THE ROMAN COLLEGIA.
37
dominion extended not only over the greater part of
what is now the Austrian realm, but reached with more or less vigour aud perfection from
the Ehine to the Elbe,^ and, in point of fact, comprehended nearly the whole of Germany
flourishing period of the
its
Empire,
proper.^
admits, indeed, of no doubt that throughout Italy, Spain, and France the invaders
gradually adopted the language and the religion of the conquered, and that they respected
the laws and arts of Eome.^
It
has been alleged that the Eoman occupation of Britain was very superficial, and
had not brought about so complete a Eomauisation of the country as had taken place in
But
it
Gaul and Spain.*
Yet
that the barbarians
made a
nor their
this point is of
tahida rasa of
minor importance
Eoman
if
we
believe, Avith j\Ir
Freeman,
Britain, leaving therein neither the
Eomans
coloni.
This, until lately, has been, with but slight variation, the concurrent opinion of our
Dr Lingard says, " By the conquest of the Saxons the island was plunged into
antiquaries.
—
that
from which
of barbarism
state
it
had been extricated by the Eomans."^
Hallam
"
No one travelling through England would
viz.,
expresses himself in almost identical terms,
discover that any people had ever inhabited
has left traces of her empire in
By
a recent writer, however,
survived
the barbarian
all
procedure and police;
them
"
their
;
own
Eoman
All
institutions
their
it
before the Saxons, save so far as mighty
it
some enduring
walls."
—the
"
has been ably contended that the
Eomans
of Britain
conquests, and that they retained their own law, with its
own lauds, with the tenures and obligations appertaining to
and municipal government their Christianity and private Colleges." '
"
were the foster-mothers of those especially Eoman
says Mr Coote,
cities
cities,"
Eome
'^
;
Colleges.
The Anglo-Saxons found these
institutions in
fuU play when
they came over here; aud, with the cities in which they flourished, they left them to the
Eomans to make such use of them as they pleased; possibly ignoring them, certainly not
These Colleges were very dear
to the Eomans.
They were native to the great mother city. They were nearly as old as
itself, and it was as easy to imagine a Eoman without a city as to conceive his
municipality
interfering in their practice, nor controlling their principles.
existence without a college.
claimed by
1
home
The two made up that part
and the domestic
avocations.
No
of his disengaged life which was not
sooner was the Eoman conquest of
Mon Temps," vol. i., mentions numerous Koman coins having been found
where these were discovered must have formed an advanced post of the Eoman
Frederick the Great, in his "Histoire de
near Berlin, and concludes that the
site
forces stationed west of the Elbe.
^
"At
the end of the fourth century, the
was a Eoman province
at oue
Roman Empire still kept, in name at
"
Eoman province at the other (E.
end ; Britain was a
.
least, its old position. . .
Eg}'pt
A. Freeman iu Macmillau's Magazine,
Aijril 1870).
'
Freeman, History of the
s
Dr
J.
Norman
vol.
Conquest, 1867,
Lingard, History of England, 1849, vol.
i.,
i.,
p. 11.
*
Ibid., p. 19.
p. 84.
^Hallam, Europe in the Middle Ages, 1856, vol. ii., p. 370. Lappenberg, however, speakingof the Eoman corporations,
"This form of social unions, as well as the hereditary obligation under which the trades were conducted, was
says,
in Europe some centuries
propagated in Britain, and was the original germ of those guilds which became so influential
—
after the cessation of the
1845), vol.
'
H.
i.,
Eoman dominion."
— History of
England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings
(trans,
by B. Thorpe,
p. 36.
C. Coote,
The Romans
of Britain, 1878, p. 440.
published iu the Transactions of the
Mr
Coote's theory, amplified in the work just cited, was
London and Middlesex Archaeological
Society, vol. iv. (Jan. 1871), p. 21.
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