Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History Magazine, Britain's

best-selling history magazine.

I'm Ellie Corpon.

What happened to Britain after the Romans left?

Well, as today's guest will reveal, that's a question that's puzzled historians for

a very long time.

It's something that Max Adams grapples with in his new book The First Kingdom, which

tries to piece together the story of Britain between 400 and 600 AD.

I spoke to him about some of the current theories about the era, and why Arthurian myths have

proven so popular.

Your new book pieces together the centuries following the fall of Roman Britain in around

400 AD.

I think this is a time that often falls between two stalls almost, of the major historical

epochs that grab the limelight.

Why did you think that this was the time that you wanted to write a book about?

I'm an early medievalist, which means, you know, the dark ages are my thing.

And I suppose early medievalists start with the venerable bead, he's the great historian

of Western Europe in that period, and he takes us back to this very, very obscure period

that we call the dark ages after the Romans supposedly leave, and before bead sources become

reliable, and even bead, who is, you know, the most fantastic source of history, he covers

the 150 years from about 440 onwards in something like 19 lines of an extremely long history

of the English church and peoples.

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