Reassessing Bede: Power and Identity in fourth- to eighth-century Britain, focusing on Northumbria.

This thesis is a study of the historiography of the period AD375-650 in the north of the former provinces of Britannia, focusing on the area between the River Humber and Hadrian's Wall. It examines the impact of narratives derived from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum on the study of the archaeology and history of the end of Roman rule in Britain and the establishment of the successors to authority in the areas of Britain previously governed by Rome. It examines the limitations and origins of the narrative of 410 and the Adventus Saxonum in their application to the study of the archaeology of fifth-, sixth- and seventh-century burial, the late and post-Roman frontier system and the fourth- to seventh-century urban experience in the North. It offers a contrary synthesis for the period exploring how food supply control, fort independence in the eastern frontier and the growth of cross-sea trade networks, at the expense of failing Roman networks, may have resulted in the predominance of Germanic language, burial customs and associated material culture in the east of Britain and the predominance of Celtic language, burial customs and material culture in the west.