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 We had 400 years of towns and roads and baths and then the troops were withdrawn and everything went to pot.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

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I am very fond of Jo Walton's novels The King's Peace and The King's Name which deals with the changes after the "Vincans" left. It is a take on the Arthurian legend as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you. These sound promising.

[sovay]

If you're looking into post-Roman Arthuriana and you have not yet read Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave (1970), do not walk, but run to your nearest library; you are in for a treat. It is hands-down one of my favorite retellings in any field.

"So all through that winter he came to me. And he came at night. I was never alone in my chamber, but he came through doors and windows and walls, and lay with me. I never saw him again, but heard his voice and felt his body. Then, in the summer, when I was heavy with child, he left me . . . They will tell you how my father beat me and shut me up, and how when the child was born he would not give him a name fit for a Christian prince, but, because he was born in September, named him for the sky-god, the wanderer, who has no house but the woven air. But I called him Merlin always, because on the day of his birth a wild falcon flew in through the window and perched above the bed, and looked at me with my lover's eyes."
—Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave (1970)

The succeeding two books, The Hollow Hills (1973) and The Last Enchantment (1979) are not as strong or as striking—although still worth reading—possibly because they adhere more closely to the familiar Arthurian canon and have less to do with Merlin himself, Myrddin Emrys, the bastard son of a Welsh king's daughter with dark Roman eyes and a coiling glitter of dreams, but I would still recommend them. I read The Crystal Cave for the first time in seventh grade and it's shaped the way I think about the character ever since.

There is also Elizabeth E. Wein's The Winter Prince (1993), which is less canonical but more beautiful than almost any other retelling I know: the mummer's play of Arthur's bastard son and his legitimate children in the winter fields of sixth-century Britain, as narrated by Medraut to his mother Morgause. It's written like bright chips of mosaic, piecing together something precise and iconic and nearly lost. The sequels take place in the contemporary Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum and are less directly Arthurian, but equally worth your time.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Those do sound good. Thank you.

I slipped into Arthuriana last year- almost by accident- when, having enjoyed Philip Reeve's books about traction cities, I followed up with his Here Lies Arthur.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I was going to mention these, too. It's my favorite Arthurian fantasy pastiche.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It looks like I've got a lot of catching up to do.