Cilternsæte

The Cilternsæte (or Ciltern Sætna) was an Anglian tribe that occupied the Chilterns, probably in the 6th century AD.^[1]

The Tribal Hidage valued their territory at 4,000 hides. This assessment is relatively large compared with those of some other tribes or central England, being 4% of the whole of Wessex. Although the Tribal Hidage suggests the tribe gave its name to the hills, the truth must be the reverse since the toponym is of Brythonic origin. Eilert Ekwall suggested that Chiltern is possibly related to the ethnic name "Celt" ("Celtæ" in early Celtic). An adjective celto- ="high" with suffix -erno- could be the origin of Chiltern.^[2]

References

1. ^ Kirby, D.P. (2001) [1991]. The Earliest English Kings (second ed.). New York: Routledge. 
2. ^ Ekwall, Eilert (1940). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names (second ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 99.  Ekwall cites the forms Cilternsætna (Birch's Cartularium Saxonicum; 297); Cilternes efes (Kemble's Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici; 715) and Ciltern (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; text E)