13-7. The Anglo-Saxon Invasion and the Fall of Roman Britain
The first act in the Fall of Roman Britain contained trouble and disturbance, no doubt, but few disasters. The second act (383 to about 410) brought greater evils and of a new kind. In 383 an officer of the British army, by birth a Spaniard, by name Magnus Maximus, proclaimed himself Emperor, crossed with many troops to Gaul and conquered western Europe: in 387 he seized Italy and in 388 he was overthrown by the legitimate Emperors. Later British tradition of the sixth century asserted that his British troops never returned home and that the island was thus left defenceless. We cannot verify this tradition. But we have proof, both that Britain was sore pressed and that the central government tried to help it. Claudian alludes to measures taken by Stilicho, prime minister to the then Emperor Ilonorius, about 395-8. Archaeological evidence shews that the coast-fort of Pevensey (Anderida) was repaired under Honorius, and that a fort was built high on the summit of Peak, overhanging the Yorkshire coast halfway between Whitby and Scarborough, by an officer of the same period who is known to have been in Britain a little after 400.
These efforts were in vain. Troops — not necessarily legionaries though Claudian calls them legio — had to be withdrawn for the defence of Italy in 402. Finally, the Great Raid of barbarians who crossed the Rhine on the winter's night which divided 406 from 407 and the subsequent barbarian attack on Rome itself cut Britain off from the Mediterranean. The so-called "departure of the Romans" speedily followed. This departure did not mean any great departure of persons, Roman or other, from the island. It meant that the central government in Italy now ceased to send out the usual governors and other high officials and to organise the supply of troops. No one went: some persons failed to come.
How far the British themselves were responsible for, or even agreeable to, this sundering of an ancient tie is, even after the latest inquiries, not very certain. The old idea that Britons and Romans were still two distinct and hostile racial elements has, of course, been long abandoned by all competent inquirers — for reasons which the preceding pages will have made evident. But we have the names of three usurpers who tried to seize the imperial crown in Britain (406-11), Marcus, Gratian, and Constantine, and it seems that, as Constantine went off to seek a throne on the Continent, the Britons left to themselves set up a local autonomy for self -protection. Unfortunately, our ancient authorities are less clear than could be wished, especially on the chronology of these events. One thing which seems certain is that Britain did not conceive herself as breaking loose from the Empire and that in the years to come the Britons considered themselves "Romans." If we may believe Gildas, they even appealed for help to Aetius, the Roman minister, in 446.
The attacks of the Saxons had begun before 300 and though at first their brunt fell more heavily on the Gaulish than on the British coasts, they were felt seriously in Britain from about 350 onwards. At first, they were the attacks of mere pillagers: later, like the later attacks of the barbarians elsewhere, they became invasions of settlers.
When exactly the change took place, is unknown, nor is it clear what incident gave the stimulus. It seems probable, however, that the Britons of the early fourth century, harassed by attacks of all kinds, adopted the common device — even more familiar in that age than in any other — and set a thief to catch a thief. The man who set is named in the legends Vortigern of Kent; the thieves who were set, are called Hengest and Horsa. We need not attach much weight to these names, nor can we hope to fix a precise date. But the incident is sufficiently well-attested and sufficiently probable to find acceptance, and it obviously occurred early in the fifth century. It had the natural result. The English, called in to protect, remained to rule: they formed settlements on the east coast and began the English invasion. But they began it under conditions altogether different from those which attended the barbarian conquests on the Continent. The English were more savage and hostile to civilisation than most of the continental invaders; on the other hand, they were far less overwhelmingly numerous. The Romano-British culture was less strong and coherent than the civilisation of Roman Gaul, but the Britons themselves — at least those in the hills — were no less ready to fight than the bravest of the continental provincials. The sequel was naturally different in the two regions.
The course of the invasion is a matter for English historians. But part of it depends on Romano-British archaeology. This seems to contradict violently the chronology which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle sets out in suspiciously precise detail. We know that Wroxeter was burnt and we have evidence that the burning occurred soon after (if indeed it was not before) A.D. 400. We must treat this evidence cautiously, since not a fiftieth part of the site has yet been explored. But at Silchester, which has been all uncovered, the spade has told us that the town was abandoned (not burnt), and as a limit for the date, we find no coins which need be later than about A.D. 420. The same absence of fifth century coins may be noted on other sites which have been sufficiently explored to yield trustworthy testimony. It would seem as if the invaders, entering Britain on its eastern and least defensible side, were able, like the Romans four centuries earlier, rapidly to sweep over the lowlands, but were not able to maintain their hold. Thus for several generations this region became a debatable land, where neither Romano-British city life could safely endure nor the English take firm hold and settle.
In the long confusion, the Romano-British civilisation of the lowlands perished. The towns, burnt or abandoned, lay waste and empty. Even Durovernum (Canterbury), presumably the capital of Vortigern, whom the legend mates with a Saxon wife, ceased to exist, and at the healing springs of Aquae Sulis (Bath) the wild birds built their nests in the marsh which hid the ruins. The country houses and farms perished even more easily: not one is known in which we can trace English inhabitants succeeding to British. The old native tribal areas and the Roman administrative boundaries were alike lost: today we have no certain knowledge of any of them. The Roman speech vanished; the Romano-British material civilisation, and the house plans and house furniture, hypocausts and mosaics, even the fashions of brooches and pottery, vanished with it. Only the solid aggeres of the roads remained still in use, and in these, too, there were gaps and intervals. All else was but the scattered debris of a ruined world.
Meanwhile the Romanised Britons, in losing the lowlands, lost their towns and all the apparatus of town life. They retired into the hills, to Wales and to the north — the later Strathclyde — and there, in a region where Roman civilisation had never established itself in its higher forms, they underwent an intelligible change. The Keltic element, never quite extinct in those hills and reinforced perhaps by immigrations from Ireland, reasserted itself afresh. Gradually, the remnants of Roman civilisation were worn down: the Keltic speech reappeared and, as a sequel, the Late Keltic art was strong enough to pass on an artistic legacy to the Middle Ages.
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