Via Britannica: The Roman Infrastructural Past in Late Antique and Early Medieval Britain

The project examined the transformations of different forms of Roman infrastructures in Britain by focusing on three major focal points: the legal status, the practical usage, and the role of those infrastructures as symbolic governance resources. Employing a wide selection of sources (diplomatic, narrative, archaeological, and literary) my dissertation weaved them together into a concise biography of Roman infrastructure left in Britain. The result of this enquiry was a new picture of the way polities in Britain and their inhabitants interacted with what was left by the Romans. Their relationship with those infrastructures was a complex mixture of symbolic and governance uses. They also played a key role in the way the inhabitants of Britain managed their landscapes, their memory, and their identity. The new narrative presented the rich symbolic value that infrastructural remains (both active and inactive) played in the process in which the rulers of early Anglo-Saxon polities positioned themselves as heirs of the Roman Empire.

This dissertation project was successfully completed within the Research Group B-1 Routes – Water – Knowledge of the Excellence Cluster 264 Topoi.