8th century

Timeline

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Years of interest

731 705 785 730 733 742 719

The 8th century was perhaps best known in England for being the century of King Arthur. At some point in the century, the forces of King Arthur and Mordred met near Carbury and fought the Battle of Camlann. Merlin hid a dimension ship underneath nearby Lake Vortigern, linked to the battlefield via a cement tunnel. He marked the entrance with the message: "Dig hole here". The note was in the Doctor's handwriting. (TV: Battlefield)

From the late 8th to 11th centuries, the Vikings raided and traded with large areas of northern and central Europe. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)

The Book of Kells was written on the Scottish island of Iona in the 8th century. (AUDIO: The Book of Kells)

Still, it was a century only sporadically visited by the Doctor and their companions. The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, for instance, travelled to Scandinavia at the beginning of the century. (PROSE: That Which Went Away) Also, the Seventh Doctor once stopped off in 8th century Britain for a game of conkers. (COMIC: Doctor Conkerer!)

Ace McShane noted that "they didn't have concrete" in the 8th century. (TV: Battlefield)

Additionally, the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane went to Saxon England during a Viking raid circa this era. (COMIC: Woden's Warriors)

As with most centuries of the first two millennia, the 8th century was home to Jack Harkness, Amy Pond and an Auton duplicate of Rory Williams. A version of Jack from around the time of the deaths of Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper existed in this century, having been buried alive in the 1st century by his brother, Gray. He perpetually died and resurrected an unknown number of times in an earthen tomb underneath Cardiff. (TV: Exit Wounds) Meanwhile, a near-dead Amy Pond was kept alive inside the Pandorica, beginning in the 2nd century. An Auton version of Rory kept vigil near her the entire time. They both awaited a moment in the mid-1990s when a young Amelia Pond would touch the outside of the Pandorica and restore Amy to full health. (TV: The Big Bang)

It was substantially unclear whether the events of the subsequent Big Bang Two erased Amy and Rory's presence in the 8th century. This ambiguity was caused, in part, because the non-Auton, married Rory Williams claimed to have remembered being "made of plastic" at his wedding reception, suggesting that, at least inasmuch as he was concerned, he and Amy were present in the 8th century. (TV: The Big Bang) Amy seemed to also remember those events, and displayed a fondness for the Auton Rory both during her honeymoon (TV: A Christmas Carol) and during a kind of lullaby to her newborn child Melody Pond. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)