Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The title of this chapter is one of the few in this work which is explicitly chronological rather than thematic. It thus isolates a particular period and imposes on it a unity, one which cuts across several of the themes elaborated in other chapters. This chapter will therefore respond to this agenda by examining first, the historical sources and the picture they have been used to construct; second, major classes of archaeological evidence and the ways in which they have been studied; and third, major themes in current research. This will allow conclusions to be drawn about the extent to which the fourth century may (or may not) be viewed as a distinct and distinctive period in the development of Roman Britain. There is a variety of written sources both from within Britain and from outside which bear on the island in the fourth century. It must be admitted at the outset that all are partial and lacunose. Partly this is for reasons of their original composition: Britain was only of occasional interest; or it is the result of time and chance, which have effaced more than they have handed down (cf. Ireland 1986 for translations). Primacy of honour has always been given to the narrative historical sources, for without them there would be no chronological structure nor overall impression of the sequence of events. But equally, Britain features only when it was the setting for events ... log in or subscribe to read full text