Carvetii

The Carvetii were an Iron Age people and were subsequently identified as a civitas (canton) of Roman Britain living in what is now Cumbria, in North-West England.

Location

Historical speculation has the Carvetii occupying the Solway Plain, the area immediately north of Hadrian's Wall, the Eden Valley, and possibly the Lune Valley.

The Setantii may have occupied North Lancashire and south Cumbria.

Evidence of existence

The Carvetii are not mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography, nor in any other classical text, and are known only from three Roman (third and fourth century A.D.) inscriptions, one of which is now lost. One was in Old Penrith, (the Voreda Roman fort) north of the present Penrith, on a tombstone. The others were on two milestones: one at Frenchfield (north of Brocavum), and the other at Langwathby in Cumbria, both also near Penrith. Higham and Jones, in 1985, suggested that the combination of the first two inscriptions mentioned above "allows us to infer the existence of the 'civitas Carvetiorum', or canton of the Carvetii, and the existence of its own council or governing body."