OUP (2016) h/b 895pp £110 (ISBN 9780199697731)
This handbook begins with the conventional question, ‘why do we need yet another book about Roman Britain?’ The editors give two answers: first, this book provides a comprehensive review of Roman Britain from a new perspective, represented by younger academics. Secondly, Britain is one of the most fully explored and best documented of the Roman provinces, which has generated much scholarship over the last thirty years. This book provides an overview of that scholarship. Those are two good reasons, but there is also a third. The sheer volume of raw factual information is expanding rapidly and much of that new material is picked up by the 43 contributors in their individual chapters. There are 41 chapters in all, of which two have the same author and three are co-authored.
The handbook falls into four parts, each built around a different theme. Unlike The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity (see separate review), this handbook does not provide a chronological narrative of events, except for a brief but pellucid ‘timeline’ in the introduction. Instead, the 41 chapters are essays on specific topics, all with an emphasis on recent scholarship and new insights. Part I (chapters 1 to 13) is entitled ‘Nature of the evidence’. Apart from much else, it provides an account of how our understanding of Roman Britain has evolved over time. In the eighteenth century people imagined that there were two populations: Roman settlers who occupied the villas and primitive Britons who lived under foreign rule. By the beginning of the twentieth century, historians were developing a different model: Britons became ‘Romanised’; it was the indigenous aristocracy (not the Romans) who lived in villas and governed local communities. The famous passage in chapter 21 of Tacitus’ Agricola was central to this theory. Now even the concept of Romanisation is passing out of fashion. There is a recognition that what occurred was a fusion of Roman and Celtic cultures.
Part II (chapters 14 to 23) is entitled ‘Society and the individual’. It discusses a range of social issues, including childhood, gender, clothing and deviancy from the norm. These essays reconstruct a picture of Romano-British society on the basis of archaeology and occasional references in the texts. Cemeteries provide much of the evidence and are the subject of two separate chapters: chapter 17 ‘Status and burial’ and chapter 21 ‘Cemeteries and funerary practice’.
Part III (chapters 24 to 33) is entitled ‘Forms of knowledge’. It explores the intellectual culture, the technical skills and the religious practices of Roman Britain. The chapter on metals is a model of clarity. It draws together evidence for the mining and working of gold, silver, lead, copper, tin and iron. Some of this activity was a continuation of Iron Age industry, but it is far from clear that the existence of these minerals formed any part of the rationale for annexing Britain as a province. Three chapters are devoted to religion: chapter 30 ‘Names of gods’, chapter 31 ‘Ritual deposition’ and chapter 32 ‘Christianity in Roman Britain’. Neither the traditional gods nor those imported by auxiliaries from the Continent were static concepts. Religious practices evolved over time and in different areas. Chapter 32 demonstrates that the evidence of Christianity in fourth century Britain is ambiguous. It is unclear how widespread Christian worship was. It is not possible firmly to identify any fourth or fifth century building as a Christian church.
Part IV (chapters 34 to 41) is entitled ‘Landscape and economy’. The first chapter demolishes the notion that the countryside was all about villas. It provides a review of rural settlements in their various forms, as well as a summary of recent fieldwork in Yorkshire. The Yorkshire results (described as ‘stunning’) reveal an extensive field system, complete with tracks and enclosures for habitation. Subsequent chapters cover arable farming, urban development, coinage and the economy.
The handbook assumes a basic knowledge of Roman Britain. So it is not designed for the beginner. For anyone with a serious interest in the subject, however, this book is a ‘must have’. The contributors are all recognised experts in their specialist fields. The range of diverse chapters, which it is not possible to summarise within the word limit of this review, will bring the reader right up to date with modern thinking about ancient Britain.
Rupert Jackson