page_title: Essex
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Essex / Culture
caption_attribution_description: Æscwine of Essex
context_page_description: Essex is a county in the south-east of England, north-east of London. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south and London to the south-west. The county town is Chelmsford, the only city in the county. For government statistical purposes, Essex is placed in the East of England region, where the inclusion of Essex is one of the main differences between the modern and the historical region.
  There are four definitions of the extent of Essex, the widest being the Ancient County. Next smallest is the former postal county, followed by the Ceremonial County with the smallest being the administrative county – the area administered by the County Council, which excludes the two unitary authorities of Thurrock and Southend-on-Sea and the areas administered by the Greater London Authority.
  The Ceremonial County occupies the eastern part of what was, during the Early Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Essex.
context_section_description: The county's coat of arms comprises three Saxon seax knives (although they look rather more like scimitars), mainly white and pointing to the right (from the point of view of the observer), arranged vertically one above another on a red background (Gules three Seaxes fesswise in pale Argent pommels and hilts Or, points to the sinister and notches to the base); the three-seax device is also used as the official logo of Essex County Council; this was granted in 1932.
  The emblem was attributed to Anglo-Saxon Essex in Early Modern historiography. The earliest reference to the arms of the East Saxon kings was by Richard Verstegan, the author of A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (Antwerp, 1605), claiming that "Erkenwyne king of the East-Saxons did beare for his armes, three [seaxes] argent, in a field gules". There is no earlier evidence substantiating Verstegan's claim, which is an anachronism for the Anglo-Saxon period seeing that heraldry only evolved in the 12th century, well after the Norman Conquest.
  John Speed in his Historie of Great Britaine (1611) follows Verstegan in his descriptions of the arms of Erkenwyne, but he qualifies the statement by adding "as some or our heralds have emblazed".
  Essex is also home to the Dunmow Flitch Trials, a traditional ceremony that takes place every four years and consists of a test of a married couple's devotion to one another. A common claim of the origin of the Dunmow Flitch dates back to 1104 and the Augustinian priory of Little Dunmow, founded by Lady Juga Baynard. Lord of the Manor Reginald Fitzwalter and his wife dressed themselves as humble folk and begged blessing of the Prior a year and a day after marriage. The prior, impressed by their devotion, bestowed upon them a flitch of bacon. Upon revealing his true identity, Fitzwalter gave his land to the priory on condition that a flitch should be awarded to any couple who could claim they were similarly devoted.
  By the 14th century, the Dunmow Flitch Trials appear to have achieved a significant reputation outside the local area. The author William Langland, who lived on the Welsh borders, mentions it in his 1362 book The Vision of Piers Plowman in a manner that implies general knowledge of the custom among his readers.
  The Essex dialect, an accent related to the Suffolk dialect, was formerly prevalent in the county but has now been mostly replaced by Estuary English.
caption: Depiction of the first king of the East Saxons, Æscwine, his shield showing the three seaxes emblem attributed to him (from John Speed's 1611 Saxon Heptarchy)
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