CIVILIZATION COURSE

FIRST YEAR
SEMESTER ONE

Coordinator: Dr. Amel Lahlouh Bessalem

Teacher in charge: Ms. Mekerkeb Aberrane

Aim of the Course

The aim of the course is to provide the students with a comprehensive survey of
early British history , from the early settlements till the mid eighteenth century.

The British isles have attracted settlers, invaders and immigrants throughout their
history. From early Celtic settlements to the Norman conquest, the contemporary
British are consequently composed of people from worldwide origins and are divided
into what became the English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish. But these groups
often have mixed roots derived from varied settlements, internal migration and
assimilation. Such descent patterns are important elements in considering the
ethnicities of the British people today.

Grading method
1. Continuous assessment ( 50% )

● Lecture attendance, participation and behavior /10

● Test /10
2. Final exam: 50%
 Lecture One:

Introduction to the British civilization

Introduction

Britain has not always been an island. It became one only after the end of the last ice
age ( around 5000 BC, Britain had finally became an island).Around 10,000 BC, as the
Ice Age drew to a close, Britain was populated by small groups of hunters, gatherers
and fishers.

The UK or Britain is a group of islands, it consists of: Wales, Scotland, England and
northern Ireland. Collectively the group of islands is also known as the British isles.
Because it is a group of islands, Britain's history has been closely related and
connected to the sea.

Prehistoric Britain:

Archeologists and historians use the term “Prehistory” to refer to the historical
period before the invention of the written language. As far as Britain is concerned, it
is used to refer to the period before Britain became a part of the Roman empire. It is
divided into three main periods: the stone age, the bronze age and the iron age.

1. The stone age: it was the longest (500.000 BC – 4000 BC), life was difficult in
Britain at that time because of the harsh weather and people were depending
on stone, shells, ivory, animal bones…. The stone age was divided into three
periods: Paleolithic ( old stone age), Mesolithic( middle stone age) and
Neolithic( new stone age).
2. The bronze age : ( 2000 BC) it started with the coming of the beaker folk to
Britain and bringing new techniques such as copper and bronze.
3. The iron age: (800 BC) development
happened in the techniques of life with the use
of iron.
 Lecture two:

The Celts in Britain

Who were the Celts?

Around 700 BC, a group of people began to arrive. Many of them were tall, and had
fair or red hair and blue eyes. These were the Celts, no one called them the Celts until
the 18th century and it was derived from the Greek word “keltoi” which means
barbarians ( the Romans called them Britons). The celts probably came from central
Europe or further east, from southern Russia, and had moved slowly westwards in
earlier centuries. The Celts were technically advanced. They knew how to work with
iron, and could make better weapons than the people who used bronze..They
continued to arrive in one wave after another over the next seven hundred years.

How did they live?

The celts were mainly farmers who grew, gathered, or hunted for their food
(agricultural life, fruits, vegetables, fish,meat). Historians also marked the celts with
their clothes which were colorful, jewelry making…. The Celtic tribes continued the
same kind of agriculture as the Bronze Age people before them. But their use of iron
technology and their introduction of more advanced methods made it possible for
them to farm heavier soils. However, they continued to use, and build, hillforts. The
increase of these, particularly in the southeast, suggests that the Celts were highly
successful farmers, growing enough food for a much larger population.

Society and tribal system:

Before the arrival of the Romans there were no cities in Britain, therefore the celts
lived in small agricultural villages (hut) made from mud and other things. The celts
were organized and divided into different tribes; each tribe had its name and was
ruled by a chieftain ( the ruler of the tribe). The celtic priests also called druids were
important members in the celtic society. They were considered as the link between
the supernatural world and the ordinary human one due to the fact that the Celts
were highly superstitious and believed in many gods and goddesses over 400.

The Celts at war:

The Celtic tribes were ruled over by a warrior class, of which the priests, or Druids,
seem to have been particularly important members.During the Celtic period women
may have had more independence than they had again for hundreds of years. When
the Romans invaded Britain two of the largest tribes were ruled by women.The most
powerful Celt to stand up to the Romans was a woman, Boadicca. She had become
queen of her tribe (Iceni) when her husband had died, she led her tribe against the
Romans. She nearly drove them from Britain, and she destroyed London, the Roman
capital, before she was defeated and killed.

Their place in Britain’s history

The Celts are important in British history because they are the ancestors of many of
the people in Highland Scotland. Wales, Ireland, and Cornwall today. The people of
Wales and Cornwall took on the new Celtic culture. Celtic languages, which have
been continuously used in some areas since that time, are still spoken. The British
today are often described as Anglo-Saxon. It would be better to call them Anglo-Celts.
Our knowledge of the Celts is slight. As with previous groups of settlers, we do not
even know for certain whether the Celts invaded Britain or came peacefully.
 Lecture Two

Roman Britain (43 AD – 410 AD)

Introduction

The name "Britain" comes from the word "Pretani", the Greco-Roman word for the
inhabitants of Britain. The Romans mispronounced the word and called the island
"Britannia".

Roman Invasion

The Romans had invaded Britain because the Celts of Britain were fighting with the
Celts of Gaul (France) against them. The British Celts were giving them food, and
allowing them to hide in Britain. Under the rule of the Celts Britain had become an
important food producer because of its mild climate. The Romans could make use of
British food for their own army fighting the Gauls ( French celts).

Julius Caesar ( the Roman emperor) made two expeditions to invade Britain; the first
came to Britain in 55 BC and the second in 54 BC. But it was not until 43 AD ,under
the rule of emperor Claudius that a Roman army actually occupied Britain. The
Romans were determined to conquer the whole island. They had little difficulty, apart
from Boadicea's revolt, because they had a better trained army and because the
Celtic tribes fought among themselves.

Impact of Roman Civilisation

The Romans established a Romano-British culture across most of the parts in Britain.
The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain. The written word was
important for spreading ideas and also for establishing power.

The most obvious characteristic of Roman Britain was its towns, which were the basis
of Roman administration and civilisation. Broadly, there were three different kinds of
town in Roman Britain .These civitates were the coloniae, towns populated by Roman
settlers, and the municipia, large cities in which the whole population was given
Roman citizenship. The third kind, the, included the old Celtic tribal capitals. In the
last hundred years of Roman government Christianity became firmly established
across Britain.
Troubles in the north:

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, named after the Emperor Hadrian who planned it in 122 AD. At the
time, Hadrian's wall was simply intended to keep out raiders from the north. But it
also marked the border between the two later countries, England and Scotland

End of Roman Control

The Roman control of Britain came to an end as the empire began to collapse. The
first signs were the continuous attacks by the Celts of Caledonia. The Roman legions
found it more and more difficult to stop the raiders from crossing Hadrian's wall. In
409 AD Rome pulled its last soldiers out of Britain.
 Lecture Three:

The Anglo Saxon Invasion

Introduction :

The wealth of Britain by the fourth century, the result of its mild climate and
centuries of peace, was a temptation to the greedy. At first the three Germanic tribes
only raided Britain , and then they began to settle. The newcomers were warlike and
illiterate. We owe our knowledge of this period mainly to an English monk named
Bede, His story of events in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People has been
proved generally correct by archaeological evidence.

Anglo-Saxon Invasion

The new invaders came from three powerful Germanic tribes, the Saxons, Angles and
Jutes. The jutes settled mainly in Kent, The Angles settled in the east, while the
Saxons settled westwards. The Anglo-Saxon migrations gave the larger part of Britain
its new name, England, "the land of the Angles". According to historians there are
three main reasons behind their invasion: they were fighters, they needed new lands
to farm because their homelands were flooded and they were invited by the British
to protect them from the Scots and the picts.

Anglo-Saxon Culture :

The strength of Anglo-Saxon culture is obvious even today. For their language they
spoke the language we know today as old English. Days of the week were named
after Germanic gods: Tig (Tuesday), Thor (Thursday). The Anglo-Saxons established a
number of kingdoms, some of which still exist in county or regional names to this
day ,they were called the heptarchy ( hepta means seven and archy means kingdom):
Essex, Wessex, Sessex, East Anglia, Kent, Mercia and Northumbria. By the middle of
the seventh century the three largest kingdoms, those of Northumbria, Mercia and
Wessex, were the most powerful

The Church and Kingship

When the Anglo Saxons came first to Britain they were pagans, it was because of the
Christian missionaries ordered by the pope of rome and led by saint Augustine that
they converted to christianity. The Saxon kings helped the church to grow and the
church also increased the power of the kings by giving them “god’s approval”. The
Saxon king who made great use of the church was king Alfred the great king of
Wessex, he used the men of church to establish law and to write important historical
documents. He gained the title “the great” because of his achievements: he defeated
the Vikings, he recaptured London from them and created a decent army with
battleships ( the navy).
 Lecture Four:

The Vikings Invasion

Introduction

In around 793 new raiders were tempted by Britain's wealth. These were the Vikings,
a word which probably means either "pirates" or "the people of the sea ", and they
came from Scandinavian countries Norway and Denmark. Like the Anglo Saxons they
only raided at first. They burnt churches and monasteries and were interested in its
gold and fortunes.

Viking Settlements

the Vikings invaded Britain once it was clear that the quarreling Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms could not keep them out. This time they came to conquer and to settle.
Only King Alfred the great in the west of Wessex held out against the Vikings, who
had already taken most of England. After some serious defeats Alfred won a decisive
battle called Edington battle in 878, and eight years later he captured London. He
was strong enough to make a treaty with the Vikings and they established their rule
called the Danelaw rule.

Who should be king?

By 950 England seemed rich and peaceful again after the troubles of the Viking
invasion. Among famous Saxon kings , King Edward, the Confessor.

Edward, known as "the Confessor". was more interested in the Church than in
kingship. Church building had been going on for over a century, and he encouraged it.
By the time Edward died there was a church in almost every village. Edward only lived
until 1066, when he died without an obvious heir. The question of who should follow
him as king was one of the most important in English history. The Anglo Saxon witan
committee was forced to choose one king among the three candidates: Edgar,
Edward’s son but he was too young to rule, duke William of Normandy( he claimed
that Edward promised him the throne before his death) and Harold godwinson earl of
Wessex. It was Harold, whom the Saxons chose to be the next king of England. Harold
had already shown his bravery and ability. He had no royal blood, but he seemed a
good choice for the throne of England. Right after that, king Harold was facing
troubles from the north.The Viking king Hardrada started his raids, they fought
together on September,25th, 1066 the battle was called the Stamford bridge battle
and the Vikings were defeated.
 Lecture Five

The Norman Invasion 1066

The origin of the Normans:

In 911, the Viking king Rollo was trying to invade France from the north. After several
battles with the French army, The French king decided to make a treaty with the
Vikings and offered them parts of northern France. The Vikings settled there and
called the territory Normandy. Later on, they adopted the French lifestyle and lived
in harmony with the French people.

The Battle of Hastings ( October 14th , 1066):

Harold's right to the English throne was challenged by Duke William of Normandy.
William had two claims to the English throne . His first claim was that King Edward
had promised it to him. The second claim was that Harold, who had visited William
before, had promised William that he, Harold, would not try to take the throne for
himself. Harold did not deny this second claim, but said that he had been forced to
make the promise .

Harold was faced by two dangers, one in the south and one in the north. No sooner
had he defeated the Vikings in Stamford bridge than he knew that William had
landed in England with an army. His men were tired, but they had no time to rest.
They marched south as fast as possible.

Harold decided not to wait for the whole Saxon army, because William's army was
small. He thought he could defeat them with the men who had done so well against
the Danes ( the Vikings). However, the Norman soldiers were better armed, better
organized, and were mounted on horses. If he had waited, Harold might have won.
But he was defeated and killed in battle near Hastings, the battle of Hastings,
October, 14th, 1066.

William marched to London, which quickly gave in when he began to burn villages
outside the city. He was crowned king of England on Christmas Day, 1066. A new
period had begun.

The Normans impact on England:

The small Norman army marched from village to village, destroying places it could not
control and building forts to guard others. It was a true army of occupation for at
least twenty years.
One of the main changes was the change in language. The vocabulary of the Anglo
Saxon language was highly influenced by the French language and a number of
French words were introduced to the English language. The Normans also changed
the architecture. Huge stone castles, churches and monasteries were built using the
Norman style.

William was careful in the way he gave land to his nobles. William organized his
English kingdom according to the feudal system. The word feudalism which the
Normans used to refer to land held in return for duty or service to a lord. The basis of
feudal society was the holding of land, and its main purpose was economic. The
central idea was that all lands were owned by the king. The king gave large estates to
his main nobles in return for a promise to serve him in war. The nobles also had to
give him part of the profits of the lands. The greater nobles gave part of their lands to
lesser nobles, knights in return for providing military services. The knights granted
lands to the peasants in return for food and other services.
 Lecture Six:

Kingship
After William I death, his son William took England’s throne and Normandy's throne
was given to his second son Robert. William II died without an heir, during that time
Robert was not there, as a consequence their younger brother Henry seized the
opportunity and took the throne of both England and Normandy.

Henry I was a powerful ruler not only of England but also of Normandy. Before his
death, he made the nobles promise him to give the throne to his daughter Matilda
who was married to a French aristocrat Geoffrey Plantagenet who ruled another
considerable province of France. However, after his death they didn’t keep their
promise and gave the throne to another relative, Stephen. Stephen and Matilda
fought a series of battles, and eventually they decided to end the war and that the
throne of England will be given to her son henry. Henry II took the throne of England.

Richard I, Henry II’s son, took the throne after his death and won the nickname
Coeur de Lion (Lionheart). He was a very popular king, maybe because for most his
life he was away, taking part in the Crusades.1

Richard did not have a son, and after his death, his tyrannical brother John ascended
the throne. John was very unpopular for his greediness taking profits of feudal lords
for himself. When in 1215 John was forced to sign Magna Carta, the Great Chart of
English Freedom.2

The charter was used by parliament to protect itself against powerful kings . It was
a clear step towards the collapse of the feudal system in England. The chart included
many important principles such as: no absolute power for monarchs, every freeman
had the right for a fair trial with jury members and no taxes were added unless the
whole committee agreed.

John’s son, Henry III, tried to get rid of Magna Carta but couldn’t. Edward I, Henry’s
son, learnt the lesson from the two rebellions and tried to strike a happy medium
between his father’s adversaries and his own vision of England’s constitution. Under
Edward I , Wales was conquered yet Scotland remained independent after a
revolution led by Sir William Wallace who defeated the English at Stirling on
September 11, 1297. King Edward I led his army again in the battle of Falkirk.
William Wallace was captured in London and executed as a traitor on August 23,
1305.
Under EdwardII the Scottish revolution was carried out by Robert Bruce who
defeated the English in the battle of Bannockburn In June 24, 1314 and granted the
Scottish their complete independence.

While Edward III was on the English throne, he began a long struggle with France
called The Hundred Years War (1337–1453) , because he claimed that he had the
right to take the French throne. During that period the black death 1349 arrived in
Europe, and killed millions of people. Most of the peasants were dead and the
country suffered from starvation.

1
The Crusades took place in the 12th and 13th century. They were a series of military
expeditions undertaken by the countries of Western Europe to restore the Holy Land
to Christian rule.
2
The author of Magna Carta was Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
 Lecture Seven

The Tudors (1485-1603)

Introduction

The century of Tudor rule (1485-1603) is often thought of as the most glorious period
in English history. Henry Vll built the foundations of a wealthy nation state and a
powerful monarchy. His son, Henry VIII, kept a magnificent court, and made the
Church in England truly English by breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church.
Finally, his daughter Elizabeth I brought glory to the new state by defeating the
powerful navy of Spain, the greatest European power of the time. During the Tudor
age England experienced one of the greatest artistic periods in its history.

Henry Vll is less well known than either Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. But he was far
more important in establishing the new monarchy than either of them. Henry VII
firmly believed that war and glory were bad for business, and that business was good
for the state. He therefore avoided quarrels either with Scotland in the north, or
France in the south. He encouraged expeditions and explorations to the New World
( John Cabot’s exploration in1497)

Henry VIll was quite unlike his father. He was cruel, wasteful with money and
didn’t like the powerful position of the church in the country.

The Reformation

In 1510 Henry had married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother
Arthur and she didn’t have a son who survived infancy and was now unlikely to do so.
Henry tried to persuade the pope to allow him to divorce Carherine, but the pope
was controlled by Charles V, who was Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, and
also Carherine's nephew. For both political and family reasons he wanted Henry to
stay married to Carherine. The pope did not wish to anger either Charles or Henry,
but eventually he was forced to do as Charles V wanted. He forbade Henry's divorce.

Henry was extremely angry. In 1531 Henry persuaded the bishops to make him head
of the Church in England , and this became law after parliament passed the Act of
Supremacy in 1534. It was a popular decision. Henry was now free to divorce
Carherine and marry his new love, Anne Boleyn. He hoped Anne would give him a son
to follow him on the throne
Henry's break with Rome was purely political. He had simply wanted to control the
church and to keep its wealth in his own kingdom. He did not approve of the new
ideas of Reformation Protestantism introduced by Martin Luther in Germany and
John Calvin in Geneva. He still believed in the Catholic faith.

Henry died in 1547, leaving behind his sixth wife, Carherine Parr, and his three
children. Mary, the eldest, was the daughter of Carherine of Aragon. Elizabeth was
the daughter of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, whom he had executed because she
was unfaithful. Nine-year-old Edward was the son of Jane Seymour, the only wife
whom Henry had really loved, but who had died giving birth to his only son.

The Protestant-Catholic struggle

Edward VI, Henry VIII's son, was only a child when he became king, so the country
was ruled by a council.Most English people still believed in the old Catholic religion.
Less than half the English were Protestant by belief. Most people were not very
happy with the new religion. They had been glad to see the end of some of the
Church's bad practices like the selling of "pardons" for the forgiveness of sins, but
they did not like the changes in belief, and in some places there was trouble.

Mary, the Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon, became queen when Edward,
aged sixteen, died.She was supported by the ordinary people, who were angered by
the greed of the Protestant nobles. However, Mary was unwise and unbending in her
policy and her beliefs. At that time women were considered to be inferior to men.
The marriage of a queen was therefore a difficult matter. If Mary married an
Englishman she would be under the control of a man of lesser importance. If she
married a foreigner it might place England under foreign control.

Mary, for political, religious and family reasons, chose to marry King Philip of Spain. It
was an unfortunate choice.She then began burning Protestants. Three hundred
people died in this way during her five-year reign and she was given the title bloody
Mary.

Elizabeth, Mary's half sister, was lucky to become queen when Mary died in 1558.
Mary had considered killing her, because she was an obvious leader for Protestant
revolt. Elizabeth had been wise enough to say nothing, do nothing, and to express
neither Catholic nor Protestant views while Mary lived..When she became queen in
1558, Elizabeth I wanted to find a peaceful answer to the problems of the English
Reformation.
Both France and Spain were Catholic. Elizabeth and her advisers wanted to avoid
open quarrels with both of them. This was not easy, because both the French and
Spanish kings wanted to marry Elizabeth and so join England to their own country.
Elizabeth and her advisers knew how much damage Mary had done and that it was
important that she should avoid such a marriage. At the same time, however, there
was a danger that the pope would persuade Catholic countries to attack England .

By 1585 most English people believed that to be a Catholic was to be an enemy of

England. This hatred of everything Catholic became an important political force. In
1588,the Spanish Armada was defeated,for England it was a glorious moment in
history.
 Chronology of significant dates in British history

Early history

Prehistory British-Irish islands once part of European land mass:

warmer conditions alternated with Ice Ages

3000 BC New Stone Age (Neolithic) peoples populated the western

parts of the islands. Farming introduced

2400 BC Beaker Folk (Bronze Age) settled in southeast and eastern

England ca

600 BCsettlement of the Celts (Iron Age) began

55–54 BC Julius Caesar’s exploratory expeditions

AD 43 Roman conquest of England, Wales and (temporarily) lowland

Scotland by Claudius. Christian influence

122 Hadrian’s Wall built between Scotland and England

410 Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) invasions began; Anglo-Saxon kingdoms

created from the 450s in England. Mainly Celtic peoples in Wales,
Ireland, parts of Scotland and Cornwall

597 St Augustine converted Anglo-Saxons to Christianity

793 Scandinavian (Viking) raids began

878 Vikings defeated in England by King Alfred of Wessex

 The early Middle Ages

1066William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at Hastings and

ascended the English throne. Feudalism introduced

1215 King John signed Magna Carta, which protected English feudal
(aristocratic) rights against royal abuse .

The late Middle Ages

1337 Hundred Years War between England and France began 1348–
49 Black Death (bubonic plague) destroyed a third of the islands’
population

1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England

1387– Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales

1455–87 Wars of the Roses between Yorkists and Lancastrians

1477 first book printed in England, by William Caxton

Towards the nation state(Britain)

1509 accession of Henry VIII

1534–40 English Reformation; Henry VIII broke with Papacy and

became Head of the English Church (Roman Catholic)

1547–53 Protestantism became official religion in England under

Edward VI

1553–58 Catholic reaction under MaryI

1558–1603 Elizabeth I. Protestant ascendancy

1588 defeat of Spanish Armada

1590–1613 plays of William Shakespeare written

BIBLIOGRAPHY

● Alibhai-Brown, Y. (2001) Who Do We Think We Are? Imagining

the New Britain London: Allen Lane
● Davies, N. (2000) The Isles: A History London: Macmillan
Donnell, A. (2001) Companion to Contemporary Black British
Culture London: Routledge
● Grant, A. and Stringer, K.J. (eds) (1995) Uniting the Kingdom? –
The Making of British History London: Routledge
● Harvie, C. (1998) Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and
Politics, 1707 to the Present London: Routledge
● McKay, S. (2000) Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People
Belfast: Blackstaff Press
● Nairn, T. (2000) After Britain London: Granta Books O’Connor, F.
(1993) In Search of a State: Catholics in Northern Ireland
Belfast: Blackstaff Press
 ● Owusa, K. (1999) Black British Culture and Society London:
Routledge
● Paxman, J. (2000) The English: A Portrait of a People London:
Penguin Books
● Phillips, M. and Phillips, T. (1999) Windrush: The Irresistible Rise
of Multi-racial Britain London: HarperCollins
● Solomos, J. (2001) Race and Racism in Britain London:
Macmillan Storry, M. and Childs, P. (eds) (1997) British Cultural
Identities London: Routledge

Websites

Campaign for the English Regions: http://www.cfer.org.uk

Devolution: http://www.britishcouncil.org/devolution/index.htm

Looking into England: www.britishcouncil.org/studies/english

British Studies Now: www.britishcouncil.org/studies/bsn.htm

Scotland Office: www.scottishsecretary.gov.uk

Wales Office: www.wales.gov.uk

Northern Ireland Office: www.nio.gov.uk