Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Ron Andrea]

The Little Ice Age was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there was another--less severe--cool period about a third of the way through the first millennium (see chart at Link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... ations.png Note that the left margin is today; the recent Proxies chart expands the detail.)

That said, I've read that one reason the Empire was so willing to let Britannia go was decreasing grain shipments to Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries, caused by volcanic eruptions in Asia. If true, decreased grain might also impact the cost of maintaining and fielding large numbers of war horses. However, if the exports of grain had stopped, a larger percent--like 100% :wink: --of the admittedly smaller production would be available for domestic use.

Production of cash crops would further decrease due to the lack of Imperial subsidies. Those subsidies may have been the foundation of the Romano-Britain economy. So, not only the withdrawal of the legions to fight continental invaders (or each other), but also the end of outside funding, may have accelerated the decline of sub-Roman culture and the reassertion of Briton tribal culture. (Not to mention invaders from the west, north and east.)

This is all speculation but fits the facts as we know them and may help explain the rapid decline of Romano-Briton culture in the fifth century ... and why large numbers of mounted warriors may have difficult to sustain even if the face of a threat against which an agile, mounted force would have been more effective than fixed infantry and local levies.