The Genesis of Wessex
The upper Thames valley is accepted as the heartland of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex. There is evidence for English settlers there around or even before AD400 but it was the arrival of Cerdic from the south during the early sixth century that provided the catalyst for the welding of the various concentrations of settlers into what was to become the kingdom of Wessex. The question posed here is:
‘Why should the Upper Thames valley have been the focus of the most westerly area of Anglo-Saxon (English) settlement?’
Possible factors that
might have been involved in influencing the choice of this area for English
settlement could include the following:
- Historically, the area was significant during the late Iron Age when a settlement at Abingdon seems to have undergone a radical upgrade (1). An area of some 32 hectares was elaborately fortified and the interior laid out in a grid pattern with a population of some 1500. The eastern side of the settlement was bounded by the River Thames and it seems likely that the place functioned as a port. This urban establishment was larger than the Roman small towns that were being founded at the time on the continent and larger than the future Romano-British towns of Aldborough and Caerwent.
- During the Roman period Abingdon and nearby Dorchester were to become significant towns. The excavations in Abingdon have demonstrated that in the earliest years of the Roman period, goods imported from elsewhere in the Empire, like pottery and wine, were arriving at the riverside and presumably being distributed to the wealthier Iron Age worthies in the area.
- This suggests that the area during the Iron Age and the Romano-British period was a prosperous one. Certainly, there was a number of wealthy villas and the Oxford potteries of the region are well known. They became especially significant during the fourth century AD.
At the end of the Romano-British
period, the English settlers began to arrive, perhaps from the late-fourth
century onwards. Why did they come to this particular area?
- If Abingdon were still functioning as a river port, like Pommeroeul in Belgium (2), for example, then they could have arrived initially as traders. If they came as merchants/craftsmen, this would account for the discovery of Anglo-Saxon artefacts in local late-Romano-British cemeteries.
- Inside the hillfort of Dyke Hills near Dorchester-on-Thames, a burial of a man in uniform is said to be that of a germanic mercenary. This has led to suggestions that numbers of federates (Saxon mercenary soldiers) were based in the area.
- Substantial early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are located at Frilford, Long Wittenham, Wallingford, and Abingdon. Some of them contain both Romano-British and English graves and suggest that the newcomers were living side-by-side with the natives. On the Continent during the fourth and fifth centuries the custom of hospitalitis was being practised ‘which led to the villa acquiring a new dependent settlement’ (3). This system encouraged villa owners to take on immigrant workers. Was this also happening in Britain fifteen hundred years before similar work-creation schemes of the late-twentieth century and, specifically, in the Upper Thames valley?
- Modern immigration legislation did not exist at the time but natural migration laws operated then as now and families would join their breadwinners, dependants their relatives and friends follow the example of their peers so that the number of newcomers would increase exponentially with time.
A map of the
area showing sites mentioned in the text
Would a combination of some or all of these factors account for the nucleus
of Wessex or are there any other influences that can be suggested?
- Tim Allen: Oxford Archaeological Unit’s excavation (1996)
- De Boe in Taylor J and Cleere H (eds): Roman shipping and Trade: Britain and the Rhine provinces. (1978)
- Chapelot, Jean and Fossier, Robert: The Village and House in the Middle Ages. (1965)
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