Foundation (History of England Vol 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

and porches, facing east, and the roofs were generally thatched with reeds or straw. The thatch was held in place with a daub of dung, clay and straw; since soot from the peat fires was a valuable manure, it is likely to have been replaced each year. Archaeologists, reconstructing the interiors of these houses, have found small cupboards in which weapons were stored. Although their populations ranged only from 20 to 200 people, we may see in them the beginnings of urban life in England. The author believes that London was once just such a hill fort, but the evidence for it is now buried beneath the megalopolis it has become. All the evidence suggests, however, the existence of many small tribes living in a state of constant alert against rivals.
    There were indeed cattle raids, conflicts between warriors and large-scale wars. Some hill forts were stormed and burned. Bodies have been found in the ramparts, their bones marked and hacked. We can expect a tradition of heroic songs and tales in which the exploits of an individual warrior or leader were celebrated. They are to be found in the early Irish epics, for example, which may incorporate stories and refrains from the prehistoric age of Irish tribes. An analogy with Homer’s Iliad can be made. Indeed it has been suggested that the epic poem in fact adverts to events in England, in myths and tales that were then carried by bards eastward to Anatolia.
    Yet the various tribes or regional groupings did come together in a network of alliances and ties of kinship; how else could trade in commodities such as iron and salt flourish throughout the country? Many of these smaller clans were in time integrated and, perhaps in the face of threat, became large units of territory. These were the tribes of England whom the Romans confronted in their slow progress towards ascendancy. By the end of the Iron Age certain hill forts had become dominant and assumed the role of regional capitals. As the population steadily increased, so agriculture became ever more intensive. The clearance of woodland and forest continued without a break. The farmers began to work the thick clay soils in earnest, with the help of the heavy wheeled plough. This was the solid basis for the agricultural economy of England over the next 2,500 years. Wheat was grown in Somerset, and barley in Wiltshire; that broad pattern is still the same.
    A visitor sailed to England’s shores. The Greek merchant and explorer Pytheas made landfall in 325 BC . He named the island as Prettanike or Brettaniai. This is the origin of the name of Britain. The land of the Picts was known by the diminutive of Prydyn. Pytheas visited Cornwall, and watched the inhabitants work the ore and purify the metal. On another stage of his journey he was told by the natives that the mother of Apollo, Leto, was born on this island ‘and for this reason Apollo is honoured among them above all other gods; and the inhabitants are looked upon as priests of Apollo’.
    He also reports that he had seen ‘a wonderful sacred precinct of Apollo and a celebrated temple festooned with many offerings’; it was ‘spherical in shape’ and close by there was a city ‘sacred to this god’ whose kings are called ‘Boreades’ after the god of the cold north wind. The identity of this precinct, temple and city have long been a matter of debate. Some argue that Pytheas was describing the sacred landscape of Stonehenge and Silbury Hill; others believe that it refers to a temple of Apollo where Westminster Abbey now stands, and the adjacent ‘city’ of London.
    It is clear, however, that Pytheas was reporting the claims of a people deeply imbued in ritual worship, with the names of Apollo and Boreas simply being used by him as tokens of holiness. The Parthenon had already been built in Athens, and all foreign godswere seen by the Greeks in classical terms. The religion of the Iron Age in England, however, has always been associated with the cult of Druidism.
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