The Romans
Then one late summer morning in 55 BC a war-call went round among the Britons of the south-east. The alarm was not unexpected. The British Celts were working with the Celts of Gaul (the territory of modern France), who fought against the Romans. The British Celts gave the Gauls the food and allowed them to hide in Britain. By that time Britain had become an important food producer because of its mild climate. It exported corn and animals, as well as hunting dogs and slaves, to the European mainland. The Romans thought they could make use of British food for their own army, fighting the Gauls. Besides, it was tempting for Gaius Julius Caesar to make Britain one more colony of the vast Roman Empire. That’s why the Romans had invaded Britain.
So, late in August, at 1 a.m. Caesar set sail. He had 80 ships, which carried some 10-12 thousand soldiers, and he directed 18 ships towards the British white cliffs. By 10 a.m. he reached the coastline and saw the warriors along the cliff-shore: the Britons were expecting them. The Romans and the Britons stared at one another across the water. The Roman ships were too large and heavy to come too close to the shore, so the soldiers simply jumped into the water to reach it, and the Britons rushed out to fight them. That was the first time when the Britons had to fight against a serious enemy. British chariots and horsemen raced about on the shore and fought fiercely, but the roman soldiers were too well-trained for them. Soon they broke through and cleared the space to make a camp. But because their main forces were far from the coast they decided to stay at the camp on the shore without advancing further.
Four days later, however, a storm wrecked many ships, and when the weather got worse the Britons, hidden in the fog, attacked the Roman camp. That’s why Caesar had to sail back to Gaul. Still he planned to come back because a triumph in Britain was bound to raise his prestige at Rome and in the provinces. He gathered 30 thousand soldiers and sailed
for Britain. This time the Britons were defeated and had become dominated by Rome, and were to pay taxes for the next 400 years.
The Romans established a Romano-British culture across the southern half of Britain. This part of Britain was inside the empire. But the Romans could not conquer “Caledonia”, as they called Scotland, although they spent over a century trying to do so. At last they built a strong wall along the northern border, which marked the borderline between the two later countries, England and Scotland.
The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain. The written word was important for spreading ideas and for establishing power. While the Celtic peasantry remained illiterate and only Celtic-speaking, a number of town dwellers spoke Latin and Greek with ease. But when Roman control of Britain came to an end as the Empire began to collapse, Latin completely disappeared both in its spoke and written forms when the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain in the 5th century AD (*Anno Domini “in the year since the birth of Christ”). The Romans left about 20 large towns, which were built with stone as well as wood, and had planned streets, markets and shops. Some buildings had central heating. They were connected by roads, which were so well-built that they continued to be used long after the Romans left, and became the main roads of modern Britain. Six of these roads met in London, the capital city of about 20,000 people. London was twice the size of Paris, and possibly the most important trading centre of northern Europe of the time.
As it was said during the previous lecture, the Roman influence on Britain was not long. One reason why Roman Britannia disappeared so quickly is probably that its influence was largely confined to the towns. In the countryside, where most people lived, farming methods remained unchanged and Celtic speech continued to be dominant. The Roman occupation had been a matter of colonial control rather than large-scale settlement. But during the 5th century, a number of tribes from the northwestern Europe mainland invaded and settled in large numbers.
The wealth of Britain by the 4th century, the result of its mild climate and centuries of peace, was a temptation to the greedy. At first the Germanic tribes only raided Britain, but after AD 430 they began to settle. The newcomers were warlike and illiterate. They came from three powerful Germanic tribes: the Saxons, Angles and Jutes. The Jutes settled mainly in Kent and along the south coast, and were soon considered no different from Angles and Saxons. The Angles settled in the east, and also in the north Midlands, while the Saxons settled between the Jutes and the Angles in a band of land from the Thames estuary westwards. The Anglo-Saxon migrations gave the larger part of Britain its new name, England, “the land of the Angles.”
An army of Celtic Britons under the command of the legendary King Arthur fought the raiders and settlers from Germany. However, by the end of the 6th century the Anglo-Saxon and their way of life predominated in nearly all of England and in parts of southern Scotland. The Celtic Britons were either Saxonized or driven westwards, where their culture and language survived in south-west Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.
The Anglo-Saxon had little use fort owns and cities. But they had a great effect on the countryside, where they introduced new farming methods and founded thousands of villages which formed the basis of English society for the next thousand years.
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).
The Anglo-Saxon established a number of kingdoms, some of which still exist in county or regional names to this day: Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), Wessex (West Saxons), East Anglia (East Angles), Northumbria (North Angles), and Mersia (Angles).
