The Haestingas, or Heastingas or Hæstingas, were one of the tribes of
Anglo-Saxon Britain. Not very much is known about them. They settled in what became
East Sussex
East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...
sometime before the end of the 8th century. A 12th-century source suggested that they were conquered by
Offa of Mercia
Offa (died 29 July 796 AD) was List of monarchs of Mercia, King of Mercia, a kingdom of History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa of Mercia, Eowa, Offa came to ...
, in 771. They were also recorded in the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
'' (''ASC'') as being an autonomous grouping as late as the 11th century.
History
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. Traditionally Cymenshore is thought to have been located around the Selsey area, in the south west of Sussex. However the archaeological evidence indicates that the principal area of settlement in the 5th century, for the South Saxons, has been identified as between the lower
Ouse
Ouse may refer to:
Places Rivers in England
* River Ouse, Yorkshire
* River Ouse, Sussex
* River Great Ouse, Northamptonshire and East Anglia
** River Little Ouse, a tributary of the River Great Ouse
Other places
* Ouse, Tasmania, a town in Au ...
and
Cuckmere
The River Cuckmere rises near Heathfield in East Sussex, England on the southern slopes of the Weald. The name of the river probably comes from an Old English word meaning "fast-flowing", since it descends over 100 m (328 ft) in its ...
rivers in East Sussex, based on the number of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries there.
[Martin Welch. Early Anglo-Saxon Sussex ''in'' Peter Brandon's. The South Saxons. pp. 23-25.]
![Anglo saxon jute 575ad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Anglo_saxon_jute_575ad.jpg)
To the east of
Pevensey, beyond the
Saxon Shore fort
The Saxon Shore ( la, litus Saxonicum) was a military command of the late Roman Empire, consisting of a series of fortifications on both sides of the English Channel, Channel. It was established in the late 3rd century and was led by the "Count ...
of
Anderitum, on the other side of the estuary and marsh and from there to the border with the
Kingdom of Kent, lived a group known as the Haestingas.
[Armstrong. A History of Sussex. p. 39][Peter Hunter Blair, Roman Britain and Early England, 55 BC-AD 871. p.177] They gave their name to
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
.
Not very much is known of the Haestingas but they were believed to be a separate people to the South Saxons; however, there is no archaeological evidence for occupation by Anglo-Saxons in that area of Sussex between the 5th and 8th centuries. Medieval sources and place name evidence suggest that people had begun living there by the late 8th century.
[Martin Welch. Early Anglo Saxon Sussex ''in'' Peter Brandon's. The South Saxons. pp. 33-34] Some of the Saxon charters that date from the Kingdom of Sussex provide evidence which suggests the existence of two separate dynasties in Sussex. The charters of
King Northelm (or Nunna), who ruled Sussex in the late 7th and early 8th century regularly attest a second king by the name of
Watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
(or Wattus).
[Kelly. Charters of Selsey. p. lxxvi][Charter S.45 Northelm, king of South Saxons grants land to his sister.]
Accessdate 18 December 2012
Accessdate 18 December 2012
Accessdate 18 December 2012 The historian C.T. Chevalier has suggested that Watt may have ruled the Haestingas. This is because place-names with the name ''Watt'' or ''What'' occur in the Hastings region, but are not found in western Sussex.
[C.T. Chevalier. The Frankish origin of the Hastings tribe ''in'' Sussex Archaeological Collections Vol 104. pp. 56-62] The theory has been seen as plausible by other historians.
[R. Coates. On the alleged Frankish origin of the Hastings tribe ''in'' Sussex Archaeological Collections Vol 117. pp. 263-264] Chevalier goes on to suggest that the Haestingas may have been of Frankish origin; however, other historians have rejected this, arguing that it is based on a misinterpretation of place-name evidence.
[Kelly. Charters of Selsey. p. lxxix]
Towards the end of the 8th century, Kent did not have a secure leadership and the
kingdom of Wessex was pursuing an expansionist campaign under
Cædwalla; the result was that Kent found itself being raided frequently by the West Saxons.
[Kirby. The earliest English Kings. pp. 101-103] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 686 reported that Cædwalla ravaged Kent with his brother
Mul. The following year it said that the people of Kent killed his brother Mul by 'burning' him and that Cædwalla overran Kent (presumably in response to his brother's violent death). In 688 Caedwalla went on a pilgrimage to Rome, why he did this is not reported but he died while he was there.
[Yorke. Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England. See p. 137 for possible reasons why Cædwalla abdicated and went on pilgrimage.] Stability was then returned to Kent under the new king
Wihtred
Wihtred ( la, Wihtredus) ( – 23 April 725) was king of Kent from about 690 or 691 until his death. He was a son of Ecgberht I and a brother of Eadric. Wihtred ascended to the throne after a confused period in the 680s, which included ...
and also with
Ine
INE, Ine or ine may refer to:
Institutions
* Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center
* Instituto Nacional de EstadÃstica (disambiguation)
* Instituto Nacional de EstatÃstica (disambiguation)
* Instituto Nacional Elec ...
becoming king of Wessex.
[Kirby. The earliest English Kings. p. 105] The people of Kent agreed to pay compensation (
Weregild) to Wessex for the taking of Mul's life. The agreement may have included some ceding of border territory,
and it has been hypothesized that the overlordship of Haestingas would have been ceded to Ine as part of this treaty. The southern kingdoms lived in relative peace for the next quarter century.
The peace was shattered by the ascent of Mercian power; the chronicler
Simeon of Durham
__NOTOC__
Symeon (or Simeon) of Durham (died after 1129) was an English chronicler and a monk of Durham Priory.
Biography
Symeon entered the Benedictine monastery at Jarrow as a youth. It moved to Durham in 1074, and he was professed in 1085 or ...
records the defeat of the ''gens Hestingorum'' (the people of Hastings) by Offa of Mercia in 771.
[Simon of Durham. Historia Regum. Ch. 47][Simeon of Durham's. History of the Kings. p. 450] Mercian overlordship was ended when they were defeated in 825, by
Egbert of Wessex, at the
Battle of Ellandun
The Battle of Ellendun or Battle of Wroughton was fought between Ecgberht of Wessex and Beornwulf of Mercia in September 825. Sir Frank Stenton described it as "one of the most decisive battles of English history". It effectively ended Mercian S ...
. Egbert went on to annex the territories of Essex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex, suggesting that by this time the Haestingas had been subsumed into Sussex.
[Kirby. The Earliest English Kings. p. 155] However it is known that the Haestingas retained a distinct identity till the 11th century as the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' records the Haestingas as having been harried by the Danes in 1011.
The 19th century writer,
Grant Allen
Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (February 24, 1848 – October 25, 1899) was a Canadian science writer and novelist, educated in England. He was a public promoter of evolution in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Biography Early life a ...
argued that the Hastings region was predestined to be a separate region between the rest of Sussex and Kent, to later join with Sussex. Effectively isolated, the region was separated from the rest of Sussex and England by the marshland of the
Pevensey Levels
Pevensey Levels is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest between Bexhill-on-Sea and Hailsham in East Sussex. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I, a Ramsar site and a Special Area of Conservation. An area of is a nat ...
lying to the west and the forest of the
Weald
The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It has three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the ...
to the north, while
Romney Marsh
Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about . The Marsh has been in use for centuries, though its inhabitants commonly suffered from malaria until the ...
separates the region from Kent to the east.
The kingdom of the Haestingas went on to join Sussex and become the
rape of Hastings
The Rape of Hastings (also known as Hastings Rape) is one of the rapes, the traditional sub-divisions unique to the historic county of Sussex in England.
History
Rapes are territorial divisions, peculiar to Sussex, that were used for administrat ...
.
Origins
It has been suggested that the Haestingas were of
Frankish
Frankish may refer to:
* Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture
** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages
* Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany
* East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
origin, based on Watt being a sub-king to the South Saxons and there being a place-name of
Watten
Watten may refer to:
Places
* Watten, Nord, a commune in the Nord ''département'' of France
** ''Blockhaus d'Éperlecques'' or Watten bunker, intended to be a launching facility for the V-2 ballistic missile
* Watten, Highland, a village in Cai ...
in northern France.
[ However, the more probable explanation is that the Haestingas were Jutes who migrated from Kent.] The Frankish princess Bertha had arrived in Kent around 580 to marry the king Æthelberht of Kent. Bertha was already a Christian and had brought a bishop, Liudhard, with her across the Channel. Kent was the earliest Anglo-Saxon kingdom to be evangelized and it would have been at this time the simplified Christian burial was introduced. As there is little archaeological evidence for the Haestingas it is likely that they were already Christian, when they moved to Sussex .[Blair. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. pp. 70-71]
Etymology
Haestingas is from Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
and means settlement of Haesta's People. Haesta would have been the chieftain or ruler and -ingas means People.[Ayto. Brewer's Britain and Ireland. p. 520][Gelling. Place-Names in the Landscape. p. 2] It is possible that the founder may have been a forebear of the Viking leader Hastein (who invaded Kent in 892), but there is no evidence to support this hypothesis.
See also
*Rape of Hastings
The Rape of Hastings (also known as Hastings Rape) is one of the rapes, the traditional sub-divisions unique to the historic county of Sussex in England.
History
Rapes are territorial divisions, peculiar to Sussex, that were used for administrat ...
*History of Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English 'Sūþsēaxe' ('South Saxons'), is a historic county in South East England.
Evidence from a fossil of Boxgrove Man (''Homo heidelbergensis'') shows that Sussex has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years. It ...
*Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom o ...
*Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain
The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain is the process which changed the language and culture of most of what became England from Romano-British to Germanic peoples, Germanic. The Germanic-speakers in Britain, themselves of diverse origins, ev ...
Notes
References
Citations
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{{Hastings
Peoples of Anglo-Saxon England
Hastings
History of East Sussex
Petty kingdoms of England
States and territories established in the 5th century
History of Sussex