i '
144 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. V.
To pass from these ancient myths and traditions, we learn from Cffisar that the inhabitants
of the interior of Britain regarded as aboriginal, differed in civnization and manners from those
of the maritime districts, who were known to be descended from tribes who had migrated from
the opposite coast of Belgic Gaul*. It is often supposed that the historical Triads of the Welsh
confirm tHs statement; but the vaunted antiq^lity of these documents must be doubted! ; and no
importance can be attached to the story of the three colonies who successively settled in Britain,
the fii-st led by Hu Gadarn, and the third by Prydain, the son of ^dd Mawr, whose mythical
character has been shown J.
The name under which Britain first appears is Alouion § or Albion : that of Britain seems to
have been imposed two or three centuries before the invasion by Julius; probably by the Gauls,
about the time when Massilia became the emporium for the trade in tin ||. Hence it is probably
of Celtic derivation, from bnth British, brit Irish, spotted or party-coloured; referring to the
custom which the Britons retained of staining or tattooing the body, when the practice had been
abandoned by the Gauls f . AH the Britons painted themselves with woad; and the svibstitution
of the name of Britain for that of Albion does not imply occupancy by afresh race. It has
indeed been supposed that the name was derived from the migration of a tribe of Britanni from
northern Gaul, about four centuries B.C. ** Of these continental Britanni, the tribe named by
Pliny is conjectm-ed to be a reronant; but the existence of such a tribe at aU is perhaps an
error of Pliny's t t . Such names as the British Moorland on the Ems, and the two Brettenbergs,
one in HoUand and another in Hanover, are not shown to have existed in ancient times; and
altogether the evidence for a migration of Britanni from this or other parts of the continent seems
less than inconclusive J J. At a later period, the name of Britannia was extended to Armorican
Gaul, in consequence of a considerable migration of insular Britons, about 387 A.D., and of
others in the fifth century; which last were driven from then- homes by the successes of the
Anglo-Saxons. The first of these was effected under the usurper Maximus, and the details of it,
in Gildas and Nennius §§, are in part confirmed by the brief aUusion of Sidonius in 469, to the
Eomans, p. xlix-lxi), who shows that the name of Britain
probably originated subsequently to the cessation of painting
among the Gauls, excepting perhaps the Pictones, and the
Egyptian, Greek and Scythian descent are ™n inventions,
similar to these of the Gauls and Britons.
* B. G. lib. V. c. 12. "Quos natos in insula ipsa, memoria
proditum dicunt. Maritima pars ab iis, qui * * * ex
Belgis transieraut."
t T. Stephens, Cambrian Journal, 1857, No. 16. p. 266.
Herbert, " Britannia after the Eomans," 1836, p. x-xiv:
X Triads, 1, 4, 5, &c.
§ In Ptolemy and Agathemer; Albion, in Pliny, Avienus,
Marcianus and the Treatise "De Mnndo ; " ante,-p. 64. Herbert
(Britannia after Romans, p.lxiv-lxTiii, Neo-Druids, 1838, p. 21,
Irish Nennius,pp. 27,127) regards the etymology of Alouion as
Hncertam. Britain " is not an island composed of lofty mountains,"
and we must perhaps admit that Albion (Alouion) and
Albainn, the mountainous part of Scotland, are distinct words.
For this last, but not for Albion, the etymon of alp, Irish, a mountain,
may be allowed. SeeServius,miED.lib.x.T.13. Georg.iii.
T. 474. " Gallorum hngua alti montes Alpes vocantur."
II Ante, pp. 61, 63.
^ Isidor, Orig. xiy. 6. " Britannia a vocabulo suos gentis
cognominata;" xix. 23, 7. "propria quasi insignia * * * , ut
stigmata Britonum." Caisar, B. G. lib. v. c. 14. " Omnes se
Britanni fitro inficiunt." For the etymology in the text,
see Herbert (Irish Nennius, p. xlii, liii, Britannia after
Britanni of Pliny {vide infra). In the Boman period, Britannia
had become an absolute name-proper, the use of which no longer
depended on its etymology. Compare De Belloguet, Gloss.
Gaul. p. 137. Camden, vol. i. p. Ixvii. Stokes, Irish Glosses,
p. 114. In the face of the statement of Isidore, the etymology
from Barrat-annac {ante, p. 63) can hardly be maintained.
** Skene, " Highlanders," vol.i. p. 5. H. L. Long, "Early
Geography," p. 43, 83. De Belloguet, "Types Gaul." p. 2.'i2-
258. Eustathius(arfDionys. Perieg. v. 284) merely traces the
name of the islands opposite to Germany to that of their inhabitants,
the Bretanni.
f t Lib. iv. § 31. See Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and
Roman Geography," s. v. Britanni.
I I The existence of the " Ilerba Britannica" on the Frisian
coast, in the time of Germanicus (Pliny, lib. xxv. § 6 ; xxvii.
§ 1), has been much insisted on. The name, however, of this
plant, supposed to be the Rumex aiimticxis or IJydrolajmthum,
used iu dyeing, may itself be traced to the Celtic, brith. Britannia
after Romans, p. Iv.
§§ Gildas, Hist.c. 11. "Britannia, omni armato milite, * * *
iogenti juventute spoliata, quiE nusquam ultra rediit." Ncnii.
CHAP. V.] HISTORICAL ETHNOLOGY Or BRITAIN. 145
Britons on the north of the Loire*. Aamorica became a lesser Britain, and the provmce of
Bretagne has retained the name of the parent country down to modern times.
Ccesar is often quoted for an essentially ethnic difference between the Belg® and Celtse,
between whom and the Aquitani the whole of Gaul was divided. As regards the Aquitani there
is no difficulty; Strabo telling us that they difi-ered from the others both in their language and
physical chai-acters, which resembled those of the Iberians f . But as to the Belg® and Celt®,
Cesar's words can only betaken in a qualified sense; there being no ground for questionmg the
statement of Strabo, that the Belga; and Celtte participated in the common Gaulish physiognomy,
though there was a slight difl'erence in the language of some of the tribes, and some diversity m
theii- political institutions and manners. There can be no doiibt that the Belg® and CeltoB were
both properly Gauls, though in Caesar's time there were German intruders among the Belgse.
The Belgic colonists of Britain were however Celts, not Germans as sometimes maintained.
Csesar was indeed told, by the Remi, that most of the Belgae were of German origin; but in the
same passage he names the tribes who reaUy were German J ; whilst others, including some who
affected that character, the Trevh-i and Nervii, are known to us from Tacitus §. The peoples of
Belgic Gaul whose German origin is to be admitted, were those nearest to the Rhine and between
that river and the Schelde, which latter Pliny makes the boundary of the great Belgic states ||.
To the south and west of the Schelde, the Morini, Remi, Suessiones, Atrebates, Bellovaci, and
Ambiani were indisputably Gaulish. The three states last named were pre-eminently Belgte,
•and their territory seems to have been known coUectively as Belgium Prom this part of Gaul
the Belgic colonists of Britain were chiefly derived; there was an insular as weU as a continental
state of Atrebates; and an insular state of Belgre, connected probably with the tripartite
continental one. The Rhegni of Ptolemy may have been derived from the continental Rhemi,
within whose Umits in Gaul and Britain were towns of the same name.-Noviomagus occui-ring
in both countries ; whilst the Bibroci of C®sar's Britain may have derived their name from Bibrax,
a town of the Gaulish Remi. With these last, then- neighbours the Suessiones were intimately
related, and with them seem to have formed one state**. It was their powerful king, the
Suessionian Divitiacus, who about a century before our era, by election or conquest, obtained
the sovereignty of a great part of Britain, and perhaps founded the dynasty of Cassivel-
Irish Nennius, p. xv-xx; Prichard,c. 23. et capit. Maximus " Britanniam juvenili flore spoliavit, vol. iii. p. 167 ; Haigh,
ac Britanniam Minorem eis ad incolatum dedit.—Hi sunt
Britones Armorici." Tradition represents this migration under
Maximus as headed by Conan of Meriadoc, now Denbighshire
(Caradoc Llancarv. by Powell and H. Lhwyd, 1584, p. 1-2.
Geoff, lib. V. c. 9-16 ; vi. c. 4). These Britons spoke a dialect
differing less, probably, from the Armorican than the modern
Cornish does from the Breton. There is no doubt that a Celtic
dialect was at this period still spoken in Gaul ( " vel Celtice ant
si mavis Gallice loquere." Snip. Sev. Dialog, i. 20. Thierry,
torn. i. pp. 24, S3. De Belloguet, Gloss. Gaul. p. 38-42). The
traditions iu Nennius (MS. S. , M. H. B.) and Geoffrey show
that the colonists were desirous of keeping pure, both their
blood and speech, from Latin admixture.
* Sidon. Apollin. Epist. lib. i. 7 : comp. lib. iii. 9 ; Jornand.
Reb. Get. c. 45. The British colonization of Armorica
is strangely denied by some French writers, and by Niebuhr.
Others, as Gibbon (chaps. 27,36,38) and Thierry (vol.i.pp.83,
89), deny the earlier migration under Maximus ; as to which,
however, see Herbert, Britannia after Romans, jip. 14-24 ;
Conquest of Britain by Saxons, 1861, pp. 178, 304.
t Ante, p. 135, note.
X B. G. lib. ii. c. 4 ; vi. c. 32. "Segni, Condrusi, Eburones,
Cserresi, Poemani, qui uno nomine Germani appellantur."
5 Germ. c. 2, 28 ; where several tribes unequivocally German
are enumerated.
II Pliny, lib. iv. § 28, 31. The country between the Rhine
and Schelde formed the province of GermaniaInferior, of Augustus.
Then, as now, it was German.
^ B. G. lib. V. c. 12, 24, 25, 46 ; viii. c. 6, 46, 49, 54.
Comp. G. Long, article " Belgse," Smith's Dictionary. H. L.
Long, Early Geography, p. 23. It may be doubted whether
the designation Belgie belonged properly to any except the
three tribes of Atrebates, Bellovaci, and Ambiani. The name
appears to signify warrai-s, from if?«, Cymric, to fight. (Zeuss,
Gram. Celt. p. 1126. De Belloguet, Gloss. Gaul. p. 252.)
That of the Bellovaci, the great and pre-eminent tribe of Belgse
(B. G. ii. c. 14), has probably the same etymon.
** B. G. lib. ii. c. 3.