Page:Welsh Medieval Law.djvu/31

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would be entirely excluded from what is now the north of England and would be confined to a territory south of Chester and including it. This then leaves us the country around the upper reaches of the Thames, and all to the west of it, including Wales plus the Devonian peninsula. Without for the moment attempting to define closely its eastern boundary we identify Upper Britain, Britannia Superior, with the territory west of a line drawn from Chester (which is included) to the Wiltshire Avon or thereabouts. The western portion of the Devonian peninsula, especially the country beyond the river Exe, was one of the least Romanized parts of Roman Britain, and Wales being a purely military district was similar in this respect, so that they would not inappropriately go together, being connected by the more Romanized region round about the estuary of the Severn.[1] In 397 Diocletian divided Roman Britain into four provinces instead of two and called them Britannia Prima, Britannia Secunda, Flavia Caesariensis, and Maxima Caesariensis. As the names clearly imply, we have here nothing more than a renaming of the two old provinces into Britannia and Caesariensis, which are subdivided into Prima and Secunda, and Flavia and Maxima respectively. And as it is certain that Cirencester was in Britannia Prima,[2] we conclude that by Diocletian's arrangement Upper Britain became exclusively known as Britannia, whilst Lower Britain was given the new name of Caesariensis. Moreover, as Cirencester was in Britannia Prima, we would

  1. Prof. Haverfield's Romanization of Roman Britain, 8 and note 2, 27.
  2. An inscription found near Cirencester proves this. Eng. Hist. Review, July, 1896.