The Real Legacy Of The Roman Invasion In Britain | King Arthur's Britain | Timeline

Francis Pryor examines the history of Britain near the end of the Roman occupation. The first instalment focuses on Britain under Roman rule, revealing a much greater degree of collaboration with the natives than was previously recognised.

Sheep-farming archaeologist, Francis Pryor, presents a historical series which explores Britain A.D, the British national character and the ultimate British icon King Arthur.

Finding new and previously unexplained evidence, Francis Pryor overturns the idea that Britain reverted to a state of anarchy and disorder after the Romans left in 410 AD. Instead of doom and gloom Francis discovers a continuous culture that assimilated influences from as far a field as the Middle East and Constantinople. Through scrutinising the myth of King Arthur to find out what was really going on when the Romans left, Francis is confronted by evidence that confounds traditional views of the 'Dark Ages'. There was also no invasion of bloodthirsty Anglo Saxons, rampaging across the countryside. With new archaeological evidence Francis discovers a far more interesting story.

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[kailonlondberg]

Anybody else watching all these documentaries during quarantine?

[jeffinkhobar]

One thing I wish Timeline would learn to do: include links to the other episodes in a series in the description so we don’t have to go fishing around their channel trying to figure out where the others are and in what order!

[thDIVTimberwolf]

Note to advertisers and YouTube; if you keep interrupting what I am trying to watch, I will carefully avoid your products. Too many interruptions and I will just move on.

[panzerabwerkanone]

Besides the aquaduct, sanitation, the roads, irrigation, medicine, education, public baths, law and order, the wine. What did the Roman's ever give Britain?

[Aikitrad]

I was really enjoying the adverts which were ruined by some history documentary interruption every few minutes.

[Ohne_Silikone]

Waiting for a time when his kingdom needs him again... right about now would be splendid.

[waynehieatt]

sword in the stone story comes from the Volsunga sagas, where Odin (or Wodne) thrust a magical sword, called Gram, into an oak tree, and the one who drew it out would receive it as a gift from him, and wouldn't be disappointed with it. Sigmund drew it out but had to fight to keep it as other more powerful people wanted it. Sigmund dies in battle wielding Gram, but during the battle Odin broke it (can't remember why). Dying Sigmund tells his wife to collect the pieces of the sword and keep them for their unborn son. The son was born Sigurd, and he gets the sword remade and uses it to kill Fafnir (a dragon - German, or dwarf - Norse/Icelandic) and made his people, the Volsungs, wealthy from the treasure (including a magic ring). After that, the Volsungs begin a pretty quick decline, ending when the last Volsung noblewoman is forcibly married to a Burgundian King, and the Volsungs are absorbed. I hope I got it right.

[Clyde.artwork]

Just discovered this channel. What an absolute wealth of cultural history.

[GoodVideos]

I saw in a 1936 Encyclopedia Brittanica, I still have it, that the coast of England wasn't the same in for instance the time of ancient Rome, as now. That's because of sections of land having been eroded away, into the sea. It also showed a map of those sections of land.

[edwardrawn]

"In my work as a prehistorian....", "In my work as a prehistorian...", "In my work as a prehistorian..." - How afraid was this guy that we were gonna mistake him for an historian?

[Octarin]

I am Greek and I love seeing parallels drawns between legends. We have the same legend here of the mighty strategist and commander, the god king Alexander the Great who will, one day when the "kingdom" is in peril, rise again to defend us. It seems cultures everywhere share this instinctive need for a deified protector and saviour, who embodies the best of them. Amazing really. But why is this commentator so... aggressive? I don't think anyone disputes that there was a thriving civilization before the Roman invasions. Quite the contrary actually, by my reckoning.

[jamtraptabogin]

I wish they would hone in more of the specific history. They do take some creative leaps at times particularly around Roman occupation

[zoetropo]

Last year I learnt that the FitzRandolph and Randoll men are a specific variant of R1b-U152 that originates in central Italy during the Roman Republic. This is especially significant because genealogically they are male-line descendants of the Breton Sovereign House and Alan Rufus’s epitaph indicates descent from the Aurelii, specifically the Aurelii Cottae. Archaeologically, in early third century Carlisle, Aurelia Aureliana was the wife of Ulpius Apolinaris. A letter by Sidonius Apollinaris in the latter 5th century shows him to be a close friend and admirer of a man with the title ‘Riothamus’, High King of the Britons (or Bretons), almost certainly the same person as Ambrosius Aurelianus and therefore active in both Britain and Gaul.

[iwantursocks]

"Now all this would be fine, if it weren't complete rubbish!"

Love the sass in that line.

[RobBoudreau]

Haven't seen this in ages. Hopefully they'll be putting up the rest of the series.

[MrScipio]

Pryor is a wonderful archaeologist but he has always downplayed the impact of the Romans in Britain. However, I do agree him to be right in that the iron age cultures were 'subsumed' and not destroyed by Roman occupation. Ireland and Scotland (not called either at the time) were pretty much untouched.

[tazkrebbeks]

I do so love your videos. Please continue making more.

[SandyRiverBlue]

We have a similar tradition of "giving a weapon to a lake" in the modern era. It has more to do with obfuscating a crime. These archaeologists can be so sentimental.

[hereforthecommentsection]

I’ve binge watched virtually all of the UKs history at this point. I know more about it than my own homeland.

[BListHistory]

10:52 there's a place in Demnark where they found a lot of Roman swords that were tossed at the bottom of a lake, which confuses people because we know there was a Roman law that non-Romans weren't allowed to own Roman-made weapons.