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Template:Wessex family tree

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The chart shows their (claimed) descent from the traditional first king of Wessex, Cerdic, down to the children of Alfred the Great. A continuation of the tree into the 10th and 11th centuries can be found at English monarchs family tree.

The tree is largely based on the late 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List (reproduced in several forms, including as a preface to the [B] manuscript of the Chronicle),[1] and Asser's Life of King Alfred. These sources are all closely related and were compiled at a similar date, and incorporate a desire in their writers to associate the royal household with the authority of being a continuation of a unified line of kingship descended from a single original founder.[2]

One apparently earlier pedigree survives, which traces the ancestry of King Ine back to Cerdic. This first appears in a 10th-century manuscript copy of the "Anglian collection" of Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies. The manuscript is thought to have been made at Glastonbury in the 930s during the reign of King Æthelstan [3] (whose family traced their own royal descent back to Cerdic via a brother of King Ine), but the material may well date back to the earliest reconstructable version of the collection, c. 796; and possibly still further back, to 725–726.[4] Compared to the later texts, this pedigree gives an ancestry for Ceolwald as son of Cuthwulf son of Cuthwine which in the later 9th-century texts sometimes seems confused; and it states Cynric as son of Creoda son of Cerdic, whereas the Chronicle annals go to some length to present Cerdic and Cynric as a father-and-son pair who land in and conquer the southern part of Wessex together (a narrative now considered spurious by historians).[5]

Wessex Family Tree

The red border indicates the monarchs
The thick border indicates the close relatives of the monarchs (parents, spouses and children)

Cerdic
d. 534
1st King of Wessex
519–534
Cynric
d. 560
2nd King of Wessex
534–560
Ceawlin
d. 593
3rd King of Wessex
560–592
Cutha
?
Ceolwulf
?
Cuthwine
b. 565
Ceol
d. 597
4th King of Wessex
592–597
Ceolwulf
d. 611
5th King of Wessex
597–611
Cuthgils
?
Cynebald
?
Cedda
c. 590?
Cuthwulf
fl. 592–648
Cynegils
d. 643
6th King of Wessex
611–643
Pybba
d.c. 606–615
King of Mercia
593–c. 606–615
Cenferth
?
Cenberht
c. 620–661
Ceolwald
?
Cwichelm
d. 636
7th King of Wessex
625–636
Centwine
d. 685
13th King of Wessex
676–685
Seaxburh
d.c. 674
(11th) Queen of Wessex
c. 672 – c. 674
Cenwalh
d. 674
8/10th King of Wessex
642–645–648–683
sister
of Penda
?
Penda
c. 606–655
9th King of Wessex
645–648
Eowa
?
Cenfus
d. 674
12th King of Wessex
674
Cædwalla
c. 659–689
14th King of Wessex
685–688
Mul
d. 687
King of Kent
686–687
Cenred
?
Cuthred
b. before 639–661
Osmod
?
Æscwine
d. 676
12th King of Wessex
674–676
Ingild
?
Ine
c. 670–after 726
15th King of Wessex
689–726
Æthelburg
?
Æthelheard
d. 740?
16th King of Wessex
726–740
Cuthred
d. 756
17th King of Wessex
740–756
Eanwulf
?
Eoppa
?
Sigeberht
?
18th King of Wessex
756–757
Cyneheard
d. 786
Cynewulf
d. 786
19th King of Wessex
757–786
Thingfrith
?
Eafa
?
Offa
d. 796
King of Mercia
757–796
Ealhmund
c. 745–827
King of Kent
784
Beorhtric
d. 802
20th King of Wessex
786–802
Eadburh
fl. 787–802
Ecgberht
c. 770–839
21st King of Wessex
802–839
Judith
c. 843–870
Æthelwulf
c. 795–858
22nd King of Wessex
839–858
Osburh
?
Æthelstan
d.c. 852
King of Kent
839–851
Æthelbald
c. 831–860
23rd King of Wessex
858–860
Æthelberht
c. 835–865
24th King of Wessex
860–865
Æthelred I
c. 847–871
25th King of Wessex
865–871
Alfred the Great
c. 848–849–899
26th King of Wessex
871–c. 886
1st King of the Anglo-Saxons
c. 886–899
English monarchs family tree
  1. ^ Dumville, David N. (1985). "The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List and the Chronology of Early Wessex". Peritia. 4: 21–66. doi:10.1484/J.Peri.3.96.
    Dumville, David N. (1986). "The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List: Manuscripts and Texts". Anglia. 104: 1–32. doi:10.1515/angl.1986.1986.104.1.
  2. ^ A "political fiction", according to Kirby, D.P. (1992). The Earliest English Kings. London: Routledge. p. 49. ISBN 0-4150-9086-5.
  3. ^ Sisam, Kenneth (1953). "Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies". Proceedings of the British Academy. 39: 287–348.
    Dumville, David N. (1976). Clemoes (ed.). "The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists". Anglo-Saxon England. 5: 23–50. doi:10.1017/S0263675100000764.
  4. ^ Dumville 1976, pp. 40, 42, 46. It is also possible that the material may first have been joined in with the collection in a copy made in Mercia c. 840.
  5. ^ Yorke, Barbara (1989). "The Jutes of Hampshire and Wight and the origins of Wessex". In Bassett, S.R. (ed.). The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. Leicester University Press. pp. 84–96. ISBN 0-7185-1317-7.. Yorke's theory "has met with general acceptance (I cannot find any historian or archaeologist that disagrees with her conclusions)", according to Bush, Robin (28 August 2001). "Were the West Saxons guilty of ethnic cleansing?". Time Team Live 2001. Channel 4. Archived from the original on 19 February 2006.