Ecgberht I. (Kent)

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Ecgberht (also Ecgberhtus, Ecgberct, Ecgbriht, Ægbriht, Ecgbryht, Ecgbyrht or Egbert ; † July 4, 673 ) was king of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Kent from 664 until his death . He came from the Oiscingas dynasty .

Life

family

Ecgberht was a son of King Earconberht I and his wife Seaxburg , a daughter of King Anna of East Anglia . He had two sisters, Eormenhild and Eorcengota and the brother Hlothhere . Eorcengota became a nun in Faremoutiers Abbey in the Franconian Empire and Eormenhild was married to Wulfhere (658–675), King of Mercia . Earconberht raised Æthelred and Æthelberht, the orphaned sons of his brother Eormenred , under his protection.

Ecgberht and his wife, whose name is unknown, had two sons, Eadric (685–686) and Wihtred (690–725), who later both became kings. It is possible that Eormenhild ("Hermelinda"), the Anglo-Saxon wife of the Longobard King Cunincpert , was Ecgberht's daughter.

Domination

Kent in Anglo-Saxon times

Earconberht gave his son Ecgberht a share in the rule after the death of his brother Eormenred. To secure his own position, Ecgberht had his cousins ​​Æthelred and Æthelberht murdered as potential rivals to the throne by the hired murderer Thunor; they were later venerated as saints. Eormenred's line was thus eliminated from the line of succession and the inner-dynastic power struggle came to an end. According to the Mildrith legend , Ecgberht gave his cousin Eormenburg (also: Æbbe, Eafe, Domneva), the sister of the murdered, lands on the Isle of Thanet as Wergeld , where she had the double monastery Minster-in-Thanet built. Earconberht died in 664, as did Archbishop Deusdedit of Canterbury when an epidemic broke out across Britain that claimed numerous victims. Ecgberht I succeeded his father as sole king of Kent. His mother Seaxburg retired to a monastery.

Ecgberht maintained good contacts with other courts and the clergy, such as Wilfrid von York, Benedict Biscop and Theodor von Tarsus . His diplomatic contacts extended to the Franconian Empire and probably to the Longobards in northern Italy. He was related to the royal families of Mercia , East Anglia , Northumbria and Magonsæte and seems to have enjoyed a high reputation. At least parts of Surrey were under Ecgberht's rule. Around 666 he furnished the Ceortesei monastery ( Chertsey Abbey ) founded by Eorcenwald , the Bishop of London, with lands. Around 669 Ecgberht lost the supremacy of Surrey to King Wulfhere of Mercia.

Ecgberht and King Oswiu of Northumbria selected Wigheard as the new archbishop around 666 and sent him to Rome. However, he died in Rome before he was ordained by Pope Vitalian . During the vacancy of the Archdiocese of Canterbury , Wilfrid of York also took over episcopal duties in Kent during his exile between 667 and 669 and was an advisor to King Egberht. It was not until 669 that Theodor of Tarsus arrived in England as the new archbishop. In 669 Ecgberht transferred land near Reculver to the clergyman Bass to found a monastery. Around 670 Ecgberht introduced the sceatta (silver penny) as a coin based on the Franconian model . According to the chronicler Beda Venerabilis , Hlothhere became his successor as king after Ecgberht's death on July 4, 673. Presumably, however, there was a one-year interregnum by Wulfhere of Mercia. After a military defeat against Northumbria in 674, Wulfheres influence waned and in 675, the year Wulfheres died, Hlothhere notarized a charter in the "first year of his rule" without the usual consent of the hegemonic power Mercia.

swell

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Simon Keynes: Kings of Kent . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, 2001, ISBN 0-631-22492-0 , pp. 501-502.
  2. ↑ a b Beda: HE 3.8
  3. ↑ a b Beda: HE 4.26
  4. ^ Mary Dockray-Miller: Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England , Palgrave Macmillan, 2000, ISBN 0-312-22721-3 , p. 13.
  5. ↑ Barbara Yorke: Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England , Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-415-16639-X , p. 35.
  6. ^ Historia Langobardorum V, 37
  7. ^ Ecgberht in Foundation for Medieval Genealogy; see: Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders , Vol VI, p. 305 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  8. ^ Richard North: Heathen gods in Old English literature (= Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England. No. 22). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, ISBN 0-521-55183-8 , pp. 320-321.
  9. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 640 Online in Project Gutenberg (English); see: Symeon of Durham , Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum
  10. ↑ DP Kirby: The Earliest English Kings . Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-24211-8 , p. 37.
  11. ^ John Blair: The church in Anglo-Saxon society . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-822695-0 , p. 95.
  12. ↑ Bede: HE 3.27 and HE 4.1
  13. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 664 Online in Project Gutenberg (English)
  14. ↑ a b D. P. Kirby: The Earliest English Kings . Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-24211-8 , pp. 35-36.
  15. ↑ John Blair: Chertsey . In: Lapidge et al. (Ed.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England , Wiley-Blackwell, 2001, ISBN 0-631-22492-0 , p. 102; See also charters S 1165 and S 1181
  16. ↑ Beda: HE 3.29
  17. ^ John Blair: The church in Anglo-Saxon society , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-822695-0 , p. 95.
  18. ↑ Bede: HE 4.1
  19. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 669 online in Project Gutenberg (English)
  20. ↑ Beda: HE 4,5
  21. ↑ DP Kirby: The Earliest English Kings . Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-24211-8 , p. 96.
  22. ↑ S7
  23. ↑ Frank Merry Stenton (author), Doris Mary Stenton (ed.): Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England: Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton (= Oxford Scholarly Classics ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001, ISBN 0-19-822314-5 , p. 50.
predecessor Office successor
Earconberht I. King of Kent
664–673 		Hlothhere
personal data
SURNAME Ecgberht I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Egbert; Ecgberhtus; Ecgberct; Ecgbriht; Ægbriht; Ecgbryht; Ecgbyrht
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Kent
DATE OF BIRTH 7th century
DATE OF DEATH July 4th, 673