Britannia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Britannias was the original Latin name the Roman Empire gave to the British Isles, consisting of Albion, Hibernia and many smaller islands. The term was coined by the Romans from a reference by Pytheas of Massilia (Marseilles) in around 300 BC to the Pretanic (or Britannic) Islands[1][2]. Later, Britannia became the preferred Roman term for the island of Great Britain, and in particular the Roman province of Britain which extended north as far as Hadrian's Wall. Britannia was personified as a Goddess by the Romans, and in more recent times has become a figure of national personification of the United Kingdom.
Contents |
[edit] Roman period
- See also: Roman Britain
The Romans originally described the group of islands off north-west Europe as the Britanniae, consisting of Albion (Britain), Hibernia (Ireland) and many smaller islands. Over time, Albion came to be known as Britannia, and the name for the group was subsequently dropped. The island was first invaded by Julius Caesar in 55 BC. At the height of Roman Britain, the Empire included most of the island of Great Britain and built Hadrian's Wall, close to today's border between England and Scotland. The province was named Britannia, and the unincorporated area of northern Britain was called Caledonia. A southern part of what is now known as Scotland was occupied by the Romans for a brief period by the end of the Roman period, keeping in place the Picts to the north of the Antonine Wall. The Romans never completely occupied the island of Great Britain, and the Celtic tribes even prevented full consolidation of the southwest. People living in the Roman province of Britannia were called Britanni. Ireland was never conquered and was called Hibernia.
There was a celtic goddess called Brigid who is one of the many sources of the personification of Britain. The Emperor Claudius paid a visit while Britain was being conquered and was honoured with the agnomen Britannicus as if he were the conqueror, but Britannia remained a place, not a female personification of the land, until she appeared on coins issued under Hadrian[3], which introduced a female figure labelled BRITANNIA.
Britannia was soon personified as a goddess. Early portraits of the goddess depict Britannia as a beautiful young woman, wearing the helmet of a Centurion, and wrapped in a white garment with her right breast exposed. She is usually shown seated on a rock, holding a spear, and with a spiked shield propped beside her. Sometimes she holds a standard and leans on the shield. On another range of coinage, she is seated on a globe above waves: Britain at the edge of the 'known' world. Similar coin types were also issued under Antoninus Pius.
Modern historians have noted similarities Britannia has in appearance to Boudicca. Both are usually depicted with shields and wearing long dresses, and the physiognomy of both female figures in early depictions is remarkably similar.
[edit] British revival
Britannia remained the Latin name for Great Britain. After the fall of the Roman Empire, variations on the term appear in the titles of the 9th century Historia Britonum and the 12th century Historia Regum Britanniae which became tremendously popular during the High Middle Ages.
It gained new symbolic meaning with the rise of British influence and later, the British Empire, which at its height, ruled a third of the world's population and a quarter of the world's landmass. With the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 came the succession of her Scottish cousin, James VI of Scotland to the English throne. He became James I of England, and so brought under his personal rule the Kingdoms of England (and the dominion of Wales), Ireland and Scotland. On 20 October 1604 King James proclaimed himself as 'King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland', a title that continued to be used by many of his successors.[4] With the constitutional unification of these kingdoms in 1707 (except for France, which the kings of England still claimed but ensured its independence in the Hundred Years' War) and the continued growth of British power and influence in the 1700s, Britannia became an increasingly important symbol and a strong rallying point among Britons.
British power, which depended on the supremacy of its navy, lent these attributes to the image of Britannia. By the time of Queen Victoria, Britannia had been renewed. Still depicted as a young woman with brown or golden hair, she kept her Corinthian helmet and her white robes, but now she held Poseidon's three-pronged trident and often stood in the ocean, representing British naval power. She also usually held or stood beside a Greek hoplon shield, which sported the British Union Jack: also at her feet was often the British Lion, the national animal of England which also appears on the Arms of Scotland. Another change was that she was no longer bare breasted, due to the modesty of Victorian society.
In the Renaissance tradition, Britannia came to be viewed as the personification of Britain, in imagery that was developed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. When James I came to the throne, some elaborate pageants were staged. One pageant performed on the streets of London in 1605 was described in Anthony Munday's Triumphs of Reunited Britannia:
On a mount triangular, as the island of Britain itself is described to be, we seat in the supreme place, under the shape of a fair and beautiful nymph, Britannia herself...
Britannia first appeared on the farthing in 1672, followed by the halfpenny later the same year; the model used, then and later, was Charles II's mistress, the Duchess of Richmond. She then appeared on the penny coin between 1797 and 1970, and on the 50 pence coin since 1969. When the Bank of England was granted a charter in 1694, the directors decided within days that the device for their official seal should represent 'Brittannia sitting on looking on a Bank of Mony' (sic).
Perhaps the best analogy is that Britannia is to the United Kingdom and the British Empire what Marianne is to France or perhaps what Lady Liberty is to the United States of America. Like Lady Liberty, Britannia became a very potent and more common figure in times of war. During the 1990s a new term, Cool Britannia (a pun on the poem 'Rule Britannia' by James Thomson [1700 - 1748], and the song adapted from it, which is often used as an unofficial National Anthem), was used to describe the contemporary United Kingdom. The phrase referred to the fashionable London, Glasgow, Cardiff and Manchester scenes, with a new generation of pop groups and style magazines, successful young fashion designers, and a surge of new restaurants and hotels. Cool Britannia represented late-1990's Britain as a fashionable place to be.
[edit] Namesakes
Today Britannia lives on in British symbols and British patriotism such as:
- Britannia silver, a high-grade alloy of silver introduced in Britain in 1697.
- Britannia coins, a series of British gold bullion coins issued since 1987, which have nominal values of 100, 50, 25, and 10 pounds.
- Britannia Airways, a charter airline, recently renamed Thomsonfly.
- HMS Britannia, eight vessels of the Royal Navy.
- Britannia Royal Naval College, the Royal Navy's officer training college.
- Pugnaces Britanniae - War dog of Britain.
- The former Royal Yacht Britannia, the Royal Family's personal yacht, recently retired in Leith, Edinburgh Scotland.
- The patriotic song "Rule Britannia", set to music in 1740.
- Company names such as Britannia Cars and Britannia Building Society
- The preserved steam locomotive No. 70000 'Britannia', built in 1951 as the first of the BR 'standard' classes.
[edit] References
- ^ British History, a chronological dictionary of dates. Rodney Castleton. Paragon
- ^ British Isles, Origins of the term
- ^ Britannia on British Coins. Chard. Retrieved on June 25, 2006.
- ^ Proclamation styling James I King of Great Britain on October 20, 1604
[edit] See also
- National personification, lists personifications for various nations and territories
- John Bull
