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.
Read more about this topic: Ine Of Wessex
Famous quotes containing the words internal and/or affairs:
“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“There are always those who are willing to surrender local self-government and turn over their affairs to some national authority in exchange for a payment of money out of the Federal Treasury. Whenever they find some abuse needs correction in their neighborhood, instead of applying the remedy themselves they seek to have a tribunal sent on from Washington to discharge their duties for them, regardless of the fact that in accepting such supervision they are bartering away their freedom.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)