say prematurely that "Britain, abandoned by the Romans, passed into the power of the Saxons" and provide information about St Germanus and his visit or visits to Britain, though again this text has received considerable academic deconstruction. The work of Procopius, another 6th-century Byzantine writer, makes some references to Britain, though the accuracy of these is uncertain. There are numerous later written sources that claim to provide accurate accounts of the period. The first to attempt this was the monk Bede, writing in the early 8th century. He based his account of the Sub-Roman period in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (written around 731) heavily on Gildas, though he tried to provide dates for the events Gildas describes. It was written from an anti-Briton point of view. Later sources, such as the Historia Brittonum often attributed to Nennius, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (again written from a non-Briton point of view, based on West Saxon sources) and the Annales Cambriae, are all heavily shrouded in myth and can only be used with caution as evidence for this period. There are also documents giving Welsh poetry (of Taliesin and Aneirin) and land deeds (Llandaff charters) that appear to date back to the 6th century. After the Norman Conquest there were many books written that purport to give the history of the Sub-Roman period. These have been influenced by the fictionalised account in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). Therefore, they can only be regarded as showing how the legends grew. Not until modern times have serious studies of the period been undertaken. Later Lives of Celtic saints, although often unreliable, do provide some insights into life in Sub-Roman Britain. For example, there is a description of a dilapidated, but still occupied, Roman villa near Chepstow (probably at Portskewett) included in an account of a visit by St Tatheus; and the Roman ruins of Carlisle, as they were in 685, are described in a Life of St Cuthbert. Archaeological evidence Archaeology provides further evidence for this period, though of a different nature from that provided by documents. Archaeology suggested to Richard Reece that the depopulation of Roman towns and the development of villa and estate organization was already occurring in the 4th century. The 5th and 6th centuries in Britain are marked by a sharp discontinuity in town life, perhaps always a somewhat artificial Roman imposition on the