Editing Bretwalda (section)

==Etymology==
The first syllable of the term ''bretwalda'' may be related to [[Britons (historical)|''Briton'']] or ''Britain''. The second element is taken to mean 'ruler' or '[[sovereign]]'. Thus, one interpretation might be 'sovereign of Britain'.<ref>{{Citation | last = Webster | title = Online dictionary | url = http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/Ki/Kingly+Titles.html | contribution = Kingly titles | access-date = 16 September 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080516015422/http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/Ki/Kingly+Titles.html | archive-date = 16 May 2008 | url-status = dead }}.</ref><ref>{{Citation | series = Books | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4pxJAAAAIAAJ&q=%3B&pg=PA11 | title = Europe During the Middle Ages | author-link = Samuel Astley Dunham | first = Samuel Astley | last = Dunham| year = 1834 }}.</ref> Otherwise, the word may be a [[Compound (linguistics)|compound]] containing the [[Old English]] adjective ''brytten'' ('broad', from the verb ''breotan'' meaning 'to break' or 'to disperse'),<ref>{{Citation | title = A Short Constitutional History of England | first = H. | last = St Clair Feilden | publisher = BiblioBazaar | year = 2009 | isbn = 978-1-103-28759-8 | page = 33}}.</ref> an element also found in the terms ''bryten rice'' ('kingdom'), ''bryten-grund'' ('the wide expanse of the earth') and ''bryten cyning'' ('king whose authority was widely extended'). Though the origin is ambiguous, the draughtsman of the charter issued by [[Æthelstan]] used the term in a way that can only mean 'wide-ruler'.<ref>{{Citation | title = Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo | first1 = Calvin B. | last1 = Kendall | first2 = Peter S. | last2 = Wells | publisher = University of Minnesota Press | year = 1992 | isbn = 978-0-8166-2024-1 | page = [https://archive.org/details/voyagetootherwor00kend_0/page/111 111] | url = https://archive.org/details/voyagetootherwor00kend_0/page/111 }}</ref>

The latter etymology was first suggested by [[John Mitchell Kemble]]<ref name="kemble"/> who alluded that "of six manuscripts in which this passage occurs, one only reads ''Bretwalda'': of the remaining five, four have ''Bryten-walda'' or ''-wealda'', and one ''Breten-anweald'', which is precisely synonymous with Brytenwealda"; that Æthelstan was called ''brytenwealda ealles ðyses ealondes'',<ref name="kemble">{{cite book| last= Kemble |first= John Mitchell | author-link= John Mitchell Kemble | title= The Saxons in England: A History of the English Commonwealth till the Period of the Norman Conquest | year= 1876 | publisher= Bernard Quaritch | location =London | volume= II |pages = 19–21}}</ref> which Kemble translates as 'ruler of all these islands'; and that ''bryten-'' is a common prefix to words meaning 'wide or general dispersion' and that the similarity to the word ''bretwealh'' ('Briton') is "merely accidental".<ref name="kemble"/>