Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The Ending of Roman Britain (edition 1989)by A S Esmonde-Cleary (Author)
Work InformationThe Ending of Roman Britain by A. S. Esmonde Cleary
Roman Britain (16) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. no reviews | add a review
Why did Roman Britain collapse? What sort of society succeeded it? How did the Anglo-Saxons take over? And how far is the traditional view of a massacre of the native population a product of biased historical sources? This text explores what Britain was like in the 4th-century AD and looks at how this can be understood when placed in the wider context of the western Roman Empire. Information won from archaeology rather than history is emphasized and leads to an explanation of the fall of Roman Britain. The author also offers some suggestions about the place of the post-Roman population in the formation of England. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)936.1History and Geography Ancient World Europe north and west of Italian Peninsula to ca. 499 British Isles to 410LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
The economy was devastated from the incursions in the 380's, and the Theodosiam expedition was only a restablishment of military control. Sadly, th e economic life of the province is not capable of recovery to the former prosperity by the military withdrawal of 410. The towns, except for three centres collapse within a generation and the economy of the island reverts to the pre-Roman Celtic condition. There is very little evidence of Saxon co-existence with a Roman civil structure , but the strong possiblity exists that the smalll number of Saxon, Jute and Northumbrian immigrants were involved in a large cultural shift to their way of doing things. This resulted in the conversion of the Eastern British to the Teutonic pattern of culture that lead to the erection of the Heptarchy of the 600's and 700's. He has a convincing picture of a gradual split of the Isand between the conservative Welsh and Cornish groups, and the converts to the Saxon way of life. It is a revision of the former paradign of the bloody invasion of the Saxons overturning a very Roman structure in the Britain of the 400 and 500s. This conversion seems to taken place in the period 440 to 550, and been a great deal less bloody than the traditional view pushed by Nennius and the eventual Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, assembled in the late 800's. Thus an interesting take on the state of the island. ( )