The Basingas were an Anglo-Saxons tribe, whose territory in the River Loddon formed a regiones or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex.
Origins
Settlement patterns suggest the existence of a town at Basingstoke attached to the nearby oppidum of
Winklebury prior to the Roman conquest of Britain.
[Millard, J. E., Baigent, F. J. (1889). A History of the Ancient Town and Manor of Basingstoke in the County of Southampton: With a Brief Account of the Siege of Basing House, A. D. 1643-1645. United Kingdom: C.J. Jacob.] In the early Roman era it was the nearest town to Calleva Atrebatum, lay between two roads leading to
Venta Belgarum and Noviomagus Reginorum and was populated predominantly by the
Atrebates.
History
The
Basingas settled the eastern outskirts of Basingstoke concurrent with the
Franks conquest of
Alamannia in the early sixth century.
[ History of the Franks: Gregory of Tours.] In subsequent generations they took over
de facto governance of the town. They appear to have been subsumed into the Kingdom of
Wessex early in its formation, as they are not mentioned as a distinct tribe in the
Tribal Hidage. Their territory (
Basengum) is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the site of a battle versus Danish
Vikings in 871 AD.
Old Basing was first settled around 700 by an Old English tribe known as the Basingas, who give the village its name (the meaning is "Basa's people").
The subdivision of the Basingas retained a role beyond the Anglo-Saxon period as Basingstoke remained the administrative centre for a distinctive grouping of hundreds within Hampshire throughout the Middle Ages.
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