Soemil of Deira

Soemil was an early king of Deira, a territory occupying part of what is now Yorkshire. Historia Brittonum lists him in the Deiran genealogy, with the addition of a cryptic note that he “separated Deira from Bernicia”, implying some important action or event. What do we know about him?

Evidence

Historia Brittonum

61. Woden begat Beldeg, Brond begat Siggar, who begat Sibald, who begat Zegulf,
who begat Soemil, who first separated Deur from Berneich (Deira from Bernicia.)
Soemil begat Sguerthing, who begat Giulglis, who begat Ulfrea, who begat Iffi,
who begat Ulli, Edwin

--Historia Brittonum, available online

Anglian Collection genealogies

Woden Frealafing
Uegdaeg
Siggar
Suebdaeg
Siggot
Saebald
Saefugul
Soemil
Uuesteralcna
Uilgils
Uscfrea
Yffi
Aelle
Eadwine
--Anglian Collection, available online

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Ella was the son of Iff, Iff of Usfrey, Usfrey of Wilgis, Wilgis ofWesterfalcon,
Westerfalcon of Seafowl, Seafowl of Sebbald,Sebbald of Sigeat, Sigeat of Swaddy,
Swaddy of Seagirt, Seagar of
Waddy, Waddy of Woden, Woden of Frithowulf

--Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (entry for year AD 560), available online

The lists are broadly similar, with variations in spelling, but not identical. Brond and Baldaeg in the Historia Brittonum list are replaced by Uegdaeg in the Anglian Collection genealogy. Suebdaeg and Siggot in the Anglian Collection list are missing from the Historia Brittonum list. Sguerthing in the Historia Brittonum list is replaced by Uuesteralcna in the Anglian Collection list. From Uilgils/Giulgils onwards, the two genealogies agree (with variations in spelling).

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle genealogy matches the Anglian Collection genealogy, with variations in spelling, except that Soemil and Saefugul in the Anglian Collection list are replaced by Seafowl in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Interpretation

Dating

The first king of Deira who can be dated securely is Aelle, father of Eadwine/Edwin. Bede tells us that Aelle was reigning in Deira when St Augustine arrived as a missionary to Kent in 597 (On the Reckoning of Time, Chapter 66 (4557)). Bede also tells us that Aelle was king in Deira when not-yet-Pope Gregory the Great saw some Deiran slave boys for sale in a Roman market and made his famous pun, "not Angles but angels" (Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book II Ch. 1). This happened before Gregory was appointed Pope in around 590 AD, but after he returned to Rome from Constantinople in around 585 or 586 AD. In an earlier post on ‘Aelle of Deira’, I suggested that Aelle’s reign may have begun around 570 or 575.

Applying the inexact method of counting generations and allowing 25 years per generation, this would place Soemil somewhere around the middle of the fifth century.

‘First separated Deur from Berneich’

The meaning of this intriguing statement is not certain. We can probably be confident that whoever compiled Historia Brittonum, or its source material, thought that this action of Soemil’s was sufficiently important to be worth recording. Moreover, it is the only deed listed for any of the kings between Woden and Edwin, which suggests that it was considered very important indeed.

The kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia were combined, separated and recombined several times during the seventh century, as recorded in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. The two kingdoms were separate before Aethelferth of Bernicia annexed Deira; I have argued elsewhere that this probably happened in about 605 (see ‘Dating the annexation of Deira’ for the rationale). Aethelferth ruled both kingdoms until his death in battle in 617, after which Eadwine son of Aelle ruled both kingdoms until his death in battle in 633. In 633/634 the two kingdoms were separated, with Deira ruled by Osric (son of Aelle’s brother Aelfric) and Bernicia by Eanferth son of Aethelferth; both were killed within a year. From 634 to 642, both kingdoms were united again under Oswald son of Aethelferth. After Oswald’s death in battle in 642, his brother Oswy ruled Bernicia and Oswine son of Osric ruled in Deira until Oswy had him murdered in 651 (yes, being a king in early medieval Britain was a dangerous job). If the compiler of Historia Brittonum was familiar with this to-and-fro, Soemil’s ‘separation of Deur from Berneich’ may have been seen as Round One in a long-lived dispute.

The founder figure for the dynasty of Bernicia was Ida, whom Bede says began his reign in 547 (Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book V Ch. 24). At first sight this is a puzzle; if Ida did not found the kingdom of Bernicia until 547, how could Soemil have separated Deira from it a century earlier?

Two possibilities come to mind (besides the prosaic ones that the names or dates are wrong, or that the entry is fictional):

• Bernicia (or what was to become Bernicia) was in existence before Ida’s reign, and controlled the territory that was to become Deira;


• Soemil separated Deira (or what was to become Deira) from some political entity other than Bernicia, and the Historia Brittonum chronicler misunderstood or misinterpreted his source.

Although Bede is clear that Ida founded the Bernician (later Northumbrian) royal dynasty, that is not necessarily the same thing as founding the kingdom of Bernicia itself. The name Berneich or Bernicia is of uncertain origin and does not appear to be an Old English name. There seems no reason why the kingdom of Bernicia could not have been in existence, perhaps for some time, before Ida came on the scene. Historia Brittonum provides some support for this in another cryptic remark, saying that Ida united the fortress of Dynguayth with Berneich:

Ida, the son of Eoppa, possessed countries on the left-hand side of
Britain,
i.e. of the Humbrian sea, and reigned twelve years, and united
Dynguayth
Guarth-Berneich

--Historia Brittonum, ch. 61, available online

Dynguayth refers to the site of modern Bamburgh, which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that Ida fortified by surrounding it first with a hedge and then with a wall (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entry for 547). The statement that Ida “united” his fortress with Berneich is consistent with Berneich/Bernicia being a kingdom that already existed at the time. If this is the case, there is no indication of when it was founded, and therefore no reason why a kingdom of that name could not also have been in existence in Soemil’s (approximate) period in the mid-fifth century. Such a mid-fifth-century Bernicia would have had to be much larger than the later kingdom of Bernicia, if it controlled the area that later became Deira, but it is quite possible that kingdoms could have varied in size over time as political units consolidated or fragmented.

The second possibility is that Deira in the mid-fifth-century was subject to some other political authority, to which the compiler of Historia Brittonum applied the familiar name Bernicia. Given the date, only a few decades after the Rescript of Honorius telling the inhabitants of Roman Britain to look to their own defences, and the location of Deira, a short distance east of the major Roman fortress of York, a likely candidate for such a political authority would be whatever continued or succeeded the Roman government based at York.

Very little is known about post-Roman York (more about this in a later post). However, if some sort of local or regional government continued in York after the end of official Roman administration, that would be consistent with post-Roman activity observed by archaeology in other Roman cities (see post on Wroxeter) or Roman forts (see post on Birdoswald) in Britain. If Soemil of Deira was subject to a post-Roman ruler based in York and gained independence from his overlord, this might well have been considered worth remembering. By the time Historia Brittonum was compiled in 830 or so, York was under the control of Northumbrian kings of Bernician descent, and in ch. 50 of Historia Brittonum, Ida is described as “the first king in Bernicia, and in Cair Ebrauc (York).”. This is unlikely to be literally true since Bede, who was in a position to know a lot about Northumbrian history, doesn’t refer to Ida in connection with York. It may indicate that the compiler of Historia Brittonum considered that anyone who was a king in York would also be a king of Bernicia (as was the case in the early ninth century when he was writing). In this context, a rebellion against a previous authority based in York could be described as having “first separated Deira from Berneich”. Indeed, since there are no contemporary records of fifth-century names, any such post-Roman political entity based in York might even have been called Berneich for all we know (although something based on the Roman name Eboracum or its Brittonic equivalent Caer Ebrauc might seem more likely). If it was a polity covering most or all of the territory controlled by the Roman Dux Britanniarum, it would have extended from York to Hadrian’s Wall and could have taken a name equally easily from anywhere in the region.

The most famous account of a rebellion by an English leader against a post-Roman British overlord at some time around the middle of the fifth century is of course the tale of Hengest’s revolt against his employer Vortigern. Variations of the story are told in Bede, Gildas, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Historia Brittonum. Briefly, Vortigern was a ruler of part or all of Britain after the end of Roman administration, and hired Germanic mercenaries led by Hengest to protect Britain from the Picts in exchange for grants of land and regular pay. Hengest’s troops defeated the Picts, demanded more cash and more land (obtaining Kent, Essex and Sussex by treaty from Vortigern), sent for friends and relatives to join them in Britain, then rebelled, murdered many of the British leaders (but not Vortigern), and plundered large areas of Britain in a destructive raid. Bede dates these events to the middle of the fifth century (Book I, Ch. 15; he gives the initial arrival of Hengest as AD 449, but the sequence clearly took place over an extended period).

The coincidence in approximate dates raises the intriguing possibility that Soemil in Deira might also have been a captain of English federate troops, who was hired under similar terms to Hengest and who rebelled at the same time. This is the sort of thing that might well have been remembered in oral tradition, perhaps hazily as time went on, to be written down centuries later as a cryptic note in Historia Brittonum. I need hardly say that this interpretation is speculative.

Speculating further, it may be noteworthy that the genealogies disagree about Soemil’s immediate successor. The Anglian Collection and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle give the name of Soemil’s successor as Uuesteralcna or Westerfalcon, Historia Brittonum says it was Sguerthing. Furthermore, in all the genealogies there is a change from the succession of S- names up to and including Soemil to a succession of names beginning with a vowel (W = uu). This change happens immediately after Soemil in two of the genealogies, and after his successor in the other, and is consistent with (but does not prove) a change of dynasty, from a family that favoured names beginning with S- to a different family that favoured names beginning with a vowel. Possibly there were different family factions among the Deiran aristocracy in the mid-fifth century, and possibly Soemil’s ‘separation of Deira from Berneich’ ended up having adverse consequences for his faction or family. If the ‘separation’ turned out to be temporary, perhaps Soemil’s faction was displaced by a rival group when it was reversed. Or if the ‘separation’ involved breaking the terms of a treaty or agreement, perhaps a rival faction disagreed and took the opposing side.

From the single line in Historia Brittonum and the genealogies, we can reasonably infer that Soemil lived some time around the middle of the fifth century, and that he was remembered for gaining independence for Deira from some other political entity. What that entity was, whether Soemil’s independence from it was temporary or permanent, how it was achieved, what its consequences were, and whether it had any connection with the more famous and roughly contemporary rebellion of Hengest against Vortigern, are open to question.

References

Anglian Collection, available online
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, available online
Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price, Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X
Bede, The Reckoning of Time. Translated by Faith Wallis. Liverpool University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-85323-693-3.
Historia Brittonum, available online

Map links

Bamburgh
York

Elizabeth. Captive Princess, by Margaret Irwin. Book review

First published 1948. Edition reviewed, Sourcebooks 2010, ISBN , 323 pages. Uncorrected advance review copy kindly supplied by publisher.

Elizabeth, Captive Princess is the sequel to Young Bess, which I reviewed in March this year. It covers the years from 1553 to 1555, when Elizabeth was aged 19 to 21. All the main characters are historical figures.

In July 1553, Elizabeth receives a touching message summoning her to visit her dying younger brother, King Edward VI. But her political instinct, finely honed during her turbulent childhood and adolescence, warns her of imminent danger. The Regent, John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, wants to rule England through his young daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey, and to do so he will have to imprison and/or execute both Elizabeth and her elder sister Mary. As Mary and Duke Dudley struggle for the throne, Elizabeth is in grave danger from both sides. Even when Mary successfully secures the throne, Elizabeth’s peril is no less, as her popularity attracts Mary’s jealousy and makes her (willingly or otherwise) a focal point for dissenters and rebels. As Mary’s suspicions of her grow, Elizabeth will need all her intelligence and political ability if she is to avoid her mother’s fate on the block.

This is the second in Margaret Irwin’s trilogy of novels about Elizabeth I. I read and greatly enjoyed the trilogy years ago, and am pleased to see the novels back in print. The writing has a freshness and vivacity that doesn’t pall with time, or with any number of re-readings. No matter how well the modern reader knows the outcome, no-one at the time knew what would happen, and Elizabeth, Captive Princess brilliantly captures the uncertainty and the dizzying speed of events. This is particularly true of the crammed nine days of Jane Grey’s brief reign, which covers the first third of the novel.

As with Young Bess, the characterisation is splendid. Elizabeth’s cleverness and charisma, her unpredictability, her courage, her quick wits and shrewd judgment, all leap to life on the page. It is easy to see how she alternately exasperated and charmed those who had to deal with her, and to admire her remarkable skill in treading a dangerous path with hardly a wrong step – a skill that would stand her in good stead in her later career.

The other people in the story are no less individual, with their characters revealed through their actions and words as well as by others’ assessments of them. Although their lives touch Elizabeth’s – difficult not to, for anyone involved in English high politics in the mid 1550s – they are the chief actors in their own dramas, not bit-players in hers. All have their own ambitions and failings, their own past history and their own hopes for the future. Even while admiring Elizabeth, the reader can still respect Mary, who begins her reign with courage, bright optimism and honest good intentions, can feel for scholarly Jane Grey earnestly trying to puzzle out right and wrong among the brutal contradictions and compromises of power politics, and can sympathise with all three as they are pushed into deadly conflicts with each other that are not of their making or desire. Even the minor characters, like Elizabeth’s ex-tutor Roger Ascham, now a would-be diplomat and courtier, and homely Doctor Turner, are individuals following their own paths as best they can.

The rapid political and religious reversals of the 1550s form the background to the novel, and there is a real sense of a time of bewildering and yet also exhilarating social change. For those with nerve, ability, energy and luck new opportunities were opening up; but for those caught on the wrong side of change the consequences could be unpleasant, even fatal.

Elizabeth has an instinctive understanding of and empathy for other people. Unlike Jane Grey and Mary Tudor, both of whom are concerned with absolute right – and absolutely convinced that they are right - Elizabeth recognises and accepts the complexity and contradictions in English society. Her concern is not to eliminate differences of opinion, but to manage them so that disparate people can get on with their own lives more or less in harmony, or at any rate with a minimum of destructive conflict.

Vivid, powerful portrayal of Tudor England and the people who shaped it.

October recipe: Apple cakes

You can make these cakes with eating apples or with cooking apples, according to taste and availability.



















Apple cakes (makes about 12)

2 oz (approx 50 g) butter
2 oz (approx 50 g) light brown soft sugar
1 egg
4 oz (approx 100 g) self-raising flour
1 tsp (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground mixed spice or ground cinnamon (optional)
3-4 oz (approx 75-100 g) apples (weight after peeling and coring)

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the beaten egg.

Stir in the flour and spice (if using).

Peel and core the apples. Grate or chop finely. Stir the chopped/grated apples into the cake mixture.

Put spoonfuls of the mixture into greased bun tins. It doesn’t spread much during cooking, so you can fill the tins quite full. I usually get about 12 buns out of the mix.

Bake in a moderately hot oven about 180 C, until set and golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack.

Keeps for a week in an airtight tin, or can be frozen.

Gleann Bianasdail

Way back in January I posted some photographs of the Enchanted Woods of Loch Maree. The next stage of the walk takes you into lovely Gleann Bianasdail (yes, it has taken me a long time to get around to posting the next photos; life is like that). For a location map, click here.

Over the course of its 4-5 km length (approximately 3 miles or so), Gleann Bianasdail falls from about 320 m altitude (approximately 1000 feet) at the shores of Lochan Fada (“the long lochan”) to near enough sea level on the shore of Loch Maree. Most of the rock in the glen is Torridonian sandstone, a handsome red-purple sedimentary rock laid down in thick strata around 1000 million years ago. Still more or less horizontal, the strata form a series of terraces, with the river sweeping from side to side around sandstone walls...


















.... or leaping down the terraces in a succession of sparkling waterfalls...
























....sometimes carving a steep-walled miniature gorge....


















.... until the waterfalls give way to rapids in the flatter terrain at the foot of the glen


View downstream from the footbridge across the river at the foot of Gleann Bianasdail

Helmet acoustics: a definitive answer from King Raedwald

King Raedwald at Sutton Hoo



















A few months ago, the subject of the acoustic effects of full-face helmets came up in a discussion thread here (scroll down to the last few comments). I mentioned a TV documentary on the Sutton Hoo helmet, in which someone from the British Museum said that the replica helmet gave the wearer’s voice an impressive booming, echoing quality. We immediately wondered if this was true, and if so, whether it applied to other designs of helmet or was some unique property of the Sutton Hoo helmet.

Elizabeth Chadwick kindly posted a query for me on the Regia Anglorum re-enactors’ society email forum. I don’t have permission to post the responses, but in summary the consensus of the replies was ‘no’. None of the respondents thought that a face-covering helmet did anything to the wearer’s voice except perhaps to muffle it.

I can now give a definitive answer to the question, at least for the Sutton Hoo helmet, courtesy of King Raedwald himself (or, more correctly, his 21st-century alter ego). King Raedwald, or whoever was buried in the Mound 1 ship burial (see earlier post for discussion of the likely candidates), makes occasional appearances at Sutton Hoo when there are special events on. I was fortunate enough to meet him a couple of weeks ago, as the King had read and enjoyed Paths of Exile and had expressed an interest in meeting me.

As you can see from the photograph, King Raedwald looks immensely impressive. The helmet is particularly dramatic in sunlight, although the camera hasn’t fully caught the glitter and sparkle.



Close up of the replica Sutton Hoo helmet



















The King also sounded very impressive when declaiming to the assembled multitude. I shouldn’t think he would have any difficulty in making himself heard across a battlefield. However, I think that was due to the King himself and not to any acoustic property of the helmet. When talking to the King later, his voice sounded similar whether he was wearing the helmet or not. I noticed a slightly disconcerting visual effect, in that when he was talking to me wearing the helmet I automatically expected the mouth to move in line with the spoken words, and of course it doesn’t. I imagine this discrepancy between audio and visual signals could have a slightly disquieting effect, but only on a listener who was close enough to see the helmet in detail.

King Raedwald very kindly let me try the replica helmet on, and my voice didn’t sound noticeably different to me. This suggests to me that the helmet has little effect on the wearer’s perception of their own voice, although it’s possible that a female voice may be in the wrong frequency range.

It appears that the Sutton Hoo helmet as currently reconstructed does not have any dramatic acoustic effects on the wearer’s voice, either as perceived by other people or as perceived by the wearer. The King suggested that the TV programme might have been referring to Rupert Bruce-Mitford’s comments on the earlier reconstruction of the helmet made in the 1970s. That version of the helmet was larger than the current reconstruction and could perhaps have had different resonance effects. Another possibility was raised by one of the people who replied on the Regia Anglorum forum, who suggested that some helmets make the wearer feel more important, which in turn could alter how the wearer projects their voice. Looking at the replica helmet, it’s easy to see how it could make its wearer feel like a king.

King Arthur: The Bloody Cup, by MK Hume. Book review

Headline, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7553-4871-8. 526 pages. Review copy supplied by publisher.

Set in post-Roman Britain some time in the fifth or sixth century, King Arthur: The Bloody Cup is the third part of a trilogy retelling the Arthurian legend. Many of the main characters are familiar figures from the legends, including Artor (King Arthur), Wenhaver (Guinevere), Gawayne (Sir Gawain), Percivale (Sir Percival), Galahad, Bedwyr (Sir Bedivere), Nimue, Artor’s half-sisters Morgan and Morgause, and Morgause’s son Modred (Mordred). Other characters are fictional, such as Artor’s bodyguard Odin and spy chief Gruffydd, and the villains Pebr and Gronw.

Artor has ruled as High King of Britain from his citadel on Cadbury Tor for many years and is now growing old. He has no legitimate heir as his wife Wenhaver is barren, and his court has grown corrupt and decadent. Artor’s enemies sense that he is growing weak. Three mysterious figures hatch a plot to steal the sacred cup once owned by the saintly Bishop Lucius of Glastonbury, claim that it once belonged to the goddess Ceridwen and use it as a symbol to provoke a rebellion against Artor. The struggle for possession of the cup, and a mysterious spear, threatens Artor’s friends, his kingdom and his life.

I reviewed the previous book in the series, King Arthur: Warrior of the West, in January 2010, and concluded then that it wasn’t for me. The publishers sent me a copy of the third instalment without asking first, and I read it partly out of curiosity to see if the loose ends from Book Two were resolved and partly to see if I got on better with the style on further acquaintance. The answers are ‘sort of’ and ‘no’, respectively. This is still not a series for me.

On the plus side, it was quite fun to spot bits of the medieval legends – e.g. the Trystan-Isolde-King Mark love triangle makes a brief appearance, transplanted to north-east Wales instead of the traditional Cornwall – and the steady attrition of Artor’s friends and potential heirs has a certain poignancy. On the other hand, the corruption and decadence of Artor’s court is so strongly emphasised that it is not obvious why the reader is supposed to be worried when it is threatened. If Artor’s court is full of lies, vanity and backbiting courtiers trying to stab each other in the back while living in the lap of decadent luxury, it’s hard to suppress a niggling thought that a different set up might not be noticeably worse. The tragic grandeur of the Arthurian legend – a good king brought down by lesser men and by his own flaws – seemed to me to be missing from this retelling.

However, the main reason I did not get on with the novel was the same as last time; I found the writing style reminiscent of academic prose. Maybe the intention is to create an archaic flavour (although modern slang such as “gumption”, “sodding thing”, “shite” tends to work against this), but to me it seemed lifeless, especially the dialogue. People speak in grammatically correct complete sentences even when being tortured or when mortally wounded, and everyone sounds much the same.

Place names are a mix of Roman names, e.g. Ratae (modern Leicester), Verterae (modern Brough, Cumbria), and modern names with Old English elements, e.g. Glastonbury, Cadbury. If there is a pattern to the mix it wasn’t clear to me. Similarly, although the ‘Saxons’ are treated throughout as an utterly alien enemy to Artor’s realm (they don’t make an on-stage appearance), some of the characters in Artor’s kingdom have Old English names, such as the saintly Bishop Aethelthred* the Pure of Glastonbury. This struck me as potentially intriguing; does the presence of Old English names indicate that some ‘Saxons’ were acceptable in Artor’s realm, implying a degree of co-operation or integration, and if so, how is this reconciled with the fact that everyone at Artor’s court apparently regards the ‘Saxons’ as the enemy? Was Bishop Aethelthred a ‘Saxon’ immigrant, and if so how did he come to be the revered head of the greatest Christian monastery in Artor’s realm? As far as I could see this was never touched on, unless I missed it somehow, and it contributed to a general impression of unreality about the setting. This perhaps doesn’t matter, since the medieval Arthurian legends are set in a ‘once-upon-a-time’ setting, and this novel is perhaps best read in the same light.

A partial character list at the front of the book helps with keeping some of the large cast straight, and is especially useful for characters who played a role in the earlier books but who are now dead. However, not everyone is listed (e.g. Taliesin and Modred are missing, as are the villains Gronw and Pebr), so I still had to jot down notes. A glossary of place names at the back of the book matches some of the place names in the novel with their modern equivalents, but it is incomplete – I got confused between Salinae and Salinae Minor and looked in the glossary for clarification, but only Salinae is listed. Readers who like to follow the characters’ journeys on a modern map may find they have to keep notes.

Final part of a trilogy retelling the Arthurian legends, but not a book for me.




*I’m not sure if this is a typo for Aethelred, as Aethelthred or Aethelthryth was a female name, or if I have missed something subtle.

Kings of Lindsey

Lindsey was an early medieval kingdom south of the Humber estuary, in roughly the area of north Lincolnshire. See sketch map for approximate location. The name was recorded by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History, written in 731, as ‘prouinciae Lindissi’ or ‘the province of Lindsey’ (Book II Ch. 16). What do we know about its rulers?

Evidence

Genealogy

The genealogy of the kings of Lindsey is given in the Anglian Collection, as follows:

Godwulf Geating
Finn
Frithulf
Frealaf
Woden
Winta
Cretta
Cuedgils
Caedbaed
Bubba
Beda
Biscop
Eanferth
Eata
Aldfrith

--Anglian Collection genealogies, available online

Each king is given a patronymic derived from the name of his predecessor, e.g. Finn Godwulfing, Frithulf Finning, and so on. (I have missed the patronymics out of the list above for ease of reading). Presumably whoever compiled the genealogy believed, or wished to indicate, father-to-son succession. This may have been accurate, or it may result from a scribe misinterpreting a king list as a genealogy, or a bit of both.

Place name

There is a village called Winteringham, which could mean ‘settlement of the followers of Winta’, on the south shore of the Humber estuary, near the Roman road of Ermine Street. Naturally, even if the place name is derived from the personal name Winta, it need not be the same Winta as the one listed in the kings’ genealogy. However, it may indicate a person of some authority with the right name in the right area, and is thus consistent with the genealogy.

Bede

Bede does not mention any kings of Lindsey by name. In his Ecclesiastical History he describes Paulinus, Bishop of Northumbria in 625-633, baptising the ‘prefect’ of the city of Lindocolina (modern Lincoln) and conducting a mass baptism in the River Trent in the presence of King Eadwine (Edwin) of Deira/Northumbria.

Paulinus also preached the word of God to the province of Lindsey, which lies immediately south of the Humber and extends to the sea. His first convert was Blaecca, Reeve of the city of Lincoln, with all his family.
[…]
The priest Deda […] told me that one of the oldest inhabitants had described to him how he and many others had been baptised by Paulinus in the presence of King Edwin, and how the ceremony took place at noon in the River Trent…

--Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book II Ch. 16.

This may suggest that the king of Northumbria had some political authority in Lindsey at this period, since the Northumbrian bishop was active in Lindsey. The nature of the relationship is uncertain; it may represent Northumbrian dominance over Lindsey, or a friendly relationship with the new bishop of Northumbria ministering to an allied neighbouring territory that did not (yet) have a bishop of its own.

At a slightly later period there is clear evidence of hostility and Northumbrian dominance, when the monks of Bardney in Lindsey initially refused to allow (some of) the bones of King Oswald of Northumbria to be buried there after his death in 642.

In the province of Lindsey there is a noble monastery called Beardaneu, which was greatly loved, favoured and enriched by the queen [Osthryth, daughter of Oswy of Northumbria and thus Oswald’s niece] and her husband Ethelred [of Mercia]. She wished that the honoured bones of her uncle be reinterred there. But when the waggon carrying the bones arrived towards evening at the abbey, the monks were reluctant to admit it; for although they acknowledged Oswald’s holiness, they were influenced by old prejudices against him even after his death, because he originally came from a different province and had ruled them as an alien king.

--Bede, Ecclesiastical History Book III Ch. 11

Interpretation

Dating

None of the names in the Lindsey kings’ genealogy appear in other sources, so none of them can be independently dated. There may be a couple of slight clues:

• Biscop = ‘bishop’, and this is a name that is perhaps most likely to have been given after the kingdom’s conversion to Christianity. If so, this would suggest a date some time after Paulinus made his ‘first convert’. The chapter in Bede’s history describing Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey is headed AD 628. As Paulinus came to Northumbria in 625 with Eadwine’s Kentish wife Aethelburh (Bede, Book II Ch. 9), and left Northumbria for good after Eadwine’s death in October 633 (Bede Book II Ch. 20), his activity in Lindsey must fall between these dates even if he made more than one visit. This would place Biscop somewhere after this period.


• Paulinus’ first convert held a position of authority in the city of Lincoln. Bede describes him as a ‘prefect’, and Leo Sherley-Price translates this as ‘reeve’. He was clearly a person of considerable importance. His name was Blaecca, according to Bede, which alliterates with the names Beda and Bubba in the genealogy. If he was related to these kings, that would be consistent with (but is not proved by) the name alliteration and his position of authority. This would be consistent with dating the B- kings to a period not too far from 625-633, which would also be consistent with the tentative dating for Biscop suggested above.

If we assign Beda, Bubba and Biscop to somewhere around the middle two quarters of the seventh century, at and after Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey, then the admittedly inexact method of counting generations would place their immediate predecessor Caedbaed somewhere in the early seventh century*, Winta somewhere in the early sixth century, and the last name in the list somewhere around the mid-eighth century. It should go without saying that this is very tentative.

Politics

Caedbaed contains the common Brittonic name element Cad- or Caed-, meaning ‘battle’. If the name is genuine and represents a genuine ruler of Lindsey, it may indicate Brittonic familial or political connections.

The Bardney incident tells us that Oswald held royal authority over Lindsey, or at least the monks of Bardney considered that he did and resented him for it. Yet we have a separate list of Kings of Lindsey in the Anglian Collection genealogies. How to reconcile these? Three possibilities come to mind:

• All the kings in the genealogy ruled before the time of King Oswald (and perhaps before his predecessor King Edwin). Since we don’t know the dates of any of the kings in the list, this is possible. However, even if we disregard Woden and the preceding names as mythological, there are 11 names in the list, which is rather a lot to get through before the 620s or 630s;


• Oswald (and perhaps Edwin) represent an interruption to the rule of Lindsey’s own kings, perhaps reflecting a temporary period of military conquest. This would be consistent with the monks’ hostility to Oswald;


• Lindsey was at least temporarily a sub-kingdom or client kingdom under the political authority of the Northumbrian kings – voluntarily or by coercion – but retaining a line of sub-kings or client kings of its own.

If Lindsey was (temporarily?) a sub-kingdom of Northumbria, with its own kings who were subject to some degree of political control from the Northumbrian kings, this would be consistent both with Bede’s mention of Northumbrian authority in Lindsey and with the presence of a genealogy for kings of Lindsey. There is no particular reason why a line of sub-kings or client kings could not have continued for several generations under foreign overlordship. Or if the genealogy is in fact a king-list, some or all of the names on it may represent a succession of client kings installed by an over-king. If Lindsey’s status as a sub-kingdom was based partly or wholly on force or threat, rather than voluntary alliance, this would also be consistent with the resentment displayed by the monks of Bardney.

The hostile reaction of the monks at Bardney to King Oswald’s body suggests a strong and definite dislike. This could have been a personal objection to King Oswald himself as a result of some real or perceived insult or injury. However, Bede says that the monks objected to him because he came from a different province and had ruled them as an alien king. Since the monks’ hostility to Oswald was purely territorial according to Bede, it is a reasonable inference that the same attitude would have applied to any Northumbrian king ruling over them. (Caveat that Bede was a Northumbrian himself and a great admirer of King Oswald, so if Oswald had committed some injustice against Lindsey or the Bardney monastery it is possible that Bede might have chosen not to mention it). How far the opinion held by the monks of Bardney was representative of the rest of Lindsey’s population is unknown.

It is worth noting that the monks of Bardney evidently felt confident that they could snub Oswald (and the wishes of Oswald’s niece, Osthryth) without fear of catastrophic reprisals. This is consistent with the incident having occurred shortly after Oswald’s death in 642, when Northumbrian power would have been severely weakened by his defeat. Given that Oswald had been killed in battle by the Mercian king Penda, it is possible that the monks of Bardney were siding publicly with Mercia by insulting the Mercians’ defeated opponent. This could reflect straightforward pragmatism, since Mercian power would have been in the ascendancy in the Midlands region after Penda’s victory over Oswald, and it is usually good politics to be in favour with the winning side. Or it may reflect a preference for the Mercian kings over the Northumbrian kings. Lindsey eventually ended up as part of the later kingdom of Mercia.

The limited evidence seems to me to be consistent with a picture of Lindsey as a client kingdom with its own line of kings but subject to Northumbrian political authority in the early to mid seventh century. If the attitude of the monks of Bardney is representative, Northumbrian political authority over Lindsey may have been obtained by force or threat and resented in Lindsey. As usual, other interpretations are possible.


References

Anglian Collection genealogies, available online
Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price, Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X

Map links
Bardney
Lincoln
Winteringham (scroll south to pick up the line of Ermine Street on the map)


*In Paths of Exile I made Caedbaed of Lindsey an older contemporary of Eadwine, ruling in Lindsey in 605 AD. This is the rationale.