Battle of Deorham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Battle of Deorham occurred in 577 between the West Saxons and the Britons. Deorham is usually taken to refer to Dyrham in Gloucestershire, England.

The battle was promptly followed by the Saxon occupation of three cities: Cirencester (Corinium), probably a provincial capital in the Roman period; Gloucester (Glevum), a former legionary fortress and a colonia; and Bath (Aquae Sulis), a renowned pagan religious centre and spa-city. The remains of many villas are found in the vicinity of these cities, implying that the area was wealthy as well as relatively sophisticated: it must be inferred that this Saxon advance was a significant blow to the Britons.

The battle is also considered by some to be decisive since it drove a land wedge between the Britons of what was to become Wales and those in the south-west peninsula. It has, however, been objected that, though the battle may have had an impact on large-scale movements, the passage of Welsh-speaking individuals was evidently not impossible, since a Welsh genealogy appears to record that, in the 7th century, the descendants of kings of Pengwern founded a dynasty in the Glastonbury region. It is not, of course, difficult to make such a journey by boat. In fact, archaeology suggests that, although the Anglo-Saxons quickly took over the Cirencester region after the battle, it took some time for them to colonize Bath and Gloucester.