Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Map of traditional counties, with abbreviations, as used in this book
- Introduction
- 1 The view from Danebury
- 2 Roman interlude
- 3 House and household
- 4 Heat, light and insecurity
- 5 The house furnished
- 6 Food, its production, preservation and preparation
- 7 In sickness and in death
- 8 The community of parish and village
- 9 The family
- 10 The culture of cities
- 11 The foundations of popular culture
- 12 Conclusion: the end of popular culture
- Notes
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Map of traditional counties, with abbreviations, as used in this book
- Introduction
- 1 The view from Danebury
- 2 Roman interlude
- 3 House and household
- 4 Heat, light and insecurity
- 5 The house furnished
- 6 Food, its production, preservation and preparation
- 7 In sickness and in death
- 8 The community of parish and village
- 9 The family
- 10 The culture of cities
- 11 The foundations of popular culture
- 12 Conclusion: the end of popular culture
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The civilization of Roman Britain was neither merely provincial nor merely cosmopolitan, neither Celtic nor Roman simply, but a fusion of the two, though an imperfect and unstable fusion, whose elements were mixed in varying proportions in different social strata and in different parts of the country.
R. G. CollingwoodThe Roman invasion of ad 43 had been presaged, not only by Julius Caesar's forays a century earlier, but also by the growing commercial and cultural ties between Britain and the nearby continent. It was, indeed, the closeness of these ties and the fear that an independent Britain might stimulate rebellion in Gaul that led to the Claudian invasion. The course of the conquest of much of Britain which followed gave further emphasis to that threefold division of the island that has already been mentioned (p. 6). By ad 47–8 the Romans had overrun south-eastern Britain and had established a military base near the present town of Colchester as well as forts elsewhere to hold the conquered territory. Their advance was halted, if only momentarily, along the line of the Jurassic escarpment. From its edge they could, metaphorically at least, look down on to the clay-floored and forested Midlands. Along this line they built a series of segments of roads, later linked to form the Fosse Way. It became a military road from Lindum (Lincoln) to its original south-western termination on Lyme Bay, later moved to Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Culture of the English PeopleIron Age to the Industrial Revolution, pp. 33 - 63Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994