On the Ruin of Britain

Notes

1. Ut conicimus. These words imply that Gildas had no definite information respecting the exact time of the martyrdoms mentioned in this section. The reading of Codex X, ut cognoscimus, is evidently a gloss, echoing the fixed tradition of the copyist’s own time. That the martyrdom of St. Alban took place during the Diocletian persecution is, therefore, a guess on the part of Gildas. He evidently found the narrative given here in some lost Acta or Passio, and we find that Beda has added other details from some second Acta also lost. Now, many of these acts of martyrdom are found void of all details as to time and place, as, for instance, those condemned by the famous Decretum of Pope Gelasius in 496 (Hefele, ii, 618); if such a one had come into the hands of Gildas, it was natural that he should conjecture the events there narrated to have taken place in the last great persecution. One is tempted also to notice a difference of reading found here in some codices, as possibly recording a different, if not the original, tradition; these are, uellonnensis E, uellamien-scm C, uellomiensem D. Nevertheless, it is, perhaps, safest to conclude that Gildas found Verulamium fixed in tradition as the place of suffering of a martyr bearing the name Albanus, though it is not named in the account given by the author of the Life of Germanus of a visit paid by the Gallic bishops Germanus and Lupus (A.D. 429) to the tomb of Alban: “The priests,” we read, “sought the blessed martyr Albanus in order to render thanks, by his mediation, to God; where Germanus, having with him relics of all the apostles and of different martyrs, offered prayer, and commanded the grave to be opened in order to place there the precious gifts.” (V. Germ., i, 25.) We can thus say that Albanus was known and revered as a martyr c. 429, while the place of his martyrdom appears for the first time in this chapter of Gildas’ work. In the edition of Jerome’s Martyrology, lately prepared by De Rossi and Duchesne (for Aa. Ss., Nov.,Tom. ii) one codex, the Cod. Bern. (c. A.D. 770), records “in Britain was Albinus martyr, along with others, 889 in number, placed in the list of those whose names are written in the book of life.” We are informed in the Prolegomena of several indications, that the exemplar from which this MS. was copied had been in the possession of, or written by, someone connected with Ireland. If so, we find in this 889 about the earliest example of the amplification which the words of Gildas underwent at the hands of later writers. Its exaggeration raises the question whether persecution was possible in Britain, inasmuch as it belonged to the part of the Empire assigned to Constantius, as Caesar of the West or Gaul. It has been held that Gildas is contradicted by Eusebius and Lactantius, who are understood as asserting that Constantius had no part in the persecution (Eus., H. E., viii, 13, 13: Vita Const., I, 3. 17: Lact. De Morte Pers., xv: Letter of Donatist bishops to Constantine in Optat. De Schism. Don., i, 22). In his anxiety to exonerate the father of Constantine the Great, Eusebius maybe regarded as having gone too far when he said that he destroyed none of the church buildings, μήτε τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν τοὺς οἴκους καθελών. Lactantius expressly states that the churches, as mere walls which could be restored, were pulled down by him, but that he kept intact and safe the true temple of God, that is, the human body. Nam Constantius, ne dissentire a maiorum praeceptis videratur, conventicula, id est parietes qui restitui poterant, dirui passus est; verum autem dei templum, quod est in hominibus, incolume servavit. It must be remembered that Constantius was only Caesar of the “parts beyond the Alps,” and that he did not visit Britain until A.D. 306, the year of his death at York. The Caesar’s power was limited, which would render the name of Maximian as a rabid persecutor, especially after the fourth Edict of 304, the more potent name with many governors and magistrates. Constantius was bound to conform to the policy of the Augusti in carrying out edicts which bore his own name as well as theirs. When, therefore, it is known that many martyrdoms did take place in Spain, though that country belonged to Constantius, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Britain had witness of the same sufferings, especially before 306, when he himself arrived in the island. Some confirmation of this view is afforded by the numerous place-names beginning with Merthir, or Merthyr, found in parts of Glamorgan, and more sparsely in Monmouth and Brecknock. Vide Additional Note after c. 26.
2. Aaron et Iulium Legionum urbis cives. Of these two martyrs nothing more is known than is told us here by Gildas. Mason, in The Persecution of Diocletian, p. 146, calls them “two clergymen of Caerleon,” an epithet the justice of which can neither be proved nor disproved. Dr. Plummer (vol. ii, p. 20) in his Notes on Beda, says that “the story of Aaron and Julius must be considered extremely doubtful,” and refers us to Haddan and Stubbs, i, 6, for confirmation. One finds it difficult to understand why this story must be doubted. There must have been a tradition to this effect at Caerlleon in the sixth century, and in the Book of Llandav we find evidence of the very local tradition that has been said to be wanting. The Index of that book mentions about eighteen place-names beginning with Merthir (modern Welsh, Merthyr), one of which is Merthir lun (Iulli) et Aaron. A merthyr means, as its Latin original martyrium denotes, “place of martyr or martyrs,” that is, a church built in memory of a martyr, and generally over his grave. The word is found in Jerome’s Chronicon: Cuius industria in Hierosol. martyrium extructum est; it is used also by Adamnan in his De Locis Sacris: inter illam quoque Golgotham basilicam et martyrium, i, 8. Du Cange quotes Isidore, xv, 9: Martyrium, locus martyrum, Graeca derivatione, eo quod in memoriam martyris sit construction, vel quod sepulcra sanctorum ibi sunt martyrum (Greek, τὸ μαρτύριον). We can hardly doubt that such a name as Merthyr, from martyrium, is as old as llan, or cil, or disert, if not indeed older. This at once carries it beyond the sixth century. Now the boundary of this particular merthir is: “The head of the dyke on the Usk; along the dyke to the breast of the hill, along the dyke to the source of Nant Merthyr, that is Amir” (pp. 225, 226, 377). Here we have a merthyr of Julius and Aaron in the neighbourhood of Caerlleon. A grave objection may meet us here; …