall in the 1100s than they would charge a solid infantry square in the 1800s) only to have its flanks exposed with disastrous consequences. The Normans didn't develop the 'feigned retreat' because they found it easy to deal with disciplined infantry.

Anyway just a few bits and bobs that I hope you find of interest. Thanks for the show - very interesting.

[justinian]

Hi Andew, thanks for the comment. I've been meaning to answer you but life intervenes.

Well, historical bloopers are probably my fault. I was running pretty quick over 15 to 20 centuries worth of material. Any one of the 7 or 8 major topics we talked about during the podcast could be the subject of major, intense, prolonged discussion. I apologize for any factual errors that creeped in through misstatement or otherwise. Of course, one of the main points of the discussion was to talk about what Wes brought up in the episode--there is more to history than the straight-forward, easy to grasp, linear narrative of the mainstream. So I am very aware that, by the definition of most historians, some of the things I've said are "erroneous." In fact, another listener brought up the fact that there couldn't possibly have been a papal crusade against the local British Church because the Synod of Whitby in the 9th century had the local church voluntarily go under the authority of Rome. This, too, is not strictly true; the primary issue at Whitby was about the dating of Easter, and the submission to Roman authority in question was actually to bring the local British Church into conformity with the rest of the Christian world, following the calculation adopted by the First Ecumenical Council--nothing more, nothing less. But from the point of view of mainstream history (which, depsite all, is still occidentocentric and, whether Catholic, Protestant, or just informed by either, tends to aggrandize Rome) means a great deal more in terms of Roman power and prestige in the West.

However, you make some interesting points in your reponse, and I'd like to talk about some of them.

1) I think you are right on with the peculiar tonsure being druidic in origin, but it may also derive somewhat from an eastern practice of tonsure that dates back to certain breakaway Judaic sects from before the time of Christ. Also, I'm not convinced that the druids converted as a class--at least, not entirely. There are cetainly ample stories from Celtic hagiography with Christian Celtic saints going up against local druids who hate, fear, and envy them; however, I do think that a significant--perhaps disproportionate to the population at large, at first--number of them did convert willingly to the Christian religion, and that they were the basis of the Order of Culdees, who continued the druidic tradition of learning and studying the natural world within the Christian faith.

2) I never denied that there were holdout to the old religion for a long period of time; in fact, we touched on that to some extent with the Danish site mentioned by Wes. Where this occured, I don't see that it was necessarily the modern conception of the pluralist utopia, but rather stands as evidence that early Christians were not indoctrinated like members of Torquemada's Inquisition (which seems to be what people these days believe). I actually find that to be a very compelling thought, with regard to those of us who actually believe.

3) I did know about the marriage of Gytha to Vladimir Monomakh, but by that point in the interview there were so many threads going I dropped a few strands; this was one of them. Of course you are right--and this proves my point, that the ties between the various ethnic groups here are stronger than mainstream history tends to think. And my contention that there is a larger religious-political dimension to the Norman Invasion of 1066, and the resulting aftermath, than is generally acknowledged by mainsteam historians is actually, I think, supported by these facts.

4) If I ever gave the impression that the Lowland Scots were Gaels, I heartily apologize. Aside from some fanciful and romantic attachment to the 'Scotland mythos' I may have left over from childhood, I am well aware of the Anglo-Saxon strain in the Lowlands; the majority of my maternal and paternal heritage comes from just that group. Bernicia's holdout status is unique, yes, and was doubtless a haven for the refugees, but, my contention is that even if they got to Bernicia initially, they spread out and settled further north in the lowlands. And you are right to point out the fact that prior to Old English the people in Northumbria spoke Old Welsh--and thus any claims to Celtic heritage they can make are far older than the Scots Gaels, who came over from Ireland to western Scotland at a later date.

5) You are quite right that a great number of displace Anglo-Saxons went to Constantinople, many of whom joined up with the Varangian Guard. This simply futhers my point about the religio-political ties between pre-Norman Britain and the East. And, that this contact was largely through the "back channel" of the Scandinavian trade routes through modern Russia via Kiev, hangs together with this assertion.

Thanks for the detailed response to the podcast, Andrew, I am thrilled that someone listened that closely and bothered to write something in response. I'd love to continue the conversation sometime!