ABSTRACT
The fragmentation of the Western Roman Empire over the course of the 5th century began with a sequence of events that started in the Rhineland with the resultant permanent loss of Britannia by c. AD 410. The severance of imperial rule of Roman Britain is often thought to have resulted in a drastic collapse of many, perhaps most of the structures of provincial life in the first decades of the 5th century. 1 Explicitly linked to the loss of Roman civilization is a presumed withdrawal of the Roman soldiers from Britain: ‘Britain faced economic meltdown in the early 5th century, after the withdrawal of Roman armies and the end of the Roman provincial administration around 410’. 2 However, we should be critical of the widely received view of the end of Roman Britain.While the permanent separation of Britain from the rest of the Roman Empire was a definitive political event, it should also be remembered that the diocese of Britannia consisted of four or five provinces, and there is a danger in assuming that the divorce from the Empire had the same impacts in each province. 3 Archaeological evidence from Hadrian’s Wall indicates continued occupation at a number of Roman forts that prompts a broader question of what happened in the Roman frontiers as imperial authority retreated back to the core of the Empire.
