The Lindisfaras (or Lindesfaras) (Old English: ''Lindisfaran'') were an Anglian tribe who, in the 6th century, established the

kingdom of Lindsey The Kingdom of Lindsey or Linnuis ( ang, Lindesege) was a lesser Anglo-Saxon kingdom, which was absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century. The name Lindsey derives from the Old English toponym , meaning "Isle of Lind". was the Roman name of th ...

between the valleys of the rivers

Humber The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between th ...

and

Witham Witham () is a town in the county of Essex in the East of England, with a population ( 2011 census) of 25,353. It is part of the District of Braintree and is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands between the city of Che ...

, in the north of what is now

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

. They retained their administrative independence throughout the 7th century but, following the

Battle of the Trent The Battle of the Trent was a battle fought at an unspecified site near the River Trent within the Kingdom of Lindsey (today part of England), in 679. The battle was fought between the Northumbrian army of King Ecgfrith and the Mercian army of Kin ...

between the kingdoms of

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ye ...

and

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

, remained under Mercian control until the Viking invasion of the ninth century.Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', IV, 21, p. 240.

Simon Keynes Simon Douglas Keynes, ( ; born 23 September 1952) is a British author who is Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon emeritus in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Trinity Colleg ...

, "Wulfhere", in: ''The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England'',

Michael Lapidge Michael Lapidge, FBA (born 8 February 1942) is a scholar in the field of Medieval Latin literature, particularly that composed in Anglo-Saxon England during the period 600–1100 AD; he is an emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, a Fellow of ...

''et al.'' (eds.), 2001. According to D. P. Kirby, the ''Heathfeld Land'' of Yorkshire mentioned as part of the Lindisfaras' 7000 hides listed in the

Tribal Hidage Image:Tribal Hidage 2.svg, 400px, alt=insert description of map here, The tribes of the Tribal Hidage. Where an appropriate article exists, it can be found by clicking on the name. rect 275 75 375 100 w:Elmet rect 375 100 450 150 w:Hatfield Ch ...

, was

Hatfield Chase Hatfield Chase is a low-lying area in South Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, England, which was often flooded. It was a royal hunting ground until Charles I appointed the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden to drain it in 1626. The work involve ...

.D. P. Kirby, ''The Earliest English Kings''; 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2001

Lindisfarne Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important ...

in Northumbria derived its name, according to one place-name authority, from the Lindisfaras, so having the meaning "island f thetravellers from

Lindsey Lindsey may refer to : Places Canada * Lindsey Lake, Nova Scotia England * Parts of Lindsey, one of the historic Parts of Lincolnshire and an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 ** East Lindsey, an administrative district in Lincolnshire, ...

", indicating that the island was settled from Lindsey, or possibly that its inhabitants travelled there. Ekwall, E., ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names''; 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960, pp. 298-99 (earliest OE form quoted is "Lindisfarena ea" (island of the Lindsey people), in OE Bede, ca. 890)

References

{{Heptarchy Peoples of Anglo-Saxon Mercia History of Lincolnshire

See also

References