ROMANO-BRITISH NORFOLK 



to Brancaster and the road has no other visible purpose. In that case 

 we may call the Peddar's Way a military route. In any case we shall 

 consider it a Roman road. Its unswerving straightness uphill and down- 

 hill for forty miles, forbid us to assign to it any other origin. 



6. Other Roman roads to Brancaster have been alleged by various 

 writers, but so far as I can discover, without any proper evidence. One 

 such is taken from Cambridge to Ely, Littleport, Southrey, Denver, and 

 so to Brancaster, and is often called Akeman Street. But the name appears 

 to have no authority whatsoever, and the road, except perhaps between 

 Cambridge and Ely, is a mere fiction. Another road has been taken 

 from Caister-by-Norwich through North Elmham and South Creyke, 

 but, as I shall show in the Index, the claims of both these places to be 

 Roman sites are imaginary, and of the supposed road there is no trace 

 whatsoever. Other roads have been suggested, but without evidence or 

 probability. Neglecting such, the dreams of irresponsible fancy, we 

 pass to the fact of Brancaster. 



6. Military Remains — Brancaster, etc. 



We have now described the normal features of Roman Norfolk, its 

 town and country life, so far as it had any, and its roads, so far as we 

 know them. There is left one special feature to which the Peddar's Way 

 has led us, the vestiges of military occupation at Brancaster, to the con- 

 sideration of which we may append any account of one or two other 

 alleged military sites. 



In general, the south of England contains very few traces of the 

 Roman army which garrisoned the province of Britain. That garrison 

 was posted almost wholly in the north and west, beyond the Severn and 

 the Humber, and east and south of these rivers fortresses and forts and 

 cantonments were few and far between. But in the fourth century, when 

 Saxon pirates were plundering the eastern and southern coasts, a frontier 

 defence became necessary in these quarters. Accordingly, a ' comes 

 litoris Saxonici ' was established, with a staff and nine regiments stationed 

 in nine forts.^ Eight of these forts have been identified : they extend 

 from Brancaster on the edge of the Wash to Pevensey in Sussex, and 

 Brancaster engages our attention as the only fort of the Saxon Shore in 

 Norfolk. It was the Roman Branodunum, as the similarity of the names 

 has caused almost all antiquaries to agree, and at Branodunum, as the 

 Notitia tells us, lay a regiment of Equites Dalmats.^ Its object is plain 

 from its position. It watched for invaders who might enter the Wash or 

 one of the Httle harbours which dot the north coast of Norfolk from 

 Brancaster eastwards to Blakeney. 



1 I make no apology for asserting that the Litus Saxonicum was the shore attacked by the pirates, 

 and not (as some hold) the shore on which Saxons had settled. We have no evidence whatsoever that 

 Saxons had settled in Britain by the time when the defence of this shore was organized, and the phrase 

 itself does not by any means necessarily mean ' a shore inhabited by Saxons.' The French shore of 

 Newfoundland is certainly not the shore on which the French have settled. 



2 Notitia Dignitatum Occid., xxviii. The work as a whole dates from after a.d. 400, but parts may 

 be earlier. The establishment of the Saxon Shore cannot however have been earlier than about 

 A.D. 300. 



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