narrative edit
please help me eliminate inappropriate "narrative", since what we have is isolated facts, not a chain. 11:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)Hughsheehy
sony's hack and slash edit
Pretanic Islands and Islands of the Ocean edit
Greek texts, possibly dating as far back as from around 320 BC but substantially rewritten in the 1st century BC, describe the inhabitants was the Ρρεττανοι, Priteni or Pretani, probably from a Celtic languages term, and a collective term for the islands, αι Πρετανικαι νησοι (Pretanic Islands) or αι Βρεττανιαι (Brittanic Isles). These Greek terms were translated as Pretannia, or Britannia, in Latin. However, the islands described by the terms included a wider collection of islands that what we now call the "British Isles," included islands Ushant, off the coast of Britanny, Sian, Thule, most often identified as Iceland, and possibly also one of the Friesan Islands. When Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC, it was this term that he introduced, and when the Roman province was established over the island of Great Britain south of Hadrian's Wall, roughly modern-day England and Wales, the name given to it was Britannia. Inhabitants of the province called themselves Brittannus or Britto, and gave their patria (homeland) as Britannia or as their tribe. The Greek term, Priteni, came to be used for the inhabitants north of the Antonine Wall who, after AD 300, became known as Picts.
At the same as the founding of the Roman province, Great Britain as a whole begins to be referred to as Britannia, while up until the eight century authors still note that its former name was Albion. Following this, Pomponius Mela, one of the earliest Roman geographers, described a similar collection of islands as to what was formerly described as Britannia, calling them the "Septemtrionalis Oceani Insulae", meaning Islands of the Northern Ocean. This term was used by the earliest native writers of which we have record (writing in the eight century), both Gaelic and British. Similarly, writers on the European mainland used the term to describe the islands, such as The Goth Jordanes, in the sixth century, or Isidore of Seville's, writing Etymology in the early seventh century, one of the most used textbooks in Europe up to the Renaissance.
British Isles edit
The term "Brytish Iles" appeared in English with John Dee, the Welsh geographer, occultist and sometime adviser to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Dee also coined the term British Empire, along with a claim of a British Ocean including Britain and Ireland as well as Iceland, Greenland and possibly extending to North America. Scholarly opinion is that "his imperial vision was simply propaganda and antiquarianism". During his life-time, British diplomatic efforts interspersed with warfare aimed to consolidate rule in Ireland and to bring Scotland under the English monarch. Dee used the term Brytish Iles in 1577 to argume claims of extensive North Atlantic territories for Elizabeth and England.
Elizabeth's was succeeded by her Stuart cousin king James VI of Scotland, who brought the English, Scottish and Irish thrones under a single personal rule. James aimed to consolidate England and Scotland under the title "Great Britain", but without any real success. The first published use in English of "British Isles" follows these events in 1621 with Peter Heylin in Microcosmus. Heylin grouped Ireland with Great Britain and the minor islands in this new term. In explaining this unfamiliar terminology to his readers, Heylin refers to the Roman use of the term at the time of the establishment of the province of Britannia and that Roman military writers of the time observed that the he habits and disposition of the people in Ireland were not much unlike the "Brittaines" (although in fact they treated the two island seperately and also noted similarities between the Britons and the Gauls of the continent). He also surmised that that he inhabitants of Ireland must have come from Britain as it was the nearest land. Alongside the new term, Heylyn describes the classical Iles of the Ocean as well, using it to refer to all of the islands classically incuded in Britannia or Oceani Insulae.
Modern scholarly opinion is that Heylyn "politicized his geographical books Microcosmus" in the context of what geography meant at that time, explaining that "Heylyn's work must be seen as political expressions concerned with proving or disproving constitutional matters." In the era in which he was writing "politics referred to discussions of dynastic legitimacy, of representation, and of the Constitution ... [Heylyn's] geography was not to be conceived separately from politics." Following the Acts of Union of 1707, conflict with France gradually brought a popular enthusiasm for Britishness in England, and the term British Isles came into more common use after this time.