Rise and Progress of the City.
In tracing the rise and progress of the city, it is necessary to inquire respecting the physical condition of the district around it at an early period. Before the dawn of authentic history, it is in vain to expect full information on this point; but the natural changes that have taken place may be traced with tolerable clearness. Geologists inform us that the whole area of Norfolk, including Norwich, was in remote ages under the sea; that by the slow accumulation of alluvial matter islands were formed in this estuary; and that the waters were divided into several channels.
We may speculate as to the causes of these changes of the level of land and water, but we cannot doubt the fact of such changes having taken place. When or why the great body of waters retired to its great reservoir in the bed of the ocean is unknown; but whatever the causes, it is certain that between the first and the eleventh century the waters did gradually recede till the river assumed a narrower appearance. The higher part of the city from Ber Street up to Lakenham was probably, 2000 years ago, like an island surrounded by water flowing up the valley of the Taas on that side, and over the valley of the Wensum on the other side.
The existence of Norwich as a city during the Roman period from B.C. 50 till A.D. 400 or 500 is very doubtful. Camden says that its name occurs nowhere till the Danish wars. If it did exist, it was only a fishing station, for then a broad arm of the sea flowed up the valley of the Yare, and covered a great part of the north side of the present city. Indeed, for centuries after the Christian era this arm of the sea may have flowed over the greater part of the ground on which the north side of the city now stands. In the course of time, however, the arm of the sea gradually silted up and left only the present narrow river Wensum flowing into the Yare.
Tradition has handed down this couplet:
“Caister was a city when Norwich was none,
And Norwich was built of Caister stone.”
There is, however, no evidence that Caister was ever more than a village on the banks of the Taas, where the Romans built a camp to overawe the neighbourhood; while all the old Roman roads have always radiated from Norwich, proving that it was a place of importance in the Roman period. The Iceni called it Caer Gwent, altered by the Romans into Venta, so that it was the Venta Icenorum of the Romans, who probably threw up the mound on which a castle was afterwards built, in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Norwich very likely took its rise after the departure of the Romans, about A.D. 418, on account of the distracted state of the empire. Then, the camp or station at Caister being almost deserted, the few remaining Romans joined with the natives, and they became one people; and the situation of Norwich being thought preferable to that of Caister, many retired hither for the facility of fishing and the easier communication with the country. Caister, however, though almost deserted, kept up some reputation, till the river becoming so shallow, cut off all intercourse with it by water and reduced it to a place of no importance.
After the departure of the Romans, the Angles from the opposite coast made themselves masters of this part of the island, and to them is chiefly owing the further progress of the city and its present name. “Northwic” signifies a northern station on a winding river, and may have been so called because of its being situated north of the ancient station at Caister.
Norwich Castle was probably built in the reign of Uffa, the first king of the East Angles, soon after the year 575. About 642 it became a royal castle, and one of the seats of Anna, king of the East Angles, whose daughter Ethelfred, on her marriage with Tombert, a nobleman or prince of the Girvii (a people inhabiting the fenny parts of Norfolk), had this Castle, with the lands belonging to it, given her by her father. About 677, this Tombert and his wife granted to the monastery of Ely, which they had founded, certain lands held of Norwich Castle, by Castle guard, to which service they must have been liable before the grant, for, by the laws of the Angles, lands granted to the church were not liable to secular service, unless they were at first subject thereto whilst in secular hands, which proves that this was a Royal Castle in the time of King Anna.