Brittia (), according to

Procopius Procopius of Caesarea (; ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; ; – 565) was a prominent Late antiquity, late antique Byzantine Greeks, Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Justinian I, Empe ...

, was an island known to the inhabitants of the

Low Countries The Low Countries (; ), historically also known as the Netherlands (), is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower Drainage basin, basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern "Bene ...

under Frankish rule (viz. the North Sea coast of

Austrasia Austrasia was the northeastern kingdom within the core of the Francia, Frankish Empire during the Early Middle Ages, centring on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers. It included the original Frankish-ruled territories within what had ...

), corresponding both to a real island used for burial and a mythological Isle of the Blessed, 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 ( ; also spelled as ''Thylē'') is the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and cartography. First written of by the Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia (modern-day Marseille, France) in about 320 BC, i ...

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

Frisians The Frisians () are an ethnic group indigenous to the German Bight, coastal regions of the Netherlands, north-western Germany and southern Denmark. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland an ...

and

Britons British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, w ...

. 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. History Crisis of the Third Century During the Crisis of the Third Century, Goths under ...

," H. R. Loyn warns. Procopius relates: "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 In ancient times, Armorica or Aremorica (Gaulish: ; ; ) was a region of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula, and much of historical Normandy. Name The name ''Armorica'' is a Latinized form of the Gauli ...

, 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 formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...

reports that on the river Tréguier 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 (; , Constantinople – 1180, Constantinople) was a Byzantine poet and grammarian who lived at Constantinople in the 12th century. He is known for making significant contributions in preserving much valuable information from ancien ...

in the 12th century; but long before that,

Claudian Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (Greek: Κλαυδιανός; ), 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 almo ...

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 the ...

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

bardic In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and 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 an ...

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

See also

Notes

References