18 1 · OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE: TO 1100
Dates of early writings and chief events
Date Author and title Event
AD 43 Conquest of Britain by Emperor Claudius
98 Tacitus: Germania
313 Toleration of Christians
314 Council of Arles
330 Constantinople founded
St Helena finds True Cross
384 St Jerome: Vulgate edition of the Bible
410 Legions recalled from Britain
413 St Augustine of Hippo: The City of God
417 Orosius: History of the World
430 St Patrick in Ireland
St Ninian in N. Britain
449 Hengestand Horsa: Conquest by Angles,
Saxons and Jutes begins
c.500 British resistance: Battle of Mons
Badonicus; St David in Wales
c.521 Hygelac the Geat (d.)
524 Boethius: Consolation of Philosophy
529 St Benedict founds Monte Cassino
Legendary reign of Beowulf
c.547 Gildas: Conquest of Britain
563 Venantius Fortunatus: Hymns of the Cross St Columba on Iona
577 Battle of Dyrham: British confined to
Wales and Dumnonia
591 Gregory of Tours: History of the Franks
597 Aneirin: Y Gododdin Gregory sends Augustine to Canterbury
St Columba (d.)
c.615 Aethelfrith King of Bernicia defeats
Britons at Chester
616–32 Edwin King of Northumbria
627 Edwin converted by Paulinus
632 (?) Sutton Hoo ship burial
635 Oswald King of Northumbria defeats
Cadwallon at Heavenfield
643 From this date: early heroic poems: Mercia converted
Widsith, Deor, Finnsburh, Waldere
664 Synod of Whitby accepts authority of
Rome
657–80 Cædmon’s Hymn Hilda Abbess of Whitby
Cædmonian poems: Genesis A, Daniel,
Christ and Satan
669–90 Theodore of TarsusArchbishop of
Canterbury; Wearmouth and Jarrow
founded
678 Earliest date for composition of Beowulf
688 (?) Exodus