4th century Saxons on Hadrians Wall?

[Caballo]

For a good account of some of the economic reasons as well, try Bryan Ward-Perkins' book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fall-Rome-End-Ci...409&sr=1-1 (interview here http://www.bu.edu/historic/hs/perkins.pdf).

I think if you were educated, literate and part of the Romano-British establishment, it must have felt like the end of the world (and some of the early Christians certainly thought so). If you were a hill farmer in Somerset, probably little changed except that the market and coinage seem to have disappeared. And for a soldier on the Wall, life just seemed to continue, though without orders or money from "Head Office"....

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I checked it out from the library, it was a good read. I often reference some of his comments about the collapse of Roman Authority in Noricum.

Sonic writes in his book that a possible reason for settlement of Britons in Roman authority is that they wanted to remain part of the Empire, but the Empire couldn't help Britain.

[Robert Vermaat]

I think if you were educated, literate and part of the Romano-British establishment, it must have felt like the end of the world (and some of the early Christians certainly thought so). If you were a hill farmer in Somerset, probably little changed except that the market and coinage seem to have disappeared. And for a soldier on the Wall, life just seemed to continue, though without orders or money from "Head Office"....

Something like that. More and more, we hear of ethnogeneses in areas on the fringe of the empire that are settled by newcomers: Noricum, Thrace are forming 'new' cultures that are, or so it seems as a result of (new) research, to be more of a product of a mix than of migration and ethnic cleansing. New groups are already present during Roman times and manage to retain a monopoly of the local military power, or at least a high portion. And when Roman power diminishes, they fill in the gaps. The Franks do that in Gaul, I've seen examples of it in Britain (Wessex is an interesting one). And when this fails, brute force can be applied, by Clovis in Francia as well as by several Anglo-Saxon groups in England. But never is there evidence for large-scale barbarian invasions (driving all before them) as once was thought.

My problem with Saxons on Hadrian's Wall during the late 4th c. would be that we don't seem to see any continuation into the 5th c. Local power during the 5th and 6th c. on and around the Wall area seems to be British, not Saxon, which is what you would expect if the Saxons formed the military power in the region.

But maybe they all left for the south in 410? :whistle:

[Flavivs Aetivs]

That's actually a good hypothesis, if there were Frisii guarding on Hadrian's wall they would have likely left with Roman troops back to the area of Kent and Flanders where they were settled.

I've never advocated true "migration theory." I always thought that the Barbaian Migrations were primarily where Barbarian cultures began to come in where Roman Authority collapsed. Post 454-Noricum is a prime example, when the Garrisons began to be pulled, disband, or be attacked by Barbarians because of Aetius' death, many of the Towns either surrendered to barbarians who offered them better protection, and were assimilated into the Alamannic and Rugi/Amali states.

Lauriacum probably being the best of these examples.

BTW where is Brigetio?

[Robert Vermaat]

BTW where is Brigetio?

Google it my son! :grin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sz%C5%91ny