British History and Literature Timeline

Anglo Saxon Period

400 |500 |600 |700 |800 |900 |1000 |1100

410: Roman occupation of England ends

597: St. Augustine settles in Canterbury, bringing Christianity to England

731: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History

894-5: Alfred translates Bede’s History into Anglo-Saxon

871: Alfred the Great becomes King of Wessex

c. 1000: First appearance of the Beowulf manuscript

1066: William the Conqueror defeats Harold at the Battle of Hastings

Jennifer Lodine-Chaffey

Anglo-Norman Period (1066-1265)

1000 |1100 |1200

1070: Archbishop Lanfranc lays the foundations of Canterbury Cathedral

1136: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain

1170: Thomas Becket is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral after arguing with Henry II

1170-1180: Marie de France’s Lais

1215: Signing of the Magna Carta by King John

Middle Ages:1265 through 1400

1200 |1300 |1400

1265: The first English Parliament

1327: Edward II is deposed

1347: The Black Death hits Europe

1398: Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

1381: The Peasants’ Revolt

14th century: Dafydd ap Gwilym Late 14th

century: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Later Middle Ages: 1400 through 1485

1400 |1500

1485: Richard III is defeated at Bosworth Field; the Tudors reign in England

1476: William Caxton sets up a printing press in England

1415: Henry V defeats the French at the Battle of Agincourt

1438: Death of Margery Kempe

1453: The end of the Hundred Years’ War

The Tudors: 1485 through 1603

1500

1582: Sir Philip Sidney composes Astrophil and Stella

1593: Death of Christopher Marlowe

1516: Publication of Thomas More’s Utopia

1588: The English Navy defeats the Spanish Armada

1517: Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenburg

The Early Stuart Period: 1603 through 1650

1600 |1650

1601: William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is first performed on stage

1605: Gunpowder Plot attempts to blow up Parliament

1649: Execution of Charles I

1631: Death of John Donne

1621: Lady Mary Wroth publishes Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

1618: The Thirty Years’ War begins

1628: Charles I is forced to sign The Petition of Right

The Later Stuart Period: 1650 through 1714

1650 |1700

1660: The Restoration: Charles II crowned King, the Commonwealth ends

1667: John Milton’s Paradise Lost is published

1649: England becomes a Common-wealth; Oliver Cromwell rules

1651: Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan

Created by Jennifer Lodine-Chaffey