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Sussex (; , "kingdom of the South Saxons") was a Saxon colony and later independent kingdom of the Saxons, on the south coast of England. The South Saxons were ruled by the kings of Sussex. ==Geography== The Kingdom of Sussex had its initial focus a territory based on the former kingdom and Romano-British ''civitas'' of the ''Regnenses'' and its boundaries coincided in general with those of the later county of Sussex. For a brief period in the 7th century, the Kingdom of Sussex controlled the Isle of Wight and the territory of the ''Meonwara'' in the Meon Valley in east Hampshire. From the late 8th century, Sussex seems to have absorbed the Kingdom of the ''Haestingas'', after the region was conquered by the Mercian king Offa. A large part of its territory was covered by the forest that took its name from the fort of ''Anderitum'' at modern Pevensey, it was known to the Romano-British as Forest of Andred and to the Saxons as ''Andredsleah'' or ''Andredsweald'', known today as the Weald. This forest according to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' was wide and deep (although probably closer to wide).〔Seward Sussex. p.76〕 It was the largest remaining area of woodland and heath in the territories that became England〔 and was inhabited by wolves, boars and possibly even bears.〔 It was so dense that even the ''Domesday Book'' did not record some of its settlements.〔 The heavily forested Weald made expansion difficult but also provided some protection from invasion by neighbouring kingdoms. Whilst Sussex's isolation from the rest of Anglo-Saxon England has been emphasised, Roman roads must have remained important communication arteries across the forest of the Weald. The Weald was not the only area of Sussex that was forested in Saxon times, for example at the western end of Sussex is the Manhood Peninsula, which in the modern era is largely deforested, however the name is probably derived from the Old English ''maene-wudu'' meaning "men's wood" or "common wood" indicating that it was once woodland. The coastline would have looked different from today. Much of the alluvium in the river plains had not yet been deposited and the tidal river estuaries extended much further inland.〔Martin Welch: ''Early Anglo-Saxon Sussex: from Civitas to Shire'', in Brandon (1978), p.14〕 It is estimated that the coastal plain may have been at least one mile broader than it is today.〔 Before people reclaimed the tidal marshes in the 13th century the coastal plain contained extensive areas of sea water in the form of lagoons, salt marsh, wide inlets, islands and peninsulas. To the South Saxons of the 5th and 6th centuries this coastline must have resembled their original homeland between coastal Friesland, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. The landscape gave rise to some key regional differences within the kingdom. The rich coastal plain continued to be the base for the large estates, ruled by their thegns, some of whom had their boundaries confirmed by charters. The Downs were more deserted. South Saxon impact was greatest in the Weald. Along the north scarp of the Downs runs a series of parishes with land evenly distributed across the different soils to their northern boundaries; the parishes were more or less equal in area, around . In the early mediaeval period, the rivers of Sussex may have acted locally as a major unifier, linking coastal, estuary and riverside communities and providing people in these areas with a sense of identity. The boundaries of the Kingdom of Sussex probably crystallised around the 6th and 7th centuries. To the west, Bede describes the boundary with the Kingdom of Wessex as being opposite the Isle of Wight, and which later fell on the River Ems. It is possible that the Jutish territories of the Isle of Wight and the Meon Valley in modern Hampshire acted as a buffer zone between the Saxon kingdoms of Sussex and Wessex until they were conquered by the Mercian king Wulfhere and passed to King Aethelwealh of Sussex in the 7th century. To the east at Romney Marsh and the River Limen (now called the River Rother or Kent Ditch), Sussex shared a border with the Kingdom of Kent. North of the Forest Ridge in the Wealden forest lay the sub-kingdom of Surrey which became a frontier area disputed between various kingdoms until it later became part of Wessex. To the south of Sussex lay the English Channel, beyond which lay Francia, or the Kingdom of the Franks. By the 680s, when Christianity was being introduced, there is no doubt that the district around Selsey and Chichester had become the political centre of the kingdom, though there is little archaeological evidence for a reoccupation of Chichester itself before the 9th century.〔 The capital of the Kingdom of Sussex was at Chichester, the seat of the kingdom's bishopric was at Selsey. The traditional residence of the South Saxon kings was at Kingsham, once outside the southern walls of Chichester although within its modern boundaries. Ditchling may have been an important regional centre for a large part of central Sussex between the Rivers Adur and Ouse until the founding of Lewes in the 9th century. By the 11th century the towns were mostly developments of the fortified towns (''burhs'') founded in the reign of Alfred the Great.〔 The ancient droveways of Sussex linked coastal and downland communities in the south with summer pasture land in the interior of the Weald. The droveways were used throughout the Saxon era by the South Saxons and probably originated before the Roman occupation of Britain. The droveways formed a road system that clearly suggests that the settlers in the oldest developed parts of Sussex were concerned not so much with east-west connections between neighbouring settlements as with north-south communication between each settlement and its outlying woodland pasture. The droving roads had an enduring effect on the pattern of Sussex settlement. When churches came to be built, an ideal site was where a drove crossed a river. Eventually traders gravitated to churches, so founding villages, and in some cases market towns such as at Ditchling, Shermanbury, Thakeham, Ashurst and Shipley. Different names existed for the swine pastures in different parts of Sussex. In the territory of the ''Haestingas'' in the east, swine pastures were named ''denns'', in the centre they were referred to as 'styes' (''stig'') and in the west ''folds''.〔 These places grew from being sheds for animals and temporary huts for swineherders, to permanent farms, water-mills, churches and market towns. Churches in the High Weald are mostly on isolated ridge-top sites, away from the pioneer farms being established on the valley sides, as at Worth and Itchingfield to this day.〔 Land divisions in the Kingdom of Sussex were sometimes different from other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and regions. By the Late Saxon period, the main administrative unit of Sussex was the district known as the rape. Their origins may be earlier, possibly originating in the Romano-British period.〔 The rapes were sub-divided into hundreds, which served as taxation and administrative districts.〔 In England generally these contained a nominal 100 hides (a measure of taxable value linked to land area) but in Sussex they were generally much smaller.〔 Sussex may also have had eight virgates for every hide; in most of England a hide was usually made up of four virgates. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kingdom of Sussex」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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