The Romans in Britain / by Bertram C.A. Windle.

  • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
Date:
[1923]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Romans in Britain / by Bertram C.A. Windle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    scattered tribes—the Cornavii and the Coritavi. Further to the south and east were the Catuvellauni, whose original home may have been in the neighbourhood of Chalons, but who were planted in parts of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and Oxfordshire in our island. The East Anglian forests and the fens cut off East Anglia, which was occupied in its northern part by a famous race, the Iceni, horse-breeders and warriors, considered by some to be of the Belgic horde. There is a Welsh word egin meaning sharp, and some have thought that the Iceni got their tribal name from their weapon, as the Saxons are believed, though some dispute it, to have obtained theirs from the “ seax ” or short knife which they carried. North of all the people so far described were Sherwood Forest, afterwards the haunt of Robin Hood of tradition; Charn- wood Forest, mostly now bare rocky land; the Peak and Elmet near where Leeds now is. These, with the fens along the Humber, cut off a large and important tribe, the Brig antes, which lay north of them. They covered all the country now Yorkshire and the adjacent districts, and were one of the most important, if not the most important, tribe in Britain. Very warlike and distinguished in battle by their shields coloured blue, as a Roman poet tells us, they gave much trouble to the Romans. In the southern part of their area (perhaps a sort of sub-tribe) were a people known as Parisii, who bordered on the Humber fens and whose name still remains in the city from which they originally sprung, now known as Paris. It will be observed that the physical geography of the country determined the distribution of the tribes, and so potent a factor is it that at a later date when the Saxon kingdoms were formed it was on almost identical lines that they were arranged.
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