The
Trinovantes or
Trinobantes were one of the
tribeA tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...
s of pre-
Roman BritainRoman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
. Their territory was on the north side of the Thames
estuaryAn estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
in current Essex and
SuffolkSuffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, and included lands now located in
Greater LondonGreater London is the top-level administrative division of England covering London. It was created in 1965 and spans the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs. This territory is coterminate with the London Government Office Region and the London...
. They were bordered to the north by the
IceniThe Iceni or Eceni were a British tribe who inhabited an area of East Anglia corresponding roughly to the modern-day county of Norfolk between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD...
, and to the west by the
CatuvellauniThe Catuvellauni were a tribe or state of south-eastern Britain before the Roman conquest.The fortunes of the Catuvellauni and their kings before the conquest can be traced through numismatic evidence and scattered references in classical histories. They are mentioned by Dio Cassius, who implies...
. Their name derives from the Celtic intensive prefix "tri-" and "novio" - new, so meaning "very new" in the sense of "newcomers", but possibly with an applied sense of vigorous or lively - so the name could mean "the very vigorous people". Their capital was
CamulodunumCamulodunum is the Roman name for the ancient settlement which is today's Colchester, a town in Essex, England. Camulodunum is claimed to be the oldest town in Britain as recorded by the Romans, existing as a Celtic settlement before the Roman conquest, when it became the first Roman town, and...
(modern
ColchesterColchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...
), one proposed site of the legendary
CamelotCamelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world...
.
Shortly before
Julius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
's invasion of Britain in
55Year 55 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Crassus and Pompey...
and
54 BCYear 54 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Appius and Ahenobarbus...
, the Trinovantes were considered the most powerful tribe in Britain. At this time their capital was probably at
BraughingBraughing is a village and civil parish, between the rivers Quin and Rib, in the non-metropolitan district of East Hertfordshire, part of the English county of Hertfordshire, England...
(in modern-day
HertfordshireHertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
). In some manuscripts of Caesar's
Gallic War their king is referred to as
ImanuentiusImanuentius appears in some manuscripts of Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico as the name of a king of the Trinovantes, the leading nation of south-eastern Britain at that time, who ruled before Caesar's second expedition to the island in 54 BC. Variant spellings include Inianuvetitius, Inianuvetutus...
, although in other manuscripts no name is given. Some time before Caesar's second expedition this king was overthrown by
CassivellaunusCassivellaunus was an historical British chieftain who led the defence against Julius Caesar's second expedition to Britain in 54 BC. The first British person whose name is recorded, Cassivellaunus led an alliance of tribes against Roman forces, but eventually surrendered after his location was...
, who is usually assumed to have belonged to the
CatuvellauniThe Catuvellauni were a tribe or state of south-eastern Britain before the Roman conquest.The fortunes of the Catuvellauni and their kings before the conquest can be traced through numismatic evidence and scattered references in classical histories. They are mentioned by Dio Cassius, who implies...
. His son,
MandubraciusMandubracius or Mandubratius was a king of the Trinovantes of south-eastern Britain in the 1st century BC.-History:Mandubracius was the son of a Trinovantian king, named Imanuentius in some manuscripts of Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico, who was overthrown and killed by the warlord Cassivellaunus...
, fled to the protection of Caesar in
GaulGaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
. During his second expedition Caesar defeated Cassivellaunus and restored Mandubracius to the kingship, and Cassivellaunus undertook not to molest him again.
TributeA tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
was also agreed.
The next identifiable king of the Trinovantes, known from numismatic evidence, was
AddedomarusAddedomarus was a king of south-eastern Britain in the late 1st century BC. His name is known only from his inscribed coins, the distribution of which seem to indicate that he was the ruler of the Trinovantes....
, who took power ca.
20Year 20 BC was either a common year starting on Wednesday or Thursday or a leap year starting on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of the Julian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...
-
15 BCYear 15 BC was either a common year starting on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...
, and moved the tribe's capital to Camulodunum. For a brief period ca.
10 BCYear 10 BC was either a common year starting on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday or a leap year starting on Tuesday or Wednesday of the Julian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...
TasciovanusTasciovanus was a historical king of the Catuvellauni tribe before the Roman conquest of Britain.-History:Tasciovanus is known only through numismatic evidence. He appears to have become king of the Catuvellauni ca. 20 BC, ruling from Verlamion...
of the Catuvellauni issued coins from Camulodunum, suggesting that he conquered the Trinovantes, but he was soon forced to withdraw, perhaps as a result of pressure from the Romans, as his later coins no longer bear the mark "
Rex", and Addedomarus was restored. Addedomarus was briefly succeeded by his son
DubnovellaunusDubnovellaunus or Dumnovellaunus was the name of at least one, and possibly several kings of south-eastern Britain in the late 1st century BC/early 1st century AD, known from coin legends and from a mention in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti....
c.
10Year 10 BC was either a common year starting on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday or a leap year starting on Tuesday or Wednesday of the Julian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...
–
5 BCYear 5 BC was a common year starting on Monday or Tuesday of the Julian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...
, but a few years later the tribe was finally conquered by either Tasciovanus or his son
CunobelinusCunobeline or Cunobelinus was a historical king in pre-Roman Britain, known from passing mentions by classical historians Suetonius and Dio Cassius, and from his many inscribed coins...
. Mandubracius, Addedomarus and Dubnovellaunus all appear in later, post-Roman and medieval British Celtic genealogies and legends as Manawydan, Aedd Mawr (Addedo the Great) and Dyfnwal Moelmut (Dubnovellaunus the Bald and Silent). The
Welsh TriadsThe Welsh Triads are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness...
recall Aedd Mawr as one of the founders of Britain.
The Trinovantes reappeared in history when they participated in
BoudicaBoudica , also known as Boadicea and known in Welsh as "Buddug" was queen of the British Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire....
's revolt against the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
in
60Year 60 was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Afer...
AD. Their name was given to one of the
civitates of
Roman BritainRoman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
, whose chief town was Caesaromagus (modern
ChelmsfordChelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...
, Essex). The style of their rich burials (see
faciesIn geology, facies are a body of rock with specified characteristics. Ideally, a facies is a distinctive rock unit that forms under certain conditions of sedimentation, reflecting a particular process or environment....
of
AylesfordAylesford is a village and civil parish on the River Medway in Kent, 4 miles NW of Maidstone in England.Originally a small riverside settlement, the old village comprises around 60 houses, many of which were formerly shops. One pub, a Post Office and four small independent shops remain...
) is of continental origin and evidence of their affiliation to the
BelgicThe Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...
people.
Their name was re-used as
Trinovantum, the supposed original name of
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, by
Geoffrey of MonmouthGeoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...
in his fictitious
Historia Regum BritanniaeThe Historia Regum Britanniae is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written c. 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation...
, in which he claimed the name derived from
Troi-novantum or "New
TroyTroy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
", connecting this with the legend that Britain was founded by Brutus and other refugees from the
Trojan WarIn Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
.
Popular culture
In
Chelmsford 123Chelmsford 123 is a British television situation comedy produced for Channel 4 by Hat Trick Productions. It ran for two series, of six and seven episodes, in 1988 and 1990....
, a British television
situation comedyA situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
produced for
Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
by
Hat Trick ProductionsHat Trick Productions is a British independent production company that produces television programmes, mainly specialising in comedy.-History:...
, the main character of Badvoc (played by
Rory McGrathPatrick Rory McGrath is an English comedian and writer. He is best known for roles in Who Dares Wins, Chelmsford 123, Three Men in a Boat and its successors. He was also a regular panellist on They Think It's All Over....
) was the leader of The Trinovantes.
External links