The Gewisse ( ; ) were a tribe or ruling clan of the

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

. Their first location, mentioned in early medieval sources, was 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 th ...

region, around Dorchester on Thames. However, some scholars suggest that the Gewisse had origins among the ancient Britons at ''Cair-Caratauc'' ( Old Sarum) in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

. According to Saxon folklore, the Gewisse were the founders of the kingdom of

Wessex The Kingdom of the West Saxons, also known as the Kingdom of Wessex, was an Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from around 519 until Alfred the Great declared himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons in 886. The Anglo-Sa ...

Etymology

The name was first documented as ''Gewissorum'' in the eighth century as an

ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

of the West Saxons. Its origin is uncertain. The

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

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

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

means "certainty". Eilert Ekwall proposed that the similarity in toponymy between the kingdoms of the Gewisse and Hwicce suggests a common origin, and an analysis by Richard Coates concluded that ''Hwicce'' was of Brittonic origin. Several linguists believe that the word is not the result of natural linguistic development, but may have been adopted as ethno-political propaganda. The ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

'' presents an eponymous ancestor figure, named '' Giwis'', which is an example of non-historical founding myths. Th
Winchester (or Parker) Chronicle
has "Cynric, son of Cerdic, son of Elesa, son of Gewis, son of Wig, son of Freawine, son of Frithugar, son of Brand, son of Beldeg, son of Woden, son of Finn, son of Godwulf, son of Geats" listed as descent from Cerdic of Wessex. This manuscript does not present Gewis as eponymous, but in the Parker Manuscript's current state, is reconstructed from both apparently missing pages of the work, as well as a later fire, long after the manuscript had been recorded and disseminated. According to the Stanford Library, the

Provenance Provenance () is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, p ...

of the manuscript is as follows:

History

Evidence of Germanic settlements appearing around Abingdon and Dorchester on Thames in the 6th and 7th centuries has been used to make assumptions about the origins of the ''Ġewisse'', presuming them to be Germanic mercenaries who may have 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. Another theory holds that the name of the tribe and its founding house is Brittonic and that they originated from the area that would become Old Sarum. The early Saxon myths say that the Gewisse captured '' Searobyrig'' (Old Sarum) in 552 AD and '' Beranbyrig'' (Barbury Castle) from the Britons in 556. Birinus converted the Gewisse to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

in 636 by baptising their king Cynegils and establishing the Diocese of Dorchester. The Gewisse killed the three sons of Sæbert of Essex around 620, defeated the Britons at the Battle of Peonnum in 660, and by 676 had sufficient control over what is now

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

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

, and

Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most f ...

treated the two names as interchangeable. It was only during the reign of

Cædwalla Cædwalla (; 659 – 20 April 689) was the King of Wessex from approximately 685 until he abdicated in 688. His name is derived from the Welsh Cadwallon. He was exiled from Wessex as a youth and during this period gathered forces and attac ...

(685/86 – 688) that the title "king of the Saxons" began to replace "king of the Gewisse". Barbara Yorke has suggested that it was Cædwalla's conquest of the Jutish province and the South Saxons 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

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Bibliography

Further reading