Several years ago, when in England, I visited Bath, where I saw the famous remains of the Roman baths. I’ve wondered since then why, when the Romans eventually left as the empire crumbled, local people did not opt to maintain the baths and other Roman imports. This led me to wonder what it was like there in other respects.
For example, was the Roman withdrawal gradual? Or did people just wake up one day and the invaders were gone? Presumably some Romans may have chosen to stay, but how many? A handful? More? What was it like for the natives?
I’ve looked without success for books on that time period in the British Isles. If anyone can suggest a source for information, especially some good books that would include this, I’d much appreciate it.
Several claimants to the Imperium were either from or had a power base in Britain; each took legions which were not replaced. I believe the last forces were taken to support the claims of Magnus Maximus (Macsen Wledig in Welsh legend). With the legions gone, the villa-et-latifundium life of the Roman-British counryside collapsed, as bandits and later raiders and Saxon invaders. City life lasted a bit longer but without reliable food sources, it too collapsed.
By the fourth and fifth centuries, no one in what would beome England regarded the Romans as invaders or occupiers – they were an integral part of the populace.
One place to look is books about the canals of England, or the Websites of the canals that were built by the Romans. They are in use again by both tourists and people who have vacation homes on the canals or live there full-time.
:dubious:
Most canals in Britain were built in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is news to me if the Romans built any at all. They built a lot of roads though.
I do not think Arthur is supposed to have been a Roman in the sense of being from Italy. As I understand it he is thought to have been a British leader who was defending some of the last vestiges of Roman-style civilization from the invading Saxons.
I’ve always found it interesting that England was one of the few places in the Western Empire where Latin did not survive in the form of a Romance language. Did Latin culture fail to establish roots in Britain, or were the Angles, Saxons and Jutes simply more efficient conquerers?
Well, looking at your links, the first was probably not built as a canal, and the second was probably not built by the Romans.
Certainly most of the canals that “are in use again by both tourists and people who have vacation homes on the canals or live there full-time” were built much more recently.
I’ve mentioned this before but in an article on Roman Briton in 410 AD in “BBC History” magazine March 2010
For books it recommends “AD 500 A Journey Through Dark Isles of Britain and Ireland” by Simon Young (2006) and “The ending of Roman Briton” by AS Esmond Clearly (1989).
Basically it was an apocalypse. While Rome never “pacified” Briton as it had other countries. there was a complex system of law, plumbing, army, trade, factory. Without Rome, people could not longer be specialists such as vet or silversmith but do a little of everything to survive. The decline of writing/lack of a historical record speaks volumes as to how bad it got.
Two novelised sources, but with obviously deep research behind them are Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth, which covers western Europe and the civilization that grew around the cathedrals: and Edward Rutherford’s Sarum, the Novel of England, which is much more focused on just that area (Salisbury Plain>).
In large part, the Roman lifestyle just becam unsustainable after the legions departed, though some attempted to continue.
The first couple of books in Jack Whyte’s Camulod series cover the period during and just after the last Legions leaving, although the series itself is an Arthurian saga…
It portrays quite successfully the growing need for communities to become self-reliant and fend for themselves.
(Arthur isn’t even born until v3 or v4, so it’s not especially Arthurian to begin with!)
I’d put it down to the conquering efforts of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, seeing as the language of the indigenous population was pushed over into Wales and Cornwall. The old view of the Anglo-Saxon invasion and colonisation was that the Britons were wiped out, but more recent studies using the archaeological record suggest that there was more integration than previously believed.
Except that the language that was confined to Wales and Cornwall was not Latin or a any romance language, but a Celtic language. Which suggests that the reason England doesn’t have a romance language is not the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Before that invasion happened, the opportunity to acquire a romance language had been and gone, and the British were still Celtic-speakers.