PREHISTORIC AND FEUDAL BRITAIN

The earliest known name of Great Britain is Albion from the Latin albus meaning white (referring to the white cliffs of Dover, the first view of Britain from the continent. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Brittania or Brittānia, the land of the Britons. Brittania was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. The Romans conquered most of the island and this became the Ancient Roman province of Britannia.

For 500 years after the Roman Empire fell, the Britons of the south and east of the island were assimilated or displaced by Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, often referred to collectively as Anglo-Saxons). At about the same time Gaelic tribes from Ireland invaded the north-west, absorbing both the Picts and Britons of northern Britain, eventually forming the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century. The south-east of Scotland was colonized by the Angles and formed, until 1018, a part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. Ultimately, the population of south-east Britain came to be referred to, after the Angles, as the English people.

Germanic speakers referred to Britons as Welsh. This term eventually came to be applied exclusively to the inhabitants of what is now Wales. The Britons living in the areas now known as Wales and Cornwall were not assimilated by the Germanic tribes, a fact reflected in the survival of Celtic languages in these areas into modern times. At the time of the Germanic invasion of Southern Britain, many Britons immigrated to the area now known as Brittany. In the 9th century, a series of Danish assaults on northern English kingdoms led to them coming under Danish control. In the 10th century, however, all the English kingdoms were unified under one ruler as the kingdom of England. In 1066, England was conquered by the Normans, who introduced a French ruling élite that was eventually assimilated.

The term "Great Britain" was first used officially in 1474. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I, in a deliberate attempt to impose a term which would unite his double inheritance of the kingdoms of Scotland and England, proclaimed his assumption of the throne in the style "King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.

1) Explain the origin of the following notions:

Albion, Britain, the English people, the Welsh, the Britons, Great Britain

2) Which of them and in what circumstances were introduced by the Romans and which by the Anglo-Saxons?

3) When and what part of Britain did the Romans use?

4) What tribes are referred to as Anglo-Saxons?

5) When were the English kingdoms unified under one ruler as the kingdom of England?

6) When was England conquered by the Normans?

7) When was the term "Great Britain" first officially used?

TEXT 2. Read the text and fulfill the task that follows it.