The Gewisse ( ; la, Geuissæ) were a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England, historically assumed to have been based in the upper

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

region around

Dorchester on Thames Dorchester on Thames (or Dorchester-on-Thames) is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about northwest of Wallingford and southeast of Oxford. The town is a few hundred yards from the confluence of the River Thames and River Thame. A c ...

(but may have actually originated near

Old Sarum Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, South West England, is the now ruined and deserted site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury. Situated on a hill about north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road, the settlement appears in some of the earliest r ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

). The Gewisse are one of the direct precursors of modern-day

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, being the origin of its predecessor states (the

Kingdom of Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

and thereafter the

Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, ...

, prior to the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...

) according to Saxon legend.

Etymology

The name was first documented as ''Gewissorum'' in the eighth century as an ethnonym of the ''West Saxons''. Its origin is uncertain. The

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...

''ġewisse'' means "reliable" or "sure", and its corresponding

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

means "certainty," though it is unclear how this is related to the tribe. Alternatively, the name may be derived from ''gweiθ'', a

Brittonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...

word for “fortification, earthwork or fort.” Eilert Ekwall proposed that the similarity in toponymy between the kingdoms of the Gewisse and

Hwicce Hwicce () was a tribal kingdom in Anglo-Saxon England. According to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', the kingdom was established in 577, after the Battle of Deorham. After 628, the kingdom became a client or sub-kingdom of Mercia as a result of th ...

suggests a common origin, and an analysis by Richard Coates concluded that ''Hwicce'' was of Brittonic origin. Several linguists believe the word (in the form it has come down to us) is not the result of a normal linguistic development, and that attempts to deduce its evolution are problematic without accounting for same: The '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' presents an

eponymous ancestor An origin myth is a myth that describes the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, a story that describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have sto ...

figure, named '' Giwis'', which is an example of non-historical founding myths.

History

Evidence of Germanic settlements appearing around Abingdon and

in the 6th and 7th centuries has been used to make assumptions about the origins of the ''Ġewisse'', presuming them to be Germanic mercenaries that may have been settled in the region after the end of the Roman occupation to protect a border region between Britons.The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective. San Marino, Boydell Press, 2003. In fact, both the name of the tribe and the name of its founding house are Brittonic and circumstantial evidence suggests the tribe originated from Old Sarum. The early Saxon myths say that the Gewisse captured '' Searobyrig'' (Old Sarum) in AD 552 and '' Beranbyrig'' (Barbury Castle) from the

Britons British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs mod ...

in 556.

Birinus Birinus (also ''Berin'', ''Birin''; – 3 December 649 or 650) was the first Bishop of Dorchester and was known as the " Apostle to the West Saxons" for his conversion of the Kingdom of Wessex to Christianity. He is venerated as a saint ...

converted the Gewisse to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

in AD 636 by baptising their king Cynegils and establishing the Diocese of Dorchester. The Gewisse killed the three sons of Sæbert of Essex in about 620, defeated the Britons at the

Battle of Peonnum The Battle of Peonnum was fought about AD 660 between the West Saxons under Cenwalh and the Britons of what is now Somerset in England. It was a decisive victory for the Saxons, who gained control of Somerset as far west as the River Parrett. The ...

in 660 and by 676 had sufficient control over what is now

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

to establish a see at Winchester. The conquests by the royal house of Gewisse in the 7th and 8th centuries led to the establishment of the Kingdom of

Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

, and Bede treated the two names as interchangeable. It was only during the reign of Cædwalla (685/6 – 688) that the title "king of the Saxons" began to replace "king of the Gewisse".

Barbara Yorke Barbara Yorke FRHistS FSA (born 1951, Barbara Anne Elizabeth Troubridge) is a historian of Anglo-Saxon England, specialising in many subtopics, including 19th-century Anglo-Saxonism. She is currently emeritus professor of early Medieval histor ...

has suggested that it was Cædwalla's conquest of the Jutish province and the

South Saxons la, Regnum Sussaxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the South Saxons , capital = , era = Heptarchy , status = Vassal of Wessex (686–726, 827–860)Vassal of Mercia (771–796) , governm ...

that led to the need for a new title to distinguish the expanded realm from its predecessor. However, as there are no surviving documents to indicate how these people described themselves, the most that can be said is that by the time Bede was writing (early 8th century), the phrase "West Saxons" had come into use by scholars.

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Etymology

History

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading