Missing Historical Notes

The following notes were intended as the preface to my novel, but they were never included. At the risk of repeating some of the content of recent blog posts, I'm including them here.

Bound by an Oath is a work of fiction. None of the events took place, and all of the characters, except for the popes, are fictional.

Having said that, I have tried to paint a picture of life in Britain in the years after the Roman troops left (410 AD) and before the mass of Saxon immigration (446 AD). We might suppose that some Roman soldiers, like Flavius, remained in Britain after the troops officially left, and we might suppose that parts of the eastern coast of Britain were subjected to occasional raids from disaffected Saxons like Garth, before the large influx of settlers.  I have also supposed that the pope might have authorized and funded some private mission journeys to Britain during that time period.

Lower Combe is a fictional settlement. All of the other towns are actual places which you can find on a map today. It should be noted that the coastline of 5th century Britain was different from what it is today. A town like Richborough, which the Romans called Rutupiae, and which may have been where the Emperor Claudius made landfall in 43AD, is no longer on the coast, but about two miles inland, and the Wantsum Channel that separated what was the Isle of Thanet from the mainland, is silted up.

The names of the characters are mostly real names that would have been used in Kent in the 5th Century. The same is true of the tribal groups. The Catuvellauni, Cantiaci, and Cantii, were all located in what we now call Kent.

This novel provides a fictional recreation of life in a country with a long, complicated, and glorious history.