Britannia
Britannia was originally the
Latin name that the
Roman Empire gave to the island of
Great Britain and its possessions thereupon. It has since become a
national personification of the
United Kingdom.
At the height of
Roman Britain, the Empire included all of Britannia (first invaded by
Julius Caesar in
55 BC), which was bordered by
Hadrian's Wall, close to today's border between
England and
Scotland. To the Romans, northern Britain which remained unincorporated into the Empire was known as
Caledonia. A southern part of what is now known as Scotland was occupied by the Romans for a brief period by the end of the Roman reign, keeping in place the
Picts to the north of the
Antonine Wall. The island of Great Britain has never been completely occupied, even in Roman days. People living in the Roman province of Britannia were called
Britanni.
Ireland was a separate region, which was never conquered by the Romans; it was called
Hibernia.
There was a celtic goddess called
Brigid who is one of the many sources of the personification of Britain. The Emperor
Claudius paid a visit while Britain was being pacified and was honoured with the
agnomen Britannicus as if he were the conqueror, but Britannia remained a place, not a female personification of the land, until she appeared on coins issued under
Hadrian, which introduced a female figure labelled
BRITANNIA.
Typical of the Romans, Britannia was soon personified as a
goddess. Early portraits of the goddess depict Britannia as a beautiful young woman, wearing the helmet of a
Centurion, and wrapped in a white toga with her right breast exposed. She is usually shown seated on a rock, holding a spear, and with a spiked shield propped beside her. Sometimes she holds a
standard and leans on the shield. On another range of coinage, she is seated on a globe above waves: Britain at the edge of the 'known' world. Similar coin types were also issued under
Antoninus Pius.
Britannia remained the Latin name for
Great Britain, but after the
fall of the Roman Empire it had lost most symbolic meaning until the rise of British influence and later, the
British Empire, which at its height, ruled a quarter of the world's population and a quarter of the world's landmass.
As British power and influence rose in the
1700s, and after the unification of the Kingdoms of
England (which included
Wales) and
Scotland in
1603 upon the death of
Queen Elizabeth I and succession of her Scottish cousin,
James VI of Scotland (or James I of England), Britannia became a more and more important symbol and a strong rallying point among Britons.
British power, which depended on the supremacy of its
navy, lent these attributes to the image of Britannia. By the time of
Queen Victoria, Britannia had been renewed. Still depicted as a young woman with brown or golden hair, she kept her
Corinthian helmet and her white robes, but now she held
Poseidon's three-pronged
trident and often stood in the ocean, representing British naval power. She also usually held or stood beside a Greek hoplon shield, which sported the British
Union Jack: also at her feet was often the British
Lion, the national animal of
England. Another change was that she was no longer bare breasted, due to the modesty of Victorian society.
In the
Renaissance tradition, Britannia came to be viewed as the personification of
Britain, in imagery that was developed during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I. When
James I came to the 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... |
Britannia on the reverse of a 50p coin. |
Britannia first appeared on the
farthing in
1672, followed by the
halfpenny later the same year; the model used, then and later, was
Charles II's mistress, the
Duchess of Richmond. She then appeared on the
penny coin between
1797 and
1970, and on the
50 pence coin since
1969. When the
Bank of England was granted a charter in
1694, the directors decided within days that the device for their official seal should represent 'Brittannia sitting on looking on a Bank of Mony' (sic).
Perhaps the best analogy is that Britannia is to the
United Kingdom and the
British Empire what
Marianne is to
France or perhaps what
Lady Liberty is to the
United States of America. Like Lady Liberty, Britannia became a very potent and more common figure in times of war. During the 1990s a new term,
Cool Britannia (a pun on the poem '
Rule Britannia' by James Thomson [1700 - 1748], and the song adapted from it, which is often used as an unofficial
National Anthem), was used to describe the contemporary United Kingdom. The phrase referred to the fashionable
London,
Glasgow,
Cardiff and
Manchester scenes, with a new generation of pop groups and style magazines, successful young fashion designers, and a surge of new restaurants and hotels.
Cool Britannia represented late-1990's Britain as a fashionable place to be.
Today
Britannia lives on in British symbols and British patriotism such as:
*
Britannia silver, a high-grade
alloy of
silver introduced in Britain in
1697.
*
Britannia coins, a series of
British gold bullion coins issued since
1987, which have nominal values of 100, 50, 25, and 10
pounds.
*
Britannia Airways, a
charter airline, recently renamed
Thomsonfly.
*
HMS Britannia, eight vessels of the
Royal Navy.
*
Britannia Royal Naval College, the Royal Navy's officer training college.
* The former
Royal Yacht Britannia, the Royal Family's personal yacht, recently retired in
Leith,
Edinburgh Scotland.
* The patriotic song "
Rule Britannia", set to music in 1740.
* Company names such as
Britannia cars Britannia Building Society*
National personification*
John Bull*
Uncle Sam*
Marianne*
Germania*
Deutscher Michel*
Mother Svea
