page_title: Kingdom of Sussex
section_title: Christianisation and loss of independence (600–860)
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Sussex / History / Christianisation and loss of independence (600–860)
caption_attribution_description: Original source describes this painting as follows: "In 686 king Caedwalla issued a charter confirming the rights and territories previously given to Wilfrid by king Aethelwealh and the estate of the Hundred of Pagham including Shripney, Charlton, Bognor, Bersted, Crimsham, Mundham and Tangmere. The handing over of the charter is brilliantly depicted in the Lambert Barnard mural in the south transept of Chichester Cathedral commissioned by Bishop Robert Sherburne c 1508-1536." The man in white looking over the left shoulder of the king is believed to be a self-portrait of the artist.
context_page_description: The Kingdom of the South Saxons, today referred to as the Kingdom of Sussex, was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the Heptarchy of Anglo-Saxon England. On the south coast of the island of Great Britain, it was originally a sixth-century Saxon colony and later an independent kingdom. The South Saxons were ruled by the kings of Sussex until the country was annexed by Wessex, probably in 827, in the aftermath of the Battle of Ellandun.
context_section_description: After 491 the written history of Sussex goes blank until 607, when the annals report that Ceolwulf of Wessex fought against the South Saxons. Threatened by Wessex, the South Saxons sought to secure their independence by alliance with Mercia. To the South Saxons, the more distant influence and control of a king from Mercia is likely to have been preferable to that of the West Saxons. The alliance between Mercia and the South Saxons was further sealed by Æðelwealh, king of Sussex, receiving baptism into the Christian church through the Mercian court, with Wulfhere acting as his sponsor, making Æðelwealh Sussex's first Christian king. Wulfhere gave Æðelwealh the Isle of Wight and the territory of the Meonwara (the Meon valley of present-day Hampshire). Æðelwealh also married Eabe, a princess of the Hwicce, a Mercian satellite province.
  In 681, the exiled St Wilfrid of Northumbria arrived in the kingdom of the South Saxons and remained there for five years evangelising and baptising the people. There had been a famine in the land of the South Saxons when Wilfrid arrived. Wilfrid taught the locals to fish, and they were impressed with Wilfrid's teachings and agreed to be baptised en masse. On the day of the baptisms the rain fell on the "thirsty earth", so ending the famine. Æðelwealh gave 87 hides (an area of land) and a royal vill to Wilfrid to enable him to found Selsey Abbey. The abbey eventually became the seat of the South Saxon bishopric, where it remained until after the Norman Conquest, when it was moved to Chichester by decree of the Council of London of 1075.
  Shortly after the arrival of St Wilfrid, the kingdom was ravaged with "fierce slaughter and devastation" and Æðelwealh was slain by an exiled West Saxon prince Cædwalla. The latter was eventually expelled, by Æðelwealh's successors, two Ealdormen named Berhthun and Andhun. In 686 the South Saxons attacked Hlothhere, king of Kent, in support of his nephew Eadric, who afterwards became king of Kent. At this time, a new South Saxon hegemony extending from the Isle of Wight into Kent could conceivably have seen Sussex re-emerge as a regional power but the revival of Wessex ended this possibility. Eadric's rule in Kent lasted until Kent was invaded by Cædwalla who had managed to establish himself as ruler of Wessex. With his additional resources, Cædwalla once more invaded Sussex, killing Berhthun. Sussex now became for some years subject to a period of harsh West Saxon domination. According to Bede, the subjection reduced the kingdom of Sussex to "a worse state of slavery"; it also included placing the South Saxon clergy under the authority of Wessex through the bishops of Winchester. Cædwalla also seized the Isle of Wight where he ruthlessly exterminated its population, including its royal line. According to John Hinds, Cædwalla's savage behaviour towards Sussex and the Isle of Wight can be explained by Sussex's westward expansion with assistance from Mercia at the expense of Wessex and Cædwalla was determined that this should never happen again.
  Of the later South Saxon kings we have little knowledge except from occasional charters. In 692 a grant is made by a king called Noðhelm (or Nunna) to his sister, which is witnessed by another king called Watt. There is a theory that Watt may have been a sub-king who ruled over a tribe of people centred around modern day Hastings, known as the Haestingas and Nunna is described, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as the kinsman of Ine of Wessex who fought with him against Geraint, King of the Britons, in 710. According to Bede, Sussex was subject to Ine for a number of years and like Cædwalla, Ine also oppressed the people of Sussex in the same harsh way for many years.
  In 710 Sussex was still under West Saxon domination when King Nothhelm of Sussex is recorded as having campaigned with Ine in the west against Dumnonia. Sussex evidently broke away from West Saxon domination some time before 722 when Ine is recorded as invading Sussex, which he repeated three years later, killing a West Saxon exile named Ealdberht who had fled 
caption: 16th-century Barnardi picture of Cædwalla granting lands to Wilfrid.
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