The Ancestry of the kings of Britain has long attracted historians' interest because the monarchs of Britain trace their lineage from them.[1] An early king on record outside of the legendary genealogies is called Creoda[2] mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry 519[3] and in the B, C, and D version,[4] although not listed as a king.[5] Creoda has been deleted from some of the genealogies.[6] Nicholas Brooks has suggested that a different Creoda (or Crida) was the founder and first king of the House of Mercia.[7]
Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote a legendary chronology of the kings and legendary kings of Britain in the Historia Regum Britanniae c. 1136 CE.[8] Ancestry has also been studied through "genealogies"; lists of names in various manuscripts. Ancestries include the Ancestry of the kings of Wessex and the Ancestry of the kings of Mercia. Scholarly analysis suggests the early part of some versions are largely an invention of the 8th and 9th centuries. They provides lines of names stretching from Godulf Geoting, presumably ruler of a Kingdom before Woden to Eanfrith, Aldfrið or Pybba and onwards. They have variations in a number of Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies.[9][10][11]
Manuscripts include references to names from the Kingdom of Lindsey, a settlement in the northeast of Britain that rose to prominence in the early years of settlement by the Angles. Little is known of the Kingdom and the people are not recorded participating in the wars of the seventh and eighth centuries.[9] Frank Stenton suggested the Caedbaed may have ruled around 570 CE.[12] He suggests "the hint of early intercourse between Angles and Britons given by the name of King Caedbaed is strengthened by the fact that Lindsey itself is a British name"[13]
The list of names in the different genealogies give the following pedigrees:
Legendary kings before Woden or Weothulgeot
Semi-Legendary kings after Woden or Weothulgeot
| Vespasian B vi Mercia | Vespasian B vi Lindsey | Genealogia Lindisfarorum | Tiberius B v | Biographical notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geot | ? | Compare the Geats who are frequently mentioned in Beowulf's story. | ||
| Godulf Geoting | Godulf | |||
| Finn Goduulfing | Finn | Ancient pedigree. | ||
| Frioðulf Finning | Frioðulf | |||
| Frealaf Frioðulfing | Frealaf | |||
| Woden | Uuoden Frealafing | Woden | Woden | Compare Woden, the god (pictured). |
| Weothulgeot | Uinta Wodning | Winta - Compare Winteringham (the homestead of Winta's people). | ||
| Wihtlaeg | Cretta Uinting | Cretta | ? | Ancient pedigree. |
| Wermund | Cueldgils Cretting | Cuelgils | ? | |
| Offa | Cædbæd Cueldgilsing | Caedbaed | ? | |
| Angeltheow | Bubba Cadbæding | Bubba | ? | |
| Eomer | Beda Bubbing | Beda | Eamer | Different spelling in Anglian collection manuscripts. |
| Icel | Biscop Beding | Biscop | ? | |
| Cnebba | Eanferð Biscoping | Eanferð | ? | |
| Cynewald | Eatta Eanferðing | Eatta | ? | |
| Creoda | Alfreið Eatting | Ealdfrith | ? | |
| Pybba | ? |
See also edit
References edit
- ^ Peter (of Ickham) (1885). The Genealogy of the Kings of Britain: From Brutus to the Death of Alfred, Tr. from a Norman-French Ms. in the Library If Trinity College, Cambridge. Priv. Print. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
- ^ 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 20 November 2012.
- ^ Gordon J. Copley (1954). The conquest of Wessex in the sixth century. Phoenix House. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
- ^ E. B. Fryde; D. E. Greenway; S. Porter (23 February 1996). Handbook of British Chronology. Cambridge University Press. pp. 21–. ISBN 978-0-521-56350-5. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Swanton, Michael (editor) (1996). Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Routledge. p. 66 footnote 2.
{{cite book}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ^ "The Genealogist"
- ^ Nicholas Brooks (2 August 2003). Anglo-Saxon Myths: State and Church, 400-1066: State and Church, 400-1066. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 67–. ISBN 978-1-85285-154-5. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
- ^ Geoffrey (of Monmouth, Bishop of St. Asaph); Michael D. Reeve; Neil Wright (2007). The History of the Kings of Britain: An Edition and Translation of De Gestis Britonum (Historia Regum Britanniae). Boydell & Brewer. pp. 68–. ISBN 978-1-84383-206-5. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
- ^ a b Stenton, F. M. (Frank Merry), "Lindsey and its Kings", Essays presented to Reginald Lane Poole, 1927, pp. 136-150, reprinted in Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England: Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton : Edited by Doris Mary Stenton, Oxford, 1970, pp. 127-137 [1]
- ^ Zaluckyj, Sarah & Feryok, Marge. Mercia: The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Central England (2001) ISBN 1-873827-62-8
- ^ Robert Dennis Fulk; Robert E. Bjork; John D. Niles (5 April 2008). Klaeber's Beowulf: And the Fighting at Finnsburg. University of Toronto Press. pp. 292–. ISBN 978-0-8020-9567-1. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
- ^ The Archaeological Journal, Volume 91, page 138, Published by British Archaeological Association, Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1935.
- ^ Frank Merry Stenton (1971). Anglo-Saxon England: Reissue with a New Cover, p. 49. Oxford University Press. pp. 49–. ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5. Retrieved 21 November 2012.