Bretwalda

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 827 (corrected by historians to 829), records the conquest of Mercia by Ecgberht, King of Wessex, making him king of all England south of the Humber. Ecgberht is described as the eighth bretwalda, ruler of Britain, and the eight are listed with descriptions: • Ælle, king of the South Saxons • Ceawlin, king of the West Saxons • Æthelberht, king of the people of Kent • Rædwald, king of the East Angles • Edwin, king of the people of Northumbria • Oswald, Edwin's successor • Oswiu, Oswald's brother • Ecgberht, king of the West Saxons The list is taken from Bede's list in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731, of seven kings who ruled over the southern kingdoms, with the addition of Ecgberht's name. ==Etymology==

The first syllable of the term bretwalda may be related to Briton or Britain. The second element is taken to mean 'ruler' or 'sovereign'. Thus, one interpretation might be 'sovereign of Britain'. Otherwise, the word may be a compound containing the Old English adjective brytten ('broad', from the verb breotan meaning 'to break' or 'to disperse'), an element also found in the terms bryten rice ('kingdom'), bryten-grund ('the wide expanse of the earth') and bryten cyning ('king whose authority was widely extended'). The latter etymology was first suggested by John Mitchell Kemble which Kemble translates as 'ruler of all these islands'; and that bryten- is a common prefix to words meaning 'wide or general dispersion' and that the similarity to the word bretwealh ('Briton') is "merely accidental". ==Contemporary use==

The only contemporary use of the term Bretwalda is in manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 829. Manuscript A is a recension of the original "common stock" of the 890s, and in the view of the historian Sarah Foot Bretwalda is unlikely to have been the original spelling. The historian Simon Keynes comments: :Bede's list is best understood as the product of personal reflection on his part. It is likely, in the same way, that the chronicler's use of the term "bretwalda" did not represent Ecgberht's succession to a recognised office, with powers and responsibilities particular to itself, but rather a flight of fancy, important to the chronicler but of no real importance in the unfolding course of political development. ==Modern interpretation by historians==

For some time, the existence of the word bretwalda in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was based in part on the list given by Bede in his Historia Ecclesiastica, led historians to think that there was perhaps a "title" held by Anglo-Saxon overlords. This was particularly attractive as it would lay the foundations for the establishment of an English monarchy. The 20th-century historian Frank Stenton said of the Anglo-Saxon chronicler that "his inaccuracy is more than compensated by his preservation of the English title applied to these outstanding kings". He argued that the term bretwalda "falls into line with the other evidence which points to the Germanic origin of the earliest English institutions". Over the later 20th century, this assumption was increasingly challenged. Patrick Wormald interpreted it as "less an objectively realized office than a subjectively perceived status" and emphasised the partiality of its usage in favour of Southumbrian rulers. In 1991, Steven Fanning argued that "it is unlikely that the term ever existed as a title or was in common usage in Anglo-Saxon England". The fact that Bede never mentioned a special title for the kings in his list implies that he was unaware of one. Modern interpretations view the concept of bretwalda overlordship as complex and an important indicator of how a 9th-century chronicler interpreted history and attempted to insert the increasingly powerful Saxon kings into that history. ==Overlordship==

A complex array of dominance and subservience existed during the Anglo-Saxon period. A king who used charters to grant land in another kingdom indicated such a relationship. If the other kingdom were fairly large, as when the Mercians dominated the East Anglians, the relationship would have been more equal than in the case of the Mercian dominance of the Hwicce, which was a comparatively small kingdom. Mercia was arguably the most powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom for much of the late 7th though 8th centuries, though Mercian kings are missing from the two main "lists". For Bede, Mercia was a traditional enemy of his native Northumbria and he regarded powerful kings such as the pagan Penda as standing in the way of the Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. Bede omits them from his list, even though it is evident that Penda held a considerable degree of power. Similarly powerful Mercia kings such as Offa are missed out of the West Saxon Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which sought to demonstrate the legitimacy of their kings to rule over other Anglo-Saxon peoples. ==See also==