The Gewisse (Old English Gewissæ) was a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England, based in the upper Thames region around Dorchester-on-Thames.[1] The conquests of the royal house of the Gewisse in the seventh and eighth centuries led to the establishment of the Kingdom of Wessex,[2] and Bede treated the two names as interchangeable.[3]
The Gewisse were converted to Christianity in 636 by Birinus, who baptised the Gewissian king Cynegils and established the Diocese of Dorchester.[4] The Gewisse killed the three sons of Sæbert of Essex in c.620, defeated the Britons at the Battle of Peonnum in 568 and by 676 had sufficient control over what is now Hampshire to establish a second see at Winchester.[5]
The name of the tribe is possibly derived from an Old English word for "reliable" or "sure",[6] but also relates to Gewis: a possibly mythical figure claimed as an ancester by later Kings of Wessex.[7]
References
- ^ Yorke 1995, p. 34
- ^ Yorke 1995, p. 6
- ^ Kirby 2000, p. 38
- ^ Kirby 2000, p. 38
- ^ Kirby 2000, p. 47
- ^ Yorke 1995, p. 34
- ^ Kirby 2000, pp. 38-39
Bibliography
- Kirby, D. P. (2000), The earliest English kings, Routledge, ISBN 041524210X, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Fzhk_DvzqSkC, retrieved on 2009-06-07
- Yorke, Barbara (1995), Wessex in the early Middle Ages, Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN 071851856X, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MKco_HXDTlYC, retrieved on 2009-06-07
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