England and the British Isles to 1707

Catalog description

The subject of this course is the history of the British Isles from the Roman Conquest in 43AD to the creation of the United Kingdom in 1707. Between these two dates the various societies and cultures in the British Isles were brought into the orbit of the Roman Empire, converted to latin Christianity, and developed distinctive cultures and strong ties with the Continent. From the twelfth century on, the kingdom of England began to exert its power over Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, although English power waxed and waned in these areas between the twelfth and the seventeenth centuries. The Anglo-Norman continental empire of the Plantagenet dynasty also played a large part in shaping the English monarchy, as did the playing out of the Hundred Years War, the internal divisions in fifteenth-century English society, and the rise of the Tudor-Stuart dynasty.