What I would suggest is that if you don't want to be vexed by the process of having to read another's contribution against your thesis, then the best advice would be not to introduce the tendentious bullshit in the first place. Don't come running here with complaints of being hauled through the annals of history when it was in fact you who saw fit to allude to some apparent Golden Age of British which yousomehow use as a "connector" to the ills you seem to see around you know.
But nice try with the Monty Python sketch. Now do me a favour and go back and read the nature of the "challenge" I set you. I didn't ask you for a list of "what did the Romans do for us" ....I specifically asked you to name just three contributions to that culture which can be specifically identified as being "British" in origin. If I'd wanted you to tell me "what did the Romano-British do for us?" then I would have couched the question in such a way. It's kind of ironic that when asked such a straightforward question, you actually come back with an answer which confirms that there is no identifiable strand of Romano-British culture that owes its existence to being "British".
And still you persist with a ridiculous take on history that distorts the reality. You have - happily - moved away from the notion of "social apprehensiveness" on the part of the Romano-Britains - aka native population in the thrall of an Imperial occupying power- and moved on to the interesting notion that
They (the Saxons) arrive, attack the locals, renounce the use of all of those Roman benefits Monty Python lists above, people go back to living on the land, literacy hits the floor and stays there for hundreds of years, life expectancy goes into a nosedive, the population collapses and the archaeology becomes rather difficult to find because everyone is living in houses made out of pigshit and timber
Complicated? No.
....(how's that for allowing you to "hear" the sound of your own voice again?)
An argument which is replete yet again with the implication that the condition in which the native population finds itself is attributable to the arrival of a new force. Rather than drawing the conclusion that every other historian would draw from the facts that it was in fact the withdrawal of the Roman Empire and its
absence that led to those circumstances. And "renounce the Roman benefits"? - you make it sound like it was some kind of intellectual debate from which a conclusion was reached. You seem to be quite seriously suggesting that, pre-Saxon arrival, that the majority of the "people" didn't do anything aws uncultured as live on the land but presumably in towns and cities, that literacy was at some previously unachieved high, that Roman Britain did indeed exist in a Golden Age of betogaed intellectuals, living a long and healthy life and that the vast majority of the population lived in stone built villa splendour and were only reduced to living in "pigshit and timber"
after the arrival of the Saxons From whence do you draw a notion of such intellectual civilised wonder? Because if you aren't suggesting any such thing, just as you aren't now suggesting "social apprehensiveness" was the cause of the pan-European Dark Ages, then do us all a favour and stop wasting our time making us read it in the first damn place.
I've got news for you - the vast majority of the population before during and after the Roman presence in Britain already lived in such conditions. We don't find any great array of Roman villas either which would lead archaelologists to support the view that the majority of "Romano-Britains" all lived in such conditions. The simple fact is that an Imperial power occupied that part of the country, drew from it what they required, introduced foreign elements of civilisation that didn't previously exist, found "placemen" to do some of the work for them and when they had done with the place.....left. Leaving the native population to its own devices. A native population which from your description of matters
after withdrawal, seemed incapable of maintaining those standards of civilisation themselves despite being "Romano-British" and therefore presumably imbued with all the talents required to do just that. You said yourself, I seem to recall, that the "Roman" presence was a relatively numerically small contingent. So what happened precisely to the indigenous population after withdrawal that it seemed to be incapable of sustaining this culture? Here's a suggestion - they couldn't because they weren't particularly involved in it. Like every other subdued occupied population, the average "Romano-Britain's" experience of such niceties would have been when they were called upon to clean them, rebuild them or empty them. Very few domiciles of the native population would have been stone built with hot and cold running water, under floor central heating and saunas on tap when required. And if that
isn't your contention - then yet again - don't waste our time by implying it in the first place!
Put as simply as possible for the hard of thinking - Britain - and the rest of Europe - didn't fall into a period of "Dark Ages" because of the arrival of another power. It happened because of the disappearance of the previous one - and an apparent failure on the part of a dependant population - the "British" - to maintain "standards" by their own efforts.
But the whole point of this nonsensical enterprise on your part is to somehow draw parallels between that Roman-British Golden Age and the present day as far as I can make out. For Romano-Britains read (not to put too fine a note on it) White Britons. For Saxons read Pakistanis. And what you are trying somehow to imply, through the most tendentious and pathetically weak historical analogies, is that what you see as the impending collapse of this particular "civilisation" is all due to the presence of a foreign influence in our midst. Again - if that's not the point of all your ranting - say so and stop wasting our time.
And it's bullshit. You make no effort to address the issues I raised which I believe are far more salient and relevant arguments as to why this country is experiencing a social dislocation and stress on the social ties that bind us......but somehow seem happier to blame it all on foreigners and their baleful influence. You've yet to bring up the hoary old chestnut of how "we are a friendly welcoming race who are now suffering at the hands of that decency by seeing our own culture being overwhelmed by ungrateful incomers" - but that's only a matter of time. Been there, heard it....laughed like a drain every time it was belched forth.
Like I said, your "Romano-British" culture is a frikkin myth. There was only ever one element to it, only one element that saw the emergence of advance of any kind - the Roman part. Again, show me one single uniquely "British" contribution to what you describe as "Romano-BRITISH" culture. Various populations have arrived here, been dominant for a while, been overrun by a new incoming influence, merged with it, learned from it....survived in spite of it. That's the whole point. And yet despite the fact that we are faced with all sorts of social challenges now because of social change and economic crisis and social mores being corrupted from within.....you're happy and almost delighted to identify a minority part of the population and blame it all on them. Always the fault of the minority, always damn foreigners spoiling what was once a fine and dandy "civilisation" before they came over here with their "foreign ways" etc etc et....frikin yawn...cetera.
And the biggest irony of all? Throughout this effort on your part to rewrite "Romano-British" as some sort of halcyon experience before the arrival of damn foreigners, the one basic, monumental element that you deliberately choose to overlook is the fact that the Roman Empire itself was the most cosmopolitan of "cultures", of "societies". Anyone and everyone was accepted as part of that Empire, as a citizen of that Empire. The only basic rules were that you paid your taxes, followed the local laws and conducted official business in Latin. That was it. Beyond that, you were free to practice your own religion, speak your own language in company, wear whatever you chose to wear if a toga didn't happen to be at hand and eat whatever "foreign muck" you wanted and keep and maintain the traditions and practices of the culture from which you derived.
Without demur from others. Without suggestions that it would lead to the end of Empire as we know it. Without being held to blame for the loss of any particular campaign or the diluting of a once fine culture. Without being identified as being a threat because of the colour of your skin. Without being seen as a creeping threat intent on overthrowing "Rome" by infiltration and deliberately having large families to increase your power over the local population.
And out all of that....comes you!! Bemoaning the loss of a culture that owes nothing to the "local" population for any significant contribution to it and in fact denying by your opinions probably the most fundamental of all Roman Empire principles - those of tolerance and acceptance of differences. The only "Romano-British" things you appear to be in favour of are "democracy" and the rule of law" Democracy - a
Greekpolitical principle that has no root in "British" culture and "the rule of law" - a
Roman principle. The closest this part of the world has by way of contribution to "democracy" are the Long Houses of the time...a
Scandinavian contribution from those damn Saxons and their relatives. Yet those virtues of tolerance and acceptance of difference are the very things that in fact allowed the Empire to exist for as long as it did. By "the centre" - Rome itself - tolerating Romano-Britains. Just as it tolerated Romano-Gauls and Romano-Syrians and Romano-Jews and Romano-Germans and Roman-everyone else who managed to survive under that Imperial umbrella.