History

Pre-Roman Albion

Britain has been inhabited for millennia, with a remarkable genetic and cultural continuity. Cheddar Man, who died 10,000 years ago was found to have a direct descendent living in a village local to where his body was found. Changes in material culture are increasingly thought not to represent waves of new people, but waves of new culture and people, who interact with the existing culture of The Isles. However it is a mistake to suggest that the pre-historic inhabitants of Britain were in any modern sense British any more than we are Prehistoric.

Before the Roman era the Britain and Island were made up of a variety of peoples. The Celts are thought to have had a significant cultural influence on all of Northern Europe and around 600 BC, the Celts came to The Isles both Britain and Eire through a mixture of physical and cultural migration. It is thought that the two islands were populated / encultured by two different groups with different forms of Celtic language. These differences are still seen today with Goidelic languages represented by Erse, Gaidhlig and Gailck, and the Brythonic represented by Cumbrian, Cymraeg, Kernak and Brezoneg.

Britain was by the time of Caesar made up a range of different Celtic groups and tribes with slightly different cultures and variations of language. Such Celts were like all ancient peoples (including the 'civilized' Romans) quite violent and brutal people, but they were also great tellers of stories and great crafts people. Historians are now begriming to see the stories, the great Celtic myths as containing history rather than writing them off as fancy. We have little record of if Celtic Albion had a tradition of High Kings as in Eire, but it is possible that it did.

Albion was Celtic for 600 years, yet many English history books start with the Romans first forays onto these shores. Thus our fundamental Celtic heritage has been taken from us.

Roman Britannia

The Romans did not greatly colonize Britain, rather sought to create Romano-Celts. However the ethnicity and underlying culture of the Albion's remained fairly constant in much of the island. The Roman administration lasted 400 years. As the Roman Empire faltered the Celtic way of life slowly reasserted itself, with some people remaining Christian, but others reverting to older forms of religion.

Pre-Norman Britain

In the period between the Romans leaving and the Normans arriving Britain was subject to a number of forces. The Anglo-Saxons were one such force. It is probable that the first Anglo-Saxons came as mercenaries, but soon more were arriving. It is now generally thought that whilst the Anglo-Saxons did push eastwards they did not drive the indigenous Celtic peoples before them, but neither were they absorbed by the indigenous language and culture.

The period following the demise of Roman rule was a time of battling warlords, both Celtic and Anglo-Saxon and shifting allegiances, between Celts and Anglo-Saxons as well as between Celt and Celt. Arthur was probably one such warlord. It was not until the mid 7th Century that the Anglo-Saxons had overall dominance of Albion. Anglo-Saxon became the common language, spreading from areas where Latin had been stronger than the indigenous language. It is suggested that much of the land would have been bilingual for some time. The Anglo-Saxons ruled but seemingly did not mix - apartheid may well have been in operation. They suppressed the British culture in Albion but did not destroy it.

This period also saw the re-spread of Christianity firstly in Celtic but then in Roman forms throughout Britain, Albion included. In England Lindisfarne demonstrated a Celtic-Norse culture, and although the British Celtic Church eventually came into line with Rome after the Synod of Whitby it is probably that many people continued to follow a more Celtic expression of the Christian faith.

Despite the huge effect the ruling Anglo-Saxons had on the Britons language their genetic inheritance is slight compared to the next wave of arrivals. In the 9th Century the Scandinavian peoples who came to The Isles next had a significant influence on the culture and language too. Dublin had a Norse king, the North of Scotland and the North East of England came under their influence. King Alfred became a great Anglo-Saxon hero to the people of England through his exploits against the Norse.

Norman England

By the time the Normans came to Britain in the 11th Century the whole of the island had been touched in some way by the Anglo-Saxon or Norse peoples. Even in Cymru many of so called 'English' alternatives names are Norse rather than Saxon. The majority of the populous although perhaps increasingly not seeing themselves as such where cultural and genetic descendents of the Celtic Britons. The Normans did not so much settle England, but rule it as part of a wider portfolio of lands. Until the 14th Century the Norman Kings paid homage to the King of France. The Norman advances beyond the territory ruled by the Saxon and Norse invaders of the past into Cymru and Eire were an extension of their invasion of Britain

It was at this time, in reaction to the Norman Barons that English people seemed to identify most strongly with an Anglo-Saxon identity, even though the majority of them were not in any real sense Anglo-Saxons. The early Norman Kings spoke French, and lived mainly in what we now call France, however unlike the Anglo-Saxons they never enforced their language on the people and eventually switched to English. It eventually became expedient for the Normans to no longer identify with the King of France, and it seems at this time that the English identity came to the fore to the detriment of the peoples Celtic roots.

For further reading we suggest: Davies, Norman. "The Isles: A History". Papermac