07-06-2009, 05:48 PM
Quote:But only because it continued operating as a town, unlike Calleva, ergo there must have been something that made Venta the superior settlement in some way. It wasn't the first capital of Wessex either, but was chosen over Dorchester (the Oxfordshire one, not the Dorset one) in the late 7th C, again presumably because it had advantages over the former capital.
But I think we're straying quite a long way off-topic now....
Yes, OT, I know..
Calleva seems to to have been a frontier-town, and in the end the inhabitants seems to have been removed. Otherwise who knows?
Dorchester-on-Thames was the first capital and bishopric of the Gewissae, but it seems to have been to close to an advancing Mercia in the later 6th and early 7th century.
When Winchester became the capital of Wessex, it was looking more to the south than to the Midlands. This was also the time when the heritage of Kent (and the Yutes) was incorporated in the heritage of Wessex, which seems to have had something different originally.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
