Kingdom of Lindsey

Kingdom Of Lindsey

Lindsey or Linnuis (Old English Lindesege) was a lesser Anglo-Saxon kingdom, absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century.

It lay between the Humber estuary and the Wash, forming its inland boundaries from the courses of the Witham and Trent rivers, and the Foss Dyke between them. A marshy region south of the Humber known as the Isle of Axholme was also included. It is believed that Roman Lindum (Lincoln) was the capital of Lindsey: the continuity of the place name suggests continuity of settlement traditions: in 625, Bede recounts, the missionary Paulinus of York was received by the praefectus of Lindum. Place-name evidence indicates that the Anglian settlement known as Lindisfaras spread from the Humber coast.

Lindsey means the 'island of Lincoln': it was surrounded by water and very wet land. Lincoln was in the south-west part of the kingdom. During the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, from about 450, Lindsey was one of the lesser kingdoms. Although it has its own list of kings, at an early date it came under external influence. It was from time to time effectively part of Deira, of the Northumbrian kingdom, and particularly later, of Mercia. Lindsey lost its independence long before the arrival of the Danish settlers.

The kingdom's prominence was before the historical period. By the time of the first historical records of Lindsey, it had become a subjugated polity, under the alternating control of Northumbria and Mercia. Its subjugation may have occurred around AD 500, during the period when the British leader known as Arthur fought his second, third and fourth battles of twelve in 'Linnuis.' His twelfth victory held back Anglo-Saxon expansion for fifty years. All trace of Lindsey's separate status had vanished before the Viking assault in the late ninth century. Its territories were absorbed into the historical English county of Lincolnshire, the northern part of which is called Lindsey.

Dr. Kevin Leahy, in The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Lindsey: The Archaeology of an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom (2008), provides a recent overview of the archaeology of Lindsey.