Development of Britain without the Roman conquest

Say that Claudius decides not to attack Britain, and that none of his successors attacks either (/ they do attack but are unsuccessful). How would the island develop without being ruled by the Romans, culturally, politically, linguistically, and so forth? And come the migrations period, what would happen then? Would Britain get invaded by the Germans anyway, would they instead be joining in the raids on Gaul, or would they take a third option of some sort?
 
Overall I think that Britain is probably better off without the Romans long term. I say this for two reasons. First, because almost none of the Roman introductions politically, linguistically, or culturally survived more than a century or two after they left (Christianity being perhaps the exception). Second, in many places in Britain the collapse of the economy was so bad that pottery in many places went from fine ceramics to crappy stuff that was noticeably worse than before the Romans arrived. The economic collapse of the Romans leaving and the political vacuum probably left Britain poorer and more disorganized than before they arrived.

Would Britain get invaded by the Germans anyway, would they instead be joining in the raids on Gaul

Both of those are likely to happen together. Raiding was a favorite pastime of there era and the population pressures that caused the Germanic invasions haven't gone away. I think that without the chaos that the Roman retreat caused Britain will be in a better place to resist but I can't see a way to avoid it.
 
Christianity being perhaps the exception
Christianity effectively left with the Romans too. It was re-introduced to (what became) England via the Irish, Welsh and Scots - the Celtic church - before it came back into southern England from the continent. Without the Romans, there's a reasonable chance that Augustine isn't sent because Britain will still be seen as wholly barbarian, not an old province of the empire. There will still probably be a similar mission, but I think it would be later, resulting in more inroads being made by the Celtic church first.

Of course, the biggest problem both sets of missionaries (Celtic and Roman) would face would be the still-existing druidic religion. The two groups had different ways of dealing with the 'old religion', with the Celtic missionaries being more inclined to subvert it (in terms of taking people's old beliefs and practices, and turning them into Christian ways of doing things - even converting druids to Christian priests), whilst the Roman missionaries were more zealous, more inclined to just tell people that their old beliefs were wrong.
There were advantages and disadvantages to both ways of doing things. The 'subversion' method was generally quicker, but with more chance of people clinging on their old beliefs for more generations. The 'you're wrong, disown your old priests now' method faced more resistance initially, but once the old priests were gone, might be more solid. Of course, OTL the Roman missionaries never had to deal with the druids as the Romans (empire) had done that for them.

Getting back to the OP's question:
Yes, I think the Germanic invasions would still take place. They might even be more successful, as instead of facing a semi-organised land, they'd be facing multiple non-united tribes.

Sorry for the slightly rambling post - I was thinking as I typed!
 
Overall I think that Britain is probably better off without the Romans long term. I say this for two reasons. First, because almost none of the Roman introductions politically, linguistically, or culturally survived more than a century or two after they left (Christianity being perhaps the exception). Second, in many places in Britain the collapse of the economy was so bad that pottery in many places went from fine ceramics to crappy stuff that was noticeably worse than before the Romans arrived. The economic collapse of the Romans leaving and the political vacuum probably left Britain poorer and more disorganized than before they arrived.



Both of those are likely to happen together. Raiding was a favorite pastime of there era and the population pressures that caused the Germanic invasions haven't gone away. I think that without the chaos that the Roman retreat caused Britain will be in a better place to resist but I can't see a way to avoid it.

Why did the Celtics did not fare well against the Germaincs? I figured if they banded together in a unifed stance, but they might be able to hold them back?
 
Why did the Celtics did not fare well against the Germaincs? I figured if they banded together in a unifed stance, but they might be able to hold them back?

Possibly could have but hindsight is 20-20. The Celts likely didn't realize the wave of humanity that was approaching until it already had far too late. If the Romans in Gaul and later the English in Ireland are an example the Germanics were probably seen as just another player in the political struggles between local tribes until suddenly they weren't. And we don't know very much about that period in British history so it's possible that there was some kind of Celt coalitions against the Germanics that failed.
 
Why did the Celtics did not fare well against the Germaincs? I figured if they banded together in a unifed stance, but they might be able to hold them back?

Well, it did take the best part of two hundred years for modern England to be conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, which is longer than any other Germanic conquest of Roman territory took.

And we don't know very much about that period in British history so it's possible that there was some kind of Celt coalitions against the Germanics that failed.

Gildas (writing in the mid-6th century) is pretty explicit that in his days there was peace between the Britons and Saxons as a result of previous British victories, and, although I don't think he explicitly says this was brought about by a British coalition, it does seem the most likely way for the Britons to temporarily halt the Saxon advance.
 
Overall I think that Britain is probably better off without the Romans long term. I say this for two reasons. First, because almost none of the Roman introductions politically, linguistically, or culturally survived more than a century or two after they left (Christianity being perhaps the exception). Second, in many places in Britain the collapse of the economy was so bad that pottery in many places went from fine ceramics to crappy stuff that was noticeably worse than before the Romans arrived. The economic collapse of the Romans leaving and the political vacuum probably left Britain poorer and more disorganized than before they arrived.

But how much of that was simply due to the Anglo-Saxons conquering Britain after the Romans left, thus substituting new cultural traditions, as opposed to Roman culture somehow just not gelling with the Brits?

Put another way, if the Romans had still left Britain in the early 5th century but the Anglo-Saxon migrations either didn't happen or happened at a much smaller scale, would those Roman traditions still have disappeared as quickly?
 
But how much of that was simply due to the Anglo-Saxons conquering Britain after the Romans left, thus substituting new cultural traditions, as opposed to Roman culture somehow just not gelling with the Brits?

Put another way, if the Romans had still left Britain in the early 5th century but the Anglo-Saxon migrations either didn't happen or happened at a much smaller scale, would those Roman traditions still have disappeared as quickly?

Well, Britain never switched to speaking Romance, unlike most of the continental provinces, which suggests that Romanisation was less thorough in Britain than elsewhere.
 
Well, Britain never switched to speaking Romance, unlike most of the continental provinces, which suggests that Romanisation was less thorough in Britain than elsewhere.

Some school materials from the British Museum I found online stated that there were actually very few Roman settlers and the locals outnumbered them at least 20-1 and only a small percentage of them could be considered Romanized. Most people as you traveled further north and west continued their pre-Roman lifestyle and culture largely unchanged, even among the aristocracy. Apparently there was some level of Romanization but it was mostly an adoption of useful ideas and tools by a overwhelmingly Celtic culture.

It's grade school level stuff but it's an interesting read.

https://britishmuseum.org/PDF/british_museum_roman_britain.pdf
 
What the Romans brought irrespective of material culture was centralisation and a concept of a unified polity. Without this I think the myriad of Celtic states and polities would be considerably more vulnerable to Germanic invasion. I struggle to envisage a situation that without roman influence a centralised nation arises amongst the Celts. It’s a lazy comparison but Ireland remained a patchwork of petty kingdoms and warring polities for centuries without roman influence - of course the situation is far more nuanced than this. I’m merely stating that what tends to unify once disparate peoples is a concept of shared danger and invasion. Suddenly “them” become “us” if the invading force is more alien to your near competitors. Therefore this may engender Celtic unity but I fear it would be too late for the Britons to repel or unify without the experiences of Roman overlordship.
 
Re: Saxon invasions, is an idea of push-pull factors applicable? Presuming that Romanisation meant development of agricultural land (clearing woodland, fens, soil improvements, and so on.), mining and some residual wealth in the early post-Roman period, a non-Romanised Britain might be on a lower development level, so less attractive destination (I'm going a bit contra Escape Zeppelin's comment here!).

Then, without Roman withdrawal to consider, the development that you do have is more matched to a patchwork of fairly militarized small scale Iron Age Brittonic groups who are defending them; rather than OTL's groups who may have found themselves with a relatively rich land and a dislocation of the military resources devoted to defending it (so spread quite thinly).

If Saxon invasions are mainly push factor driven though, then this might not be so important.
 
Good point about pull vs push factors.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the Germanic invasions/migrations were driven by pressures behind them so they were much more concerned with finding land to live in than that land being rich (not like the Vikings later). If the Romans didn't invade Britannia, that would imply that there were more forces left behind (relatively speaking) on the continent, so migrating to Britain would perhaps have seemed a softer option too - more land for less fighting, in other words.
 
Overall I think that Britain is probably better off without the Romans long term. I say this for two reasons. First, because almost none of the Roman introductions politically, linguistically, or culturally survived more than a century or two after they left (Christianity being perhaps the exception). Second, in many places in Britain the collapse of the economy was so bad that pottery in many places went from fine ceramics to crappy stuff that was noticeably worse than before the Romans arrived. The economic collapse of the Romans leaving and the political vacuum probably left Britain poorer and more disorganized than before they arrived.



Both of those are likely to happen together. Raiding was a favorite pastime of there era and the population pressures that caused the Germanic invasions haven't gone away. I think that without the chaos that the Roman retreat caused Britain will be in a better place to resist but I can't see a way to avoid it.

Those Roman influences however were not lost in a natural sense. They were lost through a series of struggle and conquest from multiple directions.
 
What the Romans brought irrespective of material culture was centralisation and a concept of a unified polity. Without this I think the myriad of Celtic states and polities would be considerably more vulnerable to Germanic invasion. I struggle to envisage a situation that without roman influence a centralised nation arises amongst the Celts. It’s a lazy comparison but Ireland remained a patchwork of petty kingdoms and warring polities for centuries without roman influence - of course the situation is far more nuanced than this. I’m merely stating that what tends to unify once disparate peoples is a concept of shared danger and invasion. Suddenly “them” become “us” if the invading force is more alien to your near competitors. Therefore this may engender Celtic unity but I fear it would be too late for the Britons to repel or unify without the experiences of Roman overlordship.

The trend in south-eastern Britain before the Roman conquest seems to have been towards fewer and bigger polities, in much the same way as the various Germanic tribes later coalesced into larger units. Britain without a Roman invasion wouldn't be united, but its political units would probably be at least as strong as the German confederations.
 
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