UNLESS it can be proved that there was a province called Britain in
Gaul, and another Britain quite distinct from the Island of Britain, it
would be useless to argue that St. Patrick was a native of Gaul. The
Saint represents himself as a native of Britain; and even Probus, who
is credited with believing that St. Patrick was a native of Armoric
Gaul, distinctly states that the Saint was born in Britain (natus in
Britanniis). It is, however, not difficult to prove that there was a
province in Gaul called Britain (Britannia) even before the birth of
St. Patrick.
Strabo, in his "Description of Europe," narrates in the Fourth Book
that about 220 years before Christ, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the
father of Scipio Africanus, consulted the Roman deputies at Marseilles
about the cities of Gaul named Britannia, Narbonne, and Corbillo.
Sanson identifies Britannia with the present town of Abbeville on the
Somme. Dionysius, the author of "Perigesis," who wrote in the early
part of the first century, mentions the Britanni as settled on the
south of the Rhine, near the coast of Flanders.
Pliny, in his "Natural History," when recounting the various tribes on
the coast of Gaul, mentions the Morini and Oramfaci as inhabiting the
district of Boulogne, and places the Britanni between the last-named
tribe and Amiens. (Pliny, lib. i., cap. xxxi.; Carte's "General History
of England," vol i., p. 5).
"The Britanni on the Continent extended themselves farther along the
coast than when first known to the Romans, and the branch of that tribe
mentioned by Dionysius as settled on the coast of Flanders, and the
Britons of Picardy mentioned by Pliny, were of the same nation and
contiguous to each other. Dionysius further adds that they spread
themselves farther south, even to the mouth of the Loire, and to the
extremity of Armorica, which several writers say was called Britain
long before it came into general use (Carte, p. 6).
"Sulpicius Severus, in his "Sacred Histories," gives an account of the
Bishops summoned by the Emperor Constantius in the year 359 to the
Council of Ariminium n Italy. Four hundred Bishops from Italy, Africa,
Spain, and Gaul answered the summons, and the Emperor gave an order
that all the Bishops were to be boarded and lodged, whilst the Council
lasted, at the expense of the treasury. Whereupon Sulpicius, writing
with pride of the action taken by the Bishops of the three provinces,
Gallia, Aquitania, and Britannia, makes use of the following words:
"Sed id nostris, id est. Aquitanis, Gallis, et Britannis, idecens
visum; repudiatis fiscalibus propries sumptibus vivere maluerunt. Tres
autem ex Britannia inopia proprii, publico usi sunt, cum oblatum a
ceteris collationem respuissent; sanctius putantes, fescum gravare,
quam singulos" (Lib. ji,, p. 401).
"The proposal seemed shameful to us, Aquitanians, Gauls, and Britons,
who, rejecting the offer of help from the treasury, preferred to live
at our own expense. Three, however, of the Bishops from Britannia,
possessing no means of their own, refused to accept the maintenance
offered by their brethren, deeming it a holier thing to burden the
treasury than to accept aid from individuals" (Lib. ii., p. 401).
If any doubt exists as to the Britannia referred to, it is solved in
the same book, p. 431. Sulpicius Severusi an Aquitanian by birth,
speaks of the trial, condemnation and punishment of the Priscillian
heretics by the secular Court at Treves in the year 389. Prisciallanus
and his followers, Felicissimus, Armenianus, and a woman named
Euchrosia were condemned to death and beheaded, but Instantias and
Liberianus were banished to the Island of Sylena, "quas ultra
Britanniarn sita est" (which is situated beyond Britain). Although it
is not precisely known where the Island of Sylena was situated, except
that it was somewhere beyond Britain, the Britain referred to surely
must be Britain in Gaul, for it is incredible that the Gauls should
possess a penal settlement in the North of Scotland, where Sylena must
have been situated, if the words "beyond Britain" refer to the Island
of Britain.
It is evident that if Sulpicius, who was born in 360--thirteen years
before St. Patrick--could speak of Armorica as Britannia, and the
Armorican Bishops as Britons, when he wrote his "Sacred Histories," it
cannot be a matter of surprise that St. Patrick, if born in Armorica at
a later period, should speak of himself as a Briton, and say that he
had relatives among the Britons.
Armorica was called Britannia by Sulpicius Severus, but Sidonius
Apollinarus, who flourished some time after, called the same country
Armorica. It was not, however, unusual, as Carte points out, for the
same people and the same country to be called by different names; for
example, the Armorici and the Morini were one and the same people,
whose names had the same signification--dwellers on the sea coast.
(Carte, p. 16; Whitaker's "Genuine History of the Briton," pp. 216--
219.)
As the historians just quoted are not concerned with the history of St.
Patrick, but are simply tracing the origin and history of the Britons,
their testimony is impartial.
Even Camden admits that Dionysius places the Britons on the maritime
coast of Gaul, and renders his verses into English:--
"Near the great pillars of the farthest land,
The old Iberians, haughty souls, command
Along the continent, where northern seas
Roll their vast tides, and in cold billows rise:
Where British nations in long tracts appear
And fair-haired Germans ever famed in war."
The early existence of the Britons in Armorica did not depend on the
settlement of the veteran Britons, who, having served under Constantino
the Great, were rewarded by a gift of the vacant lands in Armorica, as
William of Malmesbury narrates in his "History of the Kings"; or on the
still larger settlement of Britons who fought for the usurper Maximus,
which Ninius mentions, in the mysterious reference which embraced the
whole country "from the Great St. Bernard in Piedmont to Cantavic in
Picardy, and from Picardy to the western coast of France." The latter
settlement took place between the years 383 and 388. The British
refugees, who fled in terror from the Picts, Scots, and Saxons, may
indeed have added to the numbers of Britons in Gaul from time
immemorial, but they certainly were not the first to give the name
Britannia to that country.