29

Endings (c. ad 380–400)

Debating ‘decline’

At some point London ceased to be a city. It retained little that was recognizably urban other than its walls: possessing neither the built appearance and population density, nor the dominant political and economic role. By any account it ceased to be a place of consequence. The fact of London’s failure is beyond dispute, but there is much that we have yet to understand about how the once bustling city came to be hollowed-out. James Gerrard’s review of the end of Roman London describes a study bedevilled by the concept of decline, echoing Edward Gibbon’s famous history of the extinction of the Roman Empire in its western provinces. ¹ The problem with the idea of a world in decay is that some late antique places found new vitalities, and we must be wary of assumptions that treat departures from classical form as failure. Archaeologists consequently prefer to talk in more nuanced terms of transformation and change, whilst recognizing discontinuities in the structure and representation of power. ² Romano-British studies have become particularly uncomfortable with the idea that everything turned on an abrupt Roman departure c. ad 408/410. Timelines can stretch in either direction. In Richard Reece’s view, many of the more important changes took place beforehand. He argues that Britain never fully adopted the social and economic institutions of urban life, leaving the late Roman town as little more than an administrative village. ³ In this model London’s earlier phases of urban contraction bequeathed an economically frail entity that entered terminal decline long before the fourth century was out. ⁴ A contrasting, if not necessarily conflicting, narrative has formed around ideas of post- and sub-Roman continuities, where features of urban life continued after the Roman administration was gone. Ideas of sub-Roman continuity were influenced by Shepherd Frere’s excavations at Verulamium, which identified a functioning piped water-supply into the middle of the fifth century. ⁵ This evidence seemed compatible with a description of St Germanus’ visit to the shrine of St Alban to resolve church doctrinal disputes in ad 429. ⁶ Frere’s arguments for fifth-century urban continuities build, however, on disputed evidence and an alternative reading of his sequences dates them to the late fourth century rather than the early fifth. ⁷ More to the point, Frere’s findings have yet to be replicated in London or other Romano-British cities.

Discussion is complicated by the fact that we have so little evidence to work with. There are many reasons why evidence is elusive, themselves symptomatic of the changes we struggle to understand. Chronologies are difficult to construct because we lack timbers for dendrochronological dating. ⁸ Since few monumental structures were built, timber piles were no longer used in their foundations. In the absence of public procurement exercises, the large-scale import of building materials gave way to recycling. A concomitant change in architectural fashion saw a return to building in timber in place of brick and masonry, such that a late fourth-century building at Drapers’ Gardens left no trace other than the lines of post-holes thought to have supported its walls. ⁹ We don’t know how much these changes were a matter of cultural preference, as new avenues for the expression of social status and power devalued the symbolic value of classical architecture, and how much a product of a diminished capacity because materials and engineering skills were unavailable for civilian works. Whatever the explanation, the ephemeral nature of these late Roman timber buildings reduced their archaeological footprint.

The problems of dark-earth formation and bioturbation described in Chapter 22 are also particularly acute in the upper levels of the Roman archaeological sequences, which were also exposed to truncation during medieval and modern building. Although there are many phases of dark-earth formation the horizon is particularly associated with late antique change. New patterns of rubbish disposal may have seen waste piled onto surface middens, destined to be reworked into dark-earth, in place of rubbish pits. These practices witness reduced investment in urban architecture and hint at shrinking settlement densities, but limit our ability to characterize the changes underway.

Dating frameworks are further complicated by reduced supplies of new coin entering Britain following the neglect of the garrison towards the end of the fourth century. The miniscule coins minted by the House of Valentinian and Theodosius (364–402) are also easily missed during excavation, and their recovery relies on practices of metal-detecting and sieving that aren’t routinely employed. ¹⁰ There was a concurrent, and related, decline in volumes of pottery produced by established Romano-British industries towards the end of the fourth century. ¹¹ Although recent research has improved our ability to recognize fifth-century pottery, this was no longer part of widely distributed industrialized production. The pots we know to have been made in these years are few in number and difficult to date. Deprived of normal sources of evidence it becomes exceptionally difficult to establish chronologies of change.

The contrast with other parts of the Roman Empire indicates, however, that Britain suffered an unparalleled contraction as the fourth century gave way to the fifth. This relates not so much to what was going on in the countryside, but to urban uses of coin and tablewares. London was particularly vulnerable to changes in the pulse of such custom and supply. So decline remains a viable concept, but following the repeated cycles of growth and contraction rather than as a linear process of inexorable decline from second-century splendour to fifth-century failure. London’s earlier phases of retreat had been followed by restoration and renewal. From the second century onwards each cycle left the city somehow diminished, as Rome developed alternative mechanisms for governing Britain and supplying its forces, but after three centuries of Roman rule London remained central to the infrastructure of government. Even as late as ad 395, it was a place where wealth and power concentrated.

Continuities and discontinuities

Distributions of late fourth-century pottery, characterized by Oxfordshire and Alice Holt wares with some Portchester D and East Midlands shell-tempered wares, have been studied by James Gerrard to show that London was inhabited to end of the fourth century. These types of pottery, along with later coin issues, are found throughout the walled area and much of Southwark. There is no evidence to suggest that the urban population retreated to a smaller enclave, although the presence of hot-spots—as around the Tabard Square temple complex and at Bermondsey Abbey—may mark areas of nucleated housing in a polyfocal settlement. ¹² This late fourth century city wasn’t densely populated. It had long been full of empty spaces and new demolitions further reduced the housing stock. Several third-century buildings around the site of the forum were lost, with late fourth-century pottery in demolition horizons and robbing trenches. ¹³ One of these, a house at Lime Street, was burnt down after the middle of the fourth century and not replaced. ¹⁴ Although the sample is small, and compromised by our uncertain ability to identify late antique architecture, there is more evidence for demolition than repair.

Streets within the walled area had long since ceased to be routinely maintained and several were no longer suitable for wheeled traffic. ¹⁵ The main road from Colchester witnessed sporadic small-scale fourth-century repair, but became heavily rutted before wind-blown detritus and rubbish accumulated along its flanks. ¹⁶ On the west side of town the gravel surfaces of the ‘decumanus’ were dug over by small quarry pits containing late fourth-century pottery and coins of ad 379–402 (Fig. 29.1). ¹⁷ Substantial culverts were maintained alongside this road for more than three centuries, channelling running water towards the Walbrook from springs to the north-west. These conduits ceased to function in the final third of the fourth century, presumably following the failure of water management around the springs themselves. Coins associated with the disuse of the latest culvert included issues up to ad 355–65, but nothing later. A decapitated human corpse laid out in this disused feature recalls the ditch-burials found on the outskirts of the earlier city. ¹⁸ Houses either side of this street were maintained into the middle of the fourth century, but there is no certain evidence of their occupation beyond c. ad 380. Finds associated with their final occupation may have formed an abandonment horizon, as marked by the disproportionate presence of items that were normally repaired or recycled. These included a large shale table-top, once the centrepiece to a formal dining room, along with high proportions of glassware and items of dress. This evidence suggests that London’s principal thoroughfare had ceased to carry heavy traffic in the final quarter of the fourth century, probably in the 380s, leading to the evacuation of adjacent houses. This state of affairs may have been a consequence of damage to the bridge over the Walbrook, blocking through-traffic and leaving this as a peripheral part of the settlement.

Fig. 29.1 Buildings in and around One Poultry in the mid- to late fourth century (ONE94: after Hill and Rowsome 2011). Drawn by Justin Russell.

A similar picture emerges from studies along the main road to London Bridge through Southwark, where pits containing late Roman pottery and a fourth-century coin were dug into the street surfaces. These quarries extracted gravel for building work elsewhere. ¹⁹ Whilst the road need not have become completely impassable, its functional width was greatly reduced and it no longer carried a regular traffic of ox-drawn carts. This suggests that London Bridge itself had failed. A cluster of adjacent buildings probably remained standing. Surviving elements included the colonnaded street frontage at Borough High Street and associated structure likely to have been a market building. ²⁰ The nearby bathhouse also remained largely intact, where the presence of slag and smithing debris indicates that it had been converted into a workshop. Some high-status buildings in the area, along St Thomas Street, also remained in use until relatively late. ²¹

A different sequence of late antique change can be reconstructed from the evidence of metalworking at the Courage Brewery site on the north-west side of Southwark. ²² The industry had seen a significant hiatus c. ad 350, with a subsequent resumption of production in the late fourth century. Earlier timber structures that housed metalworking production were demolished, but eventually replaced by slightly built timber-and-earth buildings with hearths. These generated a small volume of detritus from iron smithing and copper alloy smelting, suggesting that industrial production had resumed but failed to match levels achieved in the third century. This later production is provisionally dated c. ad 380, with a firm date provided by a coin of the house of Constantine dated ad 355–65. This intermittent industry might have responded to campaign needs involving ship repair and army re-equipment but wasn’t sustained to the end of the fourth century when a well was closed and occupation sequences terminated.

Burial intra urbem

A few small late fourth-century cemeteries were established amidst the ruins of earlier high-status buildings close to the bounds of the urban site (Fig. 29.2). These were more common in Southwark, where burial clusters are found where landmark buildings had been demolished by the mid-fourth century. At least thirteen graves, including adults and children, clustered around the remains of the putative mansio at 15–23 Southwark Street following its piecemeal robbing. ²³ Wood stains and iron nails suggest that the burials were placed within coffins, and these included several ‘chalk burials’ and some with offerings of hobnailed boots and food. One body, of a girl about 12 years old, had been wrapped in a shroud and laid on crushed chalk in a wooden coffin accompanied by a mid-fourth-century cooking pot, bracelets, and pins. One pin was made of jet carved in the form of a cantharus, a Bacchic motif also associated with eucharistic practice. These finds are consistent with a fourth-century date, and one burial cut a robber trench that contained a coin of ad 347–8.

Fig. 29.2 Fourth-century burials amidst the partly demolished and robbed remains of earlier Roman masonry structures: at the site of the amphitheatre and buildings in Southwark (after Bateman et al. 2008, Cowan 1992, and Cowan et al. 2009). Drawn by Justin Russell.

Excavations nearby at Courage Brewery found seven burials arranged around and respecting the robbed-out remains of a large masonry building. ²⁴ The robber trenches contained late fourth-century pottery, and one burial was coin-dated after c. ad 340. A similar number of burials was found at The Place, although there was no evident attempt to respect earlier masonry walls and we lack dating evidence. ²⁵ Burials also cut into earlier timber buildings at Guy’s Hospital, and three inhumations have been recorded on the boundary of the Tabard Square temple precinct. ²⁶ A smaller number of burial sites were placed within the walled city west of the Walbrook. These included three graves dated after ad 365 within the redundant amphitheatre including a wooden coffin buried beneath the floor of its eastern entrance. ²⁷ Radiocarbon dates recovered from the other burials suggest a fourth-century date: one dated between ad 230 and 390 and the other between ad 230 and 410. Both post-dated the demolition of the amphitheatre around the middle of the fourth century, although it is tempting to suggest that the arena might still have found occasional use as an execution ground. Five late fourth-century burials were also found in a small cemetery at Paternoster Square, and contemporary single burials have been recorded at One Poultry and Baltic House. ²⁸

In sum there was a clear pattern of converting formerly prominent sites into small burial grounds in the late fourth century. Although none has been fully explored, even the larger ones are unlikely to have contained more than a few dozen graves. Burials had formerly been excluded from cities, but this now gave way to a closer relationship between the living and the dead. ²⁹ Some isolated burials and small cemeteries within Italian towns date to the late fourth century, and a short-lived intramural cemetery containing about forty burials was established next to the episcopal complex in Poitiers in the second half of the century. ³⁰ The evidence from London finds closest parallel in late antique North Africa where small urban cemeteries were established in newly peripheral areas of shrunken cities. ³¹ These were not randomly distributed, but exploited well-connected and prominent sites close to areas of continuing residential settlement. For instance, at Carthage the site of a bathhouse that fell into disuse between the late third and mid-fourth centuries was occupied by burials associated with mid- and late fourth-century pottery. As at London, these graveyards were not evidently associated with standing shrines or cemetery churches. The decision to bury seems to have been dictated by a desire of the living to keep the dead close by, at a time when earlier proscriptions on urban burial no longer applied. We do not know if such ideas appealed more to some communities than others, but this continuity of engagement with place would have held greater relevance for families who expected to stay living nearby.

The decision to bury within the city walls is often credited to a Christian preference to be buried ad sanctos, at churches that conserved the relics of martyr saints. ³² This practice derived from a comparable sense of intimacy between living and dead, in which ideas of physical resurrection and spiritual salvation created communities that hoped to transcend death. Because of the wider currency of such ideas there is no basis for identifying a specifically Christian aspect to London’s new burial sites. In fifth-century Gaul, the placing of Christian burial-grounds intra muros was usually associated with church building, for which we have no evidence from London. London is in any case unlikely to have boasted enough saintly remains to have fuelled the creation of so many small cemeteries.

On the other hand, the changes that made it possible to negotiate and legitimize the regular placing of the dead amongst the living would have been reinforced by the rising influence of the church within the administrative bureaucracy. From c. ad 380, the emperor Theodosius recognized Christianity as the religion of state, decreeing orthodoxy and forbidding pagan and heretical worship. Regardless of the beliefs of the people who lived here, London was politically Christian and home to a diocesan administration bound to the outward display of catholic conformity. ³³ Burials grounds on public property, such as the amphitheatre, are likely to have required formal consent and certainly needed official toleration. The change in land-use was enabled by earlier urban contraction, probably involving population decline, and saw public lands converted to more private use.

Despite the proliferation of small graveyards within town, London’s suburban cemeteries continued to receive new burials until the end of the fourth century. Graves in the cemetery along the southern margins of Southwark, near Trinity Street, were dug into a horizon that included late fourth-century pottery and coins dated ad 388–402. ³⁴ A coin of this date was also found in the fill of one of the graves in the eastern cemetery. ³⁵ Funerals were certainly taking place in London’s carefully organized extra-mural cemeteries into the 390s but we don’t know for much longer this continued. There is a small body of evidence for post-Roman activity in and around these burial grounds, discussed in the next chapter, but this comes from the secondary fills of redundant enclosure ditches rather than new grave-digging.

Termination rituals

Some departures may have been celebrated in extravagant termination rituals in the course of which votive deposits were placed in disused wells and ritual shafts. Although these closure practices were of long ancestry (pp. 79 and 231), they became a particular feature of the late fourth century. A hoard recovered from a well at Drapers’ Gardens was a particularly conspicuous closure deposit. ³⁶ The well wasn’t dug until the middle of the fourth century, but had already been decommissioned c. ad 380. Silt at its base contained two unworn coins of Gratian, the latest not minted before ad 375. These were followed into the well by two broken objects: an iron binding wrenched from a bucket and a copper-alloy bracelet bent into an ‘S’ shape. Deliberately ‘killed’ items like this are a common find on temple sites, and possibly marked the symbolic closure of the well in appeasement of the chthonic spirits within. A collection of twenty copper-alloy, lead-alloy, and iron vessels was then placed in the shaft. A large hanging basin, which carried a leonine escutcheon influenced by Bacchic iconography, was accompanied by other buckets, a cauldron, several dishes, bowls, skillets, a jug, and a trivet. These types of vessels were used in the ritual ablutions that featured in late antique dining ceremony, and in mixing wine with water in practices derived from the Greek symposion. They embraced the social rituals of preparing, tempering and serving alcohol that had made the cantharus such a prominent symbol of conviviality, and from which eucharistic cult practice developed. A layer of mud covered the vessels, onto which was thrown the partially articulated remains of a juvenile deer. Tooth eruption shows that the animal was 4–5 months old at death and the likely kill of an autumn hunt. This was an appropriate time of year for making offerings to the underworld. ³⁷ Deer bones are rare in Roman faunal assemblages, but have also been found in the fills of other third-century wells in Southwark where they were almost certainly ritual deposits. ³⁸ Deer were a symbol of the hunt, and a metaphor for the quest for understanding and the human struggle against wilderness. ³⁹

Another important closure assemblage was found in a well at the Bloomberg headquarters, just north of the temple of Mithras. This included four pewter vessels, a fragment of a decorated lead tank and six cattle skulls, along with late Roman military style dress accessories, in an assemblage provisionally dated to the ad 380s. ⁴⁰ Several other shafts and pits containing late Roman closure deposits date to this period. These include the well found beneath Southwark Cathedral that contained an important group of stone sculptures (described above p. 358) along with the skeletons of a dog and cat, and a pit at the Courage Brewery site that contained the skeletons of six dogs, and a complete pottery vessel with the base perforated by five holes. ⁴¹ These offerings may have marked ceremonial farewells as wealthy households quit London c. ad 380 or soon afterwards.

The marble dedication to Mars Camulus from the Tabard Square temple had also been carefully buried in a late fourth-century pit or ritual shaft that was then sealed by new gravel surfaces, possibly drawing on materials quarried from roads nearby, showing that the walled enclosure was still used and maintained. ⁴² Other Romano-British temple precincts were converted into open spaces in the fourth century, as at Canterbury, after temple structures ceased to host their former ceremonies. ⁴³ The decision to lay new pavements shows that these spaces fulfilled a new role, perhaps a ritual one that recognized some inheritance from earlier uses. Late fourth-century London must still have observed feast days and public celebrations, and these may have been relocated into other public spaces after the redundancy of the forum and amphitheatre.

Continued quarrying and re-cycling attests to sporadic demand for building materials, and the distribution of finds and burials suggests scattered occupation until the end of the century. People still lived in London, and aristocratic properties with porticoes, baths, and dining rooms housed a dwindling community of Roman officials. London remained a Roman city, but was shadowed by contraction with a degraded urban infrastructure. The situation carried echoes of London’s decline in the late second and mid-third centuries, but a more fundamentally changed approach to urban living was illustrated by the failure to preserve a street system suitable for heavily laden wheeled traffic. This loss of previously essential infrastructure was clearly in evidence from as early as the 380s.

Some properties were vacated, perhaps as households departed, adding to open spaces inherited from earlier contraction. As a result, those who remained were able to establish burial grounds closer to their homes. Houses and compounds were scattered throughout the city, but the area east of the Walbrook may have been more densely inhabited than other more peripheral parts of town. Some of the changes that transformed the urban landscape can be traced back to the end of the third century, when London’s port was closed. These periods of earlier neglect were followed by bursts of imperial investment, resulting in London’s episodic renewal. London was now centuries old, and a necessary centre for the institutions of government. The closing decades of the late fourth century can therefore be seen as another cycle of contraction. It is only through hindsight that we see it as leading towards London’s eventual demise.

Some commanders based in Britain attempted to seize imperial power in the late fourth century, bringing the province a reputation for being fertile in tyrants. ⁴⁴ Magnus Maximus is perhaps the best known of these, and reportedly stripped Britain of regular soldiers to support his bid for purple in Gaul in ad 383 where he installed himself in Trier before marching on Rome and defeat in ad 388. ⁴⁵ He appears to have reopened the London mint for a very small issue of gold and silver coins carrying the Augusta mint-mark. ⁴⁶ These were the last Roman coins minted in Britain, and indicate that London remained the fiscal capital of the diocese and that Maximus needed bullion to secure the loyalty of some part of the British army or bureaucracy. We don’t have to accept Gildas’ notoriously hostile view of Maximus, whom he held responsible for depriving Britain of its soldiery, governors, and youth, to recognize that the expedition to Gaul drew vital resources away from the British garrison. ⁴⁷ The depletions of London’s population and infrastructure in the 380s can credibly be attributed to the period of Maximus’ rule.

London’s last Roman fortification

Discoveries at the Tower of London suggest that the south-east angle of the defensive circuit was the focus of unusually late attention. The riverside wall was reinforced or replaced by a masonry wall about 4 metres inside its line. ⁴⁸ This neatly built structure, about 3.2 metres thick, was built from a range of reused materials presenting an external face of tile-coursed ragstone, and perhaps provided a narrow entrance onto the foreshore. Dumps laid against the wall after its construction contained several late fourth-century coins, down to an issue of Valentinian II dated ad 388–92. Further observations of this later wall found coins within its construction trench that included a coin of Arcadius dated after ad 388. These works establish a context for the nearby discovery of a late fourth or early fifth-century silver ingot weighing around one pound and stamped ‘from the workshop of Honorinus’ at the Tower in 1777 along with two gold coins: one of Arcadius (ad 395–408) and one of Honorius (ad 395–423). ⁴⁹ The composition of this hoard suggests that it was part of a donative received on the accession of a new emperor, since this normally comprised of five gold solidi and a pound of silver.

Ralph Merrifield proposed that this last phase of defensive architecture was associated with a British campaign undertaken on Stilicho’s behalf in ad 396–8. ⁵⁰ He also suggested that this corner of the Roman city formed a late Roman defended citadel, following the model of late antique cities in Gaul. This remains unsubstantiated, and James Gerrard’s study of the distribution of late Roman coins and pottery shows no particular concentration of finds in this area. There may, however, have been a cluster of higher-status buildings within this part of town. The massive late fourth-century basilica at Colchester House may have remained standing, and a handful of town houses along the riverside spring-line between London Bridge and the Tower were occupied at the end of the fourth century. ⁵¹ The late enhancement of riverside defences at the eastern end of town might be mirrored by repairs to the western end of the riverside wall. The collapsed section of masonry that closed the western gap at Baynard’s Castle (p. 365), included a later repair executed in a different mortar and incorporating reused sculptural blocks. ⁵² These alterations at the close of the fourth century failed to match the scale of earlier building works, but were competently engineered. Much like earlier phases of defensive architecture, they may have been aimed at urban restoration, following earlier contraction. If so, they had negligible longer-term impact. London’s problems had become terminal and many centuries passed before it witnessed engineering on a comparable scale.