Lindsey

Lindsey or Linnuis is the name of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom that lay between the Humber and the Wash, forming its inland boundries from the course of the Witham and Trent rivers (with the inclusion of an area inside of a marshy region south of the Humber known as the Isle of Axholme), and the Foss Dyke between them. It is believed that Lincoln was the capital of this kingdom.

Lindsey's greatest power was before the historical period. At the time of the first historical records of Lindsey, it has become a subjugated polity, under the alternating control of Northumbria then Mercia. All trace of its individuality vanished before the Viking assault. Its territories evolved into the historical English county of Lincolnshire.

A collection of genealogies, created in the last years of Offa's reign, gives the names of the ruling lineage of Lindsey:

Woden
Winta
Cretta
Queldgils
Ceadbed
Bubba
Bedeca
Biscop
Eanferth
Eatta
Ealdfrith

Only the last individual (Ealdfrith) can be securly dated: Frank Stenton refers to an Anglo-Saxon charter (BCS 262) that mentions Ealdfrith, and dates its writing to some time between AD 787 and 796.

The kingdom gave its name to a traditional subdivison of Lincolnshire, which includes most the urbanised areas. Places in Lindsey today include -