Corieltauvi
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The Corieltauvi (formerly thought to be called the Coritani) were a tribe of people living in Britain prior to the Roman conquest, and thereafter a civitas of Roman Britain. Their territory was in what is now the English East Midlands, in the counties of Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Northamptonshire. Their capital was called Ratae Corieltauvorum, known today as Leicester.
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[edit] Late Iron Age
The Corieltauvi were a largely agricultural people who had few strongly defended sites or signs of centralised government. They appear to have been a federation of smaller, self-governing tribal groups. From the beginning of the 1st century, they began to produce inscribed coins: almost all featured two names, and one series had three, suggesting they had multiple rulers. The names on the earliest coins are so abbreviated as to be unidentifiable. Later coins feature the name of Volisios, apparently the paramount king of the region, together with names of three presumed sub-kings, Dumnocoveros, Dumnovellaunus and Cartivelios, in three series minted ca. 45 AD. The Corieltauvi had an important mint, and possibly a tribal centre, at Sleaford.
[edit] Roman times
They seem to have offered little or no resistance to Roman rule, perhaps welcoming them as protection against aggressive neighbours such as the Brigantes. Ratae was captured c. AD 44, and the IX Hispana legion was garrisoned there. The Fosse Way, a Roman road and the effective early boundary of the Roman province, passed through their territory.
[edit] Name
Their name appears as Coritani and Coritavi in Ptolemy's 2nd century Geography. However, the Ravenna Cosmography gives the name of their capital, in apparently corrupt form, as Rate Corion Eltavori, and an inscribed tile found in Churchover calls the administrative district Civitas Corieltauvorum, indicating that the true form should be Corieltauvi.[1][2]
[edit] Legacy
The incorrect form of the name has unfortunately been adopted by a Leicester athletics club, the Leicester Coritanians.
