BRITISH HISTORY AND CIVILISATION

Associate Prof. Gabriela Iuliana Colipc-Ciobanu, PhD.

Course Contents
British Insularity. Invasions and Patterns of Settlement in the British Isles British Monarchy: from the Anglo-Saxon Kings to the Twenty-first Century House of Windsor Main Developments in Britains Political Life

Selected Bibliography
Dascal, R. (2000) British Topics, Timisoara: Eurostampa. Deac, L. and A. Nicolescu (1983) British Life and Civilisation, Bucuresti: Editura Didactica si Pedagogica. Gavriliu, E. (2001) British History and Civilisation. A Student-friendly Approach through Guided Practice, Galati: Universitatea Dunarea de Jos. McDowall, D. (1995) An Illustrated History of Britain, Essex: Longman. Morgan, Kenneth O. (ed.) (1993) The Oxford History of Britain, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Musman, R. and A.-V. dArcy (1989) Britain Today, Essex: Longman. Oakland, J. (1991) British Civilisation. An Introduction, London and New York: Routledge. Room, A. (1991) An A to Z of British Life, Oxford University Press.

I. British Insularity
Great Britain: England (the South, the Midlands and the North): from the Channel to the Scottish Border (the Cheviot Hills); Scotland (united to England in 1707): the Highlands; the Lowlands and the Islands (the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands); Wales (united to England under the first Tudors, Henry VII and Henry VIII).

Northern Ireland (Ulster); the Isle of Man and Anglesey (in the Irish Sea); the Isle of Wight, Jersey and Guernsey (the Channel Islands); the Scilly Islands (SE of Cornwall).

Consequences of British Insularity

Britains peculiar geographical position has influenced its climate, its people and its history in more than one direction.
Climate: temperate, influenced by the warm Atlantic Current (Gulf Stream), with mild winters and warm summers; People: restrained, reserved, with a conservative mentality marked by a preference for traditional habits and structures (e.g. talking about the weather; carrying an umbrella and a jacket on a warm day because it might rain or turn cold; the five oclock tea; etc.); History: The sea has turned the English into a sea-faring nation, able to roam the oceans of the world and to build up a great maritime empire. The sea provided potential security from foreign invasions from the continent, but also imminent danger from enemies from the north (and not only).

II. Invasions and Patterns of Settlement in the British Isles

Ancient Britain:
Stone Age: the Megalithic Men; Bronze Age: the Beaker people; Iron Age: the Celts; The Romans.

Middle Ages:
The Anglo-Saxons; The Vikings; The Normans.

Battles for Britain:

The Renaissance: the Spanish Armada; The Second World War: the German Luftwaffe.

Ancient Britain: the Megalithic Men

Stone Age (about 3,000 BC):
The first settlers probably coming from the Iberian Peninsula (the Iberians) or even from the North African coast:
small, dark, long-headed people (probably the ancestors of the dark-haired inhabitants of Wales and Cornwall); They kept animals, grew corn and knew how to make pottery.

This first wave of invaders settled in the western parts of Britain and Ireland, from Cornwall all the way to the far north. Remains that reveal the huge organisation of labour in prehistoric Britain:
the henges: centres of religious, political and economic power made of great circles of earth banks and ditches inside which there were wooden buildings and stone circles; e.g. Stonehenge in Salisbury Plain: made of monumental circles of massive vertical stones topped with immense horizontal slabs (megaliths the name of these prehistoric people, i.e., Megalithic Men); other (earth or stone) henges were built in many parts of Britain as far north as the Orkney Islands and as far south as Cornwall.

Ancient Britain: the Beaker People

Bronze Age (after 2,400 BC): New groups of people came from Europe (France and the Low Countries) and settled in south-east Britain. Characteristics:
round-headed, strongly built, taller than Neolithic Britons; speaking an Indo-European language; skilled in working metal (bronze) and in making pottery; bringing a new cereal from Europe, i.e. barley; introducing the first individual graves to replace the former communal burial mounds (barrows); their graves were furnished with pottery beakers (the Beaker people).

Ancient Britain: the Celts

Iron Age (around 700 BC):
From the sixth century BC over the next seven hundred years, the Celts swept into the British isles, coming from central Europe or further east, in three successive waves, kindred indeed but mutually hostile and each with a dialect of its own:
The Goidelic/ Gaelic Celts settled in Ireland whence they spread to Scotland and the Isle of Man. Their linguistic heritage is represented by: Gaelic (the national language in Ireland), Erse (in the Highlands and the Islands of Scotland) and the now extinguished Manx (only in the Isle of Man). two centuries later, the Brythonic Celts/ Britons settled in England and Wales. Their linguistic heritage is represented by: Welsh (in Wales) and Cornish (spoken in Cornwall up to the end of the eighteenth century, to be revived nowadays). About 100 BC, the Belgic tribes settled in the south-east of Britain.

Ancient Britain: the Celts

General characteristics:
tall, fair or red-haired men; wearing shirts and breeches, and stripped or checked cloaks fastened by a pin (possibly the origin for the Scottish tartan and dress); of an impressive cleanliness and neatness. skills: They knew how to work with iron, hence they could make better weapons and introduce more advanced ploughing methods to farm heavier soils. They built hill-forts which remained economic centres for local groups long after the Romans came to Britain (e.g. the tradition of organising annual fairs). They traded across tribal borders and trade was probably important for political and social contact between the tribes inside and beyond Britain. religion: polytheistic. Their priests, the Druids could not read or write, but they memorised all the religious teachings, the tribal laws, history, medicine, and other knowledge necessary in the Celtic society. Religious rituals (which sometimes included human sacrifice) were not performed in temples but in sacred (oak) groves, on certain hills, by rivers or by river sources. gender roles: Women, especially from the upper strata, had more independence and they were respected for their courage and strength in battle. (Roman writers leave an impression of a measure of equality between the sexes among the richer Celts.) Actually, when the Romans invaded Britain 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, Boadicea (61 AD).

Ancient Britain: the Celts

Cultural heritage:
The very name Britain comes from Pretani, the name which the Greeks called the Celtic inhabitants of Britain, mispronounced by the Romans into Britannia. Celtic survivings in English: names of rivers and places (e.g. Avon, Thames; York, Kent, London); first syllables in Winchester, Manchester, Gloucester, Exeter; words (e.g. brat, cradle, down, mattock, etc.) In literature: legends and sagas imbued with a sense of mystery, a dramatic conception of mans existence at grip with fate, sung by bards at the accompaniment of the harp:
The Cycle of Ulster (the oldest literary attempts of the Irish epic recording the deeds of king Conchobar and the brave hero Cuchulainn); The Cycle of Munster (focused on the heroic figures of Finn and his son Ossian, a gifted bard).

In the late eighteenth century, the interest in the old Celtic literary tradition was revived by the Pre-Romantic movement. James Macphersons alleged translations from the legendary Irish bard Ossian brought about the emergence of a new literary fashion in almost the whole Europe, known as Ossianism. With the rise of nationalistic feelings in present-day Britain, Britishness originally a general term denoting national identity for the inhabitants of England, Scotland and Wales has come to evoke the Celtic origin of Scotland and Wales as opposed to Englishness, evocative of Englands Anglo-Saxon roots and her ruling position.

Ancient Britain: the Romans

The Roman invasion:
reasons: 1. the Celts of Britain supported the Celts in Gaul against the Romans (sending them food and allowing them to hide in Britain). 2. Under the Celts, Britain became an important food producer because of the mild climate and the advanced ploughing technology. The Romans needed British food for their own army fighting the Gauls. the Roman invasion:
55-54 BC: Julius Caesar raided Britain to stop the support the British Celts offered to the Celts in Gaul. 43 AD: Britain was conquered by Emperor Claudiuss legions. Actually, the Romanised area stretched across the southern part of Britain, from the River Humber to the River Severn. The Romans also extended their control in Wales (the towns of York, Chester, etc.) but did not develop their culture there. Therefore, the area of Roman occupation was divided into two sharply contrasting regions: the Latinised south and east, and the barbarian north and west. The Romans could not conquer Caledonia (i.e. Scotland). They built a strong wall along the northern border (Hadrians Wall) to keep out the raiders (Scots and Picts) from the north. 409 AD: Rome withdrew its last legions from Britain, as Rome itself was under fierce siege by the Germanic tribes. (Rome itself was sacked by the Goths in 410.) The Romanised Celts were left to fight alone against the Scots, the Irish and the Anglo-Saxon raiders from Germany.

Ancient Britain: the Romans

Benefits of the Roman rule:
prosperous towns which were the basis of Roman administration and civilisation (e.g. Colchester a seat of the imperial Cult, meant to focus the loyalty of the province, where a temple of the deified Claudius was erected; London the business centre of the province, a supply port and the centre of the system of Roman roads); stone-paved highways which continued to be used long after the Romans left and became the main roads of modern Britain; glass windows, central heating, running water, Roman baths; large farms (villas) outside the towns, belonging to the richer Britons who had become more Roman than Celt in their manners (as opposed to the huts and villages in which most of the Celtic population continued to live); the introduction of figurative styles particularly in sculpture, wall-painting and mosaic, but also in the minor arts and crafts (jewellery, pottery, furniture, household goods); the introduction of reading and writing (Latin alphabet): Latin speaking town-dwellers and rich landowners/ vs./ the illiterate Celtic peasantry. However, with the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, Latin completely disappeared both in its spoken and written forms. Consequently, it is difficult to say how many Latin words penetrated the English vocabulary through Celtic. E.g.s of authentic borrowings from Latin to Celtic: caester, chester (castrum in Chester, Doncaster, Gloucester, etc.); coln (colonia in Lincoln, Colchester); port (portus in Porchester, Davenport, Portsmouth); wick/ wich (vicus in Wickham); pool (padulis in Liverpool); street (strata), wall (vallum), wine (vinum); the introduction of Christianity in 313 under Emperor Constantine the Great (his mother, Helen, was a Celtic princess from Britain). Saint Patrick first brought Christianity to Ireland (he became the islands patron saint).