The Landing of the Romans
In the Iron Age, all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons.
In AD 43 the Roman conquest of Britain began under Emperor Claudius, establishing headquarters at Richborough fort (Rutupiae), and retaining control of their province of Britannia until final withdrawal in the early 5th century.
An Empire crumbling
By AD 410 the Empire was in turmoil and attacked from all sides internally and externally. Faced with invasion by a coalition of Picts and Saxons, the Roman citizens of Britain appealed to Emperor Honorius for help; but he was in no position to offer aid. Rome has just been sacked, the Goths were ravaging Italy, and the western half of his empire, where Britain lies, has been supporting an interim pretender. Honorius replies that they must ‘look to their own defences’, and Rome’s official ties with Britain were severed
However, with the withdrawal of imperial authority, Roman Britain continued to exist. Britain had long been a hiding-place for pretenders to the imperial purple, notable for a history of seceding from the empire and running its own affairs.
The last contender for emperor tried again in AD 406. However the bogus Constantine III had become embroiled in Gaul, trapped in Arles by another barbarian horde. In the wake of this the citizens of Britain threw out Constantine’s officials and turned in vain to the emperor for help.
Saxon take-over
With Britain now on its own, the traditional story was told by both Saxon and British sources. A superbus tyrannus named Vortigern (which means ‘High Chief’ in Celtic), rode forth as the head of a council of British leaders. These leaders settled a group of Saxon mercenaries (from Germanic/Frankish warriors), led by Hengist and Horsa, to Kent to protect their lands against raiders from the Picts. The mercenaries soon mutinied, taking over the lands they had called upon to protect.
Despite this setback, St Germanus of Auxerre was able to visit a recognizably Roman St Albans (Verulamium) to engage in ecclesiastical debate as late as AD 445. According to his biographer, he led its inhabitants in defense of the town against a combined Saxon/Pictish raid.
Many monks from England withdrew to the far west, to Wales, where they occupied the hill country and built their monasteries. Only one source, the monk Gildas, was writing within a hundred years of the events described, and even he was trying to prove his own agenda, that the kings of Briton had lost their land to the Saxons through debauchery and godless living. The archaeological record seems to tell a more peaceful tale.
While the lords of the land fought for control, what was happening on a local level to the ordinary inhabitant of sub-Roman Britain? The archaeological record seems to tell a more peaceful tale. There is no indication of wholesale burning or murder with the coming of the Saxons. At certain rural sites, such as West Stow and Mucking, the evidence suggests that the Saxon settlers were allocated marginal land next to an existing Romano-British settlement. Who was in control here, the Romano-Britons or the Saxons?
Civic life
What of the cities? There is no doubt that urban life declined in the decades following the withdrawal of Rome. This was because the cities had lost their central function as centres for taxation and administration, but it had been happening long before Honorius put pen to paper.
In the latter part of the fourth century, the urban aristocracy had been moving out of the towns, trying to avoid their civic responsibilities and no longer spending money on maintaining public buildings. Imperial coinage had stopped being sent to the province some time during the 370s, and without it the towns had lost their main raison d’etre.
Commercial enterprises, such as the pottery industry, which relied on the towns to distribute its goods, ceased to exist except in very localised areas. As the infrastructure disappeared, the towns shrank. For all these reasons, Roman Britain was starting to slip away long before the Saxons invaded the land.
Yet in many of the towns, civic life continued into the fifth century. Conscious attempts to live a form of Roman life persisted around early Christian churches such as those at St Albans, Lincoln, and Cornhill in London. Elsewhere the populations of some Roman towns, such as Wroxeter and York, re-used old civic buildings for a more domestic purpose. The old bathing complex at Wroxeter was soon the site of a large, timber town house and surrounded by shops in a late Roman style.
Forts and threats
The sub-Roman period was one of violent unrest; hill-forts (e.g. South Cadbury) were re-occupied by Romano-British inhabitants, strengthening their walls against some expected threat.
Though places (like Roman Canterbury) showed no evidence of destruction, they seem to have been abandoned a few years before occupation by the Saxons. In other places, it is difficult to determine who is Saxon and who is not. The peasantry, it seems, simply got on with their lives while the aristocracy fought over whose privilege it was to rule them.
Exploits of great men
The story of Vortigern and the Saxon rebellion may not be accurate in detail, but are likely to have had a basis in reality, illustrating the way rulers of the sub-Roman province first lost control to the Saxons.
Such stories were attached to the mythological trappings of the ‘end of an era’ in which post-Roman authority maintained some semblance of Roman order, while fresh squabbles ensued when other attempts broke down. The Anglo-Saxons became overlords of the south-eastern half of Britain, while everyone else continued on their usual way.
Britain was no longer Roman. The era had ended, and the Anglo-Saxon era had begun. (‘Anglo’ meant ‘English’, not our present-day usage, but the ancient Germanic language).
Out of their mythology arose another figure to symbolise the passing of the age – the figure was Arthur, where his story lay in the new Anglo-Saxon age that was soon to come.
The Roman era had definitively ended, and the Anglo-Saxon era had now begun. In AD 596, St Augustine with a party of forty, was sent by Pope Gregory in what he believed were ‘these Last Days.’ Augustine arrived in Kent at the invitation of Queen Bertha, bringing Christianity to heathen Saxons. Once King Ethelbert had pledged allegiance to Christ, the world was opened to a new dispensation.