Hwicce
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The Hwicce were a tribe and kingdom in the southwest Midlands during the Anglo-Saxon period. Their territory spread over what are now Gloucestershire and Worcestershire and parts of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire. The Diocese of Worcester originated as the Hwicce territory.
The nature of the Hwicce is unknown; it is assumed that they were Saxons, or possibly a mixed Saxon-Welsh nation. Oman notes that their dialect was closer to that of the West Saxons than that of the Mercians.[1]
The origin of the kingdom is not known for certain but is assumed to begin with the West Saxon conquest of the Cotswold: according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the West Saxons took the lands of Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath from the Britons in 577, after the Battle of Dyrham. In 628 the Mercians defeated the West Saxons at the Battle of Cirencester and thereafter the Hwicce formed a province or under-kingdom of Mercia.
The Mercian Tribal Hidage assessed Hwicce at 7000 hides, which would give it a similar sized economy to the kingdoms of Essex and Sussex.
The exact boundaries of their kingdom remain 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 east of the River Severn, the southwestern half of Warwickshire, the neighbourhood of Bath north of the Avon, plus small parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and northwestern Wiltshire.[2]
Contents
Name
The etymology of the name Hwicce is uncertain. It is a plural name, to which no singular form is known and may be from a clan name.
One suggested origin is from the common noun hwicce meaning "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 second possible origin is from the name of a progenitor, but no such name has ever been recorded.[4][5] Eilert Ekwall connected it with the name of the Gewisse, the original tribal name of the West Saxon kingdom.[6] Also suggested by Smith is a tribal name that was in origin pejorative, meaning "the cowards", cognate to quake.
The name of the Hwicce survives in Wychwood in Oxfordshire, Whichford in Warwickshire, Wichenford and Wychbury Hill in Worcestershire.
History
The territory of the Hwicce may roughly have corresponded to the tribal area of the Dobunni, a recognised civitas in the Roman period.[7] The area appears to have remained largely British in the first century or so the Romans retreated from Britain, but pagan burials and place names in its north-eastern sector suggest an inflow of English settlers along the Warwickshire Avon and perhaps by other routes;[8] they may have exacted tribute from British rulers.[9]
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle there was a battle at Deorham (Dyrham) in 577 in which the Gewisse (West Saxons) under King Ceawlin slew three British kings, named Coinmail, Condidan and Farinmail, 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 Chronicle, in which Cutha was killed and Ceawlin returned home in anger.
In 603, according to Bede, St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, attended a conference of Welsh bishops "at St Augustine's Oak on the borders of the Hwicce and the West Saxons".
The Mercians strengthened their influence over the area in 628, when (says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), the West Saxons fought Penda of Mercia at Cirencester and afterwards came to terms. Penda left the Kingdom of the Hwicce in place, as a client kingdom.
The Hwicce kingdom included a number of distinct tribal groups including the Husmerae, the Stoppingas and the Weorgoran.[10]
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."[11] 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.[12] Though place-names show that English 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.[13] From this it seems that incoming English were absorbed into the existing church.
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".[14]
Osric was anxious for the Hwicce to gain their own bishop,[15] 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.[16] 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.[17]
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
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.[18] 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.
| Name | Dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 628 | Kingdom conquered by Penda of Mercia. | |
| Eanhere | mid-7th century | |
| Eanfrith | mid-7th century | Brother of Eanhere. |
| Osric | active 670s | Entombed in Gloucester Cathedral. |
| Oshere | active 690s | Brother of Osric. Died before 716. |
| Æthelheard | active 709 | Son of Oshere. Issued charter with Æthelweard. |
| Æthelweard | active 709 | Son of Oshere. |
| Æthelric | active 736 | Son of Oshere. |
| Eanberht | active 750s | Not recorded after 759. |
| Uhtred | active 750s – 779 | |
| Ealdred | active 750s – 778 | |
| 780s | Assimilation of the Hwicce into Mercia is completed. |
Ealdormen of the Hwicce
| Name | Dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Æthelmund | c. 796-802 | Died in battle 802.[19] |
| ?Æthelric | fl. 804 | Son of Æthelmund. His will of 804 requests burial at Deerhurst.[1] |
| Leofwine | d.c.1023 | Father of Leofric, Earl of Mercia |
| Odda | d.1056 | Built Odda's Chapel at Deerhurst for the soul of his brother Ælfric.[20] Buried at Pershore.[21] The area of his jurisdiction probably did not include the Hwicce.[22] |
Other notables of the Hwicce
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.[23]
Notes
- ↑ Oman, Sir Charles: A History of England Before the Norman Conquest
- ↑ Della Hooke, The Kingdom of the Hwicce (1985), pp.12-13
- ↑ J. Insley, "Hwicce" in: Hoops (ed.) Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 15, Walter de Gruyter, 2000, ISBN 978-3-11-016649-1, p. 295.
- ↑ William Henry Duignan, Notes on Staffordshire place names, 1902.
- ↑ A. H. Smith, 'The Hwicce', in Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honour of F. P. Magoun (1965), 56-65.
- ↑ Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (Oxford Clarendon Press, reprinted 1991)
- ↑ J. Manco, Dobunni to Hwicce, Bath History, vol. 7 (1998).
- ↑ D.Hooke, The Anglo-Saxon Landscape: The Kingdom of the Hwicce (Manchester, 1985), pp.8–10; Sims-Williams, 'St Wilfred and two charters dated AD 676 and 680', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 39, part 2 (1988), p.169.
- ↑ N.Higham, The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the fifth century (Manchester, 1994), chaps. 2, 5.
- ↑ David P. Kirby, The earliest English Kings (Routledge, 1990, 2000)
- ↑ Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People ed. J.McClure and R.Collins (Oxford, 1994), p.193.
- ↑ J. Manco, Saxon Bath: The Legacy of Rome and the Saxon Rebirth, Bath History, vol. 7 (1998).
- ↑ C. Thomas, Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500 (1981), pp.253–71; Hooke, p.10; C. Heighway, 'Saxon Gloucester' in J. Haslam ed., Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern England (Chichester, 1984), p.375.
- ↑ John Leland, Collectanea, vol. 1, p. 240.
- ↑ Charter S 51, MS Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 111, pp. 59-60 (s. xii2)S51
- ↑ Bede, The Eccesiastical History of the English People, ed. J. McClure and R. Collins (1994), p. 212; Chronicle of John of Worcester ed. and trans. R.R. Darlington, J. Bray and P. McGurk (Oxford 1995), 136–8.
- ↑ "The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester" in The Church Historians of England ed. and trans. J. Stevenson, vol. 2, p.379.
- ↑ The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge (Blackwell 1999), 507.
- ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
- ↑ Inscription on the chapel: "Earl Odda had this Royal Hall built and dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity for the soul of his brother, Aelfric, which left the body in this place. Bishop Ealdred dedicated it the second of the Ides of April in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward, King of the English."
- ↑ Victoria County History of Worcestershire, Vol.2, p.128.
- ↑ See Earl Odda
- ↑ For example he appears on this list of Kings of Hwicce. Retrieved on 10 March 2005.
Books
- 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.
