Thread by @garius

It's Friday. Have some history.

So you know Hadrian's Wall? Well for over 1000 years everyone thought it was built by someone else.

Until, in 1840, John Hodgson, an unknown Northumbrian clergyman published the LONGEST footnote in history.

Read on... /1

So let's start with the obvious bit: Just HOW did no one know who built Hadrian's Wall?!

Because it was BORING. Nobody really cared who built it. Hadrian didn't. It was there to do a job (keep soldiers busy and keep angry proto-Scottish people from raiding the south).

This meant that by the time later Romans THEMSELVES started wondering which Emperor built it, nobody was kinda sure. Because a whole bunch of Emperors had done wall-like stuff round there.

So Roman historians pretended they totally definitely knew. And handwaved it as Severus.

Severus was a pretty safe bet for these Roman historians. Everyone knew he'd done a lot of campaigning in Britain. He'd definitely built a bunch of stuff there. Even died there.

HE built the big wall, they said.

STANDS.

TO.

REASON.

Europius: "He [Severus] had his last war in Britain, and to fortify the conquered provinces with all security, he built a wall for 132 miles from sea to sea. He died at York, a reasonably old man, in the sixteenth year and third month of his reign."

YOU BIG LIAR EUROPIUS.

Anyway. Jump forward to 731AD. Enter Bede. Bede's IN Britain and can see there's actually a few walls here. So he tries to unpick this, identifying Antoninus' wall as different to the north.

But LOADS of Romans said Severus built a big one. So he must be the big wall guy right?

Bede thus continues to misreport Hadrian's Wall as SEVERUS' Wall. Bosh. It's now BRITISH historical fact.

It's not until the 16th century, until people actually start going and, ya know, looking at the stuff there, that they think to question this.

Sir Cristopher Ridley in 1571 and William Camden in 1599 are two of the first to spot that maybe Hadrian was involved somehow.

But BEDE...

And the ROMAN HISTORIANS...

Nope. They can't be wrong. Now everyone admits maybe Hadrian did the Vallum. Definitely Severus' Wall though!

NOBODY wants to question the established wisdom. Nobody wants to be that guy who sticks up a hand. History gets bent to allow Severus to still be the Main Wall Guy. Any Hadrian bits are just waved away.

He did the earthen Vallum! He did the odd tower!

Until 1840. Enter a vicar.

Born in 1779 John Hodgson was a Northumbrian clergyman, but his PASSION was history.

And in 1817, he decided to write the most thorough history of Northumbria ever written. And I MEAN thorough. By the 1830s he was only up to volume 3.

And John soon found a problem:

The Wall.

Because, being the insanely thorough guy he was, John had gone out and walked it. He'd been looking at the stones. Not just the obvious ones, but all the bits reused in buildings. He was copying transcriptions.

He was, to all intents and purposes, doing ARCHAEOLOGY.

And the MOMENT you did any proper archaeology, even proto-archaeology like this, it became utterly, indisputably obvious the wall was built by HADRIAN. The evidence was everywhere if you took it in totality.

But John had a problem. He's writing about Northumberland not the wall.

Being the most British clergyman (and proto-academic) ever, John doesn't abandon his History of Northumberland. He's sitting on evidence that will change a key part of British history, but nope! Out of scope.

So what does he do?

He footnotes it.

A 173 PAGE LONG FOOTNOTE.

In 1840, Volume II Part 3 of John Hodgson's 'History of Northumberland' is published. In its intro is an apology from John:

"On the Roman Wall, I have omitted much that I would like to have said... on the Roman Wall, I have written much that few will read."

And then, wonderfully, almost 50% of the entire 400 pages is essentially a long, small text footnote in which John Hodgson slowly and methodically demolishes 1500 years of established history to prove Hadrian, not Severus, built the Wall.

It is beautiful. It is a work of art.

Imagine being Hodgson's typesetter. He rocks up with his manuscript.

"Any footnotes in this guv?"

"Um. Just a couple."

Then after he's gone, you open it and see this stuff.

Academics: however naughty you think you are with footnotes you are a SPECK IN THE EYE of John Hodgson.

I cannot imagine there is a longer footnote in literature. Nor one that has had such an overwhelming and complete impact on our understanding of history.

Over 170-odd pages Hodgson quietly FOUNDED Hadrianic Theory. He changed everything.

But he almost didn't. Because, tragically, by 1840 Hodgson's health was gone. This would be the last thing he ever wrote. It was published almost-posthumously.

And almost nobody saw it. But two people, importantly did.

John Clayton and John Collingwood Bruce.

Clayton was the landowner of Chesters and more. He'd always been troubled by the evidence himself. The antiquarian Collingwood Bruce felt the same. They poured over Hodgson's work. They built on it.

From 1848 Bruce began his own definitive works on the Wall.

HADRIAN'S Wall.

Hodgson is fascinating to me. Few books mention him. Because they rarely mention the fact that we forgot it was Hadrian's Wall at all. Because it's so OBVIOUS now. But we need to remember people like him. The quiet ones who change established thought through EVIDENCE, not volume.

I'll leave you with this final quote from Hodgson's intro to Vol II Pt 3:

"Topographical enquiry, as it discovers truth, gives the same kind of delight as Science feels, when new arrangements of form and matter present themselves before her."

Raise a trowel Archeologists, to JH

And Twitter, if you want to see Hodgson's masterpiece for yourself, then there's a copy up on Google Books. Enjoy.

And from this point on remember:

When you read a book, you should ALWAYS read the footnotes. books.google.co.uk/books?id=D1IGA…

Anyway. Hope you enjoyed this bit of history. As usual, if you did then you can buy me a coffee (or a Friday Beer) here. But don't feel you have to! ko-fi.com/garius

ADDENDUM:

Further reading for those who want it:

Big fan of ANYTHING by David Breeze on the Wall. He's also one of the few who talks about Hodgson in his academic stuff, but start with this. It's more readable. amazon.co.uk/Hadrians-Pengu…

If you want examples of how the description of the Wall evolved through texts (from Roman to Bede) then Dot to Doomsday and KM Matthews are for you:

dot-domesday.me.uk/s_wall.htm

kmatthews.org.uk/arthuriana/wal…

Beyond this, you're into mostly primary sources or academic papers.

But if you have access to those and want a VERY fun look at how thought evolved, find "Hadrian's Wall: A History of the Problem" by R. G. Collingwood. The Journal of Roman Studies , 1921, Vol. 11 (1921) /END

Oh and if you enjoyed this thread, do QT it with your own thoughts on why you enjoyed it.

Always pleases me to see that and know it was read and enjoyed.

QT the FIRST Tweet though. Not this one. No. The FIRST one.

ADDENDUM TO THE ADDENDUM.

A bit more on why I find John Hodgson fascinating: We have access to some of his inner thoughts...

https://twitter.com/garius/status/1570841032555896832