Archaeological Essays Part 11

The palaeographic peculiarities of the inscription sufficiently bear out the idea of the monument being of the date or era which I have ventured to a.s.sign to it--a point the weight and importance of which it is unnecessary to insist upon. "The inscription," says Lhwyd, "is in the barbarous characters of the fourth and fifth centuries." Professor Westwood, who is perhaps our highest authority on such a question, states to me that he is of the same opinion as Lhwyd as to the age of the lettering in the Cat-stane legend.

To some minds it may occur as a seeming difficulty that the legend or inscription is in the Latin language, though the leader commemorated is Saxon. But this forms no kind of valid objection. The fact is, that all the early Romano-British inscriptions as yet found in Great Britain, are, as far as they have been discovered and deciphered, in Latin. And it is not more strange that a Saxon in the Lothians should be recorded in Latin, and not in Saxon or Keltic, than that the numerous Welshmen and others recorded on the early Welsh inscribed stones should be recorded in Latin and not in the Cymric tongue.

Doubtless, the Romanised Britons and the foreign colonists settled among them were, with their descendants, more or less acquainted with Latin in both its spoken and written forms. As early as the second year of his march northward for the conquest of this more distant part of Britain, or A.D. 79, Agricola, as Tacitus takes special care to inform us, took all possible means to introduce, for the purposes of conquest and civilisation, a knowledge of the Roman language and of the liberal arts among the barbarian tribes whom he went to subdue.[209] The same policy was no doubt continued to a greater or less extent during the whole era of the Roman dominion here as elsewhere; so that there is no wonder that such arts as lapidary writing, and the composition of brief Latin inscriptions, should have been known to and transmitted to the native Britons. There was, however, another cla.s.s of inhabitants, besides these native Britons, who were, as we know from the altars and stone monuments which they have left, sufficiently learned in the formation and cutting of inscriptions in Latin,--a language which was then, and for some centuries subsequently, the only language used in this country, either in lapidary or other forms of writing. The military legions and cohorts which the Roman emperors employed to keep Britain under due subjection, obtained, under the usual conditions, grants of lands in the country, married, and became betimes fixed inhabitants. When speaking of the veteran soldiers of Rome settling down at last as permanent proprietors of land in Britain--as in other Roman colonies,--Sir Francis Palgrave remarks, "Upwards of forty of these barbarian legions, _some of Teutonic origin_, and others Moors, Dalmatians, and Thracians, whose forefathers had been transplanted from the remotest parts of the empire, obtained their domicile in various parts of our island, though princ.i.p.ally upon the northern and eastern coasts, and _in the neighbourhood of the Roman walls_."[210] Such colonists undoubtedly possessed among their ranks, and were capable of transmitting to their descendants, a sufficient knowledge of the Latin tongue, and a sufficient amount of art, to form and cut such stone inscriptions as we have been considering; and perhaps I may add, that in such a mixed population, the Teutonic elements[211]

in particular, would, towards the decline of the Roman dominion and power, not perhaps be averse to find and follow a leader, like Vetta, belonging to the royal stock of Woden; nor would they likely fail to pay all due respect, by the raising of a monument or otherwise, to the memory of a chief of such an ill.u.s.trious race, if he fell amongst them in battle.

Besides, a brief incidental remark in Bede's History proves that the erection of a monument like the Cat-stane, to record the resting-place of the early Saxon chiefs, was not unknown. For, after telling us that Horsa was slain in battle by the Britons, Bede adds that "this Saxon leader was buried in the eastern parts of Kent, where a monument bearing his name is still in existence"[212] (hactenus in orientalibus Cantiae partibus monumentum habet suo nomine insigne).[213] The great durability of the stone forming Vetta's monument has preserved it to the present day; while the more perishable material of which Horsa's was constructed has made it a less faithful record of that chief, though it was still in Bede's time, or in the eighth century, "suo nomine insigne."[214]

The chief points of evidence which I have attempted to adduce in favour of the idea that the Cat-stane commemorates the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa may be summed up as follows:--

1. The surname of VETTA upon the Cat-stane is the name of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, as given by our oldest genealogists.

2. The same historical authorities all describe Vetta as the son of Victa; and the person recorded on the Cat-stane is spoken of in the same distinctive terms--"VETTA F(ILIUS) VICTI."

3. Vetta is not a common ancient Saxon name, and it is highly improbable that there existed in ancient times two historical Vettas, the sons of two Victas.

4. Two generations before Hengist and Horsa arrived in England, a Saxon host--as told by Ammia.n.u.s--was leagued with the other races of modern Scotland (the Picts, Scots, and Attacots), in fighting with a Roman army under Theodosius.

5. These Saxon allies were very probably under a leader who claimed royal descent from Woden, and consequently under an ancestor or pre-relative of Hengist and Horsa.

6. The battle-ground between the two armies was, in part at least, the district placed between the two Roman walls, and consequently included the tract in which the Cat-stane is placed; this district being erected by Theodosius, after its subjection, into a fifth Roman province.

7. The palaeographic characters of the inscription accord with the idea that it was cut about the end of the fourth century.

8. The Latin is the only language[215] known to have been used in British inscriptions and other writings in these early times by the Romanised Britons and the foreign colonists and conquerors of the island.

9. The occasional erection of monuments to Saxon leaders is proved by the fact mentioned by Bede, that in his time, or in the eighth century, there stood in Kent a monument commemorating the death of Horsa.[216]

If, then, as these reasons tend at least to render probable, the Cat-stane be the tombstone of Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, this venerable monolith is not only interesting as one of our most ancient national historic monuments, but it corroborates the floating accounts of the early presence of the Saxons upon our coast; it presents to us the two earliest individual Saxon names known in British history; it confirms, so far as it goes, the accuracy of the genealogy of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa, as recorded by Bede and our early chroniclers; while at the same time it forms in itself a connecting link, as it were, between the two great invasions of our island by the Roman and Saxon--marking as it does the era of the final declinature of the Roman dominion among us, and the first dawn and commencement of that Saxon interference and sway in the affairs of Britain, which was destined to give to England a race of new kings and new inhabitants, new laws, and a new language.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 128: The farm is called "Briggs, or Colstane" (Catstane), in a plan belonging to Mr. Hutchison, of his estate of Caerlowrie, drawn up in 1797. In this plan the bridge (brigg) over the Almond, at the boathouse, is laid down. But in another older plan which Mr. H. has of the property, dated 1748, there is no bridge, and in its stead there is a representation of the ferry-boat crossing the river.]

[Footnote 129: In this strategic angular fork or tongue of ground, formed by the confluence of these two rivers, Queen Mary and her suite were, according to Mr. Robert Chambers, caught when she was carried off by Bothwell on the 24th of April 1567. (See his interesting remarks "On the Locality of the Abduction of Queen Mary" in the _Proceedings of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries_, vol. ii. p. 331.)]

[Footnote 130: The comparative rapidity or slowness with which bones are decomposed and disappear in different soils, is sometimes a question of importance to the antiquary. We all know that they preserve for many long centuries in dry soils and dry positions. In moist ground, such as that on which the Cat-stane stands, they melt away far more speedily. On another part of Mrs. Ramsay's property, namely in the policy, and within two hundred yards of the mansion-house of Barnton, I opened, several years ago, with Mr. Morritt of Rokeby, the grave of a woman who had died--as the tombstone on the spot told us--during the last Scottish plague in the year 1648. The only remains of sepulture which we found were some fragments of the wooden coffin, and the enamel crowns of a few teeth. All other parts of the body and skeleton had entirely disappeared. The chemical qualities of the ground, and consequently of its water, will of course modify the rapidity of such results.]

[Footnote 131: _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, p. 96.]

[Footnote 132: _Statistical Account of Scotland_, collected by Sir John Sinclair, vol. x. pp. 68, 75.]

[Footnote 133: The _Scots Magazine_ for 1780, p. 697. See also Smellie's _Account of the Inst.i.tution and Progress of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_ (1782), p. 8.]

[Footnote 134: Rowlands' _Mona Antiqua Restaurata_, second edition, p.

313. The inscription is printed in italics by Rowland. I have printed this and some of the following readings in small Roman capitals, in order to a.s.similate them all the more with each other.]

[Footnote 135: _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. xxii. p. 790.]

[Footnote 136: _Historical Inquiries concerning the Roman Monuments and Antiquities in Scotland_, p. 50.]

[Footnote 137: _The History of Edinburgh_, p. 508.]

[Footnote 138: _Tour in Scotland_ in 1772, Part ii. p. 237. When describing his ride from Kirkliston to Edinburgh, he observes: "On the right hand, at a small distance from our road are some rude stones. On one called the _Cat-stean_, a compound of Celtic and Saxon, signifying the Stone of Battle, is this inscription: IN HOC TUMULO JACET VETA F.

VICTI; supposed in memory of a person slain there."]

[Footnote 139: Camden's _Britannia_, edited by Richard Gough, vol. iii.

p. 317. Mr. Gough cites also as Mr. Wilkie's reading, "IN HOC TUM, JAC.

CONSTANTIE VICT."]

[Footnote 140: In the VETTA of this line the cross bar in A is wanting, from the stone between the upright bars being chipped or weathered out.]

[Footnote 141: _Archaeologia Cambrensis_ (for 1848), vol. iii. p. 107.]

[Footnote 142: See his "Chronicon," in the _Monumenta Historica Britannica_, pp. 502 and 505. Nouns, and names ending thus in "r,"

preceded by a vowel, were often written without the penultimate vowel, particularly in the Scandinavian branches of the Teutonic language; as Baldr for Balder and Baldur; Folkvangr for Folkvangar; Surtr for Surtur and Surtar, etc. (See the Glossary to the prose Edda in Bohn's edition of Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, and Kemble's _Saxons in England_, pp. 346, 363, etc.) For genealogical lists full of proper names ending in "r" with the elision of the preceding vowel, see the long tables of Scandinavian and Orcadian pedigrees printed at the end of the work on the pre-Columbian discovery of America, _Antiquitates Americanae_, etc., which was published at Copenhagen in 1837 by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries. In the first table of genealogies giving the pedigree of Thorfinn, the son of Sigurd, of the Orkney dynasty, etc., we have, among other names--Olafr, Grismr, Ingjaldr, Oleifr (_Rex Dublini_); Thorsteinn Raudr (_partis Scotiae Rex_); Dungadr (_Earl of Katanesi_); Arfidr, Havadr, Thorfinnr, etc. (_Earls of Orkney_); etc.

etc.]

[Footnote 143: _Inscriptions Chretiennes de la Gaule, anterieures au VIII. Siecle._ See Plates Nos. 10, 11, 15, 16, 24, 25, etc.]

[Footnote 144: The name LIBERALIS is probably the Latinised form of a British surname having the same meaning. Rydderch, King of Strathclyde, in the latter part of the sixth century, and the personal friend of Kentigern and Columba, was sometimes, from his munificence, termed Rydderch _Hael_, or, in its Latinised form, Rydderch _Liberalis_. The first lines of the Yarrow inscription appear to me to read as far as they are decipherable, as follows:--

HIC MEMOR IACIT F LOIN:::NI:::: HIC PE::M DVMNOGENL

The true character of the G in the fourth line was first pointed out by Dr. Smith. It is of the same form as the G in the famous SAGRAMANVS stone, etc.]

[Footnote 145: The exception is the letter D in DVO, which verges to the uncial form.]

[Footnote 146: In the inscription all the words are, as usual, run together, with the exception of the Jacit and Mulier, which are separated from each other by the oblique linear point. See a plate of the inscription in the _Archaeologia Cambrensis_ for 1855, p. 153.]

[Footnote 147: _Caledonia_, vol. ii. p. 844.]

[Footnote 148: _New Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol i. p. 138. For the same supposed corruption of the name Constantine into Cat-stane, see also Fullarton's _Gazetteer of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 182.]

[Footnote 149: The brief history of Kenneth, his parentage, reign, and mode of death, as given in one of the earliest Chronicles of the Kings of Scotland, quoted by Father Innes (p. 802), contains in its few lines a very condensed and yet powerful story of deep maternal affection and fierce female revenge. The whole entry is as follows:--"Kinath Mac-Malcolm 24, an. et 2. mens. Interfectus in Fotherkern a suis per perfidium Finellae filiae Cunechat comitis de Angus; cujus Finellae filium unic.u.m praedictus Kinath interfecit apud Dunsinoen." The clumsy additions of some later historians only spoil and mar the original simplicity and force of this "three-volume" historical romance.]

[Footnote 150: Tom. i. p. 219, of Goodall's edition.]

[Footnote 151: _De Rebus Gestis Scotorum_, chap. lx.x.xi. p. 200.]

[Footnote 152: _Joannis Forduni Scotichronicon_, tom. i. p. 219.]