The Roman Conquest: The Occupation Of King Arthur's Britain | Absolute History

in the year 407 the Emperor Constantine referred led the last few Roman troops from these islands the empire that had constructed this remarkable wall had crumbled in Britain [Music] our history books tell us that when the Romans pulled out they took with them all vestiges of civilization and effectively turned out the lights [Music] the country then plunged into centuries of cultural and economic chaos known as the Dark Ages now all of us will be fine were it not complete rubbish [Music] as an archaeologist I've spent my career exploring Britain's ancient past and I now believe we've misunderstood the earliest centuries of his country's history instead of the nation crushed and then created by invaders I found a strong society with a unique and lasting culture the roman colonization is supposed to have arrays the ancient Britons and instigated a troubled period dominated by invasions from superior civilizations a period whose only hero was a mythical one the legendary King Arthur valiantly fighting the invading hordes but I don't believe our ancient culture was overwhelmed as easily as that undetermined to examine what really happened in this country after the Romans invaded I'm going to embark on an archaeological journey to uncover hard evidence for the story of Britain in the first centuries of its recorded history the story of Britain ad [Music] using the latest archaeological research I'm going to tell the real story of Britain from the perspective of the men and women who lived on this island during this period and I'm going to start with the first chapter of Britain ad the Roman occupation of Britain this peaceful corner of Somerset is the site of one of Britain's earliest and bloodiest battles and his evidence for the crushing of our ancestors in the early years of Britain ad for hundreds of years before the Roman conquest this dramatic hill fort was a religious centre for the ancient Britons when the Roman conquerors arrived the people up here were ready for them [Music] the banks on the side of the hill are the remains of ramparts that would have stood five meters high [Music] but the hill fort was not designed to face the discipline mite of the Roman army the defenders were driven back and again set alight the Roman troops stormed through the burning gate pray and slaughter the Britons men women and children were cut down and their bodies left to rot where they fell after this massacre the Roman troops destroyed fields and farmland a clear message to the Britons not to mess with the might of Rome the events at Cadbury castle tell a familiar story of the native Britons as tragic big news it's a story that fits well into the conventional narrative of Britain ad [Music] I'm going to show that this version of our past is wrong the first few centuries of Britain ad saw the forging of our national identity archeology is beginning to show that far from the Dark Age this was a time of huge creativity and development until now the legacy of Roman Britain has blocked our understanding of his period in order to appreciate the significance of these times we must go back to the archeology the archaeologists who excavated here at Cadbury Castle didn't only find evidence of a Roman massacre they also came across building foundations but dated too soon after the Roman occupation this confirmed what I had thought that ancient British culture was strong but there's a final twist the archaeologists had been looking for Arthur's Camelot the locals actually believed that this was Camelot they've been plowing this field they were coming out with all sorts of materials most of him Iron Age with a bit of Roman stuff coming up but they thought it was the site of a battle really yeah and then relatively small-scale excavation comes across massive refurbishment of the of the fortifications in roughly the right period comes across a timber-framed hall in the middle with loads and loads of of Mediterranean type pottery scattered about the fact that there is already a connection with Arthur's name means that the the whole thing is ready to roll good Arthur be a clue to what happened in Britain ad the problem is that our Furion archaeology is more than a little short of evidence there isn't a corner of Britain but doesn't claim a connection with this historical celebrity this is where Arthur's supposed to be deceived and this is Arthur's footprint this is Basim Emond King Arthur's round table is buried here and every year on Midsummer's day it levitates and this is Arthur's Camelot this is slaughter bridge where Arthur finally kicked the bucket before being carted off to Avalon [Music] as an archaeologist I've always been rather skeptical of the Arthurian industry Arthur is the ultimate commodity a ready-made hero who's been hijacked by history I'm in this dramatic visitor attraction hi in the structure countryside there's a complete or Furion package there's a deep lake with a legend of a sword Excalibur and I'm standing in Arthur's brought her where someone claims they found the Holy Grail there was even a stone with a sword in it until somebody nicked the sword Arthur encapsulates so many good qualities that we really want to identify with Arthur's the great warrior figure and he'll come back to save us when the nation in it is in its greatest peril and that's all the story has an enormous attraction [Music] this gripping tale of Dark Age Britain has fired the imagination of writers and artists for centuries and it would be easy to dismiss it as a fairy tale with no grounding in historical reality but myths are not necessarily lies stripped of his medieval embellishments Arthur has new things to tell us about this period the idea of noble Arthur conflicts with the conventional view of the barbaric Dark Ages and supports my view that British culture survived the Romans intact and at the heart of Arthur's story I found a clue to the resilience of the native Britons in the aftermath of Roman rule the myth of the sword Excalibur holds a clue to what really happened in Britain a deal the story of King Arthur is not a happy one the tale involves an illegitimate boy who is raised by a magician called Murray boy becomes king and assembles a loyal following of 12 men known as the mics of the round table King Arthur and his Knights fight many gallant battles but eventually Arthur is killed his body is taken to the magical island of Avalon where legend has it Arthur is not dead but sleeping waiting for a time when his kingdom will need him again [Music] throughout the many different versions of this story there is a potent image that comes back again and again swords play a central role in the Arthurian legends he learns it he's to be king of Britain when he miraculously withdraws a sword from a stone at the end of his life his magical sword Excalibur is returned to a goddess in a lake as a pre historian these stories sent a shiver of recognition down my spine the image of Arthur pulling his sword out of the stone was an eerie reminder of the ancient practice of casting abroad I have witnesses present orange growing sword is actually formed from a stone mold [Music] in my work as a pre historian I had discovered ritual traditions in which weapons were disposed of in watery places and where islands had particular potency how did these ancient British traditions find their way into the story of King Arthur written centuries later [Music] the answer lies just north of offends in a region known as the withum Valley [Music] in 1981 archaeologists digging here came across a remarkable discovery just under the surface of the Fenn a series of upright posts and horizontal Timbers were uncovered they formed part of a raised causeway constructed over 2,000 years ago at either side of his causeway archaeologists found dozens of pieces of ancient weaponry including a large number of swords and spears [Music] and this was not the first time that such objects have been found here late 18th century when they were dredging the with them Sir Joseph Banks a great scientist and collector put out a notice to the workmen to say anybody finds anything you come to me I'll see you alright and and it was a wonderful thing to do because this stuff wouldn't have found its way to the museums if that hadn't happened [Music] over the years literally hundreds of swords daggers and other precious items have been dredged from the fens here they range in date from the prehistoric period right through to the 14th century now this wasn't some localized Finland cult but part of a much larger belief system they're still being found today we've been out here every weekend more or less in August and look at how many people have turned up they've walked a lot of their parish yeah already they've found some fantastic sites over there of course just through field walking if they hadn't done it we'd never know about them although individually you might not have thought that you're finding very much but put all together we found nearly two thousand separate objects now [Music] and that's an iron Ajax if a part of the shaft over again so rarely see them 1/8 that's a Viking axe and a major split in heads [Music] also extraordinary pleat Iron Age spear shaft it's the longest in Europe medieval iron swords a masterpiece there with them so it's not really useful as a shield as with much of this it's a ritual piece although we find weapons we're finding tools as well the great and the good and the everyday people I think coming together in this activity it wasn't until recently that archaeologists began to notice a pattern in the location of these objects throughout the valley there are these slightly higher sand banks and ridges these were the remains of ancient cores raised which once formed part of this extraordinary landscape [Music] the withum valley stretches in a long thin line up to the city of Lincoln [Music] until these fans were drained in the 1780s the rhythm would have sprawled all over the low-lying land weaving a network of islands and marshes local people moved around the fans on a series of wooden calls friend the weapons were always discovered near these cause words at first it was assumed they were accidentally dropped or lost in battle in fact there is a far more mysterious explanation people were visiting the river using a river and for whatever reason they were leaving this sort of material the spear could have been used in the river but it seems to have been given to the river and I like the idea of them being given up and returned to the waters and perhaps and these medieval iron swords well the sword theme does and actually go all the way through through millennia for hundreds of years weapons have been deliberately thrown from these causeways into the water I believe that the story of King Arthur receiving his sword Excalibur from the Lady of the lake is a direct reference to this ancient British tradition but the are Furion legends were written much later long after his ancient religious ideas were supposedly wiped out by the Romans in Christianity how on earth did they survive the withum had one more secret to reveal this area of Finland is one of the highest concentrations of monastic sites anywhere in Britain there can be no practical need for so many Abbey's in such a small area so why was the early medieval church building here with such extraordinary further the narrow 10-mile stretch of the rhythm Valley is scattered with the remains of 14 Abbey's every one of these Abbey's is built at the end of an ancient causeway we found it really difficult to understand why there should be 14 Church sites all lined up for 10 miles along the edge of the withum Valley historians Dave stocker and Paul Everson don't think that this is a coincidence the Abbey we're standing on is on an island you find there's only one way to get here and it's wrong a causeway it seems odd but a causeway should determine where you're going to put an abbey you've got to bear in mind that across any sort of body of water that particularly to cross a fen by boat was a dangerous matter and in order to to make it a successful crossing you had to offer some sort of piety some sort of call it superstition but it but it was it was a sort of folk superstition which was bound up with religion and the water into which they were being placed had significance for the people of ancient Britain swords weren't just a weapon the sword is about symbol of authority which is distributed outwards from lords to their tenants as a badge of office once the tenant dies that sword has to go back to the Lord and that's attested in many anglo-saxon wills now imagine that you're a king and you haven't got a lord or at least not on earth and in the Arthur story of course hits the spirited lake it's the Lady of the lake who is the guardian of Britain the story of the lady in the lake echos the ancient tradition of depositing weapons in water the medieval authors who wrote these days knew about such traditions because Christianity had not killed them all but had kept them alive when will the last swords going in the latest one is 14th century interesting enough that's precisely the same moment at which swords and indeed whole body armor tend to start being hung up in churches over burials of Lords I mean it sounds to me looking at it as a pre historian but actually what some of these chaps in the in the abbeys are doing sounds off is sort of pagan to me faux craigory who said I don't want you knocking down these pagan temples I want you converting the pagan idols water is the one connecting thread the Bronze Age bearers were by the water yeah the causeways cross the water the swords are put into the water so the one connecting thread and all this is water and do you suppose that might be a reason why that fantastic cathedral over there is placed right by the river with them I have very little doubt that that's the case the first name for Lincoln's Indo corn City by the pool Nick or is what the Normans tended to call the place and the word nickel means water story the story of the withum is one of continuity it suggests four deep-rooted ideas that began in prehistory continued well into the medieval period this clashes of what I learnt at school where the first 1000 years of British history were a series of massive invasions indeed the first two bees the Roman invasion may not have been a forced invasion at all at the heart of the tale about a boy in a magical sword I found evidence that ancient British Traditions survived the Roman invasion the new series of archaeological discoveries are beginning to rewrite the story of the Roman invasion of Britain this elegant mosaic decorated the floor of one of the most luxurious buildings in Roman Britain but this was not the overseas residence of some extravagant Roman governor but the home of a wealthy romanized Brit fish pawn palace is the largest building ever excavated in Roman Britain Martin Hennig helped excavate the gardens it was absolutely amazing digging along your trowel couldn't help sinking in and you were actually uncovering the bedding trenches probably for box you can see similar gardens on a much smaller scale if you go to Pompeii the smaller scales yes [Music] what you have got here is something that's equivalent to the palaces of the greatest Roman era sprats Fishbourne covers a larger area than Buckingham Palace hundred and sixty stone columns support the roof which is constructed from 100 tons of imported Italian tiles corridors surround over 100 rooms some of which are decorated with elaborate mosaics when Fishbourne was discovered it was assumed that this was a palace of a Roman governor a symbol of the Imperial regime that had been forced on Britain but during excavations archaeologists came across a gold signet ring with an unusual inscription the seal of Tiberius Claudius kachoris the ring belonged to a wealthy Briton but what was it doing at Fishman to understand why a Briton might be living in a Roman palace we must look again at the events leading up to the invasion of AD 43 maybe because we haven't been invaded since 1066 we British have a simplistic attitude towards invasions we see them as being inevitably oppressive so we imagine that when the Romans arrived they wiped out British culture and customs but in actual fact it wasn't a straightforward process of colonization [Music] archeologists are starting to radically rethink the Roman invasion of Britain I would imagine the Britons faced by the might of Rome would have been quaking in their boots I don't think it was quite that the previous attempt to invade Britain was out of the bad and mad Emperor Caligula who had marched a large army up to the channel coast he then put all his catapults in a row and they fired enormous rocks into the sea after a time he told him that he had won a great victory over nature you can imagine how that got about the great Roman Empire was run by a lot of Charlie's and it completely destabilized the situation of course [Music] pre-roman Britain was in fact a collection of often feuding tribal kingdoms there is very little written evidence about early British tribes but John Crichton showed me a burial from the period which contained some intriguing items let's turn to ministers our burial found just outside Colchester based about 10 BC so this is still about 50 60 years before the Roman conquest containers of Roman wine small little Cupid bronze work coming in from the Italian world this stuff just isn't being produced in Britain at all here's a small little medallion of the Roman Emperor the Emperor Augustus so a really nice personal gift from the Emperor [Music] but why would an Iron Age King in Britain want to have a Roman emperors head it is great they're associating themselves with Rome it's like all the satellite states around the Soviet Union or the influence America had inland in Central America big powerful empires have very very close relations with all the states around them certain tribal leaders in Britain have been friendly with Rome for decades before the invasion their coins reflect the glory of the Empire coinage is never politically neutral it's always saying something that's always meaning something it has its own native style to start with but then around about the time of this kind of burial we start finding classical imagery appearing on the coins so they would have been familiar with classical literature certainly the upstair yes and that can't be a coincidence the Kings in Britain are very tightly bound in with the power politics in Rome we see them adopting the same imagery again showing it their affiliation to the New World Order [Music] there was one British king known as Verico who was on particularly good terms with Rome his tribe was the at repartee in the most complete version of the Roman invasion the historian Casias Dyer describes Verico inviting the Roman troops in a certain Verico had persuaded the Emperor Claudius to send a force to Britain led by the distinguished senator Claudius this wasn't a subservient relationship their account would help the Romans if he was able to do so and that they would help him if need be in AD 43 the need did arise when very cos kingdom was invaded the acrobatics had been effectively under military occupation by tribes from the north that rather implies that two people down here at least the Romans weren't that unwelcome the Romans arrived as as liberators [Music] this is a revolutionary idea but can it be supported by archeology kasia's diamond on the invasion on the way across they were first discouraged but they recovered when they saw a flash of light across the sky from east to west the direction they were traveling when the fleet reached the island there was no one to oppose dial emits dimension where the invasion took place [Music] why does I taught as a student that the Romans landed in large numbers on McEntee short rich bruh there had been excavations at Richboro which ii certainly discovered some early military evidence they looked at the 3rd century account at added topographical details so that a battle on the Medway became almost a historical fact they're actually the bet that the River Medway is nowhere mentioned so archaeologists invented it yes it's total invention if the Romans didn't arrive at Richboro where did they land there is another possible site for the Roman invasion churches to harbor slap-bang in the middle of varicose turret this is a fairly typical tidal Creek what makes it special it's nice and sheltered a wonderful natural Harbor which would have allowed large numbers of men to be disembarked yes if you had a roman invasion arriving here what sort of number of boat perhaps at two or three hundred it said a large number of boats that would need to be maneuvered [Music] Jocasta Harbor is in fact right next to Fishbourne palace so once the palace anything to do with king Baraka the palace was built 30 years after the invasion however recent finds of ceramics have revealed that there was a basic fish born before the invading John Manley was involved in the excavations the fact that we found these kind of ceramics and food remains suggests it was a heavily romanized place before ad 43 to my mind it makes him much more likely that a large part of the invasion force landed here in territory that they were familiar with maybe in territory where they already had climbed Kings it was Varrick ax who pleaded with the Romans to come to Britain and America lived somewhere around here just a fish spawn area and that that was used as a pretext for the invasion of Britain now we don't hear of Erika again after 80 41 so it is conceivable his relative maybe even his son who was brought in by the incoming Romans and settled here as a client King although we can't be certain verrico son was probably called taki Douglass excavations at Fishbourne found the marble bust of a child was this the owner of the palace the marble head has to have been carved in Rome there was no marble carving in Britain it's very likely that of Tawhid our penis at the time he was made a Roman citizen do you think talkativeness himself would have lived here at Fishbourne I think almost undoubtedly he did it's an enormous palace this must have been something of a power center for King talkativeness who was increasingly given territories and authority to rule much the rest of the province [Music] this contradicts the conventional account of the Roman conquest King verrico opened his doors to the Roman troops who sailed peacefully up the ditches to harbour in honor of his new Alliance the most splendid palace was built not as a symbol of Roman suppression but as a celebration of British tribal power the Romans claim that they came saw and conquered but in actual fact they were invited into this country once here they didn't crush our native culture but guided the development of an increasingly diverse society in the years after the invasion the Romans built a series of towns across Britain perhaps most opulent of these was bath the buildings here typify the elegance and the glory of the Roman Empire the town was built on the site of an ancient spring which had been a religious site for thousands of years it's a great natural phenomenon the quarter of a million gallons of water a day just pours out of the ground it's hot it's 40 odd degrees centigrade berry Cunliffe excavated the baths in the 1970s within 30 years of the invasion they were putting up this great monument and the first job was a to contain the spring it was a pretty impressive piece of engineering because of that water coming out all the time you could take one view here are the Romans who have come to this place and they've imposed this great Roman building slapped it down on the landscape and this could be seen as earth of imperialism but I don't think it's like that at all what we're seeing here is the Romans being very very sensitive to the sanctity of the place they recognize it as a sacred place they appreciated as a sacred place although the buildings are a Roman and the sculptures look Roman the iconography I think is hinting at something that goes right back into the Iron Age when we excavated in the temple precinct we were at work out there was a real order about it facing east with the great Gorgons head was the temple front itself and then on the either side there were two sculptured façades with pediments on the north side the pediment had the goddess Luna in it who had some shown riding her chariot across the night sky on the southern side was a pediment with a god of the Sun Sol with a spiky crown so you've got some sense of north cold south hot the south side presiding over the hot spring and the balance between the goddess and the God the male/female this encapsulates a much earlier belief so the Romans are if you like taking over the sacred geography of the place and are monumental izing that many objects were thrown into the sacred spring as offerings this is a startling reminder of the age-old customs in the withum Valley and the our Furion story of the Lady of the lake the spring is efficient down into the underworld where the deities live so you could communicate there this we know from the Roman period was sacred to Sulis Minerva the two words put together now Minerva of course is the Roman goddess and Sulis is presumably the Iron Age goddess the person revered here going right back in time the earliest occupation that is Mesolithic going back to 7,000 BC people will always have revered it you can imagine what it would have looked like at the time of the Roman conquest the water brings up iron oxide and that would have spread red trusts around on this black mud and it must have looked almost as though the ground was bleeding [Music] the construction of these baths is a magnificent feat of Engineering to which the Romans are quite rightly admired although they gave us magnificent buildings and luxurious bars I do not believe that the Romans fundamentally changed this country's soul through the years of Roman occupation Britain developed a unique ability to absorb foreign influences without losing its own identity but the biggest foreign influence had yet to arrive it originated not in Rome but in the Holy Lands of Jerusalem and it would contribute to the fall of the empire in Britain it's long been assumed but having forced themselves on Britain the Romans abandoned this insignificant island to deal with more pressing problems at home [Music] however I don't believe this was the case [Music] this vast LED tank has been restored to its original state but when I first saw it I was crammed at the bottom of a Roman well and the tank lay there like a crumpled milk carton I remember thinking why on earth didn't they melt it down and reuse this valuable led why dispose of it in this deliberate fashion what was so special about this tank the tank is decorated with a symbol which combines the Greek letters Chi and Rao which is a sign of very early Christian worship [Music] this is constant time the great near this spot in July 306 he was made emperor of Rome he later went on to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire it was a time of immense political change that foreshadowed the ultimate collapse of the Roman Empire in the West by encouraging Christianity in Britain Constantine gave his subjects something that will become more powerful than Rome itself Constantine's conversion came towards the end of the Roman occupation of Britain by which time the structure of society had begun to change during the late third century and on into the fourth the super-rich stopped spending their money on public buildings for the benefit of the population in general they spend it on themselves the big money moves out of the town it's a pattern we've seen in our own time wealthy people tend to take their money out to their country estates the great villas were just scattered throughout southern Britain there we have these people right out on the fringe of the Roman world aping at a classical world from hundreds of years ago these people were sticking references to classical mythology in classical literature on the floors in their houses [Music] these mosaics hold a key to the way in which beliefs in Britain changed shed with filler in Gloucestershire was one of the richest of each country houses phil bethel showed me around this was one of probably the top 10 richest most opulent houses in the whole of Britain in the 4th century [Music] all along the length of this corridor there would have been a continuous mosaic floor nearly 80 meters long so they have everything that money at that time could buy mosaics in every room underfloor heating systems two bath houses their very own in-house water shrine this whole thing was designed to show you I'm rich and I'm powerful so this was actually a little temple and here it was actually part of their daily religion where they'd worship in time-honored fashion came back to the Celtic origins of the romano-british religion but they'd worship the spirit of the spring they've seem to almost recreate it a bit of the earlier cultural history the idea that this was the Roman from Rome living here seems a bit unlikely the Roman Empire it was a bit like a sort of franchise you know you sort of they havin a branch of Rome out here in Britain and the people who actually did the day-to-day governing and running the country by and large natives in this case would have been native Britons but from the families that were probably already important before the Romans came it seems in Gloucestershire there wasn't a big conquest here the local tribe that da booney seemed to play along with the Romans when they invaded that may be why it became a very wealthy area rich powerful people who lived here already took advantage that new system to increase their wealth [Music] some of the mosaics that covered the floor of Chadwell villa have been destroyed but many British mosaics have been preserved in architectural drawings from a society who didn't leave many written records these mosaics are a unique insight into the complex minds of the Romano prints and the beliefs that change their world some of these mosaics contain a strange mixture of Christian and Pagan symbols which have long been dismissed as clumsy mistakes but in actual fact these images are connected to the mystery of a lead tank I think that we always look at Missouri pavements in much the same way on the looker to stained-glass windows and in churches when you go to shower and look at the glorious stained-glass windows a gothic church each image up there says something we have to see this as being a literate society a learned society elite members are studied with a lot of time on their hands who were interested in reading the classics in literature and they are trying to make sense of the world they live in at loling stone Roman villa the discovery of a converted Chapel was evidence that Christianity had been practiced here within the mosaics Dominic Perry has found a sign that the people here were dealing in a very unusual Christian cult called Gnosticism fourth century is a period vigorous intellectual ferment and whereas today we have a strong idea about science as leading us forward then it was very clearly philosophy people were trying to escape the mortal condition this prisoner of our world to escape it was about knowing the secrets it was about knowing how to move into a higher plane existence and knowledge was very much part of that knowledge of the images knowledge of mythology knowledge of philosophy knowledge of Christ but also secret knowledge is hidden in the mosaics Dominic is found gnostic images which blend classical myths with the christian ideas about immortality this strange fusion of beliefs was at the heart of a gnostic cult it may have become a symbol of romano-british culture [Music] Bellerophon is slaying a monster he's riding winged Pegasus the message here is both good slay evil but also the attempt to reach life immortal it said it was a set beliefs which lent itself to urban aristocratic elite society and Villa society these were people who are able to engage in these arcane discussions is philosophical debates such independent thinking could not be tolerated by the Empire and in 380 the Emperor denounced Gnosticism as harrassing the Emperor establishes edicts against heresies and you're allowed to exile people confiscate the lands on whatever how does one stop heretics being heretics well I'll stop them baptizing if a bishop can't baptize a flock you don't increase the size the flock so destruction of baptismal fonts is one way of doing it we've got our coastal evidence of damaged lead tanks some of which quite clearly were used for baptism which are being cut into pieces and thrown down wells the crumpled baptism tank that I had seen was just one of many Christian items which had been deliberately destroyed or buried in this area [Music] we have Church plate baptismal spoons the chalice used in the Eucharist being buried in some of these silver hoards people are decommissioning these items whoever buried this collection of precious silver must have felt anger and resentment because their property their beliefs their very identity were under attack by the time this treasure was buried Rome had lost the hearts and minds of the native Britons having invited the Romans in absorbed and digested the rich and various influences of a classical world Britain turned its back on round and looked to an independent future [Music] the end of Roman administration was a new beginning for the people of Britain three and a half centuries after the Romans destroyed it the Magnificent hill fort of South Cadbury was reoccupied it has long been imagined but the figure who led this resurgence was King Arthur Arthur is a kind of product of different generations and how they see themselves and Arthur was created largely by medieval romantic historians who wanted to create a kind of pseudo chronology of events after the Roman invasion and the trouble is it's loosely threaded together with pieces of genuine evidence and it depends on how literally you choose to take bits of that I rather suspect that Arthur is a kind of metaphor a symbol for the sort of petty tribal chieftain who would have taken over power in a region after the Roman power collapsed in Britain a man who could hold his people together [Music] this valiant king embodies a brave new world in which descendants of Roman Britain began to build an independent future but yet for centuries we have shrouded this exciting time under a veil of mystery and labeled it the dark ages next week we will discover that Arthur's Britain was in fact a time of creativity and progress in which nothing less than the future identity of this country was forged [Music]

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 143,822

Keywords: Arthurian Tales, Barbarian invasions, British Archaeology, British History, British Monarchy Origins, British archaeology, British folklore, British history, British legends and myths, Celtic culture, Excalibur sword, Historical Evidence, Historical evidence, King Arthur, Medieval Britain Era, Mystery of King Arthur, Native Collaboration, Roman Conquest, Roman civilization, Roman withdrawal from Britain

Id: 6ISCcln-sos

Length: 49min 9sec (2949 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 09 2019