Pybba (570?–606/615) (also Pibba, Wibba, or Wybba) was an early
King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
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=
, ...
. He was the son of
Creoda and father of
Penda
Penda (died 15 November 655)Manuscript A of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' gives the year as 655. Bede also gives the year as 655 and specifies a date, 15 November. R. L. Poole (''Studies in Chronology and History'', 1934) put forward the theor ...
and
Eowa. Unusually, the names Pybba and Penda are likely of British Celtic, rather than Germanic, origin.
His dates are sometimes given in genealogies as birth in 570, the beginning of his reign in 593, and death in either 606 or 615, but with no apparent evidence; the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' just mentions him as father of Penda, with no further detail.
Pybba is said by the ''
Historia Brittonum
''The History of the Britons'' ( la, Historia Brittonum) is a purported history of the indigenous British ( Brittonic) people that was written around 828 and survives in numerous recensions that date from after the 11th century. The ''Historia B ...
'' to have had 12 sons.
[''Historia Brittonum'']
Chapter 65. Cearl
Cearl (or Ceorl) was an early king of Mercia who ruled during the early part of the 7th century, until about 626. He is the first Mercian king mentioned by Bede in his ''Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum''. Bede was a Northumbrian who was host ...
, a Mercian king, is mentioned by
Bede, and may have been Pybba's successor, but his relationship to Pybba, if any, is unknown. Pybba's son Penda eventually became king; the ''Chronicle'' gives the date of this as 626, although Bede suggests it was not until after the
battle of Hatfield Chase
The Battle of Hatfield Chase ( ang, Hæðfeld; owl, Meigen) was fought on 12 October 633 at Hatfield Chase near Doncaster (today part of South Yorkshire, England). It pitted the Northumbrians against an alliance of Gwynedd and Mercia. The Nort ...
in 633.
Besides Penda and Eowa (who the author of the ''Historia Brittonum'' said were the sons of Pybba who were the best known to him
[), Pybba also apparently had a son named Coenwalh. Every king from Penda until Ceolwulf, who was deposed in 823, was said to be a descendant of Pybba, either through Penda, Eowa, or Coenwalh (perhaps excluding Beornrad, who ruled briefly and whose background is unknown).
Pybba also is said to have had a daughter. Though unnamed, she was possibly the first wife of Cenwalh, King of Wessex (648–674).][Beda: ''HE 3,7'']
See also
*List of monarchs of Mercia
The Kingdom of Mercia was a state in the English Midlands from the 6th century to the 10th century. For some two hundred years from the mid-7th century onwards it was the dominant member of the Heptarchy and consequently the most powerful of the ...
References
External links
*
570 births
Anglo-Saxon warriors
Mercian monarchs
6th-century English monarchs
7th-century English monarchs
7th-century deaths
House of Icel
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