Basingas

Last updated

The Basingas were an Old English tribe, whose territory in the Loddon Valley formed a regio or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex. [1] Their leader, Basa, gave the tribe its name which survives in the names of Old Basing and Basingstoke, both in Hampshire. (The existence of both the tribe and their leader must be assumed to have been inferred from the existence of the place name "Basingstoke" as there is no independent documentary evidence referring to them.)

Contents

Origins

Settlement patterns suggest the existence of a town at Basingstoke attached to the nearby oppidum of Winklebury prior to the Roman conquest of Britain. [2] In the early Roman era it was the nearest town to Calleva Atrebatum, lay between two roads leading to Venta Belgarum and Noviomagus Reginorum and was populated predominantly by the Atrebates. [3]

History

The Basingas settled the eastern outskirts of Basingstoke concurrent with the Frankish conquest of Alamannia in the early sixth century. [4] In subsequent generations they took over de facto governance of the town. They appear to have been subsumed into the Kingdom of Wessex early in its formation, as they are not mentioned as a distinct tribe in the Tribal Hidage. Their territory (Basengum) is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the site of a battle versus Danish Vikings in 871 AD.

Old Basing was first settled around 700 by an Old Englih tribe known as the Basingas, who give the village its name (the meaning is "Basa's people"). [5] It was the site of the Battle of Basing on 22 January 871, when a Danish army defeated Ethelred of Wessex. It is also mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.

The subdivision of the Basingas retained a role beyond the Anglo-Saxon period as Basingstoke remained the administrative centre for a distinctive grouping of hundreds within Hampshire throughout the Middle Ages. [1]

Notes

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Ceawlin of Wessex</span> King of Wessex

    Ceawlin was a King of Wessex. He may have been the son of Cynric of Wessex and the grandson of Cerdic of Wessex, whom the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle represents as the leader of the first group of Saxons to come to the land which later became Wessex. Ceawlin was active during the last years of the Anglo-Saxon expansion, with little of southern England remaining in the control of the native Britons by the time of his death.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Jutes</span> North Sea Germanic ethnic group from the Jutlandic peninsula

    The Jutes, Iuti, or Iutæ were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the departure of the Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic nations, along with the Angles and the Saxons:

    Those who came over were of the three most powerful nations of Germany—Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, and those also in the province of the West Saxons who are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Wessex</span> Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain

    The Kingdom of Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Æthelstan in 927.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingdom of Sussex</span> Kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England

    The Kingdom of the South Saxons, today referred to as the Kingdom of Sussex, was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the Heptarchy of Anglo-Saxon England. On the south coast of the island of Great Britain, it was originally a sixth-century Saxon colony and later an independent kingdom. The kingdom remains one of the least known of the Anglo-Saxon polities, with no surviving king-list, several local rulers and less centralisation than other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The South Saxons were ruled by the kings of Sussex until the country was annexed by Wessex, probably in 827, in the aftermath of the Battle of Ellendun.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Danelaw</span> Historical name given to part of England ruled by the Danes (865–954)

    The Danelaw was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian law. The term is first recorded in the early 11th century as Dena lage. The areas that constituted the Danelaw lie in northern and eastern England, long occupied by Danes and other Norsemen.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Cerdic of Wessex</span> 1st King of Wessex from 519 to 534

    Cerdic is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a leader of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, being the founder and first king of Saxon Wessex, reigning from 519 to 534 AD. Subsequent kings of Wessex were each claimed by the Chronicle to descend in some manner from Cerdic. His origin, ethnicity, and even his very existence have been extensively disputed. However, though claimed as the founder of Wessex by later West Saxon kings, he would have been known to contemporaries as king of the Gewissae, a folk or tribal group. The first king of the Gewissae to call himself 'King of the West Saxons', was Caedwalla, in a charter of 686.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Edington</span> Battle between kingdom of Wessex and the Great Heathen Army in 878

    At the Battle of Edington, an army of the kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army led by the Dane Guthrum on a date between 6 and 12 May 878, resulting in the Treaty of Wedmore later the same year. Primary sources locate the battle at "Eðandun". Until a scholarly consensus linked the battle site with the present-day village of Edington in Wiltshire, it was known as the Battle of Ethandun. This name continues to be used.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Dumnonia</span> Historic kingdom in Sub-Roman Britain

    Dumnonia is the Latinised name for a Brythonic kingdom that existed in Sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries CE in the more westerly parts of present-day South West England. It was centred in the area of modern Devon, but also included modern Cornwall and part of Somerset, with its eastern boundary changing over time as the gradual westward expansion of the neighbouring Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex encroached on its territory. The spelling Damnonia is sometimes encountered, but that spelling is also used for the land of the Damnonii, later part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, in present-day southern Scotland. The form Domnonia also occurs and shares a linguistic relationship with the Breton region of Domnonée.

    The Gewisse were a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England, historically assumed to have been based in the upper Thames region around Dorchester on Thames. The Gewisse are one of the direct precursors of modern-day England, being the origin of its predecessor states according to Saxon legend.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Hampshire</span> History of the English county of Hampshire

    Hampshire is a county in Southern England with some notable archaeology and many notable historic buildings.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Basing</span> Human settlement in England

    Old Basing is a village in Hampshire, England, just east of Basingstoke. It was called Basengum in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Basinges in the Domesday Book.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Anglo-Saxon England</span> History of England from the 5th to the 11th centuries

    Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan. It became part of the short-lived North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century.

    The Five Boroughs or The Five Boroughs of the Danelaw were the five main towns of Danish Mercia. These were Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. The first four later became county towns.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Heathen Army</span> Norse invasion of England in 865

    The Great Heathen Army, also known as the Viking Great Army, was a coalition of Scandinavian warriors who invaded England in AD 865. Since the late 8th century, the Vikings had been engaging in raids on centres of wealth, such as monasteries. The Great Heathen Army was much larger and aimed to conquer and occupy the four kingdoms of East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex.

    The Haestingas, or Heastingas or Hæstingas, were one of the tribes of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Not very much is known about them. They settled in what became East Sussex sometime before the end of the 8th century. A 12th-century source suggested that they were conquered by Offa of Mercia, in 771. They were also recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC) as being an autonomous grouping as late as the 11th century.

    The Wihtwara were one of the tribes of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Their territory was a tribal kingdom located on the Isle of Wight before it was conquered by the Kingdom of Wessex in the late seventh century. The tribe's name is preserved in the name of the eponymous island.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Heptarchy</span> Seven kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England

    The Heptarchy were the seven petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England that flourished from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century until they were consolidated in the 8th century into the four kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria, Wessex and East Anglia.

    The Readingas were a tribe or clan of early Anglo-Saxon England whose capital was Reading; their territory formed a regio or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex. The area of the Readingas adjoined that of the Sunningas to the east and that of the Basingas to the south. The subdivision retained a role beyond the Anglo-Saxon period as Reading remained the administrative center for a distinctive grouping of hundreds within Berkshire throughout the Middle Ages.

    The Sunningas were a tribe or clan of early Anglo-Saxon England, whose territory formed a regio or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex. The Sunningas inhabited Sonning and its environs, in the modern county of Berkshire; their territory adjoined that of the Readingas, centered on Reading to the west, and the Basingas, whose capital was Basingstoke, to the south. The subdivision retained a role beyond the Anglo-Saxon period as Sonning remained the administrative centre for a distinctive grouping of hundreds throughout the Middle Ages.

    Regiones or provinciae,(singular: provincia), also referred to by historians as small shires or early folk territories, were early territorial divisions of Anglo-Saxon England, referred to in sources such as Anglo-Saxon charters and the writings of Bede. They are likely to have originated in the years before 600, and most evidence for them occurs in sources from or about the 7th century.

    References

    1. 1 2 Yorke, Barbara (1995), Wessex in the early Middle Ages, Leicester University Press, p. 40, ISBN   071851856X , retrieved 15 June 2014
    2. Millard, J. E., Baigent, F. J. (1889). A History of the Ancient Town and Manor of Basingstoke in the County of Southampton: With a Brief Account of the Siege of Basing House, A. D. 1643-1645. United Kingdom: C.J. Jacob.
    3. Margary, Ivan D. (1973). Roman Roads in Britain, 3rd ed. London: Baker.
    4. History of the Franks: Gregory of Tours.
    5. Ekwall, E. (1940). The Concise Dictionary of English Place-names (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 28.