Anglo Saxon remains Westgarth Gardens
|
Before
410 | View the events of the period from 700 BC to 410 AD The text below from 406 to 410 sums up the last years of direct Roman rule over Britain. Please click on the heading if you would like to go back further into the history of Roman Britain before 410.
In 406 the Roman Army was withdrawn from Britain to deal with an invasion into Gaul of the Vandals, Alans and Suevi from across the Rhine. In 407 the Rhine froze over and this gave the Vandals easy access to the wealth and comforts of the Empire. In 409 a major Saxon invasion took place in Britain without the Roman army to repel them. Saxons had raided the East coast early in the 3rd century and from 270 to 285 the Romans had built the Forts of the Saxon shore to cope with the threat. In addition, the Romans had employed some Germanic peoples as mercenaries and settled them in Britain to help with defence. By 410, the country of Britain was being left to maintain itself as best it could, as part of the Empire, but without the Empire's old might and resources to sustain it.
The period which followed has been called the Dark Ages, because there was no longer anybody recording events for the next two or three hundred years. | | 410 | In the year 410, the cities of Britain were officially ordered by the Emperor Honorius to take responsibility for their own defences. In the same year the Goths took Rome and an important result of the collapse of central Roman rule was that no further coinage was imported into Britain. In addition, no coins seem to have been minted in England from 411 to about 630.
It was the beginning of the end - administrators, specialists and the military could not be supported by money. Other means of survival had to be found.
From 410 to 442, Britain was independent from Rome, and this was the last age of Roman Britain before the Saxons were to effectively take over. | | 411 | The Gallic Chronicle of 452 reports a dreadful Saxon raid on the Channel coasts in 411.
In the same year a British Bishop, Fastidius, wrote of magistrates violently killed, some lying unburied, suggesting the violent overthrow of a government by their own people. Constantine's supporters had been overthrown in the recent past, and now that Honorius had washed his hands of Britain, perhaps the Constantine faction had again taken control.
At about this time, the so-called Sicilian Briton developed an advanced egalitarian political philosophy based on Christian principles of the virtues of poverty and the poor and urged abolition of the rich.
In describing the period from about 411 to 425, Gildas wrote that kings were anointed and soon after slain by those who had anointed them, but the people were prosperous. | | 418 | Roman imperial Government outlawed the Pelagian doctrine, but this had no effect in Britain for decades, where it was introduced in 421 by Agricola. | | 418 | Honorius granted federate status to the Visigoths and they settled in Aquitaine. He could not conquer them, so had to live with them, and in practice they became a separate kingdom under the emperor. The Burgundians followed suit with their own kingdom. Independence was breaking out throughout the empire. | | 423 | Back in Rome, Honorius lived until 423, and his dynasty survived when his sisters' son, Valentinian III took over. | | 425 | Vortigern, a Welsh follower of the Pelagian doctrine, is said to have come to power. The north still had its static Roman army installations and many of the forts were still manned for many years later. He immediately faced the threat of further attacks by Picts down the Yorkshire coast, and the Irish in the Severn Valley. | | 428 | The Council met and decided to hire some Saxon seamen to defend the coasts just as past Roman emperors had done. The Saxon leaders were Hengest and Horsa, and three keels or ships were based on the Isle of Thanet. There were probably only a few hundred of them at this time. | | 430 | After a short time the number of Saxons allowed to settle increased and new areas were penetrated. Very early remains have been found at Caistor by Norwich, Luton and Abingdon. These were strategic settlements, to protect the Cotswold heartlands, and Norfolk was particularly well settled. Because the north still had the army, there was less need for reinforcements to be sent there. Forces were placed to protect the North road, the Thames estuary and the major intersections of the Icknield Way. These inland posts were really a defence line of last resort.
In the east and south, Germanic forces were accepted nearly everywhere, with the exception of Verulamium, the capital of the Catevellauni.
In the absence of a Pictish or Irish attack, the Kentish Chronicle reported that Hengest and Vortigern invited reinforcements under Octha to bring 40 ships over to attack the Picts on their own territory. They plundered the Orkneys and then settled in North Northumberland. They may have founded Dumfries - the home of the Friesians. Scotland never tried to invade England again until 1745. | | 429 | With papal approval, the Bishops of Gaul sent Bishop Germanus of Auxerre to Britain to combat the Pelagian heresy of Vortigern and his people. During the Bishop's visit, the Saxons and Picts made a joint campaign against the British, possibly in Wales where they might have joined the locally settled Irish. Bishop Germanus led the army and was said to have had the victory 'without the might of men.' This led to the establishment of the British Kingdom of Powys. | | 431 | The Pope sent Palladius to Britain to convert the Irish but he returned after a few months and died. | | 432 | Palladius was replaced by Patrick, a British monk trained in Germanus' monastery, and later to become St Patrick. | | 433 | The Irish Annals record the first Saxon raid on Ireland which could have been Hengest's warning to leave Britain alone, now it was protected by him. Equally this may have been other Saxons, not under Hengest, continuing their old ways, but they would be a long way from friendly harbours. In any event, the Irish ceased to be a problem until the end of the century.
St Patrick also succeeded in getting the Irish to accept the Roman religion of Christianity. It could be that the Bishops should again be credited with a bloodless victory, this time over the Irish. | | 430's | Cunedda, or Kenneth of the Votadini, now led a move into Wales from the North of Hadrians Wall, and expelled he Irish settlers with enormous slaughter while the Irish kings stood neutral. This action probably occupied the next 80 years.
Similarly the Cornovii were moved into Devon and Cornwall to expel Irish settlers in those areas. | | 437 | By these means, Vortigern produced a prosperous Britain, with secure borders, only to be overthrown by civil war when Ambrosius saw his chance. With peace, the taxpayers began to refuse to pay for the Saxon defence and the council tried to send them home.
In 437 it appears there was a battle between Ambrosius and Vortigern possibly at Wallop in Hampshire.
Vortigern had to rely on bringing in a further 19 ships of Saxon reinforcements to defend himself against Ambrosius. They seem to have been settled, together with later arrivals, in and around Canterbury and East Kent. | | 442 | Hengest's Saxon forces had now increased to such a level that resentment over their spread and their pay rose high on both sides. Whatever happened, it became a fight and armed Saxon insurrection swept across the lowlands. Caistor by Norwich for example, was totally destroyed as undoubtedly were other settlements, and Colchester was stormed. The economy was also destroyed. The pottery industry ceased production. Farms ceased to produce food, and markets ceased to operate. Certainly Kent and East Anglia were conquered in this first attack.
Over the next twenty years conflict would continue between the Roman Britons and the new English peoples. As Britain passed into Saxon control, it would end with much of the Southern British people emigrating to Gaul in the 460s. | | 446 | The Romano-British appealed for help to Gaul, the great General Aetius, and said they were being pushed out by barbarians, and also suffering from widespread flooding. The Saxons attacked right across to the West, but appeared to withdraw to their eastern settlements again after great destruction of the economy.
Aetius provided no help, but Bishop Germanus visited the British for a second time, so we can envisage the country more or less partitioned into Saxon control and old British control with a more or less Romanised flavour.
Germanus was still attacking the Pelagian heresy, including Vortigern himself by this time, so Vortigern's grip was now loosened and other local rulers had set themselves up in the British areas.
| | 449 | This is the year in which Bede placed the invitation of the Saxons to settle in return for defence of Britain. He also condensed most of the story from 428 to 449 into this one year, probably based on his reading of Gildas. In any event, it is still a pretty accurate date for the Saxons taking over much of the country. | | c.450 | How long after the Romans left before the Anglo-Saxons began to settle around Haverhill is not, as yet, possible to determine but we do know where they started; not on the more agreeable south-eastern slope of the main valley, but at the head of the smaller one. The reason was probably that this was a better defensive position. The name Burton means 'the farm by the fort'. So it was at what is now Burton End that they built their fortified farm, on the place which is now called the 'Castle'. It is thought that the crossroads where Clements Lane crosses Camps Road into Crowland Road probably formed the centre of the Saxon town. The Church stood on this junction to the north-west of the Burton End side. | | c.452 | Around this time the British launched a counter-attack upon the Saxon encroachments.
Vortigern's son, Vortimer, was said by the Kentish Chronicle to have driven the Saxons out of Kent and back to Thanet for five years. The main battle seems to have been at Richborough.
The British also won at the Battle of Aylsford, but at Crayford the Saxons won and drove the British out of Kent, back to London.
The Saxons now "summon keels full of vast numbers of warriors" to give reinforcements in what was to become full scale warfare. | | c.455 | The British King Vortigern and the Saxons agreed to meet to consider making peace on existing boundaries. Vortigern had lost any authority over the western areas and was too weak to fight the Saxons without total national support and resources. So Vortigern and 300 elders of his Council held a peace conference with Hengest. The Saxons killed them all, except the King, at the table. He was forced to give them Sussex and Essex in return for his life. | | 455 | Back in Rome, Valentinian III was murdered and with him died the prestige of his dynasty. This is generally reckoned as the fall of the western Roman empire and it "had no strength to rise again." | | c.458 | From their bases in Kent, Norfolk and the Cambridge-Newmarket region the Saxons attacked the rest of Britain in a great raid as far as Wales. London remained in British hands. By now, many Saxon villages were at least 20 years old and the young men were born in this country and were in effect fighting for their homes and families, not considering themselves invaders. | | c.460 | The Lark, Blackbourne and Ouse valleys of West Suffolk had been settled by these mixed Angles, Saxons and Friesians by this time, including at West Stow. The Central Suffolk clay soils do not seem to have attracted them. Other settlements have been excavated at Honington and Grimstone End in Pakenham. We do not know exactly when Bury or Haverhill were first settled by Anglo-Saxons, but we have a better idea of where it took place. In Haverhill the first settlement was at Burton End. In Bury it was probably where the Abbey's ruins remain today.
These early Saxon settlements in West Suffolk divided up the land in a way which is believed to be reflected in the much later ecclesiastical parishes. In many places they seemed to have adopted boundaries already in place from earlier times. | | 460's | Much of the British forces now emigrated to Armorica, later to become known as Brittany. They were not just fleeing the Saxons, they were joining the still Romanised dominions of Aegidius, who needed help to defend Gaul and themselves against the pagan Saxons.
They were given lands North of the Loire and the place name Bretteville is still widespread today in Normandy. These people looked on themselves as Roman provincials and had little difficulty moving from one part of the old empire to another. They were well educated and Gildas complains that all the books were taken out of Britain with them. They made a fighting force of about 12,000 to reinforce Aegidius. | | 460's | Despite the emigrations to Gaul, the Roman Britons continued to resist the English spread, perhaps up to about 495.
Although Vortigern had ceded Sussex, it was not taken unopposed. Aelle landed at Selsey Bill to take Chichester but was thwarted. London, Chichester and Verulamium were still in British hands but 12,000 troops had gone to Armorica so a decisive counter attack was ruled out. However, various local leaders or Kings took various offensive actions to avoid their own total destruction.
Ambrosius Aurelianus, perhaps one of the last of the aristocratic Roman nobility to survive, was a central British figure of these battles. Ambrosius led the resistance for the early years of this 30 or 35 years action. | | 476 | In Rome, Odovacer discontinued the nomination of western Roman Emperors, and turned to Constantinople. | | 470's | Ambrosius was succeeded as the main leader by Artorius, another man of Roman family, known to us today as King Arthur. This is the real period of Arthur, a relic of the fallen Roman Empire, hanging on against the Saxons constantly encroaching from their new homelands in East Anglia. The British retained a knowledge of literacy, and of Christianity, whereas the Saxons must have seemed totally alien, with their pagan practices, and contempt for books and the ways of "civilisation". This scene must have been very different from the romance of Knights in shining armour which arose in Medieval story telling, maybe 600 to 700 years later.
It seems likely that British resistance in 470 was based on the wealthy farmlands of the Cotswold area, Salisbury Plain and in Hampshire. It is also highly possible that they based their tactics upon the use of horses and mounted cavalry. This knowledge may have been remembered from Roman days, or invented by necessity, but their armour and weapons would be have been Roman. The Saxons at this time invariably fought with spears on foot, and this helps to explain how the weakened British managed to resist them for so long. Using mounted men in hit and run attacks, they could also cover large amounts of territory at five times the speed of the Saxons. It has been suggested that as the Romano-British did not use stirrups, they could not fight from horseback, but we now know that a saddle can be designed to work without stirrups.
The British cavalry needed secure overnight stops and used the old Roman walled towns, or re-occupied some of the old iron-age hill forts like South Cadbury.
Battles were fought in a zone from Wiltshire and the borders of Gloucestershire up to the Cambridge area. There is no evidence of fighting in the Saxon/English heartlands of Norfolk and North Suffolk or Kent.
The British resistance inspired a new sense of local identity, no longer Roman. They called themselves Combrogi or 'fellow countrymen', whose modern form is Cymry or Cumbri, names which survive today in Wales and Cumbria.
The English knew them by both names, and also called them foreigners or wealh or wylisc in Old English, and Welsh in today's English. The English saw them as part of the old Christian world, based on Rome.
The Anglo-Saxons named their country Englaland (land of the Angles) and their language was called Englisc. It is the modern historian who refers to them as Anglo-Saxons, who spoke Anglo-Saxon or Old English. Suffolk is full of Anglo-Saxon place names, most names coming from Old English words.
Latin writers referred to them as Angli and were doing so before the middle of the 6th century. By the 7th century King Ine called himself King of the West Saxons but described his subjects as Englishmen or Welshmen, but not as Saxons.
Saxon was a term used by foreigners, and survives in modern Welsh as Saesnag and in Irish as Sasenach. Until about 650, the Saxons were Pagan, also called Heathens or Barbarians.
Latin was still the written language of the British, although the need for it rapidly diminished as contact with the Empire declined. | | c.480 | At about 480 Cerdic was commander of Saxons in the Winchester - Southampton area. They fought in the Battle of Portsmouth Harbour against Arthur and the British. This was probably at Portchester, the most westerly of the old Saxon-shore forts. The battle seems to have had no decisive outcome.
The flow of immigrants much increased in the late 5th century, to such an extent that the homeland of Angeln was deserted in Schleswig. At this time we believe that the Kings and their courts also moved to England.
In the Ipswich area a group arrived with a strong Scandinavian background, and Danish traces are recognisable in the archaeology of Kent. | | 486 | In Gaul, King Clovis of the Franks killed Syagrius and took over his kingdom. By 507 he drove the Goths out of Aquitaine and occupied Bohemia setting up the framework of France, land of the Franks. | | 490's | London and its surroundings remained a British stronghold separating the Saxons of Kent from those in East Anglia. This situation seems to have persisted up to 568.
The Saxons themselves were not a homogeneous group. Differing grave goods found in their cemeteries indicate that some settlements contained markedly different cultural backgrounds from others, even when comparatively close to each other. For example, at Haslingfield, a village in sight of Cambridge, these people seem to have had no contacts with Cambridge Saxons. Others of their kind have been found in the Middle Thames area. The Eslinga Saxons may thus have been allies of the British at this time. | | c.495 | The final battle of this era was the Battle of Badon Hill (Mons Badonicus according to Gildas). The English King Aelle led the Saxons from Kent, Sussex and Wessex and seems to have advanced westward to attack British cavalry bases. Badon may be at or near today's Bath such as Solsbury Hill by Batheaston, but its exact site is unknown and hotly disputed. According to Nennius, there was a 3 day siege which ended when King Arthur led a charge and killed 960 Saxons. Following victory at the Battle of Badon, won by the British, peace lasted for 75 years.
The difficulty of establishing accurate dating in the 'Dark Ages' is shown by this battle, which some historians date to 516 or 518. | | 500 | By now the war in England had been fought to a standstill, with partition of territory being an established fact. But although the British had stemmed the English advance, the Roman Empire had faded around them, and they had no larger continental Empire to support them. The Romanised economy was destroyed by war, and the British had to rebuild their lives in their own way, with only half the country's resources available to them.
However, for the next 15 years this period was peaceful and was looked on as a golden age of freedom, truth and justice under King Arthur, by Romanised scholars like Gildas. As the Saxons themselves kept no written records their views of the situation are unknown. Welsh poems and later monastic traditions regarded Arthur as a tyrant. Gildas never named Arthur, and the modern legends surrounding King Arthur did not begin until first taken up in Norman France in the 12th century by Chretien de Troyes. The story was taken up by Geoffrey of Monmouth in England shortly afterwards, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur followed in the 15th century.
Arthur continued to experience conflicts such as at Chester and various boarder actions against the Irish in the north west, and in Wales and Cornwall and possibly local rebellions by British war lords. His success led to him being called Emperor and Roman titles and governorships were somewhat restored in the area under his control, based on lowland central England.
There is some evidence that Saxon settlements which were on the fringes of Saxon control, like Kempston by Bedford, were sent packing by Arthur, establishing stricter borders between both populations. Following years of bloodshed and flight to Gaul, it appears that the population in 500 was only a small fraction of what it had been in the Roman period by 400 AD.
Arthur probably held court in each of his cities, such as Chester, York, Gloucester and Colchester. The British name for Colchester was Camulodunum, a possible source for Camalot or Camelot as it is now spelt. | | c.515 | King Arthur died at the Battle of Camlann according to the Cambrian Annals. The location of this and its causes remain unknown, but there was no one to take his place as overall Emperor. He was almost the last remainder of the western Roman Empire, outliving even Rome. Some historians date this battle to 537 or 539. | | 525 | By this time it would appear that local tyrants were carving out their own territories, and the generals were growing in power and usurping local government and the judges. This was all in the non-Saxon areas, and we know about it from Gildas.
After this date a further wave of settlers came to East Anglia and Kent from Sweden via Denmark and Friesland. If it was around this time they may have been led by Wehha, because the first King of East Anglia was Wehha according to Nennius, a 9th Century historian.
In 525, the Anno Domini system of dating was invented by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk living in Italy. This system would be irrelevant in Saxon England until Christianity reappeared after 630. | | c.538 | Around the year 538, Gildas wrote his 'complaining book', which was an attack on the princes and bishops of his day. He tried to look at history to find the origins of the evils he perceived. Gildas was born in the kingdom of the Clyde but was taken south to the shores of the Severn Sea and was taught in the old Roman educational tradition. Gildas tried to explain why the British were being punished by being occupied by Anglo-Saxons and why they deserved this fate. Much of recorded history from 440 to 540 relies upon the work of Gildas, and Bede in 731 repeated Gildas' history. However, it is now thought that from 449 onwards, his dates are about 20 years later than reality. | | c.540 | If there were new settlers at this time they presumably were led by Wuffa who would have been the second King after Wehha. He sailed up the Deben to found Ufford and the Wuffinga dynasty. These people had a considerable impact despite the fact they were preceded by 100 years of continental settlement. With a strong maritime tradition they practised ship burials at Sutton Hoo, Snape and Ashby. The descendant royal family is known as the Wuffings or Wuffinga. The dynasty is thought to have continued with Tyttla, and then to Raedwald, the most famous and greatest of them.
By now East Anglia seems to have become one cohesive kingdom. | | 547 | A severe epidemic, possibly of Bubonic Plague, spread in Britain, and seems to have lasted until 551. | | 563 | St Columba founded his monastery on an island called Iona off the west coast of Mull in Scotland. Columba lived from about 521 to 597 and evolved teachings which diverged from European practice, ultimately leading to deep divisions in the church.
Outside East Anglia, there were the kingdoms of Kent, the Jutes in the Isle of Wight, the East Saxons and the West Saxons. Other Germanic or European kingdoms were established across England by the 7th Century. | | 570 | The second Great Saxon uprising led to the English mastery of the area called England today. The old British way of life, hanging on in the Midlands, was ended when Verulamium (St Albans) and its surrounding parts of the Chilterns were finally conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. It also appears that the British stronghold of London and its surroundings was finally over-run around this time.
The Saxon's pagan culture would be unchallenged in England until about 630, when Christian missionaries started to impress the Saxon kings.
Meanwhile, any remnants of the old Celtic British way of life survived only in areas we today refer to as the 'Celtic Fringe', such as Wales, Cornwall and Ireland. Ireland would become important in future years as one of the bases from which Christianity would return to England. | | c.575 | The Black Ditches on Caverham Heath and Risby in Suffolk and Devil's Dyke at Newmarket are believed by some historians to date from around this time to defend from attack from the west. Others claim that on the contrary they were thrown up earlier by the British to stem the Saxon advances. In practice they may have been used, reused, and modified by successive generations. The War Banks at Lawshall have similarly obscure origins. | | c.577 | Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester were taken by the Saxons and the West Welsh became isolated. | | c. 590 | Late in the 6th century Merovingian Frankish gold coins reached our shores and a purse of such coins was found at Sutton Hoo. |
|
Glass beaker-Westgarth Gardens
|
| By this time the settlements like West Stow were long established. Nearby at Lackford a large cemetery of several hundred cremations in globular urns has been excavated. West Stow had its own burial cemetery. Many more cemeteries have been found than settlements, simply because human remains and grave goods have been more easily identified than the soil marks remaining from decayed dwellings. Thus we know of cemeteries in Bury at Northumberland Avenue, Barons Road and Westgarth Gardens, but do not know where their settlements lay. | | 597 | Columba of Iona died in this year, but Augustine arrived in Kent and began to convert the population to the Roman form of Christianity. He brought 40 monks with him and at Christmas 597 some 10,000 people were baptised in Kent. This seems to have resulted from Athelbert of Kent marrying a Frank from Northern Gaul, who was a Christian. She must have had an influence on the King and paved the way for Augustine. Athelbert was High King of England and political refugees seem to have been accepted at his court, including Raedwald, later to be King of East Anglia. Raedwald possibly converted to Christianity in Kent at this time.
Politics at this time was sometimes a violent power struggle and those on the losing side often fled to other kingdoms. In this respect the Anglo-Saxons were much like the Romans. | | c.599 | The mighty Raedwald returned to East Anglia and took over his Wuffing inheritance as their king and seems to have ruled over all East Anglia. He was also later to be recognised as Bretwalda with power over all England. Raedwald had a pagan altar and a Christian altar within one temple and never totally accepted Christianity. Bede recorded that Raedwald ruled East Anglia from Rendlesham, and that it was his new pagan wife who led him astray from Christianity. Probably it would have been politically necessary for a new king of a pagan people to pay some regard to their existing beliefs and sensibilities. The royal cemetery was nearby at Sutton Hoo but was unrecorded until its first excavation in 1939. | | c.600 | By this time, the East Anglian kingdom of the Wuffinga dynasty was independent, powerful and economically successful. But the threat from Mercia in the west was increasing. Gipeswic, or Ipswich, was probably set up as a trading post around 600, and would Quickly develop through the century, becoming a major port and industrial centre. Raedwald may have been involved in establishing Ipswich.
The 7th century had three great characteristics, not seen before in Anglo-Saxon England. These were:
- the consolidation of the countryside into Kingdoms, ruled by a king of a 'royal' family;
- the introduction and spread of Christianity, which had died out after the Romans had left; and
- the rise of towns again for the first time since the Roman withdrawal.
These changes, which took place over the 100 years of the 7th century, changed Anglo-Saxon England beyond recognition. The economy changed with the development of trade and the introduction of urban life. Christianity brought new patterns of thought, literacy and the facility to keep records and write down history. The King and his court exercised more and more authority over everybody's lives. | | 603 | Aethelfrith of Northumbria defeated Aeden, King of the Scots. He was gaining power in the north.
Welsh bishops rejected Augustine's teachings. | | 616 | Aethelfrith also defeated the Welsh at Chester, isolating Wales. Bede saw this as a religious war, because the Welsh would not adopt Roman ideas about religious practices, including the date of Easter. However, it also threatened the other kings, particularly Raedwald. | | 617 | "Here Aethelfrith, king of the Northumbrians, was killed by Raedwald, king of the East Anglians, and was succeeded by Eadwine." Thus did the Anglo Saxon Chronicle record this event many years later. Eadwine or Edwin was a claimant to the throne of Northumbria, and to escape reprisals had sought safe shelter at the court of Raedwald. Aethelfrith tried to bribe Raedwald to kill Edwin to remove him as a rival. Raedwald refused to kill Edwin and instead led his army against Aethelfrith and defeated him. This gave Raedwald enormous new power in the country, although his son, Ragenhere was killed in the process. Edwin was given Northumbria as a client king, and the old King of Kent, Ethelbert, died. Raedwald was now acknowledged as the English Bretwalda, or leading king. With his power extending even into Northumbria, no previous English King had been so powerful.
It also seems that while he had been in East Anglia, Edwin was converted to Christianity by Paulinus, who was a follower of Augustine. |
| |
|
| 620 | Around 620, Raedwald, the High King of the East Angles, died. He was the greatest of the Wuffinga, and was buried in a pagan ship burial at Sutton Hoo, in great splendour. Raedwald knew about Christianity, and had even adopted it for a time, but his burial was pagan. His wife always retained her pagan beliefs.
The royal treasure of Raedwald was excavated by Basil Brown and the British Museum in 1939 at Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge. The undisturbed grave goods were buried in a huge clinker-built ship some eighty feet long with provision for forty oarsmen. The ship and its contents were buried under a large mound of earth in a royal cemetery containing at least eighteen other mounds of various sizes. The astonishing treasure of 'royal regalia' weaponry and objects of everyday use gives an important insight into Anglo-Saxon life at the beginning of the 7th Century. If it had not been for Sutton Hoo we would not be able to realise the incredible wealth, power, influence and connections of 7th Century kings in England. These burials parallel the 6th and 7th century boat-graves at Vendel and Valsgarde in Sweden. Possibly the Wuffings were kin to the Royal House of Upsala, the Scylfings. |
| |
|
One of his grave goods was a purse containing Frankish gold coins, each one minted in a different place on the continent. Clearly there were strong connections with Kent and the rest of 'England' and beyond that the European kingdoms from Gaul to Scandinavia. Political and economic commerce was sophisticated and highly developed by this time, with complex diplomatic activity connecting East Anglia to a much wider area.
Although the Wuffings stronghold was in south-east Suffolk, they had royal outposts or vills at Coney Weston and Bedericsworth in West Suffolk.
| |
|
From the humble villages like West Stow, to the great wealth of the rulers, it is obvious that Anglo-Saxon society was highly stratified. In such a society there were obligations of protection, loyalty and service. The Wuffings drew their strength from the hundreds of little villages, like West Stow, which formed the backbone of their kingdom.
| | 624 | Between 620 to 627 we believe that Raedwald was succeeded by King Earpwald, another of Raedwald's sons. It seems that Edwin of Northumbria now became Bretwalda, and Edwin persuaded Earpwald to convert to Christianity. Edwin had spread Christianity in Northumbria assisted by Paulinus, and the new religion now gained further strength in East Anglia. East Anglia now seems to have declined in power.
Ipswich was coming into being on its present site and was notable for the distinctive Ipswich-ware pottery produced here from about 620 to about 850, after which Thetford-ware came to dominate. | | 626 | Penda became King of Mercia and ruled until 655. | | 627 | An little known pagan king, called Ricbert is believed to have ruled East Anglia from 627 to 630. He took over by murdering Earpwald, and this may have led Sigbert, to consider claiming the throne himself and proclaiming Christian principles in the kingdom. Sigbert may have been a stepson of Raedwald's, deriving his royal claim from this fact. | | c.630 | King Sigbert took power in 630 and ruled East Anglia until 650. In his later years he may have shared power with King Egric.
Anglo-Saxon gold thrymsas were minted, at first copying Frankish or Roman coins.
Christianity was re-introduced into Saxon East Anglia when the first Bishop, Felix, established a see at Dommoc, probably Dunwich or maybe Walton (also see 636). With Christianity we believe came literacy, a skill the pagan early Anglo-Saxons had not thought of value to them, and so ignored. St Felix was from Burgundy and his Christianity was of the Roman tradition. He remained Bishop until his death in 647.
Around the same time, Sigeberht, King of the East Angles, founded a monastery at Bedericsworth, today called Bury St Edmunds. It was one of the earliest schools of English literacy, but it was not the type of structure whose ruins we see today, but was probably made of wood. The site may have been very close to the later abbey site. Bede recorded that Sigbert retired to live in his monastery, but it is only a note in the 12th century book, the Liber Eliensis, which identifies it as Bury. He entrusted his earthly kingdom to Egric and "devoted his energies to winning an everlasting Kingdom".
Both Ipswich ware and Thetford ware have been excavated from the site of the Bury monastery. Bede devoted a chapter to the life and death of the devout King Sigbert. 'After the death of Earpwald, successor of Raedwald, the kingdom of the East Angles was ruled by his brother Sigbert, a good and religious man who had been baptized long previously in Gaul while he had been living in exile to escape the hostility of Raedwald. When he returned home and became king he wanted to copy Gaul and founded a school for the education of boys in the study of letters. In this project he was assisted by Bishop Felix, who had come to him from Kent and provided him with teachers and masters according to the practice of Canterbury.' | | 632 | "Here Eorpwald was baptised." He was king of the East Anglians. |
| |
|
| 633 | During Sigberts' reign a holy man came from Ireland called Fursey. It may be that Sigbert and Felix were looking for someone to run the school they had founded. The monastery and school was at Cnobheresburh, either at Burgh Castle near Yarmouth, or maybe at Caister on Sea. St Fursey or Fursa later migrated to the continent, but the monastery survived in the charge of his brother. Fursey represented the Irish celtic Christian tradition and some of his ideas would have differed from those of Felix.
Early Saxon churches were also set up within the walls of three other Saxon shore forts left behind by the Romans, Bradwell, Reculver and Richborough. This supports the idea that Fursey was located at Burgh Castle, one of the earliest such Roman forts. After the episode of Fursey, the castle seems to have remained a deserted ruin until Norman times. | | 635 | Bishop Aidan founded a monastery on Lindisfarne. He was an Irish monk from Iona. | | 636 | "And Bishop Felix preached the faith of Christ to the East Anglians", said the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. | | 647 | Bishop Felix died.
Coincidentally, Fursey also died in the same year. According to Bede, Fursey died in France and his body was found to be incorrupt four years later, showing "how great a man Fursey was". This shows that the idea that a saint's body would not decay after death would be well established by the time that St Edmund's sanctity was being established, many years later. | | c.650 | The title of middle Saxon Period is assigned to the period from about 650 to 850, when Christianity was being adopted by the formerly pagan Saxons. Other names for this time are Early Medieval or Christian-Saxon.
According to Bede, Sigbert did not die peacefully in his monastery at Bury, but was killed in battle. "The Mercians led by King Penda attacked the East Angles who, finding themselves less experienced in warfare than their enemies, asked Sigbert to go into battle with them and foster the morale of the fighting men. When he refused, they dragged him out of the monastery regardless of his protests and took him into battle ... in the hope that their men would be less likely to panic ... under ... a gallant and distinguished commander. ... Mindful of his monastic vows, Sigbert ... refused to carry anything more than a stick ... both he and King Egric were killed and the army scattered. These kings were succeeded by Anna, son of Eni."
We believe that King Anna ruled East Anglia from 650 to 654. The West Stow Anglo Saxon Village site was deserted at about this time, but possibly moved to the location of the current West Stow village, around a Christian church and cemetery. There is evidence that other pagan Saxon settlements in Suffolk were abandoned at around this time, possibly to make a clean start on a new Christian site.
During the Middle Saxon period the Fens and the clay soils were settled once again so that by the 9th Century most of our villages had been founded. However, we need to remember that the sites of named villages may have moved over time since then. | | 651 | The Irish left Burgh Castle after Fursey's death and Irish influence declined in East Anglia. The monastery appears to have been destroyed. Cnobhersburg is believed to be the Old English name for Burgh Castle. |
| |
|
| 654 | King Anna of East Anglia met his death. According to Bede, "Anna was killed by the same pagan King of the Mercians who had slain his predecessors", i.e., Penda. The Mercians are now thought to have dominated East Anglia, although it kept its own kings until around 865 when the Danes arrived. Bede clearly saw the kingdoms of the East Angles and the East Saxons as separate. He recorded a King Sigbert the Small, who was succeeded after some time by a second King Sigbert neither of whom appear to be the same man as the King Sigbert of the East Angles. The second Essex Sigbert was a friend of King Oswy and used to visit him in Northumbria. Oswy persuaded this Sigbert to convert to Christianity and sent Cedd to evangelise the East Saxons in Essex. This Sigbert "was succeeded by Swidhelm, who had been baptized by Cedd in the province of the East Angles at the King's country seat of Rendlesham, that is Rendil's house: his godfather was Ethelwald, King of the East Angles, brother of King Anna".
This places Ethelwald as the King of East Anglia at some point after Anna. We believe Anna was succeeded immediately by his other brother, Ethelhere.
"And Botwulf began to build a minster at Icanho". This reference could be to St Botolph building a religious site at Iken in Suffolk. Botolph was immensely influential in East Anglian Christianity. | | 655 | King Penda of Mercia died, defeated in battle by the Christian King Oswy. The East Anglian king Ethelhere was also killed in this battle. According to Bede, this led to Mercia becoming Christian. Ethelhere was succeeded by his brother Ethelwold, who ruled East Anglia until 662. | | 662 | King Ethelwald of East Anglia was now succeeded by The obscure, but long - lived King Aldwulf, who ruled until 713. The first east anglian sceattas were probably minted in his reign. | | 664 | The Synod of Whitby was called to settle differences in the teachings of Irish and Roman Christianity, such as the date of Easter. More accurately it was Iona and its Irish satellites against Western Europe and Southern Ireland. The Synod concluded in favour of the Roman tradition.
In the Middle East, the Arabs took Syracuse. They had taken Damascus in 634 and Jerusalem in 637. | | 671 | "Here there was the great mortality of birds". This comment from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle must be one of the earliest written English observations on natural history, but the Anglo-Saxons would have been intimately familiar with the natural world. | | 673 | One of King Anna's daughters was Etheldreda (Audrey) and she became Abbess of Ely, following an extraordinary marriage, and a refusal to give up her chastity. In 673, her husband, King Egfrith of Northumbria, finally released her to follow a religious life. She founded a monastery at Ely, which was the first nunnery in the country. Later she was to become known as one of the most famous saints of Anglo-Saxon England. Bede recorded that because of her life of purity and chastity, her body remained free of decay after death, which occurred in 679 She was succeeded as Abbess by her sister, Saxburga. Another daughter was Ethelburga who became Abbess of Faremoutier. The final daughter of king Anna was Withburga, and she was also pious, founding a religious house on the fen edge, probably at West Dereham. | | 674 | A monastery was founded at Wearmouth. | | 675 | Gold coins were largely replaced by silver. Subsequent coinage was virtually entirely silver until 1257. All coins were produced by hammering a piece of metal between two engraved dies until the 16th century. | | c.680 | A second Christian see was established in East Anglia at South Elmham to partner Dunwich, and Christianity seems to have become fairly well established again. Monastic foundations were also believed to have been established at Clare and Sudbury in our area.
Most settlements built a church after this time, but were probably mainly of timber. Stone was not used until well into the 11th Century.
There is a middle Saxon site that has been excavated at Brandon, between the Little Ouse on one side and a marsh on the other. This seems to have been a literate and devout Christian settlement with a church. This was of timber and could have been a Monastery. It would develop over the next 200 years and in 1978 an important gold plaque was discovered dedicated to St John and dated to the 9th century.
It is also likely that a church was first founded in Haverhill around this time. It was located where Clements Lane crosses Camps Road into Crowland Road at Burton End. Local tradition knew it as St Botolphs, but recently it has become thought it was more likely to have been dedicated to St Mary.
Ipswich also began its explosive growth from this time and seems to have been important industrially and commercially long before the emergence of Thetford, Dunwich or Norwich. Ipswich ware pottery was sold widely over eastern England. This pottery was the first industially produced ware since Roman times. Ipswich ware was so superior to the hand made pots elsewhere that it was sold allover East Anglia, and has been found in Kent, and as far north as County Durham.
Royal vills of the Middle Saxon period were residences of peripatetic kings and were a trading network for the products of Ipswich. One such vill was at Bury St Edmunds, under the name of Bedericsworth. | | 680 | At the age of seven, a young boy was sent to the monastery at Wearmouth to be educated, and a few years later was moved to the new foundation at Jarrow. He was later to become known as the Venerable Bede. | | 685 | Cuthbert, a hermit from Farne, was made Bishop of Lindisfarne. He died two years later, and eleven years after that, Bede recorded that his body remained whole and incorrupt. | | 690 | Coins known to modern collectors as Series C of Primary Scettas are also known as the East Anglian Runic series. | | 700 | There was civil war in Northumbria and Pict and Scots wars to the North.
Into the 8th Century, in parallel with the consolidation of the secular powers of kings and their kingdoms, the Christian church established its own institutions and hierarchies based on a network of monasteries and abbeys. These became centres of learning and scholarship and particularly of literacy, but their aim was always to study Christianity and spread its message. Much of the doings of kings and states and the way people lived were of only passing interest to the church.
Little is known of what occurred in East Anglia in the eighth century, and it is usually described as being dominated by Mercia, although retaining its own kings. | | 710 | The Arabs invaded Spain bringing the religion of Islam or Muslim faith. | | c.713 | Following the death of King Aldwulf, King Aelfwald ruled East Anglia until about 749 and was to be the last of the Wuffing dynasty. He seems to have promoted Christianity and probably tried to emulate the developments in Northumbria. Certainly his kingdom had a tradition of literacy going back to Sigbert at Bedericsworth and Dunwich.
East Anglia seems to have had stronger Scandinavian affinities then any other early English kingdom, its most outstanding feature being the rite of royal ship funeral.
In such a society the heroic epic poem Beowulf might have had its origins, perhaps to link the Wuffings with the Wulfings of Beowulf, an ancient and royal house back in the old country. Beowulf's action seems to take place in pagan Scandinavia from about 450 to 550, but its narrator is from a Christian society. The monster Grendel is like the creatures thought to live in fens and marshes. A grindle is a ditch or drain and the name survives in Grindle Gardens, Bury and at Wattisfield and Stanton.
Aldwulf continued to mint the coinage of the time, known to us as sceattas. These coins did not contain the king's name. | | 716 | By this time the Northumbrian church reached a standard of culture achieved by few others at its time. It had libraries of books from Italy and France, continental panel paintings and stone built churches, with a flourishing stained glass workshop at Jarrow. Jarrow is believed to have had 200 monks and Wearmouth had some 400 living in. At this time the kingdom of Northumbria included most of modern Yorkshire. It was literally "North of the Humber".
Bede wrote that Egbert finally converted the monks of Iona to the Catholic Easter and the canonical tonsure. |
| |
|
| 731 | By 731 when he was nearly 60, Bede had completed his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It was in Latin, the language which could be read and understood throughout Europe, and was a church history of Anglo-Saxon England recording its saints and the miracles associated with their lives and, after death, their tombs. It was not intended to be a history of the state or the economics or society of the time. However, much of what we know of Anglo-Saxon history was recorded in this book. The project was inspired by Abbot Albinus of Canterbury who ruled there from 709 to 732 and who supplied information about Kent and arranged for research in papal archives at Rome for documents concerning England to be copied for Bede. An otherwise unknown Abbot called Esi reported on East Anglian matters.
Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon society had virtually no documents and no books. The King's word and oral tradition regulated society. After Christianity came in 630, written records were still very few, and what little there was, were mostly to do with the administration of the church such as letters from the Pope, church lists, and so on. However, around 538, the British cleric Gildas had written his version of the Saxon invasion, and Bede seems to have relied on this for the early part of his book. Gildas was living at that time in an area of Britain outside of Saxon control. Bede had to piece all this together with whatever other information came his way. | | 735 | On 26 May, the Venerable Bede died at the age of 62.
Another 8th century historian was called Nennius. Nennius was a compiler of historical records who wrote that "I have made a heap of all I found". He tried to put them into order and some of these documents are considered important. The Kentish Chronicle was one document which covered 425 to 460 AD. Another by the name of Chronographer tried to date early 5th century events. Both documents were written in the 6th century, but Nennius gathered them together in the 8th century. | | c.742 | King Aelfwald of East Anglia wrote to St Boniface and stated that there were at least seven minsters in his kingdom at this time, and these are likely to have included Dunwich, Elmham and Bedericsworth.
A Beowulf manuscript could have been kept at any of these minsters until 869 when the Danes destroyed them all, along with any records of the East Anglian kingdom for the previous 200 years. | | 749 | King Aelfwald died and the Wuffinga house died with him. By now it is possible that the Wuffings had set up the trading port of Northwic, or Norwich as it is called today. It seems to have had slow beginnings.
Aelfwald had been a great supporter and encourager of the spread of Christianity.
After Aelfwald the kingdom was divided between Hunbeanna and Athelbert. | | 757 | In the reign of King Offa of Mercia (757 to 796), the silver penny was probably introduced into England. He was the first king to have his coins marked "King of the English", and he expanded Mercia to include Essex, Kent, Sussex and Surrey. He would also gradually assert control over East Anglia as well. His coins meant what they said, and he intended to control the whole country. He used coins to make his point, and whenever he could he would suppress any coinage other than his own. | | c.760 | Around this time, or the late 750s, it is possible that Beonna became King of East Anglia. The earliest known coins in East Anglia were issued by Beonna. King Beonna was the first East Anglian king issuing coins bearing his own name. A hoarde of 51 coins was found at Middle Harling, and only about 30 elsewhere.
At some point in the next 30 years, Beonna was succeeded by King Ethelred, and he was followed by Ethelbert as King. From 760 until the death of the Mercian king Offa in 796, East Anglia was a virtual dependency of Mercia, and so Ethelred minted no coins of his own. Ethelbert certainly did mint at least a few coins of his own. | | 793 | There had been no significant attacks from the sea for 200 years, but in 793 the Vikings appeared on January 8th and sacked Lindisfarne and Jarrow monasteries. | | 794 | Ethelbert, King of East Anglia, was killed at Hereford by Offa, King of Mercia. According to legend, Ethelbert was attending a wedding at Sutton in Offa's Great Hall, and was treacherously murdered. It seems that Offa felt that Ethelbert was challenging his control of East Anglia in some way, perhaps by minting coinage in his own name. Offa wanted to stamp out any opposition to his overlordship of Southern Britain.
Ethelbert's head was chopped off and the body moved to Hereford. On the way, the head was lost and stumbled upon by a blind beggar whose sight was miraculously restored. Thus did King Ethelbert become a saint. A church was dedicated in his name at Herringswell, and another at Hoxne, although the latter was supplanted by a dedication to St Edmund in the 10th century. St Ethelbert may have been succeeded by Eadwald as King. | | 796 | The Great King Offa of Mercia died having built Mercia up to control or influence all of England south of the Humber. With the death of Offa, East Anglia started to assert some independence again, but this would take another 20 years to achieve. | | 798 | The Anglo Saxon Chronicle recorded the death of a Bishop Alfhun at Sudbury, and his burial at Dunwich. This mention of Sudbury places it as one of the oldest recorded towns in the country. To celebrate their 1200 years of history, the town erected a statue of Alfhun in 1999. | | 799 | King Ecgberht became the ruler of East Anglia until 825 according to some sources and 836 according to others. All such dates have to be treated with caution. | | 823 | The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Manuscript A, for 823 stated "that same year the King of the East Angles and his folk sought King Ecgberht as their protector and guardian against Mercian terror, and that same year the East Angles slew Beornwulf, the King of the Mercians."
This implies an alliance between the King of East Anglia and the King of Wessex against their joint enemy of Mercia. Control of the English passed from Mercia to Wessex, but East Anglia was now free from Mercian dominance. | | 825 | Aethlstan may have become King of East Anglia but some sources date this to 836. | | 835 | Since 793 the Vikings had sporadically raided Irish and Continental coasts but in, and after, 835 many more hit and run raids were carried out on England, up to 15 miles inland. Danes mainly raided Southern England, and the Norsemen attacked the North, even establishing a capital at York, but these were part of a much bigger expansionist movement which also reached Iceland and North America, Russia and Spain. | | 836 | In this year Ecgberht passed away having reigned 37 years. He gave his son Aethelstan the thrones of Kent, Essex, Surrey and Sussex. There are coins of the 820s to 840s which also give the name of Aethelstan as King of East Anglia.
These dates are subject to revision by historians but it is possible that Aethelstan was given East Anglia prior to his father's death. | | 850 | According to "L'Estoire des Engleis' by Geffrei Gaimar, the King of East Anglia at this time was Aethelstan, the brother of King Aethelwulf of Wessex.
By this time, the town of Ipswich was huge, at 125 acres, and was only a little smaller than the area later to be encompassed by its medieval walls. Ipswich at this time has been called the largest known early trading community in north-west Europe. East Anglia and its royal family would have been rich, famous and powerful.
At some date, Aethelstan was succeeded by King Aethelweard. | | 851 | For the first time the Vikings over-wintered in England. They brought 350 shops up the Thames and 'ruined Canterbury', causing great carnage and putting the King of Mercia to flight. This over-wintering continued and would lead to eventual take-over in future years. | | 855 | According to the Annals of St Neots, an early 11th century record, King Edmund was crowned King of East Anglia at Bures. The history of the legend of King Edmund is covered fully elsewhere on this website.
From 855 to 870, Edmund's coinage was in circulation with his name on them. One side had an Alpha or A, the reverse had a cross with pellets or wedges. This should not be confused with the memorial coinage issued by Aethlred I of Wessex and Alfred after Edmund's death as a martyr. | | 865 on | In 865 the Anglo-Saxons of England suffered a major disaster with the invasion by the Great Army or host of the Danes. We date the late Saxon period from this invasion.
Follow the story of English and West Suffolk History into the time of the Viking Invasion |
|
|
