Roman Small Towns in Eastern England and Beyond

Roman Small Towns in Eastern England and Beyond
Author: Anthony Ernest Brown
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
Total Pages: 220
Release: 1995
Genre: History
ISBN:

A collection of 19 papers from a conference held at Knutston Hall in December 1992. Papers include: Roman small towns and medieval small towns; the plan of Romano-British Baldock, Hertfordshire and new thoughts on town defences in the western territory of the Catuvellauni.

An Imperial Possession

An Imperial Possession
Author: David Mattingly
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 684
Release: 2008-05-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101160403

Part of the Penguin History of Britain series, An Imperial Possession is the first major narrative history of Roman Britain for a generation. David Mattingly draws on a wealth of new findings and knowledge to cut through the myths and misunderstandings that so commonly surround our beliefs about this period. From the rebellious chiefs and druids who led native British resistance, to the experiences of the Roman military leaders in this remote, dangerous outpost of Europe, this book explores the reality of life in occupied Britain within the context of the shifting fortunes of the Roman Empire.

The Small Towns of Roman Britain

The Small Towns of Roman Britain
Author: Barry C. Burnham
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 1990-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520073036

The Small Towns of Roman Britain surveys a wide range of Roman town sites, answering many questions about their character and the archaeological problems they raise. The past thirty years have seen a dramatic increase in the quality of the evidence on these sites gained from fieldwork, excavation, and aerial archaeology. Because there is almost no documentary or epigraphic material of any real value on the small towns, this archaeological evidence provides a heretofore unavailable perspective. Authors Barry Burnham and John Walker have organized the information in a manner that is both useful to scholars and stimulating to history buffs or walkers interested in touring these sites. Each site is illustrated with a site plan, and many aerial photographs are provided as well. Introductory chapters provide an overview of the origins, development, and morphology of the towns; the special religious, governmental, or industrial significance of many sites; and the economic functions common to all. A comprehensive bibliography completes the volume. This is the eagerly awaited companion volume to John Wacher's watershed study The Towns of Roman Britain, which was highly praised for "its clean prose, excellent illustrations and fascinating story, . . . a most important contribution to scholarship, while remaining eminently attractive to the general reader." (Barry Cunliffe, Times Literary Supplement). The Small Towns of Roman Britain surveys a wide range of Roman town sites, answering many questions about their character and the archaeological problems they raise. The past thirty years have seen a dramatic increase in the quality of the evidence on these sites gained from fieldwork, excavation, and aerial archaeology. Because there is almost no documentary or epigraphic material of any real value on the small towns, this archaeological evidence provides a heretofore unavailable perspective. Authors Barry Burnham and John Walker have organized the information in a manner that is both useful to scholars and stimulating to history buffs or walkers interested in touring these sites. Each site is illustrated with a site plan, and many aerial photographs are provided as well. Introductory chapters provide an overview of the origins, development, and morphology of the towns; the special religious, governmental, or industrial significance of many sites; and the economic functions common to all. A comprehensive bibliography completes the volume. This is the eagerly awaited companion volume to John Wacher's watershed study The Towns of Roman Britain, which was highly praised for "its clean prose, excellent illustrations and fascinating story, . . . a most important contribution to scholarship, while remaining eminently attractive to the general reader." (Barry Cunliffe, Times Literary Supplement).

Towns in the Dark

Towns in the Dark
Author: Gavin Speed
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2014-07-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1784910058

The focus of this book is to draw together still scattered data to chart and interpret the changing nature of life in towns from the late Roman period through to the mid-Anglo-Saxon period. Did towns fail? Were these ruinous sites really neglected by early Anglo-Saxon settlers and leaders?

A Portrait of Roman Britain

A Portrait of Roman Britain
Author: John Wacher
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2013-12-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317972074

The Romans occupied Britain for almost four hundred years, and their influence is still all around us - in the shape of individual monuments such as Hadrians Wall, the palace at Fishbourne and the spa complex at Bath, as well as in subtler things such as the layout and locations of ancient towns such as London, Canterbury and Colchester, and the routes of many major roads. Yet this evidence can only suggest a small proportion of the effect that the Romans had on the landscape of Britain. A Portrait of Roman Britain breaks new ground in enabling us to visualise the changes in town and countryside brought by Roman military and civilian needs. Using clear, well-documented descriptions, John Wacher answers questions such as: * were Roman towns as neat and tidy as they are often represented? * how much woodland was needed to fuel the bath houses of Roman Britain? * how much land did a Roman cavalry regiment require for its horses?^

Britannia: The Failed State

Britannia: The Failed State
Author: Stuart Laycock
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2012-05-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0752487655

Attempts to understand how Roman Britain ends and Anglo-Saxon England begins have been undermined by the division of studies into pre-Roman, Roman and early medieval periods. This groundbreaking new study traces the history of British tribes and British tribal rivalries from the pre-Roman period, through the Roman period and into the post-Roman period. It shows how tribal conflict was central to the arrival of Roman power in Britain and how tribal identities persisted through the Roman period and were a factor in three great convulsions that struck Britain during the Roman centuries. It explores how tribal conflicts may have played a major role in the end of Roman Britain, creating a 'failed state' scenario akin in some ways to those seen recently in Bosnia and Iraq, and brought about the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. Finally, it considers how British tribal territories and British tribal conflicts can be understood as the direct predecessors of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and Anglo-Saxon conflicts that form the basis of early English History.

The Urbanisation of the North-Western Provinces of the Roman Empire

The Urbanisation of the North-Western Provinces of the Roman Empire
Author: Frida Pellegrino
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2020-11-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789697751

This study investigates the development of urbanism in the north-western provinces of the Roman empire. Key themes include continuity and discontinuity between pre-Roman and Roman ‘urban’ systems, relationships between juridical statuses and levels of monumentality, levels of connectivity and economic integration, and regional urban hierarchies.

Territoriality and the Early Medieval Landscape

Territoriality and the Early Medieval Landscape
Author: Stephen Rippon
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Anglo-Saxons
ISBN: 1783276800

All communities have a strong sense of identity with the area in which they live, which for England in the early medieval period manifested itself in a series of territorial entities, ranging from large kingdoms down to small districts known as pagi or regiones. This book investigates these small early folk territories, and the way that they evolved into the administrative units recorded in Domesday, across an entire kingdom - that of the East Saxons (broadly speaking, what is now Essex, Middlesex, most of Hertfordshire, and south Suffolk). A wide range of evidence is drawn upon, including archaeology, written documents, place-names and the early cartographic sources. The book looks in particular at the relationship between Saxon immigrants and the native British population, and argues that initially these ethnic groups occupied different parts of the landscape, until a dynasty which assumed an Anglo-Saxon identity achieved political ascendency (its members included the so-called "Prittlewell Prince", buried with spectacular grave-good in Prittlewell, near Southend-on- Sea in southern Essex). Other significant places discussed include London, the seat of the first East Saxon bishopric, the possible royal vills at Wicken Bonhunt near Saffron Walden and Maldon, and St Peter's Chapel at Bradwell-on-Sea, one of the most important surviving churches from the early Christian period.

Kingdom, Civitas, and County

Kingdom, Civitas, and County
Author: Stephen Rippon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198759371

This book explores the development of territorial identity in the late prehistoric, Roman, and early medieval periods. Over the course of the Iron Age, a series of marked regional variations in material culture and landscape character emerged across eastern England that reflect the development of discrete zones of social and economic interaction. The boundaries between these zones appear to have run through sparsely settled areas of the landscape on high ground, and corresponded to a series of kingdoms that emerged during the Late Iron Age. In eastern England at least, these pre-Roman socio-economic territories appear to have survived throughout the Roman period despite a trend towards cultural homogenization brought about by Romanization. Although there is no direct evidence for the relationship between these socio-economic zones and the Roman administrative territories known as civitates, they probably corresponded very closely. The fifth century saw some Anglo-Saxon immigration but whereas in East Anglia these communities spread out across much of the landscape, in the Northern Thames Basin they appear to have been restricted to certain coastal and estuarine districts. The remaining areas continued to be occupied by a substantial native British population, including much of the East Saxon kingdom (very little of which appears to have been 'Saxon'). By the sixth century a series of regionally distinct identities - that can be regarded as separate ethnic groups - had developed which corresponded very closely to those that had emerged during the late prehistoric and Roman periods. These ancient regional identities survived through to the Viking incursions, whereafter they were swept away following the English re-conquest and replaced with the counties with which we are familiar today.

Warlords

Warlords
Author: Stuart Laycock
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2011-11-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0752475606

The centuries after the end of Roman control of Britain in AD 410 are some of the most vital in Britain's history - yet some of the least understood. 'Warlords' brings to life a world of ambition, brutality and violence in a politically fragmented land, and provides a compelling new history of an age that would transform Britain. By comparing the archaeology against the available historical sources of the period, 'Warlords' presents a coherent picture of the political and military machinations of the fifth and sixth centuries that laid the foundations of English and Welsh history. Included are the warring personalities of the local leaders and a look at the enigma of King Arthur. Some warlords sought power within the old Roman framework; some used an alternative British approach; and, others exploited the emerging Anglo-Saxon system - but for all warlords, the struggle was for power.