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Æthelwealh
Imaginary depiction of Æthelwealh from John Speed's 1611 "Saxon Heptarchy"
King of Sussex
Reign	fl. c. 660 – c. 685
Predecessor	Cissa
Successor	?Eadric
Died	685
Spouse	Eafe

Æthelwealh (fl. c. 660 – c. 685) was ruler of the ancient South Saxon kingdom from before 674 till his death between 680 and 685. According to the Venerable Bede, Æthelwealh was baptised in Mercia, becoming the first Christian king of Sussex. He was killed by a West Saxon prince, Cædwalla, who eventually became king of Wessex.

Name

The name "Æthelwealh" has two elements to it. "Æthel" is the Old English term for a "noble" or a "prince" as in "Ætheling". The second Old English noun "wealh" originally meant "Celt" but later the term was also used for "slave" , "foreigner" or "Romano-Britain". Thus Æthelwealh possibly meant "Noble Romanised-Briton", which is a contradiction to the narrative. Academics such as Michael Shapland have suggested that as the king had a British name possibly he was not a "Saxon" with his name meaning "Noble King of the Britons".

Background

The legendary foundation of the kingdom of Sussex, was in 477, when according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ælle of Sussex and three of his sons are said to have landed at a place called Cymenshore and fought against the local Britons. The foundation story is regarded with some skepticism by most academics. The archaeological evidence, based on the cemeteries of the 5th century, shows that the main area of settlement was between the lower Ouse and Cuckmere rivers in East Sussex. However, by Æthelwealh's time the kingdom of the South Saxons seems to have been concentrated in the Selsey area, in the south-west of Sussex.

Ælle, the first king of the South Saxons was followed by Cissa of Sussex, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There is a 150-year gap between Ælle, whose ancestry can not be established, and Æthelwealh, whose ancestry is more secure.

Alliance with the Mercians

Mercian power was ascending with Wulfhere of Mercia advancing into Jutish southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in about 661. Then according to Bede, Æthelwealh travelled to Mercia to be baptised, becoming the first Christian king of Sussex, with Wulfhere as his godfather. Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People recorded that Æthelwealh, also married Eafe, who was the daughter of Eanfrith, a ruler of the Christian Hwicce people. Bede goes on to say that Wulfhere presented the Isle of Wight and Meonwara to Æthelwealh. This alliance between the South Saxons and the Mercians and their control of southern England and the Isle of Wight was a challenge to the West Saxons, whose power base at the time was in the upper Thames area.

In their individual testimonies Stephen of Ripon and Bede write that Wilfrid, the exiled bishop of York, came to Sussex in 681 and converted the people of Sussex and the Isle of Wight to Christianity. Æthelwealh gave Wilfrid land in Selsey where he founded the Episcopal See of the South Saxons with its seat at Selsey Abbey.

West Saxon takeover

Cædwalla was a West Saxon prince who had apparently been banished by Centwine, king of Wessex. Cædwalla had spent his exile in the forests of the Chiltern and the Weald, and at some point had befriended Wilfrid. Cædwalla vowed that if Wilfrid would be his spiritual father then he would be his obedient son.

According to tradition, Cædwalla invaded Sussex in about 686 and was met by Æthelwealh at a point in the South Downs just southeast of Stoughton, close to the border with Hampshire, and it was here that Æthelwealh was defeated and slain. According to the same tradition, Æthelwealh lies buried in the southern barrow of the group that marks the spot.

The invasion stalled when Cædwalla was driven out by two of Æthelwealh's ealdormen, Berhthun and Andhun. In 687 Cædwalla became King of the West Saxons and a new invasion of Sussex began, this time it was successful. Bede describes how brutally Cædwalla suppressed the South Saxons.

After his victory, Cædwalla immediately summoned Wilfrid and made him supreme counsellor over his whole kingdom. Then when Wilfrid returned north, in 686, the see of Selsey was absorbed by the Diocese of the West Saxons, at Winchester. In temporal matters, Sussex was subject to the West Saxon kings, and in ecclesiastical matters, it was subject to the bishops of Winchester.

Relationship with Kent

In Kent, Hlothhere had been ruler since 673/4. This was until his nephew Eadric of Kent revolted against him and went to Sussex where, with help from Æthelwealh, he raised a South Saxon army. Eadric was then able to defeat Hlothhere, in about 685 and become ruler of Kent. On Æthelwealh's death, at the hands of Cædwalla, William of Malmesbury suggests that Eadric became king of the South Saxon kingdom. However, in 686, a West Saxon warband invaded Kent, under Cædwalla and his brother Mul, they removed Eadric from power and made Mul king of Kent.

See also

• History of Sussex

References

Notes

1. ^ Æthelwealh's succession is problematic. Only William of Malmesbury cites Eadric (possibly mistaken for Eadric of Kent?). (De gestis regum Anglorum Book 1 Ch 34)
2. Also written Aedilualch, Aethelwalch, Aþelwold, Æðelwold, Æþelwald, or Ethelwalch
3. See Kirby "The Church in Saxon Sussex" for more detail on this.
4. Traditionally thought to be south of Selsey Bill
5. Six Anglo-Saxon cemeteries provide the bulk of the archaeological evidence for the early period.
6. Also Eabae or Ebba
7. Also written as Eanfrid or Eanfridi
8. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that Wulfhere gave the Isle of Wight to Æthelwealh; Bede says both the Isle of Wight and Meonwara.
9. Some modern academics have suggested that the people of Sussex would have been insular Christians before the arrival of Wilfrid. Suggesting that Wilfrid and Stephen had an anti insular Christian agenda. See Goffart, Kirby and Shapland for discussion on this
10. The tradition is based on some Bronze Age barrows at Bow Hill, Sussex. The barrows are known as the "Devils Humps" or the "King's graves". However, there is no supporting evidence for the legends.

Citations

1. ^ Welch 1978, p. 32.
2. Harper 2024.
3. Kirby 1978, pp. 169–170.
4. Miller 2014, p. 20.
5. Milligan 2024.
6. Kelly 1998, pp. 3–13.
7. Jones 1998, pp. 70–71.
8. ^ Bell 1978, pp. 64–69.
9. Green 2002, p. 24.
10. Cannon & Hargreaves 2009.
11. ^ Kirby 2000, pp. 96–97.
12. Welch 1978, p. 31.
13. ^ Bede 1910, 4.13.
14. Shapland 2023, pp. 117–135.
15. Goffart 2012, pp. 318–31.
16. Kirby 1978, p. 169.
17. Kelly 1994, pp. 1–4.
18. ^ Stephens 1876, p. 18.
19. ^ Farmer & Webb 1998, pp. 149–150.
20. Simpson 2013, p. 45.
21. Barr-Hamilton 1953, p. 21.
22. Yorke 2008.
23. Bede 1910, 4.15.
24. Bede 1910, 4.16.
25. Farmer & Webb 1998, p. 152.
26. Kelly 1994, p. 14.
27. Stephens 1876, p. 14.
28. ^ Yorke 2002, pp. 29–30.

Bibliography

• s:Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Commissioned in the reign of Alfred the Great
• Barr-Hamilton, Alec (1953). In Saxon Sussex. Arundel Press. OCLC 65986286.
• Bede (1910). Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Translated by Jane, L.C.; Sellar, A.M.
• Bell, Martin (1978). "Saxon Sussex.". In Drewett, P. L. (ed.). Archaeology in Sussex to AD 1500 : essays for Eric Holden. Council for British Archaeology. ISBN 978-090-031267-0. OCLC 490391417.
• Cannon, John; Hargreaves, Anne (2009). "Aethelwald". The Kings and Queens of Britain (2 rev. ed.). Oxford Reference. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
• Farmer, D. H.; Webb, J.F.(Tr), eds. (1998). The Age of Bede (Revised ed.). London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-044727-9.
• Goffart, Walter (2012). The Narrators of Barbarian History(ad 550-800). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame. ISBN 978-0-268-02967-8.
• Green, Ken (2002). Chichester An Illustrated History. Derby: Breedon books. ISBN 1-85983-336-5.
• Harper, Douglas (2024). "Atheling". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
• Jones, Michael E. (1998). The End of Roman Britain. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8530-5.
• Kelly, Susan (1994). Hobbs, Mary (ed.). Chichester Cathedral: An Historic Survey. Chichester: Phillimore. ISBN 0-85033-924-3.
• Kelly, S. E (1998). Anglo-Saxon Charters VI, Charters of Selsey. OUP for the British Academy. ISBN 0-19-726175-2.
• Kirby, D.P. (1978). "The Church in Saxon Sussex". In Brandon, Peter (ed.). The South Saxons. Chichester: Phillimore. ISBN 0-85033-240-0.
• Kirby, D.P. (2000). The Earliest English kings. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24211-8.
• Miller, K. L. (2014). "The semantic field of slavery in Old English: Wealh, esne, þræl". ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. OCLC 1257951971. ProQuest 1827510220. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
• Milligan, Mark (2024). "Study reveals West Sussex's lost kingdom". St Albans: Heritage Daily Ltd. Archived from the original on 5 July 2024. Retrieved 6 August 2024.
• Shapland, Michael (2023). Kaminski, Jamie (ed.). "Selsey Cathedral and the Early Medieval Kingdoms of Sussex". Sussex Archaeological Collections. 161. Lewes: Sussex Archaeological Society.
• Simpson, Jacqueline (2013). Folklore Sussex. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5100-8.
• Stephens, W.R.W. (1876). Memorials of the South Saxon See and Cathedral Church of Chichester. London: Richard Bentley. OCLC 504623992.
• Welch, Martin G. (1978). Brandon, Peter (ed.). The South Saxons. Chichester: Phillimore. ISBN 978-0-85033-240-7.
• Yorke, Barbara (2008). "Who were the Jutes". Making History Programme 11. BBC. Archived from the original on 13 June 2020. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
• Yorke, Barbara (2002). Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16639-X.

External links

• Æthelwalh 1, Eafe 1, and Eanfrith 3 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England. Retrieved 30 March 2007.
• Bede. "Liber Quartus". Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. The Latin Library. Retrieved 30 March 2007.

• 685 deaths
• South Saxon monarchs
• Anglo-Saxons killed in battle
• 7th-century English monarchs
• Monarchs killed in action
• Converts to Christianity from Anglo-Saxon paganism