The End Of Roman Britain

[poliphilo]

Something I've never really understood is the collapse of Roman Britain. We had 400 years of towns and roads and baths and then the troops were withdrawn and everything went to pot. I was reading an article last night about the archaeology of the Roman fort at Binchester in County Durham. It wasn't abandoned when the soldiers left. Instead the local tradesmen moved in and dug pits all over the place and spread offal around. When the fabric started to crumble they patched it up with wood. Had they forgotten how to build in stone or did they prefer not to?

I find it hard to imagine what that transition must have been like. Were people traumatised by the sudden collapse of their world or did they relapse into tribal ways the way one might slip into a stinky old dressing-gown at the end of the day? Did anyone struggle to maintain standards of governance and civilisation? The evidence suggests not.

I've read fiction about the last days of Empire and fiction about the so-called Dark Ages, but I've never read fiction that deals with the generation of the collapse- the people who lived in towns one year and in ruins the next. Does anyone know of any?

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Had they forgotten how to build in stone or did they prefer not to?

Like strange_complex, I'd look for explanations in the economy; and in the difference between what can be built by organised workers with an infrastructure behind them, and what an individual or small group of artisans can patch up after they've done their stint on the day job.

Bear in mind, too, that the remains didn't get any respect just for being old: they were a resource to be used, and often no more than a quarry where the hard work of cutting the stone had already been done for you.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Yes - economy - and, as you suggest, direction of labour.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. If there's no economy to support skilled craftspeople the crafts will simply disappear.

Apparently some of the stone from Binchester eventually wound up in the little Saxon church at Escomb.