Gifford, 1348; Ralph de Kneyton, at Aveley, 1370; Robert de Swynbourne, at Little Horkesley, 1391; and Sir Ingelram de Bruyn, at South Ockendon, 1400. The brass of Thomas Heron, aged 14, at Little Ilford, though dating only from 1517, is of interest as a picture of a schoolboy of the period. Ancient wooden effigies are preserved at Danbury, Little Leighs and Little Horkesley.
Essex was rich in monastic foundations, though the greater number have left but meagre ruins behind. The Benedictines had an abbey at Saffron Walden, nunneries at Barking and Wickes, and priories at Earl’s or Monk’s Colne and Castle Hedingham; the Augustinian canons had an abbey at Waltham (see Waltham Abbey; the portion remaining shows Norman work of the finest character), priories at Thoby, Blackmore, Bicknacre, Little Leighs, Little Dunmow and St Osyth (see Brightlingsea); there were Cistercian abbeys at Coggeshall, Stratford and Tilty; the Cluniac monks were settled at Prittlewell, the Premonstratensians at Beleigh Abbey, and the Knights Hospitallers at Little Maplestead. Barking Abbey is said to date its first origin from the 7th century; most of the others arose in the 12th and 13th centuries. Besides the keep at Colchester there is a fine Norman castle at Castle Hedingham, and two dilapidated round towers still stand at Hadleigh near Southend. Ongar, the house of the de Lacys, and Pleshey, the seat of the earls of Essex, have left only mounds. Havering-atte-Bower, the palace that was occupied by many queens, is replaced by a modern house; Wickham, the mansion of the bishops of London, no longer stands. New Hall, which was successively occupied by Henry VIII., Elizabeth, the earl of Essex, George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, and Cromwell, is now a nunnery of the order of the Holy Sepulchre. Audley End, the mansion of Lord Braybrooke, is a noble example of the domestic architecture of the Jacobean period; Layer Marney is an interesting proof of the Italian influences that were at work in the time of Wolsey. Horeham Hall was built by Sir John Cutt in the reign of Henry VII., and Gosfield Hall is of about the same date.
See Norden, Speculi Britanniae Pars: an Hist. and Geogr. Descrip. of the County of Essex (1594) (edited for the Camden Society by Sir Henry Ellis, 1840, from the original MS. in the Marquis of Salisbury’s library at Hatfield); Nicholas Tindal, Hist. of Essex (1720); N. Salmon, The Hist. and Antiq. of Essex (London, 1740)—based on the collections of James Strangman of Hadleigh (v. Trans. of Essex Arch. Soc. vol. ii.); P. Morant, Hist. and Antiq. of the County of Essex (London, 1768); P. Muilman, New and Complete Hist. of Essex from a late Survey, by a Gentleman (Chelmsford, 6 vols., 1770–1772, London, 1779); Elizabeth Ogbourne, Hist. of Essex (London, part i., 1814); Excursions through Essex, illustrated with one hundred engravings (2 vols., London, 1818); T. Wright, Hist. and Topography of Essex (1831); W. Berry, Pedigrees of Families in Essex (1841); A. Suckling, Memorials of the Antiquities, &c., of the County of Essex (London, 1845); W. Andrews (ed.), Bygone Essex (London, 1892); J. T. Page (ed.), Essex in the Days of Old (London, 1898); Victoria County History, Essex; Transactions of the Essex Arch. Soc. from 1858. An account of various MS. collections connected with the county is given by H. W. King in vol. ii. of the Transactions (1863).
ESSEX, KINGDOM OF, one of the kingdoms into which
Anglo-Saxon Britain was divided, properly the land of the East
Saxons. Of its origin and early history we have no record except
the bare statement of Bede that its settlers were of the Old Saxon
race. In connexion with this it is interesting to notice that the
East Saxon dynasty claimed descent from Seaxneat, not Woden.
The form Seaxneat is identical with Saxnot, one of three gods
mentioned in a short continental document probably of Old
Saxon origin. Bede does not mention this kingdom in his narrative
until 604, the year of the consecration of Mellitus to the see
of London. The boundaries of Essex were in later times the
rivers Stour and Thames, but the original limits of the kingdom
are quite uncertain; towards the west it probably included most
if not the whole of Hertfordshire, and in the 7th century the
whole of Middlesex. In 604 we find Essex in close dependence
upon Kent, being ruled by Saberht, sister’s son of Æthelberht,
under whom the East Saxons received Christianity. The three
sons of Saberht, however, expelled Mellitus from his see, and even
after their death in battle against the West Saxons, Eadbald of
Kent was unable to restore him. In the year 653 we find North-umbrian
influence paramount in Essex, for King Sigeberht at the
instance of Oswio became a Christian and received Cedd, the
brother of St Chad, in his kingdom as bishop, Tilbury and
Ythanceastere (on the Blackwater) being the chief scenes of his
work. Swithhelm, the successor of Sigeberht, was on terms of
friendship with the East Anglian royal house, King Æthelwald
being his sponsor at his baptism by Cedd. It was probably
about this time that Erconwald, afterwards bishop of London,
founded the monastery of Barking. Swithhelm’s successors
Sigehere and Sebbe were dependent on Wulfhere, the powerful
king of Mercia, who on the apostasy of Sigehere sent Bishop
Jaruman to restore the faith. There are grounds for believing
that an East Saxon conquest of Kent took place in this reign.
A forged grant of Ceadwalla speaks of the fall of Kent before
Sigehere as a well-known event; and in a Kentish charter dated
676 a king of Kent called Swebhard grants land with the consent
of his father King Sebbe. In 692 or 694 Sebbe abdicated and
received the monastic vows from Waldhere, the successor of
Erconwald at London. His sons Sigeheard and Swefred succeeded
him as kings of Essex, Sigehere being apparently dead.
As the laws of Ine of Wessex speak of Erconwald as “my
bishop,” it is possible that the influence of Wessex for a short
time prevailed in Essex; but a subsequent charter of Swefred
is approved by Coenred of Mercia, and Offa, the son of Sigehere,
accompanied the same king to Rome in 709. From this time
onwards the history of Essex is almost a blank. In 743 or
745 Æthelbald of Mercia is found granting privileges at the port
of London, and perhaps the western portion of the kingdom had
already been annexed, for henceforward London is frequently
the meeting-place of the Mercian council. The violent death of
Selred, king of Essex, is mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle under
the year 746; but we have no more information of historical
importance until the defeat of the Mercian king Beornwulf in
825, when Essex, together with Kent, Sussex and Surrey, passed
into the hands of Ecgbert, king of Wessex. After 825 we hear
of no more kings of Essex, but occasionally of earls. About the
year 870 Essex passed into the hands of the Danes and was left
to them by the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum. It was
reconquered by Edward the Elder. The earldom in the 10th
century apparently included several other counties, and its
most famous holder was the ealdorman Brihtnoth, who fell at
the battle of Maldon in 991.
The following is a list of kings of Essex of whom there is record: Saberht (d. c. 617); three sons of Saberht, including probably Saweard and Seaxred; Sigeberht (Parvus); Sigeberht II.; Swithhelm (d. c. 664); Sigehere (reigned perhaps 664–689); Sebbe, son of Seaxred (664-694); Sigeheard (reigning in 693–694); Swefred (reigning in 693–694 and in 704); the two last being sons of Sebbe; Swebriht (d. 738); Selred (d. 746); Swithred, grandson of Sigeheard (succ. 746); Sigeric, son of Selered (abd. 798); Sigered, son of Sigeric (reigning in 823).
See Bede, Hist. Eccl., edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896), ii. 3, 5; Saxon Chronicle (Earle and Plummer, Oxford, 1899), s.a. 823, 894, 904, 913, 921, 994; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, Rolls Series (ed. Stubbs, 1887–1889); Simeon of Durham, s.a. 746 (ed. T. Arnold, 1882) and appendix, s.a. 738; Florence of Worcester (ed. B. Thorpe, London, 1848–1849); H. Sweet, Oldest English Texts, p. 179 (London, 1885). (F. G. M. B.)
ESSLINGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg,
in a fertile district on the Neckar, 9 m. S.E. from Stuttgart,
on the railway to Ulm. Pop. (1905) 29,750. It is surrounded
by medieval walls with towers and bastions, and has thirteen
suburbs, one lying on an island in the river. On a commanding
height above the town lies the old citadel. The inner town has
an old (1430) and a new Rathaus, the latter, formerly a palace,
an exceedingly handsome edifice. The church of Our Lady
(Frauenkirche) is a fine Gothic building of the 15th century, and
has a beautifully sculptured doorway and a lattice spire 240 ft.
high. The church of St Dionysius dated from the 13th century,
and possesses a fine screen and a ciborium of 1486. Esslingen
possesses several schools, a theatre and a richly endowed hospital,
while its municipal archives contain much valuable literature
bearing especially on the period of the Reformation. The town
