Tony Sullivan - The Early Anglo-Saxon Kings

THE EARLY ANGLO-SAXON KINGS

THE EARLY ANGLO-SAXON KINGS

TONY SULLIVAN

First published in Great Britain in 2023

by PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

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Copyright Tony Sullivan, 2023

ISBN 978 1 39908 417 8

eISBN 978 1 39908 418 5

Mobi ISBN 978 1 39908 418 5

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Many thanks to Yahushan Ram of the Seaxia Dark Ages Re-enactment Group for the photographs of Anglo-Saxon Warriors. Also to James Sainsbury, curator at Worthing Museum, for giving up his time to show me the exhibits and allowing me to take photographs. Also to Ivanowich of Kobbeaa for photographs of the reconstruction of the Kings Hall from c. 700 in Lejre near Roskilde, Denmark.

There are many books on the early medieval period and Anglo-Saxons in general. A few have made a valiant attempt at piecing together what little we know of the emergence of the first kingdoms in the fifth and sixth centuries. Inevitably this has involved looking at the different models for the arrival of Germanic settlers in the fifth century. I recall being taught at school, over forty years ago, that waves of Anglo-Saxons warriors arrived in Britain and pushed the indigenous population to the north and west. The implication being that they killed and enslaved those that remained and simply took over the land. We now know this is far from the truth. Recent advances in genetics have revealed a significant continuation of the population. Additionally archaeology has shown equally significant evidence for continuation of land use, while at the same time little support for any wide-scale destruction and displacement, despite the lurid tales of some of the literary sources such as Gildas, in the early sixth century, and Bede c. 730.

This has led to a vigorous debate about the nature of the Anglo-Saxon take-over. This book will argue that, far from a one-off event, it was in fact a process lasting many decades. At the start of this process, at the beginning of the fifth century, Roman Britain had a functioning civil and military structure which held authority over much of the island of Britain, certainly south of Hadrians Wall. In addition many Britons had a distinctly Roman cultural identity. By the end of the sixth century this had all been swept away. The diocese and provincial structure had fragmented and a number of petty kingdoms emerged, many possibly based on the former civitates and tribal areas. The west and north of the former diocese evolved a distinct Romano-British cultural identity. Ironically the more Romanised regions in the south and east developed a more Germanic culture. We should not assume these two groups or regions and areas were homogenous, ethnically, politically or culturally. As we shall see, the term Anglo-Saxon is a late one and applied retrospectively. Instead I will argue that a combination of influences and events, together with increased levels of settlement, helped create different cultural identities. Not just within the indigenous population but also within the various different peoples settling in Britain.

In contrast with these different emerging cultural identities an important similarity is often overlooked: the emergence of the war-band as a principal building block of an increasingly militarised society. By the beginning of the seventh century, both the Britons and Germanic peoples came to share the common institution: The comitatus or war-band. We will investigate how this impacted society and use some of the earliest literary sources and sagas. Poems such as the old English Beowulf, or Old Welsh Y Gododdin give us a vivid picture of great Halls, shield walls and warriors. We can contrast this with the apparently still Roman world of Saint Germanus and the Roman general Aetius in the first half of the fifth century.

The term Bretwalda is first used by the ninth-century ASC and is more likely to mean wide ruler rather than Britain ruler. Importantly, Bede doesnt use the word Bretwalda at all. The actual word he uses is imperium, which suggests some sort of overlordship, or simply someone exerting influence or authority over a large area. The extent of this early imperium was possibly the Humber which formed a natural divide for a confederacy of Southern English peoples.1 We see a similar political context in sixth-century Frankia: For since Cloviss death the Bretons have always been under the dominion of the Franks and their rulers have been called counts, not kings.2 The question arises, did our first Bretwalda, lle, hold dominion over a large area? This could include not only a significant number of Germanic peoples settling in the south and east, but also the indigenous Romano-British population in the civitates and provinces of the former Roman diocese. Out of these political structures emerged the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms at the end of the sixth century.

The term Heptarchy, or seven kingdoms (Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria) was first used by Henry of Huntingdon in the twelfth century. In the fifth and sixth centuries this was not the political reality. Instead we see a complex and inconsistent fragmentation of old structures together with the forging of new. Some of these emerging power blocks were based on the former Roman administrative boundaries. We also see evidence of continuation and evolution of some civitates into petty kingdoms. The how, when and why of this process is what this book will attempt to uncover.

This book will focus on the first of the Anglo-Saxon Kings, an ethnic description I will continue with for ease rather than accuracy. For as we shall see, the first of our arriving warriors, Hengest, or Hengist, was alleged to be neither Angle or Saxon, but a Jute. I will use the former spelling as a version of this, Hengestes, is found in the Finnesburg Fragment which we will discuss later. Despite being named as leading the first band of warriors he was not described by Bede as holding imperium over a substantial part of the island. Few books have tackled Bedes first Bretwaldas mainly due to lack of evidence. This book aims to address that gap and will also look at the emerging Brittonic kingdoms. Inevitably it will focus on conflict and wars. We will thus look at weapons, armour and warfare of the time as well as contemporary accounts of battles. What will emerge is something far more complex and nuanced than our traditional view of the Romano-British fighting back against invading Anglo-Saxons.