The Cilternsæte was an Anglian

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

 tribe that occupied the Chilterns, probably in the 6th century AD.

The Tribal Hidage

Tribal Hidage

Image:Tribal Hidage 2.svg|thumb|400px|alt=insert description of map here|The tribes of the Tribal Hidage. Where an appropriate article exists, it can be found by clicking on the name.rect 275 75 375 100 Elmetrect 375 100 450 150 Hatfield Chase...

 valued their territory at 4,000 hides

Hide (unit)

The hide was originally an amount of land sufficient to support a household, but later in Anglo-Saxon England became a unit used in assessing land for liability to "geld", or land tax. The geld would be collected at a stated rate per hide...

. This assessment is relatively large compared with those of some other tribes or central England, being 4% of the whole of Wessex

Wessex

The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

. Although the Tribal Hidage suggests the tribe gave its name to the hills, the truth must be the reverse since the toponym

Toponymy

Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...

 is of Brythonic

British language

The British language was an ancient Celtic language spoken in Britain.British language may also refer to:* Any of the Languages of the United Kingdom.*The Welsh language or the Brythonic languages more generally* British English...

 origin. Eilert Ekwall

Eilert Ekwall

Bror Oscar Eilert Ekwall , known as Eilert Ekwall, was Professor of English at Lund University, Sweden, from 1909 to 1942, and one of the outstanding scholars of the English language of the first half of the 20th century...

suggested that Chiltern is possibly related to the ethnic name "Celt" ("Celtæ" in early Celtic). An adjective celto- ="high" with suffix -erno- could be the origin of Chiltern.