There is, however, no doubt that Exeter, believed to be the Isca Dumniorum of Antonine's Itinerary—that wonderful register, planned by Julius Caesar and carried out by Augustus, of distances and stations along all the roads in the Empire—was an important Roman town; and there is reason to think, from the coins that have been found at many points within the walls, that the city was held by the Romans from the latter half of the first century of the Christian era until the time when the legions were recalled from Britain. The site of Moridunum, the second Roman station mentioned in the Itinerary, has not been identified, but there is some ground for the theory that it was at Hembury, four miles from Honiton.
A few vague and brief allusions in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, believed to refer to this county, describing how "Ina fought against Geraint," how "Cynewulf fought very many battles against the Welsh," and how "Egbert laid waste West Wales from eastward to westward," contain practically all that we know of the Saxon conquest of Devonshire. There is, indeed, so little record of actual fighting that it seems probable that the invaders settled here rather as colonists than conquerors, although Athelstan appears to have found it necessary to expel from Exeter the Britons who had so far shared the town with the Saxons.
The chief events in Devonshire between the departure of the Romans and the Norman Conquest were the repeated descents, spread over a long period of years, of the pirates whom we speak of as Danes or Northmen or Vikings; who pillaged the coast towns, sacked Exeter, sailed up the Tamar, and burnt and plundered Tavistock and Lydford. Victory was not always on the side of the marauders. Their first raid, in 851, was repulsed with great slaughter; and when, five and twenty years later, Guthrum seized Exeter, King Alfred promptly drove him out of it.
During the Saxon period there were mints at Exeter, Barnstaple, Totnes, and Lydford, and thousands of Devonshire-struck silver pennies are in existence. By far the greater number of them are in the royal museum at Stockholm, the most numerous being those of Ethelred II and Canute. Of the former there are in Stockholm 2254 specimens, compared with 144 in the British Museum. These Swedish specimens probably represent partly the plunder carried off by the Northmen, partly the bribes vainly paid to the invaders by Ethelred (whose surname of Unradig, "he who will not take counsel," or "the headstrong," has been misrendered "the Unready"), and partly the results of commerce while Canute was king.
Penny of Ethelred II, struck at Exeter
The year succeeding the Battle of Hastings found William the Conqueror before the gates of Exeter, a place already regarded, as it continued to be for many centuries, as the key of the West of England. He took the city after a brief siege and proceeded to secure his hold upon it by building the castle of Rougemont, which was hardly finished when it was unsuccessfully attacked by the Saxons. A year later the sons of Harold also tried in vain to take it. The last man of mark in Devonshire to hold out against Norman rule was Sithric, the Saxon abbot of Tavistock, who, when all was lost, fled to Hereward's camp of refuge in the Fens. A few Englishmen were left by the Conqueror in possession of their estates; but the county, as a whole, was divided among a number of Norman nobles, some of whose descendants, Courtenay, Carew, and Champernowne, for example, still survive in Devonshire. An interesting link with Norman times and customs is the ringing of the curfew bell, which is still kept up at Exeter, Okehampton, and other places. At eight o'clock every evening thirty strokes are sounded for "Curfew," and then eight more for the hour.
In the stormy reign of King Stephen Exeter was the last place to hold out for Queen Maud. The king was admitted into the town by the citizens, but the castle of Rougemont cost him a three months' siege.