| 280 | "Saxon Shore" forts built on east coast of Britain to defend land from Saxon pirates |
| 367 | Britannia raided by Picts, Scots and Saxons |
| from c. 400 | Germanic peoples settle in Britian |
| 407 | Last Roman troops leave Britain with Constantine III |
| c. 425-59 | Reign of Vortigern |
| 449 | Traditional date of arrival of Hengist and Horsa at Ebbsfleet, Kent |
| c. 500-15 | Possible timeframe for Danish events that occur in Beowulf |
| c. 515-75 | Possible timeframe for Swedish events that occur in Beowulf |
| c. 520-21 | Death of Chochilaicus (King Hygelac in Beowulf) in territory of the Hetware tribe |
| c. 525 | Death of King Ohthere of Sweden |
| c. 535 | Death of King Onela of Sweden |
| c. 535-75 | Reign of King Eadgils of Sweden |
| c. 540 | Gildas in De excidio Britanniae laments the effects of the Germanic settlements on the spine Britons |
| 597 | St Augustine arrives in Kent to convert the English |
| 599-c. 616 | Reign of King Raedwald of East Anglia, who may have been buried in the Sutton Hoo ship |
| c. 7th century | Composition of Widsith |
| 604 | Death of St. Augustine |
| 616 | death of Æthelberht, king of Kent |
| 633 | death of Edwin, king of Northumbria |
| 635 | Bishop Aidan established in Lindisfarne |
| 642 | death of Oswald, king of Northumbria |
| 664 | Synod of Whitby |
| 669 | Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian arrive in Canterbury |
| 674 | monastery of Monkwearmouth founded |
| 682 | monastery of Jarrow founded |
| 687 | death of Cuthbert |
| 689 | death of Cædwalla, king of Wessex |
| 690 | death of Archbishop Theodore |
| c. 700 | 'Lindisfarne Gospels' written and decorated |
| 709 | deaths of Bishops Wilfrid and Aldhelm |
| 716-57 | Æthelbald king of Mercia |
| 731 | Bede completes his Ecclesiastical History |
| 735 | death of Bede |
| 754 | death of St Boniface, Anglo-Saxon missionary in Germany |
| 757-96 | Offa king of Mercia |
| 781 | Alcuin of York meets Charlemagne in Parma and thereafter leaves York for the Continent |
| 793 | Vikings attack Lindisfarne |
| 802-39 | Ecgberht king of Wessex |
| 804 | death of Alcuin |
| 839-56 | Æthelwulf king of Wessex |
| 869 | Vikings defeat and kill Edmund, king of East Anglia |
| 871-99 | Alfred the Great king of Wessex |
| 878 | Alfred defeats the Viking army at the battle of Edington, and the Vikings settle in East Anglia(879-80) |
| 899-924 | Edward the Elder king of Wessex |
| 924-39 | Athelstan king of Wessex and first king of all England |
| 937 | battle of Brunanburh: Athelstan defeats an alliance of Scots and Scandinavians |
| 957-75 | Edgar king of England |
| 959-88 | Dunstan archbishop of Canterbury |
| 963-84 | Æthelwold bishop at Winchester |
| 964 | secular clerics expelled from the Old Minster, Winchester, and replaced by monks |
| 971-92 | Oswald archbishop at York |
| 973 | King Edgar crowned at Bath |
| 978-1016 | Æthelred 'the Unready' king of England |
| 985-7 | Abbo of Fleury at Ramsey |
| 991 | battle of Maldon: the Vikings defeat an English army led by Byrhtnoth |
| c. 1010 | death of Ælfric, abbot of Eynsham |
| 1011 | Byrhtferth's Enchiridion |
| 1013 | the English submit to Swein, king of Denmark |
| 1016-35 | Cnut king of England |
| 1023 | death of Wulfstan, archbishop of York |
| 1042-66 | Edward the Confessor king of England |
| 1066 | battle of Hastings: the English army led by Harold is defeated by the Norman army led by William the Conqueror |
| 1536-40 | Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII |
| 1571-1631 | Life of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton who received the Beowulf manuscript from Laurence Nowell, dean of Lichfield |
| 1700 | Robert Cotton's grandson John Cotton gives the Cotton Library to the British people |
| 1705 | Humfrey Wanley mentions the manuscript in his Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts |
| 1722 | Manuscript transferred from Cotton Library to Essex House, then later to Ashburnham House |
| 1731 | Fire at Ashburnham House in which Beowulf manuscript is nearly destroyed (October 23) |
| 1787, 1789 | Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin makes two transcriptions of the manuscript |
| 1805 | Historian Sharon Turner mentions Beowulf in The History of the Manners, Landed Property, Government, Laws, Poetry, Literature, Religion, and Language, of the Anglo Saxons |
| 1826 | John Josias Conybeare publishes a partial English translation |
| 1826 | Colonel William Pretty buys land near Woodbridge, Suffolk |
| 1835 | John Mitchell Kemble publishes a printed Old-English transcription |
| 1837 | John Mitchell Kemble publishes a full English translation |
| 1845 | Henry Gough binds each of the 70 pages of the fire-damaged manuscript in paper frames |
| 1936 | Tolkien's lecture on Beowulf, The Monsters and the Critics |
| 1938 | Colonel William Pretty's widow Edith May Pretty asks Basil Brown to begin excavations at Sutton Hoo |
| 1939 | Brown discovers the ship burial of Raedwald (?) in mound 1 at Sutton Hoo |
