Celt and Saxon: Interaction in pre-Viking Britain, c.600-800 Volume II by Martin R. Grimmer, B.Sc. (Hons), M.Psych.Org . Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Tasmania November 2003 368 Part 3 Mercia and the Britons of Wales 369 Chapter 10 Mapping the Territory of the Mercians and Britons of Wales Mercians and Angles of the West Midlands In contrast to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Northumbria, there exists no early medieval origin legend for the formation of the kingdom of Mercia, nor even one for the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the West Midlands. I Later kings of Mercia claimed descent from semi-legendary figures who hailed from the Continent — as exemplified in the genealogy of /Ethelred found in the Anglian Collection, 2 and in Felix's Life of St Guthlac. 3 However, no surviving narrative provides any basis for explaining when and in what circumstances Anglo-Saxons made their way into the region. This is a result of the general lack of primary source material that has survived from Mercia.4 There are no native annals or narrative histories. Though the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle and Bede's Historia ecclesiastica provide some information, neither displays much interest in, or knowledge of, the early history of the region. 5 Bede did not list a single Mercian amongst his informants, 6 and appears to have gained his information indirectly through the Northumbrian monastery of Lastingham, which had supplied an early bishop for Mercia. 7 I P. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800 (Cambridge, 1990), P. 16; B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1990), p. 101. I have not here considered material regarding the origins of Mercia which is to be found in post-Conquest annalistic sources such as Henry of Huntingdon's Historia Anglorum and the two Flores historiarum compiled by Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris. This material, which has been reconstructed by W. Davies, 'Annals and the origin of Mercia', in A. Domier (ed.), Mercian Studies (Leicester, 1977), pp. 17-29, suggests an invasion of the Midlands from East Anglia in the early sixth century under various unnamed proceres or chiefs. However, as pointed out by N. Brooks, 'The formation of the Mercian kingdom', in Bassett, Origins, pp. 162-3, these sources are very late and it is not clear if the early entries are anything more than 'inventive conjectures' on the part of their authors. 2 D.N. Dumville, 'The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists', ASE 5 (1976), pp. 30-7. 3 In VG 2, one Ice/ is mentioned as the founder of the royal dynasty. The same figure, rendered as kil, appears five generations above Penda in the Anglian Collection. 4 Brooks, 'The formation of the Mercian kingdom', p. 159; M.P. Brown & C.A. Farr, 'Introduction: Mercia, a culture in context', idem. (eds.), Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe (London, 2001), p. 1; M. Gelling, 'The early history of western Mercia', in Bassett, Origins, p. 184; C. Hart, 'The kingdom of Mercia', in Domier, Mercian Studies, p. 59; Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo- Saxon England, pp. 23, 100. 5 S. Bassett, 'How the west was won: the Anglo-Saxon takeover of the west midlands', ASSAH 11 (2000), p. 111. 6 Brooks, 'The formation of the Mercian kingdom', p. 159; Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo- Saxon England, p. 100. 7 HE Preface, IV.3. This bishop was the Irish-trained Chad (supra., p. 327). 370 It may be that the absence of a surviving origin legend for Mercia and the Angles of the West Midlands is attributable to the lack of any particular event, action or 'heroic deed' which proclaimed their arrival. The West Saxons could trace their dynastic origins to boatloads of conquering heroes from the Continent; the Northumbrians have an albeit tenuous link with Gildas's foederati stationed in the north to protect erstwhile Britannia from the Picts and the Scots. Mercia, on the other hand, seems not to have originated out of a primary beachhead or line of advance for the invading Anglo-Saxons. Rather, it was a secondary establishment, a coalescence of several disparate groups of Anglo- Saxon colonisers who had gradually moved westwards from the longer-occupied lands in the east.8 Accordingly, no grand tale of conquest that could be attached to the formation of Mercia or any of the West Midland polities has been handed down. 9 That said, Bede did include the Mercians in his account of the origins of the Anglo- Saxon peoples and their kingdoms. 1° They were counted as Angles, that is from 'the country ... which is called Angulus' , which has been identified as the East Holstein region of Germany, along with the East and Middle Angles, the Northumbrians, and those whom Bede called 'the other Anglian peoples [ceterique Anglorum populi] . 11 At the very least, this indicates that when Bede was writing there was a view that the Mercians shared a similar sense of 'homeland' with the other kingdoms included as part of Bede's 'Angle-dom'. 12 Bede also drew a distinction between what he referred to as the 'southern [and] northern Angles [meridiani et septentrionales Anglorum populi]' , who were separated by the River Humber. 13 This implies that there was also some recognition of difference amongst the people identified as Angles, at least in a geographical sense, though such a conceptualisation could have been Bede's invention so as to emphasize the distinctiveness of Northumbria. 14 In any event, it can be reasonably supposed that the rulers of Mercia at least, and of any other West Midland peoples, saw themselves as being in some sense akin to the other Anglian dynasties. 8 Brooks, 'The formation of the Mercian kingdom', pp. 160-2; S. Keynes, `Mercia', in Blackwell Encyclopaedia of ASE, p. 306; H. Kleinschmidt, 'Beyond conventionality: recent work on the Germanic migration to the British Isles', Studi Medievali 3"I Series 36 (1995), p. 998; B. Yorke, 'The origins of Mercia', in Brown & Farr, Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe, p. 15. 9 Kleinschmidt, 'Beyond conventionality', p. 992. 1° HE 1.15 (supra., pp. 45, 143). II N.J. Higham, Kingdom of Northumbria AD 350-1100 (Gloucestershire, 1993), p. 69; Kleinschmidt, 'Beyond conventionality', pp. 992-3. 12 P. Sims-Williams, 'The settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle', ASE 12 (1983), p. 24; Yorke, 'The origins of Mercia', p. 14. 13 HE 1.25. 14 J. Hines, 'The becoming of the English: identity, material culture and language', ASSAH 7 (1994), p. 51. 371 Anglo-Saxon expansion into the region of Mercia and the West Midlands represented a secondary line of advance which occurred after occupation of the eastern regions. Archaeological evidence of Anglo-Saxon burials from the sub-Roman period suggests a limited presence in the east of Britain prior to c.450, and then only between the Thames and the Humber. I5 Burial sites datable to the second half of the fifth century demonstrate a more extensive distribution and include sites in the direction of the Midlands around Watling Street and the Trent Valley. 16 When burial sites including the first quarter of the sixth century are taken into account there is further expansion, with those in the west extending along the upper reaches of the Thames and its tributaries, along the Avon in the direction of the Severn at Stretton-on-Fosse and Wasperton (Warwicks.), and farther along the Trent Valley around Stretton and as far west as Catholme and Wychnor near Barton-under-Needwood (Staffs.), I7 The burial evidence thus supports what Steven Bassett refers to as a steady movement of Anglo-Saxons into the West Midlands from the late fifth century onwards, along three principal 'routes of entry': across the Cotswolds from the Thames Valley, along the Warwickshire Avon, and via the Trent Valley. I8 There appears to have been little expansion of Anglo-Saxon influence for the remainder of the sub-Roman period, at least as far as can be demonstrated by burial evidence; rather, there is further growth of the distribution of burial sites within the limits of the existing expansion. There are, for instance, no excavated pagan Anglo-Saxon burials west of the Severn in Herefordshire; the most westerly examples are around Bredon Hill (Worcs.) near the Avon-Severn confluence. I9 Nor have any burials been found in Shropshire or Cheshire.2° There are also relatively few pagan burials in the West 15 Supra., pp. 43-4, 144-5. 16 J. Hines, 'Philology, archaeology and the adventus Saxonum vel Anglorum' , in A. Bammesberger & A. Wollmann (eds.), Britain 400-600: Language and History (Heidelberg, 1990), P. 27. 17 Brooks, 'The formation of the Mercian kingdom', pp. 161-2; M. Gelling, The West Midlands in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester, 1992), pp. 31, 40; Hines, 'Philology, archaeology and the adventus Saxonum vel Anglorum' , p. 28; S. Losco-Bradley & H.M. Wheeler, 'Anglo-Saxon settlement in the Trent Valley: some aspects', in M. Faull, (ed.), Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Settlement (Oxford, 1984), pp. 102-112; K. Nurse, 'Awkward angles: ancestral burial ground indicates gradual acculturation from British to Anglo-Saxon society', History Today 43, no. 7 (1993), pp. 3-4; K. Pretty, 'Defining the Magonswte', in Bassett, Origins, p. 173. 18 S. Bassett, 'Church and diocese in the West Midlands: the transition from British to Anglo-Saxon control', in J. Blair & R. Sharpe (eds.), Pastoral Care Before the Parish (Leicester, 1992), p. 15; idem., 'How the west was won', p.