02-19-2013, 04:14 AM
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"....
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"....