page_title: Italians in the United Kingdom
section_title: Middle Ages
hierarchical_section_title: Italians in the United Kingdom / History / Middle Ages
caption_attribution_description: English: Lombard Street, EC3. Shows the location of 1094103.
context_page_description: Italians in the United Kingdom, also known as British Italians or colloquially Britalians, are citizens or residents of the United Kingdom of Italian heritage. The phrase may refer to someone born in the United Kingdom of Italian descent, someone who has emigrated from Italy to the United Kingdom or someone born elsewhere, who is of Italian descent and has migrated to the UK. More specific terms used to describe Italians in the United Kingdom include: Italian English, Italian Scots, and Italian Welsh.
context_section_description: Continuous contact with Rome and the Catholic world was initially restricted to the Celtic Christian, Brittonic-speaking portions of Britain where trading activities continued with the Mediterranean and Italy continuing into the seventh century as non-Christian Anglo-Saxon kingdoms began to coalesce into England. Initially the stable Anglo-British kingdoms of Wessex and then Northumbria followed the practices of Celtic Christianity however powerful figures such as Alfred the Great, who had been anointed by the Pope in Rome, tended toward Roman Catholicism especially after the Synod of Whitby drawing merchants, men of culture, artisans and educated Catholic clerics from the Latin West including Italy.
  After the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England in 1066, the first recorded Italian communities in England began from the merchants and sailors living in Southampton. The famous "Lombard Street" in London took its name from the small but powerful community from northern Italy, living there as bankers and merchants after the year 1000.
  The rebuilding of Westminster Abbey showed significant Italian artistic influence in the construction of the so-called 'Cosmati' Pavement completed in 1245 and a unique example of the style unknown outside of Italy, the work of highly skilled team of Italian craftsmen led by a Roman named Ordoricus.
  In 1303, Edward I negotiated an agreement with the Lombard merchant community that secured custom duties and certain rights and privileges. The revenues from the customs duty were handled by the Riccardi, a group of bankers from Lucca in Italy. This was in return for their service as money lenders to the crown, which helped finance the Welsh Wars. When the war with France broke out, the French king confiscated the Riccardi's assets, and the bank went bankrupt. After this, the Frescobaldi of Florence took over the role as money lenders to the English crown.
  As bankers, the Frescobaldi financed ventures for numerous members of European royal families, notably their financial conquest of England, which Fernand Braudel has signalled as the greatest achievement of the Florentine firms, "not only in holding the purse-strings of the kings of England, but also in controlling sales of English wool which was vital to continental workshops and in particular to the Arte della Lana of Florence."
caption: Lombard Street, London
exif: {}