Lost Capital Of Scotland Uncovered

a loss of the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of antiquity

Nonsense. The knowledge was carried off to elsewhere by the guilds. Even the lost wax process was never actually lost.

"Nonsense. The knowledge was carried off to elsewhere by the guilds. Even the lost wax process was never actually lost."

....and I'm waiting for you to tell me that you have the 'lost Chord' too. (There's a sign in between Houston and Beaumont that says, "Lost and Old Rivers.")

have the 'lost Chord'

I think we found that one today. We played for a wedding, and there was an interesting chord at one point that I don't think was in the sheet music.

LOL.

I can't say I'm an authority on this subject, but ther was gold mining in Ireland, and there were quite a few silver mines..some still operative.

And there were quite a few artists who crafted the gold and silver into beautiful objects!

>And there were quite a few artists who crafted the gold and silver into beautiful objects!

That seems to be a characteristic thread which follows through the entire history of the Celts. Museums all across Europe are full of beautiful Celtic art.

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Sure, gold and gemstones. The mountains in Scotland and northern Britain are the extension of the Appalachians here in the US from when the two were connected. So, metamorphics and volcanics yielding plenty of goodies.

You can steal our women and you can rape our cattle but, you can’t take away our FREEDOM!!

“numerous celestial impact”

Add those to our current cultural decline and we could have DAII.

Pig skin makes a poor leather.

He is also hopeful the site may unearth a hoard of Dark Age goodies.

Like leftover haggis and a barrel of single malt whisky?

Well, The link to the lost capital of Scotland is lost now. 404.

I agree the Dark Ages were a "dark" age in several senses. I would also point out to climate alarmists it was a time of cold, which is usually bad for human civilization.

The Western Roman Empire fell for good. Even Byzantium was beset by unrest with the Nika riots. It would be centuries before the Germanic tribes all converted to Christianity and a unified European civilization would again emerge. More than 200 years would pass before Charlemagne's empire, a pale reflection of Rome.

I'm not saying the Germanic tribes were utterly uncivilized; on the contrary, I think the civilization beyond Rome's borders was richer than we once thought, but it would be centuries before Europe would again reach the highs posted by Greece and Rome.

I would also hasten to add I'm not one of those who says that high was not reached until the Renaissance. I quite admire the civilization that was in full flower at the time of the Renaissance of the 12th Century, the time of the building of the great Medieval cathedrals and founding of the great universities.

Many play the game of when would you live if you could choose another time. I suspect very few, if any, would choose the Dark Ages.

With one caveat. I would love to have seen Byzantium at it's zenith.

hmmmm, very interesting, thanks!

" I have to wonder how Stirling circa 600 would compare with - for the sake of argument - Kandahar today."

Lemme guess. Less bifurcated?

Even the lost wax process was never actually lost.

...but a lot of wax was lost in the process.

There was the fall of the Roman Empire and the deterioration of its hold and influence over England. By 300, Roman towns had begun to collapse and were abandoned. (Roman towns in Britain were planned in chessboard squares for communities under orderly government. Each was complete with its forum, temples, courts of justice, gaols, baths, markets and main drains.) By the beginning of the fifth century, the end of Roman Britain was at hand. Troops were withdrawn. A shadow Roman government may have persisted in the southeastern part of the country until ten years after the sack of Rome in 410. In the void, a local British king made invitation to Anglo Saxon mercenaries to protect them. In the middle of the century, the “Advenus Saxonum” or permanent occupation of southern Britain by Anglo-Saxons took place.

In the 4th century Diocletian and Constantine reformed the coinage, but in attempts to stabilize society they decreed that all workers and their descendants would be frozen in their jobs for life. The aristocratic element moved from the cities into the country to raise what they needed. Small free farmers, ruined by debt, taxes and powerful neighbors placed themselves in the hands of larger landowners. Tenant farmers called “coloni” and slaves worked on vast estates. Legally free, the coloni were bound to the estate and their children after them. An edict of Constantine stated that tenant farmers who flew, could be caught and reduced to servitude. Thus developed the system of manorialism, (Which was later overlaid by feudalism in William the Conqueror's time.)

The people of Roman Briton were mixed, including people of Belgic origin and some Italian. Many were Christian. According to the Venerable Bede's “History of the English Church and People” (written in the early 8th century,) the Saxon nation, or Anglo-Saxons, came from “Germany” - a Teutonic or Nordic people who had dwelt in parts of Scandinavia, Germany and Holland. They were pagan farmers, claiming descent from the god Woden. They were loyal followers of their chief and petty kings. The bulk of the tribe consisted of “freemen,” adult males with the obligation of bearing arms, with the right to participate as equals in the tribal assembly held every month and to hold a share of tribal land. The assembly had the power to appoint and depose all chiefs and officials, decide on war and peace and try important disputes.

The “celtic” people (Britons) were absorbed as slaves by the invading pagan Angles (Danes,) Saxons (Germany) and Jutes (Jutland/Frankish) during the fifth and sixth centuries or moved to establish native kingdoms in the far west in Devon and Cornwall (West Wales) and Wales itself, and in north-west England, such as the kingdom of Strathelyde. Many migrated to Ireland, northern England and southern Scotland; some moved across the channel to Britanny.

The Angles settled mainly near the east coast of England and are remembered by the name East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk and surrounding areas south and west.) The East Saxons settled in Essex, a small kingdom that started as a group of clearings in the Forest, gradually extending westward until it included much of Hertfordshire and London. The South Saxons settled in Sussex and the West Saxons in Wessex. The Saxons also colonized much of central and western England which became the kingdom of Mercia.

The culture that the Anglo Saxons brought to England left few records; but what it did leave shows a strong resemblance to that which is recorded amongst the Vikings of later times. This included the concept of a “freeman”, the traditions of judgment by ordeal and the underpinnings of tort (fines for bad behavior paid to the victim or his family, the status of the injured party rather than the type of injury determining the payment in damages to be made.) Anglo-Saxon law was folk law and unwritten until conversion to Christianity. It was passed down orally in “dooms” or judgments. The law was ancient, God-given and unchangeable (the underpinnings of stare decisis.) The earliest Anglo Saxon settlements were by tribal groups do not clearly show any evidence of genuine centralized authority. As the Anglo Saxon period progressed, power became more centralized.

Around 600 AD there seem to have been perhaps 13 independent states, Wessex (the kingdom of the West Saxons), Sussex (the kingdom of the South Saxons), Middlesex (the country of the middle Saxons), Kent, Essex (the kingdom of the East Saxons), Magons, Hwicce, Middle Anglia (the country of the Middle Angles), Mercia, East Anglia (the country of the East Angles), Lindsey, Deira and Bernicia. The native peoples of Britain had been driven to the margins, and ruled their own set of kingdoms, Dumnonia, Dyfed, Powys, Gwynedd, Rheged and Elmet. By the middle of the 7th century the Anglo Saxon kingdoms had already coalesced into seven loosely organized states, the Anglo Saxon “heptarchy.” Threats from the Danes caused responsive changes in the tribal structure of government. The “Witan,” or advisory council, replaced the prior greater assembly of freemen. In the late 8th century, Offa (Mercia) became the first “King of England” (rex Anglorum and rex tortius Anglorum patria - King of the whole land of the English.) In the early 9th century, it was Egbert of Wessex who took power.

The Anglo Saxon period was a violent one. Warfare dominated its history and shaped the nature of its governance. Until conversion to Christianity (end of 6th century,) early kings won their crown on the battlefield and the right to rule was not inherited. Particularly during the eighth and ninth century, there were major Viking (Danish) invasions that the Anglo Saxons had to contend with. The Vikings established the Danelaw in a large portion of eastern England. There are over 600 village names in England which can be directly related to the Vikings (Grimsby, Thoresby, Brimtoft, Langtoft and so on). There are English counties which have about 75 percent of their village names from the Viking area. On the Shetland Islands the percentage goes up to about 99 percent. In the North East of England the Nordic languages were spoken until as late as the 12th century. On the Isle Of Man it remained spoken until the middle of the 15th century.

Apparently, a common non-Latin written language (Old English) was not established until the rule of Alfred The Great in the ninth century. He also collated the various local common law. King Alfred's Book of Laws or Dooms as set out in the existing laws of Kent, Wessex and Mercia, attempted to blend the Mosaic code with Christian principles and old Germanic customs. In the Anglo-Saxon portion, a system of governance had developed with three major divisions of local government, in ascending order of rank: the “tun”, “hundred” and “shire.” The Laws of Alfred the Great, continually amplified by his successors, grew into a body of customary laws administered by the shire and hundred courts, which, under the name of the Laws of Edward (the Confessor) the Norman kings undertook to respect and, out of much manipulation by feudal lawyers, the Common Law was founded.

The “tun” or town had local “moots” or meetings or assembly courts of all freemen that dealt with all types of local public business and police functions. The court appointed a “tun-reeve,” or quasi-executive, who with four other freemen represented the tun at the hundred and shire moots or assemblies. When the manorial system was introduced, the tun court was absorbed into the private manorial jurisdiction.

The “hundred” or “wapentake” were territorial units that formed the basis for administration of public justice and finance. Where there were a large number of hundreds in the shire, they would be grouped into larger sub-units of the shire known regionally as “laethes,” “rapes” “trithings” or ridings. Each hundred was an assembly of all freemen who met monthly to deal with all affairs, including ecclesiastical matters. Each freeman had an equal voice, but the “will” of the moot was consensus achieved by discussion. The court selected a “hundred man” who had executive duties. When the manorial system was introduced, the steward of the manorial lord began to replace the hundred man and collected judicial revenues for his lord. The king also was entitled to his judicial revenues.

William the Conqueror took over the rule of England in 1066 A.D. Among his first acts was to have himself elected as king by the Witan (before it was disbanded) and to confirm Anglo-Saxon law. He imposed the European system of feudalism over the remnants of the English manorial system.

Thomas Jefferson learned the Ancient Anglo Saxon language and translated early documents. On August 13, 1776, he wrote to Edmund Pendleton: “Are we not better for what we have hitherto abolished of the feudal system: Has not every restitution of the ancient Saxon laws had happy effects? Is it not better now that we return at once into that happy system of our ancestors, the wisest and most perfect ever devised by the wit of man, as it stood before the eighth century?”

The music of the Middle Ages make 'em a big favorite of mine.

Those Terrible Middle Ages:
Debunking the Myths
by Regine Pernoud
tr by Anne, Englund Nash Ancestors:
The Loving Family in Old Europe
by Steven E. Ozment

paperback

Some Iron Age forts in Europe strengthened by friendly fire, suggests study
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-2015-2016/article/some-iron-age-forts-in-europe-strengthened-by-friendly-fire-suggests-study


Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths by Regine Pernoud tr by Anne, Englund Nash	Ancestors: The Loving Family in Old Europe by Steven E. Ozment paperback