Ine of Wessex
Ine or Ini was King of Wessex from 689 to 726. At Ine's accession, his kingdom dominated much of what is now southern England. However, he was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecessor, Cædwalla of Wessex, who had expanded West Saxon territory substantially. By the end of Ine's reign, the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, and Essex were no longer under West Saxon sway; however, Ine maintained control of what is now Hampshire, and consolidated and extended Wessex's territory in the western peninsula.
Ine is noted for his code of laws, which he issued in about 694. These laws were the first issued by an Anglo-Saxon king outside Kent. They shed much light on the history of Anglo-Saxon society, and reveal Ine's Christian convictions. Trade increased significantly during Ine's reign, with the town of Hamwic becoming prominent. It was probably during Ine's reign that the West Saxons began to mint coins, though none have been found that bear his name.
Ine abdicated in 726 to go to Rome, leaving, in the words of the contemporary chronicler Bede, the kingdom to "younger men". He was succeeded by Æthelheard.
Genealogy and accession
Early sources agree that Ine was the son of Cenred, and that Cenred was the son of Ceolwald; further back there is less agreement. Ine was born around 670 and his siblings included a brother, Ingild, and two sisters, Cuthburh and Cwenburg. Ingild is given by the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies as ancestor of king Egbert of Wessex and the subsequent kings of England. Cuthburh was married to King Aldfrith of Northumbria, and Ine himself was married to Æthelburg. Bede tells that Ine was "of the blood royal", by which he means the royal line of the Gewisse, the early West Saxon tribal name.The genealogy of Ine is known from the Anglian King-list, the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Both the Regnal List and Chronicle were put into their present form in the late ninth century, probably at the court of Alfred the Great, and show scholars at pains both to emphasise that all West-Saxon kings descended from Cerdic and to put Cerdic's foundation of the dynasty earlier than their sources claimed, yet nonetheless are often at variance.
Ine's predecessor on the throne of Wessex was Cædwalla, but there is some uncertainty about the transition from Cædwalla to Ine. Cædwalla abdicated in 688 and departed for Rome to be baptized. According to the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List, Ine reigned for 37 years, abdicating in 726. These dates imply that he did not gain the throne until 689, which could indicate an unsettled period between Cædwalla's abdication and Ine's accession. Ine may have ruled alongside his father, Cenred, for a period: there is weak evidence for joint kingships, and stronger evidence of subkings reigning under a dominant ruler in Wessex, not long before this time. Ine acknowledges his father's help in his code of laws, and there is also a surviving land-grant that indicates Cenred was still reigning in Wessex after Ine's accession.
Reign
The extent of West Saxon territory at the start of Ine's reign is fairly well known. The upper Thames valley on both sides of the river had long been the territory of the Gewisse, though Cædwalla had lost territory north of the river to the kingdom of Mercia before Ine's accession. To the west, Ceawlin of Wessex is known to have reached the Bristol Channel one hundred years before. The West Saxons had since expanded further down the southwestern peninsula, pushing back the boundary with the British kingdom of Dumnonia, which was probably roughly equivalent to modern Devon and Cornwall. On the West Saxons' eastern border was the kingdom of the East Saxons, which included London and what is now Surrey. To the southeast were the South Saxons, on the coast east of the Isle of Wight. Beyond Sussex lay the kingdom of Kent. Ine's predecessor, Cædwalla, had made himself overlord of most of these southern kingdoms, though he had not been able to prevent Mercian inroads along the upper Thames.Ine retained control of the Isle of Wight, and made further advances in Dumnonia, but the territorial gains Cædwalla had made in Sussex, Surrey and Kent were all lost by the end of Ine's reign.
Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Surrey
Ine made peace with Kent in 694 when its king Wihtred gave Ine a substantial sum in compensation for the death of Cædwalla's brother Mul, who had been killed during a Kentish rebellion in 687. The value of the amount offered to Ine by Wihtred is uncertain; most manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle record "thirty thousand", and some specify thirty thousand pounds. If the pounds are equal to sceattas, then this amount is the equal of a king's weregild—that is, the legal valuation of a man's life, according to his rank.Ine kept the South Saxons, who had been conquered by Cædwalla in 686, in subjugation for a period. King Nothhelm of Sussex is referred to in a charter of 692 as a kinsman of Ine. Sussex was still under West Saxon domination in 710, when Nothhelm is recorded as having campaigned with Ine in the west against Dumnonia.
Control of Surrey, which may never have been an independent kingdom, passed between Kent, Mercia, Essex, and Wessex in the years before Ine's reign. Essex also included London, and the diocese of London included Surrey; this appears to have been a source of friction between Ine and the East Saxon and Mercian kings until the province was transferred to the diocese of Winchester in 705. Evidence for Ine's early control of Surrey comes from the introduction to his laws, in which he refers to Eorcenwald, bishop of London, as "my bishop". Ine's subsequent relations with the East Saxons are illuminated by a letter written in 704 or 705 by Bishop Wealdhere of London to Brihtwold, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The letter refers to "disputes and discords" that had arisen "between the king of the West Saxons and the rulers of our country". The rulers that Wealdhere refers to are Sigeheard and Swæfred of the East Saxons, and the cause of the discord was the East Saxons' sheltering of exiles from the West Saxons. Ine had agreed to peace on the condition that the exiles were expelled. A council at Brentford was planned to resolve the disputes. By this point Surrey had clearly passed out of West Saxon control.
Bede records that Ine held Sussex in subjection for "several years", but in 722 an exile named Ealdbert fled to Surrey and Sussex, and Ine invaded Sussex as a result. Three years later Ine invaded again, this time killing Ealdberht. Sussex had evidently broken away from West Saxon domination some time before this. It has been suggested that Ealdberht was a son of Ine, or a son of Ine's brother Ingild.
Dumnonia and Mercia
In 710, Ine and Nothhelm fought against Geraint of Dumnonia, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; John of Worcester states that Geraint was killed in this battle. It has traditionally been thought that Ine's advance brought him control of what is now Devon, the new border with Dumnonia being the river Tamar. However, this does not match with subsequent events such as the Battle of Hehil or Athelstan driving the Britons from Isca. The Annales Cambriae, a tenth-century chronicle, records that in 722 the British defeated their enemies at the Battle of Hehil. The "enemies" must be Ine or his people, but the location is unidentified; historians have suggested locations in both Cornwall and Devon.Ine fought a battle at Woden's Barrow in Wiltshire in 715, either against the Mercians under Ceolred or together with them against an unnamed opponent; the result is not recorded. Woden's Barrow is a tumulus, now called Adam's Grave, at Alton Prior, Wiltshire. Ine may not have recovered any of the lands north of the Thames that had belonged to the West Saxons under previous kings, but it is known that he controlled the southern bank: a charter dated 687 shows him giving land to the church at Streatley on the Thames and at nearby Basildon.
Other conflicts
In 721, the Chronicle records that Ine slew one Cynewulf, of whom nothing else is known, though his name suggests a connection to the Wessex royal line. A quarrel apparently arose in the royal family soon afterwards: in 722, according to the Chronicle, Ine's queen Æthelburg destroyed Taunton, which her husband had built earlier in his reign, around 710.Internal affairs
The first mention of the office of ealdorman in Wessex, and the first references to the shires they led, occur during Ine's reign. It may have been Ine who divided Wessex into something approximating the modern counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, and Dorset, though earlier administrative boundaries might also have influenced these borders. It has also been suggested that these counties began as divisions of the kingdom among members of the royal family.By about 710, in the middle of Ine's reign, the trading settlement of Hamwic had become established on the west bank of the river Itchen; the site is now part of the modern city of Southampton. The goods traded at this port included glass vessels, and finds of animal bones suggest an active trade in hides. Further evidence of trade comes from finds of imported goods such as quernstones, whetstones, and pottery; and finds of sceattas from the town include Frisian coins. Specialist trades carried on in the town included cloth-making, smithying, and metalworking. It is not known whether Ine took an interest in Hamwic, but some of the goods he favoured, including luxuries, were imported there, and the merchants would probably have needed royal protection. The total population of Hamwic has been estimated at 5,000, and this high population itself implies Ine's involvement, since no-one but the king would have been able to arrange to feed and house such a large group of people.
The growth of trade after about 700 was paralleled by an expansion of the area of circulation of the sceat, the common coin of the day, to include the upper Thames valley. It is thought that the first West Saxon coinage was minted during Ine's reign, though no coins bearing his name have been found—sceattas typically gave no hint of the reigning king.