Appearence and tactics of early 5th century Saxons.

[ambrosius]

Hello Robert,

Pryor insisted that the end of Roman administration in the 5th c. would have had all the British farmers shouting 'Whoopee! - No more taxes!' To which Harke replied: "Hmmm... very much a farmer's view, I think."

So what is your point? Is Härke disagreeing with Pryor? I seems not, from what I read there.

:lol: Well of course Harke is disagreeing with Pryor. He's
pointing-out that it is a classic 'knee-jerk' reaction of any landowner
to shout 'Whoopee!' at the thought of paying less taxes. But he wasn't
given time to explain whay that is such a short-sighted reaction in this
particular context, as the interview ended at that point, and Pryor came
in with a voice-over which laughed-off all that Harke had said, and then
proceded to give us the patented 'Merrie-Englande' version of history.
But since Harke wasn't allowed to elaborate on why it is a short-sighted reaction, the best I can do is repeat what I said in my last post:

The point being, of course, Pryor has no conception of the context of
what he is saying. Since the late 2nd c. Anglo-Saxon pirates had been
a threat to British farmers and grain shipments to the continent. We
know this because the earliest Saxon Shore Forts (Reculver, Caistor,
Brancaster) have been dated to before 200 AD in initial construction.
The taxes of British farmers of course paid for the construction and
garrisoning of these forts, in order to protect these same British farmers.
Therefore, come the end of 'Official' Roman administration in the 5thc.
the British farmers would certainly have wanted that taxation system
to have continued, so as to fund the continuing protection of their land
from Anglo-Saxon pirates. The very last thing any British farmer
in the 5th c. would be shouting was 'whoopee!' at the thought of that
taxation/military protection system being removed. 8)

Cheers,

Ambrosius/Mike