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Gebruiker:Evil berry/Kladblok/Ælle van Sussex

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Ælle
5e - 6e eeuw
Ælle's naam is zichtbaar op deze regel uit het Parker-manuscript van de Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, geschreven ca. 890.
Koning van de Zuid-Saksen
Periode ca. 477 - ca. 514?[1]
Voorganger -
Opvolger Cissa?[1]
Kinderen Cissa
Cymen
Wlencing

Ælle ([ˈælə]?; ook wel Aelle of Ella genoemd) wordt in de vroegste bronnen vermeld als de eerste koning van de Zuid-Saksen, die heerste over het huidige Sussex in England van ongeveer 477 tot ten laatste 514.[1]

Volgens de Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, zouden Ælle en drie van zijn zonen zijn gezegd te zijn geland bij een plaats genaamd Cymensora en te hebben gevochten tegen de lokale Britten.[2] De kroniek vermeldt vervolgens een overwinning in 491, bij het huidige Pevensey, waar de slag eindigde met het tot de laatste man afslachten van de (Britse) tegenstanders door de Saksen.[3]

Ælle was de eerste door de 8e eeuwse kroniekschrijver Beda opgetekende koning die het "imperium", of de "opperheerschappij" had over andere Angelsaksische koninkrijken.[4] In de laat-9e eeuwse Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ongeveer vierhonderd jaar na zijn regering) wordt Ælle vermeld als de eerste bretwalda of "Brittannië-heerser", hoewel er geen bewijs is dat dit een contemporaine titel was. Het overlijden van Ælle wordt niet vermeld en hoewel hij mogelijk de stichter was van een Zuid-Saksische dynastie, is er geen duidelijk bewijs dat hem verbindt met latere Zuid-Saksische heersers. De 12e eeuwse kroniekschrijver Hendrik van Huntingdon werkte aan een uitgebreide en aangevulde versie van de Anglo-Saxon Chronicle waarin 514 werd opgenomen als overlijdensjaar voor Ælle, maar dit is niet zeker omdat Hendrik vaak zijn informatie uit verschillende teksten haalde en dan met elkaar verweefde.[1][5]

Historische context[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]

Imaginaire voorstelling van Ælle uit John Speed's "Saxon Heptarchy" (1611).

Historici zijn verdeeld over de details van Ælle's leven en bestaan daar het was tijdens de slechtst gedocumenteerde periode in de Engelse geschiedenis van de laatste twee millennia.[6]

Tegen de vroege 5e eeuw was Groot-Brittannië Romeins voor meer dan driehonderdvijftig jaar. De lastigste vijanden van Romeins Brittannië waren de Picten van Centraal- en Noord-Schotland, en de Gaels ook bekend als Scoti, die overvallers waren uit Ierland. Ook hinderlijk waren de Saksen, de naam die Romeinse schrijvers gaven aan de volken die leefden in het noordelijke deel van wat Duitsland en het zuidelijke deel van het schiereiland Jutland was. Saksische overvallen op de zuidelijke en oostelijke kusten van Engeland was voldoende alarmerend tegen de late 3e eeuw voor de Romeinen om de Litus Saxonicum te bouwen, en vervolgens de rol van de graaf van de Saksische kust in te stellen om de verdedigingsmacht aan te voeren tegen deze invallen. Romeinse controle over Brittannië eindigde uiteindelijk in het begin van de 5e eeuw; de gebruikelijke datum voor het einde van Romeins Brittannië is 410, toen keizer Honorius brieven naar de Britten zond waarin hij hen aanspoorde om zelf voor hun eigen verdediging te zorgen. Brittannië was herhaaldelijk ontdaan van troepen om de aanspraken van usurpators op het Romeinse Keizerrijk te ondersteunen, en na 410 zouden de Romeinse legers nooit terugkeren.[7][8]

Sources for events after this date are extremely scarce, but a tradition, reported as early as the mid-6th century by a British priest named Gildas, records that the British sent for help against the barbarians to Aetius, a Roman consul, probably in the late 440s. No help came. Subsequently, a British leader named Vortigern is supposed to have invited continental mercenaries to help fight the Picts who were attacking from the north. The leaders, whose names are recorded as Hengest and Horsa, rebelled, and a long period of warfare ensued. The invaders—Angelen, Saksen, Juten, and Friezen—gained control of parts of England, but lost a major battle at Mons Badonicus (the location of which is not known). Some authors have speculated that Ælle may have led the Saxon forces at this battle,[9] while others reject the idea out of hand.[10]

The British thus gained a respite, and peace lasted at least until the time Gildas was writing: that is, for perhaps forty or fifty years, from around the end of the 5th century until midway through the sixth.[11][12] Shortly after Gildas's time the Anglo-Saxon advance was resumed, and by the late 6th century nearly all of southern England was under the control of the continental invaders.[13]

Vroege bronnen[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]

Een pagina van het [A]-manuscript van de Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Ælle's naam, hier als "Elle" geschreven, worden in twee opgaves aan het einde van de pagina teruggevonden. De laatste opgave op de pagina, voor het jaar 488, verwijst naar gebeurtenissen in Kent en maakt geen melding van Ælle.

Er zijn twee vroege bronnen die Ælle bij naam vermelden. De vroegste is de Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, een geschiedenis van de Engelse kerk geschreven in 731 door Beda, een Engelse monnik. Beda mentions Ælle as one of the Anglo-Saxon kings who exercised what he calls "imperium" over "all the provinces south of the river Humber"; "imperium" is usually translated as "overlordship". Beda gives a list of seven kings who held "imperium", and Ælle is the first of them. The other information Beda gives is that Ælle was not a Christian—Beda mentions a later king as "the first to enter the kingdom of heaven".[4]

The second source is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals assembled in the Kingdom of Wessex in ca. 890, during the reign of Alfred de Grote. The Chronicle has three entries for Ælle, from 477 to 491, as follows:[14]

  • 477: Ælle and his 3 sons, Cymen and Wlencing and Cissa, came to the land of Britain with 3 ships at the place which is named Cymen's shore, and there killed many Welsh and drove some to flight into the wood called Andredes leag.
  • 485: Here Ælle fought against the Welsh near the margin of Mearcred's Burn.
  • 491: Here Ælle and Cissa besieged Andredes cester, and killed all who lived in there; there was not even one Briton left there.

The Chronicle was put together about four hundred years after these events. It is known that the annalists used material from earlier chronicles, as well as from oral sources such as sagas, but there is no way to tell where these lines came from.[15] It should also be noted that the terms 'British' and 'Welsh' were used interchangeably, as 'Welsh' is the Saxon word meaning 'foreigner', and was applied to all the native Romano-British of the era.[16]

Three of the places named can be identified :

  1. "Cymen's shore" ("Cymenes ora" in the original) is believed to be located at what is now a series of rocks and ledges, in the English Channel off Selsey Bill, on the south coast, known as the Owers.[17] It has been suggested that Ower is derived from the word ora that is found only in placenames where Jutish and West Saxon dialects were in operation (mainly in southern England).[18] It is possible that the stretch of low ground along the coast from Southampton to Bognor was called Ora "the shore", and that district names were used by the various coastal settlements, Cymens ora being one of them.[18]
  2. The wood called "Andredes leag" is the Weald, which at that time was a forest extending from north-west Hampshire all through northern Sussex.
  3. "Andredes cester" is known to be Anderitum, the Saxon Shore fort, built by the Romans, at Pevensey Castle, just outside the town.[19] Dit zou later de Normandische basis zijn voor de slag bij Hastings in 1066, die het einde betekende van de Angelsaksische heerschappij.

The Chronicle mentions Ælle once more under the year 827, where he is listed as the first of the eight "bretwaldas", or "Britain-rulers". The list consists of Beda's original seven, plus Egbert van Wessex.[20] There has been much scholarly debate over just what it meant to be a "bretwalda", and the extent of Ælle's actual power in southern England is an open question.[21] It is also noteworthy that there is a long gap between Ælle and the second king on Beda's list, Ceawlin van Wessex, whose reign began in the late 6th century; this may indicate a period in which Anglo-Saxon dominance was interrupted in some way.[22]

Earlier sources than Beda exist which mention the South Saxons, though they do not name Ælle. The earliest reference is still quite late, however, at about 692: a charter of King Nothelm's, which styles him "King of the South Saxons".[23] Charters are documents which granted land to followers or to churchmen, and which would be witnessed by the kings who had power to grant the land. They are one of the key documentary sources for Anglo-Saxon history, but no original charters survive from earlier than the end of the 7th century.[24]

There are other early writers whose works can shed light on Ælle's time, though they do not mention either him or his kingdom. Gildas's description of the state of Britain in his time is useful for understanding the ebb and flow of the Anglo-Saxon incursions. Procopius, a Byzantine historian, writing not long after Gildas, adds to the meagre sources on population movement by including a chapter on England in one of his works. He records that the peoples of Britain—he names the English, the British, and the Frisians—were so numerous that they were migrating to the kingdom of the Franks in great numbers every year.[25] Although this is probably a reference to Britons emigrating to Armorica to escape the Anglo-Saxons. They subsequently gave their name to the area they settled as Brittany, or la petite Bretagne (literally little Britain).

Bewijs op basis van plaatsnamen in Sussex[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]

The early dates given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the colonization of Sussex are supported by an analysis of the place names of the region. The strongest evidence comes from place names that end in "-ing", such as Worthing and Angmering. These are known to derive from an earlier form ending in "-ingas". "Hastings" for example, derives from "Hæstingas" which means "the followers or dependents of a person named Hæsta".[26]

From west of Selsey Bill to east of Pevensey can be found the densest concentration of these names anywhere in Britain. There are a total of about forty-five place names in Sussex of this form, and the personal names from which these are derived appear in many cases to have gone out of current use before the 7th century, when written records appear again. Hence it is generally accepted that these place names are evidence of the establishment of Saxon communities with stable populations as early as the 5th and 6th centuries.[26][27] In addition, Sussex has unusually few place names of British origin. This does not necessarily mean that the Saxons killed or drove out almost all of the native population, despite the slaughter of the Britons reported in the Chronicle entry for 491; however, it does imply that the invasion was on a scale that left little space for the British.[22]

These lines of reasoning cannot prove the dates given in the Chronicle, much less the existence of Ælle himself, but they do support the idea of an early conquest and the establishment of a settled kingdom.[26][27]

Regering[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]

Een kaart van Zuidoost-Engeland met daarop de plaatsen die door Ælle werden bezocht volgens de Angelsaksische kroniek en het gebied van het huidige Sussex.

Indien de data die zijn opgegeven door de Angelsaksische kroniek tot op een half eeuw accuraat zijn, then Ælle's reign lies in the middle of the Anglo-Saxon expansion, and prior to the final conquest of the Britons. It also seems consistent with the dates given to assume that Ælle's battles predate Mons Badonicus. This in turn would explain the long gap, of fifty or more years, in the succession of the "bretwaldas": if the peace gained by the Britons did indeed hold till the second half of the 6th century, it is not to be expected that an Anglo-Saxon leader should have anything resembling overlordship of England during that time. The idea of a pause in the Anglo-Saxon advance is also supported by the account in Procopius of 6th century migration from Britain to the kingdom of the Franken.[22] Procopius's account is consistent with what is known to be a contemporary colonization of Armorica (nu Bretagne, in Frankrijk); the settlers appear to have been at least partly from Dumnonia (modern Cornwall), and the area acquired regions known as Dumnonée and Cornouaille.[28] It seems likely that something at that time was interrupting the general flow of the Anglo-Saxons from the continent to Britain.[29]

The dates for Ælle's battles are also reasonably consistent with what is known of events in the kingdom of the Franks at that time. Clovis I united the Franks into a single kingdom during the 480s and afterwards, and the Franks' ability to exercise power along the southern coast of the English channel may have diverted Saxon adventurers to England rather than the continent.[29]

It is possible, therefore, that a historical king named Ælle existed, who arrived from the continent in the late 5th century, and who conquered much of what is now Sussex. He may have been a prominent war chief with a leadership role in a federation of Anglo-Saxon groups fighting for territory in Britain at that time. This may be the origin of the reputation that led Beda to list him as holding overlordship over southern Britain.[30] The battles listed in the Chronicle are compatible with a conquest of Sussex from west to east, against British resistance stiff enough to last fourteen years.[22] His area of military control may have extended as far as Hampshire and north to the upper Thames valley, but it certainly did not extend across all of England south of the Humber, as Beda asserts.[31]

Dood en begrafenis[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]

Ælle's death is not recorded by the Chronicle, which gives no information about him, or his sons, or the South Saxons until 675, when the South Saxon king Æthelwalh was baptized.[29]

It has been conjectured that, as Saxon war leader, Ælle may have met his death in the disastrous battle of Mount Badon when the Britons halted Saxon expansion[32] If Ælle died within the borders of his own kingdom then it may well have been that he was buried on Highdown Hill with his weapons and ornaments in the usual mode of burial among the South Saxons.[32] Highdown Hill is the traditional burial-place of the kings of Sussex.[32]

Noten[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]

  1. ↑ a b c d Hendrik van Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum (trad. ed. D.E. Greenway, p. 97 (n. 57). Greenway suggereert dat "No genealogy of the South Saxon royal house survives and none seem to have been available to Henry. The death of Aella and the succession of Cissa are probably deduced from ASC 477 and 491."
  2. ↑ ASC 477, Æthelweard, Chronicon I. E. Heron-Allen, Selsey Bill. Historic and Prehistoric, Londen, 1911, pp. 88-90. Heron-Allen bespreekt de verwarring bij historici rond de locatie van Cymens'ora en pleit voor een identificatie van deze plaats als Keynor.
  3. ↑ ASC 491.
  4. ↑ a b Beda, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum II 5.
  5. ↑ Hendrik van Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum. ed. Greenway. Sources section p.lxxxvi. "Henry was one of the 'weaver' compilers of whom Bernard Guenee has written. Taking a phrase from here and a phrase from there, connecting with one there, he wove together a continuous narrative which, deriviative though it mostly is, is still very much his own creation, ..."
  6. ↑ Zo schrijft bijvoorbeeld James Campbell (The Anglo-Saxons, Londen, 1982, p. 20): "The natural vice of historians is to claim to know about the past. Nowhere is this claim more dangerous than when it is staked in Britain between AD 400 and 600", M.G. Welch, Anglo-Saxon England, Londen, 1992, p. 9. "The AS Chronicle was a product of the West Saxon court and is concerned with glorifying the royal ancestry of Alfred the Great. Manipulation of royal genealogies, in this and other sources, to enhance the claims of present rulers was common. Literary formulas associated with original myths are a common feature of earlier entries. When Aella and his three sons land from three ships on a beach named after one of the sons, we are reading legend rather than real history."
  7. ↑ P. Hunter Blair - introd. S. Keynes, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge, 20033, pp. 2-3.
  8. ↑ J. Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons, Londen, 1982, pp. 13-16.
  9. ↑ J. Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare, New York, 2004, p. 140. ISBN 0415221269
  10. ↑ Warner, Philip (1972). British Battlefields: The Midlands. Osprey, Reading, pp. 23.
  11. ↑ Hunter Blair, An Introduction, pp. 13–16.
  12. ↑ Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons p. 23.
  13. ↑ Hunter Blair (Roman Britain, p. 204) gives the twenty-five years from 550 to 575 as the dates of the final conquest.
  14. ↑ Translations are Michael Swanton's (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 14), from the A text of the Chronicle; except that Frank M. Stenton's translation (Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 17–18) of part has been substituted to keep "Andredes leag" and "Andredes cester" in the text, for subsequent explanation.
  15. ↑ Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. xviii-xix.
  16. ↑ Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 14.
  17. ↑ NIMA, Pub. 194 Sailing Directions(Enroute) English Channel, Annapolis, 200411, p. 43, S.E. Kelly (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Charters, VI, Charters of Selsey, Oxford, 1998, pp. 3, 12, 118.
  18. ↑ a b Gelling, Placenames in the Landscape, pp. 179-180.
  19. ↑ Blair, Roman Britain, p. 176, F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford, 1971, pp. 17–19.
  20. ↑ Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. 60–61.
  21. ↑ Hunter Blair, An Introduction, pp. 201–202, Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons, pp. 53–54.
  22. ↑ a b c d F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford, 1971, pp. 17-19?.
  23. ↑ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 20–21.
  24. ↑ Hunter Blair, Roman Britain, pp. 14–15, Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons, pp.95–98.
  25. ↑ Hunter Blair, Roman Britain, p. 164.
  26. ↑ a b c Hunter Blair, Roman Britain, pp. 176–178.
  27. ↑ a b Hunter Blair, An Introduction, p. 22.
  28. ↑ Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons, p. 22.
  29. ↑ a b c F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford, 1971, p. 12.
  30. ↑ Fletcher, Who's Who, p. 17.
  31. ↑ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 55.
  32. ↑ a b c Alec Hamilton-Barr. In Saxon Sussex. The Arundel Press, Bognor Regis. p 21

Bronnen[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]

Referenties[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]

  • Dit artikel of een eerdere versie ervan is een (gedeeltelijke) vertaling van het artikel Ælle of Sussex op de Engelstalige Wikipedia, dat onder de licentie Creative Commons Naamsvermelding/Gelijk delen valt. Zie de bewerkingsgeschiedenis aldaar.
  • J. Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare, New York, 2004, p. 140. ISBN 0415221269
  • J. Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons, Londen, 1982. ISBN 0140143955
  • R.A. Fletcher, Who's Who in Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England, Londen, 1989. ISBN 0856830895
  • M. Gelling, Place-Names in the Landscape, Londen, 2000. ISBN 1842122649
  • E. Heron-Allen, Selsey Bill. Historic and Prehistoric, Londen, 1911.
  • P. Hunter Blair, Roman Britain and Early England: 55 B.C. – A.D. 871, New York, 1966. ISBN 0393003612
  • P. Hunter Blair - introd. S. Keynes, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge, 20033.
  • D.P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings, Londen, 1992. ISBN 0415090865
  • NIMA, Pub. 194 Sailing Directions(Enroute) English Channel, Annapolis, 200411. ISBN 1577855647
  • F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford, 1971. ISBN 0-19-821716-1.
  • M.G. Welch, Anglo-Saxon England, Londen, 1992. ISBN 0713465662
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