Mercia

The Kingdom of Mercians is generally assumed to have come to an end, largely as a result of Viking incursions, in the late ninth century; from the 880s its rulers seem to have been under the authority of Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons. This essay argues that we should not see the end of the Mercian kingdom simply in terms of collapse, but also in terms of renegotiation, as the Mercian political elite sought, in the first few decades of the tenth century, to place themselves at the heart of a new political entity, the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, later the kingdom of the English.

A paper stemming from frustration with the orthodoxy that the polities which preceded the historically-attested Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the seventh century onwards were known as (or can be termed) 'regiones' (forgive the unconventional punctuation, this site doesn't provide the functionality to italicise words). Scholars in the 1980s and 90s were keen to advance or else accept a model of kingdom formation whereby competition between smaller, proto-kingdom units – more often than not labelled 'regiones' – resulted in the emergence of a smaller number of much larger kingdoms, only they made one crucial error; no-one undertook a due diligence exercise to ascertain whether or not the terminology being (re)employed was suitable for application to the pre-historical period circa 550-650, the key period for these postulated “building-block” territories.

By going back to the source material from which such authors have drawn their justificatory examples – early charters, histories and hagiographies – it becomes clear that it is inappropriate to characterise polities of the late-fifth, sixth and early-seventh centuries using Latin words (regio, provincia, pagus) since there is not a shred of evidence for the survival of any of the terms from Late-Roman practice, and plenty of justification for such terminology having arisen in conjunction with the literate culture of the Church begun by St Augustine’s famous mission to Kent at the very end of the sixth century, leading to profound changes to both religious and political elite structures in the two centuries that followed.

When the evidence is collated, sifted through and assessed, in south-east England at least there are positive signs that 'provincia' and 'regio' were used from the latter half of the seventh century in specific ways to refer to specific types of political unit, up until the early ninth century when such significances began to wane and the terms are found used in an increasingly scattergun way. Mercia in particular emerges as the kingdom which time and again sought to impose such structures on the territories outside its heartlands, in marked contrast to its great southern rival Wessex, from which there is no such evidence.

This brief synthesis presents the evidence for the great linear boundary earthworks separating Mercia from Powys and Gwynedd. It proposes they were built by powerful kings and that Offa's Dyke was conceived as a means to control  routeways and trade, and collect of taxes, as well as preventing raiders taking cattle or carts back over open ground, while  Wat’s Dyke was a more strategically designed monument to aid Cenwulf's offensive campaigns in Gwynedd. The dykes were temporary, and were later eclipsed by the renaissance of Welsh power under Rhodri Mawr, with the final English-Welsh border determined by subsequent factors.

The exhibition of the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard at Birmingham Museum and Gallery is reviewed along with the accompanying publications ‘The Staffordshire Hoard’ and ‘Beasts, Birds and Gods: Interpreting the Staffordshire Hoard’ and the dedicated Staffordshire Hoard website. The exhibition is praised for its innovative approach in developing flexible displays, which can adapt to the findings of ongoing research, but criticized for the unclear juxtaposition of reconstructed and original artefacts, and cramped space within the ‘Treasury’. The publications are considered excellent, combining beautiful photography with modest cost, whilst the website is a useful additional resource containing a detailed gallery of photographs of use to both the serious scholar and student.

KEYWORDS
ANGLO-SAXON, EARLY MEDIEVAL, STAFFORDSHIRE HOARD, HOARDS, MATERIAL CULTURE, ANGLO-SAXON ICONOGRAPHY, MUSEUM STUDIES

Статья посвящена одному из главных
королевств англосаксонской Англии - королевству Мерсия,
которое не так часто попадает в поле зрения исследователей, как
отдельный объект изучения. Целью статьи ставиться выявление
исторического пути Мерсии, в частности её роль в процессе
объединения англосаксов. На основе анализа письменных
источников исследуется поэтапное военно-политическое
развитие Мерсии. Делается попытка определить время
возникновения королевства, причины усиления и падения
Мерсии. Основное внимание уделено времени гегемонии
королевства в VIII веке, когда Мерсия достигла своего
наивысшего расцвета.

The Kingdom of Mercians is generally assumed to have come to an end, largely as a result of Viking incursions, in the late ninth century; from the 880s its rulers seem to have been under the authority of Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons.  This essay argues that we should not see the end of the Mercian kingdom simply in terms of collapse, but also in terms of renegotiation, as the Mercian political elite sought, in the first few decades of the tenth century, to place themselves at the heart of a new political entity, the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, later the kingdom of the English.

The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest Anglo-Saxon gold hoard ever found. On display from soon after its discovery in 2009 during fundraising to secure it for the region, the Hoard has become a source of local pride in Staffordshire, receiving over a million visitors. This article explores the Hoard as a marker of identity, both in the past and in the present, and evaluates how the ‘treasure process’, museums, and museum volunteers are shaping public identification with the Anglo-Saxon past of the Mercian kingdom. Drawing on focus-group data, we argue that aspects of the naming and display of the Hoard have encouraged its inclusion in existing narratives of belonging and ‘authenticity’ in Staffordshire. Such archaeological discoveries have the potential to provide points of continuity between the post-industrial present and the distant past, and stimulate a reconsideration of the present status of the region in contemporary cultural and political discourse.

This paper compares four Latin charters and one recently discovered Sanskrit inscription re- cording various royal gifts of taxation to religious foundations in the contemporary Mercian and Khmer kingdoms in the early ninth and early tenth centuries. It draws upon philology and medieval history as its principal disciplines, and considers three models of gift-giving as a way of interpreting the data. Close textual investigation of these records is used to chal- lenge narratives which suggest that such gifts of power weakened the power of rulers, and thus led to the breakup of states. It is equally possible to argue that these gifts of power en- hanced the power of Mercian and Khmer kings. Moreover, other powerful factors, such as a cultural renaissance or environmental crisis, may be adduced to explain the context for the compilation of these documents, thereby opening up new perspectives for enquiry into the history of the Khmer and Mercian kingdoms in the early medieval period.