Skip to content
Χρονικόν

Chronicle II of VI

Anglo-Saxon England

Englaland

The making of England, from the Saxon migrations to Alfred, Cnut, and Hastings.

Span
449 – 1066 AD
Entries
16
  1. Adventus SaxonumMilitary

    Hengist and Horsa land in Kent

    According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the British king Vortigern invites the Jutish brothers Hengist and Horsa to defend the island against the Picts. They settle in Thanet and soon turn on their hosts — the symbolic beginning of the English settlement.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
  2. Britons resistMilitary

    Battle of Mons Badonicus

    Somewhere in southern Britain — site unknown — a Romano-British army inflicts a heavy defeat on the advancing Saxons. The British monk Gildas, writing a generation later, says the victory bought the island fifty years of uneasy peace.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
  3. Gregorian MissionReligious

    Augustine lands in Kent

    Sent by Pope Gregory the Great, the monk Augustine arrives at the court of King Æthelberht of Kent with forty companions. The king, whose Frankish queen Bertha is already Christian, is baptised and grants Augustine a seat at Canterbury.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
  4. HeptarchyCultural

    The Sutton Hoo ship burial

    Around this date a great Anglo-Saxon king — most likely Rædwald of East Anglia — is laid to rest in a 27-metre oak ship buried under a mound at Sutton Hoo, with a magnificent helmet, gold shoulder-clasps, and Byzantine silver.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
  5. Synod of WhitbyReligious

    Northumbria chooses Rome

    King Oswiu of Northumbria summons a synod at the double monastery of Whitby to decide whether the English church should follow the Roman or the Irish calculation of Easter. Persuaded by Wilfrid of Ripon, Oswiu chooses Rome.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
  6. Northumbrian RenaissanceCultural

    Bede completes the Ecclesiastical History

    At Jarrow on the Tyne, the monk Bede finishes his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, the great history that first imagines the English as a single Christian people and dates events from the Incarnation in our familiar AD form.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
  7. Mercian SupremacyPolitical

    Offa becomes king of Mercia

    After a brief civil war Offa takes the Mercian throne, ruling for thirty-nine years. He extends Mercian power over Kent, Sussex, and East Anglia, corresponds with Charlemagne as an equal, and builds the great earthwork dyke that still bears his name.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
  8. Viking AgeMilitary

    Vikings sack Lindisfarne

    On 8 June Norse raiders descend on the island monastery of Lindisfarne, slaughtering monks and carrying off the relics of Saint Cuthbert. Alcuin, writing from Charlemagne's court, calls it a catastrophe never before imagined.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
  9. 8 more entries, to 1066