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

277 Pages·1995·5.031 MB·English

by  Nicholas J. Higham

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
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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