The History of the World Podcast, written and presented by Chris Hasler

Volume 4 The The Medieval World

Episode 21, The Anglo Saxons. Oh, you know, now. Oh, During our episode on the Picts we described how the Romans abandoned Great Britain in the

year 410.

The Romans conquered a large amount of British territory in the year 43, after a couple of

failed invasions by Julius Caesar and a number of intended invasions by the Emperor Augustus. The Romans established the city of Londinium

at the site of the modern city of London and heavily influenced a lot of the culture of the Britons,

the indigenous people of the island. After the conquest of many tribes of the

South which famously included the army of the stretched and unable to conquer the far north of the island.

During the third century there were a number of Christian persecutions within the Roman Empire

and it would take the accession of the Roman Emperor Constantine

the Great to prevent such persecutions going forward.

Christianity was in Britain, but it would disappear somewhat with the Romans in the 5th century.

Many non-Roman peoples of the lands in and around the British Isles stepped up their aggressions

towards the Romans in the late 4th century, including Saxons from the East.

The Saxons were a Germanic peoples and it is thought that some of the Saxons tried

to settle British lands forcing the Celtic language speaking population to head westward into the lands of Wales and Cornwall.

When the Romans were obliged to abandon their British interests to attend to the more urgent matters of the continent,

British lands entered a period commonly known as the Dark Ages,

in which we lost the benefit of Roman scribes to record the events occurring in Great Britain.

And so we have to put a lot of the story of the time after 410 down to supposition due to some very ambiguous references.

The Dark Ages

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