Lundenwic to Lundenburg

I left off last time with the story of the "Warrior Babe" (as Mom described her when I told her the story!) Queen Boudicca. I must concur, it does seem to be a fitting name. But that was only in 60AD.

After that, more turmoil ensued, as tribes and empires and vikings battled it out on Great Britain's soils. Between about 70-120AD, Londinium was a fairly successful trade state, until it crashed and burned around the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.

Seems that a lot of emperors wanted to take control of the city, too. Although their names were quite entertaining to read (Carausius, Emporer Maximian, Constantius Chlorus, Diocletian, and Galerius to name a few), my textbook offers a tedious description of these emperors' tug-o-war battles over London.

Amongst the turmoil, in 313 AD arguably one of the most important events occured in Londinium: the establishment of Christianity. With this as the recognized religion of the city, politics slowly began to change. And as London continued to crumble off and on, in between bouts of successful commerce and trade the city began to evolve into the more medieval nature with which we tend to think of old England.

Between 400-886 AD, Londinium turned into Lundenwic ("wic" derived from Latin vicus meaning a village or quarter of a city). During this period, London was attacked by vikings, barbarians and warlords with awesome names (like Vortigern -- who could go wrong with a name like that??), and influenced by various popes and kings and whatnot.

There's an interesting tidbit in the textbook about the Knights Templar. Apparently (I either didn't know this or had forgotten) they were originally the "Knights of the Temple of Solomon of Jerusalem" and acted as a religious order formed for the protection of travelers on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Eventually the pope suppressed them in 1312, however and gave their house and services over to another travel agency group ("travel agency" in the historical sense, of course -- not Travelocity!).

On that note, this traveler is going to sign off for now. I'll enlighten you to more of ancient England next time. Can't believe I'll be leaving in just over 3 weeks!