Ælle (Sussex)

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According to the tradition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ælle (also Aelli ; † around 514) is the first king of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Sussex . In the entry of the year 827 (829) of the A-manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which in turn is based on information in Beda's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, he is referred to as the first Bretwalda , i.e. as a ruler exercising a certain hegemony over other petty kings . Ælle is considered a historical person.

Sussex in Anglo-Saxon times

Life

A page of the Parker Chronicle (A manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ) in which Æll is mentioned.

There are no contemporary sources on oil whose origin is unknown. According to Bede, the oldest author to mention him, he was a pagan . The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , written in the late 9th century, attributes Ælle, in the year 477, around a quarter of a century after the semi-legendary arrival of Hengest and Horsa in Kent , with his sons Cymen, Wlencing and Cissa in three ships with other Saxon troops to have landed on the coast of Sussex ("South Saxony") named after them near Cymenesora (probably Owers Banks west of the coast of the English Channel near the Selsey Bill peninsula , West Sussex). Archaeological finds show traces of Germanic settlement near Brighton between the rivers Ouse and Cuckmere from a somewhat earlier time. He defeated the resident Romano-British in a battle and forced them to flee into the Andredesleage forest (which means the vast wooded area of Weald ). The outcome of a battle against the Romano-British in 485 at Mearcrædesburnan stæðe , an unlocated border river, is unknown. The city of Andredes ceaster ( Anderitum Castle , today Pevensey ) was besieged and stormed in 491 by the Anglo-Saxons under their leaders Ælle and Cissa. Without exception, the defenders were slaughtered. This presumably meant that the last fortification of the Litus Saxonicum fell into Saxon hands. Finally, Ælle in the south of the English territory was awarded the imperium (supremacy), even if this supremacy was only of limited duration.

The Germanic settlers, or at least their culture, quickly spread across Sussex, according to archaeological evidence. The main settlements were the coastal plain and the river valleys in the South Downs , while the forested Weald in the north-east remained largely uninhabited. In the battle of Mons Badonicus , which interrupted the Saxon expansion around 500, Ælle was possibly involved as an Anglo-Saxon military leader.

To what extent the reports of the chroniclers correspond to historical reality can hardly be judged. Some place names could indeed be traced back to Ælle's sons (Cymen: Cymenesora , Wlencing: Lancing and Cissa: Chichester ), but the sons could also have been extrapolated from the place names.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not give Æll's date of death. It was not until Henry of Huntingdon , a chronicler of the 12th century, noted that Ælle died "around this time" (around 514) and that his son Cissa and his descendants were kings, but their influence became less and less. However, these statements about the succession to the throne are considered unsecured. Even Roger of Wendover wrote in the 13th century in his Flores Historiarum that AELLE died in 514 and his son Cissa followed him on the throne. However, some of Roger's statements are contradictory. Only Æthelwalh is known as the next king of Sussex , who ruled there from around 660.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 827; Beda, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum , 2.5.
  2. ↑ a b c S. E. Kelly: Sussex, Kingdom of . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1 , pp. 431-432.
  3. ^ A b John Nowell Linton Myres: The English settlements , Oxford University Press, 1989, ISBN 978-019282235-2 , pp. 136-138.
  4. ^ Beda, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 2.5.
  5. ↑ a b Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 477
  6. ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 485.
  7. ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 490.
  8. ↑ Jim Bradbury: The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare , Routledge, New York 2004, ISBN 0-415-22126-9 , p. 147.
  9. ^ DP Kirby, Alfred Smyth, Ann Williams (Eds.): A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain , Routledge, 1991, ISBN 978-1-85264-047-7 ; especially Ælle , p. 16.
  10. ↑ Diana E. Greenway et al. (Ed.): Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People , Oxford University Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-19-822224-8 , p. 97.
  11. ↑ All in Foundation for Medieval Genealogy.
predecessor Office successor
--- King of Sussex
477-after 491/514? 		Cissa
personal data
SURNAME Æll
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aelle, Aelli
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Sussex
DATE OF BIRTH 5th century
DATE OF DEATH 6th century