|
De Excidio Et Conquestu Britanniæ
(English: ''On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain'') is a work written in Latin in the late fifth or sixth century by the British religious polemicist Gildas. It is a sermon in three parts condemning the acts of Gildas' contemporaries, both secular and religious, whom he blames for the dire state of affairs in sub-Roman Britain. It is one of the most important sources for the history of Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries, as it is the only significant historical source for the period written by a near contemporary of the people and events described. Part I contains a narrative of British history from the Roman conquest to Gildas' time; it includes references to Ambrosius Aurelianus and the Britons' victory against the Saxons at the Battle of Mons Badonicus. Part II is a condemnation of five kings for their various sins, including both obscure figures and relatively well-documented ones such as Maelgwn Gwynedd. Part III is a similar attack upon the British clergy of the ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gildas
Gildas (English pronunciation: , Breton language, Breton: ''Gweltaz''; ) — also known as Gildas Badonicus, Gildas fab Caw (in Middle Welsh texts and antiquarian works) and ''Gildas Sapiens'' (Gildas the Wise) — was a 6th-century Britons (historic), British monk best known for his religious polemic , which recounts the history of the Britons before and during Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, the coming of the Saxons. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during the Sub-Roman Britain, sub-Roman period, and was renowned for his Biblical knowledge and literary style. In his later life, he emigrated to Brittany, where he founded a monastery known as Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys. Hagiography Birthplace Differing versions of the ''Life of Saint Gildas'' exist, but both agree that he was born at a place called ''Arecluta'' which is described by the author as taking its name from a "certain river called the Clut, by which that district is, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guy Halsall
Guy Halsall (born 1964) is an English historian and academic, specialising in Early Medieval Europe. He is currently based at the University of York, and has published a number of books, essays, and articles on the subject of early medieval history and archaeology. Halsall's current research focuses on western Europe in the important period of change around AD 600 and on the application of continental philosophy (especially the work of Jacques Derrida) to history. He taught at the University of Newcastle and Birkbeck, University of London, before moving to the University of York. Life Guy Halsall was born in North Ferriby in 1964 and raised in Worcestershire. He studied archaeology and history at the University of York, earning the first First-Class degree from York's archaeology department in 1986. He completed his D.Phil. at York in 1991 with a thesis on the "history and archaeology of the region of Metz in the Merovingian period" supervised by Edward James and examined by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Gale (classical Scholar)
Thomas Gale (1635/1636?7 or 8 April 1702) was an English classical scholar, antiquarian and cleric. Life Gale was born at Scruton, North Yorkshire. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. In 1666 he was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, in 1672 high master of St Paul's School, in 1676 prebendary of St Paul's, in 1677 a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1697 Dean of York. He died in York. He married Barbara Pepys, daughter of Roger Pepys MP, of Impington and his second wife Barbara Bacon, and thus a cousin of Samuel Pepys, who under her nickname "Bab" refers to her several times in his famous diary. She died in 1689. He was the father of two noted antiquarians, Roger Gale and Samuel Gale, and father-in-law of the Rev. Dr. William Stukeley. To his collection of manuscripts belonged Minuscule 66. Works He published a mythographical collection, ''Opuscula mythologica, ethica, et physica'', and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew Parker
Matthew Parker (6 August 1504 – 17 May 1575) was an English bishop. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England from 1559 to his death. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder (with Thomas Cranmer, a previous Archbishop of Canterbury, and the theologian Richard Hooker) of a distinctive tradition of Anglican theological thought. Parker was one of the primary architects of the Thirty-nine Articles, the defining statements of Anglican doctrine. The Parker collection of early English manuscripts, including the book of St Augustine Gospels and "Version A" of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', was created as part of his efforts to demonstrate that the English Church was historically independent of Holy See, Rome and was one of the world's most important collections of ancient manuscripts. Along with the pioneering scholar Laurence Nowell, Lawrence Nowell, Parker's work concerning Old English literature laid the foundation for Anglo-Saxon stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Joscelyn
John Joscelyn, also John Jocelyn or John Joscelin, (1529–1603) was an English clergyman and antiquarian as well as secretary to Matthew Parker, an Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Joscelyn was involved in Parker's attempts to secure and publish medieval manuscripts on church history, and was one of the first scholars of the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) language. He also studied the early law codes of England. His Old English dictionary, although not published during his lifetime, contributed greatly to the study of that language. Many of his manuscripts and papers eventually became part of the collections of Cambridge University, Oxford University, or the British Library. Early life Joscelyn was born in 1529, and was the son of Sir Thomas Joscelin and Dorothy , of Hyde Hall, Sawbridgeworth. John was their third son to survive childhood, and was probably born on his father's estate at High Roding, Essex. He matriculated as a pensioner at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polydore Vergil
Polydore Vergil or Virgil (Italian: Polidoro Virgili, commonly Latinised as Polydorus Vergilius; – 18 April 1555), widely known as Polydore Vergil of Urbino, was an Italian humanist scholar, historian, priest and diplomat, who spent much of his life in England. He is particularly remembered for his works the ''Proverbiorum libellus'' (1498), a collection of Latin proverbs; ''De inventoribus rerum'' (1499), a history of discoveries and origins; and the ''Anglica Historia'' (drafted by 1513; printed in 1534), an influential history of England. He has been dubbed the "Father of English History". Vergil is sometimes referred to in contemporary documents as Polydore Vergil Castellensis or Castellen, leading some to assume that he was a kinsman of his patron, Cardinal Adriano Castellesi. However, it is more likely that the alias simply indicates that he was in Castellesi's service. Biography Early life in Italy Vergil was born in about 1470 either at Urbino, or more probably a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecclesiastical History Of The English People
The ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' (), written by Bede in about AD 731, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the growth of Christianity. It was composed in Latin, and is believed to have been completed in 731 when Bede was approximately 59 years old. It is considered one of the most important original references on Anglo-Saxon history, and according to some scholars has played a key role in the development of an English national identity. Overview The , or ''An Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', is Bede's best-known work, completed in about 731. The first of the five books begins with some geographical background and then sketches the history of England, beginning with Julius Caesar's invasion in 55 BC. A brief account of Christianity in Roman Britain, including the martyrdom of St Alban, is followed by the story of Augustine's mission to England in 597, which brought Christianity to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; ; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th century. He received the 1902 Nobel Prize in Literature for his historical writings, including '' The History of Rome'', after having been nominated by 18 members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He was also a prominent German politician, as a member of the Prussian and German parliaments. His works on Roman law and on the law of obligations had a significant impact on the German civil code. Life Mommsen was born to German parents in Garding in the Duchy of Schleswig in 1817, then ruled by the king of Denmark, and grew up in Bad Oldesloe in Holstein, where his father was a Lutheran minister. He studied mostly at home, though he attended the Gymnasium Christianeum in Altona for four years. He studied Greek and Latin and receive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mons Badonicus
The Battle of Badon, also known as the Battle of Mons Badonicus, was purportedly fought between Britons and Anglo-Saxons in Post-Roman Britain during the late 5th or early 6th century. It was credited as a major victory for the Britons, stopping the westward encroachment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms for a period. The earliest known references to the battle, by the British cleric Gildas, date to the 6th century. It is chiefly known today for the supposed involvement of the man who would later be remembered as the legendary King Arthur; although it is not agreed that Arthur was a historical person, his name first appears in the 9th-century ''Historia Brittonum'', where he is mentioned as having participated in the battle alongside the Brittonic kings as a war commander, though is not described as a king himself. Because of the limited number of sources, there is no certainty about the date, location, or details of the fighting. Almost all scholars agree that this battle did ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonine Wall
The Antonine Wall () was a turf fortification on stone foundations, built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. Built some twenty years after Hadrian's Wall to the south, and intended to supersede it, while it was garrisoned it was the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire. It spanned approximately and was about high and wide. Lidar scans have been carried out to establish the length of the wall and the Roman distance units used. Security was bolstered by a deep ditch on the northern side. It is thought that there was a wooden palisade on top of the turf. The barrier was the second of two "great walls" created by the Romans in Great Britain in the second century AD. Its ruins are less evident than those of the better-known and longer Hadrian's Wall to the south, primarily because the turf and wood wall has largely weathered away, unlike its stone-built southern predecessor. Construction be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall (, also known as the ''Roman Wall'', Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Aelium'' in Latin) is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Roman Britain, Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Running from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west of what is now northern England, it was a stone wall with large ditches in front and behind, stretching across the whole width of the island. Soldiers were garrisoned along the line of the wall in large Castra, forts, smaller milecastles, and intervening Turret (Hadrian's Wall), turrets. In addition to the wall's defensive military role, its gates may have been customs posts. Hadrian's Wall Path generally runs close along the wall. Almost all the standing masonry of the wall was removed in early modern times and used for local roads and farmhouses. None of it stands to its original height, but modern work has exposed much of the footings, and some segments d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extreme Weather Events Of 535–536
The volcanic winter of 536 was among the most severe and protracted episodes of climatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2,000 years. The volcanic winter was caused by at least three simultaneous eruptions of uncertain origin, with several possible locations proposed in various continents. Modern scholarship has determined that in early AD 536 (or possibly late 535), an eruption ejected massive amounts of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, which reduced the solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface and cooled the atmosphere for several years. In March 536, Constantinople began experiencing darkened skies and lower temperatures. Summer temperatures in 536 fell by as much as below normal in Europe. The lingering effect of the volcanic winter of 536 was augmented in 539–540, when another volcanic eruption caused summer temperatures to decline as much as below normal in Europe. There is evidence of still another volcanic eruption in 547 which would have exten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
