太田述正コラム#15280（2025.10.29）
＜Morris, Marc『The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England』を読む（その８）＞（2026.1.23公開）

　「・・・What the archaeological evidence seems to reveal, therefore, is not a simple two-way split between Saxons and Britons, but a situation that was more complex, with the east divided into two quite distinct zones. In the more northerly zone there was a burial and artistic culture that clearly advertised a continued attachment to the Saxon homelands. In the southern zone, however, the situation seems more ambiguous. Some of the grave goods found in this region are Saxon, but others proclaim continuity with the imperial past. The occupants of these graves may have been continental newcomers, but in some cases they look like Romano-British people who had simply adopted a new and more demonstrative form of burial.・・・
　・・・they had little interaction with Britons is suggested by the remarkable fact that only around thirty words in Old English are reckoned to have been borrowed from Brittonic. Such a low figure makes it as good as certain that it was not just Saxon warriors who came to Britain, but whole communities of men, women and children, who did not mix and intermarry with the locals.・・・
　Britain was settled not by three separate ‘tribes’ who carefully maintained their identities during the migration process, but by a steady flow of peoples from all around the coasts of northern Europe and southern Scandinavia. Saxons, Angles and Jutes were certainly among their number, but so too were Frisians, Swedes and Franks, all mixing together, forming communities, and combining their artistic cultures to create new ones.・・・

⇒イギリス北部はサクソン等系に席巻されたけれど、イギリス南部はローマ/ブリトン系とサクソン等系が混淆、という考古学上の話、と、英語にローマ/ブリトン系の影響が殆ど見られないとの事実、との矛盾をモリスは解き明かしてくれていません。（太田）

　Here, in what is now Wales and Cornwall, were the hills and forests that Gildas said had offered the Britons refuge. Gildas himself is the best evidence that in these western regions there was still a literate, Christian culture, and that those at the very top of society were still striving to lead a Roman lifestyle.・・・
　Besides any looters and robbers in their own midst, the people of western Britain also faced continued assault from Irish raiders (and indeed, some colonisation, as inscribed stones found in Wales attest). The principle security threat, however, were the Saxons to their east. After the successful resistance led by Ambrosius Aurelianus, says Gildas, the Britons and the Saxons were engaged in a long war of attrition – it lasted forty-three years, apparently – with victory going to one side then the other. This state of affairs continued until the Britons defeated the Saxons at a place called Badon Hill＜（注10）＞ (Mons Badonicus).・・・

　（注10）「ベイドン山の戦い（英: Battle of Mons Badonicus, the Battle of Badon Hill）は、ブリトン人（ローマ化したケルト人）がアングロ・サクソン人を打ち破った戦い。時期としては、６世紀前後と見られるが、史書によって記述が一定しないため、正確な年代は不明。また、ベイドン山がどこにあったかという事実さえよくわかっていない。９世紀ごろから、ケルト側の指揮官にアーサー王がいたとされるようになった。」
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%99%E3%82%A4%E3%83%89%E3%83%B3%E5%B1%B1%E3%81%AE%E6%88%A6%E3%81%84

　・・・because while Beowulf＜（注11）＞ is all but useless for reconstructing the politics of sixth-century Scandinavia, it is peerless in illuminating the society of the earliest Anglo-Saxon kings and their subjects. 」（31、36～39、46）

　（注11）「ベーオウルフ（英: Beowulf・・・）は、英文学最古の伝承の一つで英雄ベーオウルフ（ベオウルフ）の冒険を語る叙事詩である。約3000行と古英語文献の中で最も長大な部類に属することから、言語学上も貴重な文献である。・・・
　デネ（デンマーク）を舞台とし、主人公である勇士ベーオウルフが夜な夜なヘオロットの城を襲う巨人のグレンデルや炎を吐くドラゴンを退治するという英雄譚であり、現在伝わっているゲルマン諸語の叙事詩の中では最古の部類に属する。
　作品内部にも外部の言及としても成立の時期を特定する記述が存在しないため、必ずしも明らかではないが、８世紀から９世紀にかけての間に成ったと考えられている。」
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%99%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AA%E3%82%A6%E3%83%AB%E3%83%95

⇒今更ながら、初期アングロサクソン時代の文献史料の乏しさは驚きです。（太田）

（続く）