Valentia (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "Land of

Valens Valens ( grc-gre, Ουάλης, Ouálēs; 328 – 9 August 378) was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of ...

") was probably one of the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

of the Diocese of "the Britains" in

late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...

. Its position, capital, and even existence remain a matter of scholarly debate. It was not mentioned in the

Verona List The ''Laterculus Veronensis'' or Verona List is a list of Roman provinces and barbarian peoples from the time of the emperors Diocletian and Constantine I, most likely from AD 314. The list is transmitted only in a 7th-century manuscript preser ...

compiled around AD 312 and so was probably formed out of one or more of the other provinces established during the Diocletian Reforms. Some scholars propose Valentia was a new name for the entire diocese, but the List of Offices names it as a

consular A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

-rank province along with

Maxima Caesariensis Maxima Caesariensis (Latin for "The Caesarian province of Maximus"), also known as Britannia Maxima, was one of the provinces of the Diocese of " the Britains" created during the Diocletian Reforms at the end of the 3rd century. It was probably cre ...

and the other

equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: * Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...

-ranked provinces. Present hypotheses for the placement of Valentia include

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, with its capital at Deva ( Chester);

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

south of Hadrian's Wall, with its capital at

Luguvalium Luguvalium was a Roman town in northern Britain in antiquity. It was located within present-day Carlisle, Cumbria, and may have been the capital of the 4th-century province of Valentia. Name The Romans called the settlement at what is today ...

( Carlisle),S.S. Frere, ''Britannia: a history of Roman Britain'' (3rd edn, Guild Publishing, London 1987), 200. Modern scholars dismiss the old idea that it was the lands between the Antonine Wall and Hadrian's Wall, possibly with a capital at

Habitancum Habitancum was an ancient Roman fort (castrum) located at Risingham, Northumberland, England. The fort was one of the defensive structures built along Dere Street, a Roman road running from York to Corbridge and onwards to Melrose in what is now ...

(

Risingham Habitancum was an ancient Roman fort (castrum) located at Risingham, Northumberland, England. The fort was one of the defensive structures built along Dere Street, a Roman road running from York to Corbridge and onwards to Melrose in what is now ...

), because of the dearth of Roman finds in that area. Roman Britain 410

Name

Its name properly refers the

Eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

but some also hold it to have honoured Valentinian. Some researchers such as S. H. Rosenbaum, who place Valentia in far northern Britain also believe the name included wordplay with the

' ("wall"), cf. the island ''Munitia'' (wordplay on ''munitio'') of

Aethicus Ister Aethicus Ister (Aethicus Donares, Aethicus of Istria or Aethicus Ister) was the protagonist of the 7th/8th-century ''Cosmographia'', purportedly written by a man of church Hieronymus (Jerome, but not the Church Father Jerome), who purportedly censo ...

's ''Cosmography''.

History

Ammianus Marcellinus Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the ''Res Gestae ...

records that, after dealing with the Pannonian rebel Valentine,

Count Theodosius Flavius Theodosius (died 376), also known as Count Theodosius ( la, Theodosius comes) or Theodosius the Elder ( la, Theodosius Major), was a senior military officer serving Valentinian I () and the western Roman empire during Late Antiquity. Unde ...

:"...turned his attention to make many necessary amendments, feeling wholly free from any danger in such attempts, since it was plain that all his enterprises were attended by a propitious fortune. So he restored cities and fortresses, as we have already mentioned, and established stations and outposts on our frontiers; and he so completely recovered the province which had yielded subjection to the enemy, that through his agency it was again brought under the authority of its legitimate ruler, and from that time forth was called Valentia, by desire of the emperor, as a memorial of his success." This occurred in AD 369. It represented the Roman recovery from the

Great Conspiracy The Great Conspiracy was a year-long state of war and disorder that occurred near the end of Roman Britain. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus described it as a ''barbarica conspiratio'', which capitalised on a depleted military force in the p ...

, which overran northern and western Britain in 367, alongside Germanic attacks on the Roman shores. Ammianus speaks of the establishment of Valentia as the renaming of a recovered province (or possibly all of the territory in Britain), but the List of Offices names Valentia's governor separately alongside ''all'' four of the British provinces known from earlier sources. It is possible a new province was conquered or formed at some time after the composition of the

. The List of Offices also lists two sets of troops under the Duke of the Britains ('). One covered the island's eastern shore while the second guarded the northwest coast and formed garrisons listed east to west along Hadrian's Wall. Scholars who place Valentia in Cumbria point to emendations of the surviving text's references to the western units as evidence that the area had been thoroughly overrun during the Great Conspiracy and so formed a prime candidate for Theodosius's reconquest and new command. Ammianus also noted that the province was named "as if celebrating a minor

triumph The Roman triumph (Latin triumphus) was a celebration for a victorious military commander in ancient Rome. For later imitations, in life or in art, see Trionfo. Numerous later uses of the term, up to the present, are derived directly or indirectl ...

" ('). This was a lesser celebration held for unspectacular victories, as over

slave revolts A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by enslaved people, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of enslaved people have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freedo ...

, and unusual for the destruction of a barbarian horde. One explanation is that the mutinous soldiers or even rebellious governors may have been involved, as full triumphs were never celebrated in victories over Roman citizens. Theodosius's lenient treatment of the conspirators involved with the rebel Valentine suggests discontent was already uncomfortably widespread. Describing the metropolitan sees of the early British church established by SS Fagan and " Duvian",

Gerald of Wales Gerald of Wales ( la, Giraldus Cambrensis; cy, Gerallt Gymro; french: Gerald de Barri; ) was a Cambro-Norman priest and historian. As a royal clerk to the king and two archbishops, he travelled widely and wrote extensively. He studied and taugh ...

placed Valentia in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

Giraldus Cambriensis erald of Walesbr>''De Inuectionibus'' [On Invectives], Vol. II, Ch. I, in ''Y Cymmrodor: The Magazine of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion'', Vol. XXX, pp. 130–1.
George Simpson & Co. (Devizes), 1920.

. Translated by W.S. Davies a
''The Book of Invectives of Giraldus Cambrensis'' in ''Y Cymmrodor: The Magazine of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion'', Vol. XXX, p. 16.
George Simpson & Co. (Devizes), 1920. and improbably fixed its bishop's seat (and thus provincial capital) at St Andrews.

William Camden William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623) was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and herald, best known as author of ''Britannia'', the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the ''Ann ...

, looking at Ammianus, considered it the recaptured northern portion of

, which he placed around

Eboracum Eboracum () was a fort and later a city in the Roman province of Britannia. In its prime it was the largest town in northern Britain and a provincial capital. The site remained occupied after the decline of the Western Roman Empire and ultimat ...

(

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

). This was generally accepted after the appearance of

Charles Bertram Charles Julius Bertram (1723–1765) was an English expatriate in Denmark who "discovered"—and presumably wrote—''The Description of Britain'' ( la, De Situ Britanniae), an 18th-century literary forgery purporting to be a mediaeval work on ...

's highly-influential 1740s forgery '' The Description of Britain'', which placed the province between the two walls and even named the area north of the Antonine Wall as a separate province of Vespasiana.Hughes, William
''The Geography of British History: A Geographical Description of the British Islands at Successive Periods from the Earliest Times to the Present Day: With a Sketch of the Commencement of Colonisation on the Part of the English Nation'', p. 87.
Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green (London), 1863. His work was, however, debunked over the course of the mid-19th century.

References

{{Late Roman Provinces, state=collapsed Late Roman provinces History of the Scottish Borders Scotland in the Roman era 369 establishments 4th century in Roman Britain States and territories established in the 360s Roman Britain Valens