Appendix Two: Timeline

250s

Probable date of the martyrdom of St Alban near the Roman town of Verulamium

306

Constantine is declared Emperor at York

313

Constantine declares religious toleration in the Empire

367

A great ‘barbarian conspiracy’ is launched against Roman Britain by a coordinated attack from Picts, Irish, Saxons and rebellious frontier troops

383

Roman general Magnus Maximus proclaimed Emperor in Britain

407

The last emperor to visit Britain, Constantine III, leaves for the Continent

410

Imperial Roman administration dissolves in Britain

418

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes Romans in Britain hiding their treasure and fleeing overseas to Gaul

c.429

Germanus of Auxerre arrives in Britain to counter Pelagian heresy

431

Pope Celestine I sends Bishop Palladius to Ireland to preach Christianity

447

The Annales Cambriae describes ‘days as dark as night’

449

Date, calculated by Bede, for the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain

457

Annales Cambriae records that ‘St Patrick goes to the Lord’

486

Battle of Soissons: Clovis defeats Syagrius, last Roman prefect of northern Gaul, to become king of the Franks; subsequently converts to Christianity; dies c.511

516

Annales Cambriae records the battle of Badon Hill

537

Annales Cambriae records the death of Arthur, Dux Brittonum, in the ‘Strife of Camlann’

547

Annales Cambriae records the death of Maelgwyn of Gwynedd in a great plague

565

Colmcille (St Columba) founds a monastery at Iona

590

Possible date for the Battle of Catræth: defeat of the British Gododdin army at the hands of ?Æthelfrith of Northumbria

c.592/3

Æthelfrith seizes control of Northumbria

597

Colmcille dies on Iona; the Augustinian mission from Pope Gregory arrives in Kent and he and his mission worship in a church built by the Romans

602/3

Augustine meets British bishops; he fails to prevent a schism between the British and Roman churches

615–16

Battle of Chester: Æthelfrith’s armies massacre the monks of Bangor-is-y-coed; King Æthelberht of Kent dies and his son Eadbald apostatises

617

The battle on the River Idle: King Rædwald of East Anglia and Edwin of Deira defeat and kill King Æthelfrith of Northumbria; the Iding princes go into exile in Dál Riata

625

Probable date of the death of King Rædwald of East Anglia; his burial at Sutton Hoo

626

Assassination attempt on King Edwin by an emissary from Wessex; the birth of his daughter Eanflæd

627

King Edwin converts to Christianity and constructs a church at York

632

Battle of Hæthfelth: King Cadwallon of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia defeat and kill Edwin of Deira; Cadwallon’s army stays in Northumbria for a year; Northumbria apostatises

633/4

Battle of Denisesburn: Oswald Iding returns from exile in Dál Riata with a small army, defeats and kills Cadwallon and is recognised as king of Northumbria

635

Bishop Aidan is sent from Iona to found a monastery on Lindisfarne

642

Battle of Maserfelth: King Penda of Mercia defeats and kills King Oswald near Oswestry

643

Oswald’s brother, King Oswiu, retrieves Oswald’s remains and founds a cult of his bones

655

Battle on the River Winwæd: Oswiu of Northumbria defeats Penda of Mercia; founds six monasteries in Bernicia and six in Deira

664

The Synod of Whitby: King Oswiu of Northumbria declares in favour of Roman authority over Iona

669

Arrival in Britain of Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus—holds office until his death in 690

674

Wilfrid granted land to build a stone church at Hexham in Bernicia

685

King Ecgfrith of Northumbria dedicates a new monastery at Jarrow, and is killed in battle against the Picts at Dunnichen, predicted by St Cuthbert

687

Death of St Cuthbert on Inner Farne

688

King Ine succeeds to the throne of Wessex; rules until 729

691

King Wihtred succeeds to the throne of Kent; rules until 725

699

Guthlac of Repton becomes a hermit in the marshes at Crowland in East Anglia; dies 714

709

Death of St Wilfrid, aged seventy-five

716

Iona agrees to follow Roman orthodox rulings on Easter and other ‘schismatic’ practices

735

Death of the Venerable Bede at St Paul’s, Jarrow, a year after completing his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum

757

Offa becomes king of Mercia; rules until 796

793

First Viking raid on a monastery: Lindisfarne on the Northumbrian coast

794

Iona attacked by Vikings

800

Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor

843

Cináed mac Ailpín succeeds to the throne of Pictland, until 858

865

The Great Heathen Army arrives in East Anglia and stays

876

‘In this year Halfdan shared out the lands of Northumbria’—Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

871

The Battle of Ashdown; Alfred becomes king of Wessex after the death of his fourth brother, Æthelred

878

Battle of Edington: Alfred decisively defeats Great Heathen Army

?886

Alfred refounds London, building a burgh at Southwark; signs Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, the Danish leader, who accepts baptism and a boundary north and east of the River Lea and Watling Street

899

The death of Alfred of Wessex, aged fifty; succeeded by his son Edward in Wessex

911

Æthelflæd, Alfred’s daughter, succeeds her husband Æthelræd as ruler of the Mercians

918

Æthelflæd dies

924

Edward the Elder, king of Wessex, dies; succeeded by his son Æthelstan to 939

937

Battle of Brunaburh: Æthelstan defeats the combined armies of Scots, Norse and Britons

942

Hywel Dda – Hywel the Good—becomes effective king of all Wales; dies 950

954

Fall of the Viking Kingdom of York

978

Æthelred II ‘the Unready’ becomes king of England; deposed 1013 by Svein Forkbeard; he recovers the kingdom in 1014 and dies 1016

991

Battle of Maldon: an English army is defeated by Olaf Trygvasson; King Æthelred pays tribute of 10,000 pounds

995

The Community of St Cuthbert brings the saint’s relics to Durham after an internal exile of over a hundred years

1013

Svein Forkbeard becomes the first Danish king of England; dies 1014

1042

Edward the Confessor accedes the throne of England

1066

Harold Godwinsson succeeds Edward the Confessor as King of England; battles at Stamford Bridge and Hastings bring to an end Viking invasions of England and the Anglo-Saxon age

1074

The arrival of three monks at Jarrow signals the revival of Northumbrian monasticism after nearly two hundred years