The grave of Cerdic

 

The Mail Online reports about the apparent identification near Andover of the burial mound of Cerdic, the founder of the royal house of Wessex and a key ancestor of the Royal Family. 

The identification was made by a researcher who walked the boundaries of an estate as recorded in 900 at the very beginning of the tenth century and which named the mound as being Cerdic’s barrow. 

Assuming the tenth century memory of the fifth century event was accurate - and it seems reasonable to believe that it would have been, then this is an important addition to our knowledge of the formation of Wessex around an initial territory in 495 or thereabouts, although some modern interpretations put it a generation or so later.

 

Little is recorded about Cerdic but one thing that is of great interest, and that is his name. The founder of the West Saxon Kingdom, of Wessex, did not have a Germanic name, but a British one. The suggestion is that he was from one of the post-Roman British ruling families who recruited some Saxon followers and created his own principality centred on Southampton Water and its hinterland. The people who made Wessex may have been not so much the West Saxons as the Gewissae, meaning confederates. Furthermore for the succeeding generations of Cerdic’s descendants until the late seventh century and the accession of King Ine in 688 regnal names began with a C rather than the Æ which dominated thereafter until 1066.

This would tie in with increasing archaeological evidence for co-existence between Britons and Germanic groups in this period as well as literary references.

The Daily Mail article can be seen at Burial site of first King of Wessex is in Hampshire field, author says

There is also a video on YouTube about the identification of the site at The First King of WESSEX - We Found him!!

The book about Cerdic and the identification of his barrow is being published just now.