Editing Lewes (section)

===Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman===
The earliest phase of [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] settlement in Sussex was concentrated between the Rivers Ouse and [[Cuckmere]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Brandon |first=Peter |date=2004 |title=The South Saxons |publisher=Phillimore |pages=23–7}}</ref> and Anglo-Saxon finds begin to appear in Lewes from the sixth century.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brent |first=Colin |date=2004 |title=Pre-Georgian Lewes: The Emergence of a County Town |page=6}}</ref> The town of Lewes was probably founded around this time, and it may have been one of the most important settlements in the [[Kingdom of Sussex]], along with [[Chichester]] and [[Hastings]], though the evidence for this early period is very sketchy.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bassett |first=Steven |date=1989 |title=The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms |publisher=Leicester University Press}}</ref>
[[File:Coa England Family Warren of Surrey.svg|thumb|Arms of the [[Warenne family|de Warenne family]]]]

By the ninth century, the Kingdom of Sussex had been annexed to the [[Kingdom of Wessex]], and in 838 [[Ecgberht, King of Wessex]] donated the estate of Malling, on the opposite side of the Ouse from Lewes, to the [[Ceolnoth|Archbishop of Canterbury]]. As a result, the Parish of Malling became a '[[Royal Peculiar#Non-royal peculiars|peculiar]]', which means that the parish was directly subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury rather than the [[Cynered|Bishop of Chichester]] like every other parish in Sussex. Malling would retain this anomalous status until as late as 1845.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brent |first=Colin |date=2004 |title=Pre-Georgian Lewes: The Emergence of a County Town |page=13}}</ref>

Information about Lewes becomes much more plentiful from the reign of [[Alfred the Great]] onward, as it was one of the towns which he fortified as part of the network of ''[[burh]]s'' he established in response to the [[Viking Age#England|Viking raids]]. The peace and stability brought by Alfred and his successors evidently stimulated economic activity in the area, for in the late Anglo-Saxon period Lewes seems to have been a thriving boom town – during the reign of Alfred's grandson [[Æthelstan]] it was assigned two royal [[moneyer]]s, more than any other [[History of the English penny (1066-1154)|mint]] in Sussex, and according to Domesday Book it generated £26 of revenue for [[the Crown]] in 1065, almost twice the amount of any other town in the county, and comprised 127 households.<ref>{{cite web|title=Open Domesday: Lewes|url=https://opendomesday.org/place/TQ4110/lewes/|access-date=7 December 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Brent |first=Colin |date=2004 |title=Pre-Georgian Lewes: The Emergence of a County Town |pages=21–5}}</ref>

After the [[Norman Conquest]], [[William the Conqueror]] rewarded his retainer [[William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey|William de Warenne]] by making him [[Earl of Surrey]] and granting him the [[Rape of Lewes]], a strip of land stretching along the Ouse valley from the coast to the Surrey boundary. De Warenne constructed [[Lewes Castle]] within the walls of the Saxon ''burh'', while his wife [[Gundred, Countess of Surrey|Gundred]]a founded the [[Lewes Priory|Priory of St Pancras]], a [[Cluniac]] monastic house, in about 1081.