Iclingas

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Silver penny of Offa of Mercia Offa king of Mercia 757 793 silver penny.jpg
Silver penny of Offa of Mercia

The Iclingas (also Iclings or House of Icel) were a dynasty of Kings of Mercia during the 7th and 8th centuries, named for Icel or Icil, great-grandson of Offa of Angel, a legendary or semi-legendary figure of the Migration Period who is described as a descendant of the god Woden by the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Contents

The Iclingas reached the height of their power under Offa of Mercia (r. 757–796), who achieved hegemony over the other Anglo-Saxon states, and proclaimed himself "King of the English", but the dynasty lost control of Mercia soon after his death. Penda, who became king of Mercia in about 626 and is the first king named in the regnal lists of the Anglian collection, and at the same time the last pagan king of Mercia, gave rise to a dynasty that supplied at least eleven kings to the throne of Mercia. Four additional monarchs were given an Icling pedigree in later genealogical sources but are now believed to have descended from the family by way of Penda's sister.

Icel himself is of debatable historicity; according to Nicholas Brooks, if historical he would have lived sometime between 450 and 525 [5] and was probably considered the founder of the dynasty because he was the first of his line in Britain. [5] Despite the Icelingas' claims of ties with the rulers and mythic heroes of continental Angeln and with the war-god Woden, Brooks suggests that the Icelingas were, before Penda's rise in prominence, no more and no less royal than any of the other ruling houses of the small Midlands peoples as recorded in the Tribal Hidage and assessed as having between 300 and 600 hides of land. [5] Icel's ancestry in genealogical tradition is as follows: Icel son of Eomer son of Angeltheow son of Offa son of Wermund son of Wihtlæg son, grandson or great-grandson of Woden. In this tradition, Icel is the leader of the Angles who migrated to Britain. Icel is then separated from the establishment of Mercia by three generations: Icel's son was Cnebba, whose son was Cynewald, whose son was Creoda, first king of Mercia.

Matthew Paris s.a. 527 reports, "pagans came from Germania and occupied East Anglia... some of whom invaded Mercia and fought many battles with the British[.]" This date, however, should perhaps be amended to 515. [6] The Vita Sancti Guthlaci ("Life of Saint Guthlac") reports Guthlac of Crowland to have been son of Penwalh, a Mercian who could trace his pedigree back to Icel. [7]

Several place names in England have been suggested as derived from the name of Icel or the Iclingas, including Icklingham, Ickleford, Ickleton and Ixworth. [1] [5] [8] [9] Norman Scarfe noted that the Icknield Way had early spellings Icenhylte weg and Icenhilde weg and suggested a connection between Icklingham and the Iceni, although Warner (1988) has cast doubt on the identification. [8] [9] The name Iclinga survives as "Hickling" and several similar spellings.

List of kings

The following are Iclinga kings of Mercia whose historicity is certain. Creoda of Mercia is of uncertain historicity (if historical, he would date to the end of the 6th century). Cearl of Mercia who ruled during the early 7th century was probably not an Icling.

RulerReignBiographical notesDied
Penda c.626–655Son of Pybba. Raised Mercia to dominant status amongst the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Last pagan ruler of Mercia. Killed in battle by Oswiu.15 Nov 655
Eowa c.635–642Son of Pybba. Co-ruler. Killed in battle.5 Aug 642
Peada c.653–656Son of Penda. Co-ruler in the south-east Midlands. Murdered.17 Apr 656
Wulfhere 658–675Son of Penda. Restored Mercian dominance in England. First Christian king of all Mercia.675
Æthelred I 675–704Son of Penda. Abdicated and retired to a monastery at Bardney.716
Cœnred 704–709Son of Wulfhere. Abdicated and retired to Rome.?
Ceolred 709–716Son of Æthelred I. Probably poisoned.716
Ceolwald 716Presumed son of Æthelred I (may not have existed).716
Æthelbald 716–757Grandson of Eowa. Proclaimed himself King of Britain in 736. Murdered by his bodyguards.757
Offa 757–796Great-great-grandson of Eowa. The greatest and most powerful of all Mercian kings, he proclaimed himself King of the English in 774, built Offa's Dyke, and introduced the silver penny.26 or 29 Jul 796
Ecgfrith 787–796Son of Offa. Co-ruler, died suddenly a few months after his father.14 or 17 Dec 796

Family tree

Pybba
Penda Eowa Coenwalh
Peada Wulfhere Æthelred Merewalh AlweoOsmodCundwalh
Coenred Ceolred Ceolwald Æthelbald EanulfCentwine
ThingfrithCynreow
Offa Bassa
Ecgfrith Cuthberht
Coenwulf Ceolwulf

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Offa of Mercia 8th-century Anglo-Saxon King of Mercia

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Ecgberht, King of Wessex 8th and 9th-century Anglo-Saxon King of Wessex

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Æthelbald of Mercia 8th-century King of Mercia

Æthelbald was the King of Mercia, in what is now the English Midlands from 716 until he was killed in 757. Æthelbald was the son of Alweo and thus a grandson of King Eowa. Æthelbald came to the throne after the death of his cousin, King Ceolred, who had driven him into exile. During his long reign, Mercia became the dominant kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, and recovered the position of pre-eminence it had enjoyed during the strong reigns of Mercian kings Penda and Wulfhere between about 628 and 675.

Æthelred of Mercia 7th and 8th-century King of Mercia

Æthelred was king of Mercia from 675 until 704. He was the son of Penda of Mercia and came to the throne in 675, when his brother, Wulfhere of Mercia, died from an illness. Within a year of his accession he invaded Kent, where his armies destroyed the city of Rochester. In 679 he defeated his brother-in-law, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, at the Battle of the Trent: the battle was a major setback for the Northumbrians, and effectively ended their military involvement in English affairs south of the Humber. It also permanently returned the kingdom of Lindsey to Mercia's possession. However, Æthelred was unable to re-establish his predecessors' domination of southern Britain.

Wulfhere of Mercia 7th-century King of Mercia

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Penda of Mercia King of Mercia from ~626 to 655 AD

Penda was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.

Coenwulf of Mercia King of Mercia from 796 to 821

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Pybba (570?–606/615) was an early King of Mercia. He was the son of Creoda and father of Penda and Eowa. Unusually, the names Pybba and Penda are likely of British Celtic, rather than Germanic, origin.

Coenred of Mercia 8th-century King of Mercia

Coenred was king of Mercia from 704 to 709. Mercia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the English Midlands. He was a son of the Mercian king Wulfhere, whose brother Æthelred succeeded to the throne in 675 on Wulfhere's death. In 704, Æthelred abdicated in favour of Coenred to become a monk.

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Wiglaf of Mercia 9th-century King of Mercia

Wiglaf was King of Mercia from 827 to 829 and again from 830 until his death. His ancestry is uncertain: the 820s were a period of dynastic conflict within Mercia and the genealogy of several of the kings of this time is unknown. Wigstan, his grandson, was later recorded as a descendant of Penda of Mercia, so it is possible that Wiglaf was descended from Penda, one of the most powerful seventh-century kings of Mercia.

Cearl was an early king of Mercia who ruled during the early part of the 7th century, until about 626. He is the first Mercian king mentioned by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. Bede was a Northumbrian who was hostile to Mercia, and historian Robin Fleming speculates that as "ceorl" means "rustic" in Old English, his name may have been a joke.

Eowa was a son of the Mercian king Pybba and a brother of the Mercian king Penda; he was possibly King of Northern Mercia, as the 8th-century Historia Brittonum reports that he was co-ruler with his brother Penda.

Ælfwald of East Anglia 8th-century king of East Anglia

Ælfwald was an 8th-century king of East Anglia, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom that today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The last king of the Wuffingas dynasty, Ælfwald succeeded his father Ealdwulf, who had ruled for 49 years. Ælfwald himself ruled for 36 years. Their combined reigns, with barely any record of external military action or internal dynastic strife, represent a long period of peaceful stability for the East Angles. In Ælfwald's time, this was probably owing to a number of factors, including the settled nature of East Anglian ecclesiastical affairs and the prosperity brought through Rhineland commerce with the East Anglian port of Gipeswic. The coinage of Anglo-Saxon sceattas expanded in Ælfwald's time: evidence of East Anglian mints, markets, and industry are suggested where concentrations of such coins have been discovered.

Wermund

Wermund, Vermund or Garmund is an ancestor of the Mercian royal family, a son of Wihtlaeg and father of Offa. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes him a grandson of Woden, but the Gesta Danorum written by Saxo Grammaticus goes no farther than his father, while the Brevis Historia Regum Dacie of Sven Aggesen makes Wermund son of king Frothi hin Frokni.

Kings of the Angles

The Angles were a dominant Germanic tribe in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and gave their name to the English, England and to the region of East Anglia. Originally from Angeln, present-day Schleswig-Holstein, a legendary list of their kings has been preserved in the heroic poems Widsith and Beowulf, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Æthelwold, also known as Æthelwald or Æþelwald, was a 7th-century king of East Anglia, the long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. He was a member of the Wuffingas dynasty, which ruled East Anglia from their regio at Rendlesham. The two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries at Sutton Hoo, the monastery at Iken, the East Anglian see at Dommoc and the emerging port of Ipswich were all in the vicinity of Rendlesham.

Middle Angles Cultural sub-group of the Anglo-Saxons

The Middle Angles were an important ethnic or cultural group within the larger kingdom of Mercia in England in the Anglo-Saxon period.

A number of royal genealogies of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, collectively referred to as the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, have been preserved in a manuscript tradition based in the 8th to 10th centuries.

References

  1. 1 2 John Nowell Linton Myres (1 April 1989). English Settlements Pb. Oxford University Press. pp. 185–. ISBN   978-0-19-282235-2 . Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  2. ↑ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 15.
  3. ↑ Johanne Hoops (2003). Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde: Östgötalag-Pfalz und Pfalzen. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 552–. ISBN   978-3-11-017351-2 . Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  4. ↑ Thomas A. Bredehoft (2001). Textual Histories: Readings in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. University of Toronto Press. pp. 167–. ISBN   978-0-8020-4850-9 . Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Nicholas Brooks (2 August 2003). Anglo-Saxon Myths: State and Church, 400-1066: State and Church, 400-1066. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 67–68. ISBN   978-1-85285-154-5 . Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  6. ↑ Davies, Wendy, 'Annals and the origins of Merca' in Mercian Studies (Leicester University Press, 1977)
  7. ↑ Bertram Colgrave (12 September 1985). Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac: Texts, Translation and Notes. Cambridge University Press. pp. 176–. ISBN   978-0-521-31386-5 . Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  8. 1 2 Peter M. Warner (1996). The Origins of Suffolk. Manchester University Press. pp. 39–. ISBN   978-0-7190-3817-4 . Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  9. 1 2 Norman Scarfe (1986). Suffolk in the Middle Ages: Studies In Places and Place-Names, the Ship-Burial, Saints, Mummies And Crosses, Domesday Book and Chronicles of Bury Abbey. Boydell Press. pp. 12–. ISBN   978-1-84383-068-9 . Retrieved 5 December 2012.

See also

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