Summary: We’re now at the point where Rome has withdrawn from Britannia (and more important to our story, from Wales), and today we’re going to talk about the impact that had upon the people. I can guess what you’re thinking. Who cares that Rome withdrew? Their legacy was violence and subjugation, their accomplishments were a pale reflection of the Greeks from whom they imitated, and they were largely devoid of any serious innovation. And to that I say, preach on. However, with the benefit of hindsight we can look at the withdrawal of Rome and say “don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out” but at the time, this was pretty catastrophic. After all, Rome had been working for centuries to destroy the Welsh sense of self and replace it with Roman cultures and beliefs. And they did a pretty good job at it. And much like how Africa found itself in a bit of a rough spot following the European colonial conquests, the period after the Roman colonial conquest of Wales also was pretty rough. So lets chat about what we know of what happened. But as always, let me remind you that this story is a bit of a mess because our sources aren’t consistent, some of them are pretty nutty, and others are secondary at best. So just keep that in mind. Now I’m probably not telling you anything you haven’t already figured out while we’ve discussed this period, but the couple hundred years stretch of the sub-roman period is a critical time for Britain. This is where the cultures that will grow to define the island really begin to take root. It is also the moment where the division between England and Wales emerges, and that division still survives to this day. The collapse of Roman power in Britannia meant different things for different regions and also for different class levels. In the East we start to see a shift over time towards a Germanic way of life and a steady encroachment of the Germanic kingdoms into their neighboring British communities. But that wasn’t consistent throughout Britain, and things in Wales were quite different.
