The
Kingdom of East Anglia or the
Kingdom of the East Angles was one of the kingdoms of the
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
heptarchyHeptarchy is a collective name applied to the supposed seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east, and central Great Britain during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages which eventually unified into the Kingdom of England. During the same period, what is now Scotland and Wales were also divided...
. The kingdom was founded by
AnglesThe Angles is a modern English word for a Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...
from
AngelnModern Angeln, also known as Anglia , is a peninsula in Southern Schleswig in the northern Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, protruding into the Bay of Kiel...
in northern
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, and initially consisted of
NorfolkNorfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast, including The Wash. The county town is Norwich...
and
SuffolkSuffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, names which possibly arose during or after the Danish settling ("North folk" and "South folk"). Upon the marriage of the East Anglian princess
ÆthelthrythÆthelthryth, or Æðelþryð, is the proper name for the popular Anglo-Saxon saint often known, particularly in a religious context, as Etheldreda or by the pet form of Audrey...
, the
Isle of ElyThe Isle of Ely is a historic region around the city of Ely now in Cambridgeshire, England but previously a county in its own right.-Etymology:...
also became part of the kingdom.
The
Kingdom of East Anglia or the
Kingdom of the East Angles was one of the kingdoms of the
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
heptarchyHeptarchy is a collective name applied to the supposed seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east, and central Great Britain during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages which eventually unified into the Kingdom of England. During the same period, what is now Scotland and Wales were also divided...
. The kingdom was founded by
AnglesThe Angles is a modern English word for a Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...
from
AngelnModern Angeln, also known as Anglia , is a peninsula in Southern Schleswig in the northern Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, protruding into the Bay of Kiel...
in northern
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, and initially consisted of
NorfolkNorfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast, including The Wash. The county town is Norwich...
and
SuffolkSuffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, names which possibly arose during or after the Danish settling ("North folk" and "South folk"). Upon the marriage of the East Anglian princess
ÆthelthrythÆthelthryth, or Æðelþryð, is the proper name for the popular Anglo-Saxon saint often known, particularly in a religious context, as Etheldreda or by the pet form of Audrey...
, the
Isle of ElyThe Isle of Ely is a historic region around the city of Ely now in Cambridgeshire, England but previously a county in its own right.-Etymology:...
also became part of the kingdom. The boundaries of the region, however, are vague. East Anglia was of the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the early 7th century, but its power subsequently waned, and over the next centuries it was often under the control of the
MerciaMercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
ns and later the Danes. In 917 the kingdom submitted to
Edward the ElderEdward the Elder was an English king. He became king in 899 upon the death of his father, Alfred the Great. His court was at Winchester, previously the capital of Wessex...
of
WessexThe Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest of...
and became the Earldom of East Anglia, which was gradually incorporated into the
Kingdom of EnglandThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state and island country to the northwest of continental Europe. At its zenith, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands—what is today the legal unit of...
. The modern region of
East AngliaEast Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
is named after it.
History
East Anglia was formed about the year 520 by the merging of the North and the South Folk (Angles who had settled in the area that roughly corresponds to the former lands of the
IceniThe Iceni or Eceni were a tribe who inhabited an area of Britain corresponding roughly to the modern-day county of Norfolk between the 1st century BC and 1st century AD...
during the previous century). It was one of the seven kingdoms in the
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
heptarchyHeptarchy is a collective name applied to the supposed seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east, and central Great Britain during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages which eventually unified into the Kingdom of England. During the same period, what is now Scotland and Wales were also divided...
(as defined in the 12th-century writings of
Henry of HuntingdonHenry of Huntingdon was an English historian of the 12th century and archdeacon of Huntingdon.-Life:Not much is known about Henry, the Archdeacon in the Diocese of Lincoln . There are no personal correspondences or anecdotes that survived his life and it seemed that no one considered him...
). For a brief period following a victory over the rival kingdom of
NorthumbriaNorthumbria or Northhumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now north-east England and southern Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory: the Humber...
around the year 616, East Anglia was the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, and its king Rædwald was
BretwaldaBretwalda, also Brytenwalda, Bretenanwealda, is an Anglo-Saxon term, the first record of which comes from the late ninth century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It is applied in that chronicle to some of the rulers of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from the fifth century onwards who had achieved overlordship over...
(overlord of the Anglo-Saxons kingdoms). But this did not last: over the next forty years, East Anglia was defeated by the
MerciaMercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
ns twice, and it continued to weaken relative to the other kingdoms until 794, when
Offa of MerciaOffa was the King of Mercia from 757 until his death in July 796. He was the son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, a brother of King Penda of Mercia, who had ruled over a century before. Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald, defeating...
had its king Æthelberht killed and took control of the kingdom himself.
The independence of the East Anglians was restored by a successful rebellion against Mercia (825 – 827), in course of which two Mercian kings were killed attempting to crush it. On November 20, 870 the Danes under
Ivar the BonelessIvar Ragnarsson nicknamed the Boneless , was a Danish Viking chieftain and by reputation also a berserker...
killed King Edmund and took the kingdom, which they named East Anglia. The Saxons retook the area in 920, only to lose it again in 1015 – 1017, when it was conquered by
Canute the GreatCnut the Great , also known as Canute or Knut or Cnut Sweynsson, was a Viking king of England and Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden...
and given as a
fiefdomUnder the system of medieval European feudalism, a fiefdom, fief, feud, feoff, or fee, often consisted of inheritable lands or revenue-producing property granted by a liege lord, generally to a vassal, in return for a form of allegiance, originally to give him the means to fulfill his military...
to Thorkell the Tall, who was made
Earl of East AngliaThe Earls of East Anglia were rulers of the East Anglia during the 10th through the 12th centuries. These were instituted after the former Kingdom of East Anglia submitted to Edward the Elder of Wessex in 917...
in 1017.
See also