''Regiones'' (singular: ''regio'') or ''provinciae'',(singular: ''provincia''), also referred to by historians as small shires or early folk territories, were early territorial divisions of
Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom o ...
, referred to in sources such as
Anglo-Saxon charters and the writings of
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 o ...
. They are likely to have originated in the years before 600, and most evidence for them occurs in sources from or about the 7th century.
''Regiones'' were self-sufficient units of mixed
subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...
consisting of scattered settlements producing the range of foodstuffs and other forms of produce necessary to support their population. They formed the defined territories of tribes or similar social groupings and were the building-blocks around which the larger
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were governed.
''Regiones'' gradually fragmented in the later Anglo-Saxon period as land was granted into private or ecclesiastical ownership by
charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...
, and the smaller
manor
Manor may refer to:
Land ownership
*Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England
*Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism
*Man ...
s that emerged were gradually re-organised for military purposes into
hundreds and the larger
shire
Shire is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand. It is generally synonymous with county. It was first used in Wessex from the beginn ...
s that later evolved into
counties. The patterns of obligation that characterised ''regiones'' were often retained between successor manors, however, and their traces can be seen in many of the
sokes,
thanages,
liberties,
baronies Barony may refer to:
* Barony, the peerage, office of, or territory held by a baron
* Barony, the title and land held in fealty by a feudal baron
* Barony (county division), a type of administrative or geographical division in parts of the British ...
and other administrative and ecclesiastic divisions that characterised later medieval society.
Some historians have identified ''regiones'' with the concept of the
Anglo-Saxon multiple estate. Others have argued that, while similarly organised, multiple estates represent a later stage of territorial organisation, after the concept of ''
folkland'' or tribal occupation and obligation began to be replaced by that of ''
bookland'' or documented private ownership.
Naming and areas
Primary historical sources refer to these areas exclusively in
Latin as ''regiones'' or ''provinciae'' and it is not known what the equivalent contemporary
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
term would have been. Several different terms were used when original Latin texts were later translated, including ''-ge'', which meant "district" and survived as the second element of the names of several ''regiones'' including
Eastry and
Ely Ely or ELY may refer to:
Places Ireland
* Éile, a medieval kingdom commonly anglicised Ely
* Ely Place, Dublin, a street
United Kingdom
* Ely, Cambridgeshire, a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England
** Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral, formal ...
; and ''meagth'', which meant "kindred", suggesting the areas had tribal origins.
In areas of
Jutish settlement - such as the
Kingdom of Kent and the area around the
Solent - ''regiones'' often took the name of a topographical element with the Old English suffix ''"-wara"'' meaning "-dwellers". Examples include the ''
Wihtwara
The Wihtwara were one of the tribes of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Their territory was a tribal kingdom located on the Isle of Wight before it was conquered by the Kingdom of Wessex in the late seventh century. The tribe's name is preserved in the na ...
'' of the
Isle of Wight, the ''
Meonwara
The Meonwara were one of the tribes of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Their territory was a folkland located in the valley of the River Meon in Hampshire that was subsumed by the Kingdom of Wessex in the late seventh century.
Etymology
In the 8th centu ...
'' of the area around the
River Meon in south Hampshire, the ''
Limenwara
The ''Limenwara'' or ''Limenware'' were a people of Anglo-Saxon England whose territory formed a '' regio'' or early administrative subdivision of the Kingdom of Kent. The name means "Limen-dwellers", with "Limen" being the name of the former east ...
'' around the
River Rother (formerly known as the Limen) in Kent.
Similar units with names ending in "-ingas" meaning "people of..." can be found in areas of
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
settlement. Examples in
Wessex include the areas of the ''
Readingas'', ''
Sunningas
The ''Sunningas'' were a tribe or clan of early Anglo-Saxon England, whose territory formed a '' regio'' or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex. The ''Sunningas'' inhabited Sonning and its environs, in the modern county of B ...
'' and ''
Basingas
The Basingas were an Anglo-Saxon tribe, whose territory in the Loddon Valley formed a '' regio'' or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex. Their leader, Basa, gave the tribe its name which survives in the names of Old Basing a ...
'' around
Reading,
Sonning
Sonning is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England, on the River Thames, east of Reading. The village was described by Jerome K. Jerome in his book ''Three Men in a Boat'' as "the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river".
Geogr ...
and
Basingstoke
Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...
. In the
Kingdom of Essex examples have been identified including the ''
Berecingas'' around
Barking, the ''
Haeferingas'' of modern
Havering, the ''
Uppingas'' of
Epping Epping may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Epping, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
** Epping railway station, Sydney
* Electoral district of Epping, the corresponding seat in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
* Epping Forest, Kearns, a he ...
and the ''
Hrothingas'' that occupied the area of the modern
Rodings.
Examples in areas of
Anglian settlement include the ''
Blithingas'' around
Blythburgh in the
Kingdom of East Anglia. Many of the smaller areas mentioned in the
Tribal Hidage
Image:Tribal Hidage 2.svg, 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 w:Elmet
rect 375 100 450 150 w:Hatfield Ch ...
are likely to have been ''regiones''.
Within the area of the
Kingdom of Northumbria ''regiones'' were often named after their central place with the Old English suffix ''"-scīr"'' – for example
Hallamshire or
Hexhamshire – which has led historians to refer to them as "small shires" to distinguish them from the later
shire
Shire is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand. It is generally synonymous with county. It was first used in Wessex from the beginn ...
s that evolved into the
historic counties of England.
Origins
Various explanations exist for how these territorial units may have formed in the 5th and 6th centuries. The first elements in names ending in ''-ingas'' have often been interpreted as personal names, and the territories have often been seen as the areas settled by families or tribes led by those named individuals, or perhaps with them as their earliest known common ancestor. This view sees ''regiones'' as the areas of previously autonomous tribal groupings, that retained their identity when absorbed into larger kingdoms in the later 6th and 7th centuries, coming to pay tribute to a king rather than an earlier tribal chieftain.
Alternatively ''regiones'' may have formed from earlier units based around centres such as
hillforts
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-Roma ...
in the aftermath of the
end of Roman rule in 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 ...
, subsequently transferred to Anglo-Saxon rulers. Some ''regiones'' carry evidence of continuity with earlier Roman or pre-Roman subdivisions, including that of the ''
Brahhingas'', which was based around
Braughing in modern
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
, the site of both an earlier
Iron Age ''
oppidum'' and a large Roman town. This would suggest that ''regiones'' succeeded the Roman subdivisions of ''
civitates
In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (; plural ), according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the , or citizens, united by law (). It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities () on th ...
'' known as ''
pagi''.
Many small shires have been identified in the area of the south east of modern
Scotland that was under
Northumbrian control during the early medieval period, but many with identical features have also been identified north of the
River Forth in areas that were never under Anglo-Saxon or Roman rule, suggesting that the territories may have even earlier
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 ...
origins.
Structure and role
''Regiones'' were characterised by well-defined areas, generally of the order of and often made up of 12
vills. They generally conformed to local topography, occupying a geographically coherent area such as a defined stretch of a river valley. They constituted self-contained and organised economic units of
subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...
including a diverse range of scattered settlements practising a mix of
arable and
pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
farming and sharing common grazing land.
''Regiones'' were typically centred upon a
royal vill. Anglo-Saxon England lacked the high volume trade in essential foodstuffs necessary to sustain a large royal household in a single location. Royal vills therefore formed a network of halls and accommodation across a kingdom through which a royal household would tour in an itinerary, where each ''regio'' would provide
food renders to support the royal household and from where the ''regio'' and the wider kingdom would be administered.
Where they are recorded in charters or by Bede the rulers of ''regiones'' are referred to as ''principes'' (princes), ''reguli'' (kings) or ''subreguli'' (sub-kings).
Later territorial continuity
The ''regio'' as a basic territorial unit gradually fragmented during the later Anglo Saxon period as the concept of tribal ownership and organisation declined and was replaced with the concept of private land-holding. The smaller
manor
Manor may refer to:
Land ownership
*Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England
*Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism
*Man ...
s that characterise the
Domesday Book emerged from within ''regiones'' through the endowment of churches with land, the rewarding of officials and the division of a family's land among inheritors.
In Kent the areas of the ''regiones'' survived as the
lathes into which the later
county was subdivided. The
rapes of
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
, which similarly each included several
hundreds, may also reflect the ''regiones'' that made up the earlier Kingdom.
Away from those areas traces of earlier ''regiones'' can be found where later groups of hundreds contributed to a single royal manor. In 1066 the 19 hundreds of
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 ...
were annexed in this manner to 7 royal manors that included
Headington,
Kirtlington and
Bensington. In
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
and north
Hampshire the ''regio'' centres of
Reading,
Sonning
Sonning is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England, on the River Thames, east of Reading. The village was described by Jerome K. Jerome in his book ''Three Men in a Boat'' as "the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river".
Geogr ...
and
Basingstoke
Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...
remained centres of distinctive groupings of hundreds throughout the Middle Ages, with the "Six hundreds of Basingstoke" and the "Seven hundreds of Cookham and Bray" referred to in medieval records closely resembling the earlier territories of the ''
Basingas
The Basingas were an Anglo-Saxon tribe, whose territory in the Loddon Valley formed a '' regio'' or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex. Their leader, Basa, gave the tribe its name which survives in the names of Old Basing a ...
'' and ''
Sunningas
The ''Sunningas'' were a tribe or clan of early Anglo-Saxon England, whose territory formed a '' regio'' or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex. The ''Sunningas'' inhabited Sonning and its environs, in the modern county of B ...
''. The
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
hundreds of
Chertsey and
Woking
Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in northwest Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'' and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement o ...
correspond to the earlier territory of the ''
Woccingas''.
The defined territories of ''regiones'' also formed the basis for later ecclesiastic geography. Conversion to
christianity was frequently followed by the establishment of a
minster for the tribe, with the boundaries of the tribe's territory frequently defining the
minster parishes which the minsters served.
References
Bibliography
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*{{Citation, last=Yorke, first=Barbara, year=1995, title=Wessex in the early Middle Ages, publisher=Leicester University Press, isbn=071851856X, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7btzAsuOAWAC, access-date=2014-06-15
Former subdivisions of England