07-30-2009, 09:02 PM
Subsistence farming in Scotland in the nineteen century does not preclude cash crop farming in Britain fifteen hundred years earlier.
Without a doubt, most of Britain was reduced to subsistence farming by the seventh and eighth centuries. The question is, how steep was the decline from Roman practice? We don't know, but apparently for a few generations the Britons held the structure and trappings of Roman life. That it eventually--some would say, inevitably--slipped from their grip gives their effort even greater pathos.
Without a doubt, most of Britain was reduced to subsistence farming by the seventh and eighth centuries. The question is, how steep was the decline from Roman practice? We don't know, but apparently for a few generations the Britons held the structure and trappings of Roman life. That it eventually--some would say, inevitably--slipped from their grip gives their effort even greater pathos.
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil
Ron Andrea
Ron Andrea