FROM EARLY BRITAIN TO THE MIDDLE AGES: A HISTORY OF INVASIONS (4000 BC-1485 AD)

EARLY BRITAIN: A History of Invasions

THE IBERIANS
Followed by invasions from
THE CELTS 700 BC
THE ROMANS 55 BC
THE ANGLO SAXONS AD 455
THE VIKINGS 700
THE NORMANS 1066

Pre-Celtic Britain - The Iberians.

The history of early Britain is dominated by the invasion of different peoples who settled in the island and helped to
create what is now know as as Great Britain. Six thousands years ago the land now called Britain was already
inhabited. The first inhabitants of England were probably the Iberians. Little is known about them. The population
began to burn and cut down the forests, to grow cereals like wheat, barley and oats, and to breed cattle, pigs and
sheep. Over the course of four centuries they change the landscape, and from about 3000 BC they built ritual sites,
large, enclosed spaces used both for ceremonies and for defence. The most famous of these is Stonehenge, a very
important and well-known monument in Salisbury Plain in southwest England. Stonehenge is made of a circle of
enormous stones placed in concentric circles. It was probably an ancient temple and probably an astronomic
observatory too. Today Stonehenge is a site of pilgrimage for various groups of travellers who wish to revive ancient
rites and the old pagan cult of sun worship. Watch the video in the padlet!

The Celts

It was towards 700 BC that migration from Germany began. These people who came to Britain were known as the
Celts (and also the Britons after the Romans’ arrival) and they spoke their own Celtic language. They brought with
them an already sophisticated culture. Their weapon-making skills were highly advanced and they produced
elaborately shaped metal jewellery. They had fair or red hair and blue eyes. They divided into tribes who would often
quarrel and fight, and lived in small villages. They worshipped the sun, the moon, water and trees, they consider water
as the most important life-generating element. Their economy was based on fishing, hunting and agriculture. The
roots of the Celtic language are still present in the British Isles today in the form of Welsh, Gaelic and Irish. Celtic art in
Britain survives in a few artifacts and monuments but hardly at all in a literary form. The earliest written forms are a
few inscriptions that might have had some magical function or meaning expressed in strange characters known as
runes. Runes are letters of an old alphabet used by German and Scandinavian tribes. As time went by, runes
continued to be carved in wood or Christian monuments, or in practical objects, like the Ruthwell Casket.

The Druids were Celtic priests and they were considered living archives of tribal law, history, science, medicine and
religion. Druids filled the roles of judge, doctor, diviner or foreteller of the future, mystic and scholar. The word
druidae is of Celtic origin and combines the word “roots” of “oak” and “knowledge”. The oak was an important sacred
tree to the Druids, and they held their ceremonies in forests. It took up to 20 years to train as a Druid, and students
would come together in large groups for this purpose. In legends Druids are described as possessing magical powers
such as prophesy, control of the weather and curing illness.

The Romans

Under the leadership of Julius Caesar, the Romans first invaded England around 55 BC. However, they did not settle in
England until AD 43. They built towns and roads throughout the country and they introduced their culture, lifestyle
and language all of which were absorbed by the Celts.

The Romans took possession of much of England, but they never managed to conquer Ireland or Scotland and in AD
122 the emperor Hadrian gave orders to build a great wall in the north of England. It was called Hadrian’s wall and was
built to protect England against possible invasions from the war faring tribes of Scotland who would not submit to
Roman rule. This meant then that the four peoples developed their own culture independently – English, Scottish, Irish
and Welsh – to become what we know today as the British Isles. England, however, remained part of the Roman
Empire for 400 years. Many of the towns, founded by the Romans, were named after the Latin name for camp castra.
This word has remained in many cities names which end with aster, or ester. For example Lancaster, Manchester,
Winchester etc.
 Hadrian’s wall

The Anglo-Saxons

There are a few stories about the arrivals of the Anglo-Saxons. The main version tells about the invasion of the
Romanised Celts by peoples from Germany and Scandinavia in the 5 th century after the withdrawal of the Romans with
the subsequent destruction of Roman towns. However, there is no archaeological evidence that they invaded Britain.
As a consequence some scholars define it as “the invasion that never was” and refer to it as a myth embedded in the
national obsession with being invaded or maybe created by Anglo-Saxons kings themselves. Another version is that
after the Roman withdrawal the Romanised Celts employed Germanic Anglo-Saxons mercenaries to fight for them
against these tribes pushing from Northern Europe. After the defeat of these tribes they decided to conquer the place
and settle there. Other versions are more inclined to explain the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons as the result of the decline
of a civilization and the social development of another one.

Interestingly, historian Michael Wood in his documentary “In search of Beowulf” (youtube.com see padlet) defines
Anglo-Saxons as “the Germanic tribes who came to English shores in the 5 th century”, starting to settle at first on the
east coast in the dark ages. He says that the Anglo-Saxons were

“impoverished pagan immigrants who came Britain at the time of the fall of the Romans as economic migrants, seeking new
life, new lands. They were a minority, they made a little influence on [our] DNA, our DNA as Britons is much older but they had
a profound effect on our society, our culture and our language and hence on our thought for how language is thought. The
English we speak today is descended from their speech: our most commonly used words are theirs: grene (green), read (red),
hand, bodig (body), words to describe key concepts like mother, father, friend, laugh, paint, forgiveness, life, death, God,
core words but still defines our beliefs, our emotions and our relations as human beings now ”.

The Anglo-Saxons were comprised of peoples like Jutes, Angles and Saxons and they settled south of the Hadrian’s
wall because they were lowland rather than upland people and were looking for farming land. The Celtic Britons
continued to resist but suffered from internal fighting. By the end of the 6 th century, the Anglo-Saxons had established
seven recognisable kingdoms in Britain: Kent, Essex, Sussex, East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex. While the
Romans had introduced Christianity in Britain, the Anglo-Saxons, at least in the early stages of their occupation, re-
established pagan values. Most Anglo-Saxon were illiterate and those who did write used characters called runes
rather than the Latin alphabet. Their Gods had both Germanic and Scandinavian origins. Christianity continued to be
practised by some Celts but they lived mostly in isolated communities of monks in parts of Wales, Scotland and
Ireland. In 597, a monk called Augustine was sent to England to re-establish Christianity in Britain. He went to Kent,
where he became the first archbishop of Canterbury, the title now given to the Head of the Church of England. In this
way the Roman church was able to gain a great deal of influence over subsequent English kings, as well as enabling
monasteries to become important centres of culture.