British People - History of The Term

History of The Term

Greek and Roman writers between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britannic. Parthenius, a 1st century Ancient Greek grammarian, and the Etymologicum Genuinum, a 9th century lexical encyclopaedia, describe Bretannus (the Latinised form of the Ancient Greek Βρεττανός) as the Celtic national forefather of the Britons. It has been suggested that this name derives from a Gaullish description translated as "people of the forms", referring to the custom of tattooing or painting their bodies with blue woad.

By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman occupied Britain south of Caledonia. Following the Roman departure from Britain, the island of Great Britain was left open to invasion by pagan, seafaring warriors such as Saxons and Jutes who gained control in areas around the south east.

In this post-Roman period, as the Anglo-Saxons advanced, territory controlled by the Britons became confined to what would later be Wales, Cornwall and North West England. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island. The Historia Brittonum claimed legendary origins as a prestigious genealogy for Brittonic kings, followed by the Historia Regum Britanniae which popularised this pseudo-history to support the claims of the Kings of England.

During the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was applied to the Welsh people. At this time, it was "the long held belief that the Welsh were descendants of the ancient Britons and that they spoke 'the British tongue'". This notion was supported by texts such as the Historia Regum Britanniae, a pseudohistorical account of ancient British history, written in the mid-12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The Historia Regum Britanniae chronicled the lives of legendary kings of the Britons in a narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the ancient British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 7th century forced the Celtic Britons to the west coast, namely Wales and Cornwall. This legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The Matter of Britain, a national myth, was retold or reinterpreted in works by Gerald of Wales, a Cambro-Norman chronicler who in the 12th and 13th centuries used the term British to refer to what were later known as the Welsh.