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OFFA

OFFA

OFFA (3), king of the East Saxons, son ofSighere and nephew of Sebbi, who, after a reignof thirty years, died about the year 695. Sebbi,according to Bede, was succeeded by his sonsSighard and Suefred ( H . E. iv. 11). Offa’s ac-cession may have taken place either on hisfather’s death, the date of which is unknown, oron his uncle’s death, when he may have obtainedhis father’s share of the kingdom, or on thedeath or displacement of his cousins. Bede(//. E. v. 19) describes him as a youth of greatbeauty and devotion, most beloved by hispeople. Out of a spirit of piety he left hiscountry, wife, lands, ’and kinsfolk, for the sakeof Christ, that he might receive a hundredfoldmore in this present life, and in the world tocome life eternal. Accordingly, when Coenred,king of Mercia, in A.D. 709, went on pilgrimageto Rome, Offa accompanied him, received thetonsure, and spent the rest of his life as amonk.

To this story a few other particulars areadded by later writers. Florence of Worcester(Appendix, Mon. Hist . Brit . p. 637) alleges thatOffa was persuaded to go to Rome by Kines-witha, the daughter of Penda, whom he wishedto marry, and that he was accompanied byEcgwin, bishop of Worcester, who on the occasionof this journey obtained from pope Constantine aconfirmation of his foundation at Evesham (ibid.540, 637). William of Malmesbury repeats thestory (G. P. lib. iv. § 180 ; G. R. lib. i. § 98),adding that by Kineswitha he was “ edoctusamores mutare in melius.” As Penda, Kines-witha’s father, died fifty-four years before thepilgrimage was undertaken, the lady must havebeen too old for Offa’s bride, and could hardly bethe wife whom Bede mentions him as forsaking.She may, however, have been an instructress, oradviser. The connexion of Ecgwin’s visit toRome with the pilgrimage of Offa and Coenredis also brought out in the Evesham charters,which are incorporated in the life of Ecgwin(Mab. AA. SS. O.S.B. saec. iii. pt. 1, pp. 320,321). Ecgwin himself is made to mention theircompanionship in a foundation charter (p. 320 ;cf. Kemble, C. D. 64; Chron. Evesham , ed. Ma-cray, pp. 17-20); and the two kings are repre-sented as agreeing with and confirming thecharter of Constantine, which likewise mentionstheir visit to Rome (Mab. 1. c. p. 321; Chron.Evesham , p. 171; Councils , &c., ed. Haddan andStubbs, iii. 281, 282). The life of Ecgwin byBrihtwald further implies that the two kingsreturned from Rome with the bishop (Mab. 1. c.p. 324), but this is at variance with the state-ment of Bede, and is mixed up with some otherunhistorieal statements.

The name of Offa appears in other chartersin connexion with Ecgwin. A grant of lands atScottarith, Hnuthyrste, and Hellerelege, madeby Offa, “rex Merciorum,” but attested byEcgwin, is referred by Kemble (K. C. D. 55) toOffa of Essex ; and Offa, as king of the EastAngles, is made to join with Coenred in an Eves-ham charter granted at Rome (K. C. D. 61;Mon. Angl. ii. 15). This confusion seems tohave misled even William of Malmesburv, whocalls Offa king of the East Angles (G. P. §§ 160180, 232). This has led to another mistake ;the East Anglian kings being descended froman early Wuffa, bore the name of Uffings : some

confusion of this name with that of East SaxonOffa, whose sanctity was well established by hiipilgrimage, led perhaps to the idea that theOffings were a saintly stock, and to it accordinglyErcenwold and his sister Ethelburga are referred.The East Saxon Offa had an ancestor of his ownname, Offa, father of Escwin, and eighth indescent from Woden (Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 628)

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OFFA (4), king of Mercia, 757-796.

Offa occupies a most important place in thehistory of the English nation in the eighth cen-tury. He is the most powerful king of thegreatest of the English kingdoms; his extantcharters are more numerous than those of anyother king of the age; his relations to bothpope and emperor are more definite, and thegeneral impression as to his character and policy,which the history of the time leaves on themind of investigators, is at once more distinctand more imposing than that left by any othercontemporary sovereign except Charles theGreat. Yet it must be confessed that the mate-rials for forming a consecutive history of hisreign are extremely jejune: they are distinct,but very meagre, and legend has been unfor-tunately active in filling in the outlines. Thefollowing sketch contains no more than is re-quired for piecing together the several incidentsof his career, the more important parts of whichhave been treated under other titles.

Offa was the son of Thingferth, the son ofEanulf, who was the founder of the familymonastery of Bredon. Eanulf was the son ofOsmod, the son of Eowa, the brother of Benda,and was first cousin to Ethelbald. Offa waseighteenth in descent from Woden, and thir-teenth from Offa, the son of Warmund, whosemythological history, going far into heathentimes, was a part of the common stock ofEnglish and Scandinavian legend. It may behere stated that the lives of the two Offas,ascribed, but on very uncertain authority, toMatthew Paris, are an attempt to bring thetwo heroes into historical connexion, with theunfortunate result of making the Mercian Offaalmost as shadowy as his predecessor. Accord-ing to this fabulous narrative, the mother ofOffa was named Marcellina, and he himself inchildhood bore the name of Winefred.

On the death of Ethelbald, which we havegood reason for dating in 757, the Mercianthrone was filled for a short time by a tyrantnamed Beornred, whose name is not found inthe pedigrees, and who perished within theyear, being either driven into exile by hispeople, as Matthew Paris circumstantially states,or, as is perhaps more probably put by Florenceof Worcester, being killed by Offa (M. Paris,Hist Major , i. 342, 343 ; Fior. Wig. M. H. B.638). The chronicle merely tells us that hewas expelled. Wessex and Northumbria expe-rienced a change of sovereigns about the sametime, or in the following year. Offa retainedhis authority without recorded disquietude, andhis history is a blank for several years. UnlessEthelbald’s power had been sorely diminished inthe closing years of his reign, or the influenceof Mercia had collapsed under Beornred, Offamust have inherited a claim to the superiorityover the East Anglian, East Saxon, and Kentish