History of Cirencester

Even in Roman times, there was a thriving wool trade and industry, which contributed to the growth of Corinium. A large forum and basilica was built over the site of the fort, and archeological evidence shows signs of further civic growth. When a wall was erected around the Roman city in the late second century, it enclosed 240 acres (1 km²), making Corinium, in area, the second-largest city in Britain. It was made the seat of the Roman province of Britannia Prima in the fourth century, and some historians would date the pillar the Roman Governor L. Septimus erected to the Roman god Jovian to this period, providing evidence of a sign of pagan reaction under the Roman Emperor Julian.

There are many Roman remains in the surrounding area, including several Roman villas near the villages of Chedworth and Withington.

Post-Roman and Saxon times

The Roman amphitheatre still exists in an area known as the Querns to the southwest of the town, but has only been partially excavated. Investigations in the town show that it was fortified in the fifth or sixth centuries. Andrew Breeze argued that Gildas received his later education in Cirencester in the early sixth century, showing that it was still able to provide an education in Latin rhetoric and law at this time. Possibly this was the palace of one of the British kings defeated by Ceawlin in 577. It was later the scene of the Battle of Cirencester, this time between the Mercian king Penda and the West Saxon kings Cynegils and Cwichelm in 628.

The minster church of Cirencester, founded in the 9th or 10th century, was probably a royal foundation. It was destroyed by Augustinian monks in the 12th century, and replaced by the great abbey church.

Norman