Conquest of Wales by Edward I of England
The conquest of Wales by Edward I, sometimes referred to as the Edwardian Conquest of Wales, took place between 1277 and 1283. It resulted in the defeat and annexation of the Principality of Wales, the other last remaining independent Welsh principalities, by Edward I, King of England. By the 13th century Wales was divided between native Welsh principalities and the territories of the Anglo-Norman Marcher lords; the leading principality was Gwynedd whose princes had gained control of the greater part of the country, making the other remaining Welsh princes their vassals, had taken the title Prince of Wales. Although English monarchs had made several attempts to seize control of the native Welsh territories, it was not until Edward's war of conquest against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd of 1277 to 1283 that this was achieved on a lasting basis. In two campaigns, in 1277 and 1282/1283 Edward first reduced the territory of the Principality of Wales and completely overran it, as well as the other remaining Welsh principalities.
Most of the conquered territory was retained as a royal fief, these lands subsequently became, by custom, the territorial endowment of the heir to the English throne with the title Prince of Wales. The remainder would be granted to Edward's supporters as new Marcher lordships. Although the territories would not be incorporated into the Kingdom of England until the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, Edward's conquest marked the end of Welsh independence. Following a series of invasions beginning shortly after their conquest of England in 1066, the Normans seized much of Wales and established quasi-independent Marcher lordships, owing allegiance to the English crown. However, Welsh principalities such as Gwynedd and Deheubarth survived and from the end of the 11th century, the Welsh began pushing back the Norman advance. Over the following century the Welsh recovery fluctuated and the English kings, notably Henry II, several times sought to conquer or establish suzerainty over the native Welsh principalities.
By the end of the 12th century the Marcher lordships were reduced to the south and south east of the country. The principality of Gwynedd was the dominant power in Wales in the first half of the 13th century, with Powys and Deheubarth becoming tributary states. Gwynedd's princes now assumed the title "Prince of Wales", but war with England in 1241 and 1245, followed by a dynastic dispute in the succession to the throne, weakened Gwynedd and allowed Henry III to seize Perfeddwlad. However, from 1256 a resurgent Gwynedd under Llywelyn ap Gruffudd resumed the war with Henry and took back Perfeddwlad. By the Treaty of Montgomery of 1267, peace was restored and, in return for doing homage to the English king, Llywelyn was recognised as Prince of Wales and his re-conquest of Perfeddwlad was accepted by Henry. However, sporadic warfare between Llywelyn and some of the Marcher Lords, such as Gilbert de Clare, Roger Mortimer and Humphrey de Bohun continued. Henry III died in 1272 and was succeeded by his son, Edward I.
Whereas Henry's ineffectiveness had led to the collapse of royal authority in England during his reign, Edward was a vigorous and forceful ruler and an able military leader. In 1274, tension between Llywelyn and Edward increased when Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys and Llywelyn's younger brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd defected to the English and sought Edward's protection; because of the continuing conflict with the Marcher Lords and Edward's harbouring of defectors, when Edward demanded that Llywelyn come to Chester in 1275 to do homage to him as required by the Treaty of Montgomery, Llywelyn refused. For Edward, a further provocation came from Llywelyn's planned marriage to Eleanor, daughter of Simon de Montfort, the leader of a rebellion against the crown during the reign of Edward's father. In November 1276, Edward declared war on Llywelyn. However, his objective was to put down a recalcitrant vassal rather than to begin a war of conquest. Early in 1277, before the main royal army had been mustered, Edward deployed, in south and mid-Wales, a mixture of forces comprising paid troops, some of the marcher lords' retainers and knights of the royal household.
They met with considerable success as many of the native Welsh rulers, resentful of Llywelyn's overlordship and joined the English. In July 1277, Edward launched a punitive expedition into North Wales with his own army of 15,500 — of whom 9,000 were Welshmen from the south — raised through a traditional feudal summons. From Chester the army marched into Gwynedd, camping first at Flint and Rhuddlan and Deganwy, most causing significant damage to the areas it advanced through. A fleet from the Cinque ports provided naval support. Llywelyn soon realised his position was hopeless and surrendered; the campaign never came to a major battle. However, Edward decided to negotiate a settlement rather than attempt total conquest, it may be that he was running short of men and supplies by November 1277 and, in any case, complete conquest of Llywelyn's territories had not been his objective. By the Treaty of Aberconwy in November 1277, Llywelyn was left only with the western part of Gwynedd, though he was allowed to retain the title of Prince of Wales.
Eastern Gwynedd was split between Edward and Llywelyn's brother Dafydd, with the remainder of the lands, tributary to him becoming Edward's. As a result of both territorial expropriation and the submission of the ruling families, Deheubarth and mid-Wales became a mixture of directly controlled royal land and pliant English protectorates. Edward's victory was comprehensive and it represented a major redistribution of
Old English
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, as the language of the upper classes by Anglo-Norman, a relative of French; this is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, as during this period the English language was influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles and Jutes; as the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Latin, brought to Britain by Roman invasion. Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian and West Saxon.
It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop from Mercian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English and difficult for Modern English speakers to understand without study. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, word order is much freer; the oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system, but from about the 9th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet. Englisc, which the term English is derived from, means'pertaining to the Angles'. In Old English, this word was derived from Angles.
During the 9th century, all invading Germanic tribes were referred to as Englisc. It has been hypothesised that the Angles acquired their name because their land on the coast of Jutland resembled a fishhook. Proto-Germanic *anguz had the meaning of'narrow', referring to the shallow waters near the coast; that word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- meaning'narrow'. Another theory is that the derivation of'narrow' is the more connection to angling, which itself stems from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning bend, angle; the semantic link is the fishing hook, curved or bent at an angle. In any case, the Angles may have been called such because they were a fishing people or were descended from such, therefore England would mean'land of the fishermen', English would be'the fishermen's language'. Old English was not static, its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is an arbitrary process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections, a synthetic language.
Around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. Old English is a West Germanic language, it came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England. This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements where Old Norse was spoken. Celtic speech remained established in certain parts of England: Medieval Cornish was spoken all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon, while Cumbric survived to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria, Welsh may have been spoken on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border. Norse was widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century.
The oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmon's Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts date to the 8th century; the Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century. With the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. Alfred advocated education in English alongside Latin, had many works translated into the English language. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, but King Alfred the Great chiefly inspired the growth of prose. A literary standard, dating from the 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. Th
Venta Belgarum
Venta Belgarum was a town in the Roman province of Britannia Superior, the civitas capital of the local tribe, the Belgae, which became the city of Winchester. The name comes from Common Brittonic *Uentā, meaning "town, place", plus the Latin genitive plural Belgarum "of the Belgae"; the settlement was established around AD 70 on the site of Oram's Arbour, abandoned for some years. It became the tribal capital of the Belgae who had held several Iron Age hill forts in the near vicinity of the site once the Romans had pacified the area, as was their policy for relocating many other British tribes; the River Itchen was diverted and a street grid laid out. Although in the early years of the Roman province it was of subsidiary importance to Silchester and Chichester, Venta eclipsed them both by the latter half of the second century. A defensive bank and ditch were dug around the town in the 2nd century. At the beginning of the third century, Winchester was given protective stone walls. At around this time the city covered an area of 144 acres, making it among the largest towns in Roman Britain by surface area.
The city had domus, as well as public buildings and Roman temples. Like many other Roman towns however, Winchester began to decline in the fourth century; the forum-basilica appears to have included a temple to Jupiter and Minerva along with an accompanying Jupiter Column. Elsewhere, there was a Romano-British style temple dedicated to Epona. There was a large Romano-British cemetery to the north of the town, at Lankhills, another to the east. Excavations of the cemetery were carried out by British archaeologist Julian Richards in 1998, again in 2013, as part of the BBC television Meet the Ancestors series. From the mid-4th century, new development at Venta halted. Houses fell into disrepair and the drainage system collapsed; the population concentrated itself in the drier areas of the town. The defences were however strengthened and the cemeteries remained in use, notably with burials of males wearing so-called military-style mercenary belts. Historian David Nash Ford identifies the community as the Cair Guinntguic listed by Nennius among the 28 cities of Britain in his History of the Britains.
Following the Roman withdrawal from Britain in 410, urban life seems to have ceased around 450, although a small administrative centre might have continued after that on the site of the Anglo-Saxon palace. Amid the Saxon invasions of Britain, cemeteries dating to the 6th and 7th centuries suggest a revival of settlement and Wintanceastre became the usual court for the kings of Wessex, for other Saxon and Norman kings of England
Segontium
Segontium is a Roman fort on the outskirts of Caernarfon in Gwynedd, North Wales. The fort, which survived until the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, was garrisoned by Roman auxiliaries from present-day Belgium and Germany, it was the most important military base and administrative centre in this part of Britain. The fort takes its name either directly from the Afon Seiont or from a British settlement itself named for the river, it is possible, that it is connected to the Segontiaci, a British tribe mentioned by Julius Caesar. Another theory made popular in a BBC series is that a Roman officer stood on the walls looking outwards towards the Welsh settlement nearby, only to be greeted by one of the locals with "Si cont di hwn". Segontium was founded by Agricola in AD 77 or 78 after he had conquered the Ordovices in North Wales, it was the main Roman fort in the north of Roman Wales and was designed to hold about a thousand auxiliary infantry. It was connected by a Roman road to the Roman legionary base at Deva Victrix.
Unlike the medieval Caernarfon Castle, built alongside the Seiont estuary more than a thousand years Segontium was situated on higher ground to the east giving a good view of the Menai Straits. The original timber defences were rebuilt in stone in the first half of the 2nd century. In the same period, a large courtyard house was built within the fort; the high-status building may have been the residence of an important official, in charge of regional mineral extraction. Archaeological research shows that, by the year 120, there had been a reduction in the military numbers at the fort. An inscription on an aqueduct from the time of the Emperor Septimius Severus indicates that, by the 3rd century, Segontium was garrisoned by 500 men from the Cohors I Sunicorum, which would have been levied among the Sunici of Gallia Belgica; the size of the fort continued to reduce through the 4th centuries. At this time Segontium's main role was the defence of the north Wales coast against Irish raiders and pirates.
Coins found at Segontium show the fort was still occupied until at least 394. Segontium is considered to have been listed among the 28 cities of Britain listed in the History of the Britons traditionally ascribed to Nennius, either as Cair Segeint or Cair Custoeint. Bishop Ussher cites another passage in Nennius: "Here, says Nennius, Constantius the Emperor died. Nennius stated. Constantius Chlorus died at York. In the 11th century, the Normans built a motte nearby, whose settlement formed the nucleus of present-day Caernarfon. Following the 12th-century Edwardian conquest, the earlier work was replaced by Caernarfon Castle. Although the A4085 to Beddgelert cuts through the site, most of the fort's foundations are preserved. Guidebooks can be bought including Caernarfon Castle; the remains of a civilian settlement together with a Roman temple of Mithras, the Caernarfon Mithraeum, a cemetery have been identified around the fort. Segontium is referenced in the prose of the Mabinogion, a collection of early medieval Welsh prose first collated in the 1350s.
In Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig —one of its Four Independent Tales—Macsen dreams of a beautiful woman who turns out to be at "the fort at the mouth of the Seiont". Wallace Breem's novel Eagle in the Snow begins and ends in post-Roman Segontium and references its temple of Mithras; the fort features in The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills of Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. Caer Gybi at Holyhead—established in the 4th century to support Segontium against Irish raiders. Pen-y-Gwryd - a waypoint between the legionary fortress of Deva Victrix and Segontium. Frances Lynch A guide to ancient and historic Wales: Gwynedd R. E. Mortimer Wheeler Segontium and the Roman occupation of Wales Media related to Segontium at Wikimedia Commons Map sources for Segontium Segontium - National Trust Segontium on Roman-Britain.org
Constantius Chlorus
Constantius I known as Constantius Chlorus, was a Caesar from 293 to 305 and a Roman Emperor from 305 to 306. He was the father of founder of the Constantinian dynasty; as Caesar, a junior emperor, he defeated the usurper Allectus in Britain and campaigned extensively along the Rhine frontier, defeating the Alamanni and Franks. Upon becoming Augustus in 305, Constantius launched a successful punitive campaign against the Picts beyond the Antonine Wall. However, Constantius died in Eboracum the following year, his death sparked the collapse of the tetrarchic system of government inaugurated by the Emperor Diocletian. Born in Dardania, Constantius was the son of Eutropius, whom the Historia Augusta claimed to be a nobleman from northern Dardania, in the province of Moesia Superior, Claudia, a niece of the emperors Claudius II and Quintillus. Modern historians suspect this maternal connection to be a genealogical fabrication created by his son Constantine I, that his family was of humble origins.
Constantius was a member of the Protectores Augusti Nostri under the emperor Aurelian and fought in the east against the secessionist Palmyrene Empire. While the claim that he had been made a dux under the emperor Probus is a fabrication, he attained the rank of tribunus within the army, during the reign of Carus he was raised to the position of Praeses, or governor, of the province of Dalmatia, it has been conjectured that he switched allegiances to support the claims of the future emperor Diocletian just before Diocletian defeated Carinus, the son of Carus, at the Battle of the Margus in July 285. In 286, Diocletian elevated a military colleague, Maximian, to the throne as co-emperor of the western provinces, while Diocletian took over the eastern provinces, beginning the process that would see the division of the Roman Empire into two halves, a Western and an Eastern portion. By 288, his period as governor now over, Constantius had been made Praetorian Prefect in the west under Maximian.
Throughout 287 and into 288, under the command of Maximian, was involved in a war against the Alamanni, carrying out attacks on the territory of the barbarian tribes across the Rhine and Danube rivers. To strengthen the ties between the emperor and his powerful military servant, in 289 Constantius divorced his wife Helena, married the emperor Maximian’s daughter, Theodora. By 293, conscious of the ambitions of his co-emperor for his new son-in-law, allowed Maximian to promote Constantius in a new power sharing arrangement known as the Tetrarchy. Diocletian divided the administration of the Roman Empire into two halves, a Western and an Eastern portion; each would be ruled by an Augustus, supported by a Caesar. Both Caesars had the right of succession. At Milan on March 1, 293, Constantius was formally appointed as Maximian’s Caesar, he adopted the names Flavius Valerius and was given command of Gaul and Hispania. Diocletian, the eastern Augustus, in order to keep the balance of power in the imperium, elevated Galerius as his Caesar on May 21, 293 at Philippopolis.
Constantius was the more senior of the two Caesars, on official documents he always took precedence, being mentioned before Galerius. Constantius’ capital was to be located at Augusta Treverorum. Constantius’ first task on becoming Caesar was to deal with the Roman usurper Carausius who had declared himself emperor in Britannia and northern Gaul in 286. In late 293, Constantius defeated the forces of Carausius in Gaul; this precipitated the assassination of Carausius by his rationalis Allectus, who assumed command of the British provinces until his death in 296. Constantius spent the next two years neutralising the threat of the Franks who were the allies of Allectus, as northern Gaul remained under the control of the British usurper until at least 295, he battled against the Alamanni, achieving some victories at the mouth of the Rhine in 295. Administrative concerns meant. Only when he felt ready did he assemble two invasion fleets with the intent of crossing the English Channel; the first was entrusted to Asclepiodotus, Constantius’ long-serving Praetorian prefect, who sailed from the mouth of the Seine, while the other, under the command of Constantius himself, was launched from his base at Bononia.
The fleet under Asclepiodotus landed near the Isle of Wight, his army encountered the forces of Allectus, resulting in the defeat and death of the usurper. Constantius in the meantime occupied London, saving the city from an attack by Frankish mercenaries who were now roaming the province without a paymaster. Constantius massacred all of them. Constantius remained in Britannia for a few months, replaced most of Allectus’ officers, the British provinces were at this time subdivided along the lines of Diocletian’s other administrative reforms of the Empire; the result was the division of Upper Britannia into Maxima Caesariensis and Britannia Prima, while Flavia Caesariensis and Britannia Secunda were carved out of Lower Britannia. He restored Hadrian’s Wall and its forts. In 298, Constantius fought in the Battle of Lingones against the Alamanni, he was relieved by his army after six hours and defeated the enemy. He defeated them again at Vindonissa. In 300, he fo
Wales
Wales is a country, part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Bristol Channel to the south, it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon, its highest summit; the country has a changeable, maritime climate. Welsh national identity emerged among the Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd's death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of England's conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century; the whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party.
Welsh national feeling grew over the century. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, development of the mining and metallurgical industries transformed the country from an agricultural society into an industrial nation. Two-thirds of the population live in South Wales, including Cardiff, Swansea and the nearby valleys. Now that the country's traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, Wales' economy depends on the public sector and service industries and tourism. Although Wales shares its political and social history with the rest of Great Britain, a majority of the population in most areas speaks English as a first language, the country has retained a distinct cultural identity and is bilingual. Over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west.
From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the "land of song", in part due to the eisteddfod tradition. At many international sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup and the Commonwealth Games, Wales has its own national teams, though at the Olympic Games, Welsh athletes compete as part of a Great Britain team. Rugby union is seen as an expression of national consciousness; the English words "Wales" and "Welsh" derive from the same Germanic root, itself derived from the name of the Gaulish people known to the Romans as Volcae and which came to refer indiscriminately to all non-Germanic peoples. The Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term Wælisc when referring to the Britons in particular, Wēalas when referring to their lands; the modern names for some Continental European lands and peoples have a similar etymology. In Britain, the words were not restricted to modern Wales or to the Welsh but were used to refer to anything that the Anglo-Saxons associated with the Britons, including other non-Germanic territories in Britain and places in Anglo-Saxon territory associated with Britons, as well as items associated with non-Germanic Europeans, such as the walnut.
The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales. These words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning "fellow-countrymen"; the use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the location in the post-Roman Era of the Welsh people in modern Wales as well as in northern England and southern Scotland. It emphasised that the Welsh in modern Wales and in the Hen Ogledd were one people, different from other peoples. In particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage and language to the Welsh; the word came into use as a self-description before the 7th century. It is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. In Welsh literature, the word Cymry was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe the Welsh, though the older, more generic term Brythoniaid continued to be used to describe any of the Britonnic peoples and was the more common literary term until c. 1200. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh.
Until c. 1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. The Latinised forms of these names, Cambrian and Cambria, survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales and the Welsh people. Examples include the Cambrian Mountains, the newspaper Cambrian News, the organisations Cambrian Airways, Cambrian Railways, Cambrian Archaeological Association and the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art. Outside Wales, a related form survives as the name Cumbria in North West England, once a part of Yr Hen Ogledd; the Cumbric language, thought to
Mamucium
Mamucium known as Mancunium, is a former Roman fort in the Castlefield area of Manchester in North West England. The castra, founded c. AD 79 within the Roman province of Britannia, was garrisoned by a cohort of Roman Auxiliaries near two major Roman roads running through the area. Several sizeable civilian settlements containing soldiers' families and industry developed outside the fort; the area is a protected Scheduled Ancient Monument. The ruins were left undisturbed until Manchester expanded during the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century. Most of the fort was levelled to make way for new developments such as the construction of the Rochdale Canal and the Great Northern Railway; the site is now part of the Castlefield Urban Heritage Park. A section of the fort's wall along with its gatehouse and other ancillary buildings from the vicus have been reconstructed and are open to the public. Mamucium is thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name, either from mamm- or from mamma.
Both meanings are preserved in languages derived from Common Brittonic, mam meaning "breast" in Irish and "mother" in Welsh. The neuter suffix -ium is used in Latin placenames those representing Common Brittonic -ion; the Welsh name for Manchester is Manceinion and derives from the original Brittonic form. The Romans built the fort on a defensible sandstone bluff that overlooked a nearby crossing over the River Medlock; the area became an important junction for at least two major military roads through this part of the country. One highway ran east to west between the legionary fortresses of Deva Victrix and Eboracum the other ran north to Bremetennacum. In addition, Mamucium may have overlooked a lesser road running north west to Coccium; the fort was one of a chain of fortifications along the Eboracum to Deva Victrix road, with Castleshaw Roman fort lying 16 miles to the east, Condate 18 miles to the west. Stamps on tegulae indicate that Mamucium had administrative links not only with Castleshaw, but with Ardotalia, the nearest fort and Ebchester.
There is no evidence that a prehistoric settlement occupied the site before the arrival of the Romans. However, Stone Age activity has been recorded in the area. Two Mesolithic flints and a flint flake as well as a Neolithic scraper have been discovered. A shard of late Bronze Age pottery has been found in situ. Although the area was in the territory of the Celtic tribe Brigantes, it may have been under the control of the Setantii, a sub-tribe of the Brigantes, when the Romans took control from the ancient Britons. Construction of Mamucium started around AD 79 during the campaigns of General Julius Agricola against the Brigantes after a treaty failed. Excavations show the fort had three main phases of construction: first AD 79, second around AD 160, third in AD 200; the first phase of the fort was built from timber. Mamucium's dimensions indicate it was to be garrisoned by about 500 infantry; these troops were not Roman citizens but foreign auxiliaries. By the late 1st and early 2nd centuries, a civilian settlement had grown up around the fort.
Around AD 90, the fort's ramparts were strengthened. This might be because Mamucium and the Roman fort at Slack – which neighboured Castleshaw – superseded the fort at Castleshaw in the 120s. Mamucium was demolished some time around AD 140. Although the first vicus grew in the early 2nd century, it was abandoned some time between 120 and 160 – broadly coinciding with the demolition of the fort – before it was re-inhabited when the fort was rebuilt; the second phase was built around the year 160. Although it was again of turf and timber construction, it was larger than the previous fort, measuring 2 hectares to accommodate extra granaries. Around 200, the gatehouses of the fort were rebuilt in stone and the walls surrounding the fort were given a stone facing; the concentration of furnaces in sheds in part of the vicus associated with the fort has been described as an "industrial estate", which would have been the first in Manchester. Mamucium was included in the Antonine Itinerary, a 3rd-century register of roads throughout the Roman Empire.
This and inscriptions on and repairs to buildings indicate that Mamucium was still in use in the first half of the 3rd century. The vicus may have been abandoned by the mid-3rd century. Evidence from coins indicates that although the civilian settlement associated with the fort had declined by the mid-3rd century, a small garrison may have remained at Mamucium into the late 3rd century and early 4th century. A temple to Mithras is associated with the civilian settlement in modern Hulme. An altar dedicated to "Fortune the Preserver" was found dating to the early 3rd century. In 2008 an altar dating from the late 1st century was discovered near the Roman settlement, it was described as being in "fantastic" condition. The County Archaeologist said "It's the first Roman stone inscription to be found in Manchester for 150 years and records only the second known Roman from Manchester... The preservation of the stone is remarkable. On top of the stone is a shallow bowl, used for offerings of wine or
