ContentsUKAD

Britain in 1 AD - at the time of the Roman Invasions
Professor David Braund looks at the physical, institutional and social environment of Britain at the time of the Roman invasions and shows how archaeology and the written word illuminates an obscure age.
At the beginning of the first millennium AD there was very much a north-south divide in Britain. The southern low-lands had recently experienced major change, driven both by local processes and by new relationships across the Channel. More....

Britain in 500 AD This article is by Prof James Campbell, Professor of Medieval History at Oxford University.
For Britain, the 5th century was traumatic: the withdrawal of the last of the Roman garrison in the first decade of the century was followed by increased raiding by invaders who established settlements: Irish in the west, Angles and Saxons in the east. But not all of Britain had been part of the Roman empire and not all Roman Britain had been governed or Romanised with the same intensity. More....

Britain in 1000AD Ann Williams, Senior Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia, England, describes the state of the island at a time when Anglo-Saxon culture was reaching its peak, while also politically challenged by the Vikings.
�The king went into Cumberland and ravaged very nearly all of it; and his ships went out round Chester and should have come to meet him, but they could not. Then they ravaged the Isle of Man. And the enemy fleet had gone to Richard's kingdom that summer.� More�.

Britain in 1100AD Brian Golding, Reader in History at the University of Southampton, looks at life under the Norman yoke during the consolidating reign of Henry I.
0n August 2nd 1100, William II Rufus was killed in a hunting accident in the New Forest. His body was immediately taken to Winchester Cathedral for burial. Three days later, his younger brother, Henry (who may possibly have been implicated in Rufus�s death), was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London. More�.

Britain in 1200AD In the year 1200 Britain was in the middle of a spell of warm weather that had begun c AD 900 and lasted to c 1300. This made possible the cultivation of land on higher ground, beyond the margins of previous habitation. Mixed farming was usual in lower-lying lands, though in much of Scotland, Wales and the north of England a pastoral economy predominated. More�.

Britain in 1300AD In 1258 a parliament held at Oxford - the first to include two representatives per county - imposed the so-called Provisions of Oxford on Henry III (r.1216-72) to curb his royal power. The same year, in Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffyd (r.1246-82) assumed the title of Prince of Wales and began to consolidate his power base in Gwynedd. More�.

Britain in 1400AD Professor Nigel Saul, tells how, in spite of famines and visitations of the plague, conditions were better than ever before for those living in 1400.
AT THE END of the 14th century the British Isles were a land transformed. At the beginning of the century the population everywhere had been high and rising. Towns and villages had been crowded. The countryside had been akin to Langland's 'plain full of people'. A hundred years later the position was very different. Population had fallen and continued to fall. Whole villages had vanished from the map. In the towns, rows of tenements stood empty. More�.

Britain in 1500AD Steven Gunn, Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Merton College, Oxford, looks at the condition of Britain at the beginning of the Tudor era, and finds a society that was increasingly cohesive, confident and cosmopolitan.
Britain in 1500 was for the most part an old-settled but, by the standards of much of contemporary Europe, an under-populated landscape. As an Italian visitor put it, �The population of this island does not appear to me to bear any proportion to her fertility and riches�. A steady recovery from the steep population decline of two centuries of plague was only just beginning. England and Wales had perhaps 2.25 million people, Scotland and Ireland about a third of that number each. More�.

Britain in 1600AD written by Prof John Miller, Professor of History at Queen Mary and Westfield College, London. In many respects Britain in 1600AD was much as it had been for centuries. Much of the country was covered with forest and heathland, moor and bog. Where the land had been cleared, much was unsuitable for arable farming and was grazed by cattle and sheep. Since 1500 the population had risen substantially. More�.

Britain in 1700AD Prof Allan Macinnes, Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, investigates the state of the islands at a crucial moment in British state formation.
AT THE OUTSET of the 17th century, the British Isles could be depicted as three kingdoms and a province, but by 1700 they were being recast as one kingdom and three provinces. In the aftermath of regal union in 1603, Scots took comfort in the depiction of the multiple kingdoms as British, which effectively countered the traditional hegemonic claims of the English crown. More�.

Britain in 1800 Jeremy Black, Professor of History at Exeter University describes the impact of the French Wars on the British islands and the shifting landscape wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
In 1800 Britain was at war, a war that pressed on every household. Although the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars may seem distant from our standard view of the period, which is one largely based on the televising of Jane Austen's novels such as Pride and Prejudice, they impinged on every aspect of life and on society as a whole. Taxes rose, trade was disrupted, goods were produced for the war effort, men were recruited and killed, and families were left to grieve. More....

Britain 1900AD Written by the historian Lord Asa Briggs.
There was considerable doubt on January 1st 1900, as to whether the country was beginning a new century or whether there was still another year to go. More time-conscious than their ancestors, many of the last of the Victorians were not impressed by the German Kaiser�s decree that they were now living in the 20th century. The first leader in the English �Times� newspaper began with the words �The New Year, the last of the 19th century�. More....