page_title: Kingdom of Sussex
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Sussex / Life and society / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: Holloway, Chanctonbury Ring Road. An old droving lane that linked Downland farms with their Wealden pastures.
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: Deposited around c. 470 as the kingdom of Sussex was being established, the Patching hoard of coins represents the earliest early mediaeval coins found in Britain. The hoard includes five imported siliquae that had not been clipped, so coin-clipping had probably ceased by then, although the coinage had probably collapsed decades earlier than this, after Roman rule in Britain collapsed.
  In the first quarter of the 8th century the Kingdom of Sussex was among the kingdoms producing coinage, possibly from a mint near Selsey where the finds of coins termed Series G sceattas are concentrated. That a cash economy had returned by the 10th century is suggested by the various mints which became increasingly plentiful after King Æthelstan reorganised England's coinage. There were mints at Chichester, Lewes and Steyning. A new mint also seems to have existed on a temporary basis in the Iron Age hillfort at Cissbury, which may have been refortified as a refuge during the Danish invasions in the reign of Æthelred the Unready. The Cissbury mint seems to have worked in close association with the mint at Chichester rather than replacing it. By the eve of the Norman conquest, there were further mints at Arundel, Pevensey and Hastings.
  Lewes seems to have prospered with overseas trade; coins from Lewes stamped 'LAE URB' travelled as far as Rome. The substantial sea-faring trade of Lewes is indicated by the payment of 20 shillings for munitions of war payable whenever Edward the Confessor's fleet put to sea. This is the probable origin of the Cinque Ports organisation that flourished under the Normans. The River Ouse would have been navigable at least as far north as Lewes. Armstrong argues that while Sussex was separated from much else of mainstream English experience, this should not hide the rich trade that Sussex had with other parts of Europe. By the 1060s Lewes also supported a cattle market.
  By the end of the Anglo Saxon period and the Domesday Survey by the Normans in 1086, Sussex contained some of the richest and most heavily populated pockets of England on the coastal plain, albeit alongside some of England's most economically underdeveloped areas in the Weald. By this time, Sussex had a network of urban centres such that farmers were within 15 km to 30 km of market facilities.
  Agriculture seems to have flourished on the Sussex coastal plain and on the Sussex Downs. The fact that the Sussex coast appears to have been relatively densely settled for centuries implies that the land was being more competently farmed than was typical of the standard of the day. The Weald was pig-fattening and cattle-grazing country. Drovers would divide their year between their 'winter house' in their parent village outside the Weald and their 'summer house' in the outlying woodland pasture up to 20 miles (30 km) away. Surviving features include a close network of former droveways and surviving fragments of wood pasture, such as the Mens and Ebernoe Common near Petworth.
  The Domesday Book records that by the 11th century, the unknown Rameslie in Sussex had 100 salt pans to extract salt from sea water. Fisheries were also important to the economy of Sussex. Lewes was an important centre of a herring industry and had to pay a rent of 38,500 herrings for its sea fisheries.
caption: Droveways such as this one near Chanctonbury Ring were used throughout the Saxon period to transport pigs and cattle between coastal areas and summer pasture in the Weald
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