1. When and where did these invasions take place?

2. In what way did they influence the life of the country, its culture and the language?

In the previous chapter we have discussed the British people from political and geographical point of view. In this chapter we shall take a look at the British from historical point.

During its history' Britain and its people have suffered a number of invasions,

Britain is an island, and Britain’s history has been closely connected with the sea. At moments of great danger Britain has been saved from danger by its surrounding seas. Britain’s history and its strong national sense have been shaped by the sea. But Britain has not always been an island. It became one only after the end of the last ice age. The first evidence of human life dates back to

0. BC. For quite a long period of time ice advanced again so it was almost not habitable. And probably around 50,000 BC a new type of human being seems to have arrived. So, who was the ancestor of the modern British? These people looked similar to the modem British as historians say. But they were probably smaller and had a life span of only about thirty years.

Neolithic (or New Stone Age) people lived in Britain around the year of

0. Bc. They were small, dark, long-headed and may be the fathers of dark­haired inhabitants of Waies and Cornwall today.

After that there were several waves of invaders before the first arrival of the Romans in 55 BC.

One of them was the arrival of the so-called «Beaker» people. They were round-headed, strongly built, taller than Neolithic Britons and got their name because they furnished the graves with pottery beakers.

The Ceits.

Around 700 BC another group of people began to arrive. Many of them were tall, and had fair or red hair and blue eyes. The author of «An Illustrated History of Britain» David McDowall suggests that «These were the Ceits, who probably came from central Europe or further east, from southern Russia.»

The Celts were technically advanced. They knew how to work with iron. They intermingled with the peoples who were already there.

The Celts are very important in British histoiy because they are the ancestors of many of the people in Highland Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall today. The British today are often described as Anglo-Saxon. Some historians suggest it would be better to call them Anglo-Celtic.

The Celts were organised into different tribes. Tribal chiefs were chosen from each family or tribe either as a result of fighting or sometimes by election. The last Celtic arrivals from Europe were the Belgic tribes. They introduced more advanced ploughing methods. The Celts were highly successful farmers. According to the Romans, the Celtic men wore shirts and breeches (knee-length trousers), and striped or checked cloaks fastened by a pin. It is possible that the Scottish tartan and dress developed from this «striped cloak».

The Celtic tribes were ruled over by a warrior class, of which the priests, or Druids, seem to have been particularly important members. These Druids could not read or write, but they memorised all the religious teachings, the tribal laws, history, medicine and other knowledge necessary in Celtic society.

During the Celtic period women may have had more independence than they had again for hundreds of years. 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, Queen Boadicea. She led a bloody revolt against the Romans. She nearly drove them from Britain, and she destroyed London, the Roman capital, before she was defeated and killed. There is a statue of Boadicea, made in the 19-th century, outside the Houses of Parliament in London.

The Romans.

The name «Britain» comes from the Greco-Roman word «Pretani» which described the inhabitants of Britain. The Romans mispronounced the word and called the island «Britannia».

They say the Romans had invaded because the Celts of Britain were working with the Celts of Gaul against them. The British Celts were giving them food and allowing them to hide in Britain.

The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain. While the Celtic peasantry remained illiterate and only Celtic speaking, a number of town dwellers spoke Latin and Greek with ease. Though Latin completely disappeared when the Anglo-Saxons invaded the country in the 5-th century AD, Britain was probably more literate under the Romans than it was to be again until the 15-th century.

Julius Caesar first came to Britain in 55 BC, but it was not until almost a century later, in 43 AD, that the Roman army actually occupied Britain.

The Romans established their rule across the southern half of Britain. They never went to Ireland and could not conquer «Caledonia» as they called Scotland, although they spent a century to do so. At last they built a strong wall along the northern border named after the Emperor Hadrian to protect their territory from attacks by the Celtic tribes - Piets and Scots. This wall is along nearly the same line as the present English - Scottish border.

The most obvious characteristic feature of Roman Britain was its towns. They left about 20 large towns. They were built with stone as well as wood and had planned streets, markets, shops. Some buildings had central heating. They also built roads. Six of these roads met in Londinium (London), a capital city of about 20,000 people. London was twice the size of Paris at the time.

The reminder of the Roman presence are place names like Chester, Lancaster, Gloucester, Leicester, Doncaster, Winchester. Many of these towns were at first army camps, and the Latin word for camp, castra remained in many town names.

Roman legions found it more and more difficult to stop the Germanic groups, Saxons and Franks, from raiding the country. And in 409- AD Rome pulled its last soldier out of Britain. The Romanised Celts were left to fight alone against the Scots, the Irish and Saxon raiders from Germany.

The Germanic Invasions.

The wealth of Britain by the 4-th century, the result of its mild climate and centuries of peace, was a temptation to the greedy. During the 5-th centuiy a number of tribes from the northwestern European mainland invaded Britain. The most powerful Germanic tribes which invaded the country at that time were the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The Jutes settled mainly in Kent and along the South coast. The Angles - in the east and in the north Midlands and Saxons settled between the Jutes and Angles to the West from the Thames Estuary.

The Anglo-Saxon migrations gave the larger part of Britain its new name «England» or «the Land of the Angles».

The British Celts fought the raiders and settlers from Germany as well as they could. However, most of them were driven into the mountains in the far west, which the Saxons called «Weallas», or «Wales», meaning «the land o

fforeigners». Some Celts were driven into Cornwall, others into the country which became known as Scotland.

Latin completely disappeared when Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain. Nor is much left of Celtic language or culture in England, except for the names of some rivers, Thames, Mersey, Severn, and Avon, and two large cities London and Leeds.

The strength of Anglo-Saxon culture is obvious even today. Days of the week were named after Germanic gods: Tig (Tuesday), Wodin (Wednesday), Thor (Thursday), Frei (Friday). New place-names appeared on the map such as Reading, Hastings (-ing meant folk or family, so the family of Hasta = Hastings). «Ham» meant farm. So appeared Birmingham, Southampton, Nottingham, etc.

The invaders established a number of kingdoms, some of which still exist in county or regional names: Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), Wessex (West Saxons), Middlesex (Middle Saxons), East Anglia (East Angles).

The Saxons divided the land into new administrative areas, based on shires, or counties. The Anglo-Saxons had little use for towns and cities. But they had a great effect on the countryside, where they introduced new farming methods and founded self-sufficient villages.

The Anglo-Saxons were pagan. No one knows for sure how and when Christianity first reached Britain. But it was established throughout the country in the last hundred years of Roman government. In 597 the monk Augustine arrived in Canterbury to reestablish Christianity in England. Saxon kings helped the Church to grow, but the Church also increased the power of kings. The Anglo-Saxon kings also preferred the Roman Church to the Celtic Church for economic reasons. Villages and towns grew around the monasteries and increased local trade.

The Vikings.

Towards the end of the 8-th century new raiders were tempted by Britain’s wealth. These were the Vikings, a word which probably meant either «pirates» or «the people of the sea inlets», and they came from Norway and Denmark. Like the Anglo-Saxons they only raided at first. They burnt churches and monasteries. In 865 the Vikings invaded Britain. The Vikings quickly accepted Christianity and did not disturb the local population.

The cultural differences between Anglo-Saxons and Danes were comparatively small. They led roughly the same way of life and spoke two varieties of the same Germanic tongue (which combined to form the basis of modern English).

By 875 only King Alfred in the west of Wessex held out against the Vikings, who had already taken most of England. After some serious defeats Alfred won a decisive battle in 878, and eight years later he captured London. He was strong enough to make a treaty with Vikings. As a result of it England became divided between Saxons and Vikings. Alfred became the ruler of Saxon

England. He made his court a centre of culture and religion worthy of European renown. He is also honoured as father of the Royal Navy. During his struggle against the Danes, he had built walled settlements to keep them out. These were called burghs. They became prosperous market towns, and the word, now usually spelt borough, is one of the common endings to place names.