Venta Belgarum: What Is in the Name for Roman Winchester?

Abstract

The name for Roman Winchester, Venta Belgarum, has been known for centuries, and the attribution of the name to modern Winchester has not been in question in any significant way. The purpose of this brief chapter about Barbara Yorke’s home town is to look at the two elements of the name, to reflect on recent scholarship, and to make a proposal concerning the second, ‘tribal’ component. An essential starting point is the entry for Venta Belgarum in A.L.F. Rivet and Colin Smith’s Place-Names of Roman Britain,1 in which the name is given as Venta (Ouenta in Greek transliteration) by Ptolemy,2 Venta Belgarum or Velgarum in the Antonine Itinerary,3 Venta Velgarom in the Ravenna Cosmography,4 and also as Venta by Bede.5 The last in this list links Venta to Wintancaestir and provides the strongest early medieval evidence for continuity of the first element of the Roman name into the modern toponym.6 In addition, the Notitia Dignitatum lists a ‘Procurator gynaecii in Britannis Ventensis (var. bentensis)’.7 This Venta is Winchester, in all probability, but two others, Venta Icenorum (Caister St Edmund, Norfolk) and Venta Silurum (Caerwent, South Wales), are