Anglo-Saxon England and Britain
Alan MacColl explores exactly what the word Britain meant, after the Romans had gone.
What did medieval writers mean when they referred to ‘Britain’? They seem to have had a fairly clear idea of the geographical location and dimensions of the whole island, and were fond of repeating the description by Gildas in the early sixth century: ‘The island of Britain, situated on almost the utmost border of the earth, towards the south and west … stretches out from the southwest towards the North Pole, and is eight hundred miles long and two hundred broad, except where the headlands of sundry promontories stretch farther into the sea.’
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