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Who lived in East Yorkshire?

Following our AGM in November, SWAAG member Ian Earnshaw gave a presentation entitled “Who Lived in Eastern Yorkshire Before, During and After the Dark Ages – Does anyone really know?”

The land covering Eastern Yorkshire is thought to have been occupied by a tribe originating from the Paris-area of France, in the Iron-Age and into the Roman Period. They were called the “Parisi” tribe.

The main facts for this include both Ptolemy’s book “Geographica” written around 150AD, which placed “…near a bay suitable for a harbour the Parisii and the town Peturia” and his separate maps. They are also placed in the same area during the Iron-Age because of the Chariot-Burials in round barrows found near Arras Farm, Market Weighton, which also appear in the Paris, France area. The tribe seem to have been quite separate from the “Brigantes” tribe who happened to occupy the rest of Northern England during this same time.

The known facts behind this theory have, over the years, raised doubts and then largely been discredited, leaving only the book “Geographica” written by Ptolemy firstly in Greek, then later copied and translated into Arabic, and then further copied and translated into Latin. Unfortunately, we do not have any of the original books available to us today, so we do not really know who Ptolemy was writing about.

The only real facts that we do know about them is that their Tribal name ends with the letters “RISI”, starts with a letter “P” and is at least 6 characters long. If you look at the tribes living in the North Sea and English Channel areas during Roman times, there is only one other alternative to the “Parisi” tribe – and they are the “Phrisii” tribe as the Romans called them, or the “Frisians” as we call them, living on the coast in Friesland in the north of the Netherlands.

As an observation, if the upright on the second letter in the name “Phrisii” is lost due to some typo such as running out of ink, poor quality paper etc. you will have the “Parisi” as now living in Friesland. Which, with the many copies of the book over the hundreds of years, must cast some doubt on who the people were that Ptolemy wrote about.

The “Phrisii” were Celtic at this time, and well known to the Romans as expert sailors, traders, cavalry/soldiers and salt producers. They were also Pirates, and you could say the original Vikings.

The “Phrisii” homeland became almost totally depopulated in the 2nd and 3rd centuries due to rising sea levels, exactly around the time when Ptolemy was writing about them as being in Eastern Yorkshire. There is further evidence of the “Phrisii” as being on the coast in the Eastern Yorkshire area well before the Angles/Saxons Mass Migration of 449AD/450AD as documented by Gildas, Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, such as: trading links; a shared jet fashion culture; shared burial practises; River Names such as the Humber; inheritance rights; use of Frisian words; pronouncing of town names.

This would mean that we would expect the “Brigantes” tribe to be living in the whole of the northern England area during the Iron-Age. During the Roman period, the “Phrisii” would be living on the Eastern Yorkshire coast with the “Brigantes” tribe and Roman Army veterans living inland on the Wolds and Moors. Later after the mass migrations of 449AD/450AD, the area would also be populated by Angles and their Allies right up to the Viking Period.

Ian Earnshaw.



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News Record: 195 Updated: 15-12-2024 15:59:46