De excidio et conquestu Britanniae 10-11, 14-26

10 By God’s own free gift in the above-mentioned time of persecution, as we conjecture, (i.e. the reign of Diocletian), and lest Britain be totally plunged into the thick gloom of black night, He kindled for us the brilliant lamps of the holy martyrs ... I mean St Alban of Verulamium, together with Aaron and Julius, citizens of the City of the Legion [Caerleon].

11 The first of these, through love, hid a confessor who was being pur- sued by his persecutors and on the very point of being arrested, thus imitating Christ who laid down his life for his sheep. First he hid him in his house and then, exchanging clothes with him, willingly exposed himself to the danger of persecution in the garments of the above-mentioned brother.

14 Thereafter Britain was robbed of all her armed forces, her military supplies, her rulers, cruel as they were, her sturdy youth. They followed in the steps of the usurper mentioned above (Maximus), and never afterwards returned. Totally ignorant of all the usages of war, Britain remained for many years groaning in a state of shock, exposed for the first time to two foreign tribes of extreme cruelty, the Scots.

15 from the north-west, the Picts from the north. As a result of their attacks and terrible depredations Britain sent envoys to Rome with letters, making tearful appeals for an armed force to give protection, and promising unwavering and wholehearted submission to Roman rule, if only the enemy could be kept at a greater distance. Forget­ting previous ills, Rome soon prepared a legion, soundly equipped with arms. Crossing over Ocean to Britain in ships it engaged the fierce enemy, and killing a great number drove them all from the place, freeing from imminent slavery a people that had been subjected to such dreadful mangling. The Britons were instructed to build a wall across the island from sea to sea so that when manned it might be a deterrent to keep away the enemy and a means of protection for the people. The wall, however, being built not of stone but of turf, proved useless to the unthinking and leaderless masses.

16 The legion (i.e. the one sent after Maximus’ fall) was returning home in triumph and with great joy, when (suddenly), like predatory wolves driven mad by the extremes of hunger that leap dry-mouthed into the sheepfold when the shepherd is away, the old enemy burst over the frontiers, borne along by their oars like wings, by the arms of their oarsmen, by their sails swelling in the wind. Everything they slaughtered – whatever lay in their path they cut down like ripe corn, trampled underfoot, and passed on.

17 So, once more plaintive envoys were sent, their clothes torn, so it is said, their heads covered in dust. Cowering like frightened chicks beneath the trusty wings of their parents, they beg the Romans for help lest their wretched homeland be utterly destroyed, and the Roman name, which echoed in their ears merely as a word, became a thing without worth and gnawed at by the insolent taunts of foreign tribes. The Romans, moved as much as is humanly possible by the tale of such tragedy, hastened the eagle-like flight of their cavalry on land and the passage of their sailors at sea, and into the necks of their enemies they plunged the talons of their swordpoints, talons that at first were unexpected and at length a source of dread. The slaughter they inflict is like the fall of leaves in autumn, like a mountain tor­rent that swollen after storms by numerous tributaries overflows its riverbed in its noisy course. With furrowed back and fierce brow it foams wondrously, its waves surging to the clouds, as the saying goes, waves by which the eyes, though constantly refreshed by blinking, are dazzled by colliding lines of eddies, and with a single surge it overwhelms all obstacles in its path. Thus did our glorious allies quickly put to flight across the sea such enemy hordes as could escape; for year by year it was across the sea they piled up booty with no one to resist them.

18 The Romans therefore informed our homeland that they could not go on being thus plagued at frequent intervals for expeditions that required so much effort, nor could the marks of Roman power, that great and glorious army, be worn out by land and sea on account of unwarlike and roving bandits. Rather they urge the Britons to stand on their own two feet, to get accustomed to bearing arms, to fight bravely, and in this way protect with all their strength their land, pro­perty, wives, children and, what is more important, their lives and liberty. They should not hold out their hands devoid of weapons, ready to be shackled by tribes that were in no way stronger than themselves, but rather hands armed with shields, swords and spears, and ready to kill. So too, in the belief that it would bring some advantage to a people they were to abandon, the Romans built a wall, different from the other, using public and private funds, linking the wretched inhabitants to themselves. They constructed it in their usual fashion: a straight line from sea to sea between cities which happened to have been placed there through fear of the enemy. To the timorous people they gave bold advice and left them manuals on training in the use of arms. They also placed towers overlooking the sea at intervals on the coast to the south where they kept their ships, since there too they feared the savage barbarian beasts. They then bade the Britons farewell, as if intending never to return.

19 And so, as the Romans returned home, the loathsome hordes of Scots and Picts eagerly emerged from the coracles that carried them across the gulf of the sea, like dark swarms of worms that emerge from the narrow crevices of their holes when the sun is high and the weather grows warm. In custom they differed slightly one from another, yet in their single desire for shedding blood they were of one accord, preferring to cover their villainous faces with hair, rather than their private parts and surrounding areas with clothes. Once they learned of the Romans’ departure and their refusal to return, more confident than ever, they seized from its inhabitants the whole northern part of the country as far as the wall. To resist them an army was posted on the top of the fortification, an army reluctant to fight, incapable of flight, feckless through the timorousness of their hearts, an army that day and night languished in senseless idleness. Meanwhile the barbed spears of their naked enemies saw no rest; the wretched citizens were dragged from the walls by them and dashed to the ground. And yet this sentence of untimely death was in fact a blessing for those snatched away by such a fate; for by their sudden end they avoided the wretched torment that hung over their brothers and children. What more can I say? The townships and high wall are abandoned; once again the citizens are put to flight; once again are scattered with less hope of recovery than usual; once again they are pursued by the enemy; once again massacres yet more cruel hasten upon them. The pitiful citizens are torn to pieces by their foes like lambs by butchers. Indeed their lives might be likened to those of wild animals; for they began to keep one another in check by plundering one another of the meagre provisions the wretched citizens possessed as a short-term means of sustenance. Their internal tumults only served in fact to in­crease their misfortunes from without, since as a consequence of this constant plundering the whole country was being stripped of every bit of food with the exception of the relief that skill in hunting could provide.

20 So again the miserable remnants sent a letter to Agitius, a man of high rank among the Romans, in the following terms: “To Agitius, Consul for the third time come the groans of the Britons”, and a little further on came the complaint “The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea drives us back to the barbarians; between these two forms of death we are either slaughtered or drowned.” Yet for all their pleas they got no help. Meanwhile a dread and infamous famine gripped the Britons as they wandered about enfeebled; it forced many of them to surrender to the bloodthirsty brigands without delay in order to get some scrap of food to revive them. Not so others, however; instead they continued the resistance from the mountains themselves, from caves, passes, and dense thickets. Then, placing their trust not in man but in God – as in that saying of Philo: “When human help ceases, we need the help of God” – for the first time they inflicted serious defeats upon the enemy, who for many years had plundered the land. For a while the insolence of their enemies abated, but not our people’s wickedness. The enemy withdrew from our citizens, but they in turn did not draw back from their sins.

21 ... Therefore the shameless Irish robbers returned home, though intending to return shortly, while the Picts in the furthest part of the island then for the first time and for some time thereafter remained inactive, though they occasionally engaged in forays and plundering raids ... However, as the devastation settled down, the island began to overflow with such an abundance of riches that no previous period could recall the like, but with these manifold riches came an increase in luxury. “Reports of such fornication indeed as is not known even among the gentiles.” It was not only this vice that flourished, but all those to which human nature is liable, and especially that which even now overturns every good condition: hatred of truth and those who defend it, love of falsehood and those who contrive it, the adoption of evil instead of good, reverence for wickedness rather than kindness, a desire for darkness rather than the sun ... (Kings noted for their cruelty are created and deposed only to be replaced by worse examples) ... If indeed any of them appeared more kindly and to some degree more truthful, against him all would brandish the darts of their hatred without a second thought, as though he wished to subvert Britain ... And this was the behaviour not only of men of the world but even of the Lord’s flock and their pastors, who should have been an example to all the people. In great numbers they wallowed besotted by drunkenness as if soaked in wine, worn out by swelling enmities, contentious disputes, by the grasping talons of envy and a judgment that could not distinguish good from bad ...

22 Meanwhile God desired to purge his family ... (reports of fresh at­tacks by foreign enemies are received) ... A deadly plague pressed heavily upon the stupid people and within a short span laid low without recourse to the sword so large a number of them that the living could not bury the dead ... A council is convened to decide the best and safest means of repelling such fierce and frequent attacks and plundering by the aforementioned tribes.

23 Then all the members of the council together with the proud tyrant are blinded; for the protection they find – or rather the means of their homeland’s destruction – is to admit into the island, like wolves into the fold, those fierce Saxons – an accursed name – hated as they were by God and men, admit them to repel the northern tribes ... Then a brood of cubs breaks forth from the lair of the barbaric lioness, borne along in three cylae, as they call warships in their language ... On the orders of that ill-fated tyrant they first fixed their terrible claws in the eastern part of the island as if intent upon fighting for the country, but in fact to attack it. To these the mother lioness, learning her first contingent has prospered, sends another larger load of accomplice dogs ... Then the barbarians, admitted into the island, succeed in having supplies given them as if they were soldiers about to undergo great toils on behalf of their worthy hosts – such were their lies ... They again complain the monthly rations accorded them are not enough, deliberately colouring their case, and declare that unless greater liberality is heaped upon them, they will break their treaty and plunder the whole island. Without delay they follow up their threats with deeds.

24 In just retribution for former crimes there spread from sea to sea a fire heaped up by the hand of the impious easterners. It devastated all the towns and countryside round about, and once alight did not subside until it had burned almost the whole surface of the island, and was licking the western ocean with its savage red tongue ... Thus were all the settlements thrown to the ground by the frequent battering of the rams, and all the inhabitants along with church leaders, priests, and people laid low as sword points gleamed all around and flames crackled.

25 And so, some of the wretched remnants, being caught in the mountains, were slaughtered in heaps; others, worn out by famine, came and surrendered to the enemy to be their slaves forever – if they were not butchered on the spot, something that was the highest boon; others still made for lands across the seas with great lamentation ... while others, though fearful, held out in their homeland, placing their trust in the high hills, overhanging, steep, and fortified, in the densest forests, and in the sea cliffs, their minds forever in a state of apprehension. After a time the cruel plunderers returned home. To the remnants (of the Britons), given strength by God, flocked the wretched citizens from all directions ... begging God with one accord ... that they might not everywhere be utterly exterminated. Under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a sober man, who perhaps alone of the Romans had survived the shock of so great a storm, a storm in which his parents, who had surely worn the purple, had perished ... they recovered their strength and challenged the victorious Saxons to battle. The Lord assented and the victory fell to them.

26 And so, from that time on sometimes our countrymen proved victorious, sometimes the enemy ... until the year that saw the siege of Mount Badon, pretty well the last but not the least slaughter inflicted on the villains. It is now 44 years and one month since then, as I know, since it was the year of my birth.