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Great Britain in the second half of the 5th Century AD - between the Roman withdrawal and the founding of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

  Mainly Goidelic areas.

  Mainly Pictish areas.

  Mainly Brythonic areas.

The Britons (sometimes Brythons or British) were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age until the Early Middle Ages.^[1] They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic. They lived throughout Britain south of about the Firth of Forth; after the 5th century Britons also migrated to continental Europe, where they established the settlements of Brittany in France and the obscure Britonia in what is now Galicia, Spain.^[1] Their relationship to the Picts north of the Forth has been the subject of much discussion, though most scholars accept that the Pictish language during this time was a Brythonic language related to, but perhaps distinct from, British.^[2]

The earliest evidence for the Britons and their language in historical sources dates to the Iron Age.^[1] After the Roman conquest of 43 AD, a Romano-British culture began to emerge. With the advent of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in the 5th century, however, the culture and language of the Britons began to fragment. By the 11th century their descendants had split into distinct groups, and are generally discussed separately as the Welsh, Cornish, Bretons, and the people of the Hen Ogledd ("Old North"). The British language developed into the distinct branches of Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Cumbric.^[1]

Etymology[link]

Gritstone bas-relief of Romano-British woman.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was originally compiled on the orders of King Alfred the Great in approximately 890, and subsequently maintained and added to by generations of anonymous scribes until the middle of the 12th century, starts with this sentence: “The island Britain is 800 miles long, and 200 miles broad, and there are in the island five nations; English, Welsh (or British), Scottish, Pictish, and Latin. The first inhabitants were the Britons, who came from Armenia, and first peopled Britain southward”. ("Armenia" is probably a mistaken transcription of Armorica, an area in Northwestern Gaul.)^[3] The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Britain seems to come from records of the voyage of Pytheas, a Greek geographer who made a voyage of exploration around the British Isles between 330 and 320 BC. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them. Pytheas called the islands collectively αι Βρεττανιαι (hai Brettaniai), which has been translated as the Brittanic Isles, and the peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί (Prettanoi), Priteni, Pritani or Pretani. The group included Ireland which was referred to as Ierne (Insula sacra, the sacred island, as the Greeks interpreted it) "inhabited by the race of Hiberni" (gens hiernorum), and Britain as insula Albionum, "island of the Albions".^[4][5] The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who possibly used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands.^[5]

The Latin name in the early Roman Empire period was Britanni or Brittanni, following the Roman conquest in AD 43.^[6]

Welsh Brython was introduced into English usage by John Rhys in 1884 as a term unambiguously referring to the P-Celtic speakers of Great Britain, as complementing Goidel; hence the adjective Brythonic referring to the group of languages.^[7] Brittonic is a more recent coinage (first attested 1923 according to the Oxford English Dictionary) intended to refer to the ancient Britons specifically.

(In non-historical usage Briton and British describe a citizen of the United Kingdom – the British people; it is a collective term for the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Cornish, as well as some people from Northern Ireland.)

Language[link]

A Romano-British bronze bowl discovered in Bedfordshire.

A flying rowan tree, considered magical by the ancient Britons

Britons migrated westwards during the Anglo-Saxon invasion

The Britons were speakers of the Brythonic (or Brittonic) languages. Brythonic languages are believed to have been spoken throughout the island of Britain.^[1][8] According to early mediaeval historical tradition, such as The Dream of Macsen Wledig, the post-Roman Celtic-speakers of Armorica were colonists from Britain, resulting in the Breton language, a language related to Welsh and identical to Cornish in the early period and still used today. Thus the area today is called Brittany (Br. Breizh, Fr. Bretagne, derived from Britannia).

The Brythonic languages developed from Proto-Celtic, after it was introduced to the British Isles from the continent. The first form of the Brythonic languages is believed to be British. Some linguists have invented the terms Western and Southwestern Brythonic to classify subsequent developments of the British language. The Western and Southwestern developed into Cumbric, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton in Gaul. While Welsh, Cornish and Breton survive today, Cumbric became extinct in the 12th century.

Territory[link]

Throughout their existence, the territory inhabited by the Britons was composed of numerous ever-changing areas controlled by tribes. The extent of their territory before and during the Roman period is unclear, but is generally believed to include the whole of the island of Great Britain, as far north as the Clyde-Forth isthmus. The territory north of this was largely inhabited by the Picts, although a portion of it was eventually absorbed into the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata. The Isle of Man was originally inhabited by Britons also, but eventually it became Gaelic territory.

In 43 the Roman Empire invaded Britain. The British tribes initially opposed the Roman legions, but by 84 the Romans had decisively conquered southern Britain and had pushed into what is now southern Scotland. In 122 they fortified the northern border with Hadrian's Wall, which spanned what is now Northern England. In 142 Roman forces pushed north again and began construction of the Antonine Wall, which ran between the Forth-Clyde isthmus, but they retreated back to Hadrian's Wall after only twenty years. Although the native Britons mostly kept their land, they were subject to the Roman governors. The Roman Empire retained control of "Britannia" until its departure about AD 430.

Around the time of the Roman departure, the Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons began a migration to the Eastern coast of Britain, where they established their own kingdoms.^[9] Eventually, the Brythonic language in these areas was replaced by that of the Anglo-Saxons.^{[citation needed]} At the same time, some Britons established themselves in what is now called Brittany. There they set up their own small kingdoms and the Breton language developed there from Insular Celtic rather than Gaulish. They also retained control of Cornwall and Northwest England, where Kingdoms such as Dumnonia and Rheged survived. By the end of the 1st millennium, the Anglo-Saxons and Gaels had conquered most of the British territory in Britain, and the language and culture of the native Britons had largely been extinguished,^[10] remaining only in Wales, Cornwall, parts of Cumbria and Eastern Galloway.

Mythology and religion[link]

This section requires expansion.

Notable Britons[link]

• Arthur – Romano-British war leader of debatable historicity.
• Boudica – Queen of the Iceni, who led the failed rebellion against Roman occupation in 60 AD.
• Cadwallon ap Cadfan - King of Gwynedd, fought against the Anglo-Saxons.
• Caratacus – a leader of the defence against the Roman conquest of Britain.
• Cartimandua – Queen of the Brigantes during and after the Roman invasion.
• Cassivellaunus – led the defence against Julius Caesar's second expedition to Britain in 54 BC.
• Coel Hen - the "Old King Cole" of the popular nursery rhyme.
• Cogidubnus – a British client-king, later made a citizen of Rome and awarded Fishbourne Roman Palace.
• Commius – historical King of the Belgic nation of the Atrebates, initially in Gaul, then in Britannia, during the 1st century BC.
• Cunedda – post-Roman King and progenitor of the Kingdom of Gwynedd.
• Cunobelinus – historical King of southern Britain between the first and second Roman invasions. The basis for Shakespeare's Cymbeline.
• King Lot - grandfather of St Kentigern, and eponymous king of Lothian.
• Mailoc - Bishop of Britonia (Galicia) in the 6th century AD
• Saint Patrick - a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland,
• Pelagius – an influential Christian monk and theologian, whose thought was branded heresy later in life.
• Prasutagus – husband of Boudica.
• Togodumnus – a leader of the defence against the Roman conquest of Britain.
• Urien – King of Rheged (modern Lancashire and Cumbria).
• Vortigern – warlord and King in the 5th century AD. Best known for inviting the Jutes to Kent.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Forsyth, Katherine (1997). Language in Pictland. De Keltische Draak. ISBN 90-802785-5-6. http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/2081/1/languagepictland.pdf. 
• Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. 
• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/1-448.html. 

External links[link]

• BBC - History - Native Tribes of Britain
• DNA from ethnic Britons found in Ireland

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Dame Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey at Wembley Arena, 2006
Background information
Birth name	Shirley Veronica Bassey
Born	(1937-01-08) 8 January 1937 (age 75) Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales
Genres	Popular music
Occupations	Singer
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1953–present
Labels	Philips, Columbia, United Artists, Decca, Geffen
Website	www.dameshirleybassey.com

Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE (born 8 January 1937^[1]), is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the mid-1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century".^[2][3] In the US, in particular, she is best known for recording the theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979) and is the only artist to record more than one Bond theme song. Bassey is also a UNESCO Artist for Peace.^[2][4][5]

Birth to 1959[link]

"Born above a brothel in a docklands slum",^[6] Shirley Veronica Bassey was the sixth and last child of Eliza Jane Start^[7] and Henry Bassey in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales (now called Cardiff Bay), of paternal Nigerian and maternal English descent.^[2][8][9] Bassey's mother also had four children from previous relationships, two of whom lived in the Bassey household. Eliza had married previously, to Alfred Metcalfe, and upon her marriage to Bassey, Eliza Jane Metcalfe listed Alfred Metcalfe as her father on the marriage registry. It has thus been theorized that she never divorced Alfred, and that her marriage to Bassey was bigamous.^[10] Eliza and Henry's second child died in infancy, so Shirley was born into a household of three sisters, two half-sisters, and one brother.^[11] A year later her father was arrested and charged with having sex with a minor, was tried, imprisoned for five years, then deported.^[12] After Henry's arrest, Eliza and the children moved to the nearby steelworking district of Splott.^[13]

As a preteen attending Moorland Road School, Bassey's strong voice was noticed by teachers and students alike, though without encouragement: "...everyone told me to shut up. Even in the school choir the teacher kept telling me to back off till I was singing in the corridor! [A classmate] recalled her singing 'Can't help lovin' that man of mine' from Showboat with such feeling that she made [their] teacher uncomfortable."^[14] After leaving Splott Secondary Modern School at the age of 14, Bassey first found employment packing at a local factory while singing in local public houses and clubs in the evenings and weekends.^[15]

In 1953, Bassey signed her first professional contract, to sing in a touring variety show Memories of Jolson, a musical based on the life of Al Jolson.^[16] She next took up a professional engagement in Hot from Harlem, which ran until 1954. By this time Bassey had become disenchanted with show business, and had become pregnant at 16 with her elder daughter, Sharon—the father has not been identified—^[6] so she went back to waiting tables in Cardiff.

In 1955, a chance recommendation to Michael Sullivan, a booking agent, put Bassey firmly on course for her destined career. He saw talent in Bassey, and decided he would make her a star. She toured various theatres until she was seen by Jack Hylton whose interest in her put her firmly on the road to stardom. He invited her to star in Al Read's Such Is Life at the Adelphi Theatre in London's West End. During the show's run, Philips A&R and record producer Johnny Franz spotted her on television, was impressed, and offered her a recording deal. Bassey recorded her first single, entitled "Burn My Candle", and Philips released it in February 1956, when Bassey was 19. Owing to the suggestive lyrics, the BBC banned it, but it sold well nonetheless, backed with her powerful rendition of "Stormy Weather". Further singles followed, and in February 1957, Bassey had her first hit with "The Banana Boat Song", which reached No. 8 in the UK Singles Chart.^[17] During that year, she also recorded under the direction of American producer Mitch Miller in New York for the Columbia label, producing the single "If I Had a Needle and Thread" b/w "Tonight My Heart She Is Crying". She then travelled to Las Vegas to make her American stage début at El Rancho Vegas.^[18] In mid-1958, she recorded two singles that would become classics in the Bassey catalogue. "As I Love You" was released as the B-side of another ballad, "Hands Across the Sea"; it did not sell well at first, but after a chance appearance at the London Palladium things began to pick up. In January 1959, it reached No. 1 and stayed there for four weeks. It thus became the first number 1 single by a Welsh artist.^[19] Bassey also recorded "Kiss Me, Honey Honey, Kiss Me" at this point, and while "As I Love You" raced up the charts, so too did this record, with both songs being in the top three at the same time. A few months later, Bassey signed to EMI's Columbia label, and the second phase in her recording career had begun.

1960 to 1979[link]

In the early and mid-1960s, Bassey had numerous hits on the UK charts, and five albums in the Top 15. Her 1960 recording of "As Long As He Needs Me" from Lionel Bart's Oliver! reached No. 2, and had a chart run of 30 weeks.^[5] On 13 November 1960, Bassey made her début performance on American television, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show.^[20] In 1962, Bassey's collaboration with Nelson Riddle and his orchestra produced the album Let's Face the Music (No. 12) and the single "What Now My Love" (No. 5). Other Top Ten hits of the period included her second No. 1, the double A-side "Reach for the Stars"/"Climb Ev'ry Mountain" (1961), "I'll Get By" (also 1961), and a cover version of the Ben E. King hit "I (Who Have Nothing)" in 1963.^[17] During this period, Bassey appeared on the cover of Ebony magazine, and sang at a Washington gala celebrating the end of President Kennedy's second year in office.^[21]

In 1965, Bassey enjoyed her only U.S. Top 40 Billboard Hot 100 hit with the title song of the James Bond film, Goldfinger. The single peaked at No. 8, while the original soundtrack of Goldfinger hit No. 1 in the U.S. that same year. Also in 1965, she sang the title track for the spoof James Bond film The Liquidator, and had a Top 20 live album recorded during a sell-out run at London's Pigalle.

From 1964 onwards the "Goldfinger" single had a lasting impact on her career: writing for the sleeve notes of Bassey's 25th Anniversary Album, Clayton (1978) notes that: "Acceptance in America was considerably helped by the enormous popularity of ("Goldfinger")...But she had actually established herself there as early as 1961, in cabaret in New York. She was also a success in Las Vegas...'I suppose I should feel hurt that I've never been really big in America on record since "Goldfinger"...But, concertwise, I always sell out.'..."^[22] This was reflected in the fact that Bassey had only one solo LP to reach the Top 20 in a US chart (R&B, Live at Carnegie Hall), and she was technically a one-hit wonder, making only one appearance in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, "Goldfinger". But in the aftermath of "Goldfinger" her UK sales started to falter as well: only two of her singles would enter the UK Top 40 until 1970. She had signed to United Artists, and her first album on that label, 1966's I've Got a Song for You, spent one week on the chart; from there until 1970, only two albums would chart, one of those a compilation. In 1967 came the release of one of her best-known singles "Big Spender", although it charted just outside the UK Top 20.^[17]

Bassey started living as a tax exile in 1968, and was not permitted to work in Britain for almost two years.^[9][23] Also in 1968, at the Sanremo Festival in Italy, she performed "La vita", an Italian song by Bruno Canfora and Antonio Amurri, with some lyrics re-written in English by Norman Newell for her performance. Her version of the song with chorus sung in Italian became a Top 40 hit on the Italian chart, and Bassey recorded several songs in Italian, some appearing on a 1968 Italian album titled La vita.^[24] (Later, Newell would write English lyrics for the rest of "La vita", and the result was "This Is My Life".) But her UK sales continued to suffer.

Bassey performing in Germany in 1973

Bassey's UK comeback came in 1970, leading to one of the most successful periods of her career. In this year, she returned to the UK with a record breaking run of performances at the Talk of the Town nightclub. Also in that year, she released the album Something, which showcased a new Bassey style, a shift from traditional pop to more contemporary songs and arrangements (the single of the same name was more successful in the UK charts than the original Beatles recording - the only artist to have achieved this), though Bassey would never completely abandon what had been her forte, standards, show tunes, and torch songs. "Something" was also a Top 10 U.S. hit on the Adult Contemporary chart. Other singles of this period included the top ten hit "Never Never Never" (1973) – the latter reaching the Top 10 in the U.S. Adult Contemporary Chart, the UK Top 10 and and number one in Australia and South Africa. The success of "Something" (single No. 4, album No. 5) spawned a series of successful albums on the UA label, including Something Else (1971), And I Love You So (1972), I Capricorn (1972), Never Never Never (1973), Good, Bad but Beautiful (1975), Love, Life and Feelings (1976), You Take My Heart Away (1977) and Yesterdays (1978). Bernard Ighner wrote and duetted with Bassey for the track "Davy" on the Nobody Does It Like Me album (1974). Additionally, two of Bassey's earlier LPs entered the charts, 1967's And We Were Lovers (re-issued as Big Spender), and 1962's Let's Face the Music (re-issued as What Now My Love). Two compilations, The Shirley Bassey Singles Album (1975) and 25th Anniversary Album (1978) both made the UK top three: The Shirley Bassey Singles Album her highest charting album at number two and earning a gold disc, and 25th Anniversary Album going platinum.^[17][25]