0:00:09 > 0:00:11This is the Solway Firth.
0:00:11 > 0:00:16To the north Scotland, to the south, England.
0:00:16 > 0:00:21It feels like one of the clearest, most natural frontiers on Earth.
0:00:21 > 0:00:22But in fact, it's not.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29Borders are fluid, they're always twisting and shifting.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37In these two films, I'm going to look at this familiar border
0:00:37 > 0:00:39with new eyes.
0:00:39 > 0:00:43I'll be asking why the arbitrary line first drawn by the Romans
0:00:43 > 0:00:45still cuts Northern Britain in two,
0:00:45 > 0:00:50creating two nations, where there might have been three.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55And I'll be exploring the forgotten land that lies beneath that
0:00:55 > 0:01:00border, stamped out by centuries of English and Scottish Nationalism.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08I've walked across frontiers from Iran to Indonesia.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15I've worked on some of the most contested
0:01:15 > 0:01:20borders in the world, in Iraq, the Balkans, and Afghanistan.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23I'm fascinated by how borders are created
0:01:23 > 0:01:25and by what they do to people.
0:01:27 > 0:01:32Now, I've come home to explore one of the most violent borders
0:01:32 > 0:01:36in history, here in the middle of Britain.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39On the eve of a Scottish referendum,
0:01:39 > 0:01:43it's time to look at this border and find out how it made us who we are.
0:02:04 > 0:02:09We've become very used to the border that divides England and Scotland.
0:02:14 > 0:02:19But there's another land buried beneath this border,
0:02:19 > 0:02:23neither England nor Scotland, but what I call the Middleland.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29Stretching from the Humber in the south to the
0:02:29 > 0:02:31Firth of Forth in the north.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37It's an area of natural geographic unity.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41The unique climate and landscape of the Pennines and the Lake District
0:02:41 > 0:02:46blends seamlessly into the Scottish Cheviots and the Pentland Hills.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51I'm a Scot, but I now live in Cumbria,
0:02:51 > 0:02:5535 miles south of the boundary between England and Scotland
0:02:55 > 0:02:58where I'm the Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border.
0:03:01 > 0:03:03We're continuing a very, very long tradition here,
0:03:03 > 0:03:06back over five generations.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10I am surrounded by a Middleland culture.
0:03:10 > 0:03:12Many congratulations, Rogan.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21Customs and traditions that can be found nowhere else in Britain.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28The upland sheep farming life here is identical
0:03:28 > 0:03:30on both sides of the border.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40I've walked 1,000 miles through these hills and I'm struck
0:03:40 > 0:03:45by how distinctive this Middleland landscape is, different from both
0:03:45 > 0:03:51the plains of Southern England and the wilderness of Highland Scotland.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55The distinctive landscape has produced a unique history
0:03:55 > 0:03:59and culture, which still lives on in people like Cumbrian sheep
0:03:59 > 0:04:01farmer Willy Tyson.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03HE WHISTLES
0:04:03 > 0:04:05Steady!
0:04:06 > 0:04:09Yan, tan, tethera, methera, pip, azer, sezar,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12aker, dick, yanadick, tanadick, metetheradik,
0:04:12 > 0:04:16bumfit, yanabum... We were going too fast.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18What language were you speaking, Willy?
0:04:18 > 0:04:21Yan Tan Tethera is a Cumbrian version of...
0:04:21 > 0:04:24in a dialect of counting sheep.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28Yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp, or pip some people say 'pip'.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33Sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera. Dick, is ten.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36Then it's yanadick, one and ten, tanadick, thetheradick,
0:04:36 > 0:04:38metheradick, bumfit is 15.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40Yana bumfit, same again, one
0:04:40 > 0:04:44and 15, tanabumfit, tetherabumfit, metherabumfit, gigget is 20.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48And once you get to 20, then technology takes over
0:04:48 > 0:04:50and you take a stone out of one pocket and put it in the other.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52Start again.
0:04:53 > 0:04:57Traces of this ancient Celtic language can still be found
0:04:57 > 0:05:00right across the Middleland.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04Counting sheep is traditionally a way of going to sleep.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06- Oh, I sleep well. - THEY LAUGH
0:05:10 > 0:05:12The modern border between England
0:05:12 > 0:05:17and Scotland cuts straight through the historic Middleland.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21I see this border as a pernicious scar,
0:05:21 > 0:05:25first inflicted by the Romans 2,000 years ago.
0:05:29 > 0:05:33The building of Hadrian's Wall was the single most important
0:05:33 > 0:05:35moment in our history.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Britain is an island whose natural boundaries are the sea.
0:05:38 > 0:05:42Suddenly the Romans divided us between a South
0:05:42 > 0:05:45and what they called the Barbarian North.
0:05:45 > 0:05:50They invented the idea of England and Scotland.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54Some academics will disagree with me,
0:05:54 > 0:05:57but I believe the story of the division of Britain is
0:05:57 > 0:06:00a story with the forgotten Middleland at its heart.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07To really understand the story of the Middleland,
0:06:07 > 0:06:11and how the border shaped our island, we have to go back
0:06:11 > 0:06:16over 2,000 years to a time before the Romans invaded Britain.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23Then, this land was scattered with Iron Age tribes whose
0:06:23 > 0:06:27identity was shaped by the ground on which they grazed their animals.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35Down there in the Eden valley, there's 28 inches of rain a year.
0:06:35 > 0:06:41The soil is rich and deep, you can feed a cow off a single acre.
0:06:41 > 0:06:46Up here, where I'm standing, the soil is bare and rocky,
0:06:46 > 0:06:48water-logged. Reeds grow here.
0:06:48 > 0:06:53You could barely feed a cow off ten acres.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58Different landscapes, different eco-systems, different tribes.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07It reminds me of Afghanistan where I walked in 2002.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11Afghanistan is a modern country,
0:07:11 > 0:07:15but like Iron Age Britain,
0:07:15 > 0:07:18it has no strong central government binding people together.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22Almost every village I visited was unique in language,
0:07:22 > 0:07:24custom and culture.
0:07:27 > 0:07:33So it was in the Middleland when the Romans invaded Britain in 43AD
0:07:33 > 0:07:37and tried to impose their values on a fragmented, tribal people.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50Here at Butser, on the South Downs, archaeologists have
0:07:50 > 0:07:55reconstructed an Iron Age settlement of the pre-Roman period.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58Archaeologist Miles Russell, explained to me
0:07:58 > 0:08:02what Britain at this time would have looked like.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04So, before the Romans arrived,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08do you think there would have been a clear dramatic difference
0:08:08 > 0:08:12between what we now call Scotland and what we now call England?
0:08:12 > 0:08:15No. There's no real diff...
0:08:15 > 0:08:18You'd see a difference in material culture, but it's a very
0:08:18 > 0:08:22gradual process from highland Scotland to lowland England, because
0:08:22 > 0:08:25we're dealing with little patchwork communities here and there.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28Boundaries are very much a modern concept, the idea of fixed,
0:08:28 > 0:08:31impenetrable borders between one civilisation and another.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35Societies then, they're probably living on local resources,
0:08:35 > 0:08:38so rivers, hills, things like this are forming
0:08:38 > 0:08:42the difference between one farming group and another.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45But those boundaries are relatively fluid,
0:08:45 > 0:08:47they're changing pretty much all the time.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49So if you were a Roman turning up
0:08:49 > 0:08:52and seeing this culture coming into a house like this for the first
0:08:52 > 0:08:56time, what would be your prejudice as a Roman about a place like this?
0:08:56 > 0:08:58I think a Roman coming in here would see this as being
0:08:58 > 0:09:01deeply primitive, because they're used to lights,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04stone, they're used to painted walls and
0:09:04 > 0:09:08nice solid floors and they would see the mud floors, the thatched
0:09:08 > 0:09:12roofs, the daubed walls and really the tribal nature of society
0:09:12 > 0:09:15itself as being very backwards, very primitive, very barbaric.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18So from their point of view, to some extent,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21- they're bringing civilisation. - From the Roman perspective, yes,
0:09:21 > 0:09:25they would see that they are bringing civilisation to the savage.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34The Romans had met an utterly alien society.
0:09:34 > 0:09:39They wanted to control it, tax it, make it more like Rome.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43This meant dividing tribes into administrative zones,
0:09:43 > 0:09:44with stark lines on a map.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55This is a map which is drawn up slightly eccentrically
0:09:55 > 0:09:59on the basis of the findings of the Roman geographer Ptolemy.
0:09:59 > 0:10:02What you can see is that the Romans, having invaded Britain,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06face a bewildering network of relationships and tribes.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09And they're trying to pin them down on a map
0:10:09 > 0:10:11and draw the boundaries between them.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14The native peoples of Britain thought about themselves
0:10:14 > 0:10:18in a quite different way, almost magically.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22The Lugi, for example, seems to mean the Raven people.
0:10:22 > 0:10:27The Carvetti, near my cottage in Cumbria, means the deer people.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29These seem to be almost animal,
0:10:29 > 0:10:34totem names, names like those of the native peoples of North America.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46In the years that followed the Roman invasion, many of the tribal
0:10:46 > 0:10:51chiefs of Southern Britain seemed to embrace Roman civilisation.
0:10:55 > 0:10:59From Libya to London, Rome reproduced itself.
0:10:59 > 0:11:04The identical columns, temples, courtyards,
0:11:04 > 0:11:09bathhouses, all of it part of a vast global economy
0:11:09 > 0:11:12controlled by the central, Roman state.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20At Bath, the Romans created aqueducts to channel water
0:11:20 > 0:11:24from hot springs, installed underfloor heating
0:11:24 > 0:11:27and used lead to line spectacular bathing pools.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38Imagine what it must have been like for a Briton to encounter Rome for
0:11:38 > 0:11:42the first time, when they'd never seen writing, or a stone building
0:11:42 > 0:11:46or a city, when they'd never had the luxury of a hot bath like this.
0:11:51 > 0:11:53There was resistance,
0:11:53 > 0:11:56most famously led by the warrior queen, Boudicca...
0:11:59 > 0:12:02..but the Roman historian Tacitus describes how many
0:12:02 > 0:12:06people in the South were keen to imitate Roman culture.
0:12:09 > 0:12:14HE READS IN LATIN
0:12:14 > 0:12:18And so the Britons were drawn
0:12:18 > 0:12:24into tempting vices, porticoes, baths, sumptuous entertainments.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27In their innocence, they called it civilisation,
0:12:27 > 0:12:31but in fact it was the chains of their slavery.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38Rome was the largest empire the western world had ever seen.
0:12:38 > 0:12:42By the time they invaded Britain, they had been
0:12:42 > 0:12:47expanding for 400 years, and they had no intention of stopping.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53The Romans saw Britain as a single island,
0:12:53 > 0:12:58whose natural boundaries were the sea, and they wanted it all.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04On the south coast, where tribes were largely
0:13:04 > 0:13:08centralised in hill forts, the Roman conquest had been relatively easy.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15But in the rugged hills of the Middleland,
0:13:15 > 0:13:20tribes in isolated homesteads operated in a very alien landscape.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28The Romans pushed north through the Middleland to the
0:13:28 > 0:13:31point where the lowlands meet the Highlands.
0:13:31 > 0:13:34Here, they built a string of forts on the Gask Ridge.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43They saw it only as a temporary stop,
0:13:43 > 0:13:47but it was here that Rome discovered its limits.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50Some say the problem was simply lack of troops.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54But I think the problem was culture and geography.
0:13:54 > 0:13:56This is the Sma' Glen.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59It's the very northern edge of the empire.
0:13:59 > 0:14:03Here, Rome ground to a halt. And you can see why.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06This is the place of the guerrilla tactics of the highlanders,
0:14:06 > 0:14:08a place where you go into a hidden valley
0:14:08 > 0:14:11and every ridge line is a potential ambush.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14A place where you might be able to win every battle,
0:14:14 > 0:14:17but you can never win the war.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21And where, in the end, Rome controlled little more than
0:14:21 > 0:14:24a few metres around the edge of their camp.
0:14:27 > 0:14:31The Romans spent decades fighting on this frontier,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34but they failed to turn the Highlanders into Roman citizens.
0:14:37 > 0:14:41I believe that our own experience in Afghanistan can help us
0:14:41 > 0:14:45understand the challenge of trying to control an alien culture.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53Major Martin Hedley was based at a forward operating
0:14:53 > 0:14:55base at Musa Qala in Helmand in 2009.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59It was on a rocky outcrop looking over
0:14:59 > 0:15:03sort of the valley bottom, quite a spectacular panorama.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06You could see the day-to-day life of the entire
0:15:06 > 0:15:08population down below you.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11If you were to ask a young soldier what would have been their
0:15:11 > 0:15:14sense of the civilian settlement from the walls of the fort?
0:15:14 > 0:15:20They would see a culture that was at least 100 or 150 years,
0:15:20 > 0:15:22sort of, I hesitate to say the word backwards,
0:15:22 > 0:15:26but less developed than what they'd come from. In our case, mostly
0:15:26 > 0:15:32young men from the various cities around the UK, from Manchester,
0:15:32 > 0:15:34Newcastle, London and Birmingham
0:15:34 > 0:15:37and so they were very different worlds.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40It was at times quite a lonely existence.
0:15:41 > 0:15:42And to turn it around,
0:15:42 > 0:15:46if you were an Afghan farmer looking up at the fort, what do you think
0:15:46 > 0:15:49they would have felt about these people sitting on top of the hill?
0:15:49 > 0:15:53I mean, they'd have seen one of the best-equipped
0:15:53 > 0:15:56armed forces in the world.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00Weapons at every corner, antennas everywhere, helicopters
0:16:00 > 0:16:03dropping off re-supplies, be it ammunition, water.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06They'd see a lot of coming and going and then quite often, first
0:16:06 > 0:16:09they would know that something was happening on the other side of the
0:16:09 > 0:16:10valley would be...
0:16:10 > 0:16:12We would be firing in support of troops on the ground.
0:16:14 > 0:16:16In spite of their immense resources,
0:16:16 > 0:16:20NATO failed to win a decisive victory in Afghanistan.
0:16:21 > 0:16:28So too, Rome was unable to subjugate a fluid tribal society.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30After the loss of blood and treasure,
0:16:30 > 0:16:33failure must have seemed inconceivable.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40But ultimately, the Emperor Hadrian withdrew his troops.
0:16:40 > 0:16:42It's incredibly difficult for an empire to
0:16:42 > 0:16:45admit that there are things that it cannot do.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47That it's failed.
0:16:47 > 0:16:50And yet the Emperor Hadrian had the confidence to publicly
0:16:50 > 0:16:56acknowledge that Rome had limits, that there were places it was
0:16:56 > 0:16:58never going to be able to control.
0:17:06 > 0:17:08Here at Bridgeness on the Firth of Forth,
0:17:08 > 0:17:1230 miles south of the Gask Ridge, a Roman monument was found.
0:17:15 > 0:17:20This replica shows Rome's attitude towards the native tribes
0:17:20 > 0:17:23whom it was trying, and failing, to conquer.
0:17:23 > 0:17:29This shows a Roman cavalry man riding down naked, headless
0:17:29 > 0:17:31barbarians or Britons.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34I visited the Bridgeness Miners Welfare Club
0:17:34 > 0:17:38across the road to find out whether this history of resistance
0:17:38 > 0:17:43to the Romans contributes to a modern sense of national identity.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57- Oh, oh!- Push it! Push it!
0:17:57 > 0:18:01- Oh! Oh! Yes!- Oh!
0:18:01 > 0:18:03Look at that!
0:18:03 > 0:18:04Do you think, I mean,
0:18:04 > 0:18:07in that stone, the way that the Romans made themselves look in
0:18:07 > 0:18:11that stone, so you've got the Roman cavalry man on the thing and then
0:18:11 > 0:18:15he's made everyone else look like a bunch of naked heathens underneath.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19That was what they were trying to convey, anybody that wasn't Roman
0:18:19 > 0:18:24or part of the Roman Empire were some way inferior, basic savages.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27Presumably, it's actually a bit of propaganda. They probably weren't
0:18:27 > 0:18:30like that, the Romans are just trying to make it look like that.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33Yeah, absolutely. I don't suppose they were totally barbarous,
0:18:33 > 0:18:37but the Romans didn't want to convey that impression at all
0:18:37 > 0:18:41and they were here to civilise us, yeah, yeah.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44- I'm not sure if they succeeded. - LAUGHTER
0:18:46 > 0:18:51And do you think that still, today, it gives people in Scotland
0:18:51 > 0:18:54a sense of pride that Rome was not able to conquer Scotland?
0:18:54 > 0:18:58It was great that Scotland was the point where the Romans
0:18:58 > 0:19:00got no further.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03I kind of feel, yeah, we held them back, you know, they didn't get
0:19:03 > 0:19:09past us. As it says in the song, we sent them homeward to think again.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12So there is a wee bit of that kind of feeling, you know.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15In my heart I'm a nationalist, yes.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18Is your nationalism related to your interest in history?
0:19:18 > 0:19:20Partially, partially, yeah.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24I don't think you can be a Scottish nationalist without having a little
0:19:24 > 0:19:27bit in your soul that links you to the land
0:19:27 > 0:19:29and where you come from. Yeah.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35Having withdrawn from the Highlands,
0:19:35 > 0:19:39the Emperor Hadrian now made a decision that would have
0:19:39 > 0:19:42devastating consequences for the people of the Middleland.
0:19:45 > 0:19:50The Emperor Hadrian chose to draw a completely arbitrary straight line
0:19:50 > 0:19:54connecting the short points between the Tyne
0:19:54 > 0:19:57and the Solway, from Newcastle to Carlisle.
0:20:07 > 0:20:12It's estimated that Hadrian's Wall took 10,000 soldiers
0:20:12 > 0:20:18five years to build, and stood roughly five-metres tall.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26It followed an existing military supply road.
0:20:26 > 0:20:31It made practical sense to the Romans, but it tore straight
0:20:31 > 0:20:35through ancient tribal territories, cutting the Middleland in two.
0:20:39 > 0:20:44This was the blunt, straight edge of Empire.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47It reminds me of the way in which British
0:20:47 > 0:20:52and French diplomats carved up Arab peoples after World War I.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58Arbitrary borders drawn with a ruler dividing tribes.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06It created a century of conflict and political turbulence.
0:21:11 > 0:21:17In the same way, the line drawn by Hadrian transformed Britain.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20From that moment onwards, if you were on this side of the wall,
0:21:20 > 0:21:24you were Rome and part of a civilisation stretching back
0:21:24 > 0:21:26over two and a half million square miles.
0:21:26 > 0:21:30One millimetre over on the other side of the wall
0:21:30 > 0:21:32and suddenly you are a barbarian.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38Hadrian's Wall was part of a chain of fortifications constructed around
0:21:38 > 0:21:43the Empire running through Germany, North Africa and the Middle East.
0:21:52 > 0:21:58In 2009, I visited a Roman frontier fort at Azraq, in Jordan.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02There, a border made some geographic sense.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06Beyond its walls were thousands of miles of desert.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14But there was no such geographic logic to this wall.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18They had created the strangest frontier in the Roman Empire.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21And by doing so, they had invented on the other side,
0:22:21 > 0:22:25a rogue state, and a permanent threat.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34The Romans now faced a guerrilla war to the north, and disaffected
0:22:34 > 0:22:37tribes in the Middleland who they treated with contempt.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44The Roman soldiers referred to the local population as Brittunculi.
0:22:44 > 0:22:48It's a very dismissive term. It means nasty little Brits.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51And we know this because of hand-written Roman military
0:22:51 > 0:22:54documents which have been dug out of the soil.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00Other artefacts dug up here at Vindolanda Fort
0:23:00 > 0:23:03bear witness to the lifestyle imported from Rome.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09Luxuries that would have astounded local Britons in their earth houses.
0:23:13 > 0:23:17It's a bit like bringing your family silver to a forward operating
0:23:17 > 0:23:18base in Afghanistan.
0:23:24 > 0:23:30I saw the same surreal gap between cultures in Iraq, when I served
0:23:30 > 0:23:34as a deputy-governor following the Allied invasion in 2003.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42The US forces created a little bubble of America in the desert,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45sealing themselves off from the local people.
0:23:48 > 0:23:52One base I visited felt almost like an American shopping mall.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01There was even a fake Bedouin tent for souvenir photos.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10Our insulated lives prevented us completely from understanding
0:24:10 > 0:24:14the local culture on the other side of the compound walls.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19The Romans depicted the local Britons on their sculpture
0:24:19 > 0:24:24as naked, hairy savages, primitive and expendable.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31Recent excavations suggest that Rome began clearing large areas around
0:24:31 > 0:24:36the eastern section of the wall, forcing families to become refugees.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40In modern language, it was almost ethnic cleansing.
0:24:42 > 0:24:44Archaeologist Andrew Birley has pieced together how
0:24:44 > 0:24:46it may have happened.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48What the Romans are very good at is just picking
0:24:48 > 0:24:52up people and completely relocating them somewhere completely
0:24:52 > 0:24:55alien from where they've grown-up and where they're connected to.
0:24:55 > 0:24:56So people are moved out of the
0:24:56 > 0:24:58immediate vicinity of Hadrian's Wall.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01What would have happened if you'd said no? I'm going to stay.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04- I'm not going to move.- You've got two potential scenarios.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06You've got a scenario where they come in with a sword,
0:25:06 > 0:25:07and say get out.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10And the other scenario is they pick people up and say,
0:25:10 > 0:25:12I'm sorry, we need that landscape, we need the land,
0:25:12 > 0:25:15we're not going to compensate you, as such, but you can if you wish,
0:25:15 > 0:25:19relocate to somewhere completely different within the Roman Empire.
0:25:19 > 0:25:21What happens if I say no, I want to stay here?
0:25:21 > 0:25:23Then you are forcibly removed.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26We've got evidence of people being killed
0:25:26 > 0:25:29and pushed into the fort ditches.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32We've also got evidence of a local man who's been killed,
0:25:32 > 0:25:35his head's been mounted on a spike on the ramparts,
0:25:35 > 0:25:38sending out a very vivid message, look, behave yourselves.
0:25:38 > 0:25:42This is what happens to people who don't fully listen to Roman
0:25:42 > 0:25:44rule and don't participate.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54Golf, india, kilo, confirm routing as far
0:25:54 > 0:25:58as Barden Mill, Hadrian's Wall, not above altitude 2,000 feet.
0:26:00 > 0:26:03Archaeologist David Wooliscroft showed me how the
0:26:03 > 0:26:07semi-depopulated Middleland served the needs of the Roman military.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11What can we see from the sky that shows the extent of this
0:26:11 > 0:26:12Roman militarised zone?
0:26:12 > 0:26:17There's the big garrison, Fort Birdoswald, all along
0:26:17 > 0:26:20the line and stretched out between those in smaller numbers,
0:26:20 > 0:26:23every third of a mile is a watchtower,
0:26:23 > 0:26:27every mile is one of these little fortlets.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31The cleared landscape enabled the Roman garrisons to
0:26:31 > 0:26:33communicate with speed and efficiency.
0:26:35 > 0:26:37We found that every single mile castle
0:26:37 > 0:26:42and turret can directly see a fort.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45So, David, is there any way of giving a sense today of what
0:26:45 > 0:26:48Roman signalling might have been like?
0:26:48 > 0:26:51Well, actually, we've got a classic example. We see
0:26:51 > 0:26:54a column of smoke coming from what looks to be quite a small bonfire.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59And how long would it take you to get a signal from the wall back?
0:26:59 > 0:27:01Basically these things are speed of light
0:27:01 > 0:27:06communications like radio, it's just visual instead of radio.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08It's near instantaneous.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16Some historians have argued that Hadrian's Wall was little
0:27:16 > 0:27:18more than a customs barrier,
0:27:18 > 0:27:22controlling the population with a relatively light touch.
0:27:22 > 0:27:23But I disagree.
0:27:26 > 0:27:30Any Middlelander attempting to cross the frontier to reconnect with other
0:27:30 > 0:27:35parts of his family, for example, would face a lethal obstacle course.
0:27:35 > 0:27:37First he would have to get past the outposts.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40Then down a ditch filled with thorns and spikes,
0:27:40 > 0:27:42and up the other side.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51Then up a 15 foot wall.
0:28:01 > 0:28:05You've got behind you, a turret every 300 yards.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08You reach the bottom, you're running up a mound.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13Then you're crossing up to half a mile of open ground
0:28:13 > 0:28:15and a military road.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19You're coming up seven foot, down seven foot,
0:28:19 > 0:28:20down another ten foot
0:28:20 > 0:28:24and then you're up at least 17 feet on the other side.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30There's a manned watch turret every 300 yards.
0:28:30 > 0:28:35This area is packed with 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39Some scholars today say that this area was some
0:28:39 > 0:28:41permeable trading zone.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44For me, it was the Berlin Wall.
0:28:47 > 0:28:53Like Hadrian's Wall, the Berlin Wall split communities in two.
0:28:53 > 0:28:54CHEERING
0:28:57 > 0:29:00When it came down after 28 years, families were reunited
0:29:00 > 0:29:03and a unified Germany was built.
0:29:10 > 0:29:13But Hadrian's Wall stood for 300 years.
0:29:13 > 0:29:18And I believe this left an indelible mark on the British psyche.
0:29:24 > 0:29:29By 197AD, the island of Britain was divided not just into two,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32but into three separate areas.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34The Highlands
0:29:34 > 0:29:37and the northern Middleland were free from Roman rule.
0:29:37 > 0:29:40The south, known as Britannia Superior,
0:29:40 > 0:29:43had a prosperous civilian government.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47And the Middleland south of Hadrian's Wall,
0:29:47 > 0:29:52was known as Britannia Inferior and was under strict martial law.
0:29:56 > 0:30:00Where the south had had palaces, cities and baths,
0:30:00 > 0:30:03the Middleland got barracks and military infrastructure.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07In only two generations, the rural landscape
0:30:07 > 0:30:10of the Iron-Age herdsmen, known as the deer people,
0:30:10 > 0:30:14was transformed into a vast military-industrial zone.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21But in spite of Rome's military prowess,
0:30:21 > 0:30:24the conflict north of the wall continued.
0:30:24 > 0:30:25For the next two centuries,
0:30:25 > 0:30:27Rome poured resources into the Middleland,
0:30:27 > 0:30:31maintaining about 30,000 troops from across the Empire.
0:30:37 > 0:30:40This is the reconstructed front gate
0:30:40 > 0:30:43of a massive Roman fort and supply base.
0:30:43 > 0:30:47There were many of these scattered right along Hadrian's Wall,
0:30:47 > 0:30:51manned by Scythian archers, by people from North Africa.
0:30:51 > 0:30:55This fort, we believe, was called Arbeia,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58from the Arabic "El-Beit Arbeia" - the Place Of The Arabs.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07'Here at Arbeia, near Jarrow on Tyne,
0:31:07 > 0:31:10'the commanding officer's quarters has been reconstructed.
0:31:10 > 0:31:15'Rome's elite lived in luxury, but it was a society where any race
0:31:15 > 0:31:19'could rise to the top, provided they accepted Roman civilisation.'
0:31:22 > 0:31:24They found this tombstone here
0:31:24 > 0:31:29and, when you look at it first, you see a Roman lounging on a couch.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32Look a little bit more carefully and you see the whole thing
0:31:32 > 0:31:35is in the style of the eastern edge of the Roman Empire
0:31:35 > 0:31:39and then you begin to read your way along the text at the bottom
0:31:39 > 0:31:43and it reveals that this is Victor, from the Moorish nation,
0:31:43 > 0:31:46from what we would now call North Africa,
0:31:46 > 0:31:49that he used to be a slave, that he has been freed
0:31:49 > 0:31:52and that this has been put up by his master and friend,
0:31:52 > 0:31:54who is a Spanish cavalryman.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02For more than 200 years, the land around Hadrian's Wall
0:32:02 > 0:32:05teemed with officers, soldiers and slaves
0:32:05 > 0:32:07from the Mediterranean and the Near East,
0:32:07 > 0:32:09thrown together by the needs of empire.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14Sustaining this vast, multi-national force
0:32:14 > 0:32:16transformed the economy of the Middleland.
0:32:19 > 0:32:25This is the granary of a Roman fort - better built in many ways
0:32:25 > 0:32:28than the accommodation in which they put the soldiers.
0:32:28 > 0:32:29And you can see why.
0:32:29 > 0:32:34Because, in the end, an army of occupation is about supply.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37It's been calculated that it could take, every year,
0:32:37 > 0:32:41up to 5,000 pigs, 5,000 sheep
0:32:41 > 0:32:44and nearly 20,000 tonnes of wheat and barley,
0:32:44 > 0:32:46packed high in granaries like this,
0:32:46 > 0:32:49to keep it dry from the foul British weather,
0:32:49 > 0:32:51just to feed the army.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57Supplies were shipped in from all around the Empire.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00I believe this damaged indigenous production
0:33:00 > 0:33:03and made the British economy completely dependent on Rome.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09But in spite of the colossal expenditure
0:33:09 > 0:33:12that Rome sunk into building a Roman-style state,
0:33:12 > 0:33:14by the beginning of the fifth century,
0:33:14 > 0:33:16they realised the game was up.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24Throughout history, empires have hoped that they can invade
0:33:24 > 0:33:28another country, hand over to a civilian government
0:33:28 > 0:33:31and, having won a decisive victory, get the troops home.
0:33:31 > 0:33:33Sometimes, it doesn't work out.
0:33:35 > 0:33:37'As a deputy-governor in Iraq,
0:33:37 > 0:33:39'I was part of an attempt by Western governments
0:33:39 > 0:33:41'to bring a new democracy to the country.
0:33:45 > 0:33:48'We worked hard trying to hold elections and establish security.'
0:33:50 > 0:33:53And from this day is the real beginning
0:33:53 > 0:33:58of the transition to a free, independent Iraq.
0:33:58 > 0:34:00GUNFIRE
0:34:00 > 0:34:03'And yet, outside the compound, we were facing an insurgency.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06'I was under siege, with rockets and mortar shells flying in.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15'But the problems went deeper than war.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19'By the time we left, we'd failed to build a credible state structure
0:34:19 > 0:34:21'which could prosper without us.'
0:34:26 > 0:34:30After four centuries, the whole Roman administration in Britain
0:34:30 > 0:34:32packed up and returned home.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35The consequences were devastating.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39When the Roman soldiers left in 400,
0:34:39 > 0:34:44Britain's economy and civilisation collapsed.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47The daily rituals of bathing ceased,
0:34:47 > 0:34:52people forgot how to construct stone buildings, London was abandoned,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55people ceased to read or write.
0:34:55 > 0:34:58It was like a nuclear winter.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06The frontier zone in the Middleland was the worst hit
0:35:06 > 0:35:09because it was completely dependent on the military.
0:35:09 > 0:35:10Here, for 300 years,
0:35:10 > 0:35:15Rome had played tribe against tribe, sustaining them with Roman silver,
0:35:15 > 0:35:17and now, livelihoods vanished overnight.
0:35:22 > 0:35:24For the Romans who stayed on here,
0:35:24 > 0:35:28defending themselves in crumbling forts along the wall,
0:35:28 > 0:35:30all they had once taken for granted -
0:35:30 > 0:35:35a salary, a legal system, security - was rapidly disintegrating.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41Sewage and drainage systems backed up,
0:35:41 > 0:35:45the coinage ceased to come in from Rome,
0:35:45 > 0:35:48until, eventually, huddled in the corner
0:35:48 > 0:35:50of what had been a Roman fort,
0:35:50 > 0:35:54people having forgotten how to even make stone buildings,
0:35:54 > 0:35:57they constructed a timber hall.
0:35:57 > 0:36:02The officers of the Roman Empire in a post-apocalyptic world,
0:36:02 > 0:36:04reduced to local warlords.
0:36:07 > 0:36:09The Middleland now became
0:36:09 > 0:36:12what people today might call "an ungoverned space",
0:36:12 > 0:36:15a place where warlords and gangsters fought over
0:36:15 > 0:36:17what remained of the Roman state.
0:36:22 > 0:36:25It was not unlike the situation in Afghanistan
0:36:25 > 0:36:27after the Soviets left in 1989.
0:36:29 > 0:36:32There, rival Mujahideen stepped into the vacuum,
0:36:32 > 0:36:34tipping the country into civil war.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40And there's a risk that the same may happen again today
0:36:40 > 0:36:43when NATO troops leave Afghanistan.
0:36:52 > 0:36:56This fractured, violent society has left little trace in archaeology,
0:36:56 > 0:36:59but it has been preserved in myth and legend.
0:37:02 > 0:37:06Using the poetry of ancient bards, Dr Tim Clarkson has tried
0:37:06 > 0:37:10to build a picture of the men who ruled the Middleland at this time.
0:37:11 > 0:37:17As far as we know, these kings established small kingdoms
0:37:17 > 0:37:20in what is now northern England and southern Scotland.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25And they appear to have been warlords
0:37:25 > 0:37:29who started off with quite small territories
0:37:29 > 0:37:35and then expanded these territories into what were independent kingdoms,
0:37:35 > 0:37:38a kind of patchwork quilt of kingdoms.
0:37:38 > 0:37:40And who were these bards?
0:37:40 > 0:37:45The bards were the spin-doctors or PR men for the kings of this period.
0:37:45 > 0:37:50The job of the bard was to recite poetry or sing songs
0:37:50 > 0:37:53which told of the achievements of the king -
0:37:53 > 0:37:56how many victories he had won in warfare
0:37:56 > 0:37:59and how much wealth he had gained on his cattle raids.
0:38:00 > 0:38:03And the bard would stand in the great feasting hall
0:38:03 > 0:38:06of the kingdom and recite these poems and songs
0:38:06 > 0:38:08to all the assembled warriors and courtiers.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11My home in Cumbria was once part of
0:38:11 > 0:38:13a post-Roman territory called Rheged.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17Bards celebrated this culture
0:38:17 > 0:38:20in the old Celtic language of the Middleland
0:38:20 > 0:38:25and their songs are still sung in the Yanwath Gate Inn near Penrith.
0:38:25 > 0:38:29This is the old land of Rheged, where we are here tonight.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32I'm here to perform for you a song of praise
0:38:32 > 0:38:36for a man called Urien, Urien, King of Rheged.
0:38:36 > 0:38:38And the original language,
0:38:38 > 0:38:41or an EARLY language of this place was Welsh.
0:38:41 > 0:38:44So this song of praise is in Welsh.
0:38:46 > 0:38:48IN TRANSLATION FROM WELSH:
0:39:10 > 0:39:13'Kings like Urien have become
0:39:13 > 0:39:15'legendary heroes in Celtic mythology.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17'We know very, very little about them,
0:39:17 > 0:39:22'but they remind me less of heroes and more of Balkan strongmen
0:39:22 > 0:39:25'thriving on the collapse of the state.'
0:39:27 > 0:39:32The sixth-century cleric Gildas wrote of this time,
0:39:32 > 0:39:35"Britain has kings, but they are tyrants.
0:39:35 > 0:39:38"She has judges, but they are unjust,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42"often engaged in plunder and always preying on the innocent.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46"They make war, but their wars are against their own countrymen,
0:39:46 > 0:39:48"they sit at table with robbers
0:39:48 > 0:39:51"and they not only cherish, but reward, them."
0:39:55 > 0:39:57After the fall of Rome,
0:39:57 > 0:40:00kings like this dominated the Middleland for over a century.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09Then, in the sixth century, here on Bamburgh Beach,
0:40:09 > 0:40:14a new band of fighters landed and threw themselves into the Civil War.
0:40:15 > 0:40:17They were Angles,
0:40:17 > 0:40:21a pagan Germanic people from outside the edge of the old Roman Empire.
0:40:22 > 0:40:26This is the beachhead captured by sea-raiding Angles.
0:40:26 > 0:40:28From the site here at Bamburgh Castle,
0:40:28 > 0:40:30they launched themselves to capture a kingdom.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37They were pagan warriors entering the Roman frontier zone,
0:40:37 > 0:40:40a place quite unlike the south.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43They were battling Picts and Scots and Cumbrian heroes,
0:40:43 > 0:40:45but the heathen Angles won.
0:40:48 > 0:40:50In spite of stiff opposition,
0:40:50 > 0:40:52the Angles moved through the Middleland
0:40:52 > 0:40:54consolidating their power.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01They created a massive new kingdom, which, at its height, encompassed
0:41:01 > 0:41:04almost all of the Scottish lowlands and northern England.
0:41:04 > 0:41:07Because it lay north of the River Humber,
0:41:07 > 0:41:09they called it "North-Humbria".
0:41:17 > 0:41:20The Angles were seen by contemporaries
0:41:20 > 0:41:25as violent barbarians, illiterate pirates who worshiped heathen gods.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29But then the Middleland took an extraordinary turn.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33Within two generations,
0:41:33 > 0:41:36these pagan warriors had been converted to Christianity.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41The Middleland was producing the greatest art, spirituality
0:41:41 > 0:41:44and scholarship in the whole of Europe.
0:41:44 > 0:41:45How did this happen?
0:41:49 > 0:41:53The Christian Church had flourished in most of continental Europe
0:41:53 > 0:41:57by grafting seamlessly onto the civilian structure of Roman cities.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01But the Middleland was different.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03Rural and still largely pagan,
0:42:03 > 0:42:07it became a target for missionaries from across the Christian world,
0:42:07 > 0:42:10sent from Ireland and from the popes in Rome.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16They converged on the holy isle of Lindisfarne.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19First to arrive were the Irish,
0:42:19 > 0:42:24hermits travelling only on foot, whose staggering asceticism
0:42:24 > 0:42:29and spirituality was ideally suited to the wilderness of the Middleland.
0:42:33 > 0:42:35The austerity of the Irish monks
0:42:35 > 0:42:37was diametrically opposed to the values
0:42:37 > 0:42:41of the more worldly priests from the former Roman Empire.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46One man would become almost the embodiment
0:42:46 > 0:42:49of this Celtic Christian ideal.
0:42:52 > 0:42:55That man was St Cuthbert, an Anglo-Saxon monk,
0:42:55 > 0:42:59born in what is now Scotland, dying in what is now England.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04Cuthbert, who became bishop here in 685,
0:43:04 > 0:43:08took the Irish ascetic ideal to its extreme,
0:43:08 > 0:43:11choosing a way of life that could not have been more different
0:43:11 > 0:43:13from the Roman bishops in their palaces.
0:43:13 > 0:43:20He moved to live and suffer alone on the tiny Inner Farne island.
0:43:20 > 0:43:24There, he was steeped in a Celtic world
0:43:24 > 0:43:27tinged with an almost-pagan love of animals.
0:43:27 > 0:43:32He communed with ravens and sparrows. He was fed by sea eagles.
0:43:33 > 0:43:40And when the saint spent all night praying, up to his neck in water,
0:43:40 > 0:43:46the otters came at first light to lick the frozen saint back to life.
0:43:50 > 0:43:52'The struggle for power
0:43:52 > 0:43:55'between the Irish Celtic monks and the priests from Rome
0:43:55 > 0:43:57'COULD have crippled the new kingdom.
0:43:58 > 0:44:00'But the Middleland was a frontier
0:44:00 > 0:44:04'with a history of combining very different traditions.'
0:44:04 > 0:44:07At heart, St Cuthbert was a hermit.
0:44:08 > 0:44:11But he also acknowledged he was part of
0:44:11 > 0:44:15a greater European civilisation - the legacy of Rome.
0:44:16 > 0:44:22He died encouraging his disciples to follow the church at Rome.
0:44:24 > 0:44:29The rigorous monastic life, which combined Celtic austerity
0:44:29 > 0:44:34with classical scholarship and art from Rome, bore rich fruit.
0:44:34 > 0:44:37A vigorous new Christian culture burst forth
0:44:37 > 0:44:40here in Northumbria in the seventh century.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44It was most famously reflected in the Lindisfarne Gospels
0:44:44 > 0:44:48with their beautiful fusion of Celtic and Roman Christian symbols,
0:44:48 > 0:44:52so that anyone who looked at them - Angle or Celt -
0:44:52 > 0:44:55would see something of their culture in its illuminated pages.
0:44:57 > 0:45:00It's become known as the Golden Age of Northumbria
0:45:00 > 0:45:05and it was driven by monks who were venerated in their own lifetime,
0:45:05 > 0:45:08saints like Aidan, Cuthbert and Bede.
0:45:09 > 0:45:13The Northumbrian Golden Age was the product of monasteries.
0:45:13 > 0:45:16We should think of it almost as a Tibet -
0:45:16 > 0:45:20a culture, a landscape dominated by monks.
0:45:20 > 0:45:22We're tempted to see these men
0:45:22 > 0:45:25as scholars, as artists, administrators,
0:45:25 > 0:45:29but, in fact, they were disciplining and punishing their bodies,
0:45:29 > 0:45:33fighting hour by hour against sin and death,
0:45:33 > 0:45:36questing painfully for God.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49GREGORIAN CHANTING
0:45:49 > 0:45:51The Benedictine monastery
0:45:51 > 0:45:54at Pluscarden in the county of Moray
0:45:54 > 0:45:57is a medieval monastery where monks still practise
0:45:57 > 0:46:00a life similar to that followed by the Northumbrian monks.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08Here, physical labour, study and reflection
0:46:08 > 0:46:10are all built around a daily routine of prayer.
0:46:18 > 0:46:21Brother Bede has followed the discipline of monastic life
0:46:21 > 0:46:22for more than 30 years.
0:46:27 > 0:46:33People would see it as a hard life and maybe even...almost...
0:46:33 > 0:46:35a boxed-in life,
0:46:35 > 0:46:39but, in fact, it's a focused, structured, simple life to free you
0:46:39 > 0:46:44so that you're free to think of God and of human beings.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52What was it that drew so many people to be monks at that period?
0:46:52 > 0:46:57The huge growth of monasticism in Northumbria
0:46:57 > 0:47:01was probably due to what humanly would be called success.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06People who had lived this life
0:47:06 > 0:47:10and lived it well became saints.
0:47:10 > 0:47:15Therefore, other people were influenced by that.
0:47:15 > 0:47:20Just like the modern culture of fame and fortune,
0:47:20 > 0:47:24this success in the spiritual world made people want that,
0:47:24 > 0:47:26it made civilisation.
0:47:26 > 0:47:32You go to Northumbria today, you might not recognise it,
0:47:32 > 0:47:34but it's still built on those people,
0:47:34 > 0:47:37it's built on Aidan, Cuthbert and Bede.
0:47:37 > 0:47:38It's still there.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43Brother Bede's life is dedicated to
0:47:43 > 0:47:47the spiritual teaching of his namesake, St Bede.
0:47:47 > 0:47:50And understanding the role of Bede is the key to understanding
0:47:50 > 0:47:53what made the Golden Age of Northumbria
0:47:53 > 0:47:55so important in the history of the Middleland.
0:48:03 > 0:48:07Bede grew up near Jarrow on the River Tyne.
0:48:07 > 0:48:12In a region more often associated with shipyards and protest marches,
0:48:12 > 0:48:16archaeologists have recreated the world in which Bede was raised.
0:48:24 > 0:48:25This is the world from which Bede came.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29It's a Middleland, which is almost as though Rome was never here -
0:48:29 > 0:48:33a world of smoky fires, of thatched roofs.
0:48:33 > 0:48:36A place where they would have been very aware of the cold outside,
0:48:36 > 0:48:38of their livestock.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42Living a life which, to be blunt, was a pagan, illiterate world,
0:48:42 > 0:48:47and yet from it came the greatest civilisation in Europe at its time
0:48:47 > 0:48:50and Bede, who grew up in a place like this,
0:48:50 > 0:48:51was at the very, very centre of it.
0:48:58 > 0:49:01Bede was a genius -
0:49:01 > 0:49:06historian, theologian, linguist, natural scientist.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09900 years before Isaac Newton, he worked out
0:49:09 > 0:49:12that the tides were influenced by the motion of the moon.
0:49:12 > 0:49:16And whenever, today, you open a calendar or a history book
0:49:16 > 0:49:19or an atlas, you are following unconsciously
0:49:19 > 0:49:20in the footsteps of Bede.
0:49:30 > 0:49:32At the heart of Bede's great learning
0:49:32 > 0:49:34was a profound spirituality.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38At St Paul's church in Jarrow,
0:49:38 > 0:49:41you can still see the site of Bede's monastery...
0:49:42 > 0:49:46..and his original seventh-century church, which is now a chancel.
0:49:51 > 0:49:53'The monks here and at nearby Wearmouth,
0:49:53 > 0:49:56'brought in masons and glaziers from the continent
0:49:56 > 0:49:59'to design a church on par with anything in Europe.
0:50:01 > 0:50:04'Some of the seventh-century window glass has been recovered
0:50:04 > 0:50:07'and reset in one of the church's original windows.'
0:50:14 > 0:50:19So I am sitting here, literally looking at the stones
0:50:19 > 0:50:23and the glass that Bede would have seen as he came in to pray.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26Day after day, he barely left
0:50:26 > 0:50:29this pair of monasteries in his whole life
0:50:29 > 0:50:33and it was something that is so difficult for us to understand.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36It was the university of the age,
0:50:36 > 0:50:38it was the technical school of the age,
0:50:38 > 0:50:41it was the printing press of the age - well, the ancient equivalent -
0:50:41 > 0:50:43although everything, all these manuscripts,
0:50:43 > 0:50:48were written by hand and it was so cold that the monks say,
0:50:48 > 0:50:49during the Northumbrian winters,
0:50:49 > 0:50:52that they just can't produce any more manuscripts
0:50:52 > 0:50:54because their hands are frozen.
0:50:54 > 0:50:56It is also a place of great spirituality.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59This is Bede's Ecclesiastical History
0:50:59 > 0:51:02and in it, he describes how the life of man
0:51:02 > 0:51:07is like a sparrow flying out of a hailstorm of a Northumbrian winter,
0:51:07 > 0:51:10coming briefly into a lighted, warm hall
0:51:10 > 0:51:13and then out again, into the winter.
0:51:14 > 0:51:18He says here, "Ita haec vita hominum,"
0:51:18 > 0:51:21this is what the life of man is like,
0:51:21 > 0:51:23where we come from, we have no idea
0:51:23 > 0:51:25and where we are going, we don't know.
0:51:34 > 0:51:38'Professor Rosemary Cramp has worked on this site for 50 years.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40'She sees it not just as a relic
0:51:40 > 0:51:44'of the first great unified culture of the Middleland,
0:51:44 > 0:51:45'but as a tribute to the people
0:51:45 > 0:51:50'who put the Middleland at the very centre of European civilisation.'
0:51:50 > 0:51:52We are very lucky here in having
0:51:52 > 0:51:56an almost complete seventh-century church.
0:51:56 > 0:51:58So, really, for 200 years
0:51:58 > 0:52:01since the Romans left, they hadn't really built stone buildings?
0:52:01 > 0:52:05No, no. I mean, there were many timber buildings
0:52:05 > 0:52:07in the Roman period, too, but it wasn't
0:52:07 > 0:52:10a natural building material for the Britons or the Saxons.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14And so this must have been incredibly impressive and new.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18And so what do you think makes the Northumbrian Golden Age
0:52:18 > 0:52:20something that we should be proud of?
0:52:20 > 0:52:24I think we should be proud that, in such a short period of time,
0:52:24 > 0:52:27from being people who were illiterate,
0:52:27 > 0:52:31they became one of the major forces in Europe.
0:52:31 > 0:52:34Importing crafts like mortared stone, glazing,
0:52:34 > 0:52:38higher-grade metal work, they transformed their region.
0:52:38 > 0:52:43And they also sent out, of course, missionaries to the continent.
0:52:43 > 0:52:44So, within that short generation,
0:52:44 > 0:52:47they'd changed from pagans in wooden houses
0:52:47 > 0:52:51to people who could hold their heads up in Europe
0:52:51 > 0:52:53and, in fact, civilise it.
0:52:53 > 0:52:55And how does this happen
0:52:55 > 0:52:58in such an unpromising, cold, northern landscape?
0:52:58 > 0:53:06Because it had people who had wealth and who had an inspiration
0:53:06 > 0:53:10and they wished to bring back to the North,
0:53:10 > 0:53:12or bring to the North, perhaps, for the first time,
0:53:12 > 0:53:15something that was in the Roman tradition.
0:53:16 > 0:53:18And so the idea of Rome
0:53:18 > 0:53:22is almost a sort of global, universal vision?
0:53:22 > 0:53:24Yes, yes, indeed.
0:53:24 > 0:53:30Rome was the centre of a new universe, a new Jerusalem,
0:53:30 > 0:53:33something that transcends borders
0:53:33 > 0:53:36and gives you a glimpse of the wider world.
0:53:39 > 0:53:41'Bede's civilisation existed
0:53:41 > 0:53:44'as much in modern Scotland as in modern England.
0:53:46 > 0:53:50'But Hadrian's ancient wall still loomed large
0:53:50 > 0:53:52'across the Northumbrian landscape
0:53:52 > 0:53:55'and it fascinated Bede and his contemporaries.
0:53:56 > 0:54:00'For the Angles, the wall symbolised, not division,
0:54:00 > 0:54:03'but the link to Rome, which was at the heart of their civilisation.
0:54:06 > 0:54:08'Along the wall, the Roman forts
0:54:08 > 0:54:12'now became the sites for new Christian churches and monasteries.'
0:54:23 > 0:54:26This is Hexham in the Tyne Valley,
0:54:26 > 0:54:28just a few miles from Hadrian's Wall,
0:54:28 > 0:54:31and it's a microcosm of Middleland history.
0:54:33 > 0:54:36I often find it difficult, in a modern British high street,
0:54:36 > 0:54:40to really get a sense of the past, but here in the Middleland
0:54:40 > 0:54:44it is there, you can trace it - a glimpse of a Roman stone
0:54:44 > 0:54:47with an inscription, a street pattern
0:54:47 > 0:54:49that the Vikings might have seen,
0:54:49 > 0:54:51perhaps the sound from a church
0:54:51 > 0:54:54echoing with centuries of Middleland history.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59Despite being repeatedly looted and burned in the Middle Ages
0:54:59 > 0:55:02by warring English and Scottish nationalists,
0:55:02 > 0:55:05there are still traces here of a once-vibrant
0:55:05 > 0:55:07Northumbrian Middleland culture.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10BELLS TOLL
0:55:10 > 0:55:16Hexham Abbey was founded by the Northumbrian St Wilfrid in 675.
0:55:19 > 0:55:22Although the current abbey dates mostly from the Middle Ages,
0:55:22 > 0:55:26beneath it lies the remnant of a much older building,
0:55:26 > 0:55:29built at the time of Cuthbert and Bede.
0:55:33 > 0:55:39This is the crypt, all that remains of the Northumbrian Hexham Abbey.
0:55:50 > 0:55:54Bede and the Northumbrians were fascinated
0:55:54 > 0:55:56by the Roman ruins that surrounded them.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59They wanted to rebuild the glory of Rome in the Middleland.
0:56:01 > 0:56:06The very stones here at Hexham Abbey are taken from Hadrian's Wall
0:56:06 > 0:56:09and the Roman forts just three miles away.
0:56:17 > 0:56:21And, as the Anglo Saxons wrote of these Roman walls,
0:56:21 > 0:56:25"Wraetlic is yes wealstan."
0:56:28 > 0:56:32"Wondrous is this wall-stone, shattered by fate.
0:56:32 > 0:56:36"This wall, grey with lichen and red-hued,
0:56:36 > 0:56:40"has withstood storms and survived many kingdoms.
0:56:40 > 0:56:42"Its mighty builders have perished
0:56:42 > 0:56:45and yet this wall-stone stands."
0:56:48 > 0:56:51'The Roman wall that had divided the Middleland for centuries
0:56:51 > 0:56:55'had now become a source of unity and inspiration.'
0:56:56 > 0:57:01A Middleland defined by violence and frontier conflict
0:57:01 > 0:57:08had become a great place of prayer, of art, of learning and of peace.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24For centuries, this Middleland flourished in a golden age
0:57:24 > 0:57:25on both sides of the wall.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28But it wouldn't last.
0:57:29 > 0:57:32The trauma of the line of the Roman wall
0:57:32 > 0:57:35was seared into the minds of the people.
0:57:35 > 0:57:37The border would return.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44'In the second film, I will be exploring
0:57:44 > 0:57:47'the next bloody chapter in the story of the Middleland.
0:57:49 > 0:57:51'Within a century, the incredible,
0:57:51 > 0:57:56'sophisticated civilisation of Northumbria would be wiped out
0:57:56 > 0:57:59'and the Middleland would be struggling for survival
0:57:59 > 0:58:03'in the face of a rising English and Scottish nationalism.'