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Lecture I
Early days of Britain
1. The features of the island.
2. Britain’s prehistory.
3. The Celts.
4. The Romans.
5. The Saxon invasion.
6. The Vikings

The Island
However complicated the modern industrial let be land and climate affect life in every country: its social and economic life, populations and even politics. Britain is no exception. It has a milder climate then much of the European mainland because it lies at the way of the Gulf Stream which brings warm water and winds from the Mexico. Within Britain there are different climate between north and south, east and west. Much of the South and East on the whole have better agricultural conditions, so it is not surprising that south-east of Britain has always been the most populated part of the Island. For this reason it has always had the most political power. Britain is an island and Britain’s history has always been closely connected with the sea. The Geographical position of the land was both a blessing and a problem. On the one hand insular position protected it from invasions and on the other hand the lowland facing on the continent always invited invaders.


Britain’s Prehistory
Our first evidence of human life is a few stone tools dating from one of the warmer period of the Ice Age about 250 000 B.C. However the Ice advanced again and Britain became hardly habitable until 50 000 B.C. a new type of human beings seems to have arrived how was the ancestors of the modern British around 10 000 B.C. Britain was peopled by small groups hunters, fishers and gatherers. About 3 000 B.C. Neolithic people crossed the narrow sea from the Europe. They kept animals, grew corn crops and knew how to make pottery. They probably came from Iberian (Spanish Peninsula) and even the North African coast. They were small, dark, long-headed and may be the forefathers of dark-haired habitants of Wales and Cornwall. This was the first of several waves of invaders before the first arrival of the Romans in 55 B.C.
After 3 000 B.C. the Chalkland people started building great circles of earth banks and ditches. Inside they built wooden buildings and stone circles. These hedges were centres of the religious and economic power. By far from the most spectacles were the Stone Henges. It was a sort of capital to which the chiefs of other groups came from all over Britain. After 2 400 B.C. a new group of people arrived to the South-East Britain from the Europe. They were strongly build, round-headed, taller then Neolithic people. They became leader of English society. The arrival of the new Britons was marked by the few individual graves furnished with pottery beakers. From which they got the name the Beaker people. They probably spoke in Indo-European language. They seemed to have brought a single culture to the whole of Britain: skills to make bronze tools which began to replace stone ones. But they accepted many of the old ways. However from about 1 300 B.C. on worried the Henge Civilization seemed to have become less important and overtaken by a new form of society of Southern England that of a settled farming class.


The Celts
Around 700 B.C. the beginning of the Stone Age new invaders began to arrive. Many of them were tall, had red or fair hair, blue eyes and were technically advanced. They probably came from France, Centre of the Europe or Southern Russia.
The Celts are important in British history because they are ancestors of many of the people of Highland Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall today. Celtic languages are still spoken. The Gaelic form was spread in Ireland and Scotland and the Brethonic in England and Wales.
The British today are often described as Anglo-Saxon. It would be better to call them Anglo-Celts. The Celts were organized into different tribes. And Tribal chiefs were chosen from each family or tribe. They were highly advanced: they used two-wheeled chariot driven by horses. They continued to use and built hill forts which remained the centres for local groups. The Celts traded across and trade was probably important for political and social contacts between the tribes. For money they used iron bars until they began to copy the Roman coins they saw used in Gaul (France). It is possible that the Scottish tartan and dress developed from the striped cloaks the Celtic man-war.
The culture of the Celts in the Iron Ages was not altogether Baberic. The priests the druids were skillful in administration and teaching. During the Celtic period women may have had more independence than they had again 400 of years.
When the Romans invaded the Briton two of the largest tribes were ruled by women who fought from their chariots. The most powerful Celt to stand up to the Romans was a woman in some sources Boadicca or Boudicca. She had become Queen of her tribe when her husband had died before she led her tribe against Romans. She nearly drove them from Britain and destroyed London the capital of Romans before she was defeated and killed.


The Romans
The name Britain came from the word Brittany the Greco-Roman word habitants of Britain. The Romans mispronounced the word and pronounced it the Island Britannia. The Romans had invaded because the Celts of Britain were working with the Celts of Gaul against them. The British Celts were given them the food and allowing them to hide in Britain, there was another reason.
The Celts used cattle to pull the ploughs and this meant that richer heavier land could be fight. Under the Celts Britain had become an important food producer because of its mild climate. It now exported corn, animals, hunting dogs and slaves to the European mainland.
The Romans could make use of the British foods for their army fighting the Gauls.
Julius Caesar first came to Britain in 55 B.C., but it was not until almost a century later in 43 A.D. that Roman army actually occupied Britain. The Romans were determined to conquer the whole Island. They had little difficulty apart from Boadicca revolt because they had a better trained army and because they fought among themselves.
The Romans established a Romano-British culture across the Southern half of Britain from the River Humber to the River Severn. This part of Britain was inside of Empire. The Romans occupation was spread mainly over England while Wales, Scotland (Caledonia) and Ireland remained unconquered areas of the Celtic fringe preserving Celtic culture and traditions. Under the Emperor Hadrian in 120 A.D. a great wall was built across Britain between the Tyne and Solway Firth to protect the Romans against the attacks of the Scots and Pickts (in the north Saxons from over seas).
The Romans were in Great Britain for over 350 years they were both an occupying army and the rulers. They imposed Pax-Romana that is Roman’s Peace which stopped tribal wars and protected Britain from the attacks of outsiders – Pickts in the North, Saxons from over the sea.
Roman control of Britain came to an end as the Empire began to collapse. The first signs were the attacks by Celts of Caledonia in 367 A.D. on the European mainland. Germanic groups Saxon and Franks began to raid the coast of Gaul. The Roman legions in Britain had to return back to Rome to defend from the attacks from the barbaric invaders. Britain was left to defend and rule itself.
London is a Celtic name but many towns that Romans built along their roads: Gloucester, Winchester, and Lancaster – have Latin components «costar» (45 towns) – which means a camp. London was twice of size of Paris and possibly the most important trading centre in Northern Europe.
The Romans also brought Christianity and the Britain Church became a strong institution. The native language absorbed many Latin words of that time.


The Saxon Invasion
The wealth of Britain by the IV century - the result of mild climate and centuries of peace was a temptation to the greedy. At first the Germanic tribes only raided Britain. But after 430 A.D. they began to settle. The new comers were war-like and illiterate. According to the writing of Venerable Bede an English monk the invaders came from three powerful Germanic tribes – The Saxons, Angles and Jutes. The Anglo-Saxon migration gave the larger part of Britain its new name – England «the land of the Angles». The British Celts fought the raiders and settlers.
That was the period of the half legendary King Arthur and his knights of the «Round Table» who defended Christianity against Anglo-Saxons. But the Saxons managed to oust the British population to the mountainous parts of Ireland in the far West which the Saxons called Weallas or Wales meaning the land of the foreigners. Some Celts were driven into Cornwall where they later accepted the rule of Saxon Lords. Other into the Lowland of the country which became known as Scotland. Hardly anything is left of Celtic language or culture in England except for the names of some rivers – the Thames, Mersey, Severn, Avon and two largest cities: London and Leeds. The Anglo-Saxon England was a network of a small Kingdoms: Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), Wessex (West Saxons), East Anglia (East Angles), Kent, Murcia and Northumbria. And the largest three of them Wessex, Murcia and Northumbria dominated the country at different times.
The Anglo-Saxon Kings were elected by the Council of Chieftains (the Witan) and they ruled with the advice of the Councilors the Great Men of the Kingdom.


Vikings
By the end of the 8th century the British Islands were subjected to one more invasion by the Non-Christian people from Scandinavia. They were called North’s or Danes Men or Vikings. They came from Norway and Panmark. They had repeatedly raided the Eastern coasts of England. By the middle of the 9th century almost all English Kingdom were defeated by the Danes. At 870 only Wessex was left to resist the barbaric Danes. At that time it got a new young King Alfred (Alfred the Great) and no other King has earned this title.
As King he forced the Danes to come to terms (пойти на уступки) to accept Christianity and live within the borders of the Franchers and Dane Law (the land where the Law of the Danes ruled a large part of Essex). He was master of the South and West of England. The Vikings were forced to go South and settle in Northern France, where their settlement became known as the province of the Northman (Normandy). The Kingdom of Alfred the Great received a new coat of Laws which raised of standard of English Society. He himself translated a number of books from Latin including Bede «Historia Ecclesiastica» and began «The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles», «A year by year History of England». But in the 10th -12th centuries the Danes is managed to expand their positions in Great Britain.
And from 1040-1042 the Danish royal power triumphant in England. King Cnut’s (Canut) Empire included Norway, Denmark and England. In 1042 the House of Wessex was restored the power in England. When Edward the Confessor was elected King by the Witan. He was half Norman and he had spent his exile in Normandy. And William Duke of the Normandy was his cousin and a close friend. He was a religious Monarch and devoted his attention to the construction of churches (Westminster Abbey). Edward the Confessor died in 1066 without an obvious heir and the Witan elected Harold a Saxon nobleman from family of God. Harold’s rights to the English throne was challenge by William the Duke of Normandy. His first claim was that King Edward had promised it to him. The second claim was that Harold had promised William not to try to take the Throne by himself. Harold did not denied but said that he had forced to make a promise. 1066 was a crucial year for the Saxon King.
Harold had to fight against two enemies at the same time. The Danes (Vikings) had not given up their claim to the English Throne. He had to much________into Yorkshire to defeat the Danes and rushed his armies back to the South to meet William who had landed near Hastings. But William army was better armed, organized and he had cavalry and he had waited and giving his army a rest. Harold might have won. He was defeated and killed in the battle near Hastings. William came to London and was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day in 1066. The Norman period in England history had begun.