Brigantes

Origins

The Brigantes were a grouping of many communities across the Pennines and northern England, from the Mersey and Humber to the Tyne. Their name is linked to the goddess Brigantia. By the late 40s they were ruled by Queen Cartimandua, who had made a treaty with Rome and governed as a client ruler.

Rule and society

The confederation was loosely held, combining upland pastoralists and lowland farmers, and had no coinage of its own. Its political centre may have been at Stanwick in North Yorkshire, where vast earthwork enclosures were built in the 1st century. Cartimandua handed the fugitive Caratacus to the Romans in 51, and later her divorce from her consort Venutius split the Brigantes into rival factions.

Decline and legacy

In 69 Venutius drove Cartimandua out, and Roman troops could only rescue her. Petillius Cerialis then conquered the Brigantes from 71, with the legion based at York. The southern territory became a civitas centred on Isurium Brigantum, Aldborough, in Roman Britain.