so that no man afterwards might find them, and some they carried away with
them into Gaul," and in A.D. 435 we find the record that "This year the
Goths sacked the city of Rome and never since have the Romans reigned in
Britain." The Brigantes were thus once more free to work out their own
destiny, but the decay of their military prowess which had taken place
during the Roman occupation made them an easy prey to the daring Saxon
pirates who, even before the Romans finally left England, are believed to
have established themselves in scattered bodies on some parts of the
coast. The incursions of these warlike peoples belong to the Saxon era
described in the next chapter.



CHAPTER VI

_The Forest and Vale in Saxon Times_

A.D. 418 to 1066


There seems little doubt that the British remained a barbarous people
throughout the four centuries of their contact with Roman influences, for
had they progressed in this period they would have understood in some
measure the great system by which the Imperial power had held the island
with a few legions and a small class of residential officials. Having
failed to absorb the new military methods, when left to themselves, there
was no unifying idea among the Britons, and they seem to have merely
reverted to some form of their old tribal organisation. The British cities
constituted themselves into a group of independent states generally at war
with one another, but sometimes united under the pressure of some external