Arthurian Legends and Final Thoughts

Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tutterburg forest? what secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? or what made Alexander truly great with a subscription to History hit You can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War two. Just visit historyhit dot com slash suubbscribe. So how did Rome begin With a throne, a triumph, or a murder between brothers Well, according to legend, the mighty city was founded by the twin sons of Mars, Romulus and Remus abbandoned as infants, suckled by a she wolf and destined for greatness until ambition poisoned their body I'm Tristin Hughes and I cannot wait to get into the explosive story of Romulus and Remus on the ancient live tour in Australia and New Zealand this August I'm going to be joined by the fantastic Jeremy Armstrong. He's a professor of Ancient history and an expert on early Rome. Ketather We'll follow the myth from Divine origins to blood soaked Fing legend teeasing apart what the Romans believe archaeology can actually tell us and How a city built on stories became one of the greatest powers in history. Tickets are on sale now. We're coming to Canberra on the second of August And we're going to be in Auckland on the eighth The tickets they are selling far, so book yours now at fame. com. au. Can't wait to see you there four hundred and ten AD. A soldier stands guard on a stone rampart Looking out towards the roolling Hills beyond His name is Belly Artis From atop his walkway, Belly Arters can see for miles to his north and south. He is in a valley, with green fields in front and behind him and steeping slopes on either side He manans a turret that is connected to a large wall that had been there for hundreds of years, stretching from coast to coast, dividing Roman Britain from the lands of barbarians Adrian's W. For generations, Belliartis's family have been living on this distant frontier. everver since his great grandfather was posted here from Germania almost a century earlier He had gone on to complete his service, marry a local woman, and settled down in the area Belly Artis' family had stayed here ever since The time of Roman rule over Britain had now ended. Belliartus and his comrades were no longer receiving orders from generals further south. There were no more Roman armies marching north to fight the picts beyond But for Belliartis, his family and his comrades living on this frontier, their lives remained largely the same Adrian's wall had not fallen The formidable fortifications of the wall would become new power centers. Bbastions have strength for the local peoples in this new post Roman world Centers of faith and feotty. This is the story of what happened to Hadrian's wall and its people after the Romans left Britain Our guest is Dr. Rob Collins, prorofessor of Frontier Archaeology at Newcastle University Rob, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. It's always a pleasure to be on the podcast. And we're doing it in person for the first time. I've come up north to see you. We're near Hadran's Wall as we speak. It's great. It's always good to get people up into the Roman frontier. Yes. And I guess the big question first of all, does the story of Hadrian's Wall? does it end when the story of Roman Britains. No, there we go. F definitive no No. It keeps going But it's a fascinating story, isn't it? The enigmatic tale of what happens to these communities along The length of Hadrian's wall after the official period of Roman Britain ends. It is. I mean, it's a period I' fallen in love with, right? It's my career choice, my career focus There are so many questions that, you know, we've There's so many mysteries, so many unknowns, there's lots of puzzles to solve. And What is fantastic is all the scientific breakthroughs and insights and developments we've had over the past generation eachach year brings us closer to new techniques that we can start applying and addressing to these research problems. Because exactly, quite a lot of people would think if someone mentions fifth century AD Britain You'll be thinking things like King Arthur or the Dark Aes. a really difficult time And to learn more about this is arrchaeology our best friend Absolutely. I think you have to start. If you're looking at kind of fifth, sixth century Britain, you've got this flash or this transition between two really big historical ideas and concepts in British history. So you've the ending of Roman Britain and that's big idea in itself, its kind of ties into things of like the end of civilization Amen Coming along not right away. someome decades, maybe centuries later, you've got the birth of English in England. So in terms English national myth So you've got the ending of one really important part of Britain's history and you've got the beginning of another important. and they It's not a smooth transition and we can't connect the dots from the end of Roman Britain to the birth of English Saxon in England directly There is a gap there in between And that gap is really interesting. What's happening And so have these big ideas that we're grappling with? What does it mean when a civilization ends? Does a civilization end? What does it mean when a new civilization is emergingborn. And I guess the forts along Hadrian's wall are a great focal point for learning more about that, you know that transitional period in this particular area in Britain, in a heavily fortified areas. well what it has always seen is like kind of the border zone between what the Romans would say is civilization and then absolutely the barbarians, the picts and so on beyond that. Absolutely. And you know The challenge there is making sure that we're Aware of kind of the romance, the tropes, the stereotypes that come with the end of Roman Britain and also the birth of English Saxx in England, so that we can be guided by the evidence. and Additionally, you our evidence has been texts, you know, historical sources For Britain, in the fifth and sixth century, we really only have two sources that we can reliably count on from the British Isles. And one of those is the writings of Staint Patrick primarily his confessions But he does have a little letter to a British, maybe Scottish warlord Prodicus. So we've got two sources from Saint Patrick, and then we've got Gildas writing in we think the mid sixth century. But that's it too. You know two authors in Britain, you know, and Patrick is probably writing in Ireland. So he might be British himself, but he's not in Britain as he's writing. That's it. you know, we don't have any other great texts, any great documents. if we compare that to say fifth century Gaul There's this hole Fantastic flourishing of late antique authors, the kind of the the last bouquet of aristocratic Roman authors. you know, we've got the letters of Sidonius and Gregory is coming in later. Gregory of Tours. Gregory of Tours. Y. Yeah. So we have these these authors that are giving us more information about in sixth century in Gaul that we just don't have for Britain So we also will sometimes then look to those Gallic sources for these little snippets about what's happening in Britain But a key thing here is to think about that geography of the world. and Sadly, Hadrian's wall is not on the radar of those Gallic writers. It's not really on the radar of Staint Patrick in the fifth century, which is a shame. Gil this does talk about Hadrian's wall. When we look at how Gil this writes about Hadrian's wall, it's already almost If not a myth, it's historical fact is already obscured or forgotten Gildas So this great barrier that has been there for eternity or that kind of thought ideas? Yeah. And so what's really interesting with Gildas and Gildas is a great place to start because According to Gild, the monument we call Hadrian's wall And maybe the Antonine well, depending on how you want to read it, he associates those monuments with the end of Roman and Britain. He doesn't see them as ancient monuments. He sees them as a final you know, bit of work by the Roman arrmy to help protect Britain in a period of retreat. So were the Romans so his idea is that the Romans leave Britain, but they leave a parting gift exxactly big frontier of this big barrier. Exactly that. And so, you know, his his narrative based on our archaeological evidence is completely wrong,. But what is interesting is that he does have this narrative of there being A very late Roman, final phase Roman government. you know, refurbishment or constr well, in his words, a construction. of Hadrian's wall. And the way he describes it is that, you know this wall is constructed to connect the towns that were along its length And I think if we consider Gildas's words in the context in which he's writing tells us I think, two important things that one there is this memory of some sort of Ver late Roman construction You could say refurbishment, maybe that he's attributing as a new construction. But he's saying it's connecting the towns that are there And so The other thing we can question is in Gildas's own time is he aware of there being towns or larger settlements along the length of the wall that he thinks have then been connected along the wall, but are in fact the wall was built and that created those settlements. They came after. And so Gildas actually might be giving us a very strong bit of contemporary evidence of are still people living in those forts along Hadrian's wall. But this is very much a teaser and a half. And also I love that how right at the start of the answer, we kind of dismiss Gildas for saying, Oh, he's obviously wrong. But actually when you delve deeper into the story,' being like, but actually, is there some kernel, some basis of truth that we can bring away from it? So I love that kind m Exactly that. But we also have to remember, we don't know where Gildas is writing Depending on which part of Britain you live in, you might claim Gild this for your part. It's usually Wales or Cornwall, but you know sometimes in Brittitany, they want that claim too. So we don't know where he's writing. So we can't also particularly confident that when he's writing about places other than Wales, his evidence seems to be very good for Wales, but outside of Wales in Cornwall.'s It's very sketchy, very generic. So Again, we have to think of Gildas as writing from a distance, at least for Hadrian's wall. And so you know, we always have to take that with a little bit of a pinch of salt, you know, is his knowledge firsthand is a Is secondhand accounts? Has he spoken to any eyewitnesses And And the other aspect is he's writing a poleama a sermon, you know, it's almost tabplight, you know, in terms of what he's saying. So You know, teasing out his agenda and sermonizing from fact can sometimes be challenging too Well in this chat we're going to focus largely on the later fourth century and fifth century AD. So we're not quite going into what is clearly called medieval territory. I think it's fair to say the fifth century AD' In the British context, that's the transitional phase from what we say antiquity to middle ages dont way, so we can kind of get away with it. And that's a period we often called late antiquity. Late antiquity. We can still say the fifth century it is late antiquity in Britain. There we go Fantastic E that Matt. We did a fun episode in the past about what's Ancient and what's. If we start very much in the Roman period, it's may be like the three hundred and sixties or the three hundred seventies AD What do we know about Hadrian's W at that time? How Mumental are the constructions along Hadran's Wall? Give us a picture of Hadran's Wall at that time. Yeah. So the fourth century is a great place to start. One of the things which is most interesting is that if we look at our historical sources in the Roman period We actually have the most evidence for conflict. in the fourth century So as much as Hadrian's Wall is built around one hundred and twenty and we think there's a war that's part of the process of building it And we know that there are these other big events, actually when we actually tally up those lists of some sort of conflict, It's mostly What's recorded is in the fourth centy So we know of events in the first half of the fourth century where For example, the Emperor Cstantius Clorus is campaigning in Caledonia in fighting against the picks. at the start of the fourth century, he dies in York and his death is what spurs on his son Constantine. on that path to becoming the soul Emperor of the Roman Empire. Christianity becoming. Christianity then gets introduced. You know, the Northern frontier has a place in big Roman history And we see this pattern of emperors or generals being sent to the North to kind of picks in their place or to deal with, you know some uprisings. It's not always clear why But there's definitely It's not a peaceful frontier in the fourth century So we know there's lots of conflict And not just in the first half of the fourth century, but through the fourth century. It's really telling that Hadrian's wall is not abandoned or given up. It seems to be occupied through the fourth century. The archaeological evidence is very clear. The historical sources are telling us there is activity going on. evenven as late as the Generalisimo Stilico in around three ninety nine Our source is a panegeric. so it's praise poetry of the immperial courourt to the greatness of Stilico Within that, there's a reference to Stilico commanding the legions against the Caledones or the pigs. I forget exactly what they call them, but Silico is clearly instigated some sort of in Northern Britain. That's around four hundred. So these things are still happening. So the start of the fourth century, we've got The emmperor Constantius Clorus, the end of the fourth century, we've got Silico under Aorius campaigning. So we can booke end that century with It pixs our problem. defeense of Northern Britain is still on the imperial agenda. It might be lower down but it's still there And Hadrian's wall is definitely occupied Three hundred fifty is a really good starting point because politically The Roman Empire is reasonably stable. You've got the sons of Constantine are still ruling Um There's a confidence and faith in the Constantinian dynasty. This is the third generation of emperors from that family. the reforms that were instigated under the Emper' Docletian and completed under constant time. are doing what they were supposed to do. The economy is restestabilizing parts of the Roman Empire, we're seeing a more economic boom and expansion You know, there are many challenges, but in the mid fourth century, the Roman Empire is things are looking good. It looked good. Yeah ye. changes through the course of the later fourth century And I think it's fair to say that By the end of the fourth century Britain is much lower in priorities because there are problems closer to home. in this sense, Rome or more likely Ravenna. the immperial Court there But Hadrian's wall still exists. It's still occupied It's still, as far as we can tell, the curtain, the wall element itself is still being maintained There are still mile castles and turrets and forts being occupied It's a bit different from when it was built There are fewer turrets. So we know a number of turrets, the towers that you find roughly every one third of a Roman mile. It's normally two turrets between each mile cast. Exactly the idea, right? Yeah. And if you remember that each mile castle, has a tower on the North Gate, then effectively every third of a mile you have some sort of tower or elevated platform a number of those turrenttss We can't be sure how many. because we've not excavated all of the turrentts. But we do know a number of those turrets were abandoned, and in fact, some of them were outright demolished in the later second century So within a hundred years of the wall' construction. There is a shift in security situation in the landscape that means they can modify Hadrian's wall But not all turrets are given up. Some turrets are retained. And if we think about turrets as being an elevated observation platform, at the very least, it's a tall point where a soldier can look further Many of those are retained and they are definitely retained in those those locations where you can be sneaky, you know, where a raider could try and sneak through the landscape and try and get across the wall It's more in the kind of flatter lowland situations where those turrets are more likely to be abandoned Hadrian's was wasn't necessarily. Bistling soldiers on top of towers, every third of a mile sort of situation it was at the start But it is still garisons still occupied Any evidence we have from mile castles that have been excavated There's always some form of evidence, sometimes only a few shirds of pottery, but that it's still being used and occupied in the later fourth century So It's not just the forts, the big bases that the soldiers are based at, but also those smaller installations. That's really important because means the wall is a monumental complex is an operation So it's not just o we've kept the forts. They are sustaining the wall as a monument and there looks to be activity at those turrets, at those mile castles And who are these communities? Okay The soldiers and their families? Exactly who are living along Hadrian's wall at this time, who I know you've done a lot of work around. Yeah, so there is There's a real important shift in the late Roman emmpire When they under dioctia and then Constineine then, they restructure everything, all of government, but also the army And a key thing that they do is they separate the soldiers that will be in field armies and are effectively mobile armies that will move around as the emperor needs them to and the frrontier armies Now there are a few different Latin terms for these frontier soldiers. One of the fun ones is Ripari or Ripar N se', which is the effectively the river soldiers. So if those are the ones along the Rhine in the Danube, they are called the Rriipari. You get another term the castleami, the soldiers of the castles which again gets applied to the soldiers in the frontiers with their permanent forts But the one which has the widest use and the most staying power is the Limitanade And That's the one that's been in like the total wars and everythingactly. So people would have grown up hearing about the Limitani or whatever. But's I'm partial to it because you Limitus will be a reference to the frontier, to the limits of the empire. So it's the men of the frontiers, the soldiers of the frontiers in terms of scholarly use, that's the one we've used because there's not always a river, but there's always soldiers. So we can apply that to all those late Roman soldiers. and they have a legal status. and I suppose structural position in Roman law It is You're right that these are soldiers and their families living in the frontiers They at some point in the early fourth century. we don't know exactly when that status was given to them And with that also comes inheritable status. So the sons of soldiers are legally obliged also become soldiers So you can't just think of it as, well, who are the guys who are willing to go and join the arrmy and stand guard at Hadrian's wall you have entire communities of multi genererational families who have been serving in the Roman army And when we look at some of our sources across the Roman period and compared to some of our inscriptions from Hadrian's Wall, We do know that a lot of most of the units at the fort based on Hadrian's wall been there more than a hundred years. H been one hundred fifty, even two hundred years in some cases. It' no longer the case of a vvexolation of auxiliary soldiers from The mainland will be shipped over to help reinforce a particular place along the frontier. It is, you know, it's your family's duty almost if you live on Hadrian's Wall. Yeah in the mid fourth century, then your son in the later fourth century will also be expected to stay there and were they own land do we think as well in the area? Definitely own land. And this is actually There's an older debate, which is now mostly resolved, but it's still something that will be found in certainly more popular history books There are some Roman laws that talk about the limite and their ownership of land and farming or charges that are brought up against soldiers because they're not doing their military duties, they're too busy running their farms. A lot of those are later, like the sixth or possibly even seventh centuries and they're often more Byzantine than Western Roman But We also know that the Roman army. major landowner in and of itself and There are things that we do not fully understand but that we can get at. So The Roman arrmy would own land and almost certainly as part of that they would give their soldiers access to that land And even if the soldiers themselves aren't farming, their families can farm And this is part of that sort of also traditionally it would tie into that Roman retirement package. If you're a soldier, you served your twenty, twenty five years know, hereere's a stipend, here's some land, a couple cows, in a bucket of seed. you know, go and farm and grow some grain for your fellows in the army You know, that's part of the traditional retirement package It's now just kind of being brought in. And if you think about te generational families. who will have access to this land, you're looking at this kind of term multig generational settlement where people know the land, and even if the men are serving in the army They'll have children, they'll have. wives, our siblings, they'll have all their parents. There are other people that can be working the farm the farm. But it's such a clever I think at least, it's such a clever idea because then you get those people just committed that land and for as long as they still see themselves as being Romans, like, yes, maybe they' still to pay taxes, but as long as they're still in that idea of being Roman, you know, they will fight even harder to ensure that if there are any raiders coming down that they're fended off because that is their property Exactly. and there is an emotional investment there. and I think as much as the view, the romantic view of the Roman arrmy of the Legionaries in the secondcond century is very dominant in popular culture The late Roman arrmy is really interesting because you know you've got soldiers that are there. generations This is their home. they're not They're not migrants. You know, some of them will be migrants, of course, we, you know, we can't expect that everyone is local But there will be many, you know, perhaps to sixty percent easily. who are from the region You know, so it's their homeland. So it might be the frontier of the Roman Empire, but it's their home And that If you can make that connection That helps you think a little bit differently about what's going to happen at the end when suddenly there is no Roman emmpire You know, that doesn't mean that Hadrian's wall disappears. You know the wall is still there. And so are those communities, these people who have lived there for generations So as we get to the beginning of the fifth century AD You mentioned earlier like the campaign of Stilico and so on. So you got examples and that's where the Committ of tenense says is the field Yeah. So we think the field Army is coming in. There's a good chance the Stilico is maybe doing some reorganization at the time. It's a good opportunity for him to with that military resource there to commit some refurbishment and rebuilding of any dilapidated parts of the fortifications. All sorts of things happen when you get some imperial attention So we know that that's there. But that feels very much like the exception to the rule because it's one big major event we hear about at the time But up. As we get to the early fifth century, how indndependent, would you argue that these border forces already are that these communities already are along Hr'sall It's really difficult to say one of the things that's really important and I know this is kind of boring administrative structures. It's really important that we understand those administrative structures of empire because that will help us better understand our archaeological evidence. and especially for something like an army, which will have supply networks, logistics Those logistics are really important for us to understand How long is this Is this really a frontier army, a unified frontier army? And when is it not? When can we see the end of those militaryory like great generals talk about logistics, right? So we should talk about logistics. Go on there. Yeah. I mean, it's not sexy. Amittedly, you know, whereere does your grain come from? And you know, how many cows do you get per season But it's that sort of thing that will help us understand if all these forts are still connected. And key to that is the supreme commander, the Supreme General of the Northern Frontier Army, the Duke Sprataniarum. the Brits. He is he will be very high ranking. he's In terms of military rank, he' two tiers below the emperor. He'll report to the Magisttery militum effectively the MOD of the Roman Empire and they report to the emperor. Stitica was a magter miditum. And Stitica was a magister of Miditum and kind of de facto emperor, you might say of the idea of the hierarchy,. So The frontier generals, the duquets were slightly lower in status than the field arrmy generals, the Citee, the Counts He's still an extremely powerful and important person We think he's based in Yework And he has command not just of Hadrian's wall, but basically all the military forces in what are now Northern England and maybe even into Northern Wales. We don't know That's really important because we know we've got a general in charge of all those forces and is meant to oversee Everything around them. So make sure that They're doing their job in terms of defense, to make sure that they're getting their supplies, to make sure that they're maintaining their fortifications. He's also a judge. he is the top of the food chain for judging Matters of military law And He will also be the person who effectively is going to be negotiating Ultimately, with those barbarian chiefs when he's having to talk to the civilian governor Britannia Scunda, the province of Roman Britain that we were based in You know, when he's not getting the supplies, he's got to go argue with the governor of my men need that grain. You know, why are you not sending the grain It's his job to make sure this frontier is functional. in the round. And we know that very clearly from a whole bunch of late Roman laws that tell the other duches what they're supposed to be doing. or clarifying their responsibilities. So is it the idea that as long as we can see this role exists, that that position exists then you can't say that these border forces are independent in any way because they're still very much part of the system. Exactly that, m. So you know, Archaeology is a discipline. can be really difficult for us to get to the individuals. But what archaeology is fantastic at is identifying systems and relationships. And so if we think about Because we don't have the historical text that gives us that really easy answer what we do have is excellent archeological evidence. So we need to think about how we use that evidence to understand those relationships and is this frontier system s still in operation L the Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisonous cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and Shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week Wow Is there a cutoff point where that position no longer exists? And then it sees that, you know, the logistics chains fall apart and then Well, and then these communities just rely on their own cattle and their own agriculture to really survive and thrive. There absolutely is some sort of cutoff point You can't define it precisely. And this is the challenge But what is great is that even really in the past ten years someome of the scientists scientific techniques that have emerged Actually I think we can start applying to really try and solve this problem And so One of the things a key form of evidence really, partly is't always as in archaology, but it iss pottery Pottery is robust. It survives very well. And What we have very clearly demonstrated throughout the entirety of the fourth century, and so this will This is something we can be confident of. We willll continue into the fifth century as long as we have a Duke'praniarum to direct the resource are what we call the Yorkshire ceramics. So things like Kambeckware for the fine wares, the nice plates, the things you eat and drink out of, and the Huntcliff type wares for w's cooking pots and things like that. Those are made. North Yorkshire, not too far north of York, in fact and We can look at a national distribution of that pottery They really They start to emerge in the third century, but in the fourth century, they jump up and they become the most predominant sources of ceramics all along Hadrian's wall. There's there eighty fivecent to ninety percent of all the ceramics we find in those late Roman wallfortts. So it's a regional ceramic industry And it's really serving the Roman arrmy because actually outside of the if we You know, say, the greater Yorkshire region. Th those ceramics are only really getting to the towns and to the forts. They're not widely distributed into the countryside. We're not seeing all the realural farmers using them So we can be very certain that those ceramics are linked to military and urban supply networks And there might be market forces there in terms of demand and such. But those ceramics are really key because There's no other ceramics getting over to the west coast of Cumbria. know, over to Merryport, for example. know that's very strongly related to military supply So the question is is when do they stop getting those Yorkshire ceramics And that's what we cannot yet say but we have the techniques. so we just need to to get some lab time, o. and maybe the funding for the labs, of course. But this is something which is shifted quite a bit because there's now techniques where we can do radiocarbon dating from the lipids that are on the insides of the pots. So those cooking pots sccrape the residue and see if we can get some C fourteen dates from us. That's not something we could do Ten years ago So I mean We're really kind of now on a cusp of being able to ask some of these questions. and that's really, really exciting. There we go. We'll come back when you've tested the lipids on some of the parts. Well let's keep moving on. I don't think we need to ot to today at least delve into detail with the Great Barbarian conspiracy, because I think we've already set the scene that it seems like the Nimitani is still there very much after that But let's go to the traditional end date, the fall of Roman Britain,, which yourself and James have done so brilliantly for us in the past But so this is four hundred eight or four hundred ten. It's thereabouts that's the official endpoint, isn't it? Yeah, so the key thing that happens in four seven four hundred eight is Constantine III is raised as the last of three usurpers in Britain. And he crosses to the continent And he crosses to the continent with an army And so this event is really important because traditionally it's assumed that Constantine IId strips Britain of his entire garrison. He takes all the soldiers with him to the continent. I would argue we don't have evidence for that. He certainly is building an army. But we know other usurpers with more documentation, when they're building an army, they're often hiring barbarian mercenaries, the Federati the Federati, ye, they might take local troops One of the things I would say is I suppose negative evidence is it where that Constein I thirir is't taking att least all the soldiers from Northern Britain. is that When you're a usurper, it's really important that you kind of pay people and keep them on your side lest the emperor with his much greater tax revenue bribes them back to his side And so gifts from Constantine II, coins, you know, when he's able to mint coins in his name There's not a lot of coins of Constant III, but where we find them in Britain tends to be in the south and the Midlands. they never make it to the north. And that makes me suspicious That he's not paying anyone in the North. and therefore he's not necessarily drawn soldiers or bribed to the Duke's Britanium to give him soldiers or anything like that. That absence of his admittedly very minor coinage, I think is still very conspicuous. And do we still think there's a Duke' Brittannium then around four hundred and eight to four, ten? I think there is. Interesting, okay. Not least because Consteine III is rising to power basically on a tide of British fear of being cut off from the rest of the emmpire. Britain is not wanting to leave the Roman Empire. It's not an early Brexit. It's trying to avoid a Brexit, in fact. They want that connection. And certainly the elites the wealthy people that connection. it benefits the villa owners, the governors. to be at the top of the food chain. If we think of Comst Time I third, kind of building off that British desire, at least the British elite desire, to stay as part of the emmpire. He would have a real danger. There's a risk. completely denuting Hadrian's wall of its troops because he's a Basically he'd be opening the back door, as it were for potential threat and invasion, which is then going to undermine his authority. So it's actually in Conine II's self interest. to make sure that that frontier is secure So I think there are between the evidence of the lack of coins, And also just thinking in terms of, you, what does a usurper want, a power and a stable basis of followers then there's a logic neing Hadrian'sall of its soldiers At the same time Maybe he's tri to appoint a Duke S Britanium who is a political appointee and loyal to him or mayaybe he's happy with that, Dukees. So this is these are the unknowns, the things we don't know, it would be great if we found some sort of journal of you know, the Duke's Britannium, deear Diary, you know four hundred eight, Christmas Day, no letter from Constantine III. We don't have any of that sort of source There's nothing that shows Gcheologically some sort of immediate collapse in the fifth century And this is where I think it's really important with the archaeological evidence to acknowledge you different interpretations, how different people might interpret different evidence and The underlying challenge of that is dating How do we date change over time? What do we see as a big collapse and falling apart of a building what do we see as a longer term decline and so our you can imagine different processes. So if we think if we kind of do a thought exercise and think about right, well, let's say the army is stripped from Hadrian's wall, Northern Brid and all the forts are kind of Maybe not necessarily abandoned, there might still be people living around, but the soldiers are taken away What does that mean The first question become is Are those military buildings, arere they just given up entirely And they become empty shells and they kind of slowly become ruinous Or would other people move in? and saying, well, there's a convenient empty building. I take I can take that. You know, I've always fancied having my own baths. You know, I might make use of that So that's the first question The archaeological evidence shows that at many of the buildings in the forts along Hadrian's wall that we've excavated we can see some form of occupation and activity It might look a bit different, not what we'd call traditionally Roman or expect in terms of Roman architecture but it's there and it's often a reworking of that Roman space And just because it doesn't look like it did maybe a hundred years before It doesn't mean it's not Roman because we can also look at the villas further south in Roman Brain and see similar sort of things happening. We can look at Roman towns in the fifth century, you can see similar sort of things happening. So We have to also be careful when we look at the fifth century that just because it doesn't look like something might in eight thousand three hundred or eighty two hundred, doesn't mean it's not Roman It's just maybe a different sort of Roman. So do we think it's likely that you know this And we'll explore some of these archeological examples in a bit that it is these same communities that are continuing to exist along Hadrian's Wall after the canonical date of four hundred and eight or four hundred and ten Do you think that's the most likely case? I think that is the most likely case. I think on the balance of evidence and probability that that is far more likely than new people coming in after. Th they're just kind of being abandoned and an entirely new people and new communities coming in does remain a possibility, however And we absolutely can point to well documented Roman examples in other frontiers where They are inviting in the kind of the local barbarians who they've often known for many generations. So a great great example here is the Franks along the middle and lower Rhine. There are peace treaties with the Franks and many of those Franks are into the Roman army And so you get people that might be ethnically frankish. but they're still professionally Roman soldiers And so what were formerly barbarian communities become, you know, new Limitanian communities. And that's a very plausible scenario here that withithin Northern Britain, they think, well, actually, you know what, we We know those barbarian communities live north of Hadrian's wall or some Votedini, for example, that we put at Tpre law those could be acceptable allies and they're shoring up, you know the soldiers from drawing on those. we know the Vin with the Tappanine treasure and the like, donon't we? We know that they are at there almost Rome's eyes north of the wall. Yeah. There're certainly, whether they're friends or enemies, there's connections. You know, So we know that those connections exist always known those connections exist. is Roman generals, Roman governors are using diplomacy and trade and exchange is tools of power and leverage as much as they're using the sword and the spear You know, the Romans are not not silly or stupid people, and they're also not particularly subtle either. you know they know they're in charge and they want to stay in charge. and so they'll use all those tools at their disposal. You know, we have to also think carefully around well, Who do we see is being local We can't necessarily just define local is Roman you know, what is a Bit and what is a Roman brin? And You might have someone who's not legally a Roman citizen but is still considered Roman Truly someone that might technically be a barbarian actually still might have greater wealth and legal status in the Roman Empire because they're an elite barbarian than the average Roman citizen would You know, it's not a black and white binary Roman barbarian soldier civilian mix.'s it's, you know, it's much more nuanced So these fors are whatever the situation, more likely it is the same communities and they're adapting to the new situation. So So it is the big change that they do realize at that time Is it that they no longer have to pay tax to You know, a central Roman authority? or what do we think fills in that hole? What plugs the gap Yeah, it's a fantastic question. And this is this is where I say the Duke's Batani arm is really key. As long as there is a Duke's who is making sure the soldiers are getting their supplies then that frontier can still be coherent. It might that dukes might no longer be able to report to the Roman Emperor or get orders from the immperial courourt But as long as there's someone there who's sustaining that role, He might have to fight for that role, that power. He might find that there's local rivals But as long as that role is attempting to be filled, then we can sustain those frontier soldiers, those limitited So the question I think becomes a dating issue really in terms of, well, when can we see archaeologically things are fragmenting at least if we start in say, four hundred is a coherent archaeological region frontier When is that fragmenting? Is that happening in the fifth century Is it happening in the sixth century? Wow I think it probably is happening in the fifth century. There are intriguing questions here that we can't really Answer, I think is the challenge and And we have really tantalizing hints in the you know, what we call the Welsh sources, the early medieval literature British language veracular literature, things like They could aten which is really It's an epic poem but it's really about the dynasties of Central Britain. have it preserved through Welh literary tradition, but geographically, it's all about the frontier region, the former frrontier region of Roman Britain After the end of Roman Britain. Um, you know, in the again, we think in the early to mid sixth century. So roughly the same time that Giltas is talking about And it's not in Wales, it's here. and we can see there are all these princes that are ascribes to different tribes. Well, this is the big question. And also if it that source that you mentioned, you have to type in this like E Godin or Y Godin is. So you have to remember that it' in Welsh. so it's a Gododin, Y space GO D I D D I N R Yes or Y N Yeah. and that's the becomes the Welsh name of Vodini who we have mentioned before, who we associate with Chapraine laaw just benath Edinburgh.. And so you know, if we One of the challenges of this period, of late antiquity or the Dark ages or the Age of Arthur or the birth of English Saxon in England, whatever name you want to give to it We have these kind of tantalizing sources, none of which are particularly accurate and none of which we can treat as history And sifting out what are the grains of truth from later literary elaboration is always a challenge. but There's these little breadcrumbs in hints that Wellow In that regard, I mean Does the archaeology seem to affirm this idea that these communities that endure along Hadrian's wall Over time transform Int the W word into like war bands, into these little kind of kingdoms. I think I would say absolutely yes. I have colleagues, you know, other esteemed doctorally trained people who might argue otherwise and that is great. That's what is really good about scholarship. depeat the evidence in that us think critically in a fresh. I think the key thing is if we look at the evidence that we have from the Roman forts and not justong Hadrian's wall, but elsewhere in the wider frontier region The Legionary fortress New York, at Catrick, the fort in Catrick, Mryport on the coast of Cumbria I'm stopping, I can't remember some of the other forts now at the top of my head, but you know there are a number of forts. It's not just along Hadrian's wall where we can see similar evidence for continued occupation and activity beyond the end of Roman Britain And so I think that tells us two important things that evenven if we argue about Wh is living in those forts and who are they descendants of? Are they descendants of the The former Roman military communities of the M today which I think they were But even if they are new migrants or living in those, I mean, maybe not far off migrants, maybe just the local communities moving into that space The for itself is still seen as a useful and maybe even a desirable location to live in because it's got the fortification. It's toined settlement. Yeah. and suddenly you're no longer in the protection of a big bad empire, right? So they're, you know, they're I think those' changing conditions that will happen when know, you're not necessarily part of a stable political entity Security is going to become a much higher priority. So Regardless of their ancestry, the people living in those forts are still seeing those forts as desirable and We should also see them, I would say is the elite settlements. of of this region So when we look at the evidence for the same period in Wales in the southwest of England, Hillforts. Hfords com back. They come back, don't they? They come back again. And we see that also in Scotland, that you know, Hillforts and some of the great work that's been done recently. by Gordon Noble's project on the Picts, you know, looking at some of those pictish hill forts offth East. Fortified settlements are really important in the fifth and sixth centuries What we do not have evidence for in Northern England in a little bit southern Scotland but certainly the Roman frrontier zone We don't have evidence yet for the ooccupation of thoseill forts, But what we do have evidence for is the occupation of those Roman forts And a key thing here is if we look at the archeological traces, set aside the architectural presumptions for a moment. if we just look at the material culture, the artifacts The artifact assemblages are very similar between what we find in those elite hill forts of the fifth and sixth centuries, and in Roman forts You know, we're finding metal dress accessories, you know, some brooches. We're finding fragments of glass, you know, sometimes what might be glass vessels that are still intact and probably relics and antiques, but still glass vessels larger structures, you know,, you know, of just larger scale evidence of metal working and other craft working. I was it say weapons do we seeap? Yeah. I mean, the weapons we see often look to be Roman But this raises other questions, I think, culturally. So If we think in a more general sense, those former Roman forts and whether we still call them Roman forts is a debate They's still in an elite fortified settlement and The Romans located those forts at very strategic locations in the landscape Furthermore, those forts have been embedded in supply lines for centuries So there's already a very good practice of bringing supplies to that fort that will be the local farmers as well as perhaps longer distance Proximate em merchant There's a lot of advantages. residing in a Roman fort in the fifth century regardless of your ancestry, whether or not youre you know, you're father and grandfather and you know, whether or not they were soldiers there it almost doesn't matter because actually some of the infrastructure that's there already makes that an advantageous position Do we think A you know, let's focus on the archeology a bit more first of all with these wooden structures that you also see because you've got the stone foundations, you've got the fortifications from the Roman period But Ill the Are building fresh new pieces of architecture out of stone now? Are they building them out of wood going forwards? Yeah definite hybrid sort of architectural style. and that is happening all across Rome and Britain. It's not just a phenomenon of Fs And so the The example the fantastic example detected through some very excellent careful archaeology and thinking by Tony Wilmot at B Oswald. is this Transformation of the Hrea, the granaries which we think of these kind of quintessential buildings of the Roman Army, these big warehouses It's the transformation of those into what look like feasting halls or mead halls, or what you might call an Englo Saxon hall U But it's not Anglo Saxon. There's a continuous stratigraphic sequence there one granary collapsing in like just the subfloor being left as an open ruin and for rubbish dumping, while the granary to its sth was repurposed is a social space, is a hall of some sort. when the roof collapses on that. may then build a new hall over the other granary, but it's timber framed and it's built on the footprint of the former granary So it's a big building. When that life that building's life comes to an end, they build another hall, but they build it slightly offset And this one instead of being timber framed, it's more post built. and looks more like the halls we'd see at Yevering, for example, that royal settlement, not too far north, in fact So We can see this as a continuous archaeological sequence It's an architectural form which we identify and recognize. We often associate it with the Anglo Saxons in the Middle Ages but it is an architectural form that is seen elsewhere in Roman Brain And that sense of a hall is not an alien concept to the Romans. know the emperors have imperial halls, residence halls, know, where the court will meet it's just lowower down the hierarchy, you know, lowower down the social ladder, but it's still a haoll and so, you know, we get haall type villas in the Midlands of England.' you know, the architecture can look very similar. So It's not this foreign exotic, newly emerging architectural form. it's something that's within that broader cultural knowledge Building in stone, they're building in timber Land a Viking Lship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisonous' cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and Shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week Do we think? this feels like this is very much in the in the world of debate and theory once again That these communities who endure in these forts, you know kind of the equivalent of a hill fort War band the smallm Kingdoms ideas'll get to the wararlords in a moment. Do we think there is a continuation for at least decades that they would have still if it's the same people considered themselves Romans The idea of Romanness is still there It's a good question I don't know if that we can answer definitively in either way Partly because we don't have their own words And I When it comes to questions of identity I think it's really important for all of us to try and people speak for themselves. It's very easy to pin an identity on someone but that can be problematic I suspect, though, I would be of the inclination to say they probably did still view themselves as Romans And I think Partly, that's because power of Rome was such It continues to have a lure in a draw And so anyone that was part of the Roman Empire, We still see where we do have better written sources on the mainland of Europe In the sixth century, you know, we still see parts that have not, you know, kings who who, you know are calling themselves Romans and identify themselves as Romans. And if they can connect themselves to the Byzantine court of Justinian or something They do deffinitely is a perceived advantage and probably cultural cache for still being considered Roman Christianity comes into that th. Christianity because Christianity is the western suuccessor of Rome sometometimes to be Christian is to be Roman And so parts of Europe that were never part of the Roman Empire, but they convert to Christianity alsoso start talking about the Roman faith or call themselves Roman a as a synonym almost for Christian And so The way those two processes work side by side will be another factor. So I think probably still see themselves as Roman at some level What might change is where in the right I guess the mix of identity that falls. you know, it might be that in four hundred you would see yourself as Roman first in Britain second In five hundred, you might see yourself as a Britain first and perhaps not only a Britain, but a Britain of a particular tribe or group or kingdom And then Roman might be Third or fourth. So know identity is such a complex thing, it can shift so easily. And it's so interesting when talking about this kind of period like the fall of Hadrian's Wall or the end of Hadrian's Wall. I can appreciate it seems like the purpose of Hadrian's Wall has clearly shifted and it's very much transformed with the communities and how they're living as you get to the fifth century My question to kind of align with the fort of Hadron's Wall even at that time is we've talked about how the forts keep being in use and keep being centres so I'm presuming those fortifications are maintained. What about elsewhere along the wall? You know those long stretches between forts and male castles and so on. if you don't have a Du's Britannial room anymore or kind of a central authority sending supplies up. Does the rest of the world fall into disrepair quite quickly That is a fantastic question and we really don't know. It's difficult to know when the wall curtain itself is collapsing. and it will partly depend, I suspect on the quality of build There are a few pieces of evidence that I can point to that will give us a few hints. One of the bits of evidence which suggests that the wall curtain is still standing at least into the early fifth century is There's a coin hoarde that was found Um buried under the tumble of collapse of Hadrian's wall. and that hoorde dates to the very late fourth century And it's tough to say how long it took for the bits of wall to fall on top of the ground where it was buried other thing is that when we done a few excavations here and there When we think about the longer term history of Hadrian's wall. There is I think a combination of natural processes of ruin and collapse That's also going to be combined with episodes of Stone Robbing as well And so honest answers The state of the wall, how quickly the structure itself falls apart might vary considerably based on its location So in places where They are building in stone in the early Middle Ages. and usually that's Christian churches And so the Northumbrian church, the kingdom of Northumbria that starts building its churches in stone from the seventh century They're definitely reusing Roman Stone And so The key places where that's happening relative to Hadrian's wall, you've got Gero, which is going to be near Um The Ford it South Sields, but south of the River Tym. So Hadrian's Wall in the Ford of Walls End is across the River Tyne. But when you look at the church, we can see stone It looks to be from the Ft at Walls End as well as the fort cell shields and quite possibly also you know, the stretches of Hadrians wall attached to wallsone So You know, that's one location where you might get Quicker robbing of the wall maybe around Corbridge and Hexham they might be stealing Roman stone from Hadrian's wall, But let's not forget that Corbridge is a sizable Roman town of its own right. So there's a ready quarry of stone there. you know, over at Carlisle. Again, you've got a Roman town, but a big Roman for You might have the villor of Sepimiaus Severus Yeah I mean right There's lots of stone at Carlisle as well. So I think it becomes a question of what's more readily accessible The bits in the central sector that are kind of further away from any larger settlements that we know of probably the as they are today are the bits that surviveed the best and are the ones that are probably least likely to have been robbed In terms of understanding that process of collapse we can see from medieval documents that actually Wow survives as a ruin Is an earthen embankment or whatever. well into the Middle Ages and most of the destruction that we understand of the wall historically has generally come from the eighteenth century and after. And so I don't want to kind of paint this romantic notion of Hadrian's wall standing to its full height up to the eighteenth century But it probably stood in varying states of H ruin into the Middle Ages properly in some cases. Because it's so interesting because On the other side of that kind of romantic perspective, mayaybe romantic is the wrong word, but a common idea we have is that you know after the Romans leave And then you know within a century or so, you have armies of picts or maybe be Vikings later or Saxons anngles and the like before Coming down from the north And I don't know, it battering rams or just tearing apart the wall and then running through it and then running rampage in what is today kind of Northern England. But it sounds like there isn't the archaeological evidence for that. I think if we think about that long term history, you know through the early Middle Ages, there's very few structures that are built in stone Really, It tends to be primarily Christian foundations and where those are built in stone and they still tend to survive. So we can pinpoint those locations and we can We can make estimates of where they might be stealing stone from It's not really until you get to eleventh and twelfth centuries that you start getting other larger stone structures, you know castles, for example, Normans,. And yes, the Normans, right? We can blame this on the Normans. And when we look at where those castles are, the big castles, New Castle, Carlisle, which are royal castles When we look at those castles, there certainly is some Roman stone incorporated, but there's also a lot of fresh quarried stone. Those are big castles with a royal budget. It might be, you know, we're looking six to seven hundred years later. It might actually be easier to quarry fresh stone. than to Dig up. some remains of Roman buildings and reuse that stone because then they can also shape the stone as they need for those castles counterpoint are some of the smaller castles like Thurwal Castle near Greenhead, which is built almost entirely of stone from Hadrian's wall And that's a really interesting castle because it's built in the fourteenth century almost entirely from Wallstone. and it doesn't have later modifications either So we can see it almost as a single build And if you run the math, You can build that castle really only needing about three hundred meters of Hadrian's wall in terms of material. And it's modest for a castle. It's hardly Carlisle Castle or New Castle or Annek. But it's not small either. know I think we'd all be very happy to live in something like Thirwal Castle You know But the fact that that can be built with only about three hundred meters of wall, if it was standing to full height, I think is really telling. So is many castles that we have up here in the border counties They still wouldn't really denude Hadrian's wall of all its stone. and In that sense, you know, you kind of have to think about those other historical needs. Why would they take apart Hadrian's wall? What is it easy to do? You know, more of the destruction comes from farmers from the eighteenth century, once the The English Scottish border is people are confident that the peace will last It's more farmers kind of saying, actually, you I can expand the farm. I can make this farm more profitable. I'm not going to be reved, you know, every couple of years And it's expanding of the farms. It's agricultural improvements And so where you see more Hadrians of all stone is when you travel along Hadrian's, you look at the farms and the old barns in outbuildings and such rather than say the castles and the churches. Soah that sort of purposeful robbing and reuse is a much more recent and modern phenomenon And also I guess when you do go those stors th you know if Vikings attacking Lindusfun or whatever, or even I guess In the case of the picss, I think I keep using the ps, but of course, they're not just warlike figures, they' more than that. But in the case of raiders, they'll use the sea. They'll go around, right? And that's the idea as well. And I mean, let's not forget the Romans created a fantastic infrastructure for Britain. I mean those Roman roads survive They have medieval names. So the main road from York to what would have been, you know grabvbed, you know near the Antoneine Wall is called Deer Street. And that's Deer Street from Dira, the early medieval kingdom, which was broadly Yorkshire. It's the road to Deira or the road from Dira And so that that Roman road retained its medieval name, the road south of Hadrian's wall. that which was used through the Middle Ages is called the stain Gate, you know, the stone rooad but it's a Roman road. So you know If you' raiding from the North or coming from Northern England and raiding into Scotland you're really still using the Roman Road network, which his gates through the wall. You know, so you're you're, you know, you're not always having to climb over the ruins of the wall to get where you need to go and I suppose if the wall was in the way for some of those key roots, that's where it's more likely to be cleared and robbed. The ography itself, the landscape is channeling movement And so you know, the Roman roads are often built in those places which are best for movement. And so in that sense, we don't need a bunch of picks coming with battering rams in picks and buckets to take away the wall. just take Deer Street. Oh yes, actually and that also hits upon another point. if we go back to those early kingdoms that kind of emerge in those old Roman forts in let's say the fifth century. I guess by also using those force They control the traffic. Yeah. So they can control trade going north and south of the world so actually they can really get rich quick by be going a bit too far, but they can money in through almost putting a toll through the wall as the Romans had done before. Exactly. And I think if you know, Even if your sense of identity has changed, even if you no longer call yourself Roman and you'd rather think of yourself as Pictish or English One of those constantans is power You know, regardless of who's in charge someone wants to be in charge. And so the basis of power, even if there's no longer a Roman emmpire are still largely the same. it's what you can you know, how many men you can control as soldiers, as warriors? and how much resource, how much tax, How much tribute to your militia, I guess. Exactly. So, you know, that's a that's a constant. So the, you know, the The way you label it might change, but the underlying activity is much the same The only difference is you're not then siphoning off some of that tax that tribute to go further up the food chain to a distant emperor. It's staying region And so you what we see, I think, in Central Britain, that part, which is the Roman frontiers, What's really interesting is it becomes the kingdom of Northumbria. and we think of Northumbria as an English kingdom. But actually Much of the Anglo Saxon material culture as we see it is really confined to the east and very largely to kind of broader Yorkshire region and certain points in the east along the coasts and maybe going up the river valleys a little bit. There's not this widespread Englishness in terms of artifacts, broches and things that we see in the South are in the midlands There's something else happening here identity wise. and I It's a speculation But I think that actually that sense of a Roman frontier identity that those limitine I wonder if that pervades much longer is a sense of identity, this proud warrior tradition They don't need to look to the incoming Germanic migrants for a new warrior tradition because The men here already had it. compared to say the former villa owners in the south of England who maybe were not proud of Soies, ye. Yeah. Well, here's another speculation for you. If we focus just quickly on the Du'prataniura Could it potentially be that that figure kind of stays in York or whever kind of succeeds and stays in York and becomes like the big warlord around the York area But that will be the precursor to the Kingdom of Northumbria and the person who tastes obvious be the angle whoever who becomes king of that region. So almost that Roman position there, whoever endures in that position after the canonical date of four hundred eight four ten is actually the forerunner to the King of Northumbria. Very potentially. I mean, York is a triple threat in the fourth century in around five hundred. It's the seat of the Roman governor civilian Roman goovernor of Britania Scunda It's the seat of an archbishop of a Christian bishop And it's also, we presume the sea of the Dukees Brtoni arum. So it's got civilian authority, military authority and religious authority So So York is a really significant location and the fact that you're retains its significance through the ages, I think shows that enduring investment in the place could very much have a Duxptoni arm fig power sustained inew York. And I think there are kind of you could say three or four key early medieval kingdoms that we should mention One we've already mentioned is Dira, and that does seem to be centered broadly in York in the greater Yorkshire region The other is we call it Breniceia That's kind of the English saxon name, but like Dira, it's derived from a British linguistic term Brenneich We don't know exactly where it is, but we tend to think of it as Northumberland. It could be the east end of Hadrian's wall. we don't really know. We tend to associate it with Bemra Northumbria is the coalescence, the unification of Dira. Bericia And I think what's key here is that while we call Northumbria an English kingdom, and their dynasties are such that we think of them as English dynasties. The name of those kingdoms are British and probably were' originally British kings or leaders Also God. The kingdom of Reord Reord whichich again, we can't confidently place. some people want it to be, you know, Dumphries Galloway, some people want it to be Cumbria And it could be something that spans to either side of the Salway Furth, in fact. We know regged exists. so it's mentioned in enough documents. We have enough names of its kind of princes and princesses Same with Vernicius, same with Deera. And then we mentioned you know the Vodid or Garan as well. Th four Kingdoms are occur in our early medval sources is being at least politically important and influential And so We can think of those as kind of covering some major blocks within the frrontier region. So if you've got Yorkshire as the kind of southeast of the frrontier, and that becomes dearer. Bericia is the northeastern part of the frontier region and so Dira Bericia unite eventually in the east. Before that happens th, they actually have to take out Recket And that's the northwest portion of the frrontier region. So we already have these major power blocks clearly in the sixth century Are they emerging in the fifth century? The fifth century is really key And we just don't know. So something is happening. The frontier is fragmenting probably in the fifth century but it might not be fragmenting into tiny pieces It might be just breaking up into subgroups, you know, sub regions. Subgroup with their centres initially at least at the forts along Hadrian's wall where the is possibly. And so it's really ultimately will end Hadrian's wall. is The shifting pololitical geography Once Hadrian's wall ceases to be an important kind of boundary or security barrier If you stop thinking of it as the edge of protecting Roman Britain And you start thinking about, well, the powers have shifted. So actually What if Bericia is focused on? Let's say Newcastle, for example, then actually that's going north and south of Hadrian's wall. It's rec centering it And So so Hatrians world starts becoming a border fortification and really just becomes a focus of a bunch of war bands and as those kingdoms reshape their borders are going to shift as well. And it's those shifting borders of new local kingdoms, new local politics. that's going to move those soldiers or warriors away from Hadrian's wall And that I would say, is actually when Hadrian's wall is coming to an end because it's no longer a military monument. And you say that sixth century probably or Yeah, I'd say, you know, probably later half of the fifth into the sixth century And this is where dating is always so key. When are these things happening? We can see the pieces on the board. We just don't know What date they're at what? It is just so fascinating how maybe for as much as a century, maybe not it maybe a bit more that you do have as nodes of power You know, these for longong Hrons will I've got them on notice. We didn't really get to talk to him too much, but I think I would just mention him inute the Brigo Maglock Maglos. a certain kind of warlord whoses maybe potential theory that he's a warlord in one of those communities. right. I mean we have what they're called cllass one inscribbeestones. It's an early medieval type of inscription that was found at Vindelanda. in some of the ruins of the fort and it's the Brigham Heckclestone. It's mostly He, I h Bo Mgolas. Brico Mgolas is buried here That's a High status name, Rgo Magnmos. It's great chief effectively He's kind of the one name we can be certain of. There are a few other these types of inscriptions, a couple from Mary Port Actually, Vindolanda has another one stone that was used almost like as a foundation stone for another building So we've got a few of these names floating about just from inscription British names. And that's a key point as well that I think takes us back to the that notion of almost military dynasty that the soldiers R the sons of soldiers, the grandsons of soldiers, that there's this tradition. but that probably also applies to the local elites that they also are probably serving terms as officers. And so there might be a connection between the local elite and military service, you know, being an official military leader It's not just, you know, the kind of people as it were but also the elite. And so if we think of that too Why would they leave their base of power to have an adventure in some foreign land? Brigam Maglos is a, you know Maybe Briam Pecalus' family has been running Vindolanda for decades if not centuries already. So interesting. but to kind of wrap up, Robin, does it very much seem that The fall of Hadrian's wall, it has certainly happened by the end of the sixth century, beginning of the seventh century. byy that time Those forts which have this fascinating afterlife, they're no longer centers of power for these warbands Those have moved elsewhere and what you ultimately have along Haronsve Now we would just eer small Christian communities or farming communities and that's kind of It's very much a change from what it had been. Yeah, I think that's what I would say, you're absolutely right that know certainly Roman Britain is coming to an end. It's no longer part of the Roman Empire, know after the early fifth century, E if people still think of themselves as Roman and part of that imperial world We don't have the direct political connection cultural change, the cultural shift takes much longer. So Hadrian's wall seems to still retain that sort of notion of a military space well into the fifth century But it's when the politics change those soldiers are drawn elsewhere. And yeah, we are left with smaller communities, you know um that sort of thing. And then the wall is just an ancient monument for everyone to wonder about for. Exaggerates to go, isn't it This has been absolutely fascinating. What a story. and we've Half covered the latest story of the Wall in the Roman times But then also shine a light on the fascinating afterlife of Hadrian's W, which is an amazing story in itself that deserves more attention, quite frankly. And the archaeology is