The Pecsætan (; singular , literally "

Peak Peak or The Peak may refer to: Basic meanings Geology * Mountain peak ** Pyramidal peak, a mountaintop that has been sculpted by erosion to form a point Mathematics * Peak hour or rush hour, in traffic congestion * Peak (geometry), an (''n''-3)-d ...

-dweller"), also called Peaklanders or Peakrills in modern English, were an

Anglo-Saxon 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 ...

tribe who inhabited the central and northern parts of the

Peak District The Peak District is an Highland, upland area in central-northern England, at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It is subdivi ...

area in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. The area was in the southern part of the Brigantia, a Brythonic tribal domain. Early Anglo-Saxon settlements were by West Angles. This tribe advanced up the valleys of the rivers Derwent and Dove during their northern conquests in the 6th century. The area became known locally as the Pecsætan, Peak-set or land of the Peak peoples. Later their territory formed the northern division of

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

, and in 848 the Mercian

Witenagemot The witan () was the king's council in the Anglo-Saxon government of England from before the 7th century until the 11th century. It comprised important noblemen, including ealdormen, thegns, and bishops. Meetings of the witan were sometimes ...

assembled at

Repton Repton is a village and civil parish in the South Derbyshire district of Derbyshire, England, located on the edge of the River Trent floodplain, about north of Swadlincote. The population taken at the 2001 census was 2,707, increasing to 2 ...

. In '' A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain,''

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; 1660 – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, merchant and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translati ...

mentions a later group of people called The Peakrills writing, "The ''Peakrills'', as they are called, are a rude boorish kind of People; but bold, daring, and even desperate in their Search into the Bowels of the Earth: for which Reason they are often employed by our Engineers in the Wars to carry on the ''Sap'', when they lay Siege to strong fortified Places." Kingdom of Mercia

References

*Bigsby, R. (1854) ''Historical and Topographical Description of Repton.'' London. *Collis, J. (1983) ''Wigber Low Derbyshire: A Bronze Age and Anglian Burial site in the White Peak.'' Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield. *Davies, W. and Vierk, H. "The contexts of Tribal Hidage: social aggregates and settlement patterns", in ''Frühmittelalterliche Studien'', viii (1974) *Dumville, D. "The Tribal Hidage: an introduction to its texts and their history", in ''The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms'' ed. S.Bassett, 1989. *Fowler, M. J. (1954) "The Anglian Settlement of the Derbyshire and Staffordshire Peak District." ''DAJ'' 74, 134–151. *Hart, C. R. (1981) ''The North Derbyshire Archaeological Survey.'' Leeds: A. Wigley & Sons *Hodges, R. and Wildgoose, M. (1980) "Roman or native in the White Peak", in Branigan, K. (ed) ''Rome and the Brigantes'', 48–53. Sheffield, Sheffield University Press. *Hodges, R. (1991a) "Notes on the Medieval Archaeology of the White Peak." In R. Hodges and K. Smith (eds) ''Recent Developments in the Archaeology of the Peak District'' :111–122 (Sheffield Archaeological Monographs 2) Sheffield. *Hughes, R. G (1961) "Archaeological Sites in the Trent Valley, South Derbyshire" ''DAJ'' 81, 149–50. *Jones, H. (1997) ''The Region of Derbyshire and North Staffordshire from AD350 to AD700: an analysis of Romano-British and Anglian barrow use in the White Peak.'' Ph.D. thesis, University of Nottingham. * *Roffe, D. (1986b) "The Origins of Derbyshire" ''DAJ'' 106, 102–112. *Rollason et al. *Routh, T. (1937) "A Corpus of the Pre-Conquest Carved Stones of Derbyshire" ''DAJ'' 58, 1–46. *Sidebottom, P.C. (1994), ''Schools of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture in the North Midlands.'' Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Sheffield. *Sidebottom P.C (1999) "Stone Crosses in the Peak and the Sons of Eadwulf." ''DAJ'' 119, 206–19. * Stenton, F. (1905) "Introduction to the Derbyshire Domesday", in W. Page (ed) ''The Victoria History of the County of Derbyshire.'' London. *Unwin, T. (1988) "Towards a model of Anglo-Scandinavian rural settlement in England", in Hooke, D. (ed) ''Anglo-Saxon Settlements'', 77–98. * Yorke, B. (1990) ''Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England'', London: Seaby.

External links

East Midlands Archaeological Research Framework: Resource Assessment of Anglo-Saxon Derbyshire
An Archaeological Resource Assessment of Anglo-Saxon Derbyshire, by Dave Barrett, Derbyshire County Council {{Heptarchy Peoples of Anglo-Saxon Mercia Peak District Petty kingdoms of England

References

Further reading

External links