Chronological Outline of Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon England

 Ancient Britain map | very large | large | small |

• Paleolithic & Mesolithic periods from 250,000 years ago to around 5,000 BC
  
  
• Neolithic period, c. 5000-2000 BC, agriculture, mound tombs
  
  
  • Non-Indo-European people
    
    
  • New Grange, Ireland, 3200 B.C., passage grave.
    
    
  • 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
    
    
  • Germanic tribes (Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Lombards, etc.), migrations throughout Europe and raids against Rome (Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 A.D.)
    
    
  • Roman departure from Britain 410 AD
    
    
• Anglo-Saxon Invasions (map: very large, large, small)
  
  
  • Britain 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 (map: very large, large, small )
  
  
  • 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