Abstract
Before 450 AD: Celtic
Originally the populations of England were mixed, partly Neolithic and Celtic, Celts of Britonnic variety (the Britons), hence the first name of the island, Britannia when it was conquered by the Romans who only were stopped by the Scots up north. Between 450 and 650 AD: Defeat of the Celts Important invasions by populations of Germanic and Scandinavian origin: the Saxons, the Jutes and the Angles who gave their name to this new land they had conquered, England the land of the Angles (Angleterre in French).
By 650 AD, the Celts had been entirely defeated and they had retired west to Cornwall and Wales, also north to the Western borders between England and Scotland (Cumberland), and finally to France where they settled in Brittany (little Britain). Importance of Celts and Saxons from the point of view of literature: the Saxons gave the island its first language which was a variation of German, German still being an important component of modern English. The Celts left very little in terms of language (mostly geographic names and a few words like "dun" brown, often found in Shakespeare).
However, the Celts surrounded England geographically, not only on English soil (in Wales) but also in Ireland and Scotland where another Celtic branch, the Gaels were developing their own culture. In these remote areas they protected an important civilization, with a wealth of legends and epic cycles whose influence would be great later during the Middle Ages and beyond. Celtic culture, in spite of the loss of the language, language, would leave its mark on English literature.
Organization of the Saxon kingdoms: the kingdoms were allowed to develop for 400 years unmolested and they also left their mark. These conquerors were mostly looking for land where they could settle peacefully and farm the soil. The Saxons also had a complex system of unwritten laws where right of custom prevailed over written statutes (droit coutumier). The point is to judge in keeping with precedent similar cases and not according to abstract precepts. Part of this system was preserved under the name of the Common Law or Custom Law and remains to this day.
Other features of Saxon rule were loyalty to the war leader, a strong attachment to individual rights and prerogatives and a gift for practical organization. In this short summary, one can trace a few "English" characteristics which are famous to this day: common sense, stolidity, a love for the concrete rather than the abstract, faith in men rather than written laws and a strong attachment to individual freedom.
Extract
[...] This sense of the country's superiority over the rest of the world is also based on insularity, as Shakespeare was to express it in Richard II: "This precious stone set in the silver sea, this England". Nationalism, however, was not an English phenomenon: the Renaissance was the time for the emergence of what is called European nation states. Religious unity was now destroyed because of the conflict between Protestants and Catholics. The Pope ceased to be the only arbiter in the world of politics and monarchical power became increasingly important. [...]
[...] Richard was eventually assassinated in the Tower. This started the fight for the succession because there was another rival house to that of Lancaster, the House of York (another great house descended from Richard's uncles) and between 1455 and 1485, the two rival houses (Lancaster and York) competed for the throne during a gruesome civil war later called, the Wars of the Roses (Lancaster had chosen a red rose for an emblem, York, a white one). From a literary point of view, you note that between the death of Chaucer and Elizabeth's accession in 1558, nothing much happens in English literature apart from Malory (who again wrote about medieval sagas whereas every other country on the continent was in the midst of their Renaissance). [...]
[...] From a cultural point of view, thanks to this new era of peace and stability during E's reign, the Italian Renaissance finally made its way into England which also accounts for the flourishing of literature, music and painting. The ideal of the Renaissance was scholarly education and a thorough grounding in the classics, for as many people of leisure as possible (before, learning had been restricted to the clergy). This learned class included the nobility, artists and courtiers. Renaissance kings and queens were also supposed to be artists. They all wrote fine poetry, especially E. Henry VIII had composed music, Elizabeth was also musical she played the Virginal, danced superbly and spoke many languages, in particular Italian. [...]
[...] During his reign as during that of Henry VIII, Catholics were persecuted and the English were supposedly a Protestant people. But when Edward died, Mary Tudor, the Catholic daughter, came to the throne and she tried to restore the Catholic faith: in one year of her short reign (1553-1558), she was reputed to have had burnt 274 protestants at the stake. When she died, Elizabeth, who was next in line, represented the hope of English Protestantism (as such, she had been imprisoned in the Tower in danger of her life during Mary's reign). [...]
[...] The Celts left very little in terms of language (mostly geographic names and a few words like "dun" brown, often found in Shakespeare). However, the Celts surrounded England geographically, not only on English soil (in Wales) but also in Ireland and Scotland where another Celtic branch, the Gaels were developing their own culture. In these remote areas they protected an important civilization, with a wealth of legends and epic cycles whose influence would be great later during the Middle Ages and beyond. [...]
