St Severus, painting on a pillar in Nave of the Church, Trier, 1429
Those of us who have studied the Arthurian period are familiar with the story of St. Germanus' two trips to Britain. For those of my readers who aren't, here are the two relevant sources:
It will be noticed that Germanus brings a companion named Lupus his first time over from the Continent, and one named Severus the second time. As I'd just been reading up on the Roman emperor Severus' British campaigns, I was struck by an incredible coincidence.
After Severus had defeated Albinus in 197, in Simon Elliott's words his response to the rebellion
"... was to send military legates to Britain to bring the military back under his full control, and also to install his supporter Virius Lupus as the governor... However the Caledonians, soon to be joined by the Maeatae, lost no time in causing even more trouble and began agitating along the border again... With a new invasion across Hadrian's Wall now in prospect (and with no reserve troops to call upon given the emperor's current focus on Parthia in his second eastern campaign), Lupus had few options so opted to secure peace along his northern borders with massive payments of money. However this bought only a short period of stability, and the next developments as this paid-for peace collapsed fall within the remit of the direct build-up to the Severan incursions..."
The parallel is interesting, to say the least. Under Germanus, first a Lupus, then a Severus, come to Britain. With Lupus, Germanus becomes a general of the Britons against the Saxons and the Picts, winning his great Alleluia victory.
I would hastily add that Septimius Severus' son, Caracalla, under whom (according to Simon Elliot) Artorius would have led his legions in Britain, assumed the title GERMANICUS MAXIMUS in 213.
Caracalla, Augustus Germanicus
So to the title of this blog I suppose one could add "TWO GERMANI."
In the HB, the life of St. Germanus (admittedly very different from what we have in the actual hagiography and in Bede) ends at the head of Chapter 50, which goes on to speak of St. Patrick. The account of Patrick then intrudes into the 'British history", continuing through Chapter 55. Arthur appears after the break in Chapter 56.
In Bede, a short Chapter 22 (of Book One) follows the Germanus story. It covers the period of 440-590 (the so-called Arthurian period) and descibes in very vague, general terms a period of "rest from foreign, though not from civil, wars." Gildas is mentioned in the context of his sorrowful report of the "other unspeakable crimes" committed by the Britons upon themselves. This material in Gildas starts in Chapter 26 immediately after his mention of the Battle of Badon.
I would suggest that it was this concurrence of names and ordered sequence of events that led to the 3rd century L. Artorius Castus, who had fought under Severus (and perhaps served under Virius Lupus as well) - a man with legendary status in the North - being made subject to temporal displacment. A Welsh monk, already in desperate need of an ethnic or national hero (a state of mind proven by the earlier borrowing of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a Gallic prefect conflated with his saintly son), either intentionally or accidentally decided Artorius, viz. Arthur, belonged to the time of Germanus.
This is, in fact, exactly the way folklore and heroic legend works. People naturally have trouble thinking that the Arthur of the HB cannot be anything other than historical precisely because they view the HB as historical. Again, as I covered in an earlier blog
(https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/02/coming-soon-where-armgentes-reading-for.html), the HB is composed of cobbled together snippets of historical traditions. It is replete with folktales (the Emrys story), hagiography (Germanus) and even outright "wonders"( the Mirabilia).
There is absolutely no reason why a hero who had achieved a mythological level of importance in the North could not have been used anachronistically to produce the great champion of the Britons we now possess.
DID ARTHUR FIGHT IN THE NORTH OR IN KENT?
As my readers know by now, some three decades of place-name work has convinced me that all of Arthur's battles, as those are found listed in the HB, are to be situated in the North. There have been those who, however, disagree with this, and they generally cite the beginning of the HB chapter on Arthur as "proof" that he was fighting the Saxons in Kent.
While this is not really related to the matter I discussed in the main body of this post, it was something I'd always meant to treat of. And so, I might as well take care of it here!
Eventually, I decided that it was time to allow an expert in the language to settle the debate. What follows is my brief correspondence with Professor Rosalind Love of Cambridge on the subject:
Dear Professor Love:
I have been unable through context alone (not being a specialist in medieval Latin) to be abke to divine what us truly meant by the introductory Arthurian passage of the Historia Brittonum.
Can we, strictly speaking, from structure, determine whether those whom Arthur is said to go against are Saxons IN GENERAL or is he said to oppose THOSE SPECIFICALLY IN KENT?
Or, is there no way to pin this down and either possibility might be referred to here? Yes, I do know the appended list of battles do seem to indicate a wide geographical range. But if we restrict ourselves only to the meaning if the intro...?
Thank you for any help you can offer.
Most sincere best wishes,
Daniel
56 In illo tempore Saxones invalescebant in multitudine et crescebant in Brittannia. mortuo autem Hengisto Octha filius eius transivit de sinistrali parte Britanniae ad regnum Cantorum et de ipso orti sunt reges Cantorum. tunc Arthur pugnabat contra illos in illis diebus cum regibus Brittonum, sed ipse erat dux bellorum.
Dear Daniel
Strictly-speaking from the structure of the Latin I don't believe it is possible to be sure whether 'contra illos' refers back to 'reges Cantorum' (kings of Kent) or further back to the 'Saxones'.
All the best,
Rosalind
Professor Rosalind Love, FBA
Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon
Head of Department, Department of ASNC, 9 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DP.
Fellow and Deputy Warden, Robinson College, Cambridge, CB3 9AN.
www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/people/Rosalind.Love/
In other words, I am justified in interpreting the passage in question as referring to Arthur fighting in the North. Granted, the backers of the Kentish campaign may claim the same thing. But given that the battles cannot be located in Kent, and they can in the North, I think we must allow for the latter possibility being the most likely.
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