who inhabited an area of Britain
corresponding roughly to the
modern-day county of Norfolk
1st century BC
and 1st century AD.
They were bordered by the Corieltauvi
the West, and the Catuvellauni
to the South.
, who surrendered to Julius Caesar
during his second expedition to Britain
in 54 BC, may have been a branch of the Iceni or it could be a
corruption of Iceni Magni
meaning "Great Iceni".
evidence of the Iceni
— heavy rings of gold
worn around the neck
.The Iceni began producing
10 BC. Their coins were a distinctive
adaptation of the Gallo-Belgic "face/horse" design, and in some
early issues, most numerous near Norwich, the horse was replaced
with a boar. Some coins are inscribed ECENI, making them the only
coin-producing group to use their tribal name on coins. The
earliest personal name to appear on coins is Antedios
(ca. 10 BC), and other abbreviated names
like AESU and SAEMU follow.
Sir Thomas Browne
, the first
British archaeological writer, said of the Roman occupation,
and Iceni coins:
That Britain was notably populous is
undeniable, from that expression of Caesar. That the Romans themselves were
early in no small Numbers, Seventy Thousand with their associates
slain by Bouadicea, affords a sure
account... And no small number of silver pieces near
Norwich; with a
rude head upon the obverse, an ill-formed horse on the reverse,
with the Inscriptions Ic. Duro.T. whether
implying Iceni, Durotriges, Tascia, or Trinobantes, we leave to higher conjecture.
British Coyns afford conjecture of early habitation in
these parts, though the City of Norwich arose from the
ruins of Venta, and
though perhaps not without some habitation before, was enlarged,
built, and nominated by the Saxons.
Way, an ancient
trackway linking East Anglia to the Chilterns, may be named after the Iceni.
The Roman Invasion
meaning of the name Iceni is unknown, it is tempting to
see it as derived from a Proto-Celtic
with Latin picea ‘pine tree,’ the Italic tribal name
Piceni, English picene, and with the English hydronym
Icenian coins dating from the 1st century
AD use the spelling
, which probably suggests a different etymology
records that the Iceni were not
conquered in the Claudian
of AD 43, but had come to a voluntary alliance with
the Romans. However, they rose against them in 47 after the
governor, Publius Ostorius
, threatened to disarm them. The Iceni were defeated by
Ostorius in a fierce battle at a fortified place, but were allowed
to retain their independence. The site of the battle may have been Stonea Camp in Cambridgeshire.
A second and more serious uprising took place in AD 61. Prasutagus
, the wealthy, pro-Roman Icenian king,
had died. It was common practice for a Roman client king
his kingdom to Rome on his death, but Prasutagus had attempted to
preserve his line by bequeathing his kingdom jointly to the Emperor
and his own daughters. The Romans ignored this, and the procurator Catus Decianus
seized his entire estate.
Prasutagus's widow, Boudica
, was flogged,
and her daughters were raped. At the same time, Roman financiers
called in their loans. While the governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was
campaigning in Wales, Boudica led the Iceni and the neighbouring
Trinovantes in a large-scale revolt, destroying and looting Camulodunum (Colchester), Londinium (London) and
Albans) before finally being defeated by Suetonius
Paulinus and his legions.
Although the Britons outnumbered
the Romans greatly, they lacked that superior discipline and
tactics that won the Romans a decisive victory. The battle took place
at an unknown location, probably in the West Midlands somewhere along
Street. Today, a large statue of Boudica wielding a
sword and charging upon a chariot can be
seen in London on the north
bank of the Thames by Westminster Bridge.
are recorded as a civitas of Roman
Britain in Ptolemy's Geographia, which names Venta Icenorum as a town of theirs. Venta, which is also
mentioned in the Ravenna Cosmography, and the Antonine Itinerary, was a settlement
near the village of Caister Saint
Edmunds, some five miles south of present-day Norwich, and a mile
or two from the Bronze Age Henge at Arminghall.
Romans left Britain, it is thought that some of the Iceni migrated
west away from settling Saxons into the inhospitable marshlands
Wash known as the Fens.
minority of people believe that it is possible the Gyrwe, pronounced Yeerweh tribes of the Fens
recorded in the Mercian Tribal Hidage were
formed by Icenian and other Romano-British refugees because there
is a similarity in look, although not in sound, between the Old
English name Gyrwa and the Gwyr
meaning "men" or Gyrrwr meaning "drover" in
Welsh, both theoretically Brythonic self-appellations.
majority of scholars believe that the name Gyrwa
related to the Old English word Gyrwum
) which means '"Fen-dweller" from the Old English
meaning "mud, fen" . Gyrwe is also the Old
English name for Jarrow.
Life of Saint Guthlac - a
biography written about the East Anglian religious hermit who lived in
the Fens during the early 8th Century - it is stated that Saint
Guthlac was attacked by people he believed were Britons living in
the Fens at that time,200 years after the establishment of
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, although Bertram Colgrave in the introduction
to The Life of Saint Guthlac states that is very unlikely
due to the lack of evidence for British survival in the region and
the fact that British placenames in the area are very few
. The territory of the South Gyrwas included
founded Ely monastery after the death of her husband Tondberht, who
is described in Bede
as a "prince of the South Gyrwas".
Caesar, Commentarii de Bello
- Graham Webster (1978), Boudica: the British Revolt Against
Rome AD 60, pp. 46-48
- Sir Thomas Browne (1658), Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial
- Cambridge Latin Course Textbook, Unit 2
- Agricola 14-17; Annals 14:29-39; Dio Cassius, Roman History 62:1-12
- Ravenna Cosmography (British
- Antonine Itinerary (British
- Mellows, William Thomas (ed. & trans.), The
Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, Peterborough Natural
History, Scientific and Archæological Society, 1941, p2
- Bede, Ecclesiastical History, iv, 19
- Tom Williamson (1993), The Origins of Norfolk,
Manchester University Press