Lindsey was a sixth century British kingdom, of obscure origin and with almost no recorded history of any significance
Location
Geographically the kingdom of Lindsey was centred on the old
Roman colonia of
Lindum or modern
Lincoln, and cut off from the rest of the country by the
Trent valley to the west, marshes and wetlands to the south, and on the other two sides by the sea and the
Humber estuary.
Rulers
It has its own king list,
- Caedbaed
- Beda
- Bubba
- Biscop
- Eanferth
- Eatta
- Aldfrith
but unfortunately no clear regnal dating exists for these kings. Caedbaed is believed to have reigned around 570, Beda, Bubba and Biscop during the early to mid seventh century with Aldfrith perhaps in the early eighth.
Caedbaed is supplied with the appropriate geneology and is supposedly the son of Cueldgils son of Cretta son of Winta son of Woden. In any event Caedbaed is one of those Brythonic derived names, which taken together with the fact that the name Lindsey is obviously derived from the Roman Lindum, implies that the kingdom was established on a co-operative basis between native Romano-British and Germanic immigrants or mercenaries.
History
All we really know of the kingdom of Lindsey is based on a few scattered references in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation.
For the year 628 he tells us that,
Paulinus also preached the word to the province of Lindsey, which is the first on the south side of the river Humber, stretching out as far as the sea; and he first converted the governor of the city of Lincoln, whose name was Blecca, with his whole family.
And the reference to the
governor of the city of
Lincoln might be taken to imply that Lindsey was no longer an independent by then. And we could also presume from the fact that
Oswald's remains were interred at
Bardney Abbey that it was subject to
Northumbria (at least by 642.)
A reference for 669 to one Wulfhere, king of Mercia granting land for the construction of a monastery in Lindsey would indicate that control had passed to Mercia by then. Later Bede tell us that Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria "having overcome and vanquished Wulfhere" retakes Lindsey, but by 678 Aethelred, Wulfhere's successor "had recovered that province"
And that is all we know.
Sometime in the early seventh century Lindsey became subject to Northumbria, either due to the efforts of Edwin or Oswald or both. (Since there was a significant interregnum between the two, when Lindsey would have been left to its own devices.)
And that afterwards control passed between Mercia and Northumbria in the later part of the century.