Walls and withdrawals: Gildas' version of the end of Roman Britain

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 17-40
Author(s):  
Pace Edwin
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Hadrian's Wall

'Notitia Dignitatum, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle', archaeology, and fifth-century Roman sources all support Gildas' story of a Roman return to Britain a decade after 410. A subsequent Roman withdrawal in about 421 left significant British governmental structures in place. But this also left the diocese with a greatly weakened economy. Gildas' erroneous story of a fifth-century origin for Hadrian's Wall derives from his providential view of history. Within this paradigm, the Wall was created exclusively for the defence of sinful, cowardly Britons, and not the God-favoured Romans.

scholarly journals Object Biography, Re-use and Recycling in the Late to Post-Roman Transition Period and Beyond: Rings made from Romano-British Bracelets

Britannia ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 167-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Swift
Keyword(s):  
Transition Period ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Object Biography ◽  
Extended Lifespan ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractDocumenting a phenomenon that has previously been overlooked, this article examines the later stages of object biography in relation to Romano-British bracelets, namely, their modification and subsequent re-use as smaller rings. Re-use is shown to occur widely and is particularly associated with the late fourth to early fifth centuriesa.d., with cut-down bracelets also found in early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. The making of smaller rings from late Roman bracelets is demonstrated to be part of a wider phenomenon of re-use, repair and recycling at the end of the Roman period in Britain, with attendant implications of cultural and economic change. It is proposed that the transformation of these artefacts was accompanied by changes in meaning which undermine the apparent continuity that is seen in the extended lifespan of the original object. This in turn illuminates the way that wider cultural norms were gradually eroded in the fifth century. Through the study of these artefacts a new perspective is provided on the transition to post-Roman Britain and the relationship between this and the early Anglo-Saxon period.

scholarly journals Memories of migration? The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ burial costume of the fifth century AD

Antiquity ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (370) ◽  
pp. 954-969
Author(s):  
James M. Harland
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Image Position

Abstract

Regional identities Angles and Saxons?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
Burial Rites

Writing in the early eighth century, Bede described how three separate peoples— the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—had settled in Britain some three hundred years earlier, and ever since the genesis of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ scholarship in the nineteenth century archaeologists have sought to identify discrete areas of Anglian, Saxon, and Jutish settlement (e.g. Leeds 1912; 1936; 1945; Fox 1923, 284–95). The identification of these peoples was based upon different artefact styles and burial rites, with most attention being paid to brooches. The degree of variation in the composition of brooch assemblages across eastern England is shown in Table 9.1. Cruciform brooches with cast side knobs, for example, were thought to have been ‘Anglian’, and saucer brooches ‘Saxon’ (although even in the early twentieth century Leeds (1912) had started to doubt the attribution of applied brooches to the West Saxons). In recent years, however, this traditional ‘culturehistorical’ approach towards interpreting the archaeological record has been questioned, as it is now recognized that, rather than being imported from mainland Europe during the early to mid fifth century, regional differences in artefact assemblages emerged over the course of the late fifth to late sixth centuries (e.g. Hines 1984; 1999; Hilund Nielsen 1995; Lucy 2000; Owen- Crocker 2004; 2011; Penn and Brugmann 2007; Walton Rogers 2007; Brugmann 2011; Dickinson 2011; Hills 2011). In early to mid fifth-century England, in contrast, it now appears that Germanic material culture was in fact relatively homogeneous, with objects typical of ‘Saxon’ areas on the continent being found in so-called ‘Anglian’ areas of England, and vice versa. The earliest material from East Anglia, for example—equal-arm, supporting-arm, and early cruciform brooches—are most closely paralleled in the Lower Elbe region of Saxony, with the distinctive ‘Anglian’ identity of EastAnglia onlyemerging through later contact with southern Scandinavia (Hines 1984; Carver 1989, 147, 152; Hills and Lucy 2013, 38–9). Indeed, many elements of the classic suite of early Anglo-Saxon material culture actually developed within Britain as opposed to having been created on the continent (Hills 2003, 104–7; Owen-Crocker 2004, 13), with new identities beingmade in Britain rather than being imported frommainland Europe (Hills 2011, 10).

Adapting to Life Without the Legions

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hinton
Keyword(s):  
High Order ◽  
East Side ◽  
The West ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
The North ◽  
Hadrian's Wall ◽  
Gold Coins ◽  
Subsequent Failure ◽  
Late Roman

If gold and silver are a measure of wealth, late Roman Britain was very rich. Hoards of coins, jewellery, and plate buried in the late fourth and early fifth centuries show that their owners’ lifestyle was coming to an end as central imperial authority broke down, troops were withdrawn from the island, villas fell into disuse, and towns lost their markets and trade. Raiders threatened by land and sea: Irish from the west, Pictish from the north, Frisian, Saxon, and others from the east; and as civic order broke down, the likelihood of robbery by people living south of Hadrian’s Wall grew worse. The hoards’ owners were right to worry, and their subsequent failure to retrieve their valuables must testify to many personal catastrophes. Hoards containing dishes, bowls, and spoons as well as coins and jewellery have been found on the east side of Roman Britain from Canterbury, Kent, in the south to Whorlton, Yorkshire, in the north. Further west, coin-hoards are quite plentiful, although none has any plate. Some contain jewellery, like one found in 1843 at Amesbury, Wiltshire, that included three silver finger-rings; in the same area, another hoard with eight gold coins and one of silver was found in 1990, apparently concealed in a pot around the year 405, to judge from the date of the latest coin. But as with plate so with jewellery, the contrast with the east is still considerable; Thetford, Norfolk, has gold finger-rings as well as ornamental chains, bracelets, and a buckle; Hoxne, Suffolk, has gold bracelets, and again chains, these with elaborate mounts. Some of the craftsmanship shown in these pieces is of a high order, that only well-off patrons could have afforded. The plate suggests displays of tableware by a society that set great store on being able to offer lavish feasts and entertainment. These late Roman treasures may be giving a slightly false impression of Britain’s prosperity. Silver was probably extracted from the same native deposits that yielded lead, so would have been more available than in most parts of the Empire. Some may also have entered Britain from Ireland, where evidence of Roman intervention is accumulating.

The Gallic Chronicle Restored: A Chronology for the Anglo-Saxon Invasions and the End of Roman Britain

Britannia ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Jones ◽  
John Casey
Keyword(s):  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Roman Britain

New light on the Anglo-Saxon succession: two cemeteries and their dates

Antiquity ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 83 (322) ◽  
pp. 1096-1108 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.M. Hills ◽  
T.C. O'Connell
Keyword(s):  
Stable Isotopes ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Interesting Problem ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Rigorous Approach ◽  
High Level ◽  
Very High

The origin of the English is an interesting problem – and not only for them. In one short century, the evidence from texts, burial, artefacts, stable isotopes and now DNA provides several different answers to the question of whether England was invaded by Germans in the fifth century and if so in what manner. The rigorous approach by our authors tips the balance back in favour of a population changing its cultural allegiance – rather than being physically overwhelmed – but, as they emphasise, any new reading must depend on a very high level of archaeological precision – perhaps only now coming within reach.

The Coin of Arcadius from Heddon-on-the-Wall

1936 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Negative Evidence ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Hadrian's Wall

Romano-British archaeologists are now generally agreed in supposing that the final abandonment of Hadrian's Wall occurred about the time of the usurpation of Maximus in 383. This theory was first put forward by Dr. H. H. E. Craster in 1914, and it is supported by the results of the Birdoswald Excavations of 1929. It rests mainly on negative evidence, but it is evidence which was formidable in 1914 and is still more formidable to-day, since no coin later than 383 has ever been reported from the Wall—except the one which is the subject of this paper. Moreover it becomes evident that the reason for the cessation is historical and not numismatic, when it is realised that at other sites, some quite close to the Wall, the coin-series extends beyond 383. Romano-British archaeologists, therefore, impressed by the weight of the evidence, have assumed that the one exception to Dr. Craster's rule, the coin of Arcadius from Heddon-on-the-Wall, is a stray, the presence of which does not imply a garrison on the Wall at the time of its issue. Dr. Schultz, however, writing in this Journal, seems to imply that it is not a stray, but a testimony to the maintenance of a garrison on the Wall down to the fifth century.

The Location and Relationship of the Sancton Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries

1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Lindsay Faull
Keyword(s):  
Local Field ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Village

SummaryExamination of the Rolleston papers and local field-work have permitted identification of the site of the Sancton II cemetery and ascription of objects in the Ashmolean Museum to individual burials described by Rolleston. It can now be seen that, during the sixth century A.D., a small, predominantly inhumation cemetery close to the village was in use concurrently with the large cremation cemetery, which had begun on the top of the wold in the early fifth century and which was possibly used by surrounding communities, and that the Christian church was eventually built on the same site as the inhumation cemetery.

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