Brittia (), according to

Procopius Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gener ...

, was an island known to the inhabitants of the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

under Frankish rule (viz. the North Sea coast of

Austrasia Austrasia was a territory which formed the north-eastern section of the Merovingian Kingdom of the Franks during the 6th to 8th centuries. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of the F ...

), corresponding both to a real island used for burial and a mythological

Isle of the Blessed The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed ( grc, μακάρων νῆσοι, ''makárōn nêsoi'') were semi-legendary islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise inhabit ...

, to which the souls of the dead are transported. Procopius's Brittia lies no farther than 200 stadia (25 miles) from the mainland, opposite the mouth of the Rhine but between the islands of ''Brettania'' and legendary

Thule Thule ( grc-gre, Θούλη, Thoúlē; la, Thūlē) is the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek and Latin literature, Roman literature and cartography. Modern interpretations have included Orkney, Shet ...

, and three nations live in it, ''Angiloi, Phrissones'' and ''Brittones'', that is,

Angles The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ' ...

Frisians The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, ...

and

Britons British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs mo ...

. Procopius mentions a wall in Brittia, which he distinguishes from ''Bretannia'', however, and fertile lands. "It is perhaps only the apparently authentic combinations of names, Angles, Frisians and Britons, which demands hard attention to this interlude in serious Byzantine discussions of the

Gothic wars The Gothic Wars were a long series of conflicts between the Goths and the Roman Empire between the years 249 and 554. The main wars are detailed below. Gothic War (249–253) (Goths under Cniva against the Roman Empire) The War was probably in ...

H. R. Loyn Henry Royston Loyn (16 June 1922 – 9 October 2000), Fellow of the British Academy, FBA, was a British historian specialising in the history of Anglo-Saxon England. His eminence in his field made him a natural candidate to run the Sylloge of the ...

warns. Procopius relates that

They imagine that the souls of the dead are transported to that island. On the coast of the continent there dwell under
Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
sovereignty, but hitherto exempt from all taxation, fishers and farmers, whose duty it is to ferry the souls over. This duty they take in turn. Those to whom it falls on any night, go to bed at dusk; at midnight they hear a knocking at their door, and muffled voices calling. Immediately they rise, go to the shore, and there see empty boats, not their own but strange ones, they go on board and seize the oars. When the boat is under way, they perceive that she is laden choke-full, with her gunwales hardly a finger's breadth above water. Yet they see no one, and in an hour's time they touch land, which one of their own craft would take a day and a night to do. Arrived at Brittia, the boat speedily unloads, and becomes so light that she only dips her keel in the wave. Neither on the voyage nor at landing do they see any one, but they hear a voice loudly asking each one his name and country. Women that have crossed give their husbands' names.

"A garbled account", observed Loyn "possibly an echo of a report by a Frankish ambassador or an Angle in the ambassador's entourage". Pursuing geographical accuracy beyond the capacity of Procopius himself, there have been suggestions as to at which point exactly these boats left the Gallic coast, Villemarqué placing it near Raz,

Armorica Armorica or Aremorica (Gaulish: ; br, Arvorig, ) is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula, extending inland to an indeterminate point and down the Atlantic Coast ...

, where there is a toponym "bay of souls".

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of th ...

reports that on the river

Tréguier Tréguier (; br, Landreger) is a port town in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. It is the capital of the province of Trégor. Geography Tréguier is located 36 m. N.W. of Saint-Brieuc by road. The port is situat ...

in Brittany, in the commune Plouguel, it is "said to be the custom to this day, to convey the dead to the churchyard in a boat, over a small arm of the sea called ''passage de l'enfer'', instead of taking the shorter way by land". Procopius's account is repeated by

John Tzetzes John Tzetzes ( grc-gre, Ἰωάννης Τζέτζης, Iōánnēs Tzétzēs; c. 1110, Constantinople – 1180, Constantinople) was a Byzantine poet and grammarian who is known to have lived at Constantinople in the 12th century. He was able to p ...

in the 12th century; but long before that,

Claudian Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almost ent ...

at the beginning of the 5th had heard of those Gallic shores as a trysting place of flitting ghosts. and not far from that region are Britain, the land of the

Senones The Senones or Senonii (Gaulish: "the ancient ones") were an ancient Gallic tribe dwelling in the Seine basin, around present-day Sens, during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Part of the Senones settled in the Italian peninsula, where they ...

, and the Rhine. Grimm compares this account to the airy wagon of the Bretons, and to

bardic In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise t ...

traditions which make out that souls, to reach the underworld, must sail over the pool of dread and of dead bones, across the vale of death, into the sea on whose shore stands open the mouth of hell's abyss. The name may arise from the Breton name of Brittany, ''Breizh''.

Notes

References

, ''De Bellis'' tomus 4, ed. Migne,

Patrologia Graeca The ''Patrologia Graeca'' (or ''Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca'') is an edited collection of writings by the Christian Church Fathers and various secular writers, in the Greek language. It consists of 161 volumes produced in 1857– ...

br>
Germanic mythology Celtic mythology Mythological islands British Isles Death customs Breton mythology and folklore Afterlife places

See also

Notes

References