The end of Roman Britain and the Saxon invasions were part of the most
disruptive period in Britain's history, ending centuries of relative
stability as a Roman province and beginning centuries of invasion and
destruction. It is a period which is also difficult to understand,
coming at the end of the Roman era and in the pre-dawn of the Medieval.
It is a Dark Age, both in terms of our apparent lack of source material
and in our understanding of events. As a result, several legendary
figures appear - it is the age of Arthur, Merlin and others; figures
steeped in mystery, mysticism and magic, allowed to thrive in the
paucity of the source material. In this new analysis, Murray Dahm
explores the military history of the long end of Roman Britain, going
back to the roots of the province's final rupture from Rome in the fifth
century and the subsequent invasions. Using a wide array of sources, the
author illuminates this dark world and examines what we know (or what we
think we know) of the Angle, Jute, Saxon and other invasions that took
advantage of Rome's absence and which, in their own way, shaped the
Britain of today.
