Kingdom of Sussex

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The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms at the beginning of the 9th century

The Kingdom of Sussex or Kingdom of the South Saxons (Old English Sūþseaxna rīce ) was one of the seven traditional Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in early medieval England that formed the heptarchy .

location

Sussex in Anglo-Saxon times

In the Tribal Hidage , the size of Sussex was given as 7,000 hides . It is one of the medium-sized empires of its time. Geographically, it was in the south of what is now England and was adjacent to the kingdoms of Wessex to the west, Essex to the north, and Kent to the east. This largely corresponded to the current Sussex landscape , consisting of the two counties of West Sussex and East Sussex . The name refers on the one hand to the people of Saxony who founded the empire at the end of the 5th century, on the other hand to the southern location in the association of the other Saxon empires Wessex ("West Saxony") and Essex ("East Saxony") . Along with these two empires, Kent , Mercia , East Anglia and Northumbria , Sussex was one of the seven empires of the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy .

history

Self-reliance

The most important source for the early Anglo-Saxon period is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . Sussex is mentioned for the first time for 477. This year Ælle is said to have landed as the leader of a Saxon armed force on the English south coast, around a quarter of a century after Hengest and Horsa first landed in neighboring Kent. AELLE to in his battles against the native Romano-British have been very successful, so that it in the entry of the year 827 (829) of the A manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in turn, on information in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum , based first Bretwalda referred becomes. There is no historical record of Sussex and its kings for the following sixth century. It was not until the fighting against Ceolwulf von Wessex around 607 that Sussex came into the focus of chroniclers.

Archaeological finds show traces of Germanic settlement near Brighton between the rivers Ouse and Cuckmere from a somewhat earlier time. However, the Germanic settlers, or at least their culture, spread very quickly across Sussex. 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.

Supremacy of Mercia

From the late 7th and 8th centuries, some kings are documented by charters , but no royal genealogy has been passed down, so that a dynastic and family connection between the kings could not be determined. Apparently several kings ruled at the same time, which indicates a division of the kingdom. The Hæstingas ethnic group had developed in the area around Hastings in east Sussex, and they may have had their own ruler. The Adur River probably formed a boundary between two realms.

Despite its proximity to Canterbury, the conversion of the population to Christianity did not appear until late in the 7th century, when most of the other Anglo-Saxon kings had been Christians for two generations. Wulfhere von Mercia , the godfather of King Æthelwalh (661? / Before 674 – around 682), conquered the Isle of Wight, populated by Jutes, and the Meon valley. Both regions, which were previously a "buffer zone" between Sussex and Wessex, he subordinated Æthelwalh, who probably recognized him as the upper king.

Under the rule of Wessex

Around 682 Caedwalla , a " warlord " from Wessex, raided Sussex and killed Æthelwalh. The Ealdormen Berthun and Andhun were able to drive him out and took control of Sussex. In 686 Caedwalla, now King of Wessex, attacked Sussex again and enforced the supremacy of Wessex. King Nothhelm (688 / 692–717 / 724) was related to the House of Wessex and was probably used by Ine von Wessex . Before Sussex became its own diocese in 705, with its seat in Selsey , the church was under the bishops of Wessex. Ine forcibly suppressed self-employment in Sussex in 722.

End of the Sussex Kingdom

In 731 Sussex came under the rule of Æthelbald of Mercia, but was able to retain a certain degree of autonomy for the next 40 years. In 771, Offa of Mercien completely conquered Sussex and incorporated it into his kingdom. Since then, several of the petty kings of Sussex have only used the title Dux or Ealdorman in charters . Between 776 and 785, Sussex seems to have escaped Offa's control, but Offa was able to prevail again afterwards. Sussex was under the direct rule of Mercias until it was integrated into the Kingdom of Wessex in 825 after the victory of Ecgberht of Wessex over Mercia in the Battle of Ellandun.

After the rulers of Wessex rose to kings over all of England in the 10th century, Sussex became a province of the empire from which today's counties developed.

Kings of sussex

The kings of the 8th century are almost without exception only known through documents.

swell

literature

  • Michael Lapidge, John Blair, Simon Keynes, Donald Scragg (Eds.): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2001, ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1 .
  • Barbara Yorke : Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England . Routledge, London-New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3 . PDF (6.2 MB)
  • John Cannon, Anne Hargreaves: Kings and queens of Britain , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009 (2nd revised edition), ISBN 978-0-19-955922-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann (ed.): Dtv-Atlas zur Weltgeschichte , dtv, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-423-03000-3 , p. 128.
  2. ↑ Simon Keynes: Heptarchy . 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 , p. 233.
  3. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the years 477, 485, 490 and 827
  4. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 607
  5. ↑ a b c d e f 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.
  6. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 722
  7. ↑ a b Simon Keynes: Kings of the South Saxons . 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. 509-510.
  8. ↑ Charter S230