page_title: Kingdom of Essex
section_title: Extent
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Essex / Extent
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of the county of Essex (grey), showing those adjacent parts (Hertfordshire in the northwest, Middlesex in the southwest) which historians of the period have postulated were formerly attached to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the same name, from the 6th century until the middle of the eighth century.
context_page_description: The Kingdom of the East Saxons, today referred to as the Kingdom of Essex, was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was founded in the 6th century and covered the territory later occupied by the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Kent. The last king of Essex was Sigered of Essex and in 825, he ceded the kingdom to Ecgberht, King of Wessex.
context_section_description: The kingdom was bounded to the north by the River Stour and the Kingdom of East Anglia, to the south by the River Thames and Kent, to the east lay the North Sea and to the west Mercia. The territory included the remains of two provincial Roman capitals, Colchester and London. The early kingdom included the land of the Middle Saxons, later Middlesex, most if not all of Hertfordshire and may at times have included Surrey. For a brief period in the 8th century, the Kingdom of Essex controlled what is now Kent.
  The modern English county of Essex maintains the historic northern and the southern borders, but only covers the territory east of the River Lea, the other parts being lost to neighbouring Mercia during the 8th century.
  In the Tribal Hidage it is listed as containing 7,000 hides.
caption: A map showing the outline of those parts now adjacent to the traditional county of Essex (in grey), but which historians postulate were part of the ancient Kingdom of Essex before becoming detached during the middle of the 8th century.
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