THE SCHOOLS OF KENT.


§ 1.

It is a debatable question whether any Roman culture lived through the
Saxon conquest.

The Saxon conquest of Britain was certainly, on the whole, a destructive
one, and it has been justly contrasted with the Frankish conquest of
Gaul; where the conquerors quickly assimilated with the conquered. The
relics of Roman civilisation which the Saxons adopted, were indeed few.
This is true, as a general statement. But there is some ground for
regarding Kent as a case apart. Here all accounts seem to indicate a
gradual and less violent intrusion of the new race, and to suggest the
possibility that there was not for that area a complete break in the
traditions and customs of life. The capital city itself, Dorobernia
(Canterbury), whatever revolution it may have suffered, was at least not
destroyed. There is nothing that requires us to assume the extinction of
the schools of grammar which existed presumably in Kent as in Gaul.

The foundation of schools by the Roman mission is not recorded, nor does
Bede say anything to imply it when thirty years later he describes the
foundation of schools in East Anglia. These were founded by king
Sigberct because he desired to have good institutions such as he had
seen in Gaul, and his wishes were carried into effect by bishop Felix,
after the pattern of the schools of Kent.[57] Whether it would be
possible to trace the study of Roman law as a scholastic exercise
through these obscure times, is very doubtful.[58] But certainly there
is something about the Latinity of our earliest legal documents, that