Wehha of East Anglia
Wehha | |
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Anglo-Saxon Paganism |
Wehha of East Anglia is listed by
According to the East Anglian tally from the
Background
Wehha is thought to have been the earliest ruler of East Anglia, an independent and long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom established in the 6th century, which includes the modern English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.
According to the historian R. Rainbird Clarke, migrants from southern
The extent of the kingdom of the East Angles can be determined from a variety of sources. It was isolated to the north and east by the North Sea, with impenetrable forests to the south and the swamps and scattered islands of the Fens on its western border. The main land route from East Anglia would at that time have been a land corridor, following the prehistoric Icknield Way.[3] The southern neighbours of the East Angles were the East Saxons and across the other side of the Fens were the Middle Angles.[4] It has been suggested that the Devil's Dyke (near modern Newmarket) formed part of the kingdom's western boundary, but its construction, which dates from between the 4th and 10th centuries, may not be of Early Anglo-Saxon origin.[5]
Genealogy
Wehha is a semi-historical figure and no evidence has survived to show he actually existed or was ever king of the East Angles. The name Wehha is included in tallies of the ruling
According to the 9th century History of the Britons, Guillem Guercha was the first of his line to rule the East Angles. The History of the Britons lists Guercha's descendants and ancestors: "Woden begat Casser, who begat Titinon, who begat Trigil, who begat Rodmunt, who begat Rippa, who begat Guillem Guercha, who was the first king of the East Angles."[8] According to the 19th century historian Francis Palgrave, Guercha is a distortion of Wuffa.[9] According to Palgrave, "Guercha is a form of the name Uffa, or Wuffa, arising in the first instance, from the pronunciation of the British writer, and in the next place, from the error of the transcriber".[9] D. P. Kirby is among those historians who have concluded from this information that Wuffa's father was the founder of the Wuffingas line.[10]
Despite the Wuffingas' long list of ancestors—that stretch back to their pagan gods—their power in the region can only have been established in the middle third of the 6th century, if Wehha is taken as the dynastic founder.[11] The historian Martin Carver has warned against using the scant material that exists to draw detailed inferences about the earliest Wuffingas kings.[4]
The descendants of Wehha[12]
Wehha | |||||||||||||||||
Wuffa | |||||||||||||||||
Tytila | |||||||||||||||||
Rædwald | Eni | ||||||||||||||||
- See Wuffingas for a more complete family tree.
Etymology
The name Wehha has been linked as a
Wehha may occur on a
Reign and succession
Nothing is known of Wehha or of his rule, as no written records—if they ever existed— have survived from this period in East Anglian history. At an unknown date Wehha was succeeded by Wuffa, who was ruling the kingdom in 571, according to the mediaeval
Notes
Footnotes
- ^ Rainbird Clarke 1963, pp. 138–139.
- ^ Yorke 2002, p. 61.
- ^ Collingwood & Myres 1949, p. 391.
- ^ a b c Carver 1992, p. 5.
- ^ Carver 1992, p. 6.
- ^ Newton 1993, p. 105.
- ^ Medway Council, Medway City Ark: The Textus Roffensis, notes. Accessed 9 August 2010.
- ^ Giles 1848, p. 412.
- ^ a b Palgrave 1832, p. 413, note 2.
- ^ Kirby 2000, p. 55.
- ^ a b Hoops 2003, p. 66.
- ^ Yorke 2002, p. 68.
- ^ Newton 1993, p. 112.
- ^ Looijenga 2003, p. 65.
- ^ Plunkett 2005, p. 62.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-85115-330-8.
- OCLC 247552427.
- OCLC 1084819059.
- Hoops, Johannes (2003). "Rædwald". Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde (in English and German). Vol. 24. Walter de Gruyter. p. 66. ISBN 978-3-11-017575-2. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
- Kirby, D.P. (2000). The Earliest English Kings. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-24211-0.
- Looijenga, Tineke (2003). Texts & Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV. ISBN 978-90-04-12396-0.
- Newton, Sam (1993). The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. ISBN 978-0-85991-472-7.
- Palgrave, Sir Francis (1832). The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth: Anglo-Saxon Period. Vol. 1. London: John Murray.
- Plunkett, Steven (2005). Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 978-0-7524-3139-0.
- Rainbird Clarke, R. (1963). East Anglia. London: Thames and Hudson.
- ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3.
Further reading
- O'Loughlin, J. L. N. (1964). "Sutton Hoo - the Evidence of the Documents" (PDF). Medieval Archaeology. 8. Society for Medieval Archaeology: 1–19. . Retrieved 10 August 2011.