Temir: Tara.
Women in early Ireland: They had almost as many rights and as much freedom as men, including sexually, even after marriage.
IV
The turf wall: We base our description on the experimental work of Robin Birley and his team. A turf cut to the regulation Roman army size of 18” x 12” x 6” weighs about 2 ½ stone, or a little over 30 pounds. Edward Luttwak has pointed out that the real value of the perimeter defense of a legionary camp was its enabling most men to get a good night’s sleep.
Darioritum Venetorum: Vannes.
Vorgium: Carhaix.
Gesoscribate: A Roman port on or near the site of present-day Brest.
Jecta: The River Jet (conjectural from Aqua lactar, “the water thrown in a straight line,” thence Jecta, and so on to the modern form).
Postal privileges: The Imperial mails went via frequent relay stations where fresh horses, relief riders, and, at longer intervals, lodging were available. The system was reserved for official communications, but favored persons were occasionally allowed to use it. Ordinary people employed private carriers.
Dumnoniic shore: The Dumnonii inhabited what is now Cornwall and Devon. It seems believable that, under Roman influence, they were sometimes building better boats than their Irish cousins—although the currach is itself very seaworthy.
Egyptians: Egypt was largely Christian by the early fourth century, and remained so until the Moslem conquest.
V
Indiction (Latin indictio): The decree issued every fifteen years by the Roman Emperors, establishing property and head taxes on the basis of census reports; also, the taxes themselves, collected annually and for the most part in kind. The indiction was by no means the only levy, and often superindictions were added. The year 402 was one of indiction.
Fundus: A landed estate. See Roma Mater.
Gong: Bells were probably not yet known. The earliest date suggested by any evidence is the late fourth century, and the actual date may well lie a hundred or more years later. Certainly bells would not be found in Armorica at the time of our story.
Seating: As we have observed before, chairs were not common (except in Ys) until fairly recent times. People usually sat on benches or stools, though for the well-to-do these might be elaborately made and upholstered. The floor was quite often used, especially by the poor, and to offer a visitor nothing better would be a blunt subordination of him.
Sucat: St. Patrick to be. See Gallicenae.
Stories of St. Martin: These two—that Satan appeared to him in the guise of Christ but was identified and dismissed, and that he raised and exorcised the ghost of a false saint—occur in his legend.
Confluentes Cornuales: The Breton name “Kemper,” which French renders “Quimper,” means “confluence.” We have supposed that there was a Latin original with the same meaning, most likely in the plural form as is permissible in that language. Our historical analogue is Koblenz in Germany. The general area in which Quimper lies is known as Cornouaille. This is not a version of “Cornwall,” bestowed by immigrants from Britain, as is often said; its source is obscure. That the region came to be called Dogwood Land, Terra Cornualis, in late Roman times, and thus eventually Cornouaille, is our own idea.
VII
The high Mass: This scene represents our reconstruction of a Gallic Mass, which was quite different from forms elsewhere and those that developed later. Much is uncertain about it, and there appears to have been considerable variation from time to time and place to place.
Corentinus a bishop: There is no record of a bishop of Quimper in the fifth century. Yet Breton tradition holds that St. Corentin held the office, having been consecrated by St. Martin. If this is true, as we assume in the story, perhaps it fell vacant for a long time after his death. Alternatively, it may have happened that no bishop of Quimper attended a synod—as Martin himself did not subsequent to the Priscillianist affair—throughout the same period, and hence none is mentioned in what chronicles and lists have survived. Political and ethnic divisions might account for the absences.
A carcass breeds maggots: This belief was widespread before the life cycle was understood.
Vienna: The River Vienne.
Liger: The River Loire.
Death of St. Martin: Our account follows that of Sulpicius, with a few slight adaptations. The date was probably 8 November. (A modern biography gives it as the 11th, but this was likelier the date of burial.) However, a calendrical inconsistency in the chronicle makes the year uncertain. Depending on how one reads, it was either 397 or 400. We have chosen the latter.
VIII
The Biblical verse: Hebrews xiii, 12.
Exorcism: In the early Church, this was repeatedly done over candidates for baptism, at least if they were adult and if time allowed.
Baptism: As we have observed before, the usual practice even in Christian families had been to defer baptism until the person and his bishop agreed he was ready—often quite late in life. This remained common in the East, but in the West the earliest possible christening came to be more and more favored, until by about 400 it was generally done for infants. Most converts were still first given some instruction, which included the exorcisms mentioned.
Piracy: Throughout history, pirates have raided the land much more frequently than they have attacked ships at sea.
Church organization: We have already explained that this was different from what it later became. Priests were essentially assistants to the bishop, ranking above deacons but without certain of the powers, such as independently administering baptism, that later became theirs.
Baptismal rites: These varied considerably from time to time, place to place, and according to circumstances. What we have depicted is a variant of a form commonly employed; the modifications for women are rather conjectural, but may well have been ordered by some if not all bishops. Holy Saturday was the favored time. From the preceding period of instruction and abstinence developed, quite probably, many Lenten practices that later became general.
Drums’s farm: It is not typically Celtic in its layout nor Roman in its legal standing. However, under peculiar conditions such as prevailed around Aquilo at the time, something like this was a logical development among new settlers.
Paganism: Though pagan rites were now illegal, the law was seldom enforceable, except against conspicuous centers; and baptism was not yet compulsory.
IX
Sprit rig: Formerly this was thought to be a Dutch invention of the late Middle Ages, but archeological evidence has come to light that the Romans knew it, as well as a version of the lateen sail.
Artemon: A small square sail hung from the bowsprit to aid in steering.
Roman Bay: Baie de Douarnenez. The name that the Romans themselves gave it is unknown.
Goat Foreland: Cap de la Chèvre. We suppose that the Ysans and their neighbors gave it a name with the same meaning.
Sapa: Pliny describes this substance, its preparation and uses. In terms of modern chemistry, the active ingredients were organic lead salts. Lead is an abortifacient; when it lightens the complexion, it does so by causing anemia.
Johannes: Latin form of “John,” in this case John the Baptist. His feast day is not now precisely at the solstice, but Midsummer Night rituals connected with it persisted until quite recent times, and in some areas the bonfires are still lighted.
Marriage: Church doctrine and practice with respect to matrimony in the early fifth century are discussed in a later note.
X
The witch: It is unlikely that medieval witchcraft represented a widespread, underground Old Religion, as is often claimed. Granted, there were pagan survivals in the practice of it, but so there were in Christianity. Doubtless some witches and their male counterparts were outright pagans, like Nemeta, though probably more were henotheistic and still more thought of themselves as Christian (or, in some cases, Jewish). Certain monkish chroniclers seem to have greatly exaggerated the significance of magic and passed on t
he wildest rumors. Despite this, the fact is that for centuries magic was generally tolerated, provided it was not openly blasphemous—which would scarcely have been so if the Church saw it as a threat. There were actually stories of pious wizards such as Merlin. Full persecution of witches and alleged witches was a phenomenon of the Reformation era, and did not succeed in extirpating them everywhere. Within living memory, some parts of southern Europe had their village witches whose spells were supposed to help people with minor problems. This is not to say that no witches and warlocks were ever feared, or that horrid rites and malign intent never happened. Evil occurs in all walks of life.
Egyptian malady: Diphtheria, described under this name by Aretaeus in the second century. There is much uncertainty about the epidemiology of the ancient world. The devastating plague in the reign of Marcus Aurelius does not appear to have been bubonic, which is first unequivocally documented in Europe in the sixth century. Smallpox seems to have entered from Asia about a hundred years later than that.
Imperial tax agent: At this period, tax collection was as a general rule the responsibility of the curials of each locality. They might sometimes engage a man to go about the countryside performing the duty, and he might take a considerable rakeoff, thus in a way reviving the tax farming of the Republic and early Empire. Laws, such as those which supposedly forbade the selling of children above the age of ten into slavery, could be ignored when the poor had no access to higher authority and might not even know the laws were on the books. Lugotorix in Roma Mater is a publican of this kind. In addition, special tax officers reported directly to provincial or diocesal officialdom. One class of these collected arrears, another oversaw the whole process and kept the curials up to the mark. Or so the theory went; in practice, they often terrorized everybody, screening their peculations and extortions with bureaucratic obfuscation. A common way for them to grow rich was to convert arrears of taxes into private debts at huge rates of interest. Nagon has been appointed to such a provincial office.
Dál Riata: As we have explained earlier, this was the first Irish colony in what is now Scotland, on the Argyll coast, founded by emigrants from an Ulster kingdom of that name and for a long time considered part of it. The date of the settlement is uncertain. Some authorities place it a century or more after the time of our story, but we are here following traditional accounts.
Aryagalatis: The chronicle calls him Gabran, but we follow the suggestion of Alexei Kondratiev as to what the earlier form of the name had been. (Admittedly, we are inconsistent in that we do not do likewise for the name “Niall” and for a few such words as “tuath,” but these, like “Rome” and “Constantinople,” are familiar enough that we would rather not risk seeming pedantic.) Though he bore that title, he was not a sovereign monarch. Any man of the right descent, leading any group from a tuath upward, was called its king (rí). His powers were always strictly limited; see earlier parts of this story for details. Aryagalatis would have been essentially the chief war lord and sacral figure of the colonial tuaths and whatever natives they subdued. The medieval story says he gave Eochaid refuge after the latter must flee Ireland because of having murdered the poet’s son. That Eochaid first roamed about as a pirate is our idea, but quite possible.
Alba: The early Gaelic name for what is now Scotland; sometimes it was extended to include England and Wales.
Cruthini: The Irish name for that people, or those tribes, the Romans lumped together as Picts. Prior to the great Irish (Scotic) immigration early in the Dark Ages, they formed most of the population of what the Irish called Alba and we today call Scotland. Smaller numbers of them also lived here and there in Gaul and in Ireland itself.
XI
The first Visigothic invasion of Italy: Dates are not quite certain, but most authorities put it in November, 401.
Illyricum: The political status and official boundaries of this region varied in the course of history, but in general it comprised much of the Balkan area. Around 400 it was a prefecture, divided between the Western and Eastern Empires. (So they were by that time, although theoretically still one.)
Rhenus: The River Rhine.
Danuvius: The River Danube.
Euxinus: The Black Sea.
Deva: Chester.
The legion at Chester: As admirers of the work of Stephen Vincent Benèt, we regretted making the discovery that the Twentieth Valeria Victrix was not, after all, the last legion to depart from Britain.
Etruria: Tuscany and northern Latium.
Histria (later Istria): The area around what is now Trieste.
Rhaetia (or Raetia): An area occupying what are now known as the Grisons of eastern Switzerland, much of the Tyrol of Austria, and part of Lombardy.
Iron ore: This was usually bog iron, collected rather than mined.
Durotriges: A British tribe occupying, approximately, Dorset.
British immigration into Armorica: This is generally supposed to have gone on in the fifth and sixth centuries, but there is evidence that it began earlier. Some modern scholars believe that it had actually become overwhelming by about 400, but we stay with the traditional view.
German Sea (Oceanus Germanicus): The North Sea.
Cimbrian peninsula: Jutland.
Thule: It is not known what Classical geographers meant by this, and they themselves may well have been unsure or in disagreement. We accept the idea that it was in Norway.
XII
The Republic: Even this late, the Western Empire, at least, maintained the fiction that it was a republic, the Emperor its chief magistrate—although sanctified by the office and surrounded by the trappings of Oriental monarchy.
Churching: The rite readmitting a woman to services after she had given birth.
Deacon: As explained previously, clergy of the early Church, below the rank of bishop, had usually had mundane occupations by which they earned their livings. By the time of our story, priests were supposed to receive stipends, but it is doubtful that deacons did, unless perhaps in the wealthiest churches.
Bricius: Now known as St. Brice, this bishop relaxed the strict rules of his predecessor St. Martin. He was later accused of immorality. The Pope absolved him but he never returned to his see, which suggests he had in fact been guilty.
Paenula: A poncho-like outer garment.
XIII
The move to Ravenna: Its date is not certain, but was probably in summer or autumn of 402.
The case against Cadoc: Breton legend relates how King Grallon cleared St. Ronan of a similar charge by similar means. We are supposing that the story derives from an actual incident and was later transferred to the canonized churchman.
Duke: The Duke of the Armorican Tract, director of defense in that district of Lugdunensis Tertia province.
XIV
The obliteration of Ys: Greater cities than this have been lost from the face of the earth. Archeologists in modern times have identified the sites and uncovered traces of a number of them, but not yet all, and this has generally been with historical records to provide clues.
XV
Postal couriers: These frequently doubled as intelligence agents for the civil authorities.
Savus: The River Drava.
Dalmatia: A province occupying, approximately, what is now most of Yugoslavia.
Pannonia: A province occupying, approximately, what is now Hungary with parts of Austria and Yugoslavia (Croatia).
Resettlement of the Visigoths: Stilicho’s repeated leniency toward Alaric was most likely prompted by a desire to make an ally of him for a drive that would establish the supremacy of the Western over the Eastern Empire. The policy was to prove disastrously mistaken.
Procedures possible against the Confluentians: If these seem limited to the modern reader, one should bear in mind that, while the Romans developed many instruments of tyranny with the inevitable social consequences, the idea of income tax as we know it never occurred to them. Besides, they would have lacked the technology to enforce it.
T
he wedding: To the Romans, until very late in their history, marriage was a civil contract. Since Tertullian, Christians believed the public blessing of the Church was necessary to make it valid (a view somewhat modified today), but not until after St. Augustine did they consider it a sacrament in itself. Then marriages with pagans and heretics came to be disallowed. However, this had not yet happened at the time of our story. (Augustine issued his De Bono Conjugali in 401; it would hardly have reached Armorica by 403, let alone become a basis of doctrine.) Observances surely varied from place to place and time to time. Our version derives in large part from ancient customs, but we suppose that the new religion and the special circumstances caused these to be a little altered.
The prayer: As we have explained before, early Christians had not ordinarily knelt to pray. Except when they prostrated themselves, they stood upright with arms lifted. Kneeling, though not folding of hands, presently came into use in church, but individuals alone probably, as a rule, continued the older practice.
The Virgin Mary: Adoration of her seems to have begun in earnest during the fourth century. It was not yet anything like what it became in the Middle Ages, nor could it yet have had much currency in the North; but Gratillonius’s impulse seems to us a very natural one under the circumstances.
XVI
Head of navigation: As we have explained earlier, today this is at Locmaria (Aquilo), and then only at high tide and for rather small craft; but apparently the Odet and, perhaps, the Steir were larger and deeper in the past, and ancient vessels generally drew less water than today’s. A change in the harbor site helps explain how Quimper (Confluentes) came to overshadow and eventually absorb the older settlement.
Bridge of Sena: Pont de Sein. We suppose that this is the French form of a name going back to ancient times.
XVII
Brigantes: A tribe occupying a substantial part of Britain just south of Hadrian’s Wall.
Laégare (later rendered Laoghaire, now sometimes Leary): According to the traditional histories, he was King at Tara when St. Patrick returned to Ireland. He became friendly with the missionaries and put no obstacles in their path. Indeed, he got Patrick to help him reform and write down the Brehon Laws, the ancient Irish code, which continued in effect for centuries thereafter. However, he himself never accepted baptism. When he died he was buried according to his wish, upright in full battle gear, facing his hereditary enemies the Leinstermen.
The Dog and the Wolf Page 55