Table Of ContentABOUT THIS BOOK...
GILDAS is by far the most important source we possess for
the most obscure and extraordinary period in our history.
In A.D. 410, the Roman Emperor had told Britain that the
legions could no longer defend her and for the next two
centuries the British struggled to maintain themselves in the
face of the Saxon immigrations and insurrections. Though
not primarily intended as a history, Gildas, a British monk,
wrote The Ruin of Britain in about 540 and it remains the
most vital record to have survived for this period; indeed,
the only work that outlines a connected narrative of 5th-
century British history.
The only previous translation of the book has long been
out of print and the extreme difficulty of the Latin, as well
as current prices, make the original inaccessible to most
students and their teachers. The present volume provides
both a new translation, that benefits greatly from the latest
post-classical Latin scholarship, and also a revised Latin text.
Dr. Morris, the General Editor, has provided a Historical
Introduction and Notes that clarify the historical background
to Gildas’ narrative and catalogue of disasters. Readers
familiar with John Morris’s The Age of Arthur (published in
this series) will be aware both of the significance of Gildas
as a source for that work and of its author’s competence to
set Gildas in context.
Whether it is regarded simply as a unique 6th-century
British work, more a sermon than a history, or as a primary
and unequalled historical source, if one to be interpreted
with caution, for that dark period that followed the fall of
Rome, there can be no doubt of the value to students and,
indeed, the general reader, of this new inexpensive edition in
both English and Latin. The book is surprisingly easy to read
and may well be seen to have relevance to contemporary
problems.
GILDAS
The Ruin of Britain
and other works
History from the Sources
GILDAS
The Ruin of Britain
and other works
edited and translated by
MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM
Mistory from the Sources
General Editor: John Morris
PHILLIMORE
1978
Published by
PHILLIMORE & CO. LTD.
London and Chichester
Head Office: Shopwyke Hall,
Chichester, Sussex, England
©
Text and translation: Michael Winterbottom, 1978
History from the Sources series: Mrs. Susan Morris, 1978
ISBN 0 85033 295 8 (case)
ISBN 0 85033 296 6 (limp)
Printed and Bound in Great Britain by
Hartnolls Limited, Bodmin, Cornwall.
CONTENTS
page
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
PREFACE
THE RUIN OF BRITAIN .. 13
1 Preface .. 13
2-26 The History of Britain 16
The Land of Britain (3) 16
Roman Britain (4) 17
Independent Britain (14) 21
The Coming of the Saxons (22) 25
The Victory at Badon Hill (25) 27
27-65 The Complaint: Kings 29
The Five Tyrants (28) 29
The Words of the Prophets (37) 36
66-110 The Complaint: Clergy 52
A Pattern for the Better Priest (69) .. 34
Denunciation of Corrupt Priests (76) 60
A Prayer for the Good Pastors (110) 79
FRAGMENTS OF LOST LETTERS OF GILDAS .. 80
APPENDIX: THE ‘PENITENTIAL OF GILDAS’
or MONASTIC RULE 83
DE EXCIDIO BRITONUM 87
EPISTULARUM GILDAE DEPERDITARUM
FRAGMENTA 143
DE POENITENTIA .. 146
NOTES .. 148
INDEX OF BIBLICAL QUOTATIONS 156
VARIANTS FROM MOMMSEN’S TEXT 160
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 161
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
Gildas wrote his main work, the ‘Ruin of Britain’, about 540 A.D. or
just before, when he was forty three years old (26.1). It is a fierce
denunciation of the rulers and churchmen of his day, prefaced by a
brief explanation of how these evils came to be. This preface is the only
surviving narrative history of fifth century Britain. But it was not
written as history. Gildas names in the fifth century only one person,
one place, and one date, which he misplaced (20.1 note). Just enough
is known to make his narrative intelligible, two key dates from contem-
porary Europe, and isolated detail from other sources, chief among
them a collection of historical documents assembled about 800 A.D.,
known by the name of Nennius.
At the beginning of the fifth century Britain had been a Roman
province for nearly 400 years, and for 200 years all freeborn Britons
had been Roman citizens; there was no more contrast between ‘native’
and ‘Roman’ than there is to-day between ‘Yorkshireman’ and ‘English-
man’. Society was dominated by a landed nobility, whose splendid
country mansions, abundant in the southern lowlands, were built and
furnished on a scale not matched again until the 18th century. The
rents that sustained them were drawn from a vigorous agriculture and
industry, whose output was distributed along an intricate road system.
But in the highland regions of the south-west, of Wales and the North,
there was little comparable prosperity; poorer farmers supported no
wealthy gentry. Beyond the frontier, northern border kingdoms were
still uneasy allies of Roman authority, and beyond the Clyde and Forth
lived the hostile barbarian Picts, ready allies of the Scots, the late
Roman name for the inhabitants of Ireland, who raided when they
could, and had established a number of colonies on the western coasts
of Britain.
This sophisticated civilisation was destroyed long before Gildas was
born. When he wrote, its realities were fast fading from men’s memor-
ies; to Gildas, Romans were again foreigners, their empire a thing of
the past. The Roman empire of the west was mortally wounded in 410,
when the western Goths took Rome, though its ghost survived for two
generations. The Goths obtained the right to settle in Roman territory
under their own laws and rulers, with the status of federate allies, in
418. They were the first, but others soon followed, and when Gildas
was young the western empire was divided between four Germanic
kingdoms, in France, Spain, Italy and North Africa. Roman and
German fused; German kings inherited the centralised authoritarian
rule of Rome, and preserved the property and power of landlords.
The British differed. In 410 the emperor in Italy instructed them
to provide their own defence and government. At first they were
outstandingly successful, and kept their society undamaged for a gener-
ation. A strong sovereign emerged in the 420s (23.1 note) and survived
for some 30 years. Later writers knew him by the name or title of
Vortigern, which means ‘superior ruler’; Gildas’ word-play describes
him as superbus tyrannus, proud tyrant. Invasion from Ireland and
beyond the Forth, which had harassed previous Roman governments
for centuries, was permanently ended; but to curb it he settled German
federates. Romans, British and Irish called them Saxons, but in Britain
they called themselves English; the two words mean the same people,
in different languages.
In or about 441 the English rebelled. Gildas (24 and notes) conden-
ses nearly twenty years’ fighting, which ended with the destruction of
a large part of the nobility of Britain, and the emigration of many of
the survivors. The migration, to northern and central Gaul, is dated by
contemporary Europeans (25.1 note) to 460, or a year or two before.
At home, renewed resistance was begun under the leadership of
Ambrosius Aurelianus (25.3 note) and continued, traditionally under
the leadership of Arthur (26.3 note), for over thirty years until ‘the
final victory of our fatherland’ (2.1), after the decisive battle at Badon
Hill, probably near Bath (26.1 note), in the 490s.
Gildas asserts that the victors maintained orderly government for a
generation, but that in recent years power had passed to regional war-
lords, whose mutual violence overrode law and convention and corrupt-
ed the church. But the British had won the war. The English were
beaten, though not expelled, and were confined to partitioned reserva-
tions, chiefly in the east (10,2 note). Yet victory had come too late, at
the cost of almost everything that the victors had striven to protect.
Though Britain was ‘calm’ and ‘secure’, freed from ‘external wars’,
Roman civilisation was destroyed. Industry and market agriculture
perished as roads became unsafe; towns that lost their supplies became
‘ruinous and unkempt’; country mansions not built for defence were
abandoned to wind and rain. After more than fifty years of war,
peace could not revive a dead society. The skills of the builder, the
potter, the tool-maker and other crafts were buried with old men who
had trained no apprentices; more important, the rents and taxes that
had paid for them could no longer be collected or paid. The war-lords
could compel a self-sufficient agriculture to maintain their men and
horses, but not to rebuild the past. They maintained their power
throughout Gildas’ lifetime; but soon after his death the English
rebelled again, and between 570 and 600 permanently subdued most
of what is now England.
But Gildas did not write in vain. On the contrary, few books have
had a more immediate and far-reaching impact than his. He uttered
what tens of thousands felt. His readers did not reform political society.
