Winchester in the context of "Simon de Montfort"

The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the 10th century, when it was unified from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, which would later become the United Kingdom. The Kingdom of England was among the most powerful states in Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.

Beginning in the year 886 Alfred the Great reoccupied London from the Danish Vikings and after this event he declared himself King of the Anglo-Saxons, until his death in 899. During the early tenth century, the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were united by Alfred's descendants Edward the Elder (reigned 899–924) and Æthelstan (reigned 924–939) to form the Kingdom of the English. In 927, Æthelstan conquered the last remaining Viking kingdom, York, making him the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of the whole of England. In 1016, the kingdom became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway. The Norman Conquest in 1066 led to the transfer of the English capital city and chief royal residence from the Anglo-Saxon one at Winchester to Westminster, and the City of London quickly established itself as England's largest and principal commercial centre.

The First Barons' War (1215–1217) was a civil war in the Kingdom of England in which a group of rebellious major landowners (commonly referred to as barons) led by Robert Fitzwalter waged war against King John. The conflict resulted from King John's disastrous wars against King Philip II of France which led to the collapse of the Angevin Empire, and John's subsequent refusal to accept and abide by Magna Carta, which John had sealed on 15 June 1215.

The rebellious barons, faced with an uncompromising king, turned to King Philip's son Louis, who in 1216 sailed to England with an army despite his father's and the pope's disapprovals. Louis captured Winchester and soon controlled over half of the English kingdom. He was proclaimed "King of England" in London by the barons, although he was never actually crowned.

South East England is one of the nine official regions of England that are in the top level category for statistical purposes. It consists of the nine counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex. South East England is the third-largest region of England, with a land area of 19,072 square kilometres (7,364 sq mi), and is also the most populous with a total population of 9,642,942 in 2024.

South East England contains eight legally chartered cities: Brighton and Hove, Canterbury, Chichester, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Portsmouth, Southampton and Winchester. Officially it does not include London, which is a separate region. The geographical term for "South East England" may differ from the official definition of the region, for example London, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex are sometimes referred to as being in the south east of England. This article only considers the South East as being the official statistical region.

Hampshire (/ˈhæmpʃər/, /-ʃɪər/ ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, Dorset to the west, and Wiltshire to the north-west. Southampton is the largest settlement.

The county has an area of 3,769 km (1,455 sq mi) and had an estimated population of 1,920,959 in 2024. Southampton is located in the south and the city of Portsmouth in the south-east; both are part of a larger conurbation. A second conurbation in the north-east includes Farnborough and Aldershot and extends into Berkshire and Surrey. The remainder of the county is rural, and its principal settlements include Basingstoke in the north, Andover in the north-west, and Winchester in the centre. For local government purposes Hampshire comprises a non-metropolitan county, with eleven districts, and two unitary authority areas: Portsmouth and Southampton. The county historically contained the towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch, which are now in Dorset, and the Isle of Wight.

Winchester measure is a set of legal standards of volume instituted in the late 15th century (1495) by King Henry VII of England and in use, with some modifications, until the present day. It consists of the Winchester bushel and its dependent quantities, the peck, (dry) gallon and (dry) quart. They would later become known as the Winchester Standards, named because the examples were kept in the city of Winchester.

The Harris matrix is a tool used to depict the temporal succession of archaeological contexts and thus the sequence of depositions and surfaces on a 'dry land' archaeological site, otherwise called a 'stratigraphic sequence'. The matrix reflects the relative position and stratigraphic contacts of observable stratigraphic units, or contexts. It was developed in 1973 in Winchester, England, by Edward C. Harris.

The concept of creating seriation diagrams of archaeological strata based on the physical relationship between strata had had some currency in Winchester and other urban centres in England prior to Harris's formalisation. One of the results of Harris's work, however, was the realisation that sites had to be excavated stratigraphically, in the reverse order to that in which they were created, without the use of arbitrary measures of stratification such as spits or planums. In his Principles of archaeological stratigraphy Harris first proposed the need for each unit of stratification to have its own graphic representation, usually in the form of a measured plan. In articulating the laws of archaeological stratigraphy and developing a system in which to demonstrate simply and graphically the sequence of deposition or truncation on a site, Harris has followed in the footsteps of notable stratigraphic archaeologists such as Mortimer Wheeler, without necessarily being a notable excavator himself.

The Winchester Bible is a Romanesque illuminated manuscript produced in Winchester between 1150 and 1175. With folios measuring 583 x 396 mm., it is the largest surviving 12th-century English Bible. The Bible belongs to a group of large-sized Bibles that were made for religious houses all over England and the continent during the 12th century. The Bible is on permanent display in Winchester Cathedral's Kings & Scribes exhibition.

Winchester College is an English public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 as a feeder school for New College, Oxford, and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the nine schools considered by the Clarendon Commission. The school has begun a transition to become co-educational, and has accepted male and female day pupils from September 2022, having previously been a boys' boarding school for over 600 years.

The school was founded to provide an education for 70 scholars. Gradually numbers rose, a choir of 16 "quiristers" being added alongside paying pupils known as "commoners". Numbers expanded greatly in the 1860s with the addition of ten boarding houses. The scholars continue to live in the school's medieval buildings, which consist of two courtyards, a chapel, and a cloisters. A Wren-style classroom building named "School" was added in the 17th century. An art school ("museum"), science school, and music school were added at the turn of the 20th century. A war cloister was built as a memorial in 1924.

John Reading (c. 1645–1692) was an English composer and organist. His son, also John Reading (c. 1685–1764), was another composer and organist, who is now remembered as an important music copyist.

Little of Reading's life is known. He was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, and became Master of the Choristers at Lincoln Cathedral in 1670, and in 1675 at Chichester Cathedral and at Winchester Cathedral. From 1681 until his death he was organist at Winchester College. Here he set the college's Latin graces to music as well as the school song Dulce domum. Several of his organ works were included in a collection which was completed by Daniel Roseingrave. He also composed songs, theatre music, and part of a set of responses (now in the Anglican church repertoire in a form completed by modern editors). He died in Winchester.