Kingdom of Sussex

The Kingdom of Sussex or Kingdom of the South Saxons (Old English: Sūþseaxna rīce) was a Saxon colony and later independent kingdom of the Saxons, on the south coast of England. Its boundaries coincided in general with those of the earlier kingdom of the Regnenses and the later county of Sussex. A large part of its territory was covered in early times by the Forest of Andred. This forest according to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle was 120 miles wide and 30 miles deep (although probaby closer to 90 miles wide).^[1] It was inhabited by wolves, boars and possibly even bears.^[1] It was so dense that even the Domesday Book did not record some of its settlements.^[1]

The South Saxons were ruled by the kings of Sussex.

History

Foundation

The foundation legend of the Kingdom of the South Saxons is given by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which states that in the year AD 477 Ælle arrived at a place called Cymenshore in three ships with his three sons.^[2] The chronicle describes how on landing Ælle slew the local defenders and drove the remainder into the Forest of Andred.^[2] The chronicle goes on to describe Ælle's battle with the British in 485 near the bank of Mercredesburne, and his siege of Pevensey in 491 after which the inhabitants were massacred.^[3][4]

Cymenshore is traditionally thought to have been located at what is now known as the Owers Rocks, south of Selsey, however there is no archaeological evidence to support the existence of Ælle and his three sons in the Selsey area.^[5][6] Most historians regard the foundation of Sussex with Ælle landing with three ships and three sons as a myth.^{[2][7] [8]}

The archaeological evidence that we do have indicates the area of settlement by the location of cemeteries of the period.^[9] The origins of the settlers can be derived by comparing the design of grave goods and pottery with the designs of similar items in the German homelands.^[10] The principal area of settlement in the 5th century has been identified as between the lower Ouse and Cuckmere rivers in East Sussex, based on the number of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries there.^[11] However exceptionally there are two cemeteries in West Sussex at Highdown, near Worthing and Apple Down, 11 km or 7 miles north west of Chichester.^[12] The area between the Ouse and Cuckmere was believed to have been the location for the federate treaty settlement of Anglo-Saxon mercenaries.^[11]

There is some evidence to support the treaty hypothesis, based on the grave finds of the period.^[13] For example, the excavation of one of the cemeteries, at Rookery Hill at Bishopstone, East Sussex, yielded late Roman or insular Roman metalwork including a Quoit Brooch Style buckle, which would indicate settlement here to the early 5th century.^[14] Subsequent excavations revealed a considerable area of Saxon buildings. Of the 22 buildings excavated three were sunken huts, 17 are rectangular founded on individual post holes, one is represented by post holes between which are beam slots, and one by eight single large posts.^[14]

The cemetery at Highdown is only 2 km from a hoard of Roman gold and silver that was found in 1997.^[15] The Patching hoard, as it came to be known, contained a coin as recent as 461AD. Thus Highdown cemetery would have been in use by Saxons when the hoard was buried at Patching.^[15] The settlement that used Highdown as a burial ground, in the 5th century, has never been identified, but White speculates that there may have been some link between Patching and Highdown and Welch has suggested that a Romano-British community was based there and that they controlled a group of Saxon mercenaries.^[11][15]

7th century

After 491 the written history of Sussex goes blank until 607, when the annals report that Ceolwulf of Wessex fought against the South Saxons.^[16]

In 681 the founder of Selsey Abbey, the exiled St Wilfrid of Northumbria, arrived in the kingdom of the South Saxons and remained there for five years evangelising and baptising the people.^[17] According to Bede, Æðelwealh, king of Sussex, had previously been baptised in Mercia at the suggestion of Wulfhere, who presented him with the Isle of Wight and the Meonwara.^[17]

There had been a famine in the land of the South Saxons when Wilfrid arrived.^[17] Wilfrid taught the locals to fish, and they were impressed with Wilfrid's teachings and agreed to be baptised en masse.^[17] On the day of the baptisms the rain fell on the "thirsty earth", so ending the famine.^[17]

Æðelwealh gave 87 hides (an area of land) and a royal vill to Wilfrid to enable him to found Selsey Abbey.^[17] The abbey eventually became the seat of the South Saxon bishopric, where it remained until after the Norman Conquest, when it was moved to Chichester by decree of the Council of London of 1075.^[17][18]

Shortly after the arrival of St Wilfrid, the kingdom was ravaged and Æðelwealh slain by an exiled West Saxon prince Caedwalla.^[19] The latter was eventually expelled, by Æðelwealh's successors, two Ealdormen named Berhthun and Andhun.^[19] In 686 the South Saxons attacked Hlothhere, king of Kent, in support of his nephew Eadric, but soon afterwards Berhthun was killed and the kingdom subjugated for a time by Ceadwalla, who had now become king of Wessex.

Of the later South Saxon kings we have little knowledge except from occasional charters.

In 692 a grant is made by a king called Noðhelm (or Nunna) to his sister, which is witnessed by another king called Watt.^[20]

Nunna is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the kinsman of Ine of Wessex who fought with him against Geraint, King of the Britons, in 710.^[21] According to Bede, Sussex was subject to Ine for a number of years.^[22]

8th century

According to a charter dated 775, the former abbot of Selsey, Bishop Eadberht of Selsey (c.705 x?709) - (716 x?), was given a grant of land by King Nunna; the document included King Watt as a witness. However, the charter is now believed to have been a 10th or early 11th century forgery.^[23][24][25]

There is another charter, that is thought to be genuine, that records a series of transactions of a piece of land near modern day Burpham in the Arun Valley.^[26][27] It starts off with a grant of land, at Peppering, by Nunna to Berhfrith probably for the foundation of a minster.^[28] Berhfrith transferred the land to Eolla, who in turn sold it to Wulfhere. The land then went to Beoba who passed it on to Beorra and Ecca.^[28] Finally King Osmund bought the land from his comes Erra and granted it to a religious woman known as Tidburgh.^[28] The charter is undated but it has been possible to date the various transactions approximately, by cross referencing people who appear both on this charter and on other charters that do provide dates.^[28] On the transaction, where Eolla has acquired the land from Berhfrith and sells it to Wulfhere [c. AD 705 x(716x?)], Nunna's subscription is followed by a certain Osric who was possibly Nunna's co-ruler.^[29] The other witnesses who followed Osric were Eadberht and Eolla, both who can be identified as ecclesiastics.^[29]

Nunna's last surviving charter, which is dated 714 in error for 717,^[30] is witnessed by a King Æðelstan.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that "In 722 Ealdberht fled into Surrey and Sussex, and Ine fought against the South Saxons".

A little later, Æðelberht was King of Sussex, but he is known only from charters. The dates of Æðelberht's reign are unknown beyond the fact that he was a contemporary of Sigeferth, Bishop of Selsey from 733, as Sigeferth witnessed an undated charter of Æðelberht^[31] in which Æðelberht is styled Ethelbertus rex Sussaxonum.

After this we hear nothing more until about 765, when a grant^[32] of land is made by a king named Ealdwulf, with two other kings, Ælfwald and Oslac, as witnesses.

In 765^[33] and 770^[34] grants are made by a King Osmund, the later of which was later confirmed by Offa of Mercia.

Offa also confirmed two charters of Æðelberht, and in 772^[35] he grants land himself in Sussex, with Oswald, dux Suðsax', as a witness. It is probable that about this time Offa annexed the kingdom of Sussex, as several persons, Osmund, Ælfwald and Oslac, who had previously used the royal title, now sign with that of dux.

Mercian power collapsed in the years following Offa's death in 796, and the South Saxons re-emerged as an independent political entity. This status was to be short-lived because the power of Wessex was rising and Sussex was to become the first kingdom of the old heptarchy to be annexed in a process that brought about the gradual unification of the Ænglecynne and the foundation of a united England.

9th century

In 825 the South Saxons submitted to Ecgberht of Wessex, and from this time they remained subject to the West Saxon dynasty. The earldom of Sussex seems later to have been sometimes combined with that of Kent.

From 895 Sussex suffered from constant raids by the Danes, till the accession of Canute, after which arose the two great forces of the house of Godwine and of the Normans. Godwine was probably a native of Sussex, and by the end of Edward the Confessor's reign a third part of the county was in the hands of his family.

900–1066

It is thought that the Æellingi (the South Saxon royal house) continued to govern Sussex as eorldermen (earls) under West Saxon sovereignty until the Norman Conquest in 1066.

The death of Eadwine, Ealdorman of Sussex, is recorded in 982, because he was buried at Abingdon Abbey in Berkshire, where one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was compiled. According to the abbey's records, in which he was called princeps Australium Saxonum, Eadwinus nomine (Eadwine leader of the South Saxons), he bequeathed estates to them in his will, although the document itself has not survived.^[36] Earlier in the same year he witnessed a charter of King Ethelred the Unready^[37] as Eaduuine dux. His name was also added to a forged charter dated 956 (possibly an error for 976).^[38]

In the next generation, Wulfnoth Cild, Thegn of Sussex, played a prominent part in English politics. In 1009 his actions resulted in the destruction of the English fleet, and by 1011 Sussex, together with most of South East England, was in the hands of the Danes. In an early example of local government reform, the Anglo-Saxon ealdormanries were abolished by the Danish kings and replaced with a smaller number of larger earldoms. Wulfnoth Cild was the father of Godwin, who was made Earl of Wessex in 1020. His earldom included Sussex. When he died in 1053, Godwin was succeeded as Earl of Wessex (including Sussex) by his son Harold, who had previously been Earl of East Anglia.

Notes

References

• s:Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Commissioned in the reign of Alfred the Great
• Asser (2004). Keyne Lapidge (Trans). ed. Alfred the Great. Penguin Classic. ISBN 978-0-14-044409-4. 
• Bede (1990). Sherley-Price, Leo and Farmer, D.H. (Trans). ed. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. London: Penguin. ISBN 014044565x. 
• s:Ecclesiastical History of the English People. (1903) Bede. Translation based on L.C. Jane
• Brandon, Peter, ed (1978). The South Saxons. Chichester: Phillimore. ISBN 0-85033-240-0. 
• Down, Alex; Martin Welch (1990). The Chichester Excavations 7: Apple Down and the Mardens. Chichester: Chichester District Council. ISBN 0850170028. 
• Jones, Michael E. (1998). The End of Roman Britain. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801485305. 
• Kelly, S.E (1998). Anglo-Saxon Charters VI: Charters of Selsey. OUP for the British Academy. ISBN 0-19-726175-2. 
• Kelly, S.E (2001). Anglo-Saxon Charters VIII: Charters of Abingdon Abbey, Pt. 2. OUP for the British Academy. ISBN 019726221X. 
• Kelly, S.E. (1994). Mary Hobbs. ed. Chichester Cathedral. An Historic Survey:Bishopric of Selsey. Chichester: Phillimore. ISBN 08503309243. 
• Seward, Desmond (1995). Sussex. London: Random House. ISBN 0712651330. 
• Stenton, F.M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England 3rd edition. Oxford: OUP. ISBN 9780192801395. 
• Stephens, W.R.W. (1881). The South Saxon Diocese, Selsey - Chichester. London: SPCK. 
• Welch, M.G. (1992). Anglo-Saxon England. English Heritage. ISBN 0-7134-6566-2. 
• White, Sally (1998). The Patching hoard. Medieval Archaeology Volume 42. 

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.