Hengest
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Hengest or Hengist (d. 488?[1]) was the semi-legendary founding ruler of the kingdom of Kent in southeast England. His name is common Germanic for "stallion". He is paired in the early sources with his brother Horsa ("horse").
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[edit] Accounts of Hengest
There are several early sources that refer to a "Hengest". The earliest clear source is Bede, whose Ecclesiastical History of the English People (written about 730) states that Hengest was brought to Britain by Vortigern as a mercenary, to fight the Picts.[2] Though Bede's dating, placed at some point between 449 and 455, cannot be treated as definite, it is generally believed that Hengest established the Kingdom of Kent around 455 AD.[3] As many auxiliary garrisons near Hadrian's wall were Frisian[4] Hengist has been identified as of Frisian stock [5]. However, Bede also says that Hengest was a Jute, and that the Jutes settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight; Saxons and Angles settled the south and east of England, respectively. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives a similar version of Hengest's arrival, apparently using Bede as a source; this part of the Chronicle probably dates from the late ninth century.[6] The Historia Britonum (ca 830) gives a full genealogy of Hengest and identifies him as a descendant of Finn, king of the Frisians [7]. There is also a character named Hengest who appears in two Old English poems: "The Fight at Finnsburg" and Beowulf. Taking the two poems together, it is apparent that Hengest is a member of King Hnaef the Dane's company, who on Hnaef's death leads his men against King Finn of Frisia.[8]
There is no particular reason to assume that because Hengest is part of Hnaef's force he must be a Dane: also among Hnaef's followers is Sigeferth a prince of the Secgan. Hengest comes across as an important character in his own right. He is described as an exile, and that he is a Jutish mercenary in Hnaef's service is a very plausible hypothesis. Alan Bliss suggests he might even be seen best as an Angle.[9]
The Beowulf and Finnesburg references are by no means necessarily to the same person as the mercenary described by Bede, but it has been conjectured that they are.[8] P. Hunter Blair has suggested that in Hengist we may have a history of a Danish chieftain's progression from Denmark, to Frisia, to southern England, in about the first half of the fifth century.[8]
It has also been suggested that Hengest is a purely mythical figure, though it is clear from archaeological evidence that Germanic settlements in Kent had definitely begun by the time Hengest is supposed to have come to Britain. The distinction Bede draws betweens Jutes, Angles and Saxons is also supported by fact that artefacts from Kent are distinctively different from those found elsewhere in the country, implying a different cultural origin for Kentish settlers.[2]
Following his victories over the Picts, Hengest invited more immigrants from Germania to settle in Britannia and then rebelled against Vortigern because the Britons refused to make an agreed payment, establishing himself as king in Kent. Both Hengest and Horsa are described as being Jutes, and sons of a Jutish chief named Wihtgils.
Nevertheless, all that Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), completed in 731, says of Hengest’s descent is:
“Their first leaders (duces) were two brothers Hengist and Horsa; ... They were the sons of Uictgils, his father Uitta, his father Uecta, his father Uoden, from his stock is drawn the royal race of many provinces.”[10]
Uoden, West Saxon Wōden, is the same as the Odin of Scandinavian tradition. In the foreword section 4 of the Prose Edda Snorri Sturluson gives another pedigree for Hengest, Heingest,from “Odin” :
“Then set Odin his three sons to guard the land. The first was named Vegdeg, he was a mighty king and ruled over East Saxony (‘Austr-Saxalandi’), his sons were Vitrgils (=Uictgils) and Vitta (=Uitta), father of Hengest (‘Heingest’), and Sigarr, father of Svegdeg, who we (i.e. the Icelanders) call Svipdag.” [11]
[edit] Doubted historicity
The historical existence of Hengest and Horsa has been called into question many times, with many historians labelling these two as legendary 'divine twins' or culture heroes along the order of Romulus and Remus. It is perhaps likelier that:
- Hengest, meaning 'Stallion' in Anglo-Saxon (in modern German and Dutch Hengst and in the Scandinavian languages Hingst is still the word for a stallion), was an honorific name or nickname for an officer (cf. colloquial English "stud" for a strong, virile male, originally denoting a stallion used for breeding. The German equivalent of "stud" for a human male is actually Hengst).
- Horsa was a later accretion to the story: see Horsa.
- Modern English henchman (hengestman, "squire") derives from the word.
[edit] Hengest and Horsa
Horsa, according to tradition, was the brother of Hengest. His name Horsa (genitive Horsan) looks like a hypocoristic form for a compound word name whose first component is Hors-.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 455 says that "Here Hengest and Horsa fought against King Vortigern in the place that is called Aylesford, and his brother Horsa was killed, and after that Hengest and his son Æsc took the kingdom."[12]
It is said that a monument was raised in his memory, White Horse Stone near Maidstone being the traditional site, but twin warriors are a common theme in folklore, and because Bede, our earliest witness to Horsa's existence, mentions a stone that recorded his name, recent scholars have speculated that perhaps:
- His name came from a Roman inscription which was illegible except for part of the Latin word cohors (genitive cohortis). That stone may have been Horsa's supposed gravestone.
[edit] In the later medieval tradition
Later accounts in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Historia Britonum, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and Wace's Roman de Brut add further details from tradition and legend about Hengest's career. The most famous of these include the tale of his beautiful daughter Rowena who seduces Vortigern. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates his death to 488, but does not provide a cause. Geoffrey of Monmouth states Hengest was captured in battle by Eldol, Duke of Gloucester and subsequently beheaded by Eldol's brother, Eldadus, the Bishop of Gloucester.
The Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle of the Auchinleck Manuscript dated to the 1330s[13], has a lengthy section on 'Hengist',[14] who is wrongly considered by the author as an ancient king of the Britons who reigned a hundred and fifty years [15]. The foundation of the towns of Lincoln, Hereford, Worcester,Shrewsbury, Stafford, Chester,Oxford, Reading, Wallingford,Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, Northampton, Gloucester, Threckingham, Dudley, Evesham, Durham, Newcastle and Carlisle are therein attributed to him. Also the establishment of the institution of parliament; the establishment of the institutions of shire and hundred; the measurement of furlong and mile; the building of Stonehenge, which is there derived from his name; the re-naming of London 'Hengisthon'; the conjuring of three hundred fiends to build a stone bridge twenty miles over the sea to France; the conquest of many lands beyond the sea; the begetting of thirty-five children (twenty-seven sons and eight daughters) by seven wives!
In the Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle Hengest’s proper place in the accepted chronology is taken by ‘maiden Inge’ (lines 1263 to 1344) who is obviously a confusion of Hengest and the originally unnamed ‘filia Hencgisti’ who first turns up in capitulus 37 of the Historia Britonum.
[edit] In culture
Hengest is a character in the Fight at Finnsburg narrated in the Finnsburg Fragment and the Beowulf poem. In these texts, Hengest is a Danish warrior who takes control of the Danish forces after the prince Hnæf is killed, and succeeds in killing the Frisian lord Finn in revenge for his lord's death. The events in these accounts had a historical basis, and have been supposed by historians to occur in approximately AD 450. This makes these events contemporary with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England, though what connection (if any) exists between the two Hengests is unknown.
Nevertheless, some have speculated that the two Hengests are one and the same. A point against this theory is the fact that one Hengest is described as a Jute and the other a Dane, though this does not serve as a conclusive disproof, as distinctions between adjacent groups (both Jutes and Danes lived in Denmark) were sometimes vague.
Hengest is the subject of the 1620 play Hengist, King of Kent, or The Mayor of Quinborough by Thomas Middleton.
Hengest appears in the Rosemary Sutcliff novel The Lantern Bearers.
In the 2008 film Merlin and the War of the Dragons, Hengist is shown to be a knight serving under King Vortigern.
[edit] The Reputed Arms of Hengest
Edward Hasted The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 1, 1797C.E. p.62, citing Richard Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Antiquities (1605), records the arms of Hengest as a white horse (see White horse of Kent) on a red field.[16]
The arms of the German city of Bünde, Westphalia, displays two knights who are shaking hands, identified in legend as Hengist and Horsa, who met where the city stands today to make a pact with each other to take over Britain. So today, in Bünde there are two streets named Hengistweg and Horsastraße.
The two states of Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony have the Sachsenross or "Horse of Saxony", the white horse on red ground in their arms. Bünde lies in the northeastern part of Westphalia at the border of Lower Saxony.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ John Morby, Dynasties of the World: a chronological and genealogical handbook (Oxford University Press, 1989), page 64.
- ^ a b Fletcher, Richard (1989). Who's Who in Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England. Shepheard-Walwyn. pp. 16–17. ISBN 0-85683-089-5.; Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ch. XV
- ^ John Morby, Dynasties of the World: a chronological and genealogical handbook (Oxford, Oxfordshire, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1989), page 64.
- ^ Examples are Cuneus Frisiorum Vinoviensium (3rd century), Cuneus Frisiorum Vercoviciensium (early 3rd century), Cohors I Frisiavonum (Frixagorum) (3rd-4th century).
- ^ W. F. Skene (2002). "On the Early Frisian Settlements in Scotland", PSAS 4, 169-181
- ^ Campbell, John; John, Eric & Wormald, Patrick (1991). The Anglo-Saxons. Penguin Books. pp. 111. ISBN 0-14-014395-5.
- ^ Historia Britonum III, 31.
- ^ a b c Hunter Blair, Peter (1960). An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 15.
- ^ Bliss, editing J. R. R. Tolkien, "Finn and Hengest".
- ^ Bede, Book I, chapter 15: Duces fuisse perhibentur eorum primi duo fratres Hengist et Horsa; ... Erant autem filii Uictgilsi, cuius pater Uitta, cuius pater Uecta, cuius pater Uoden, de cuius stirpe multarum prouinciarum regium genus originem duxit. (on-line text at "The Latin Library").
- ^ Þar setr Óðinn til landgæzlu þrjá sonu sína. Er einn nefndr Vegdeg, var hann ríkr konungr ok réð fyrir Austr-Saxalandi, hans synir váru þeir Vitrgils ok Vitta, faðir Heingests, ok Sigarr, faðir Svegdeg, er vér köllum Svipdag. ( on-line text at Texti Trektarbókar)
- ^ "Her Hengest ⁊ Horsa fuhton wiþ Wyrtgeorne þam cyninge, in þære stowe þe is gecueden Agælesþrep, ⁊ his broþur Horsan man ofslog; ⁊ æfter þam Hengest feng to rice ⁊ Æsc his sunu." See Battle of Aylesford, Kent.
- ^ NLS Adv. MS 19.2.1, ff.304ra-317rb; Auchinleck Manuscript
- ^ Auchinleck Manuscript f.307vb-f.308vb, lines 655 to 876.
- ^ Auchinleck Manuscript.
- ^ 'General history: Kings of Kent (Hengist to Baldred)', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 1 (1797), pp. 62-80. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=53757 Date accessed: 27 November 2008.
[edit] References
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007) |
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
- Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
- The Historia Britonum, attributed to Nennius
- Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae
- Wace's Roman de Brut
[edit] External links
- The Song of the Shield Wall, with lyrics and links to recorded excerpts.
| New title Conquest
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King of Kent 455/456-488 with Horsa |
Succeeded by Oisc |
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