Roman Britain / by R.G. Collingwood.

  • R. G. Collingwood
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Roman Britain / by R.G. Collingwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    from before Julius Caesar has been excavated at Mont Beuvray and is not unlike one of our ‘Roman villas’ ; and it is probable that houses much like the 4 villas ’ of the Roman period were inhabited by the British landed gentry before ever they became Romanized. And if so, it is pretty clear that when we find houses of just the same pattern built after that event, they were built by and for the same landed gentry ; for there is no reason to suppose that this class died out or had its lands confiscated by their Roman conquerors and every reason to suppose the reverse. Plan of an Italian house The Romano-British villa is not the least like Italian types of house. It is North European ; it belongs to a type that is familiar all over the north of Gaul, and is very possibly of Celtic origin. The Italian house consists of a courtyard with rooms opening into it, a house that faces inward upon itself. The 4 villa ’ house consists of a corridor with rooms opening off it in series. The corridor was probably an open penthouse or veranda, with a roof supported on posts. The largest rooms were generally at the two ends, and projected beyond the rest so as to come out to, or even beyond, the outside of the corridor ; so that one of the commonest types is narrow in the middle and furnished with projecting wings at either
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