In the present paper, advantage is taken of the local character of the
Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, to make the name of the
county serve as a special text for a general subject. What applies to
Lancashire applies to any county in Roman England.
The doctrine is as follows--that in Lancashire particularly, and
in England in general, the predominant language for the first five
centuries of our era was not Latin but British.
The writer is so far from laying this down as a novelty, that he is
by no means certain, that it may not be almost a truism. He is by no
means certain, that there is a single one of those to whom he addresses
himself, who may now hold, or even have held, the opposite opinion. He
is fully aware that excellent authorities have maintained both sides
of the question. He is only doubtful as to the extent to which the one
doctrine may preponderate over the other.
If the question were to be settled by an appeal to the history of the
more influential opinions concerning it, we should find that, in a
reference to the earliest and the latest of our recent investigators,
Dr. Prichard would maintain one side of the question, Mr. Wright
another. The paper of the latter, having been printed in the
Transactions of the Society, is only alluded to. The opinion of Dr.
Prichard is conveyed in the following extract--"The use of languages
really cognate must be allowed to furnish a proof, or at least a
strong presumption, of kindred race. Exceptions may indeed, under
very peculiar circumstances, occur to the inference founded on this
ground. For example, the French language is likely to be the permanent
idiom of the negro people of St. Domingo, though the latter are
principally of African descent. Slaves imported from various districts
in Africa, having no common idiom, have adopted that of their masters.
But conquest, or even captivity, under different circumstances, has
scarcely ever exterminated the native idiom of any people, unless after
many ages of subjection; and even then, vestiges have perhaps always
remained of its existence. In Britain, the native idiom was nowhere
superseded by the Roman, though the island was held in subjection
upwards of three centuries. In Spain and in Gaul, several centuries of
Latin domination, and fifteen under German and other modern dynasties,
have proved insufficient entirely to obliterate the ancient dialects,
which were spoken by the native people before the Roman conquest. Even
the Gypsies, who have wandered in small companies over Europe for some
ages, still preserve their original language in a form that can be
everywhere recognised."[13]
[Footnote 13: Eastern Origin of the Celtic Languages, p. 8.]
Upon the whole, I think that the current opinion is in favour of the
language of Roman Britain having been Latin; at any rate I am sure
that, before I went very closely into the subject, my own views were,
at least, in that direction. "What the present language of England
would have been, had the Norman conquest never taken place, the analogy
of Holland, Denmark, and many other countries enables us to determine.
It would have been as it is at present. What it would have been had
the _Saxon_ conquest never taken place, is a question wherein there is
far more speculation. Of France, of Italy, of Wallachia, and of the
Spanish Peninsula, the analogies all point the same way. They indicate
that the original Celtic would have been superseded by the Latin of the
Conquerors, and consequently that our language, in its later stages,
would have been neither British nor Gaelic, but Roman. Upon these
analogies, however, we may refine. Italy was from the beginning, Roman;
the Spanish Peninsula was invaded full early; no ocean divided Gaul
from Rome; and the war against the ancestors of the Wallachians was a
war of extermination."[14]
[Footnote 14: English Language, First Edition, p. 68.]
In these preliminary remarks we find a sufficient reason for going
specially into the question; not, however, as discoverers of any new
truth, nor as those who would correct some general error, but rather,
in a judicial frame of mind, and with the intention of asking, first,
how far the actual evidence is (either way) conclusive; next, which way
(supposing it to be inconclusive) the presumption lies; and thirdly,
what follows in the way of inference from each of the opposing views.
What are the statements of the classical writers, _subsequent to
the reduction of Britain_, to the effect that the Romans, when they
conquered a Province, established their language? I know of none. I
know of none, indeed, _anterior_ to the Britannic conquest. I insert,
however, the limitation, because in case such exist, it is necessary
to remember that they would not be conclusive. The practice may have
changed in the interval.
Is there anything approaching such a statement? There is a passage in
Seneca to the effect "that where the Roman conquers there he settles."
But he conquered Britain. Therefore he established his language. Add
to this that where he established his own language, there the native
tongue became obliterated. Therefore the British died off.
If so, the Angles--when they effected _their_ conquest--must have
displaced, by their own English, a Latin rather than a British, form of
speech.
But is this the legitimate inference from the passage in question?
No. On the contrary, it is a conclusion by no means warranted by the
premises. Nevertheless, as far as external testimony is concerned,
there are no better premises to be found.
But there is another element in our reasoning. In four large districts
at least,--in the Spanish Peninsula, in France, in the Grisons, and in
the Danubian Principalities--the present language is a derivative from
the Latin, which was, undoubtedly and undeniably, introduced by the
Roman conquest. From such clear and known instances, the reasoning to
the obscure and unknown is a legitimate analogy, and the inference is
that Britain was what Gallia, Rhætia, Hispania, and Dacia were.
In this we have a second reason for the fact that there are many who,
with Arnold, hold, that except in the particular case of Greece, the
Roman world, in general, at the date of the break-up of the Empire, was
Latin in respect to its language. At any rate, Britannia is reasonably
supposed to be in the same category with Dacia--a country conquered
later.
On the other hand, however, there are the following considerations.
I. In the first place the Angle conquest was gradual; so gradual as
to give us an insight into the character of the population that was
conquered. Was this (in language) Latin? There is no evidence of its
having been so. But is there evidence of its having been British? A
little. How much, will be considered in the sequel.
II. In the next place the Angle conquest was (and is) incomplete;
inasmuch as certain remains of the earlier and non-Angle population
still exist. Are these Latin? Decidedly not; but on the contrary
British,--witness the present Britons of Wales, and the all but British
Cornish-men, who are now British in blood, and until the last century
were, more or less, British in language as well.
But this is not all. There was a third district which was slow to
become Angle, viz.: part of the mountain district of Cumberland and
Westmoreland. What was this before it was Angle? Not Roman but British.
Again--there was a time when Monmouthshire, with (no doubt) some
portion of the adjoining counties, was in the same category in respect
to its _non_-Angle character with Wales. What was it in respect to
language? Not Roman but British.
Again--_mutatis mutandis_. Devonshire was to Cornwall as Monmouth to
Wales. Was it Roman? No--but, on the contrary, British.
Now say, for the sake of argument, that Cornwall, Wales, and Cumberland
were never Roman at all, and consequently, that they prove nothing in
the question as to the introduction of the Latin language. But can we
say, for even the sake of argument, that Devon and Monmouth were never
Roman? Was not, on the contrary, Devon at least, exceedingly Roman, as
is shewn by the importance of Isca Danmoniorum, or Exeter.
Or, say that the present population of Wales is no representative of
the ancient occupants of that part of Britain, but, on the contrary,
descended from certain immigrants from the more eastern and less
mountainous parts of England. I do not hold this doctrine. Admitting
it, however, for the sake of argument--whence came the present Welsh,
if it came not from a part of England where British, rather than Latin,
was spoken? There must have been British somewhere; and probably
British to the exclusion of Latin.
The story of St. Guthlac of Croyland is well-known. It runs to the
effect that being disturbed, one night, by a horrid howling, he was
seriously alarmed, thinking that the howlers might be _Britons_. Upon
looking-out, however, he discovered that they were only devils--whereby
he was comforted, the Briton being the worse of the two. Now the later
we make this apocryphal story, the more it tells in favor of there
having been Britons in Lincolnshire, long after the Angle conquest.
Yet Lincolnshire (except so far as it was Dane,) must have been one of
the most Angle portions of England. In France, Spain, Portugal, the
Grisons, Wallachia or Moldavia, such devils as those of St. Guthlac
would have been Romans.
As the argument, then, stands at present, we have traces of the
British as opposed to the Angle, but no traces of the Latin in similar
opposition.
Let us now look at the _analogies_, viz: Spain, (including Portugal,)
France, Switzerland and the Danubian Principalities; in all of which
we have had an aboriginal population and a Roman conquest, in all
of which, too, we have had a third conquest subsequent to that by
Rome--even as in Britain we have had the triple series of (A) native
Britains, (B) Roman conquerors, (C) Angles.
What do we find? In all but Switzerland, remains of the original
tongue; in all, without exception, remains of the language of the
population that conquered the Romans; in all, without exception,
something Roman.
In Britain we find nothing Roman; but, on the contrary, only the
original tongue and the language of the third population.
I submit that this is strong _primâ facie_ evidence in favour of the
Latin having never been the general language of Britain. If it were
so, the area of the Angle conquest must have exactly coincided with
the area of the Latin language. Is this probable? I admit that it is
anything but highly improbable. The same practicable character of
the English parts of Britain (as opposed to the Welsh, Cornish, and
Cumbrian) which made the conquest of a certain portion of the Island
easy to the Romans as against the Britons, may have made it easy for
the Angles as against the Romans; and _vice versa_, the impracticable
character of Wales, Cornwall, and Cumberland, that protected the
Britons against their first invaders, may have done the same for them
against the second. If so, the two areas of foreign conquest would
coincide. I by no means undervalue this argument.
It is almost unnecessary to say that the exact conditions under which
Britain was reduced were not those of any other Roman Province.
In respect to Spain, the Roman occupancy was _early_, having begun long
before that of Northern and Central Gaul, having begun during the Punic
wars, and having become sufficiently settled by the time of Augustus to
command the attention of Strabo on the strength of the civilization it
had developed. In Spain, then, there was priority in point of time to
account for any extraordinary amount of Roman influences.
Gaul, with the exception of the earlier acquisitions in the
Narbonensis, was the conquest of one of the most thorough-going of
conquerors. The number of enemies that Cæsar slaughtered has been put
at 1,000,000. Without knowing the grounds of this calculation, we may
safely say that his campaigns were eminently of a destructive character.
The conquerors of the Breuni, Genauni, and similar occupants of those
parts of Switzerland where the Rumonsch Language (of Latin origin) is
now spoken, were men of similar energy. Neither Drusus nor Tiberius
spared an enemy who opposed. Both were men who would "make a solitude
and call it peace."
That Trajan's conquest of Dacia was of a similar radical and
thorough-going character is nearly certain.
Now, the evidence that the conquests of the remaining provinces were
like those of the provinces just noted, is by no means strong. At
the same time, it must be admitted that the analogy established by
four such countries as Gaul, Spain, Switzerland, and Moldo-Wallachia
is cogent. What was the extent to which Africa, Pannonia, Illyricum,
Thrace, and the Mœsias were Romanized? Of Asia? I say nothing. It
was sufficiently Greek to have been in the same category with Greece
itself, and in Greece itself we know that no attempts were made upon
the language.
Africa was Latin in its literature; and, at a later period,
pre-eminently Latin in its Christianity. But the evidence that
the vernacular language was Latin is _nil_, and the presumptions
unfavourable. The Berber tongue of the present native tribes of the
whole district between Egypt and the Atlantic is certainly of high
antiquity; it being a well-known fact, that in it, several of the
names in the geography of classical Africa are significant. Now this
is spread over the country indifferently. Neither does it show any
notable signs of Latin intermixture. Neither is there trace, or shadow
of trace, of any form of speech of Latin origin throughout the whole of
Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers or Morocco.
In Pannonia and Illyricum, the same absence of any language of Latin
origin is manifest. Pannonia and Illyricum have had more than an
average amount of subsequent conquerors and occupants--Goths, Huns,
Avars, Bulgarians, Slavonians, Hungarians, Germans. That the Slovak,
however, in the north, and the Dalmatian forms of the Servian in the
south, represent the native languages is generally admitted--now, if
not long ago. These, then, have survived. Why not, then, the Latin if
it ever took root?
In respect to Thrace, it is just possible that it may have been, in its
towns at least, sufficiently Greek to have been in the same category
with Greece proper. I say that this is just possible. In reality,
however, it was more likely to be contrasted with Greece than to be
classed with it. One thing, however, is certain, viz.:--that the
country district round Constantinople was never a district in which
Latin was vernacular. Had it been so, the fact could hardly have been
unnoticed, or without influence on the unequivocally Greek Metropolis
of the Eastern Empire.
If the doctrine that Thrace may have been sufficiently Greek to
forbid the introduction of the Latin be doubtful, the notion that the
Mœsias were so is untenable. Yet the Latin never seems to have been
vernacular in either of them. Had it been so, it would probably have
held its ground, especially in the impracticable mountains and forests
of Upper Mœsia or the modern Servia. Yet where is there a trace of
it? Of all the Roman Provinces, Servia or Upper Mœsia seems to be
the one wherein the evidence of a displacement of the native, and a
development of a Latin form of speech, is at its _minimum_, and the
instance of Servia is the one upon which the analogous case of Britain
best rests.
The insufficiency of the current reasons in favour of the modern
Servian being of recent introduction have been considered by me
elsewhere.
Now comes the notice of a text which always commands the attention of
the ethnological philologue, when he is engaged upon the Angle period
of our island's history. It refers to the middle of the eighth century,
the era of the Venerable Beda, from whose writings it is taken. I give
it _in extenso_. It runs "Hæc in presenti, juxta numerum librorum
quibus lex divina scripta est, quinque gentium linguis, unam eandemque
summæ veritatis et veræ sublimitatis scientiam scrutatur et confitetur;
Anglorum, videlicet, Brittonum, Scottorum, Pictorum et Latinorum quæ
meditatione scripturarum, cæteris omnibus est facta communis".[15]
[Footnote 15: _Hist. Eccl. l. 1. c. 1._]
That the Latin here is the Latin of Ecclesiastical, rather than
Imperial, Rome, the Latin of the Scriptures rather than classical
writers, the Latin of a written book rather than a Lingua Rustica, is
implied by the context.
Should this, however, be doubted, the following passage, which makes
the languages of Britain only _four_, is conclusive--"Omnes nationes
et provincias Brittanniæ, quæ in _quatuor_ linguas, id est Brittonum,
Pictorum, Scottorum et Anglorum divisæ sunt, in ditione accepit."[16]
[Footnote 16: _Eccl. Hist._ iii, 6.]
It is the first of these two statements of Beda's that the following
extract from Wintoun is founded on.
_Cronykil_, I. xiii, 39.
Of Langagis in Bretayne sere
I fynd that sum tym fyf thare were:
Of Brettys fyrst, and Inglis syne,
Peycht, and Scot, and syne Latyne.
Bot, of the Peychtis, is ferly,
That ar wndon sá hályly,
That nowthir remanande ar Language,
Næ' succession of Lynage:
Swá of thare antiqwytè
Is lyk bot fabyl for to be.
But the Latin of the scriptures may have been the Latin of common life
as well. Scarcely. The change from the written to the spoken language
was too great for this. What the latter would have been we can infer.
It would have been something like the following "Pro Deo amur et pro
Xristian poblo et nostro commun salvament d'ist di en avant, in quant
Deus savir et poder me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo,
et in ajudha et in cadhuna cosa, si com om per dreit son fradre salvar
dist, in o quid il me altresi fazet: et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam
prindrai uni, meon vol, cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit."
This is the oath of the Emperors Karl and Ludwig, sons of Charlemagne,
as it was sworn by the former in A. D. 842. It is later in date than
the time of Beda by about a century; being in the Lingua Rustica
of France. Nevertheless, it is a fair specimen of the difference
between the spoken languages of the countries that had once been Roman
Provinces and the written Latin. Indeed, it was not Latin, but Romance;
and, in like manner, any vernacular form of speech, used in Britain but
of Roman origin, would have been Romance also.