Summary.This paper suggests that the end of Roman Britain would have been an event noticeable, even to the peasant labouring in his fields, by a sudden collapse in the trading economy. It suggests that this was, perhaps, triggered by a ‘tax revolt’amongst the élite. It then seeks to trace possible lines of continuity and transformations in various key features of Romano‐British life in the fifth to seventh centuries. Many of the transformations are seen as resulting from the loss of traded goods by the élite with which to impress