View source for Names of the British Isles

{{Short description|none}}
{{About|the use of the toponym "British Isles"|the confusion between different geopolitical terminology within the British Isles|Terminology of the British Isles}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}

{{Use British English|date=October 2013}}
[[File:Britain and Ireland satellite image bright.png|300px|thumb|right|Satellite photo: [[Ireland]] is the island on the left and [[Great Britain]] is on the right]]

The [[toponymy|toponym]] "[[British Isles]]" refers to a [[Europe]]an [[archipelago]] comprising [[Great Britain]], [[Ireland]] and the smaller, adjacent islands.<ref name=":17">{{cite web |title=British Isles |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Isles |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |date =4 February 2020 |language=en |quote=British Isles, group of islands off the northwestern coast of Europe. The group consists of two main islands, Great Britain and Ireland, and numerous smaller islands and island groups,}}</ref> The word "[[Britain (place name)|British]]" has also become an adjective and [[demonym]] referring to the [[United Kingdom]]<ref name=":18">{{Cite book|last=Walter |first=Bronwen |year=2000 |title=Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place, and Irish Women |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |quote =A refusal to sever ties incorporating the whole island of Ireland into the British state is unthinkingly demonstrated in naming and mapping behaviour. This is most obvious in continued reference to 'the British Isles'. |page=107}}</ref> and more historically associated with the [[British Empire]]. For this reason, the name British Isles is avoided by some, as such usage could be interpreted to imply continued [[land claim|territorial claims]] or political overlordship of the Republic of Ireland by the United Kingdom.<ref name="reformationBI">{{Cite book| title = The Reformation in Britain and Ireland: an introduction| isbn = 978-0-567-08280-0 |page = 17| last = Hazlett | first = Ian |year = 2003 | publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|quote=At the outset, it should be stated that while the expression 'The British Isles' is evidently still commonly employed, its intermittent use throughout this work is only in the geographic sense, in so far as that is acceptable. Since the early twentieth century, that nomenclature has been regarded by some as increasingly less usable. It has been perceived as cloaking the idea of a 'greater England', or an extended south-eastern English imperium, under a common Crown since 1603 onwards. ... Nowadays, however, 'Britain and Ireland' is the more favoured expression, though there are problems with that too. ... There is no consensus on the matter, inevitably. It is unlikely that the ultimate in non-partisanship that has recently appeared the (East) 'Atlantic Archipelago' will have any appeal beyond captious scholars.}}</ref><ref>Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology by Judith Jesch 2003</ref><ref name="Myers">{{cite news|last=Myers|first=Kevin|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irishman-s-diary-1.253701 |title=An Irishman's Diary |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=9 March 2000 |quote="millions of people from these islands – oh how angry we get when people call them the British Isles"}}</ref><ref name=":25">"Geographical terms also cause problems and we know that some will find certain of our terms offensive. Many Irish object to the term the 'British Isles';..." ''The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, Conflict and emancipation''. Joseph Ruane and Jennifer Todd. Cambridge University Press. 1996 <br />[[Diarmaid MacCulloch]], ''The Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700''. (London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2003): "the collection of islands which embraces England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales has commonly been known as the British Isles. This title no longer pleases all the inhabitants of the islands, and a more neutral description is 'the Atlantic Isles'" (p. xxvi).

On 18 July 2004, [http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2004/07/18/story590174779.asp ''The Sunday Business Post''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080410134638/http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2004/07/18/story590174779.asp|date=10 April 2008}} questioned the use of ''British Isles'' as a purely geographic expression, noting:
<blockquote>[The] "Last Post has redoubled its efforts to re-educate those labouring under the misconception that Ireland is really just British. When British Retail Week magazine last week reported that a retailer was to make its British Isles debut in Dublin, we were puzzled. Is not Dublin the capital of the Republic of Ireland?. When Last Post suggested the magazine might see its way clear to correcting the error, an educative e-mail to the publication...: </blockquote>Retrieved 17 July 2006

"... (which) I have called the Atlantic archipelago – since the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously." [[J. G. A. Pocock|Pocock, J. G. A.]] [1974] (2005). "British History: A plea for a new subject". ''The Discovery of Islands''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 29. {{OCLC|60611042}}.<br />
"... what used to be called the "British Isles", although that is now a [[Political correctness|politically incorrect]] term." Finnegan, Richard B.; Edward T. McCarron (2000). ''Ireland: Historical Echoes'', Contemporary Politics. Boulder: Westview Press, p. 358.

"In an attempt to coin a term that avoided the 'British Isles' – a term often offensive to Irish sensibilities – Pocock suggested a neutral geographical term for the collection of islands located off the northwest coast of continental Europe which included Britain and Ireland: the Atlantic archipelago..." Lambert, Peter; [[Phillipp Schofield]] (2004). ''Making History: An Introduction to the History and Practices of a Discipline''. New York: Routledge, p. 217.

"..the term is increasingly unacceptable to Irish historians in particular, for whom the Irish Sea is or ought to be a separating rather than a linking element. Sensitive to such susceptibilities, proponents of the idea of a genuine British history, a theme which has come to the fore during the last couple of decades, are plumping for a more neutral term to label the scattered islands peripheral to the two major ones of Great Britain and Ireland." Roots, Ivan (1997). "Union or Devolution in Cromwell's Britain". History Review.</ref><ref>''The A to Z of Britain and Ireland'' by Trevor Montague "...although it is traditional to refer to the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as the British Isles, when considered as a single archipelago, this nomenclature implies a proprietary title which has long since ceased to exist, if indeed it ever really did exist. Despite the very close affinity between the British and Irish people I have no doubt that my title is both expedient and correct".</ref>

Alternative names that have sometimes been coined for the British Isles include "Britain and Ireland",<ref name="reformationBI"/><ref name="postwarculture">{{citation|first1=Alistair|last1=Davies|first2=Alan|last2=Sinfield|title=British Culture of the Postwar: An Introduction to Literature and Society, 1945–1999|publisher=Routledge|year=2000|isbn=0-415-12811-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/britishcultureof00adav/page/9 9]|quote=Many of the Irish dislike the 'British' in 'British Isles', while the Welsh and Scottish are not keen on 'Great Britain'. ... In response to these difficulties, 'Britain and Ireland' is becoming preferred usage although there is a growing trend amounts some critics to refer to Britain and Ireland as 'the archipelago'.|url=https://archive.org/details/britishcultureof00adav/page/9}}</ref><ref name=GuardianMOS01>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/b|title=Guardian Style Guide|newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |quote=British Isles: A geographical term taken to mean Great Britain, Ireland and some or all of the adjacent islands such as Orkney, Shetland and the Isle of Man. The phrase is best avoided, given its (understandable) unpopularity in the Irish Republic. Alternatives adopted by some publications are British and Irish Isles or simply Britain and Ireland|location=London|access-date=2 June 2014}}</ref> the "Atlantic Archipelago",<ref name="Pocock01">"...(which) I have called the Atlantic archipelago – since the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously." [[J. G. A. Pocock|Pocock, J. G. A.]] (2006). ''The Discovery of Islands''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 29. {{ISBN|978-0-521-85095-7}}.</ref> the "[[Anglo-Celtic]] Isles",<ref name="Demography of immigrants">{{citation|title=Demography of immigrants and minority groups in the United Kingdom: proceedings of the eighteenth annual symposium of the Eugenics Society, London 1981|volume=1981|author=D. A. Coleman|publisher=Academic Press|year=1982|isbn=0-12-179780-5|page=213|quote=The geographical term ''British Isles'' is not generally acceptable in Ireland, the term ''these islands'' being widely used instead. I prefer ''the Anglo-Celtic Isles'', or ''the North-West European Archipelago''.}}</ref><ref name="Irish historical studies">{{citation|title=Irish historical studies: Joint Journal of the Irish Historical Society and the Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies|publisher=Hodges, Figgis & Co.|year=1990|page=98|quote=There is much to be said for considering the archipelago as a whole, for a history of the British or Anglo-Celtic isles or 'these islands'.}}</ref> the "British-Irish Isles",<ref name=Oakland01>John Oakland, 2003, [https://books.google.com/books?id=N9tRrtt2o68C&dq=%22British+Civilization:+A+Student%27s+Dictionary%22&pg=PA22 British Civilization: A Student's Dictionary], Routledge: London
<blockquote>'''British-Irish Isles, the''' (geography) see BRITISH ISLES</blockquote>
<blockquote>'''British Isles, the''' (geography) A geographical (not political or CONSTITUTIONAL) term for ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, WALES, and IRELAND (including the REPUBLIC OF IRELAND), together with all offshore islands. A more accurate (and politically acceptable) term today is the British-Irish Isles.</blockquote></ref> and the [[Islands of the North Atlantic]].<ref name=TLEL>{{cite web |last=Ahern |first=Bertie |title=Address at 'The Lothian European Lecture' – Edinburgh |work=Department of the Taoiseach, Taoiseach's Speeches Archive 1998 |url=http://www.taoiseach.irlgov.ie/index.asp?locID=375&docID=1030 |date=29 October 1998 |access-date=28 July 2006 |quote=[The Island of] Iona is a powerful symbol of relationships between these islands, with its ethos of service not dominion. Iona also radiated out towards the Europe of the Dark Ages, not to mention Pagan England at Lindisfarne. The British-Irish Council is the expression of a relationship that at the origin of the Anglo-Irish process in 1981 was sometimes given the name Iona, islands of the North Atlantic, and sometimes Council of the Isles, with its evocation of the Lords of the Isles of the 14th and 15th centuries who spanned the North Channel. In the 17th century, Highland warriors and persecuted Presbyterian Ministers criss-crossed the North Channel. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927212500/http://www.taoiseach.irlgov.ie/index.asp?locID=375&docID=1030 |archive-date=27 September 2007 }}</ref> In documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as "these islands".<ref name=":32">{{citation|title=World and its Peoples: Ireland and United Kingdom|page=8|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|location=London|year=2010|quote=The nomenclature of Great Britain and Ireland and the status of the different parts of the archipelago are often confused by people in other parts of the world. The name British Isles is commonly used by geographers for the archipelago; in the Republic of Ireland, however, this name is considered to be exclusionary. In the Republic of Ireland, the name British-Irish Isles is occasionally used. However, the term British-Irish Isles is not recognized by international geographers. In all documents jointly drawn up by the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is simply referred to as "these islands." The name British Isles remains the only generally accepted terms for the archipelago off the northwestern coast of mainland Europe.}}</ref>

To some, the reasons to use an alternate name is partly [[semantics|semantic]], while, to others, it is a [[loaded language|value-laden]] political one.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2010/may/11/snooker-british-isles-mind-your-language?showallcomments=true|title=Snooker and the geography of the British Isles|newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=11 May 2010|access-date=13 May 2010 | location=London | first=David | last=Marsh}}</ref> The [[Channel Islands]] are normally included in the British Isles by tradition, though they are physically a separate archipelago from the rest of the isles.<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'': "British Isles: a geographical term for the islands comprising Great Britain and Ireland with all their offshore islands including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands."</ref><ref>{{Cite book
  |author1 = Alan Lew
  |author2 = Colin Hall
  |author3 = Dallen Timothy
  |title = World Geography of Travel and Tourism: A Regional Approach
  |publisher=Elsevier
  |place = Oxford
  |year = 2008
  |quote = The British Isles comprise more than 6,000 islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe, including the countries of the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. The group also includes the United Kingdom crown dependencies of the Isle of Man, and by tradition, the Channel Islands (the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey), even though these islands are strictly speaking an archipelago immediately off the coast of Normandy (France) rather than part of the British Isles. |isbn = 978-0-7506-7978-7}}</ref> [[Law of the United Kingdom|United Kingdom law]] uses the term [[British Islands]] to refer to the UK, Channel Islands, and [[Isle of Man]] as a single collective entity.

An early variant of the term British Isles dates back to [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] times, when they were known as the Pretanic or Britannic Islands. It was translated as the British Isles into English in the late 16th or early 17th centuries by English and Welsh writers, whose writings have been described as propaganda and politicised.<ref name="kenm">Ken MacMillan, 2001, "[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3686/is_200104/ai_n8932217/pg_1 Discourse on history, geography, and law: John Dee and the limits of the British empire]", in ''Canadian Journal of History'', April 2001.</ref><ref name=MayhewGRev>R. J. Mayhew, 2000, "Geography is Twinned with Divinity: The Laudian Geography of Peter Heylyn" in ''Geographical Review'', Vol. 90, No. 1 (January 2000), pp. 18–34:
"In the period between 1600 and 1800, politics meant what we might now term 'high politics', excluding the cultural and social elements that modern analyses of ideology seek to uncover. Politics referred to discussions of dynastic legitimacy, of representation, and of the Constitution. ...

Geography books spanning the period from the Reformation to the Reform Act ... demonstrated their authors' specific political identities by the languages and arguments they deployed. This cannot be seen as any deviation from the classical geographical tradition, or as a tainting of geography by politics, because geography was not to be conceived separately from politics."</ref><ref name=MayhewBJHS>Robert Mayhew, 2005, "{{cite journal|url= http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBJH%2FBJH38_01%2FS0007087404006478a.pdf&code=8789cbc2d44877fcad870197ef071dd8 |title=Mapping science's imagined community: geography as a Republic of Letters |journal=The British Journal for the History of Science |date=March 2005 |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=73–92 |doi=10.1017/S0007087404006478 |last1=Mayhew |first1=Robert |s2cid=145452323 |url-access=subscription }}" in the ''British Journal of the History of Science'', 38(1): 73–92, March 2005.</ref>

The term became controversial after the breakup of the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]] in 1922. The names of the archipelago's two sovereign states were themselves the subject of a long [[Names of the Irish state#Name dispute with the UK|dispute between the Irish and British governments]].

==History==
{{Main|Terminology of the British Isles}}

===Classical Antiquity===
The earliest known names for the islands come from [[Greco-Roman]] writings. Sources included the [[Massaliote Periplus]] (a merchants' handbook from around 500 BC describing sea routes) and the travel writings of the Greek, [[Pytheas]], from around 320 BC.<ref>{{Harvnb | Snyder| 2003|p=12}},{{Harvnb | Ó Corráin| 1989|p=1}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb | Cunliffe| 2002|pp=38–45, 94}} The [[Massaliote Periplus]] describes a sea route south round the west coast of Spain from the promontory of [[Oestriminis]] ([[Cape Finisterre]]) back to the Mediterranean. The poem by [[Avienius]] makes used of it in describing the voyage of [[Himilco the Navigator]], also incorporating fragments from 11 ancient writers including [[Pytheas]]. When Avienus says it's two days sailing from Oestriminis to the Holy Isle, inhabited by the Hierni, near Albion, this differs from the sailing directions of the Periplus and implies that Oestriminis is [[Brittany]], a conflict explained if it had been taken by Avienus from one of his other sources.</ref> Although the earliest texts have been lost, excerpts were quoted or paraphrased by later authors. The main islands were called "Ierne", equal to the term ''[[Ériu]]'' for Ireland,<ref>{{Harvnb | Ó Corráin| 1989|p=1}}</ref> and "[[Albion]]" for present-day Great Britain. The island group had long been known collectively as the Pretanic or Britanic isles.

There is considerable confusion about early use of these terms and the extent to which similar terms were used as self-description by the inhabitants.<ref name=":0">{{Harvnb | Cunliffe| 2002|p=94}}</ref>  Cognates of these terms are still in use.<ref>Cognates of ''Albion'' (normally referring only to Scotland) – ''Albion'' (archæic); {{langx|kw|Alban}}; {{langx|ga|Alba}}; {{langx|gv|Albey}}; {{langx|sco|Albiane}}; {{langx|gd|Alba}}; {{langx|cy|Yr Alban}}. Cognates of ''Ierne'' – ''Ireland''; {{langx|kw|Iwerdhon}}; {{langx|ga|Éire}}; {{langx|gv|Nerin}}; {{langx|sco|Irland}}; {{langx|gd|Éirinn}}; {{langx|cy|Iwerddon}} though in English ''Albion'' is deliberately archæic or poetical. Cognates of ''Priteni'' – {{langx|cy|Prydain}}; ''Briton'' and ''British''''.</ref>

According to [[T. F. O'Rahilly]] in 1946 "Early Greek geographers style Britain and Ireland 'the Pretanic (''or'' Brettanic) islands', i.e. the islands of the Pritani or Priteni" and that "From this one may reasonably infer that the Priteni were the ruling population of Britain and Ireland at the time when these islands first became known to the Greeks".<ref>{{Harvnb|O'Rahilly|1946|p=84}}</ref> O'Rahilly identified the Preteni with the {{Langx|ga|[[Cruthin]]}} and the {{Langx|la|[[Picti]]|links=no}}, whom he stated were the earliest of the "four groups of Celtic invaders of Ireland" and "after whom these islands were known to the Greeks as 'the Pretanic Islands'".<ref>{{Harvnb|O'Rahilly|1946|pages=15, 84}}</ref>

According to [[A. L. F. Rivet]] and Colin Smith in 1979 "the earliest instance of the name which is textually known to us" is in [[The Histories (Polybius)|''The Histories'']] of [[Polybius]], who referred to them {{Langx|grc|τῶν αἱ Βρεταννικαί νήσοι|translit=tōn hai Bretannikai nēsoi|label=as|lit=Brettanic Islands' or 'British Isles}}.<ref name=":48">{{Cite book |last1=Rivet |first1=A. L. F. |author-link=A. L. F. Rivet |url=http://archive.org/details/placenamesofroma0000rive |title=The place-names of Roman Britain |last2=Smith |first2=Colin |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-691-03953-4 |pages=63−64, 282 |language=en}}</ref> According to Rivet and Smith, this name encompassed "Britain with Ireland".<ref name=":48" /> Polybius wrote:{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|ἴσως γὰρ δή τινες ἐπιζητήσουσι πῶς πεποιημένοι τὸν πλεῖστον λόγον ὑπὲρ τῶν κατὰ Λιβύην καὶ κατ᾿ Ἰβηρίαν τόπων οὔτε περὶ τοῦ καθ᾿ Ἡρακλέους στήλας στόματος οὐδὲν ἐπὶ πλεῖον εἰρήκαμεν οὔτε περὶ τῆς ἔξω θαλάττης καὶ τῶν ἐν ταύτῃ συμβαινόντων ἰδιωμάτων, οὐδὲ μὴν περὶ τῶν Βρεττανικῶν νήσων καὶ τῆς τοῦ καττιτέρου κατασκευῆς, ἔτι δὲ τῶν ἀργυρείων καὶ χρυσείων τῶν κατ᾿ αὐτὴν Ἰβηρίαν, ὑπὲρ ὧν οἱ συγγραφεῖς ἀμφισβητοῦντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους τὸν πλεῖστον διατίθενται λόγον.}}|Some readers will perhaps ask themselves why, since most of what I have said relates to Africa and Spain, I have not said a word more about the mouth of the Mediterranean at the [[Pillars of Hercules]], or about the Outer Sea and its peculiarities, or about the British Isles and the method of obtaining tin, and the gold and silver mines in Spain itself, all matters concerning which authors dispute with each other at great length.|[[Polybius]], ''[[The Histories (Polybius)|Histories]]'', III.57.2–3.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.loebclassics.com/view/polybius-histories/2010/work.xml |title=Polybius: The Histories |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=2010 |editor-last=Paton |editor-first=W. R. |editor-link=William Roger Paton |series=[[Loeb Classical Library]] 137 |volume=II: Books 3–4 |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=150–151 |doi=10.4159/DLCL.polybius-histories.2010 |orig-date=1922 |editor-last2=Walbank |editor-first2=F. W. |editor-link2=F. W. Walbank |editor-last3=Habicht |editor-first3=Christian |editor-link3=Christian Habicht (historian)}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/polybioyistoriai01polyuoft |title=Polybii Historiae |publisher=[[B. G. Teubner]] |year=1922 |editor-last=Büttner-Wobst |editor-first=Theodorus|editor-link=Theodorus Büttner-Wobst |volume=I|location=Leipzig |page=208 |trans-title=The History of Polybius}}</ref>}}
According to [[Christopher Snyder (historian)|Christopher Snyder]] in 2003, the collective name "Brittanic Isles" ({{Langx|grc|αἱ Βρεττανίαι|translit=hai Brettaníai|label=Greek|links=no|lit=the Britains}}) was "a geographic rather than a cultural or political designation" including Ireland.<ref>{{Harvnb | Snyder| 2003|p=12}}</ref> According to Snyder, "Preteni", a word related to the {{Langx|la|Britanni|links=no|lit=Britons}} and to the {{Langx|cy|Prydein|lit=Britain}}, was used by southern [[Ancient Britons|Britons]] to refer to the people north of the [[Antonine Wall]], also known as the Picts ({{Langx|la|Picti|links=no|lit=painted ones}}).<ref name=":1" /> According to Snyder, "Preteni" was a probably from a [[Celtic languages|Celtic]] term meaning "people of the forms", whereas the Latin name {{Langx|la|Picti|links=no|label=none}} was probably derived from the Celtic practice of [[tattoo]]ing or painting the body before battle.<ref name=":1">{{Harvnb|Snyder|2003|pp=|p=68}}</ref> According to [[Kenneth H. Jackson]], the [[Pictish language]] was a [[Celtic language]] related to modern Welsh and to ancient [[Gaulish]] with influences from earlier [[Non-Indo-European languages of Europe|non-Indo-European languages]].<ref name=":1" />

The fourth chapter of the first book of the {{Langx|la|[[Bibliotheca historica]]|label=none}} of [[Diodorus Siculus]] describes Julius Caesar as having "advanced the Roman Empire as far as the British Isles" ({{Langx|grc|προεβίβασε δὲ τὴν ἡγεμονίαν τῆς Ῥώμης μέχρι τῶν Βρεττανικῶν νήσων|translit=proebíbase dè tḕn hēgemonían tês Rhṓmēs mékhri tôn Brettanikôn nḗsōn|label=Greek|links=no}})<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/diodorus-of-sicily-in-twelve-volumes.-vol.-1-loeb-279 |title=Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=1933 |editor-last=Oldfather |editor-first=Charles Henry |editor-link=Charles Henry Oldfather |series=[[Loeb Classical Library]] 279 |volume=I: Books I – II.34 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages=20–21 |language=grc, en-US}}</ref> and in the 38th chapter of the third book Diodorus remarks that the region "about the British Isles" ({{Langx|grc|τὸ περὶ τὰς Βρεττανικὰς νήσους|translit=tò perì tàs Brettanikàs nḗsous|label=none|links=no}}) and other distant lands of the ''[[oecumene]]'' "have by no means come to be included in the common knowledge of men".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/diodorus-of-sicily-in-twelve-volumes.-vol.-2-loeb-303 |title=Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=1935 |editor-last=Oldfather |editor-first=Charles Henry |editor-link=Charles Henry Oldfather |series=[[Loeb Classical Library]] 303 |volume=II: Books II.35 – IV.58 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages=194–195 |language=grc, en-US}}</ref> According to Philip Freeman in 2001, "it seems reasonable, especially at this early point in classical knowledge of the Irish, for Diodorus or his sources to think of all inhabitants of the Brettanic Isles as ''Brettanoi'''''".'''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Freeman |first=Philip |url=https://archive.org/details/irelandclassical0000free |title=Ireland and the Classical World |publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-292-72518-8 |location=Austin |pages=36 |language=en}}</ref>

According to [[Barry Cunliffe]] in 2002, "The earliest reasonably comprehensive description of the British Isles to survive from the classical authors is the account given by the Greek writer Diodorus Siculus in the first century B.C. Diodorus uses the word {{grc-transl|Πρεταννια}}, which is probably the earliest Greek form of the name".<ref name=":0" /> Cunliffe argued that "the original inhabitants would probably have called themselves ''Pretani'' or ''Preteni''", citing Jackson's argument that the form ''Pretani'' was used in the south of Britain and the form ''Preteni'' was used in the north.<ref name=":2" /> This form then remained in use in the Roman period to describe the Picts beyond the Antonine Wall.<ref name=":2" /> In Ireland, where ''Qu'' took the place of ''P'', the form ''Quriteni'' was used.<ref name=":2" /> Cunliffe argued that "Since it is highly probable that Diodorus was basing his description on a text of Pytheas's (though he nowhere acknowledges the fact), it would most likely have been Pytheas who first transliterated the local word for the islands into the Greek {{grc-transl|Πρεττανικη}}.<ref name=":2" /> Pytheas may have taken his name for the inhabitants from the name ''Pretani'' when he made landfall on the peninsula of [[Belerion]], though in Cunliffe's view, because it is unusual for a self-description (an [[endonym]]) to describe appearance, this name may have been used by [[Armorica]]ns, from whom Pytheas would have learnt what the inhabitants of Albion were called.<ref name=":2">{{Harvnb|Cunliffe|2002|p=95}}</ref> According to Snyder, the {{Langx|grc|Πρεττανοί|translit=Prettanoí|label=Greek|links=no}} derives from "a Gallo-Brittonic word which may have been introduced to Britain during the P-Celtic linguistic innovations of the sixth century BC".<ref name=":3">{{Harvnb|Snyder|2003|p=12}}</ref>

According to Cunliffe, Diodorus Siculus used the spelling {{grc-transl|Πρεττανία}}, while [[Strabo]] used both {{grc-transl|Βρεττανία}} and ''{{grc-transl|Πρεττανία}}''. Cunliffe argues the ''B'' spelling appears only in the first book of Strabo's ''Geography'', so the ''P'' spelling reflects Strabo's original spelling and the changes to Book I are the result of a [[scribal error]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Cunliffe|2002|pp=94–95}}</ref> In classical texts, the word Britain ({{Langx|grc|Pρεττανία|translit=Prettanía|links=no|label=Greek}} or {{Langx|grc|Bρεττανία|translit=Brettanía|label=none}}; {{Langx|la|Britannia|links=no}}) replaced the word Albion. An inhabitant was therefore called a "Briton" ({{Langx|grc|Bρεττανός|translit=Brettanós|label=none}}; {{Langx|la|Britannus|label=none}}), with the adjective becoming "British" ({{Langx|grc|Bρεττανικός|translit=Brettanikós|label=none}}; {{Langx|la|Britannicus|label=none}}).<ref name=":3" />

The [[Pseudo-Aristotelian]] text ''[[On the Universe]]'' ({{Langx|grc|Περὶ Κόσμου|translit=Perì Kósmou|links=no}}; {{langx|la|De Mundo|links=no}}) mentions the British Isles, identifying the two largest islands, Great Britain ({{Langx|grc|Ἀλβίων|translit=Albíōn|label=none}}) and Ireland ({{Langx|grc|Ἰέρνη|translit=Iérnē|label=none}}), and stating that they are "called British" ({{Langx|grc|Βρεττανικαὶ λεγόμεναι|translit=Brettanikaì legómenai|label=none}}) when describing the ocean beyond the [[Mediterranean Basin]]:{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|ἐν τούτῳ γε μὴν νῆσοι μέγισται τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι δύο, Βρεττανικαὶ λεγόμεναι, Ἀλβίων καὶ Ἰέρνη, τῶν προϊστορημένων μείζους, ὑπὲρ τοὺς Κελτοὺς κείμεναι.}}|There are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne; they are larger than those already mentioned, and lie beyond the land of the Celts.|Pseudo-Aristotle, ''[[On the Universe]]'', 393b.<ref name=ArOntheCosmos>{{cite book |last=[[Aristotle]] or [[Pseudo-Aristotle]] |title=On Sophistical Refutations. On Coming-to-be and Passing Away. On the Cosmos. |publisher=William Heinemann, Harvard University Press |year=1955 |pages=360–361 |translator-last=Forster |translator-first=Edward Seymour |chapter=On the Cosmos, 393b12 |translator-last2=Furley |translator-first2=David J. |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/onsophisticalref00arisuoft}} at the [[Open Library]] Project.{{DjVulink}}</ref>}}
[[Apuleius]]'s Latin adaptation of the Aristotelian {{Lang|la|De Mundo}} calls the British Isles "the two Britains" ({{Lang|la|Britanniae duae}}), naming Great Britain ({{Lang|la|Labeon}}) and Ireland ({{Lang|la|Hibernia}}):{{Text and translation|{{lang|la|Sed in altera parte orbis iacent insularum aggeres maximarum, Britanniae duae, et Labeon et Hibernia, <eis> quas supra diximus [esse] maiores. Verum hae in Celtarum finibus sitae.}}|In another part of [our] region lie the land-masses of the largest islands: these are the two British isles, Labeon and Hibernia, both larger than those we mentioned before. These, in fact, are situated on the borders of the Celtic lands; …|Apuleius, ''[[On the Universe]]'', VII.1.<ref>{{Citation |title=Apulei: Opera Philosophica |date=2020 |editor-last=Magnaldi |editor-first=Giuseppina |url=https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/display/10.1093/actrade/9780198841418.book.1/actrade-9780198841418-book-1 |access-date= |series=[[Oxford Classical Texts]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |language=la |doi=10.1093/actrade/9780198841418.book.1 |isbn=978-0-19-191378-5|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |editor-last=Boys-Stones |editor-first=George |title=De Mundo tetrapla |url=http://individual.utoronto.ca/gbs/demundo/texts.html |access-date=2025-04-30 |website=Apuleius and the Aristotelian De Mundo |publisher=[[University of Toronto]]}}</ref>}}According to Philip Freeman in 2001, "The Latin version is a close translation of the Greek and adds no new information".<ref name=":55" />{{rp|p=85}}

[[Strabo]], in his {{Lang|la|[[Geographica]]}}, refers to the British Isles as "the Britains" ({{Langx|grc|Βρεττανίδες|translit=Brettanídes|label=none}}), citing Pytheas for his information on Great Britain ({{Langx|grc|Βρεττανική|translit=Brettanikḗ|label=none}}), Ireland ({{Langx|grc|Ἰέρνη|translit=Iérnē|label=none}}), and [[Thule]] ({{Langx|grc|Θούλη|translit=Thoúlē|label=none}}). According to D. Graham J. Shipley, "Strabo probably consulted Pytheas' work only indirectly through other authors".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shipley |first=D. Graham J. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781009194211/type/book |title=Geographers of the Ancient Greek World: Selected Texts in Translation |date= |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2024 |isbn=978-1-009-19421-1 |edition=1 |volume=I |chapter=Part III – Classical Period, Chapter 8 – Pytheas of Massalia |doi=10.1017/9781009194211.013}}</ref>{{Rp|page=232}} Strabo was disapproving of Pytheas, whose work was used by Strabo's predecessor [[Eratosthenes]].<ref name=":56">{{Cite book |last=Shipley |first=D. Graham J. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781009194211/type/book |title=Geographers of the Ancient Greek World: Selected Texts in Translation |date= |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2024 |isbn=978-1-009-19421-1 |edition=1 |volume=I |chapter=Part III – Hellenistic Period, Chapter 12 – Eratosthenes of Kyrene |doi=10.1017/9781009194211.017}}</ref>{{Rp|page=291}} Strabo wrote:{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|ὁ μὲν οὖν Μασσαλιώτης Πυθέας τὰ περὶ Θούλην τὴν βορειοτάτην τῶν Βρεττανίδων ὕστατα λέγει, παρ’ οἷς ὁ αὐτός ἐστι τῷ ἀρκτικῷ ὁ θερινὸς τροπικὸς κύκλος. παρὰ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων οὐδὲν ἱστορῶ, οὔθ’ ὅτι Θούλη νῆσός ἐστί τις οὔτ’ εἰ τὰ μέχρι δεῦρο οἰκήσιμά ἐστιν, ὅπου ὁ θερινὸς τροπικὸς ἀρκτικὸς γίνεται. νομίζω δὲ πολὺ εἶναι νοτιώτερον τοῦτου τὸ τῆς οἰκουμένης πέρας τὸ προσάρκτιον· οἱ γὰρ νῦν ἱστοροῦντες περαιτέρω τῆς Ἰέρνης οὐδὲν ἔχουσι λέγειν, ἣ πρὸς ἄρκτον πρόκειται τῆς Βρεττανικῆς πλησίον, ἀγρίων τελέως ἀνθρώπων καὶ κακῶς οἰκούντων διὰ ψῦχος· ὥστ’ ἐνταῦθα νομίζω τὸ πέρας εἶναι θετέον.}}|Now Pytheas of Massalia says that the region around Thoule, the most northerly of the Brettanides (''British Isles''), is the farthest, and that the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the arctic circle. I have learned nothing about this from anyone else: whether there is a certain island called Thoule, or whether there is habitation up to where the summer tropic becomes the arctic. I believe that the northern boundary of the inhabited world is much further to the south. Nothing is described beyond Ierne, which lies to the north of Brettanike and near to it, where men are totally wild and live badly because of the cold, and thus I believe that the boundary is to be placed there. |[[Strabo]], {{lang|la|[[Geographica]]}}, II.3.8.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Strabons Geographika |publisher=[[Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht]] |year=2002 |editor-last=Radt |editor-first=Stefan |editor-link=Stefan Radt |volume=I – Prolegomena: Buch I-IV: Text und Übersetzung |page=278}}</ref><ref name=":56" />{{Rp|page=315}}}}Around AD 70, [[Pliny the Elder]], in Book 4 of his ''[[Pliny's Natural History|Naturalis Historia]]'', describes the islands he considers to be "Britanniae" as including Great Britain, Ireland, Orkney, smaller islands such as the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, Anglesey, possibly one of the Frisian Islands, and islands which have been identified as [[Ushant]] and Sian{{clarification needed|date=November 2024}}. He refers to Great Britain as the island called "Britannia", noting that its former name was "Albion". The list also includes the island of Thule, most often identified as Iceland—although some express the view that it may have been the [[Faroe Islands]]—the coast of [[Norway]] or [[Denmark]], or possibly [[Shetland]].<ref name="Bostock">"The opinions as to the identity of ancient Thule have been numerous in the extreme. We may here mention six:
#The common, and apparently the best founded opinion, that Thule is the island of [[Iceland]].
#That it is either the [[Faroe Islands|Ferroe group]], or one of those islands.
#The notion of [[Abraham Ortelius|Ortelius]], [[Thomas Farnaby|Farnaby]], and [[Gerhard Schøning|Schœnning]], that it is identical with [[Telemark|Thylemark]] in Norway.
#The opinion of [[Conrad Malte-Brun|Malte Brun]], that the continental portion of [[Denmark]] is meant thereby, a part of which is to the present day called [[Thy (district)|Thy]] or Thyland.
#The opinion of Rudbeck<!-- [[Olaus Rudbeck]] or [[Olof Rudbeck the Younger]] ? --> and of Calstron, borrowed originally from [[Procopius]], that this is a general name for the whole of [[Scandinavia]].
#That of Gosselin, who thinks that under this name [[Mainland, Shetland|Mainland]], the principal of the [[Shetland Islands]], is meant.

It is by no means impossible that under the name of Thule two or more of these localities may have been meant, by different authors writing at distant periods and under different states of geographical knowledge. It is also pretty generally acknowledged, as Parisot remarks, that the Thule mentioned by Ptolemy is identical with Thylemark in Norway."{{Cite book|editor=[[John Bostock (physician)|John Bostock]] and [[Henry Thomas Riley]]|year=1855 |title=The Natural History of Pliny |chapter=Britannia |chapter-url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137&query=head%3D%23179 |pages=footnote No. 16 |oclc=615995 |no-pp=true }}</ref> After describing the [[Rhine delta]], Pliny begins his chapter on the British Isles, which he calls "the Britains" ({{Langx|la|Britanniae|label=none}}):[[File:Rhine rivermouth - Rheinmündung.jpg|thumb|[[Great Britain]] opposite the [[Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta]], photographed from across the [[North Sea]] by the astronaut [[Alexander Gerst]].]]
{{Text and translation|{{lang|la|Ex adverso huius situs Britannia insula clara Graecis nostrisque monimentis inter septentrionem et occidentem iacet, Germaniae, Galliae, Hispaniae, multo maximis Europae partibus magno intervallo adversa. Albion ipsi nomen fuit, cum Britanniae vocarentur omnes de quibus mox paulo dicemus.}}|Opposite to this region lies the island of Britain, famous in the Greek records and in our own; it lies to the north-west, facing, across a wide channel, Germany, Gaul and Spain, countries which constitute by far the greater part of Europe. It was itself named Albion, while all the islands about which we shall soon briefly speak were called the Britains.|Pliny the Elder, ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'', IV.16.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pliny the Elder |title=Naturalis historia |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1942 |volume=II |pages=195–196 |translator-last=Rackham |translator-first=Harris |trans-title=Natural History |chapter=Book IV, chapter XVI |author-link=Pliny the Elder |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/natural-history-in-ten-volumes.-vol.-2-libri-ii-vii-loeb-352/page/196}}</ref>}}According to [[Thomas O'Loughlin]] in 2018, the British Isles was "a concept already present in the minds of those living in continental Europe since at least the 2nd–cent. CE".<ref>{{Cite book |last=O'Loughlin |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas O'Loughlin |title=Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity |year=2018 |edition=Online |volume=4 (Isi - Ori) |chapter=Ireland |doi=10.1163/2589-7993_EECO_SIM_00001698 |issn=2589-7993 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1163/2589-7993_EECO_SIM_00001698}}</ref>

In his {{Langx|la|Orbis descriptio|label=none}}, [[Dionysius Periegetes]] mentions the British Isles and describes their position opposite the Rhine delta, specifying that there are two islands and calling them the "Bretanides" ({{Langx|grc|Βρετανίδες|label=none|translit=Bretanídes}} or {{Langx|grc|Βρεταννίδες|label=none|translit=Bretannídes}}).<ref name=":48" /><ref name=":50">{{Cite book |title=Dionysius Periegetes, Description of the Known World: With Introduction, Translation, & Commentary |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-19-967558-6 |editor-last=Lightfoot |editor-first=J. L. |editor-link=Jane Lightfoot |edition=1st |pages=228–229, 391 |language=en-GB |oclc=875132507}}</ref>
{{Text and translation|{{break lines|… {{lang|grc|αὐτὰρ ὑπ' ἄκρην
Ἱρήν, ἣν ἐνέπουσι κάρην ἔμεν Εὐρωπείης, 
νήσους Ἑσπερίδας, τόθι κασσιτέροιο γενέθλη, 
ἀφνειοὶ ναίουσιν ἀγαυῶν παῖδες Ἰβήρων. 
ἄλλαι δ' Ὠκεανοῖο παραὶ βορεώτιδας ἀκτὰς 
δισσαὶ νῆσοι ἔασι Βρετανίδες, ἀντία Ῥήνου· 
κεῖθι γὰρ ὑστατίην ἀπερεύγεται εἰς ἅλα δίνην. 
τάων τοι μέγεθος περιώσιον οὐ κέ τις ἄλλη 
νήσοις ἐν πάσῃσι Βρετανίσιν ἰσοφαρίζοι.}}}}|{{break lines|… beneath 
The Sacred Cape (head, so they say, of Europe) 
Are the Hesperides isles, birthplace of tin, 
Home to the noble Iberes' sons. 
By the ocean's northern fringes, other isles— 
The twin Bretanides—face the Rhine's mouth, 
For its last eddies issue in that sea. 
Enormous is their size: of all the isles 
None could with the Bretanides contend.}}|[[Dionysius Periegetes]], {{lang|la|Orbis descriptio}}, lines 561–569.<ref name=":50" />|lang2=en}}

In [[Priscian]]'s Latin adaptation of Dionysius's Greek {{Langx|la|Orbis descriptio|label=none}}, the British Isles are mentioned as "the twin {{Langx|la|Britannides|label=none}}" ({{Langx|la|… geminae … Britannides|label=none}}).<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V0cVAAAAIAAJ |title=La Périégèse de Priscien: édition critique |publisher=[[De Tempel]] |year=1953 |editor-last=Van de Woestijne |editor-first=Paul |publication-place=Bruges |language=la, fr}}</ref>

In his {{Lang|la|[[Ars tactica]]}}, [[Arrian]] referred to "people living in the islands called "Britannic" which belong to the Great Exterior sea" ({{Langx|grc|οἱ ἐν ταῖς νήσοις ταῖς Βρεττανικαῖς καλουμέναις τῆς ἔξω τῆς μεγάλης θαλάσσης|label=none|links=no|translit=hoi en taîs nḗsois taîs Brettanikaîs kalouménais tês éxō tês megálēs thalássēs}}) as being the only people in the world still to use [[war chariots]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leroy |first=Pierre-Olivier |url=https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/isbn_9783447119085.ahtml |title=The World of Alexander in Perspective: Contextualizing Arrian |publisher=[[Harrassowitz Verlag]] |year=2022 |isbn=978-3-447-11908-5 |editor-last=Rollinger |editor-first=Robert |editor-link=Robert Rollinger |series=Classica et Orientalia 30 |volume= 30|chapter=Historiography and Tactics: Some Thoughts About the Dating of Arrian's Anabasis |doi=10.13173/9783447119085 |editor-last2=Degen |editor-first2=Julian}}</ref>

In his ''[[Almagest]]'' (147–148 AD)'','' [[Claudius Ptolemy]] referred to the larger island as Great Britain ({{Langx|grc|Μεγάλη Βρεττανία|label=Greek|links=no|translit=Megálē Brettanía}}) and to Ireland as Little Britain ({{Langx|grc|Μικρά Βρεττανία|label=Greek|links=no|translit=Mikrá Brettanía}}).<ref>{{cite book|title=Claudii Ptolemaei Opera quae exstant omnia|author=Claudius Ptolemy|author-link=Ptolemy|editor1-last=Heiberg|editor1-first=J.L.|publisher=in aedibus B. G. Teubneri|location=Leipzig|year=1898|volume=1 Syntaxis Mathematica|chapter-url=http://www.wilbourhall.org/pdfs/HeibergAlmagestComplete.pdf|pages=112–113|chapter=Ἕκθεσις τῶν κατὰ παράλληλον ἰδιωμάτων: κβ',κε'}}</ref> According to Philip Freeman in 2001, Ptolemy "is the only ancient writer to use the name "Little Britain" for Ireland, though in doing so he is well within the tradition of earlier authors who pair a smaller Ireland with a larger Britain as the two Brettanic Isles".<ref name=":55">{{Cite book |last=Freeman |first=Philip |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZSHhfOM-5AEC&pg=PA65 |title=Ireland and the Classical World |publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-292-72518-8 |location=Austin, Texas |pages=65, 85}}</ref>{{rp|p=65}} In the second book of Ptolemy's ''[[Geography (Ptolemy)|Geography]]'' ({{Circa|150 AD}}), the second and third chapters are respectively titled in {{Langx|grc|Κεφ. βʹ Ἰουερνίας νήσου Βρεττανικῆς θέσις|lit=Ch. 2, position of Hibernia, a British island|label=Greek|links=no|translit=Iouernías nḗsou Brettanikê̄s thésis}} and {{Langx|grc|Κεφ. γʹ Ἀλβουίωνος νήσου Βρεττανικῆς θέσις|lit=Ch. 3, position of Albion, a British island|label=none|translit=Albouíōnos nḗsou Brettanikê̄s thésis}}.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0RivEAAAQBAJ |title=Klaudios Ptolemaios. Handbuch der Geographie: 1. Teilband: Einleitung und Buch 1-4 |publisher=Schwabe Verlag (Basel) |year=2017 |isbn=978-3-7965-3703-5 |editor-last=Stückelberger |editor-first=Alfred |edition=2nd |volume=I |language=grc, de |orig-date=2006 |editor-last2=Grasshoff |editor-first2=Gerd}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=143, 146}} [[File:Map_after_Ptolemy's_Geographia_(Burney_MS_111,_f.15r).jpeg|thumb|The westernmost portion of [[Ptolemy]]'s "first European map" from a Greek manuscript edition of ''[[Geography (Ptolemy)|Geography]],'' dated {{Circa|1400}}, once owned by [[Charles Burney (schoolmaster)|Charles Burney]] and now in the [[British Library]], depicting [[Ireland]]. The island is labelled in {{Langx|grc|Ἰουερνία νῆσος Βρεττανική|lit=Hibernia, British island|translit=Iouernía nê̄sos Brettanikḗ}}.]]

In the fifth chapter of the seventh book of ''Geography'', Ptolemy describes the British Isles as being at the northern limits of the ''[[oecumene]]'': "in the north, the ''oecumene'' is limited by the continuation of the ocean which surrounds the British Isles and the northernmost parts of Europe" ({{Langx|grc|ἀπ’ ἄρκτων δὲ τῷ συνημμένῳ Ὠκεανῷ, τῷ περιέχοντι τὰς Βρεττανικὰς νήσους καὶ τὰ βορειότατα τῆς Εὐρώπης|label=none|translit=ap’ árktōn dè tôi sunēmménōi Ōkeanôi, tôi periékhonti tàs Brettanikàs nḗsous kaì tà boreiótata tês Eurṓpēs}}).<ref name=":54">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0RivEAAAQBAJ |title=Klaudios Ptolemaios. Handbuch der Geographie: 2. Teilband: Buch 5-8 und Indices |publisher=Schwabe Verlag (Basel) |year=2017 |isbn=978-3-7965-3703-5 |editor-last=Stückelberger |editor-first=Alfred |edition=2nd |volume=II |language=grc, de |editor-last2=Grasshoff |editor-first2=Gerd}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=|page=742}} In the same chapter, he enumerates in order of size the ten largest islands or peninsulas known to him, listing both Great Britain and Ireland: {{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|Τῶν δὲ ἀξιολογωτέρων νήσων ἢ χερσονήσων πρώτη μὲν Ταπροβάνη, δευτέρα δὲ τῶν Βρεττανικῶν ἡ Ἀλουίωνος, τρίτη δὲ ἡ Χρυσῆ Χερσόνησος, τετάρτη δὲ τῶν Βρεττανικῶν ἡ Ἰουερνία, πέμπτη δὲ ἡ Πελοπόννησος, ἕκτη δὲ ἡ Σικελία, ἑβδόμη δὲ ἡ Σαρδώ, ὀγδόη δὲ ἡ Κύρνος, ἐνάτη δὲ ἡ Κρήτη, δεκάτη δὲ ἡ Κύπρος.}}|Of the more notable islands or peninsulas, [[Taprobane]] is the first in terms of size, Albion – one of the British Isles – the second, the [[Golden Chersonese]] is the third, Hibernia – another British isle – the fourth, the [[Peloponnese]] the fifth, [[Sicily]] the sixth, [[Sardinia]] the seventh, [[Corsica]] the eighth, [[Crete]] the ninth, [[Cyprus]] the tenth.|[[Claudius Ptolemy]], {{lang|la|Geographia}}, VII.5.11.<ref name=":54" />{{Rp|pages=|page=744}}|lang2=en}}

In the third chapter of the eighth book of ''Geography'', Ptolemy summarizes the content of his maps, stating that "The first map of Europe includes the British Isles and the surrounding islands" ({{Langx|grc|Ὁ πρῶτος πίναξ τῆς Εὐρώπης περιέχει τὰς Βρεττανικὰς νήσους σὺν ταῖς περὶ αὐτὰς νήσοις|label=none|translit=Ho prôtos pínax tês Eurṓpēs periékhei tàs Brettanikàs nḗsous sùn taîs perì autàs nḗsois}}).<ref name=":54" />{{Rp|pages=|page=775}}

Ptolemy wrote around AD 150, although he used the now-lost work of [[Marinus of Tyre]] from about fifty years earlier.<ref name="ohi">{{Harvnb | Ó Corráin| 1989}}</ref> Ptolemy included Thule in the chapter on Albion; the coordinates he gives correlate with the location of Shetland, though the location given for Thule by Pytheas may have been further north, in Iceland or Norway.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Breeze |first1=David J. |author-link=David Breeze |last2=Wilkins |first2=Alan |date=2018 |title=Pytheas, Tacitus and Thule |journal=Britannia |volume=49 |pages=303–308 |doi=10.1017/S0068113X18000223 |jstor=26815343 |issn=0068-113X}}</ref> ''Geography'' generally reflects the situation c. 100 AD.

Following the [[Roman conquest of Britain|conquest of AD 43]] the [[Roman Britain|Roman province]] of Britannia was established,<ref>{{Harvnb | Snyder| 2003|p=34}}</ref> and [[Roman Britain]] expanded to cover much of the island of Great Britain. An invasion of Ireland was considered but never undertaken, and Ireland remained outside the Roman Empire.<ref>{{Harvnb | Ó Corráin| 1989|p=3}}</ref> The Romans failed to consolidate their hold on the [[Scottish Highlands]]; the northern extent of the area under their control (defined by the [[Antonine Wall]] across [[Central Lowlands|central Scotland]]) stabilised at [[Hadrian's Wall]] across the [[Northern England|north of England]] by about AD 210.<ref>{{Harvnb | Snyder| 2003|p=46}}</ref> Inhabitants of the province continued to refer to themselves as "Brittannus" or "Britto", and gave their ''patria'' (homeland) as "Britannia" or as their tribe.<ref>{{Harvnb | Snyder| 2003|p=54}} refers to epigraphic evidence from those Britons at home and abroad who left Latin inscriptions.</ref> The vernacular term "Priteni" came to be used for the barbarians north of the Antonine Wall, with the Romans using the tribal name "[[Caledonians|Caledonii]]" more generally for these peoples who (after AD 300) they called [[Picts]].<ref>{{Harvnb | Snyder| 2003|p=68}}, {{Harvnb | Cunliffe| 2002|p=95}}</ref>

The post-conquest Romans used ''Britannia'' or ''Britannia Magna'' (Large Britain) for Britain, and ''Hibernia'' or ''Britannia Parva'' (Small Britain) for Ireland. The post-Roman era saw [[Britons (historical)|Brythonic]] kingdoms established in all areas of Great Britain except the [[Scottish Highlands]], but coming under increasing attacks from [[Picts]], [[Scoti|Scotti]] and [[Anglo-Saxons]]. At this time Ireland was dominated by the Gaels or Scotti, who subsequently gave their names to Ireland and Scotland.

In the grammatical treatise he dedicated to the emperor [[Marcus Aurelius]] ({{Reign|161|180}}), {{Langx|la|De prosodia catholica|label=none}}, [[Aelius Herodianus]] notes the differences in spelling of the name of the British Isles, citing Ptolemy as one of the authorities who spelt the name with a [[Pi (letter)|''pi'']] ({{Langx|grc|π|p|links=no}}): "{{Grc-transl|Βρεττανίδες}} islands in the Ocean; and some [spell] like this with ''pi'', {{Grc-transl|Πρετανίδες}}, such as Ptolemy" ({{Langx|grc|Βρεττανίδες νῆσοι ἐν τῷ Ὠκεανῷ· καὶ ἄλλοι οὕτως διὰ τοῦ π Πρετανίδες νῆσοι, ὡς Πτολεμαῖος|label=none|translit=Brettanídes nêsoi en tôi Ōkeanôi; kaì álloi hoútōs dià toû p Pretanídes nêsoi, hōs Ptolemaîos}}).<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/herodianitechnic0001hero |title=Herodiani technici Reliquiae |publisher=[[G. Olms]] ([[B. G. Teubner]]) |year=1965 |editor-last=Lentz |editor-first=August |editor-link=August Lentz (philologist) |series=Grammatici Graeci III.1.1 |location=Hildesheim [Leipzig] |page=95 |language=grc, la |orig-date=1867}}</ref> Herodianus repeated this information in {{Langx|la|De orthographia|label=none}}: "{{Grc-transl|Βρεττανίδες}} islands in the ocean. They are called with ''pi'', {{Grc-transl|Πρετανίδες}}, such as by Ptolemy" ({{Langx|grc|Βρεττανίδες νῆσοι ἐν τῷ ὠκεανῷ. λέγονται καὶ διὰ τοῦ π Πρετανίδες ὡς Πτολεμαῖος|label=none|translit=Brettanides nēsoi en tō ōkeanōi. legontai kai dia tou p Pretanides hōs Ptolemaios}}).<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/herodianitechnic0002hero |title=Herodiani technici Reliquiae |publisher=[[G. Olms]] ([[B. G. Teubner]]) |year=1965 |editor-first=August |editor-last=Lentz |editor-link=August Lentz (philologist) |series=Grammatici Graeci III.1.2 |location=Hildesheim [Leipzig] |page=484 |language=grc, la}}</ref>

The chronicle attributed to [[Pope]] [[Hippolytus of Rome]] mentions the British Isles as part of the lands allotted to [[Japheth]] in the [[table of nations]]:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Werke_Durchgesehen_hrsg_und_in_2_Aufl_be/HK4gAAAAIAAJ |title=Hippolytus Werke |date=1955 |publisher=[[Akademie-Verlag]] |editor-last=Helm |editor-first=Rudolf |editor-link=Rudolf Helm |volume=IV: Die Chronik |location=Berlin |pages=17 |language=grc, de |editor-last2=Bauer |editor-first2=Adolf}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schmidt |first=Thomas C. |title=Hippolytus of Rome: Commentary on Daniel and 'Chronicon' |last2=Nicholas |first2=Nick |publisher=[[Gorgias Press]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-4632-0658-1 |series=Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 67 |location=Piscataway, New Jersey |pages=208 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":57">{{Cite book |last=Scott |first=James M. |title=Geography in Early Judaism and Christianity: The Book of Jubilees |date= |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-521-80812-5 |series=Society for New Testament Studies monograph series 113 |location=}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=143–144, 245, note 65}}
[[File:BNE_Codex_Matrinensis_Graecus_4701_(olim_121),_f._55r.png|thumb|[[Folio]] 55 [[recto]] of the {{Lang|es|[[Biblioteca Nacional de España]]}}'s Greek manuscript 4701 (formerly 121), probably copied in the second half of the 10th century and including the phrase {{Langx|grc|ἕως Βρεταννικῶν νήσων|4=as far as the British Isles|label=none|héōs Bretannikôn nḗsōn}}.]]
{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|ἐνταῦθα καταλήγει τὰ ὅρια τοῦ Ἰάφεθ ἕως Βρεταννικῶν νήσων πᾶσαί τε πρὸς βορρᾶν βλέπουσαι.}}|There end the boundaries of Japheth as far as the British Islands, and all looking towards the north.|[[Hippolytus of Rome]], {{lang|la|Chronicon}}, 86.}}In the manuscript tradition of the ''[[Sibylline Oracles]]'', two lines from the fifth book may refer to the British Isles:<ref name="Sibyllinorum Oraculorum">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/bib_fict_8687509 |title=Σιβυλλιακῶν Χρησμῶν λόγοι ὀκτώ: Sibyllinorum Oraculorum Libri VIII. Addita Sebastiani Castalionis interpretatione Latina, quę Gręco eregionè respondeat. Cum Annotationib. XYSTI Betuleij in Græca Sibyllina oracula, & SEBASTIANI Castalionis in translationem suam: quæ Annotationes numeris marginalibus signantur |publisher=[[Johannes Oporinus]] |year=1555 |editor-last=Birck |editor-first=Sixt |editor-link=Sixt Birck |location=Basel |pages=182–183 |language=grc, la |translator-last=Castellio |translator-first=Sebastian |trans-title=Eight Books of the Sibylline Oracles, to which is added Sebastian Castellio's Latin translation which answers the Greek original. With the Annotations of Xystus Betuleius on the Greek Sibylline oracles, & of Sebastianus Castalionus on his translation: which Annotations are marked with numbers in the margins |translator-link=Sebastian Castellio}}</ref><ref name=":30" /><ref name=":33">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/cu31924028930200 |title=The Sibylline Oracles: Translated From the Greek Into English Blank Verse |publisher=[[Eaton & Mains]] |year=1899 |edition=New Revised |location=New York |page=125 |language=en |translator-last=Terry |translator-first=Milton Spenser |translator-link=Milton Terry}}</ref><ref name=":34" /><ref name=":35">{{Cite book |last=Collins |first=J. J. |author-link=John J. Collins |url=http://archive.org/details/the-old-testament-pseudepigrapha-vol.-1-charlesworth-1983 |title=The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha |date=1983 |publisher=[[Doubleday & Company]] |editor-last=Charlesworth |editor-first=James H. |editor-link=James H. Charlesworth |volume=I |page=398 |chapter=Sibylline Oracles}}</ref><ref name=":31" />

{{Poem quote|text={{lang|grc|ἔσσεται ἐν Βρύτεσσι καὶ ἐν Γάλλοις πολυχρύσοις
ὠκεανὸς κελαδῶν πληρούμενος αἵματι πολλῷ·}}|title=|source=''Sibylline Oracles'', Book V.}}

In the [[editio princeps]] of this part of the ''Sibylline Oracles'', published by [[Sixt Birck]] in 1545, the {{Langx|grc|Βρύτεσσι|translit=Brýtessi|links=no}} or {{grc-transl|Βρύτεσσι}} is printed as in the manuscripts.<ref name="Sibyllinorum Oraculorum" /> In the Latin translation by [[Sebastian Castellio]] published alongside Birck's Greek text in 1555, these lines are translated as:<ref name="Sibyllinorum Oraculorum" />

{{Poem quote|text={{lang|la|In Gallis auro locupletibus, atque Britannis,
Oceanus multo resonabit sanguine plenus:}}|source=''Sibylline Oracles'', Book V.}}

Castellio translated {{Lang|grc|Βρύτεσσι}} as {{langx|la|Britannis|link=no|lit=the Britains' or 'the British Isles}}. The chronicler [[John Stow]] in 1580 cited the spelling of {{Lang|grc|Βρύτεσσι}} in the ''Sibylline Oracles'' as evidence that the British Isles had been named after [[Brutus of Troy]].<ref name=":36" /> William Camden quoted these Greek and Latin texts in his [[Britannia (Camden)|''Britannia'']], published in Latin in 1586 and in English in 1610, following Castelio's translation identifying {{Lang|grc|Βρύτεσσι}} with the Britains or Britons:<ref name="Camden 1607 19">{{Cite book |last=Camden |first=William |author-link=William Camden |url=http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_S1j9xN8L8PkC |title=Britannia, siue Florentissimorum regnorum Angliæ, Scotiæ, Hiberniæ, et insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio: nunc postremò recognita, plurimis locis magna accessione adaucta, & chartis chorographicis illustrata. |publisher=George Bishop & John Norton |year=1607 |edition=6th |location=London |page=19 |language=la}}</ref><ref name="Camden 1610 25">{{Cite book |last=Camden |first=William |author-link=William Camden |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Od5BAQAAMAAJ |title=Britain: Or, a Chorographicall Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Ilands Adioyning, Out of the Depth of Antiquitie: Beautified with Mappes … |publisher=George Bishop & John Norton |year=1610 |edition=1st English |page=25 |language=en-emodeng}}</ref>

{{Poem quote|text={{lang|en-emodeng|Twixt Brits and Gaules their neighbours rich, in gold that much abound,
The roaring Ocean Sea with bloud full filled shall resound.}}|source=William Camden, ''Britannia'', 1610.<ref name="Camden 1610 25">{{Cite book |last=Camden |first=William |author-link=William Camden |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Od5BAQAAMAAJ |title=Britain: Or, a Chorographicall Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Ilands Adioyning, Out of the Depth of Antiquitie: Beautified with Mappes … |publisher=George Bishop & John Norton |year=1610 |edition=1st English |page=25 |language=en-emodeng}}</ref>}}

In Aloisius Rzach's 1891 [[critical edition]], the manuscript reading of {{Lang|grc|Βρύτεσσι}} is retained.<ref name=":30">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_L70zAQAAMAAJ |title=Χρησμοί Σιβυλλιακοί: Oracula sibyllina |date=1891 |publisher=[[Friedrich Tempsky]] |editor-last=Rzach |editor-first=Aloisius |location=Vienna |page=114 |language=grc, la |trans-title=Sibylline Oracles}}</ref> Rzach suggested that [[Procopius of Caesarea]] referred to these lines when mentioning in his {{Langx|la|[[De Bello Gothico]]|label=none}} that the ''Sibylline Oracles'' "foretells the misfortunes of the Britons" ({{Langx|grc|προλέγει τὰ Βρεττανῶν πάθη|translit=prolégei tà Brettanôn páthē|links=no}}).<ref name=":30" /> [[Milton Terry]]'s 1899 English translation followed Rzach's edition, translating {{Lang|grc|Βρύτεσσι}} as "the Britons":<ref name=":33" />

{{Poem quote|text=Among the Britons and among the Gauls
Rich in gold, Ocean shall be roaring loud
Filled with much blood; …|source=''Sibylline Oracles'', Book V.}}

[[Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff]], however, suggested that the manuscript reading {{Lang|grc|Βρύτεσσι}} should be [[Emendation (textual)|emended]] to {{Lang|grc|Βρύγεσσι}}, {{grc-transl|Βρύγεσσι}}, in reference to the ancient [[Bryges]].<ref name=":34">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/dieoraculasibyll00geffuoft |title=Die Oracula Sibyllina |publisher={{Interlanguage link|J. C. Hinrichs|lt=|qid=Q112143882}} |year=1902 |editor-last=Geffcken |editor-first=Johannes |series={{Interlanguage link|Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller|lt=|de}} |location=Leipzig |page=114 |language=grc, de}}</ref><ref name=":31">{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Ken |url=https://brill.com/view/title/18786 |title=Jewish Reactions to the Destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: Apocalypses and Related Pseudepigrapha |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-90-04-21027-1 |page=228 |doi=10.1163/9789004210448}}</ref> {{Interlanguage link|Johannes Geffcken (philologist)|lt=Johannes Geffcken's|de|Johannes Geffcken (Philologe)}} 1902 critical edition accepted Wilamowitz's emendation, printing {{Lang|grc|Βρύγεσσι}}.<ref name=":34" /><ref name=":31" /> [[John J. Collins]]'s English text of the ''Sibylline Oracles'' in [[James H. Charlesworth]]'s 1983 edition of translated [[Old Testament pseudepigrapha]] follows the manuscript tradition, translating {{Lang|grc|Βρύτεσσι}} as "the Britains":<ref name=":35" /><ref name=":31" />

{{Poem quote|text=Among the Britains and wealthy Gauls
the ocean will be resounding, filled with much blood, …|source=''Sibylline Oracles'', Book V.}}

Ken Jones, preferring Wilamowitz's emendation, wrote in 2011: "This is not, so far as I can see, a usual translation, nor is this even a Greek word. The Brygi ({{Lang|grc|Βρύγοι}}) or Briges ({{Lang|grc|Βρίγες}}), on the other hand, are a known people."<ref name=":31" />

The {{Langx|la|[[Divisio orbis terrarum]]|label=none}} mentioned the British Isles as the {{Lang|la|Insulae Britannicae}} or {{Lang|la|Insulae Britanicae}}.<ref name=":48" /> The text refers to the archipelago together with {{Lang|la|[[Gallia Comata]]|italic=no}}: "{{Lang|la|Gallia Comata|italic=no}}, together with the Brittanic islands, is bounded on the east by the [[Rhine]], …" ({{Langx|la|Gallia Comata cum insulis Brittanicis finitur ab oriente flumine Rheno, …|links=no}}).<ref name=":49">{{Cite journal |last=Schnabel |first=Paul |date=1935 |title=Die Weltkarte des Agrippa als wissenschaftliches Mittelglied zwischen Hipparch und Ptolemaeus |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1524/phil.1935.90.12.405/html |journal={{ill|Philologus|de}} |volume=90 |issue=1–2 |page=433 |doi=10.1524/phil.1935.90.12.405 |issn=2196-7008|url-access=subscription }}</ref> According to the editor Paul Schnabel in 1935, the manuscript traditions spelt the name variously as: {{Lang|la|brittannicis}}, {{Lang|la|britannicis}}, or {{Lang|la|britanicis}}.<ref name=":49" />

[[John Chrysostom]]'s [[Biblical commentary]] on the ''[[Book of Isaiah]]'', mentions the British Isles in a comment on [[Isaiah 2:4]]:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moorhead |first=John |author-link=John Moorhead |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DiYuAgAAQBAJ |title=The Roman Empire Divided: 400–700 AD |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-317-86144-7 |edition=2nd |location=London and New York |pages=38 |language=en |orig-year=2001}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/commentairesuris0304john |title=Jean Chrysostome: Commentaire sur Isaïe |publisher=[[Éditions du Cerf]] |year=1983 |isbn=978-2-204-02070-1 |editor-last=Dumortier |editor-first=Jean |series=[[Sources Chrétiennes]] 304 |location=Paris |pages=124 |language=grc, fr |translator-last=Liefooghe |translator-first=Arthur |trans-title=John Chrysostom: Commentary on Isaiah}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Garrett |first=Duane A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C-YQAQAAIAAJ |title=An Analysis of the Hermeneutics of John Chrysostom's Commentary on Isaiah 1-8 with an English Translation |publisher=Edwin Mellen Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-88946-612-8 |series=Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 12 |location=Lewiston, New York |pages=70 |language=en}}</ref>{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|Τότε μὲν γάρ, ὡς ἔφθην εἰπών, καὶ ἐν ἑνὶ ἔθνει μυρίαι συνεχῶς ἐπαναστάσεις ἐγίγνοντο, καὶ πολυπρόσωποι πόλεμοι· νυνὶ δὲ ὅσην ἥλιος ἐφορᾷ γῆν ἀπὸ τοῦ Τίγρητος ἐπὶ τὰς Βρεττανικὰς νήσους, αὐτὴ πᾶσα, καὶ μετὰ ταύτης Λιβύη καὶ Αἴγυπτος καὶ Παλαιστινῶν ἔθνος, μᾶλλον δὲ ἅπαν τὸ ὑπὸ τὴν Ῥωμαίων ἀρχὴν κείμενον.}}|At that time, as I have said, there were countless rebellions all the time within one nation, and many types of wars. But now, all the earth under the shining sun, from the [[Tigris]] to the British Isles, including [[Roman Egypt|Egypt]] and [[Roman Libya|Libya]] and [[Roman Palestine|Palestine]], all this and more lies under Roman rule.|[[John Chrysostom]], {{lang|la|In Isaiam}}, II.5.}}

In the manuscript copy of the [[classical Armenian]] adaptation published in 1880 by the [[Mekhitarists]] of {{Lang|it|[[San Lazzaro degli Armeni]]|italic=no}}, the British Isles are {{Langx|xcl|Բրետանացւոց կղզիք|Bretanacʿwocʿ kłzikʻ|label=none}},<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/ChrysEsayeayArm/page/n31 |title=Երանելւոյն Յովհաննու Ոսկեբերանի մեկնութիւն Եսայեայ մարգարէի |publisher= |year=1880 |location=Venice |pages=9, 520 |language=xcl |trans-title=Commentary on the Prophet Isaiah by the Blessed John Chrysostom}}</ref> which in the Latin translation of 1887 is {{Lang|la|Britannicae insulae}}.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1887 |title=In Isaiam prophetam interpretatio Sancti Joannis Chrysostomi archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani nunc primum ex armenio in latinum sermonem a Patribus Mekitharistis translata |trans-title=The commentary of Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the prophet Isaiah, now translated for the first time from Armenian into Latin by the Mekitharist Fathers |url=https://digitale-sammlungen.ulb.uni-bonn.de/content/pageview/106739 |access-date=2024-12-16 |website=University of Bonn Digital Collection |page=32 |language=xcl}}</ref> {{Text and translation|{{lang|xcl|իսկ այժմ՝ աւասիկ արև ընդ երկիր ծագէ, ՚ի Դկղաթ գետոյ մինչև ՚ի Բրետանացւոց կղզիսն, և Հանդերձ այնու Լիբէացւոց կողմանքն, և առ Հասարակ ամենայն երկիրն Եգիպտացւոց, և Պաղեստինացւոց աշխարհն, իբրև զմի ազգ կայ ընդ հնազանդութեամբ՝ ընդ Հոռովմոց տէրութեամբն.}}|{{lang|la|Tunc enim, ut jam dixi, vel in una gente innumeræ sæpe seditiones oriebantur, et diversa bella: nunc autem quantum terræ spatium sol respicit a Tigride usque ad Britannicas insulas, ipsa tota, et cum illa Africa, Ægyptus et gens Palæstinorum, hi omnes, sicuti unica natio, Romano imperio subjacent}}|[[John Chrysostom]], {{lang|la|In Isaiam}}, II.5.}}

In his {{Langx|la|[[Contra Collatorem]]|label=none}}, [[Prosper of Aquitaine]] mentioned the British Isles to which [[Pope Celestine I]] ({{Reign|422|432}}) sent [[Palladius (bishop of Ireland)|Palladius]] as "the Britains" ({{Lang|la|Britanniae}}) including both Great Britain and Ireland ''–'' the "Roman island" and the "barbarian island". Prosper praised Celestine as thereby having dealt with [[Pelagianism]] in Great Britain and having established [[Christianity in Ireland]]:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ó Cróinín |first=Dáibhí |author-link=Dáibhí Ó Cróinín |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317192701 |title=Early Medieval Ireland 400–1200 |date= |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-315-55878-3 |edition=2nd |location=New York |pages=42, 60–61 |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781315558783 |orig-year=1995}}</ref>
{{Text and translation|{{lang|la|Nec vero segniore cura ab hoc eodem morbo Britannias liberavit, quando quosdam inimicos gratiae solum suae originis occupantes etiam ab illo secreto exclusit oceani et, ordinato Scottis episcopo, dum Romanam insulam studet seruare catholicam, fecit etiam barbaram christianam}}|With no less care did [Pope Celestine] free the British Isles from that same disease [i.e. Pelagianism] … and by ordaining a bishop for the Irish, while he strove to keep the Roman island catholic, he also made the barbarian island Christian.|[[Prosper of Aquitaine]], {{lang|la|Contra Collatorem}}, XXII.}}

The {{Langx|la|[[Ethnica]]|label=none}} of [[Stephen of Byzantium]] mentions the British Isles and lists the Britons as their inhabitants' [[ethnonym]]. He comments on the name's variable spelling, noting that [[Dionysius Periegetes]] spelt the name with a single ''[[tau]]'' and that Ptolemy and [[Marcian of Heraclea]] had spelt it with a ''pi'':<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/STEPHANUSBYZANTIUSETHNICAvol.AALPHAGAMMA2006ByMargaretheBillerbeck |title=Stephanus Byzantius Ethnica |publisher=[[Walter de Gruyter]] |year=2006 |editor-last=Billerbeck |editor-first=Margarethe |editor-link=Margarethe Billerbeck |series=[[Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae]] 43.1 |volume=1. Α–Γ |pages=378–379 |language=grc, de}}</ref>{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|εἰσὶ καὶ Βρεττανίδες νῆσοι ἐν τῷ ὠκεανῷ, ὧν τὸ ἐθνικὸν Βρεττανοί. Διονύσιος ὑφελὼν τὸ ἓν τ ἔφη "ὠκεανοῦ κέχυται ψυχρὸς ῥόος, ἔνθα Βρετανοί". καὶ ἄλλοι οὕτως διὰ π Πρετανίδες νῆσοι, ὡς Μαρκιανὸς καὶ Πτολεμαῖος.}}|There are also the {{grc-transl|Βρεττανίδες}} Islands (British Isles) in the ocean, to which the {{grc-transl|ἐθνικὸν}} is {{grc-transl|Βρεττανός}}. Dionysius removed the one ''tau'' [from the name] and said "the cold stream of the ocean is spread out where the {{grc-transl|Βρετανοί}} [live]". Others also [spell] like this, [however] with ''pi'' [as first consonant], {{grc-transl|Πρετανίδες}} Islands, such as [for example] Marcian and Ptolemy.|[[Stephen of Byzantium]], {{lang|la|[[Ethnica]]}}, Β.169.}}The {{lang|la|Chronographia}} of [[John Malalas]] mentions the British Isles as part of the lands allotted to Japheth in the table of nations.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110876017 |title=Ioannis Malalae Chronographia |publisher=[[Walter de Gruyter]] |year=2000 |isbn=9783110088007 |editor-last=Thurn |editor-first=Johannes |series=[[Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae]] 35 |pages=9 |language=grc, la |trans-title=Chronography of John Malalas |doi=10.1515/9783110876017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Chronicle of John Malalas |date= |publisher=Brill |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-9593636-2-3 |series=Byzantina Australiensia 4 |location=Leiden and Boston, Massachusetts |pages=5 |translator-last=Jeffreys |translator-first=Elizabeth |translator-last2=Jeffreys |translator-first2=Michael |translator-last3=Scott |translator-first3=Roger |translator-link=Elizabeth Jeffreys}}</ref><ref name=":57" />{{Rp|pages=246–247, note 81}}{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|τοῦ δὲ Ἰάφεθ τοῦ τρίτου υἱοῦ Νῶε ἡ φυλὴ ἔλαβεν τὰς ἀπὸ Μηδίας ἐπὶ τὴν ἄρκτον ἕως Βριττανικῶν νήσων}}|The tribe of Japheth, Noah's third son, took the territory from [[Media (region)|Media]] to the North as far as the British Isles|[[John Malalas]], {{lang|la|Chronographia}}, I.6.}}The anonymous ''Outline of Geography in Summary'' ({{Langx|grc|Ὑποτύπωσις τῆς γεογραφίας ἐν ἐπιτομῇ|label=none|Hypotýpōsis tễs geographías en epitomễi}} or {{lang|la|Geographiae expositio compendiaria}}) wrongly attributed to [[Agathemerus]] until the mid-19th century mentions "the two Britains" ({{Langx|grc|αἱ Βρεττανικαὶ δύο|label=none|hai Brettanikaì dúo}}), identifies both Ireland and Great Britain, and describes each:<ref>{{Citation |title=Hypotyposis (2021) (Edition FGrHist V) |work=Jacoby Online. Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued, Part V |year=2011 |editor-last=Mittenhuber |editor-first=Florian |url=https://scholarlyeditions.brill.com/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:fgrh.2021.bnjo-1-ed-grc:f13 |access-date= |place=Leiden |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |language=grc, de |doi=10.1163/1873-5363_jcv_a2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Shipley |first=D. Graham J. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781009184236/type/book |title=Geographers of the Ancient Greek World: Selected Texts in Translation |date= |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2024 |isbn=978-1-009-18423-6 |edition=1 |pages=990 |chapter=Part V – Late Antique Period, Chapter 35 – ''Hypotypōsis tēs geōgraphias en epitomēi'' (Outline of Geography in Summary) |doi=10.1017/9781009184236.014}}</ref>{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|νῆσοι δὲ ταύτης τῆς ἠπείρου ἀξιόλογοι ἐν μὲν τῇ ἐκτὸς θαλάσσῃ αἱ Βρεττανικαὶ δύο, Ἰουερνία τε καὶ Ἀλουίων. Ἀλλ’ ἡ μὲν Ἰουερνία δυτικωτάτη κειμένη ἀντιπαρεκτείνεται μέχρι τινὸς τῇ Ἱσπανίᾳ, ἡ δὲ Ἀλουίων, ἐν ᾗ καὶ τὰ στρατόπεδα ἵδρυται, μεγίστη τέ ἐστι καὶ ἐπιμηκεστάτη· ἀρξαμένη γὰρ ἀπὸ ἄρκτων <ἐπὶ μὲν δύσιν μέχρι τῶν> μέσων τῆς Ταρρακωνησίας πρόεισιν, ἐπ’ ἀνατολὰς <δὲ> μέχρι τῶν μέσων σχεδὸν τῆς Γερμανίας.}}|The notable islands of this continent are, in the outer sea, the two Brettanikai, Iouernia (''Hibernia, Ireland'') and Alouion (''Albion'', ''Great Britain''); but Iouernia is in the westernmost position, extending some way opposite Hispania. Alouion, in
which the military camps have been founded, is the largest and most elongated; for beginning from the north it reaches ‹west to the› middle parts of [[Tarrakonesia]], and east almost to the middle of [[Germania]].|''Outline of Geography in Summary'', 13.}}The {{Langx|la|[[Hexaemeron]]|label=none}} of [[Jacob of Edessa]] twice mentions the British Isles ({{Langx|syc|ܓܙܪ̈ܬܐ ܒܪܐܛܐܢܝܩܐܣ|translit=gāzartāʾ Baraṭāniqās}}), and in both cases identifies Ireland and Great Britain by name:<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/iacobiedessenihe0000jaco |title=Iacobi Edesseni Hexaemeron: seu, In opus creationis libri septem |publisher=L. Durbecq |year=1953 |editor-last=Chabot |editor-first=J.-B. |editor-link=Jean-Baptiste Chabot |series=[[Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium]] 92, Scriptores Syri |volume=44 |location=Leiden |pages=112, 115–116 |language=syc, la |orig-date=1928}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/iacobiedessenihe0097jaco |title=Iacobi Edesseni Hexaemeron: seu, In opus creationis libri septem |publisher=L. Durbecq |year=1953 |series=[[Corpus scriptorum Christianorum orientalium]] 98, Scriptores Syri |volume=48 |location=Leiden |pages=93, 96 |language=la, syc |translator-last=Vaschalde |translator-first=A. |orig-date=1932 |translator-link=Arthur Adolphe Vaschalde}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9pVEAx-NGwMC |title=L'Hexaméron de Jacques d'Edesse |publisher=[[Imprimerie nationale]] |year=1888 |location=Paris |pages=112–113, 116 |language=fr |translator-last=Martin |translator-first=Paulin |translator-link=Paulin Martin}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rTpIAQAAMAAJ |title=Études sur l'Hexameron de Jacques d'Édesse: notamment sur ses notions géographiques contenues dans le 3ième traité |publisher=[[J. C. Frenckell]] |year=1892 |editor-last=Hjelt |editor-first=Arthur |editor-link=Arthur Hjelt |location=Helsinki |pages=lxxv, lxxix |language=fr, syc}}</ref>{{Text and translation|{{Rtl-para|syc|ܝܘܒܐܪܢܝܐ ܘܐܠܘܐܢܘ ܗܠܝܢ ܕܡܬܩܪ̈ܝܢ ܒܪ̈ܐܛܐܢܝܩܘܣ}}|… {{Transliteration|syc|Yūbārnīyā}} (Hibernia) and {{Transliteration|syc|Alūʾayūn}} (Albion), which are called the {{Transliteration|syc|Baraṭāniqūs}} (Britains) …|[[Jacob of Edessa]], {{lang|la|Hexaemeron}}, III.12.}}

=== Middle Ages ===

At the [[Synod of Birr]], the {{Lang|ga|[[Cáin Adomnáin]]}} signed by clergymen and rulers from Ireland, Gaelic Scotland, and Pictland was binding {{Langx|ga|for feraib Hérenn ocus Alban|lit=on the men of Ireland and Britain|label=none}}.<ref name=":46">{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/cinadamninol00meyeuoft/cinadamninol00meyeuoft |title=Cáin Adamnáin: An Old-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |year=1905 |editor-last=Meyer |editor-first=Kuno |editor-link=Kuno Meyer |location=Oxford |pages=15–17, 22–25, 38 |language=ga, en |translator-last=Meyer |translator-first=Kuno |translator-link=Kuno Meyer}}</ref> According to [[Kuno Meyer]]'s 1905 edition, "That {{Lang|ga|Alba}} here means Britain, not Scotland, is shown by the corresponding passage in the Latin text of § 33: '{{Lang|la|te oportet legem in Hibernia Britaniaque perficere}}'".<ref name=":46" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ní Dhonnchadha |first=Máirín | chapter= Birr and the Law of the Innocents | editor-last = O'Loughlin | editor-first = Thomas | title = Adomnán at Birr, AD 697 |date=2001 |publisher= Four Courts Press |page=20}}</ref> The text of the {{Lang|ga|Cáin Adomnáin}} describes itself: {{Langx|ga|Iss ead in so forus cāna Adomnān for Hērinn ⁊ Albain|lit=This is the enactment of [[Adamnan]]'s Law in Ireland and Britain|label=none}}.<ref name=":46" /> The extent of the {{Lang|ga|Cáin Adomnáin}}'s jurisdiction in Britain is unclear; some scholars argue that its British domain was restricted to {{Lang|ga|[[Dál Riata]]|italic=no}} and [[Pictland]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ó Néill |first1=Pádraig |url=https://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/publications/Basic%20Texts%20Gaelic/BT%20Gaelic%20Vol%202%202003%20O%20Neill%20and%20Dumville%20Cain%20Adomnain.pdf |title=Cáin Adomnáin and Canones Adomnani |last2=Dumville |first2=David |author-link2=David Dumville |date=2003 |publisher=Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge |page=xxviii}}</ref> while others write that it is simply unknown whether it was meant to apply to areas of Britain not under such strong Irish influence.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ní Dhonnchadha |first=Máirín | chapter= Birr and the Law of the Innocents | editor-last = O'Loughlin | editor-first = Thomas | title = Adomnán at Birr, AD 697 |date=2001 |publisher= Four Courts Press |page=28}}</ref>

Adomnán similarly refers to "Ireland and Britain" when commenting on the [[Plague of 664]] in his [[Life of Columba]], writing "oceani insulae per totum, videlicet Scotia et Britannia."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T201040/index.html | title=Life of St. Columba }}</ref><ref name="celt.ucc.ie">{{cite web | url=https://celt.ucc.ie/published/L201040/index.html | title=The Life of Columba, written by Adamnan }}</ref> He notes that only the people of Pictland and the Irish of Britain ("Pictorum plebe et Scotorum Britanniae") were spared the pestilence.<ref>{{cite book |first= Adomnán|date= 1995 |translator-last1= Sharpe|translator-first1= Richard|title= "Life of St Columba"|publisher= Penguin Books|page= 210|isbn= 0140444629}}</ref><ref name="celt.ucc.ie"/>

In the ''Cosmography'' of [[Aethicus Ister]], the British Isles are mentioned as having been visited by the protagonist ({{Langx|la|Dein insolas Brittanicas et Tylen navigavit, quas ille Brutanicas appellavit, ...|lit=Then to the British islands and Thule he sailed, which are called the Brutanics|label=none}}).<ref name=":21">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/diekosmographied0000aeth |title=Die Kosmographie des Aethicus |date=1993 |publisher=[[Monumenta Germaniae Historica]] |isbn=978-3-88612-074-1 |editor-last=Prinz |editor-first=Otto |series=Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 14 |location=Munich |page=113}}</ref> In 1993, the editor Otto Prinz connected this name with the {{Langx|la|[[Etymologiae]]|label=none}} of [[Isidore of Seville]],<ref name=":21" /> in which it is stated: "Some suspect that the Britons were so named in Latin because they are brutes"<ref>{{Citation |title=Book IX: Languages, nations, reigns, the military, citizens, family relationships (De linguis, gentibus, regnis, militia, civibus, affinitatibus) |date=2006 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/etymologies-of-isidore-of-seville/languages-nations-reigns-the-military-citizens-family-relationships-de-linguis-gentibus-regnis-militia-civibus-affinitatibus/3596BEDCB8E9181D2D9FE56429BBDFBC |work=The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville |pages=191–212 |editor-last=Barney |editor-first=Stephen A. |access-date=10 October 2023 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511482113.013 |isbn=978-0-511-48211-3 |editor2-last=Lewis |editor2-first=W. J. |editor3-last=Beach |editor3-first=J. A. |editor4-last=Berghof |editor4-first=Oliver|url-access=subscription }}</ref> ({{Langx|la|Brittones quidam Latine nominatos suspicantur eo, quod bruti sint|label=none}}).<ref name=":21" />

In the {{Lang|la|[[Excerpta Latina Barbari]]}}, the British Isles ({{Lang|la|Brittaniacae insulae}}) are the last of the lands allotted to [[Japheth]] in the [[table of nations]]:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/apocalypseofpseu0000pseu/page/154 |title=Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. An Alexandrian World Chronicle (Excerpta Latina Barbari) |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-674-05307-6 |editor-last=Garstad |editor-first=Benjamin |location=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] |pages=154–155}}</ref>
[[File:BnF MS Latin 4884 f. 6v.jpg|thumb|[[Folio]] 6 [[verso]] of the {{Lang|fr|[[Bibliothèque nationale de France]]}}'s manuscript Latin 4884, probably written in the 780s at [[Corbie Abbey]] and including the phrase {{Langx|la|usque ad Brittaniacas insulas|4=all the way to the British Isles|label=none}}.]]

{{lang|la|Simul provintiae Iafeth quadraginta duae usque ad Brittaniacas insulas quae ad aquilonem respiciunt.}}|Altogether these are 42 provinces of Japheth all the way to the British Isles, which face to the north.|{{lang|la|[[Excerpta Latina Barbari]]}}, II.3.}}

In [[Arabic]] [[geography and cartography in the medieval Islamic world]], the British Isles are known as {{Transliteration|ar|Jazāʾir Barṭāniya}} or {{Transliteration|ar|Jazāʾir Barṭīniya}}. England was known as {{Transliteration|ar|Ankarṭara}}, {{Transliteration|ar|Inkiltara}}, or {{Transliteration|ar|Lanqalṭara}} ({{Langx|fr|l'Angleterre}}), Scotland as {{Transliteration|ar|Sqūsiya}} ({{Langx|la|Scotia|links=no}}), and Ireland as {{Transliteration|ar|Īrlanda}} or {{Transliteration|ar|Birlanda}}.<ref name=":47">{{Cite book |last=Dunlop |first=D. M. |author-link=Douglas Morton Dunlop |url=http://archive.org/details/arabcivilization0000dunl |title=Arab Civilization to A.D. 1500 |publisher=[[Longman]] and {{ill|Librairie du Liban|qid=Q55091753}} |year=1971 |isbn=978-0-582-50273-4 |location=Beirut and London |page=160 |language=en}}</ref> According to [[Douglas Morton Dunlop]], "Whether there was any Arab contact, except perhaps with Ireland, is, however, more than doubtful".<ref name=":47" /> Arabic geographies mention the British Isles as twelve islands.<ref name=":47" /> The ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|[[Kitāb az-Zīj]]}}'' of [[al-Battānī]] describes the British Isles as the "islands of Britain" ({{Langx|ar|جزائر برطانية|translit=Jazāʾir Barṭāniyah}}):<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/nallino-al-battini-opus-astronomicium-pars-1-3-1899 |title=Al-Battini sive Albatenii – Opus Astronomicum ad fidem codicis Escurialensis Arabice editum |publisher=[[Hoepli Editore|Hoepli]] |year=1899 |editor-last=Nallino |editor-first=C. A. |editor-link=Carlo Alfonso Nallino |volume=III |location=Milan |page=29 |language=ar, la}}</ref><ref name=":39">{{Cite journal |last=Dunlop |first=D. M. |author-link=Douglas Morton Dunlop |date=April 1957 |title=The British Isles according to medieval Arabic authors |journal=[[Islamic Quarterly]] |volume=IV |issue=1 |pages=11–28}}</ref>{{Text and translation|{{Rtl-para|ar|طنجة يسمى سبطاً يخرج الى بحر الروم وفيه ايضا من ناحية الشمال جزائر برطانية}}|In (the Western Ocean) also to the northward are the islands of {{transliteration|ar|Barṭiniyah}} (Britain), twelve in number.|[[Al-Battānī]], {{transliteration|ar|ALA|Kitāb az-Zīj}}.}}The ''{{transliteration|ar|[[Kitāb al-Aʿlāq an-Nafīsa]]|}}'' of [[Ahmad ibn Rustah]] describes the British Isles as the "twelve islands called ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|Jazāʾir Barṭīnīyah}}''" ({{Langx|ar|عشرة جزيرة تسمَّى جزائر برطينية|links=no|translit=ʿashrah jazīrat tusammā Jazāʾir Barṭāniyah}}).<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/bibliothecageogr07goej |title=Kitāb al-Aʿlāk an-Nafīsa auctore Abū Alī Ahmed ibn Omar ibn Rosteh et Kitāb al-Boldān auctore Ahmed ibn abī Jakūb ibn Wādhih al-Kātib al-Jakūbī. |publisher=[[E. J. Brill]] |year=1892 |editor-last=de Goeje |editor-first=M. J. |editor-link=Michael Jan de Goeje |series=Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum 7 |location=Leiden |page=85 |language=ar, la}}</ref><ref name=":39" /> According to Dunlop, this "account of the British Isles follows al-Battāni's almost verbatim and is doubtless derived from it".<ref name=":39" />

In the 9th century, the Irish monk [[Dicuil]] mentioned the British Isles together with {{Lang|la|[[Gallia Comata]]|italic=no}}: "{{Lang|la|Gallia Comata|italic=no}}, together with the Brittanic islands, is bounded on the east by the Rhine, …" ({{Langx|la|Gallia Comata cum insulis Brittanicis finitur ab oriente flumine Rheno, ...|links=no}}).<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/dicuililiberdem01dicugoog |title=Dicuili Liber de mensura orbis terræ |publisher=[[Christoph Friedrich Nicolai]] |year=1870 |editor-last=Parthey |editor-first=Gustav |editor-link=Gustav Parthey |location=Berlin |pages=7, 44 |language=la}}</ref><ref name=":10">{{Cite book |url=http://research.ucc.ie/celt/document/T090000-001 |title=Dicuili Liber de mensura orbis terrae |publisher=Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies |year=1967 |editor-last=Tierney |editor-first=J. J. |series=Scriptores Latini Hiberniae |pages=47, 77 |editor-last2=Bieler |editor-first2=Ludwig}}</ref> He also describes the [[Faroe Islands]] as being two days' sailing from "the northernmost British Isles"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Archibald |first=Malcolm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NWj8xMrwKH0C |title=Across the Pond: Chapters from the Atlantic |publisher=Dundurn |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-870325-33-2 |page=12 |language=en}}</ref> ({{Langx|la|a septentrionalibus Brittaniae insulis duorum dierum ac noctium recta navigatione|links=no|lit=from the northern islands of Britain in a direct voyage of two days and nights|label=none}}).<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":10" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Byfield |first1=Ted |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=68qCEMEZ6gwC |title=The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years |last2=Stanway |first2=Paul |date=2004 |publisher=Christian History Project |isbn=978-0-9689873-6-0 |volume=6: The Quest for the City: A.D. 740 to 1100: Pursuing the Next World, They Founded this One |language=en}}</ref>

According to Irmeli Valtonen in 2008, on the so-called ''Cotton mappa mundi'', an [[Anglo-Saxon]] [[mappa mundi]] based on the ''[[Old English Orosius]]'', "The largest feature is the British Isles, which is indicated by the inscription {{Langx|la|Brittannia|label=none}}".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Valtonen |first=Irmeli |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qkEcAQAAIAAJ |title=The North in the Old English Orosius: A Geographical Narrative in Context |date=2008 |publisher=Société Néophilologique |isbn=978-951-9040-29-5 |page=229 |language=en}}</ref>

The anonymous {{transliteration|fa|[[Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam]]}} describes the British Isles as the "twelve islands" ({{Langx|fa|دوازده جزیره}}) which are "called ''{{transliteration|fa|Briṭāniya}}''" ({{Langx|fa|جزیرها برطانیه خوانند|links=no}}).<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/20210707_20210707_0556 |title=حدود العالم من المشرق إلى المغرب بالفارسية |publisher=Tahuri Publishers |year=1983 |editor-last=Sotoudeh |editor-first=Manouchehr |editor-link=Manouchehr Sotoudeh |location=Tehran |page=22 |language=fa |trans-title=Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam |orig-date=1961}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/hudud-al-alam-minorsky-1970 |title=Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, 'The Regions of the World': a Persian Geography 372 A.H.–982 A.D. |others=with the preface by [[V. V. Barthold]] |year=1970 |editor-last=Minorsky |editor-first=Vladimir |editor-link=Vladimir Minorsky |edition=2nd |page=59 |orig-date=1937 |editor-last2=Bosworth |editor-first2=C. E. |editor-link2=Clifford Edmund Bosworth}}</ref><ref name=":39" />

The ''{{transliteration|ar|[[Kitāb at-Tanbīh wa'l-Ishrāf]]}}'' of [[al-Masʿūdī]] describes the British Isles as "the so-called Isles of Britain, twelve in number" ({{Langx|ar|الجزائر المسماة برطانية وفى اثنتا عشرة جزيرة|links=no|translit=al-jazāʾir al-musammāh Barṭāniyah wa-fī ithnatā ʿashrah jazīrat}}).<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.21214 |title=Kitāb at-Tanbīh wa'l-Ischrāf auctore al-Masūdī |publisher=[[E. J. Brill]] |year=1894 |editor-last=de Goeje |editor-first=M. J. |editor-link=Michael Jan de Goeje |series=Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum 8 |location=Leiden |page=68 |language=ar, la}}</ref><ref name=":39" />

In the {{Lang|la|Imago Mundi}} attributed to [[Honorius of Autun]] ({{Lang|la|Honorius Augustodunensis}}), the British Isles are all treated under the heading {{Lang|la|Britannia}}, the title of the twenty-ninth chapter:<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Flint |first=Valerie I. J. |author-link=Valerie Flint |date=1982 |title=Honorius Augustodunensis: Imago Mundi |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44403737 |journal=Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge |volume=49 |pages=7–153 |issn=0373-5478}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=62–63}}
[[File:Bayerische_Staatsbibliothek_BSB_Clm_536_page_22.jpg|thumb|Page of the {{Lang|de|[[Bayerische Staatsbibliothek]]}}'s manuscript Clm 536, copied between 1143 and 1145, including the {{Lang|la|Imago Mundi}} of Honorius of Autun's chapter on the British Isles entitled and [[rubricated]] {{Lang|la|Britannia}}.]]

<br/>
{{lang|la|Contra Hispaniam versus occasum sunt in oceano heę insulę, Britannia Anglia, Hibernia, Tanatos cuius terra quovis gentium portata serpentes perimit, Insole in qua fit solstitium, Orcades .xxxiii., Scotia, Thile cuius arbores numquam folia deponunt, et in qua vi. mensibus videlicet estivis est continuus dies, .vi. hibernis continua nox. Ultra hanc versus aquilonem est mare congelatum et frigus perpetuum.}}

[[John Tzetzes]] mentioned the British Isles in the eighth book of his ''[[Chiliades]]'' as {{Langx|grc|Αἱ Βρεττανίδες νῆσοι|label=none|translit=hai Brettanídes nē̂soi|lit=the Brettanides islands}}, describing them as "two of the greatest of all" ({{Langx|grc|δύο αἱ μέγισται πασῶν|label=none|translit=dyo hai mégistai pasō̂n}}) and naming them as {{Langx|grc|Ἰουερνία|label=none|translit=Iouernía}} and {{Langx|grc|Ἀλουβίων|label=none|translit=Aloubíōn}}.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/ioannistzetzaehi0001tzet |title=Ioannis Tzetzae Historiae |date=1968 |publisher=Napoli Libreria scientifica editrice |editor-last=Leone |editor-first=Pietro Luigi M. |editor-link=Pietro Luigi M. Leone |page=329 |language=grc, la}}</ref> According to [[Jane Lightfoot]], John Tzetzes's conception of the British Isles was "two major islands plus thirty Orkneys and Thule near them".<ref name=":50" />

According to the [[University of Michigan]]'s ''[[Middle English Dictionary]]'', the [[Middle English]] word {{lang|enm|Britlond}}, {{lang|enm|Brutlond}} or {{lang|enm|Brutlonde}} (from the {{Langx|ang|Brytland}}) could mean either "ancient Britain" or "the British Isles," while a "Brit" was "A Celt: specif., Welshman, Breton".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Brit n. |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED6077 |access-date=6 October 2023 |website=[[Middle English Dictionary]] |publisher=[[University of Michigan]]}}</ref> The [[noun]] {{lang|enm|Britoun}} (variously spelled {{lang|enm|Britton}}, {{lang|enm|Briton}}, {{lang|enm|Bryton}}, {{lang|enm|Brytoun}}, {{lang|enm|Bruton}}, {{lang|enm|Brutun}}, {{lang|enm|Brutin}}, {{lang|enm|Breton}}, {{lang|enm|Bretonn}}, or {{lang|enm|Britaygne}}) meant "a native of the British Isles, a Celt".<ref name=":13">{{Cite web |title=Britoun n. & adj. |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED6084 |access-date=6 October 2023 |website=[[Middle English Dictionary]] |publisher=[[University of Michigan]]}}</ref> The same word was also an [[adjective]] meaning "[[Brittonic languages|Brittonic]], British" or "Breton".<ref name=":13" />

The English texts of the popular work ''[[Mandeville's Travels]]'' mention Great Britain in the context of the [[invention of the True Cross]] by [[Helena, mother of Constantine I]], who was supposed to be a daughter of the [[Legendary kings of Britain|legendary British king]] [[Coel Hen#Colchester legend|Coel of Colchester]].<ref name=":27">{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/defectiveversion0000mand |title=The Defective Version of Mandeville's Travels |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-722322-2 |editor-last=Seymour |editor-first=Michael C. |series=Early English Text Society 319 |page=9 |language=enm, en}}</ref> The so-called "Defective" manuscript tradition – the most widespread English version – spelled the toponym "Britain" in various ways. In the 2002 [[critical edition]] by M. C. Seymour based on manuscript 283 in the library of [[Queen's College, Oxford]], the text says of Helena, in {{Langx|enm|… þe whiche seynt Elyn was moder of Constantyn emperour of Rome, and heo was douȝter of kyng Collo, þat was kyng of Engelond, þat was þat tyme yclepid þe Grete Brutayne, …}}.<ref name=":27" /> In the 2007 edition by Tamarah Kohanski and C. David Benson based on manuscript Royal 17 C in the [[British Library]], the text is: {{Lang|enm|… Ingelond that was that tyme called the Greet Brytayne …}}.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/bookofjohnmandev0000mand_a4k9 |title=The Book of John Mandeville |date=2007 |publisher=Medieval Institute Publications |isbn=978-1-58044-113-1 |editor-last=Kohanski |editor-first=Tamarah |series=TEAMS Middle English Texts Series |location=Kalamazoo, Michigan |page=25 |language=enm, en |editor-last2=Benson |editor-first2=C. David}}</ref> The chronicler John Stow in 1575 and the poet William Slatyer in 1621 each cited the spelling of "''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Brutayne}}''" or "''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Brytayne}}''" in ''Mandeville's Travels'' as evidence that Brutus of Troy was the origin of the name of the British Isles.<ref name=":28" /><ref name=":29" />

The ''[[Annals of Ulster]]'' describe [[Viking raid warfare and tactics|Viking raids]] against what it refers to as "Islands of Britain" under the Latin entry for the year 793: {{Langx|la|Uastatio omnium insolarum Britannię a gentilibus|links=no|label=none|lit=Devastation of all the islands of Britain by heathens' or, in one 19th century translation, 'a devastation of all the British isles by pagans}}.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LY9nAAAAMAAJ |title=The Annals of Ulster (to A.D. 1131): Text and translation |publisher=[[Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies]] |year=1983 |isbn=978-0-901282-77-4 |editor-last=Airt |editor-first=Seán Mac |pages=250–251 |language=la, en |editor-last2=Niocaill |editor-first2=Gearóid Mac |editor-link2=Gearóid Mac Niocaill}}</ref><ref name=":37">{{Cite book |last=Henderson |first=George |author-link=George Henderson (scholar) |url=http://archive.org/details/norseinfluenceon00hend |title=The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland |publisher=[[James MacLehose and Sons]] |year=1910 |location=Glasgow |pages=9–10 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/cu31924091786537 |title=Annals of Ulster, otherwise Annals of Senat; A Chronicle of Irish Affairs from A.D. 451 to A.D. 1540 |publisher=[[Her Majesty's Stationery Office]], [[A. Thom & Co.]] |year=1887 |editor-last=Hennessy |editor-first=William M. |editor-link=William Maunsell Hennessy |volume=I. A.D. 431–1056. |pages=274–275}}</ref> The surviving Early Modern English translation by {{Lang|ga|[[Conall Mag Eochagáin]]|italic=no}} of the since-lost Gaelic ''[[Annals of Clonmacnoise]]'' also describes this attack on "Islands of Britain", but under the year 791: "''{{lang|en-emodeng|All the Islands of Brittaine were wasted & much troubled by the Danes; this was thiere first footing in England.|italic=no}}''"<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/annalsofclonmacn00mage |title=The Annals of Clonmacnoise; being annals of Ireland, from the earliest period to A. D. 1408. Translated into English A. D. 1627 by Connell Mageoghagan |publisher=[[Dublin University Press]] for the [[Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland]] |year=1896 |editor-last=Murphy |editor-first=Denis |page=127 |language=en-emodeng, en-ie}}</ref><ref name=":37" /> According to [[Alex Woolf]] in 2007, the report in the ''Annals of Ulster'' "has been interpreted as a very generalised account of small-scale raids all over Britain" but that argues that "Such generalised notices … are not common in the Irish chronicles". Woolf compares the ''Annals of Ulster''{{'}}s "islands of Britain" with the "islands of Alba" mentioned by the {{Lang|la|[[Chronicon Scotorum]]}}.<ref name=":44">{{Cite book |last=Woolf |first=Alex |author-link=Alex Woolf |url=http://archive.org/details/frompictlandtoal0000wool |title=From Pictland to Alba: 789–1070 |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7486-1234-5 |pages=45–46, 200–201 |language=en}}</ref> The {{Lang|la|Chronicon}} describes {{Lang|ga|[[Muirchertach mac Néill]]|italic=no}}'s attack on the "islands of Alba" ({{Langx|ga|hinsib Alban|links=no}}) under the entry for the year 940 or 941:<ref name=":44" /> {{Langx|ga|Murcablach la Muircertach mac Néll go ttug orgain a hinsib Alban|lit=A fleet was fitted out by Muircertach, son of Niall, and he brought plunder from the islands of Alba.|label=none}}<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/chronicumscotoru00macfuoft |title=Chronicum Scotorum: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1135; with a supplement, containing the events from 1141 to 1150; edited, with a translation |last2= |first2= |publisher=[[Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer]] |year=1866 |editor-last=Hennessy |editor-first=William M. |editor-link=William Maunsell Hennessy |location=London |pages=202–205 |translator-last=Hennessy |translator-first=William M. |translator-link=William Maunsell Hennessy}}</ref> According to Woolf, "This latter entry undoubtedly refers to the Hebrides".<ref name=":44" /> Woolf argues that "It seems likely that the islands of Alba/Britain was the term used in Ireland specifically for the Hebrides (which makes very good sense from the perspective of our chroniclers based in the northern half of Ireland)".<ref name=":44" /> The ''[[Annals of the Four Masters]]''{{'s}} report on the death of [[Fothad I]] under the year 961 describes him as {{Langx|ga|Fothaḋ, mac Brain, scriḃniḋ ⁊ espucc Insi Alban|lit=Fothadh, son of Bran, scribe and Bishop of Insi-Alban|label=none}}.<ref name=":45">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/annals01odonuoft |title=Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the Four Masters, from the earliest period to the year 1616. Edited from MSS. in the library of the Royal Irish Academy and of Trinity College, Dublin, with a translation, and copious notes |date=1856 |publisher=[[Hodges, Smith and Co.]] |editor-last=O'Donovan |editor-first=John |editor-link=John O'Donovan (scholar) |edition=2nd |volume=I |location=Dublin |pages=682–683 |language=ga, en}}</ref> [[John O'Donovan (scholar)|John O'Donovan]]'s 1856 edition glossed "Insi-Alban" as "the islands of Scotland".<ref name=":45" /> According to Woolf in 2007, this "is the latest use of the term 'Islands of Alba' for the Hebrides (probably just the islands from [[Tiree]] south)".<ref name=":44" /> According to Alasdair Ross in 2011, the "islands of Alba" are "presumably the [[Western Isles]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=Alasdair |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P5pREAAAQBAJ |title=The Kings of Alba, c.1000–c.1130 |publisher=[[Birlinn Ltd]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-78885-367-5 |page=79 |language=en |orig-date=2011}}</ref>

=== Early Modern Period ===
[[Michael Critobulus]], in his ''History''{{'}}s dedicatory letter to [[Mehmed II]] ({{Reign|1444|1481}}), expressed his hope that by writing in Greek his work would have a wide audience, including "those who inhabit the British Isles" ({{Langx|grc|τοῖς τὰς Βρετανικὰς Νήσους οἰκοῦσι|label=Greek|links=no|translit=toîs tàs Bretanikàs Nḗsous oikoûsi}}).<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/cfhb-11.1-nicetae-choniatae-historia/CFHB%2022_Critobuli%20Imbriotae%20Historiae/page/4 |title=Critobuli Imbriotae Historiae |publisher=[[De Gruyter]] |year=1983 |editor-last=Reinsch |editor-first=Diether |editor-link=Diether Roderich Reinsch |series=[[Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae]] 22 |pages=5 |language=grc, la |doi=10.1515/9783110862874|isbn=978-3-11-008969-1 }}</ref><ref name=":51">{{Cite book |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691198187/html |title=Kritovoulos: History of Mehmed the Conqueror |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-691-19818-7 |pages=vii, 4 |language=en-US |translator-last=Riggs |translator-first=Charles T. |doi=10.1515/9780691198187 |orig-date=1954}}</ref> According to Charles T. Riggs in 1954, Critobulus "distinctly states that he hopes to influence the [[Philhellenes]] in the British Isles by this story of a Turkish sultan".<ref name=":51" />

[[Francesco Berlinghieri]]'s 1482 [[Italian poetry|Italian verse]] adaptation of Ptolemy's {{Lang|la|Geographia}} describes both Ireland and Great Britain as British islands in the fourth and fifth chapters of the second book. The {{Langx|it|sito di Ibernia isola|4=site of the island Hibernia|links=no|label=none}}, begins:{{Text and translation|{{Break lines|{{lang|it|Britannica hora ibernia isola e questa 
& dagli habitatori e decta irlanda 
laquale inprima adnoi si manifesta. 
Dalla uernara ibernia si domanda 
britannica perche era da brettoni 
possessa aquali adouardo hor chomanda.}}}}|{{Break lines|The British Hibernia island is this,
and by its inhabitants is called Ireland,
which first to us manifests itself.
From the spring it is named Hibernia,
British because it was by the Britons
possessed, whom [[Edward V|Edward]] now commands.}}|[[Francesco Berlinghieri]], ''{{lang|it|Geografia}}'', II.4.<ref>{{Citation |last=Berlinghieri |first=Francesco |title=Geografia |date=1482 |website= |trans-chapter=Site of Hibernia island |url=https://incunaboli.accademiadellacrusca.org/theke/im_componi.asp?path1=inc020&nomefile=QAB6035&sequenza=42 |access-date=2024-12-19 |chapter=II.4: Sito di Ibernia isola |place=Florence}}</ref>}}

Berlinghieri's {{Langx|it|sito dalbione isola|links=no|4=site of the island Albion|label=none}}, begins:{{Text and translation|{{Break lines|{{lang|it|E lato boreale hora albione 
Britannica dimonstra isola ilquale 
lisola Scotia ha insua giuriditione.}}}}|{{Break lines|From the northern side now Albion, 
the British island, shows, which 
has the island Scotia in its jurisdiction .}}|[[Francesco Berlinghieri]], ''{{lang|it|Geografia}}'', II.5.<ref>{{Citation |last=Berlinghieri |first=Francesco |title=Geografia |date=1482 |website= |trans-chapter=Site of Albion island |url=https://incunaboli.accademiadellacrusca.org/theke/im_componi.asp?path1=inc020&nomefile=QAB6037&sequenza=44 |access-date=2024-12-19 |chapter=II.5: Sito dalbione isola |place=Florence}}</ref>}}

[[John Skelton (poet)|John Skelton]]'s English translation of [[Poggio Bracciolini]]'s Latin translation of Diodorus Siculus's preface to his {{Langx|la|[[Bibliotheca historica]]|label=none}}, written in the middle 1480s, mentions the British Isles as {{Lang|enm|the yles of Bretayne}}.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-7tQAQAAMAAJ |title=The Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus translated by John Skelton |publisher=[[Early English Text Society]] |year=1955 |editor-last=Salter |editor-first=F. M. |series=Early English Text Society Original Series 233 |volume=I: Text |page=11 |language=en |editor-last2=Edwards |editor-first2=H. L. R.}}</ref>[[File:Stevenson 1911 atlasofportolanc00magg 0024 XII Britain and Ireland.jpg|thumb|[[Portolan chart]] of the British Isles from the [[Egerton 2803 maps]] ([[folio]] 6b), probably made by [[Visconte Maggiolo]] between 1508 and 1510 and now in the [[British Library]]. Great Britain and Ireland are each labelled in {{Langx|grc|νῆσος Βρεττανική|lit=a British island|translit=nê̄sos Brettanikḗ}}.]]Andronikos Noukios, a Greek writing under the [[pen name]] Nikandros Noukios ({{Langx|la|Nicander Nucius|links=no}}), visited Great Britain in the reign of [[Henry VIII]] ({{Reign|1509|1547}}) as part of an embassy. In his account, he describes the British Isles as having taken their name from colonists from [[Brittany]], rather than the other way around.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Eichholz |first=D. E. |date=1947 |title=A Greek Traveller in Tudor England |journal=[[Greece & Rome]] |volume=16 |issue=47 |pages=76–84 |doi=10.1017/S001738350000944X |jstor=641783 |issn=0017-3835}}</ref> He wrote:{{Text and translation|{{lang|grc|Καὶ τὰς μὲν νήσους ταύτας ἁπάσας καλοῦσι κυρίως Βρετανικὰς, ὡς πάλαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν τῇ Βρετανίᾳ τῶν ἐν Γαλατείᾳ οἰκητόρων, ἀποικίαν στειλάντων, καὶ τὰς νήσους οἰκησάντων. Μετηλλάχθησαν δ᾽ ὑπὸ τῶν ὀψιγόνων αἱ ὀνομασίαι κατὰ καιρόν. Καὶ ἡ μὲν καλεῖται Αγγλία, ἡ δὲ Σκοτία, ἡ ἑτέρα δὲ Ἱβερνία καὶ ἄλλη ἄλλως.}}|Appropriately they call these islands Brittanic because long ago the dwellers in Brittany – which is in France – sent out a colony and peopled the islands. The names were altered by later generations according to circumstances, and one island was called England, another Scotland, another Hibernia, and others likewise.|''The Travels of Nikandros Noukios of Corfu'', II.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/secondbookoftrav00nuciuoft |title=The Second Book of the Travels of Nicander Nucius of Corcyra |date=1841 |publisher=Printed for the Camden Society by J. B. Nichols |editor-last=Cramer |editor-first=John Anthony|author-link=John Cramer (priest)|location=London |page=26 |language=grc, en}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Muir |first=John |title=Greek Eyes on Europe: The Travels of Nikandros Noukios of Corfu |date=2022 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781003257769-2/travels-nikandros-noukios-corfu-translation-john-muir |work= |pages=53–54 |access-date=21 October 2023 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781003257769-2 |isbn=978-1-003-25776-9|url-access=subscription }}</ref>}}

[[File:Egnazio Danti - British Isles - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|[[Ignazio Danti]]'s map of the British Isles from the [[Florence|Florentine]] [[Palazzo Vecchio]]'s [[Palazzo Vecchio#Stanza delle Mappe geografiche o Stanza della Guardaroba|Stanza delle Mappe geografiche]], 1565: {{Langx|it|Isole Britaniche: Lequalico tengano il regno di Inghilterra et di Scotia con l'Hibernia|label=none}}]]

The term "British Isles" entered the English language in the late 16th century to refer to Great Britain, Ireland and the surrounding islands. In general, the modern notion of "Britishness" evolved after the 1707 Act of Union.<ref>{{Harvnb|Snyder|2003|p=281}} quoting Linda Colley.</ref> [[File:UBBasel Map 1550 Kartenslg Mappe 237-1 Britannische Inseln.tiff|thumb|Simplified German version of [[Ptolemy]]'s "first map of Europe", representing the British Isles ({{Langx|de|Britannische Inseln|label=none}}), from [[Sebastian Münster]]'s 1550 German edition of his [[Cosmographia (Sebastian Münster)|''Cosmographia'']] published in [[Basel]] ([[Basel University Library]]).]][[Gerardus Mercator]], on his 1538 world map on a double cordiform [[Map projection|projection]], labelled the British Isles {{Langx|la|Insulę Britannicę|label=none}}.<ref name=":52">{{Citation |title=World Map on Double Cordiform Projection |work=[[Library of Congress]] |date=January 1538 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2021668435 |access-date=2024-12-19 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":53">{{Cite web |title=World map on double cordiform projection |url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c5326a5c-cd31-6b8c-e040-e00a18063384 |access-date=2024-12-19 |website=[[New York Public Library]] Digital Collections |language=en}}</ref>

By the middle of the 16th century the term appears on maps made by geographers including [[Sebastian Münster]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Baxendell |first=David |title=munster_england_1550 |url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_files/ENG/aaEng/munster_england_1550.htm |access-date=1 November 2018 |website=Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com}}</ref> Münster in {{Langx|la|Geographia Universalis|lit=Universal Geography|label=none}} (a 1550 reissue of Ptolemy's ''Geography'') uses the heading {{Langx|la|De insulis Britannicis, Albione, quæ est Anglia & Hibernia, & de ciuitatibus earum in genere|lit=Of the Britannic islands, Albion, which is England, and Ireland, and of their cities in general|label=none}}''.''<ref name="biom">[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_Pages/ENG_pages/aaEng.htm British Isles Old Maps]. Retrieved 12 March 2007.</ref>

Mercator, in the legend to the map of the British Isles he published as ''{{Interlanguage link|Angliae, Scotiae & Hiberniae nova descriptio|de}}'' at [[Duisburg]] in 1564, refers to the work as {{Langx|la|hanc Britannicarum insularum descriptionem|lit=this description of the British Isles|label=none}}. On the map itself, a [[Cartouche (design)|cartouche]] in the Irish Sea contains the statement {{Langx|la|veteres appellarunt has insulas Britannicas|lit=the ancients called these islands Britannic|label=none}}.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1564 |title=Angliae Scotiae et Hiberniae nova descriptio / [par Gerard Mercator] |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55004576j/f1.item |access-date=2024-12-19 |website=[[Gallica]], [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]] |language=EN}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/themes/mapsandviews/mercator.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080916122712/http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/themes/mapsandviews/mercator.html|title=Showcases:: Mercator Atlas of Europe|archive-date=16 September 2008}}</ref>[[File:Angliae, Scotiae, Et Hiberniae, Sive Britannicar- Insularum Descriptio (cropped).jpg|thumb|A copy of [[Abraham Ortelius]]'s map of the British Isles, published by [[Christophe Plantin]] at [[Antwerp]] {{Circa|1588}}, entitled in {{Langx|la|Angliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae, sive {{Abbreviation|Britannicar.|Britannicarum}} insularum descriptio|lit=A description of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland, or of the Britannic islands}}. ([[National Library of Israel]]).]]
[[Abraham Ortelius]], in his atlas of 1570 ({{Langx|la|[[Theatrum Orbis Terrarum]]|label=none}}), uses the title {{Langx|la|Angliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae, sive {{Abbreviation|Britannicar.|Britannicarum}} insularum descriptio|lit=A description of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland, or of the Britannic islands|label=none}}.<ref name=":22">{{Citation |last=Schwyzer |first=Philip |title=The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed's Chronicles |date=2012 |url=https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38150 |work= |pages=593–608 |editor-last=Heal |editor-first=Felicity |chapter=Archipelagic History |chapter-url=https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38150/chapter/332951578 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199565757.013.0035 |author-link=Philip Schwyzer |editor2-last=Archer |editor2-first=Ian W. |editor3-last=Kewes |editor3-first=Paulina |editor1-link=Felicity Heal |editor2-link=Ian Archer|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{Rp|page=605}} According to [[Philip Schwyzer]], "This is among the very first early modern references to the 'British Isles', a term used anciently by Pliny but rarely in the medieval period or earlier in the sixteenth century".<ref name=":22" />{{Rp|page=605}}

[[Thomas Twyne]]'s English translation of Dionysius Periegetes's {{Langx|la|Orbis descriptio|label=none}}, published in 1572, mentions the British Isles as {{Lang|enm|the Iles of Britannia}}.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A20492.0001.001 |title=The surueye of the vvorld, or situation of the earth, so muche as is inhabited Comprysing briefely the generall partes thereof, with the names both new and olde, of the principal countries, kingdoms, peoples, cities, towns, portes, promontories, hils, woods, mountains, valleyes, riuers and fountains therin conteyned. Also of seas, with their clyffes, reaches, turnings, elbows, quicksands, rocks, flattes, shelues and shoares. A work very necessary and delectable for students of geographie, saylers, and others. First vvritten in Greeke by Dionise Alexandrine, and novv englished by Thomas Twine, Gentl. |publisher=[[Henrie Bynneman]] |year=1572 |language=enm |translator-last=Twyne |translator-first=Thomas |translator-link=Thomas Twyne}}</ref>

[[John Stow]], citing [[Aethicus Ister]], ''[[Mandeville's Travels]]'', and [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]], described the naming of Great Britain and the British Isles by [[Brutus of Troy]] ({{langx|en-emodeng|Brute}}) in his 1575 work ''A Summarie of the Chronicles of England''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gilchrist |first=Kim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-T8sEAAAQBAJ |title=Staging Britain's Past: Pre-Roman Britain in Early Modern Drama |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing]] |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-3501-6334-8 |series=Arden Studies in Early Modern Drama |location=London |page=10 |language=en}}</ref> According to Stow's second chapter, Brutus:<ref name=":28">{{Cite book |last=Stow |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KmdUAAAAcAAJ |title=A Summarie of the Chronicles of England from the first comming of Brute into this land, unto this present yeare of Christ 1575 |publisher=[[Richard Tottle]] and [[Henry Binneman]] |year=1575 |location=London |pages=17–18 |language=en-emodeng |author-link=John Stow|oclc=644077700}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=... {{lang|en-emodeng|aryved in this Ilande, whyche was called Albion, at a place now called [[Totnes]] in [[Devonshire]], the [[Anno Mundi|yere of the world]]. 2855. the [[Anno Domini|yeare before Christs nativitie]]. 1108. wherein he first began to raigne, and named it Britaine, (as some write) or rather after his owne name Brutaine, as}} {{lang|la|Æthicus}} {{lang|en-emodeng|that wonderfull Philosopher (a [[Scythians|Scithian]] by race, but an [[Istria]]n by countrey) translated by [[Jerome|saint Hierome]] above a thousand yeares past, termeth both it and the Iles adiacent}} {{lang|la|Insulas Britanicas}}. {{lang|en-emodeng|And for more proufe of this restored name, not only the sayde Philosopher (who travelled through many lands, and in this lande taught the knowledge of minerall works) maye be alledged, but sundrie other: & some English wryters above an hundred yeares since, usually do so name it, and not otherwise, through a large historie of this land, translated out of Frenche.}}|author=[[John Stow]]|title=''A Summarie of the Chronicles of England'', 1575|source=page 17–18.}}

The 1580 edition of Stow's work spelled the Latin name {{lang|la|Insulas Brutannicas}} and the English names ''{{lang|en-emodeng|Brutan}}'' and ''{{lang|en-emodeng|the Brytaines}}'', and additionally cited the authority of the ''[[Sibylline Oracles]]'' for the conflation of the Latin letter [[Y]] with the {{Langx|grc|υ|links=no}} or {{Lang|grc|Υ}} (''[[upsilon]]''):<ref name=":36">{{Cite book |last=Stow |first=John |title=The Chronicles of England, from Brute unto this present yeare of Christ 1580 |publisher=[[Ralphe Newberie]] & [[Henrie Bynneman]] |year=1580 |location=London |pages=17–18 |language=en-emodeng |author-link=John Stow}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=... the ''Sybils'' {{lang|en-emodeng|Oracles, who in the name of the Brytaines is written with y. that is the Greekes little u. whyche Oracles althoughe they were not the Sibils owne worke, as some suspecte, yet are they very antient indeede, and that they might seeme more auntient, use the moste auntient name of Countreys and peoples}}|author=John Stow|title=''A Summarie of the Chronicles of England'', 1580|source=page 17–18.}}

Schwyzer states that [[Raphael Holinshed]]'s 1577 ''[[Holinshed's Chronicles|Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland]]'' is the first work of historiography to deal with the British Isles in particular; "To the best of my knowledge, no book published in England before 1577 specified in its title a scope at once inclusive of and restricted to England, Scotland, and Ireland".<ref name=":22" />{{Rp|page=594}} According to Holinshed himself in the second chapter (''{{lang|en-emodeng|Of the auncient names of this Islande}}'') of the first book (''{{lang|en-emodeng|An Historicall Description of the Islande of Britayne, with a briefe rehearsall of the nature and qualities of the people of Englande, and of all such commodities as are to be founde in the same}}'') of the first volume of the ''Chronicles'', Brutus had both renamed Albion after himself and given his name to the British Isles as a whole:
{{Blockquote|text=... {{lang|en-emodeng|Brute, who arriving here in the 1127, before Christ, and 2840. after the creation, not onely chaunged it into Britayne (after it had bene called Albion, by the space of 595. yeares) but to declare his sovereigntie over the reast of the Islandes also that are about the same, he called them all after the same maner, so that Albion was sayde in tyme to be}} {{lang|la|Britanniarum insula maxima}}, {{lang|en-emodeng|that is, the greatest of those Isles that bare the name of Britayne.}}|title=''[[Holinshed's Chronicles|Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland]]'', 1577|author=[[Raphael Holinshed]]|source=Volume I, chapter 2, page 2.}}[[File:Ortelius_-_Eryn,_Britannicae_Insulae_2.jpg|thumb|A copy of [[Abraham Ortelius]]'s map of Ireland, published at [[Antwerp]], 1575, labelled with various names of the island, which is described as a "Britannic island":

{{blockquote|''{{lang|nl|Eryn}}:<br />{{smallcaps|{{lang|la|Hiberniae,<br />Britannicae<br />Insulæ, Nova<br />Descriptio}}}}<br />{{lang|nl|Irlandt}}''}}]]
The geographer and occultist [[John Dee (mathematician)|John Dee]] (of Welsh ancestry)<ref>[http://www.johndee.org/charlotte/Chapter1/1p3.html Chapter 1, p. 3] from {{Cite book|author=Fell Smith, Charlotte|year=1909|title=John Dee: 1527–1608|location=London|publisher=Constable and Company|url=http://www.johndee.org/charlotte/|access-date=13 April 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326211314/http://www.johndee.org/charlotte/|archive-date=26 March 2009}}</ref> was an adviser to [[Elizabeth I]] ({{Reign|1558|1603}}) and prepared maps for several explorers. He helped to develop legal justifications for colonisation by [[English Reformation|Protestant England]], breaking the [[duopoly]] the Pope [[Inter caetera|had granted]] to the [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]] and [[Portuguese Empire]]s. Dee coined the term "[[British Empire]]" and built his case, in part, on the claim of a "British Ocean"; including Britain, Ireland, Iceland, [[Greenland]] and (possibly) [[North America]], he used alleged Saxon precedent to claim territorial and trading rights.<ref name=":14" /> According to Ken MacMillan, "his imperial vision was simply propaganda and antiquarianism, without much practical value and of limited interest to the English crown and state."<ref name=":14">{{Cite journal |last=MacMillan |first=Ken |date=2001 |title=Discourse on History, Geography, and Law: John Dee and the Limits of the British Empire, 1576–80 |url=https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/cjh.36.1.1 |journal=Canadian Journal of History |language=en |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=1–26 |doi=10.3138/cjh.36.1.1 |issn=0008-4107|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The [[Lordship of Ireland]] had come under tighter English control as the [[Kingdom of Ireland]], and diplomatic efforts ([[Rough Wooing|interspersed with warfare]]) tried to bring Scotland under the English monarch as well.<ref name=":14" />{{Verify source|date=October 2023}}

Dee used the term "''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Brytish Iles}}''" in his ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|General and Rare Memorials Pertaining to Perfecte Arte of Navigation}}'' of 1577.<ref name=":15">John Dee, ''General and rare memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation'', London (1577), pp. 3, 9, 12, 65 [63].</ref> Dee also referred to the ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Imperiall Crown of these Brytish Ilandes}}'', which he called an ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Ilandish Monarchy}}'', and to the ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Brytish Ilandish Monarchy}}''.<ref name=":15" /> According to [[Frances Yates]], Dee argued that the advice given by the [[Byzantine Greeks|Byzantine]] [[Neoplatonist]] philosopher [[Gemistos Plethon]] in two orations addressed to the emperor [[Manuel II Palaiologos]] ({{Reign|1373|1425}}) and his son [[Theodore II Palaiologos]] ({{Reign|1407|1448}}) "on the affairs of the [[Peloponnesus]] and on ways and means both of improving the economy of the [[Greek islands]] and of defending them" should inform Elizabeth I's claims to [[territorial waters]] and adjacent territories.<ref name=":16">{{Cite journal |last=Yates |first=Frances A. |author-link=Frances Yates |date=1947 |title=Queen Elizabeth as Astraea |journal=[[Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes]] |volume=10 |pages=27–82 |doi=10.2307/750395 |jstor=750395 |issn=0075-4390}}</ref>{{Rp|page=47}} Dee described these orations as "now published" – they had been translated into Latin by [[Willem Canter]] from a manuscript owned by [[János Zsámboky]] and published at [[Antwerp]] in 1575 by [[Christophe Plantin]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Παλαιολόγεια και Πελοποννησιακά |publisher=Εκδόσεις Βασ. Ν. Γρηγοριάδης |year=1972 |editor-last=Λάμπρος |editor-first=Σπυρίδων |editor-link=Spyridon Lambros |volume=III |location=Athens |pages=246–265 |language=el, grc |chapter=Γεωργίου Γεμιστού: Εἰς Μανουὴλ Παλαιολόγον περὶ τῶν ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ παργμάτων |author-link=Spyridon Lambros |orig-date=1926}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Παλαιολόγεια και Πελοποννησιακά |publisher=Εκδόσεις Βασ. Ν. Γρηγοριάδης |year=1972 |editor-last=Λάμπρος |editor-first=Σπυρίδων |editor-link=Spyridon Lambros |volume=IV |location=Athens |pages=113–135 |language=el, grc |chapter=Πλήθωνος Συμβουλευτικὸς πρὸς τὸν δεσπότην Θεόδωρον περὶ τῆς Πελοποννήσου |author-link=Spyridon Lambros |orig-date=1930}}</ref> Dee wrote:

{{Blockquote|text={{lang|en-emodeng|Moreover, (Sayd he) if it should not be taken in worse parte, of {{smallcaps|our soveraign}}, than, of the Emperour of Constantinople,}} ''Emanuel'', {{lang|en-emodeng|the syncere Intent, and faythfull Advise, of}} ''Georgius Gemistus Pletho'', {{lang|en-emodeng|was, I could (proportionally, for the occasion of the Tyme, and place,) frame and shape very much of}} ''Gemistus'' {{lang|en-emodeng|those his two Greek Orations, (the first, to the Emperor, and the Second to his Sonne, Prince}} ''Theodore'':) {{lang|en-emodeng|for our {{smallcaps|brytish iles}}, and in better and more allowable manner, at this Day, for our People, than that his Plat (for Reformation of the State, at those Dayes, (could be found, for}} ''Peloponnesus'', {{lang|en-emodeng|avaylable. But, Seeing those Orations, are now published: both in Greek and Latin, I need not Dowbt, but they, to whom, the chief Care of such causes is committed, have Diligently selected the Hony of those Flowres, already, for the Common-Wealths great Benefit.}}|author=[[John Dee]]|title=''General and Rare Memorials Pertaining to Perfecte Arte of Navigation'', 1577.}}

According to Yates, "In spite of the difficulties of Dee's style and punctuation his meaning is clear" – Dee argued "that the advice given to the Byzantine Emperor by Pletho is good advice for Elizabeth, the Empress of Britain".<ref name=":16" />{{Rp|page=47}} Dee believed that the British Isles had originally been called the "Brutish Isles", a name he had read in [[Aethicus Ister]]'s ''Cosmography'', which he thought was written in Classical Antiquity.<ref name=":20">{{Cite book |last=Clark |first=Frederic |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BHl_DwAAQBAJ |title=Literary Forgery in Early Modern Europe, 1450–1800 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-4214-2687-7 |editor-last=Stephens |editor-first=Walter |location=Baltimore |pages=74–98 |language=en |chapter=Forgery, Misattribution, and a Case of Secondary Pseudonymity: Aethicus Ister's Cosmographia and Its Early Modern Multiplications |editor-last2=Havens |editor-first2=Earle A. |editor-last3=Gomez |editor-first3=Janet E.}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=85–86}} Invoking the ''Cosmography'' of Aethicus and its supposed translator [[Jerome]], Dee argued that the British Isles had been misnamed, noting:<ref name=":38">{{Cite book |last=French |first=Peter J. |url=http://archive.org/details/johndeeworldofel0000fren |title=John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus |publisher=[[Routledge]] & [[Kegan Paul]] |year=1972 |isbn=978-0-7100-7158-3 |edition=1st |location=London |page=192 |language=en-GB}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text={{lang|en-emodeng|[[Jerome|S<sup>t</sup> Hierome]] his admiration of {{smallcaps|ethicus}} his assert[ion] that these Iles of {{smallcaps|albion}} and {{smallcaps|irelande}} sho[ld] be called {{smallcaps|brutanicae}} & not {{smallcaps|britannicae}}}}|author=John Dee|title=''Of Famous and Rich Discoveries''|source=1577, [[British Library]], [[Cotton library|Cotton MS. Vitellius]]. C. VII. art. 3, fols. 202 [[recto and verso|r–v]].}}

According to Peter J. French, "Like [[John Leland (antiquary)|Leland]], [[Humphrey Llwyd|Lhuyd]] and other antiquarians, Dee believed that it was mistakes in orthography and pronunciation that had confused the spelling of the name", which had come from the name of Brutus. The supposed alteration in spelling had caused:<ref name=":38" />

{{Blockquote|text={{lang|en-emodeng|the [origin] all Di[s] coverer & Conqueror, and the very first absolute king of these Septentrionall {{smallcaps|brytish}} Islands, to be forgotten: or some wrong person, in undue Chronography, with repugnant circumstances, to be nominated in our {{smallcaps|brutus}} the {{smallcaps|italien trojan}}, his stede.}}|author=John Dee|title=''Of Famous and Rich Discoveries''|source=1577, British Library, Cotton MS. Vitellius. C. VII. art. 3, fols. 202 r–v.}}

In his copy of [[John Bale]]'s {{Langx|la|Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytanniae catalogus|label=none}} (later in [[Christ Church Library]]), at Bale's passage on [[Gildas]], Dee had added an annotation on Brutus, stating: "Note this authority of Gildas concerning Brutus and Brytus, and remember that from the most ancient authority of the astronomer Aethicus, they were called the Brutish Islands" ({{Langx|la|Nota hanc Gildae authoritatem de Bruto et Bryto, et memor esto de Ethici astronomi authoritate antiquissima, insulas Brutanicas dictas esse|label=none}})". He underlined Bale's words: "up to the entrance of Brutus, or rather Brytus" ({{Langx|la|usque ad Bruti, potius Bryti introitum|label=none}}).<ref name=":20" />{{Rp|location=97, note 48}}

In his [[Britannia (Camden)|''Britannia'']], published in Latin in 1586, William Camden cited the ''Sibylline Oracles'' for evidence of the antiquity of Britain's toponym and of its origin in the name of the Britons, quoting both the Greek text published by Birck and the Latin translation by Castellio. Camden and [[Philemon Holland]]'s 1610 English language edition of the work included the same arguments:{{Text and translation|{{lang|la|italics=no|Eadem ratione necessario credamus hanc nostram insulam Britanniam ab incolis vel vicinis Gallis denominatam esse, quos}} ''Brit'', {{lang|la|italics=no|vel}} ''Brith'' {{lang|la|italics=no|barbare dictos fuisse persuadent nonnulla, inprimis ille qui Sibyllæ nomine circumfertur versiculus.}}|{{lang|en-emodeng|In the same sort we must of necessitie think that this our Island Britaine tooke denomination from the Inhabitants, or from the Gaules their neighbours: That these first Inhabitants were called}} ''Brit'' {{lang|en-emodeng|or}} ''Brith'', {{lang|en-emodeng|some things induce me to thinke. First and foremost, that verse which goeth about under the name of Sibylla:}}|William Camden, ''Britannia'', 1607 and 1610 editions.<ref name="Camden 1607 19">{{Cite book |last=Camden |first=William |author-link=William Camden |url=http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_S1j9xN8L8PkC |title=Britannia, siue Florentissimorum regnorum Angliæ, Scotiæ, Hiberniæ, et insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio: nunc postremò recognita, plurimis locis magna accessione adaucta, & chartis chorographicis illustrata. |publisher=George Bishop & John Norton |year=1607 |edition=6th |location=London |page=19 |language=la}}</ref><ref name="Camden 1610 25">{{Cite book |last=Camden |first=William |author-link=William Camden |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Od5BAQAAMAAJ |title=Britain: Or, a Chorographicall Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Ilands Adioyning, Out of the Depth of Antiquitie: Beautified with Mappes … |publisher=George Bishop & John Norton |year=1610 |edition=1st English |page=25 |language=en-emodeng}}</ref>}}[[File:Map_of_the_British_Isles_by_Abraham_Ortelius_(Bonhams_lot_175,_14_June_2017).jpg|thumb|A copy of [[Abraham Ortelius]]'s map of the British Isles, published at [[Antwerp]], 1595, entitled in {{Langx|la|Britanniarum insularum typus|lit=print of the British islands}}. Northern Great Britain is labelled {{Langx|la|Britannia minor, quae inferior, eadem Scotia, et Valentia|lit=Lesser Britain, which is lower, the same as Scotland and [[Valentia (Roman Britain)|Valentia]]|label=none}} and southern Great Britain is labelled {{Langx|la|Britannia maior, quae et superior|lit=Greater Britain, which is higher|label=none}}.]]
According to [[John Morrill (historian)|John Morrill]], at the time of the [[Union of the Crowns]] under the [[Stuart dynasty]] in the early 17th century, the historic and mythological relationship of Ireland and Great Britain was conceptualised differently to the relationship between the kingdoms of England and Scotland. While the British Isles was considered a geographic unit, the political [[Jacobean debate on the Union|debate on the Union]] involved the English and Scottish kingdoms, but not Ireland. [[James VI and I]] promoted political unity between Scotland ("[[North Britain]]") and England ("[[South Britain]]"), introducing the [[Union Flag]] and the title "King of Great Britain", but the same was not true of Ireland. Since the Middle Ages, Britain had been understood to be a historical unit once ruled by the [[legendary kings of Britain]], of whom the first had been Brutus of Troy – as described in the work of [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]]. Unlike Wales, England, and Scotland, Ireland did not form part of this mythological concept, which was itself in decline by 1600.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morrill |first=John |url=http://archive.org/details/oxfordillustrate0000unse_v4u9 |title=The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor & Stuart Britain |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-19-820325-4 |editor-last=Morrill |editor-first=John |editor-link=John Morrill (historian) |pages=86–87 |language=en |chapter=Three Stuart Kingdoms 1600–1689 |quote=Geographers may have formed the habit of referring to the archipelago consisting of Britain and Ireland as the Britannic isles, but there never had been a historical myth linking the islands. Medieval historians, such as the twelfth-century [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]], had developed the idea that Britain (i.e. England, Scotland, and Wales) had first been settled by [[Troy|Trojan]] refugees fleeing after the capture and destruction of their city by the Greeks. The founding monarch – [[Brutus of Troy|Brutus]] – had then divided up the island between his three sons, the eldest (Albion) inheriting England and the younger sons Scotland and Wales. This permitted English antiquarians to claim a superiority for the English nation and the English Crown. In the fourteenth century the Scots developed their own counter-myth which acknowledged that Trojans had first occupied England and Wales, but asserted that Scotland had been occupied by colonists from Greece – the conquerors of Troy. Faced by such Scottish counter-myths and by the scepticism bred of humanist scholarship, few people took any of these historical claims seriously by 1600. English claims that kings of Scotland had regularly recognised the [[feudalism|feudal]] [[suzerainty]] of the English Crown had to be abandoned in 1603 when the Scottish royal house inherited the English Crown. But the fact is that many of the inhabitants of Britain – especially intellectuals around the royal Courts – had for centuries conceptualised a relationship which bound them together into a common history. There was no historical myths binding Ireland into the story. The term 'Britain' was widely understood and it excluded Ireland; there was no geopolitical term binding together the archipelago.|author-link=John Morrill (historian)}}</ref>

The Latin expression {{Langx|la|rex Britanniarum|lit=king of the Britains' or 'king of the British Isles|label=none}} was used by some [[panegyrists]] of James VI and I after his accession to the Anglo-Irish throne and his proclamation as "king of Great Britain".<ref name=":23">{{Cite journal |last=Bindoff |first=S. T. |author-link=Stanley Bindoff |date=1945 |title=The Stuarts and Their Style |journal=The English Historical Review |volume=60 |issue=237 |pages=192–216 |doi=10.1093/ehr/LX.CCXXXVII.192 |jstor=555536 |issn=0013-8266}}</ref>{{Rp|page=199}} [[Andrew Melville]] used the title for his 1603 Latin poem {{Langx|la|Votum pro Iacobo sexto Britanniarum rege|lit=Vow for James the Sixth, king of the Britains|label=none}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Williamson |first=Arthur H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mECSBgAAQBAJ |title=Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture: Volume III: The Millenarian Turn: Millenarian Contexts of Science, Politics and Everyday Anglo-American Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries |publisher=[[Springer Science & Business Media]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-94-017-2282-7 |editor-last=Force |editor-first=James E. |series=International Archives of the History of Ideas 175 |pages=15–27 |language=en |chapter=2. Britain and the Beast: The apocalypse and the seventeenth-century debate about the creation of the British state |editor-last2=Popkin |editor-first2=Richard H. |editor-link2=Richard Popkin}}</ref>{{Rp|page=17}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Holloway III |first=Ernest Robert |url=https://brill.com/view/title/19269 |title=Andrew Melville and Humanism in Renaissance Scotland 1545–1622 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-90-04-20539-0 |series=Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 154 |location=Leiden |doi=10.1163/ej.9789004205390.i-375.7}}</ref>{{Rp|page=22}} [[Isaac Wake]] used the same title in his Latin poem on the king's August 1605 visit to [[Oxford]]: {{Langx|la|Rex platonicus: sive, De potentissimi principis Iacobi Britanniarum Regis, ad illustrissimam Academiam Oxoniensem|lit=The Platonic king, or: On the most potent prince James, king of the Britains, to the most illustrious University of Oxford|label=none}}.<ref name=":23" />{{Rp|page=199}} For James's assumption of the triune British monarchy, [[Hugo Grotius]] composed his {{Langx|la|Inauguratio regis Brittaniarum anno MDCIII|lit=Inauguration of the king of the Britains in the year 1603|label=none}},<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moul |first=Victoria |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sWB2EAAAQBAJ |title=A Literary History of Latin & English Poetry: Bilingual Verse Culture in Early Modern England |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-108-13557-3 |language=en}}</ref> which extolled the historic naval powers of English kings and which was cited approvingly by [[John Selden]] in his 1635 work {{Langx|la|Mare Clausum|label=none}}'': Of the Dominion, or, Ownership of the Sea''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nellen |first=Henk J. M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OymeBQAAQBAJ |title=Hugo Grotius: A Lifelong Struggle for Peace in Church and State, 1583 – 1645 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |year=2014 |isbn=978-90-04-28179-0 |location=Leiden |page=498 |language=en |author-link=Henk Nellen}}</ref> [[Stanley Bindoff]] noted that the same title {{Langx|la|Rex Britanniarum|lit=|label=none}} was formally adopted in 1801.<ref name=":23" />{{Rp|page=199}}

In [[John Speed]]'s 1611 ''Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine'', the cartographer refers to the islands as ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Britannish}}''.<ref>{{Citation |title=Britannish, adj. |date=2 March 2023 |url=https://oed.com/dictionary/britannish_adj |work=Oxford English Dictionary |access-date=18 October 2023 |edition=3rd |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/oed/1552608635|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Before the first chapter, Speed introduces his map of the British Isles as "''{{Lang|en-emodeng|The British Ilands, proposed in one view in the ensuing map}}''".
[[File:John_Speed_-_The_Kingdome_of_Great_Britaine_and_Ireland.png|thumb|A copy of [[John Speed]]'s 1611 map of the British Isles, labelled ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|The Kingdome of Great Britaine and Ireland}}'' ([[Cambridge Digital Library]]).]]
Speed describes the position of "the Iland of ''Great Britaine''" as being north and east of Brittany, Normandy, and the other parts of the coast of Continental Europe:<ref>{{Cite web |last=Speed |first=John |date=1611 |title=The theatre of the empire of Great Britaine presenting an exact geography of the kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the iles adioyning: with the shires, hundreds, cities and shire-townes, within ye kingdome of England, divided and described by Iohn Speed. |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo;idno=A68764.0001.001 |access-date=18 October 2023 |website=University of Michigan Library: Early English Books Online}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text={{lang|en-emodeng|It hath}} ''Britaine'', ''Normandy'', and other parts of ''France'' {{lang|en-emodeng|upon the South, the}} ''Lower Germany'', ''Denmarke'', and ''Norway'' {{lang|en-emodeng|upon the East; the Isles of}} ''Orkney'' and the ''Deucaledonian'' Sea, {{lang|en-emodeng|upon the North; the}} ''Hebrides'' {{lang|en-emodeng|upon the West, and from it all other Ilands, and Ilets, which doe scatteredly environ it, and shelter themselves (as it were) under the shadow of}} ''Great Albion'' {{lang|en-emodeng|(another name of this famous Iland) are also accounted Britannish, & are therefore here described altogether}}|author=[[John Speed]]|title=''Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine'', 1611}}

In his 1621 verse work ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Palæ-Albion: The history of Great Britanie from the first peopling of this island to this present raigne of or happy and peacefull monarke K: James}}'', William Slatyer described the British Isles as named "the ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Brutus}}'' {{Lang|en-emodeng|Iles}} in ''{{Lang|en-emodeng|Greeke}}'' Dialect". Slatyer explained this spelling of the name in a [[marginal note]] that, like Stow, cited Aethicus and ''Mandeville's Travels'' and the confusion between the Latin letter [[u]] and the Greek letter ''upsilon'' ({{Lang|el|ύψιλον}}):<ref name=":29">{{Cite web |last=Slatyer |first=William |date=1621 |title=The history of Great Britanie from the first peopling of this island to this present raigne of or happy and peacefull monarke K: James, by Will: Slatyer. |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A12317.0001.001 |access-date=2024-03-27 |website=University of Michigan Library: Early English Books Online}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=Æthicus ''translated by Saint'' Ierome, ''above 1000. yeares since, calleth them'' {{lang|la|Insulas Brutanicas|italic=no}}: ''the'' Greeks ''writing it by'' {{lang|grc|υψιλον}}, ''it soundeth our'' u. ''And the'' Welsh ''doe the like, as is seene in'' Brytys, ''by them pronounced'' Brutus: ''Also'' English ''Writers that are above an hundred yeares since, call it'' Brutaine. ''J. Mandevill''.|author=William Slatyer|title=''Palæ-Albion''|source=1621, ode III, canto XIIII, page 81, note b.}}

One of the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' citations of "British Isles" was in 1621 (before the civil wars) by [[Peter Heylin]] (or Heylyn) in his ''Microcosmus: a little description of the great world''<ref>Peter Heylyn, ''Oxford English Dictionary'', second edn. Online Version (2000).</ref> (a collection of his lectures on historical geography). Writing from his English political perspective, he grouped Ireland with Great Britain and the minor islands with these three arguments:<ref>Peter Heylyn, ''Microcosmus'', p. 502 (1621).</ref>
* The inhabitants of Ireland must have come from Britain as it was the nearest land
* He notes that ancient writers (such as Ptolemy) called Ireland a ''Brttish Iland''
* He cites the observation of the first-century Roman writer [[Tacitus]] that the habits and disposition of the people in Ireland were not much unlike the ''Brittaines''<ref>Tacitus himself had treated Ireland and Britain separately and had also seen similarities between the Britons and the Gauls of the continent. Tacitus: ''Germania and Agricola''; Chpt 10.</ref>

Modern scholarly opinion<ref name="MayhewGRev" /><ref name="MayhewBJHS" /> is that Heylyn "politicised his geographical books Microcosmus ... and, still more, Cosmographie" in the context of what geography meant at that time. Heylyn's geographical work must be seen as political expressions concerned with proving (or disproving) constitutional matters, and "demonstrated their authors' specific political identities by the languages and arguments they deployed." In an era when "politics referred to discussions of dynastic legitimacy, of representation, and of the Constitution ... [Heylyn's] geography was not to be conceived separately from politics."

<!--this assertion isn't supported by the "British Isles Old Maps" lists of links ... Although other mapmakers (for example the Schagen Map<ref> Schagen Map, late seventeenth century from the University of Amsterdam<ref>http://dpc2.uba.uva.nl/cgi/i/image/image-idx?sid=e55c1998f2bd0e1775d344dab7b7c2ce;med=1;q1=carto;rgn1=carto_all;size=20;c=carto;lasttype=boolean;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;subview=detail;cc=carto;entryid=x-411329928;viewid=1806A19-11.TIF;start=61;resnum=73 {{Bare URL inline|date=March 2022}}</ref></ref>) continued to use terms like "{{lang|la|Angliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae}}", the precedent set by Mercator and Ortelius (who were probably the most influential mapmakers of the period), and the ongoing changes in the political situation in Great Britain and Ireland during the seventeenth century, meant that the term was very commonly used in maps by the late seventeenth century{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}} and quickly became near universal.-->[[Geoffrey Keating]], in his {{Lang|ga|[[Foras Feasa ar Éirinn]]}}, discussed the mention of [[druids]] from the British Isles in Gaul in Julius Caesar's {{Lang|ga|[[Commentarii de Bello Gallico]]}}, suggesting that the island Caesar had in mind was Ireland or {{Lang|ga|Manainn}} – Anglesey or the Isle of Man.<ref name=":40">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/historyofireland08keat |title=The History of Ireland by Geoffrey Keating, D.D. |publisher=[[D. Nutt]] |year=1908 |editor-last=Dinneen |editor-first=Patrick S. |editor-link=Patrick S. Dinneen |series=[[Irish Texts Society]] 8 |volume=II: The first book of the History from sect. XV to the end. |location=London |pages=62–65 |language=ga, en}}</ref><ref name=":41">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/forasfeasaareiri00keat_0 |title=The History of Ireland, from The Earliest Period to the English Invasion, by the Reverend Geoffrey Keating, D.D. |publisher=[[James B. Kirker]] |year=1866 |location=New York |page=188 |translator-last=O'Mahony |translator-first=John |translator-link=John O'Mahony}}</ref><ref name=":42">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/completehistoryo01keat |title=A Complete History of Ireland, from the First Colonization of the Island by Parthalon to the Anglo-Norman Invasion; collected and arranged from the most ancient records of Ireland, and from authentic foreign writers; by the Rev Jeoffrey Keating D.D. |publisher= |year=1811 |editor-last=Barlow |editor-first=John |volume=I |location=Dublin |pages=272–273 |language=ga, en |translator-last=Barlow |translator-first=John}}</ref><ref name=":43">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_xHZUAAAAYAAJ |title=The General History of Ireland … Collected by the learned Jeoffry Keating, D. D. Faithfully translated from the original Irish Language, with many curious Amendments taken from the Psalters of Tara and Cashel, and other authentick Records … |publisher=J. Bettenham, for B. Creake |year=1723 |location=London |pages=91–92 |translator-last=O'Connor |translator-first=Dermod}}</ref> [[John O'Mahony]]'s 1866 translation was "from the British Isles",<ref name=":41" /> as were the translations of John Barlow in 1811 and of Dermod O'Connor in 1723.<ref name=":42" /><ref name=":43" /> [[Patrick S. Dinneen]]'s 1908 edition translates Keating's {{Langx|ga|ó oiléanaibh na Breatan}} as "from the islands of Britain".<ref name=":40" />{{Text and translation|{{lang|ga|... agus is móide mheasaim sin mar adeir Caesar san seiseadh leabhar da Stair gurab ó oiléanaibh na Breatan do chuadar draoithe don Fhraingc do bhíodh 'n-a mbreitheamhnaibh aca, agus ag a mbíodh tearmann is saoirse is cádhas ó uaislibh na Fraingce. Is inmheasta gurbh é oiléan na h-Éireann an t-oiléan soin as a thrialladar na draoithe don Fhrainc do bhrígh gur bh' í Éire tobar draoidheachta iarthair Eorpa an tan soin, agus gur bh' í an Ghaedhealg fá teanga do na draoithibh céadna.}}|… and I hold this view all the more because Cæsar says, in the sixth book of his History, that it was from the islands of Britain that druids went to France, where they became judges, and got termon lands and immunities and honour from the nobles of that country. It is probable that this island whence the druids went to France was the island of Ireland, since Ireland was the fountain of druidism for western Europe at that time, and that accordingly Gaelic was the language of these druids.|[[Geoffrey Keating]], {{lang|ga|[[Foras Feasa ar Éirinn]]}}, {{circa|1634}}, I.19–20.<ref name=":40" />}}[[Robert Morden]], in his 1680 ''Geography Rectified'', introduced his map and chapter detailing the British Isles by noting their political unity under a single monarch but their continued separation into three kingdoms, with each of the British Isles beyond Great Britain and Ireland belonging to one of the three mainland kingdoms.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morden |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Morden |date=1688 |orig-date=1680 |title=Geography Rectified, or, A Description of the World in all its Kingdoms, Provinces, Countries, Islands, Cities, Towns, Seas, Rivers, Bayes, Capes, Ports : Their Ancient and Present Names, Inhabitants, Situations, Histories, Customs, Governments, &c.: As also their Commodities, Coins, Weights, and Measures, Compared with those at London |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A51275.0001.001 |access-date=2024-03-27 |via=University of Michigan Library: Early English Books Online |publisher=Robert Morden and Thomas Cockerill |location=London |edition=2nd}}</ref>
[[File:Map_of_the_British_Isles_from_Robert_Modern's_Geography_Rectified,_1680.jpg|left|thumb|A copy of [[Robert Morden]]'s map and description of the British Isles, from  ''Geography Rectified'', published at London, 1680.]]
{{Blockquote|text=Under this Title are Comprehended several distinct and famous Islands, the whole Dominion whereof (now United) is under the Command of the King of ''Great Britain'', &c. Bounded on the North and West with the ''Hyperborean'' and ''Ducalidonean'' Ocean, on the South divided from ''France'' with the ''English'' Channel, on the East separated &#91;sic&#93; from Denmark and ''Belgia'' with the ''British'' (by some call'd the ''German'') Ocean; But on all sides environed with Turbulent Seas, guarded with Dangerous Rocks and Sands, defended with strong Forts, and a Potent Navy; Of these Islands one is very large, formerly called ''Albion'', now great ''Britain'', comprehending two Kingdoms, ''England'' and ''Scotland''; and another of lesser extent makes one Kingdome called ''Ireland'': The other smaller adjacent ''Isles'' are comprehended under one or other of these 3 Kingdoms, according to the Situation and Congruity with them.|author=[[Robert Morden]]|title=''Geography Rectified: or, a Description of the World'', 1680|source=page 13.}}[[Christopher Irvine (physician)|Christopher Irvine]], in his 1682 {{Langx|la|Historiae Scoticae Nomenclatura Latino-Vernacula|lit=Latin–Vernacular Nomenclature of the History of Scotland|label=none}}, defined {{Lang|la|Britannice Insulæ}} {{Sic}} as "The British Islands; which comprehended under them both Albin, Erin, and all the other small islands that are scattered about them".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Irvine |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Irvine (physician) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0doRgm51y5AC |title=Historiae Scoticae Nomenclatura Latino-Vernacula; or, Latino-vernacular nomenclature of Scottish history ... |publisher=Gideon Shaw |year=1682 |edition=1st |location=Edinburgh |pages=28 |language=en}}</ref>

== Reception ==

=== Perspectives in Great Britain ===
In general, the use of the term [[British Isles]] to refer to the archipelago is common and uncontroversial within [[Great Britain]],<ref>For example, its use can be seen at [http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/diary.html A Reading University Meteorological Study], and regularly in ''[[The Guardian]]'': [https://www.theguardian.com/uk_news/story/0,,1942946,00.html 9 November 2006], [http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,1949793,00.html 16 November 2006], [https://www.theguardian.com/tv_and_radio/story/0,,1954927,00.html 23 November 2006.]</ref> at least since the concept of "[[Britishness]]" was gradually accepted in Britain.<ref name=":24">{{Cite web |date=2023-06-01 |title=The British Isles: Simple Geography or Complex Histories? - Public History Weekly - The Open Peer Review Journal |url=https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/11-2023-5/british-isles-editorial/ |access-date=2024-03-19 |website=Public History Weekly |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Cruse |first=Ian |date=June 16, 2008 |title=House of Lords - Library Note for the Debate on 19th June: Britishness |url=https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LLN-2008-015/LLN-2008-015.pdf |access-date=March 18, 2024}}</ref> In Britain it is commonly understood as being a politically neutral geographical term, although it is sometimes used to refer to the [[United Kingdom]] or [[Great Britain]] alone.<ref>"[http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/FHMpaper/ GENUKI – The UK and Ireland Genealogical Information Service on the Internet] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071105033846/http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/FHMpaper/|date=5 November 2007}}: The website uses the term "British Isles" in various ways, including ways that use Ireland as all of Ireland, while simultaneously using the term "The British Isles and Ireland", e.g. "Anyone using GENUKI should remember that its name is somewhat misleading – the website actually covers the British Isles and Ireland, rather than just the United Kingdom, and therefore includes information about the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as well as England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland."</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=British Weather (Part One) |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/britain_01.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070128223800/http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/britain_01.shtml |archive-date=28 January 2007 |access-date=2007-01-28}}. This BBC article referred to "a small country such as the British Isles" between at least April 2004 and January 2007. It was changed in February 2007 and now reads "a small area such as the British Isles".</ref><ref>For example, see Google searches of
[http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22british+isles+and+ireland%22+site:bbc.co.uk&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 the BBC website].</ref><ref name=":24" /> In the 2016 ''Oxford Dictionary Plus Social Sciences'', Howard Sargeant describes the British Isles as "A geographical rather than a political designation".<ref>{{Citation |last=Sargeant |first=Howard |title=British Isles |date=2016 |work=Oxford Dictionary Plus Social Sciences |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191823534.001.0001/acref-9780191823534-e-346 |access-date=6 October 2023 |chapter-url= |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780191823534.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-182353-4|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In 2003, Irish newspapers reported a British Government internal briefing that advised against the use of "British Isles".<ref>{{cite news |date=23 September 2007 |title=Herr ambassador Pauls, with these comments, you are really spoiling us... |url=https://www.tribune.ie/archive/article/2007/sep/23/herr-ambassador-pauls-with-these-comments-you-are-/ |access-date=16 August 2021 |agency=[[Sunday Tribune]]}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref><ref>[http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/12/13/story496138962.asp Revealed: What the British really think of us], ''[[Irish Examiner]]'', 13 December 2003 {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050305223723/http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/12/13/story496138962.asp|date=5 March 2005}}</ref> There is evidence that its use has been increasingly avoided in recent years in fields like cartography and in some academic work, such as [[Norman Davies]]{{'}}s history of Britain and Ireland ''[[The Isles: A History]]''. As a purely geographical term in technical contexts (such as geology and natural history), there is less evidence of alternative terms being chosen.

According to [[Jane Dawson]], "Finding an acceptable shorthand geographical description for the countries which formed the UK before the creation of Eire has proved difficult" and in her 2002 work on [[Mary, Queen of Scots]] ({{Reign|1542|1567}}) and [[Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll]], she wrote: "for convenience, I have used the following as virtual synonyms: the islands of Britain; these islands; the British Isles, and the adjective, British. Without intending to imply any hidden imperial or other agenda, they describe the kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland, and England and Wales as they existed in the sixteenth century".<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=Dawson |first=Jane E. A. |author-link=Jane Dawson |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-politics-of-religion-in-the-age-of-mary-queen-of-scots/8EFBFEFCF5821EB085170923A51A092D |title=The Politics of Religion in the Age of Mary, Queen of Scots: The Earl of Argyll and the Struggle for Britain and Ireland |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-521-80996-2 |at=p. 2, note 5 |chapter=Prologue: 1560: British policies and the British context |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511495793.001 |quote=Finding an acceptable shorthand geographical description for the countries which formed the UK before the creation of Eire has proved difficult. Whilst accurate, the term 'Atlantic archipelago' is rather cumbersome so, for convenience, I have used the following as virtual synonyms: the islands of Britain; these islands; the British Isles, and the adjective, British. Without intending to imply any hidden imperial or other agenda, they describe the kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland, and England and Wales as they existed in the sixteenth century, following the definition of the British Isles in the Oxford English Dictionary: 'a geographical term for the islands comprising Great Britain and Ireland with all their offshore islands including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands'. |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/politics-of-religion-in-the-age-of-mary-queen-of-scots/prologue-1560-british-policies-and-the-british-context/E1191BA82C621B6999E2012305E5D77A}}</ref>

In the 2005 ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names'', [[John Everett-Heath]] defined the British Isles as "Until 1949 a collective title ... In 1949 the Republic of Ireland left the British Commonwealth and so could no longer be included in the title".<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Everett-Heath |first=John |url=http://archive.org/details/concisedictionar0000ever |title=The Concise Dictionary of World Place Names |date=2005 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-19-860537-9 |edition=1st |pages=v, vii-viii, 79}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Everett-Heath |first=John |title=British Isles |work=Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names |year=2020 |orig-date=2005 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191905636.001.0001/acref-9780191905636-e-1032 |access-date=6 October 2023 |edition=6th |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |isbn=978-0-19-190563-6 |author-link=John Everett-Heath}}</ref> Everett-Heath used the name in a "general note" and in the introduction to the same work.<ref name=":11" /><ref>{{Citation |last=Everett-Heath |first=John |title=Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names |date=2020 |orig-date=2005 |access-date=6 October 2023 |chapter=General Note |chapter-url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191905636.001.0001/acref-9780191905636-miscMatter-8 |edition=6th |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-190563-6 |quote=British Isles: from 1536 these have included the following states: ... |author-link=John Everett-Heath}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Everett-Heath |first=John |title=Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names |date=2020 |orig-date=2005 |access-date=6 October 2023 |chapter=Introduction |chapter-url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191905636.001.0001/acref-9780191905636-miscMatter-9 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-190563-6 |quote=The majority of place-names in the British Isles are of [[Old English]] (Anglo-Saxon) and [[Old Scandinavian language|Old Scandinavian]] ([[Old Norse]] and [[Old Danish]]) origin, and from the Celtic group of languages ([[Brithonic]], [[Irish language|Irish]] and [[Scottish Gaelic]] etc) employed earlier" ... "The British Isles have experienced five major invasions by foreigners who spoke a different language: [[Celts]], [[Roman people|Romans]], [[Anglo-Saxons]], [[Vikings]], and [[Normans]] |author-link=John Everett-Heath}}</ref>

In the 2005 preface to the second edition of [[Hugh Kearney]]'s ''The British Isles: A History of Four Nations'', published in 2006, the historian noted that "The title of this book is 'The British Isles', not 'Britain', in order to emphasise the multi-ethnic character of our intertwined histories. Almost inevitably many within the Irish Republic find it objectionable, much as [[Basques]] or [[Catalans]] resent the use of [[Name of Spain|the term 'Spain']]."<ref name=":19">{{Citation |title=Preface to the second edition |date=2012 |work=The British Isles: A History of Four Nations |pages=xv-xvii |editor-last=Kearney |editor-first=Hugh |orig-date=2006 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/british-isles/preface-to-the-second-edition/6CACAE74AD98DF4223E7B046079E3D6A |access-date=10 October 2023 |series=Canto Classics |edition=2nd |place=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |doi=10.1017/CBO9781139197014.002 |isbn=978-1-139-19701-4 |author-link=Hugh Kearney|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and illustrated this by quoting the objection of Irish poet [[Seamus Heaney]] to being included in an anthology of British poems. Kearney also wrote: "But what is the alternative to 'The British Isles?' Attempts to encourage the use of such terms as 'The Atlantic Archipelago' and 'The Isles' have met with criticism because of their vagueness. Perhaps one solution is to use 'the British Isles' in inverted commas".<ref name=":19" />

Recognition of issues with the term (as well as problems over definitions and terminology) was discussed by the columnist [[Marcel Berlins]], writing in ''[[The Guardian]]'' in 2006. Beginning with "At last, someone has had the sense to abolish the British Isles", he opines that "although purely a geographical definition, it is frequently mixed up with the political entities [[Great Britain]], or the [[United Kingdom]]. Even when used geographically, its exact scope is widely misunderstood". He also acknowledges that some view the term as representing Britain's imperial past, when it ruled the whole of Ireland.<ref name="Berlins">{{Cite news |last=Berlins |first=Marcel |author-link=Marcel Berlins |date=3 October 2006 |title=Is it really so morally objectionable for the father of a murder victim to accept £450,000 'blood money'? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/oct/04/comment.features11 |access-date=24 September 2023 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

=== Perspectives in Ireland ===

==== Republic of Ireland ====
From the Irish perspective, some<ref name=":26">"Irish Genealogical Sources No. 25 – History of the Royal Hibernian Military School, Dublin" uses the term "then British Isles" to refer to Ireland's relationship association with it prior to 1922.</ref><ref name="Canny2001">"When I refer to the composite Monarchy ruled over by James VI and I and by King Charles I, it is always described as Britain and Ireland, and I deliberately avoid the politically loaded phrase 'the British Isles' not least because this was not a normal usage in the political discourse of the time". Canny, Nicholas (2001). ''Making Ireland British 1580–1650''. New York: [[Oxford University Press]], p. viii. {{ISBN|978-0-19-925905-2}}.</ref><ref name=":25" /> consider "The British Isles" as a political term rather than a geographical name for the archipelago because of the [[Tudor conquest of Ireland]], the subsequent [[Cromwellian conquest of Ireland|Cromwellian activities in Ireland]], the [[Glorious Revolution|Williamite accession in Britain]] and the [[Williamite War in Ireland]]—all of which resulted in severe impact on the Irish people, landowners and native aristocracy. From that perspective, the term "British Isles" is not a neutral geographical term but an unavoidably political one.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kearns |first=Gerry |date=2016-11-30 |title=Ireland and the British Isles |url=https://maynoothgeography.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/ireland-and-the-british-isles/ |access-date=2024-08-07 |website=Eye on the World |language=en}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]])|date=August 2024}} Use of the name "British Isles" is sometimes rejected in the Republic of Ireland, while claiming its use implies a primacy of British identity over all the islands outside the United Kingdom, including the [[Republic of Ireland|Irish state]] and the [[Crown dependencies]] of the [[Isle of Man]] and [[Channel Islands]].<ref>On 18 July 2004 [http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2004/07/18/story590174779.asp ''The Sunday Business Post''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080410134638/http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2004/07/18/story590174779.asp|date=10 April 2008}} questioned the use of ''British Isles'' as a purely geographic expression, noting:
<blockquote>[The] "Last Post has redoubled its efforts to re-educate those labouring under the misconception that Ireland is really just British. When ''British Retail Week'' magazine last week reported that a retailer was to make its British Isles debut in Dublin, we were puzzled. Is not Dublin the capital of the Republic of Ireland? ... Archipelago of islands lying off the north-western coast of Europe?</blockquote>Retrieved 17 July 2006</ref><ref>Norman Davies, ''op. cit.'', p. xxii.</ref><ref name=":26" />

[[J. G. A. Pocock]], in a lecture at the [[University of Canterbury]] in 1973 and published in 1974: "the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously".<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Pocock |first=J. G. A. |author-link=J. G. A. Pocock |date=1975 |title=British History: A Plea for a New Subject |journal=[[The Journal of Modern History]] |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=601–621 |doi=10.1086/241367 |issn=0022-2801 |jstor=1877393}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Pocock |first=J. G. A. |author-link=J. G. A. Pocock |url=http://archive.org/details/discoveryofislan00poco |title=Discovery of Islands: Essays in British History |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-521-61645-4 |page=29 |language=en |chapter=British history: a plea for a new subject |quote=We should start with what I have called the Atlantic archipelago – since the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously |orig-date=1973–1974}}</ref> [[Nicholas Canny]], professor of history at the [[National University of Ireland, Galway]] between 1979 and 2009, in 2001 described the term as "politically loaded" and stated that he avoided the term in discussion of the reigns following the [[Union of the Crowns]] under [[James VI and I]] ({{Reign|1603|1625}}) and [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] ({{Reign|1625|1649}}) "not least because this was not a normal usage in the political discourse of the time".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Canny |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Canny |url=http://archive.org/details/makingirelandbri00cann |title=Making Ireland British, 1580–1650 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-19-820091-8 |page=viii |language=en |chapter=Preface |quote=When I refer to the composite monarchy ruled over by [[James VI and I]] and by [[Charles I of England|King Charles I]], it is always described as Britain and Ireland, and I deliberately avoid the politically loaded phrase 'the British Isles' not least because this was not a normal usage in the political discourse of the time}}</ref><ref name="Canny2001" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Prof. Nicholas Canny, Biography |url=https://www.universityofgalway.ie/our-research/people/history-and-philosophy/nicholascanny/ |access-date=30 September 2023 |website=[[University of Galway]] |language=en}}</ref> Steven G. Ellis, however, Canny's successor as professor of history at the same university from 2009, wrote in 1996: "with regard to terminology, 'the British Isles', as any perusal of contemporary maps will show, was a widely accepted description of the archipelago long before the Union of the Crowns and the completion of the [[Tudor conquest of Ireland]]".<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Ellis |first=Steven G. |date=1996 |title=Writing Irish History: Revisionism, Colonialism, and the British Isles |journal=The Irish Review |issue=19 |pages=1–21 |doi=10.2307/29735809 |issn=0790-7850 |jstor=29735809 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Emeritus Professor Steven G. Ellis, Biography |url=https://www.universityofgalway.ie/our-research/people/history-and-philosophy/stevenellis/ |access-date=30 September 2023 |website=[[University of Galway]] |language=en}}</ref> In the 2004 ''[[Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable]]'', Seán McMahon described "British Isles" as "A geographer's collective description of the islands of Britain and Ireland, but one that is no longer acceptable in the latter country" and "once acceptable" but "seen as politically inflammatory as well as historically inaccurate".<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=McMahon |first=Seán |url=http://archive.org/details/brewersdictionar0000mcma |title=Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-304-36334-6 |location=London |pages=124, 678, 789}}</ref><ref name=":12">{{Citation |title=British Isles |date=2011 |work=[[Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable]] |editor-last=McMahon |editor-first=Seán |orig-date=2006 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199916191.001.0001/acref-9780199916191-e-0855 |access-date=6 October 2023 |edition=online |publisher=[[Chambers Harrap Publishers]] |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780199916191.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-991619-1 |editor2-last=O'Donoghue |editor2-first=Jo|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The same work describes [[Powerscourt Waterfall]] as "the highest in Ireland, and the second highest in the British Isles after [[Eas a' Chual Aluinn]]".<ref name=":8" />

Many political bodies, including the Irish government, avoid describing Ireland as being part of the British Isles.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}} The journalist [[John Gunther]], recollecting a meeting in 1936 or 1937 with [[Éamon de Valera]], the [[president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State]], wrote that the Irish statesman queried his use of the term:<ref name="gunther1940">{{cite book |author=Gunther |first=John |author-link=John Gunther |url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.149663/2015.149663.Inside-Europe#page/n395 |title=Inside Europe |publisher=[[Harper & Brothers]] |year=1940 |pages=373–374}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=My use of the term "British Isles" was an unconscious little slip. Mr. de Valera did not allow it to go uncorrected. Quite soberly he smiled and said that if I had meant to include Ireland in the British Isles, he trusted that I did so only as a "geographical expression." I explained that my chief duty to my newspaper was to gain knowledge, background, education. "Very well," Mr. de Valera said. "Let your instruction begin at once." And he set out to explain the difference between Ireland and the "British Isles." Some moments later, having again necessity to describe my field of operations, I sought a phrase and said, after a slight pause, "a group of islands in the northern part of Europe." Mr. de Valera sat back and laughed heartily. I hope he will not mind my telling this little story.|author=[[John Gunther]]|title=''Inside Europe''|source=pp. 373–374}}

However, the term "British Isles" has been used by individual ministers, as did cabinet minister [[Síle de Valera]] when delivering a speech including the term at the opening of a drama festival in 2002,<ref>{{cite web |title=Speech by Síle de Valera, T.D., Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands at the opening of the Clare Drama Festival in Scarriff Community College |url=http://www.arts-sport-tourism.gov.ie/publications/release.asp?ID=256 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614100456/http://www.arts-sport-tourism.gov.ie/publications/release.asp?ID=256 |archive-date=14 June 2011 |access-date=25 August 2006}}</ref> and is used by government departments in relation to geographic topics.<ref>{{cite web |title=Gov.ie |url=http://www.gov.ie/search/?q=%22british+isles%22 |access-date=1 November 2018 |website=Gov.ie}}{{Dead link|date=August 2021|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> In September 2005, [[Dermot Ahern]], [[Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade|minister for foreign affairs]], stated in a written answer to a [[parliamentary question]] from [[Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin]] in the [[Dáil Éireann]]: "The British Isles is not an officially recognised term in any legal or inter-governmental sense. It is without any official status. The Government, including the [[Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Ireland)|Department of Foreign Affairs]], does not use this term."<ref>{{cite web |date=28 September 2005 |title=Dáil Éireann debate – Wednesday, 28 Sep 2005 |url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2005-09-28/36/?highlight%5B0%5D=ahern&highlight%5B1%5D=british&highlight%5B2%5D=isles#s363 |access-date=1 September 2023 |website=Oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Dáil Éireann – Volume 606 – 28 September, 2005, reply by Dermot Ahern TD to parliamentary question from Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD |url=http://www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie/D/0606/D.0606.200509280360.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121006211200/http://www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie/D/0606/D.0606.200509280360.html |archive-date=6 October 2012 |access-date=11 December 2012}}</ref> Ahern himself continued to use the term, at a conference in April 2015 calling the 2004 [[Northern Bank robbery]] "The biggest bank raid in history of the British Isles".<ref>{{Cite conference |date=2015 |title='Keeping a Peace Process on Track': A Comparative Study Visit Report: Dublin, Dundalk and Belfast, 19th – 23rd April 2015 |url=https://www.democraticprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/KeepingThePeace-IrelandReport-FINAL-1.pdf |conference=Democratic Progress Institute |location=London |publisher= |page=111}}</ref>

"British Isles" has been used in a geographical sense in Irish parliamentary debates by government ministers,<ref>{{cite web |date=3 October 2001 |title=Response by the Minister for Health and Children to a question in Parliament |url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0541/D.0541.200110030416.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607082029/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0541/D.0541.200110030416.html |archive-date=7 June 2011 |access-date=3 February 2011 |website=Historical-debates.oireachtas.ie}}</ref><ref>Official Report of the Parliament of Ireland: [http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-00/s5dec/sect2.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050218123850/http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-00/s5dec/sect2.htm|date=18 February 2005}}, &nbsp;{{small|(389&nbsp;KB)}}</ref> although it is often used in a way that defines the British Isles as excluding the Republic of Ireland.<ref>[http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=EDJ20051117.xml&Node=73 Parliamentary Debates: Joint Committee on Education and Science], 17 November 2005 {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071205211533/http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=EDJ20051117.xml&Node=73|date=5 December 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=12 January 2011 |title=Díospóireachtaí Coistí – Committee Debates |url=http://www.gov.ie/oireachtas/Committees-29th-D%E1il/jcmnr-debates/jcmnr120303.rtf |access-date=3 February 2011 |website=Gov.ie}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=12 January 2011 |title=Díospóireachtaí Coistí – Committee Debates |url=http://www.gov.ie/oireachtas/Committees-29th-D%E1il/jcaf-debates/JAF230903.rtf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040907133254/http://www.gov.ie/oireachtas/Committees-29th-D%C3%83%C2%A1il/jcaf-debates/JAF230903.rtf |archive-date=7 September 2004 |access-date=3 February 2011 |website=Gov.ie}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=12 January 2011 |title=Díospóireachtaí Coistí – Committee Debates |url=http://www.gov.ie/oireachtas/Committees-29th-D%E1il/jcesb-debates/jesb10703.rtf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420005634/http://www.gov.ie/oireachtas/Committees-29th-D%E1il/jcesb-debates/jesb10703.rtf |archive-date=20 April 2006 |access-date=3 February 2011 |website=Gov.ie}}</ref>

In October 2006, Irish educational publisher [[Folens (Irish publishers)|Folens]] announced that it was removing the term from its popular school atlas effective in January 2007. The decision was made after the issue was raised by a geography teacher. Folens stated that no parent had complained directly to them over the use of "British Isles" and that they had a policy of acting proactively, upon the appearance of a "potential problem".<ref>Áine Kerr, [http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/front/2006/1002/1158591275647.html Folens to wipe 'British Isles' off the map in new atlas], ''[[Irish Times]]'', 2 October 2006 {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015133313/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/front/2006/1002/1158591275647.html|date=15 October 2012}}</ref><ref>Details of current editions of Folens atlases: [http://www.folens.ie/BookData/BookDestails.asp?Code=GPMSA Primary] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928120748/http://www.folens.ie/BookData/BookDestails.asp?Code=GPMSA|date=28 September 2007}}, [http://www.folens.ie/BookData/BookDestails.asp?Code=GNMSA Post-primary]</ref> This attracted press attention in the UK and Ireland, during which a spokesman for the [[Embassy of Ireland, London|Irish Embassy in London]] said, "'The British Isles' has a dated ring to it, as if we are still part of the Empire".<ref>"[https://archive.today/20110523075812/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2385403.html New atlas lets Ireland slip shackles of Britain"]. A spokesman for the Irish Embassy in London said: "The British Isles has a dated ring to it, as if we are still part of the Empire. We are independent, we are not part of Britain, not even in geographical terms. We would discourage its usage {{sic}}."</ref> Writing in ''[[The Irish Times]]'' in 2016, Donald Clarke described the term as "anachronistically named".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Clarke |first=Donald |date=9 January 2016 |title=Donald Clarke: Saoirse Ronan being claimed by the UK not 'a compliment' |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/donald-clarke-saoirse-ronan-being-claimed-by-the-uk-not-a-compliment-1.2490426 |access-date=30 September 2023 |newspaper=[[The Irish Times]] |language=en}}</ref>

A bilingual dictionary website maintained by [[Foras na Gaeilge]] translates "British Isles" into Irish as {{lang|ga|Éire agus an Bhreatain Mhór}} "Ireland and Great Britain".<ref>* {{cite web |title=British Isles |url=http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/British+Isles |access-date=26 November 2017 |work=New English-Irish Dictionary |publisher=Foras na Gaeilge}}
* {{cite web |last=Ó Dónaill |first=Niall |year=1977 |title=Bhreatain |url=http://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/Bhreatain |access-date=26 November 2017 |work=Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla}}
* {{cite web |last=Ó Dónaill |first=Niall |year=1977 |title=Éire |url=http://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/%c3%89ire |access-date=26 November 2017 |work=Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla}}</ref><ref name="tearma">{{cite web |title=British Isles |url=http://www.tearma.ie/Search.aspx?term=British+Isles |access-date=18 November 2016 |work=téarma.ie – Dictionary of Irish Terms |publisher=[[Foras na Gaeilge]] and [[Dublin City University]]}}</ref> As the Irish translation of "British Isles", the 1995 ''[[Collins Gem|Collins Gem Irish Dictionary]]'' edited by [[Séamus Mac Mathúna]] and Ailbhe Ó Corráin lists {{Langx|ga|Na hOileáin Bhriotanacha|lit=British islands|label=none}}.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/collinsgemirishd0000unse |title=Collins Gem Irish Dictionary: English–Irish, Irish–English |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-00-470753-2 |editor-last=Mac Mathúna |editor-first=Séamus |editor-link=Séamus Mac Mathúna |edition=1st |location=Glasgow |page=43 |language= |editor-last2=Ó Corráin |editor-first2=Ailbhe}}</ref>

==== Northern Ireland ====
Different views on terminology are probably most clearly seen in [[Northern Ireland]] (which covers six of the thirty-two counties in Ireland), where the political situation is difficult and national identity contested.{{Citation needed|date=March 2023}} In December 1999 at a meeting of the [[Irish cabinet]] and [[Northern Ireland Executive]] in [[Armagh]]. The [[first minister of Northern Ireland]], [[David Trimble]], told the meeting:
{{blockquote|This represents the Irish government coming back into a relationship with the rest of the British Isles. We are ending the cold war that has divided not just Ireland but the British Isles. That division is now going to be transformed into a situation where all parts work together again in a way that respects each other.<ref name="Irish Independent 1999-12-14">[http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=526352&issue_id=5391 Partnership plan for peace and prosperity] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040122184841/http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=526352&issue_id=5391 |date=22 January 2004 }}, ''[[Irish Independent]]'', 14 December 1999. Retrieved 16 July 2006.</ref>}}

At a gathering of the [[British–Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body]] in 1998, sensitivity about the term became an issue. Referring to plans for the proposed [[British–Irish Council]] (supported by both Nationalists and Unionists), the British [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|member of parliament]] (MP) [[Dennis Canavan]], was paraphrased by official note-takers as having said in a caveat:

{{blockquote|He understood that the concept of a Council of the Isles had been put forward by the [[Ulster Unionist]]s and was referred to as a "Council for the British Isles" by [[David Trimble]]. This would cause offence to Irish colleagues; he suggested as an acronym IONA-Islands of the North Atlantic.<ref>[http://www.biipb.org/biipb/summary/sum/doc/8033001/8033012.htm British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body. 15th Plenary Session. 30 March 1998] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706125114/http://www.biipb.org/biipb/summary/sum/doc/8033001/8033012.htm |date=6 July 2008 }}</ref>}}

In a series of documents issued by the United Kingdom and Ireland, from the [[Downing Street Declaration]] to the [[Good Friday Agreement]] (Belfast Agreement), relations in the British Isles were referred to as the "East–West strand" of the tripartite relationship.<ref>Three sets of relationships were defined. (i) Within Northern Ireland. (ii) ''North–South'' for the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and (iii) ''East–West'' for relationships on the islands.</ref>

==Alternative terms==
There is no single accepted replacement of the term ''British Isles''. However, the terms ''Great Britain and Ireland'', ''British Isles and Ireland'', ''Islands of the North Atlantic'' etc. are suggested.

===British Isles and Ireland===
The term ''British Isles and Ireland'' has been used in a variety of contexts—among others religious,<ref>{{cite web |title=Prayer Association of British Isles and Ireland |url=http://www.prayer-alert.net/prayer_association_BII.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009083703/http://www.prayer-alert.net/prayer_association_BII.htm |archive-date=9 October 2007 |access-date=3 February 2011 |website=Prayer-alert.net}}</ref> medical,<ref>Macey & Morgan, ''Learning on the road: nursing in the British Isles and Ireland'' (Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, 1988)</ref> zoologic,<ref>Badham, M., and Richards, V. (1991). ''Gibbon Regional Studbook: British Isles and Ireland'', 13th Edition, Twycross Zoo, East Midland Zoological Society, Twycross.</ref> academic<ref>{{cite web |title=Folklore and Folklife – Courses – Spring 2003 – FOLK 547 640: Folklore of the British Isles and Ireland |url=http://www.sas.upenn.edu/folklore/courses/spring2003/folk547640.html |access-date=1 November 2018 |website=Sas.upenn.edu}}</ref> and others. This form is also used in some book titles<ref>For example, P. North, ''The Private International Law of Matrimonial Causes in the British Isles and the Republic of Ireland'' (1977).</ref> and legal publications.<ref>See ''Law Society Gazette'', [[Law Society of Ireland]], July 2001.</ref>

===Islands of the North Atlantic (or IONA)===
In the context of the [[Northern Ireland peace process]], the term "[[Islands of the North Atlantic]]" (and its acronym, IONA) was a term created by the British MP [[John Biggs-Davison]].<ref name="TLEL" /><ref>[http://www.openrepublic.org/open_republic/20050701_vol1_no1/articles/20050619_ru.htm Open Republic]. Retrieved 5 July 2006. {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130415123914/http://www.openrepublic.org/open_republic/20050701_vol1_no1/articles/20050619_ru.htm|date=15 April 2013}}</ref> It has been used as a term to denote either all the islands, or the two main islands, without referring to the two states.

IONA has been used by (among others) the former Irish [[Taoiseach]] (prime minister), [[Bertie Ahern]]:

{{blockquote|The Government are, of course, conscious of the emphasis that is laid on the East-West dimension by Unionists, and we are, ourselves, very mindful of the unique relationships that exist within these islands – islands of the North Atlantic or IONA as some have termed them.<ref>Statement by the Taoiseach and Leader of Fianna Fáil, Mr Bertie Ahern, TD on "[http://foreignaffairs.gov.ie/Press_Releases/19971205/273.htm Northern Ireland: Political Situation and Developments] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060827161442/http://foreignaffairs.gov.ie/Press_Releases/19971205/273.htm |date=27 August 2006 }}" at the Forty-Second Plenary Session of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, [[Dublin Castle]], 5 December 1997</ref>}}

Others have interpreted the term more narrowly to mean the "Council of the Isles" or "[[British-Irish Council]]". British MP [[Peter Luff]] told the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] in 1998 that

{{blockquote|In the same context, there will be a council of the isles. I think that some people are calling it IONA – the islands of the north Atlantic, from which England, by definition, will be excluded.<ref>{{cite Hansard |jurisdiction= |title=Referendum (English Parliament) Bill |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmhansrd/vo980116/debtext/80116-14.htm |house=House of Commons |date=16 January 1998 |volume=304 |column=663 |speaker= |position= |access-date=3 February 2011}}</ref>}}

His interpretation is not widely shared, particularly in Ireland. In 1997 the leader of the Irish [[Green Party (Ireland)|Green Party]] [[Trevor Sargent]], discussing the ''Strand Three'' (or ''East–West'') talks between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, commented in the Dáil Éireann:

{{blockquote|I noted with interest the naming of the islands of the north Atlantic under the acronym IONA which the Green Party felt was extremely appropriate.<ref name="DáilDebates">[http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0484/D.0484.199712090003.html Dáil Debates. Vol. 484. Col.466. 9 December 1997] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607094450/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0484/D.0484.199712090003.html |date=7 June 2011 }}.</ref>}}

His comments were echoed by [[Proinsias De Rossa]], then leader of the [[Democratic Left (Ireland)|Democratic Left]] and later President of the [[Labour Party (Ireland)|Irish Labour Party]], who told the Dáil, "The acronym IONA is a useful way of addressing the coming together of these two islands."<ref name="DáilDebates" />

====Criticism====
The neologism has been criticised on the grounds that it excludes [[List of islands in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlantic Ocean|most of the islands in the North Atlantic]].<ref name="TLEL" />

The name is also ambiguous, because of the other islands in the North Atlantic which have never been considered part of the British Isles.<ref>{{cite web |title=Introduction to the three Northatlantic Islands |url=http://www.northatlantic-islands.com/ |access-date=3 February 2011 |website=Northatlantic-islands.com}}</ref>

===West European Isles===
The name "[[Western Europe|West European]] Isles" is one translation of the islands' name in the [[Goidelic|Gaelic]] languages of [[Irish language|Irish]]<ref>''Oileáin Iarthair Eorpa'' seems rather appropriate, in Patrick Dinneen. 1927. ''Irish–English Dictionary''. Dublin: Irish Texts Society</ref> and [[Manx language|Manx]],<ref>{{lang|gv|Ellanyn Sheear ny hOarpey}} in Douglas C. Fargher. 1979. ''Fargher's English-Manx dictionary''. Douglas: Shearwater Press.</ref> with equivalent terms for "British Isles".<ref>''Na hOileáin Bhreatanacha'', in T. J. Dunne, tr. Toirdhealbhach Ó Raithbheartaigh. 1937. ''Tír-Eóluíocht na h-Éireann''. Baile Átha Cliath: Oifig Díolta Foillseacháin Rialtais</ref><ref>{{lang|gv|Ny hEllanyn Goaldagh}} s.v. British-Isles, in Douglas C. Fargher. 1979. ''Fargher's English-Manx dictionary''. Douglas: Shearwater Press.</ref>

In [[Old Icelandic]], the name of the British Isles was {{Langx|is|Vestrlönd|lit=the Western lands|label=none}}. The name of a person from the British Isles was a {{Langx|is|Vestmaðr|lit=a man from the West|label=none}}.<ref name=":17" /><ref name=":18" />

===Other terms===
Alternative names include "Britain and Ireland",<ref name="reformationBI" /><ref name="postwarculture" /><ref name="GuardianMOS01" /> the "Atlantic Archipelago",<ref name="Pocock01" /> the "[[Anglo-Celtic]] Isles",<ref name="Demography of immigrants" /><ref name="Irish historical studies" /> and the "British-Irish Isles".<ref name="Oakland01" />

==== These islands ====
Common among Irish public officials, although as a [[deixis|deictic]] label it cannot be used outside the islands in question.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guelke |first=Adrian |title=Northern Ireland and the Divided World: The Northern Ireland Conflict and the Good Friday Agreement in Comparative Perspective |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001 |editor=[[John McGarry]] |location=Oxford |page=231 |chapter=Northern Ireland and Island Status}}|</ref><ref name="Ryan201310">{{cite news |last1=Ryan |first1=Nicky |date=28 October 2013 |title=Complex politics or simple geography: Is Ireland part of the British Isles? |url=https://www.thejournal.ie/is-ireland-british-isles-northern-ireland-europe-islands-1140112-Oct2013/ |access-date=8 November 2021 |work=TheJournal.ie |language=en}}</ref> [[Charles Haughey]] referred to his 1980 discussions with [[Margaret Thatcher]] on "the totality of relationships in these islands";<ref>{{multiref|{{cite journal |last1=Farren |first1=Sean |last2=Mulvihill |first2=Bob |title=Beyond Self-Determination Towards Co-Determination in Ireland |journal=Études irlandaises |date=1996 |volume=21 |issue=1 |page=186 |doi=10.3406/irlan.1996.1299 |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/irlan_0183-973x_1996_num_21_1_1299}}|{{cite journal |last1=Kelly |first1=Stephen |title="The Totality of Relationships": The Haughey-Thatcher Relationship and the Anglo-Irish Summit Meeting, 8 December 1980 |journal=Éire-Ireland |date=2016 |volume=51 |issue=3 |pages=244–273 |doi=10.1353/eir.2016.0025 |s2cid=157253261 |issn=1550-5162 |id={{Project MUSE|643004}}}}}}</ref> the 1998 [[Good Friday Agreement]] also uses "these islands" and not "British Isles".<ref name="Ryan201310" /><ref>{{cite book |url=https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/agreement.htm |title=Agreement reached in the multi-party negotiations |date=10 April 1998 |access-date=8 November 2021 |via=[[Conflict Archive on the Internet]]}}</ref> In ''Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable'', McMahon writes that this is "cumbersome but neutral" and "the phrase in most frequent use" but that it is "cute and unsatisfactory".<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":12" /> In documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as "these islands".<ref name=":32" />

==== Insular ====
An adjective, meaning "island based", used as a qualifier in cultural history up to the early medieval period, as for example [[insular art]], [[insular script]], [[Insular Celtic]], [[Insular Christianity]].

==== Atlantic Archipelago ====
[[J. G. A. Pocock]], in his lecture of 1973 entitled "British history: a Plea for a new subject" and published in 1974, introduced the historiographical concept of the "Atlantic archipelago – since the term 'British Isles' is one which Irishmen reject and Englishmen decline to take quite seriously".<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name="Tompson1986">{{cite book |last1=Tompson |first1=Richard S. |title=The Atlantic Archipelago: A Political History of the British Isles |date=1986 |publisher=E. Mellen Press |isbn=978-0-88946-455-1 |location=Lewiston, NY |page=1 note 1 |language=en |chapter=Introduction; The Atlantic Archipelago |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/atlanticarchipel0000tomp/page/n10 |via=Internet Archive |chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref> It has been adopted by some historians.<ref name="Tompson1986" /><ref>{{multiref|{{cite book |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=Joan |title=Shakespeare, Spenser and the Contours of Britain: Reshaping the Atlantic Archipelago |date=2004 |publisher=Univ of Hertfordshire Press |isbn=978-1-902806-37-2 |page=ix |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yYcne_VPuvEC&pg=PR9 |language=en |chapter=A note on nomenclature}}|{{cite book |last1=Brett |first1=Caroline |last2=Edmonds |first2=Fiona |last3=Russell |first3=Paul |title=Brittany and the Atlantic Archipelago, 450–1200: Contact, Myth and History |date=30 November 2021 |doi=10.1017/9781108760102 |isbn=978-1-108-76010-2 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |s2cid=239524447 }}}}</ref> According to Steven G. Ellis, in 1996 professor of history at the [[National University of Ireland, Galway]], "to rename the British Isles as 'the Atlantic archipelago' in deference to Irish nationalist sensibilities seems an extraordinary price to pay, particularly when many Irish historians have no difficulty with the more historical term."<ref name=":4" /> According to [[Jane Dawson]] in 2002, "Whilst accurate, the term 'Atlantic archipelago' is rather cumbersome".<ref name=":7" />

==== Hibernian Archipelago ====
Another suggestion is "Hibernian Archipelago". In ''Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable'', McMahon calls this title "cumbersome and inaccurate".<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":12" />

==See also==
* [[Macedonia naming dispute]]

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* {{Cite book
 | last = Cunliffe
 | first = Barry
 | author-link = Barry Cunliffe
 | year = 2002
 | title = The extraordinary voyage of Pytheas the Greek
 | place = New York
 | publisher = Walker & Co
 | edition = revised
 | isbn = 0-14-029784-7
 | oclc = 49692050
}}
* {{Cite book |last=Ó Corráin |first=Donnchadh |year=1989 |author-link=Donnchadh Ó Corráin |contribution=Chapter 1: Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland |editor-last=Foster |editor-first=R. F. |editor-link=R. F. Foster (historian) |title=The Oxford History of Ireland |edition=reissue |place=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |publication-date=1 November 2001 |isbn=0-19-866270-X |oclc=231969888}}.
* {{Cite book
 | last =O'Rahilly
 | first =T. F.
 | author-link =T. F. O'Rahilly
 | year = 1946
 | title =Early Irish History and Mythology
 | place = Dublin
 | publisher =Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
 | edition =reprinted 1964, 1971, 1984
 | isbn =0-901282-29-4
 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Snyder |first=Christopher A. |author-link=Christopher Snyder (historian) |year=2003 |title=The Britons |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |isbn=0-631-22260-X |location=Malden, Massachusetts |oclc=237823808 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/britons00snyd}}

{{British Isles}}

[[Category:Geographical naming disputes]]
[[Category:Political terminology in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Politics of Ireland]]
[[Category:Politics of the British Isles|Naming dispute]]
[[Category:Ireland–United Kingdom relations]]
[[Category:Terminology of the British Isles|Naming dispute]]