The historic importance of Cirencester and its hinterland and how this is reflected in the collections of the Corinium Museum has been well summarised by Professor Frere:  “the pre-Roman and Roman antiquities from Cirencester and its surrounding district housed there are of outstanding national importance, illustrating as they do the development and cultural growth of what became the second largest city of Roman Britain from its first century military origins to its role in the 4^th century as the provincial capital of Britannia Prima”

This view is further amplified by Dr. McWhirr : “There can be little doubt that during the Roman period Cirencester ranked as one of the most important cities in Britain” (A McWhirr 1976 P.13)

There is a considerable body of archaeological evidence of human activity at Cirencester and its immediate vicinity from as early as 200,000 BC.  However it is in the late Iron Age and Roman periods that the area’s historic importance is first made manifest.  Cassius Dio (the second century historian) wrote in his account of the Roman invasion of Britain by the Emperor Claudius in AD 43 (LX 20,2) that,  “After the flight of the above mentioned princes Plautius secured the voluntary  alliance of a group of the Bodunni, a people dominated by the princes of the Catuvellauni, namely Caratacus and Togodumnus.  He left a garrison there and moved forward.”  It is commonly accepted by scholars of the Roman world that the Bodunni are in fact the Dobunni of Gloucestershire and that Cassius Dio’s text has suffered a scribal metathesis.  J.G.F. Hind has argued that this garrison, the first established Roman garrison in Britain, was at Cirencester and that the protection of this tribe was so important to Roman strategy that they diverted troops to this end in the first weeks of the conquest.  If so this would suggest a decision at the highest level by Aulus Plautius or even the Emperor Claudius himself.

Whether or not Hind is correct, it is certain that the Roman fort at Cirencester is very early indeed, dating to AD 43 or 44, and has yielded a quantity of Claudian and Neronian military equipment, as well as the famous cavalry tombstones of Genialis and Dannicus.  This fort, with its associated civilian vicus, was in turn replaced from the end of the Flavian period by a planned town of over 240 acres.  This makes Cirencester the second largest town in Roman Britain, in fact only marginally smaller than London.

The Roman settlement of Corinium stands six miles to the south east of the great pre-Roman oppidum at Bagendon, the tribal capital of the Dobunni.  In fact it is likely that it derived its name from this site.  Corinion, as it is referred to, is derived from the Celtic language and means a fortified camp on a high place.  The Roman town is itself in a river valley.  The town became the civitas or tribal capital Corinium Dobunnorum (Corinium of the Dobunni) for the tribe of the Dobunni, whose territory stretched from Herefordshire to Gloucestershire and Somerset.  As such Corinium was the major Roman administration centre for south-western Britain. 

The earliest unequivocal written reference to Corinium is in Ptolemy’s Geography  (II,16,2), written in Alexandria  between AD 140 and 150 by the renowned astronomer and mathematician.  He describes it as the main polis of the Dobunni.  The town is subsequently  recorded in the later classical source the “Ravenna Cosmography” .

In the later Roman period, which is customarily described today as the golden age of Roman Britain, the town achieved a special rank and pre-eminence.  Britain was at that time divided into four provinces and Corinium was the capital of the one known as “Britannia Prima”, the name indicating that it was of particular importance. 

Co-existent with its political importance, Corinium was of outstanding importance as an artistic and cultural centre  as well as being  economically important.  It was the home to perhaps the finest school of provincial sculpture in Britain as well as the largest mosaic workshop.  Throughout the 4^th century the town  was the centre of important industries, including the manufacture of tile and pottery and it lay at the heart of one of the richest agricultural regions of Roman Britain, supporting the largest concentration of Roman villas in north-western Europe.

Cirencester has also produced the only tangible evidence from the whole of Roman Britain, in the form of the Septimius Stone, for Julian the Apostate’s (A.D. 360-3) attempts to halt the spread of Christianity and restore paganism.  Prosaically, Cirencester is the only town in Roman Britain to produce pre-4^th century evidence for Christianity and by the Council of Arles in 314 Cirencester is generally accepted to be the seat of one of the four bishops of Roman Britain.

The strength of the Romanised urban institution was so strong that it survived the political collapse of central authority in the early 5^th century.  So strong was this survival that it probably prompted Nennius to record Cirencester as the centre at which King Arthur was crowned.  Cirencester did not fall to the expanding Mercian kingdom until 577, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recording that the town fell to Cuthwine.  Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period Cirencester retained its pre-eminent position.

Following the defeat of the Danes by Alfred the Great at the battle of Ethandune (Edington) in 878, Guthrum the Danish leader came to Cirencester where, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records, the Danes ”remained a whole year”.  By this time Cirencester had became a royal manor where the King occasionally held his council.  In 999 Ethelred the Unready issued a charter from here ordering the banishment of Earl Aelfric and in the Easter of 1020 King Cnut held a Great Council in the town.

However, it is during the Medieval period that Cirencester once more attained international status.  Cirencester Abbey was founded and endowed by Henry I during the 12^th century.   Like his grandfather, Henry II favoured Cirencester Abbey and in 1155 granted it the revenues of the Royal vill of Cirencester.  He himself attended the dedication of the Abbey church in October 1176.  During the Civil Wars between Stephen and Matilda, the town was fortified and a castle erected.  The castle is recorded in the Gesta Stephani, and was finally destroyed in the reign of King John.

From the 13^th century the wool trade became a vital part of the economy of this country.  Cirencester and the Cotswolds were extremely important in this trade.  The Cotswolds, with Cirencester at its centre, once more became the focus of international trade and led the contemporary Italian merchant Francesco Datini to state that “the finest and most expensive wool was the English which came from the Chondisgualdo (Cotswolds) and in particular from Northleccio (Northleach) and the great Abbey lands of Sirencestri (Cirencester)”.

At the end of the fourteenth century Cirencester was once more at the centre of  domestic policies.  The “Earls rebellion” in 1400, led by the Earls of Kent and Salisbury against Henry IV,  was suppressed by the people of Cirencester.

At the beginning of the 16th century, following the dissolution of the Abbey, Cirencester’s fortunes changed once more.  By the middle of the century a combination of plagues and a slump in the wool trade had caused a dramatic decline.  During the English Civil Wars, however, the town once again became important.  Cirencester was of strategic importance during this unsettled period and was besieged and captured by Prince Rupert in February 1643.  At the end of the third Civil War Charles II hid in the Sun Inn (in Cirencester’s Market Square) following his defeat at the Battle of Worcester.