The Heptarchy
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The Heptarchy
The Heptarchy were the seven petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England that flourished from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century until they were consolidated in the 8th century into the four kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria, Wessex and East Anglia. The term 'Heptarchy' (from the Greek , ; from , : "seven"; , : "reign, rule" and the suffix , ) is used because of the traditional belief that there had been seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, usually described as East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex, and Wessex. The first known written reference to the historiographical traditional belief that there were these 'seven kingdoms' was in Henry of Huntingdon’s 12th century work, ''Historia Anglorum''; the term ''Heptarchy'' is not known to have been used to describe them until the 16th century. History By convention, the Heptarchy period lasted from the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century, until most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms came under the ...
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History Of 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, Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan (r. 927–939). It became part of the short-lived North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century. The Anglo-Saxons migrated to England from mainland northwestern Europe after the Roman Empire abandoned Britain at the beginning of the fifth century. Anglo-Saxon history thus begins during the period of sub-Roman Britain following the end of Roman Britain, Roman control, and traces the establishment of List of Anglo-Saxon monarchs and kingdoms, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th and 6th centuries (conventionally identified as Heptarchy, seven main kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, Kingdom of the East Angles, East Anglia, kingdom ...
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British Kingdoms C 800
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *''Brit(ish)'', a 2018 memoir by Afua Hirsch *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) See also * Terminology of the British Isles * Alternative names for the British * English (other) * Britannic (other) * British Isles * Brit (other) * B ...
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Hwicce
Hwicce () was a tribal kingdom in Anglo-Saxon England. According to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', the kingdom was established in 577, after the Battle of Deorham. After 628, the kingdom became a client or sub-kingdom of Mercia as a result of the Battle of Cirencester. The ''Tribal Hidage'' assessed Hwicce at 7,000 hides, an agricultural economy akin to either the kingdom of Essex or Sussex. The exact boundaries of the kingdom remain uncertain, though it is likely that they coincided with those of the old Diocese of Worcester, founded in 679–680, the early bishops of which bore the title ''Episcopus Hwicciorum''. The kingdom would therefore have included Worcestershire except the northwestern tip, Gloucestershire except the Forest of Dean, the southwestern half of Warwickshire, the neighbourhood of Bath north of the Avon, part of west Oxfordshire and small parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and north-west Wiltshire. Name The etymology of the name "the Hwicci ...
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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 and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north-west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders Northamptonshire in the south for just , England's shortest county boundary. The county town is Lincoln, where the county council is also based. The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire consists of the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire and the area covered by the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. Part of the ceremonial county is in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and most is in the East Midlands region. The county is the second-largest of the English ceremonial counties and one that is predominantly agricultural in land use. The county is fourth-larg ...
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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 the settlement which is now the City of Lincoln in Lincolnshire. ( was shortened in Old English to and then .) was a Latinised form of a native Brittonic name which has been reconstructed as *''Lindon'' (; cf. modern Welsh '). Geography Lindsey lay between the Humber estuary and the Wash, forming its inland boundaries from the courses of the Witham and Trent rivers, and the Foss Dyke between them. A marshy region south of the Humber known as the Isle of Axholme was also included. It is believed that Roman Lindum (Lincoln) was the capital of Lindsey: the continuity of the place name suggests continuity of settlement traditions: in 625, Bede recounts, the missionary Paulinus of York was received by the ''praefectus'' of Lindum. Place-nam ...
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Deira (kingdom)
Deira ( ; Old Welsh/Cumbric: ''Deywr'' or ''Deifr''; ang, Derenrice or ) was an area of Post-Roman Britain, and a later Anglian kingdom. Etymology The name of the kingdom is of Brythonic origin, and is derived from the Proto-Celtic *''daru'', meaning 'oak' ( in modern Welsh), in which case it would mean 'the people of the Derwent', a derivation also found in the Latin name for Malton, . It is cognate with the modern Irish word (); the names for County Londonderry and the city of Derry stem from this word. History Brythonic Deira Following the Roman withdrawal from Britain a number of successor kingdoms rose in northern England, reflecting pre-Roman tribal territories. The area between the Humber and River Tees known as ''Deywr'' or ''Deifr'' corresponds to the tribal lands of the Parisi, bordered to the west and north by the Brythonic kingdoms of '' Elfed'' and ''Bryneich'' respectively, and to the east by the North Sea. Early Deira may have centred on Petuaria (modern ...
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Bernicia
Bernicia ( ang, Bernice, Bryneich, Beornice; la, Bernicia) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England. The Anglian territory of Bernicia was approximately equivalent to the modern English counties of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, and Durham, as well as the Scottish counties of Berwickshire and East Lothian, stretching from the Forth to the Tees. In the early 7th century, it merged with its southern neighbour, Deira, to form the kingdom of Northumbria, and its borders subsequently expanded considerably. Brittonic ''Bryneich'' Etymologies Bernicia occurs in Old Welsh poetry as ''Bryneich'' or ''Brynaich'' and in the 9th-century ''Historia Brittonum'', (§ 61) as ''Berneich'' or ''Birneich''. This was most likely the name of the native Brittonic kingdom , whose name was then adopted by the Anglian settlers who rendered it in Old English as ''Bernice'' or ''Beornice'' . The coun ...
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Edgar Of England
Edgar ( ang, Ēadgār ; 8 July 975), known as the Peaceful or the Peaceable, was King of the English from 959 until his death in 975. The younger son of King Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury, he came to the throne as a teenager following the death of his older brother, King Eadwig. As king, Edgar further consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors, with his reign being noted for its relative stability. His most trusted advisor was Dunstan, whom he recalled from exile and made Archbishop of Canterbury. The pinnacle of Edgar's reign was his coronation at Bath in 973, which was organised by Dunstan and forms the basis for the current coronation ceremony. After his death he was succeeded by his son Edward, although the succession was disputed. Early years and accession Edgar was the son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, Edmund's ...
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Eadwig Of England
Eadwig (also Edwy or Eadwig All-Fair, 1 October 959) was King of England from 23 November 955 until his death in 959. He was the elder son of Edmund I and his first wife Ælfgifu, who died in 944. Eadwig and his brother Edgar were young children when their father was killed trying to rescue his seneschal from attack by an outlawed thief on 26 May 946. As Edmund's sons were too young to rule he was succeeded by his brother Eadred, who suffered from ill health and died unmarried in his early 30s. Eadwig became king in 955 aged about fifteen and was no more than twenty when he died in 959. He clashed at the beginning of his reign with Dunstan, the powerful Abbot of Glastonbury and future Archbishop of Canterbury, and exiled him to Flanders. He later came to be seen as an enemy of monasteries, but most historians think that this reputation is unfair. In 956 he issued more than sixty charters transferring land, a yearly total unmatched by any other European king before the tw ...
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Offa
Offa (died 29 July 796 AD) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald. Offa defeated the other claimant, Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign, it is likely that he consolidated his control of Midland peoples such as the Hwicce and the Magonsæte. Taking advantage of instability in the kingdom of Kent to establish himself as overlord, Offa also controlled Sussex by 771, though his authority did not remain unchallenged in either territory. In the 780s he extended Mercian Supremacy over most of southern England, allying with Beorhtric of Wessex, who married Offa's daughter Eadburh, and regained complete control of the southeast. He also became the overlord of East Anglia and had King Æthelberht II of East Anglia beheaded in 794, perhaps for rebelling against him. Offa was a Christian king who c ...
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Kings Of Kent
This is a list of the kings of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Kent. The regnal dates for the earlier kings are known only from Bede. Some kings are known mainly from charters, of which several are forgeries, while others have been subjected to tampering in order to reconcile them with the erroneous king lists of chroniclers, baffled by blanks, and confused by concurrent reigns and kings with similar or identical names. It is commonplace for the later kings to be referred to as subkings, but the actual rank used is always ''rex'', never ''regulus'' (except for a late legend concerning Eormenred). The usual style was simply King of Kent (''rex Cantiae'') or King of the Kentish Men (''rex Cantuariorum''). Territorial division within Kent is not alluded to, except by Eadberht I (''rex Cantuariorum terram dimidii'') and Sigered (''rex dimidie partis prouincie Cantuariorum''). List of kings of Kent See also *List of English monarchs *Kentish Royal Legend *Anglo-Saxon royal genealog ...
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Dark Ages (historiography)
The ''Dark Ages'' is a term for the Early Middle Ages, or occasionally the entire Middle Ages, in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire that characterises it as marked by economic, intellectual and cultural decline. The concept of a "Dark Age" originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Petrarch, who regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the "light" of classical antiquity.. Reprinted from: The term employs traditional black-and-white dualism, light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the era's "darkness" (ignorance and error) with earlier and later periods of "light" (knowledge and understanding). The phrase ''Dark Age'' itself derives from the Latin ''saeculum obscurum'', originally applied by Caesar Baronius in 1602 when he referred to a tumultuous period in the 10th and 11th centuries. The concept thus came to characterize the entire Middle Ages as a time of intellectual darkness in Europe between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance ...
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