Another important area to consider comprises new structures dating to the later Roman period that have the appearance of being public buildings. The most common type is a rectangular aisled building, although there are other forms, including large gravelled or paved areas. The size and location of many of these suggest some kind of public function. The rectangular aisled structures have usually been interpreted either as churches or agricultural storage buildings (e. g., Esmonde Cleary 1989; Faulkner 2000a; Wheeler and Wheeler 1936), although there is often much uncertainty about their use.
Some of the 'church’ buildings were excavated in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and the interpretation of their function has been questioned in later times (e. g., at Silchester: Fox and St. John Hope 1893: 563-8; King 1983). The identification of churches in Britain has often been encouraged because of known events in the Empire, such as the conversion of Constantine (Mitchell 2007: 259-65) and the order to close temples in the Theodosian Code (Sirmond and Pharr 1969). Gibbon’s narrative of the Christianisation of the Empire will also have encouraged people to search for churches. The identification of agricultural storage buildings within late Roman towns in Britain is also based partly upon Empire-wide events, with Diocletian reforms resulting in late Roman taxes being collected in kind, the state annona system (e. g., Faulkner 2000a: 112-14). As with the so-called churches, this interpretation of the function of the buildings is not always straightforward. What these structures do indicate, however, is continuing construction activity within towns, alongside alterations to and use of existing public buildings.
The interpretation of these structures has implications for our understanding of the function of towns at this time and their role as religious centres. Some archaeological studies of late Roman towns in other parts of the Empire have demonstrated that the first churches were often located away from the centre of towns, where the public buildings remained in use (Krautheimer 1983). The first church in Rome, for example, built by Constantine, was away from the centre, perhaps to avoid causing unrest amongst the pagan population (ibid.). In many cases in the latest Roman and post-Roman periods, churches gradually moved from the periphery to the town centres, making a statement of power and achievement (B. Ward-Perkins 1998: 257,400). There is insufficient evidence from Britain to assess this pattern for the late Roman period.
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