East Saxons to Waltham Holy Cross

Ray Stelzner

Description

The book is about the East Saxons and their involvement and connection with Waltham and Waltham Holy Cross, in Essex.

Sujets

• Medieval
• Histoire
• Inglaterra
• Edad Media
• Middle Ages
• Kingdom of Essex
• Dark Ages
• History
• England
• Waltham
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse UK
• Date de parution: 13 décembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781728376783
• Langue: English

Extrait

EAST SAXONS TO WALTHAM HOLY CROSS
RAY STELZNER


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© 2022 Ray Stelzner. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 12/06/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7677-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7678-3 (e)
 
 
 
 
 
 
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T HE HEPTARCHY PERIOD lasted from the end of Roman rule (AD 410) in Briton until most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had come under the overlordship of Alfred the Great’s grandfather, Egbert of Wessex in 829 (during the early Middle Ages or Dark Ages, 410–1066). Although the era was called the Heptarchy, the number of kingdoms fluctuated rapidly as kings contended for supremacy. The kingdoms were traditionally enumerated as Essex (aka East Saxons), East Anglia, Kent, Mercia Northumbria, Sussex, and Wessex. The kingdom of the East Saxons (aka Essex) was bounded to the north by the River Stour, and the Kingdom of East Anglia, to the south by the River Thames and Kent. To the east lay the North Sea, and to the west, Mercia. The territory included the remains of two provincial Roman capitals, Camulodunum (Colchester) and Londinium (London). The original limits of the kingdom are quite uncertain; the west probably included most, if not the whole, of Hertfordshire and the lands of the Middle Saxons (Middlesex) in the seventh century.
Augustine of Canterbury (died 604) was a Benedictine monk who became the first archbishop of Canterbury in 597. He is considered the founder of the English Church, Roman Rite. He was a prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) chose him in 595 to lead a mission (the Gregorian mission) to Briton. Kent was probably chosen because King of Kent Ethelberht (who reigned from 589–616) married a Christian princess—Bertha, daughter of Charibert I, who was the king of the Franks ( c. 517–567).
The kingdom of the East Saxons is not well documented. In fact, the few writings of the East Saxons were in Bede’s (673–735) book The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), which notes the arrival of Mellitus in London in 604. Augustine consecrated Mellitus as bishop of the East Saxons (604–617), first bishop of the Roman Rite, translated (ecclesiastically) to archbishop of Canterbury in 619. Bede focuses on the Anglo-Saxons’ regional variation of the liturgy and structure—Insular Christianity or Iroschottisch, the Roman Rite or the Celtic Rite.
The dates, names, and achievements of the East Saxons remains conjectural. From the mid-sixth century, London (Lundenwic) was merged into the kingdom of the East Saxons, which extended as far west as St Albans and, for a period, included Middlesex, Surrey, and Aldwych in the east. The term wic ultimately derived from the Latin word vicuss , so Lundenwic meant ‘London settlement’ or ‘trading town’. London, a former Roman town and a hub for the road network—i.e, Watling Street to Canterbury—was the logical choice for a new bishopric.
By the eighth century, the East Saxon settlement took root. This was the age of the ‘beach market’, when shallow-draft vessels would be pulled up onto the foreshore of the River Thames and products sold to the townsfolk directly from the ships. Trade and wealth were prospering, and London was, again, becoming economically and politically important. Lundenwic was aptly described by the venerable Bede as ‘a trading centre for many nations who visit it by land and sea’. Although Bede records that Ethelberht gave land to support the new bishopric, a charter that claims to be a grant of lands from Ethelberht to Mellitus is a forgery. King Ethelberht of Kent and overlord of the ‘southern kingdoms’, according to Bede, was in a position to exercise some authority in the kingdom of the East Saxons. Shortly after 604, his intervention helped in the conversion of King Saeberht (son of Sledd, dynastic founder, c. 587–c. 604) to Christianity. Bede describes Ethelberht as Saeberht’s overlord. Saeberht ( c. 604–616) is known as the first East Saxon king to have been converted to Christianity and was baptised by Mellitus, establishing the bishopric in the kingdom of the East Saxons cathedra in London.
Saeberht died in 616, leaving the Gregorian Mission without any strong Christian patrons. Bishop Mellitus was driven out of the kingdom, which returned to paganism. This may have been the result of Saeberht’s sons banishing Mellitus from their kingdom as antipathy to King Ethelberht’s Kentish influence in East Saxon affairs. Or as Bede puts it, ‘Mellitus was exiled because he refused the brothers’ request for a taste of the Sacramental bread.’ King Saeberht’s sons, Sexred and Seward, became joint kings ( c. 616–623). They refused to accept Christianity and openly practised paganism. The kingdom remained pagan, and the worship of idols was allowed.
Bede says, ‘They went out to fight with the West Saxons and were slain.