The Fall of Hadrian's Wall

When the Romans left Britain in the early 5th century AD, Hadrian’s Wall did not simply collapse into ruin. Its forts and ramparts endured, becoming strongholds for the communities who continued to live along this ancient frontier. Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Rob Collins to explore the fascinating story of Hadrian’s Wall after the end of Roman rule. Who were the people who remained on the frontier? How did life change in post-Roman Britain? And what happened to the soldiers, families and settlements that had called the Wall home for generations? MORE The Fall of Roman Britain Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ancients/id1520403988?i=1000669466153 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6vMwL1dueziXVNOwloY9xn?si=fTw7sxAkTq6joLgsjv04aA Hadrian's Wall Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ancients/id1520403988?i=1000656766074 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/2D2NNNm9XsLEVaKuWPv2XY?si=oiD6FD5VTRyLa-CnmSJBrg Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week, plus early access ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

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• 0:47Tristan Hughes?

  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: Adrian's Wall.

• 1:28Tristan Hughes?

  For generations, Beliatus's family have been living on this 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's 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. Adrian's Wall had not fallen.

• 2:13Tristan Hughes?

  The formidable fortifications of the wall would become new power centres, bastions of strength for the local peoples in this new post-Roman world. Centres of faith and fealty.

• 2:26Tristan Hughes?

  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.

• 2:43Tristan Hughes?

  Rob, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  It's always a pleasure to be on the podcast.

• 2:48Tristan Hughes?

  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.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  It's great. It's always good to get people up onto the Roman frontier.

• 2:55Tristan Hughes?

  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?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:04Tristan Hughes?

  There we go.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Very definitive, no. It keeps going.

• 3:08Tristan Hughes?

  But it is, 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?

• 3:20Speaker 01

  It is. It's, I mean, it's a period I've fallen in love with, right? It's my, it's my career choice, my career focus. But there are so many questions that, you know, we've, there's so many mysteries, so many unknowns, there's lots of puzzles to solve. And what is fantastic is all the, the scientific breakthroughs and insights and developments we've had over the past generation, you know, each year brings us closer to, to new techniques that we can start applying and, and, and addressing to these research problems.

• 3:46Tristan Hughes?

  Because 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?

• 4:00Speaker 01

  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, that's a big idea in itself. It's 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 Can't connect the dots from the end of of Roman written to the birth of English, Saxon England directly.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  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 emerging?

• 4:59Tristan Hughes?

  And I guess the thought 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 is like kind of the border zone between what the Romans would say is civilization and then

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 5:16Tristan Hughes?

  the barbarians, the Picts and so on beyond.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And, you know, the the challenge there is making sure that we're aware of kind of the the romance, the tropes, the stereotypes that come with the end of Roman Britain and also the birth of English, Saxon England. So that we can be guided by the evidence and traditionally, you know, our evidence has been text, you know, historical sources. But for Britain, in the fifth and sixth century, we really only have two, two sources that we can reliably count on from the British Isles. And one of those is the the writings of Saint Patrick, primarily his confessions. But he does have a little letter to a British, maybe Scottish warlord, Chrodaicus. So we've got two sources from Saint Patrick and then we've got Gildas writing in, in we think the mid sixth century.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  But that's it. Two, you know, two, two authors in Britain, you know, and 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

• 6:15Speaker 01

  that's it. You know, we we don't have any other great texts, any great documents. If we compare that to, say, fifth century Gaul. There's this whole fantastic flourishing of of late antique authors, the kind of the the last bouquet of aristocratic Roman authors. Um, you know, we've got the letters of Sidonius and, um, you know, Gregory is coming in later.

• 6:39Tristan Hughes?

  Gregory of Tours.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Gregory of Tours. Yeah. So we have these, these authors that are giving us more information about the fifth and sixth century in Gaul that we just don't have for Britain. So we also will sometimes then look to those Gaulic sources for, 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 fifth 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, it's historical fact is already obscured or forgotten to Gildas.

• 7:21Tristan Hughes?

  So this great barrier that has been there for eternity, or that kind of thought idea?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  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 see them as ancient monuments. He sees them as a final, you know, bit of work by the Roman army to help protect Britain in a period of retreat.

• 7:52Tristan Hughes?

  So with the Romans, so his idea is that the Romans leave Britain, but they leave a parting gift of this big frontier, of this big barrier?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Exactly that. And so, you know, his narrative, based on our archaeological evidence, is completely wrong, you know. But what is interesting is that he does have this narrative of there being a very late Roman, final phase Roman government, you know, refurbishment or construct, well, in his words, a construction of Hadrian's Wall. And the way he describes it is that, you know, this wall is constructed to connect the towns that were along its length. And I think if we consider Gildas's words and 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

• 8:42Speaker 01

  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's 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?

• 9:01Tristan Hughes?

  They came after.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:13Tristan Hughes?

  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, you've been 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.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  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, it's very sketchy, very generic. So again, we have to think of Gildas as, 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?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  And, and the other aspect is he's writing a, a, a polemic, a sermon, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's almost tabloid, you know, in terms of what he's saying. So you know, teasing out his, his agenda and sermonizing from, from fact can sometimes be challenging too.

• 10:29Tristan Hughes?

  Well, in this chat, we're going to focus largely on the later fourth century and fifth century A D. So we're not quite going into what is clearly gone medieval territory. I think it's fair to say the fifth century A D. 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.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  And, and that's a period we'll often call late antiquity.

• 10:49Tristan Hughes?

  Late antiquity. We can still say the fifth century A D is late antiquity in Britain. There we go. Fantastic. Eat that, Matt. We did a fun episode in the past about what's ancient and what's, what's medieval. But if we start very much in the Roman period, so that's maybe like the three sixties or the three seventies A D. 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.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the fourth 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 fourth 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, when we actually tally up those lists of some sort of conflict, it's mostly what's recorded is in the fourth century. So we, we know of events in, in the first half of the fourth century where, for example, the Emperor Constantius Cloris is, is campaigning in, in Caledonia and fighting against the Picts.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  At the start of the fourth century, he dies in York and his death is what spurs on his son Constantine on that path to becoming the, the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.

• 12:10Tristan Hughes?

  Christianity becoming big.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Christianity then gets introduced. So the, the northern frontier has a place in big Roman history. And we see this pattern of, of emperors or generals being sent to the north to kind of put the Picts in their place or to deal with, you know, some uprisings. It's not always clear why, but there's definitely, it's not a peaceful frontier in the fourth century. So we know there's lots of conflict and 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.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Even as late as the Generalissimo Stilicho in around 399, our sources are panegyric. So it's, 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 Caledonese or the Picts. I forget exactly what they call them, but you know, Stilicho has 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 Anorius. Campaigning, so we can bookend that century with the Picts are a problem. Defence of Northern Britain is still on the imperial agenda.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  It might be lower down, but it's still there and Hadrian's Wall is definitely occupied. Three fifty is a really good starting point because politically the Roman Empire is reasonably stable. You've got the sons of Constantine are are still ruling.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  There's a confidence in faith in the Constantinian dynasty. This is the third generation of 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 restabilising. At different parts of the Roman Empire, we're seeing a more economic boom and expansion. You know, there are many challenges, but in the mid fourth century, the Roman Empire is

• 14:19Tristan Hughes?

  Things are looking good, yeah, yeah.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  That changes through the course of the later fourth century. And I think it's fair to say that by the end of the fourth century, Britain is is much lower in priorities because there are 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 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 the towers that you find roughly every one third of a Roman mile.

• 15:05Tristan Hughes?

  It's normally two turrets between each mile castle.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:07Tristan Hughes?

  The idea, right?

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. 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 a hundred years of the wall's construction, there is a shift in the security situation in 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 it's a tall point where a soldier can look further.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Many of those are retained, and they are definitely retained in those those locations. Where you can be sneaky, you know, where where a raider could try and sneak through the landscape and try and get across the wall. It's more in the the kind of flatter lowland situations where those turrets are more likely to be abandoned. So Hadrian's Wall isn't necessarily the the bristling soldiers on top of towers every every third of a mile sort of situation it was at the start. But it is still garrisoned, still occupied. Any evidence we have from mile castles that have been excavated. There's always some form of evidence, sometimes only a few shards of pottery, but that it's still being used and occupied in the later fourth century. So it's not just the forts, the big bases that the soldiers are based at, but also those smaller installations.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  And that's really important because that means the wall is 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.

• 16:53Tristan Hughes?

  And who are these communities?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:56Tristan Hughes?

  The soldiers and their families.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 16:59Tristan Hughes?

  Who are living along Hadrian's Wall at this time, who I know you've done a lot of work around.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there is a there's a real important shift in the late Roman Empire. When they under Diocletian and 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 that will move around as the emperor needs them to, and the frontier armies. Now, there are a few different Latin terms for these these frontier soldiers. One of the fun ones is repari or reparancis, which is the effectively the river soldiers. So if you those are the ones that along the Rhine and the Danube, they often get called the repari. You get another term, the the castellani, the soldiers of the castles, which again gets applied to the soldiers in the frontiers with their permanent forts.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  But the one which has the the widest use and the most staying power is the limitinai.

• 17:51Tristan Hughes?

  And that's the one that's been in like the Little wars and everything like that. So people would have grown up hearing about the limitanii or whatever.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  It's it's a I I'm partial to it because, you know, limitus will be a reference to the frontier, to the limits of the empire. So it's it's it's the men of the frontiers, the soldiers of the frontiers. And 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 distinct legal status. And I suppose structural position in Roman law. It is, you're right, that these are soldiers and their families living in the frontiers. They at some point in the early fourth century, we don't know exactly when, that that status was given to them. And with that also comes inheritable status.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  So the sons of soldiers are legally obliged to also become soldiers. So you can't just think of it as, wow, who are the guys who are willing to go and join the army and and stand at guard at Hadrian's Wall? You have entire communities of 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 a hundred years. Often a hundred fifty, even two hundred years in some cases.

• 19:15Tristan Hughes?

  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.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:30Tristan Hughes?

  In the mid fourth century, then your son in the later fourth century will also be expected to stay there. And will they own land, do we think, as well in the area?

• 19:37Speaker 01

  They 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 in certainly more popular history books. There are some some Roman laws that talk about the limitanii 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.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  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 twenty, twenty-five years, uh, you know, here's a stipend, here's some land, a couple of cows in a bucket of seed, you know, go and, go and farm and grow some grain for your, your fellows in the army. You know, that's part of the traditional retirement package. It's now just kind of being brought in. And if you think about multi-generational

• 20:56Speaker 01

  families who will have access to this land, you're looking at this kind of long-term, multi-generational settlement that 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, they'll have siblings, they'll have older parents, there are other people that can be working the farm, the farmland.

• 21:18Tristan Hughes?

  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're supposed 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.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, 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 know, you, you've got soldiers that are there for generations. This is their home. They're, they're not, they're not migrants. You know, some of them will be migrants, of course. We, you know, we can't expect that everyone is local, but, but there will be many, you know, perhaps fifty to sixty percent easily, who are from the region, you know, 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.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  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, these people who have lived there for, for generations.

• 22:39Tristan Hughes?

  So as we get to the beginning of the fifth century A D. You mentioned earlier like the campaign of Stilicho and so on. So you got examples and that's where the commitee tent says, is it that the field.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we, we think the field army is coming in. There's a good chance the Stilicho is maybe doing some reorganization at the time. It's a good opportunity for him to, with that military resource there to, to commit some refurbishment. And, and rebuilding of any dilapidated parts of the, of the fortifications. All sorts of things happen when you get some imperial tension. So we know that that's there.

• 23:09Tristan Hughes?

  But 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 fifth century, how independent would you argue that these border forces already are, that these communities already are along Hadrian's Wall?

• 23:25Speaker 01

  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 a supply networks, logistics. Those logistics are really important for us to understand. Well, how long is this? Is this really a frontier army, a unified frontier army? And when is it not? When can we see the end of those militaries?

• 23:57Tristan Hughes?

  Like great, like good, great generals talk about logistics, right? So we should talk about logistics. Go on then.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's, 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, it's that sort of thing that will help us understand if all these forts are still connected. And key to that is the, the supreme commander, the supreme general of the northern frontier army. The Duke's Britanniarum, the, the Duke of the Britons. He is, uh, he will be very high ranking. He's, you know, in terms of military rank, he's. Two tiers below the emperor, he'll report to the magistrate militum, effectively the MOD of the Roman Empire, and they report to the emperor.

• 24:42Tristan Hughes?

  And Stilicho was a magistrate militum, right?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  And Stilicho was a magistrate militum and kind of de facto emperor, you might say.

• 24:49Tristan Hughes?

  You get a sense of the idea of the hierarchy, yeah.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  So the frontier generals, the ducesses, were slightly lower in status than the field army generals, the comitae, 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 defence, to make sure that they're getting their supplies, to make sure that they're maintaining their fortifications.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  He's also a judge. He is at the top of the food chain 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. You know, when he's not getting the supplies, he's got to go argue with the governor of my men need that grain, you know, 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 that tell the other ducesses what they're supposed to be doing, or clarifying their

• 26:19Speaker 01

  responsibilities.

• 26:20Tristan Hughes?

  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?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Exactly that. So, you know, archaeology is a discipline, can be really difficult for us to get to the individuals. But what archaeology is fantastic at is identifying systems and relationships. And so 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 archaeological evidence. So we need to think about how we use that evidence to understand those relationships. And is this frontier system still in operation?

• 27:09Speaker 02

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• 28:00Tristan Hughes?

  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?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  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 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 archaeology, 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 fourth century, and so this will, this is something we can be confident of, will continue into the fifth century, as long as we have a Dux Per Taniarum.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  To to direct the resource are the what we call the Yorkshire ceramics. So things like Cranbeck ware for the the fine wares, the the nice plates, the things you eat and drink out of. And the the Huntcliff type wares for for course wares, 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 a national distribution of that pottery. They really, they start to emerge in the third century, but in the fourth century, they jump up and they become the the most predominant sources of ceramics all along Hadrian's Wall. And there's there, I don't know, eighty five to ninety percent of all the ceramics we find in those late Roman wall forts. So it's a it's a regional ceramic industry.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  And it's really serving the Roman army because actually outside of the, if we, you know, 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 to military and urban supply networks. And and there might be market forces there in terms of demand and such, but

• 30:12Speaker 01

  those ceramics are really key because there's no other ceramics getting over to the west coast of Cumbria. You know, over to Maryport, for example, you know, that's that's very strongly related to military supply. So the question is, 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 to get some lab time.

• 30:35Tristan Hughes?

  Okay.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  And and maybe the funding for the labs, of course. But but this is something which has 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 C fourteen dates from those. That's not something we could do ten years ago. So I 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.

• 31:03Tristan Hughes?

  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. Not today at least delve into Dieter with the great barbarian conspiracy because I think we've already set the scene that it seems like the limitani are still there very much after that. But let's go to the traditional end date, the fall of Roman Britain.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 31:23Tristan Hughes?

  Which yourself and James have done so brilliantly for us in the past. But so this is four oh eight or four ten is thereabouts this that's the official endpoint, isn't it?

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the the key thing that happens in in four oh seven, four oh eight is Constantine the third is 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 the third 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.

• 32:10Tristan Hughes?

  The federati, isn't it?

• 32:11Speaker 01

  The federati, yeah, and they might take local troops. One of the things I would say is, I suppose, negative evidence is that where the Constantine the third 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. Less the emperor with his much greater tax revenue bribes them back to his side. And so gifts from Constantine the third, coins, you know, when he's able to mint coins in his name. He there's not a lot of coins of Constantine the third, but where we find them in Britain tends to be in the south in 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.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  And therefore he's not necessarily drawn soldiers or or bribed the dukes Britannia to give him soldiers or or anything like that. That that absence of his admittedly very minor coinage, I think, is still very conspicuous.

• 33:06Tristan Hughes?

  And do we still think there's a dukes Britannia or then around four oh eight, four ten in the north?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  I think there is.

• 33:10Tristan Hughes?

  Interesting. Okay.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Not least because Constantine the third 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 it's not an early Brexit. It's it's a it's trying to avoid a Brexit. In fact, they want that connection. And certainly the elites, the the wealthy people want that connection. It benefits the villa owners, the the governors.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  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 he's a basically, he'd be opening the back door, as it were, for potential threat and invasion, which is then going to undermine his authority. So it's actually in Constantine III's self-interest to make sure that that frontier is secure. So I think there are between the evidence of the lack of coins and also just thinking in terms of, you know, what does a usurper want?

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Power and a stable basis of followers, then there's a logic to not denuding Hadrian's Wall of its soldiers. At the same time, maybe he's tried to appoint a Duke's Britannierum, who is a political appointee and loyal to him, or maybe he's happy without Dukes. This is the, these are the unknowns, the things we don't know. It would be great if we found some sort of journal of, you know, the Duke's Britannierum, Dear diary, you know, 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.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  And this is where I think it's really important with the archaeological evidence to acknowledge, you know, 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 a, the rapid collapse and falling apart of a building? What do we see as a longer term decline? And so there are, 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?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Well, the first question becomes, are those military buildings, are they just given up entirely? And that they become empty shells and they they kind of slowly become ruinous. Or would other people move in and say, well, there's a convenient empty building. I can take that, you know, I I've always fancied having my own baths, you know, I I might make use of that. So that's the first question. And the archaeological evidence shows that it many of the buildings in the forts along Hadrian's Wall that that we've excavated. We 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 of a Roman architecture. But it's there and it's often

• 36:25Speaker 01

  a reworking of that Roman space. And just because it doesn't look like it did maybe a hundred 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 fifth century and see similar sort of things happening. So we have to also be careful when we look at the fifth century that just because it doesn't look like something might in AD three hundred or AD two hundred, that that doesn't mean it's not Roman. It's just maybe a different sort of Roman.

• 36:56Tristan Hughes?

  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 four oh eight or or four ten. Do you think that's the most likely case?

• 37:12Speaker 01

  I think that is the most likely case. I think on the balance of evidence and probability that that is far more likely.

• 37:18Tristan Hughes?

  Than new people coming in.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Then then they're just kind of being abandoned and entirely new people, new communities coming in. That does remain a possibility, however. And we we absolutely can point to to well documented Roman examples in other frontiers where they are inviting in the kind of the the local barbarians who they've often known for many generations. So a great, great example here is is the Franks along the the middle and lower Rhine. There are peace treaties with the Franks and many of those Franks are are brought into the Roman army. And so you you get people that might be ethnically Frankish, but they're still professionally Roman soldiers.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  And so what were formerly barbarian communities become, you know, new limited communities. And that's, 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 Vodidini, for example, that we put in Trapeian law, those, those could be acceptable allies and, and they're, they're shoring up, you know, the soldiers from drawing on those.

• 38:22Tristan Hughes?

  And we know the Vostini, is it with the Trapeian treasure and the like, don't we? We know that they are, they're almost Rome's eyes north of the wall.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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. Rome is, Roman generals, Roman governors are using diplomacy and trade and exchange is tools of power and leverage as much as they're using the sword and the spear. You know, the, the Romans are not, not silly or stupid people and they're also not particularly subtle either. You know, they, they, 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, you know, we have to also think carefully around, well, who do we see is, is being local? We can't necessarily just define local as Roman. You know, what is a Britain and what is a Roman Britain?

• 39:12Speaker 01

  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.

• 39:39Tristan Hughes?

  So these thoughts, whatever the situation, more likely it is the same communities and they're adapting to the new situation. So, 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, or what do we think fills in that hole? What plugs the gap?

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a fantastic question. And this is, this is where I say the dukes Britannia arm is really key. As long as there is a, a dukes who is making sure the soldiers are getting their supplies. Then that frontier can still be coherent. It it might, that dukes 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 those frontier soldiers, those limitinai. So the question, I think, becomes a dating issue, really,

• 40:38Speaker 01

  in terms of, well, when can we see archaeologically things are fragmenting? At least if we if we start in, say, four hundred as a coherent archaeological region frontier. When is that fragmenting? Is that happening in the fifth century? Is it happening in the sixth century? Um, I think it probably is happening in the fifth century. But um, 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 uh, the Gdodden, which is really, it's an epic poem, but it's really about the dynasties of central Britain.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  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. Um, you know, in the, again, we think in the the early to mid sixth 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 ascribes to different tribes.

• 41:48Tristan Hughes?

  Well, this is the big question. And also, if that source that you mentioned, you have to type in this like E. Gdodden or Y. Gdodden.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, so you have to remember this in Welsh. So it's it's uh, Gdodden, uh, Y. space G. O. D. I. D. D. I. N.

• 42:03Tristan Hughes?

  Right, yes.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Uh, or Y. N. on some spelling.

• 42:05Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  And and that's the, what becomes the Welsh name of the Vodidini, who we have mentioned before, who we associate with Tropene Law.

• 42:13Tristan Hughes?

  Just beneath Edinburgh, yes.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  And and so, you know, 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 English 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.

• 42:42Tristan Hughes?

  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 warbands, into these little kind of kingdoms?

• 43:00Speaker 01

  I think, I would say absolutely yes. I have colleagues, you know, other esteemed doctorally trained people who 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 Catterick, the fort in Catterick, 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

• 43:44Speaker 01

  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 the former Roman military communities, the Mitennae, 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.

• 44:17Tristan Hughes?

  Because it's got the fortifications.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  It's a fortified settlement.

• 44:20Tristan Hughes?

  Yes.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  And suddenly you're no longer in the protection of a big bad empire, right? So there, you know, there, I think those changing conditions that will happen when, you know, 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 of this region. So when we look at the evidence for the same period in Wales, in the southwest of England, hillforts.

• 44:56Tristan Hughes?

  Hillforts come back, they come back, don't they?

• 44:58Speaker 01

  They come back again. And we see that also in Scotland, that, you know, hillforts and and some of the the great work that's been done recently by Gordon Noble's project on the Picts, you know, looking at some of those Pictish hillforts.

• 45:11Tristan Hughes?

  It's happened off east looms.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Fortified settlements are really important in the fifth and sixth centuries. What we do not have evidence for in northern England and a little bit southern Scotland, but certainly the Roman frontier zone, we don't have good evidence yet for the reoccupation of those hillforts. But what we do have evidence for is occupation of those Roman forts. And a key thing here is if we look at the 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 hillforts to the fifth and sixth centuries and in Roman forts.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  You know, we're finding metal dress accessories, you know, some brooches. We're finding fragments of glass, you know, sometimes what might be glass vessels that are still intact and probably relics and antiques, but still glass vessels, larger structures, you know, you know, of just larger scale, evidence of metalworking and other craft working.

• 46:15Tristan Hughes?

  I was gonna say, weapons, do we see?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the weapons we see often look to be Roman, but this this raises other questions, I think culturally. So if we think in a more general sense, those those former Roman forts, whether we still call them Roman forts is a is a debate, but they're still an elite fortified settlement. And the Romans located those forts at very strategic locations in the landscape.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  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 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 fifth century, regardless of your ancestry, whether or not you you know, your your father and grandfather and and you know, whether or not they were soldiers there. It almost doesn't matter because actually some of the the infrastructure that's there already makes that an advantageous position.

• 47:19Tristan Hughes?

  Right. And do we think, how do you know, 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 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?

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a definite hybrid sort of architectural style. And and that is happening all across Roman Britain. It's not just a phenomenon in the forts. And so the, the example, the the fantastic example detected uh through some very excellent, careful archaeology and thinking by Tony Wilma at Pitt Oswald, is this transformation of the the Horeia, 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 meat halls, or what you might call an Anglo Saxon hall. But it's not Anglo Saxon. It's there's a continuous stratigraphic sequence there of one granary collapsing and like just the

• 48:24Speaker 01

  the subfloor being left as an open ruin and and for rubbish dumping, while the granary to its south was repurposed is a is a social space, is a is 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 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 it's more post-built and looks more like the the halls we'd see at Yevering, for example, that that royal settlement, not not too far north, in fact. So we can see this as a continuous archaeological sequence. It's an architectural form which

• 49:08Speaker 01

  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 the hierarchy, you know, lower down the social ladder, but it's still a hall. And so, you know, we get, you know, hall-type villas in the Midlands of England. It's, you know, the architecture can look very similar. So it's not this foreign exotic newly emerging architectural form. It's it's something that's within that broader cultural knowledge.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  But they're not building it in stone. They're building it in timber.

• 50:02Speaker 02

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• 50:54Tristan Hughes?

  Do we think, this feels like this is very much 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 warband, 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, considered themselves Roman? The idea of Roman-ness is still there?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  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

• 52:02Speaker 01

  see, where we do have better written sources on the mainland of Europe, in the 6th century, you know, 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.

• 52:31Tristan Hughes?

  Christianity.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Because Christianity 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...

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Perhaps side by side will 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 that falls, you know, it might be that in four hundred, you would see yourself as Roman first in Britain second, you know, in five hundred, you might see yourself as a Britain first and perhaps not 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.

• 53:39Tristan Hughes?

  And it's so interesting when talking about this kind of period, like the the fall of Hadrian's Wall or the end of Hadrian's Wall. 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 fifth 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 keep being 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 Britannia Britanniaorum anymore, kind of a central authority sending supplies up.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:16Tristan Hughes?

  Does the rest of the wall fall into disrepair quite quickly?

• 54:20Speaker 01

  That is a fantastic question, and we really don't know. It's it's it's difficult to know when when the the wall curtain itself is collapsing. And it will partly depend, I suspect, on the quality of build. There are a few pieces of evidence I can point to that that will give us a few hints. So one of the bits of evidence which suggests that the the wall curtain is still standing, you know, at least until the early fifth 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 fourth century. And it's tough to say how long it took for the bits of wall to fall on top of the the ground where it was buried. But the other thing is that when we

• 55:02Speaker 01

  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 of ruin and collapse. That's also going to be combined with episodes of stone robbing as well. And so.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  The honest answer is the the state of the wall, how how quickly the the structure itself falls apart, might vary considerably based on on its location. So in places where they are building in stone in the early Middle Ages, and 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 seventh century, they're definitely reusing Roman stone. And so the the key places where that's happening relative to Hadrian's Wall, you've got Jero, which is going to be near the fort at South Shields, but south of the River Tyne. So Hadrian's Wall and the fort of Wallsend is across the River Tyne.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  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, you know, that's one location where you might get quicker robbing of of the wall. Maybe around Corbridge and Hexham, 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, right? So there's a a ready quarry of stone there. You know, over at Carlisle, again, you've got a Roman town, but a big Roman fort.

• 56:43Tristan Hughes?

  You might have the Villa of Septimius Severus.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's lots of stone at at Carlisle as well. So I think it becomes a question of what 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 the, as they are today, are the bits that survive 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.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Survives as a ruin, as 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.

• 57:42Tristan Hughes?

  Because it's so interesting, because on the other side of that kind of romantic perspective, maybe romantic's 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 rampage in what is today kind of northern England. But it sounds like there isn't the archaeological evidence for that.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  I think if we, if we think in that long-term history, you know, 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, 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.

• 58:44Tristan Hughes?

  Normans, yeah.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  And yes, the Normans, right? 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 Thirwall Castle uh near Greenhead, which is built almost entirely of stone from Hadrian's Wall.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  And that's a really interesting castle because it's built uh in the 14th century, almost entirely from wallstone. It doesn't have later modifications either. So we can see it almost as a, 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, or Anick. But, but it's not small either, you know, it's, I, I think we'd all be very happy to live in something like Thirwall Castle. Um, you know, but the fact that that can be built with only about 300 meters of, of wall, if it was standing to full height, I think is

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  really kind of telling. So as many castles that we have up here in the border counties,

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  they still wouldn't really denude Hadrian's Wall of all its stone. And in that sense, you know, that you kind of have to think about those other historical needs. Why would they take apart Hadrian's Wall? What, is it easy to do? You know, more of the destruction comes from, from farmers from the 18th century. Once, once the, the English Scottish border is, people are confident that the peace will last. It's, it's more farmers kind of saying, actually, you know, I, I can expand the farm. I can make this farm more profitable. I'm not going to be reaved, you know, every couple of years. And it's, 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,

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  say, the castles and the churches. Uh, so it's, yeah, that, that sort of purposeful robbing and reuse is a, a much more recent and modern phenomenon.

• 1:01:09Tristan Hughes?

  And also, I guess, when you do go those stories later, you know, of Vikings attacking Lindisfarne or whatever, or even, I guess, uh, in the case of the pics, I think I keep using the pics, but of course they're not just warlike figures. They're more than that. But in the case of raiders, they'll use the sea. They'll go around, right? And that's, that, that's the idea as well, I guess.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  I mean, let's not forget the Romans. 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, uh, Cravens, you know, near the Antonine Wall is called Deer Street. And that's Deer Street from Dira, the early medieval kingdom, which was broadly Yorkshire. It's it's the road to Dira. Or the road from Dira. And so that that Roman road has retained its medieval name. The the road south of Hadrian's Wall, the uh, which was used through the Middle Ages is called the Stain Gate, you know, the Stone Road. But it's a Roman road. So you know, the if you're raiding from the north or or coming from Northern England and raiding into Scotland,

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  you're really still using the Roman road network, uh, which has gates through the wall. You know, so you're you're not, you know, you're not always having to climb over the ruins of the wall to 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 is channeling movement. And so, you know, the the Roman roads are often built in those places which are best for movement. And so in that sense, you know, we we don't need a bunch of picks coming with battering rams and and, you know, and picks and buckets to take away the wall. They'll just take Deer Street.

• 1:02:49Tristan Hughes?

  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 force, they control the traffic.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:02Tristan Hughes?

  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.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I I think if, you know, even if your sense of identity has changed, even if you no longer call yourself Roman and and you'd rather think of yourself as Pictish or English. One of those constants is power. You know, regardless of who's in charge, someone wants to be in charge. And so the bases of power, even if there's no longer a Roman Empire, are still largely the same. It's it's it's what you can, you know, how many men you can control as as soldiers, as warriors. And and how much resource, how much tax, how much tribute.

• 1:03:44Tristan Hughes?

  Or your militia, I guess.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. So, you know, that's a that's a a constant. So the, you know, the the way you label it might change, but the 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

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  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, there's something else happening here identity-wise and I, I, it's a speculation, but I think that actually that, that sense of a Roman frontier identity, those limite nae, I, I wonder if that pervades much longer, is a, 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 to maybe we're not proud warriors.

• 1:05:11Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah. Well, here's another speculation for you. If we focus just quickly on the Dukes Britanniaorum, 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, obviously the angle or whoever, who becomes king of that region. So almost that Roman position there, whoever endures in that position after the canonical date of four oh eight, four ten is actually the forerunner to the King of Northumbria.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Very potentially. I mean, York is a triple threat in, in the fourth century and around 500. It's, it's the seat of the Roman governor, the civilian Roman governor of Britannia Secunda. It's the seat of an Archbishop, of a, of a Christian bishop. And it's also, we presume, the seat of the Dukes Britanniaorum. So it's, it's got civilian authority, military authority and religious authority. So, 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.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  You could very much have a Dukes Britannia arm 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 Dira, and that does seem to be centered broadly in York and in the Greater Yorkshire region. The other is, we call it Bernicia, that's kind of the Anglo-Saxon name, but like Dira, it's derived from a British linguistic term, Bernich. 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 Dira and Bernicia.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  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 Regent.

• 1:07:24Tristan Hughes?

  Regent, yes.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  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 Regent exists, so it's mentioned in enough documents. We have enough names of its kind of princes and princesses. Same with Bernicia, same with Dira. And then we mentioned, you know, the Votidi or Gododen as well. And those four kingdoms are, 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 Dira.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Bernich, Bernicia is the northeastern part of the frontier region. And so Dira and Bernicia unite eventually in the east. Before that happens, though, they actually have to take out Regent. And that's the northwest portion of the frontier region. So we, we already have these major power blocks clearly in the sixth century. Are they emerging in the fifth century? The fifth century is really key and we just don't know. So something is happening. The frontier is fragmenting, probably in the fifth century. But it might not be fragmenting into tiny pieces. It might be just breaking up into subgroups, you know, subregions.

• 1:08:45Tristan Hughes?

  Subgroup with their centers initially, at least at the forts along Hadrian's Wall. Where the

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Quite possibly. And so it's, it's really what ultimately will end Hadrian's Wall is the shifting political geography.

• 1:09:00Tristan Hughes?

  Right.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Once Hadrian's Wall ceases to be a, 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 Bratisia 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 re-centering it. And so Hadrian's Wall stops becoming a, a, a border fortification. And really just becomes a focus of a bunch of warbands. 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.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  And that I would say is actually when Hadrian's Wall is coming to an end. Because it's no longer a military monument.

• 1:09:52Tristan Hughes?

  And you say that sixth century, probably all?

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:10:08Tristan Hughes?

  But it is just so fascinating how maybe for as much as a century, maybe not, it may be a bit more. That you do have as nodes of power, you know, these forts along Hadrian's Wall. Uh, I've got them on, so we didn't really get to talk about them too much, but I think I'll just mention them in a The Brigo Maglos, a certain kind of warlord who's maybe potential theory that he's a warlord in one of those communities.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, I mean, we, we have a, what, what they're called class one inscribed stones. It's an early medieval type of inscription that was found at Vindelandda in some of the, the ruins of the fort and it's the Magalas stone, it's mostly Brigo Magalas, Brigo Magalas is buried here. But that's a high status name, Brigo Magalas, it's great chief effectively. He's kind of the one name we can be certain of. There are a few other of these types of inscriptions, a couple from Maryport. Actually, Vindalanda has another one, a 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 the, that notion of

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  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, 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, to have an adventure in some foreign land? You know, Brigo Magalas is a, you know, maybe Brigo Magalas's family has been running Vindalanda for decades, if not centuries already.

• 1:11:56Tristan Hughes?

  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 sixth century, beginning of the seventh century. By that time, those forts which have this fascinating afterlife, they're no longer centers of power for these warbands. 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.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  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 fifth century, even if people still think of themselves as Roman and in 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.

• 1:13:02Tristan Hughes?

  And then the wall is just an ancient monument for everyone to wander about for centuries to go, 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.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  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 and the Wall.

• 1:13:34Tristan Hughes?

  Wow.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  And, you know, there's all sorts.

• 1:13:36Tristan Hughes?

  Wow.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  There, I mean, there are little hints and connections. One of the things that is really interesting with Icicodathan, 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, Urain of Wrecked, for example, is one of those. Peridur, 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 centre. Well, that's where Percival is from, Peridur. 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 sixth century. And our

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  earliest reference to Arthur is from Icicodathan, from that poem. And it's a simple simile. They're talking about a warrior named Guarther, who slays foes from the wall or on the wall like Arthur. And, and so people pick up on the, 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 going to 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,

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  actually, all this nonsense about Arthur being from Wales or Cornwall, it's no, he's from Hadrian's Wall?

• 1:15:05Tristan Hughes?

  Big tick for the Clive Owen 2004, King Arthur, right?

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Yes, indeed.

• 1:15:10Tristan Hughes?

  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 time to come back on the show.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Thank you, it's always a pleasure.

• 1:15:23Tristan Hughes?

  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

• 1:16:06Tristan Hughes?

  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 at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.