ROMANO-BRITISH NORFOLK 



calls Norwich Guenta. Probably he confused it in some way with Win- 

 chester, which learned men of his time called Venta or Guenta : in any 

 case an isolated passage is of little moment/ We may then conclude, 

 so far as our present knowledge reaches, that Caister-by-Norwich was 

 Venta Icenorum. But, in accepting this conclusion, we must reject one 

 argument often advanced in support of it. The little stream which flows 

 by Caister, sometimes called the Wensum, has been thought to aid by its 

 name the identification of Venta and Caister. Philologists, however, agree 

 that this aid must be renounced, and it is not clear whether the stream, 

 now usually called the Tas, has any real right to the name Wensum. 



The meaning of the name Venta is, unfortunately, uncertain. It 

 occurs twice elsewhere in Celtic lands, and both cases are in Britain : 

 Venta Belgarum (Winchester) and Venta Silurum (Caerwent in Mon- 



Tow. 



(f 



Entrance. ,^ 



1/ 



Fig. 3. Outline of Caister-by-Norwich. 



mouthshire). It has been freely and frequently explained as the Latin 

 form of a supposed Celtic word ' Gwent,' meaning a champaign or open 

 district ; but this explanation is rejected by the best Celtic philologists, 

 and it will be wise to defer to their opinion. What the name does 

 mean, must remain for the present undecided. 



The place itself, as the visitor sees it to-day, is a flat and almost 

 empty enclosure, situated in the valley of the Tas or Wensum, on the 



1 Hudson Gurney, Letter to Damson Turner with the Proofs that Norwich was the Venta Icenorum 

 (privately issued, 1847). William of Poitiers, 148 (Duchesne's Hist. Northmann. Serif t., p. 208; 

 Migne, Bibl. hat., cxlix. 1,263c) : the passage is repeated almost verbally by Ordericus. Freeman, in 

 his Norman Conquest (iv. 67 note) seems to think that William knew Venta Icenorum to be the old name 

 of Caister and used it of Norwich as being close by. I cannot see how William could have had such 

 knowledge : no one else shows any trace of having known it for five hundred years before or after 

 William. On the other hand, Venta for Winchester was familiar enough in his day. 



I 289 U 



