Professor Rob Collins

Yeah, it's a fantastic question.

And this is where I say the Dux Britanniae arm is really key.

As long as there is a Dux who is making sure the soldiers are getting their supplies and

then that frontier can still be coherent.

That dukes might no longer be able to report to the Roman emperor or get orders from the imperial court.

But as long as there's someone there who's sustaining that role, he might have to fight for that role, that power.

He might find that there's local rivals.

But as long as that role is attempting to be fulfilled, then we can sustain those frontier soldiers, those limitinei.

So the question, I think, becomes a dating issue, really, in terms of, well, when can we see archaeologically things are fragmenting?

At least if we start in, say, 400 as a coherent archaeological region frontier.

When is that fragmenting?

Is it happening in the 5th century?

Is it happening in the 6th century?

I think it probably is happening in the 5th century.

Oh, thank goodness.

But there are intriguing questions here that we can't really answer, I think, is the challenge.

And we have really tantalizing hints in what we call the Welsh sources, the early medieval literature, the British language vernacular literature, things like the Godothan.

which is really, it's an epic poem, but it's really about the dynasties of Central Britain.

We have it preserved through Welsh literary tradition, but geographically, it's all about the frontier region, the former frontier region of Roman Britain after the end of Roman Britain.

Again, we think in the early to mid-6th century, so roughly the same time that Gildas is talking about.