CHAPTER XIII.
THE GEWISSAS AND OTHER SETTLERS IN WESSEX.
THE settlement of people of more than one race in Hampshire under the name of Gewissas is historical. The evidence rests partly on the statement of Bede, who wrote within two hundred years of the probable date of the invasion of this part of Britain. His information was derived from Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, and the Bishop no doubt obtained it from people of more than one race distinctly surviving in Wessex in his time. The chief point in this historical evidence cannot be doubted—viz., that there were people settled in the Isle of Wight and the southern part of the county who were of different descent from those in other parts of the early kingdom of Wessex. The original kingdom was no doubt at first what is now called Hampshire, or the county of Southampton, but the small state soon grew in extent, so that before the end of the sixth century it comprised parts at least of what is now Dorset, Wiltshire, and Berkshire. The settlement of Hampshire, therefore, cannot be fully considered without reference to that of the counties which adjoin it on the west and north. According to the genealogy of the Kings of Wessex, Cedric was a great-grandson of Gewis,[1] but this genea1ogy is
- ↑ Grimm, J., ‘Teutonic Mythology,‘ edited by Stallybrass, vol. iv., p. 1711.
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