SUMMARY ENGLAND HISTORY

SUMMARY ENGLAND HISTORY
Prehistory

Stonehenge, thought to have been erected c.2500-2000BC
Archaeological evidence indicates that what was later southern Britannia was colonised by humans long before the rest of the British Isles because of its more hospitable climate between and during the various ice ages of the distant past.
The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BC, althoughcultural and trade links with the continent had existed for millennia prior to this. Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his trading journey to the island around 325 BC.
Later writers such as Pliny the Elder (quoting Timaeus) and Diodorus Siculus (probably drawing on Poseidonius) mention the tin trade from southern Britain, but there is little further historical detail of the people who lived there.
Tacitus wrote that there was no great difference in language between the people of southern Britannia and northern Gaul and noted that the various nations of Britons shared physical characteristics with their continental neighbours.
Roman Britain (Britannia)
Julius Caesar invaded southern Britain in 55 and 54 BC and wrote in De Bello Gallico that the population of southern Britannia was extremely large and shared much in common with the Belgae of the Low Countries. Coin evidence and the work of later Roman historians have provided the names of some of the rulers of the disparate tribes and their machinations in what was Britannia. Until the Roman Conquest of Britain, Britain's British population was relatively stable, and by the time of Julius Caesar's first invasion, the British population of what was old Britain was speaking a The Dark Ages: Arthurian England


The Dark Ages: Arthurian England

By the Fifth Century Britain was already a complex island of many different cultural influences. Until the Eleventh Century, Britain remained an island of changing boundaries, many rulers, and mysterious goings-on. This is the ‘dark ages’, a time we know little about (lending the air of mystery to this bit of history). It is out of this time that the Legends of King Arthur are born. Since there is very little written evidence that comes out of this time, and since archaeological evidence from this time period is just starting to gain the breadth and depth needed to make any broad conclusions, we are very dependent on later written sources (many of them writing about King Arthur) to create a picture of Britain in the early middle ages.

What we can definitely say is that certain traits from previous times remain in place through the middle ages. Celtic farming practices and family relations continue to be important to citizens of Britain. Contact with the worlds outside Britain was maintained, at least in a small part of their former glory. Celtic hill forts were still inhabited and were again the center of political life in Britain. Roman forts and defenses were maintained, sometimes successfully, sometimes with less than full success at varying times during this period. Though Roman cities and villas were still inhabited, they were not as well maintained as during Roman occupation. Roman citizens who stayed in Britain often formed the elite and the ruling class of the island, sometimes keeping their Roman culture, oftentimes becoming indistinguishable in culture from their Celtic neighbors.

During this time Christianity came to bear on Britain and the rest of the United Kingdom. By the end of occupation by the Romans, Christianity had made its way to England and was quickly adopted by all classes of people to varying degrees. Christianity and various local faiths were strong during the early middle ages. By the end, Christianity came out on top. Christianity brought many things to Britain. It served as a unifying force among the scattered tribes of Britons. Its priests and missionaries traveled widely, bringing wisdom and trade from distant parts. And, most importantly, monasteries valued writing and wrote down local history, knowledge, and legends.

Another way we get information on this time is by looking at the beginnings of the later middle ages and seeing what has changed since the Romans left Britain. By the time most history books look at England the feudal system of kings in castles is firmly in place, ruling over peasants, with knights to defend them.
Celtic language generally thought to be the forerunner of the modern Brythonic languages. After Julius Caesar abandoned Britain, it fell back into the hands of the Britons.
The Romans began their second conquest of Britain in 43 AD, during the reign of Claudius. They annexed the whole of modern England and Wales over the next forty years and periodically extended their control over much of lowland Scotland.

Anglo-Saxon Period

Kingdoms and tribes in Britain, c.600 AD
In approximately 495, at the Battle of Mount Badon, Britons inflicted a severe defeat on an invading Anglo-Saxon army which halted the westward Anglo-Saxon advance for some decades. Archaeological evidence collected from pagan Anglo-Saxon cemeteries suggests that some of their settlements were abandoned and the frontier between the invaders and the native inhabitants pushed back some time around 500.
Anglo-Saxon expansion resumed in the sixth century, although the chronology of its progress is unclear. One of the few individual events which emerges with any clarity before the seventh century is the Battle of Deorham, in 577, a West Saxon victory which led to the capture of Cirencester, Gloucester and Bath, bringing the Anglo-Saxon advance to the Bristol Channel and dividing the Britons in the West Country from those in Wales. The Northumbrian victory at the Battle of Chester around 616 may have had a similar effect in dividing Wales from the Britons of Cumbria.
Gradual Saxon expansion through the West Country continued through the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. Meanwhile, by the mid-seventh century the Angles had pushed the Britons back to the approximate borders of modern Wales in the west and expanded northward as far as the River Forth.
Medieval England

Depiction of the Battle of Hastings (1066) on the Bayeux Tapestry
The Norman Conquest led to a sea-change in the history of the English state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes, which reveals that within twenty years of the conquest the English ruling class had been almost entirely dispossessed and replaced by Norman landholders, who also monopolised all senior positions in the government and the Church. William and his nobles spoke and conducted court in Norman French, in England as well as in Normandy. The use of the Anglo-Norman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English.
The English Middle Ages were characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite. England was more than self-sufficient in cereals, dairy products, beef and mutton. The nation's international economy was based on the wool trade, in which the produce of the sheepwalks of northern England was exported to the textile cities of Flanders, where it was worked into cloth. Medieval foreign policy was as much shaped by relations with Flemish textile industry as it was by dynastic adventures in western France. An English textile industry was established in the fifteenth century, providing the basis for rapid English capital accumulation.
Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (so named because of his education—as his older brother William was the heir apparent and thus given the practical training to be king, Henry received the alternate, formal education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman societies. The loss of his son, William Adelin, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, undermined his reforms. This problem regarding succession cast a long shadow over English history.
During the confused and contested reign of Stephen, there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin The Empress Matilda (also known as Empress Maud), led to a civil war from 1139 - 1153. Matilda’s father, Henry I, had required the leading barons, ecclesiastics and officials in Normandy and England, to take an oath to accept Matilda as his heir. England was far less than enthusiastic to accept an outsider, and a woman, as their ruler. There is some evidence suggesting Henry was unsure of his own hopes and the oath to make Matilda his heir. In likelihood, Henry probably hoped Matilda would have a son and step aside as Queen Mother, making her son the next heir. Upon Henry’s death, the Norman and English barons ignored Matilda’s claim to the throne, and thus through a series of decisions, Stephen, Henry’s favourite nephew, was welcomed by many in England and Normandy as their new ruler. On December 22, 1135, Stephen was anointed king with the implicit support of the church and nation. Matilda and her own son stood for direct descent by heredity from Henry I, and she bided her time in France. In the autumn of 1139, she invaded England with her illegitimate half-brother Robert of Gloucester. Her husband, Geoffroy V of Anjou, conquered Normandy but did not cross the channel to help his wife, satisfied with Normandy and Anjou.
Stephen was captured, and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, although his hold on the throne was still uneasy.


England Reformation
These events were, in part, associated with the wider process of the European Protestant Reformation, a religious and political movement which affected the practice of Christianity across the whole of Europe during this period. Many factors contributed to the process: the decline of feudalism and the rise of nationalism, the rise of the common law, the invention of the printing press and increased circulation of the Bible texts, the transmission of new knowledge and ideas amongst scholars and the upper and middle classes. However the various phases of the English Reformation, which also covered Wales and Ireland, were largely driven by changes in government policy, to which public opinion gradually accommodated itself. The stories of why and how some states of Europe adhered to different forms of reformed churches, remained faithful to the Holy See, or allowed different regions within states to come to different conclusions, are highly complicated and specific to each state and remain the subject of debate among historians.
Based on Henry VIII's desire for an annulment, the English Reformation was, at the outset, more of a political than a theological dispute, but the reality of political differences between Rome and England nonetheless allowed growing theological disputes to come to the fore.[1] Before the break with Rome, it was the Pope and general councils of the church that decided doctrine. Church law was governed by the code of canon law with final jurisdiction in Rome. Church taxes were paid straight to Rome and it was the Pope who had the final say over the appointment of bishops. The split from Rome made the English monarch the Supreme Governor of the English church by "Royal Supremacy", thereby making the Church of England the established church of the nation. Doctrinal and legal disputes now rested with the monarch and the papacy was deprived of revenue and the final say on the appointment of bishops.
The structure and theology of the church was a matter of fierce dispute for generations. These disputes were finally ended by a coup d'état in 1688, from which emerged a church polity with an established church and a number of non-conformist churches whose members at first suffered various civil disabilities which were only removed over time, as did the substantial minority who remained Roman Catholic in England and Wales, whose church organization remained illegal until the nineteenth century.
Different opinions have been advanced as to why England adopted a reformed faith, unlike France for instance. Some have advanced the view that there was an inevitability about the triumph of the forces of new knowledge and a new sense of autonomy set over-against superstition and corruption;[2] others that it was a matter of chance: Henry VIII died at the wrong time; Mary had no child;[3] reform did not inevitably mean leaving the Roman Communion;[4] for others it was about the power of ideas which required only moderate assistance for people to see old certainties as uncertain;[5] while others have written that it was about the power of the state over vibrant, flourishing popular religion;[6] or that it was a 'cultural revolution'.[7] Some, on the contrary, have argued that, for most ordinary people there was a continuity across the divide, which was as significant as any changes.[8] The recent revival of scholarly interest may indicate that the argument is not yet over.