The Kingdom of Mercia

(Today part of: central England (without London)

The Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) had, since the 5^th century, started to conquer and settle the Roman province of Britannia, which had spread over the greater part of the Isle the Celtic tribes had named Albion. A series of smaller kingdoms had been established there over the following centuries – Kent, Wessex, Sussex, East Anglia, Mercia, Bernicia, Deira, etc.  By the 7^th century they will merge into three greater kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. The Mercia’s society was hierarchically structured, and was characterized by the dominance of men, submissiveness, and patriarchy. The Mercian elites will take up Christianity in the 7^th century. Seen as how the Christian Church in the Early Middle Ages still had not instituted an official dogma, a centralized inner organization, hierarchy, or infrastructure, so had Christianity started to be spread across the Isle by Celtic missionaries, whose type of  Christianity differed to an extent from that in Rome, e.g. in the specific way the date for Easter was decided, customs observed by the clergy, types of penance, or in accepting the way of life of the communities which adopted Christianity. Even when the Church hierarchy, modeled on that from the Roman Church, established itself, Celtic features will still remained present.

 The Kingdom of Mercia saw its peak under king Offa (ruled 757 – 796), who controlled a great area in the central, and south-eastern parts of the Isle, while in the 9^th century, the dominion gradually passed on to Wessex, culminating in Mercia completely losing its power when Vikings (or the Danes, as they were called by the people on the Isle) conquered a large eastern part of it in the 70s of the 9^th century. The last independent king of Mercia ruled its western parts until 879 AD, and his heirs ruled under the sovereignty of Wessex.