Professor Rob Collins

And it's not a smooth transition, and we can't connect the dots from the end of Roman Britain to the birth of Anglo-Saxon England directly.

There is a gap there in between.

And that gap is really interesting.

What's happening?

And so we do have these big ideas that we're grappling with.

What does it mean when a civilization ends?

Does a civilization end?

What does it mean when a new civilization is emerging, is born?

And the challenge there is making sure that we're aware of kind of the

The romance, the tropes, the stereotypes that come with the end of Roman Britain and also the birth of Anglo-Saxon England so that we can be guided by the evidence.

And traditionally, you know, our evidence has been text, you know, historical sources.

But for Britain in the 5th and 6th century, we really only have two sources that we can reliably count on from the British Isles.

And one of those is the writings of St.

Patrick.

primarily his confessions, but he does have a little letter to a British, maybe Scottish warlord, Croticus.

So we've got two sources from St.

Patrick, and then we've got Gildas writing in, we think, the mid-6th century.

But that's it, two.

You know, two authors in Britain, you know, and Patrick is probably writing in Ireland.

So he's not, he might be British himself, but he's not in Britain as he's writing.