Coventry's origins

Coventry goes back almost to the beginning of time. The Saxons were here long before the Romans came, they sheltered in the great forests that covered more than a third of the land abounding our future city, but other countries eyed our land and wanted to invade. But once the Romans left in 704AD the Danes and the Norwegians invaded and plundered our land. By the time we reached 900AD there were as many Danish as Saxons in the Midlands and it became Danelaw. The great forest of Arden (a Danish word) was Danish land, with isolated farms and settlers moving into the forests. Thorkell, son of Alwin, sheriff was descendant of a Danish earl - he already owned Warwick, had a mill and a dozen houses made of wooden frame and thatched roof. But Alfred the Great appears to have been the first king to bring the hamlets into districts. By 1016 Canute had invaded the Midlands with a large army, restored their prestige and rules, and destroyed a small nunnery in Coventry. Meanwhile Leofric had become a bishop in Chester in 1016 and Godiva's family moved to Chester for safety - her family owned several holdings and lands, mainly in Leicestershire and a few in Warwickshire. Leofric and Godiva moved into Coventry mill in 1023 and built a Benedictine monastery, but Coventry had lords and barons, and there were manor houses in Coundon, Brandon, Radford and at Baginton. Leofric may have stolen great stones from the old Roman buildings in 1057. Leofric died a few years later. There was another large Viking raid but at York in 1066, and the same month the Normans invaded the south. Two years later the Normans invaded the Midlands, and a new era in Coventry and Europe began.

Apparently there was a Bishop Leofric, from the period around 1016 to 1072 - but that wasn't "our" Leofric, the Earl of Mercia who, with Godiva, owned Coventry and many other local areas, and who died in 1057. And I know we had Britons here before the Romans came - but I've read nothing to suggest that any Saxons came over until after 400AD - to fight the Britons once the Romans had left.

Hi Rob - the Saxon settlers arrived after the Romans withdrew from their British colony in 410. The Romans left behind a population that for over 350 years had been Romano-British. The Britons, as you call them, were the inhabitants of Wales and Cornwall, areas largely untouched by the Romans. Most of the people we call Saxons - Angles, Saxons and Jutes - were peaceful migrants who lived alongside, and intermarried with, the indigenous people. Recent archaeological evidence has largely refuted the idea that Saxon hordes came over and either massacred the locals or else forced them to migrate into Wales and Cornwall.

Rob, hi! Ever since the Romans left, 400 something, the master boat builders Danish found Britain good for living in, the Vikings owed their success to shipbuilding and navigation. The Vikings covered England in large numbers. But King Alfred fought them and regained the west 'ridings' and 'wapentakes' of Yorkshire - they are danish words - and so was Mercia London that Alfred won back from the Danes. He had to call in help, Asser, a priest from St Davids whom he made Bishop of Sherborne. Captain Cook was born on these shores, Nelson was a thorpe, Burnham thorp in Norfolk. All Danish names. Arden Forest was a Danish name, so was Foleshill in Coventry, and many more have Danish endings. The Anglo Saxon revival of the 10th century was about the church, there are manuscripts in Winchester and other monastic centres, Anglo Saxon poetry in a Leofric's book in Exeter - not the same Leofric as the Coventry one. Alfred got a truce upon the invaders, conceding the Danelaw.

Hi Kaga - interesting stuff again. From my researches I believe that the Forest of Arden is not a Danish-derived name, it's actually Brythonic (or pre-Roman). Nor is Foleshill of Danish origin. In fact Danelaw's boundary was Watling Street. to the north and east of our area.

Worth a read. The earliest date given for a Viking raid is 789, when according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a group of Danes sailed to the Isle of Portland in Dorset (it was wrongly recorded as 787). They were mistaken for merchants by a royal official. When asked to come to the king's manor to pay a trading tax on their goods, they murdered the official. The beginning of the Viking Age in the British Isles is often set at 793. It was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the Northmen raided the important island monastery of Lindisfarne Viking age It seems that there was a period of growing prosperity here that spawned the Christian settlements including Coventry and at the same time the Vikings united as a force but were seeing local problems of reduced essentials including food and women. There may have been small raids earlier but they weren't recorded. At the link there is a list of possible reasons why the Vikings turned to raiding and all of them seem plausible, so they may each have been a factor.

I've got a map that calls Foleshill as Folkeshull, which I thought meant folk's hill. Folk being German/old English. Of course map makers have been getting stuff wrong since there were map makers.

Hi all We do know that in the vicinity of Bedlam Lane, there was a huge sanitorium. The lane name is a clue. Much speculation regards Fools Hill as the name. I may be mistaken, but it may have been mentioned in one of the novels by George Eliot.

Belushi, hi! Disputable - the Danes captured most of England. Yes, King Alfred succeeded in saving one half, all that south of old Watling Street. 980AD, the Vikings raided Southampton - it had been a generation since these seaborne raiders attacked Ethelred's Royal Mint. Alfred's army was a long gone memory. Folkeshull, a Danish word meaning people's meeting place - the Scandinavian raids affected most of Europe but mainly in England. King Alfred died in 899AD, the time of most of the Viking raids - these invasions practically destroyed old English civilisation. Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, a Viking helmet was found, decorated in bronze and iron. Danelaw covered from Northumbria to old Wessex, the Danes settled in large numbers and intermixed but they did have boundaries. But history was ever interchanging - in the eleventh century it changed almost daily.

Hello Kaga According to Wikipedia: "Foleshill was originally a village and parish to the north of Coventry, it was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 along with Ansty as part of the estate formerly held by Lady Godiva. The meaning of the name is believed to be derived from 'hill of the folk or people' (Folks Hill). I cannot find any reference online to "Fokeshull", nor any reference to the suffix "-shull" as a Danish/Viking settlement indicator. The Sutton Hoo helmet is an ornately decorated Anglo-Saxon helmet found during a 1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial. It was buried around 625 and is widely believed to have belonged to King R

Hi all, Few folk ever want to live in a road, street or lane, with an awful connotation to a name. I wouldn't want to live in my cul-de-sac, if it was called Dipstick, or Bedlam, so there must I believe have been a very good reason for naming a lane, Bedlam Lane. "During the early years of the Middle Ages the community took care of the mentally ill. Later, hospices, then asylums developed to house them. London's Bethlem asylum

Belushi, hi! English Heritage claim that the helmet is of Viking origin - I'm inclined to believe them. Now I have no knowledge of the Danish language, but the Vikings raided most European countries especially both sides of the English Channel. Now, lets jump to 1944, where thousands of US and British para troops took part in a raid in a densely wooded area, a lot similar to the Arden forest. This forest and surrounding area was also called the "Arden-nes". Coincidence? Maybe.

From Wikipedia: Ardennes The region takes its name from the vast ancient forest known as Arduenna Silva in the Roman Period. Arduenna probably derives from a Gaulish cognate of the Brythonic word ardu- as in the Welsh: ardd ("high") and the Latin arduus ("high", "steep"). The second element is less certain, but may be related to the Celtic element *windo- as in the Welsh wyn/wen ("fair", "blessed"), which tentatively suggests an original meaning of "The forest of blessed/fair heights". The Ardennes likely shares this derivation with the numerous Arden place names in Britain, including the Forest of Arden.

Hi Kaga From the English Heritage website: "The Sutton Hoo Helmet is one of only four known surviving Anglo-Saxon helmets. The original is now on display in the British Museum."

Rob, Outside Coventry, few people know about Leofric and Godiva, they were of little concern to English history, other than building a small Benedictine priory on Hill Top. But they would have had meetings with the owners of manor houses like Coundon and Brandon, and many more district manors, that are still with us today. I don't believe they owned Coventry or surrounding area until 1068 when William I invaded the Midlands where, if it was peaceful, he allowed the occupants to own it, if they were rebellious he gave the land to one of his henchmen.