Gewissae

The Gewisse (jeˈwisːe ; Geuissæ) were a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England, historically assumed to have been based in the upper Thames region around Dorchester on Thames (but may have actually originated near Old Sarum in Wiltshire). The Gewisse are one of the direct precursors of modern-day England, being the origin of its predecessor states (the Kingdom of Wessex and thereafter the Kingdom of England, prior to the Norman Conquest) according to Saxon legend. The name was first documented as Gewissorum in the eighth century as an ethnonym of the West Saxons. Its origin is uncertain. The Old English adjective ġewisse means "reliable" or "sure", and its corresponding noun means "certainty," though it is unclear how this is related to the tribe. Alternatively, the name may be derived from gweiθ, a Brittonic word for “fortification, earthwork or fort.” Eilert Ekwall proposed that the similarity in toponymy between the kingdoms of the Gewisse and Hwicce suggests a common origin, and an analysis by Richard Coates concluded that Hwicce was of Brittonic origin. Several linguists believe the word (in the form it has come down to us) is not the result of a normal linguistic development, and that attempts to deduce its evolution are problematic without accounting for same: " The seventh and eighth centuries indeed saw a pseudo-historical reconstruction of the origins of the English kingdoms. This process of reconstruction culminated in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, but it began before that. It can be seen in the changing nomenclature of the Anglo-Saxons. At its most influential level it can be seen in the growing significance of the term Angli over Saxones, occasioned apparently by Gregory the Great's support of the former term. Arguably more instructive is the evidence supplied by Bede for the renaming of the group known as the Gewisse as West Saxons. It is unfortunate that the etymology of Gewisse is unclear, but it is at least possible that the origins of the word are British, in which case King Ine, successor to Cadwalla, an Anglo-Saxon king with a British name, may deliberately have been rejecting any hint of British tradition among his people.