Author: * Miranda Catuvellauni - 1 Post on this thread out of 135 Posts sitewide.
Date: Aug 13, 2003 - 13:03

The Cornovii

Tribe: Cornovii
Capital: VIROCONIVM CORNOVIORVM
Location: Wroxeter, Shropshire
Extent: Shrops. mainly, with parts of Staffs., Ches., Clwyd & E. Powys

Notes: No tribal centre prior to Roman times. Tribe was remarkably aceramic, leading a mainly pastoral life.


Principal Tribal Sites

The Civitas Capital
VIROCONIVM CORNOVIORVM (Wroxeter, Shropshire) - Probably named from the same source as the Wrekin hillfort, the later town occupied the same site as the former fortress of the Fourteenth 'Twin' Legion.

Prata Legionis Vicesimae - The Twentieth Legion's Pastureland
DEVA (Chester, Cheshire) - Also known as Castra Legionis, or 'Legionary Fortress' of the Twentieth 'Valiant and Victorius' Legion. One of only two poleis attributed to the Cornovii by Ptolemy; the other being the cantonal capital Viroconium.

BOVIVM (Tilston, Cheshire) - Named in the Antonine Itinery. The site of the potteries and tile factory of Legio XX in Chester.

Wilderspool, nr. Warrington (Cheshire) - Minor settlement on S bank of the Dean near confluence with the Mersey. Heronbridge (Cheshire) - On S bank of the Dee immediately south of Deva.

Ffridd (Clwyd) - Fort and substantial Roman Buildings near the border with the Deceangli. Other Posting Stations:

BRAVONIVM (Leintwardine, Hereford & Worcester) - Small roadside town and important military complex on Watling Street West, S of Wroxeter.

VXACONA (Red Hill, nr. Oakengates, Shropshire) - Small settlement on Watling Street, east of Wroxeter.

PENNOCRVCIVM (Water Eaton, Staffordshire) - Small town and military complex on Watling Street, S of Penkridge)

LETOCETVM (Wall, nr. Lichfield, South Staffordshire) - Small town and military complex S of Lichfield, near the crossing of the Watling and Icknield Streets. Evidently the centre of an administrative pagus, with a substantial public bath-house and a mansio.

RVTVNIVM (Harcourt Park, Shropshire) - A small settlement and posting station on the road north from Wroxeter to Chester, at the crossing of the river Roden.

MEDIOLANVM (Whitchurch, Shropshire) - Romano-British settlement, whose modern street plan suggests a small walled town.

SALINAE (Middlewich, Cheshire) - Salt manufacturing town.

CONDATE (Northwich, Cheshire) - Salt works probable.

LEVOBRINTA (Forden Gaer, Powys) - This military site possibly marked the SW border of the Cornovian canton.

Chesterton (nr. Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire) - Small town built on the site of an earlier Neronian? fort, on the road from Middlewich to Derby.

Rocester (North Staffordshire) - Small town built on the site of an earlier Flavian fort on the Cornovian borders, with the Brigantes to the north and the Coritani to the east.

Malpas (Cheshire) - Small settlement on the Whitchurch - Chester road.


Industries:
Llan y Mynech (Powys) - The copper mines here were probably under military control from the nearby auxiliary fort at Llansantffraid.

Linley, nr. More (Shropshire) - The villa buildings here were possibly the administrative centre of the local lead/silver mines on Shelve Hill. The mines were possibly run as a civil concern, or controlled from the nearby fort at LEVOBRINTA.

Salt was manufactured in the area around SALINAE and CONDATE.


The Tribal Territories
Much of Shropshire, especially the SW is hill country, the Northern area is plain, covered by glacial drift of sand, gravel and boulder clay, in places covering the underlying bedrock to a depth of 45 metres. Broken by red sandstone ridges running north-east to south-west. The north-west part of the county is covered by meres and pools, the residues of lakes and great bogs which were very attractive to native peoples of mid-late bronze-age, where they could retreat from the powerful iron-age folk pressing steadily from the south. Fish and wildfowl were in plenty. Folk used dug-out canoes, net sinkers and bone harpoons. The large areas of sand and gravel alluvial deposits would have been covered by a light scrub, easily cleared for cultivation, and for this reason, the area has been widely settled since the stone-age. There exist a few possible bronze-smelting sites indigenous to the area, working for settled populace.

Sabrina Fluvius - The River Severn
The River Severn rises in the central massiv of Wales, flowing first north-east, the river turns east before Shrewsbury, then south-east until Ironbridge where it turns sharply southwards. It was a main communication route and a source of food such as salmon, and also provided strategic easy access into north Wales. The Severn is wide enough to require and provide key crossing places where fords or ferries could be maintained. Worcester was one such important crossing point, Bewdley where the Clun-Clee ridgeway crosses the river was another, and there was also a crossing at Buildwas, giving a route south from the Wrekin via the Wenlock Edge ridgeway. In the area of modern Shrewsbury, marshes made crossing very difficult, but another possible pre-Roman route exists leading from the north, crossing the Isle of Coton and fording the river near the site of the later castle (Shrewsbury).

The Palaestra at Wroxeter


Pre-Roman Settlements
The Cornovii had many Hillforts, one of the largest and most populous being on the Wrekin in Shropshire, overlooking the eventual site of the Romano-British tribal capital. The eventual size of Viroconium is inconsistent with the estimated size of the population. Extrapolated from the number of known pre-Roman settlements the area, the archaeological evidence suggests a much more sparsely populated region. estimated population is much less than is suggested. It is possible therefore, that the bulk of the population lived in dwellings such as timber cabins without stone foundations, which are very difficult to find using current archaeological methods.

The tribe had no coinage and no distinctive metalwork, with what little pottery they had being imported from the Malvern hills region. There are some sites however, where local potteries have been found, such as the Berth and Breidden hillforts, and possibly Credenhill in the west. The other significant cultural detail is the manner of defences and gateways in hillforts on both sides of the Severn, and linked to those of the Wye valley in the south.


Most Significant Cornovian Hillforts
Titterstone Clee (the only one excavated)
Chesterton Walls
Bury Walls


Other Hillforts of the Cornovii
The Wrekin
Caynham Camp - No Malvernian pottery here, tho' lots of homegrown wheat.
Breiddin
Old Oswestry


It has been suggested that the lack of metal and fine pottery finds is indicative that the Cornovii were not the mot wealthy of Celtic peoples. They had a mostly pastoral economy, tho' some cultivation of cereal crops occurred in the river valleys. These lowland areas were populated by peasants who paid tribute to local lords in thier lofty citadels, in cattle and grain.


Possible Lowland Forts
Weeping Cross - Evidence of a poor, backward community present from neolithic times thru to 2nd century AD.
Sharpstones Hill - Peopled until 2nd century.
Lyth Hill


The Cornovian Borders
On the southern side of the Berwyn range, there is a hillfort at Craig Rhiwarth deep in the Tanat valley at the extreme northern tip of Powys. This fort marks the boundary between the Cornovii and their less-refined neighbours the Ordovices. This extreme outpost of the Cornovii was possibly founded by a renegade prince and his retinue, who travelled westwards along this tributary of the Sabrina from their Cornovian homelands in Shropshire. Possibly captured from the Ordovices in the first instance, the location, on a southern-jutting spur of the Berwyns, in a narrow tributary valley of the Sabrina, would have offered very little in the way of arable land, and the principle economic product may have been sheep, thus bearing-out the overall pastoral qualities of Cornovian life.

The general aspect of the hillfort at Craig Rhiwarth fits in quite well with the description outlined by Tacitus as the last stand of Caratacus and his forces in Wales in AD50.


A Cornovian Noble ?
Viroco The name of this Cornovian noble is derived purely from the notion that the later tribal capital of the Cornovii was originally named 'Viroconon' or 'Viroco's town', possibly after the leader of the Cornovian resistance to the Roman advance, who died with his followers during the storming of the Wrekin Hillfort, and that the original Celtic name for the settlement was later Romanised to Viroconium [Cornoviorum], i.e. "The town of Viroco [of the Cornovii]".


The Broadward Tradition: The following article was taken from Iron Age Communities in Britain by Barry Cunliffe, pages 51 & 52.

"The Broadward group, named after a Herefordshire hoard, can be defined in terms of an assemblage of weapons which includes swords of Ewart Park type, chapes and spearheads, among which a barbed variety is characteristic. The contrast between the predominantly domestic character of south-east Welsh hoards and the military nature of the Broadward hoards may possibly reflect a difference in social structure, but the total absence of occupation sites which can be definitely be assigned to the period prevents any consideration of settlement pattern or economy. The area covered by the group extends from Pembrokeshire through central Wales into Cheshire and from here into the Welsh border-land, while some of the diagnostic weapons are found even further afield. The territory is well suited to a pastoral economy which would be consistent with a warlike society. The absence of pottery is another feature suggestive of pastoralism, since under such living conditions pottery would tend to break easily and would be better replaced by leather, wooden or metal containers. Indeed, there is clear evidence from the later forts in the Welsh borderland that the communities remained largely aceramic into the 4th or 3rd centuries BC."