When did Roman Britain really end?

Summary

HistoryExtra Podcast: “When did Roman Britain really end?”

Date: April 26, 2026
Guest: Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham
Host: James Osborne

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host James Osborne talks with Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham about the complex period surrounding the end of Roman Britain and the emergence of English identity. Drawing on Higham’s new book How England Began, the discussion explores how the transition from Roman province to a unified England happened not through a single definitive event, but through a series of cultural, political, and religious shifts stretching from the late Roman period into the early Middle Ages. Key themes include the nature and timing of Roman withdrawal, the persistence of Britishness, migration and the Anglo-Saxon settlement, and the profound role of religion in shaping early English identity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining the “End” of Roman Britain and English Beginnings

• Athelstan's Role: The first “King of England,” Athelstan, is recognized as the political founder (03:24), but Higham argues that English identity predates political unification.
  • Quote: “It’s the kingdom that begins with Athelstan. That’s the beginning of the kingdom of England. And that’s when you see that as a political entity really emerging in the 10th century.” — Higham (03:24)
• England as an Identity, Not Just a Kingdom:
  • Bede acknowledged an “English people” unified by language, religion (the Archbishop at Canterbury), and differentiation from others in Britain (Scots, Picts, Britons). (03:38)
  • The sense of “Britishness” precedes Roman Britain, with ancient references dating back to the Greeks (5th–3rd centuries BC).

2. Geography and the Roots of Identity

• Britain’s Distinct Boundaries: Britain's insular geography forged a stronger sense of national identity compared to fluid continental borders. (06:45)
• Longterm Continuity: The idea of Britishness is ancient and tied deeply to the land, unlike more recently constructed identities elsewhere in Europe.

3. Challenging Traditional Periodization

• Rejection of Sharp Divides: Higham criticizes the modern historical division of “Roman Britain” and “Anglo-Saxon England” as artificial (05:02); in reality, culture, population, and practices flowed continuously across the 4th to 8th centuries.
  • “Periodization of history is a modern phenomenon. We impose our periods on the past.” — Higham (05:02)

4. Archaeological and Historical Sources

• Archaeological Complexity: Change is complex and multidisciplinary—archaeology, botany, personal metalwork, farming continuity, genetics, and language all yield different timelines and conclusions. (08:16)
  • Evidence: Personal Roman-style objects remained common late into the 5th century; botanical records indicate continuity of agricultural landscapes. (08:16)
• Textual Records: British Latin writings increased post-Rome (notably Gildas and St. Patrick, with Gildas crucial for understanding 5th-century events). (10:27)
  • Gildas's narrative cast the Britons as Israelites under divine punishment, highlighting religious interpretations of history. (11:59; 21:19)
  • “The importance of Gildas, in a sense, is that he demonstrates that Roman style education is still available in Britain and being taken up early in the 6th century.” — Higham (21:19)

5. Variation in Romanization

• Lowland vs Upland Divide: Roman culture and influence were far more pronounced in the lowland southeast (with villas, towns, and elite culture), while upland Britain retained more “tribal” and pre-Roman features. (12:30)
  • “The southeast of Britain, Roman Britain looks a lot more like Gaul, whereas the north and west don’t change so much from the Iron Age period.” — Higham (12:30)
• Impact of Roman Withdrawal: For many, especially rural peasants, daily life continued unchanged after Rome’s departure; the local elite still wielded power and controlled religion, law, and land. (14:46, 18:54)
  • “Your average Roman Briton was a peasant...as long as they had enough food...and there weren’t people coming in burning their hovels...they were ticking along okay.” — Higham (14:46)

6. The Role of Religion and Christianity

• Religious Identity as a Divider: Christianity came to define group affiliations — Britons as Christians, Anglo-Saxons as pagans (at first), later reversed through conversion and Roman missionary work. (23:56)
  • Britons refused to convert Anglo-Saxons, differing from common continental trends of converting and assimilating conquerors. (23:56)
  • The arrival of Gregorian missionaries led to Anglo-Saxon conversion directly into the Roman church, while Britons were later labeled heretical for their distinct practices. (23:56)
  • “The Britons do not want to convert the English because they won’t actually get shot of them. They want them out.” — Higham (23:56)
  • “The converts, the English converts, are taken into a Roman church and therefore become Roman despite the fact that they are not Latin speakers.” — Higham (25:04)

7. Migration and the Anglo-Saxon Question

• Nature of Migration: Archaeological evidence points to relatively small, regionally variable Anglo-Saxon settlements, often serving local British rulers at first. (27:09)
  • The expansion became more pronounced and warlike later in the 5th–6th centuries, not as a single invasion but as a “mosaic” of shifting control among small groups. (27:09)
  • Population continuity: The lowland peasantry remained largely indigenous; elites became Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Saxon-descended over time. (27:09, 31:18)
  • “The archaeological evidence, I think, requires that we abandon the old idea of the Anglo Saxon settlement as a political event...” — Higham (27:09)
• Britons’ Fate: Some Britons fled (giving rise to Brittany), but most stayed, eventually assimilating into a lower class within Anglo-Saxon society. (31:43)
• Patchwork Transition: The “takeover” occurred at different times in different places; pockets of British elite and language persisted well into the 6th–7th centuries. (31:43)
  • “You need to avoid this sort of sense of a big wave and a big ocean of ethnicity. It’s probably a mosaic.” — Higham (31:43)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On periodization:
  "We need to bear in mind, really at the front of our minds, that people live across these boundaries. Generations just keep ticking along." — Higham (20:28)
• On sources:
  "There are more words written in British Latin in the post Roman period than there are in the Roman period." — Higham (10:27)
• On elite continuity post-Rome:
  "The importance of Gildas...is that he demonstrates that Roman style education is still available in Britain and being taken up early in the 6th century. Without his work, we would struggle to be able to demonstrate that." — Higham (21:19)
• On religion and ethnic identity:
  "The converts, the English converts, are taken into a Roman church and therefore become Roman despite the fact that they are not Latin speakers." — Higham (25:04)
• On migration and assimilation:
  “It’s a very bitty story, but it all ends up in the same place.” — Higham (33:55)

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Key Timestamps

• 03:24: Who founded England? — Athelstan’s importance vs. deeper English identity.
• 05:02: Problems with “periodization” and the blurry end of Roman Britain.
• 08:16: Types of archaeological and textual evidence for the transition period.
• 12:30: Regional differences in Roman influence—lowland vs upland.
• 14:46: What life felt like for the average peasant as Rome withdrew.
• 18:54: Continuity in daily life for most Britons post-Rome.
• 21:19: Why Gildas and other literary sources matter so much.
• 23:56: The religious transformation: Christianity and its split between Britons and Anglo-Saxons.
• 27:09: What do we really know about Anglo-Saxon migration and its consequences?
• 31:43: Long-term mosaic of conquest and assimilation—no simple “end” or “beginning.”

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Conclusion

Professor Nicholas Higham deconstructs standard narratives of abrupt collapse or dramatic “beginnings” at the end of Roman Britain. His nuanced approach reveals a centuries-long process of change, continuity, and gradual transformation shaped by geography, elite and peasant experience, religious conflict and compromise, and small-scale migration. The result is not a clear “end”—but the slow and at times invisible genesis of England and Englishness out of the complex patchwork of Roman, British, and Anglo-Saxon entanglements.

Transcript

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What became of Britain after Roman influence receded in the early 5th century, and how did this create the conditions for England and Englishness to emerge? In this episode of the History Extra Podcast, Emeritus Professor Nicholas Hyam examines the twisting and turning tale of England's origins. A story of clashing Cultures, religion and migration.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

Today I'm joined by Professor Nick Higham, who is the author of numerous books that investigate the histories of early England, including his new work, How England Began. Nick, I thought this was a rather simple question. I thought that Athelstan followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, Alfred the Great, and brought the Anglo Saxon kingdoms together under his authority so that they could unite and defeat the Vikings. And in doing so, he created the concept of a unified England, and that that was how England began. Is that wrong?

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

That's not wrong. It's the kingdom that begins with Athelstan. That's the beginning of the kingdom of England. And that's when you see that as a political entity really emerging in the 10th century.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

Right, okay.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

The English as a nation begins earlier. But what I'm trying to do is dig beneath that and look at the idea of an English people and the idea of Englishness and what holds that community together and how it is differentiated from its neighbours. If you go back only as far as Bede, who is the founder of English history, if you like, although he is really a theologian, he is quite clear that there is such a thing as an English people. He's talking about the Angles as a people. And they're unified by language and they're unified by their obedience to one archbishop at Canterbury, and they're unified by their differences versus other peoples in Britain, Britons themselves, who we think of today as the Welsh, if you like, the Scots and the Picts.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

So you're looking to answer this question of how England began. And one of the core themes in this book is the emergence of this identity as a series of chapters, rather than one single definitive moment. When do you think those chapters begin and end? What are the bookends that we're talking about?

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Well, I see it as beginning in the late Roman period, so you can say, if you like, the fourth century, and I think it runs through to the end of the 7th century into the early 8th century. Periodization of history is a modern phenomenon. We impose our periods on the past. What I'm, in a sense, working against is the idea that you study Roman Britain and you have this sort of guillotine occurring in 410, after which there is no Roman Britain. And then you start the Anglo Saxons rather sort of slowly, in the fifth century, maybe the sixth, even. So what I'm trying to do is to place the whole thing in a wider context. There is a sense in which you need to understand Britishness in a much longer period of time, because the origins of the word Britain and the Britons goes back into prehistory. We have Greek testimony going back to the third century bc. So the idea of Britishness and its relationship with the island is very old indeed. It's far older, for example, than the relationship between Spain and the Spanish. If you go back to the second century bc, there are about six different language groups and peoples inside what we think of as Spain. Whereas in Britain, because it's an island, there is a strong sense of Britishness which includes the entire island.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

Yes, it's a fascinating point that because of the geographical distinctness of Britain, it has this identity that is perhaps more ingrained in the land itself. Whereas in Europe those borders are fluid and artificial in many ways. But the border of Britain being so defined and obvious means that the idea of the nation as a concept is tied to the idea of the land itself in a way that you don't see in other European countries.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

That's right. I think there is a very strong sense of that and I think that's something which stands out in the Roman period.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

It's a really useful context to help us anchor this conversation, I think. So the question you're asking, how England emerges from this post Roman landscape, or including this Roman landscape. A lot of this story takes place in the quote unquote, Dark Ages. The Dark Ages is an outdated term, but it does get to this idea that there is this period where the sources we're dealing with are quite difficult to disentangle. And I think that's demonstrated by the likes of King Arthur and the ambiguity about him, which is something you've studied a lot. So what are some of the key historical and archaeological sources that we're looking at to answer this question? That is the overarching question of your book.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Well, I think you have to break it down into a whole string of different disciplines. Archaeologists come from many different specialisms. So you'll have the study of brooches or other types of personal metalwork who make important points about the continuing existence of a Roman ish type of personal belongings and personal accoutrements running through to the third quarter of the fifth century, which kind of says that there is a Roman elite still or a Romano British elite still in Britain much later than the so called end of Roman Britain. But then there are other archaeologists who are looking at landscape, who are saying the botanical record, the record of pollen doesn't show any break. You've just got Roman Britain carrying on and becoming medieval England. The land doesn't go back to woodland, it doesn't revert to forest. So, you know, where are all the people who are doing all the farm work? They're the same people. They've got to be the same people. You've got genetics and you've got textual history, but there are multiple approaches to the period and it's very difficult to get them all in the same room and beginning to even agree about what matters, what questions to ask, what answers to give.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

So language, genetics, agriculture, metallurgy, textiles, these are all things that we can study from within the archaeological record that are giving us clues as to how Britain changes or doesn't change as the Roman Empire begins to recede from Britain. That's the archaeological story. What about the historical sources? Are there any texts or any authors who we're looking at here as being particularly important?

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Well, there are more words written in British Latin in the post Roman period than there are in the Roman period. The most important people really are Patrick St. Patrick, we associate with Ireland, but he was in origin British and he was effectively a missionary in Ireland. And we have two letters surviving from him. And then Gildas. Gildas is the most important of these figures simply because he was the only one who told the story of 5th century Britain in any sense. And it's not a history as we would know it, but it is a story about the relationship really between the Britons and the Christian God, which portrays the Britons as latter day Israelites suffering the sorts of occupation and persecution that the Israelites suffered at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians, as in the books of Isaiah and, and Jeremiah. And Gildas sees himself as Isaiah and Jeremiah working on behalf of the Britons, saying basically if the Britons return to God, then God will renew his protection of them, get rid of the Saxons and the Picts as well. Poor old Gildas doesn't realize the Picts are in actual fact ancient Britons. But there you go, you know, you can't have everything.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

You mentioned Gildas and you've mentioned religion, and those are both two really important people and ideas that I want to come back to before we get there. Something I really want to unpick is one of the ideas in the book is that even during the apogee of Roman Britain, Romanism or Roman identity wasn't evenly spread across Britain. Can you unpack why that is and also why it's important to understand that.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Well, there is a definite lowland upland divide in Britain that has been recognized for well over a century. If you draw a line from the northeast, well, East Yorkshire really Down to about Exeter. Everything on the northwest side is considered the uplands, even though a lot of it isn't very high. It's an area of relatively high rainfall, relatively poor drainage, it's acidic soils, it's generally pastoralism, it's low productivity, it's low population densities by comparison with the south and east, which has better drained soils, it is better for agriculture. It has the big field systems, it has the major towns, it has most of the villas. I mean, 90% of the villas, small towns, temples. The lowland zone is still largely British, but the elite become more Roman. And I mean, there's quite a significant inflow of continentals in the sense of the army itself and the initial urban populations and so on. But most of the villas are probably occupied, we don't know, but probably occupied by Romanized Britons who own the land. And the southeast of Britain, Roman Britain looks a lot more like Gaul, whereas the north and west don't change so much from the Iron Age period. It still looks fairly prehistoric with some Roman garrison forts stuck in it and sort of controlling it. It's still a fairly tribal society.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

Okay, so you have this Roman aristocratic influence over Britain to a large extent. This is most prevalent in the lowland areas.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Yes.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

So in the early 5th century, when Roman imperial authority begins to ebb away, what would that have felt like for an average Roman Briton living in this space at this time? Would everyone have even noticed?

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Well, your average Roman Briton was a peasant. If they were lucky, they were working the land and as long as they had enough food on the plate and there weren't people coming in burning their hovels and stealing the livestock, they were ticking along. Okay. They are subject to this late Roman aristocracy who control landed wealth, they control local government, they control taxation, they control Christianity. So for that sort of sub class, things don't really change very much at all.

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[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

average person, this average peasant who is working agriculturally, actually there is not much identifiable change. And something you mentioned was that what we see in the archaeological record is this agricultural continuity. So that tells us perhaps that, yes, the experience for the average person is that Britain before and after the Romans leave is much the same, but in terms of the political power, it's a very different story.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Well, in terms of the political power and locally the political power lies in the hands of the elite, as it always does, and therefore doesn't really change very much. The problem is that the collapse of Roman military protection means that sooner or later you'll have barbarian raids which can destroy you. But there is already probably a cultural divide of real significance between yourself as your average peasant and your local elite. Your local elite will be Latin speaking, they'll be educated, they'll be reading the Aeneid, whereas you are likelier to be Celtic speaking and less involved with Christianity and so on and so forth. So there's already substantial splits within this

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

society and that stays the same. So something that I think you're really stressing and that comes through in the book is that this is to a large extent about continuity.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Yes, I mean, modern scholarship has this awful tendency to break the past into periods. We need to bear in mind, really at the front of our minds, that people live across these boundaries. Generations just keep ticking along. And most of the people who were in Britain in 500, their ancestors three generations before were there in 400.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

Something I want to come back on is you mentioned Gildas. He is really crucial figure in understanding this history. Can you perhaps imagine for us what our understanding of this moment in history might have looked like without Gildas? Because I think that will help us to understand why he is so important.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Yeah, well, we know that Roman style education of the elite does continue through the middle of the fifth century. The importance of Gildas, in a sense is that he demonstrates that Roman style education is still available in Britain and being taken up early in the 6th century. Without his work, we would struggle to be able to demonstrate that. This is a group of people who archaeology finds it extremely difficult to identify. And really without the texts, you would not see them. So it's a Whole sort of aspect, an important aspect of this community. It's an elite group who have a disproportionate influence on the society over which they are presiding, which we would simply not be able to see.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

So he's telling us about the post Roman British intellectual life and cultural life of the elites. And this is something that archaeology would really struggle to be able to capture. That's why he's so important, because that's what he's showing us. He's giving us a window into a world that archaeology would otherwise struggle with.

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Yeah, I mean, we are just beginning to identify, for example, Roman style mosaic work, which must be 5th century, if not even 6th century. But the quantity of archaeological evidence that we've got for this sort of elite still, you know, quite Roman in a sense. Class within society. It's just not there without the texts. And Gildas is the key text.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

Okay, I think that brings us to two final big questions I want to look at, the first of which is the role of religion in this idea of Englishness and the emergence of Englishness. I find this so interesting because it's the lasting influence of Rome beyond the Romans. Do you think that it's in religion and in Christianity and in the influence of that coming over from Rome that this question of Englishness really begins to take shape?

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

If you go back to 530, say, give or take, you'd say, okay, well, the Britons are Christian and the Anglo Saxons are Germanic pagans. And we've got a fair idea what that means. The Britons do not want to convert the English because they won't actually get shot of them. They want them out despite the fact that on the continent, the Roman Church in Gaul and, and Spain and Italy is working to convert the barbarians. And the Franks particularly become staunch Catholic kings of Western Europe. So there is a distinct divide that links ethnicity and religion. And that breaks down in the late 6th century, first of all with the Frankish encouragement of southeast Anglo Saxons, particularly Kent, to start accepting Christianity. And then Pope Gregory takes hold of it and he sends his own mission in. And that mission then discovers that the Britons won't help them, which is a bit of a shock, they weren't expecting that. And they then react by picking out the differences between British Christianity and Roman Christianity and saying, well, they're all heretics. So the converts, the English converts, are taken into a Roman church and therefore become Roman despite the fact that they are not Latin speakers. So there is this strong new connection which sort of flips the existing patterns Ideologically. And the Britons go from being Christians, sort of in parallel with the continent, to heretics and therefore outside and therefore detested by the Lord. And the English go from being awful pagans to being Roman Christians.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

I think one of the most interesting things I want to pick up on there is when you say that once the Anglo Saxons effectively come across from the Northern European regions, the Britons don't want to convert them. That's so interesting because it's so contrary to the patterns of conversion that we're used to. We're so used to seeing populations and political elites wanting to convert their enemies as a means of exerting power over them. But in this case, the Britons don't want to do that. And I just think that's so interesting. And it also brings us to the second part of the final question I wanted to ask, which is about the role of migration in this story, and specifically that Anglo Saxon migration. What impact does this have on the Britons who were living in this land before the Anglo Saxons came over? And is this really when the divide between Britain and England begins to emerge?

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

Well, it's a very interesting migration because we know so little about it archaeologically. You can pick it up through local and regional deposits of archaeological material, particularly in cemeteries, which start. Well, they start around 400, but really begin picking up from about 420 onwards, although it's very difficult to date them. But it does look comparatively small scale and localised. And the archaeological evidence, I think, requires that we abandon the old idea of the Anglo Saxon settlement as a political event which Bede effectively is responsible for. He constructs it out of Gildas, story of three ships, followed by a few more who are turning up as mercenaries to serve a British ruler. It probably was in the early stages, controlled by local British elites. You look at the patterns of early English cemeteries, in some regions, they seem to intentionally avoid certain areas. For example, the area around Lincoln, which was the Roman provincial capital, doesn't have cemeteries, whereas Lincolnshire in general does have quite a lot. These sorts of patterns, I think, tell us something about the initial process. But what you then have is a major problem, because in the ancient world, ultimately power lies with the people with the swords. And you've got this issue about the ability of British rulers to pay. Can you actually afford mercenaries? Well, no, you give them land and what is to stop them taking more land? What do you do, hire some more mercenaries to stop them? It's a bit problematic. And what you've got, I think, is a tendency for the Migrant communities, which is warrior centred, to expand their areas of control. This breaks out into a much bigger scale of warfare in the third quarter, or perhaps even the last quarter of the fifth century. It is quite clear from the archaeological evidence that Anglo Saxon expansion across the lowlands occurs during the very late 5th century, early 6th century. So you've got to recognize this sort of expansion, but it's not one big single kingdom as sort of, you see in the Frankish lands, where you've got a major dynasty founded in the 5th century which grabs lots of power and dominates in the sixth. It's very much sort of local groups of warriors, some with leaders, some probably without, who are doing their own thing, taking control, splitting up the land, hidating and taking control. But there is still the existing workforce underneath. I mean, my own guess is you go through to 600 and you look at the, the whole population of Lowland Britain, the people with influence and power are immigrant or immigrant descended. The majority of the population is probably still Celtic speaking and of indigenous descent. It's the religious changes of the later 7th century that caused that larger but low status group to abandon their separate identity, their language, and sort of merge into the bottom of English society to start owning Englishness.

[Podcast Host (James Osborne)]

And as the Anglo Saxon kingdoms and political elites expand their influence, this is when English power really does effectively take hold and persist from there onwards. Do you think that there was a moment where this could have gone any other way? Or was this always the trajectory after the Romans left Britain?

[Emeritus Professor Nicholas Higham]

It's very interesting to know, isn't it? I mean, you know what happened if the Normans had lost the Battle of Hastings. There is British migration, there is evidence in the language change going on from Brittonic to old Welsh, of Lowlanders fleeing, presumably from the Saxons, westwards and probably northwards. We don't know much about that. We've also got evidence of Britain's settling on the continent. This is the foundation of Brittany, which seems to be a phenomenon of the second half of the fifth century. But most Britons of the Lowlands probably stayed where they were because that was their life, that's their agricultural peasants, that's their fields, their cows, their plough. And it's that community that eventually ends up becoming the bottom end of English society. But you need to avoid this sort of sense of a big wave and a big ocean of ethnicity. It's probably a mosaic. There's actually some quite interesting little bits in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. Now, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle is 9th cent, but there's these odd stories in the middle of the 6th century of West Saxon kings taking over from the Britons in bits of Bedfordshire. Now, what are Britons doing in the bits of Bedfordshire if they've already got the upper Thames Valley? Well, the answer is it's a mosaic with lots of bits of even the lowlands still having local Celtic lordship for much longer than we can actually see archaeologically. And they're only being taken over in the 6th century. And, you know, I mean, West Yorkshire, where I am here, is only taken over in the seventh century. So, you know, it's a very bitty story, but it all ends up in the same place.

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That was Emeritus Professor Nicholas Hyams speaking to James Osborne Born Nicholas's latest book is How England Began From Roman Britain to the Anglo Saxons.

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