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12 Mediæval Military Architecture in England. CHAPTER II.

EARTHWORKS OF THE POST-ROMAN AND ENGLISH PERIODS.

BUT little is recorded of the internal condition of Britain between the departure of the Legions, A.D. 411, and the arrival of the Northmen in force thirty or forty years later ; but whatever may have been the effect of Roman dominion, or of the infusion of Roman blood, upon the social or commercial character of the Britons, it is at least certain that they had made little progress in the construction of places of defence. The Romans dealt rather with the country than with the people. The foreign trade under the Roman sway was no doubt considerable, and much land was under cultivation, but the Britons seem to have acquired but few of the Roman arts, and nothing of the Roman discipline. Neither have their descendants, the Welsh, many customs which can be traced distinctly to a Roman origin ; and although there are many words in their language which show its origin to be cognate with the Latin, there are comparatively few which can, with any probability, be shown to be derived from the Latin. How far against the Scots and Picts they made use of Roman tactics or employed Roman weapons is but little known. In defending themselves against the Northmen they, no doubt, took advantage of the Roman walls at Richborough and Lymne, and afterwards of Pevensey, but on the whole with only temporary success ; and from these they were driven back upon the earthworks of their probably remote predecessors. There is not a shadow of evidence that they constructed any new defensive works in masonry upon the Roman models, or even repaired those that were left to them in the same material.

There do, however, remain certain earthworks which seem to be laid out according to Roman rules, but which contain no traces of Roman habitations, are not connected with great Roman roads, and the banks and ditches of which are of greater height and depth than those generally in use among the Romans in Britain, and which therefore there seems reason to attribute to the post-Roman Britons. Such are