3. The Romans invasion

The Romans came from Italy in AD 43 and in calling the country “Britannia” gave Britain its name. At the time of the Roman’s first expedition (Caesar’s expedition in 55 BC when a 10-thousand strong Roman army was repulsed by the iron-weapon-possessing Celts with the help of the Channel storms) the Belgic tribal chief Cunobelin (Shakespeare’s Cymbeline) united the Celtic tribes of southern Britain under his rule and called himself, after the Roman fashion, “Rex Britonum” that is “King of the Britons” – a title which was impressed on the coins that he struck in his capital, Camulodunum. It was this king who invited Roman traders and craftsmen to come and settle in Britain. Some historians attribute the origin of London to his reign (the Celtic phrase Llyn-din, “Lake-Fort” is believed by some to have given the town its name) and archaeologists state that the wooden London bridge was built at that time. The city was called Londinium, for this time when, after Caesar’s first “reconnaissance” the Romans started infiltrating into the country as immigrants and traders bringing in eastern luxuries and taking out corn, metal and slaves. Thus, ground was prepared for the Roman conquest.

The decay of Roman power in Britain became apparent already at the end of the 4^th century. The attacks of the wild Celtic tribes from behind the walls that had sealed off those dangerous areas, were no longer so efficiently and promptly repulsed in the latter part of the 5^th century as it used to have been the Roman’s way. The usual grainloaded ships were no longer sent to the metropolis. Finally in 407 orders came for the legions to return. Those historians who base their observations on the data derived from town life, that is, the life of the romanized upper layers of the British Celts, state that Romanization was completed and the Celts forgot they were Britons. Romanization was nearly non-existent in Ireland and Scotland. In the countryside, the old Celtic way of life was preserved. The Celts continued living in their old Celtic way, suffering from the invaders’ exploitation, passing their native customs and traditions from generation to generation and speaking their Celtic dialects enriched by some of Latin words like “castra” – military camp (found now in names like Lancaster, Winchester, Leicester, Chester, etc.).

4. The Anglo-Saxon invasion

During the next some centuries there were many invasions. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes came from Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands in the 5^th century, and England gets its name from this invasion (Anglelands). The Germanic tribes of the Jutes believed to have been a Frankish tribe from the lower Rhine reaches, were the first to arrive. They seem to have been in contact with the Romans and were certainly well versed in military matters since they used to serve as hired soldiers in the Roman army. They settled in the southern part of the island for good, founding their state of Kent later on.

Other Germanic tribes that followed in their wake, went about the business of invasion in a very thorough fashion. They were the primitive Angles and Saxons, backward Teutonic tribes from the so-called German coast, that is from the country around the mouth of the Elbe and from the south of Denmark. The barbaric invaders not only annihilated all the remnants of Roman culture, they killed and plundered and laid the country waste. The Celts were mercilessly exterminated. One of the tribal leaders, King Arthur, organized Celtic resistance so as to make it a constant menace to the Anglo-Saxon invaders. King Arthur, the 6^th c. hero of Celtic Independence, became in the memory of the people a defender of the faith. Thirteen centuries later Alfred Tennyson – a poet, described Arthur’s knights and the tragedy of the conquered people.

Thus the resistance of the brave Celts protracted the conquest period, which to a great extent determined the political structure of the conquerors’ society. Up to 829 English History is the struggle waged by one of the Anglo-Saxon states after another for power over its neighbours.

The Anglo-Saxon society was in transition from a stage where the family group was the basic unit to a state where the territorial unit, the village community or the township as it was called, was coming to the fore as the elementary unit of society. From the tribal organization the society was passing to the beginning of the feudal class organization.

At the end of the 6^th century (597) Roman Christianity was introduced. It was a process that completed later in the 7^th century.