Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Ron Andrea]

Alan,

I agree. Of course, probably fewer and fewer people probably read Latin (or any language) during this period.

I've read that civilization is a veneer only two generations thick. Which I take to mean that even we could degenerate back to cavemen that fast if all the underpinnings of our culture were removed, Lord of the Flies fashion. But what the consensus seems to be saying here is that the Roman underpinnings of sub-Roman Britain were not kicked away, and in fact are still evident centuries later. Today, even.

What I think I see is a political disintegration which worked against an organized resistance to the Anglo-Saxons, perhaps because the sub-Roman Britons didn't see the Germans as as big a threat as their neighboring tribe, civitas, warlord/kinglet. Just as rival emperors destroyed huge portions of Rome's army fighting each other even as barbarians overflowed the empire's borders.

So the technology to field a well-equipped, well-organized military, including cavalry, remained, but the focus to do so did not? :?