The Isle of Man became separated from Britain and Ireland by about 8000 BC. It appears that colonisation took place by sea sometime before 6500 BC.[1] Theisland has been visited by various raiders and trading peoples over the years. After being settled by people from Ireland in the first millennium, the Isle of Man was converted to Christianity and then suffered raids by Vikings from Norway. After becoming subject to suzerainty to Norway as part of the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, the Isle of Man later became a possession of the Scottish and then English crowns.
Mesolithic
The Isle of Mann effectively became an island around 8,500 years ago when rising sea levels caused by the melting glaciers cutMesolithic Britain off from continental Europe for the last time. A land bridge had existed between the Isle of Man and Cumbria prior to this date, although the location and opening of the land-bridge remains poorly understood.[2]
The earliest traces of people on the Isle of Man date back to the Mesolithic Period, also known as the Middle Stone Age. The first residents lived in small natural shelters, hunting, gathering and fishing for their food. They used small tools made of flint or bone, examples of which have been found near the coast. Representatives of these artifacts are kept at the Manx National Heritage museum.
Neolithic to Bronze Age
The Neolithic Period marked the coming of knowledge of farming, improved stone tools and pottery. It was during this period thatmegalithic monuments began to appear around the island. Examples are found at Cashtal yn Ard near Maughold, King Orry's Grave inLaxey, Meayll Circle near Cregneash, and Ballaharra Stones in St John's. The Megaliths were not the only culture during this time; there were also the local Ronaldsway and Bann cultures.
During the Bronze Age, the large communal tombs of the Megaliths were replaced with smaller burial mounds. Bodies were put in stone lined graves along with ornamental containers. The Bronze Age burial mounds created long lasting markers about the countryside.
Iron Age
The Iron Age marked the beginning of Celtic cultural influence. Large hill forts appeared on hill summits and smaller promontory forts along the coastal cliffs, whilst large timber-framed roundhouses were built.
It is likely that the first Celts to inhabit the Island were Brythonic tribes from mainland Britain. The secular history of the Isle of Man during the Brythonic period remains mysterious. It is not known if the Romans ever made a landing on the island; if they did they certainly never conquered it. It has been speculated that the island may have become a haven for Druids and other refugees from Anglesey after the Sacking of Mona in 60AD. The best record of any event before the incursions of the Northmen is attributed to Báetán mac Cairill, king ofUlster, at the end of the 6th century (though some have thought this event may refer to Manau Gododdin between the Firths of Clydeand Forth). Even if the supposed conquest of the Menavian islands – Mann and Anglesey – by Edwin of Northumbria, in 616, did take place, it could not have led to any permanent results, for when the English were driven from the coasts of Cumberland and Lancashire, soon afterwards, they could not well have retained their hold on the island to the west of these coasts. One can speculate, however, that when Ecfrid's Northumbrians laid Ireland waste from Dublin to Drogheda in 684, they temporarily occupied Mann.
It is generally assumed that Irish invasion or immigration formed the basis of the modern Manx language; Irish migration to the island probably began in the 5th century AD. This is evident in the change in language used in Ogham inscriptions. The transition between Manx Brythonic (like Welsh) and Manx Gaelic (a Goidelic language which remains closely related to Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic) may have been gradual. One question is whether present-day Manx language survives from pre-Norse days or reflects a linguistic reintroduction after the Norse invasion.
Tradition attributes the island's conversion to Christianity to St Maughold (Maccul), an Irish missionary who gives his name to a parish. The island lends its name toManannán, the Brythonic and Gaelic sea god who is said in myth to have once ruled the island.
Middle Ages
Viking Age and Norse kingdom
Main article: Kingdom of the Isles
During the period of Scandinavian domination there are two main epochs – one before the conquest of Mann by Godred Crovan in 1079, and the other after it. Warfare and unsettled rule characterize the earlier epoch; the later saw comparatively more peace.
Between about AD 800 and 815 the Vikings came to Mann chiefly for plunder; between about 850 and 990, when they settled in it, the island fell under the rule of the Scandinavian Kings of Dublin; and between 990 and 1079, it became subject to the powerful Earls of Orkney.
There was a mint producing coins on Mann between c.1025 and c.1065. These Manx coins were minted from an imported type 2 Hiberno-Norse penny die from Dublin. Hiberno-Norse coins were first minted under Sihtric, King of Dublin. This illustrates that Mann may have in fact been under the thumb of Dublin at this time.
The conqueror Godred Crovan was evidently a remarkable man, though little information about him is attainable. According to the Chronicon Manniae he subdued Dublin, and a great part of Leinster, and held the Scots in such subjection that no one who built a vessel dared to insert more than three bolts. The memory of such a ruler would be likely to survive in tradition, and it seems probable therefore that he is the person commemorated in Manx legend under the name of King Gorse or Orry. He created the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles in around 1079; it included the south-western islands of Scotland (Sodor) until 1164, when two separate kingdoms were formed from it. In 1154, the Diocese of Sodor and Man was formed under theChurch of England.
The islands which were under his rule were called the Suðr-eyjar (Sudreys or the south isles, in contradistinction to the Norðr-eyjar, or the "north isles," i.e. Orkney and Shetland), and they consisted of the Hebrides, and of all the smaller western islands of Scotland, with Mann. At a later date his successors took the title of Rex Manniae et Insularum (King of Mann and the Isles). The kingdom's capital was on St Patrick's Isle, where Peel Castle was built on the site of a Celtic monastery.
Olaf, Godred's son, exercised considerable power, and according to the Chronicle, maintained such close alliance with the kings of Ireland and Scotland that no one ventured to disturb the Isles during his time (1113–1152). In 1156, his son, Godred (reigned 1153–1158), who for a short period ruled over Dublin also, lost the smaller islands off the coast of Argyll as a result of a quarrel with Somerled (the ruler of Argyll). An independent sovereignty thus appeared between the two divisions of his kingdom.
In the 1130s the Church sent a small mission to establish the first bishopric on the Isle of Man, and appointed Wimund as the first bishop. He soon after embarked with a band of followers on a career of murder and looting throughout Scotland and the surrounding islands.
During the whole of the Scandinavian period, the Isles remained nominally under the suzerainty of the Kings of Norway, but the Norwegians only occasionally asserted it with any vigour. The first such king to assert control over the region was likely Magnus Barelegs, at the turn of the 12th century. It wasn't until Hakon Hakonarson's 1263 expedition that another king returned to the Isles.
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