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Civitas to Kingdom: British Political Continuity 300-800 (Studies in the Early History of Britain) Hardcover – January 1, 1994
- Print length322 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherUNKNO
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 1994
- Dimensions6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
- ISBN-100718514653
- ISBN-13978-0718514655
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Product details
- Publisher : UNKNO (January 1, 1994)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 322 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0718514653
- ISBN-13 : 978-0718514655
- Item Weight : 8.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,894,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #26,742 in Ancient Civilizations
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With all this going on, it's easy to forget that there was a great deal of continuity here, as well. Kenneth Dark, in this excellent scholarly tour de force, reminds us of that little fact. He argues that the political structure of post-Roman Britain was made up of Roman civitates (cities--used as the basic unit of administration by the Roman Empire, almost like a state in the US) which, with the end of Roman authority, elevated themselves to the status of kingdoms. These civitates were themselves based on the Celtic tribes that the Romans had conquered centuries before--rather than take time and energy to create a new aristocracy (which would no doubt even further alienate the newly conquered Britons), they simply adopted the old tribal aristocracy as imperial apparatus, like so many other hegemonic empires. Kenneth Dark shows the survival of Roman traditions and culture through the "Dark Ages," and points out that many of the traits we think of as a "reversion to native Celtic customs" may, in fact, have been the natural trajectory of the way Roman culture was heading in Late Antiquity.
Though Kenneth Dark may overstate his case, it is a case that perhaps needs to be overstated. The study of post-Roman Britain, I think, has lost its equilibrium in the "Change versus Continuity" debate, making this book a valuable counter-weight. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in that murky historical gloss from the end of Roman rule, to the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
Dark's study covers the provinces not immediatly subdued by the Angle and Saxon mercenaries the Romans hired to "protect" Britannia before 400 A.D. Non-Anglo-Saxon Britain included the nothern and central areas of the island, plus Cornwall and Wales. Dark says the inhabitants of this area maintained an 'Antique Roman Society' which combined political, economic and other aspects of pre-Roman and Roman eras.
Dark has assembled an enormous amount of information gleaned from recent historical studies (text anayses) and archeological studies as well as other sources. He asks, "What is Roman". After he lists and defines the characteristics most scholars agree are "Roman" he shows how material evidence supports the notion that the Roman Britannia survived what has been described as a barbaric Celtic era. One the other hand, he says, "the polities of Britain, tribes, civitates, or kingdoms, remained stable from the Pre-Roman Iron-Age to the sub-Roman period....the general picture is of overall continuity but not a static system...the conventional picture of the fifth-to-seventh-century 'Celtic West' as a reversion to Iron-Age cultural and political organization is mistaken."
This is an excellent book, quite readable, and loaded with footnotes for those who wish to go further.