A
national identity
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
of the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
as the people or ethnic group dominant in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
dates to the
Anglo-Saxon period
Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of ...
. The establishing of a single English ethnic identity dates to at least AD 731, as exemplified in
Bede
Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
's ''
Ecclesiastical History of the English People
The ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' ( la, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), written by Bede in about AD 731, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict be ...
'' and the construction of
Offa's Dyke
Offa's Dyke ( cy, Clawdd Offa) is a large linear earthwork that roughly follows the border between England and Wales. The structure is named after Offa, the Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia from AD 757 until 796, who is traditionally believed to h ...
, becoming a national identity with the unification of the
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
On 1 ...
in the ninth and tenth centuries, and changing status once again in the eleventh century after the
Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...
, when
Englishry
Englishry or, in Old French, ''Englescherie'', is a legal name given, in medieval England, for the status of a person as an Englishman (i.e., as a commoner of native Anglo-Saxon stock rather than a member of the Anglo-Norman elite).
Specifically, ...
came to be the status of the subject indigenous population.
From the eighteenth century, the terms 'English' and 'British' began to be seen as interchangeable to many of the English.
While the official
United Kingdom census
Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 (during the Second World War), Ireland in 1921/Northern Ireland in 1931,https://www.nisra.gov. ...
does record ethnicity, English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British is a single tick-box under the "White" heading for the answer to the ethnicity question asked in England and Wales (while making the distinction of
white Irish
}
White Irish is an ethnicity classification used in the 2011 United Kingdom Census. In the 2011 census, the White Irish population was 1,105,673 or 1.7% of the UK total population.
This total includes the White Irish population estimate for ...
).
Although Englishness and
Britishness
British national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity, as embodied in the shared and characteristic culture, languages and traditions, of the British people. It comprises the claimed qualities that bind and disting ...
are used synonymously in some contexts, the two terms are not identical, and the relation of each to the other is complex. Englishness is often a response to different national identities within Britain, such as Scottishness, Irishness, Welshness and
Cornishness.
Sometimes Englishness is thought to be encapsulated in terms of a particular relation to sport:
fair play
Fair play or Fairplay usually refers to sportsmanship.
Fair play or Fairplay may also refer to:
Media
* ''Fair Play'' (1925 film), an American silent film
* ''Fair Play'', a 1972 TV movie starring Paul Ford
* ''Fair Play'' (2014 film), a Czech ...
, for instance. Arguably, England's "national games" are football and, particularly,
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
. As cricket historian Dominic Malcolm argues, the link between cricket and England's national identity became solidified through literature. Works such as James Love's "Cricket: an heroic poem" and Mary Mitford's "our Village," along with Nyren's "cricketers of my Time" and Pycroft's "The Cricket Field," purported to identify the characteristics of cricket with the notional characteristics of English society, such as pragmatism, integrity, and independence.
See also
*
Cricket test
The cricket test, also known as the Tebbit test, was a controversial phrase coined in April 1990 by the British Conservative politician Norman Tebbit in reference to the perceived lack of loyalty to the England cricket team among South Asian and ...
*
Culture of England
The culture of England is defined by the cultural norms of England and the English people. Owing to England's influential position within the United Kingdom it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate English culture from the culture of the ...
*
Social history of England
English society comprises the group behaviour of the English people, and of collective social interactions, organisation and political attitudes in England. The social history of England evidences many social and societal changes over the histo ...
*
St George's Day in England
Saint George is the patron saint of England in a tradition established in the Tudor period, based in the saint's popularity during the times of the Crusades and the Hundred Years' War.
Veneration of the saint in folk religion declined in the ...
*
National identity
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
*
Scottish national identity
Scottish national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity, as embodied in the shared and characteristic culture, languages and traditions, of the Scottish people.
Although the various dialects of Gaelic, the Scots lan ...
References
Further reading
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External links
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{{England topics
English culture
English society
History of nationality
National identities
Politics of England
Identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...