Around AD 400, Roman rule in Britain was dribbling to an end. The later years of the fourth century and the early years of the fifth century had seen barbarian raiders and settlers overrunning imperial borders everywhere. Raids from the Picts and Irish to the north and west, and from continental Saxons and Franks to the south and east, beset the Romanized Britons.
The overall picture of this period, constructed from archaeological evidence and legendary myth-history, is that the Britons continued an enfeebled, crumbling, sub-Roman way of life into the sixth century, but with a cultural heritage also harking back to the glory days before the arrival of Rome. The late-fifth century and the sixth century saw the gradual loss of land as Saxon and Irish raiders became settlers, and the
