Kingdom of East Anglia - Sources

Sources

No East Anglian charters (and few other documents) have survived to modern times and those mediaeval chronicles that refer to the East Angles are treated with great caution by scholars. Very few records from the Kingdom of the East Angles have survived, because of the complete destruction of the kingdom's monasteries and the disappearance of the two East Anglian sees as the result of Viking raids and settlement. The principal documentary source for the early period of the kingdom's history is Ecclesiatical History of the English People, written by Bede in the eighth century. East Anglia is first mentioned as a distinct political unit in the Tribal Hidage, which is thought to have been compiled somewhere in England during the seventh century.

Anglo-Saxon sources that include information about the East Angles or events relating to the kingdom:

  • Ecclesiatical History of the English People
  • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
  • The Tribal Hidage, where the East Angles are assessed at 30,000 hides, evidently superior in resources to lesser kingdoms such as Sussex and Lindsey.
  • Historia Britonum
  • Life of Foillan, written in the seventh century

Post-Norman sources (of variable historical validity):

  • The 12th century Liber Eliensis
  • Florence of Worcester's Chronicle, written in the twelfth century
  • Henry of Huntingdon's Historia Anglorum, written in the twelfth century
  • Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum, written in the thirteenth century

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