Talk:Kingdom of Sussex

message: So where was the capital of the Kingdom of Sussex? The article doesn't say. Don't we know?
Probably Selsey but not sure. Aella (if he existed) landed at Cymenshore, which most historians believe is near Selsey. Wilfrid set up the See there. it was short lived as Sussex was conquered by Wessex and the capital moved to Winchester, and then came the Normans!!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wilfridselsey (talk • contribs) 12:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: capital?

message: Yorkshirian recently added this new version of an old map to this article; it was removed by Deacon of Pndapetzim and re-added by Yorkshirian.  I'd like to replace it with this map instead, which doesn't use boundaries.    The changes were made to several articles, so to centralize discussion, please post at Talk:Mercia#Map if you have an opinion. Mike Christie (talk) 02:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map discussion 

message: The South Saxons article itself states that "The terms "South Saxons" and "Kingdom of Sussex" are interchangeable", so why two articles? JimmyGuano (talk) 21:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Support merge. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 14:40, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

text: Surely the only reason that the "South Saxons" are identified as a seperate people at all is that they happened to be the group of "Saxons" who settled in the area that later came to be known as Sussex.  The modern interpretation of the emergence of anglo-saxon kingdoms on the island of Britain is that of settlement by a minority (not invasion), with the majority indigenous population acommodating and incorporating themselves into the culture of the new arrivals.  So the question of who the "South Saxons" even were by the time the kingdom was conquered by Wessex is more than a little fuzzy and complicated.  Because Bede thought in terms of different races of people conquering various areas of Britain does not mean that we should, particularly when the archeological evidence and modern historiography supports a totally different view.  I believe that "South Saxons" should be merged with "Kingdom of Sussex". Revcasy (talk) 12:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Support merge. Metabaronic (talk) 19:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

text: Sounds good. Sadads (talk) 20:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Which page are we using as the primary article? I would suggest Kingdom of Sussex, that way, as Wilfridselsey points out it is less about the people and more about the entity. Sadads (talk) 13:43, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. That was my understanding to begin with.Revcasy (talk) 14:25, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Merger proposal - South Saxons

message: Have a look at , and note the references and page numbers cited. It credibly suggests (but does not assert) that Sussex origins are from Saxons who had migrated from their German homelands to coastal France, and then re-migrated to southern England. This would account for the relatively late (ie, later than the earliest settlements along the Thames and east coast) arrival in Sussex. Also, as a generality, settlements in Sussex from Saxon points along the French coast (the Boulonnais, the Ponthieu, the Bessin, the Caen area) makes more sense than sailing from Germany around the English coast to southern England, given that we know that settlements existed along the French coast and were later abandoned in the same timeframe as the Sussex settlements. Anecdotal instances of settlement direct from Saxony are of course possible.
Note that this is consistent with archaeological finds ... ie, Saxons brought their culture and customs from Saxony to the French coast and thence to Sussex (rather than assuming it was a direct Saxony to Sussex transfer). And note that there are no serious inconsistencies with the AS Chronicle (in which 5th century entries are necessarily oral histories and creative creationism, as the Saxons were not literate until the early 7th century).
On a related but slightly different topic, the idea or "hypothesis" of foederate treaties or hired mercenaries seems (to me) to be creative fiction posed as "conjectural history" ... (1) all indications are that late-Roman and post-Roman Britain was weak, poor, disunited and in-collapse; there was no political entity strong enough to make a treaty, and certainly no one who could credibly offer to pay for a mercenary force. (2) Why would the Saxons, dominant on the sea and raiding at will, bind themselves as underlings to anyone who obviously could not pay them, especially when the Saxons were in a position to take what they wanted? (3) After moving to Britain the Saxons continued their raiding along coastal France, continuing to be a major threat to Frankish coastal territory (eg, there are credible  accounts of large-scale Saxon raids all the way south to the Garonne River) ... this is hardly consistent with an assertion that the Saxons were treaty foederates or Romano-British paid mercenaries.
Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 18:06, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Settlement origins