Why did Roman Britain collapse? What'sort of society succeeded it? How did the Anglo-Saxons take over? And how far is the traditional view of a massacre of the native population a product of biased historical sources? This text explores what Britain was like in the 4th-century AD and looks at how this can be understood when placed in the wider context of the western Roman Empire. Information won from archaeology rather than history is emphasized and leads to an explanation of the fall of Roman Britain. The author also offers some suggestions about the place of the post-Roman population in the formation of England.