INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this entry is to discuss some of the evidence we have for the early Germanic colonization of what became Essex and to show that there are a lot of questions that can possible never be answered unless archæology brings to light new evidence. It is an area in which a lot of speculation goes on since we know next to nothing about the early English, their customs, religion, etc. Until the excavations at Mucking there was little archæological evidence to be found but now sites are being discovered or re-appraised in light of new discoveries.

This entry is written to get the reader interested (perhaps) in an obscure and often over-looked area of English/British history which is rarely if ever taught in schools of the period where the seeds of the United Kingdom as we know it today were sown.

BEDE AND THE CHRONICLE

"[Of Seaxum, þæt is] of ðam lande þe mon hated Ealdseaxe, coman Eastseaxan and Suðseaxan and Westseaxan..." which translates as "[Of the Saxons, that is] from the land men call Old Saxons, came the East Saxons, and the South Saxons, and the West Saxons...". So wrote the Venerable Bede back in 731 when he was compiling his Historia Ecclesiastica¹ some 300 years after the events he was describing happened.

But who were these settlers? Were they Angles, Saxons, Franks, Frisians or Jutes?² Or were they a mixture of all of these tribes? Why did they journey from homelands in Northern Germany and Denmark to arrive on the east coast of Britain? Was it to escape some long-forgotten war, or perhaps to escape from a natural disaster or a plague. Were they warriors invited over by a British ruler, or roving bands of raiders (like the Vikings some 400 years later) who saw an opportunity of conquest and plunder in a country rapidly in decline after the Roman withdrawal?³ Or were they Germanic soldiers in the Roman army who had settled down in Essex and eventually took over the positions of power left vacant by the withdrawal of imperial protection?

This is the vexing problem with the early Germanic settlement of Britain: there are so many questions and relatively few solid facts. Truly a Dark Age. But thankfully not totally Dark. There are a few tempting clues to be found but unfortunately not enough to give a complete picture of what was happening in the early fifth century.

Both Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles⁴ state that a British tyrant called Vortigern (Wyrtgeorn⁵ to the English) invited the Germanic warriors over in order to secure his position as Overlord of the Southern and Midland British kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles then go on to state that the Anglo-Saxons (or English if prefered) arrived in stages in various parts of Britain:

(i) In 449 Hengest and Horsa⁶ arrived at the request of Vortigern and were given Kent (much to the chagrin of the local king Gwyrangon, no doubt) as well as Essex, Middlesex and Sussex⁷ but evidence is wanting for this. In 455 after Hengest had rebelled and fought against Vortigern he succeeded to the kingdom of Kent.

(ii) In 477 Ælle and his three sons (Cymen, Wlencing, and Cissa⁸ arrived in Sussex and had many battles with the British. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are silent as to when Ælle succeeded to the kingdom of Sussex.

(iii) In 495 Cerdic and Cynric⁹ turned up in what became Hampshire (and eventually Wessex) and after a series of battles became kings of Wessex in 519.

(iv) In 514 Stuf and Wihtgar¹⁰ arrived in Britain and also fought many battles and in 534 Cerdic and Cynric gave them the Isle of Wight, although whether they became kings is not recorded.

(v) In 547 Ida is reported to have succeeded to the throne of Bernicia (in Northumbria) followed 13 years later by Ælle¹¹ in Deira (also in Northumbria¹²). The origins of Deira and Bernicia are not alluded to.

All in all the above events took over 100 years to occur. But what of the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms? Mercia is first mentioned in 626 when Penda became king. East Anglia is first mentioned in 616 when its king Rædwald defeated and killed King Æþelfrið of Northumbria. The East Saxons are first mentioned in 604 when their king, Sæberht, was converted to Christianity, but these were not the first kings of the above kingdoms so why was the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles so quiet about their predecessors? It may simply have been a lack of information.

THE ROMANO-BRITISH

When the first English settlers arrived in Essex (or rather what would become Essex) they would have found a land covered in forests and a population of quite possibly highly Romanized British. In other words a Roman culture. These Romano-British people were living in a prosperous land with no evidence at this time of any decay or destruction. Although linguistically and culturally different from the Romano-British¹³ it would seem from the rather scant evidence that the Germanic settlers rapidly adapted to the native customs which would explain the lack of evidence to be found in Essex from those days. One thing that is apparent from archæology is that in the fifth and sixth centuries there was not a great influx of people into Essex unlike the large numbers which arrived in Kent and East Anglia, for example.

The most noticeable thing about the Germanic colonization of Essex is that it seems to have been a peaceful one, unlike the West Saxon, South Saxon or Kentish colonizations. And this could well explain why the East Saxons original settlements and their earliest kings failed to be mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and one could even speculate (wildly and quite possibly inaccuratly) that this is why the royal house of Essex never produced a Bretwalda¹⁴ or indeed a kingdom of anything more than local importance in later centuries¹⁵

The term "East Saxon" is first recorded in a charter of Oeþelred (whose exact position in East Saxon nobility/royalty is unknown¹⁶) in the 690s but it may well have been in use before this. Quite what they would have called themselves is unknown but they may just have referred to themselves as Saxon, as the West Saxon kings are known to have referred to themselves, although it has been suggested that they were not Saxon in origin as the archæology and traditions of the early East Saxons have little to do with the Continental Saxons. One comparison which can be made with the Continental Saxons is the worship of the god Seaxnet which is unique to the East Saxon royal House¹⁷. The term Saxon is of uncertain meaning but it may come from seax meaning "knife" or or a single edged sword which the Saxons used¹⁸.

There is evidence for this peaceful integration rather than bloody warfare; it would appear that the Roman countryside survived intact for some considerable time and changed only on a gradual basis as and when the political and economic circumstances altered and this may also represent a gradual transmutation from the late Roman civitas of the Trinovantes into the East Saxon kingdom.

Another factor to be considered is that there is a remarkable absence of cremation cemeteries in Essex, and where they are found cremation is always a small part of a cemetary containing inhumation burials which would seem to illustrate the early English settlers taking on Romano-British customs and indeed many English settlers shared the cemetaries with the British population. Another thing which has been noted with the cemetary problem is the ratio between the number of known cemetaries and the number of -ingas¹⁹ place names, i.e. there are many surviving -ingas place names but relatively few cemetaries associated with them. The high survival rate of these -ingas names would seem to indicate that the settlements, whether the first wave or secondary wave (which is the prevailing view) were permanently occupied by the English settlers unlike those of say, for arguments sake, Hampshire of the same period where there was a lot of heavy fighting between the English and the British and any settlements in the warzone would have been destroyed in all likelihood by one side or another. But this seems to be not the case in Essex which again would point to a peaceful integration of the two peoples.

What if the early English settlers arrived in Essex not after the collapse of Roman power but before? This would mean that those early settlers would would be effectively controlled and would probably adapt quickly to Romano-British culture which would mean that their descendants - second or third generation - would be a Romanized people, although they may have kept a few of their traditions alive. It may be that these early settlers were Roman soldiers of Germanic origin who intermarried with the British population. This would be another pointer to why there is very little physical evidence to be found for the early English settlers in Essex. This may also be why there is no mention of them in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.

ARTHUR

It was around this sort of time, after the withdrawal of Roman protection from Britain that we come across the legendary King Arthur.
He is said to have fought his second, third, fourth, and fifth battles by a river called Dubglas²⁰ which is Celtic for Blackwater, which also happens to be one of the main rivers in Essex. But who did Arthur fight against? Was it the early East Saxons? Or was it Hengest or some other English military leader? It has been suggested that his battles would have taken place in the 490s by which time Hengest was long dead but his "son" Oisc was active around then, as was Ælle of Sussex, but it seems likely that whilst Arthur was fighting in Essex Ælle was conquering the southern part of Britain.

But since Arthur is a spurious figure at best and Dubglas not an uncommon river name it would be next to impossible to fix where his battles took place and the suggestion that it was in Essex should be taken with caution. Indeed, it would be odd that if the East Saxons (or the people who would eventually become known as the East Saxons) did fight against Arthur in some or all of these battles then one would have thought that there would be a record of it or at least a legend naming them. It also seems a little odd that the first battle we know for the East Saxons is in the late 610s or early 620s when the Kings Seaxred, Sæweard and Seaxbald fought against the West Saxons over a possible territory dispute involving Surrey - nearly 200 years after the first settlers. Could this imply that the East Saxons fought no battles until then? Hardly seems likely. Still if the above did happen and Arthur won his wars it would give us a reason why the East Saxon (and East Anglian) kingdom took so long to be founded.

In Part Two I shall look at the place-names of Essex to see what evidence there is for the early English settlers in Essex.