Chronological Outline of Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon
England
- Paleolithic & Mesolithic
periods from 500,000 years ago to around 5,000 BC
- Boxgrove Man, oldest human in Britain, a specimen of Homo heidelbergensis, very tall (over 6 feet), practiced cannibalism
- Neolithic period, c. 5000-2000
BC, agriculture, mound tombs
- Non-Indo-European people
- Knap of Howar, Orkney Islands, the oldest standing building in northern Europe (3500 BC to 3100 BC)
- New Grange, Ireland, 3200
B.C., passage grave.
- Neolitithic village at Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands, Scotland (c. 3100 BC)
- Stonehenge I &
II (2800-2000 B.C.)
- Bronze Age,
2000-500 B.C.
- Indo-European language, burial
with drinking vessels, flint, metal
- Stonehenge III & IV (2000
B.C. -1100 B.C.)
- Farms, circular huts, oblong
fields 1200 B.C.
- Celtic inhabitants arrived
around 750 B.C., hill forts
- Iron Age, begins in Europe
around 8th century B.C, in England around 500 or 600 B.C.
- Population
growth
- Celtic people in England:
Britons (hence Britannia) (some Celtic tribes: Atrebates, Belgae, Brigantes,
Catuvellauni, Dumnonii, Ordovices, Silures)
- Celtic languages: Gaelic,
Brythonic (Britannic)
- Further
Celtic (Belgian Gaul) migrations, coins, potter's wheel, practice of cremation
c. 100 B.C.
- Roman Britain
- Julius Caesar invades
Britain, 55/54 BC
- 43/50 A.D., Roman Emperor
Claudius, Roman conquest; Romanization/Christianization, Latin
- conquest of southern and midland
peoples completed, 78-85 A.D., Roman Governor Agricola
- Roman historian Tacitus, author
of Germania (98 A.D.), description of life of Germanic tribes,
concept of comitatus
- Hadrian's Wall (73
miles long), 121-127 A.D. Fortification against Picts and Scots
- Beginning
around 375 the Huns from Central Asia attacked the Germanic tribes settled
in eastern Europe and drove them to invade the Roman Empire. The Roman
Empire was destabilized by attacks from the Huns and Germanic tribes such
as the Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Lombards,
etc. Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 AD. The Western Roman Empire
finally fell to the Germanic invaders in 476 AD.
- Roman departure from Britain
410 AD
- Anglo-Saxon Invasions
- After the departure of the
Romans in 410 AD Britain is besieged by Picts, Scots, and Saxons
- British leader Vortigern invites
Saxons (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) into alliance against Picts and Scots;
Jute leaders Hengest and Horsa. Jute settlements in Thanet, Kent, and
Isle of Wight
- Saxons rebel against Britons
442
- Large-scale Germanic invasions
(Angles, Saxons, Jutes), 449
- Saxon settlements in Sussex
and Wessex, 477- 495
- British Celts driven into
Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, and Brittany (on northwest coast of France)
- British resistance, King
Arthur, British victory at Mt. Badon, A.D. 500
- Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae
(The Fall of Britain) (c. A.D. 540) , a Latin work describing and lamenting
the fall of Britain to the Anglo-Saxons.
- Anglo-Saxons in control by
sixth century
- Anglo-Saxon England
- Angles' settlements in East
Anglia, the Midlands, and Northumbria; term "Anglo-Saxons":
originally Saxons in England (as opposed to continental Saxons); Angles
> English, Angle-lond > Engla-lond > England ("land of the
Angles")
- Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy: Northumberland,
East Anglia, Mercia (Angles), Kent (Jutes), Essex, Sussex, Wessex (Saxons);
seventh century Northumbrian dominance, eighth century Mercian dominance,
ninth/tenth century West Saxon dominance
- Pope Gregory sends St.
Augustine (the "Apostle of the English," a Roman Benedictine
monk, NOT the more famous St. Augustine who lived 354-430 A.D.) to Kent
A.D. 597
- Aethelbert I of Kent (Jutes),
converted to Christianity by Augustine, first Christian king of Anglo-Saxon
England (Rex Anglorum), also compiled law code (c. 600) (definitions
and rules of kinship, wergild, slaves and freemen/ceorl, nobles)
- Gradual Christianization of
Anglo-Saxons by Roman and Irish missionaries (St. Aidan and others, 635-655);
coexistence of Christian and pagan beliefs, Wyrd and Providence
- Persistence of pagan customs,
cenotaph of East-Anglian Raedwald at Sutton Hoo, 625 A.D.
- Caedmon, oldest poetic
vernacular work ("Hymn of Creation", c. 670), monastery
at Whitby; also one of the earliest works, Widsith (c.
650-700), a poem in which a poet named Widsith recounts his own experiences
as a wandering minstrel
- Lindisfarne Gospels,
698, Latin Vulgate text with interlined Old English paraphrase
- Venerable Bede (673-735),
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical
History of the English People) (731), Latin work; Ruthwell
Cross (early 8th c); origins of Beowulf?
- Offa, king of Mercia (r.
757-796); Alcuin of York (732-804), high level of scholarship
- first Viking attacks 787,
sack of Lindisfarne Priory 793; Book of Kells: Irish
illuminated manuscript of four gospels (8th c.)
- West Saxon King Egbert
(r. 802-839), defeats Mercian king Beornwulf at Battle of Ellendune
(825); conquered Mercia (829); lost Mercia to Wiglaf (830-831)
- Cynewulf (c. first half
of 9th c.), author of Juliana, Elene, Fates
of the Apostles, Christ
- King Alfred (849-899),
king of Wessex (r. 871-899), victories over Vikings at Ashdown
871, Edington 878, Treaty of Wedmore 878, Danish
king Guthrum forced to accept Christianity and retreat to Danelaw;
886 Alfred captures London and is recognized as king of all
England (except for Danish parts)
- King Alfred's employment
of Mercian scholars (Plegmund, Waerferth, Aethelstan, and Werwulf) in
educational and literary endeavors (885), revival of learning, beginnings
of Anglo Saxon
Chronicle
- West Saxon dialect became
literary standard of Old English literature; oral tradition
- second half of tenth century:
Dunstan, Ethelwold, Oswald, monastic reform, copying of manuscripts
- Battle of Brunanburh 937,
English army under Aethelstan defeated army of Northmen, Scots, and Welsh
allies; poem Battle of Brunanburh recorded in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle
- late 10th and early 11th century,
renewed Scandinavian invasions, led by Norwegian Olaf Tryggvason
and Danish king Svein
- Aethelred II Unraed (r.
978-1016); married to Emma (daughter of Richard II, duke of Normandy);
peak of monastic and literary revival: Aelfric (955-1020), Catholic
Homilies, Lives of the Saints; Wulfstan d. 1023, Sermo
Lupi ad Anglos
(1014, "Sermon of the Wolf to the English People") (in
Old English with Latin introductory words).
- Exeter
Book (c. 1000) manuscript containing the Wanderer
and the Seafarer, Widsith, The Wife's Lament,
Guthlac, Juliana, Christ, The Ruin.
- Junius
Manuscript
(c. 1000), containing the Old English Genesis,
Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan
- Vercelli
Book (c. 1000), manuscript containing Dream
of the Rood, Andreas, Elene, Fates of the Apostles.
- Battle of Maldon (991);
poem Battle of Maldon recorded in manuscript Cotton Otho (destroyed
by fire in 1731), currently known version comes from transcript made in
1724 by John Elphinstone
- Cotton
Vitellius (c. 1000), manuscript containing Beowulf,
Judith, partially destroyed by fire in 1731
- Danish Canute (Cnut),
king of England (r. 1016-1035), married Aethelred's widow Emma
and fathered Hardecanute, king of England (1040-1042)
- Edward the Confessor (last
Anglo-Saxon king) (r. 1042-1066), son of Aethelred II Unraed and Emma;
lived in exile in Normandy, during Danish rule of England, until 1041;
conflicts and power sharing with Godwine, earl of Wessex, and his son
Harold
- Norman invasion;William
the Conqueror, Battle of Hastings 1066, end of Anglo-Saxon Period
Last updated: 01/09/2006