tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post3533762724043179682..comments2024-03-28T03:10:23.679-07:00Comments on Polemarch: The End of the TribeThe Polemarchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-84155541860224366382012-11-13T00:54:02.791-08:002012-11-13T00:54:02.791-08:00Hi,
I think it is certain that the Romans influen...Hi,<br /><br />I think it is certain that the Romans influenced at least southern Britain from about the 150's BC, and that included moving towards a coin based economy because the native elites needed cash to buy luxuries. They even as you say, started to mint their own.<br /><br />Quite what the effect of this was is unclear, but a lot of hillforts were, in fact, abandoned at this time, although I don't think the link between these events is at all clear. <br /><br />I do suspect that tribal boundaries were fluid, though. It is a western thing to look for real boundaries on the ground - I think I've mentioned before the Aztec empire wasn't an empire by, say, nineteenth century standards.<br /><br />On the other hand, your earthwork probably does indicate some sort of boundary, unless it is some sort of 'ritual' site. But then, our distinction between ritual and, say, politics is often far more rigid than it used to be.<br />The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-40597734172497038572012-11-12T15:52:01.303-08:002012-11-12T15:52:01.303-08:00Must have passed very close to that site several t...Must have passed very close to that site several times travelling to and from work the other year. Wish I'd known it was there.<br /><br />nundankethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12895608927860103442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-72434007925456324042012-11-12T05:07:36.369-08:002012-11-12T05:07:36.369-08:00Hi,
Perhaps the view of the 'tribe' is fa...Hi,<br /><br />Perhaps the view of the 'tribe' is far too much a projection of modern historiography onto pre-modern societies. We just don't have the words to describe the different evels of 'king' found (and, perhaps, nor did the Romans).<br /><br />Mind you, I do ownder what a Gallic description of say, Caesar, would look like; maybe they would have used a cognate of king.<br /><br />I don't think the claim described in the post indicates that there were no long lasting structures, more that we have little evidence for them and their nature, and later evidence for them is, well, later...The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-34192178799399446532012-11-12T01:32:20.908-08:002012-11-12T01:32:20.908-08:00David,
I wanted to congratulate you on ditching th...David,<br />I wanted to congratulate you on ditching the term 'warband', which as you said, should properly be applied to a noble's comitatus, housecarls, household knights, whatever - a different thing altogether to the wargames use of the term. (Not sure what the correct term should be - Rising out, Home Guard?)<br /><br />I'll have to read this article, but 'I hae ma doots', as my wife would say. Ok, I understand that a colonial power will tend to see native culture in its own terms; it's what we did in India, referring to native officials as 'squire' or 'magistrate', so maybe the written evidence is not that reliable.<br />Not sure what constitutes lack of evidence though; British kings were minting their own coinage before the Romans arrived, and the size and power of some of our hillforts argues for some sort of organisation above the local village elder.<br /><br />However, assuming the function of a king (chief, leader) is to provide protection, dispense justice and perhaps provide public works, such as roads, for his people, what is the possibility of constantly changing 'tribes' as each community offers its allegiance to whichever king seems best able to provide these things? We have an assumption that there is some sort of familial or territorial link holding the tribe together, but maybe it's not as permanent as that.<br />Maybe tribes came and went over time, and all we have is a snapshot of a particular moment taken by Tacitus or Ptolemy, etc, and fitting the British into a neat Roman-like organisation? The Romans didn't have much patience with irregularity.<br /><br />Every morning on my way to work, I cross an iron age earthwork. (500BC or so, the experts reckon.) It stretches from the (Brigantian) hill fort at Wincobank, parallel-ish to the River Don, bifurcating at one point to become two supporting earthworks, all the way to Mexborough - 15 miles. Surely this can only be a boundary between 'them' and 'us' - you couldn't defend it. If not a tribal boundary, then surely something very similar.Chris Gricenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-54207384148057528422012-11-12T01:15:03.951-08:002012-11-12T01:15:03.951-08:00Hi,
I think he does not mean that there were no t...Hi,<br /><br />I think he does not mean that there were no tribes in pre-Roman Britain, but that the 'big' structure of the top dozen or so listed by Ptolemy did not exist, or at least there is no evidence for them.<br /><br />So he is suggesting a lower level of structure. The major tribes, such as Brigantes, only came into existence with the pressure from the Roman invasion and reorganisation of the tribes in response to it.<br /> The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-51166150293822119582012-11-11T13:10:32.646-08:002012-11-11T13:10:32.646-08:00I am intrigued by his comments but have not yet re...I am intrigued by his comments but have not yet read the article. It's sitting on my desktop waiting for a free moment. Does he propose an alternative social organisation?<br /><br />Regarding the kings in Kent, and elsewhere, the use of the term king may well be a misnomer. It might be better to call them warlords or chieftains, purely because the term king is loaded for us with a wide variety of baggage. This is certainly the case in the Germanic societies that I have studied.<br /><br />The idea that there were no tribes in Britain before the Romans seems a little far-fetched, but I'm sure that depends upon one's definition of tribe. I really must get round to that article, now that you have made me aware of it.Ruaridhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13003128932063213463noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-12840876742782279202012-11-11T11:29:09.224-08:002012-11-11T11:29:09.224-08:00Have had a look at Peter Heather's "Empir...Have had a look at Peter Heather's "Empires and Barbarians". There's some excellent discussion there about the politics of Germanic societies, especially the 'tribes' that turn out to have half-a-dozen kings of various degrees. The Alamanni, for instance, had thirteen kings at one point - and yet there seems to have been a real lasting nature to the confederation, they weren't just a vague agglomeration. The peasant class ('freemen', Heather classifies them as, to distinguish from 'retainers' and 'freedmen') also crops up a lot in his discussions: his claim is that overcoming strong resistance requires their mobilisation, but since they must be promised something in return, this provides an incentive for a different kind of warfare from raiding.<br /><br />The other thing that struck me here was a comparison with the difficulties in nineteenth century histories of the Middle Ages, as they back-projected nation states onto feudal society.Jack Heronnoreply@blogger.com