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Summary Britain, ISBN: 9780194306447 British Culture
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Summary in English for British Culture in year 1 of the English Teacher Training.
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Engels: taal en cultuur I - Petty facts
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Samenvatting engelse taal en cultuur I
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British Culture.Chapter 1:
Why is Great Britain called ‘’Great’’ Britain?
To distinguish between the smaller area in French which is called Brittany in modern English.
Isle of Man and Channel Islands are ‘crown dependencies’ and not officially part of the UK.
Each had complete internal self-government, including its own parliament and its own tax
system. Both are ‘ruled’ by a Lieutenant Governor appointed by the British government.
The political unification of Great Britain was a gradual process that took several hundred
years. It was completed in 1800 when the Irish parliament was joined with the parliament
for England, Scotland, and Wales in Westminster, so that the whole area became a single
state – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However, in 1922 most of Ireland
became a separate state. It was not achieved by mutual agreement, on the contrary, it
happened because England was able to assert her economic and military power over the
other three nations.
The dominant culture and lifestyle of people in Ireland, Wales and Highland Scotland was
Celtic; that of people in England and Lowland Scotland was Germanic. This difference was
reflected in the languages they spoke. The nations also tended to have different economic,
social and legal systems, and they were independent of each other. Today, these differences
have become blurred, but they have not completely disappeared. There is only one
government for the whole of Britain, and everybody gets the same passport, but many
aspects of government are organized separately (and sometimes differently) in the four
parts of the UK. Moreover, Welsh, Scottish and Irish people feel their identity very strongly.
Other tokens of national identity:
● Surnames: the prefix ‘Mac’ or ‘Mc’ is Scottish or Irish. The prefix ‘O’ is Irish.
● First names for men: the Scottish of ‘John’ is ‘Ian’ and its Irish form is ‘Sean’. Outside
their own countries, there are also nicknames for Irish, Scottish and Welsh man. For
instance, Scottish men are sometimes known and addressed as ‘Jock’, Irishmen are
called ‘Paddy’ or ‘Mick’ and Welshman as ‘Dai’ or ‘Taffy’.
● Clothes: the kilt, a skirt with a tartan pattern worn by men, is a very well-known
symbol of Scottishness (though it’s hardly ever worn in everyday life)
Certain stereotypes of national character which are well known in Britain:
● The Irish are supposed to be great talkers
● The Scots have a reputation for being careful with money
● The Welsh are renowned for their singing ability
English domination today can be detected in the way in which various aspects if British
public life are described: supply of money in Britain is controlled by the Bank of England, the
name of the present monarch: Elizabeth ll. She is called Elizabeth ll even though Scotland
and Northern Ireland have never had a Elizabeth l. The common use of the term ‘Anglo’ gives
,us further indication. (The Angles were a Germanic tribe who settled in England in the fifth
century. The word ‘England’ is derived from their name.)
There has been a long history of migration from Scotland, Wales and Ireland to England. As a
result, there are millions of people who live in England but who would never describe
themselves as English (or at least not as only English). These people support the country of
their parents or grandparents rather than England in sporting contests.
The Union flag, often known as the ‘Union Jack’, is the national flag of the UK. It’s a
combination of the cross of St. George, the cross of St. Andrew and the cross of St. Patrick.
Chapter 2.
Silbury Hill and Stonehenge are examples of the prehistoric period and its sense of mystery.
The purposes of Stonehenge appear to be: an astronomical clock and we know it was used
by the Druids for ceremonies marking the passing of the seasons.
The Roman province of Britannia covered most of present-day England and Wales, where
the Romans imposed their own way of life and culture, making use of the existing Celtic
aristocracy to govern and encouraging them to adopt Roman dress and the Latin language.
They never went to Ireland and exerted an influence, without actually governing there, over
only the southern part of Scotland. It was during this time that a Celtic tribe called the Scots
migrated from Ireland to Scotland, where along with another tribe, the Picts, they became
opponents of the Romans. This division of the Celts into those who experienced Roman rule
(the Britons in England and Wales) and those who didn’t (the Gales in Ireland and Scotland)
may help to explain the emergence of two distinct branches of the Celtic group of languages.
The Roman left very little behind, despite their long occupation of Britain. Almost the only
lasting reminders of their presence are place names like Chester, Lancaster and Gloucester,
which include variants of the Latin word castra (a military camp).
The roman occupation had been a matter of colonial control rather than large-scale
settlement. During the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons invaded and settled in large numbers.
They soon had the south-east of the country in their grasp. In the west, their advance was
temporarily halted by an army of (Celtic) Britons under the command of the legendary King
Arthur. Nevertheless, by the end of the sixth century, they and their way of life
predominated in nearly all of present-day England. Celtic culture and language survived only
in present-day Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.
The Anglo-Saxons had a great effect on the countryside, where they introduced new farming
methods and founded thousands of self-sufficient villages which formed the basis of English
society for the next thousand or so years.
When they came to Britain, the Anglo-Saxons were pagan. During the sixth and seventh
centuries, Christianity spread throughout Britain from two different directions. By the time it
was introduced into the south of England by the Roman missionary St. Augustine, it had
already been introduced into Scotland and northern England from Ireland, which had
become Cristian more than 150 years earlier. Although Roman Christianity eventually took
,over everywhere, the Celtic model persisted in Scotland and Ireland for several hundred
years. It was less centrally organized and had less need for a strong monarchy to support it.
This partly explains why both secular and religious power in these two countries continued
to be both more locally based and less secure throughout the medieval period.
In the eight century, the Vikings (also called Norsemen or Danes) invaded Britain. In the
ninth century they conquered and settled the islands around Scotland and some coastal
regions of Ireland. Their conquest of England was halted when they were defeated by King
Alfred of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex. As a result, their settlement was confined mostly to
the north and east of the country.
Medieval period:
On the 14th of October in 1066, an invading army from Normandy defeated the English at the
Battle of Hastings. At the end of the war, most of the best warriors in England were dead,
including their leader, King Harold. On Christmas day that year, the Norman leader, Duke
Williams of Normandy, was crowned king of England. He is known In popular history as
‘William the Conqueror’ and the date is remembered as the last time that England was
successfully invaded.
Unlike the Germanic invasions, the Norman invasion was small-scale. There was no such
thing as a Norman area of settlement. Instead, the Norman soldiers who had invaded were
given the ownership of land and of the people living on it. A strictly feudal system was
imposed. Great nobles, or barons, were responsible directly to the king; lesser lords, each
owning a village, were directly responsible to a baron. Under them were the peasants, tied
by a strict system of mutual duties and obligations to the local lord, and forbidden to travel
without his permission. The peasants were the English-speaking Saxons. The lords and the
barons were the French-speaking Normans. This was the start of the English class system
(Language and social class).
The system of strong government which the Normans introduced made the Anglo-Norman
kingdom the most powerful political force in Britain and Ireland. Not surprisingly therefore,
the authority of the English monarch gradually extended to other parts of these islands in
the next 250 years. By the end of the 13th century, a large part of eastern Ireland was
controlled by Anglo-Norman lords in the name of their king and the whole of Whales was
under his direct rule. Scotland managed to remain politically independent in the medieval
period, but was obliged to fight occasional wars to do so.
In the 250 years after the Norman Conquest, it was a Germanic language, Middle English and
not the Norman (French) language, which had become the dominant one in all classes of
society in England. Furthermore; it was the Anglo-Saxon concept of common law, and not
Roman law, which formed the basis of the legal system.
Despite English rule, northern and central Wales was never settled in great numbers by
Saxons or Normans. As a result, the (Celtic) Welsh language and culture remained strong.
The Anglo-Norman lords of Ireland remained loyal to the English king but, despite laws to
the contrary, mostly adopted the Gaelic language and customs.
, The political independence of Scotland did not prevent a gradual switch to English language
and customs in the lowland (southern) part of the country. Many Anglo-Saxon aristocrats
had fled there after the Norman Conquest. In addition, the Celtic kings saw that the adoption
of an Anglo-Norman style of government would strengthen royal power. By the end of this
period, a cultural split had developed between the lowlands, where the way of life and
language was similar to that in England, and the highlands, where Gaelic culture and
language prevailed – and where, due to the mountainous terrain, the authority of the
Scottish king was hard to enforce.
It was in this period that Parliament began its gradual evolution into the democratic body
which it is today. The world ‘parliament’ was first used in England in the 13 th century to
describe an assembly of nobles called together by the king.
16th century:
In its first outbreak in the middle of the 14th century, bubonic plague (known in England as
the Black Death) killed about a third of the population of Great Britain. It periodically
reappeared for another 300 years. The shortage of labour which it caused, and the
increasing importance of trade and towns, weakened the traditional ties between lord and
peasant. At a higher level of feudal structure, the power of the great barons was greatly
weakened by in-fighting (The Wars of the Roses). Both these developments allowed English
monarchs to increase their power.
The rejection of the Roman Church (Henry Vlll) also accorded with a new spirit of patriotic
confidence in England. The country had finally lost any realistic claims to lands in France,
thus becoming more consciously a distinct ‘island nation’. At the same time, increasing
European exploration of the Americas meant that England was closer to the geographical
centre of western civilization instead of being, as previously, on the edge of it. It was in the
last quarter of this adventurous and optimistic century that Shakespeare began writing his
famous plays, giving voice to the modern form of English.
It was therefore patriotism as much as religious conviction that had caused Protestantism to
become the majority religion in England by the end of the century. In the lowlands of
Scotland, it took a more idealistic form. Calvinism, with its strict insistence on simplicity and
its dislike of ritual and celebration became the dominant religion. However, the highlands
remained Catholic and so further widened the gulf between the two parts of the nation.
Ireland also remained Catholic. There, Protestantism was identified with the English, who at
that time were making further attempts to control the whole of the country.
17th century:
When James l became the first English king of the Stuart dynasty, he was already James Vl of
Scotland, so that the crowns of these two countries were united. Although their
governments continued to be separate, their linguistic differences were lessened in this
century. The kind of Middle English spoken in lowland Scotland had developed into a written
language known as ‘Scots’.
The link between religion and politics became intense. At the start of the century, some
people tried to kill the king because he wasn’t Catholic enough. By the end of the century,
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