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All Roman Roads Lead to Rome (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Hatty
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Wokingham in Berks is called after the Wocca tribe, Wocca was a "Saxon" from Wessex who founded Woking in Surrey (673 AD?) but I don't know when the Woccas/Wokings came to these parts.

Wallingford, on the Thames, known as the Saxon county town of Berkshire, is described as a "new town", established by Alfred, the most famous of the Wessex kings but it seems to go back further than the ninth century:

The name is unlikely to derive from the Celtic Gual-hen-fforda or "Wall(ed Town) by the Old Way". There is no evidence to suggest that the massive banks of King Alfred's Burgh had any origin in Roman or pre-Roman times. The name is probably Saxon for "Welsh People's Ford". Whichever you choose, the indications are that the area was a British stronghold long after the Saxons took over the country.
Why would Wallingford be named after the Welsh, Tel?
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Ishmael


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TelMiles wrote:
I'm very interested in your Britain was Christian first theory, I don't think it is impossible, I have just never heard of it before, so enlighten me!

I'm just making it up as I go along!

But it all has to do with when the Crusades happened -- and why.
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TelMiles


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Hatty wrote:
Why would Wallingford be named after the Welsh, Tel?

Could be a few reasons in my opinion, Hatty:

1. It was a Welsh stronghold until quite late. (A Saxon King, Cuthwulf I believe, was said to have been killed and his army defeated when he moved into the area, and this is after the "forming" of Wessex).

2. The auxilia theory is true and the Welsh were left there as they had made a deal with "Rome". (or they were the Saxon auxilia)

3. A complete Saxon takeover didn't take place, and as a result of infighting, on both sides, Wallingford remained in British hands for quite a while. (It wasn't a case of Briton vs Saxon)

4. It could have been a British stronghold and was remembered as such by the Saxons.

5. Wallingford has no connection to the Welsh whatsoever and is just another English place name.

All I can think of right now...
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Hatty
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Tel wrote:
.... your theory may find support from the Roman Catholic Church and St Augustine himself! His behaviour upon arriving in Britain is most odd, at first he "converts" the Anglo-Saxons, but then goes over to the "Britons" (who have been Christians for donkey's years) and threatens them with "Saxon retribution" when they don't agree to go over to the Roman Church way of doing things. Odd, Church man using essentially Pagans (as many of them still were) against fellow Christians? Augustine was sent by Rome...

St. Birinus is the patron saint of the Thames Valley, he is credited with converting the pagan Saxons, as opposed to the Christian 'Celts'. Probably sent by St. Augustine. There is still an annual pilgrimage to Dorchester (on the Thames, not Dorset) where Birinus first established his ministry.

As for the story of St. Augustine threatening the Celts, I wonder if we have Bede, ranting away about the corruption around him, to thank for that too?
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TelMiles


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I believe that Dorchester was the place where the Gewissae were based...
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TelMiles


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Also added to all this is the curiosity that is East Anglia. There is no mention anywhere of the Angles turning up in the area, they are simply just there later in the legends. Curious that the Saxon legends are explicit about where they turn up, Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Bernicia...but not East Anglia. Were the Angles already here? were they the ones behind the take over? Is East Anglia the "country of the Angles"?
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Hatty
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Tel wrote:
I believe that Dorchester was the place where the Gewissae were based...

The Gewissae were Welsh?

The founders of Wessex (West Saxony) were Cerdic and Cynric as we said in the Arthur thread, both good Welsh names. In the A-S Chronicle the pedigree bestowed on Cerdic calls him "the son of Elesa, the son of Elsa, the son of Gwis" (Gewissa). Elesa and Elsa are most likely one and the same. [Cynric's name has an echo in Kendrick, the name of a Reading school]. Don't sound like Saxon names.
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TelMiles


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No they don't sound at all like Saxons names, but, like on the Arthur thread, that could be because Cerdic was a Briton. The Gewissae (I may not be spelling that right), when they join with the West Saxons under Ceawlin, are being led by a man named Cuthwulf, which is entirely Saxon sounding. I think there is archaeological evidence to back up the presence of the Thames Valley Saxons as well. But once again, if they were only Saxon auxilia then their original leaders indeed could have been Welsh. By the time Cuthwulf joins the West Saxons, Cerdic and Cynric are long since dead.

Other theories abound about the Gewissae, such as the name is a rendering of Gwent and that Cerdic was their original leader.
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Ishmael


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Over on the Time Team Forum, in a discussion of Roman Roads, I outlined a process by which an historian could detect the absence of a particular technology. The What is is what was working paradigm puts us in a position of having to establish when and where certain cultual artifacts that currently are, once were not.

In repsonse to this claim, someone there wrote...

Only you could ask for direct evidence that something never existed.


This was my response...

"Yes. It sounds somewhat strange. We are used to hearing of the impossibility of 'proving the negative'. But really, it's not only possible to do so, it's the only means by which science operates. The scientific method never allows for proving the positive. It only ever permits the proving of the negative. This is the principle of falsification: The simplest model proposed is presumed true until facts emerge with which it is inconsistent."

Now how do we go about falsifying a proposition concerning history. Let me give you an example. As we are discussing roads, let us consider a more-recent form of transportation: the Aeroplane.

Now, as we look around our own time and place, we quickly get a sense of how people and things move in the context of a world in which air travel is possible. Observations include:

1) Enormous numbers of people moving very quickly over long distances.
2) Rapid inter-continental transit
3) Few passengers transported between continents by ship
4) Rapid intercontinental package delivery

As we look back in time to, say, 1910, we encounter a world where these observation no longer hold true. We find instead:

1) Small numbers of people moving very slowly over long distances.
2) Slow inter-continental transit
3) Many passengers transported between continents by ship
4) Slow and intercontinental package delivery

These observations are inconsistent with the presence of air travel. We would conclude, therefore, that aircraft were either non-existent or rudimentary in 1910.

Looking at the problem of roads in Great Britain, we would look to see massive transformation in trade and in the movement of peoples and goods between the pre and post Roman periods. In an island lacking a road network, we should expect only rudimentary capabilities in trade and very limited ability to transport heavy goods ... compared with the time under the Roman occupation of course (not compared with today). To the extent that such a transformation is observed, the case for Roman Roads is established (because observation of pre-Roman conditions would produce results inconsistent with the presence of Roads).

On the other hand, should it turn out that very little difference in export levels and very little change in mobility within the island is evidenced between each period, no good evidence would then exist for the road network having been constructed at the time of the Romans. The simpler model would prevail.

One more point.

Where we do not have enough data to determine whether change has occurred, no change is assumed. Stasis is always the most probable condition.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Port of Ravenna

It was established thousands years ago. In fact the Ravenna military and trade seaports are pictured in the opposite walls of S. Apollinare Nuovo, a church built in Ravenna by Theodoric the Great.

In 31 BC, Emperor Augustus founded near Ravenna the military harbor of Classe.[1] It hosted the second imperial fleet of the Roman Empire(according to Vegetius, Epitome of Military Science fourth book - the first one was located in Portus Julius near Capo Miseno near the Port of Naples) Even after the Empire's decline in the 5th century, the port kept active and entered a further golden age during the Byzantine dominion as the mosaics bear witness.

It underwent decline after being flooded by the mud of the rivers and conquered by Venice in the 15th century. In 1738, the Corsini Canal (named after Pope Clement XII), connecting Ravenna to the sea, started up its activity.The United States Navy established a naval air station at Porto Corsini on 24 July 1918 to operate seaplanes during World War I. The base closed shortly after the First Armistice at Compiègne.[2]

After World War II a huge petrochemical plant was established, but the oil crisis of 1973 enhanced its multipurpose trade facilities



You might conclude that Diocletian had worked out that it made sense to have a port as a new capital. Nevertheless history concludes that it was the threat of Barbarian invasion of Rome, or the splitting of the empire. All roads... do not make for a very good transport infrastructure.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Has anyone any pointers about how the Normans approached road building.

When you launch a invasion, you have a number of tasks.

Attack and duff up the locals.

Build temporary forts, garrison.

Build military (walls) roads, to connect your defences.

Ortho considers a lot of Roman roads in err Ancient Britain, military.

AE advises you build over.

Still what is fairly clear is that if military roads are left alone, they relatively quickly fall into disrepair and vegetation takes over. Your roads disappear.

What I am after is a good account of Norman road building to complement their motte and baileys and their pillaging. I don't want accounts of them creating forests (to hunt) where outlaws can hide and ambush their soldiers.

Please......
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Wile E. Coyote


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So let's get this straight (see what I did). The Romans built their roads straight as these were military roads, constructed during non winter months, for Roman armies on the move, in spring/summer.

So the paradigm is the military (not specifically the Romans) build their roads straight. This is what General Wade did when he was putting down the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. He built straight roads.

Folks see a straight road and think it's Roman. Not the case. It signals a military road. In the main Roads cannot be dated, they look alike.

The surviving bits of military roads are straight over good ground. The lost bits were straight over wetter ground, they would have been suitable for a summer army travel ....but when the armies go, these roads are not functional for civilian use. Bits of the road disappear.

The Normans if/when they invaded would have had to engage in road building or repair, because as an invader they would need straight military roads.....

Wiley needs an account.
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Mick Harper
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You've made a few factual errors, Wiley, though don't let me put you off this vital subject (which still baffles me).

The Romans built their roads straight as these were military roads

In what way(s) are building military roads any different from building 'roads'?

constructed during non winter months, for Roman armies on the move, in spring/summer.

I'll assume an errant 'non' has strayed in here unless you mean 'autumn'. Apart from autumn/winter not being the best time to build roads, they take too long to build in time for the summer. Why would Roman armies be 'on the move' anyway? If they were just relocating, surely autumn/winter would be the best time. If it was get to some military emergency, I would recommend getting a shift on whatever season it was. Unless you had to wait for the autumn/winter road-building programme to be finished, I suppose.

So the paradigm is the military (not specifically the Romans) build their roads straight.

So why has everybody else ignored this? It may interest you to know that when the Nazis were specifically building autobahns with military movement in mind they did what everybody else did and made them in constant gradual curves. I'll tell you why later.

This is what General Wade did when he was putting down the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. He built straight roads.

I am sure he didn't. He wasn't a complete moron. Though I suppose if he was he could go straight across loughs, straight up mountains and down the other side, straight over cliffs etc.

Folks see a straight road and think it's Roman.

Correct, and I agree they shouldn't.

Not the case. It signals a military road.

Incorrect, and I wish you wouldn't.

In the main Roads cannot be dated, they look alike.

In the main roads can be dated because they don't look alike.

The surviving bits of military roads are straight over good ground.

Not for more than, say, a mile without driving everyone completely bananas. Have you ever looked along a long, straight road? It is utterly unnerving. Which is why nobody ever builds them straight. Unless, as we point out in Megalithic Empire, they were straight for another reason and you were taking over the infrastructure.

The lost bits were straight over wetter ground, they would have been suitable for a summer army travel ....but when the armies go, these roads are not functional for civilian use. Bits of the road disappear.

I'm with the civilians on this one. Lost.

The Normans if/when they invaded would have had to engage in road building or repair, because as an invader they would need straight military roads.....

For what? The official story is they beat the opposing army where they landed. The 'harrying of the north' was a leisurely twenty year operation.Can't remember any other military campaigns.

Wiley needs an account.

Wiley needs his head examining.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Did the Nazis build autobahns with military movement in mind?

I dont think so. You might be right. Wiki is skeptical. Which means you are probably right.

It was once common to consider military applications as having been the true main reason the Nazis constructed autobahns, but historians now generally agree that this was an exaggeration.[98][99][100] Foreigners suggested a covert military purpose for the Reichsautobahns as early as 1934, but a 1946 British Intelligence report noted that sections that would have been militarily useful were not completed and that some completed sections were not apparently used during the war.[101] The project did, however, develop logistical skills and technology that were used for military purposes, notably in the building of the Westwall under Todt's supervision, and it disguised the development of those resources.




Georg Halter, professor of road construction and railroads at the Technical University of Munich and a Nazi Party member, wrote several pieces beginning in fall 1933 in which he contested Todt's report, with respect to strategic applications pointing out that road vehicles had less than a third of the weight capacity of railroad freight wagons, in addition to which the steel wheel-rims and treads of armored vehicles would severely damage the roadway. He also regarded the light-colored concrete that was to be used for the roadways as a guide for enemy aircraft (beginning in 1937, the surface was tinted black for this reason, which distressed Hitler)[95] and the planned large viaducts as tempting targets, "like honey to wasps". Border segments that could have been useful at the start of the war had not been completed because of earlier fears that enemies would use them to invade, and weight testing was not performed until March 1939.
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Mick Harper
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In the event it was discovered that there wasn't enough oil or rubber to move units strategically by road anyway and the poor old, long suffering coal'n'steel railways had to do the job. Railways of course are rarely straight for any great distance either. You have to feel for the Germans, being forced to embark on world conquest way before they were ready by that wily Chamberlain (pun intended).

The 'useful for the military' argument, I agree, was less important than the 'providing employment' and 'Hitler loves fast cars' arguments but above all the 'Nazi Germany must look modern' argument. Of course the Luftwaffe would have liked a few straight sections for emergency landing strips, which they could have done since the autobahn were empty most of the time on account of Germans not being able to afford cars and rendering the whole autobahn project a total waste of resources, as with so much Hitlerian infrastructure. The Swedes actually plan on using their motorways in a future war but I don't know how they will manage. It's no accident that SAAB makes both their cars and their planes. They may stay neutral instead.

It was the Americans, who could afford cars, that first discovered the 'curves are best' principle even when crossing a thousand miles of pan flat prairie, and we ourselves adopted the principle when we decided to go all modern with the Preston by-pass in 1958. It might be instructive, Wiley, to compare the A5 (a Roman road) with the M1 (a Marples road). Technically a Marples Ridgway road, though that sounds more Megalithic.
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