Great Britain
Great Britain (or simply Britain)[1] is a large island in the Atlantic Ocean, separated from continental Europe to the south by the English Channel and from Ireland to the west by the Irish Sea. It is the largest island in the archipelago known as the British Isles, with an area of 218,595 km² (93,282 square miles).[2] Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom (for which "Britain" and "Great Britain" are often used as synonyms), and contains the nations of England, Wales and the majority of Scotland.
Geography and natural history
To come
Prehistory
To come
- Ice ages
- Paleolithic
- Mesolithic
- Neolithic
- Bronze Age
- Iron Age
- Religion
- Celts?
History
The late pre-Roman Iron Age
Britain emerged into recorded history in the Classical period. It is likely that the name Cassiterides or "tin islands", mentioned in the 5th century BC by Herodotus,[3] refers to the British Isles. The Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia claimed to have visited the island in the 4th century, and although his own writings are lost, and later classical writers are sceptical, it seems likely that he did so.[4] However, little else is recorded about the island until the 1st century BC.
The Belgae of north-eastern Gaul began to settle on the coasts of south-eastern Britain in the 2nd or early 1st century BC, after a period of raiding, and a Gaulish Belgic king called Diviciacus is known to have held power there.[5] Then, in the mid-1st century BC, Britain became part of Rome's sphere of political influence. Julius Caesar, in the course of his conquest of Gaul, made two armed expeditions there in 55 and 54 BC. The first barely gained a foothold on the south-east coast before being forced to return to the continent for winter. The second was more successful, installing a friendly king, Mandubracius of the Trinovantes, and forcing the submission of his rival Cassivellaunus, but conquered no territory and did not extend beyond the Thames Valley.[6]
Coins had arrived in Britain before Caesar, perhaps as early as the late 3rd century BC. The earliest were imported from Belgic Gaul, uninscribed, and of a design based, at several removes, on the gold staters of Philip II of Macedon, introduced into Celtic society in the 4th century BC as payments to Gaulish warriors. By the early 1st century BC the Britons of the south-east were striking their own coins in similar designs, although some became progressively more abstract. The first inscribed coins were those of Caesar's former ally Commius, who fled to Britain after falling out with Caesar and established a dynasty there. The practice spread, allowing the archaeologist some insight into British politics in this period. Beginning with Commius' son Tincomarus, the traditional Gallo-Belgic design was abandoned in favour of Roman-derived designs.[7]
Augustus planned invasions in 34, 27 and 25 BC, but circumstances were never favourable,[8] and the relationship between Britain and Rome settled into one of diplomacy and trade. Strabo, writing late in Augustus' reign, claims that taxes on trade brought in more annual revenue than any conquest could, and mentions British kings who sent embassies to Augustus.[9] Based mainly on coin evidence, Rome appears to have encouraged a balance of power in southern Britain, supporting two powerful kingdoms, the Catuvellauni, ruled by the descendants of Tasciovanus, and the Atrebates, ruled by the descendants of Commius,[10] and archaeology shows an increase in imported luxury goods in the south-east.[11] These peaceful relations broke down in AD AD 39 or 40, when Caligula received an exiled member of the Catuvellaunian dynasty and staged an invasion that collapsed in farcical circumstances.[12]
Roman Britain
When Claudius successfully invaded in 43, it was in aid of another fugitive British ruler, this time Verica of the Atrebates. The Catuvellaunian territory became the nucleus of a new Roman province, while Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus was sent up as the client ruler of Atrebatian and other lands.[13] Over the course of the 1st century Roman control expended west into Wales, then north into Scotland. However, the Roman presence in the north proved untenable, and was withdrawn to the line of Hadrian's Wall in the 2nd century.
More to come
- Names
- Language
- Urbanisation & road-building
- Arrival of Christianity
- Roman civil wars
Sub-Roman Britain
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- Roman withdrawal
- Migration period
- Anglo-Saxons, Picts, Scots
- Arthur legend
- Emergence of England, Scotland and Wales
Medieval Britain
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- Early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England, Gaelic kingdoms in Scotland, Welsh kingdoms
- Norman conquests of England and Wales
- Wars of Scottish independence
- Owain Glyndwr's rebellion in Wales
- Wars of the Roses
- Stuart Scotland
Early modern Britain
To come
- Henry VIII founds Church of England
- Union of crowns of England and Scotland
- English Civil War
- Commonwealth
- Restoration
- Act of Union 1707
Modern Britain
To come
- See United Kingdom
References
- ↑ The use of the adjective "Great" derives from the French Grande Bretagne, as distinct from Petite Bretagne (Brittany).
- ↑ Islands of the United Kingdom (UN System-Wide Earthwatch Web Site)
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 3.115
- ↑ Barry Cunliffe, The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek, Penguin, 2002
- ↑ Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 2.4, 5.12
- ↑ Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 4.20-36, 5.8-23
- ↑ Philip de Jersey, Celtic Coinage in Britain, Shire Archaeology, 2001
- ↑ Cassius Dio, Roman History 49.38, 53.22, 53.25
- ↑ Strabo, Geography 4.5
- ↑ John Creighton, Coins and power in Late Iron Age Britain, Cambridge University Press, 2000
- ↑ Keith Branigan (1987), The Catuvellauni
- ↑ Suetonius, Caligula 44-46; Cassius Dio, Roman History 59.25
- ↑ Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.19-22; Tacitus, Agricola 14