What is Heptarchy?
[[Image:Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.jpg|300px|thumb|{{center|A map of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy}}]] The '''heptarchy''' ({{lang-grc|ἑπτά + ἀρχή}}, ''seven'' + ''realm'') is a collective name applied to seven [[Anglo-Saxon]] [[:wikt:kingdom|kingdoms]]. These were: [[Northumbria]], [[Mercia]], [[East Anglia]], [[Essex (kingdom)|Essex]], [[Kent (kingdom)|Kent]], [[Kingdom of Sussex|Sussex]] and [[Wessex]]. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms eventually became the [[Kingdom of England]]. The term has been in use since the [[16th century]]. It is used to apply both to the seven kingdoms and to the time period in which they existed. == Origins of the heptarchy == The idea of a heptarchy, a group of seven independent kingdoms, is thought to have come from the [[English people|English]] [[historian]] Henry of Huntingdon in the 12th century. He listed the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in his ''Historia Anglorum'' (History of the English People).<ref name=Goffart55>Walter Goffart, 'The First Venture into 'Medieval Geography': Lambarde's Map of the Saxon Heptarchy (1568)', ''Alfred the Wise'', eds. Jane Roberts; Janet L. Nelson; Malcolm Godden (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewster Inc., 1997), p. 55 & note 10</ref> [[Bede]], however, set up the idea that several kingdoms were more dominant than others (at different times). He created a list of kings who dominated the other kingdoms. The dividing line between these kingdoms was the [[River Humber]]. [[Northumbria]] ([[Deira]] and [[Bernicia]]) was the northern kingdom while the remaining kingdoms were those of the southern English.<ref>Frank Stenton, ''Anglo-Saxon England'' (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 32</ref> The actual term 'heptarchy' was first used in the 16th century by William Lambarde. His 1568 [[woodcut]] map is the earliest known use of the term.<ref>Walter Goffart, 'The First Venture into 'Medieval Geography': Lambarde's Map of the Saxon Heptarchy (1568)', ''Alfred the Wise'', eds. Jane Roberts; Janet L. Nelson; Malcolm Godden (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewster Inc.