Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies


A number of royal genealogies of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, collectively referred to as the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, have been preserved in a manuscript tradition based in the 8th to 10th centuries.
The genealogies trace the succession of the early Anglo-Saxon kings, back to the semi-legendary kings of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, notably named as Hengist and Horsa in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, and further to legendary kings and heroes of the pre-migration period, usually including an eponymous ancestor of the respective lineage and converging on Woden.
In their fully elaborated forms as preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and the Textus Roffensis, they continue the pedigrees back to the biblical patriarchs Noah and Adam. They also served as the basis for pedigrees that would be developed in 13th century Iceland for the Scandinavian royalty.

Documentary tradition

The Anglo-Saxons, uniquely among the early Germanic peoples, preserved royal genealogies. The earliest source for these genealogies is Bede, who in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum said of the founders of the Kingdom of Kent:
The two first commanders are said to have been Hengest and Horsa... They were the sons of Victgilsus, whose father was Vecta, son of Woden; from whose stock the royal race of many provinces deduce their original.

Bede similarly provides ancestry for the kings of the East Angles.
An Anglian collection of royal genealogies also survives, the earliest version containing a list of bishops that ends in the year 812. This collection provides pedigrees for the kings of Deira, Bernicia, Mercia, Lindsey, Kent and East Anglia, tracing each of these dynasties from Woden, who is made the son of an otherwise unknown Frealaf. The same pedigrees, in both text and tabular form, are included in some copies of the Historia Brittonum, an older body of tradition compiled or significantly retouched by Nennius in the early 9th century. These apparently share a common late-8th century source with the Anglian collection. Two other manuscripts from the 10th century also preserve the Anglian collection, but include an addition: a pedigree for King Ine of Wessex that traces his ancestry from Cerdic, the semi-legendary founder of the Wessex state, and hence from Woden. This addition probably reflects the growing influence of Wessex under Ecgbert, whose family claimed descent from a brother of Ine.
Pedigrees are also preserved in several regnal lists dating from the reign of Æthelwulf and later but seemingly based on a late-8th or early 9th century source or sources. Finally, later interpolations to both Asser's Vita Ælfredi regis Angul Saxonum and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle preserve Wessex pedigrees extended beyond Cerdic and Woden to Adam.
John of Worcester would copy these pedigrees into his Chronicon ex chronicis, and the 9th-century Anglo-Saxon genealogical tradition also served as a source for the Icelandic Langfeðgatal and was used by Snorri Sturluson for his 13th century Prologue to the Prose Edda.

Euhemerism

The majority of the surviving pedigrees trace the families of Anglo-Saxon royalty to Woden. The euhemerizing treatment of Woden as the common ancestor of the royal houses is presumably a "late innovation" within the genealogical tradition which developed in the wake of the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons. Kenneth Sisam has argued that the Wessex pedigree was co-opted from that of Bernicia, and David Dumville has reached a similar conclusion with regard to that of Kent, deriving it from the pedigree of the kings of Deira.
When looking at pedigree sources outside of the Anglian collection, one surviving pedigree for the kings of Essex in a similar fashion traces the family from Seaxneat. In later pedigrees, this too has been linked to Wōden by making Seaxnēat his son. Dumville has suggested that these modified pedigrees linking to Wōden were creations intended to express their contemporary politics, a representation in genealogical form of the Anglian hegemony over all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
The derivation of a claim of kingship from descent from a god may be rooted in ancient Germanic paganism.
In Anglo-Saxon England after Christianization, this tradition appears to have been euhemerized to kingship of any of the realms of the Heptarchy being conditional on descent from Woden.
Woden is made father of Wecta, Beldeg, Wihtgils and Wihtlaeg who are given as ancestors of the Kings of Kent, Deira, Wessex, Bernicia, Mercia and East Anglia, as well as the independent founder turned son, Seaxnēat, the Essex ancestor. These lineages having thus been made to converge, the portion of the pedigree before Woden was then subjected to several successive rounds of extension, and also the interpolation of mythical heroes and other modifications, producing a final genealogy that traced to the Biblical patriarchs and Adam.

Kent and Deira

Bede relates that Hengest and Horsa, semi-legendary founders of the Kentish royal family, were sons of Wihtgils, , son of Wecta, son of Woden. Witta is omitted from some manuscripts, but his name appears as part of the same pedigree repeated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Historia Brittonum. The Anglian Collection gives a similar pedigree for Hengest, with Wecta appearing as Wægdæg, and the names Witta and Wihtgils exchanging places, with a similar pedigree being given by Snorri Sturluson in his much later Prologue to the Prose Edda, where Wægdæg, called Vegdagr son of Óðinn, is made a ruler in East Saxony. Grimm suggested that a shared first element of these names Wicg-, representing Old Saxon wigg and Old Norse vigg, and reflects, like the names Hengest and Horsa, the horse totem of the Kentish dynasty. From Hengest's son Eoric, called Oisc, comes the name of the dynasty, the Oiscingas, and he is followed as king by Octa, Eormenric, and the well-documented Æthelberht of Kent. The Anglian Collection places Octa before Oisc.
The genealogy given for the kings of Deira in both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Anglian Collection also traces through Wægdæg, followed by Siggar and Swæbdæg. The Prose Edda also gives these names, as Sigarr and Svebdeg alias Svipdagr, but places them a generation farther down the Kent pedigree, as son and grandson of Wihtgils. Though Sisam rejected the linguistic identity of Bede's Wecta with Wægdæg, the Anglian Collection and Prose Edda place Wægdæg in the ancestry of both lines and Dumville suggests this common pedigree origin reflected the political alliance of Kent with Deira coincident with the marriage of Edwin of Deira with Æthelburh of Kent, which appears to have led to the grafting of the unrelated Jutish Kent dynasty onto a Deira pedigree belonging to an Anglian body of genealogical tradition. Historia Brittonum connects the Deira line to a different branch of Woden's descendants, showing Siggar to be son of Brond, son of Beldeg, a different son of Woden. This matches the lineage atop the Bernicia pedigree in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and that of Wessex in the Anglian Collection. The transfer of the Deira line from kinship with Kent royal line to that of Bernicia was perhaps meant to mirror the political union that joined Deira and Bernicia into the kingdom of Northumbria.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Anglian Collection and Historia Brittonum all give descent from Siggar/Sigegar to Ælla, the first historically-documented king of Deira, and the latter's son Edwin, who first joined Deira with neighboring Bernicia into what would become the Kingdom of Northumbria, an accomplishment Historia Brittonum attributes to his ancestor Soemil. While clearly sharing a common root, the three pedigrees differ somewhat in the precise details. The Chronicle pedigree apparently dropped a generation. That of Historia Brittonum has two differences. It lacks two early generations, a likely scribal error that resulted from a jump between the similar names Siggar and Siggeot, a similar gap appearing in the later pedigree given by chronicler Henry of Huntingdon, whose Historia Anglorum otherwise faithfully follows the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle pedigree, but here jumps directly from 'Sigegeat' to Siggar's father, Wepdeg. There is also a substitution later in the pedigree, where Historia Brittonum replaces the name Westorfalcna with Sguerthing, apparently the Swerting of Beowulf, although its -ing ending led John of Worcester, writing in the 12th century Chronicon ex chronicis, to interpret the name as an Anglo-Saxon patronymic and interpose the name Swerta as Seomil's father into a pedigree otherwise matching that of the Anglian Collection. The replaced name, Wester-falcna along with the earlier Sæ-fugel, were seen by Grimm as totemic bird names analogous to the horse names in the Kent pedigree.
Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle B, C		Historia
Anglorum		Anglian
Collection		Historia
Brittonum		Chronicon ex
chronicis
SigegarSigegeatSiggarSiggarSiggar
SwebdægSigegeatSwæbdægSiggarSwæbdæg
SiggeātSigegeatSiggeotSiggarSiggæt
SǣbaldSeabaldSæbaldSibaldSæbald
SǣfugelSefugilSæfugolZegulfSæfugol
SǣfugelSefugilSæfugolZegulfSwerta
SǣfugelSefugilSoemelSoemilSoemel
WesterfalcaWestrefalcnaWestorualcnaSguerthingWestorwalcna
WilgilsWilgilsWilgilsGuilglisWilgels
UxfreaUscfreaUscfreaUlfreaWyscfrea
YffeIffaYffeIffiYffe
ÆlleEllaÆlleUlliEalle