ABSTRACT
The ending of Roman administration in the early fifth century can have had little impact on the lives and work of most of the inhabitants of south-western Britain. The only significant alteration to the superstructure of government will have been the removal of the impositions in kind which Rome placed upon her provincial subjects and of the other dues required by the Empire of the civitas Dumnoniorum as a whole. The break with the Roman world would thus have been felt mainly at the seat of tribal government, in Exeter, and specifically would have affected the members of the curial order (above, p. 213). Upon them, or at least upon those who were prepared to undertake it, would have fallen the burden of ruling the land of the Dumnonii.
