- Language and Society among the Insular Celts AD 400-1000 -
to feast at the table of the king; he had a wergild of only 300 solidi.152 Similarly the
West Saxon nobleman had a wergild of 1,200 shillings, but the Welsh noble within
the West Saxon kingdom had a wergild of 600 shillings. The further use of wealh for
a slave is only a more extreme expression of the low status accorded to the alien.
The linguistic situations north and south of the Channel were, however, quite
different. In Gaul the native Celtic language was all but extinct by the sixth century.
The Bretons spoke British although many of them may also have spoken Latin.
They were a people distinct in language, dress and social custom both from their new
overlords, the Franks, and from the Gallo-Romans. Former fellow citizens of
the empire though they were, the Gallo-Romans found it easier to reach an accom-
modation with the Franks than they did with the Bretons.^153 This may, of course,
have been because the Gallo-Romans had little choice but to come to terms with
Frankish power. Also, because the Bretons were much less disposed to submit to the
Franks, a Gallo-Roman alliance with the Franks entailed Gallo-Roman separation
from the Bretons.^154 The survival of the Breton offshoot of British is the clearest
evidence that the native language survived in southern Britain in the late Roman
period. Whereas, therefore, in sixth-century Gaul (outside Breton and Burgundian
areas) Latin was the only widely spoken language apart from Frankish, in Britain
there were three languages in competition, Latin, British and English. (I assume here
that the various Germanic dialects of the invaders of Britain were so intermingled
by the processes of war and settlement that a new, relatively uniform variety
of Germanic was produced, namely English. It is, in any case, doubtful whether any
of the dialect differences in Old English go back beyond the Germanic settlement of
Britain.) Latin was spoken even in what became Wales, but British was also the
language of many in lowland Britain.
The division between Latin and British was, therefore, not so much geographical
as social. This is implied first by the inscriptions of post-Roman Wales and second
by the different attitudes adopted by the English to Latin and British. Already in the
Old English period there were numerous loans from Latin into English, whereas
there were hardly any from British. As we have seen, the social and political status
of the languages in contact determined the flow of loan-words. The English settlers
were faced by one language, of high status but probably less widely spoken, namely
Latin, and by another, British, more widely spoken but of lower status. It is not
surprising that they retained their Germanic language, while the Franks of Neustria
- confronted by only one language, Latin, a language spoken by aristocrats, and also
the liturgical language of the Catholic church - came to abandon their native
Frankish in favour of lingua romana.
152 Pactus Legis Salicae, XLI.S.
153 This is apparent from the treatment of the Bretons in Gregory of Tours's Histories, IV.4;
v.16, 29, 3 I; IX.IS,24; x.9. Similarly, Venantius Fortunatus praises Felix, bishop of Nantes,
by saying that he is iura Britannica uincens, Venantii Fortunati Opera Poetica, ed. F. Leo
(MGH Auctores Antiquissimi, IV.I; Berlin, ISSI), III.5 (p. 154); d. insidiatores Britannos,
ibid, III.S (p. 59).
154 Compare the Breton Excerpta de Libris Romanorum et Francorum (Canones Wallici), A
version, c. 61 (ed. L. Bieler, The Irish Penitentials [Dublin, 1963J, p. 148).731