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