Britain AD: A Quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons

I've just finished this book and I have to say found it both interesting and thought provoking (at least to a history nerd like me). It's essentially a discussion of 'Dark Age' Britain and a study of continuity from before the Romans, the occupation and the subsequent departure of the legions in 410 AD.

It seeks to explode the 'myth' of the Anglo Saxon invasions and the belief we have that the Celtic fringes are...well...Celtic and the English south and east are English.

The author Francis Pryor is an expert in Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age history and has applied the methods used in looking at this earlier period (see, for example, the other book on this theme Britain BC) to Arthurian Britain.

Pryor argues convincingly that there is no evidence for a mass migration of Germanic peoples from the continent and that our understanding of the foundation of the English kingdom is based on a creation myth established by both English and Celtic writers in the later Middle Ages and beyond.

What he maintains is that there was a cultural invasion and that, as in the centuries before and since, eastern Britain has looked eastward to the Continent adopting some its culture, language and beliefs and integrating them with long held local practices. A good analogy is that just because I wear Levis doesn't mean I'm an American. Many of these beliefs pre-date the Pax Romana and indeed outlast it by centuries.

The book deconstructs some established views about which I had many doubts. An example is: where is the evidence for a historical Arthur? When doing my Masters degree I remember asking, with breathless enthusiasm, the eminent archaeologist (who is oft quoted in Pryor's book) Professor Martin Carver who he thought Arthur was. He replied (rather kindly I think) "whatever you wish to believe". This is Pryor's point. There is no firm evidence, historical or archaeological, that supports Arthur, violent battles with Anglo Saxons, depopulation of native Britons by murderous Germans and the imposition of a foreign way of life. Indeed the archaeological evidence suggests a gentle change and subtle adoption of continental ways in the east, and a continuation of a separate, westward looking culture in the west of England, Wales and Scotland.

Despite all this, it left me feeling a bit deflated. I liked those myths. I found the idea of heroic but doomed Celts (after all I am a Celt. Or I thought I was) fighting barbarian hordes incredibly exciting. Now it seems it's load of cobblers. My remaining doubts in Pryor's theory erode by the day. I wasn't not sure about the language bit. Until I remembered that after a bit of interaction with a few thousand British people the official language of millions of Indians is English. Definitely worth a read.