| Summary: | The investigation of the early history of England is beset with many difficulties and has furnished material for the widest conjectures. Prior to the Roman invasion our knowledge is confined almost entirely to such deductions as can be made by the aid of archaeology. But the difficulties by no means decrease with the period when England makes its first appearance in the pages of written history. Indeed, they might be said rather to increase, and perhaps of no period is this truer than of the times between the decline of the Roman power in Britain and the ultimate establishment of the Anglo-Saxon power. The records are, to say the least of it, of the barest nature, and present many problems of absorbing interest, towards the elucidation of which archaeology has already contributed not a little. In some cases, however, the evidence of archaeology appears to find itself in conflict with the witness of history, and it is one of these incongruities which I have set myself the task of endeavouring to investigate in the course of this paper. |
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