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* forum du site Marikavel : Academia Celtica

Extrait de la carte Ordnance Survey : Map of Roman Britain

* A.L.F RIVET & C. SMITH : Place-Names of Roman Britain, p 373 et suivantes :

- monnaies pré-romaines : ECEN; ECENI; EC / ECN / ECE/

- bague en fer, provenant de la rivière Tas, près de Caistor St Edmund :  portant la mention : CEN.

- César, BG, V,21,I : CENIMAGNI.

- Tacite, Annales, XII,31 et 32 : ICENI

- Tacite, Annales, XIV, 31 : ICENI

- Ptolémée, II,3,II : Simenoi ( SIMENI), variantes Imenoi ( = IMENI), Smenoi ( = SMENI)

- Itinéraire d'Antonin, 474₆ (Iter V) : ICINOS.

- Itinéraire d'Antonin, 479₁₀ (Iter IX) : a VENTA ICINORUM Londinio.

- Ravenna, 106₅₄ : VENTA CENOMUM.

- Table de Peutinger : AD TAUM.

The sources are nearly united in showing ICENI, and the coins also show an initial vowel; only the ring with CEN and Ravenna's form lack this, but in the latter case at least this is due to simple miscopying. On Caesar, see below. In Ptolemy, the error must go back to the archetype.

DERIVATION. Jackson in Britannia, I (1970), enters 'meaning and etymology doubtful ', as is surely proper. There seem to be very few names which can certainly be related to it : the most relevant is Iciniaco (TP), now Theilenhofen (Bavaria), whose form suggests -acum attached to a personal name. Names in Icc- (Iccauos, Iccius, etc.) are listed by Ellis Evans in GPN 351-53; no sure meaning is known for these, and since they often have -cc- whereas the name of the British tribe never does, their relevance is doubtful A. Carnoy in RIO, VIII (1956), 98-99, showed a possible way forward by identifying a root *iak- in Celtic and Indo-European with a sense 'healthy', in Jekker, the Dutch name of the Belgian river Geer, and Iacca in Celtiberia > Jaca (Huesca, Spain); also in a weak form *ik-, in Icauna > Yonne (Yonne, France), Icarus > Aygues (Vaucluse, France), Iceavus in Côte-d'Or, France, and Icene (A.D. 701) > R. Itchen of England. Carnoy does not mention the Iceni people, but Ekwall ERN associated the Itchen rivers of Hampshire and Warwickshire with the Iceni etymologically. Since this group (if Carnoy is right) seems to have left no descendants in the Celtic tongues of Britain, the matter must still be left unresolved so far as the Iceni are concerned.

The equation of Caesar's Cenimagni with the Iceni has contextual and linguistic support. Caesar mentions them among the five tribes which submitted to him, perhaps because of their importance, but possibly also because it was against them that the friendly Trinovantes were being defended. In Caesar's text one reads prohibiti Cenimagni (in one MS, Cenimanni); a confusion and elision of -i by an carly scribe is by no means impossible (prohibiti \I\cenimagni). It is also likely that the reading should be Iceni magni, the adjective meaning 'strong' or perhaps 'extensive'; the Iceni did indeed occupy much of East Anglia, were a powerful force when Boudica rebelled, and of the five tribes which submitted to Caesar are the only one known to history from other texts. An association of the British tribe by blood or etymology with the Gaulish Cenomanni seems unlikely. Records of the Gaulish people, established both in Gallia Cisalpina and in the region of Le Mans (which preserves part of their name), regularly show both Ceno- with -o and -manni, never -magni. This ceno- might contain the root mentioned under BRANOGENIUM, or that mentioned in GPN 177, note 4 : 'cen(o) in the names Cenabum, Cenomani and Cenimagni was equated by Glück with Irish cian "far, distant, long" with further references; for -manni, see Holder II. 408. Had the British people really been associated with these Gauls, it is likely that at least one of the sources (other, that is, than the MS var. in Caesar) would heve shown their name with -manni.

IDENTIFICATION. A people of Britain with their capital at Venta Icenorum (Caistor St Edrnund, Norfolk). Ptolemy attributes no other place to them and the distribution of their pre-Roman coins confines them to Norfolk and immediately adjacent parts of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.

Note. AI's Icinos (at 4746) is of peculiar interest as it here replaces the proper name of thecity of Venta Icenorum. Apart from the probable case of Regno at 477,10, this is the only instance in Britain of a practice which was normal in Gaul, both in itineraries and in writers such as Ammianus, and which accounts for the fact that most French cities deive their modem names not from their proper Roman names but from those of the Gaulish tribes whose administrative centres they were.

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Explication étymologique :

Rivet & Smith, analysant la forme donnée par César, proposent d'y voir une forme agglutinée de Iceni Magni, qui insisterait sur l'importance ( magn-) de ce peuple.

Pour la première syllabe, suivant en cela A. Carnoy, ils proposent d'y voir une racine *iak-, contenant le sens de santé, bonne santé, donc en quelque sorte la désignation d'un peuple sain et fort.

Cette racine *iak-, se retrouverait dans des noms comme Iacca > Jaca (Huesca-Espagne), Icauna > rivière Yonne (Yonne, France); Icarus > rivière Aygues (Vaucluse, France); Iceavus (Cote d'Or, France); Icene > rivière Itchen de G.Bretagne.

Histoire : 

Compte tenu de leur position dans le sud-est de l'Ile de Bretagne, et la référence de leur nom à la santé ( = bonne santé physique, c'est à dire le thème de la Force / valeur guerrière), les Iceni semblent à l'évidence faire partie de la vague belge, dernière vague celtique de grande ampleur en Ile de Bretagne, avant l'arrivée des romains.

On n'a pas connaissance de leur proto-histoire, ni de l'emplacement ni du nom exact de leur oppidum principal ( = capitale)

La première mention semble donc être celle de Jules César qui les désigne sous le nom de Cenimagni.

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Leur trace la plus évidente dans l'histoire a été laissée lors des très graves évènements survenus en 60-61, connus sous le nom de Guerre de Boudicca, ou Guerre des Icéniens. Cette guerre a été expliquée dans notre étude sur Internet : Histoire nationale des Bretons, à la page : 

 http://marikavel.net/histoire-boudicca.htm

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La reine Boudicca et ses deux filles ont été honorées par un ensemble statuaire en bronze de style romantique, à l'extrémité nord-est du pont de Westminster, à Londres.

Photographie / skeudenn JC Even. 1983. Copyright

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Dans le cadre de la Bretagne romaine, les Iceni font partie de la Britannia Prima (capitale : Londinium / Londres), puis de la Maxima Caesarensis (capitale : Londinium / Londres). 

Leur capitale britto-romaine est Venta Icenorum (Caistor St-Edmund).

Le secteur est tombé aux mains des Anglo-Saxons vers 525-530, et incorporé au royaume d'East-Anglia.

hast buan, ma mignonig vas vite, mon petit ami

go fast, my little friend