Talk:Roman Britain

Citizenship and inequality

As I wrote about the citizen questions above, I thought of another important topic for the article.

  1. Were many native Briton commoners made citizens of the Empire?
  2. If so, how were their status inequal to those of Roman citizens?
  3. How about the status of those (partially) Romanized Anglo-Saxon royalties?
  4. Approximately how many Romans immigrated to Britain during this time?

--Menchi 23:41 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Good questions. Based on my reading, the best possible answers are:

  1. The town-council members of certain classes of towns by Roman practice would be made citizens. Also, a number of natives whose patrons were able to obtian it for them -- some of the local Celtic ings might receive this gift (IIRC, Togidubnus was one). But then around AD 205 the Emperor Caracalla made all inhabitants of the Rooman Empire except for slaves citizens. The actual percentage of Roman citizens until that year is unknown, & would be based on guesses of how many citizens there were in Britain, & how many people lived on that island.
  2. The non-citizens in Britain were called peregrini, & lived by their own laws. The principal handicaps were that they could not own land with an Italic title, could serve as a Legionaire in the army (although they could serve in an auxiliary unit, & be made a Roman citizen upon discharge), nor could they inherit from a Roman citizen - but I may be wrong about the last point. In short, for the vast number of British inhabitants who were peasants tied to the soil, there would be little difference in their lives whether they were citizens or not.
  3. The term "(partially) Romanized Anglo-Saxon royalties" is somewhat nonsensical. By & large the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain after the end of the Roman period. A few were settled in Britian as foederati, but exactly who they were & where they lived is extremely hypothetical. (At least one archeologist has suggested that some early Anglo-Saxon settlements in the Thames valley around Oxford may have been foederati, but I haven't kept up with the current secondary literature to know if this is still considered possible. The early emperors of the Byzantine Empire did influence some of the Anglo-Saxon kings (I seem to remember Edwin of Deira using a standard copied after a Byzantine model, but I would have to re-read Bede before I added it to the Wikipedia.)
  4. The number of Roman immigrants is also debateable. First one would have to define
  • What is meant by "Roman immigrants" - are we talking about people from Rome alone, Italy, or anyone who is a citizen, or anyone from the rest of the Empire?
  • How do we count the number of non-military immigrants? Obviously traders came to Britain, some to settle, some to merely make extended visits; also aristocrats from the rest of the Empire would send factors to manage their business interests in the island; there would also be a number of camp-followers who came with the military. But I'm not sure if there is any way to estimate the number of people who came to Britain to settle, &, say, become farmers -- or even determine if more than a negligible number did so.
  • The number of soldiers who came with the invasion & stayed there is easier to estimate: while Claudius deployed 4 legions & associated auxiliaries to conquer Britain, one legion was later transferred to the other frontiers & for most of its history Britain had 3 legions stationed on it. I've seen estimates of 30,000 to 45,000 soldiers present in Roman Britain.

As you see, Menchi, there's a lot of guesswork involved answering these questions, & I'm only menitoning the problems I can recall off the top of my head. I could have worked more of this information into Wikipedia, but I was just happy enough to write an article with some kind of logical order to it, & call it good enough, so I could pay attention to other topics that lacked even this much treatment. (And these topics might fit better under the article Romano-British, which I consider would discuss the social & cultural history of the people associated with Roman Britain.) --llywrch 17:41 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Do we really need a list of "Romano-British settlements" here, when we also have an article of Roman Place Names? I don't see the point of this duplication. -- llywrch 02:59, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Just a point - Britain does have a language spoken by pre-Roman inhabitants, Welsh. True, it's not the main language, but nonetheless, it is one of the de facto official languages of the UK, and is spoken by quite a few people.

overlapping page

This page overlaps considerably with Roman invasion of Britain. Perhaps they should be combined? (I posted a corresponding comment on Talk:Roman invasion of Britain. Fpahl 16:27, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Name change

Strange conclusion

'but the original Roman settlements were abandoned not long after the Romans left. ' It could be better rephrased, it may sound like the Anglo-Saxons erased the memory of Roman Britain ~2026-71560-5 (talk) 08:31, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see anything wrong. The ordinary meaning is that they were abondoned by their inhabitants. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:28, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
More accurate and based on historiography: Many of Britain’s major cities, such as London (Londinium), Manchester (Mamucium) and York (Eboracum), originated as Roman foundations. After the end of Roman rule, these urban centres declined or were substantially depopulated as the administrative, economic and military systems that had supported them collapsed. ~2026-71560-5 (talk) 09:40, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Look at what Ward-Perkins wrote: Book: The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Ward‑Perkins is the clearest voice on the catastrophic decline in comfort:
• loss of pottery quality
• disappearance of tiled roofs
• collapse of trade
• collapse of literacy
• collapse of urban life
• collapse of heating, sanitation, and infrastructure
He explicitly says that post‑Roman Britain experienced one of the steepest declines in Europe.
This is probably the book you read if the tone was blunt and evidence‑heavy. ~2026-71560-5 (talk) 09:44, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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