410 A.D. - the last Roman soldiers left Britain.
Influence
1) architecture
a. towns & cities
The most obvious characteristic of Roman Britain was its towns, which were the basis of Roman administration and civilization. Many grew out of Celtic settlements, military camps or market centres. Broadly, there were three different kinds of town in Roman Britain, two of which were towns established by Roman charter:
{ coloniae - towns with the Roman settlers only;
{ municipia - towns with mixed population (the Romans and the Celts);
{ civitas - towns with the Celtic population only administrated by the Romans.
The Romans left about twenty large towns of about 5,000 inhabitants, and almost one hundred smaller ones. Many of these towns were at first army camps. These towns were built with stone as well as wood, and had planned streets, markets and shops. Some buildings had central heating.
e.g.
castra = Latin ‘military settlement’ – the ending chester (Winchester, Chester), caster (Doncaster, Lancaster) or cester (Gloucester, Leicester)
Bath (a small town on Salisbury Plain) was the first spa (‘sanus per aqua’) resort. The old Roman termas are still can be found there.
Londinium (‘London’) was the main administrative center built instead of Celtic settlement of Llyn-dyn.
b. roads
The settlements were connected by roads which were so well built that they survived when later roads broke up. These roads continued to be used long after the Romans left, and became the main roads of modern Brita in. Six of these Roman roads met in London.
e.g. Forsse Way, Watling Street
c. walls and military forts
In order to protect themselves from the Celtic tribes the Romans started to build protective walls and military forts alongside them. Unfortunately, not all walls survived and most Roman forts grew into towns and cities.
e.g. Hadrian’s Wall – is the 120 km long wall built on the border between England & Scotland. At the time, Hadrian's Wall was simply intended to keep out raiders from the north. The Romans were afraid of the barbarian tribes from the north (‘Caledonia’), which was inhabited by the Picts (‘painted people’), a warlike Celtic tribe that used to tattoo themselves to show that they were great warriors.
Roman forts were highly organized structures, famed for their good sanitary conditions. Each fort housed about 1000 soldiers and was located at a distance of 1.5 km, to be able to give signals to each other in case of danger.
2) language
The Romans left not only their traces in the culture but also in the English language. Many words are associated with them: wine, fort, wall, spa, etc.. A great number of place-names bear the Latin traces: with the endings
-castra ("castle") (Chester, Lancaster, Leicester);
-wich (Norwich, Greenwich);
-port (Devonport), etc.
The Middle Ages