Bretwalda

Bretwalda (possibly ruler of Britain, or widely ruling, from Anglo-Saxon brytan, to distribute), a title, given to seven Anglo-Saxon kings by Bede, and to another besides by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, apparently as holding a sort of primacy in, or headship of the confederacy of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Their claims to it seem to have been but slight in some cases. In most cases (according to Stubbs) the headship of the Bretwalda was one of power and influence only, occasionally it was acknowdedged by acts resembling formal commendation (q.v.), which thus paved the way for regular feudalism. Such acts implied that the weaker sovereign resigned the control of the foreign policy of his kingdom to the Bretwalda. Very possibly the relation was an imitation of that between the Roman emperor and some of the so-called "allied kingdoms" or "subject allies." (See Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 162, and Freeman, Norman Conquest, i. 542 seq.)