Beorna of East Anglia
Encyclopedia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
from 749. The end-date of his reign is not known, but may have been around 760 AD. He shared his reign with another ruler called Alberht (Æthelberht), and possibly with another named Hun
Hun of East Anglia
Hun is the name of a supposed 8th century ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia, who may have begun ruling with Beorna and Alberht at the division of the kingdom in 749.- Sources :...
.
The primary sources for Beonna are very few. They consist of bare references to his accession or rule in late chronicles, which until quite recently it was impossible to verify. However, during the last thirty years a sufficient number of his coins have been found to show that he really existed, and on these grounds several deductions have been made concerning his rule and identity.
Annals referring to Beonna
Beanna makes his appearance in an annalistic tradition preserved in late compilations (e.g., Symeon of DurhamSymeon of Durham
Symeon of Durham was an English chronicler and a monk of Durham Priory. When William of Saint-Calais returned from his Norman exile in 1091, Symeon was probably in his company...
, Roger of Wendover
Roger of Wendover
Roger of Wendover , probably a native of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, was an English chronicler of the 13th century.At an uncertain date he became a monk at St Albans Abbey; afterwards he was appointed prior of the cell of Belvoir, but he forfeited this dignity in the early years of Henry III,...
) in material which may derive from Byrhtferth
Byrhtferth
Byrhtferth was a priest and monk who lived at Ramsey Abbey. He had a deep impact on the intellectual life of later Anglo-Saxon England and wrote many computistic, hagiographic, and historical works. He was a leading man of science and best known as the author of many different works...
of Ramsey
Ramsey, Cambridgeshire
Ramsey is a small Cambridgeshire market town and parish, north of Huntingdon and St Ives. For local government purposes it lies in the district of Huntingdonshire within the local government county of Cambridgeshire....
, a writer of c1000 AD (attribution cited in M. M. Archibald). The record states that Hunbeanna and Alberht divided the kingdom of the East Angles between themselves. Florence of Worcester presents an annal for 758 stating that Beornus was then ruling the East Angles. Beorna also appears after Ælfwald and before Æthelred in short regnal lists featuring in the Chronicle of John of Worcester
John of Worcester
John of Worcester was an English monk and chronicler. He is usually held to be the author of the Chronicon ex chronicis.-Chronicon ex chronicis:...
and in the de Gestis Regum of William of Malmesbury, Book I.
The name Beonna
Since the name Beonna also appears on the coins, but is a foreshortened or familiar form lacking the second part of a diathematic structure, the Hun element in the former annal may be a separate name. Hence a tripartite division of the kingdom might be intended. Beornred emerged for a short time in 757 as ruler of Mercia before being driven out by OffaOffa of Mercia
Offa was the King of Mercia from 757 until his death in July 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald after defeating the other claimant Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign it is likely...
. Archibald cites Charles Oman's suggestion that they could be the same person.
No known member of the Wuffing
Wuffing
The Wuffingas were the ruling dynasty of the kingdom of East Anglia, the long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Wuffingas took their name from Wuffa, an early East Anglian king. It has been argued that the Wuffingas may have originated...
family had a name commencing with B. However there were Mercian rulers (including Beornwulf
Beornwulf of Mercia
Beornwulf was King of Mercia from 823 to 825. His short reign saw the collapse of the Mercia's supremacy over the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy....
) using that letter. Considering the name of Beonna himself and of Beodric, the name-founder of Beodricesworth (afterwards Bury St Edmunds), it has been argued that these were members of a family with dynastic claims both in Mercia and in East Anglia. Hence it is suggested that, following the death of Ælfwald, a Wuffing claimant Æthelberht or Alberht divided his rule with a member of that supposed family.
Military affairs in Mercia
The decade of the 750s was turbulent. Æthelbald of Mercia had dominion over WessexWessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
, where Cuthred
Cuthred of Wessex
Cuthred or Cuþræd was the King of Wessex from 740 until 756. He succeeded Æthelheard, his relative and possibly his brother....
had ruled since 740. In 752 Cuthred revolted, and (according to Henry of Huntingdon
Henry of Huntingdon
Henry of Huntingdon , the son of a canon in the diocese of Lincoln, was a 12th century English historian, the author of a history of England, Historia anglorum, "the most important Anglo-Norman historian to emerge from the secular clergy". He served as archdeacon of Huntingdon...
) the East Angles, perhaps led by Beonna, joined forces with Æthelbald against Cuthred in the Battle of Burford Bridge. Several kingdoms were already in turmoil when in 757 Æthelbald was murdered by two of his own bodyguard. Then Beornred ruled Mercia for a few months, rather unsuccessfully, before Offa (a descendant of Æthelbald's grandfather by a different line) emerged and drove him into a remote part of the kingdom. We have Florence's statement that Beonna was ruling in East Anglia in 758.
Beonna's coinage and moneyers
River Thet
The River Thet is a river in Norfolk, England and is a tributary of the River Little Ouse.It rises in The Fens around Rockland All Saints and joins the Little Ouse in Thetford....
, north-east of Thetford. Thetford
Thetford
Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland district of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just south of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , has a population of 21,588.-History:...
, at the confluence of the Thet with the Little Ouse and upstream of the important settlement at Brandon
Brandon, Suffolk
Brandon is a small town and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk. It is in the Forest Heath local government district.Brandon is located in the Breckland area on the border of Suffolk with the adjoining county of Norfolk...
(Suffolk), was probably also an early seat of power.
Beonna was the first East Anglian ruler (and among the earliest rulers of the English) to have a coinage issued with legends naming the ruler and title - a regnal coinage. He had three named moneyers that are known, Werferth, Efe and Wilred. Of these, the coins of Efe are by far the most numerous, and the obverse dies naming Beonna pass through several different types. Dr Archibald suggests that this may represent intensive issues over a short period for military purposes, rather than a prolonged sequence of issue. Distribution analysis (inconclusive with such limited numbers) may suggest a north-central Suffolk or southern Norfolk mint for Efe, and the same scholar cites Euston, Suffolk
Euston, Suffolk
Euston is a village and civil parish in the St Edmundsbury district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located on the A1088 around two miles south of Thetford, in 2005 its population was 130....
, a little southeast of Thetford, as a name possibly derived from Efe.
The Efe reverse is based on the 'standard' type, derived from the foregoing C and R series sceattas, while the radial letters around a central pellet seen in most Beonna obverses may owe more to Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
n prototypes. The legends are Latin, mixed Latin-runic, or (particularly in Wilred's dies) all-runic. Indeed the Beonna coinage as a whole provides an important dateable runic corpus, and may reflect a distinctive East Anglian preference for runic lettering. Beonna is styled 'Rex' or (runic) 'Ress' by Efe.
Wilred uses a rune similar to W after the name, possibly to mean 'Walda' or ruler. Dr Archibald mentions an early coin of Offa struck by the same moneyer, who may therefore have struck at the end of Beonna's reign when Offa's power in East Anglia was growing. The similarity of Wilred's all-runic pennies to the unique penny of Alberht or Aethelberht I confirms their contemporaneity, as does the archaeological context of the Aethelberht find. Wilred may have worked in south-east Suffolk.
A fourth type of coin for Beonna has no named moneyer, but a reverse showing an interlace motif. One specimen of this type has been found at Dorestad
Dorestad
In the Early Middle Ages, Dorestad was the largest settlement of northwestern Europe. It was a large, flourishing trading place, three kilometers long, situated where the rivers Rhine and Lek diverge southeast of Utrecht in the Netherlands near the modern town of Wijk bij Duurstede...
, and these resemble Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
or Frisian
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia, that was a part of Denmark until 1864. They inhabit an area known as Frisia...
deniers of the Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
area in the same period.
Context
Beonna's rule coincided with the anointing of Pippin III and the displacement of the Merovingian dynasty, and also with the martyrdom of Saint BonifaceSaint Boniface
Saint Boniface , the Apostle of the Germans, born Winfrid, Wynfrith, or Wynfryth in the kingdom of Wessex, probably at Crediton , was a missionary who propagated Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century. He is the patron saint of Germany and the first archbishop of Mainz...
. His issue of a coinage related to Franco-Frisian types implies a continuing engagement in that sphere. He was probably not a Wuffing but shared power with at least one other who probably was of that dynasty. The preponderance of his regnal coinage in this period suggests his seniority within the arrangement of East Anglian rule. During his reign some measure of East Anglian leadership independent of central Mercian authority seems to be maintained. The written evidences and coins confine our knowledge of him to the period 749-c760. He may have assisted Aethelbald against the West-Saxons in 752, and was possibly connected with the unsuccessful attempt of Beornred to take control of Mercia in 757. With regard to his name, the chroniclers of Worcester
Florence of Worcester
Florence of Worcester , known in Latin as Florentius, was a monk of Worcester, who played some part in the production of the Chronicon ex chronicis, a Latin world chronicle which begins with the creation and ends in 1140....
and Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. C. Warren Hollister so ranks him among the most talented generation of writers of history since Bede, "a gifted historical scholar and an omnivorous reader, impressively well versed in the literature of classical,...
(who use the form with 'r', Beorn-) did not have access to his coins (which use forms without 'r' such as Beonna or Benna): but since it is now clear that they possessed an authentic tradition, the form with 'r' has equal validity to the contemporary evidence of the coins. Of the end of his reign nothing is known.
Sources
- M.M. Archibald, 1985, The coinage of Beonna in the light of the Middle Harling hoard, British Numismatic Journal 55, 10-54.
- M.M. Archibald, V.H. Fenwick and M.R. Cowell, 1996, A sceat of Ethelbert I of East Anglia and recent finds of coins of Beonna, British Numismatic Journal 65, 1-19.
- J. Campbell (Ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (Oxford 1982).
- R.D. Carr, A. Tester and P. Murphy, 1988, The Middle Saxon Settlement at Staunch Meadow, Brandon, Antiquity LXII, 371-377.
- V.H. Fenwick, 1984, Insula de Burgh: Excavations at Burrow Hill, Butley, Suffolk 1978-1981, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 3, 35-54.
- J.A. Giles, Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History (Translation - 2 Vols.) (London 1849).
- P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Mediaeval European Coinage I: The Early Middle Ages (Cambridge 1986).
- D.P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (London 1991).
- R.I. PageRaymond Ian PageRaymond Ian Page is a British historian of Anglo-Saxon England and the Viking Age, and a renowned runologist who has specialized in the study of Anglo-Saxon runes. In 1984 he was appointed Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Cambridge, and he has also been the...
, An Introduction to English Runes (London 1973). - S.J. Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times (Tempus, Stroud 2005).
- B. Yorke, Kings and kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London 1990).
- Website: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: Corpus of Early Mediaeval Coin Finds, and Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles (www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/coins/emc).