ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



The archaeological method further brings to light signs of Kentish 

 influence in East Anglia, and so far confirms the meagre testimony of the 

 records. Strictly speaking history begins in England with the coming 

 of Augustine, and it was then that the people of East Anglia looked to 

 iEthelberht of Kent as their sovereign lord. The tie was snapped before 

 the year 6i6, and Rxdwald apparently became an independent monarch/ 

 defeating the northern king ^Ethelfrith on the river Idle in 617. But 

 his prosperity was short-lived and till the battle of Winwaed in 655 East 

 Anglia was in the power of Penda, the champion of paganism in England. 

 A brief interval of Northumbrian supremacy or patronage was followed by 

 more than a century of Mercian dominion, for the midland power, though 

 checked by the defeat at Burford in 754, was advanced by Offa in the latter 

 part of the century. Under him the zenith was passed and Mercia was 

 eclipsed by the rise of an English nation under Ecgberht. 



It was mainly therefore under the protection of Kent that pagan 

 East Anglia developed into a kingdom, while the preaching of St. Felix 

 (631-47) came just before the Mercian influence began to be felt east- 

 ward of the Fens. There is a local tradition that the school founded by 

 the first bishop of East Anglia with aid from Kent was at Saham Toney, 

 and it is all the more to be regretted that an Anglian cemetery said to 

 have been discovered ^ there has not been described. Archaeological 

 support is given to the beUef in Kentish influence throughout East 

 Anglia in the first half of the seventh century by the two jewelled crosses 

 found at Wilton and Ixworth ; and if it be objected that these afford but 

 slender evidence, it must be pointed out that the chances are all in favour 

 of their having belonged to Christian converts whose religion sanctioned 

 the interment of the sacred symbol^ with the faithful in place of the 

 pagan array of arms and ornaments. This may in part explain why no 

 relics were found associated with either of the pendants in question, 

 though another explanation is suggested by the important find in the 

 mound at Wieuwerd already referred to. The hoard was evidently not 

 connected with an interment, though a skull was found in another part 

 of the mound ; and the deposit, which had been roughly handled, was 

 therefore in all probability the result of a foray into Frankish territory 

 by some Frisian freebooters. The Bacton jewel, found as it was on the 

 beach, may similarly be connected with some raid on the opposite 

 Frankish coast, but it is nevertheless unlikely that such an ornament 

 would have been buried quite alone. 



The third point to which attention may be directed is the evidence 

 for two distinct modes of burial in what is now the county of Norfolk. 

 The interment of the unburnt body alone remains to be considered, and 

 though a little light may be thrown on the question by the Anglo-Saxon 

 Chronicle and other early authorities, it would be idle to pretend that the 

 answer is as easy as further investigation of English and continental finds 



1 His ' bretwaldadom ' is discussed by Hallam in Anhaologia, vol. xxxii. p. 248. 

 ^ Such is the report in the Norfolk Chronicle, April, 1852. 



3 For the common practice in the eleventh and twelfth centuries see Archaologia, vol. xxxv. p. 300. 

 345 



