The diffusion of Roman civilization colored the beliefs of the British women. The destruction of the native shrines whither they used to resort to make a propitiatory offering or to draw divinations for direction in some matter of personal or domestic concern, and the establishment of the fanes of Rome, which abounded throughout the country to the limits of the Roman conquest, converted the local deities into Roman divinities. Under new names, the old gods of the woods and streams continued to receive the homage of the Romanized British matrons and maidens.
But with the introduction of Christianity and its extension even into parts of the country where the sword of Rome had failed to penetrate, there was a more radical change wrought in the life of women. They have always instinctively recognized the fact that the Christian religion is their champion, and in its consolation the women of the Britons found much to alleviate their common distress and to elevate their status. In the trying hours that came with the inroads of the fierce and barbarous Teutons, when they were carried off by the savage Picts to a base servitude, and when, after the reassertion of the Christian religion among the English, the coming of the Danes next brought a fresh abasement for their sex, the Christian faith was the sustaining and the reconstructive force of the lives of the women of the country. With the advance of Christianity passed the customs of pagan burial. The dead were no longer cremated, nor were they buried in the tumuli with the objects of their customary association interred with them to be of service in the spirit world.
One of the most apparent results of the Roman conquest, in its relation to the domestic life of the people, was the supersedence of the rude British dwellings by the Roman villa. This open style of house, suited to the sunny skies of Italy, had to undergo modifications to adapt it to the more rigorous clime of Britain. About an open court, which was either paved or planted in flower beds, the rooms were arranged, all of them opening inwardly, and some of them having an entrance to the outside as well. These connected rooms were usually one story high, with perhaps an additional story in the rear. The windows were iron-barred. The front of the villa was adorned with stucco and gaudily painted. In the homes of the wealthy, the inner court became an elaborately pillared banquet hall, with tessellated work in fine marble and with the pavement figured in symbolical devices. In it were placed the family shrines and statuary. Or else it was fitted up with the baths which were such a feature of Roman life. In later times, the walls blossomed out into decorations of mythological subjects: the foam-born Aphrodite, Bacchus and his panther steeds, Orpheus holding his dumb audience enthralled by his melody, Narcissus at the fountain, or the loves of Cupid and Psyche.