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Dumnonia is the Latinised name for the Brythonic kingdom in Sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries, in what is now the more westerly parts of South West England. It was centred in the area later called Devon, but included modern Cornwall and part of Somerset, with its eastern boundary changing over time as the gradual westward expansion of the neighbouring Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex encroached on its territory. The spelling Damnonia is sometimes encountered, but is also used for the land of the Damnonii, later part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde (itself sometimes referred to as Damnonia), in what is today southern Scotland. Domnonia occurs as well, infrequently. ==Name== The kingdom is named after the Dumnonii, a British Celtic tribe living in the southwest when the Romans arrived in Britain, according to Ptolemy's Geography. Variants of the name ''Dumnonia'' include ''Domnonia'' and ''Damnonia'', the latter being used by Gildas in the 6th century as a pun on "damnation" to deprecate the area's contemporary ruler Constantine. The name has etymological origins in the proto-Celtic root word '' *dubno-'', meaning both "deep" and "world". Groups with similar names existed in Scotland (''Damnonii'') and Ireland (''Fir Domnann'').〔 Later, the area became known to the English of neighbouring Wessex as the kingdom of West Wales, and its inhabitants were also known to them as ''Defnas'' (i.e. men of Dumnonia). In Welsh, and similarly in the Southwestern Brythonic languages, it was ''Dyfneint'' and this is the form which survives today in the name of the county of Devon (Modern (ウェールズ語:Dyfnaint), (コーンウォール語:Dewnans), (ブルトン語:Devnent)). There is evidence, based on an entry in the Ravenna Cosmography, that there may have been a sub-tribe in the western part of the territory known as the Cornovii from whose name the first element of the present-day name of Cornwall is probably derived.〔Payton (2004), pp. 50–51〕 After a period of emigration in the 5th and 6th centuries from southwestern Britain to northern Armorica, a sister kingdom called Domnonée was established on the continental north Atlantic coast in what became known as Brittany. Historian Barbara Yorke has speculated that the Dumnonii may have seen the end of the Roman empire as an opportunity to establish control in new areas.〔Yorke (1995), pp. 18–19〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dumnonia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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