Hengist of Kent

THE RECORD CARRIES ITS OWN DOUBT. The sources say plainly that the detailed ninth-century account of these two 'says more about ninth-century attitudes to the past than about the time in which they are said to have existed'; the record dates the entries and does not assert that the men existed. Bede's genealogy — son of Wictgils, son of Witta, son of Wecta, son of Woden — is on the record as a claim the sources make and NOT in parentIds, because it is a royal house's descent-claim from a god and not a fact about a father.

Domains

• kingship

Relations

• sibling: HorsaReciprocated in-batch.Reference treatment: Hengist and Horsa arrived in Britain as brothers and mercenaries serving Vortigern. (secondary)
• invited by: VortigernA CROSS-TRADITION EDGE, AND A DELIBERATE ONE. Lane 19 ingested Vortigern under the Welsh key; this is not an identity claim between two traditions' gods but a single event that two literatures record from opposite sides. Non-symmetric, so nothing is written onto the Welsh record.Reference treatment: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 449 Vortigern invited Hengist and Horsa to Britain to assist his forces in fighting the Picts. (secondary)
• distinguished by this registry from: Hengest of FinnsburgReciprocated in-batch.Reference treatment: the identification of the Kentish Hengist with the Hengest of the Finnsburg episode has been argued and is not universally accepted. (secondary)

Sources

• Hengist of Kent is the Jutish leader invited to Britain by Vortigern, whose brother Horsa dies at Aegelsthrep and who reigns in Kent from 455.: Reference treatments of Hengist and Horsa, of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, the Historia Brittonum and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. (secondary)