Julius Caesar described the country and its inhabitants in his Commentaries on the Gallic War. He tells us that the Celts were tall and blue-eyed. They wore long moustaches but no beards.
In the 1st century В. C. they lived in tribes, and were ruled by chiefs, or kings, whom all the tribesmen obeyed. In war-time the Celts wore skins and painted their faces with a blue dye to look fierce. They were armed with swords and spears. The Celts fought fiercely in the battle.
2.3 The Roman Conquest of Britain
Two thousand years ago while the Celts were still living in tribes the Romans were the most powerful people in the world. Roman society was divided into the class of slaves and the class of slave-owners. The slave-owners put down the uprisings of the slaves with the help of the army. The army also helped the slaveowners to protect their riches against foreign enemies and to conquer new lands and to seize more slaves. The Romans conquered all the countries around the Mediterranean Sea.
In 55 В. C. a Roman army of 10,000 men with Julius Caesar at the head crossed the Channel and invaded Britain. The Celts saw their ships approaching and rushed to attack the invaders in the sea. Their hair and moustaches were dyed red and their legs and arms were painted blue. With loud shouts they attacked the Romans and the well-armed Romans had to retreat to Gaul (France).
In 54 В. C, Caesar again came to Britain, this time with larger forces (25,000 men). The Celts fought bravely for their independence but they were not strong enough, in spite of their courage, to beat the Roman. The Romans defeated the Celts in several battles. Some of the chiefs submitted and promised to pay tribute to Rome. But the promised tribute was not paid.
Nearly a hundred years later, in 43 A. D. a Roman army invaded Britain and conquered the South-East. The Celts fought fiercely against the Romans who never managed to become masters of the whole island. They were unable to conquer the Scottish Highlands. From time to time the Picts and the Scots from the North managed to invade the Roman part of the island and burn their villages.
2.4 Roman influence in Britain
To defend their province the Romans placed their legions in Britain. Straight roads were built so that the legions might march quickly, whenever they were needed, to any part of the country. These roads were made so well that they lasted a long time and still exist today. Bridges of stone were constructed wherever a road crossed a river. Besides, to guard the province against the Picts and Scots who lived in the hills of Scotland, a high Hadrians Wall with forts was built in the North.
The civilized Romans were city dwellers, and as soon as they had conquered Britain they began to build towns, splendid villas, public baths as in Rome itself. Every Roman town had a drainage system and a good supply of pure water. Great tracts of forests were cleared, swamps were drained, and cornfields took their place.
But together with a high civilization the Romans brought exploitation and slavery to the British Isles. Rich Romans had villas in the country with large estates, which were worked by slaves. Prisoners of war were sent to the slave-market in the Roman Empire. The Romans made the free Celts clean forests, drain swamps, build roads, bridges and walls for defence. The noble Celts adopted the mode of life of their conquerors. They lived in rich houses and spoke Latin, the language of the Romans. But ordinary Celts lived in their tiny huts, they spoke their native Celtic tongue and they didn't understand the language of their rulers.
The Romans remained in Britain for about four centuries and during that time Britain was a Roman province, governed by Roman governors and protected by Roman legions.
In the 4th century the uninterrupted struggle of slaves against their owners greatly weakened the Roman Empire. Early in the 5th century the Roman legions were recalled from Britain to defend the central provinces of the Roman Empire from the attacks of the barbarian Germanic tribes. They never returned to Britain.
Though the Romans lived for four centuries in Britain, their language didnt influence the English language. There are only several place names of Roman origin: Chester, Lancaster, Gloucester, which are variant of the Roman word castra (a military camp).
2.5 The Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of Britain
After the Roman legions left Britain the Celts remained independent but not for long. From the middle of the 5th century they had to defend the country against the attacks of Germanic tribes from the Continent. The Saxons and the Angles began to migrate to Britain. At first they only came to plunder. They landed from their boats, drove off the cattle, seized the stores of corn, and were off again to sea before the Celts could attack them. But after some time they returned again and again in larger numbers, and began to conquer the country.
The British natives fought fiercely against the invaders and it took the Angles and the Saxons more than a hundred and fifty years to conquer the country. The Celts went to the mountains in the west of the isle (now Wales) and settled there. In the course of the conquest many of the Celts were killed, some were taken prisoners and made slaves or had to pay tribute to the conquerors.
In the southern and the south-eastern parts of the country the Saxons formed a number of kingdoms Sussex (the land of the South Saxons), Wessex (the land of the West Saxons, and Essex (the land of the East Saxons). Further north were the settlements of the Angles who had conquered the greater part of the country. In the North they founded Northumbria, Mercia was formed in the Middle, and East Anglia in the east of England. The new settlers disliked towns, preferring to live in small villages. During the war they destroyed the Roman towns. The art of road-making was lost for many hundreds of years.
The Saxons and the Angles gradually united into one people and made up the majority of the population in Britain. Their customs, religion and language became predominant. Only the Celts who remained independent in the West, Scotland and Ireland spoke their native tongue. The conquerors called them welsh which means foreigners.
In 829 under the rule of King Egbert all the small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were united to form one kingdom which was called England from that time on.
Soon Anglo-Saxons had to defend their country against new enemies. The enemies were the Vikings who came from Scandinavia. In the 9th century they settled the extreme north and west of Scotland and some coastal regions of Ireland. King Alfred, Saxon king of Wessex fought them in the battle, but he couldnt drive them away and had to let them have part of the country, called Danelaw.
2.6 The Norman Invasion
In the 11th century the Normans, a mixed Scandinavian and French people, living in the North of France, began to attack the coasts of England from Normandy. The English king who died in 1066 had no children and William, the Duke of Normandy, being a relative of the died king, wanted to become the king of England. So he began preparation for a war to fight for the Crown.
The Normans army was much larger than Anglo-Saxon forces and they were greatly superior in quality. The Anglo-Saxon army consisted mainly of free peasants who fought on foot. Not all of them had weapons, many had pitchforks and axes. The Normans were well armed.
The Normans crossed the Channel in big sailing-boats and landed in the south of England, fought with Anglo-Saxons and won the victory. The battle between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons took place on the 14th of October 1066 at a little village Hastings. William, Duke of Normandy, became the king of England and was called William the Conqueror, who ruled England for 21 years.
2.7 The medieval period (1066 1485)
Unlike the Germanic invasions, the Norman invasion was small-scale. There was no such thing as a Norman village or a Norman area of settlement. Instead, the Norman soldiers became the owners of some patches of land and of the people living on it. A strict feudal system was imposed. Great nobles, or barons, were responsible directly to the king; lesser lords, each owing a village, were directly responsible to a baron. Under them were the peasants, tied by a strict system of mutual duties and obligations to the local lord, and forbidden to travel without his permission. The peasants were the English-speaking Saxons. The lords and the barons were the French-speaking Normans. This was the beginning of the English class system.
The Normans introduced the strong system of government thats why the Anglo-Norman kingdom was the most powerful political force in the British Isles. The authority of the English monarch gradually extended to other parts of these islands in the next 210 years. By the end of the thirteenth century, a large part of eastern Ireland was controlled by Anglo-Norman lords in the name of the English king and the whole of Wales was under his direct rule (at which time the custom of naming the monarchs eldest son the Prince of Wales began). Scotland managed to remain politically independent in the medieval period, but was obliged to fight occasional wars to do so.
The cultural story of this period is different. Two hundred and fifty years after the Norman Conquest a Germanic language (Middle English) but not the Norman (French) language became the dominant one in all classes of society in England. Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxon concept of common law, but not Roman law, formed the basis of the legal system.
Despite English rule, northern and central Wales was never settled in great numbers by Saxon or Norman. As a result the (Celtic) Welsh language and culture remained strong. The Anglo-Norman lords of eastern Ireland remained loyal to the English king but, despite laws to the contrary, mostly adopted the Gaelic language and customs.
By the end of this period there was a cultural split in Scotland between the lowlands, where the way of life and language was similar to that in England, and the highlands, where (Celtic) Gaelic culture and language prevailed.
Parliament appeared in this period in England. The word parliament comes from the French word parler (to speak), and was first used in England in the thirteenth century to describe an assembly of nobles called together by the king. In 1295, the Model Parliament set the pattern for the future by including elected representatives from urban and rural areas.
2.8 Exercises
Exercise 1 Can you answer these questions?
1) Who were the first to inhabit the British Isles?
2) Which part of the British Isles was named Britain and why?
3) When did the army of Julius Caesar first invade Britain?
4) What was the function of Hadrian's Wall during the Roman conquest?
5) What kingdoms were formed by the Germanic tribes?
6) When did the Norman invasion to Britain begin?
7) When did the first Parliament appear?
Exercise 2 Test yourself: choose the most suitable answer.
1 What ancient tribes inhabited the British Isles B.C.?
a) the Celts;
b) the Saxons;
c) the Angles;
d) the Vikings.
2 Which part of the British Isles was named Britain?
a) Southern;
b) Northern;
c) Western;
d) Eastern.
3 Together with a high civilization the Romans brought to the country.
a) Slavery;
b) Culture;
c) Destruction;
d) Christianity.
4 The Saxons formed several kingdoms in the part of Britain?
a) north-eastern;
b) south-eastern;
c) south-western;
d) western.
5 What led the Anglo-Saxons kingdoms to unification?
a) idea about wealth;
b) task of defending the country;
c) cold weather;
d) good relations.
6 When did the Norman invasion to England begin?
a) 1066;
b) 829;
c) 1576;
d) 1606.
7 Who became the king of England after the Norman invasion?
a) William the Conqueror;
b) King Egbert;
c) Henry IV;
d) Henry VIII.
8 The Normans spoke and it was the language of the upper classes.
a) English;
b) German;
c) French;
d) Russian.
9 What is the most mysterious monument of the British past?
a) Ben Nevis;
b) Stonehenge;
c) Hadrian Wall;
d) Big Ben.
10 What was Robin Hood famous for?
a) He was a very handsome man.
b) He was the Normans leader.
c) He helped poor people.
d) He was one of the British kings.
Exercise 3 Complete the gaps in the text with the appropriate forms of the verbs given on the right.
Roman RoadsWithin four years of invading Britain in AD 47, the Romans had built over 1,000 miles of roads!
Exercise 4 Read the text and answer the questions:
1. List the reasons why the Roman Army built roads.
2. Which of these reasons do you think is the most important?
3. Explain in your own words what a Groma was and how it was used to build straight roads.
4. Why were Roman roads quick and safe to travel on?
5. Why was the surface of a Roman road curved?
So how did the Romans manage to build such straight roads?Roman engineers used an instrument called a Groma. This was a pair of boards fastened together into a cross shape. Lines with weights were hung from each corner so that they could get a straight line by lining up the weights with a pole a hundred meters or so away. In forest areas they built fires in a straight line and used the smoke as markers for the Groma.
Once the road had been planned the Roman soldiers dug two ditches on either side of the road to act as drains. The earth from these ditches was piled into the centre and rammed down. Stones were then gathered from the local area and laid down in different layers until they formed a hard surface that could take the weight of heavy carts. The surface of a Roman road was shaped into a camber so that rain water would run off into the ditches.
Roman roads were very quick and safe to travel large distances. The Roman soldiers were not the only people to use them. Merchants used them to carry goods all over the Roman Empire. The Romans built Britain's first proper roads. After the Romans left they were allowed to decay because people forgot how to rebuild and repair them. People continued to use the roads the Roman Army had built until 1745. Many modern roads are built along the original routes planned out by the Romans.
Did you know?
Silburry Hill, in the English county of Wiltshire, is the largest man-made earthen mound in Europe. It was built about 4750 years ago.
The stone circle at Avebury is the largest in the world. It was built between 5300 and 4600 years ago and covers 11 ha (28 acres). The outer circle is surrounded by a bank and ditch long of 1,5 km (1 mile).
The so-called British Imperial system of measurement (English units in the USA) has its roots in Roman units. The Romans also counted in feet, which they divided in 12 inches (unciae in Latin, from which the English word is derived). 5 feet made a pace, and 1000 paces (mille passus) became a mile in English. The Roman gallon was the congius (worth 0,92 U.S. gallons). The word pint comes from Latin picta ("painted"), via the Old French pinte, and corresponded to a painted mark on a vessel indicating this measure. Other units like the pound only evolved in the Middle Ages.