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An English Empire: Bede and the Early Anglo-Saxon Kings PDF

277 Pages·1995·5.031 MB·English
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An English empire The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede is one of most influential contemporary sources for our understanding of Britain in the early Dark Ages. This book, the second in N. J. Higham’s Origins of England trilogy, takes Bede as the starting point for a fascinating investiga­ tion of the nature of power in early seventh century Anglo-Saxon England. The author shows how Bede made efforts to legitimise the English domina­ tion of his own day by comparing it to the Roman rule of Britain in the past. He examines and reinterprets the principal literary sources for an English 'empire*: Bede’s famous list of 'overkings* in Historia Ecclesiastica, and the Tribal Hidage. He argues that a comparatively stable and long- lived pattern of regional 'overkingships* existed in early England, and he describes in detail King Rædwald’s career as a king and ‘overking*. The book closes with an account of relations between the Anglo-Saxons and Britons in early England which provides highly original insights into the structure of rural society in the age of Bede. An English empire reveals the milieu behind the early Anglo-Saxon kings* exercise of power. Its radical reinterpretations are required reading for all those interested in the history and archaeology of Dark Age Britain. N. J. Higham is Reader in Medieval History at the University of Manchester For Naomi An English empire Bede and the early Anglo-Saxon kings N. J. HIGHAM Manchester University Press Manchester and New York Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press Copyright O N. J. Higham 1995 Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Higham, N. J. An English empire/N. J. Higham. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-7190-4423-5. — ISBN 0-7190-4424-3 (pbk.) 1. Great Britain—Politics and government—449-1066. 2. Anglo— Saxons—Kings and rulers. 3. Imperialism—England. 4. Monarchy— England. I. Title. DA 152.H53 1995 942.01—dc20 94-23921 CIP ISBN 0 7190 4423 5 hardback 0 7190 4424 3 paperback First published 1995 99 98 97 96 95 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset in Hong Kong by Best-set Typesetter Ltd. Printed in Great Britain by Bell 8c Bain Ltd, Glasgow Contents Figures vi Abbreviations vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 Bede and imperium 9 2 The rmpermm-wielding kings of HE, II, 5 47 3 The Tribal Hidage: its context and purpose 74 4 Regional governance and imperium 112 5 Rædwald: a pagan ‘overking’ 183 6 An English empire: status and ethnicity 218 Index 261 v Figures 1 The ‘overkingships’ of Æthelberht and Cearl 51 2 The Tribal Hidage: primary list 86(7) 3 The Tribal Hidage: secondary list 90(1) 4 The Tribal Hidage 93 5 Middle Anglia 127 6 Southern England and the Danes 129 7 Mercian territorial gains in the seventh century 149 8 Late Roman provinces in Wales and Mercia 152 9 The Belgae and the Jutes 155 10 The Dobunni and the Hwicce 156 11 Late Roman provinces in southern Britain and the Tribal Hidage 158 12 Names in -scete and the Tribal Hidage 171 13 The ‘overkingship’ of Æthelfrith (c. 616) 196 14 The ‘overkingship* of Rædwald (c. 616-c. 624) 201 VI Abbreviations AC: Annales Cambriae or *1116 Welsh Annals*, in Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals, ed. and trans. J. Morris, Chiches­ ter, 1980, pp. 85-91. DEB: De Excidio Britanniae, or ‘The ruin of Britain*, in Gildas: the Ruin of Britain and other documents, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom, Chichester, 1978, pp. 87-142. FC: Famulus Christi: Essays in commemoration of the thirteenth centenary of the birth of the Venerable Bedey ed. G. Bonner, London, 1976. HB: Historia Brittonum or the ‘British History*, in Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals, ed. J. Morris, Chichester, 1980, pp. 50-84. HE: Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, or ‘Ecclesiastical His­ tory of the English People’, in Bede: Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford, 1969. Orosius, Histories: Paulus Orosius, Seven Histories against the Pagans, ed. and French trans. M.-P. Amoud-Lindet, Paris, 1991, in 3 vols. vu Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Simon Keynes who read chapters three and six in draft, at a time when it was intended that they should be published as discrete articles, to Dr. Alex Rumble for his helpful criticisms of chapter four, and to both him and MUP for permission to publish this chapter (which has long been placed in The Defence of Wessex volume) herein. My thinking concerning this period has benefited enormously from an entire generation of Extra-Mural students and several groups of third year undergrad­ uates at the University of Manchester, yet the ideas offered herein are my own, as too are any errors. My greatest debt is to my daughter, who has repeatedly reminded me of the richness of life which lies beside and beyond the computer keyboard. This book is for her. VIII Introduction This volume, which focuses on the political systems operating in southern Britain between c. AD 597 and 633, is offered as the first of two companion volumes to The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the fifth century, which was published in the summer of 1994.1 It might be objected that there already exists a plethora of published work of excellent quality on the subject of Germanic kingship in general,2 the government of sub-Roman Europe,3 and - more particularly - the kingships of early Anglo-Saxon England.4 What, however, distinguishes this book from others is its commit­ ment to exploring the several suggestions which emerged from my own earlier work, in the context of the next tranche of relevant written sources which are available to us - primarily from the seventh and eighth centuries.5 The recognition that Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae ( Concerning the Ruin of Britain) was highly allegorical in style opens the door to a far wider exploration of his purposes and attitudes, and a far better understanding of the context in which he wrote, than has proved possible on the basis of comparatively literal interpretations of the text. In brief, my own study proposed a significantly earlier date for the DEB than has hitherto been conventional,6 and argues in favour of its localisation in west-central, southern England.7 Having placed the text in a novel chronological, and more certain spatial, context, it further proposed, on the basis of detailed atten­ tion to the author's introduction and use of biblical references, that it was written in a political context which differed markedly from that to which it has conventionally been apportioned,8 namely that its author was concerned to protest at the Saxon domination of his 1 Introduction own people (the Britons) in the present, rather than solely to offer a diatribe on the Britons’ moral inadequacies.9 Key elements in this re-interpretation include recognition of Gildas’s use of the analogy of Jeremiah’s lament concerning the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem and its temple and the ensuing cap­ tivity of the Israelites, with the fate of the Britons in the present.10 They include also previously unnoticed references to Saxons in the text of the DEB: this is largely through the exploration of a series of metaphors and allegories which Gildas seems to establish in the course of his description of the Saxon arrival and revolt;11 they include also his recognition of some contemporary dux (’military leader’ or ‘general’) more powerful even than Maglocunus, the mightiest of the British kings to whom he referred by name.12 If his purpose in so doing was to test the moral credentials of such British duces as potential leaders of the British people in a grand and divinely sanctioned push to expel the Saxons, then his failure to identify and consider this anonymous but greater warrior-king necessarily implies that he was a Saxon; this interpretation finds support from recognition that Gildas referred repeatedly to the Saxon pagans of his own day by such terms as ‘gentiles’, ‘lions’ and ‘devils’;13 that he was mindful of a particular Saxon warrior-leader or king is necessitated by his repeated use of the phrase pater diabolus (‘father devil’) in a context which placed such a figure alongside the five British kings as if a patron of the British clergy in the present.14 Similarly, analysis of the various roles of kings, ‘governors’ and ‘tribute’ in contemporary Britain may imply that there then existed a wide-ranging Saxon domination over the bulk of southern Britain. Re-examination of the brief reference to a Saxon conquest of much of Britain in the ‘Gallic Chronicle of 452’ provides valuable support to this reading of Gildas's text.15 The thesis put forward in The English Conquest therefore, is that the ‘War of the Saxon Federates’ occurred in southern Britain (or at least not exclusively in northern Britain16) and that it was won by the Saxons, leading to the inception of a peace which was depen­ dent upon a formal treaty, or foedus. The principal result of that treaty was the subjection of all southern Britain, excepting only the five kingships named by Gildas, to Saxon control or lordship, and the payment of tribute by many local communities to the same Saxon overlords. In return, the Britons obtained long-lasting secur­ ity from Saxon attack and protection from other barbarians. In 2

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