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- [00:00]
Host
Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:34]
Dr. Rob Collins
Acast powers the World's Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend do you
- [00:43]
Knox
like being educated on things that entertain but don't matter? Well, then you need to be listening to the Podcast with Knox and Jamie Every Wednesday we put together an episode dedicated to delightful idiocy to give your brain a break from all the serious and important stuff.
- [00:55]
Jamie
Whether we're deep diving a classic movie, dissecting the true meanings behind the newest slang, or dunking on our own listeners for their bad takes or cringy stories, we always approach our topics with humor and just a little bit of side eye. And we end every episode with recommendations on all the best new movies, books, TV shows, or music.
- [01:10]
Knox
To find out more, just search up the Podcast with Knox and Jamie wherever you listen to podcasts and prepare to make Wednesday your new favorite day of the week.
- [01:21]
Dr. Rob Collins
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcast everywhere everywhere acast.com this is pro linebacker TJ Watt, and I'm former
- [01:31]
Jamie
pro soccer player Danny Watt.
- [01:33]
Dr. Rob Collins
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- [01:37]
Jamie
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Dr. Rob Collins
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- [01:44]
Jamie
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Dr. Rob Collins
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- [03:29]
Host
410 AD a soldier stands guard on a stone rampart looking out towards the rolling hills beyond. His name is Beliatus. From atop his walkway, Beliatus can see for miles to his north and south. He is in a valley with green fields in front and behind him and steeping slopes on either side. He mans a turret that is connected to a large wall that had been there for hundreds of years, stretching from coast to coast, dividing Roman Britain from the lands of barbarians. Hadrian's Wall. For generations, Veliatus family have been living on this distant, distant frontier. Ever since his great grandfather was posted here from Germania almost a century earlier, he had gone on to complete his service, marry a local woman and settle down in the area. Beliatus family had stayed here ever since. The time of Roman rule over Britain had now ended. Beliatus and his comrades were no longer receiving orders from generals further south. There were no more Roman armies marching north to fight the Picts beyond. But for Beliatus, his family and his comrades living on this frontier, their lives remained largely the same. Hadrian's Wall had not fallen. The formidable fortifications of the wall would become new power centers, bastions of strength for the local peoples in this new post Roman world. Centers of faith and fealty. This is the story of what happened to Hadrian's Wall and its people after the Romans left Britain. Our guest is Dr. Rob Collins, professor of Frontier Archaeology at Newcastle University. Rob, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast.
- [05:28]
Dr. Rob Collins
It's always a pleasure to be on
- [05:29]
Host
the podcast and we're doing it in person for the first time I've come up north to see you. We're near Hadrian's Wall as we speak.
- [05:34]
Dr. Rob Collins
It's great. It's always good to get people up onto the Roman frontier.
- [05:37]
Host
Y yes. And I guess the big question first of all, does the story of Hadrian's Wall, does it end when the story of Roman Britain ends?
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Dr. Rob Collins
No.
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Host
There we go.
- [05:47]
Dr. Rob Collins
Definitive no, it keeps going.
- [05:50]
Host
But it's a fascinating story, isn't it? The enigmatic tale of what happens to these communities along the length of Hadrian's wall after the official period of Roman Britain ends.
- [06:01]
Dr. Rob Collins
It is. I mean, it's a period I've fallen in love with. Right. It's my career choice, my career focus. But, but there are so many questions that there's so many mysteries, so many unknowns, there's lots of puzzles to solve. And what is fantastic is all the scientific breakthroughs and insights and developments we've had over the past generation. Each year brings us closer to new techniques that we can start applying and addressing to these research problems because.
- [06:28]
Host
Exactly. Quite a lot of people would think if someone mentions 5th century AD Britain, you'll be thinking things like King Arthur or the Dark Ages, a really difficult time. So to learn more about this, is archaeology our best friend?
- [06:42]
Dr. Rob Collins
Absolutely. I think you have to start, if you're looking at kind of 5th, 6th century Britain, you've got this clash or this transition between two really big historical ideas and concepts in British history. So you've got the ending of Roman Britain and that's a big idea in itself. It kind of ties into things of like the end of civilization. And then coming along, not right away, some decades, maybe centuries later, you've got the birth of Anglo Saxon England. So in terms of, you know, an English national myth, you know, so you've got the ending of one really important part of Britain's history and you've got the beginning of another important part. And they. It's not a smooth transition and we can't connect the dots from the end of Roman written to the birth of Anglo Saxon England directly. There is a gap there in between. And that gap is really interesting, what's happening. And so we do have these big ideas that we're grappling with. What does it mean when a civilization ends? Does a civilization end? What does it mean when a new civilization is. Is emerging, is born?
- [07:41]
Host
And I guess the forts along Hadrian's Wall are a great focal point for learning more about that, you know, that transitional period in this particular area in Britain, in a heavily fortified area as well, what is always seen as like kind of the border zone between what the Romans would say is civilization and then absolutely, the barbarians, the Picts and so on beyond.
- [08:00]
Dr. Rob Collins
Absolutely. And you know that the challenge there is making sure that we're aware of kind of the romance, the tropes, the stereotypes that come with the end of Roman Britain and also the birth of Anglo Saxon England, so that we can be guided by the evidence. And traditionally our evidence has been text, historical sources. But for Britain in the 5th and 6th century, we really only have two sources that we can reliably count on from the British Isles, and one of those is the writings of St. Patrick, primarily his confessions, but he does have a little letter to a British, maybe Scottish warlord, Cronycus. So we've got two sources from St. Patrick and then we've got Gildas writing in, we think, the mid 6th century, but that's it. Two, you know, two authors in Britain, you know, and Patrick is probably writing in Ireland, so he's not. He might be British himself, but he's not in Britain as he's writing. So that's it, you know, we don't have any other great texts, any great documents. If we compare that to, say, 5th century Gaul, there's this whole fantastic flourishing of late antique authors, the kind of the last bouquet of aristocratic Roman authors. You know, we've got the letters of Sidonius and, you know, Gregory is coming in later.
- [09:20]
Host
Gregory of Tours.
- [09:21]
Dr. Rob Collins
Gregory of Tours, yeah. So we have these authors that are giving us more information about the 5th in 6th century in Gaul that we just don't have for Britain. So we also will sometimes then look to those Gallic sources for these little snippets about what's happening in Britain. But a key thing here is to think about that geography of the world. And sadly, Hadrian's Wall is not on the radar of those Gallic writers. It's not really on the radar of St. Patrick in the 5th century, which is a shame. Gildas does talk about Hadrian's Wall, but when we look at how Gildas writes about Hadrian's Wall, it's already almost, if not a myth, its historical fact is already obscured or forgotten to Gildas.
- [10:03]
Host
So this great barrier that has been there for eternity, or that kind of thought idea.
- [10:07]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah. And so what's really interesting with Gildas and Gildas is a great place to start because according to Gildas, the monument we call Hadrian's Wall and maybe the Antonine Wall, depending on how you want to read it, he associates those monuments with the end of Roman Britain. He doesn't. Ancient monuments. He sees them as a final bit of work by the Roman army to help protect Britain in a period of retreat.
- [10:34]
Host
So his idea is that the Romans leave Britain, but they leave a parting gift of this big frontier, of this big barrier.
- [10:39]
Dr. Rob Collins
Exactly that. And so his narrative, based on our archaeological evidence, is completely wrong. But what is interesting is that he does have this narrative of there being a very late Roman final phase Roman government refurbishment, or in his words, a construction of Hadrian's Wall. And the way he describes it is that this wall is constructed to connect the towns that were along its length. And I think if we consider Gildas words in the context in which he's writing, that tells us, I think two important things that one, there is this memory of some sort of very late Roman construction, we could say refurbishment maybe that he's attributing as a new construction, but he's saying it's connecting the towns that are there. And so the other thing we can question is in Gildas own time, is he aware of there being towns or larger settlements along the length of the wall that he thinks have then been connected along the wall, but are in fact the wall was built and that created those settlements they came after. And so Gildas actually might be giving us a very strong bit of contemporary evidence of there are still people living in those forts along Hadrian's Wall.
- [11:54]
Host
But this is very much a teaser and a half. And also I love that how right at the start of the answer, we kind of dismiss Gildas for saying, oh, he's obviously wrong, but actually when you delve deeper into the story being like, but actually is there some kernel, some basis of truth that we can bring away from it? So I love that. Kind of multi layered.
- [12:09]
Dr. Rob Collins
Exactly that. But we also have to remember we don't know where Gildas is writing. Depending on which part of Britain you live in, you might claim Gildas. For your part, it's usually Wales or Cornwall, but you know, sometimes in Brittany they want that claim too. So we don't know where he's writing. So we can't also be particularly confident that his, when he's writing about places other than Wales, his evidence seems to be very good for Wales, but outside of Wales, in Cornwall, it's very sketchy, very generic. So again, we have to think of Gildas as writing from a distance, at least for Hadrian's Wall. And so, you know, we always have to take that with a little bit of a pinch of salt. You know, is his knowledge firsthand? Is it, is it secondhand accounts? Has he spoken to any eyewitnesses? And the other aspect is he's writing a polemic, a sermon. You know, it's almost tablite, you know, in terms of what he's saying. So, you know, teasing out his, his agenda in sermonizing from, from fact can sometimes be challenging too.
- [13:10]
Host
Well, in this chat we're going to focus largely on the later 4th century and 5th century AD, so we're not quite going into what is clearly gone. Medieval territory. I think it's fair to say the 5th century AD. It's in the British context, that's the transitional phase from what we say antiquity to Middle Ages, don't we? So we can kind of get away with it there.
- [13:28]
Dr. Rob Collins
And that's a period we'll often call late antiquity.
- [13:31]
Host
Late antiquity. We can still say the 5th century AD is late antiquity in Britain. There we go. Fantastic. Eat that, Matt. We did a fun episod episode in the past about what's ancient and what's medieval, but if we start very much in the Roman period, so let's say maybe like the 360s or the 370s AD, what do we know about Hadrian's Wall at that time? How monumental are the constructions along Hadrian's Wall? Give us a picture of Hadrian's Wall at that time.
- [13:58]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah. So the 4th century is a great place to start. One of the things which is most interesting is that if we look at our historical sources in the Roman period, we actually have the most evidence for conflict in the 4th century. So as much as Hadrian's Wall is built around 120, and we think there's a war, that's part of the process of building it. And we know that there are these other big events, actually, when we actually tally up those lists of some sort of conflict, it's mostly what's recorded is in the 4th century. So we know of events in the first half of the fourth century where, for example, the Emperor Constantius Chlorus is campaigning in Caledonia and fighting against the Picts. At the start of the 4th century, he dies in York, and his death is what spurs on his son Constantine on that path to becoming the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.
- [14:51]
Host
Christianity becoming big.
- [14:53]
Dr. Rob Collins
Christianity then gets introduced. So the northern frontier has a place in big Roman history. And we see this pattern of emperors or generals being sent to the north to kind of put the Picts in their place or to deal with some uprisings. It's not always clear why, but there's definitely. It's not a peaceful frontier in the 4th century. So we know there's lots of conflict in not just in the first half of the fourth century, but through the fourth century. It's really telling that Hadrian's Wall is not abandoned or given up, that it seems to be occupied through the fourth century. The archaeological evidence is very clear. The historical sources are telling us there is activity going on even as late as the Generalissimo stilicho in around 399. Our source is a panegyric. So it's praise poetry of the imperial court to the greatness of Stilicho. But within that there's a reference to Stilicho commanding the legions against the Caledones or the Picts. I forget exactly what they call them, but Stilicho is clearly instigated some sort of campaign in Northern Britain. That's around 400. So these things are still happening. So the start of the fourth century, we've got the emperor Constantius Cloris. The end of the fourth century, we've got Stilicho under Honorius campaigning. So we can bookend that century with the Pixar problem. Defence of Northern Britain is still on the imperial agenda. It might be lower down, but it's still there. And Hadrian's Wall is definitely occupied. 350 is a really good starting point because politically the Roman Empire is reasonably stable. You've got the sons of Constantine are still ruling. There's a confidence and faith in the Constantinian dynasty. This is the third generation of emperors from that family. The reforms that were instigated under the emperor's Diocletian and then completed under Constantine are. Are doing what they were supposed to do. The economy is restabilizing at different parts of the Roman Empire, we're seeing more economic boom and expansion. You know, there are many challenges, but in the mid 4th century, the Roman Empire is.
- [17:01]
Host
Things are looking good. Yeah, yeah.
- [17:03]
Dr. Rob Collins
That changes through the course of the later 4th century. And I think it's fair to say that by the end of the 4th century, Britain is much lower in priorities because there are problems closer to home in this sense, Rome, or more likely Ravenna, the imperial court there. But Hadrian's Wall still exists, it's still occupied, it's still, as far as we can tell, the curtain, the wall element itself is still being maintained. There are still mile castles and turrets and forts being occupied. It's a bit different from when it was built. There are fewer turrets. So we know a number of turrets, the towers that you find roughly every one third of a Roman mile, there's
- [17:46]
Host
normally two turrets between each mile castle. Is that the idea? Right, yeah.
- [17:50]
Dr. Rob Collins
And if you remember that each mile castle has a tower on the north gate, then effectively every third of a mile you have some sort of tower or elevated platform, a number of those turrets, we can't be sure how many because we've not excavated all of the turrets, but we do know a number of those turrets were abandoned and in fact some of them were outright demolished in the later second century. So within 100 years of the wall's construction, there is a shift in the security situation in the landscape that means they can modify Hadrian's Wall. But not all turrets are given up. Some turrets are retained. And if we think about turrets as being an elevated observation platform, at the very least it's a tall point where a soldier can look further. Many of those are retained, and they are definitely retained in those locations where you can be sneaky, where a raider could try and sneak through the landscape and try and get across the wall. It's more in the kind of flatter lowland situations where those turrets are more likely to be abandoned. So Hadrian's Wall isn't necessarily the bristling soldiers on top of towers every third of a mile sort of situation it was at the start, but it is still garrison, still occupied. Any evidence we have from mile castles that have been excavated, there's always some form of evidence, sometimes only a few sherds of pottery, but that it's still being used and occupied in the later 4th century. So it's not just the forts, the big bases that the soldiers are based at, but also those smaller installations. And that's really important because that means the Wall, as a monumental complex is in operation. So it's not just, oh, we've kept the forts, they are sustaining the wall as a monument. And there looks to be activity at those turrets at those mile castles.
- [19:35]
Host
And who are these communities, the soldiers and their families who are living along Hadrian's Wall at this time?
- [19:42]
Dr. Rob Collins
Who?
- [19:42]
Host
I know you've done a lot of work around.
- [19:44]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah. So there's a real important shift in the late Roman Empire when they, under Diocletian, then Constantine again, they restructure everything, all of government, but also the army. And a key thing that they do is they separate the soldiers that will be in field armies and are effectively mobile armies that will move around as the Emperor needs them to. And the frontier armies. Now, there are a few different Latin terms for these frontier soldiers. One of the fun ones is ripari or riparenses, which is effectively the river soldiers. So those are the ones along the Rhine in the Danube. They often get called the ripari. You get another term, the castellani, the soldiers of the castles, which again gets applied to the soldiers in the frontiers with their permanent forts. But the one which has the widest use and the most staying power is the Limitane.
- [20:32]
Host
That's the one that's been in the total wars and everything like that. So people would have grown up Hearing
- [20:36]
Dr. Rob Collins
about the limitani or whatever, I'm partial to it because limitus will be a reference to the frontier, to the limits of the empire. So it's the men of the frontiers, the soldiers of the frontiers. In terms of scholarly use, that's the one we've used because there's not always a river, but there's always soldiers. So we can apply that to all those late Roman soldiers. And they have a, a distinct legal status and I suppose, structural position in Roman law. You're right that these are soldiers and their families living in the frontiers at some point in the early 4th century. We don't know exactly when that status was given to them. And with that also comes inheritable status. So the sons of soldiers are legally obliged to also become soldiers. So you can't just think of it as well, who are the guys who are willing to go and join the army and stand at guard at Hadrian's Wall? You have entire communities of multi generational families who have been serving in the Roman army. And when we look at some of our sources across the Roman period and compared to some of our inscriptions from Hadrian's Wall, we do know that a lot of most of the units at the forts based on Hadrian's Wall have been there more than 100 years, often 150, even 200 years in some cases.
- [21:56]
Host
So it's no longer the case of a vexation of auxiliary soldiers from the mainland will be shipped over to help reinforce a particular place along the frontier. It is, you know, it's your family's duty almost. If you live on Hadrian's wall in the mid 4th century, then your son in the later 4th century will also be expected to stay there. And will they own land, do we think as well in the area?
- [22:18]
Dr. Rob Collins
Definitely own land. And this is actually, there's a older debate which is now mostly resolved, but it's still something that will be found in certainly more popular history books. There are some Roman laws that talk about the limitinae and their ownership of land and farming, or charges that are brought up against soldiers because they're not doing their military duties, they're too busy running their farms. A lot of those are later, like the sixth or possibly even seventh centuries, and they're often more Byzantine than Western Roman. But we also know that the Roman army is a major landowner in and of itself, and there are things that we do not fully understand but that we can, we can get at. So the Roman army would own land, and almost certainly as part of that, they would give their soldiers access to that land. And even if the soldiers themselves aren't farming, their families can farm. And this is part of that sort of. Also, traditionally, it would tie into that Roman retirement package. If you're a soldier, you served your 20, 25 years, here's a stipend, here's some land, a couple cows in a bucket of seed, go and farm and grow some grain for your fellows in the army. That's part of the traditional retirement package. It's now just kind of being brought in. And if you think about multi generational families who will have access to this land, you're looking at this kind of long term, multi generational settlement where people know the land. And even if the, the men are serving in the army, you know, they'll have children, they'll have wives or siblings, they'll have older parents. There are other people that can be working the farm, the farmland.
- [23:59]
Host
But it's such a clever, I think, at least it's such a clever idea because then you get those people just committed to that land. And for as long as they still see themselves as being Roman, like, yes, maybe they start to pay taxes, but as long as they're still in that idea of being Roman, you know, they will fight even harder to ensure that if there are any raiders coming down, that they're fended off, because that is their property.
- [24:21]
Dr. Rob Collins
Exactly. And there is an emotional investment there. And I think as much as the classic view, the romantic view of the Roman army, of the legionaries in the second century is very dominant in popular culture, the late Roman army is really interesting because you've got soldiers that are there for generations. This is their home. They're not migrants. Some of them will be migrants. Of course, we can't expect that everyone is local, but there will be many, perhaps 50 to 60% easily, who are from the region. So it's their homeland. So it might be the frontier of the Roman Empire, but it's their home. And that if you can make that connection, that helps you think a little bit differently about what's going to happen at the end when suddenly there is no Roman Empire. But you know, that doesn't mean that Hadrian's Wall disappears. You know, the wall is still there and so are those communities, these people who have lived there for generations.
- [25:21]
Host
So as we get to the beginning of the 5th century AD, you mentioned earlier, like the campaign of Stilicho and so on. So you've got examples. And that's where the comitatenses is it that the field.
- [25:30]
Dr. Rob Collins
So we Think the field army is coming in. There's a good chance that Stilicho is maybe doing some reorganization at the time. It's a good opportunity for him to, with that military resource there, to commit some refurbishment and rebuilding of any dilapidated parts of the fortifications. All sorts of things happen when you get some imperial attention. So we know that that's there, but
- [25:51]
Host
that feels very much like the exception to the rule, because it's one big major event we hear about at the time. But as we get to the early 5th century, how independent would you argue that these border forces already are, that these communities already are along Hadrian's Wall?
- [26:06]
Dr. Rob Collins
It's really difficult to say. One of the things that's really important, and I know this is kind of boring, administrative structures, but it's really important that we understand those administrative structures of empire, because that will help us better understand our archaeological evidence. And especially for something like an army which will have supply networks, logistics. Those logistics are really important for us to understand. How long is this really a frontier army, A unified frontier army? And when is it not? When can we see the end of those military stories?
- [26:40]
Host
Great generals talk about logistics, right? So we should talk about logistics. Go on, then. Yeah.
- [26:44]
Dr. Rob Collins
I mean, it's not sexy, admittedly, you know, where does your grain come from? And, you know, how many cows do you get per season? But. But it's that sort of thing that will help us understand if all these forts are still connected. And key to that is the supreme commander, the supreme general of the Northern Frontier army, the Duke Sprataniarum, the Duke of the Britons. He will be very high ranking. He's in terms of military rank, he's two tiers below the emperor. He'll report to the magistrate militum, effectively the. The MOD of the Roman Empire, and they report to the emperor.
- [27:23]
Host
And Stilicho was a magister militant, right?
- [27:25]
Dr. Rob Collins
And Stilicho was a magister militant and kind of de facto emperor, you might
- [27:30]
Host
say, in the sense of the idea of the hierarchy. Yeah.
- [27:32]
Dr. Rob Collins
So the frontier generals, the Duques, were slightly lower in status than the field army generals, the Comite, the counts, but he's still an extremely powerful and important person. We think he's based in York and he has command not just of Hadrian's Wall, but basically all the military forces in what are now northern England and maybe even into northern Wales, we don't know. But that's really important because we know we've got a general that is in charge of all those forces and is meant to oversee everything around them. So make sure that they're doing their job in terms of defense, to make sure that they're getting their supplies, to make sure that they're maintaining their fortifications. He's also a judge. He is at the top of the food ch for judging matters of military law. And he will also be the person who effectively is going to be negotiating ultimately with those barbarian chiefs when he's having to talk to the civilian governor of Britannia Secunda, the province of Roman Britain that we're based in. When he's not getting the supplies, he's got to go argue with the governor of my men need that grain. Why are you not sending the grain? It's his job to make sure this frontier is functional in the round. And we know that very clearly from a whole bunch of late Roman laws that tell the other Duces what they're supposed to be doing or clarifying their responsibilities.
- [29:02]
Host
So is it the idea that as long as we can see that this role exists, that that position exists, then you can't say that these border forces are independent in any way because they're still very much part of the system?
- [29:14]
Dr. Rob Collins
Exactly that. So archaeology as a discipline can be really difficult for us to get to the individuals. But what archaeology is fantastic at is identifying systems and relationships. If we think about because we don't have the historical text that gives us that really easy answer. What we do have is excellent archeological evidence. We need to think about how we use that evidence to understand those relationships. And is this frontier system still in operation?
- [29:50]
Jack Myers
What makes a leader worth following?
- [29:52]
Dr. Rob Collins
What should you really care about in your job? As technology is changing so quickly, is
- [29:57]
Jack Myers
it just gonna be about machines talking to other machines? I mean, should you quit your job and start something on your own, what would that take?
- [30:03]
Host
What does success and risk look like
- [30:06]
Dr. Rob Collins
when we're all at the starting gate together?
- [30:08]
Jack Myers
These are the questions we answer each week on Lead Human with Jack Myers and Tim Spengler.
- [30:13]
Dr. Rob Collins
Join us each week and subscribe at your favorite podcast platform and YouTube.
- [30:18]
Jack Myers
We'll tell stories, we'll hear from some of the best, and we'll try to figure this out together.
- [30:25]
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Dr. Rob Collins
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- [31:50]
Host
Well, is there a cutoff point where that position no longer exists? And then it sees that, you know, the logistics chains fall apart, and then. Well, and then these communities just rely on their own cattle and their own agriculture to really survive and thrive.
- [32:06]
Dr. Rob Collins
There absolutely is some sort of cutoff point, but we can't define it precisely. And this is the challenge. But what is great is that even really, in the past 10 years, some of the scientific, scientific techniques that have emerged, actually, I think we can start applying to really try and solve this problem. And so one of the things, a key form of evidence really, partly is it always is in archeology, but it's pottery. You know, pottery is robust, it survives very well. And what we have very clearly demonstrated throughout the entirety of the 4th century, and so this is something we can be confident of will continue into the fifth century as long as we have a dux Britanniarum to direct the resource, are what we call the Yorkshire ceramics. So things like Cranbeck ware for the fine wares, the nice plates, the things you eat and drink out of, and the Huntcliffe type wares for coursewares, cooking pots and things like that, those are made in North Yorkshire, not too far north of York, in fact. And we can look at a national distribution of that pottery. They start to emerge in the third century, but in the fourth century they jump up and they become the most predominant sources of ceramics all along Hadrian's Wall. And they're, I don't know, 85 to 90% of all the ceramics we find in those late Roman wall forts. So it's a regional ceramic industry and it's really serving the Roman army because actually, outside of the. If we say the greater Yorkshire region, those ceramics are only really getting to the towns and to the forts. They're not widely distributed into the countryside. We're not seeing all the rural farmers using them. So we can be very certain that those ceramics are linked to military and urban supply networks and there might be market forces there in terms of demand and such, but those ceramics are really key because there's no other ceramics getting over to the west coast of Cumbria, over to Maryport, for example, that's very strongly related to military supply. So the question is, when do they stop getting those Yorkshire ceramics? And that's what we cannot yet say. But we have the techniques, so we just need to get some lab time and maybe the funding for the labs, of course. But this is something which is shifted quite a bit because there's now techniques where we can do radiocarbon dating from the lipids that are on the insides of the pots. So those cooking pots, we can scrape the residue and see if we can get some C14 dates from those. That's not something we could do 10 years ago. So, I mean, we're really kind of now on a cusp of being able to ask some of these questions, and that's really, really exciting.
- [34:53]
Host
And there we go. We'll come back when you've tested the lipids on some of those pots, then. Well, let's keep moving on. I don't think we need to, not today, at least, delve into detail with the great barbarian conspiracy, because I think we've already set the scene that it seems like the Nemetani are still there very much after that. But let's go to the traditional end date, the fall of Roman Britain, which yourself and James have done so brilliantly for us in the past. But. So this is 408 or 410, thereabouts. That's the official endpoint, isn't it?
- [35:22]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah. So the key thing that happens in 407, 408, is Constantine III is raised as the last of three usurpers in Britain and he crosses to the continent. And he crosses to the continent with an army. And so this event is really important because traditionally it's assumed that Constantine III strips Britain of his entire garrison, he takes all the soldiers with him to the continent. I would argue we don't have evidence for that. He certainly is building an army. But we know other usurpers with more documentation. When they're building an army, they're often hiring barbarian mercenaries.
- [36:00]
Host
The Foederati isn't the Federati.
- [36:02]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah. And they might take local troops. One of the things I would say is, I suppose, negative evidence. Is it where Constantine III isn't taking at least all the soldiers from Northern Britain, is that when you're a usurper, it's really important that you kind of pay people and keep them on your side, lest the emperor, with his much greater tax revenue, bribes them back to his side. And so gifts from Constantine III coins, you know, when he's able to mint coins in his name, there's not a lot of coins of Constantine iii. But where we find them in Britain tends to be in the south and the Midlands. They never. They never make it to the North. And that makes me suspicious that he's not paying anyone in the north, and therefore he's not necessarily drawn soldiers or. Or bribed the Duke's Britanniarum to give him soldiers or anything like that. That absence of his admittedly very minor coinage, I think, is still very conspicuous.
- [36:56]
Host
Do we still think there's a Duke's Britanniaorum then, around 408, 410?
- [36:59]
Dr. Rob Collins
I think there is. Interesting.
- [37:01]
Host
Okay.
- [37:02]
Dr. Rob Collins
Not least because Constantine III is rising to power basically on a tide of British fear of being cut off from the rest of the Empire. Britain is not wanting to leave the Roman Empire. It's not an early Brexit. It's trying to avoid a Brexit. In fact, they want that connection, and certainly the elites, the wealthy people want that connection. It benefits the villa owners, the governors, to be at the top of the food chain. And if we think of Constantine III kind of building off that British desire, at least the British elite desire to stay as part of the Empire, he would have a real danger. There's a risk to completely denuding Hadrian's Wall of its troops, because basically he'd be opening the back door, as it were, for potential threatened invasion, which is then going to his authority. So it's actually in Constantine III's self interest to make sure that that frontier is secure. So I think between the evidence of the lack of coins and also just thinking in terms of, you know, what does a usurper want? Power and a stable basis of followers. Then there's a logic to not denuding Hadrian's Law of its soldiers at the same time. Maybe he's tried to appoint a Duke Spittanearum, who is a political appointee and loyal to him. Or maybe he's happy with that duke's. These are the unknowns, the things we don't know. It would be great if we found some sort of journal of the Duke's Britannia. Dear diary 408, Christmas Day. No letter from Constantine III. We don't have any of that sort of source, but there's nothing that shows archaeologically some sort of immediate collapse in the fifth century. And this is where I think it's really important with the archaeological evidence to acknowledge different interpretations, how different people might interpret different evidence. And the underlying challenge of that is dating. How do we date change over time? What do we see as the rapid collapse in falling apart of a building? What do we see as a longer term decline? And so you can imagine different processes. So if we think, if we kind of do a thought exercise and think about, right, well, let's say the army is stripped from Hadrian's Wall in northern Britain and all the forts are kind of maybe not necessarily abandoned. There might still be people living around, but the soldiers are taken away. What does that mean? Well, the first question becomes, are those military buildings, are they just given up entirely and they become empty shells and they kind of slowly become ruinous, or would other people move in and saying, well, there's a convenient empty building, I'll take that, I can take that. I've always fancied having my own baths. I might make use of that. So that's the first question. And the archaeological evidence shows that many of the buildings in the forts along Hadrian's Wall that we've excavated, we can see some form of occupation and activity. It might look a bit different, not what we'd call traditionally Roman or expect in terms of Roman architecture, but it's there and it's often a reworking of that Roman space. And just because it doesn't look like it did maybe 100 years before doesn't mean it's not Roman. Because we can also look at the villas further south in Roman Britain and see similar sort of things happening. We can look at Roman towns in the 5th century and see similar sort of things happening. So we have to also be careful when we look at the 5th century that just because it doesn't look like something might in A.D. 300 or A.D. 200, that that doesn't mean it's not Roman, it's just maybe a different sort of Roman.
- [40:46]
Host
So do we think it's likely that you know this and we'll explore some of these archaeological examples in a bit, that it is these same communities that are continuing to exist along Hadrian's Wall after the canonical date of 408 or 410? Do you think that's the most likely case?
- [41:02]
Dr. Rob Collins
I think that is the most likely case. I think on the balance of evidence and probability that that is far more
- [41:07]
Host
likely than new people coming in after,
- [41:09]
Dr. Rob Collins
than they're just kind of being abandoned and entirely new people in new communities coming in. That does remain a possibility, however, and we absolutely can point to well documented Roman examples in other frontiers where they are inviting in the kind of the local barbarians who they've often known for many generations. So a great, great example here is the Franks. Along the middle and lower Rhine, there are peace treaties with the Franks and many of those Franks are brought into the Roman army. And so you get people that might be ethnically Frankish, but they're still professionally Roman soldiers. And so what were formerly barbarian communities become new Limitanea communities. And that's a very plausible scenario here that within Northern Britain they think, well, actually, you know what we, we know those barbarian communities that live north of Hadrian's Wall or some like the Votedini for example, that we put at Treprain Law, those could be acceptable allies. And they're shoring up, you know, the soldiers from drawing on those.
- [42:12]
Host
And we know the Votedini oze with the Tpran treasure and the like, don't we? We know that they are, they're almost Rome's eyes north of the wall at that time.
- [42:19]
Dr. Rob Collins
There's certainly, whether they're friends or enemies, there's connections, you know, so we know that those connections exist. We've always known those connections exist. Roman generals, Roman governors, are using diplomacy and trade and exchange as tools of power and leverage as much as they're using the sword and the spear. The Romans are not silly or stupid people and they're also not particularly subtle either. They know they're in charge and they want to stay in charge, and so they'll use all those tools at their disposal. So we have to also think carefully around, well, who do we see as is being local? We can't necessarily just define local as Roman. What is a Britain and what is a Roman Britain? And you might have someone who's not legally a Roman citizen but is still considered Roman culturally, someone that might technically be a barbarian, actually still might have greater wealth and legal status in the Roman Empire because they're an elite barbarian than the average Roman citizen would. So, you know, it's, it's not a black and white binary Roman barbarian soldier, civilian mix. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's much more nuanced.
- [43:29]
Host
So these thoughts, whatever the situation, more likely it is the same communities and they're adapting to the new situation. So is the big change that they do realize at that time, is it that they no longer have to pay tax to, you know, a central Roman authority or what do we think fills in that hole, what plugs the gap?
- [43:46]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah, it's. It's a fantastic question. And this is, this is where I say the Dux Britannia is really key. As long as there is a Dux who is making sure the soldiers are getting their supplies, then that frontier can still be coherent. That dux might no longer be able to report to the Roman emperor or get orders from the imperial court. But as long as there's someone there who's sustaining that role, he might have to fight for that role, that power. He might find that there's local rivals. But as long as that role is attempting to be fulfilled, then we can sustain those frontier soldiers, those Limitanei. So the question, I think, becomes a dating issue really, in terms of, well, when can we see archaeologically, things are fragmenting? At least if we start in, say, 400, is a coherent archaeological region. Frontier, when is that fragmenting? Is it happening in the 5th century? Is it happening in the 6th century? I think it probably is happening in the 5th century. But there are intriguing questions here that we can't really answer, I think is the challenge. And we have really tantalizing hints in the, you know, what we call the Welsh sources, the early medieval literature, the British language, vernacular literature, things like the Godden, which is really, it's an epic poem, but it's really about the dynasties of Central Britain. We have it preserved through Welsh literary tradition. But. But geographically, it's. It's all about the frontier region, the former frontier region of Roman Britain after the end of Roman Britain, you know, in the. Again, we think in the. The early to mid 6th century, so roughly the same time that Gildas is talking about. And it's not in Wales, it's here. And we, we can see there are all these princes that are ascribed to different tribes.
- [45:38]
Host
Well, this is the big question. And also, if that source that you mentioned, you have to type in this, like E Gododin or Y Gododdin, isn't it?
- [45:46]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah. So you have to remember this in Welsh. So it's Gododdin. Y space, G O, D, I D, D, I, N. Right, yes. Or Y, N, Just so people can. Yeah, and that's what becomes the Welsh name of the Vodadini, who we have mentioned before, who we associate with supreme
- [46:03]
Host
law just beneath Edinburgh. Yes.
- [46:05]
Dr. Rob Collins
And. And so if we. One of the challenges of this period of late antiquity, or the Dark Ages, or the age of Arthur, or the birth of Anglo Saxon England, whatever name you want to give to it, we have these kind of tantalizing sources. None of which are particularly accurate and none of which we can treat as history. And sifting out what are the grains of truth from later literary elaboration is always a challenge. But there's these little breadcrumbs and hints that.
- [46:33]
Host
Well, in that regard, I mean, does the archaeology seem to affirm this idea that these communities that endure along Hadrian's Wall over time transform into the W word, into, like, war bands, into these little kind of kingdoms?
- [46:50]
Dr. Rob Collins
I think I would say absolutely, yes. I have colleagues, you know, other esteemed doctorally trained people who might argue otherwise, and that is great. That's what is really good about scholarship. We debate the evidence and that helps us think critically and afresh. I think the key thing is if we look at the evidence that we have from the Roman forts, and not just along Hadrian's Wall, but elsewhere in the wider frontier region, the legionary fortress in York at Cataract, the fort in Cataract, Maryport on the coast of Cumbria. I'm sorry, I'm stopping. I can't remember some of the other forts now at the top of my head. But, you know, there are a number of forts. It's not just along Hadrian's Wall where we can see similar evidence for continued occupation and activity beyond the end of Roman Britain. And so I think that tells us two important things, that even if we argue about who is living in those forts and who are they descendants of, are they descendants of the former Roman military communities, the Matinei, which I think they were, but even if they are new migrants or living in those, I mean, maybe not far off migrants, maybe just the local communities moving into that space, the fort itself is still seen as a useful and maybe even a desirable location to live in, because it's
- [48:08]
Host
got the fortifications, it's a fortified settlement,
- [48:10]
Dr. Rob Collins
and suddenly you're no longer in the protection of a big bad empire.
- [48:13]
Knox
Right?
- [48:14]
Dr. Rob Collins
So I think those changing conditions that will happen when you're not necessarily part of a stable political entity, security is going to become a much higher priority. So regardless of their ancestry, the people living in those forts are still seeing those forts as desirable. And we should also see them, I would say, is the elite settlements of this region. So when we look at the evidence for the same period in Wales, in the southwest of England, hill forts. Hill forts come back.
- [48:47]
Host
They come back, don't they?
- [48:48]
Dr. Rob Collins
They come back again. And we see that also in Scotland that, you know, hill forts and some of the great work that's been done recently by Gordon Noble's project on the Picts you know, looking at some of those Pictish hill forts and stuff, fortified settlements are really important in the 5th and 6th centuries. What we do not have evidence for in northern England and little bit southern Scotland, but certainly the Roman frontier zone, we don't have good evidence yet for the reoccupation of those hill forts. But what we do have evidence for is the occupation of those Roman forts. And a key thing here is if we look at the archaeological traces, set aside the architectural presumptions for a moment. If we just look at the material culture, the artifacts, the artifact assemblages are very similar between what we find in those elite hill forts of the 5th and 6th centuries and in Roman forts. We're finding metal dress accessories, some brooches, we're finding fragments of glass, sometimes what might be glass vessels that are still intact and probably relics and antiques, but still glass vessels. Larger structures of just larger scale. Evidence of metalworking and other craft working.
- [50:04]
Host
I was going to say weapons.
- [50:05]
Dr. Rob Collins
Do we see weapons? Yeah, I mean, the weapons we see often look to be Roman. But this raises other questions, I think, culturally. So if we think in a more general sense those former Roman forts, whether we still call them Roman forts is a debate. But they're still an elite fortified settlement and the Romans located those forts at very strategic locations in the landscape. Furthermore, those forts have been embedded in supply lines for centuries. So there's already a very good practice of bringing supplies to that fort that will be the local farmers as well as perhaps longer distance craftsmen and merchants. There's a lot of advantages to residing in a Roman fort in the 5th century. Regardless of your ancestry, whether or not your father and grandfather and whether or not they were soldiers there, it almost doesn't matter because actually some of the infrastructure that's there already makes that an advantageous position.
- [51:11]
Host
And do we think, well, actually, no. Let's focus on the archaeology a bit more. First of all, with these wooden structures that you also see because you've got the stone foundations, you've got the fortifications classifications from the Roman period. But are they, they're not building fresh new pieces of architecture out of stone now, are they building them out of wood going forwards?
- [51:29]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a definite hybrid sort of architectural style. And that is happening all across Roman Britain. It's not just a phenomenon in the forts. And so the example, the fantastic example detected through some very excellent careful archaeology and thinking by Tony Wilmot at Brad Oswald, is this transformation of the, here, the granaries, which we Think of these kind of quintessential buildings of the Roman army, these big warehouses. It's the transformation of those into what look like feasting halls or mead halls or what you might call an Anglo Saxon hall, but it's not Anglo Saxon. There's a continuous stratigraphic sequence there of one granary collapsing and just the subfloor being left as an open ruin and for rubbish dumping, while the granary to its south was repurposed as a social space, a hall of some sort. But when the roof collapses on that, they then build a new hall over the other granary, but it's timber framed and it's built on the footprint of the former granary. So it's a big building. When that life, that building's life comes to an end, they build another hall, but they build it slightly offset. And this one instead of being timber framed, it's more post built and looks more like the halls we'd see at Yevering, for example, that royal settlement not too far north in fact. So we can see this as a continuous archaeological sequence. It's an architectural form which we identify and recognize. We often associate it with the Anglo Saxons in the Middle Ages, but it is an architectural form that is seen elsewhere in Roman Britain. And that sense of a hall is not an alien concept to the Romans. You know, the emperors have imperial halls, residence halls, you know, where the court will meet. It's just a lower down the hierarchy, lower down the social ladder, but it's still a hall. And so we get hall type villas. In the Midlands of England, the architecturally can look very similar. So it's not this foreign, exotic, newly emerging architectural form. It's something that's within that broader cultural knowledge. But they're not building in stone, they're building in timber. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
- [54:01]
Knox
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Jamie
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Knox
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Dr. Rob Collins
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- [55:33]
Host
Do we think this feels like this is very much in the, in the world of debate and theory once again, that these communities who endure in these forts, you know, kind of the equivalent of a hill fort, these war band, these small kingdoms ideas. We'll get to the warlords in a moment. Do we think there is a continuation for at least decades that they would have still, if it's the same people consider themselves Roman, the idea of Roman ness is still there.
- [55:59]
Dr. Rob Collins
It's a good question. I don't know that we can answer definitively in either way, partly because we don't have their own words. And when it comes to questions of identity, I think it's really important for all of us to try and let people speak for themselves. It's very easy to pin an identity on someone, but that can be problematic. I suspect, though I would be of the inclination to say they probably did still view themselves as Roman. And I think partly that's because the power of Rome was such that it continues to have a lure and a draw. And so anyone that was part of the Roman Empire, we still see where we do have better written sources on the mainland of Europe in the 6th century, we still see parts that have not, you know, kings who, you know, are calling themselves Romans and identify themselves as Romans. And if they can connect themselves to the Byzantine court of Justinian or something, they do, there definitely is a perceived advantage and probably cultural cachet for still being considered Roman. Christianity comes into that though, too. Christianity, because Christianity is the, is the Western successor of Rome. And sometimes to be Christian is to be Roman. And so parts of Europe that were never part of the Roman Empire, but they convert to Christianity, also start talking about the Roman faith or call themselves Roman as a synonym almost for Christian. And so the way those two processes work, perhaps side by side, will be another factor. So I think they probably still see themselves as Roman at some level. But what might change is where in their, I guess, their mix of identity that falls, it might be that in 400 you would see yourself as Roman first, in Britain second. In 500 you might see yourself as a Britain first and perhaps not only a Britain, but a Britain of a particular tribe or group or kingdom. And then Roman might be third or fourth. So, you know, identity is such a complex thing. It can shift so easily.
- [58:18]
Host
And it's so interesting when talking about this kind of period, like the fall of Adrian's Wall or the end of Hadrian's Rule, I can appreciate it seems like the purpose of Hadrian's Wall has clearly shifted and it's very much transformed with the communities and how they're living as you get to the 5th century. My question to kind of align with the fall of Hadrian's Wall even at that time is we've talked about how like the forts keep being in use and keeping centers. So I'm presuming those fortifications are maintained. But what about elsewhere along the wall? You know, those long stretches between forts and mile castles and so on. If you don't have a dux Britannic Britannia room anymore, kind of a central authority sending supplies up.
- [58:55]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah.
- [58:56]
Host
Does the rest of the world fall into disrepair quite quickly?
- [58:59]
Dr. Rob Collins
That is a fantastic question. And we really don't know. It's. It's difficult to know when the wall curtain itself is collapsing. And it will partly depend, I suspect, on the quality of bilge. There are a few pieces of evidence I can point to that will give us a few hints. So one of the bits of evidence which suggests that the wall curtain is still standing at least until the early 5th century, is there's a coin hoard that was found buried under the tumble of collapse of Hadrian's Wall. And that hoard dates to the very late 4th century. And it's tough to say how long it took for the bits of wall to fall on top of the ground where it was buried. But the other thing is that when we've done a few excavations here and there, when we think about the longer term history of Hadrian's Wall, there is, I think, a combination of natural processes of ruin and collapse that's also going to be combined with episodes of stone robbing as well. And so the honest answer is the state of the wall. How quickly the structure itself falls apart might vary considerably based on its location. So in places where they are building in stone in the early Middle Ages, and usually that's Christian churches really. And so the Northumbrian Church, the kingdom of Northumbria, that starts building its churches in stone from the the 7th century, they're definitely reusing Roman stone. And so the key places where that's happening relative to Hadrian's Wall, you've got Jarrow, which is going to be near the fort at South Shields, but south of the River Tyne. So Hadrian's Wall in the fort at Wallsend is across the River Tyne, but when you look at the church, we can see stone that looks to be from the fort at Wallsend as well as the fort at South Shields and quite possibly also, you know, the stretches of Hadrian's Wall attached to Wallsend. So that's one location where you might get quicker robbing of the wall. Maybe around Corbridge and Hexum, they might be stealing Roman stone from Hadrian's Wall. But let's not forget that Corbridge is a sizable Roman town of its own.
- [61:13]
Host
Right.
- [61:13]
Dr. Rob Collins
So there's a ready quarry of stone there. You know, over at Carlisle, again, you've got a Roman town, but a big Roman fort.
- [61:21]
Host
You might have the villa of Septimius Severus as well.
- [61:24]
Dr. Rob Collins
There's lots of stone at Carlisle as well, so. So I think it becomes a question of what's most readily accessible. The bits in the central sector that are kind of further away from any larger settlements that we know of are probably as they are today, are the bits that have survived the best and are the ones that are probably least likely to have been robbed. In terms of understanding that process of collapse, we can see from medieval documents that actually the wall survives as a ruin, is an earthen embankment or whatever, well into the Middle Ages. And most of the destruction that we understand of the wall historically has generally come from the 18th century and after. And so I don't want to kind of paint this romantic notion of Hadrian's Wall standing to its full height up to the 18th century. But it probably stood in varying states of high ruin into the Middle Ages, properly, in some cases, because it's so interesting.
- [62:21]
Host
Because on the other side of that kind of romantic perspective, maybe romantic is the wrong word, but a common idea we have is like, you know, after the Romans leave, and then, you know, within a century or so, you have armies of Picts, or it may be Vikings later, or Saxons Angles and the like before, kind of coming down from the north and, I don't know, with battering rams or just tearing apart the wall and then running through it and then running rampart rampage in a. Yeah, in what is today kind of northern England. But it sounds like there isn't the archaeological evidence for that.
- [62:54]
Dr. Rob Collins
I Think, if we think in that long term history, through the early Middle Ages, there's very few structures that are built in stone, really. It tends to be primarily Christian foundations. And where those are built in stone, they still tend to survive. So we can pinpoint those locations and we can make estimates of where they might be stealing stone from. It's not really until you get to the 11th and 12th centuries that you start getting other larger stone structures. You know, castles, for example. Normans. Yeah. Yes, the Normans.
- [63:24]
Knox
Right.
- [63:25]
Dr. Rob Collins
We can blame this on the Normans. And when we look at where those castles are, the big castles, Newcastle, Carlisle, which are royal castles, when we look at those castles, there certainly is some Roman stone incorporated, but there's also a lot of fresh quarried stone. Those are big castles with a royal budget. It might be, you know, we're looking six to 700 years later. It might actually be easier to quarry fresh stone than to dig up some remains of Roman buildings and reuse that stone, because then they can also shape the stone as they need for those castles. A counterpoint are some of the smaller castles, like Thirlwall Castle near Greenhead, which is built almost entirely of stone from Hadrian's Wall. And that's a really interesting castle because it's built in the 14th century almost entirely from wall stone. It doesn't have later modifications either. So we can see it almost as a single build. And if you run the math, you can build that castle really only needing about 300 meters of Hadrian's Wall in terms of material. And it's modest for a castle. It's hardly Carlisle Castle or Newcastle or Anakin, but it's not small either. I think we'd all be very happy to live in something like Thirlwall Castle, but the fact that that can be built with only about 300 meters of wall, if it was standing to full height, I think is really kind of telling. So as many castles that we have up here in the border counties, they still wouldn't really denude Hadrian's Wall of all its stone. And in that sense, you kind of have to think about those other historical needs. Why would they take apart Hadrian's Wall? Is it easy to do? More of the destruction comes from farmers from the 18th century. Once the English Scottish border is, people are confident that the peace will last. It's more farmers kind of saying, actually, I can expand the farm, I can make this farm more profitable. I'm not going to be reeved every couple of years, and it's expanding of the farms, it's agricultural improvements. And so where you see more Hadrian's Wall stone is when you travel along Hadrian's Wall and you look at the farms and the old barns and outbuildings and such, rather than, say, the castles and the churches. So that sort of purposeful robbing and reuse is a much more recent and modern phenomenon.
- [65:48]
Host
And also, I guess, when you do go, those stories later of Vikings attacking Lindisfarne or whatever, or even, I guess, the. In the case of the Picts, I think I keep using the Picts, but of course, they're not just warlike figures, they're more than that. But a case of raiders, they'll use the sea, they'll go around. Right. And that's. That's the idea as well.
- [66:05]
Dr. Rob Collins
And I mean, let's not forget the Romans created a fantastic infrastructure for Britain. I mean, those Roman roads survive, they have medieval names. So the. The main road from York up to what would have been, you know, Graven, you know, near the Antonine Wall is called Deer street, and that's Deer street from Deira, the early medieval kingdom, which was broadly Yorkshire. It's the road to Deira, or the road from Deira. And so that Roman road has retained its medieval name. The road south of Hadrian's Wall, which was used through the Middle Ages, is called the Stane Gate, you know, the Stone Road, but it's a Roman road. So, you know, if you are raiding from the north or coming from northern England and raiding into Scotland, you're really still using the Roman road network, which has gates through the wall. So you're not always having to climb over the ruins of the wall to get where you need to go. And I suppose if the wall was in the way for some of those key routes, that's where it's more likely to be cleared and robbed. But the topography itself, the landscape is channeling movement. And so the Roman roads are often built in those places which are best for movement. And so in that sense, we don't need a bunch of picks coming with battering rams in picks and buckets to take away the wall. They'll just take Deere Street.
- [67:28]
Host
Oh, yes, actually. And that also hits upon another point. If we go back to those early kingdoms that kind of emerge in those old Roman forts in, let's say, the fifth century. I guess by also using those forts, they control the traffic, so they can control trade going north and south of the wall. So actually they can really get rich quick. Might be going a bit too far but they can get money in through almost putting a toll through the wall, as the Romans had done before.
- [67:53]
Dr. Rob Collins
Exactly. And I think if, you know, even if your sense of identity has changed, even if you no longer call yourself Roman and you'd rather think of yourself as Pictish or English, one of those constants is power. Regardless of who's in charge, someone wants to be in charge. And so the basis of power, even if there's no longer a Roman Empire, are still largely the same. It's what you can, you know, how many men you can control as soldiers, as warriors, and how much resource, how
- [68:21]
Host
much tax or your militia, I guess.
- [68:23]
Dr. Rob Collins
Exactly. So, you know, that's a constant. So the way you label it might change, but the underlying activity is much the same. The only difference is you're not then siphoning off some of that tax, that tribute, to go further up the food chain to a distant emperor. It's staying local or within the region. And so, you know, what we see, I think, in Central Britain, that part which is the Roman frontiers, what's really interesting is it becomes the kingdom of Northumbria. And we think of Northumbria as an English kingdom, but actually much of the Anglo Saxon material culture as we see it, is really confined to the east and very largely to kind of the broader Yorkshire region and certain points in the east, along the coasts and maybe going up the river valleys a little bit, there's not this widespread Englishness in terms of artifacts, brooches and things that we see in the south or in the Midlands. There's something else happening here, identity wise, and it's a speculation, but I think that actually that sense of a Roman frontier identity, those Limitinae, I wonder if that pervades much longer, is a sense of identity, this proud warrior tradition. They don't need to look to the incoming Germanic migrants for a new warrior tradition, because the men here already had it compared to, say, the former villa owners in the south of England, who maybe were not proud warriors, softies.
- [69:50]
Host
Yeah. Well, here's another speculation for you. If we focus just quickly on the Dux Britanniorum, could it potentially be that that figure kind of stays in York or whoever kind of succeeds and stays in York and becomes like the big warlord around the York area, but that will be the precursor to the kingdom of Northumbria and the person who takes ultimately the angle or whoever becomes king of that region, so almost that Roman position there, whoever endures in that position after the canonical data, 408, 410, is actually the forerunner to the king of Northumbria, very potentially.
- [70:28]
Dr. Rob Collins
I mean, York is a triple threat. In the 4th century, in around 500, it's the seat of the Roman governor, the civilian Roman governor of Britannia Secunda. It's the seat of an archbishop, of a Christian bishop, and it's also, we presume, the seat of the Duke's Britannia. So it's got civilian authority, military authority and religious authority. So York is a really significant location. And the fact that York retains a significance through the ages, I think, shows that enduring investment in the place. You could very much have a Duke's Britannia figure in that power sustained in York. And I think there are kind of, you could say three or four key early medieval kingdoms that we should mention. One we've already mentioned is Deira, and that does seem to be centered broadly in York, in the Greater Yorkshire region. The other is, we call it Brunicia. That's kind of the Anglo Saxon name, but like Dira, it's derived from a British linguistic term, Brynn. We don't know exactly where it is, but we tend to think of it as Northumberland. But it could be the east end of Hadrian's Wall, we don't really know. We tend to associate it with Bambra. But Northumbria is the coalescence, the unification of Deira and Bernicia. And I think what's key here is that while we call Northumbria an English kingdom and their dynasties are such that we think of them as English dynasties, the name of those kingdoms are British and probably were originally British kings or leaders. You've also got the kingdom of Reckydecked, which, again, we can't confidently place. Some people want it to be, you know, Dumfries, Galloway, some people want it to be Cumbria, and it could be something that spans to either side of the Solway Firth. In fact, we know reggae exists, so it's mentioned in enough documents, we have enough names of its kind of princes and princesses. Same with Brunicius, same with Deira. And then we mentioned the Vodadini or Gododdin as well. And those four kingdoms recur in our early medieval sources as being at least politically important and influential. And so we can think of those as kind of covering some major blocks within the frontier region. So if you've got Yorkshire as the kind of southeast of the frontier, and that becomes Deira, Bernicia is the northeastern part of the frontier region. And so Deira and Bernicia unite eventually in the east. Before that happens, though, they actually have to take out Reckitt, and that's the northwest portion of the frontier region. So we already have these major power blocks clearly in the 6th century. Are they emerging in the 5th century? The 5th century is really key and we just don't know. So something is happening. The frontier is fragmenting probably in the 5th century, but it might not be fragmenting into tiny pieces. It might be just breaking up into subgroups, you know, sub regions subgroup with
- [73:24]
Host
their centers initially at least at the forts along Hadrian's Wall, where the quite possibly.
- [73:29]
Dr. Rob Collins
And so it's really what ultimately will end Hadrian's Wall is the shifting political geography. Once Hadrian's Wall ceases to be an important kind of boundary or security barrier. If you stop thinking of it as the edge of protecting Roman Britain and you start thinking about, well, the powers have shifted. So actually what if Bernissa is focused on, I don't know, let's say Newcastle, for example, then actually that's going north and south of Hadrian's Wall. It's recentering it. And so Hadrian's Wall stops becoming a border fortification and really just becomes a focus of a bunch of war bands. And as those kingdoms reshape, their borders are going to shift as well. And it's those shifting borders of new local kingdoms, new local politics that's going to move those soldiers or warriors away from Hadrian's Wall. And that I would say is actually when Hadrian's Wall is coming to an end, because it's no longer a military monument.
- [74:31]
Host
And you say that 6th century probably,
- [74:33]
Dr. Rob Collins
or yeah, I'd say, you know, probably later, half of the fifth into the sixth century. And this is where dating is always so key. When are these things happening? We can see the pieces on the board. We just don't know what date they're at what point.
- [74:46]
Host
It is just so fascinating how maybe for as much as a century, maybe not maybe a bit more, that you do have as nodes of power, you know, these Fortung, Hadrian's Wall. I've got them on notes. We didn't really get to talk about them too much, but I think I would just mention a minute that Brigho Magloss, this certain kind of warlord who's maybe potential theory that he's a warlord in one of those communities. Right.
- [75:07]
Dr. Rob Collins
I mean, we have what they're called, Class 1 inscribed stones. It's an early medieval type of inscription that was found at Vindolanda in some of the ruins of the fort. And it's the Brighomaglas stone. And it's mostly Brighamglas. Brighamglas is buried here. But that's a high status name. Brigham Magnus, it's great chief, effectively. He's kind of the one name we can be certain of. There are a few other these types of inscriptions, a couple from Maryport, actually. Vindolanda has another one stone that was used almost like as a foundation stone for another building. So we've got a few of these names floating about just from inscription. They're British names. And that's a key point as well that I think takes us back to that notion of almost military dynasty, that the soldiers are the sons of soldiers, the grandsons of soldiers, that there's this tradition. But that probably also applies to the local elites, that they also are probably serving terms as officers. And so there might be a connection between the local elite and military service. You know, being an official military leader, it's not just, you know, the kind of common people, as it were, but also the elite. And so if we think of that too, why would they leave their base of power to have an adventure in some foreign land? Brigo Maglos is a. Maybe Brigo Maglus family has been running Vindolanda for decades, if not centuries already.
- [76:35]
Host
So interesting. But to kind of wrap up, Rob, does it very much seem that the fall of Hadrian's Wall, it has certainly happened by the end of the 6th century, beginning of the 7th century, by that time. Those forts which have this fascinating afterlife, they're no longer centers of power for these war bands. Those have moved elsewhere. And what you ultimately have along Hadrian's Wall now are just either small Christian communities or farming communities. And that's kind of. It's a very much a change from what it had been.
- [77:05]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yeah, I think that's what I would say. You're absolutely right that, you know, certainly Roman Britain is coming to an end. It's no longer part of the Roman Empire. You know, after the early 5th century, even if people still think of themselves as Roman and. And part of that imperial world, we don't have the direct political connection. But the cultural change, the cultural shift takes much longer. So Hadrian's Wall seems to still retain that sort of notion of a military space well into the fifth century. But it's when the politics change that those soldiers are drawn elsewhere and, yeah, we are left with smaller communities, you know, farmers, that sort of thing.
- [77:41]
Host
And then the wall is just an ancient monument for everyone to wander about for. Exactly, Isn't it, Rob? This has been absolutely fascinating. What a story. And we've half covered the latest story of the wall in the Roman times, but then also shone a light on the fascinating afterlife of Hadrian's Wall, which is an amazing story in itself that deserves more attention, quite frankly. And the archaeology is bringing that story to the fore.
- [78:05]
Dr. Rob Collins
It's exactly that. It's, you know, it's a fascinating period. What's not to love about, you know, the Dark Ages? You know, we haven't even talked about King Arthur in the wall. You know, there's all sorts. I mean, there are little hints and connections. One of the things that is really interesting with Icardothen, for example, and some of that. That northern vernacular Welsh poetry is a lot of the figures that come up in Arthurian romance in the Middle Ages, those names are being plucked out, potentially being plucked out of these sources. So Urian of Reckitt, for example, is one of those Peredur, or as we would more commonly know him, Percival is a prince from York. He's one of the princes of York. And so we talked about York as a power center. Well, that's where Percival is from. Peridor. We have a whole bunch of names that kind of pop up in the Arthurian legend, but where we can place them is actually in the Roman frontier zone in the 6th century. And our earliest reference to Arthur is from Ichidolvin from that poem. And it's a simple simile. They're talking about a warrior named Gwar who slays foes from the wall or on the wall, like Arthur. And so people pick up on the like Arthur bit is the earliest likely reference to Arthur as a mighty warrior. What they're missing out is the slaying foes from the wall. So I'm gonna drop a breadcrumb for you is actually the importance here not just Arthur, but the association of Arthur and a wall. Maybe the wall, Hadrian's Wall. So is there a tantalizing hint in our early medieval literature that, you know, actually all this nonsense about Arthur being from Wales or Cornwall, it's. No, he's from Hadrian's Wall.
- [79:44]
Host
Big tick for the Clive O in 2004. King Arthur, right?
- [79:48]
Dr. Rob Collins
Yes, indeed.
- [79:50]
Host
Well, on that note, Rob, that's a brilliant way to end it. It just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the. The time to come back on the show.
- [79:56]
Dr. Rob Collins
Thank you. It's always a pleasure.
- [80:01]
Host
Well, there you go. There was Dr. Rob Collins talking through what archaeology is revealing about the people who lived along Hadrian's Wall after the Romans left Britain. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you so much for listening. Now, if you've been enjoying the Ancients, please make sure to follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Now we have in the past released another episode with Rob and his colleague Dr. James Gerrard where they both tackled the big question of what happened at the end of Roman Britain. The fall of Roman Britain. We'll put a link to that episode in the show Notes. That is one of our best performing episodes of all time. And we did release another episode earlier this year with Dr. Francis McIntosh about how to survive on Hadrian's Wall. What the archaeology is revealing about the people who lived along Hadrian's Wall during the time that the Romans were in Britain. So previous to the time mentioned largely in this episode. Today we will put a link to both those episodes in the show Notes if you want to learn more about Hadrian's Wall, the story of the end of Roman Britain and more. Now, if you are enjoying the Ancients, please make sure to follow the show, whether that be on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That does really help us and you'll be doing us a big favour if you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well. Well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up@historyhit.com subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [81:38]
Jack Myers
What makes a leader worth following?
- [81:40]
Dr. Rob Collins
What should you really care about in your job? As technology is changing so quickly, is
- [81:44]
Jack Myers
it just gonna be about machines talking to other machines? I mean, should you quit your job and start something on your own, what would that take?
- [81:50]
Host
What does success and risk look like
- [81:53]
Dr. Rob Collins
when we're all at the starting gate together?
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Jack Myers
These are the questions we answer each week on Lead Human with Jack Myers and Tim Spengler.
- [82:00]
Dr. Rob Collins
Join us each week and subscribe at your favorite podcast platform and YouTube.
- [82:05]
Jack Myers
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Host
You say you'll never join the Navy,
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Dr. Rob Collins
never climb Mount Fuji on a port visit or break the sound barrier.
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Host
Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is.
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Dr. Rob Collins
Learn why@navy.com America's Navy forged by the Sea.