Anderitum (also ''Anderida'' or ''Anderidos'') was a
Saxon Shore fort
The Saxon Shore ( la, litus Saxonicum) was a military command of the late Roman Empire, consisting of a series of fortifications on both sides of the Channel. It was established in the late 3rd century and was led by the "Count of the Saxon Sho ...
in the
Roman province
The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...
of
Britannia
Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...
. The ruins adjoin the west end of the village of
Pevensey
Pevensey ( ) is a village and civil parish in the Wealden district of East Sussex, England. The main village is located north-east of Eastbourne, one mile (1.6 km) inland from Pevensey Bay. The settlement of Pevensey Bay forms part of ...
in
East Sussex
East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...
, England. The fort was built in the 290s and was abandoned after it was sacked in 471. It was re-inhabited by Saxons and in the 11th century the Normans built a castle within the east end of the fort.
The site decayed to become the archetypal ruinous
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
castle,
Pevensey Castle
Pevensey Castle is a Middle Ages, medieval castle and former Roman Britain, Roman Saxon Shore fort at Pevensey in the English county of East Sussex. The site is a scheduled monument in the care of English Heritage and is open to visitors. Built ...
, which is surrounded by a small moat, large
green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...
, and unusually substantial Roman defensive walls on three sides. During the Second World War, the Roman fort and medieval castle were adapted for modern warfare, and
pillboxes were built into the Roman walls.
Etymology
The fort is named ''Anderidos'' or ''Anderitos'' in the ''
Notitia Dignitatum
The ''Notitia Dignitatum'' (Latin for "The List of Offices") is a document of the late Roman Empire that details the administrative organization of the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. It is unique as one of very few surviving documents of ...
'', and ''Anderida'' was formerly the most accepted form. This has been interpreted as a
Latinized version of the
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
''ande-'' (an intensive prefix) and ''ritu-'' (
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
element meaning "
a ford", as in the
Modern Welsh
The history of the Welsh language (Welsh: ''Hanes yr iaith Gymraeg'') spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh.
Origins
Welsh evolved from British, the C ...
''rhyd'' and
Cornish ''ryd''), giving a translation of "Great Ford".
''Andred'' persisted as a name into the
Saxon period, with
the wooded area surrounding the fort becoming known as ''Andredes Weald'', meaning "The Forest of Andred". As the original name was adopted into
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, it is thought the
Romano-British culture
The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...
at Anderitum persisted in the forest after the Saxon occupation, and 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 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfr ...
records "
Wealas" (Welshmen, or Romanized Britons) in the woods.
[Eilert Ekwall, ''The Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names'', Oxford, 1936, under "Weald" and "Andred"]
Location
The fort was built on what was then peninsula of land rising above the coastal marshes. The sea washed over what is now Pevensey Marshes surrounding Anderida on three sides, so giving a safe and sheltered landing point. This marshy inlet of the sea, extending inland as far as
Hailsham
Hailsham is a town, a civil parish and the administrative centre of the Wealden district of East Sussex, England.OS Explorer map Eastbourne and Beachy Head Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Da ...
, was studded with small areas of high land which remained as islands at high tide so later giving the place-names of Rickney, Horse Eye, North Eye and Pevensey derived from the Old English word ''īeg'', island.
Unlike at many other Roman forts, no civilian settlement or ''
vicus
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 r ...
'' appears to have been established outside its walls; this was probably because the fort was at the end of a peninsula with limited room for additional construction.
Dating
The fort's construction has been dated to around 290, based on the
dating of wooden piles which were found underpinning the Roman walls in an excavation carried out in 1994. Other Saxon Shore forts were built or reconstructed around this time as part of a systematic programme of improvements to the coastal defences of Roman Britain. It is likely that ''Anderitum'' was built to defend Roman Britain from Rome itself.
Carausius
Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius (died 293) was a military commander of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century. He was a Menapian from Belgic Gaul, who usurped power in 286, during the Carausian Revolt, declaring himself emperor in Britain and no ...
, a Roman general who commanded the ''
Classis Britannica'' (the Roman fleet based in the English Channel), revolted against Rome in 286 and declared himself emperor of Britain and northern
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
. He was assassinated in 293 by his treasurer,
Allectus, who was himself killed in 296 when the Roman emperor
Constantius Chlorus
Flavius Valerius Constantius "Chlorus" ( – 25 July 306), also called Constantius I, was Roman emperor from 305 to 306. He was one of the four original members of the Tetrarchy established by Diocletian, first serving as caesar from 293 t ...
invaded Britain to overthrow the usurper.
Coins of both Carausius and Allectus have been discovered buried in the foundations of the fort's walls. A later coin of 330–335 was found under a tower in the 1930s, suggesting that the fort may have undergone a major repair or reconstruction around that time. The usurpers (or breakaway rulers) had inherited an existing system of coastal defence – the earlier Saxon Shore forts – and may have decided to augment it with the construction of Pevensey Castle and its close contemporary, ''
Portus Adurni
Portus Adurni was a Roman fort in the Roman province of Britannia situated at the north end of Portsmouth Harbour. It was part of the Saxon Shore, and is the best-preserved Roman fort north of the Alps. Around an eighth of the fort has been exca ...
'' (Portchester Castle).
Anderitum appears to have been a key link in the Saxon Shore forts, which extended from Hampshire to Norfolk and may have been connected by intermediate watchtowers. The ''Notitia Dignitatum'' mentions a fleet that was presumably based there, the ''Classis Anderidaensis''. It would probably have acted in coordination with naval units based on the other side of the Channel to intercept pirate ships passing through. Like the other Saxon Shore forts, Anderitum's position at a strategic harbour would have enabled the Romans to control access to the shoreline and prevent invaders from penetrating inland. It was linked by a road built in the late Roman period, probably at the same time as the fort.
Construction
![Outer wall Pevensey Castle - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Outer_wall_Pevensey_Castle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1410474.jpg)
It has been estimated that it took around 160,000 man-days to build the fort, equivalent to 285 men spending two years building it or 115 men over five years. At least four gangs of builders appear to have worked on the surviving sections of walls; each gang was given a stretch of about at a time to build but executed the work in significantly different styles, for instance using differing numbers of tiled bonding-courses or ironstone facing in particular places. This may simply indicate varying levels of availability of construction materials at the time each segment was built, leading the gangs to use whatever supplies were available at that moment. The amount of construction material required was very large, equating to about of stone and mortar. It is not known how it was transported to the site, but that volume of material would have needed some 600 boat loads or 49,000 wagon loads, requiring 250 wagons pulled by 1,500–2,000 oxen to move it from the quarries to Pevensey. Given the scale of the requirements for land transportation, it seems more likely that the raw materials were instead moved by sea, though even this would have been a significant operation; it has been estimated that 18 vessels would have been needed for a continuous supply operation carried out over a season of 280 days.
The curtain wall was not all built at once but was constructed in segments, as can be seen from vertical breaks in the stonework which mark where sections met. The wall is built on top of complex foundations constructed from rubble and timber set into a ditch deep. Oak piles were driven into the trench and packed with flint and clay, above which a horizontal framework of oak beams was set with more flint and clay. The foundation was finally covered over with cement before the walls were built on top. Some of the timbers have survived, allowing archaeologists to date the fort through
dendrochronology
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...
.
Other dating evidence was discredited in the 1970s. An excavation in 1906–08 found shattered tiles stamped ''HON AUG ANDRIA'', which were used to attribute Pevensey Castle's construction to the reign of the early 5th century Emperor
Honorius. However, later use of
thermoluminescence dating
Thermoluminescence dating (TL) is the determination, by means of measuring the accumulated radiation dose, of the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated (lava, ceramics) or exposed to sunlight (sediments ...
revealed they had been made around the time of the excavation. It is suspected that
Charles Dawson
Charles Dawson (11 July 1864 – 10 August 1916) was a British amateur archaeologist who claimed to have made a number of archaeological and palaeontological discoveries that were later exposed as frauds. These forgeries included the Piltdow ...
, who has been blamed for the
Piltdown Man
The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. Although there were doubts about its authenticity virtually from the beginning, the remains ...
hoax, was the author of the forged tiles.
Garrison
''Anderitum'' is recorded in the ''Notitia Dignitatum'' as the base of the ''praepositus numeri Abulcorum'' – an infantry unit or ''
numerus'' of the ''
limitanei
The ''līmitāneī'' (Latin, also called ''rīpēnsēs''), meaning respectively "the soldiers in frontier districts" (from the Latin phrase līmēs, meaning a military district of a frontier province) or "the soldiers on the riverbank" (from the ...
'' or border forces. It also mentions army and naval units bearing the fort's name in connection with the ''Vicus Julius'', in the Roman army in Gaul and stationed at
Lutetia
The Gallo-Roman town of ''Lutetia'' (''Lutetia Parisiorum'' in Latin, in French ''Lutèce'') was the predecessor of the modern-day city of Paris. It was founded in about the middle of the 3rd century BCE by the Parisii, a Gallic tribe. Trac ...
(modern
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
). This suggests that by the time the ''Notitia'' was written, the original garrison had been moved to Gaul and replaced with the ''
numerus Abulcorum''. The ''Abulci'' are mentioned in connection with the field army in Gaul and in the suppression of the rebellion of
Magnentius
Magnus Magnentius ( 303 – 11 August 353) was a Roman general and usurper against Constantius II from 350 to 353. Of Germanic descent, Magnentius served with distinction in Gaul under the Western emperor Constans. On 18 January 350 Magnentius ...
in
Pannonia Secunda
Pannonia Secunda was one of the provinces of the Roman Empire. It was formed in the year 296, during the reign of emperor Diocletian. The capital of the province was Sirmium (today Sremska Mitrovica). Pannonia Secunda included parts of present-day ...
in 351. It is not known whether their name is a geographical or functional one but their description by
Zosimus Zosimus, Zosimos, Zosima or Zosimas may refer to:
People
*
* Rufus and Zosimus (died 107), Christian saints
* Zosimus (martyr) (died 110), Christian martyr who was executed in Umbria, Italy
* Zosimos of Panopolis, also known as ''Zosimus Alchem ...
suggests that they were an elite body of troops, who served both in the field army and, probably in the form of a single detachment, at ''Anderitum''. They may have been ''
foederati
''Foederati'' (, singular: ''foederatus'' ) were peoples and cities bound by a treaty, known as ''foedus'', with Rome. During the Roman Republic, the term identified the ''socii'', but during the Roman Empire, it was used to describe foreign stat ...
'', troops raised from allied barbarian tribes and put under the command of a Roman prefect, or perhaps even a single band of warriors with their own leader. Similar ''numeri'' were recorded in the ''Notitia Dignitata'' as being stationed in other Saxon Shore forts.
Post-Roman era
Following the
Roman withdrawal from Britain
The end of Roman rule in Britain was the transition from Roman Britain to post-Roman Britain. Roman rule ended in different parts of Britain at different times, and under different circumstances.
In 383, the usurper Magnus Maximus withdrew tr ...
, local
Romano-British
The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...
civilians took over the fort, and the
Latinized Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
name continued to be used well into the Saxon period. 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 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
'' states that the Saxons "besieged ''Andredes ceaster'' and drove the population into
The Weald
The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It has three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the ...
, which continued to be distinctly Romano-British and was known as the "Andred'sley" or "Andreds Weald":"
This event is now thought to have happened around 471 rather than the date recorded by the Chronicle (due to a dating error by
Gildas
Gildas ( Breton: ''Gweltaz''; c. 450/500 – c. 570) — also known as Gildas the Wise or ''Gildas Sapiens'' — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic ''De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'', which recount ...
, on whose work the Chronicle draws). It is uncertain whether British or Saxon habitation of the fort continued after this event, but the fort appears to have been resettled by about the middle of the 6th century by a Saxon community which left evidence of its occupation in the shape of pottery, glass and other items. By the late Anglo-Saxon period, Pevensey had become a well-established fishing port and producer of salt.
Later castle
When
William the Conqueror
William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...
launched his invasion of England by landing at
Pevensey Bay
Pevensey ( ) is a village and civil parish in the Wealden district of East Sussex, England. The main village is located north-east of Eastbourne, one mile (1.6 km) inland from Pevensey Bay. The settlement of Pevensey Bay forms part of ...
on 28 September 1066, his army sheltered for the night in a temporary fortification within the old Roman fort. The army left for
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
the following day, en route to the
Battle of Hastings
The Battle of Hastings nrf, Batâle dé Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William the Conqueror, William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godw ...
. It was converted into a
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
around 1100. Occupation continued until the
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...
.
Notes
References
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Further reading
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External links
Pevensey Castleat English Heritage.
Pevensey Castleat Roman Britain.
{{Authority control
English Heritage sites in East Sussex
Ruins in East Sussex
Roman fortifications in England
Saxon Shore forts
290 establishments
Pevensey