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New Kingdoms

Early Medieval
400-1066 AD
53-33 generations ago

The land of the Pecsaetna may have been a buffer between Mercia and Northumbria

The Peak District was the region of the Pecsaetne. These people are recorded in the 7th century Tribal Hidage, a document which lists the provinces and client kingdoms that paid tribute to the kingdom of Mercia. Mercia may have seen the Peak District as a buffer zone between it and Northumbria.

Finding Clues

An Anglian burial barrow near Chelmorton being excavated

The Pecsaetne are likely to have been an Anglian elite who took control of the region rather than a mass migration who displaced the British population. During the 7th century, burials were placed in barrows and oriented west-east indicating a Christian rite. Most also contained simple grave goods but sometimes more precious items were included such as swords and the Benty Grange helmet found near Monyash.

Anglian farmers may have added to the existing population but it is not known what the scale of this may have been, if any. The survival of a well-established British community in the Hope Valley is suggested by ‘Eccles’ place-names (meaning church), the avoidance of the valley by 7th century Anglian burials and the presence of the Grey Ditch across Bradwell Dale, which was the main route between the Hope valley and the limestone plateau.

This early decorated cross survives today in Eyam churchyard

Decorated stone crosses were carved and placed at many locations in the region during the late-8th to early 11th centuries. Earlier crosses are in the style of the flourishing school of Mercian sculpture while those from the late-9th century onwards are influenced by more abstract Viking art. Danes took control of northern Mercia and southern Northumbria in the mid-9th century but the lack of distinctive place-names in the Peaks suggests there was only limited settlement in the region.

Does this earthwork at Bakewell define one side of the Anglian burh?

During the mid-10th century, Wessex won a series of decisive battles against Mercia, Viking Northumbria and Strathclyde. As part of this process a burh was built at Bakewell 923AD. This was where the treaty was signed between Wessex and the kingdoms it conquered so creating the English kingdom.

Open fields and strip lynchets have their origins in the early Medieval period

One of the most significant changes to the Peak District landscape in recent millennia was the transition from the individual farmsteads and small hamlets of the Roman period, to the villages of the limestone plateau and Derwent Valley. These villages and their associated large communal strip fields were created at this time. Much of the region was held by the King and administered through the Royal manors of Hope, Ashford, Bakewell, Darley, Matlock, Wirksworth and Ashbourne.

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