ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS The archasological method further brings to light signs of Kentish influence in East Anglia, and so far confirms the meagre testimony of the records. Strictly speaking history begins in England with the coming of Augustine, and it was then that the people of East Anglia looked to iEthelberht of Kent as their sovereign lord. The tie was snapped before the year 6i6, and Rsdwald apparently became an independent monarch/ defeating the northern king ./Ethelfrith on the river Idle in 617. But his prosperity was short-lived and till the battle of Winwaed in 655 East Anglia was in the power of Penda, the champion of paganism in England. A brief interval of Northumbrian supremacy or patronage was followed by more than a century of Mercian dominion, for the midland power, though checked by the defeat at Burford in 754, was advanced by Offa in the latter part of the century. Under him the zenith was passed and Mercia was eclipsed by the rise of an English nation under Ecgberht. It was mainly therefore under the protection of Kent that pagan East Anglia developed into a kingdom, while the preaching of St. Felix (631-47) came just before the Mercian influence began to be felt east- ward of the Fens. There is a local tradition that the school founded by the first bishop of East Anglia with aid from Kent was at Saham Toney, and it is all the more to be regretted that an Anglian cemetery said to have been discovered ' there has not been described. Archaeological support is given to the behef in Kentish influence throughout East Anglia in the first half of the seventh century by the two jewelled crosses found at Wilton and Ixworth ; and if it be objected that these afford but slender evidence, it must be pointed out that the chances are all in favour of their having belonged to Christian converts whose religion sanctioned the interment of the sacred symbol' with the faithful in place of the pagan array of arms and ornaments. This may in part explain why no relics were found associated with either of the pendants in question, though another explanation is suggested by the important find in the mound at Wieuwerd already referred to. The hoard was evidently not connected with an interment, though a skull was found in another part of the mound ; and the deposit, which had been roughly handled, was therefore in all probability the result of a foray into Frankish territory by some Frisian freebooters. The Bacton jewel, found as it was on the beach, may similarly be connected with some raid on the opposite Frankish coast, but it is nevertheless unlikely that such an ornament would have been buried quite alone. The third point to which attention may be directed is the evidence for two distinct modes of burial in what is now the county of Norfolk. The interment of the unburnt body alone remains to be considered, and though a little light may be thrown on the question by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other early authorities, it would be idle to pretend that the answer is as easy as further investigation of English and continental finds 1 His ' bretwaldadom ' is discussed by Hallam in Archeeolo^a, vol. xxxii. p. 24.8. ' Such is the report in the Norfolk Chronicle, April, 1852. 3 For the common practice in the eleventh and twelfth centuries see Archaoloffa, vol. xxxv. p. 300. 345
