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Kingdom of the Hwicce | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 577–780s | |||||||||
 Kingdom of the Hwicce (with later counties). Wychwood Forest, a former Hwicce territory, had apparently been lost before 679. | |||||||||
| Capital | Worcester | ||||||||
| Religion | Paganism, Christianity | ||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| Historical era | Heptarchy | ||||||||
• Established | 577 | ||||||||
• Assimilated into Mercia | 780s | ||||||||
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Hwicce (Old English: [ˈʍittʃe]) was a kingdom in Anglo-Saxon England. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the kingdom was established in 577, after the Battle of Deorham. After 628, the kingdom became a client or sub-kingdom of Mercia as a result of the Battle of Cirencester.
The Tribal Hidage assessed Hwicce at 7,000 hides, an agricultural economy akin to either the kingdom of Essex or Sussex.
The exact boundaries of the kingdom remain uncertain, though it is likely that they coincided with those of the old Diocese of Worcester, founded in 679–680, the early bishops of which bore the title Episcopus Hwicciorum. The kingdom would therefore have included Worcestershire except the northwestern tip, Gloucestershire except the Forest of Dean, the southwestern half of Warwickshire, the neighbourhood of Bath north of the Avon, part of west Oxfordshire and small parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and north-west Wiltshire.[1][2]