Session 1: Early and Medieval Britain: From Roman Britain to the Coming of the Tudors
Session 2: Britain in the Renaissance
Session 3: Britain in the Ages of the Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism
Session 4: Empire and After: Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Early and Medieval Britain: From Roman Britain to the Coming of the Tudors
This part of our historical cycle
deals with a dauntingly long and complex period, beginning with Roman
Britain and extending to the end of the long civil wars of the fifteenth
century.
Despite the remote position of Britain, a cluster of islands off the north-west coast of the European peninsula, the Roman colony gained a perverse importance: emperors were born and proclaimed there, legions sailed from Dover to seize control of Rome, and a sophisticated and distinct Romano-British culture developed, as can still be seen in many surviving Roman sites. After the Empire’s fall, invasions by Germanic peoples pushed the Celtic and Romano-British population to the margins, and a new and influential Anglo-Saxon culture and society developed. Its political institutions are in part still with us and its cultural richness is suggested by such works as Beowulf and the Sutton Hoo Burial Treasures in the British Museum.
But even while these were being created, the displaced Celtic population was making a profound contribution to European civilization, by preserving and developing their form of Christianity and, in particular, monasticism. With the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxon territories, the Norman invasion, and the military and dynastic power of the English kings, Britain’s various cultures increasingly influenced cultures the Christian West. The mission of St. Augustine around the year 600 is still enshrined in the great cathedral of Canterbury; and the vigor of British Christianity can be seen in superb Romanesque and Gothic church buildings throughout the country.
The Church’s confidence and vigor contributed as well to the often intense struggles between Church and State throughout the Middle Ages. Canterbury is famous as the seat of St. Augustine; but it was also the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, Henry II’s “turbulent priest”, murdered for refusing to submit to the king. Chaucer’s masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, is based on a fictional pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine, and much of the politics, literature, music and art of the period is deeply connected with both the energy and wealth of the Church.
By the fifteenth century, British culture was rich and sophisticated: the reign of Richard II witnessed the creation of a wealth of literary masterpieces; and, despite the chaos of the Wars of the Roses which ended with the triumph of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, Britain continued to make major cultural contributions. These were not least in the areas of medieval thought: theology, philosophy, and science. The great English choral tradition also dates from this period.