Ancient Borough - Anglo-Saxon Burhs

Anglo-Saxon Burhs

Throughout western Europe, the effect of the Germanic invasions which completed the decline of the Roman Empire was to destroy the Roman municipal organization. After the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, the ruins of Roman colonies and camps were used by the early English to form tribal strongholds. Despite their location, burhs on the sites of Roman colonies show no continuity with Roman municipal organization, and instead resemble the parallel revival of urban centres in continental Europe. The resettlement of the Roman Durovernum under the name "burh of the men of Kent," Cant-wara-byrig or Canterbury, illustrates this point. The burh of the men of West Kent was Hrofesceaster (Durobrivae), Rochester, and many other ceasters mark the existence of a Roman camp occupied by an early English burh. The tribal burh was protected by an earthen wall, and a general obligation to build and maintain burhs at the royal command was enforced by Anglo-Saxon law.

Offences in disturbance of the peace of the burh were punished by higher fines than breaches of the peace of the hām or ordinary dwelling. However, neither in the early English language nor in the contemporary Latin was there any fixed usage differentiating the various words descriptive of the several forms of human settlement, and the fortified communal refuges cannot accordingly be clearly distinguished from villages or the strongholds of individuals by any purely nomenclative test.