Hwicce was a kingdom in the Heptarchy period of 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.

It was assessed at 7000 hides in the Tribal Hidage, giving it a similar sized economy to the kingdoms of Essex and Sussex. The exact boundaries of their kingdom are uncertain, though it is likely that they coincided with those of the old Diocese of Worcester, founded in 679–80, 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, plus small parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and north-west Wiltshire.^[1][2]

Various historians and archaeologists have examined the Hwicce Kingdom, including Della Hooke and Stephen J. Yeates in his book The Tribe of Witches (2008).

Name[link]

The etymology of the name Hwicce "the Hwiccians" is uncertain. It is the plural of a masculine i-stem. It may be from a tribal name of "the Hwiccians", or it may be from a clan name.

Smith suggested a tribal name that was in origin pejorative, meaning "the cowards", cognate to quake, Old Norse hvikari "coward". An alternative etymology would be from the common noun hwicce "ark, chest, locker", in reference to the appearance of the territory as a flat-bottomed valley bordered by the Cotswolds and the Malvern Hills.^[3] A third possibility would be derivation from a given name, "the people of the man called Hwicce", but no such name has been recorded.^[4][5]Eilert Ekwall connected the name of the Gewisse^{[clarification needed][6]}

Stephen Yeates (2008, 2009) has interpreted the name as meaning "cauldron; sacred vessel" and linked to the shape of the Vale of Gloucester and the Romano-British regional cult of a goddess with a bucket or cauldron, identified with a Mater Dobunna, supposedly associated with West Country legends concerning the Holy Grail.^[7]

The toponym Hwicce survives in Wychwood in Oxfordshire, Whichford in Warwickshire, Wichenford and Wychbury Hill in Worcestershire.

History[link]

The territory of the Hwicce may roughly have corresponded to the Roman civitas of the Dobunni.^[8] The area appears to have remained largely British in the first century or so after Britain left the Roman Empire, but pagan burials and place names in its north-eastern sector suggest an inflow of Angles along the Warwickshire Avon and perhaps by other routes;^[9] they may have exacted tribute from British rulers.^[10]

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle there was a battle at Dyrham in 577 in which the Gewisse (West Saxons) under Ceawlin killed three British kings and captured Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath. West Saxon occupation of the area did not last long, however, and may have ended as early as 584, the date of the battle of Fethanleag, according to the A.S.C., in which Cutha was killed and Ceawlin returned home in anger, and certainly by 603 when, according to Bede, Saint Augustine attended a conference of Welsh bishops "at St. Augustine's Oak on the borders of the Hwicce and the West Saxons".

The Angles strengthened their influence over the area in 628, when (says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), the West Saxons fought the (Anglian) Penda of Mercia at Cirencester and afterwards came to terms. Penda had evidently won but had probably forged an alliance with local leaders since the former Dobunnic polity did not immediately become part of Mercia but instead became an allied or client kingdom of the Hwicce.

The Hwicce sub-kingdom included a number of distinct tribal groups including the Husmerae, the Stoppingas and the Weorgoran.^[11]

The first probable kings of whom we read were two brothers, Eanhere and Eanfrith. Bede notes that Queen Eafe "had been baptised in her own country, the kingdom of the Hwicce. She was the daughter of Eanfrith, Eanhere's brother, both of whom were Christians, as were their people."^[12] From this we deduce that Eanfrith and Eanhere were of the royal family and that theirs was a Christian kingdom.

It is likely that the Hwicce were converted to Christianity by Celtic Christians rather than by the mission from Pope Gregory I since Bede was well-informed on the latter yet does not mention the conversion of the Hwicce.^[13] Though place-names show that Anglo-Saxon settlement was widespread in the territory, the limited spread of pagan burials, along with two eccles place-names that invariably identify Roman-British churches, suggests that Christianity survived the influx. There are also probable Christian burials beneath Worcester Cathedral and St Mary de Lode Church, Gloucester.^[14] So it seems that incoming Anglo-Saxons were absorbed into the existing church. The ruling dynasty of the Hwicce were probably key figures in the process. Perhaps they sprang from intermarriage between Anglian and British leading families.

By a complex chain of reasoning one can deduce that Eanhere married Osthryth, daughter of Oswiu of Northumbria, and had sons by her named Osric, Oswald and Oshere. Osthryth is recorded as the wife of Æthelred of Mercia. An earlier marriage to Eanhere would explain why Osric and Oswald are described as Æthelred's nepotes — usually meaning "nephews" but here probably "stepsons".^[15]

Osric was anxious for the Hwicce to gain their own bishop,^[16] but it was Oshere whose influence was seen behind the creation of the see of Worcester in 679–80. Presumably Osric was dead by that time. Tatfrid of Whitby was chosen as the first bishop of the Hwicce but he died before ordination and was replaced by Bosel.^[17] A 12th-century chronicler of Worcester comments that that town was selected as the seat of the bishop because it was the capital of the Hwicce.^[18]

Oshere was succeeded by his sons Æthelheard, Æthelweard and Æthelric. At the beginning of Offa's reign we find the kingdom ruled by three brothers, named Eanberht, Uhtred and Aldred, the two last of whom lived until about 780. After them the title of king seems to have been given up. Their successor Æthelmund, who was killed in a campaign against Wessex in 802, is described only as an earl.

The district remained in possession of the rulers of Mercia until the fall of that kingdom. Together with the rest of English Mercia it submitted to King Alfred about 877–883 under Earl Æthelred, who possibly himself belonged to the Hwicce.

Kings of the Hwicce[link]

No contemporary genealogy or list of kings has been preserved, so the following list has been compiled by historians from a variety of primary sources.^[19] Some kings of the Hwicce seem to have reigned in tandem for all or part of their reign. This gives rise to an overlap in the dates of reigns given below. Please consult individual biographies for a discussion of the dating of these rulers.

Ealdormen of the Hwicce[link]

Other notables of the Hwicce[link]

Æthelmod granted land to Abbess Beorngyth in October 680 and was probably a member of the royal family.[2]

Osred (c. 693) was a thegn of the Hwicce, who has been described by some historians as a king.^[24]

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Hooke, Della (1985). The Anglo-Saxon Landscape: The Kingdom of the Hwicce. 
• Sims-Williams, Patrick (2004). "Hwicce, kings of the (act. c.670–c.780)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/52342. 
• Sims-Williams, Patrick (1990). Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 3. Cambridge. 

A reconstruction of the helmet found at Sutton Hoo, probably belonging to Raedwald of East Anglia, who died around 624. Based on a Roman parade-helmet design, it has decorations similar to those found in contemporary Swedish helmets found at Old Uppsala.

The term Anglo-Saxon is used by some historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Britain beginning in the early 5th century and the period from their creation of the English nation up to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon era denotes the period of English history between about 550 and 1066.^[1][2] The term is also used for the language, now known as Old English, that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in England (and part of southeastern Scotland) between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century.^[3]

The Benedictine monk Bede, writing in the early 8th century, identified the English as the descendants of three Germanic tribes:^[4]

• the Angles, who may have come from Angeln (in modern Germany): Bede wrote that their whole nation came to Britain,^[5] leaving their former land empty. The name England (Old English: Engla land or Ængla land) originates from this tribe;^[6]
• the Saxons, from Lower Saxony (in modern Germany; German: Niedersachsen) and the Low Countries;
• the Jutes, possibly from the Jutland peninsula (in modern Denmark; Danish: Jylland).

Their language, Old English, which derived from Ingvaeonic West Germanic dialects, transformed into Middle English from the 11th century. Old English was divided into four main dialects: West Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian and Kentish.

Etymology[link]

The term Anglo-Saxon can be found in documents produced in the time of Alfred the Great, who seems to have frequently used the titles rex Anglorum Saxonum and rex Angul-Saxonum (king of the English Saxons).^[7] The Old English terms ænglisc ('Angle-kin') and Angelcynn ('gens Anglorum') had already lost their original sense of referring to the Angles, as distinct from the Saxons, when they are first attested. In their earliest sense they referred to the nation of Germanic peoples who settled eastern Britain from the 5th century.^{[citation needed]} The indigenous Britons, who wrote in both Latin and Welsh, referred to these invaders as 'Saxones' or 'Saeson' – the word Saeson is the modern Welsh word for 'English people';^[8] the equivalent word in Scottish Gaelic is Sasannach and in the Irish language, Sasanach.

The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in continental writing nearly a century before Alfred's time, by Paul the Deacon, historian of the Lombards, probably to distinguish the English Saxons from the continental Saxons (Ealdseaxe, literally, 'old Saxons').^{[citation needed]}

The Angles (Old English: Engle, Angle), took their name from their ancestral home in Jutland, Angul (modern Angeln), which has an area in the shape of a hook (Old English: angel, angul "fishhook", anga "hook").

History[link]

Anglo-Saxons, 500-1000 CE

The history of Anglo-Saxon England broadly covers early medieval England, from the end of Roman rule and the establishment of numerous Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Norman conquest of England by the Normans in 1066.

Origins (400–600)[link]

The migration of Germanic peoples to Britain from what is now northern Germany, the northern part of the Netherlands and southern Scandinavia is attested from the 5th century (e.g. Undley bracteate). Based on Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, the intruding population is traditionally divided into Angles, Saxons and Jutes, but their composition was likely less clear-cut and may also have included peoples such as the Frisii and the Franks. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may contain the first recorded indications of the movement of these Germanic tribes to Britain.

Heptarchy (600–800)[link]

Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxons began in 597 and was at least nominally completed in 686. Throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, power fluctuated between the larger kingdoms. Bede records Aethelbert of Kent as being dominant at the close of the 6th century, but power seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria.

Aethelbert and some of the later kings of the other kingdoms were recognised by their fellow kings as Bretwalda (ruler of Britain). The so-called 'Mercian Supremacy' dominated the 8th century, though again it was not constant. Aethelbald and Offa, the two most powerful kings, achieved high status. This period has been described as the Heptarchy, though this term has now fallen out of academic use.

The word arose on the basis that the seven kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex were the main polities of south Britain. More recent scholarship has shown that theories of the 'heptarchy' are not grounded in evidence, and it is far more likely that power fluctuated between many more 'kingdoms'. Other politically important 'kingdoms' across this period include: Hwicce, Magonsaete, Kingdom of Lindsey and Middle Anglia.

Viking Age and the Norman Conquest (800–1066)[link]

In the 9th century, the Viking challenge grew to serious proportions. Alfred the Great's victory at Edington, Wiltshire, in 878 brought intermittent peace, but with their possession of Jorvik, the Danes gained a solid foothold in England.

Some of the earliest arrivals of invaders came in the form of small groups or companies of Danish heritage. It is widely believed they left their homelands for more religious freedom as they did not like Christianity being forced upon them. There was no prior indication for them being there before their arrival and thus little resistance if any at all from locals. They attacked various locations in England, and they were seemingly sporadic. For example these raiders attacked three different locations; Hampshire, Thanet, and Cheshire around 980, but no raids were recorded afterwards for another six years. The most notable event to come from these raids however was, that it was the first time that England came into contact with any form of diplomacy from Normandy.^[9]

They became hostile towards one another by summer in the year 990. Their feud became so great that Pope John XV had to send an envoy with a treaty in order to settle their quarrel. It was a Christmas Day in the year 990 the commission was presented to King Etherlred, and soon the council drew up a set of terms which were sent to the Duke of Normandy. The doctrine stated that neither shall befriend the others enemies, and that they should accept a reparation from any damage which either could sustain from the other nation.^[10]

An important development in the 9th century was the rise of the Kingdom of Wessex; by the end of his reign Alfred was recognised as overlord by several southern kingdoms. Æthelstan was the first king to achieve direct rule over what is considered "England".

Near the end of the 10th century, there was renewed Scandinavian interest in England, with the conquests of Sweyn of Denmark and his son Cnut the Great. By 1066 there were three lords with claims to the English throne, resulting in two invasions and the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings. The latter, which heralded the Norman conquest of England, resulted in the overthrow of the Anglo-Saxon polity and its replacement with Norman rule.

After the Norman Conquest[link]

Following the conquest, the Anglo-Saxon nobility were either exiled or joined the ranks of the peasantry.^[11] It has been estimated that only about 8 per cent of the land was under Anglo-Saxon control by 1087.^[12] Many Anglo-Saxon nobles fled to Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia.^[13][14] The Byzantine Empire became a popular destination for many Anglo-Saxon soldiers, as the Byzantines were in need of mercenaries.^[15] The Anglo-Saxons became the predominant element in the elite Varangian Guard, hitherto a largely Scandinavian unit, from which the emperor's bodyguard was drawn and continued to serve the empire until the early 15th century.^[16] However, the population of England at home remained largely Anglo-Saxon; for them, little changed immediately except that their Anglo-Saxon lord was replaced by a Norman lord.^[17]

Culture[link]

Architecture[link]

Reconstruction of the Anglo-Saxon royal palace at Cheddar around 1000 AD

Early Anglo-Saxon buildings in Britain were generally simple, not using masonry except in foundations but constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers or sited to serve as ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth.^[18]

There are few remains of Anglo-Saxon architecture, with but one secular work remaining above ground – a 10m. x 5m. houscarl's dwelling re-using local Roman materials.^[where?] This is still completely standing as an undivided single room with a single central north-facing door, belonging to the Godwin estates, so can be dated 1018–1066. At least fifty churches are of Anglo-Saxon origin, with many more claimed to be, in part from their dedication to local Anglo-Saxon saints, although in some cases the Anglo-Saxon part is small and much-altered. All surviving churches, except one timber church, are built of stone or brick and in some cases show evidence of re-used Roman work.

The character of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical buildings ranges from Celtic influenced architecture in the early period; basilica influenced Romanesque architecture; to in the later Anglo-Saxon period, an architecture characterised by pilaster-strips, blank arcading, baluster shafts and triangular headed openings.

Art[link]

Anglo-Saxon jewellery.

The Pentney hoard.

Anglo-Saxon art before roughly the time of Alfred (ruled 871–899) mostly in varieties of the Hiberno-Saxon or Insular style, a fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic techniques and motifs. The Sutton Hoo treasure is an exceptional survival of very early Anglo-Saxon metalwork and jewellery, from a royal grave of the early 7th century. The period between Alfred and the Norman Conquest, with the revival of the English economy and culture after the end of the Viking raids, saw a distinct Anglo-Saxon style in art, though one in touch with trends on the Continent.

Anglo-Saxon art is mainly known today through illuminated manuscripts, including the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (British Library) and Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodl, 579), masterpieces of the late "Winchester style", which drew on Hiberno-Saxon art, Carolingian art and Byzantine art for style and iconography, and combined both northern ornamental traditions with Mediterranean figural traditions. The Harley Psalter was a copy of the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter — which was a particular influence in creating an Anglo-Saxon style of very lively pen drawings.

Manuscripts were far from the only Anglo-Saxon art form, but they have survived in much greater numbers than other types of object. Contemporaries in Europe regarded Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing and embroidery (Opus Anglicanum) as especially fine. Perhaps the best known piece of Anglo-Saxon art is the Bayeux Tapestry which was commissioned by a Norman patron from English artists working in the traditional Anglo-Saxon style. The most common example of Anglo-Saxon art is coins, with thousands of examples extant. Anglo-Saxon artists also worked in fresco, ivory, stone carving, metalwork (see Fuller brooch for example) and enamel, but few of these pieces have survived.

Language[link]

Old English, sometimes called Anglo-Saxon, was the language spoken under Alfred the Great and continued to be the common language of England (non-Danelaw) until after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when, under the influence of the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the Norman ruling class, it changed into Middle English roughly between 1150–1500.

Old English is far closer to early Germanic than Middle English. It is less Latinised and retains many morphological features (nominal and verbal inflection) that were lost during the 12th to 14th centuries. The languages today which are closest to Old English are the Frisian languages, which are spoken by a few hundred thousand people in the northern part of Germany and the Netherlands.

Before literacy in the vernacular Old English or Latin became widespread, a runic alphabet, the futhorc, was used for inscriptions. When literacy became more prevalent, a form of Latin script was used with a couple of letters derived from the futhorc: 'thorn' ‹þ› and 'wynn' ‹ƿ› (generally replaced with ‹w› in modern reproductions).

The letters regularly used in printed and edited texts of Old English are the following:

• a æ b c d ð e f g h i l m n o p r s t þ u w x y

with only rare occurrences of j, k, q, v, and z.

Law[link]

Very few law codes exist from the Anglo-Saxon period to provide an insight into legal culture beyond the influence of Roman law and how this legal culture developed over the course of time. The Saxons chopped off hands and noses for punishment (if the offender stole something or committed another crime). If someone killed a Saxon, he had to pay money called wergild, the amount varying according to the social rank of the victim.

Literature[link]

First page of the epic Beowulf

Old English literary works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles and others. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, a significant corpus of both popular interest and specialist research.

The most famous works from this period include the poem Beowulf, which has achieved national epic status in Britain. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of important early English history. Cædmon's Hymn from the 7th century is the earliest attested literary text in English.

Religion[link]

The indigenous pre-Christian belief system of the Anglo-Saxons was a form of Germanic paganism and therefore closely related to the Old Norse religion, as well as other Germanic pre-Christian cultures.

Christianity gradually replaced the indigenous religion of the English around the 7th and 8th centuries. Celtic Christianity was introduced into Northumbria and Mercia by monks from Ireland, but the Synod of Whitby settled the choice for Roman Christianity. As the new clerics became the chroniclers, the old religion was partially lost before it was recorded, and today historians' knowledge of it is largely based on surviving customs and lore, texts, etymological links and archaeological finds.

One of the few recorded references is that a Kentish King would only meet the missionary St. Augustine in the open air, where he would be under the protection of the sky god, Woden. Written Christian prohibitions on acts of paganism are one of historians' main sources of information on pre-Christian beliefs.

Despite these prohibitions, numerous elements of the pre-Christian culture of the Anglo-Saxon people survived the Christianisation process. Examples include the English language names for days of the week:

• Tiw, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Tyr: Tuesday
• Woden, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Odin: Wednesday
• Þunor, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Thor: Thursday
• *Fríge, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Frigg: Friday

Contemporary meanings[link]

"Anglo-Saxon" in linguistics is still used as a term for the original West Germanic component of the modern English language, which was later expanded and developed through the influence of Old Norse and Norman French, though linguists now more often refer to it as Old English. In the 19th century the term "Anglo-Saxon" was broadly used in philology, and is sometimes so used at present. In Victorian Britain, some writers such as Robert Knox, James Anthony Froude, Charles Kingsley^[19] and Edward A. Freeman^[20] used the term "Anglo-Saxon" to justify racism and imperialism, claiming that the "Anglo-Saxon" ancestry of the English made them racially superior to the colonised peoples. Similar racist ideas were advocated in the 19th Century United States by Samuel George Morton and George Fitzhugh.^[21]

The term "Anglo-Saxon" is sometimes used to refer to peoples descended or associated in some way with the English ethnic group. The definition has varied from time to time and varies from place to place. In contemporary Anglophone cultures outside the United Kingdom, the term is most commonly found in certain contexts, such as the term "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" or "WASP". Such terms are often politicised, and bear little connection to the precise ethnological or historical definition of the term "Anglo-Saxon". It often encapsulates socio-economic identifiers more than ethnic ones.^{[citation needed]}

Outside Anglophone countries, both in Europe and in the rest of the world, the term "Anglo-Saxon" and its direct translations are used to refer to the Anglophone peoples and societies of Britain, the United States, and other countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand – areas which are sometimes referred to as the Anglosphere. The term "Anglo-Saxon" can be used in a variety of contexts, often to identify the English-speaking world's distinctive language, culture, technology, wealth, markets, economy, and legal systems. Variations include the German "Angelsachsen", French "Anglo-Saxon", Spanish "anglosajón", Portuguese "anglo-saxão", Italian "anglosassone", Catalan "anglosaxó", Japanese "Angurosakuson" and Ukrainian "aнглосакси" (anhlosaksy). As with the English language use of the term, what constitutes the "Anglo-Saxon" varies from speaker to speaker.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

• Angles
• Anglo-Frisian
• Anglo-Saxon architecture
• Anglo-Saxon dress
• Anglo-Saxon military organization
• Anglophile
• Britons
• Frisia
• Ingvaeones
• Jutes
• Saxons
• States in Medieval Britain
• Timeline of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain
• Staffordshire Hoard

Modern concepts:

• English people
• Anglo-Saxon economy

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Origins of the British(2006). Constable and Robinson, London. ISBN 1-84529-158-1

Further reading[link]

• Clark, David, and Nicholas Perkins, eds. Anglo-Saxon Culture and the Modern Imagination (2010)
• F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edition, (Oxford: University Press, 1971)
• J. Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons, (London: Penguin, 1991)
• E. James, Britain in the First Millennium, (London: Arnold, 2001)
• M. Lapidge et al., The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999)
• Donald Henson, The Origins of the Anglo-Saxons, (Anglo-Saxon Books, 2006)

Primary sources[link]

• D. Whitelock, ed. English Historical Documents c.500–1042, (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955)
• Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. L. Sherly-Price, (London: Penguin, 1990)

External links[link]

• Photos of over 600 items found in the Anglo-Saxon Hoard in Staffordshire Sept. 2009
• Anglo-Saxon gold hoard September 2009: largest ever hoard officially declared treasure
• Huge Anglo-Saxon gold hoard found, BBC News, with photos.
• Fides Angliarum Regum: the faith of the English kings
• Anglo-Saxon Origins: The Reality of the Myth by Malcolm Todd
• An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
• Simon Keynes' bibliography of Anglo-Saxon topics