The Kingdom of the Kentish, today referred to as the Kingdom of Kent, was an early medieval English kingdom in present-day South East England. It existed from either the fifth or the sixth century AD until it was fully absorbed into the Kingdom of Wessex in the mid-9th century and later into the Kingdom of England in the early 10th century.
Under the preceding Romano-British administration the area of Kent faced repeated attacks from seafaring raiders during the fourth century AD. It is likely that Germanic-speaking foederati were invited to settle in the area as mercenaries. Following the end of Roman administration in 410, further linguistically Germanic tribal groups moved into the area, as testified by both archaeological evidence and Late Anglo-Saxon textual sources. The primary ethnic group to settle in the area appears to have been the Jutes: they established their Kingdom in East Kent and may initially have been under the dominion of the Kingdom of Francia. It has been argued that an East Saxon or Middle Saxon community initially settled in West Kent and merged with the expanding kingdom of East Kent in the sixth century, but this is uncertain.
The earliest recorded king of Kent was Æthelberht, who, as bretwalda, wielded significant influence over other Anglo-Saxon kings in the late sixth century. The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons began in Kent during Æthelberht's reign with the arrival of the monk Augustine of Canterbury and his Gregorian mission in 597.
Kent was one of the seven kingdoms of the so-called Anglo-Saxon heptarchy, but it lost its independence in the 8th century when it became a sub-kingdom of Mercia. In the 9th century it became a sub-kingdom of Wessex, and in the 10th century it became part of the unified Kingdom of England that was created under the leadership of Wessex. Its name has been carried forward ever since as the county of Kent.
Knowledge of Anglo-Saxon Kent comes from scholarly study of Late Anglo-Saxon texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, as well as archaeological evidence such as that left by early medieval cemeteries and settlements, and toponymical (place-name) evidence.
Decline of Romano-British Kent
In the Romano-British period, the area of modern Kent that lay east of the River Medway was a civitas known as Cantiaca, home to the Celtic Cantiaci tribe. Its name had been taken from an older Common Brittonic place-name, Cantium ("corner of land" or "land on the edge") used in the preceding pre-Roman Iron Age, although the extent of this tribal area is unknown.
During the late third and fourth centuries, Roman Britain had been raided repeatedly by Franks, Saxons, Picts, and Scots. As the closest part of Britain to mainland Europe, it is likely that Kent would have experienced many attacks from seafaring raiders, resulting in the construction of four Saxon Shore Forts along the Kentish coast: Regulbium, Rutupiae, Dubris, and Portus Lemanis. It is also likely that Germanic-speaking mercenaries from northern Gaul, known as foederati, would have been hired to supplement official Roman troops during this period, with land in Kent as payment. These foederati would have assimilated into Romano-British culture, making it difficult to distinguish them archaeologically.
There is evidence that over the fourth and early fifth centuries, rural villas were abandoned, suggesting that the Romano-British elite were moving to the comparative safety of fortified urban centres. However, urban centres also witnessed decline; Canterbury evidenced a declining population and reduced activity from the late third century onward, while Dover was abandoned by the end of the fourth century. In 407, the Roman legions left Britain in order to deal with incursions into the Empire's continental heartlands.
In 410, the Roman Emperor Honorius sent a letter to his British subjects announcing that they must thenceforth look after their own defence and could no longer rely on the imperial military to protect them.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, produced in late Anglo-Saxon England and not considered an accurate record of events in the fifth century, in 418 many Romans left Britain via Kent, taking much of their wealth with them. This may represent a memory of a genuine exodus of the Roman aristocracy.
Early Jutish Kent
Jutish migration: 410–499
According to archaeologist Martin Welch, the fifth century witnessed "a radical transformation of what became Kent, politically, socially and in terms of physical landscape". There has been much debate as to the scale of Jutish migration; some see it as a mass migration in which large numbers of Germanic peoples left northern Europe to settle in Britain, pushing the native British population to western Britain or Brittany; others have argued that only a small warrior elite came over, dominating (or even enslaving) the Romano-British population, who then began using the Old English language and material culture of the newcomers. Currently, many scholars accept that there was significant regional variation, with the former view being more applicable in the south and east and the latter in the north and west.
In Kent, archaeological and historical evidence suggests that a large-scale immigration of Germanic peoples did indeed take place. However, some of the Romano-British population likely remained, as the Roman name for the area, Cantiaca, influenced the name of the new Jutish kingdom, the Cantware ("dwellers of Kent").
The Germanic migration to Britain is noted in textual sources from the late Anglo-Saxon period, most notably Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; both rely on oral histories from the fifth century, and were attempts to establish origin myths that would justify the politics of the time. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a "king of the Britons" known as Vortigern invited two Germanic leaders, Hengist and Horsa ("stallion" and "horse"), to Britain to help defend against Pictish raiders. After arriving at Ypwinesfleot (Ebba's Creek, modern Ebbsfleet near Ramsgate) in Kent in 449, Hengist and Horsa led the defeat of the Picts before turning on the British and inviting more Germanic tribes to colonise Britain. Among these were the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes; the latter settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight, establishing the peoples known as the Cantware and Wihtware.
According to the Chronicle, in 455 Hengist and Horsa fought Vortigern at Ægelesthrep (probably Aylesford in Kent), in which battle Horsa was killed. Hengist succeeded him as king, followed in turn by his son Æsc. In 456 Hengest and Æsc battled the Britons at Crecganford (probably Crayford). The Britons then fled Kent for their London stronghold. A similar account is provided in Bede's Ecclesiastical History: that the people of Kent and Isle of Wight were descended from Jutish settlers, and that Horsa was killed in battle against the Britons, adding that his body was buried in east Kent. The accuracy of these accounts is questioned; S. E. Kelly states that "the legendary details are easy to dismiss". Scholars often view Hengist and Horsa as mythological figures borrowed from folk tradition, to legitimise rulers in the Mid-to-Late Anglo-Saxon period.
The incoming Germanic peoples settled on the prime agricultural land of the Romano-Britons; particularly the foothills to the north of the downs and Holmesdale south of the downs escarpment. It is likely that they complemented agriculture with animal husbandry, but with nearby coasts and rivers it is also likely that they engaged in fishing and trading. The Anglo-Saxons made use of pre-existing prehistoric and Roman road systems, with 85% of cemeteries being located within 1.2 km of a Roman road, a navigable river or the coast, and the remaining 15% being close to ancient trackways. Little archaeological evidence of these early settlements exists, but one prominent example is a grubenhaus at Lower Warbank, Keston that was built atop the site of a former Roman villa, adjacent to a Romano-British trackway through the North Downs. Fifth-century ceramics have also been found at a number of villa sites around Kent, suggesting reoccupation of these locations during this period.
The density of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and artefacts in Kent in the early 5th century is different from the more sporadic location of fifth century Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in the rest of Britain and suggest either an exceptionally heavy Anglo-Saxon settlement, or continued settlement beginning at an early date, or both. By the late 5th century there were additional Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, some of them adjacent to earlier ones, but with a large expansion in other areas, and now including the southern coast of Sussex. In East Kent, fifth century cemeteries mostly comprise solely of inhumation burials, with a distinct Kentish character. Conversely, in West Kent cemeteries such Orpington mix cremations with inhumations, which is more typical of Saxon cemeteries north of the River Thames.
This may suggest that West Kent at this point was independent of East Kent, and part of the Kingdom of the East Saxons north of the Thames Estuary.
Development and westward expansion: 500–590
In the sixth century the Kingdom of Kent had some relationship with the Merovingian-governed Kingdom of Francia, which was then extending its influence in northwestern Europe. Textual sources suggest that Kent may have been under Merovingian control for part of this century. Archeological evidence of Frankish material culture from this period has been found in Kent, but not in other areas of lowland Britain, suggesting a trade monopoly with the Frankish kingdom.
Sixth century Kentish artefacts have been found in continental Europe, in particular in the areas of modern Charente, western Normandy, the Rhineland, Frisia, Thuringia, and southern Scandinavia. They are relatively absent between the Sein and the Somme across the English Channel from the Saxons in Sussex, suggesting that trade was established between particular tribal or ethnic groups rather than by geography.
There is also archaeological evidence of Kentish trade links in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and copies or imitations appearing in cemeteries further afield, in areas such as Wiltshire and Cambridgeshire.
Archaeological evidence suggests that at some point in the sixth century, East Kent annexed West Kent.
To the south lay the Weald, a dense forest of no value to the Kentish elite, leaving the fertile area west of the kingdom attractive for conquest, particularly the Darenth Valley and the dip slopes of the North Downs to the west of the Medway. During the sixth century, while the archaeological record in Kent includes items from Jutland, the dominant influence became Frankish.
Established kingdom and Christianisation: 597–650
Firmly in the control of an elite class, Kent is the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom to appear in the historical record in 597. The monk Bede refers to Kent as ruled by Æthelberht at this period, making him the earliest reliably attested Anglo-Saxon monarch. Bede states that Æthelberht was a bretwalda who controlled everything south of the River Humber, including other kingdoms.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to wars in sixth-century Britain, but most were in the west and did not affect Kent; the one exception was a battle between the Kentish and West Saxons in 568, during which Æthelberht's forces were pushed back into Kent. Æthelberht's reign also produced the Law of Æthelberht, the oldest surviving text in Old English.
According to Bede, the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England began in Kent under Æthelberht's reign when the Benedictine monk Augustine arrived on the Ebbsfleet peninsula in 597, bringing the Gregorian mission with him. Æthelberht's Frankish wife, Bertha, was already a Christian, with Æthelberht himself converting a few years later. Æthelberht's attempts to convert Rædwald demonstrate the links between the Kingdom of Kent and Kingdom of East Anglia, with shared North Sea interests.
During this period, Anglo-Saxon kings moved around their kingdoms continually, subsisting on goods from the local populations and reciprocating with gifts.
Various seventh and eighth century documents attest to the fact that Kent was governed by two kings, possibly a dominant one in the east and a subordinate in the west, perhaps reflecting the earlier divide. Trade with Francia was extensive in the seventh and eighth centuries and appears to have been under control of the kings of Kent, through the ports of Dover, Sarre and Fordwich.
This period witnessed the end of furnished burial, marked archaeologically by less regional distinctiveness of grave goods and more artefacts decorated in the Salin Style II motifs. It also saw the emergence of elite burials with far greater wealth than others; notable Kentish examples have been found at Sarre Anglo-Saxon cemetery and the Kingston Barrow cemetery, while the elite Taplow burial in modern Buckinghamshire also contained Kentish characteristics, suggesting a potential Kentish influence in that region.
Middle and late Anglo-Saxon Kent
Decline and Mercian domination: 650–825
In the seventh century, Kent's power waned as that of Mercia and Northumbria grew, but it remained the fourth wealthiest kingdom in England, according to the Tribal Hidage with 15,000 hides of land recorded in the seventh or eighth century. However the period was tumultuous for the Kentish royal family; Kent was ruled by Ecgberht from 664 to 673, but between 664 and 667 two royal cousins, Æthelred and Æthelberht, were killed at Eastry royal hall, perhaps because they were a threat to Ecgberht. Ecgberht was succeeded by his brother, Hlothere, who ruled from 674 to 686 before being overthrown and killed by one of Ecgberht's sons, Eadric, who had allied with the South Saxons; Eadric then ruled until 687.