INSTITUTO DE ESTUDIOS SUPERIORES -

ANDALGALÁ
CÁTEDRA: HISTORIA DE LOS PAÍSES
DE HABLA INGLESA
3° AÑO
HORAS CÁTEDRAS: 3 HORAS
PROFESORA: NEMER, VANESA E.
CICLO LECTIVO: 2021

A few preliminary notes regarding the subject’s content.

This course is intended to be an introductory course, a mere approximation to
the study of social, cultural and political issues concerning Britain. Some of the many
possible thematic axis will be connected to the mingling of the races and the extent to
which each of them contributed to the development of the English language and of
Britain’s peculiar political institutions and cultural features.
Content: The Making of England. Britain’s prehistory (The Iberians). The
Celts. The Romans. The Anglo-Saxons.

CHAPTER 1: BEFORE THE ROMANS (The Iberians and the Celts)

If you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand upper corner of
the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the sea. They are England and Scotland,
and Ireland. England and Scotland form the greater
part of these Islands. Ireland is the next in size.
The Islands lay solitary, in the great expanse of
water. The foaming waves dashed against their
cliffs, and the bleak winds blew over their forests;
but the winds and waves brought no adventurers to
land upon the Islands. The whole country was
covered with forests, and swamps. The greater part
of it was very misty and cold. There were no roads,
no bridges, no streets, no houses. But in the
centuries and millennia that followed those desolate
times, peoples would come in waves to our Islands,
just as the waves of the water come upon shore.
We are told in the ancient Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
that five nations of peoples came to settle these
islands before the Normans under William the
Conqueror in 1066 AD: the Scottish, Welsh (or
British), Pictish, Latin (or Romans), and English (or Germanic peoples like the Angles,
Saxons and Jutes).
From the early ages the British Isles, especially the flat low-lying south and east
coastlines, were a temptation to different wandering tribes because of the mild climate
and fertile soils that offer perfect agricultural conditions.

The island was also famous for its natural resources – there was gold, tin and iron in
the ground, big and small game in the forests; the rivers swarmed with fish and
provided excellent navigable inlets into the hinterland.
The 1st settlers came to the island about 3000 or 2500 BC. They were dark-haired
Iberians from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) or maybe even the North African coast.
The Iberians were hunters, and later they became primitive farmers.
The Iberians had as their religion the Religion of the Druids. These Druids built
great Temples and altars, open to the
sky. They were the men of the
Bronze Age who raised Stonehenge
– a center of religious worship, which
was probably built over a period of a
thousand years. It was also a capital
whose authority extended all over the
British Isles, where similar but smaller
‘henges’ were constructed. Historians
know very little about those remote
times, and what they know is only
through archeological revelations.
From around 700 BC to 500 BC or 300 BC another group of people began to arrive
on the island. These were the Celts who had come from the territory of today’s North-
western Germany and the Netherlands. The Celts were men of Iron who could make
better weapons and who were more technically advanced than the Iberians. They came
in waves, kindred but mutually hostile, and each with a dialect of its own.
The Celts imposed themselves as aristocracy on the conquered Iberian tribes in Britain
and in Ireland. Eventually the races mixed but not in the same proportions throughout
the island.
 The Celts, like the Iberians, were tribesmen or clansmen. The basis of their
society were family ties. The Celtic people did not develop any territorial organization.
The bonds of the tribesmen were not with the land but with other clan members. The
clans were perpetually at war with one another. Thanks to their use of iron technology,
the Celts were better farmers than the Iberians. They grew wheat and oats, and they
knew how to make mead (grain fermented with honey). They bred pigs for food, sheep
for clothing and oxen to pull the plough. They also bred horses, which were the chief
means of barter and sources of wealth. The Celts traded not only with one another but
also with other tribes on the island and in Europe. Hunting, fishing, herding, bee
keeping, weaving, carpentry and metalwork were the chief occupations of the Celtic
population.
Trade with the continent was important for political and social reasons. The Celts
in the South of the island were in close intercourse with their kin in Europe. From them
they learnt to use coins instead of iron
bars for money. When the Britons (the
Celts on the island) found out that Julius
Caesar was marching to subdue their
relatives on the continent, they sent over
ships and warriors to help their relatives
in defense, which was one of the reasons
why Caesar decided to invade the island
as well. The other reason was the island’s
reputation as an important provider of
food, and since the Romans needed
supplies for their own army fighting the
Gauls (the tribes occupying the territory
of today’s France), the conquest of the
island was inevitable.

CHAPTER 2- ROMAN SOVEREIGNTY

Fifty-five years before the birth of Christ, the Romans, under their great General,
Julius Caesar, were masters of all the rest of the known world. Julius Caesar had then
just conquered Gaul; and hearing, a good deal about the opposite Island with the white
cliffs, and about the bravery of the Britons who inhabited it - he resolved, as he was so
near, to come and conquer Britain next.
So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this Island of ours, with eighty vessels and
twelve thousand men. He expected to conquer Britain easily: but it was not such easy
work as he supposed - for the bold Britons fought most bravely. The 1st Roman
expedition came in 55 BC, but it was not until one century later that permanent
occupation began (AD 43).
 Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time, there was peace in Britain.
The Britons improved their towns and mode of life: became more civilized, travelled,
and learnt a great deal from the Gauls and Romans.
Then in AD 43, forty thousand Roman soldiers invaded England from the area of
Europe that is now Italy. The Roman army was very well-organized and had good
weapons. The soldiers built a wall around themselves every night so they were safe.
They moved across the country, fighting and winning battles against the different
tribes, and after four years they controlled the south of England. The Romans had to
fight for many years before
they controlled all of England.
They made many changes in
the country, such as building
towns and cities, and good
roads. They brought a new
language to England – Latin –
and made laws, so people knew
what they could and could not
do. The religion of Christianity
came to England in Roman
times too.
The Romans never took
control of Scotland, (which they
called ‘Caledonia’) which is
north of England, and Scottish
tribes came to fight against
them in the north of England
again and again. Because of
this, in the second century AD,
the Romans built a wall to stop
the Scottish tribes coming to
England. This wall between
England and Scotland was one
hundred and twenty kilometres
long, and was called Hadrian’s Wall. No attempt was made to annex Ireland to the
Roman territory, and thus the area of Roman occupation corresponds roughly to the
territory of modern England and Wales
For English people in towns and cities, life in Roman times was good. Towns now
had clean water and sewers (pipes taking away dirty water), and there were strong
walls around them, so people felt safe. People came to the towns to buy and sell
things, and food became more interesting and enjoyable. To relax, people could go to
special bath houses, where they met their friends, kept clean and exercised.
However, the fall of the Roman Empire began in the 2nd half of the 4th century.
In Britain, it was precipitated by the Celtic revival – Celtic raids on Roman territories,
both from Ireland and from Scotland, became more frequent and bolder. In the 1st half
of the 5th century the defunct Roman Empire was no longer capable of providing
security for most of its citizens, especially in such remote outposts of civilization as
Britain.
 Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Caesar' s first invasion of the Island,
when the Romans departed from it for ever. In the course of that time, although they
had been the cause of terrible fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to improve
the condition of the Britons. They had made great military roads; they had built forts;
they had taught them how to dress and arm themselves much better than they had
ever known how to do before; they had refined the whole British way of living.
AGRICOLA had built a great wall of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending
from Newcastle to beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out the Picts and Scots;
HADRIAN had strengthened it.
After AD 250, Roman soldiers began Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by means
to leave England. They had to fight in of Roman ships, that the Christian Religion was first
other parts of the world, and it was brought into Britain, and its people first taught the
too expensive and difficult for them gospel of Jesus Christ- how Jesus Christ had died
to keep England safe. By AD 411, all on the Cross to save His People from their sins.
the Roman soldiers had left England. Britain was quite Christianized by the time Roman
rule there had ceased. And Christianity was to
remain, even when the Romans left. Indeed, British Christianity- and Christianity on
the British Isles in general- was quite independent of Rome.

Christianity In The Roman Empire.

As the Roman Empire got bigger and new lands and people were taken into it, the
conquered people added their Gods or religion to the Roman Pantheon (the name for
the multitude of Roman gods). One such new religion was Christianity.
Jesus Christ was born in Palestine, then part of the Roman Empire. In about 26
A.D. he began to preach, telling people that he was the son of God. Around 29 A.D.
Jesus was killed by the Romans for inciting rebellion against Rome. He was crucified,
which was a common and gruesome death. The followers of Jesus were soon given the
nickname “Christians”. Christianity went through several changes in fortune from
popular following to terrible Persecution (being picked on or bullied for religious or
racial reasons or for thinking differently). Unlike many other religions at the time the
Christians talked about “Peace” and “Forgiveness”, not the usual “Anger” and
“Punishment” of the Roman Gods.
The ideas of Christianity spread and the organisation of the Roman Empire helped this
in several ways.
1. It was relatively easy to move around the Empire. The Romans built excellent
roads with were safe from robbers.
2. There were common languages in the Empire, Latin and Greek. This made the
spread of the new ideas quick and easy.
3. The Roman army never had units of soldiers based in their home country, so as
not to call the loyalty of the men into question, many of the units based in Britain were
from the Middle East and so Christianity spread to Britain quite quickly.
“Their executions became sporting entertainment… they were covered in wild
animal skins and torn apart by dogs” Tacitus. A Roman historian
In the summer of 64 A.D., there was a very large fire in Rome that burnt
uncontrollably for weeks. At this time, there was a lot of bad feeling towards the
Christians. The Romans were angry at the fact that the Christians said that only they
would go to heaven. The Christians upset many others with “depressing” talk of the
world and all non-believers being evil and should change their bad ways. The Christians
refused to worship the Emperor as a god and this was against the law. The Christians
were tortured to make them worship the Roman gods and the books of scripture were
burned. The Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the fire of Rome and began to
persecute them.
Many were sent to the games to be torn apart by wild animals for the
entertainment of the people of Rome. 600 of them were even arranged around the top
of the colosseum in Rome to be set fire to and act as floodlights!!
Attacks on the Christians went on for a very long time with them taking the blame
every now and then when it was convenient to blame them for some problem. The
leaders were crucified and the Christians driven to worship underground, in Catacombs
so as to avoid persecution. Christians did gain some toleration in the later Empire but it
was not until the Emperor Constantine (who was crowned in York) that Christianity was
truly accepted.
Just before a crucial battle in A.D. 312, Constantine said that he had a dream
where he was told to paint the Christian symbol on the shields of his soldiers. He did
this and won the battle! He later in A.D 337 decided that in thanks he would allow the
whole Empire to worship any religion freely, including Christianity. The future of
Christianity was assured when Constantine converted to Christianity the Temples of the
old Roman Gods were left to decline or began to be converted to new Christian
Constantine did not always behave like a Christian. For example in A.D. 326 he
killed his wife by having her boiled alive in a bath and then killed his son too. Adapted
from a modern text book.
It could be said that without the Roman Empire, Christianity would not have
spread so quickly, perhaps not spread at all! The Roman Empire became the Holy
Roman Empire and continues in the form of Roman Catholic Church that has its heart in
Rome’s Vatican City and a Holy Roman Emperor in the form of the Pope which comes
from the Latin PAPA for Father. Catholic masses are still performed in Latin, the
language of the Roman Empire. Some Roman buildings are still in use today as
churches when most of the others have fallen into ruin.

CHAPTER 3 - THE SAXON INVASION

The Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain, when the Britons began to wish they
had never left it. For, the Romans being gone, and the Britons being much reduced in
numbers by their long wars, the Picts and Scots came pouring in and the situation was
significantly exacerbated by the renewed Anglo-Saxon raids, which between 350 and
400 were particularly severe.

The Anglo-Saxons, from Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, began to arrive. The Anglo-Saxons
had come to England several times before, but the Romans had always defeated them. Now, with
the Romans gone, the English could not win battles against the Anglo-Saxons, and many Anglo-
Saxons came to live in England.
 The pagan people who invaded the island after the Roman troops had left were
the Nordic people: Anglo-Saxon, German and Scandinavian. They spoke allied
languages, had the same religion, the same epic poetry celebrating their gods and
heroes (such as Beowulf). They also had common art and they observed the same
customs in war and agriculture. Most of them were farmers searching for better lands
to plough, but there were also fishermen, seal hunters, whalers, and pirates among
them. Their form of government was superior to the Celts – they were not organized in
tribes but in almost feudal societies. The kinship, the natural bond among the members
of a clan who supported one
another, gave way in the
Anglo-Saxon communities to
the personal relation of a
warrior to his chief, whose
personal virtues as well as his
noble descent made him the
leader. Contrary to the Celts,
the Anglo-Saxons had both
kingship and aristocracy –
their form of government was
autocratic kingship, which is a
transitional stage between
tribalism and fully-fledged
feudalism. The military
organization of the Anglo-Saxons was also based not on kinship but on personal
attachment and loyalty of all the warriors to the chief who organized the expedition.
The early Anglo-Saxons differed from the
King Arthur is the hero of a popular
Britons in many respects. For example, they were
legend about how he proved his title
not city dwellers like the Britons. They lived in
to the kingship by withdrawing the
large rural townships in log houses, and they tilled Sword Excalibur from the rock in
the soil in one common field. They could have which it had been fixed by Merlin, the
taken the Roman villas or they could have settled magician who later became his
in the Roman towns as soon as they buried the counselor. Arthur’s court was called
bodies of their previous inhabitants. Instead they Camelot and was famous for its
left Roman buildings and towns empty and went Round Table. Other legends
on with their way of life. Chester, Bath and connected with Arthur tell about his
Canterbury were re-peopled in the course of time. wife’s Guinevere’s unfaithfulness
London, due to its location at the junction of (with Lancelot) and about the quests
Roman roads, also managed to survive, thus the to find the Holy Grail
good work of Rome was not completely wiped out
by the Anglo-Saxon savages.
In the course of the 6th century, the Anglo-Saxons established a number of
kingdoms in the South and East of England whose names still exist in modern names of
certain shires (Essex, Sussex, Wessex). These kingdoms were not allies – they were
always on the warpath. By the middle of the 7th century, three large and powerful
kingdoms emerged: Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex.
The Anglo Saxons were wild people whose destructiveness completely obliterated the
Christian religion and the Romano-Celtic language. The Britons, forced to seek refuge
among the ‘uncultured’ Celtic tribes in Wales, Cornwall or the Western part of the
Northern uplands, in a span of a few generations, forgot why they had despised the
illiterate Anglo-Saxon brutes. Yet because the Anglo-Saxons took possession of the
richest farming lands in the South and East of England, in the course of time they
evolved a civilization which was in many respects superior to the Welsh mountaineers.
(Taken from An Outline of British and American History)
EXERCISES:
Read the text above, which gives a very useful background to the coming of the first
settlers to Britain and fulfil the following activities.
 Make a timeline with the dates you consider the most important.
 Complete the chart.

 Answer these in FULL SENTENCES.

a) Which word in the timeline means to leave?
b) Which word in the timeline means to beat and take over somewhere?
c) Which word in the timeline means to try to take over a place?
d) Which word in the timeline means built or started?
e) Which word means the person in charge of the Roman Empire?
f) Which word means to fight against someone in control?
 Answer these questions in full sentences.
1) When did the Romans invade Britain? (There are 2 answers) and who was the first
Roman to come to Britain and when?
2) Who tried to fight against the Romans and how successful were they?
3) What name did the Romans give to Scotland?
4) When was Hadrian's Wall built and why?
5) How long did the Romans rule in Britannia?
 Questions about Christianity in the Roman Empire
3. What does persecution mean?
 4. In what ways were the Christians persecuted?
6. What helped the spread of Christianity?
 Complete the chart. Rewrite it in a separated sheet for a better organization.
IBERIANS CELTS ROMANS ANGLO-
SAXONS
PERIOD
ORIGIN
PURPOSE
AREAS THEY
SETTLED
MAIN
ACTIVITIES
(CUSTOMS,
RELIGION, ETC.)

POLITICAL AND
SOCIAL
ORGANIZATION