Lesson video

Hello welcome to lesson 9 of the Roman Britain unit.

In this lesson we're going to be learning all about why did the Romans leave Britain? Let's have a look at the agenda for this lesson now.

The first thing that we're going to look at in this lesson is why did the Roman Empire split in two? Secondly we'll explore why did Roman soldiers begin to leave Britain? And then lastly we'll find out why did the Roman Empire collapse? And for this lesson you'll need three things: an exercise book or paper, a pencil or a pen, and lastly and most importantly our brains.

So pause the video to make sure you've got those things and then resume once you're ready to get there.

Before we get started I'd like to take us back to our timeline which shows us where the Roman Empire fits into history and again we're going to magically zoom in now to the period of Roman Britain and we're going to be looking at a time right at the end of the Roman Britain period when the last Roman soldiers left Britain and that's where we as historians talk about Roman Britain not existing anymore and that was in the year 409 CE and as we'll come on to later, approximately 60 years after that the Roman Empire itself came to an end.

Let's get started on the first part of our lesson now.

What we're going to explore now in the first part of the lesson is why did the Roman Empire split in two? And what we're going to start with is another map and this is a map of Europe.

Have a think can you remember which of these countries were part of the Roman Empire? Have a think for a moment hm.

How many did you get? Let's have a look at another map which shows us the scale or the size of the Roman Empire and you may remember it covered areas that are now, like Spain, France, Britain, Germany, it also covered parts of North Africa which you can see at the bottom and parts of Western Asia as well which you can see at the right hand side of the map.

So the Roman Empire really was the largest empire of the ancient world but having an empire that big does actually create some problems for the people who control it and so in 285 CE the Emperor of that time was called Emperor Diocletian and he thought the empire had become too big to manage as one whole empire so he decided to split the empire into two different parts.

There was the Western Roman Empire which you can see in that green box and the Western Roman Empire would be controlled and supervised by Rome.

The Eastern Roman Empire would be controlled and supervised by the city of Constantinople which we now know as Istanbul which is in Turkey so the Roman Empire had become too big, Emperor Diocletian splits it into two, the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire, and Rome and Constantinople now rule over the two different halves.

Based on that information you're now going to answer the following multiple-choice questions.

When you're ready pause the video to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

Okay let's go through those answers now.

Question number one: which Roman Emperor decided to split the Roman Empire in two, Nero, Augustus, Diocletian, or Claudius? Great names all of those aren't they? Let's have a think, which Emperor was it? Hm I remember struggling to pronounce the name therefore hm it was Emperor Diocletian.

I think I've pronounced that right now.

Question number two: why was the Roman Empire split in two? Hm because there was a civil war, because it was too big to manage, hm that rings a bell, or because Christianity became the official religion? I don't think Christianity has got anything to do with it I don't think it was because there was a civil war.

It was because it was too big to manage.

Imagine having an empire that big and having to supervise and control all of it.

That is very very difficult.

And question number three: which city was the Eastern Roman Empire ruled by was it Rome, Constantinople, or Londinium? Hm the East? Hm.

Can't be Rome because Rome's in the West.

It was Constantinople which today is the city of Istanbul.

Well done on completing that task.

Let's move on to the next part of the lesson.

In this second part of the lesson we're going to be learning all about why did the Roman soldiers begin to leave Britain? and this is important because when the last Roman soldier left Britain that's when the Roman Britain period came to an end so let's find out, why did those soldiers leave Britain? So from around 407 CE things in the Roman Empire began to fall apart particularly in the Western Roman Empire where they had many invasions from groups called the Vandals, the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths and this was a big big problem for the Romans so in order to protect their Western Empire, they had to send the Roman soldiers from Britain to go and fight those groups and the fighting became so intense that the last Roman soldiers left Britain in 410 CE.

Things got even worse.

In 476 CE a Germanic king called Odoacer attacked Rome and you can see Odoacer he's actually directly underneath me right now and he's the guy with a beard and he's standing very proud.

Someone is handing something to him there you'll see.

What do we think is happening in that picture I wonder? Hm well in that scene it's actually the Emperor of the Western Roman Empire handing over a crown to Odoacer because when he and his army attacked Rome, they conquered it and Odoacer became the new King of Rome and that is when the Western Roman Empire completely collapsed or it ceased or stopped existing and that was the end of the Roman Empire as we know it.

Now the Eastern Roman Empire, that did continue to exist but the Roman Empire which had been so grand, so big, the largest empire in the ancient world, that was now over.

Based on that dramatic information, I'd like you to answer the following question: why did Roman soldiers gradually have to leave Britain? Think back to what was going on in the Western Roman Empire from around 407 CE.

When you're ready to complete your task, pause the video and then resume once you're finished.

And if you're struggling to get started with this question, don't worry here's a nice little sentence starter to help you get going.

Okay let's go through that question now, a very important question because this question is essentially telling us how did the Roman Britain end so why did Roman soldiers gradually have to leave Britain? Here's what I put: "Roman soldiers gradually had to leave Britain because the armies were needed to defend other parts of the Empire that were under attack by groups such as the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, and the Visigoths." So as long as you've mentioned something along the lines of, "they were needed to defend other parts of the Empire", excellent job.

If you have gone even further and you have specifically mentioned those different groups, then have a gold star from me 'cause I'm a very proud teacher that's an excellent answer so good job on that, let's move on to the final part of our lesson.

In this final part of the lesson, we are going to look at why did the Roman Empire collapse? And this really interesting because there isn't just one reason why the Roman Empire collapsed.

Like most things in history there are actually lots of different reasons this happened and one of the great things about history is that not everyone agrees all the time about what the main reason was.

Let's have a look at these the different causes together now and then at the end you are going to express your own opinion of why do you think the Roman Empire collapsed.

So one reason the Roman Empire collapsed was because the Empire became just too big.

We've sort of covered that already, haven't we? But essentially it was so big that they struggled to manage it and didn't have enough money to provide all the different parts of the empire with the things that they needed.

Another reason why the Roman Empire collapsed was because of making Christianity the official religion and you're probably thinking, "Mr Barber, why on Earth would that cause an empire to collapse?" Well you may remember that one reason why the Romans initially banned Christianity in Britain was because Christians refused to worship the Emperor as a god.

Well when you make your entire empire Christian then no one is going to be viewing the emperor as a god anymore and that played a big role in people gradually losing their enthusiasm for being part of the empire and then eventually helped lead to its collapse.

Another reason why the Roman Empire collapsed was 'cause Rome kept on getting attacked by tribes.

There were lots of different tribes attacking them and the Romans referred to these people as 'The Barbarians' and in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire in particular there were lots and lots of battles which killed many Roman soldiers and this all helped contribute to the end of the Roman Empire.

Another problem they had was that the Romans did not have enough enslaved people to keep things running.

One of the sad things about the Roman Empire is when they conquered a country, they would make people slaves and get them to do work for them but as things in the empire began to decline, they weren't able to take over new countries and therefore they couldn't get new slaves so they didn't have enough people to keep things functioning.

And then lastly another key thing that happened was that a large army called the Huns invaded Europe and that forced loads of different groups in Europe to run away from them.

In particular the Germanic people had to flee or run away from the Huns and lots of them ended up in the Roman Empire where the Romans did not treat them very well so they started revolting against the Romans and this again helped to lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire.

In this final task, you are going to answer the following question: which of these factors do you think was the main cause of the Roman Empire's collapse? And the three factors you can choose from are: "the Empire became too big", "Christianity became the main religion", or "Rome was getting attacked by tribes".

Now remember this is completely your own opinion so you cannot necessarily be right or wrong but the key thing about this task is that you explain why you think that.

Well you can't just say, "All right Mr Barber it's 'the Empire became too big', see you".

No what we would like is you to choose a factor and then in your opinion explain why you think that factor was the main cause of the Roman Empire's collapse.

And to help you I've got some sentence starters at the bottom of the white box and I'll show you what my answer was so you have an idea of the type of thing you should be doing.

So I wrote, "the main cause of the Roman Empire's collapse was.

." What do you think I think? Hm.

I actually thought it was "the Empire had become too big".

So the main cause of the Roman Empire's collapse was that the Empire had become too big.

This led to the collapse of the Roman Empire because with so many different places to rule over, the Emperor struggled to manage.

As you can see I've explained which factor I think it was and then the most important thing, I've explained why it led to the collapse of the Roman Empire.

So it's over to you, before you start, think really carefully about which of those factors you think was the main cause and then when you're ready, pause the video to complete your task and resume once you are finished.

Okay hopefully you found that task an interesting one.

It's really good to reflect on, as historians which we are, like what your view of things are.

Well done on all the fantastic learning that you've done today.

Before we finish though there are just two things that you need to do.

Remember to write down three different things that you remember from today's lesson.

That's a really helpful exercise for solidifying knowledge in our brains and lastly don't forget to finish the exit quiz as well, you'll be able to see how much you've remembered from the Roman Britain unit.

I hope you enjoyed the lesson and have a great rest of your day.