Editing Kingdom of Essex (section)

==Extent==
[[File:Ancient Essex 750.png|thumb|200px|left|A map showing the outline of those parts now adjacent to the traditional county of Essex (in grey), but which historians postulate were part of the ancient Kingdom of Essex before becoming detached during the middle of the 8th century.]]
The Kingdom of Essex was bounded to the north by the [[River Stour, Suffolk|River Stour]] and the [[Kingdom of East Anglia]], to the south by the [[River Thames]] and [[Kent]], to the east lay the [[North Sea]] and to the west [[Mercia]]. The territory included the remains of two provincial [[Roman Britain|Roman]] capitals, [[Colchester]] and [[London]].

The kingdom included the [[Middle Saxons|Middle Saxon Province]],<ref name="Keightley1842">{{cite book|last=Keightley|first=Thomas|author-link=Thomas Keightley|title=The History of England: In two volumes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XuU9AAAAcAAJ|year=1842|publisher=Longman}}</ref> which included the area of the later County of Middlesex and most, if not all, of [[Hertfordshire]]<ref name="Yorke, B. 1984 pp47-52">{{cite book|last=Yorke|first=Barbara|author-link=Barbara Yorke|title=Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BC6EAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA16|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-70725-6|pages=47–52}}</ref> Although the province is ever recorded only as part of the East Saxon Kingdom, charter evidence shows that it was not part of its core territory. In the core area, it granted charters freely, but further west, it did so while making reference to its [[Mercia|Mercian]] overlords. At times, Essex was ruled jointly by co-Kings, and it thought that the Middle Saxon Province is likely to have been the domain of one of the co-kings.<ref>''Kings and Kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England'', Chapter 3, Barbara Yorke, 1990, Routledge, {{ISBN|0-415-16639-X}}</ref> The links to Essex between Middlesex and parts of Hertfordshire were long reflected in the [[Diocese of London]], re-established in 604 as the East Saxon see, and its boundaries continued to be based on the Kingdom of Essex until the nineteenth century.

The East Saxons also had intermittent control of [[Surrey]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Baker|first=John T.|title=Cultural Transition in the Chilterns and Essex Region, 350 AD to 650 AD|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=958MjgksbckC&pg=PA12|year=2006|publisher=Univ of Hertfordshire Press|isbn=978-1-902806-53-2|page=12}}</ref> For a brief period in the 8th century, the Kingdom of Essex controlled west Kent.

[[Image:Diocese of London Survey by John Harris 1714.jpg|thumb|264px|right|The Diocese of London in 1714. The diocese had its roots in the East Saxon kingdom and was probably originally larger than shown here.]]

The modern English [[county]] of Essex maintains the historic northern and the southern borders but covers only the territory east of the [[River Lea]], the other parts being lost to neighbouring [[Mercia]] during the 8th century.<ref name="Yorke, B. 1984 pp47-52"/>

In the [[Tribal Hidage]] it is listed as containing 7,000 [[hide (unit)|hide]]s.