Important+World+Events

Essential to this period is the fate of the population of Britain under Roman rule. Some clearly adopted Anglo-Saxon culture and identified themselves as Anglo-Saxons, others lived in separate communities but still under Anglo-Saxon rule. The laws of king Ethelbert of Kent, probably written in the early seventh century, make reference to a legal underclass known as //laets// who might represent British communities. There definitely is a British underclass referred to in Ine of Wessex’s law code, written in the late seventh or early eighth centuries. The violence of this time period should not be over-looked ", and it is likely that this period was a time of endemic tension, alluded to in all of the written sources." This may have caused many deaths in the British population. There are also references to plagues, but these would have affected Anglo-Saxon and British populations equally. The evident the land gives is a decline in production which could be because of a decline in population. "It is clear that some British people migrated to the continent, which resulted in the region of Armorica in north-west Gaul becoming known as Brittany. There is also evidence of British migration to Hispania. The dating of these migrations is uncertain, but recent studies suggest that the migration from south-western Britain to Brittany began as early as AD 300 and was largely ended by 500."
 * The Fate of the Romanos-Britons, 500**

In 793, the Vikings attacked Britain at the Lindisfare monastery. After the arrival of the Viking's Great Heathen Army to Iona in 794, the goal was to seriously upset the political and social geography of Britain and Ireland. Alfred the Great's victory at Edington in 878 stemmed the Viking attack. The Vikings had similar effects on the various kingdoms of the Irish, Scots, Picts and (to a lesser extent) Welsh. Certainly in North Britain the Vikings were one reason behind the formation of the Kingdom of Alba, which eventually evolved into Scotland. After a time of plunder and raids, the Vikings began to settle in England.
 * The Viking Challenge, 793-794**

The conquerers remained ethnically distinct from the native population of England for the most part yet it still varied regionally and along class lines, but as early as the twelfth century, the Dialogue on the Exchequer gives evidence to considerable intermarriage between the native English and Norman immigrants. The two groups merged over the centuries to the point in which they were barely distinguishable, especially after 1348 when the Black Death pandemic removed a significant number of the English nobility. The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, was a devastating pandemic that first struck Europe around 1347–1351A.D., killing one to two thirds of Europe's population. Almost simultaneous epidemics occurred across large portions of Asia and the Middle East during the same period, indicating that the European outbreak was actually part of a multi-regional pandemic. Including Middle Eastern lands, India and China, the Black Death killed at least 75 million people. The same disease was thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying degrees of intensity and fatality until the 1700s.
 * Norman Conquest of England, 1348**