Basingas
Basingas | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6th century–7th century | |||||||||
| Capital | Basingstoke | ||||||||
| Common languages | Old English (Englisc) | ||||||||
| Religion | Paganism Western Christianity Roman Catholicism | ||||||||
| Government | Folkland | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 6th century | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 7th century | ||||||||
| |||||||||
The Basingas were one of the tribes of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Their territory was a folkland located in the Loddon Valley that was eventually absorbed by the Kingdom of Wessex.[1] The tribe's name survives in Old Basing and Basingstoke in Hampshire, as well as the city of Basel in Switzerland.[2]
Etymology
The root Bas derives from the Latin word basilīa - the nominative/accusative/vocative plural of basilīum - a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek word βᾰσίλειον. In its original form it meant a palace or royal treasury but later came to be associated with any royal or princely ornament. The suffix -ingas is the Latinized version of inge, an ethnonym for the Ingaevones, a West Germanic cultural group living along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Frisia in classical antiquity.[3] Their endonym was Basingâ.[4]
Origins
The Basingas were an amalgam of Gallic Rauraci and Ingaevonic Alemanni who resided near Basel-Münsterhügel, the site of a Roman fortification built upon an abandoned Iron Age (late La Tène) oppidum known as Basel oppidum. Attributions to a non-historical founder named Basa[5] are examples of founding myths.
History
Settlement patterns suggest the existence of a town at Basingstoke attached to the nearby oppidum of Winklebury prior to the Roman conquest of Britain.[6] In the early Roman era it was the nearest town to Calleva Atrebatum, lay between two roads leading to Venta Belgarum and Noviomagus Reginorum and was populated predominantly by the Atrebates.
The Basingas settled the eastern outskirts of Basingstoke concurrent with the Frankish conquest of Alamannia in the early sixth century.[7] In subsequent generations they took over de facto governance of the town. They appear to have been subsumed into the Kingdom of Wessex early in its formation, as they are not mentioned as a distinct tribe in the Tribal Hidage. Their territory (Basengum) is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the site of a battle versus Danish Vikings in 871 AD.
Notes
References
- ^ Yorke, Barbara (1995), Wessex in the early Middle Ages, Leicester University Press, p. 40, ISBN 071851856X, retrieved 15 June 2014
- ^ Probert, Duncan. (2008). Towards a reassessment of 'Kingston' place-names. Journal of the English Place-Name Society. 40. 7-22.
- ^ "Settlement names in -inge". Names in Denmark. Department of Nordic Research. 15 July 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- ^ Synopsis of the Deutsches Wörterbuch (in English) at the Language Research Centre, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, retrieved 27 June 2012.
- ^ Brewer's Britain & Ireland: The History, Culture, Folklore and Etymology of 7500 Places in These Islands. Ayto, John; Crofton, Ian. Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006
- ^ Millard, J. E., Baigent, F. J. (1889). A History of the Ancient Town and Manor of Basingstoke in the County of Southampton: With a Brief Account of the Siege of Basing House, A. D. 1643-1645. United Kingdom: C.J. Jacob.
- ^ History of the Franks: Gregory of Tours.