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The Meaning of “Britain” in Medieval and Early Modern England

T names of states and nations are never without a freight of ideology, and unifying national terminologies are always liable to become a focus for conflict between different constructions of their meaning. There can be few more striking instances than the language of Britain and Britishness. From the Middle Ages onward, the idea of Britain has played a varied and important role in the history of England and its insular neighbors. Though historians have long recognized the significance of the idea, there have been few detailed attempts to investigate the meanings that were associated with it. Concentrating mainly on historiographical texts, this study traces the conceptualizations of Britain that were current from the twelfth to the early seventeenth centuries. Descriptions of British geography were a medieval commonplace, but the im-