Pecsaetan
Encyclopedia
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
tribe who inhabited the central and northern parts of the Peak District
Peak District
The Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England, lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West Yorkshire....
area in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The area was historically the home of the southern clan of the Brigantes
Brigantes
The Brigantes were a Celtic tribe who in pre-Roman times controlled the largest section of what would become Northern England, and a significant part of the Midlands. Their kingdom is sometimes called Brigantia, and it was centred in what was later known as Yorkshire...
, a Brythonic tribe, before the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The very early Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
settlements, in what is now known as the Peak District, were those of the West Angles
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...
. This tribe advanced up the valleys of the rivers Derwent
River Derwent, Derbyshire
The Derwent is a river in the county of Derbyshire, England. It is 66 miles long and is a tributary of the River Trent which it joins south of Derby. For half its course, the river flows through the Peak District....
and Dove
River Derwent, Derbyshire
The Derwent is a river in the county of Derbyshire, England. It is 66 miles long and is a tributary of the River Trent which it joins south of Derby. For half its course, the river flows through the Peak District....
during their northern conquests in the 6th century. They became known locally as the Pecsætan . Later their territory formed the northern division of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
, and in 848
848
Year 848 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* The Saracens destroy Leontini.* Charles the Bald, Louis the German and Lothar meet in Koblenz....
the Mercian Witenagemot
Witenagemot
The Witenagemot , also known as the Witan was a political institution in Anglo-Saxon England which operated from before the 7th century until the 11th century.The Witenagemot was an assembly of the ruling class whose primary function was to advise the king and whose membership was...
assembled at Repton
Repton
Repton is a village and civil parish on the edge of the River Trent floodplain in South Derbyshire, about north of Swadlincote. Repton is close to the county boundary with neighbouring Staffordshire and about northeast of Burton upon Trent.-History:...
.
Nomenclature
Though the 1911 Encyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
article refers to the Pecsætan, the more widely accepted terminology seems to be Pecsætna, as referred to in the British Library, MS Harley 3271, f. 6v document of the 7th century 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...
.
Henry Spelman's Archæologus in modum Glosarii ad rem antiquam posteriorem, which was published in London in 1626 cites the Pec-setna.
Further reading
- 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. ISBN 0 7185 1317 7
- 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 :111-22 (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. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
- Ozanne, A. (1962-3) "The Peak Dwellers" Medieval Archaeology 6-7, 15-52.
- 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.Frank StentonSir Frank Merry Stenton was a 20th century historian of Anglo-Saxon England, and president of the Royal Historical Society . He was the author of Anglo-Saxon England, a volume of the Oxford History of England, first published in 1943 and widely considered a classic history of the period...
(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.Barbara YorkeBarbara Yorke is a historian of Anglo-Saxon England.She studied history and archaeology at Exeter University, where she completed both her undergraduate degree and her Ph.D. She is currently Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Winchester, and is a Fellow of the Royal...
(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