manized life were
extinguished. Not a single one remained an inhabited town. Destruction
fell even on Canterbury, where the legends tell of intercourse between
Briton or Saxon, and on London, where ecclesiastical writers fondly
place fifth- and sixth-century bishops. Both sites lay empty and
untenanted for many years. Only in the far west, at Exeter or at
Caerwent, does our evidence allow us to guess at a continuing
Romano-British life.

[Footnote 1: About A.D. 405 Patrick was carried off from Bannavem
Taberniae. If this represents the Romano-British village on Watling
Street called Bannaventa, near Daventry in Northants (_Victoria Hist._
i. 186), the raids must have covered all the midlands: see _Engl. Hist.
Review_, 1895, p. 711; Zimmer, _Realenc. fuer protestantische Theol._ x.
(1901), Art. 'Keltische Kirche'; Bury, _Life of St. Patrick_, p. 322.
There are, however, too many uncertainties surrounding this question to
let us derive much help from it.]

[Footnote 2: _Engl. Hist. Review_, xix. 625; Fox, _Victoria Hist. of
Hampshire_, i. 371-2.]

The same destruction came also on the population. During the long series
of disasters, many of the Romanized inhabitants of the lowland regions
must have perished. Many must have fallen into slavery, and may have
been sold into foreign lands. The remnant, such as it was, doubtless
retired to the west. But, in doing so, it exchanged the region of walled
cities and civilized houses, of city life and Roman culture, for a
Celtic land. No doubt it attempted to keep up its Roman fashions. The
writers may well be correct who speak of two conflicting parties, Roman
and Celtic, among the Britons of the sixth century. But the Celtic
element triumphed. Gildas, about A.D. 540, describes a Britain confined
to the west of our island, which is very largely Celtic and not
Roman.[1] Had the English invaded the island from the Atlantic, we might
have seen a different spectacle. The Celtic element would have perished
utterly: the Roman would have survived. As it was, the attack fell on
the east and south of the island--that is, on the lowlands of Britain.
Safe in its western hills, the Celtic revival had full course.

[Footnote 1: How much of Britain was still British when Gildas wrote, he
does not tell us. But he mentions only the extreme west (Damnonii,
Demetae); his general atmosphere is Celtic, and his rhetoric contains no
references to a flourishing civilization. We may conclude that the