THE YEAR OF OUR LORD

 

“I was born in the Year of Our Lord 1485.” So might Cortez have said to Montezuma on their first encounter.  But to an Aztec completely unfamiliar with European methods of  timekeeping this would have made no sense. Just who “Our Lord” was and what he had to do with Cortez would have been a mystery. Indeed, Montezuma may well have interpreted Cortez statement to mean that “Our Lord” and the Spaniard were born in the same year.  

 

The point is that the everyday expressions of timekeeping in most cultures are rarely self-explanatory.  Vital pieces of information are often left out. After all, “everybody” already knows the system.

 

A MYSTIFYING BIRTHDAY

 

The sixth century British writer Gildas gives us a date almost as baffling as Cortez’ birthday when he mentions the date of the battle of Badon:

 

‘…the year of the siege of Mount Badon, almost the last…slaughter of the villains; and this the forty-fourth year begins (as well I know) with one month already elapsed, which is also of my birth.’

 

But just what did Gildas mean by this 43 year and one month interval?  Most explanations for this passage agree with the eighth century English scholar Bede’s interpretation, and put the date for the battle as very near the year 494.  They then go on to say that either a) the battle (and Gildas' birth) occurred 43 years and one month before the date of Gildas’ writing, or b) that it occurred in the same month as his birth in the year 494, in other words, about 44 years after the date Bede gives for the ‘Coming of the Saxons’.

 

Unfortunately, neither of these views is tenable.  A number of observers have pointed to dendrochronology from the fifth century that argues for a great famine in the year 535. Gildas’ complete failure to mention it means that he must be writing earlier than this.  Thus, if Badon were fought 44 years before this date, this encounter can have occurred no later than 491.

 

But Gildas also tells us that the whole generation that remembered the Saxon wars has died off. That is why he is writing his history in the first place: to remind the Britons of the old Saxon danger.  This could place Badon no later than the 470s. Significantly,  the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the date of the last battle with Hengest as 473. Moreover, Gildas tells us that Badon was not even the last battle with the Saxons. The battle could thus be still earlier. Most significant of all, however, neither of these two interpretations has shed even the faintest ray of light on events in fifth century Britain. As evidence they are essentially worthless.

 

One might add that these two interpretations are based entirely on a purely linguistic analysis of the text.  Both derive solely from what the linguist “sees.” But, as with Cortez and Montezuma, could there be something else involved, something so obvious that Gildas felt no need to mention it?

 

REGNAL YEARS

 

The answer may lie in a careful examination of Late Roman timekeeping.  The dates when emperors ascended the throne were seen as very important benchmarks in Late Antiquity, and many chronicles from the period base their chronologies on the intervals between these dates.  Bede probably placed Gildas’ birth in 494 because he realized that the Briton was calculating his birth date not from the year of the ‘Coming of the Saxons’, but from a precise Late Roman date─the year of the accession of Valentinain III as senior emperor, which occurred in 450. Bede knew that this precise interval of 43 years and one month must separate two exact dates, and that 450 is almost certainly Gildas’ start point, and so the first month of 494 must therefore be his birth date.

 

But, as stated above, 494 is an impossible date for Badon. What all observers have missed is the order in which Gildas gives his information in his very opaque passage: Gildas gives neither the name nor the date of any other battle in his writings, yet here he gives the date of Badon to within a month.  The best explanation by far is to simply read what he says in order: a) the Battle of Badon is separated by b) 43 years and one month, from c) Gildas’ own birth date. In short, by the sixth century the year of Badon was being used as an alternative form for the very important Roman regnal year of 450.  The reason Gildas is so certain about the date of this battle is because he and every other Briton calculated their birth dates from it. The idea that Gildas and the year of Badon are identical arises only because, like Montezuma, we don’t understand this particular system of timekeeping.

 

A TURNING POINT

 

Arthur and the Fall of Roman Britain argues that the year 450 marked a radical change in the fortunes of Britain.  A British military leader’s final victory at Badon subdued the last of the sea barbarians that had threatened Britain for some four decades.  Shortly afterward, as the archaeology of eastern Kent confirms, Germanic warriors were hired as mercenaries to defend the island—the origin of Bede’s date for the ‘Coming of the Saxons’. This explanation for Gildas' baffling passage resolves virtually every contradiction between the extant sources.

 

And for the first time allows us to write a valid history for fifth century Britain.