Cornovii

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The Cornovii (perhaps meaning people of the horn), were a people of Iron Age and Roman Britain, who lived in the modern counties of North Staffordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire in the English West Midlands. Their capital in pre-Roman times was probably a hill fort on The Wrekin. Ptolemy's 2nd century Geography names two of their towns: Deva Victrix (Chester), and Viroconium Cornoviorum (Wroxeter), which became their capital under Roman rule. The people who inhabited the very north of the British mainland (modern Caithness) were also known by this name, but were a separate and unrelated people.

The Cornovii produced little in the way of identifiable ceramic wares. Their sites are identified by construction details of their hill forts and metalwork artifacts. The Cornovi built numerous hill forts, including Titterstone Clee near Bitterly. Old Oswestry hill fort is also thought to have been inhabited by the Cornovii. One of these hill forts is probably that referred to by the historian Tacitus as the last refuge of the resistance led by Caratacus in 50 AD. However, the nature of hill forts is strongly contested among archeologists, with some crediting them only as tribal status symbols or cattle stockades rather than defended settlements.

The tribe developed no known coinage, but their control of the south-Cheshire salt-making industry and parts of its distribution network probably gave them a fair degree of wealth, multiplied by trading and cattle breeding. However, their economy was mainly a pastoral one. Since the early Iron Age they had had a network of paved & semi-paved roads good enough to transport their famous chariots.

It should not be assumed that the Cornovii looked like paint-daubed savages; the Romans, who described the British as "vain", noted their attention to appearance & personal hygiene. Gold & bronze torcs (i.e.: heavy necklaces made of twisted strands of metal) have been found at Iron Age sites in the region. They were expert in weaving & dyeing, and loved bright colours. Women wore their hair in two thick thigh-length plaits.

After Roman occupation, the lands of the Cornovii became a centre of military and economic operations. Viroconium Cornoviorum became one of the most important cities in Roman Britain, where Legio XIV Gemina was garrisoned for some time. The Romans also exploited metals such as copper, lead and silver in the area. Some Romanised Cornovii are known to have served as Roman legionaries.

At the end of Roman rule in Britain (circa 410) it is thought that the Viroconium became a centre of British resistance to Anglo-Saxon invaders, with speculation that it may have been used as a base by King Arthur. This theory is based on 6th Century reinforcements made to the city and the existence of a substantial palace. A tenth-century manuscript in the British Library records that Viroconium was occupied around 493AD by Owain Ddantgwyn, a late fifth-century king and an important warlord. There is contemporary historical evidence that he was actually known as Arthur.

After this period, and with the relentless expansion of Anglian power in the British midlands, the Cornovi tribal area came under the rule of the Kingdom of Pengwern. Pengwern was consumed by neighbouring Mercia after 642AD. The local Cornovi people may have continued to reside in the area, perhaps as the Wrekensaete, under Mercian rule.

The tombstone of a thirty-year-old woman of the Cornovii called Vedica has been found at Ilkley in Yorkshire.