Rowley Parish – The Romans

That popular history reference “1066 and All That” tells us there are only two ‘memorable dates’ in British history: AD1066 and BC55. I touched on the first date last time with the Domesday Book, but BC55 is the date Julius Caesar landed in Britain. Though true this was barely noticeable since he soon went home, and then had another try the next year, which lasted slightly longer, but his ‘conquest of Britain’ was little more than setting up a few Roman summer camps on the south-east coast, and leaving a friendly placeman in Colchester to keep an eye on valuable trading interests with Gaul.

The real conquest and change came when Emperor Claudius sent Aulius Plautus, in AD43. Plautus, initially, had an easy run in the south east such that by AD47 a Roman boundary was claimed from the Severn to the Trent, including Lincoln and Chester. Our area, north of this line, was Brigantes territory with strong resistance from the chieftains, and none of the Roman Governors felt inclined to move into this region, until Petilius Cerealis in AD71 with a new legion fought his way north and established a fortress at Eburacum (York), which replaced Lindum (Lincoln) as the major garrison in the north province of Britain. Thus we became a part of the enormous Roman Empire, with its military, legal and socio-economic heritage–it was to last 340 years, until AD410.

So AD71 would be about the earliest that we saw real Romans in Rowley. Petuaria (Brough on Humber) was a manageable Humber crossing from the northern end of Ermine Street in Lincolnshire, and it became a major Roman settlement, initially a military fort, but eventually a rich ‘cantonal capital’, an administrative and trading centre with substantial villas and Roman population. A road system was developed north from Petuaria leading to York, Malton, Bridlington, and, later, eastward into Holderness; much of it still detectable in our present routes. It is now believed that the Romans used existing settlements, with co-operation from local populations, who found the comforts of a Roman lifestyle seductive, though remaining slaves or serfs. Of possible Roman origin the roads from Rudstone Walk to Beverley and from Hessle to Beverley crossed our parish.

Along these roads several military forts and farming settlements became established; South Cave, South Newbald, Millington, (and, perhaps, the recently found one in Rudstone Dale), but the evidence for developments on the high Wolds is scant, and we must assume that the land was not quite to Roman liking.
How would all this invasion have affected our parish? Probably very little initially, but Romans would have hunted and farmed on our Wolds, no doubt eventually settling in some of our Celtic settlements such as Riplingham, and the outskirts of Rowley (Little Weighton with its water?), and Beverley. There would have been some intermarriage, and romanisation of language, but the Celtic lifestyle persisted with its agriculture, field systems, pagan rites, and customs. We had a relatively peaceful 340 years (though the same could not be said of other regions of Britain); Constantine had made Christianity official in AD306; concepts of common coinage, law, land ownership had developed; art architecture and manufacturing skills had mutually gained–Roman from Celt and vice versa. And finally we had become part of its written historical record–something totally absent before AD71.

The Roman conquest was undoubtedly a major factor in our history, and in so many ways we would have gained from it, but in terms of our parish earlier times are more visible in their effects on us and the Wolds. And what would the Romans have found? A surprisingly developed landscape and culture, but that’s for the next episode.

Big Thank You to Barry Heaton for his historical articles which we hope will become a regular feature of both the Web site and Newsletter.

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