Talk:Ine of Wessex

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[edit] Hehil

I took out this line:

Ine was unable to establish his authority over the neighbouring Cornwall. In 722, the West Saxons were defeated by the Cornish at a river identified as the Hehil.

The source appears to be the Annales Cambriae, but the entry for 722, which can be read here, says just:

722 Beli son of Elffin dies. And the battle of Hehil among the Cornish, the battle of Garth Maelog, the battle of Pencon among the south Britons, and the Britons were the victors in those three battles.

Of course this pretty much has to be Ine, since Wessex was the only Anglo-Saxon kingdom with a border on Dumnonia, but I think without a secondary source to comment on this would be original research. I've checked several sources (Stenton, Kirby, Yorke); if anyone can find a good ref for this please add it back in. Mike Christie (talk) 20:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I've re-added it -- Stenton mentions it without much explanation, but he states the Hehil is the river Hayle and gives the AC source. Mike Christie (talk) 01:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

This exchange is copied here from the FAC discussion:

  • Comment A pronunciation guide would be useful. Is the name "Eye-n" or "Ee-nay" (or something else)? —Cuiviénen 23:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Interesting question. I have no idea on this one, but I know a couple of people I can ask. I'm pretty sure none of the references I'm using cover this. I've always assumed it rhymed with "wine", but I could be wrong. I'll post here again if I can find out more. Mike Christie (talk) 10:28, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The rule of doubled consonants for short vowels gets regularized later, so the vowel could be long or short. If short, the logical pronunciation is "innuh." If long, the vowel would have been the "continental i" (η). The "i" of "I" and "wine" would be the least likely. If we have Latin authors writing it as "Ine," then it's likely the "eennuh," as Latin did obey the doubled consonant rule. It would be my best guess that it is the ήnuh. (If we found rhymes, we'd nail it down, but they don't exist from the period with the name.) Geogre 02:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Hadn't thought of looking at Latin versions. The only source I know for the Latin is Bede, and it's indexed there in my Penguin translation as "Ini". So would that be "eeny"? I don't have the original Latin. Mike Christie (talk) 02:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Followup note: at the AS prosopography site, they list Inus, Yny, and Yni as well as Ine and Ini. Yny and Yni come from charters. Mike Christie (talk) 02:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
| may be right. It is, then, "eeny," as in "meeny, miny, moe." The Yny would be "eeny," but the "Yni" suggests "Eenuh," so, when combined with the others, it's likely that the most common (and Bede is probably the "Ine" source) pronunciation was "een" with the /i/ we have in "thin" and "in," which would put it like the contemporary "Enid" but without the final stop. Geogre 12:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Mo? -- !! ?? 09:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

(End of copied text)

If we can find a text that could be used to reference this, I'd like to add it, but since it's not certainly one way or the other, I think it shouldn't go in. Mike Christie (talk) 20:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Surrey

"Surrey was not an independent kingdom". Does this mean that it was a non-independent kingdom, or that it was not a kingdom at all? I'm moving towards the idea that it was considered a sort of sub-kingdom or unified polity. That might explain the fluctuations in its status and the complications over the bishopric. Checking this out, I've noticed that a guy called Frithuwold of Surrey was a sub-king of Surrey as late as 675, under Wulfhere of Mercia. Eorcenwald was already bishop of London then, and it might be that the religious organisation was out of line with the shifts of power by which Surrey seems to have been variously under Mercian, East-Saxon, West-Saxon, and maybe even Kentish control during his episcopate. It strikes me forcibly that this switching of overlordship is characteristic of a sub-kingdom, with each major kingdom vying for overlordship there. It seems that in 705, Surrey was transferred from the diocese of London to that of Winchester, perhaps reflecting Wessex overlordship. I wonder if this is worth mentioning somewhere. qp10qp 15:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting; I'll see what I can find on this tonight. Can you tell me a ref for the switch of Surrey from London to Winchester? That seems worth mentioning all by itself, even without the additional points you make. Mike Christie (talk) 15:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Yorke, 48. Came across it on Google Books.qp10qp 20:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I added a bit, and reworded some of what I had before -- my line about Essex having usually controlled the province seems rather optimistically pro-East-Saxon now I've read those pages of Yorke; it looks as if Surrey was a bit of a shuttlecock. As for independence, all Yorke says is (p. 47): "his existence could suggest a tradition of independent rule in Surrey". I put in a glancing reference to this; is any more needed, do you think? Mike Christie (talk) 01:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shires

I found some more discussion in Yorke, p. 146, of the origin of the shires. She says: "Subkings are not known after the reign of Ine, and it is in Ine's laws that the first references to ealdormen and shires appear. Ealdormen also appear in the witness lists of the charters of Ine and his successors, generally bearing the title patricius, princeps or praefectus. It would appear from the charters of Aethelheard and Cuthred that the maximum number of ealdormen was seven. It is likely, as Chadwick argued at the beginning of the century, 'that the shires of Wessex owe their origin to divisions of the kingdoms between members of the royal family', but as we know so little about the territories controlled by the subkings the topic cannot be studied in detail." It sounds to me as if Yorke is studiously avoiding saying that the division of the kingdom among the royal family, the creation of ealdormen and shires, and the disappearance of the subkings, may all be the same sequence of events. It's easy to construct a narrative connecting all these things, but Yorke doesn't, so I'm inclined to leave this the way I have it now. I did just add a sentence based on Chadwick. Mike Christie (talk) 02:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)