An outline, era by era

England

Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Norman Conquest (1066), Magna Carta (1215)

Medieval / Post-Classical Era · ~500 – ~1500 CE

England began as a set of small kingdoms founded by Germanic settlers, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who crossed to Britain after Roman rule ended around 410 CE. Over the next centuries kingdoms such as Kent, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex rose and fell. Christianity returned, Viking raids and settlement reshaped the country, and by the 10th century the kings of Wessex ruled a single kingdom of England.

In 1066 Duke William of Normandy defeated King Harold at Hastings and became king. The Norman Conquest replaced the English ruling class, brought new castles, laws and the French language to court, and produced Domesday Book. In 1215 rebellious barons forced King John to seal Magna Carta, which limited royal power and was reissued many times. Together, these changes laid foundations for English law and government, and for the later growth of Parliament.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain

    Event

    What happened

    After Roman rule in Britain ends around 410 CE, groups from northern Germany, Frisia and southern Scandinavia settle in eastern and southern Britain during the 5th and 6th centuries. Small kingdoms emerge, among them Kent, Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria. Their language, Old English, spreads across what becomes England.

    The rest is history

    How many migrants came, and how far they replaced or mixed with the existing population, is debated, and recent genetic studies suggest substantial migration alongside mixing. The word England, from Old English Englaland, the land of the Angles, comes from this period. By around 600 the island was divided between English kingdoms and Welsh and other British ones. These kingdoms are the starting point of English history.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBede. Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People). Latin chronicle, completed 731 CE.
    2. BookHigham, Nicholas J., and Martin J. Ryan. The Anglo-Saxon World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.

  2. Augustine's mission and the conversion of the English

    Event

    What happened

    In 597 Pope Gregory I sends the monk Augustine to Kent, where King Æthelberht, whose wife Bertha is already Christian, allows him to preach. Canterbury becomes the seat of an archbishop. Over the following decades missionaries from Rome and from Irish monasteries such as Iona convert the other kingdoms.

    The rest is history

    At the Synod of Whitby in 664, Northumbria chose the Roman method of calculating Easter over the Irish one. The church brought literacy in Latin, monasteries, and learning such as Bede's histories, written in Northumbria. It also gave the separate kingdoms a shared religious structure. Æthelberht's laws, written down soon after 600, are the earliest surviving English law code.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBede. Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People). Latin chronicle, completed 731 CE.
    2. BookBrown, Michelle P. How Christianity Came to Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Lion Books, 2006.

  3. Viking invasions and Alfred of Wessex

    Event

    What happened

    Viking raiders attack Lindisfarne in 793, and from 865 a large Danish army conquers Northumbria, East Anglia and much of Mercia. In 878 King Alfred of Wessex defeats the Danish leader Guthrum at Edington. A treaty then divides England, with the Danelaw lying to the north and east.

    The rest is history

    Alfred reorganised Wessex, building fortified towns called burhs and promoting learning in English. His son Edward and daughter Æthelflæd, and later his grandson Æthelstan, conquered the Danelaw. Æthelstan is generally regarded as the first king of all England, by 927. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, begun in Alfred's reign, records these events.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Old English annals, begun in Wessex, 890s CE, continued to the 12th century.
    2. BookAbels, Richard. Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. London: Longman, 1998.

  4. Cnut and the Danish kings

    Event

    What happened

    After renewed Viking attacks and the payment of large sums of silver, King Æthelred II is driven into exile in 1013 by Swein Forkbeard of Denmark. After Swein's death and a war with Æthelred's son Edmund Ironside, Swein's son Cnut becomes king of all England in 1016. He rules England, Denmark and part of Norway until his death in 1035.

    The rest is history

    Cnut kept English law and the church on his side, and issued law codes. After the short reigns of his sons, Edward the Confessor, Æthelred's son, was restored in 1042. Edward had grown up in Normandy and had no children. This set the stage for the disputed succession of 1066.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Old English annals, entries for 1013 to 1042.
    2. BookLawson, M. K. Cnut: England's Viking King. Stroud: Tempus, 2004.

  5. The crisis of 1066 and the Battle of Hastings

    Event

    What happened

    Edward the Confessor dies in January 1066 and Harold Godwinson is crowned king. In September Harold defeats the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. Days later William of Normandy lands in Sussex, and on 14 October defeats and kills Harold at Hastings. William is crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066.

    The rest is history

    Resistance continued for several years, including revolts in the north that William crushed in the Harrying of the North of 1069 to 1070. English lords were largely replaced by Normans and other French followers. The Bayeux Tapestry, made within a few decades, depicts the campaign. William's victory began a lasting link between England and Normandy.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryWilliam of Poitiers. Gesta Guillelmi (Deeds of William). Latin biography, c. 1071 to 1077.
    2. BookBates, David. William the Conqueror. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.

  6. Domesday Book and Norman rule

    Event

    What happened

    At Christmas 1085 William I orders a great survey of his kingdom. Royal commissioners visit the shires in 1086 and record landholders, land, livestock and value, partly as they stood in the time of Edward the Confessor. The results are written up as Domesday Book. William dies in 1087.

    The rest is history

    The survey shows that by 1086 only a small number of English lords still held major estates. Castles, new cathedrals and a Norman-French aristocracy transformed the land. Domesday Book is the earliest surviving public record of its kind in England, and it remains at The National Archives in Kew.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryDomesday Book. Latin survey of England, 1086. The National Archives, Kew.
    2. BookHallam, Elizabeth, and David Bates, eds. Domesday Book. Stroud: Tempus, 2001.

  7. Henry II, the common law and Becket

    Event

    What happened

    Henry II becomes king in 1154 after a civil war known as the Anarchy, and rules an empire reaching from Scotland's border to the Pyrenees. He expands royal courts and sends judges around the country. In 1164 he quarrels with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, over church courts, and in 1170 knights of his household murder Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

    The rest is history

    Henry's reforms, such as the assizes of Clarendon and Northampton, laid foundations of the common law. Henry did penance for the murder, and Becket was made a saint in 1173. Henry's sons Richard and John inherited a heavily taxed and militarily stretched realm.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryGlanvill. Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie (Treatise on the laws and customs of the realm of England). Latin legal text, c. 1187 to 1189.
    2. BookWarren, W. L. Henry II. London: Eyre Methuen, 1973.

  8. King John, the loss of Normandy and Magna Carta

    Event

    What happened

    In 1204 King John loses Normandy to the French king Philip II, and later defeats abroad and heavy taxation anger the barons. In 1215 rebels take London, and on 15 June John seals Magna Carta at Runnymede. It promises, among other things, that no free man will be imprisoned or dispossessed except by lawful judgement.

    The rest is history

    The charter failed as a peace treaty, and the pope annulled it within weeks, leading to the First Barons' War. After John died in 1216 it was reissued in the name of his young son Henry III, and again in 1217 and 1225. Over time it became a symbol of the idea that kings are subject to law. Three clauses are still part of English law today.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryMagna Carta. Charter of King John, 15 June 1215. British Library and Lincoln and Salisbury Cathedrals hold surviving copies.
    2. BookHolt, J. C. Magna Carta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

  9. King Arthur

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, draws a sword from a stone, gathers knights at a Round Table, and defeats the invading Saxons. His kingdom falls through betrayal, and he is carried wounded to Avalon, from where he is said to return one day.

    The rest is history

    No contemporary record of Arthur survives. A Welsh text, the Historia Brittonum of around 829 to 830, calls him a war leader who won twelve battles, including Badon. Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, around 1136, turned him into a king, and later French writers added Lancelot and the Grail. Historians debate whether a real person lies behind the stories, and most agree nothing about him can be proved.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryGeoffrey of Monmouth. Historia regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). Latin chronicle, c. 1136.
    2. BookHigham, N. J. King Arthur: Myth-Making and History. London: Routledge, 2002.

  10. King Alfred and the burnt cakes

    Folk tale

    The legend

    While hiding from the Danes in the Somerset marshes, Alfred takes shelter in a peasant woman's home. She asks him to watch cakes baking by the fire, but he is deep in thought and lets them burn. She scolds him, not knowing he is the king.

    The rest is history

    The story first appears in a Life of Saint Neot written around the late 10th century, about a hundred years after Alfred's time, and was later retold in chronicles. Asser's Life of King Alfred, written in 893, does not contain it. What is solid is that in early 878 Alfred withdrew to the Somerset marshes at Athelney and rebuilt his forces, winning at Edington that spring.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAsser. Life of King Alfred. Latin biography, 893 CE.
    2. BookKeynes, Simon, and Michael Lapidge, trans. Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources. London: Penguin, 1983.

  11. King Cnut and the tide

    Folk tale

    The legend

    Cnut has his throne carried to the seashore and commands the rising tide to stop. The waves ignore him and wet his feet. He then tells his courtiers that only God holds power over the sea.

    The rest is history

    The tale was first written down by Henry of Huntingdon in the 1120s, about ninety years after Cnut's death. In that telling it shows the king's humility, not foolish pride, which is the reverse of how it is often told now. No contemporary source mentions it. Cnut's real reputation was as a devout and capable ruler.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryHenry of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum (History of the English). Latin chronicle, c. 1129.
    2. BookBolton, Timothy. Cnut the Great. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017.

  12. Lady Godiva

    Folk tale

    The legend

    Lady Godiva begs her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, to lower the heavy taxes on Coventry. He says he will do so if she rides naked through the town. She does so, covered only by her long hair, and the townspeople stay indoors. Leofric keeps his word.

    The rest is history

    Leofric and Godgifu were real, and they founded a monastery at Coventry in 1043. The ride is not mentioned until the 13th century, in Roger of Wendover's chronicle, around 150 years after her death. The tale of Peeping Tom came later still, in the 17th century. Godgifu appears as a major landholder in Domesday Book.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryRoger of Wendover. Flores historiarum (Flowers of History). Latin chronicle, early 13th century.
    2. BookDonoghue, Daniel. Lady Godiva: A Literary History of the Legend. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

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