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The Dark Origins of Britain is a landmark series dealing with the greatest unresolved mystery in our history - how the modern nations of England, Wales and Scotland were born out of the chaos of the Dark Ages. In 400 AD, when Roman power collapsed in Britain, we were a province inhabited by Celtic peoples speaking a mixture of early Welsh and Latin. But only two hundred years later, the foundations of a new, Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking nation were being laid.

Major setbacks occurred at the end of the thirteenth century and continued into the fourteenth, when population expansion and declining crop yields coincided with a devastating and widespread plague, the Black Death (1348-1349). This had a major impact on population numbers-which dramatically declined-and on both society and economy. Immediately following an economic crisis, a period of crop failure, and an intensification of criminal activity (which may, perhaps, have been linked to fluctuations in food prices), the plague was devastating in its effects, and forms a turning point in the history of medieval England. Nor was the Black Death an isolated event; further pestilence struck in the 1360s, accentuating the problems. Read more: Medieval Britain - Documentation, Norman Period, Feudal Period, Economic Recovery, Cathedrals, Churches, and Monasteries, Impact of Protestantism - England, Castles, Century, Period, Norman, and Built - JRank Articles http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/5958/Medieval-Britain.html#ixzz1Z3mRCdHa

Reading from his latest book, the second volume of Great Tales From English History, Robert Lacey paints a gruesome picture of the plague in Britain and tells the tale of the heroic village of Eyam.

"The Catholicon was the first such dictionary to have all of its entries arranged in alphabetical order. The positioning of vernacular words first, with Latin equivalents following, shows that it was intended to be used for Latin composition not translation. It would have been of particular utility in the grammar schools that were being founded in large numbers during the 15th century. "

Weelcome to RoyaList Online, a guide to the royal genealogy of Britain. As its name suggests, the core of the web site is a "royal list": a database that provides biographical details of thousands of individuals who have either belonged to, or been connected with, the royal family of England and Scotland during more than 1,000 years of history.lthough the primary focus is on British royalty, the web of intermarriages amongst the royal houses of Europe is such that many representatives of continental royalty are also featured. The intention has been to include all known members of the immediate family of those who are either in or close to the English and Scottish royal lines.

The Black Death was 'a squalid disease that killed within a week' and a national trauma that utterly transformed Britain. Dr Mike Ibeji follows its deadly path.

The long term effects of the Black Death were devastating and far reaching. Agriculture, religion, economics and even social class were affected. Contemporary accounts shed light on how medieval Britain was irreversibly changed.

"Lindisfarne is intimately connected with the history of Christianity in Britain. In 635 the Northumbrian king, Oswald (r.634-42), summoned an Irish monk named Aidan from Iona - the island-monastery off the south-west coast of what is now Scotland - to be bishop of his kingdom. Oswald granted Aidan and his companions the small tidal island of Lindisfarne on which to found a monastery."

British History Online is the digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, we aim to support academic and personal users around the world in their learning, teaching and research.

Dr David Starkey's complete history of the British Monarchy, which reveals the epic and bloody stories of our Kings and Queens and charts the course of the oldest surviving political institution in Europe

"The Conqueror's men were frustrated in their efforts to capture 'Hereward the Wake' for over a year. In 1070 he and his men made a daring raid on the monastery at Peterborough which marked him as a dangerous and effective resistance leader. William and his army gradually closed on Hereward until he withdrew to the Isle of Ely where he lived in comfortably - out of reach of the invading force."

historical biography England in the Viking Age The first full biography of Queen Emma In 1002, a beautiful eighteen-year-old named Emma, the half-Danish sister of the Duke of Normandy and the descendant of the Vikings, sailed to England to be the queen of Ethelred the Unready, who needed a Norman alliance against Viking raiders. The political and marital career on which Emma embarked was to be unique for an English queen. Before it was over she would have married two kings, Ethelred and the Danish Canute, and would have given birth to two more, Edward the Confessor and Hardecanute.

Dr David Starkey's complete history of the British Monarchy, which reveals the epic and bloody stories of our Kings and Queens and charts the course of the oldest surviving political institution in Europe

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss King Alfred and the defeat of the Vikings at Battle of Edington. At the end of the 9th century the Vikings controlled almost all of what we now call England. Mercia had fallen and its king had fled, Northumbria had fallen and so had Essex. The only independent kingdom left standing against the rampaging Danes was Wessex, and Alfred the Great; then he was overrun, his treasury, palaces and castles taken whilst he and his most loyal followers were left to wander the moors. Yet he came back.

The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) is a database which aims to cover all of the recorded inhabitants of England from the late sixth to the end of the eleventh century. It is based on a systematic examination of the available written sources for the period, including chronicles, saints' Lives, charters, libri vitae, inscriptions, and coins.

THE PRIORY OF ST. CLEMENT, YORK