1. Introduction

The period of sub-Roman Britain traditionally covers the history of Britain from the end of Roman imperial rule, in the very early 5th century, to the arrival of St Augustine in AD 597. This period has attracted a great deal of academic and popular debate, in part due to the scarcity of the source material, and in part due to this period being the time in which later national identities found their origins.

The term Late Antiquity, implying wider horizons, is finding more use in the academic community, especially when features common throughout the post-Roman West are examined, while a range of more dramatic names have been given to the period in popular works: The Dark Ages, The Brythonic Age, the Age of Tyrants or the Age of Arthur.

Brython and Brythonic are terms which refer to indigenous, pre-Roman, Celtic speaking inhabitants of most of the island of Great Britain, and their culture and languages. This ethnic group is also referred to as the British tribes, the ancient Britons, ethnic Britons, or simply Britons.

2. The Roman Legacy

Roman control of Britain came to an end as the empire began to collapse. The first signs were the attacks by Celts of Caledonia in 367. The Roman legions found it more and more difficult to stop the raiders from crossing Hadrian's wall. The same was happening on the European mainland as Germanic groups, Saxons and Franks, began to raid the coast of Gaul. In 409 Rome pulled its last soldiers out of Britain and the Romano-British, the Romanised Celts, were left to fight alone against the Scots, the Irish and Saxon raiders from Germany. The following year Rome itself fell to raiders.

NB! Forget the idea that the Romans ‘left’. What happened was that the Roman government stopped administering Britain. Town government also faded out. That cut right to the quick of the whole system. Money stopped circulating, and while that didn’t stop farming or trade, it did stop the need to sell produce to raise cash to pay taxes.

The destruction of many sites is now believed to have happened much later than used to be thought. Many buildings changed use, but were not destroyed. There were growing barbarian attacks, but these were focused on vulnerable rural settlements rather than towns. New buildings were still going up in this period in Verulamium and Cirencester. Some urban centres, for example Canterbury, Cirencester, Wroxeter, Winchester and Gloucester, remained active during the fifth and sixth centuries, surrounded by large farming estates.

Urban life had generally grown less intense by the fourth quarter of the fourth century, and coins minted between 378 and 388 are very rare, indicating a likely combination of economic decline, diminishing numbers of troops, and problems with the payment of soldiers and officials.

One by one the villas fell into ruin. When Roman Britain’s ‘system’ collapsed, perhaps the great villa owners were soon confronted with houses and estates they had absolutely no idea how to maintain and run without slaves and estate workers.

The province lost its central government and reverted to being held by many British tribes who no doubt resumed their pre Roman infighting.  In the resulting power vacuum the province became fair game for pirates of many nationalities.

For the next thousand years Britannia came under the control of Germanic and Scandinavian peoples. First, to the South and East, came the Germanic tribes: the Jutes, Frisians, Angles and Saxons.