Middle Saxons

{{Short description|Anglo-Saxon people}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

File:Essex 2.svg.]]

File:Kingdom of Mercia.PNG.]]

The Middle Saxons or Middel Seaxe{{Citation needed|date=October 2017|reason=In which source is the term 'Middel Seaxe' attested? Or is this a modern reconstruction?}} were a people whose territory later became, with somewhat contracted boundaries,{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} the county of Middlesex, England.

The first known mention of Middlesex stems from a royal charter of 704 between king Swæfred of Essex, the abdicating king Æthelred of Mercia and succeeding king Coenred of Mercia, granting some land to bishop Walhere in Tuican hom (Twickenham) in the provincia called Middleseaxan.{{Cite web |url=http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.php?aid=4&cid=28&ctid=3 |title=First written mention of 'Tuican hom' in a Charter 704 |work=The Twickenham Museum |accessdate=28 October 2017}}{{ cite book | title=Middlesex | url=https://archive.org/details/middlesex00stev | url-access=registration | first=Bruce | last=Stevenson | page= [https://archive.org/details/middlesex00stev/page/13 13] | year=1972 | publisher=Batsford | isbn=9780713400700 }}

It likely included the early London settlement, Lundenwic,{{Citation needed|date=October 2017|reason=Did it? Robert McColl Miller (2012) p.58 claims Westminster was part of Middlesex, but London proper was part of Essex. https://books.google.com/books?id=TaNvAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58}} and probably Surrey,{{Citation needed|date=October 2017}} the "south region" of the Middle Saxon territory. There is also some evidence that may suggest Middle Saxon settlement in western Kent.

The name reflects the situation of these people being in the middle between the South Saxons, the East Saxons and the West Saxons, and distinguishing them from the Angles in the north. Unlike these neighbours, the Middle Saxons did not manage to create a lasting kingdom of their own. According to G. F. Bosworth (1913), 'there is no evidence that Middlesex was originally a separate kingdom, and we may say with a considerable amount of certainty that it formed part of the kingdom of Essex (...).'{{Cite book |last=Bosworth |first=G. F. |date=2012 |title=Middlesex. Cambridge Country Geographies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kH_n0RHOt8IC&pg=PA3 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=3 |isbn=9781107652910 |accessdate=28 October 2017}} However, F.M. Stenton (1971) comments that the Middle Saxon's "original independence is at least probable".{{Cite journal|last=Stephenson|first=Carl|date=November 1944|title=Anglo-Saxon England. By F. M. Stenton. [The Oxford History of England, edited by G. N. Clark.] Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1943. Pp. vii, 748. $7.50.|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/anglosaxon-england-by-f-m-stenton-the-oxford-history-of-england-edited-by-g-n-clark-oxford-the-clarendon-press-1943-pp-vii-748-750/2043C67699F9853C35D136AF5EC803DD|journal=The Journal of Economic History|language=en|volume=4|issue=2|pages=216–217|doi=10.1017/S0022050700081407|s2cid=154046387 |issn=1471-6372|url-access=subscription}} The area was part of the Kingdom of EssexKeightley, Thomas, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3-E9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA9 The History of England] (1841), p.9.{{Better source needed|reason=Outdated scholarship|date=December 2021}} at the beginning of the 7th century,Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993–2002) s.v. "Essex [aardrijkskunde]". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum. but was ceded to Mercia in the 9th century (825).http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/EnglandMiddlesex.htm The History Files - Middel Seaxe (Middle Saxons / Middlesex)

The Middle Saxons were originally pagans, but adopted Christianity around the middle of the 7th century. They spoke their own variant of Old English, but Latin was used in writing.