Britannia
Britannia (
By the 1st century BC, Britannia replaced Albion as the prevalent Latin name for the island of Great Britain.[5][6] After the Roman conquest in 43 AD, Britannia came to refer to the Roman province that encompassed the southern two-thirds of the island (see Roman Britain). The remaining third of the island, known to the Romans as Caledonia, lay north of the River Forth in modern Scotland. It was intermittently but not permanently occupied by the Roman army.[7] The name is a Latinisation of the native Brittonic word for Great Britain, Pretanī, which also produced the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai.
In the 2nd century, Roman Britannia came to be personified as a goddess, armed with a spear and shield and wearing a Corinthian helmet. When Roman Britain was divided into four provinces in 197 AD, two were called Britannia Superior (lit. 'Upper Britain') in the south and Britannia Inferior (lit. 'Lower Britain') to the north. The name Britannia long survived the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century and yielded the name for the island in most European and various other languages, including the English Britain and the modern Welsh Prydain. In the 9th century the associated terms Bretwalda and Brytenwealda were applied to some Anglo-Saxon kings to assert a wider hegemony in Britain and hyperbolic inscriptions on coins and titles in charters often included the equivalent title rex Britanniae. However when England was unified the title used was rex Angulsaxonum ('king of the Anglo-Saxons').
After centuries of declining use, the Latin form was revived during the English Renaissance as a rhetorical evocation of a British national identity. Especially following the Acts of Union in 1707, which joined the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, the personification of the martial Britannia was used as an emblem of British maritime power and unity, most notably in the patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!".
A British cultural icon, she was featured on all modern British coinage series until the redesign in 2008, and still appears annually on the gold and silver "
Greek and Roman periods
The first writer to use a form of the name was the
The
Claudius paid a visit while Britain was being conquered and was honoured with the
British revival
Medieval use
After the
Following the migration of Brythonic Celts, the term Britannia also came to refer to the Armorican peninsula (at least from the 6th century).[16] The modern English, French, Breton and Gallo names for the area, all derive from a literal use of Britannia meaning "land of the Britons". The two "Britannias" gave rise to the term Grande Bretagne (Great Britain) to distinguish the island of Britain from the continental peninsula.
Following the
Renaissance and British Empire
It was during the reign of Elizabeth I that "Britannia" again came to be used as a personification of Britain. In his 1576 "General and rare memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation", John Dee used a frontispiece figure of Britannia kneeling by the shore beseeching Elizabeth I, to protect her empire by strengthening her navy.[8]
With the death of Elizabeth in 1603 came the succession of her Scottish cousin, James VI, King of Scots, to the English throne. He became James I of England, and so brought under his personal rule the Kingdoms of England (and the dominion of Wales), Ireland and Scotland. On 20 October 1604, James VI and I proclaimed himself as "King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland", a title that continued to be used by many of his successors.[18] When James came to the English throne, some elaborate pageants were staged. One pageant performed on the streets of London in 1605 was described in Anthony Munday's Triumphs of Reunited Britannia:
On a mount triangular, as the island of Britain itself is described to be, we seat in the supreme place, under the shape of a fair and beautiful nymph, Britannia herself...
Britain's first road atlas was updated in a series of editions titled from the early 18th into the early 19th century using the title Britannia Depicta.
During the reign of Charles II, Britannia made her first appearance on English coins on a farthing of 1672 (see Depiction on British coinage and postage stamps below). With the constitutional unification of England with Scotland in 1707 and then with Ireland in 1800, Britannia became an increasingly important symbol and a strong rallying point among Britons.
British power, which depended on a liberal political system and the supremacy of the
Neptune is shown symbolically passing his trident to Britannia in the 1847 fresco "Neptune Resigning to Britannia the Empire of the Sea" by William Dyce, a painting Victoria commissioned for her Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
New Zealanders adopted a similar personification of their country in
Perhaps the best analogy is that Britannia is to the United Kingdom and the
Modern associations
During the 1990s the term
Britannia is sometimes used in political cartoons to symbol the United Kingdom's relationship with other countries.[23]
Depiction on British currency and postage stamps
Coinage
Although the archetypical image of Britannia seated with a shield first appeared on Roman bronze coins of the 1st century AD struck under
In the spring of 2008, the Royal Mint unveiled new coin designs "reflecting a more modern twenty-first century Britain"[26] which do not feature the image of Britannia. The government pointed out, however, that earlier-design 50p coins will remain in circulation for the foreseeable future.[27] Also Britannia still appeared on the gold and silver "Britannia" bullion coins issued annually by the Royal Mint.
A new definitive £2 coin was issued in 2015, with a new image of Britannia. In late 2015, a limited edition (100000 run) £50 coin was produced, bearing the image of Britannia on one side and Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse.[28]
In October 2020, The Royal Mint released the 2021 Britannia bullion coin range. The original 1987 coin design by Philip Nathan was enhanced with new security features. The Royal Mint claims this makes the Britannia "the world's most visually secure bullion coin." The security features include a latent image, micro-text, surface animation and tincture lines.[29][third-party source needed]
In 2021, the Royal Mint issued a new range of commemorative coins featuring a redesigned Britannia as a woman of colour.[30]
Banknotes
A figure of Britannia appeared on the "white fiver" (a five pound note printed in black and white) from 1855 for more than a century, until 1957.[31]
From 1928 "Britannia Series A" ten shilling and one pound notes were printed with a seated Britannia bearing both a spear and an olive branch.[32]
The 25 cents fractional paper currency of the Dominion of Canada (1870, 1900 and 1923 respectively) all depict Britannia.
Postage stamps
Britannia also featured on the high value Great Britain definitive postage stamps issued during the reign of George V (known as 'seahorses') and is depicted on the £10 stamp first issued in 1993.
Britannia watermark in paper
The Britannia watermark has been widely used in papermaking, usually showing her seated. An example can be found at papermoulds.typepad.com
Brit Awards
Britannia is depicted in the
Namesakes
The name "Britannia", symbolising Britain and British patriotism, has been adopted for a variety of purposes, including:
- Britannia silver, a high-grade alloy of silver introduced in Britain in 1697.
- gold bullion coins issued since 1987, which have nominal values of 100, 50, 25, and 10 pounds.
- HMS Britannia, any of eight vessels of the Royal Navy.
- K1 Britanniais a 1994 replica (refit in 2012).
- Britannia Royal Naval College, the Royal Navy's officer training college.
- The former Royal Yacht Britannia, the Royal Family's personal yacht, now retired in Leith, Edinburgh Scotland.
- RMS Britannia, the first steam ocean liner owned by Samuel Cunard in 1840.
- SS Britannia, a 1925 British liner, sunk by the German auxiliary cruiser Thor in 1941 with the loss of 122 crew and 127 passengers.[35]
- MV Britannia, the flagship of the P&O Cruisesfleet, which came into service in 2015.
- turbo-prop airliner.
- Bristol Type 603S3 Britannia, a 1983 British luxury car.
- Pugnaces Britanniae, war dog of Britain.
- The patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!", set to music in 1740.
- Company names such as Britannia Building Society, Britannia Airways and Britannia Industries.
- The Britannia Class, an alternative name for the Class 7 locomotive No. 70000, built in 1951, was also named Britannia.
- The Britannia Building Society traded for over a century before deciding to merge with The Co-operative Bankin 2009 and now trades as Britannia.
- Britannia is a community south of the town of Bacup, in Lancashire, UK, and "home" of the Britannia Coconut Dancers.
- Britannia Sea Scouts is a sea scouting group connected to Sea Scouts New Zealand located in Evans Bay, in the Wellington zone of New Zealand. Britannia was started in 1927.
See also
- Caledonia, a personification of Scotland
- Hibernia (personification), a personification of Ireland
- Kathleen Ni Houlihan, a personification of Ireland
- Prydain, Welsh name for Great Britain in both ancient and modern times
- William Camden, author of Britannia, author of topographical and historical survey of all of Great Britain and Ireland, first published in 1586
- Britannia Superior
- Britannia Inferior
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-956745-4, retrieved 15 February 2021
- ISBN 978-0-19-175802-7, retrieved 15 February 2021
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-967783-2, retrieved 15 February 2021
- ^ "Britannia". Collins Dictionary. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8, retrieved 15 February 2021
- ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8, retrieved 15 February 2021
- ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8, retrieved 14 February 2021
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/68196. Retrieved 15 February 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b Snyder, p. 12.
- ^ Allen, p. 174.
- ^ Davies, p. 47.
- ISBN 9781134318407.
- ^ "Definition - Numen - The Latin Lexicon - An Online Latin Dictionary - A Dictionary of the Latin Language". latinlexicon.org.
- ^ Roman Britain By Timothy W. Potter and Catherine Johns, University of California Press, 1992 p.40
- ^ a b "Britannia on British Coins". Chard. Retrieved 25 June 2006.
- ^
ISBN 2228127108.
- ^ "Britishness". Oxford English Dictionary Online. September 2008. Retrieved 14 September 2010.
- ^ Velde, Francois. "Royal Arms, Styles, and Titles of Great Britain". heraldica.org.
- ^ 1901 Penny Universal, Stamps NZ. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
- ^ National Coat of Arms of New Zealand Archived 5 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Heraldry of the World. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
- ISBN 0-19-861452-7, p. 233.
- ^ "Cool Britannia". BBC News. Retrieved 9 November 2016
- ^ e.g. by Ben Jennings in The Guardian.
- ^ "3 – The Halfpenny". Coins of the UK. Tony Clayton.
- ^ Morris, Steven (28 January 2008). "Brown blamed as Britannia gets the boot". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
- ^ "2008 Emblems of Britain Silver Proof Collection". The Royal Mint. Archived from the original on 14 October 2008.
- ^ "Royal Mint unveils coin designs". BBC News. 2 April 2008.
- ^ "Britannia 2015 UK £50 Fine Silver Coin". Royal Mint. Archived 3 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "The Royal Mint unveil the world's most visually secure bullion coin". Royal Mint. Retrieved 24 May 2022.
- ^ "For The First Time, The Royal Mint Issues A Coin Featuring Britannia As A Woman Of Colour" British Vogue
- ^ "£5 note, Bank of England". British Museum. Archived from the original on 3 February 2013. Retrieved 24 January 2013.
- ^ Sharples, BS (17 June 2009). "A Short History of English Banknotes". Retrieved 24 January 2013.
- ^ a b "Dame Zaha Hadid's Brit Awards statuette design unveiled". BBC. 1 December 2016.
- ^ a b "Damien Hirst's 2013 Brit Award statue unveiled". BBC. 1 December 2016.
- ^ Wrecksite: SS Britannia (+1941)
Notes
- Allen, Stephen (2007). Lords of Battle: The World of the Celtic Warrior. Osprey Publishing. ]
- Collingwood, Robin George (1998). Roman Britain and the English Settlements. Biblo & Tannen Publishers. ISBN 0-8196-1160-3.
- Davies, Norman (2000). The Isles a History. Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-69283-7.
- Hewitt, Virginia. "Britannia (fl. 1st–21st cent.)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition 2007, accessed 28 Aug 2011
- Snyder, Christopher (2003). The Britons. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-22260-X.
- M. Dresser (ed.), 'Britannia', Patriotism: the making and unmaking of British national identity, vol. 3
- R. Samuel, National fictions (1989), pp. 26–49
- Britannia depicta: quality, value and security, National Postal Museum (1993)
- H. Mattingly, Nerva to Hadrian, reprint (1976), vol. 3 of Coins of the Roman empire in the British Museum
- J. M. C. Toynbee, The Hadrianic school: a chapter in the history of Greek art (1974)
- M. Henig, 'Britannia', Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 3/1 (1983), pp. 167–69
- K. T. Erim, 'A new relief showing Claudius and Britannia from Aphrodisias', Britannia, 13 (1982), pp. 277–81
- H. Peacham, Minerva Britannia, or, A garden of heroical devises (1612)
- J. Thomson, Britannia: a poem (1729)
- R. Strong, Gloriana, the portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (1987)
- H. A. Atherton, Political prints in the age of Hogarth. A study of the ideographic representation of politics (1974)
External links
- Britannia on British coins and medals – Guy de la Bédoyère
- David Dimbleby. "Age of Conquest". Seven Ages of Britain. 6:56 minutes in. BBC 1. Retrieved 12 January 2016.