Another Book by Jim Storr

This post is written in English.?English is the most-used language in the world, if you combine native- and second-language users.?But in Roman times there was no such language.?Linguistically the nearest thing to English is Frisian Dutch.?

And it's not just the language.?English law is based on ‘common law’.?Common law is fundamentally different from most European legal systems, which are based on Roman law.?A law code is the basis for the way society is run, government is conducted, and trade takes place. Thus the fundamental basis of the way in which England is run is very different from that of much of Europe. That difference has had major implications; for example, in Britain’s relationship with the European Union.

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So, England: what was a Roman province in 400 AD or so had, by 800 AD, largely adopted an entirely new language and a new legal system.?Today that legal system underpins American, Canadian, South African, Australian and New Zealand law; and that of more than 50 other nations.?Something based on the English parliamentary system is similarly widespread.?So what happened in England between 400 and 800 AD has had significant consequences all around the world.?

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Unfortunately we have very little idea what did happen in England between 400 and 800 AD!?There are very few written, historical sources. That is why the period is often called ‘the Dark Ages’.?There is quite a lot of archaeology.?However, archaeology rarely tells us much about events.?So:?

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- we do know that in 400 AD or so there was a functioning Roman government; Roman law; Roman currency; and a Roman Army garrison of about 25-30,000 men.?There were 16 cavalry and 40 infantry units, each of roughly battalion strength.?We know the names and garrison locations of all those units.?

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- by 500 AD, or at the latest 550 AD, practically all of that had disappeared.?

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- there were already some Germanic (including, broadly, ‘Dutch’) warriors in Britain before 400 AD.?There were many more by 450 AD or so.?

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- by about 700 AD there were three pre-eminent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria).?They emerged from dynasties of Germanic warriors (using the terms loosely).?In 927 those kingdoms were united (by Alfred the Great’s grandson, Athelstan) into what we can recognise as the kingdom of England.?

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- England as we know it is the result of a layer of Anglo-Saxon language and social institutions overlain onto much of Roman Britain.?

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- Wales is the major part of Roman Britain which was never conquered by the Anglo-Saxons.?(Scotland was never really part of Roman Britain.)??

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And we don’t really know much more than that.?Bede’s ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ was completed in 731 AD.?It is just that: an ecclesiastical history. ?It is very important; but it tends to dwell on saints, bishops and miracles.?In any case, it is not of much value to us for events before 600 AD or so.?That is the core of the period we need to understand.?There are almost no other historical sources that we can refer to.?

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However, there is a vast amount of evidence that has been consistently overlooked for decades; if not centuries.?It is archaeological.?You can find it right across England, and particularly on the Welsh border.?And, I suggest, it is hugely relevant.?

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Between Cambridge and Newmarket a dyke – a ditch and bank – runs for about five miles across a stretch of chalkland.?That chalkland runs between what was marsh or fen to the north, and thick woods to the south.?The dyke is enormous. It was originally over 40 feet high (about 13 metres).?It is still over 30 feet high for considerable distances.?It is called the Devil’s Ditch today.?It is actually the biggest of four parallel dykes, all of which face southwest.?Historians and archaeologists seem to agree that it was built in the late fifth or early sixth centuries.?There is perhaps a consensus that it, and other dykes like it, had a military, defensive purpose.?

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But the point which people overlook is that there are dozens, indeed many dozens, of such dykes right across England.?All together, they run for perhaps two hundred miles.?That is mostly due to Offa’s Dyke.?That is the most famous of them, and possibly the last to be built.?It runs along most (and perhaps all) of the border between England and Wales.?The Devil’s Ditch is the biggest, but not the longest.?Several are considerably longer.?But, to repeat, there are dozens of these dykes.?

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Put together, they are an anomaly.?That is, something which current thinking does not explain.?But they exist.?They are out there.?When you examine them in detail, it seems that many of them are from the late-Roman or early Anglo-Saxon period.?

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Go out and look at them.?I did.?It took me several weeks, spread over about five years.?I had been an infantry officer in the Regular Army for 25 years.?I looked at the dykes with a soldier’s eye.?Who built them??Why did they build them??Why did they build them there??The siting of some of them is incredibly subtle.?Some of them were obviously laid out by trained surveyors (I trained as a civil engineer, and once laid out bits of motorway).?

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(What? Trained surveyors in late- or post-Roman Britain?)

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Get out and look; record what you find; produce maps; consider what the landscape looked like at the time.?Connect that to what we know of the history and the archaeology.?The results are never likely to be conclusive.?But slowly you can build up a conjecture of what happened; and when; and where.?You start to realise that some of the things we thought we knew probably aren’t true.?Some of it involves the myths and legends that relate to someone we know of as King Arthur.?So, in 2016 I published a book called ‘King Arthur’s Wars:?The Anglo Saxon Conquest of England’.?

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It has sold reasonably well, but its title was probably a mistake.?The book definitely appealed to people looking for Arthur; but probably less so to people looking at that critical period of British history more broadly.?So, in 2022 I reviewed and revised the book.?It has just been republished by Helion as ‘The Anglo Saxon Conquest of England’.?Please don’t buy it if you have read ‘King Arthur’s Wars’.?But if not; and if you have read this far and are interested in finding out what did happen in England between 400 and 800 AD, please buy a copy.?See The Anglo Saxon Conquest of England | Military History Book | Helion & Company .??

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If you do, you’ll find out where Camelot is.?And, far more importantly, you’ll find why that is relevant to what happened in England between 400 and 800 AD.?