History of the Isle of Man
The Isle of Man had become physically separated from Great Britain and Ireland by 6500 BC. It appears that colonisation took place by sea sometime during the Mesolithic era. The island has been visited by various raiders and trading peoples over the years. After being settled by people from Ireland in the first millennium AD, the Isle of Man was converted to Christianity and then suffered raids by Vikings from Norway. After becoming subject to Norwegian suzerainty as part of the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, the Isle of Man later became a possession of the Scottish and then the English crowns.
Since 1866, the Isle of Man has been a Crown Dependency under democratic self-government.
Prehistory
The Isle of Man effectively became an island around 8,500 years ago at around the time when rising sea levels caused by the melting glaciers cut Mesolithic Britain off from continental Europe for the last time. There had earlier been a land bridge between the Isle of Man and Cumbria, but the location and opening of the land bridge remain poorly understood.The earliest traces of people on the Isle of Man date back to the Mesolithic Period. 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. Examples of these artifacts are kept at the Manx National Heritage museum.
The Neolithic Period marked the coming of farming, improved stone tools and pottery. During this period megalithic monuments began to appear around the island. Examples are found at Cashtal yn Ard near Maughold, King Orry's Grave in Laxey, Meayll Circle near Cregneash, and Ballaharra Stones in St John's. The builders of the megaliths were not the only culture during this time; there are also remains of the local Ronaldsway culture.
In the Iron Age, large hill forts appeared on hill summits and smaller promontory forts along the coastal cliffs, while large timber-framed roundhouses were built.
It is not known if the Romans ever made a landing on the island and if they did, little evidence has been discovered. There is evidence for contact with Roman Britain as an amphora was discovered at the settlement on the South Barrule; it is hypothesised this may have been trade goods or plunder.
Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages
In the late Roman period, there was strong Irish influence throughout the Irish Sea, as well as Irish raiding and settlement on the west coast of Britain. The Romans referred to these Irish Gaels as Scoti. The Roman historian Orosius wrote in the 5th century that the Isle of Man was inhabited by the Irish. The oldest known language on the Isle of Man was Archaic Irish, which is found on stone inscriptions in the Ogham alphabet, dating to around the 5th century. Ogham stones found in the south of Mann are monolingual Irish, while those in the north are bilingual Irish and Latin. The Ballaqueeney stone seems to commemorate one of the Conailli, an Irish tribe who lived on the coast of what is now County Louth in Ireland.The Annals of Ulster record an Irish expedition to the Isle of Man by the Ulaid in AD 577, followed by their withdrawal the following year. The annals say that the Ulaid king Báetán mac Cairill had "cleared" the Isle of Man, which could mean that he expelled the Conailli from the island.
It is generally assumed that Irish invasion or immigration formed the basis of the Manx language.
According to Manx tradition, Saint Patrick was responsible for converting the island to Christianity. He is said to have sent Germanus and the Irish missionary Maughold to the island in the 5th century. Muirchú's 7th century Life of Patrick says that when Macc Cuill landed on the island, there were already Christians. Their spiritual leaders were Conindrus and Rumilus, which seem to be Romano-British names. 'Long cist' burials, which are known from almost 100 sites on the island, seem to have arrived with Christianity from Roman Britain. So far, the earliest have been radiocarbon dated to the 4th–5th century; these are at Balladoole and Rushen Abbey. Most of these burials are associated with small early chapels called keeills ; there are more than 200 scattered across the island.
From the 7th century, there is evidence of Celtic Britons on the Isle of Man, and possible Brittonic control over the island. A stone cross found on the northeast coast, dated to the 8th or 9th century, is inscribed Crux Guriat. This is a Brittonic name. It probably refers to Gwriad ab Elidyr, father of Merfyn Frych; the latter ruled the Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd from 825 to 844 and founded its second ruling dynasty, the Merfynion. Early medieval Welsh genealogies suggest that Merfyn came from the Isle of Man. In the 8th century, Anglo-Saxon historian Bede wrote that Britons dwelt on the island.
Even if the supposed conquest of Mann 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 Ecgfrið's Northumbrians laid Ireland waste from Dublin to Drogheda in 684, they temporarily occupied Mann.
Viking Age and Norse kingdom
The period of Scandinavian domination is divided into two main epochs – before and after the conquest of Mann by Godred Crovan in 1079. Warfare and unsettled rule characterise the earlier epoch, the later saw comparatively more peace.Image:Kingdom of Mann and the Isles-en.svg|thumb|right|The Kingdom of Mann and the Isles about the year 1100. Sodor and Mann in red.
Between about AD 800 and 815 the Vikings came to Mann chiefly for plunder. Between about 850 and 990, when they settled, 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 been under the thumb of Dublin at this time.
Little is known about the conqueror, Godred Crovan. According to the Chronicon Manniae he subdued Dublin, and a great part of Leinster, and held the Scots in such subjection that supposedly no one who set out to build 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 including the south-western islands of Scotland until 1164, when two separate kingdoms were formed from it. In 1154, later known as the Diocese of Sodor and Man, was formed by the Catholic Church.
The islands under his rule were called the Suðr-eyjar, consisting of the Hebrides, all the smaller western islands of Scotland, and Mann. At a later date his successors took the title of Rex Manniae et Insularum. 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. In 1156 his son Godred, who for a short period also ruled over Dublin, lost the smaller islands off the coast of Argyll as a result of a quarrel with Somerled. An independent sovereignty thus appeared between the two divisions of his kingdom.
In the 1130s the Catholic Church sent a small mission to establish the first bishopric on the Isle of Man, and appointed Wimund as the first bishop. He soon afterwards 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 was not until Hakon Hakonarson's 1263 expedition that another king returned to the Isles.
Decline of Norse rule
From the middle of the 12th century until 1217 the suzerainty had remained of a very shadowy character; Norway had become a prey to civil dissensions. But after that date it became a reality, and Norway consequently came into collision with the growing power of the kingdom of Scotland.Early in the 13th century, when Ragnald paid homage to King John of England, we hear for the first time of English intervention in the affairs of Mann. But a period of Scots domination would precede the establishment of full English control.
Finally, in 1261, Alexander III of Scotland sent envoys to Norway to negotiate for the cession of the isles, but their efforts led to no result. He therefore initiated a war, which ended in the indecisive Battle of Largs against the Norwegian fleet in 1263. However, the Norwegian king Haakon Haakonsson died the following winter, and this allowed King Alexander to bring the war to a successful conclusion. Magnus Olafsson, King of Mann and the Isles, who had campaigned on the Norwegian side, had to surrender all the islands over which he had ruled, except Mann, for which he did homage. Two years later Magnus died and in 1266 King Magnus VI of Norway ceded the islands, including Mann, to Scotland in the Treaty of Perth in consideration of the sum of 4,000 marks and an annuity of 100 marks. But Scotland's rule over Mann did not become firmly established until 1275, when the Manx suffered defeat in the decisive Battle of Ronaldsway, near Castletown.