|
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 common practice of the scholars at Oxford was to refer to the river Thames by two separate names, with Dorchester on Thames the point of change. Downstream of the village, the river continued to be named ''The Thames'', while upstream it was named The Isis. Ordnance Survey maps continued the practice by labelling the river as "River Thames or Isis" above Dorchester, however, this distinction is rarely made outside the city of Oxford. Etymology The town shares its name with Dorchester in Dorset, but there has been no proven link between the two names. The name is likely a combination of a Celtic or Pre-Celtic element "-Dor" with the common suffixation "Chester" (Old English: "A Roman town or Fort"). As Dorchester on Thames is surrounded on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Anglican churches. Life and ministry After Augustine of Canterbury performed the initial conversions in England, Birinus, a Frank, came to the kingdom of Wessex in 634, landing at the port of ''Hamwic'', now in the St Mary's area of Southampton. During Birinus's brief time at Hamwic, St Mary's Church was founded. A Benedictine monk, Birinus had been made bishop by Asterius in Genoa, and Pope Honorius I created the commission to convert the West Saxons. In 635, he persuaded the West Saxon king Cynegils to allow him to preach. Cynegils was trying to create an alliance with Oswald of Northumbria, with whom he intended to fight the Mercians. At the final talks between kings, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily due to the work of the University of Oxford and several notable science parks. These include the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus and Milton Park, both situated around the towns of Didcot and Abingdon-on-Thames. It is a landlocked county, bordered by six counties: Berkshire to the south, Buckinghamshire to the east, Wiltshire to the south west, Gloucestershire to the west, Warwickshire to the north west, and Northamptonshire to the north east. Oxfordshire is locally governed by Oxfordshire County Council, together with local councils of its five non-metropolitan districts: City of Oxford, Cherwell, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse, and West Oxfordshire. Present-day Oxfordshire spanning the area south of the Thames was h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Isis
"The Isis" () is an alternative name for the River Thames, used from its source in the Cotswolds until it is joined by the Thame at Dorchester in Oxfordshire. It derives from the ancient name for the Thames, ''Tamesis'', which in the Middle Ages was believed to be a combination of "Thame" and "Isis". Notably, the Isis flows through the city of Oxford. Rowing The name "Isis" is especially used in the context of rowing at the University of Oxford. A number of rowing regattas are held on the Isis, including Eights Week, the most important Oxford University regatta, in the Trinity term (summer), Torpids in the Hilary term (early spring) and Christ Church Regatta for novices in the Michaelmas term (autumn). Because the width of the river is restricted at Oxford, rowing eights normally have a staggered start near Donnington Bridge and must then aim to "bump" the eight in front (i.e. catch up and touch or overlap with it sufficiently). The leading eight aims to "row over" (i.e. fin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wittenham Clumps
Wittenham Clumps are a pair of wooded chalk hills in the Thames Valley, in the civil parish of Little Wittenham, in the historic county of Berkshire, although since 1974 administered as part of South Oxfordshire district. The higher of the two, Round Hill, is above sea-level. The Castle Hill is about south-east and was the site of an Iron Age hill fort. A third hill, not normally considered one of The Clumps, is Brightwell Barrow, further to the south-east. The grassed slopes of The Clumps lead up to summits wooded by the oldest beech tree plantings in England, dating to the 1740s. Standing over 70 metres above their surroundings, the Clumps have a prominent appearance and panoramic views, with the north slopes overlooking villages and towns whose sites mark some of the first settlements of the English. The view from The Clumps was described by the artist Paul Nash, who first saw them in 1911, as "a beautiful legendary country haunted by old gods long forgotten". The Clump ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bede
Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles (contemporarily Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey in Tyne and Wear, England). Born on lands belonging to the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow in present-day Tyne and Wear, Bede was sent to Monkwearmouth at the age of seven and later joined Abbot Ceolfrith at Jarrow. Both of them survived a plague that struck in 686 and killed a majority of the population there. While Bede spent most of his life in the monastery, he travelled to several abbeys and monasteries across the British Isles, even visiting the archbishop of York and King Ceolwulf of Northumbria. He was an author, teacher (Alcuin was a student of one of his pupils), and scholar, and his most famous work, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pope Honorius I
Pope Honorius I (died 12 October 638) was the bishop of Rome from 27 October 625 to his death. He was active in spreading Christianity among Anglo-Saxons and attempted to convince the Celts to calculate Easter in the Roman fashion. He is chiefly remembered for his correspondence with Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople over the latter's monothelite teachings. Honorius was posthumously anathematized, initially for subscribing to monothelitism, and later only for failing to end it. The anathema against Honorius I became one of the central arguments against the doctrine of papal infallibility. Early life Honorius was a rich aristocrat who came from Campania. His father was the consul Petronius. Nothing is known about Honorius I's career before he became pope on 27 October 625. He was consecrated only two days after the death of his predecessor, Boniface V. The vacancy was short probably because of the presence in Rome of Isaac the Armenian, who was empowered to confirm the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alchester Roman Town
Alchester is the site of an ancient Rome, Roman town. The site is not included in any ancient references so the Roman name is not known. However, Eilert Ekwall contended that it appears as ''Alavna'' in the Ravenna Cosmography, with the addition of the Old English ''ceaster'' to signify a Roman fort. It lies about south of Bicester, in the northwest corner of the Civil parishes in England, civil parish of Wendlebury in the England, English county of Oxfordshire. Alchester had a strategic location in Roman Britain at a crossroads on the Calleva Atrebatum, Silchester–Dorchester, Oxfordshire, Dorchester on Thames–Lactodurum, Towcester road and the Corinium Dobunnorum, Cirencester–Verulamium, St Albans road (Akeman Street). Recent excavations have shown that it was the site of one of the earliest legionary fortresses in Roman Britain after the Roman conquest of Britain, invasion of 43 AD. The site has been the subject of investigation since 1996, first under the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Military History Of Ancient Rome
The military history of ancient Rome is inseparable from its political system, based from an early date upon competition within the ruling elite. Two consuls were elected each year to head the government of the state, and in the early to mid-Republic were assigned a consular army and an area in which to campaign. History From Gaius Marius and Sulla onwards, control of the army began to be tied into the political ambitions of individuals, leading to the political triumvirate of the 1st century BC and its resolution in a civil war that led to the Republic's collapse. The Empire was increasingly plagued by usurpations led or supported by military conspiracies, leading to the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284 AD) in the late empire and eventual final decline. Following is a list of topics on the military history of ancient Rome. * Structural history of the Roman military :The branches of the Roman military at the highest level were the Roman army and the Roman navy. Within ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Road
Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. They provided efficient means for the overland movement of armies, officials, civilians, inland carriage of official communications, and trade goods. Roman roads were of several kinds, ranging from small local roads to broad, long-distance highways built to connect cities, major towns and military bases. These major roads were often stone-paved and metaled, cambered for drainage, and were flanked by footpaths, bridleways and drainage ditches. They were laid along accurately surveyed courses, and some were cut through hills, or conducted over rivers and ravines on bridgework. Sections could be supported over marshy ground on rafted or piled foundations.Corbishley, Mike: "The Roman World", page 50. Warwick Press, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vicus (Rome)
In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (plural ) designated a village within a rural area () or the neighbourhood of a larger settlement. During the Republican era, the four of the city of Rome were subdivided into . In the 1st century BC, Augustus reorganized the city for administrative purposes into 14 regions, comprising 265 . Each had its own board of officials who oversaw local matters. These administrative divisions are recorded as still in effect at least until the mid-4th century. The word "" was also applied to the smallest administrative unit of a provincial town within the Roman Empire. It is also notably used today to refer to an ''ad hoc'' provincial civilian settlement that sprang up close to and because of a nearby military fort or state-owned mining operation. Local government in Rome Each ''vicus'' elected four local magistrates ('' vicomagistri'') who commanded a sort of local police force chosen from among the people of the ''vicus'' by lot. Occasionally the o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hill Fort
A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roman period. The fortification usually follows the contours of a hill and consists of one or more lines of earthworks, with stockades or defensive walls, and external ditches. Hillforts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC, and were used in many Celtic areas of central and western Europe until the Roman conquest. Nomenclature The spellings "hill fort", "hill-fort" and "hillfort" are all used in the archaeological literature. The ''Monument Type Thesaurus'' published by the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage lists ''hillfort'' as the preferred term. They all refer to an elevated site with one or more ramparts made of earth, stone and/or wood, with an external ditch. M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
