Chapter 5: Anglo-Saxon Mercia

The Wiccii or Hwiccii settled Worcestershire and Gloucestershire in the 6th century. This tribe was Anglian in origin, but perhaps also had a Saxon element to its armed retinue. The Hwiccii tribe was made up many smaller tribes or families. It is the smaller communities within the sub-kingdoms that gave rise to many of the village and hamlet names we know today. One author has it that the name of Bentley is derived from 'Beonat Setna', the beekeepers family seat. Many other authors however derive Bentley from Bent-Ley, the woodland clearing of tall grass. In early Saxon times Little Witley was the focus of the estate of Buttingcwick, or the farm of a family or clan called Buttinge. This steading was bounded in the north by the Hillhampton Ridge, west by the Abberley Hills, Woodbury Hill and Martley Hillside, and in the south by the parish of Wichenford. To the east was the great-forested area of Holt, which stretched down to the River Severn. The Hwiccii knew Worcester as Weogornceaster, the "Roman walled town of the people called Weogora." St Helen's parish church within the town became the property of Hwiccan rulers.

The Hwiccii were one of about 30 tribes that inhabited Mercia. The area occupied by the Hwiccii later formed one of the five earldoms of the kingdom of Mercia. Mercia occupied the upper basin of the Trent River and later almost all of southern England. Founded about AD 500 its first identifiable king was Creoda (reigned 586-593). Creoda claimed descent from Woden, the principal Anglo-Saxon god. It was claimed that Woden had an ancestry traceable back to Adam, the first man!

Wybba, son of Creoda, was the second king of Mercia. When he died in 615, he was succeeded by Ceorl (ancestry unknown), who was in turn succeeded by Wybba son, Penda, who became one of the most powerful of the Mercian kings. Penda consolidated the kingdom in 628 when he fought Cynegils and Cwichelm of Wessex at Cirencester, and afterwards made a treaty with them there. In 633, Penda and Cadwalla defeated and killed King Edwin of Northumbria on Hatfield moor, and Penda went on to ravage Northumbria. In 642, he defeated and slew another Northumbrian king, Oswald, this time at Mirfield. In 655, Penda himself was slain and was succeeded by his son Peada.

The native British practised Christianity in a few places, including St Helen's in Worcester, prior to the conversation of the Penda and his Anglo-Saxon followers in the 650's. In the 680's St Helen's church became the home of the Anglo-Saxon see.

Penda and his successors, three of whom were his own sons, installed sub-kings or earls within their kingdoms. Early sub-kings of Hwicce or Wiccia, the area inhabited by the Wiccii, included Osric (from 675), Oswald (681), Oshere (693) and Ethelheard (699). An Anglo-Saxon burial excavated in Asthall, Oxfordshire, may represent that of a young member of the Hwicce 'royal family'. Semi-legendary individuals such as Eawa, Osmod, Thingferth and Enwulf were written in the genealogies of the kings of Mercia. These men were in reality possibly nobles or royal princes of the kings or sub-kings of Mercia.

Wulhere succeeded his brother Peada on his death in 656. In 661, he defeated and conquered all of the Isle of Wight for King Æthelwald of Sussex, whom he adopted in baptism. That same year he attacked his sometime brother-in-law, Kenwal, King of Wessex, who had been briefly married to his sister, Kyneburga. In 675, he fought Escwin at Bedwin. The same year he died and was succeeded by his brother Æthelred, who married Ostritha, daughter of the Northumbrian king Oswui. Æthelred was a pious yet powerful king. In 676 he overran the land of Kent. Three years later he founded the Diocese and monastery of Worcester to serve the Hwicce. In 704, he retired to a monastic life, dying shortly afterwards.

Christianity may have been continuously practised in Worcester by the remaining native Britons since Romano-British times, for at many sites in neighbouring Gloucestershire, Minster churches overlie older churches which are themselves associated with earlier Roman sites. The first three Bishops of Mercian Worcester came from Lindisfarne monastery, the seat of holy learning in Anglo-Saxon England.

Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory on the site of Lindisfarne Monastery

Worcestershire has one of the most complete and ancient collections of Anglo-Saxon charters that detail the grants of estates by the church and crown. Generally the language used was not Latin as favoured by the early monks, but Old English. This language has many elements still recognisable today. It was derived from a combination of Celtic elements as spoken by the native Romano-Britons and Germanic elements introduced by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The charters have been much studied throughout the last three centuries, and revised translations and interpretations are being published all the time.

Wick Episcopi was an area to the Northwest of Worcester, roughly bounded by the Rivers Severn and Teme and a line through Broadwas, Martley, Wichenford, Little Witley and Shrawley Brook. Its name is preserved today in Upper and Lower Wick. The manors (latterly parishes) within Wick Episcopi where defined during that period, as the church further cleared and settled its new acquisitions. Whitlega = bend of a stream with a clearing (Witley) and Beonot leage (Bentley) were recognised at that time. Other locations named in the Wick Episcopi grant of 775 include Heafuchrycg (Ockeridge), Ecles Broc (stream from Warford Pool), Doferic (Shrawley Brook), Saeferne (the Severn) and Baele Broc (Babbling Brook = Grimley Brook).

An Anglo-Saxon Farmstead

From the earliest part of the Anglo-Saxon period, and on in to post Domesday England, the basic measure of land area was the 'hide'. A hide was the area of land required to sustain one peasant household. It is usually reckoned at about 120 acres, but varied throughout the country depending on the productivity of the land. At around the middle of the seventh century Mercia consisted of 30,000 hides. One hundred hides constituted a multiple estate or 'hundred'. With this form of allotment, taxation could be organised, and indeed had probably been levied as early as the Romano-British period.

When King Æthelred of Mercia died in 704, his nephew Cenred succeeded him. On his death in 709, Ceolred succeeded him. He gave up the government shortly before his death, travelled to Rome with Offa, and died there in 716. Æthelbald succeeded Ceolred.

The mightiest king of Mercia was Offa. He was elected king on Æthelbald's death in 755, and ruled until his own death in 794. England became more unified during his reign, and he negotiated with Charlemagne. Offa conquered and overthrew local dynasties in small kingdoms such as Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Lindsey. He defeated the Welsh and the West Saxons of Wessex; and established Mercian supremacy over most of England south of the river Humber. The relationship with Wessex was briefly cemented in 789 when Offa's daughter, Edburga (or Eadburh/Eadburga), married Wessex's client King, Bertric (or Beorhtric). Offa's influence was no doubt brought to bear in the northern lands when another of his daughters, Elfleda, married Ethelred, King of Northumbria, in 792.

His power was such that in 794 he was able to order the execution of Ethelbert, a king of East Anglia, who was later venerated as a saint.

On defeating the Welsh and wresting part of his land from them Offa built a great fortifications or boundary marker ("Offa's Dyke") along the entire border between England and Wales between 784 and 786. Although Anglo-Saxon kings were constantly on the move through their kingdoms, they established a number of royal palaces. Tamworth in Staffordshire was Offa's principle residence. This was near to Lichfield, where Offa had elevated the bishopric to archiepiscopal rank thereby reducing the influence of Canterbury.

In order to support the growing religious community in Worcester Offa granted Wick Episcopi (or Wican) to Bishop Mildred of Worcester between 757 and 775. The rationale behind such a gift to the church was explained in the associated Charter thus: '. for the relief and salvation of my soul and the relief of my sin..'! Offa ruled until 796.

In the 700's Mercia had developed important commercial and diplomatic links with Europe. Textiles were exported to France as Charlemagne refers to it in his letters to Offa in 796. Mercia also produced fine coinage. In the third quarter of the century the kings of Kent began to issue a new coinage of silver pennies, or denarii, modelled in part on new Frankish coins and differing in weight, quality and design from previous Anglo-Saxon issues. In about 785, when Offa re-established control of Kent he took over the mint at Canterbury and instructed that coins should be struck in his name. There were several other mints, which struck coins for him, in Mercia, East Anglia and Wessex. Early in the 790s Charlemagne slightly increased the weight of the Frankish penny. Offa followed suit in England and the coins, which still survive today, provide testimony to his firm royal control over the coinage.

When King Offa of Mercia died in 794, his son Everth succeeded him. Everth died that year as well, however, and was succeeded by Coenwulf. Coenwulf then reined until 821, when he was in turn succeeded by Ceolwulf. Beornwulf then forcibly took the kingdom from Ceolwulf in 824. By now the Wessex sub-kingdom was becoming stronger under its native king, Egbert.

Coenwulf

In 789 Offa had exiled Egbert, a claimant to the Kingdom of Wessex because he was anti-Mercian. During his exile Egbert spent three years in Gaul, where he saw the expansion of Charlemagne's empire. After returning and gaining the Wessex throne in 802, Egbert took it upon himself to destroy the supremacy of Mercia in England. He conquered the Welsh of Cornwall in 815, and in 825. In 825 Beornwulf lost a bloody battle to Egbert who seized Mercia's subject kingdoms of Kent and Sussex. Beornwulf was slain by the East Angles later the same year. Ludeca succeeded Beornwulf but was killed two years later. Wiglaf then became king of Mercia, reining for less than a year before losing the remainder of Mercia to Egbert.

In 827, Egbert forced Mercia and Northumbria to accept his overlordship. The end of 828 saw the unification of the whole of England, including the previously unconquered land of Cornwall and Northumbria, for the first time since the Roman occupation. In a reversal of the situation under Offa, the king of Wessex now required a client king to rule Mercia. Wiglaf, the deposed full king, was invited to be the first of these. Egbert ruled over England until his death in 839.

The earliest Anglo-Saxon kings were military leaders who ruled with the aid of thanes (lords). People in the earliest Anglo-Saxon communities lived in crude villages of timber huts thatched with straw, reeds, or heather. By the 800's, village life had become more organised. The Anglo-Saxon kings had allotted land to their thanes and had made them overlords of some villages. Villagers became dependent on their thane and had to give him food and labour.

Hallow, in 816,was one of the first single manors to be granted by the Bishopric of Worcester to a tenant lord. Prior to that it had been part of a larger estate, Worgorena leage (the clearing of the people of Worcester), which also included Witley and Bentley along with Grimley, Moseley and Wichenford. The clearing concerned would have been in the southern portion of the still extensive but retreating Wyre forest. The Hallow grant included Griman Hyle (Woodbury Hill) and Buddigc wican = home of the Buddinge tribe (Witley Park). Slades, ridges and copses mentioned in the grant would have been around Witley Park and Thomas's and Bank Farms in Little Witley. Grim was an ancient Celtic spectre who was said to inhabit what we know today as Woodbury Hill. Grimley is said to preserve reference to him, that is, Grim's clearing or the clearing of the followers of Grim.

During the 800's, the Anglo-Saxon kings began to rule with the aid of the Witan or Witenagemot (Old English, "meeting of the wise men"), an assembly of councillors that met to advise the king of judicial and administrative matters. Originally a gathering of all the freemen of a tribe, it eventually became an assembly composed of the ealdormen (Old English, "aldermen"), or local chieftains, the bishops, other high civil and ecclesiastical officials, and sometimes friends and relatives of the king. The Witenagemot may have had the power to elect a king, especially if succession was disputed, and it deliberated on all new laws, made treaties, served as a supreme court of justice, authorised the levying of extraordinary taxation and the granting of land, and raised military forces.

Each of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had its own Witenagemot until the subjugation of them all by Egbert, king of Wessex. Thereafter the Witenagemot of Wessex gradually developed into a single assembly for the whole country.

The Anglo-Saxon peoples spoke Germanic languages. The speech of the Anglo-Saxons predominated in England and formed the basis from which the English language developed.