e and
pestilence, brought rapid decay to the prosperity and civilization of
the country. Cities lost their trade, wealth, and population, and many
of them ceased altogether for a time to exist. Britain was rapidly
sinking again into a land of barbarism.

*4. Early Saxon England.*--An increasing number of contemporary records
give a somewhat clearer view of the condition of England toward the
close of the sixth century. The old Roman organization and
civilization had disappeared entirely, and a new race, with a new
language, a different religion, another form of government, changed
institutions and customs, had taken its place. A number of petty
kingdoms had been formed during the fifth and early sixth centuries,
each under a king or chieftain, as in the old Celtic times before the
Roman invasion, but now of Teutonic or German race. The kings and
their followers had come from the northwestern portions of Germany.
How far they had destroyed the earlier inhabitants, how far they had
simply combined with them or enslaved them, has been a matter of much
debate, and one on which discordant opinions are held, even by recent
students. It seems likely on the whole that the earlier races,
weakened by defeat and by the disappearance of the Roman control, were
gradually absorbed and merged into the body of their conquerors; so
that the petty Angle and Saxon kings of the sixth and seventh
centuries ruled over a mixed race, in which their own was the most
influential, though not necessarily the largest element. The arrival
from Rome in 597 of Augustine, the first Christian missionary to the
now heathen inhabitants of Britain, will serve as a point to mark the
completion of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the country. By this time
the new settlers had ceased to come in, and there were along the coast
and inland some seven or eight different kingdoms. These were,
however, so frequently divided and reunited that no fixed number
remained long in existence. The Jutes had established the kingdom of
Kent in the south-eastern extremity of the island; the South and the
West Saxons were established on the southern coast and inland to the
valley of the Thames; the East Saxons had a kingdom just north of the
mouth of the Thames, and the Middle Saxons held London and the
district around. The rest of the island to the north and inland
exclusive of what was still unconquered was occupied by various
branches of the Angle stock grouped into the kingdo