Tale of Britain’s post-Roman economic crash overturned by ancient metal pollution discovery
Morgan White
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I though some of you might find this article interesting.
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Very interesting. I really enjoyed the book Britain after Rome and one of the things they mentioned was that cities were reclaimed by nature for a while in the later 400s and 500s and the era was one of "radical economic simplification". Looks like there may have been some exceptions.
Cool read! Thanks for sharing.
I'm not entirely sure that "rising production of iron" equates to "the economy didn't collapse". The economy certainly changed, reverting from a monetized economy (using coins) to a barter system, and this is indisputable simply because of the numismatic evidence: there are effectively no "British coins" from the period immediately after the Roman withdrawl in the early 400s up to the Saxon thrymsas in the early 600s - that's 200 years with no native coinage.
I would postulate that iron production had to increase because in the absence of the Pax Romana, all of a sudden, everybody needed to arm themselves, from the petty kings and wannabe warlords to the lowest peasantry. I'd also speculate that Roman Britain perhaps imported a lot of iron goods from elsewhere in the Empire where iron production was more efficient (particularly nearby Gaul), and the collapse of the Roman trade network forced the Britons to become more self-reliant in creating all of their own iron, since the Franks weren't going to be selling them any.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.
Post-Roman Britain is an interesting period of very limited records, and we are still making inroads to gaining understanding of what was going on for several hundred years.
With regards, to coinage, there was interruption of British coin production from before 400 to after 600. This is not disputed. The last Roman coins made in Britain are from the late 4th century, before Britain was abandoned. However coin circulation and use continued, with importation of continental Roman coins of the early 5th century, but this seems to have largely fell apart after the Roman armies left with Constantine III.
What happened next is kind of tricky to determine. No further coinage was produced at the British mints. A large number of clipped Roman siliquae have been found in Britain, but not so much elsewhere, suggesting the clipped siliqua had its own monetary function, but also that the remnant silver was used as bullion and not made into new coins. This may have lasted for 50 years or so, but by the time of the Patching hoard (ca. 475) coins seem to have lost their monetary function and were probably solely used as bullion. And while there was importation of Gothic and later Frankish coins for use as bullion throughout the 5th and 6th centuries, there is nothing to suggest a monetary economy with coins having any sort of denominational value. And base metal coins essentially disappear. Britain did not start experimenting with its own coinage again until after 600. And the early gold thrymsas had limited circulation. It was not until after 650 that English coins appear in large numbers suggesting a significant monetary role.
So there’s about 300 years of very limited, if nonexistent, monetary economy. There was reuse of precious metal coins made elsewhere as bullion, but no domestic coinage.
I still think this qualifies as a cataclysmic economic collapse, regardless of the ongoing metalworking.