The Cilternsæte (or ''Ciltern Sætna'') were a tribe that occupied the
Chilterns, probably in the 6th century AD.
It is unclear whether they were native Britons,
Anglians, or
West Saxons
la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons
, common_name = Wessex
, image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg
, map_caption = S ...
.
Mortimer Wheeler
Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales an ...
noted the absence of Anglo-Saxon evidence from the Chilterns and suggested the area was a British enclave into the 6th Century, possibly the remnants of a Sub-Roman polity encompassing an area that included
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
Colchester
Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian.
Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...
, and
St Albans. Earlier, J. Brownbill had suggested they were one branch of the West Saxons.
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 ...
valued their territory at 4,000
hides. This assessment is relatively large compared with those of some other tribes of central England.
Eilert Ekwall 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.
They became part of Mercia in the 7th century. Previously, they were a Middle Angle tribe.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cilternsaete
Peoples of Anglo-Saxon Mercia