A Farewell to Arms? Germanic identity in fifth-century Britain.

Abstract

The term ‘Germanic’ has often been used as a signifier for a number of observable phenomena in
the archaeological record of post-Roman Britain. It is virtually interchangeable with ‘Anglo-Saxon’
and is used primarily of fifth-century and later furnished pagan cemeteries in the south and east of
England. These are supposed to denote the spread of a vigorous continental culture following the
collapse of the Roman infrastructure in Britannia.

In academia at least, the false correlation between material culture and biological ethnicity has long
been laid bare. However, narratives of post-Roman Britain still focus on military explanations.
Although the nature and scale of Anglo-Saxon migration into Britain is debated, current models
overwhelmingly present ‘Germanic’ culture as essentially incursive, aggressive and unwanted.
‘Germanic’ artefacts therefore imply linguistic, political and social change, generally mediated
through violent conflict.

There is scope instead to see both ‘Germanic’ culture as representing a hybridised, shared identity in
which the Romano-Britons of the south, far from being the victims, were active participants and
contributors. The failure of this hybridised culture to penetrate beyond the Tees-Exe line should be
seen as the perpetuation of a longstanding and observable cultural divide within Britain, rather than
as the ‘front line’ of an all-conquering ‘other’.

Although the contribution of culturally Germanic groups to this shared lowland culture must be
recognised, the term ‘Germanic’ is loaded with longstanding assumptions and requires
reconsideration. New models cannot be expressed clearly within or (perhaps more importantly)
outside academia unless we review our existing terminology.

This talk was given at the conference ‘Interrogating the Germanic: A Category and its use in Late Antiquity and the Early
Middle Ages’ on the 15th May 2016.

The conference took place from the 13th to the 15th May 2016 at the University of York and was part Northern/Early
Medieval Interdisciplinary Conference Series.

My thanks to the conference organisers (James Harland, Nik Gunn, Matthias Friedrich and Heidi Stoner) for inviting me
to speak at this excellent and enjoyable event.