A HISTORY OF BRITAIN

TIMELINE AND FACTS

*Prehistoric Britain* BC	*Roman Britain* *43 AD*	*Anglo Saxon Britain* *450*
*Viking Britain* *793*	*Medieval Britain* *1066*	*Tudor Britain* *1485*
*Stuart Britain* *1603*	*Georgian Britain* *1714*	*Victorian Britain* *1837*
*Modern Britain* *1902 +*

*Prehistoric Britain*
*The first men and women came to Britain over two and a half million years ago. They were hunters and gatherers of food who used simple stone tools and weapons.*
BC	Britain	Abroad
*500,000*	People migrate to Britain from Europe.
*6500*	*The land bridge joining Britain to Europe is flooded as the sea level rises.* *Britain becomes an Island.*
*3000*	*New Stone Age* begins: farming people arrive from Europe.
*3000*	First stone circles erected.
*2100*	*Bronze Age* begins
*2150*	People learn to make bronze weapons and tools
*2000*	Stonehenge completed
*1650*	Trade routes begin to form
*1200*	Small Villages are first formed
*750*	*Iron Age* begins: iron replaces bronze as most useful metal. *Population about 150,000.*
*500*	*The Celtic people* arrive from Central Europe. The Celts were farmers and lived in small village groups in the centre of their arable fields. They were also warlike people. The Celts fought against the people of Britain and other Celtic tribes.

*Roman Britain*
The Romans were the first to invade us and came to Britain nearly 2000 years ago. They changed our country. The Roman Empire made its mark on Britain, and even today, the ruins of Roman buildings, forts, roads, and baths can be found all over Britain. Britain was part of the Roman Empire for almost 400 years! By the time the Roman armies left around 410 AD, they had established medical practice, a language of administration and law and had created great public buildings and roads. Many English words are derived from the latin language of the Romans.
	*Britain*		*Abroad*
*55 BC*	Julius Caesar heads first Roman Invasion but later withdraws
*44 BC*		*44 BC*	Julius Caesar is murdered in Rome
AD
30		30	Jesus Crucified
43	*Romans invade and Britain becomes part of the Roman Empire*
50	London Founded
61	Boadicea leads the Iceni in revolt against the Romans
70	Romans conquer Wales and the North
		76	The Emperor Hadrian is born
80		80	The Colosseum of Rome completed
*122 - 128*	Emperor Hadrian builds a wall on the Scottish Border
*140*	Romans conquer Scotland
*209*	St Alban becomes the 1st Christian martyr
*306*	Constantine the Great declared Emperor at York
*350*	The Picts and Scots attack the border
*401 - 410*	The Romans withdraw from Britain: Anglo Saxons migrants begin to Settle

*Anglo-Saxon Britain*
The Roman army left Britain about AD 410. When they had gone there was no strong army to defend Britain, and tribes called the Angle, Saxon, and Jute (the Anglo-Saxons) invaded. They left their homelands in northern Germany, Denmark and northern Holland and rowed across the North Sea in wooden boats. The Anglo-Saxons ruled most of Britain but never conquered Cornwall in the south-west, Wales in the west, or Scotland in the north. They divided the country into kingdoms. Missionaries from Roman spread Christianity across southern Britain.
*450 - 750*	Invasion of the Jutes from Jutland, Angles from South of Denmark and Saxons from Germany. Britain is divided up into the Seven Kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Kent.
*450*	Saxons Hengist and Horsa settle in Kent.
*460*	St Patrick returns to convert Ireland
*510*	The Battle of Mount Badon: British victory over the Saxons
*597*	St Augustine brings Christianity to Britain from Rome and becomes Archbishop of Canterbury
*617*	Northumbria becomes the Supreme Kingdom
*779*	Mercia becomes the Supreme Kingdom and King Offa builds a Dyke along the Welsh Border

	*Viking Britain*
The Viking Age in Britain began about 1,200 years ago in the 8th Century AD and lasted for 300 years.
*793*	First invasion by the Vikings
*821*	Wessex becomes the Supreme Kingdom
*866 - 77*	*Invasion of the Great Danish (Viking) Army.*
*867*	The Vikings take Northumbria
*871*	King Alfred defeats the Vikings but allows them to settle in Eastern England
*886*	The North subjected to the Danelaw, the rules of the Vikings
*889*	The Anglo Saxon Chronicle starts
*926*	Eastern England (Danelaw) is conquered by the Saxons
*1016*	King Canute of Denmark captures the English Crown
*1042*	Edward the Confessor becomes King
*1055*	*Westminster Abbey* is completed

*The Middle Ages - Medieval Britain (Normans)*
The Middle Ages in Britain cover a huge period. They take us from the shock of the Norman Conquest, which began in 1066, to the devasting Black Death of 1348, the Hundred Years' War with France and the War of the Roses, which finally ended in 1485. The Normans built impressive castles, imposed a feudal system and carried out a census of the country.
*1066*	The Battle of Stamford Bridge: Saxon victory over invading Vikings
*1066*	The Battle of Hastings*: The invading Normans defeat the Saxons* William of Normandy defeats Harold with a lucky shot and becomes King of England - Norman Conquest
*1070*	Work starts on Canterbury Cathedral
*1078*	Work starts on The Tower of London
*1080 - 1100*	Great monastery and cathedral building begins
*1086*	*The Domesday Book* is compiled, a complete inventory of Britain
*1154*	Work starts on York Minster
*1167*	Oxford University Founded
*1170*	Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a Becket is murdered by the knights of Henry II
*1170*	*Population of* London *exceeds 30,000 for the first time*
*1174*	Work starts on Wells Cathedral
*1215*	Civil War
*1215*	*The Magna Carta is signed by King John*
*1220*	Work starts on Salisbury
*1282 - 1283*	*King Edward conquers Wales*. Llewellyn ab Gruffydd, the country's last prince is killed
*1296*	*King Edward invades Scotland* and takes the Stone of Destiny from Scone to Westminster
*1297*	The Battle of Stirling Bridge The Scots under William Wallace defeat the English
*1298*	The Battle of Falkirk. King Edward defeats Wallace.
*1306*	Robert Bruce crowned King of the Scots
*1314*	*Scots led by Robert the Bruce defeat the English at the battle of Bannockburn*
*1321-22*	Civil War
*1337*	King Edward claims the Throne of France
*1337 - 1453*	Hundred Years' War with France
*1348 - 49*	*The Black Death* (bubonic plague) arrived in England and killed nearly half of the population
*1387*	Geoffrey Chaucer starts writing the Canterbury Tales
*1415*	English defeat the French at the battle of Agincourt
*1453*	The Hundred Years War against France ends
*1455*	Civil War: The War of the Roses starts

*Tudor Britain*
The Tudors were a Welsh-English family that ruled England from 1485 to 1603 - one of the most exciting periods of British history. Henry VIII's matrimonial difficulties led to the split with Catholicism. Henry made himself head of the Church of England.
*1485*	The War of the Roses ends at the Battle of Bosworth. Henry Vll crowned king.
*1497*	John Cabot sails from Bristol aboard the 'Matthew' and discovers North America
*1509 - 1547*	*Henry Vlll succeeds to the throne*
*1513*	English defeat the Scots at the Battle of Flodden
*1534*	Henry VIII forms the 'Church of England'. Henry is confirmed as 'Supreme Head of the Church of England 'following a parliamentary Act of Supremacy
*1536*	Act of Union joins England and Wales
*1536 - 39*	Destruction or closure of 560 monasteries and religious houses
*1542*	Mary, Queen of Scots lays claim to the English throne
*1558*	*Elizabeth I begins her 45 year reign*
*1570*	Sir Francis Drake sets sail for his first voyage to the West Indies
*1587*	Queen Elizabeth I executes Mary, Queen of Scots
*1588*	The English defeat the Spanish Armada
*1591*	First performance of a play by *William Shakespeare*
*1600*	First British involvement in the Indian continent - East India Company formed. Population of Britain just over 4 million

*Stuart Britain*

The Stuarts had ruled Scotland since 1371, but James VI of Scotland was the first Stuart king of England.
*1603*	*James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England uniting the two kingdoms*
*1605*	*Guy Fawkes* is thwarted when he tries to blow up Parliament.
*1606*	*The Union Flag* adopted as the National Flag
*1620*	The Pilgrim Fathers set sail for New England from Plymouth, aboard the 'Mayflower'
*1624-30*	War with Spain
*1626-9*	War with France
*1629*	Parliament dissolved by King Charles
*1642 - 1651*	Civil War
*1649*	King Charles executed
*1649-1650*	Cromwell's conquest of Ireland
*1650 - 1652*	Cromwell's conquest of Scotland
*1652*	Tea *arrives in Britain*
*1653*	Cromwell proclaimed Lord Protector
*1660*	Restoration of the Monarchy under King Charles II
*1664-1665*	The Great Plague breaks out and up to 100,000 people die in London
*1666*	Great Fire of London
*1689*	*English Bill of rights* 1689 From now on England's monarchs would rule in partnership with Parliament. All Catholics barred from the English throne.
*1692*	William III massacres the Jacobites at Glencoe
*1707*	Act of Union between Scotland and England. The Scottish parliament was dissolved and England and Scotland became one country.

*Georgian Britain*
In 1714 the British throne passed to a German family, the Hanoverians.
*1714*	George of Hanover, Germany succeeds Queen Anne to the Throne
*1721*	*Sir Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister*
*1746*	Bonnie Prince Charlie is defeated at the Battle of Culloden
*1757*	First canal in Britain is completed
*1776*	America declares independence from Britain
*1780's*	Industrial Revolution Begins
*1783*	Steam powered cotton mill invented by Sir Richard Arkwright
*1788*	First convict ships are sent to Australia
*1796*	Edward Jenner invented a vaccination against small pox
*1800*	Act the Union with Ireland.
*1801*	The first census. Population of Britain 8 million Ireland made part of the United Kingdom
*1804*	Richard Trevithick built the first steam locomotive
*1805*	Lord Nelson defeats Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar
*1807*	Abolition of Slave Trade
*1815*	Duke of Wellington defeats Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo
*1825*	World's first railway opens between Stockton and Darlington
*1829*	Robert Peel set up the Metropolitan Police force
*1834*	The Poor Law set up workhouses, where people without homes or jobs could live in return for doing unpaid work.

*Victorian Britain*
The Victorians lived over one hundred and fifty years ago during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 to 1901) and was a time of enormous change in this country. In 1837 most people lived in villages and worked on the land; by 1901, most lived in towns and worked in offices, shops and factories.
*1837*	Queen Victoria becomes Queen at the age of 18
*1840*	The first postage stamps (Penny Post) came into use
*1842*	Mines Act ended child labour
*1845 - 1849*	Ireland suffered the Great Potato Famine when entire crops of potatoes, the staple Irish food, were ruined. The famine was a consequence of the appearance of blight, the potato fungus. About 800,000 people died as a result of the famine. A large number of people migrated to Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia.
*1850s*	The first post boxes were built
*1851*	*The Great Exhibition* Census showed just over half of Britain's population (of 20 million) lived in towns
*1854*	*Crimean War*
*1854*	A cholera epidemic led to demands for a clean water supply and proper sewage systems in the big cities
*1856*	Britain defeats Russia in the Crimean War
*1860*	The first public flushing toilet opens
*1861*	Death of Prince Albert
*1863*	London Underground opens The foundation of the Football Association
*1868*	Joseph Lister discovers disinfectant
*1868*	The last public hanging
*1869*	The first Sainsbury's shop open in Dury Lane, London
*1870*	Education Act means school for everyone
*1871*	Queen Victoria opens the Albert Hall
*1876*	Alexander Bell invented the telephone Primary education was made compulsory
*1877*	The first public electric lighting in London
*1883*	First electric railway
*1887*	The invention of the gramophone
*1891*	Free education for every child
*1901*	Population of Britain 40 million

*Modern Britain*
*1902*	Britain defeats Dutch settlers in Boer War in South Africa
*1902*	The first old age pension
*1914 - 1918*	*First World War* Compulsory military service and food rationing introduced
*1920*	Republic of Ireland gains independence
*1937*	Sir Frank Whittle invents the Jet Engine
*1939 - 1945*	*The Second World War*
*1951*	Festival of Britain
*1952*	*Elizabeth II becomes Queen*
*1953*	Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
*1973*	*Britain joins the European Community*
*1979*	Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain's first woman prime minister
*1982*	Falklands War
*1991*	Gulf War
*1991*	Sir Tim Berners Lee invents the World Wide Web
*1994*	Channel Tunnel links Britain back to the European continent
*1999*	Welsh national assembly and Scottish parliament
*2003*	The Second Gulf War

THE NEOLITHIC AGE

The age of the first settlements took place around 4500 BC, in what we call Neolithic Age. Though isolated farmhouses seem to be the norm, the remarkable findings at Skara Brae and Rinyo, in the Orkneys give evidence of village life. In both sites, local stone was used extensively to make interior walls, beds, boxes, cupboards and hearths. Roofs seem to have been supported by whale bone, more plentiful and more durable than timber. Much farther south, at Cam Brea, in Cornwall another Neolithic village attest to a similar life style at Skara Brea,except because of the fertile south, agriculture played a much larger part in the lives of the villagers. Animal husbandry was practised at both sites.

Very early on, farming began to transform the landscape of Britain, from virgin forest to ploughed fields. An excavated settlement at Windmill Hill, Witshire, shows us that its very early inhabitants kept cattle, sheep, pigs, goats. and dogs. They also cultivated various kinds of wheat and barley, grew flax, gathered fruits and made pottery. They buried their dead in long barrows- huge elongated mounds of earth raised over a temporary wooden structure in which several bodies were laid. These long barrows are found all over Southern England.

SKARA BRAE INTERIOR HOUSES

To clear the forest, it´s obvious that stone-axes of sophisticated design were produced in great number with high quality flint.

At the same time the Windmill people practised their way of life, other farming people were introducing decorated pottery and different shaped tools into Britain. The cultures may have combined to produce the striking Megalithic monuments.

Some of these tombs were built of massive blocks of stone standing upright as walls, with other huge blocks laid across horizontally to make a roof. They were covered with earthen mounds which have been, in many cases, completely eroded.

One of the most impressive of these tombs is New Grange, in Ireland. They are the oldest man made stone structures known, older than the great Pyramids of Egypt.

In the early to middle Neolithic period, groups of people began to build camps or enclosures in valley bottoms or hills-tops. Perhaps these were originally built to pen cattle and later used for defense settlement or simply meeting places for trading. Perhaps they were built for religious purposes. Soon, this enclosures began to evolve into more elaborated sites that may have been used for religious ceremonies, perhaps even for studying the stars so that sowing, planting and harvesting could be done at the most propitious times of the year. Whatever their purpose we call these sites, most of which are circular or semi-circular in pattern, henge. They included banks and ditches; the most impressive, at Avebury in Witshire, had a ditch 21 metres in width and 9 metres in deep, in in places.

Many of the timber posts that defined these henges have long disappeared, but many sites still contain circles of pits, central stones, cairns or burials and clearly defined stone or timber entrances. It was not too long before stone circles began to dot the landscape, spanning the period between the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Ages (c3370 - 2679 BC). Outside these circles were erected the monoliths, huge single standing stones that may have been aligned on the rising or setting sun at midsummer or midwinter. Some of these, such as the groups of circles known as the Calva group in present day Scotland, were also used for burials and burial ceremonies. Henges seem to have been used for multiple purposes, justifying the enormous expenditure of time and energy to construct them.

The arrival of the so-called "Beaker people" named after the shape of their most characteristic pottery vessel, brought the first metal-users to the British Isles. Perhaps they used their beakers to store beer, for they grew barley and knew how to brew beer from it. At the time of their arrival in Britain, they seem to have mingled with another group of Europeans we call the "Battle-axe people," who had domesticated the horse, used wheeled carts and smelted and worked copper.

They also buried their dead in singles graves, often under round barrows. They also may have introduced a language into Britain derived from Indo-European.

The Wessex Culture

The two groups seem to have blended together to produce the cult in Southern England that we call the 'Wessex Culture.' They were responsible for the enormous earthwork called Silbury Hill, the largest manmade mound in prehistoric Europe. Silbury is 39 metres high and was built as a series of circular platforms; their purpose still unknown. Nearby is the largest henge of all, Avebury, consisting of a vast circular ditch and bank, an outer ring of one hundred standing stones and two smaller inner rings of stones. Outside the monument was a mile-long avenue of standing stones.

Stonehenge, in the same general area as Silbury and Avebury, is perhaps the most famous; certainly the most visited and photographed of all the prehistoric monuments in Britain. We can only guess at the amount of labor involved in its construction, at the enormous complexity of the task which included transporting the inner blue-stones from the Preseli Hills in Wales and erecting of the great lintelled circle and horseshoe of large sparse stones, shaped and dressed. The architectural sophistication of the monument bears witness to the tremendous technological advances being made at the time of the arrival of the Bronze Age.

Grave goods also attest to the sophistication of the Wessex culture: These include well-made stone battle axes, but also metal daggers with richly

decorated hilts, precious ornaments of gold or amber, as well as gold cups, amulets, even a sceptre with a polished mace-head at one end. To make bronze, tin came from Cornwall; gold came from Wales, and products made from these metals were traded freely both within the British Isles and with peoples on the continent of Europe. Bronze was used to make cauldrons and bowls, shields and helmets, weapons of war, and farming tools. It was at this time that the Celtic peoples arrived in the islands we now call Britain.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 2.0 miles (3.2 km) west of and 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks. It is at the centre of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.

Before looking in detail at the phases of Stonehenge itself, it is worth exploring what the landscape looked like before Stonehenge was built

Some clues may lie in the landscape and the earlier history of the area.

At a time when much of the rest of southern England was largely covered by woodland, the chalk downland in the area of Stonehenge may have been an unusually open landscape in the Mesolithic period. It is possible that this open area was significant to prehistoric people and this is why it later became the site of a monument complex.

Recent excavations and geophysical surveys have suggested the possible importance of geological features called periglacial stripes. They run parallel to the banks of the avenue and across the site of Stonehenge and align in places on the solstice axis. It is possible that these geological stripes may have been visible on the ground in early prehistory and could have led prehistoric people to believe that this was a special place. It is possible that features such as the Heel Stone and the 'North Barrow' were early components of Stonehenge but the first major known construction was an earthen bank and ditch, built just after 3000BC. This enclosed a circular area, about 100 metres (33 feet) in diameter, and had at least two entrances. It was an early form of henge monument.

The earliest sign of human activity we have in the area around Stonehenge was revealed during excavations in the area of the car park in the 1960s and 1980s. Here, four or five pits, three of which appear to have held large pine posts It is not known how, or if at all, these posts, described as ‘totem-pole like structures’, relate to the later monument of Stonehenge.
Before Stonehenge was built, the area was the site of an early Neolithic monument complex. It included the causewayed enclosure at Robin Hood’s Ball, two cursus monuments (the Greater and Lesser Cursus) and several long barrows, all dating from the middle of the 4th millennium BC (the centuries around 3500 BC). The presence of these monuments which appear to have been maintained or at least remembered for many hundreds of years may have influenced the later location of Stonehenge nearby.

Stonehenge was a monument with several phases to its construction. It was constructed and altered over a period of about 1,000 years, starting in about 3000 BC.

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1) Immediately inside the bank there are a series of fifty six pits known as "The Aubrey Holes", named after their re-discoverer John Aubrey who investigated them in 1666.

2) The Four Stations or Station Stones stand inside the bank more or less on the Aubrey Hole circle. Two, diagonally opposite, have mounds and ditches, the other two do not. These mounds / ditches overlay both Aubrey Holes and the bank.

The Station Stones form a rectangle whose diagonals intersect at 45°, very close to the centre of Stonehenge The sides and diagonals of this rectangle possess what Gerald Hawkins called 'astronomic significance.' One pair of sides mark the Summer Solstice Sunrise/ Winter Solstice Sunset, the other pair indicate the most northerly/southerly moonrise / moonset.

3) Between the Aubrey Holes / Station Stones and the central stones are two rings of pits called the Y Holes and Z Holes.

The twenty nine Z Holes are between 5 feet and 15 feet outside the Sarsen circle; the thirty Y Holes about 35 feet. They average around 3 foot 3 inches deep and appear to have been dug after the erection of the Sarsen circle. Neither describe a true circle. As with the Aubrey Holes there is little archaeological evidence as to the function of these holes. Suggestively almost every pit excavated held a bluestone chip, specifically rhyolite, near the bottom. A similar rhyolite chip was found at the bottom of the ditch surrounding the Heel Stone.

4) The Sarsen Circle has a diameter of 97 feet. The individual stones are 7 feet wide, stand 13 feet 6 inches high and are spaced 10 feet apart (centre to centre). The average error in the placing of these 25 ton stones is somewhere in the region of four inches. The top of each upright stone has two upstanding dome/knobs on which fit recesses cut in the lintels. These lintels are carved to conform to the curve of the circle and each has an upright ridge on one end which fits a corresponding groove on the next stone.

The entrance to the Sarsen Circle is to the northeast. The gap between the uprights there is a foot wider than the average and the lintel above is deeper than the others, the underside cutaway to preserve a level top.

5) The Bluestone Circle some 76 feet in diameter.

There may have originally been up to sixty stones in this circle, of which twenty currently can be seen. Geologically the Bluestones are rhyolite or spotted dolomite rocks from the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. The average spacing of the stones in this circle is about two feet.

The two stones at the entrance to the BLuestone Circle were set five feet apart and only six inches from their neighbours.

They are also set back into the circle.

This is not the original placing of the Bluestones. Several of the stones are dressed in such a way that shows they stood as a 'henge' monument/circle before they were brought to their present site.

6) The Trilithons: The Trilithons are five linteled triads of large Sarsen stones averaging 45 tons, laid out in the shape of a horseshoe open to the northeast. They were likely originally erected from the outside. The openings in the Trilithons average 13 inches, that between the central stones may have been greater. The Trilithons increase in height, those near the entrance are 20 feet to the top of the lintels, the next pair are 21 foot 3 inches high and the central Trilithon lintel stands a towering 25 feet 6 inches above ground level.

7) The Bluestone horseshoe: The 19 Bluestones of the central horseshoe stand within the Trilithons and are similarly aligned with the opening to the northeast. The diameter of the inner stones is 39 feet and as with the Trilithons these stones rise in height, from 6 feet at the outer ends to 8 feet at the centre. These bluestones also show evidence of having stood before.

8) The Centre of Stonehenge: The 'Altar' stone lies almost at the geometrical centre of Stonehenge. It is a pale greenish/brown micaceous sandstone which originated from the area around Milford Haven in Southwest Wales. The name seems to have come from it's position in front of the Trilithons. The Alter Stone measures 16 feet long, 1 foot 9 inches deep and 3 feet 4 inches wide. The original position of this stone is uncertain, there are stone holes suggesting it may have stood upright in front of the central Trilithon, or it may have been one of a pair somewhere near it's present position, or maybe it lies where it always has.

CELTIC BRITAIN 600 BC - 50 AD (THE IRON AGE)

Who were they? The Iron Age is the age of the "Celt" in Britain. Over the 500 or so years leading up to the first Roman invasion a Celtic culture established itself throughout the British Isles. Who were these Celts?

For a start, the concept of a "Celtic" people is a modern and somewhat romantic reinterpretation of history. The “Celts” were warring tribes who certainly wouldn’t have seen themselves as one people at the time.

The "Celts" as we traditionaly regard them exist largely in the magnificence of their art and the words of the Romans who fought them. The trouble with the reports of the Romans is that they were a mix of reportage and political propaganda. It was politically expedient for the Celtic peoples to be coloured as barbarians and the Romans as a great civilizing force. And history written by the winners is always suspect.

Where did they come from? What we do know is that the people we call Celts gradually infiltrated Britain over the course of the centuries between about 500 and 100 B.C. There was probably never an organized Celtic invasion; for one thing the Celts were so fragmented and given to fighting among themselves that the idea of a concerted invasion would have been ludicrous.

The Celts were a group of peoples loosely tied by similar language, religion, and cultural expression. They were not centrally governed, and quite as happy to fight each other as any non-Celt. They were warriors, living for the glories of battle and plunder. They were also the people who brought iron working to the British Isles.

The advent of iron. The use of iron had amazing repercussions. First, it changed trade and fostered local independence. Trade was essential during the Bronze Age, for not every area was naturally endowed with the necessary ores to make bronze. Iron, on the other hand, was relatively cheap and available almost everywhere.

Hill forts. The time of the "Celtic conversion" of Britain saw a huge growth in the number of hill throughout the region. These were often small ditch and bank combinations encircling defensible hilltops. Some are small enough that they were of no practical use for more than an individual family, though over time many larger forts were built. The curious thing is that we don't know if the hill forts were built by the native Britons to defend themselves from the encroaching Celts, or by the Celts as they moved their way into hostile territory.

Usually these forts contained no source of water, so their use as long term settlements is doubtful, though they may have been useful indeed for withstanding a short term siege. Many of the hill forts were built on top of earlier causewayed camps.

Celtic family life. The basic unit of Celtic life was the clan, a sort of extended family. The term "family" is a bit misleading, for by all accounts the Celts practiced a peculiar form of child rearing; they didn't rear them, they farmed them out. Children were actually raised by foster parents. The foster father was often the brother of the birth-mother. Got it?

Clans were bound together very loosely with other clans into tribes, each of which had its own social structure and customs, and possibly its own local gods.

Housing. The Celts lived in huts of arched timber with walls of wicker and roofs of thatch. The huts were generally gathered in loose hamlets. In several places each tribe had its own coinage system.

Farming. The Celts were farmers when they weren't fighting. One of the interesting innovations that they brought to Britain was the iron plough. Earlier ploughs had been awkward affairs, basically a stick with a pointed end harnessed behind two oxen. They were suitable only for ploughing the light upland soils. The heavier iron ploughs constituted an agricultural revolution all by themselves, for they made it possible for the first time to cultivate the rich valley and lowland soils. They came with a price, though. It generally required a team of eight oxen to pull the plough, so to avoid the difficulty of turning that large a team, Celtic fields tended to be long and narrow, a pattern that can still be seen in some parts of the country today.

The lot of women. Celtic lands were owned communally, and wealth seems to have been based largely on the size of cattle herd owned. The lot of women was a good deal better than in most societies of that time. They were technically equal to men, owned property, and could choose their own husbands. They could also be war leaders, as Boudicca (Boadicea) later proved.

Language. There was a written Celtic language, but it developed well into Christian times, so for much of Celtic history they relied on oral transmission of culture, primarily through the efforts of bards and poets. These arts were tremendously important to the Celts, and much of what we know of their traditions comes to us today through the old tales and poems that were handed down for generations before eventually being written down.

Druids. Another area where oral traditions were important was in the training of Druids. There has been a lot of nonsense written about Druids, but they were a curious lot; a sort of super-class of priests, political advisors, teachers, healers, and arbitrators. They had their own universities, where traditional knowledge was passed on by rote. They had the right to speak ahead of the king in council, and may have held more authority than the king. They acted as ambassadors in time of war, they composed verse and upheld the law. They were a sort of glue holding together Celtic culture.

Knowledge of the Druids comes directly from classical writers of their time. They were compared to the learned priesthoods of antiquity, the Indian Brahmins, the Pythagoreans, and the Chaldean astronomers of Babylon. Caesar wrote: " They know much about the stars and celestial motions, and about the size of the earth and universe, and about the essential nature of things, and about the powers and authority of' the immortal gods; and these things they teach to their pupils."

Religion. From what we know of the Celts from Roman commentators, who are, remember, witnesses with an axe to grind, they held many of their religious ceremonies in woodland groves and near sacred water, such as wells and springs. The Romans speak of human sacrifice as being a part of Celtic religion. One thing we do know, the Celts revered human heads.

Celtic warriors would cut off the heads of their enemies in battle and display them as trophies. They mounted heads in doorposts and hung them from their belts. This might seem barbaric to us, but to the Celt the seat of spiritual power was the head, so by taking the head of a vanquished foe they were appropriating that power for themselves. It was a kind of bloody religious observance.

Two Headed Celtic Idol

The Iron Age is when we first find cemeteries of ordinary people’s burials (in hole-in-the-ground graves) as opposed to the elaborate barrows of the elite few that provide our main records of burials in earlier periods.

The Celts at War. The Celts loved war. If one wasn't happening they'd be sure to start one. They were scrappers from the word go. They arrayed themselves as fiercely as possible, sometimes charging into battle fully naked, dyed blue from head to toe, and screaming like banshees to terrify their enemies.

They took tremendous pride in their appearance in battle, if we can judge by the elaborately embellished weapons and paraphernalia they used. Golden shields and breastplates shared pride of place with ornamented helmets and trumpets.

The Celts were great users of light chariots in warfare. From this chariot, drawn by two horses, they would throw spears at an enemy before dismounting to have a go with heavy slashing swords. They also had a habit of dragging families and baggage along to their battles, forming a great milling mass of encumbrances, which sometimes cost them a victory, as Queen Boudicca would later discover to her dismay.

Descriptions of the Brythonic Tribes of Roman Britain

Dumnonii

In terms of territory, the Dumnonii occupied one of the largest regions of Britain, with their territory occupying modern Cornwall, Devon and parts of Southern Somerset. As a peoples, they did not appear to use coins, nor did they have any large settlements which might act as the political centres for the tribe and (until post-Roman times there is no evidence for a dynasty of Dumnonian kings. As a result most commentators believe that the Dumnonii were in fact a confederation of a number of smaller tribes. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Dumnonii lived in small farmsteads, often surrounded by large walls or ramparts. There is also evidence from pottery that the Dumnonii had strong links with Armorica (Brittany) a link that was maintained well into post-Roman times.

Interestingly, the Dumnonii seem to have presented little resistance to the Roman conquest and as a result the region was never heavily garrisoned. This may be one of the reasons that the Dumnonii never fully-adopted the Roman way of life. The Romans granted them civitas status and their administrative centre was at Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter). In post-Roman times the Dumnonian line became one of the most important of the Brythonic royal houses and many of the early Brythonic kings (including Arthur) claim descent from this royal lineage.

Durotriges

The territory of the Durotriges was centred around modern Dorset (though it seems also to have included southern Wiltshire and Somerset as well). The Durotriges lived in a mineral-rich area and minted coins well before the Roman invasion. They also had varying burial practices with one group, centred around modern Dorchester employing inhumation (rather than the more typical cremational) cemeteries. This and the lack of any indication of a royal lineage has led to the supposition that the Durotriges were also a confederation of smaller tribes. Although atypical at the time, the Durotriges represent what we think of today as the archetypal Celtic peoples in that they still occupied hillforts. Indeed, many of the most famous hillforts (Maiden Castle, South Cadbury Castle and Hod Hill) were all occupied by the Durotriges.

Though there was a major port at Hengistbury Head in the lands of the Durotriges (from which trade with Gaul was controlled) the Durotriges themselves seem to have been disdainful of these imported goods and tended to use local pottery produced at Poole Harbour. During the time of the Roman invasion the Durotriges put up a spirited opposition, and if Suetonius is to be believed then the Durotriges represent on of the two tribes that fought against Vespasian and the second legion. Despite their opposition, the Durotriges were made into a civitas after the conquest, with an administrative capital at Durnovaria (Dorchester). About half a century later and a second Durotrigian civitas was created, this time administered from Lindinis (Ilchester).

Belgiae

The Belgiae seem to present something of a mystery to us. The name itself is probably Roman, who applied the term Belgiae to almost all the tribes of north-western Gaul. As a result the Belgiae of Britain were probably not a native Brythonic tribe, but rather may represent an influx of peoples from Gaul who were probably not of the same tribe but aggregated together because of shared language and culture.

Even the territory occupied by these Belgiae is something of a mystery. In his Geography, Ptolemy records the territory of the Belgae as including the areas of modern Winchester and Bath as well as an unidentified settlement he called Ischalis. This would seem to give the tribal area a very strange shape and would squash it between the lands of the much stronger Durotriges, Atrebates and Dobunni. Yet, it is known that the administrative capital of the Belgae was at Venta Belgarum (Winchester) so that Ptolemy may be correct. Perhaps the lands of the Belgae represent a carve-up by the extant colonial powers (the Romans) and thus it may well have been an artificial creation (something similar happened to the realm of the Regni, as described below).

Regni

Before the Roman conquest the area of West Sussex occupied by the Regni during Roman times was a part of the lands of the Atrebates. Partly because of existing strong links with Gaul and partly due to the rise of a new ruler (Togidubnus) Chichester and the surrounding area became an important centre in the period just prior to the Roman invasion and also served as one of the bases for the Roman invasion itself. Because of the aid afforded to the Romans by Togidubnus Chichester and the surrounding area became a client kingdom rather than a direct part of the Roman province of Britannia (until Togidubnus' death at least). With the passing of Togidubnus the territory of the Atrebates was split into three separate civitae with the Regni being the civitas centred on Chichester that administered West Sussex. It may be that the Regni were a separate tribe, a client of the Atrebates; though it is equally possible that this 'tribe' is a Roman invention.

Cantiaci

These were the peoples of northern and western Kent (and it is from them that Kent itself derives its name). The Cantiaci had very strong links with northern Gaul and they buried their dead in the Gaulish manner (the burial of cremated remains). It is quite possible that the Cantiaci were an admixture of native peoples and immigrants from northern Gaul, which would certainly explain the links between these peoples. Prior to the Roman conquest the Cantiaci became a member of the large confederation of peoples led by Cunobelinus and after the conquest they became an independent civitas centred around their principal settlement at Durovernum Catiacorum (Canterbury).

Trinovantes

The Trinovantes are first mentioned by Julius Caesar in his de Bello Gallico (on the Gallic Wars), appearing the account of his (abortive) invasion of Britain in 54 BCE. From Caesar's account it seems as if by this time the Trinovantes were already engaged in a power struggle with the neighbouring Atrebates and the tribes that were soon to be forged into the Catuvellauni under the leadership of Tasciovanus to the west. Though there may already have existed some kind of relationship between the Catuvellauni, the Trinovantes and the Cantiaci in that they shared funerary practices, agricultural practices and used money as well as eating from plates and drinking from cups. The king of the Catuvellauni, Cunobelinos eventually forged the Catuvellauni, Cantiaci and Trinovantes into a single large kingdom, establishing Colchester as a new royal site. This was one of the reasons that Colchester became a major target for Claudius' invasion of Britain in 43 CE. However, the alliance was disbanded after the Roman invasion and the Trinovantes were restored as a tribal entity, with a tribal capital at Camulodunum(Colchester).

Atrebates

The Atrebates are another Brythonic tribe that share a name with a Gaulish tribe that inhabited modern-day Belgium. In this case the name of the tribe is suggestive of their nature, as Atrebates can be derived from the reconstructed proto-Celtic elements: *attrebƒ (settlement) and *atē (they who). Thus the Atrebates are 'they who [form] settlements', or more succinctly 'the settlers'. It may well be that the Atrebates were peripatetic by nature, forming settlements as they traversed the breadth of Europe. Of these settlements only the ones in Britain and Belgium survived into historic times. The Belgic and British tribe may well have had strong links even into Roman times. It is certainly true that Commas, leader of the Belgian Atrebates fled to Britain during Julius Caesar's Gallic wars and that a Commius then appears as the ruler of the British Atrebates.

At the time of the Roman invasion they were second only to the Catuvellauni in terms of power and like their neighbours they minted their own coins and had numerous contacts with Gaul. At the height of their power Aterbatian lands stretched from modern-day West Sussex all the way up to Hampshire and Berkshire. The extent of their territory suggests that they were a conglomeration of tribes ruled over by a single dynastic family. Certainly, the peoples subsequently known as the Regni were part of the Atrebates prior to the Roman invasion (see above).

From about 15 BC, the Atrebates seem to have established friendly relations with Rome, and it was an appeal for help from the last Atrebatic king, Verica, which provided Claudius with the pretext for the invasion on Britain in AD 43. Because of the Atrebates' support of the invasion (most notably by their leader, Togidubnus) their region remained an independent client kingdom of the Roman province of Britannia, at least until Togidubnus' death circa 80 CE when the territory of the Atrebates was divided into three civitae with one region going to the Regni, and with Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) being the administrative centre of the largest part (including modern Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey and Hampshire).

Dobunni

The Dobunni (sometimes known as Dubunni) were amongst the largest tribes of Britannia, with a territory that covered large extents of the Severn Valley and the Cotswolds. They were another tribe that issued pre-Roman coinage and from these coins it can be determined that the Dobunni were divided into northern and southern sub-groupings. The Dobunni were a wealthy agrarian peoples who were already fairly Romanized by the time the Romans invaded. As a result they did not resist the invasion and may well have been amongst the first to submit to Roman rule. After the conquest the Dobunnic settlement of Bagendon in Gloucester (the largest in their territory) was supplanted by the Roman city of Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester). Many of the Dobunni did very well from the Roman conquest, as can be attested by the large number of wealthy villas in the region.

As an agrarian peoples the Dobunni seemed to have revered deities of agriculture and fertility above all, which may well explain the large number of dedications to the Genii Cucullati in their territory.

Silures

The Silures were the tribe of the area that now covers the Brecon Beacons and the Valleys of South Wales. Living in the high ground the Silures, unlike their Dobunni relatives offered strong resistance to the Romans. Indeed, between 45–57 CE it is probably fair to say that they led the British opposition to the westwards advance of the Roman Empire. As a result, though we know little of how they lived day to day, many of the leading Roman writers (notably Pliny, Ptolemy and Tacitus) mention them by name. Tacitus describes them as a 'strong and warlike nation', but by the early 60s CE they had been occupied by the Romans. However, the Silures' bitter and concerted resistance may explain why they were only granted self-governing civitas status during the early second century CE with the administrative centre being at Venta Silurum (Caerwent).

Demetae

These were the people of the fertile lands of south-western Wales. Like the Dumnonii they were an agrarian peoples living in small settlements and like most of the other agrarian tribes they both acquiesced to and adapted readily to Roman rule. The only real garrisons in the territory of the Demetae were those on their eastern border, which may well have been there to protect them from the far more aggressive Silures. The tribe was granted civitas status early during the conquest, with its administrative capital at Moridunum Demetarum (Caerfyrddin [Carmarthen]). Like the Dumnonii the Demetae also maintained close links with Armorica (Brittany) well into post-Roman times. The name of the Demetae is derived from that of their patron warrior deity Demetos and it is this deity (and the tribe named after him) that provide the name for the modern Welsh county of Dyfed. Thus they are the People of the God of Mead.

Ordovices

The territory of the Ordovices covered most of what is today mid and west Wales. Their neighbours were the Demetae to the south, the Silures to the east and the Deceangli to the north. They were a war-like peoples living in small fortified farmsteads. After the Roman invasion in 43 CE it was to the Ordovices that Caractacos fled to seek refuge. He managed to stir the Ordovices into rebellion and they successfully resisted the Romans for almost a quarter of a century. It was only in 77–78 CE that the Roman general, Agricola, finally defeated the Ordovices. Unlike the Silures, however, the Ordovices were granted civitas status quite soon after their conquest.

Gangani

The territory of the Gangani covered most of what is today the Llŷn Peninsula in North-West Wales. Their neighbours were the Ordovices to the east. They were seem to have war-like peoples living in fortified farmsteads (a number of these stone-built forts still survive on the Llŷn Peninsula, most notably at Tre'r Ceiri). The tribe shares its name with an Irish tribe who occupied the region now known as Leinster. It seems that the Llŷn Gangani were an offshoot of the Irish Gangani as the name Llŷn is etymologically derived from the same root as the Irish Leinster. After the Roman invasion this tribe was probably kept in check by the garrison of the fort at Pen Llystyn which may well mark the border between the lands of the Ordovices and the Gangani. The name of the tribe is contained in the Roman name for the Llŷn Peninsula, Ganganorum Promontorium, found in Ptolemy's Geography, which literally means 'The headland of the Gangani'.

Deceangli

The Deceangli were the tribe of what today is north Wales and Mona (Môn [Anglesey]). The Deceangli were targeted for conquest as the Romans considered the druids as playing a crucial role in encouraging the resistance against Rome. The centre for British druidry seems to have been in Mona, which is why the island was targeted. However, the Deceangli were a warlike tribe (as detailed in Tacitus' Agricola) and it wasn't until 60 CE (the time of the Boudicca revolt) that Mona was invaded and the druids were slaughtered. The Deceangli were another hillfort people and this may be one of the reasons they Romans for almost seventeen years.

Catuvellauni

Even before the time of Julius Caesar the Catuvellauni were a large and powerful tribe, their territories covering most of modern Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and southern Cambridgeshire. Allied tribes also probably gave them a foothold in Buckinghamshire and north-western Oxfordshire. The Catuvellauni began minting coins quite early and from these we know that around 10 CE a leader arose, known as Tasciovanus who founded a large royal and ritual centre ad Verulamium (St Albans). Through conquest and alliance he began the process that linked the Catuvellauni, Trinovantes and Cantiaci into a single grouping. This tightening of links between the three tribes (who already shared similar lifestyles and beliefs) culminated in the rule of Cunobelinos. However, after this leader's death (somewhere around the late 30s CE) the kingdom was riven by the rivalries of his successors. This internal strife was used as one of the excuses by Claudius to invade Britain in 43 CE, as the Catuvellauni were one of the most pro-Roman of the British peoples. This probably explains why Verulamium became on of the very first civitae of the new province of Britannia.

Etymologically the name of this tribe can be derived from the reconstructed proto-Celtic elements: *katu- (battle) and *welo- (good) thus the Catuvellauni are those who are 'good in battle'; perhaps with the sense of 'Foremost in Battle'.

Iceni

The Iceni have to be one of the best-known of the Brythonic tribes. As a coin-issuing tribe it is known that the Iceni occupied the modern counties of Norfolk, as well as the major part of Suffolk and eastern Cambridgeshire. The Iceni seems to be an agglomeration of smaller tribes that grew to dominance in the period between 200 and 50 BCE. The various gold hoards obtained from Iceni territories (including the Snettisham torcs) indicate that the Iceni were a wealthy peoples. Unlike their southern neighbours, however, the Iceni seem to have actively shunned contact with the Roman world. This may explain why, when the Romans granted the Iceni the status of civitas they ignored the traditional centres at Snettisham and Thetford and instead founded a new city at Caistor (Norwich). Despite this, the Iceni were initially hospitable to the Roman invaders. So much so that Prasutagus (the ruler at the time) became a client king of the Romans. However, after his death (just as would later happen to the Atrebates) the kingdom was incorporated into the Roman province and a spate of very harsh rule ensued. As a result of these abuses, in 60 CE Prasutagus' widow, Boudicca, led what was to become the most successful revolt against Roman rule in Britain.

Coritani

The Coritani seem to have been a loose confederation of mainly agrarian tribes whose economy seems to have been based predominantly on cattle. Their area of influence stretched from modern Leicestershire up through Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and into South Yorkshire. Like most of the other agrarian tribes the Coritani seem to have readily embraced Roman rule. Prior to this point, the Coritani had their own capital at Lindum (Lincoln) and minted their own coinage. After the conquest, the Coritani civitas was governed from Ratae Corieltauorum (Leicester). One reason the the Coritani acquiesced to Roman rule so readily was that the Romans aided in their defence against their more warlike western neighbours, the Brigantes. That the Coritani are a conglomeration of peoples is made more likely by their name which is derived from the reconstructed proto-Celtic *koryo- (troop, tribe) and tank-(j)e/o- (join) thus they are 'the joined tribes'.

Cornovii

Lying at the heart of Britain, the Cornovii civitas had one of the largest of all tribal centres at Viroconium (Wroxeter). Yet, despite this, the Cornovii themselves are shrouded in mystery; however it is likely that the members of this tribe lived in the areas of the modern-day counties of Staffordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire. Etymologically the tribe's name is derived from the reconstructed proto-Celtic *karno- (horn, hoof). Thus the Cornovii are the 'people of the horn'; or perhaps more probably they are the 'people of the horned god'.

Brigantes

It is known from a number of dedications and temple monuments that the Brigantes were actually a federation of many smaller peoples whose territory was centred on the region of the Pennines. At the time of the Roman conquest, some of the smaller tribes that made-up the Brigantes were the Setanti of Lancashire, the Lopacares, the Corionototae and the Tectoverdi of the Tyne Valley and the Textoverdi. Unusually, after the Roman Conquest the Brigantes were formed into a single large cavitate that seems to have covered much of modern-day Yorkshire, Cleveland, Durham and Lancashire. By the first century CE the Brigantes had built a large capital in Stanwick, North Yorkshire.

Like many of the southern tribes, the Brigantes had a defined monarchy and are though to be derived originally from northern Gaul. At the time of the invasion it seems as if they were ruled from Stanwick by Cartimundia, who was pro-Roman, though her husband was anti-Roman. Cartimundia was victorious on this occasion, but over the years the warlike Brigantes revolted several times. The last of these was put down in 79 CE by Ostorius when the Brigantes became a Roman civitas with an administrative centre at Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough in North Yorkshire). Other major Brigantian settlements were at Calcaria (Tadcaster) and Luguvalium (Carlisle), then somewhere around 100 CE the Carvetii broke from the confederation of he Brigantes and were given their own civitas (see below) centred around Carlisle.

Etymologically the Brigantes are the 'people of the goddess Brigantia (her name literally means 'The Highest'. It is likely that in the post-Roman period the Brigantes evolved into the kingdom of Rheged who's last (and arguable greatest) ruler was Urien Rheged.

Setantii

The Setantii are known only from a mention in Ptolemy's Geography where he names a Portus Setantiorus to the north of Moricambe Aestuarium (Morcombe Bay). Though Ptolemy's Portus Setantiorum has never been positively identified, but it is thought to have been located on the Fylde near the mouth of the River Wyre near to the modern fishing town of Fleetwood in Lancashire. This entry in the Geography can be translated as the 'Seaport of the Setantii' and it remains the only positive evidence we have for this tribe's existence. It is likely that they were a sept of the Brigantes who ruled the entire north of England during the Romano-British period. The Brigantes were an agglomeration of many smaller tribes who came under the dominion of a tribal overlord, perhaps based somewhere on the Yorkshire moors, as their civitas capital during the Roman administration was at Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough, North Yorkshire). The larger septs of this tribe included the Parisii of North Humberside and the Carvetii of Cumbria (see below).

Parisii

The Parisii were a small grouping living in the region of modern-day East Yorkshire. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Parisii were primarily agrarian and unusually for a British tribe they buried their dead in large cemeteries. This was not a British practice, but was common in northern Gaul during the same period (300–100 BCE). This has led some to link the Brythonic Parisii with the Parisii tribe of the Paris region in Gaul. Were these two tribes originally related? This is certainly an intriguing possibility, though the question may never be completely resolved. Despite their burial practices, the Parisii in all other respects behaved like their Brythonic neighbours; though they survived as a distinct grouping into Roman times when they were granted the status of civitas with their administrative capital centred upon Petuaria (Brough on Humber).

Carvetii

Originally probably an independent tribe, it seems that the Carvetii had been subsumed into the Brigantes and it was not until around 100 CE when the Carvetii broke from the confederation of he Brigantes and were given their own civitas centred around Luguvalium (Carlisle). The separate identity of this tribe during Roman times may help to explain why the later Brythonic kingdom of Rheged was split into a small northern and a much larger southern regions.

Corionototae

Little is known of the Corionototae tribe, save that they appear to have been a sept (or sub-tribe of the powerful Brigantes, rulers of much of Northern England during the Roman period). The Corionototae dwelt in the area aroundCorstopitum (Corbridge, Northumberland) where they are named in the RIB 1142 altarstone inscription: LEG A... Q CALPVRNIVS CONCESSINI VS PRAEF EQ CAESA CORIONOTOTARVM MANV PRAESENTISSIMI NVMINIS DEI V S(The Legate of the Augustus [...] for cutting-down an armed band of Corionototae, Quintus Calpurnius Concessinius, Prefect of Cavalry, fulfills his vow to the spirit of the most omnipresent god.) The name of the Corionototae would seem to be etymologically, if not tribally related to that of the Irish tribe, the Coriondi.

Novantae

The Novantae remain an almost total enigma as almost nothing of their culture before the Roman invasion has survived. They seem to have inhabited the region of south-western Scotland that in the post-Roman period would become the southern part of the Brythonic kingdom of Ystradclud (Strathclyde). The Novantae seem to have been primarily an agrarian peoples but there is little evidence for their settlements. As a people on the borders between Roman Britannia and Pictland there is little known about these peoples even from the Roman records.

Votadini

The territory of the Votadini seems to have extended from the region of modern-day Edinburgh to Northumberland. Like their neighbours the Brigantes the Votadini seemed to have been formed as a confederation of many smaller tribes. Archaeologically the Votadini are separate from other northern tribes in that they used walls, banks and ditches to surround and defend their farms. They are characterized by offerings of fine metal objects made to the gods, but seem not to have worn the massive amulets which is a feature of the Brigantes.

The Votadini also seem to have employed hillforts, with three massive versions in within the boundaries of their territory being Yeavering Bell, Eildon Seat and Traprain Law. By the time of the Roman invasion these hillforts had probably been in use for at least a millennium. The Votadini are the same people who later became the Brythonic Gododdin (derived from the Old Cymric Gwotodin the Brythonic peoples of he Edinburgh region. The name of the tribe may be derived from the

reconstructed proto-Celtic

elements: *wo-trīk-e/o- (stay, dwell) (stay, dwell) and *d³no- (fort, rampart). Thus the Votadini are the 'fort dwellers'.

Selgovae

As a tribe dwelling beyond Hadrian's wall little is known about the Selgovae. In his Geography, Ptolemy places the Selgovae in the Southern uplands of Scotland, though the precise extent of their territory is unknown. However, many modern scholars place them in the Tweed Basin, a site adjacent to the Votadini. Roman records tell us that the Selgovae were conquered in 79–80 CE, at the same time as the Votadini. As a result it is not entirely clear whether the Selgovae and Votadini were truly separate peoples or not. If the Selgovae can be considered a separate tribe then their main settlement was probably at Elidon Seat. The tribe's name can be derived from the

reconstructed proto-Celtic

*selgƒ- (hunt). Thus the Selgovae were 'The Hunters'.

Damnonii

The Damnonii are a tribe that lived in the region of Scotland that today includes Glasgow and Strathclyde. The lands of the Damnonii were conquered by the Romans and occupied continually until the Romans retreated south to the line of Hadrian's wall. Etymologically the name of the Damnonii is essentially a cognate of that of the southern tribe of the Dumnonii. The name of both tribes may be derived from the

reconstructed proto-Celtic

element:*dubno- (deep, world). Thus the Damnonii/Dumnonii are 'we who are the world'. The land of the Dumnonii in the post-Roman period evolved into the Brythonic kingdom of Ystradclud (Strathclyde) which was sacred to the goddess Clōta.

Epidii

Almost nothing is known about this tribe, save that they lived in the region that corresponds to modern Kintyre and the islands of Arran, Jura and Islay. Later subsuming of this tribe into the Brythonic kingdom of Ystradcludsuggests that they were probably a client or (or at the very least allied to) the Damnonii.

Caledonii

Beyond the tribes mentioned already we move into terra incognito as far as the Romans were concerned. Beyond the Strathclyde region we fall off the Roman map and enter the unknown realm. Which is not so say that we know nothing about this region. Ptolemy's Geography gives us the names of many of these tribes (though his geography was often vague) and the northern forays of the Romans during the early days of the occupation does give us some information about a number of the tribes. Foremost amongst these are the Caledones or Caledonii. The Romans used this name both for a single tribe that lived in the valleys between modern Inverness and Fort William and for all the tribes living in the north of Scotland. The various other tribes of this region include the Cornovii and Smertae of Caithness, the Caereni of the western Highlands and the Carnonacae and Creones of the western Highlands. The Vacomagi lived around the Cairngorms.

It seems that a leader called Calgacus arose to unite the warriors from all these disparate tribes at the battle of Mons Graupius in 84 CE. The Romans won the day, but mostly because of the terrain and the weather they were never successfully able to subdue the highlands. Tacitus describes the Caledonii as red-haired and long limbed and the Romans admired these barbarians for their abilities to endure cold, hunger and hardship.

Taexali

This grouping lived in the Grampian region and were agrarian in nature, dwelling in small, undefended, farmsteads. They seem to share much in common with their southern neighbours, the Venicones, but appear to have been a separate people. The Taexali were defeated by the Romans in 84 CE, but dwelling above the Antonine Wall (which became the de facto northern border) they were never permanently occupied.

Venicones

This tribe lived in the region of modern Tayside. The lands of the Venicones were used by the Romans several times to create encampments as they moved northwards, but they were never permanently occupied. From the archaeological evidence they seem to be very similar to the Taexali in that they made offerings of decorated metal objects in bogs and lakes and possessed large amulets which could weigh up to 1.5kg apiece. Like the Taexali the Venicones seem to have been primarily agrarian, though little evidence of their settlements has survived.

ROMANS IN BRITAIN (55 B.C. - 410 A.D.)

The first Roman invasion of the lands we now call the British Isles took place in 55 B.C. under war leader Julius Caesar, who returned one year later, but these probings did not lead to any significant or permanent occupation. He had some interesting, if biased comments concerning the natives: "All the Britons," he wrote, "paint themselves with woad, which gives their skin a bluish color and makes them look very dreadful in battle."

In the year 43.A.D.an expedition was ordered against Britain by the Emperor Claudius, who showed he meant business by sending his general, Aulus Plautius, and an army of 40,000 men. Only three months after Plautius's troops landed on Britain's shores, the Emperor Claudius felt it was safe enough to visit his new province. Establishing their bases in what is now Kent, through a series of battles involving greater discipline, a great element of luck, and general lack of co-ordination between the leaders of the various Celtic tribes, the Romans subdued much of Britain in the short space of forty years. They were to remain for nearly 400 years. The great number of prosperous villas that have been excavated in the southeast and southwest testify to the rapidity by which Britain became Romanized, for they functioned as centers of a settled, peaceful and urban life.

The highlands and moorlands of the northern and western regions, present-day Scotland and Wales, were not as easily settled, nor did the Romans particularly wish to settle in these agriculturally poorer, harsh landscapes. They remained the frontier -- areas where military garrisons were strategically placed to guard the extremities of the Empire. The stubborn resistance of tribes in Wales meant that two out of three Roman legions in Britain were stationed on its borders, at Chester and Caerwent.

Major defensive works further north attest to the fierceness of the Pictish and Celtic tribes, Hadrian's Wall in particular reminds us of the need for a peaceful and stable frontier. Built when Hadrian had abandoned his plan of world conquest, settling for a permanent frontier to "divide Rome from the barbarians," the seventy-two mile long wall connecting the Tyne to the Solway was built and rebuilt, garrisoned and re-garrisoned many times, strengthened by stone-built forts as one mile intervals.

For Imperial Rome, the island of Britain was a western breadbasket. Caesar had taken armies there to punish those who were aiding the Gauls on the Continent in their fight to stay free of Roman influence. Claudius invaded to give himself prestige, and his subjugation of eleven British tribes gave him a splendid triumph. Vespasian was a legion commander in Britain before he became Emperor, but it was Agricola who gave us most notice of the heroic struggle of the native Britons through his biographer Tacitus. From him, we get the unforgettable picture of the druids, "ranged in order, with their hands uplifted, invoking the gods and pouring forth horrible imprecations." Agricola also won the decisive victory of Mons Graupius in present-day Scotland in 84 A.D. over Calgacus "the swordsman," that carried Roman arms farther west and north than they had ever before ventured. They called their newly-conquered northern territory Caledonia.

When Rome had to withdraw one of its legions from Britain, the thirty-seven mile long Antonine Wall, connecting the Firths of Forth and Clyde, served temporarily as the northern frontier, beyond which lay Caledonia.. The Caledonians, however were not easily contained; they were quick to master the arts of guerilla warfare against the scattered, home-sick Roman legionaries, including those under their ageing commander Severus. The Romans abandoned the Antonine Wall, withdrawing south of the better-built, more easily defended barrier of Hadrian, but by the end of the fourth century, the last remaining outposts in Caledonia were abandoned.

Further south, however, in what is now England, Roman life prospered. Essentially urban, it was able to integrate the native tribes into a town-based governmental system. Agricola succeeded greatly in his aims to accustom the Britons "to a life of peace and quiet by the provision of amenities. He consequently gave private encouragement and official assistance to the building of temples, public squares and good houses." Many of these were built in former military garrisons that became the coloniae , the Roman chartered towns such as Colchester, Gloucester, Lincoln, and York (where Constantine was declared Emperor by his troops in 306 A.D.). Other towns, called municipia , included such foundations as St. Albans (Verulamium).

Chartered towns were governed to a large extent on that of Rome. They were ruled by an ordo of 100 councillors (decurion ). who had to be local residents and own a certain amount of property. The ordo was run by two magistrates, rotated annually; they were responsible for collecting taxes, administering justice and undertaking public works. Outside the chartered town, the inhabitants were referred to as peregrini , or non-citizens. they were organized into local government areas known as civitates , largely based on pre-existing chiefdom boundaries. Canterbury and Chelmsford were two of the civitas capitals.

In the countryside, away from the towns, with their metalled, properly drained streets, their forums and other public buildings, bath houses, shops and amphitheatres, were the great villas, such as are found at Bignor, Chedworth and Lullingstone. Many of these seem to have been occupied by native Britons who had acquired land and who had adopted Roman culture and customs.. Developing out of the native and relatively crude farmsteads, the villas gradually added features such as stone walls, multiple rooms, hypocausts (heating systems), mosaics and bath houses..The third and fourth centuries saw a golden age of villa building that further increased their numbers of rooms and added a central courtyard. The elaborate surviving mosaics found in some of these villas show a detailed construction and intensity of labor that only the rich could have afforded; their wealth came from the highly lucrative export of grain.

CLAUDIOS COIN

Roman society in Britain was highly classified. At the top were those people associated with the legions, the provincial administration, the government of towns and the wealthy traders and commercial classes who enjoyed legal privileges not generally accorded to the majority of the population. In 2l2 AD, the Emperor Caracalla extended citizenship to all free-born inhabitants of the empire, but social and legal distinctions remained rigidly set between the upper rank of citizens known as honestiores and the masses, known as humiliores. At the lowest end of the scale were the slaves, many of whom were able to gain their freedom, and many of whom might occupy important govermental posts. Women were also rigidly circumscribed, not being allowed to hold any public office, and having severely limited property rights.

One of the greatest achievements of the Roman Empire was its system of roads, in Britain no less than elsewhere. When the legions arrived in a country with virtually no roads at all, as Britain was in the first century A.D., their first task was to build a system to link not only their military headquarters but also their isolated forts. Vital for trade, the roads were also of paramount important in the speedy movement of troops, munitions and supplies from one strategic center to another. They also allowed the movement of agricultural products from farm to market. London was the chief administrative centre, and from it, roads spread out to all parts of the province. They included Ermine Street, to Lincoln; Watling Street, to Wroxeter and then to Chester, all the way in the northwest on the Welsh frontier; and the Fosse Way, from Exeter to Lincoln, the first frontier of the province of Britain.

The Romans built their roads carefully and they built them well. They followed proper surveying, they took account of contours in the land, avoided wherever possible the fen, bog and marsh so typical in much of the land, and stayed clear of the impenetrable forests. They also utilized bridges, an innovation that the Romans introduced to Britain in place of the hazardous fords at many river crossings. An advantage of good roads was that communications with all parts of the country could be effected. They carried the cursus publicus, or imperial post. A road book used by messengers that lists all the main routes in Britain, the principal towns and forts they pass through, and the distances between them has survived: the Antonine Itinerary.. In addition, the same information, in map form, is found in the Peutinger Table. It tells us that mansiones were places at various intervals along the road to change horses and take lodgings.

The Roman armies did not have it all their own way in their battles with the native tribesmen, some of whom, in their inter-tribal squabbles, saw them as deliverers, not conquerors. Heroic and often prolonged resistance came from such leaders as Caratacus of the Ordovices, betrayed to the Romans by the Queen of the Brigantes. And there was Queen Boudicca (Boadicea) of the Iceni, whose revolt nearly succeeded in driving the Romans out of Britain. Her people, incensed by their brutal treatment at the hands of Roman officials, burned Colchester, London, and St. Albans, destroying many armies ranged against them. It took a determined effort and thousands of fresh troops sent from Italy to reinforce governor Suetonius Paulinus in A..D. 6l to defeat the British Queen, who took poison rather than submit.

BOUDICCA "THE WARRIOR QUEEN

Boudicca was queen of the Iceni people of Eastern England and led a major uprising against occupying Roman forces.Boudicca was married to Prasutagus, ruler of the Iceni people of East Anglia. When the Romans conquered southern England in AD 43, they allowed Prasutagus to continue to rule. However, when Prasutagus died the Romans decided to rule the Iceni directly and confiscated the property of the leading tribesmen. They are also said to have stripped and flogged Boudicca and raped her daughters. These actions exacerbated widespread resentment at Roman rule.In 60 or 61 AD, while the Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paullinus was leading a campaign in North Wales, the Iceni rebelled. Members of other tribes joined them.Boudicca's warriors successfully defeated the Roman Ninth Legion and destroyed the capital of Roman Britain, then at Colchester. They went on to destroy London and Verulamium (St Albans). Thousands were killed. Finally, Boudicca was defeated by a Roman army led by Paulinus. Many Britons were killed and Boudicca is thought to have poisoned herself to avoid capture. The site of the battle, and of Boudicca's death, are unknown. Acording to Dio she assembled 120,000 Britons and they stormed the Roman town of Camulodunum (Colchester today). This was a garrison town, inhabited chiefly by retired soldiers and their families. The town was practically defenseless and it fell easily. The inhabitants, men, women and children, were all slaughtered. Charred food and grain can still be found today during excavations. Boudicca then headed for London (Londinium), a town of merchants, officials and generally well-off people. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the governor of Britain, attempted to protect the town but faced with the news of the large number of Britons realised he was outnumberd and gave the order to withdraw. London would not be defended either. However, residents were warned and it is thought many were evacuated, except for those who insisted on staying. Boudicca's men arrived and burnt London to the ground, any remaining inhabitants were butchered. For centuries numerous skulls have been found in the Wallbrook area. When Lloyds Bank was being built, burnt coins, burnt tiles and grain were found. All evidence points to a true holocaust. To this day, depsite the fact that hundreds of skulls have been excavated, there are no skeletons or bones to be found. Scientific tests have estimated the heat generated by the fire to have been in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius.In this orgy of revenge, Verulanium was the last to be annihilated. Britons lived in this town, Britons who had profited from Roman rule and become Romanized. Tacitus describes the following:

The inhabitants of Verulanium, a municipal town, were in like manner put to the sword..."

Dio is a bit more graphic:
"The worst and most bestial attrocity committed by their captors was the following: They hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women and then cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, in order to make the victims appear to be eating them; they impaled the women on sharp skewers run lengthwise through the entire body."

ANGLO SAXON & JUTES

The history of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of England from the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the fifth century until the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The fifth and the sixth centuries are known archaeologically as Sub Roman Britain, or in popular history as the "Dark Ages"; from the sixth century larger distinctive kingdoms are developing, still known as the "Heptarchy". For most of this period England was split between areas controlled by the Anglo-Saxon and by the British.
Anglo-Saxon is the term usually used to describe the inavding tribes in the South and East of Great Britain from de early 5th century AD and the creation of the Englis nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066.
The Benedictine Monk Bede, identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes.

The Angles: Who may have come from Anglen, and Bede wrote that their hole nation came to Britain, leaving their former land empty. The name "England" or "Aengland originates from this tribe.
The Saxon, from Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen, Germany).
The Jutes from the Jutlan peninsula.

Bede also stated that the Jutes settled in the South and South-East; the Saxons in the South and Midlands, and the Angles in East Anglia, the Midlands and the North.

Chronology of Events in the History of English Language

*pre-600 A.D.*	*THE PRE-ENGLISH PERIOD*
ca. 3000 B.C. (or 6000 B.C?)	*Proto-Indo-European spoken in Baltic area.* *(or Anatolia?)*
*ca. 1000 B.C.*	After many migrations, the various branches of Indo-European have become distinct. Celtic becomes most widespread branch of I.E. in Europe; Celtic peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France, Germany, Austria, eastern Europe, and the British Isles.
*55 B.C.*	*Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles.*
*43 A.D.*	*Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia" established.* *Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others continually rebel).*
*200 B.C.-200 A.D.*	Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and spread over Central Europe in successive waves. Supplant Celts. Come into contact (at times antagonistic, at times commercial) with northward-expanding empire of Romans.
Early 5th century.	*Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain and other colonies, attempting to shore up defense on the home front; but it's useless.* *Rome sacked by Goths.*
	Germanic tribes on the continent continue migrations west and south; consolidate into ever larger units. Those taking over in Rome call themselves "Roman emperors" even though the imperial administration had relocated to Byzantium in the 300s. The new Germanic rulers adopted the Christianity of the late Roman state, and began what later evolved into the not-very-Roman "Holy Roman Empire".
*ca. 410 A.D.*	*First Germanic tribes arrive in England.*
*410-600*	Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic. These dialects are distantly related to Latin, but also have a sprinkling of Latin borrowings due to earlier cultural contact with the Romans on the continent.
	Celtic peoples, most of whom are Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite occasional violent uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Anglo-Saxons, originally sea-farers, settle down as farmers, exploiting rich English farmland.
	*By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language distinct from the continental Germanic languages.*
*ca. 600-1100*	*THE OLD ENGLISH, OR ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD*
*600-800*	*Rise of three great kingdoms politically unifying large areas: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex. Supremacy passes from one kingdom to another in that order.*
*ca. 600*	*Christianity introduced among Anglo-Saxons by St. Augustine, missionary from Rome. Irish missionaries also spread Celtic form of Christianity to mainland Britain.*
*793*	*First serious Viking incursions. Lindisfarne monastery sacked.*
*800*	Charlemagne, king of the Franks, crowned Holy Roman Emperor; height of Frankish power in Europe. Wessex kings aspire to similar glory; want to unite all England, and if possible the rest of mainland Britain, under one crown (theirs).
*840s-870s*	Viking incursions grow worse and worse. Large organized groups set up permanent encampments on English soil. Slay kings of Northumbria and East Anglia, subjugate king of Mercia. Storm York (Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic) and set up a Viking kingdom (Jorvik). Wessex stands alone as the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain.
*871*	Vikings move against Wessex. In six pitched battles, the English hold their own, but fail to repel attackers decisively. In the last battle, the English king is mortally wounded. His young brother, Alfred, who had distinguished himself during the battles, is crowned king.
*871-876*	*Alfred builds a navy. The kings of Denmark and Norway have come to view England as ripe for the plucking and begin to prepare an attack.*
*876*	*Three Danish kings attack Wessex. Alfred prevails, only to be attacked again a few months later.* *His cause looks hopeless.*
*878*	Decisive battle at Edington; Alfred and a large contingent of desperate Anglo-Saxons make a last stand (they know what awaits them if they fail). Alfred leads the Anglo-Saxons to decisive victory; blockades a large Viking camp nearby, starving them into submission; and exacts homage from the kings of Denmark and an oath that the Danes will leave Wessex forever.
	Under Alfred's terms of victory, England is partitioned into a part governed by the Anglo-Saxons (under the house of Wessex) and a part governed by the Scandinavians (some of whom become underlords of Alfred), divided by Watling Street. 15 years of peace follow; Alfred reigns over peaceful and prosperous kingdom. *First called "Alfred the Great".*
*925*	Athelstan crowned king. Height of Anglo-Saxon power. Athelstan reconquers York from the Vikings, and even conquers Scotland and Wales, heretofore ruled by Celts. Continues Alfred's mission of making improvements in government, education, defense, and other social institutions.
*10th century*	*Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and ultimately become indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter the language; English even borrows pronouns like they, them, their.*
*978*	*Aethelred "the Unready" becomes king at 11 years of age.*
*991*	Aethelred has proved to be a weak king, who does not repel minor Viking attacks. Vikings experiment with a major incursion at Maldon in Essex. After losing battle, Aethelred bribes them to depart with 10,000 pounds of silver. *Mistake. Sveinn, king of Denmark, takes note.*
*994-1014*	After 20 years of continuous battles and bribings, and incompetent and cowardly military leadership and governance, the English capitulate to king Sveinn of Denmark (later also of Norway). Sveinn sets up a Norse court at the new capital of Viking England, Jorvik (a city which survives as York, capital of the English county of Yorkshire). *Aethelred flees to Normandy, across the channel.*
*1014*	Sveinn's young son Cnut (or Canute) crowned king of England. Cnut decides to follow in Alfred's footsteps, aiming for a peaceful and prosperous kingdom. Encourages Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. Even marries Aethelred's widow Emma, brought over from Normandy.
*1050s*	After Cnut's death his sons bicker over the kingdom. When they die without issue, the kingdom passes back to the house of Wessex. The new king is Edward, son of Aethelred and Emma, who had been raised in exile in Normandy. *Edward is a pious, monkish man called "The Confessor".*
	Edward has strong partiality for his birthplace, Normandy, a duchy populated by the descendents of Romanized Vikings. Especially fond of young Duke William of Normandy. Edward is dominated by his Anglo-Saxon earls, especially powerful earl Godwin. Godwin's son, Harold Godwinson, becomes de facto ruler as Edward takes less and less interest in governing.
*1066*	*January.* Edward dies childless, apparently recommending Harold Godwinson as successor. Harold duly chosen by Wessex earls, as nearest of kin to the crown is only an infant. Mercian and Northumbrian earls are hesitant to go along with choice of Harold.
	William of Normandy says that not only did Edward the Confessor name him as heir, but he also claims that Harold once promised to support him as successor to Edward. Harold denies it. William prepares to mount an invasion. Ready by summer, but the winds are unfavorable for sailing.
	*September.* *Harald Hardradi of Norway decides this is a good time to attack England. Harold Godwinson rushes north and crushes Hardradi's army at Stamford Bridge.*
	The winds change, and William puts to sea. Harold rushes back down to the south coast to try to repel William's attack. Mercians and Northumbrians are supposed to march down to help him, but never do. They don't realize what's in store for them. October. Harold is defeated and killed at the battle of Hastings. December. William of Normandy crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.

The Development of the the Anglo-Saxon monarchies

In the Dark Ages during the fifth and sixth centuries, communities of peoples in Britain inhabited homelands with ill-defined borders. Such communities were organised and led by chieftains or kings.

Following the final withdrawal of the Roman legions from the provinces of Britannia in around 408 AD these small kingdoms were left to preserve their own order and to deal with invaders and waves of migrant peoples such as the Picts from beyond Hadrian's Wall, the Scots from Ireland and Germanic tribes from the continent.

King Arthur, a larger-than-life figure, has often been cited as a leader of one or more of these kingdoms during this period, although his name now tends to be used as a symbol of British resistance against invasion.

The invading communities overwhelmed or adapted existing kingdoms and created new ones - for example, the Angles in Mercia and Northumbria. Some British kingdoms initially survived the onslaught, such as Strathclyde, which was wedged in the north between Pictland and the new Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.

By 650 AD, the British Isles were a patchwork of many kingdoms founded from native or immigrant communities and led by powerful chieftains or kings. In their personal feuds and struggles between communities for control and supremacy, a small number of kingdoms became dominant: Bernicia and Deira (which merged to form Northumbria in 651 AD), Lindsey, East Anglia, Mercia, Wessex and Kent.

Until the late seventh century, a series of warrior-kings in turn established their own personal authority over other kings, usually won by force or through alliances and often cemented by dynastic marriages.

According to the later chronicler Bede, the most famous of these kings was Ethelberht, king of Kent (reigned c.560-616), who married Bertha, the Christian daughter of the king of Paris, and who became the first English king to be converted to Christianity (St Augustine's mission from the Pope to Britain in 597 during Ethelberht's reign prompted thousands of such conversions).

Ethelberht's law code was the first to be written in any Germanic language and included 90 laws. His influence extended both north and south of the river Humber: his nephew became king of the East Saxons and his daughter married king Edwin of Northumbria (died 633).

In the eighth century, smaller kingdoms in the British Isles continued to fall to more powerful kingdoms, which claimed rights over whole areas and established temporary primacies: Dalriada in Scotland, Munster and Ulster in Ireland. In England, Mercia and later Wessex came to dominate, giving rise to the start of the monarchy.

Place names are one of the ways that the Anglo-Saxon settlement can be tracked.
The suffix "ing" meaning "son of" or "part of" is often found: so Hastings is where Haesta's children lived.
A "ham" was an enclosure or farm: so Waltham was the farm near the wood (weald/ walt). (The two - ing and ham - are combined in many cases, e.g. Nottingham, Wokingham, Birmingham).
An "over" was a shore, hence Andover, Wendover &c. "Stoke" was a place with a stockade, and this was sometimes corrupted to Stow. (Again the elements were sometimes combined - e.g. Walthamstow.)
A "ton" was a place surrounded by a hedge or palisade and is one of the commonest endings, as is "wick," a word used for a village or a marsh, or anywhere salt was found (Droitwich).

ANGLO-SAXON HEPTARCHY

As a result of the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain, the country was broken up into a large number of tiny local "kingdoms", each with its own king or sub-king, some of whom were really little more than tribal chieftans. The situation was chaotic. Eventually, seven main kingdoms evolved and smaller kingdoms were incorporated into these seven main kingdoms; e.g., Bernicia and Deira became part of Northumbria. The situation, however, was far from stable. There was an unbroken succession of wars in which the various rulers sought to eclipse and dominate their neighbours. Kings who achieved overall dominance are remembered as a “Bretwalda” or “Ruler of Britain”.

The first recorded Bretwalda was Aelle of Sussex circa 490. Next came Ceawlin of Wessex, followed by Ethelbert of Kent and Rædwald of East Anglia. The 7th century saw Northumbrian Bretwaldas; Mercian leaders achieved dominence in the 8th century; and in A.D. 828, Ecgbert of Wessex was recognized as the most powerful Bretwalda to date as the “Overlord of the Seven Kingdoms of the Heptarchy”. The only kingdom that never produced a Bretwalda was Essex.

In the late 9th century, King Alfred of Wessex (Alfred the Great) achieved a special status whereby he was the first king to be recognized as a truly national leader. He did this be demonstrating that a common enemy, the terrifying Danes, could be fought and beaten. Alfred's great grandson Edgar the Peaceable was the first king of a truly united England; but towards the end of Edgar's reign, circa 970, it became possible for small groups of Viking adventurers to establish themselves on remote parts of the northern coast. Scarborough derives its name from Thorgils "Skarthi" or "hare-lipped"; and his brother Kormak "Fleinn" or "arrow" has his name preserved in Flamborough. At the time of Æthelred's accession circa 980, the Danish King Harold "Bluetooth" Gormsson was firmly established in the north. King Harold's son was Sweyn Forkbeard, father of King Canute.

The Danes were eventually victorious and King Canute (ruled 1016-1035) was a welcome surprise. This reformed Viking held up Edgar the Peaceable as his model, ordered the English to obey Edgar’s laws and gave them a reign of national peace with honour excelling not only that of Edgar but of any previous English king.

The four main kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England were:

WESSEX

MERCIA

NORTHUMBRIA

EAST ANGLIA

The other main kingdoms which were conquered by others entirely at some point in their history are:

Other minor kingdoms and territories

Isle of Wight, also known as the Wihtwara.
Meonwara a Jutish tribe in Hampshir.
Surrey.
Kingdom of the Iclingas, a precursor state to Mercia.
Lindsey
The Hwicce
Magonsæte
Pecsæte
Wreocensæte
Tomsæte
Haestingas
Middle Angles
Dumnonia (only subject to Wessex at a later date)

According to some sources the first ruler to assume the title Rex Anglorum is said to have been Offa in 774, who had been King of Mercia since 757, but this claim is based on charters apparently forged in the 10th century. However, on some of his coins Offa describes himself as Of Rx A, believed to stand for Offa Rex Anglorum. This probably had a different meaning at the time from what it acquired later, i.e. king of the Angles, and not necessarily the Saxons. Several earlier kings are called rex anglorum or some variant in surviving sources: Aldfrith of Northumbria by Aldhelm; Æthelred of Mercia in Felix's Vita sancti Guthlaci (Life of Saint Guthlac); and Æthelbald of Mercia by **Saint Boniface*. Regardless, Mercia's dominance did not survive Offa's death, and he has been considered by historians as being driven for personal power rather than nationhood.***

CHRISTIANIZATION OF ENGLAND

Christianity came at the pagan Anglo-Saxons from two directions. The Celtic Church, pushed back into Wales, Cornwall, and particularly Ireland, made inroads in the north from an early base on Lindisfarne Island. The Roman Catholic Church approached from the south, beginning with the mission of St.Augustine to Aethelbert, King of Kent, in 597.
St. Augustine's Mission. Aethelbert was chosen because he was married to Bertha, a Frankish Christian princess, whose support was essential. The story goes that Aethelbert, unsure of the intent of the Christian magicians, chose to greet them in the open air to ensure that they couldn't cast a spell over him.
Augustine's original intent was to establish an archbishopric in London, but this ignored the political fact that London was in the realm of decidedly pagan tribes, so Canterbury, the capital of the Kentish kingdom, became the seat of the pre-eminent archbishop in England.

Saxon church at Sompting, Sussex
Saxon churches. The Celtic and Roman churches, though not incompatible, certainly enjoyed differences of opinion and practice. The Celtic church was ascetic, fervent, based on monastic life, and more loosely organized. The Roman church was more conscious of structure, discipline, and moderation. They also celebrated Easter on different days. To resolve their differences they met at the Synod of Whitby in 664, where the Roman cause triumphed.

The church was a very important force in society; the only truly national entity tying together the different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The early monasteries of Northumberland were vital centres of learning and the arts until they were scourged by the Viking raids of the 9th century.The Venerable Bede. Anglo-Saxon England's most famous writer, the monk Bede, lived most of his life at the monastery of Jarrow, in Northumbria. Nearby, the monastery of Lindisfarne is famous for its' glorious illustrated bible, an 8th century masterpiece of Celtic- inspired art, which is now in the British Library.Church education. Churches were almost the only forum for education. Under the auspices of Alfred the Great church schools were encouraged, and many Latin works were translated into English. The higher church officials also played important secular roles; advising the king, witnessing charters, and administering estates of the church, which could be exceedingly large.Traveling monks. Most of the early work of spreading the Christian gospel was done from monasteries. The early monks were unlike the medieval ideal with which readers of the popular Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters are familiar. The monks of the 7th and 8th centuries were not confined to a closed monastic community, but carried the responsibility of traveling, usually on foot, throughout the surrounding countryside to preach and convert in the villages. This was especially true of monks from the Celtic monasteries. Regional, or district monasteries were established to better serve an area. These were designated "minsters", and the term lives on in many place names, such as Warminster, and Axminster.Most church buildings were built of stone, but this was not true of domestic buildings. Even in towns, very few buildings would have had even a stone foundation. Most dwellings were wooden, with low, thatched roofs, an open hearth in a floor of earth or gravel, and walls of planks or wattle and daub. Especially in towns, where then, as today, buildings were crowded together, fire was an ever present danger.

ALTERNATIVE CHRONOLOGY

Although Bede's narrative is widely accepted, an alternative chronology has been proposed by D.P. Kirby. Kirby points out that Boniface’s letter to Æthelburg makes it clear that the news of Eadbald’s conversion is recent, and that it is unthinkable that Boniface would not have been kept up to date on the status of Eadbald’s conversion. Hence Eadbald must have been converted by Justus, as is implied by Boniface’s letter to Justus. The pallium accompanying that letter indicates Justus was archbishop by that time, and the duration of Mellitus’s archiepiscopate means that even if Bede’s dates are somewhat wrong in other particulars, Eadbald was converted no earlier than 621, and no later than April 624, since Mellitus consecrated a church for Eadbald before his death in that month. The account of Laurence's miraculous scourging by Peter can be disregarded as a later hagiographical invention of the monastery of St Augustine's, Canterbury.
As mentioned above, it has been suggested that King "Aduluald" in the letter to Justus is a real king Æthelwald, perhaps a junior king of west Kent. In that case it would appear that Laurence converted Eadbald, and Justus converted Æthelwald.[33] It has also been suggested that the pallium did not indicate Justus was archbishop, since Justus is told the limited circumstances in which he may wear it; however, the same phrasing occurs in the letter conveying the pallium to Archbishop Augustine, also quoted in Bede. Another possibility is that the letter was originally two letters. In this view, Bede has conflated the letter conveying the pallium with the letter congratulating Justus on the conversion, which according to Bede’s account was seven or so years earlier; but the grammatical details on which this suggestion is based are not unique to this letter, and as a result it is usually considered to be a single composition.

The letter to Æthelburg makes it clear that she was already married at the time the news of Eadbald’s conversion reached Rome. This is quite inconsistent with the earlier date Bede gives for Eadbald’s acceptance of Christianity, and it has been suggested in Bede's defence that Æthelburg married Edwin substantially earlier and stayed in Kent until 625 before travelling to Rome, and that the letter was written while she was in Kent. However, it would appear from Boniface’s letter that Boniface thought of Æthelburg as being at her husband’s side. It also appears that the letter to Justus was written after the letters to Edwin and Æthelburg, rather than before, as Bede has it; Boniface's letter to Edwin and Æthelburg indicates he had the news from messengers, but when he wrote to Justus he had heard from the king himself.

The story of Æthelburg’s marriage being dependent on Edwin allowing her to practice her faith has been questioned, since revising the chronology makes it likely, though not certain, that the marriage was arranged before Eadbald’s conversion. In this view, it would have been the church that objected to the marriage, and Æthelburg would have been Christian before Eadbald’s conversion. The story of Paulinus’s consecration is also problematic as he was not consecrated until at least 625 and possibly later, which is after the latest possible date for Æthelburg’s marriage. However, it may be that he traveled to Northumbria prior to his consecration and only later became bishop.
A revised chronology of some of these events follows, taking the above considerations into account.

616: Eadbald leads a pagan reaction to Christianity.
616: Mellitus and Justus, bishop of Rochester, leave Kent for Francia.
c. 619: Laurence dies, and Mellitus becomes archbishop of Canterbury.
Early 624?: Justus converts Eadbald. Messengers go to Rome. Also at about this time Æthelburg’s marriage to Edwin is arranged, perhaps before the conversion. Eadbald builds a church, and Mellitus consecrates it.
24 April 624: Mellitus dies and Justus succeeds him as archbishop of Canterbury.
Mid 624: Edwin agrees to the marriage terms and Æthelburg travels to Northumbria, accompanied by Paulinus.
Later 624: the pope receives news of Eadbald’s conversion and writes to Æthelburg and Edwin.
Still later 624: the pope hears from Eadbald of his conversion, and also hears of Mellitus’s death. He writes to Justus to send him the pallium.
21 July 625 or 626: Justus consecrates Paulinus bishop of York.

This timeline extends the duration of the pagan reaction from less than a year, in Bede's narrative, to about eight years. This represents a more serious setback for the church.

VIKING CHALLENGE AND THE RISE OF WESSEX.

The first recorded Viking attack in Britain was in 793 at Lindisfame monastery as given by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. However, by then, the Vikings were almost certainly well established in Orkney and Shetland, and it is probable that many other non-recorded raids occurred before this.
Records do show the first Viking attack on Iona taking place in 794. The arrivalof the Vikings, in particular, the Danish Great Heathen Army, upset the political and social geography of Britain and Ireland. Alfred the Great´s victory at Edington in 878 stemmed the Danish attack however, by then Northumbria had evolved into Bernicie and a Viking kingdom. Mercia had been split down the middle, and East Anglia ceased to exist as an Anglo-Saxon polity. The Vikings had similar effects on various kingdoms of the Irish, Scots, Picts and Welsh. Certainly in North Britain the Vikings were one reason behind the formation of the Kingdom of Alba, which eventually evolved into Scotland.

After a time of plunder and raids, the Vikings began to settled in England. An important Viking centre was York, called Jorvik by the Vikings. various alliances between the Viking Kingdom of York and Dublin rose and fell. Danish and Norwegian settlements made enough of an impact to leave significant traces in the English language; many fundamental words in modern English are derived from Old Norse, though of the 100 most used words in English, the majority are Old English in origin. Similarly many places-names in areas of Danish and Norwegian settlements have Scandinavian roots.
An important development of the ninth century was the rise of the Kingdom of Wessex.
Though not without setbacks, by the end of Alfred´s reign (899) the West Saxon kings came to rule.
By 955, the Great´s grandson Eadred, ruled over a united England. Government became centralised, and the king had the infrastructure to rule the whole country.
next came another wave of Viking attacks. The effect was that the English king, Ethelred the Unready, found his kingdom under attack on all coasts by Norsemen. On Ethelred´s death in 1016, the Viking leader Cnut was effectively ruling England. But on Cnut´s death, the country collapsed into a number of competing Earldoms under a weak king, Edward The Confessor.
There were two major influences on English life during this whole period of English history, at Lindesfame in 635, or Iona in Scotland in 563. The church had organized the whole country into diocese, each under a bishop, by around 850.
The other was the Viking raid which allowed William to conquer Britain.
When Eduard The Confessor died, the Vikings saw a chance to regain a foothold in Britain, and landed an army in Yorkshire in 1066, Harold marched North to take on the Vikings under Harald of Norway and Tostig (King Harold´s brother). He defeated the Norsemen near York, but while celebrating his victory, knew that William of Normandy had landed in Southern England.
Within 13 days he had marched his army some 240 miles from Yorkshire to Sussex, where the Normans were camped near Hastings. The ensuing Battle of Hastings was won by the Normans who were fresh, and had better archers and cavalry. Harold died with an arrow through his eye.
William was crowned William I in London on Christmas day 1066.

*Battle / Outcome*	*Description*
Battle of Ellandune Wessex defeat Mercia	*In this battle, fought 823, the Mercians under Beorwulf, were totally routed by the West Saxons under Egbert.*
Battle of Hengestesdun Saxons defeat Danes	*Fought 835, when the men of Wessex, under Egbert, totally defeated the Danes and Cornish Britons.*
Battle of Ockley Saxons defeat Danes	*Fought 851, between the Danes, and the West Saxons, under Ethelwulf.* *The Danes were completely defeated.*
Battle of Thetford Danes defeat Angles	*Fought 870, between the Danish invaders, and the East Anglians, under Edward.* *The latter were defeated and Edward killed.*
Battle of Englefield Saxons defeat Danes	*Fought 871, the first of the series of battles between the West Saxons and the Danish invaders.* *The former, under their king, Ethelred, defeated the Danes.*
Battle of Reading Danes defeat Saxons	Fought 871, between the Danish invaders, and the West Saxons, under Aethelred and Alfred. The West Saxons, after a stubborn resistance, were defeated and driven from the field with great slaughter.
Battle of Ashdown Saxons defeat Danes	Fought 871, between the West Saxons under Aethelred and the Danes under Bag Secg and Halfdene. Largely owing to the brilliant leading of Alfred the Great, who commanded one of the wings, the Danes, after a desperate conflict, which lasted throughout the day, were finally put to flight, having lost one of their kings and five jarls.
Battle of Basing Danes defeat Saxons	*A victory of the Danish invaders in 871 over the West Saxons.*
Battle of Merton Danes defeat Saxons	*Fought 871, between the West Saxons, under Alfred, and the Danish invaders.* *After a severe engagement the Danes were victorious.*
Battle of Dollar Danes defeat Albans	*Fought 875, when the Danish invaders under Thorstem totally defeated the men of Alban under Constantine.* *The Danes subsequently occupied Caithness, Sutherlandshire, Ross and Moray.*
Battle of Edington Saxons defeat Danes	Fought 878, between the West Saxons, under Alfred, and the Danes, under Guthrum. The Danes were totally defeated, and Alfred's victory was followed by the Peace of Wedmore, which lasted for fifteen years.

*Commander*	*Short Biography*
*Egbert the Saxon*	*United the Saxon and Angle kingdoms in a federation to resist the Danes.*
*Alfred the Great*	*Noblest of Saxon kings. Fought the Danes and made peace.* *Built churches and schools.*
*Ethelwulf*	*Father of Alfred the Great. Deeply religious King of Wessex who fought Danish invaders.*
*Ethelred*	*Elder brother of Alfred the Great. Fought alongside Alfred in several battles against the Danes.*
*Guthrum*	*Danish King defeated by Alfred the Great. Agreed to become Christian and settle in England.*

*Battle / Outcome*	*Description*
Battle of Tettenhall Saxons defeat Danes	*Fought 910, between the Danish invaders, and the West Saxons, under Edward the Elder.* *The Danes were defeated.*
Battle of Wednesfield Saxons defeat Danes	*Fought in 911, between the Danes and the West Saxons, under Edward the Elder.* *The Danes were defeated.*
Battle of Brunanburh Saxons defeat Danes	*Fought 937, when Aethelstan defeated with great slaughter the combined armies of Anlaf the Dane, Owen of Cumberland, and Constantine III of Scotland.*

*Commander*	*Short Biography*
*Athelstan of England*	*Grandson of King Alfred. Fought the Danes and Celts combined at the Battle of Brunanburh.*
*Edward the Elder*	*Son of Alfred the Great, and King of Wessex who prevailed against the Northumbrian Danes.*
*Olaf III Guthfirthson*	*Viking King who led the forces against Wessex at Brunanburh.*

*Battle / Outcome*	*Description*
Battle of Maldon Danes defeat Saxons	*Fought 991, between the Anglo-Saxons, under Brihtnoth, and the Danes, under Olaf Triggvason and Guthmund.* *The Anglo-Saxons were completely defeated and Brithnoth slain.*
Battle of Pen Selwood Drawn Battle (Saxons vs. Danes)	Fought 1016, between the English, under Edmund Ironside, and the Danes, under Knut, shortly after Edmund's election as King by the Witanegemot. This was the first of the series of engagements between the two rivals, which ended with the Peace of Olney.
Battle of Sherstone Drawn Battle (Saxons vs. Danes)	*Fought 1016, between Edmund Ironside, and Knut, the rival claimants to the throne.* *The battle was indecisive.*
Battle of Ashingdon Danes defeat Saxons	The last of the five battles fought in 1016 between the English under Edmund Ironside and the Danish invaders under Knut. Owing to the treachery of Aedric, who crossed over with the Hereford men in the course of the battle, the English were defeated, and shortly afterwards Knut was proclaimed King of England.
Battle of Fulford Danes defeat Saxons	*Fought 1066, between the Norsemen under Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, the English under Earls Edwin and Morcar.* *The English were defeated.*
Battle of Stamford Bridge Saxons defeat Danes	Fought September 25, 1066, between the English, under Harold, and the Norse invaders, under Harold Hardrada and Tostig. The Norsemen were surprised by Harold in their camp, and totally defeated, both Hardrada and Tostig being killed, and the survivors driven to their ships.

*Commander*	*Short Biography*
*Brithnoth*	*Saxon warrior hero who died at the battle of Maldon.*
*Aethelred the Unready*	*Acsended to the Saxon throne at a young age--was unable to effectively resist the Danes.*
*Canute the Great*	*Danish King of Britain. Married Emma, the wife of his enemy, Ethelred the Unready.*
*Edmund Ironside*	*Eldest son of Athelred the Unready, fought Canute for the throne, but then died.*
*Harald III of Norway*	*Became rich as a Byzantine Mercenary, then ruled Norway. Killed at Battle of Stamford Bridge.*
*Tostig Godwinson*	*Brought an army of Vikings to fight his brother, Harold Godwinson, at Stamford Bridge.*
*Harold Godwinson*	*Son of Godwin. Ascended to the Saxon throne when Edward the Confessor died childless.*

*Battle / Outcome*	*Description*
Battle of the Bands Scots defeat Danes	*Fought 961, between the Scots under their king, Indulph, and the Danish pirates. The Danes were defeated, but Indulph fell in the battle.*
Battle of Luncarty Scots defeat Danes	Fought 980, between the Scots, under Kenneth III, and the Danish corsairs, who had landed on the Tay to attack Dunkeld. After a furious hand-to-hand fight the Danes were defeated and driven to their ships.
Battle of Kinloss Danes defeat Scots	Fought 1009, between the Danes under Sweyn of Denmark, and the Scots, under Malcolm II. The Danes were besieging Nairne, and Malcolm attempting to raise the siege, they attacked and defeated him after hard fighting, in which Malcolm was wounded.
Battle of Mortlack Scots defeat Danes	Fought 1010, between the Danes, under Sweyn, and the Scots, under Malcolm II. After a long and obstinate engagement the Danes were totally defeated, and forced to flee to their ships. A victory for them on this occasion would probably have given them a permanent lodgment in Scotland, as Malcolm had his last available man in the field.
Battle of Clontarf Irish defeat Danes	Fought April 24, 1014, when the Scandinavian invaders were totally routed by the Irish of Munster, Connaught, Ulster and Meath, under Brian Boru. The Norsemen are said to have lost 6,000 men. Brian Boru and his son fell in the battle.
Battle of Largs Scots defeat Danes	Fought October 2, 1263, between the Norsemen, under Haco, and the Scots. The Norse fleet of 160 ships was driven ashore off Largs by a violent storm, and many of them wrecked, and Haco landed a force to protect the shipwrecked crews. This force was attacked by the Scots and utterly routed, and Haco was forced to withdraw, and abandon the project of invasion. The only name on the Scottish side which has come down to us as taking part in the battle is that of Sir Pierce Curry.

*Commander*	*Short* *Biography*
*Malcolm II of Scotland*	*Early King of Scotland who fought off Danish invaders*
*Brian Boru*	*King who unified all of Ireland briefly before the Norman invasion.*

THE NORMAN CONQUEST

By c. 900 the Vikings had ravaged northern France to such an extent that there was little plunder to be found along the rivers which had formed their major avenue of attack. Ironically it was a Danish Army (under a leader called Hrolf or Rolf in some chronicles), which arrived in 911 to pillage the lower Seine Valley that created the Vikings' only lasting impact on western Europe.

Hrolf attempted to besiege Chatres without success, but his army was such a threat to the Seine valley, that Charles, King of the Franks, negotiated a treaty at St. Clair-sur-Epte. Under this treaty all the land bounded by the rivers Brestle, Epte, Avre and Dives was granted to the Danes; effectively the land they already controlled. By 924 the Franks were forced to grant the Danes the districts of Bayeux, Exmes and Sees, and in 933 the Cotenin and Avranchin.

Hrolf was baptized in 912 and became known as Rollo. Within two generations he and his followers had adopted the Franks' language, religion, laws, customs, political organization and methods of warfare. They had become Franks in all but name, for they were now known as Normans, men of Normandy - the land of the Nordmanni or Northmen.

The Normans' love of the sea and their dynamism led to commercial prosperity. By the middle of the 11th century Normandy was one of the most powerful states in Christendom. Desire for conquest, in conjunction with limited available land led many Normans to pursue military goals abroad: to Spain to fight the Moors; to Byzantium to fight the Turks; to Sicily in 1061 to fight the Saracens; and of course to England in 1066.

In Normandy William 'the Bastard' succeeded to the dukedom at the age of seven or eight. For the next twelve years of his minority the dukedom was in a constant state of anarchy. The rebellion of the barons came to a head in 1047, when the whole of lower Normandy rose against him. With the help of his feudal overlord Henry I of France, William, aged twenty, crushed the revolt on the field of Vales Dunes, near Caen. The castles of the rebellious barons were razed and the nobles never challenged the duke's power again.

Norman relations with Anglo-Saxon England were uncomplicated. As the Normans became Christian and adopted the French language, so their dukes found a common interest with the rulers of southern Britain in closing the English Channel to Viking fleets. This alliance broke up when the Normans supported Edward and the House of Wessex against Cnut of Denmark in their struggle for the English throne. When Edward the Confessor returned from exile in Normandy to take the English crown in 1042 he was understandably pro-Norman. It was probably because of these pro-Norman sympathies that William's claim to the throne had any credibility.

The Norman dukes' fear of Scandinavian intervention contributed to William's alliance with Flanders in 1066. Other victims of Viking raids had been the Channel Islands or les Normandes. These islands were not a part of the duchy of Normandy in 1066; instead they were a personal dependency of Duke William, as were the Counties of Brittany and Maine. All these areas contributed men and ships to the 'great expedition' of 1066.

The Normans came to govern England following one of the most famous battles in English history: the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Four Norman kings presided over a period of great change and development for the country.
The Domesday Book, a great record of English land-holding, was published; the forests were extended; the Exchequer was founded; and a start was made on the Tower of London.
In religious affairs, the Gregorian reform movement gathered pace and forced concessions, while the machinery of government developed to support the country while Henry was fighting abroad.
Meanwhile, the social landscape altered dramatically, as the Norman aristocracy came to prominence. Many of the nobles struggled to keep a hold on their interests in both Normandy and England, as divided rule meant the threat of conflict.

This was the case when William the Conqueror died. His eldest son, Robert, became Duke of Normandy, while the next youngest, William, became king of England. Their younger brother Henry would become king on William II's death. The uneasy divide continued until Henry captured and imprisoned his elder brother.

The question of the succession continued to weigh heavily over the remainder of the period. Henry's son died, and his nominated heir Matilda was denied the throne by her cousin, Henry's nephew, Stephen.
There then followed a period of civil war. Matilda married Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou, who took control of Normandy. The duchy was therefore separated from England once again.
A compromise was eventually reached whereby the son of Matilda and Geoffrey would be heir to the English crown, while Stephen's son would inherit his baronial lands.
It meant that in 1154 Henry II would ascend to the throne as the first undisputed king in over 100 years - evidence of the dynastic uncertainty of the Norman period.

Norman Life

The Normans had an interesting mix of cultures. Historically, they were a combination of Viking settlers who had married into the local Frankish cultures and as a result their society was a conglomerate of the two.

As befits their descent from the Vikings, the Normans were a warlike culture and prized mounted soldiers. The Norman cavalry were to form the basis for medieval Knights and what we now look at as "Chivalry" stems from the Norman codes of conduct on the battlefield.

The Normans were more than just mobile killing machines (although they excelled at this), and with their invasion of England they brought in some fantastic examples of architecture and style. As they were devout followers of the medieval Christian church, the best examples of Norman style can be found in the churches and chapels that still exist all over the country.

Norman Warfare

The Normans brought with them a wholly new form of warfare. The Saxons and, before them, the Celts had largely depended on armies of “brave warriors" who would band together to fight the enemy. Often battles were resolved through one on one fight between clan heroes.

The Normans had a warfare style that evolved from their Norse roots and was heavily influenced by the European wars of the 9th and 10th centuries AD and the Frankish kings like Charlemagne.

This resulted in the Norman armies being very organized and disciplined. The mainstay of the army was the heavy foot soldier, although the nobles and leaders were always mounted on powerful horses. During the middle-medieval period the status symbol of horses became firmly rooted and even today people think of owning a horse as being something the "rich" do

In addition to the new forms of combat, the Normans brought with them a brand new way of defending territory. The Saxons were from a culture of mobile raiders and as such tended to not rely on heavy defensive structures as we think of them today. Most Saxon strongholds were hill forts similar to the ones the Celts used, or where they had taken over an old Roman fortification the Saxons would shore up the walls and reuse it. In the mainstream of Saxon culture, it was wrong to attack the settlements where people lived (raids, however, were common place) and battles were always fought in open ground.

This changed with the arrival of the Normans. They brought with them the massive stone structures we still see today. Norman castles were a stamp of authority as much as a defensive structure and the conquerors spent little time building hundreds of them across the country.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR: William, the illegitimate son of Robert, Duke of Normandy and Herleva of Falaise, was born in 1027. Instead of marrying Herleva, Robert persuaded her to marry his friend, Herluin of Conteville. After marriage, Herleva had two more sons, Odo of Bayeux and Robert of Mortain.

In 1035, Robert of Normandy went on a pilgrimage. Before setting out on his trip Robert he forced his lords to swear fealty to William. Although William was illegitimate, he was Robert's only living son.

When Robert of Normandy died in 1035 William inherited his father's title. Several leading Normans, including Gilbert of Brionne, Osbern the Seneschal and Alan of Brittany, became William's guardians.

A number of Norman barons would not accept an illegitimate son as their leader and in 1040 an attempt was made to kill William. The plot failed but they did manage to kill Gilbert of Brionne, Alan of Brittany and Osbern the Seneschal. William survived but he was forced to accept Ralph of Wacy as his guardian and leader of his armed forces. William was unhappy with this as Ralph had been involved in the plot against him and had been responsible for the murder of Gilbert of Brionne.

William began to govern Normandy in 1045. Two years later, the lords of the western region of the duchy rebelled, but William successfully defeated them at Val-es-dunes. In 1051 William visited Edward the Confessor, the king of England. Later, William claimed that Edward promised him that he would become his heir.

In 1053 William married Matilda of Flanders, the daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders. Over the next sixteen years the couple had nine children. Robert Curthose, Richard (killed in a hunting accident in 1075), Cecily, William Rufus, Agatha, Henry Beauclerk and Adela.

William's power in Normandy was constantly under threat. In 1053 he suppressed a revolt led by William of Arques. After repulsing two French invasions, William eventually managed to capture Maine. At first the people of Maine were unwilling to accept William as their leader. In 1063 William's army ravaged the land until he received their submission.

In 1064 Harold of Wessex was on board a ship that was wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu. He was captured by Count Guy of Ponthieu and imprisoned at Beau rain. William, demanded that Count Guy release him into his care. Guy agreed and Harold went with William to Rouen. Later the two men went into battle against Conan of Brittany.

For his role in the capture of Dinan, Harold was knighted by William. During the ceremony at Bayeux, Harold took an oath that he would do his best to help William to become king when Edward the Confessor died. Harold also agreed to marry William's daughter, Eadmer. In return, William promised Harold half the realm of England.

In 1065 Edward the Confessor became very ill. Harold claimed that Edward promised him the throne just before he died on 5th January, 1066. The next day there was a meeting of the Witan to decide who would become the next king of England. The Witan was made up of a group of about sixty lords and bishops and they considered the merits of four main candidates: William, Harold, Edgar Etheling and Harald Hardrada. On 6th January 1066, the Witan decided that Harold was to be the next king of England.

When William heard the news he sent a message to Harold reminding him of the oath he took in 1064. Harold responded that he was duty bound to follow the decision taken by the Witan.

William now began to prepare for war. After a meeting with his barons at Lillebonne, he sent Gilbert, the Archdeacon of Lisieux, to gain permission from Pope Alexander II, to go into battle against Harold. Although the action was opposed by many of the cardinals, Alexander II eventually agreed and sent William his blessing.

William was also visited by Harold's brother Tostig. Tostig offered to help William against Harold and it was agreed that Tostig's army would sail to England. In May 1066 Tostig landed in the Isle of Wight and forced the inhabitants to give him money and provisions. He then sailed north with sixty ships and entered the Humber before being driven away by Morcar.

After spending time in Scotland Tostig went to Denmark and asked his cousin, King Sweyn, to help him against Harold. He refused and so Tostig went to Norway to meet King Hardrada. He agreed to join the campaign and in early September Tostig and 300 ships sailed along the coast and did some plundering, including the burning of Scarborough. They then entered the Humber and on 20th September defeated Morcar's army at Gate Fulford. Four days later the invaders took York.

On 24th September Harold's army arrived at Tadcaster. The following day he took Tostig and Hardrada by surprise at a place called Stamford Bridge. It was a hot day and the Norwegians had taken off their byrnies (leather jerkins with sewn-on metal rings). Harold and his English troops devastated the Norwegians. Both Hardrada and Tostig were killed. The Norwegian losses were considerable. Of the 300 ships that arrived, less than 25 returned to Norway.

While Harold had been fighting against King Hardrada, William had been completing his preparations for the attack on England. To make sure he had enough Normans to defeat Harold, he asked the men of Poitou, Burgundy, Brittany and Flanders to help. William also arranged for soldiers from Germany, Denmark and Italy to join his army. In exchange for their services, William promised them a share of the land and wealth of England. William also managed to enlist the support of the Pope in his campaign to gain the throne of England.

These negotiations took all summer. William also had to arrange the building of the ships to take his large army to England. About 700 ships were ready to sail in August but William had to wait a further month for a change in the direction of the wind. The invasion fleet eventually departed on 27th August. Travelling by night, the Normans landed at Pevensey Bay on 28th August.

He fortified a camp at Hastings and then began ravaging the area. Harold was at York when he heard the news and he immediately assembled the housec arls who had survived Stamford Bridge and marched south. He travelled at such a pace that many of his troops failed to keep up with him. When Harold arrived in London on 5th October and there he waited for the local fyrd to assemble and for the troops of the Earl of Mercia and the Earl of Northumbria to arrive from the north.

Harold's brother, Gyrth, offered to lead the army against William, pointing out that as king he should not risk the chance of being killed. Harold rejected the advice and after five days Harold decided to head for the south coast without his northern troops.

When Harold realised he was unable to take William by surprise he positioned himself at Senlac Hill near Hastings. Harold selected a spot that was protected on each flank by marshy land. At his rear was a group of trees. He further strengthened his position with a ditch and a palisade. The English house Carls provided a shield wall at the front of Harold's army. They carried large battle-axes and were considered to be the toughest fighters in Europe.

The fyrd were placed behind the house Carls. The leaders of the fyrd, the thegns had swords and javelins but the rest of the men were inexperienced fighters and carried weapons such as iron-studded clubs, scythes, slings, reaping-hooks and hay-forks.

We have no accurate figures of the number of soldiers who took part in the Battle of Hastings. Historians have estimated that William had 5,000 infantry and 3,000 knights while Harold had about 2, 500 house carls and over 6,000 members of the fyrd. Before the fighting started on 14th October, William spoke to his men reminding them they had never lost a battle under his command.

At nine in the morning the Norman archers walked up the hill and when they were about a 100 yards away from Harold's army they fired their first batch of arrows. Using their shields, the housecarls were able to block most of this attack. The Norman infantry then charged up the hill.

The English held firm and the Normans were forced to retreat. Members of the fyrd broke ranks and chased after the Bretons. William ordered his cavalry to attacked the English who had left their positions on Senlac Hill. English losses were heavy and very few managed to return to their place at the top of the hill.

At about twelve noon there was a break in the fighting for an hour. This gave both sides a chance to remove the dead and wounded from the battlefield. William, who had originally planned to use his cavalry when the English retreated decided to change his tactics. At about one in the afternoon he ordered his archers forward.

This time he told them to fire higher in the air. The change of direction of the arrows caught the English by surprise. The arrow attack was immediately followed by a cavalry charge. Casualties on both sides were heavy. Those killed included Harold's two brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine. However, the English line held and the Normans were eventually forced to retreat. The fyrd, this time chased the Flemings down the hill. William ordered his knights to turn and attack the men who had left the line. Once again the English suffered many casualties.

William decided to take another rest. He had lost a quarter of his cavalry. Many horses had been killed and the ones left alive were exhausted. William decided that the knights should dismount and attack on foot. This time all the Normans went into battle together. The archers fired their arrows and at the same time the knights and infantry charged up the hill.

It was now four in the afternoon. Heavy English casualties from previous attacks meant that the front line was shorter. The Normans could now attack from the side. The few housecarls that were left were forced to form a small circle round the English standard. The Normans attacked again and this time they broke through the shield wall and Harold and most of his housecarls were killed.

The next day Harold's mother, Gytha, sent a message to William offering him the weight of the king's body in gold if he would allow her to bury it. He refused, declaring that Harold should be buried on the shore of the land which he sought to guard.

William and his army now marched on Dover where he remained for a week. He then went north calling in on Canterbury before arriving on the outskirts of London. He met resistance in Southwark and in an act of revenge set fire to the area. Londoners refused to submit to William so he turned away and marched through Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire. He revaged the countryside and by the end of the year the people of London, surrounded by devastated lands, submitted to William. On 25th December, 1066, William was crowned king of England by Aldred, Archbishop of York, at Westminster Abbey.

After his coronation in 1066, William claimed that all the land in England now belonged to him. However, those powerful lords, such as Morcar, Earl of Northumbria, who had not fought him, were allowed to redeem their lands back as a grant from William.

William retained about a fifth of this land for his own use. The rest was distributed to those men who had helped him defeat Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Under the feudal system the 170 tenants-in-chief (or barons) had to provide armed men on horseback for military service. The number of knights a baron had to provide depended on the amount of land he had been given. The leading Norman landowners installed by William were Odo of Bayeux, Robert of Mortain, William Fitz Osbern, Geoffrey of Coutances and Richard Fitz Gilbert.

In 1067 William and his army went on a tour of England where he organised the confiscating of lands, builtcastles and established law and order. His chroniclers claim that he met no opposition during his travels around the country. After appointing his half-brother Odo of Bayeux, and William Fitz Osbern, as co-regents, William went to Normandy in March 1067.

While he was away, disturbances broke out in Kent, Herefordshire, and in the north of the country. William returned to England in December, 1067, and over the next few months the rebellions were put down. However, in 1068, another insurrection, led by Harold's sons, took place at Exeter. Once again he successfully defeated the rebels. Afterwards he built castles in Exeter and other key towns. This included Durham which was the scene of a rebellion in 1069.

William also had to deal with raids on the north led by King Sweyn of Denmark. In September 1069, Sweyn's fleet sailed into the Humber and burnt York. William's army forced the Danes to retreat and then crushed another uprising in Staffordshire. He then burnt crops, house and property of people living between York and Durham. The chroniclers claim that the area was turned into a desert and people died of starvation. The revolt finally came to an end when William's troops captured Chester in 1070.

William also reorganised the Church. Lanfranc became the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Three other bishops were deposed and by the end of 1070 only two sees were occupied by English bishops. William tended to appoint well educated men of good character to these posts.

In 1071 another revolt broke out. Led by Hereward the rebels captured the Isle of Ely. William personally led the Norman army against Hereward. He punished the rebels with mutilation and lifelong imprisonment and built a new castle at Ely.

William returned to Normandy in 1073 and later that year conquered Maine. While he was away Waltheofand Ralph, Earl of Norfolk began to conspire against him. Geoffrey of Coutances led the fight against the uprising and afterwards ordered that all rebels should have their right foot cut off.

On his return in 1076, Waltheof was executed - the only time capital punishment was inflicted on an English leader during his reign. The Earl of Norfolk managed to escape to Brittany.

In 1077 William's eldest son, Robert Curthose, suggested that he should become the ruler of Normandy and Maine. When the king refused, Robert rebelled and attempted to seize Rouen. The rebellion failed and Robert was forced to flee and established himself at Gerberoi. William besieged him there in 1080 but his wife, Matilda of Flanders, managed to persuade the two men to end their feud.

Odo of Bayeux had been left in control of England while William was in Normandy. In 1082 William heard complaints about Odo's behaviour. He returned to England and Odo was arrested and charged with misgovernment and oppression. Found guilty he was kept in prison for the next five years.

In 1083 William had to put down a rebellion led by Hubert de Beaumont in Maine. Two years later he returned to England to deal with a suspected invasion by King Cnut of Denmark. While waiting for the attack to take place he decided to order a comprehensive survey of his kingdom.

There were three main reasons why William decided to order a survey. (1) The information would help William discover how much the people of England could afford to pay in tax. (2) The information about the distribution of the population would help William plan the defence of England against possible invaders. (3) There was a great deal of doubt about who owned some of the land in England. William planned to use this information to help him make the right judgements when people were in dispute over land ownership.

William sent out his officials to every town, village and hamlet in England. They asked questions about the ownership of land, animals and farm equipment and also about the value of the land and how it was used. When the information was collected it was sent to Winchester where it was recorded in a book. About a hundred years after it was produced the book became known as the Domesday Book. Domesday means "day of judgement".

William's survey was completed in only seven months. When William knew who the main landowners were, he arranged a meeting for them at Salisbury. At this meeting on 1st August, 1086, he made them all swear a new oath that they would always obey their king.

In later life William became very fat. In 1087 William was told that King Philip of France described him as looking like a pregnant woman. William was furious and on mounted an attack on the king's territory. On 15th August he captured Mantes and set fire to the town. Soon afterwards he fell from his horse and suffered

The last year of William's life was spent fighting in Normandy, in battle for the Vexin, a much disputed territory, which lay between Normandy and France. Amongst those opposing him was his rebellious eldest son, Robert, nicknamed Curthose by his father, due to his short legs.

On 9th September, 1087, while riding through the smouldering ruins of the sacked town of Mantes, in what must have appeared to him as like an act of divine retribution, William was thrown from his horse when it trod on burning ashes and sustained severe abdominal injuries.

The King, now aged fifty nine and mortally injured, was carried to the convent of St. Gervais in Rouen, the Norman capital. There he summoned his younger sons, William and Henry, to his deathbed. Robert Curthose remained at the court of France.

England was bequeathed to his second surviving and favourite son, William Rufus and despite his bitter differences with Robert Curthose, he left Normandy to him. To Henry, the youngest son, later destined to inherit all his dominions, he left 5,000 silver pounds. He is reported to have ruminated on and repented of his many sins, transgressions and cruelties at the end. He tried to salve his conscience, before preparing to meet his maker and fearing for his immortal soul, he ordered all the treasure he possessed in Rouen to be given to the church and the poor and forgave his enemies. William the Conqueror died on 9th September, 1087, having ruled England for 21 years.

William was buried in the monastery of St.Stephen at Caen in Normandy, an abbey he had previously founded as an act of repentance for his consanguineous marriage to Matilda of Flanders. The body was broken as it was lowered into the sepulchre, made too short by the stonemasons and the ceremony was interrupted by a dispossessed knight. A stone slab with a Latin inscription, in the abbey church of Caen today marks the burial place of the first Norman King of England. His grave has since been desecrated twice, in the course of the French Wars of Religion his bones were scattered across Caen, and during the tumultuous events of the French Revolution, the Conqueror's tomb was again despoiled.

The Bayeux Tapestry : (Tapisserie de Bayeux, IPA:, Norman: La telle du conquest)

It is an embroidered cloth ( not an actual tapestry) nearly 70 metres (230 ft) long, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England concerning William "Duke of Normandy and Harold Earl of Wessex, later king of England, and culminating in the battle of Hastings. The tapestry consists of some fifty scenes with Latin tituli (captions), embroidered on linen with coloured woollen yarns. It is likely that it was commissioned by Bishop Odo, Willamm´s half-brother and made in England in 1070. In 1729 the hanging was rediscovered by scholars at a time when it was being displayed annually in Bayeaux Cathedral. The tapestry is now exhibited at Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeaux, in Bayeaux, Normandy.