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Y301: The Early Anglo-Saxons c.400–800

The development of Kingship and kingdoms in Britain and Ireland: the heptarchy, royal government and the rise of Northumbria and Mercia

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on doubts about the Bretwalda, the heptarchy model and its critics, itinerant kingship, the Tribal Hidage, unstable seventh-century kingship, Northumbrian expansion and its end, and the Mercian supremacy.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Who and when

Why did kings rise and fall so rapidly in the seventh century?

Key term

How extensive was royal power by c.825?

Key term

Which two defeats brought Northumbrian expansion to an end?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why do many historians doubt that Bretwalda was a real office?

    Model answer

    The word is very rare, the supposed holders come from different kingdoms with gaps between them, and Patrick Wormald argued the list was a literary construction reflecting Bede's own idea of a single English people rather than a recognised institution.

  2. 2

    What is meant by the heptarchy?

    Model answer

    It is a much later term for the seven kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Kent and Wessex, which came to dominate England by the seventh century.

  3. 3

    Give two criticisms historians make of the heptarchy model.

    Model answer

    It leaves out substantial peoples such as the Hwicce, the Magonsaete, Lindsey and the Middle Angles, and it hides the fact that Northumbria was itself the union of Bernicia and Deira.

  4. 4

    How did an early Anglo-Saxon king govern without a fixed capital?

    Model answer

    He travelled constantly between royal estates consuming the food-renders owed to him, and ruled through ealdormen and reeves in the localities while taking counsel from the leading men of the witan.

  5. 5

    Explain what the Tribal Hidage shows about early Anglo-Saxon administration.

    Model answer

    It is a list assessing more than thirty peoples in hides, probably for tribute, and it shows that kings could rank and tax subordinate groups systematically rather than merely raid them.

  6. 6

    Why did kings rise and fall so rapidly in the seventh century?

    Model answer

    Succession was open to any male of the royal kin rather than fixed by primogeniture, and a king's authority rested on continued victory and treasure, so a single defeat could destroy a reign and leave rival aethelings, often returning from exile, to fight over the throne.

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