Readingas

The Readingas (Old English Rēadingas) were a tribe or clan of early Anglo-Saxon England whose capital was Reading; their territory formed a regio or administrative subdivision of the early Kingdom of Wessex.^[1] The area of the Readingas adjoined that of the Sunningas to the east and that of the Basingas to the south. The subdivision retained a role beyond the Anglo-Saxon period as Reading remained the administrative center for a distinctive grouping of hundreds within Berkshire throughout the Middle Ages.^[1]

The name may have been taken from a personal name and mean "Rēada's people", or it may be based on a topographical root and mean "The people of the red [one]".^[2]

References

1. Yorke 1995, p. 40.
2. Yorke 1995, p. 42.

Bibliography

• Yorke, Barbara (1995), Wessex in the early Middle Ages, Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN 0-7185-1856-X, retrieved 7 June 2009