Following the collapse of Roman civilization in fourth-century Britannia, darkness fell over the former province. Villas crumbled to ruin; vital commodities became scarce; cities decayed; and Londinium, the capital, was all but abandoned. Yet memories of its greatness endured like the moss and bindweed which now ensnared its toppled columns and pilasters. By the 600s a new settlement, Lundenwic, was established on the banks of the River Thames by enterprising traders who braved the North Sea in their precarious small boats. The history of the city's phoenix-like resurrection, as it was transformed from an empty shell into a court of kings, is still virtually unknown. Rory Naismith here vividly evokes the forgotten Lundenwic and the later fortress on the Thames - Lundenburgh - of desperate Saxon defenders who retreated inside their Roman walls to stand fast against menacing Viking incursions. Recalling the lost cities which laid the foundations of today's metropolis, this book tells the stirring story of how dead Londinium was reborn, against the odds, as bulwark against the Danes and pivotal English citadel.




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