The penultimate set of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was fivefold. The map annotates the names of the peoples ofEssex andSussex taken into theKingdom of Wessex, which later took in theKingdom of Kent and became the senior dynasty, and the outlier kingdoms. From Bartholomew'sA literary & historical atlas of Europe (1914)
TheHeptarchy was the division ofAnglo-Saxon England between the sixth and eighth centuries intopetty kingdoms, conventionally the seven kingdoms ofEast Anglia,Essex,Kent,Mercia,Northumbria,Sussex, andWessex. The term originated with the twelfth-century historianHenry of Huntingdon and has been widely used ever since, but it has been questioned by historians as the number of kingdoms fluctuated, and there was never a time when the territory of the Anglo-Saxons was divided into seven kingdoms each ruled by one king. The period of petty kingdoms came to an end in the eighth century, when England was divided into the four dominant kingdoms ofEast Anglia,Mercia,Northumbria, andWessex.[1][2]
The main Anglo-Saxon kingdoms' names are written in red
Althoughheptarchy suggests the existence of seven kingdoms ('hepta' is Ancient Greek for 'seven'), the term is just used as a label of convenience and does not imply the existence of a clear-cut or stable group of seven kingdoms. The number of kingdoms and sub-kingdoms fluctuated rapidly during this period as competing kings contended for supremacy.[3]
In the late 6th century, theking of Kent was a prominent lord in the south. In the 7th century, the rulers ofNorthumbria andWessex were powerful. In the 8th century,Mercia achieved hegemony over the other surviving kingdoms, particularly during the reign ofOffa the Great.
^Kirby, D. H. (2000).The Earliest English Kings (Revised ed.). London, UK: Routledge. pp. 4–7, 19.ISBN978-0-415-24211-0.
^Keynes, Simon (2014). "Heptarchy". In Lapidge, Michael; Blair, John; Keynes, Simon; Scragg, Donald (eds.).The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England (2nd ed.). Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell. p. 238.ISBN978-0-470-65632-7.
^Norman F. Cantor,The Civilization of the Middle Ages1993:163f.
