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against the Visigoths, whom he encountered at Déols. He was defeated and compelled, along with the survivors of his host, to take refuge among the Burgundians. 12

That these Britons at the mouth of the Loire were Christians appears most probable, for at a provincial council held at Tours in 461, only a few years previous to this, appeared Mansuetus, bishop of the Britons (episcopus Britannorum), who sat with Eusebius of Nantes and Athenius of Rennes. This is the first intimation we have of British settlers in Armorica, and in sufficient numbers to send a contingent of twelve thousand men against the Visigoths.

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We are not told that Britons were involved in the risings in 408, 415, 435, 446, but we are afforded the significant hint that they revolted, following the example of the insular Britons." That British colonists were settled at the mouth of the Loire early in the fifth century is accordingly established.

But had they, at this time, begun to settle in other parts of Armorica? We have no contemporary records to show that they had, but there are many indications that they had done so.

According to the Gloss on Fiacc's Hymn on S. Patrick, "Patrick and his father, Calpurn, Concess his mother . . . and his five sisters . . . his brother, the deacon Sannan, all went from Ail Cluade over the Ictian Sea (the English Channel) southward to the Britons of Armorica, that is to say, to the Letavian Britons, for there were relations of theirs there at that time." 13

The statement is late, but it embodies an early tradition. It is not said to what part of Armorica these emigrants went, but as we hope to show, when dealing with S. Germanus the Armorican, there is some ground for supposing it was to Cornugallia.

According to the Life of S. Illtyd, he was son of Bicanys, an Armorican of British blood, driven from Armorica apparently by some family quarrel which deprived him of his land.14 Iltyd cannot have been born later than 460. So also Cadfan, with a large party of refugees, came to Wales early in the sixth century, and we can hardly suppose them to have been flying from a country recently occupied. Cadfan has left his traces in Cornouaille and in Léon. Again, we have Budic, a king of Cornugallia, living as a refugee in South Wales, and that in the sixth century, but at the very beginning of it. 15

12 Greg. Turon., Hist., ii, 18; Fernandes, De rebus Gothicis, xlv. 13 Tripartite Life of S. Patrick, Rolls Series, ii, 473-5. Liber Hymn., ii, P. 177. See also preface to Hymn of S. Sechnall, Liber Hymn., ii, 3. 14 Cambro-British Saints, p. 158.

15 Book of Llan Dáv, p. 130.

Some little weight may be allowed to the catalogue of the princes of Cornubia or Cornugallia in the Cartulary of Landevennec. 16 The Cartularies of Quimper and of Quimperlé give the same list, but obviously derived from the same source. They reckon three kings of the Britons in Cornubia as reigning before Grallo, who ruled from about 470 to about 505. Allow fifteen years for each reign, and this gives us 435 for the first.

What is more convincing is that when the colonists arrived at a later period, they found the land already parcelled out into plous and trefs. There was occasion for a great migration taking place in the fifth century, but immigration had probably begun earlier.

Under the date 364 Ammianus Marcellinus says:- At this time the trumpet, as it were, gave signal for war throughout the Roman world; and the Barbarian tribes on the frontier were moved to make incursions on those territories which lay nearest to them. The Picts, Scots, Saxons and Attacotti harassed the Britons with incessant invasions."

Owing to the weakness of Britain, that had been partly Romanised, and which was ill defended by a few legions, the island became a prey to invaders. It was fallen upon from all sides. The Irish, or Scots as they were then called, poured over the western coast and occupied nearly the whole of Wales. The Picts broke over the Wall from the north, and the Germans invaded and planted themselves on the east and south-east. Large bands of Irish swept over Devon and Cornwall. Their inscribed stones with ogams, as has been already shown, can be traced into South Devon.

From Irish records we find that after 366 Crimthan the Great was warring in Alba, Britain, and exacting tribute from it.17

In 368, according to Ammianus, matters had reached a critical pass in Britain. Theodosius was sent into the island, and he drove the Picts out of London. The relief was temporary. No sooner was he gone than they returned. It is of this period of protracted misery that Gildas writes: "Britain groaned in amazement under the cruelty of two foreign nations, the Scots from the north-west, and the Picts from the north." According to him the Britons appealed to Rome, and a legion was sent into the island, which inflicted severe losses on the invaders. It was, however, almost immediately with

16 Cart. Land., ed. De la Borderie, Rennes, 1888, pp. 172-3.

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Capessivit postea imperium Crimthanus Fidlogi filius . . . qui septemdecem annos regnavit, et Albaniâ, Britanniâ et Galliâ victorias retulisse illarumque regionum incolas vetusta documenta produnt." (Keating, from Munster documents.)

drawn, and then, "their former foes, like ravening wolves rushing upon the field left without a shepherd, wafted across by the force of the oarsmen, and the blast of the wind, broke through the boundaries, spread slaughter on every side, and overran the whole country." Again a legion was sent, but was withdrawn with a notice that no further assistance would be accorded to the island. "No sooner were they gone," continues Gildas, than the Picts and Scots landed from their boats, in which they had been borne across the Cichian Valley (the Irish Channel)." The Britons "left their cities, abandoned the protection of the Wall, and dispersed in flight; and the enemy pursued them with more unrelenting cruelty than before, and butchered our countrymen like sheep."

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"The power of the Cruithnians (Picts) and of the Gaels (Scots) advanced into the heart of Britain," says Nennius, " and drove them to the Tin (Tyne). . . . Their power continually increased over Britain, so that it became heavier than the Roman tribute; because the object aimed at by the Northern Cruithnians and Gaels was the total expulsion of the Britons from their lands." 18

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"Great was the power of the Gael over Britain," says an early Irish writer, Cormac, b. 831, d. 903. “They divided Alba (i.e., Albion Britain) amongst them in districts . . . and their residences and royal forts were built there." He mentions Glastonbury as in their hands, and the fort of Mac Lethain in the hands of the Cornish Britons, 19

In the meantime the Saxon pirates had ravaged and depopulated Armorica. Sidonius Apollinaris shows us what devastation they wrought, and how they extended their attacks as far south as the Saintonge. 20 To more completely sweep the country they planted stations along the coast from which they penetrated inland, burning and slaughtering.21 The results of these raids are revealed by the spade at this day. All the old sites of Roman-Gaulish towns in Brittany lie buried under beds of ashes, 22

Finally, as Procopius says, the region of Armorica was the most desert in all Gaul.23 This peninsula accordingly offered a field for settlement by Britons flying from the swords of the Picts and Scots. The exodus began in the fifth century, but it was renewed, and the

18 Irish Nennius, ed. Todd & Herbert, 1848, p. 73.
19 Glossary of Cormac, ed. W. Stokes, 1862, pp. xlviii, xlix.

20 Sidon. Apoll., Paneg. Aviti, vv. 370-2, 348-50.

21 Greg. Turon., Hist. Franc., ii, 18, 19; v, 27; x, 9.

22 De la Borderie, Hist. de Bretagne, t. i, 221–225.

23 De Bello Gothico, iv, 20.

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Britons came over in great masses when the Angle, Jute and Saxon obtained a foothold in Britain and rolled back the natives to the Severn.

Three main principalities had been founded in Armorica before the new rush of colonists, flying from the Saxons. These were the principalities of Dumnonia, Cornubia and Venetia, afterwards called Bro-weroc. There was another very soon absorbed into Dumnonia, that of Léon, and Po-her was a county in the folds of the Monts d'Arrée and the Montaignes Noires which eventually fell to Cornubia, but which was for a while closely connected with Dumnonia. It is reasonable to suppose that natives of insular Dumnonia, or Devon, flying before the inrush of the Irish, had settled Armorican Dumnonia and given to it the name it bore. So, also, we may suppose that Cornubia received its settlers from Cornwall, whence also the natives were driven by the Irish, who seized on the Land's End and Lizard districts, as also by a great body of emigrants from Gwent. Caerleon may have furnished the settlers who gave the name to Léon.

Vannes, Nantes and Rennes remained Gallo-Roman cities, as hostile in feeling to the new colonists as they were to the new Frank kingdom.

At first, probably, the settlers maintained a political connexion with the mother country. This is implied by a passage in the Life of S. Leonore, "Fuit vir unus in Britanicia ultra mare, nomine Rigaldus, qui in nostra primus venit citra mare habitare provincia, qui dux fuit Britonum ultra et citra mare usque ad mortem." 24

What makes this probable is that we meet with the names of the Dumnonian princes Geraint and Selyf or Solomon, in Armorica, as though certain lands had been reserved to them as royal domain in the newly settled lands. But if this recognition of the British princes. was at first allowed it cannot have endured for long.

How completely Armorica became settled from Britain appears from many allusions. Thus in the Life of S. Illtyd we read:-" Letavia. . . sumpsit originem a matre Britannia. Erudita fuit a matre, filia." 25

The biographer of S. Padarn, a late writer, gives us the traditions: 'Corus ecclesiasticus Monachorum Letaviam deserens Brittanie meditabantur oras appetere. . . . Caterva sanctorum ad originem unde exierunt, transmittit sub ducibus.” 26

The Book of Llan Dâv, with reference to Guidnerth, of Gwent, who

24 De Smedt, Catalogus Codicum Hagiograph. in Bibl. Nat. Parisiens. ii, 153. 25 Cambro-British Saints, p. 158. 26 Ibid., p. 189.

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