‘The break with Rome’ Exploring Arthurian Britain, 4
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- Exploring Arthurian Britain
What was Britain like in the fifth and sixth centuries? Documentary sources are fragmentary and hard to authenticate. Fertile ground for myth and legend. Most potent are the stories that have grown around King Arthur.
‘The break with Rome’ Exploring Arthurian Britain, 4
What changed when the Roman legions withdrew from Britain? The age when the myths and legends surrounding King Arthur have their origin. Did all the troops leave? Probably not. Veterans from four centuries of being part of the Roman Empire would have taken common law wives that they were free to marry on retirement, thereby legitimising any children. Settlements for retired veterans had been established at Colchester, Gloucester, Lincoln and York, where they could enjoy the freedoms of Roman citizenship and tax privileges. Many serving soldiers would have established roots and connections and decided to stay in Britain, effectively privatising their services, offering protection as mercenaries.
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‘Gold Solidus of Constantine III, Lugdunum.jpg’ is public domain via Wikimedia Commons [[File:Gold Solidus of Constantine III, Lugdunum.jpg|Gold_Solidus_of_Constantine_III,_Lugdunum]]
‘Map of the Roman streets and excavated remains in Colchester, Essex.’ By Razumukihn is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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‘Butser IX Legion at Butser Ancient Farm.jpg’ by Mark Pinsker is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons [[File:Butser IX Legion at Butser Ancient Farm.jpg|Butser_IX_Legion_at_Butser_Ancient_Farm]]
Great vid keep them up mate all the best from Newcastle
The four provinces (as shown) and their stated administrative centres don't seem to add up.
There is doubt about the provincial divisions and administration.
I think he got them mixed up because literally every location he mentioned is administered from a capital outside its borders.
Really enjoying these videos! Very informative and well presented.
Glad you like them!
I have a Roman Coin from a Roman site nr Shrewsbury
To put it in perspective the story of Uther Pendragon could and i think dose date back to the stone age how deep into that period is any one guess with re telling embellished into a modern context ( the following is theory) the bringing forth of an axe or blade from stone has in England or on what is today English land have a 500,000 (?) history homo heidelbergensis ( with a brain size equal to modem man but with some robust facial features who its thought to have a similar life style to Australian aboriginals which with over 600 languages is diverse ) the hand axe it self dates back 1 million years of the 500,000 date a type of manufacturing sight was found in England , if you sit about napping stone time passes more quickly if your telling stories
The common assumption that Britain was mostly inhabited by Celts prior to the Roman Conquest cannot be right.
Celtic place names are almost nonexistent in Eastern Britain, and Emperor Claudius brought Germanic speaking auxiliaries rather than the Celtic speaking ones that might have been expected.
The East of Britain traded with the Frisian coast. Julius Caesar tells us that the Belgae tribe (remembered in Venta Belgarum) had originally come from the other side of the Rhine and retained their tribal affiliations, so would at the least have been bilingual in Celtic and Germanic.
And throughout the Roman period the Germanic element among troops in Britain would have grown. This would explain the success of the Fifth Century settlement.
But this doesn’t really conflict with “Britain was MOSTLY inhabited by…” does it? It was common practice in the Roman Empire to recruit auxiliaries from subject and allied tribes and then - deliberately - station them in places where they were unlikely to have much affinity with the natives (avoids fraternisation, risks of desertion and rebellion). And we know for sure (from Hadrian’s Wall) that there were some fairly exotic legionaries in Britannia (and not just Scythians and Palmyrans - the bargees from the Euphrates always seem the most unlikely to me). It’s also true there were Batavians and Frisians. And we also know that it was common practice to award retiring loyal legionaries land in the countries they were stationed in. So it’s very possible that there were settled, non British populations. And they were most likely to be settled in the “Romano-British zone” (most integrated into the empire) in the region south and east of the Severn-Wash line.
But that’s actually a fairly small part of Britain and though the population of the country is NOW concentrated in that area, that doesn’t mean that was the case at that time. Most of the evidence is that most of the people were “Britons” - speakers of variations on the theme of “common Brittonic” - the modern consensus is even that “the Picts” were simply the least Romanised variation on that theme (place name evidence from NE Scotland).
But in the end all Romans left because there is almost no "Roman" DNA in British people. So if ex Roman soldiers stayed it was just temporary; they did not become part of the Brittonic/Anglo Saxon population.
Where did the "Roman" soldiers come from? Predominantly modern day Spain and France, but also from many corners of the Roman Empire, and even possibly from outside the Empire. Thus their DNA contribution would be mixed.
I also am having difficulty imagining soldiers not having at least occasional "fraternisation" with the locals if the soldiers are around for years.