The kingdom of the East Saxons

Abstract

No detailed study has ever been made of the East Saxon kingdom, and general works of Anglo-Saxon history usually devote only a few lines to it. Some incidents are well known, such as the conversion of Saberht in 604 by his uncle Æthelberht of Kent, and the apostacy of Sigehere during the plague of 664, while his co-ruler Sæbbi remained Christian. These events are frequently cited as evidence for the workings of overlordship or for the existence of joint kingship in Anglo-Saxon England, though in order to appreciate their true significance they must be placed in a wider context of East Saxon history. Other events from the East Saxon past are less well known, but the fact that East Saxon kings ruled part of Kent for at least six years and that their royal family was one of the few to survive until the ninth century are indications that the East Saxon province was one of the more significant minor kingdoms. Their relative neglect is due to the scarcity of written sources: no East Saxon chronicle has survived, and charters are few and often imperfectly recorded. Inevitably many areas of the East Saxon past must remain obscure, but the situation is not as bleak as it might first appear. East Saxon sources, although few, are varied, and illuminate different aspects of the kingdom's history. The evidence they contain is reviewed first, before more general conclusions are drawn about the East Saxon system of kingship and the relations of East Saxon kings with other kingdoms.

Women of the Conversion Period: a biomolecular investigation of mobility in early medieval England

“…An intersectional perspective suggests that not only status, but also institutionalised gender- and age-related mobility such as virilocality played a role in determining burial rites. The geographical distribution of well-furnished graves containing females is relevant here: they are primarily found in cemeteries in east Kent (from which most of the burials in our sample come), East and North Yorkshire, East Anglia and the Upper Thames Valley, a distribution broadly corresponding to that of the earliest female-led monasteries (Yorke 2003; Bayliss & Hines 2013; Hamerow 2016). These regions are isotopically consistent with Isotope Cluster 1.…”

“…The first female-led monasteries, such as those at Whitby and Ely, were founded in the middle decades of the seventh century and provided a means by which royal dynasties could maintain control of land (Yorke 2003). A few decades earlier, some families had already begun to bury certain female members with precious jewellery, amulets and religious objects, at a time when male graves were largely unfurnished (Bayliss & Hines 2013).…”

“…What set the individuals buried in this ostentatious manner apart? Written sources such as royal genealogies and the poem Beowulf indicate that female exogamy—the marrying of female family members outside of their group/tribe—was sometimes practised and that brides could serve as “peace pledges” between rival families (Yorke 1990, 2003; Alexander 1995: line 2017). Is it possible that these well-furnished burials are connected to this practice?…”

Three men and a boat: Sutton Hoo and the East Saxon kingdom

“…7). 105 A suitable incumbent of Mound 1 would have to fulfil a number of criteria. He would have to be male and a king, a Christian buried by pagan successors some time in the early seventh century.…”