ABSTRACT
The Roman government of and way of life in Britain were gone. Yet there remained a population descended from the inhabitants of Roman Britain and living in the lands of the erstwhile diocese. Even after the inception of the main phase of Anglo-Saxon migration in the middle of the fifth century they remained numerically the overwhelming majority and in control of most of the richest land of the island down into the sixth century. They therefore constituted a distinct entity and episode in the development of post-Roman Britain. They did not live according to the economic and social order of the defunct diocese, but neither did they live according to that of the Anglo-Saxons. It was with them rather than with late Roman Britain that the Anglo-Saxons interacted. Their history and archaeology are therefore of the greatest interest, both of their own sake and for what they mean for the study of the transition from Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England.
