... Apart, however, from this system of gradual encroachment, a moment must have arrived when the sovereignty over Dyfnaint, or Domnonia, passed out of British into Saxon hands...
... Dr. Guest writes:  "In the days of Gereint, Domnonia, though stripped of half its provinces, must have been, both in power and dignity, the first of British kingdoms."...
    Not until this year do we find any record in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which can, with absolute certainty, be referred exclusively to Devon.  But in 823 occurs the memorable entry, "Here there was a fight between the Weala and the Defena at Gafulford."  Wherever Gafulford may have been, and the conclusion that it was Camelford, in Cornwall, is not to be easily shaken, this is, as far as we know, the first occasion on which the Defena or Defna make their appearance on the page of history.  After this we read constantly of the Defenas and of Defenascyre—not before—Defenascyre being the shire of the Defenas, just as Dorsætascyre was the shire of the Dorsætas, and Sumorsætascyre the shire of the Sumorsætas.  The word Defena or Defna, derived from the British Dyfnaint, was, in fact, the new name by which the Wessex settlers in Devon, who had now become masters of the country, called themselves, and were called. (Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, v.9, 1877).