Town Life [antikvár]

Chapter 1(?Medieval En^and 1400By the beginning of the fifth century the curtains of barbarism were beginning to fall on the stage of Europe; by its end the pageant of town life was almost in complete darkness. Even the great civilization in mighty Rome, which men said would last for ever, had died down. Only a fraction of its huge population remained; the buildings began to crumble, the streets were often deserted, grass grew in the arena and the circus. The remaining people lived simple lives amid the remains. If this happened in Rome, what could be expected in the towns of the distant Roman province of Britain? 'Some of the cities built with such care by the Romans to teach their way of life to the whole world had already been abandoned and were derelict long before the Saxons broke loose in these islands.^ Towns in the path of the invader probably fell by fire and violence, while others, further away from the conquerors, just decayed. Baths, temples, houses, shops, and theatres crumbled and collapsed or became quarries of ready-shaped stones for the huts of the new masters. The rough Saxons, who were by nature village-dwelling farmers, were suspicious even afraid of the towns, so that the streets and buildings fell into ruins. Gradually nature swallowed them up. Often the very sites themselves were forgotten until, fourteen centuries later, the spades of archaeologists brought once more the columns, the marbles, and the pavements to the light and to the wondering eyes of the twentieth century.Even London, the greatest city of Roman Britain, probably lay desolate for a century or two. The Saxons, who did