Kingdom of Sussex

The kingdom of the South Saxons, cut off behind a forest and the last part of England to become Christian. Sussex occupied the coastal strip between the Channel and the Weald, an ancient woodland belt sixty miles long that separated it from the Thames valley and made overland communication difficult - which explains both its independence and its obscurity. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle credits its founding to Aelle, landing in 477 and storming the Roman fort at Pevensey, and Bede names him the first of the overlords of southern Britain, though almost nothing else is known of him. The kingdom kept its own kings into the eighth century and left very few records, no coinage of its own for most of its existence, and no monastic chronicle. Conversion came only around 681, when Wilfrid, exiled from Northumbria, preached there and, by Bede's account, taught the South Saxons to fish during a famine. Selsey became its episcopal seat, later moved to Chichester. Mercia dominated it in the eighth century and Wessex absorbed it after 825, after which it survived as a shire rather than a kingdom. Its greatest historical moment came after it had ceased to exist: William landed at Pevensey in 1066 and fought Harold near Hastings, both in the old kingdom's territory. The Weald's ironworking long predated and outlasted the kingdom. Its coastline has shifted enough that some Roman and Saxon sites are now inland or under water. The South Downs run the length of the old kingdom. Chichester keeps the Roman street plan beneath it.

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