История Сассекса: от древности до современности.

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Near Pulborough, tools have been found that date from around 35,000 years ago and that are thought to be from either the last Neanderthals in northern Europe or pioneer populations of modern humans. On the South Downs lie Neolithic flint mines that date to around 4000BC, some of the earliest in Europe. The county is also rich in remains from the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Prior to Roman invasions it was occupied by a Belgic tribe called the Atrebates. Togidubnus ruled over much of Sussex when the Roman conquest of Britain began and formed most of the Roman canton of the Regni. The retreat of Roman forces in the 5th century facilitated the landing of migrants from what is now Germany and created the kingdom of the South Saxons under King Ælle, who is recorded as having held overlordship over other Anglo Saxon kingdoms and as being the first bretwalda, or 'Britain ruler'. Under St Wilfrid, Sussex became the last of the seven traditional kingdoms of the heptarchy to undergo Christianisation. By the 8th century the kingdom had expanded to include the territory of the Haestingas. Around 827 in the aftermath of the battle of Ellandun, Sussex was annexed by the kingdom of Wessex, a kingdom that with further expansion became the kingdom of England. In 1066 Norman forces arrived in Sussex, the heartland of King Harold Godwinson. Defeating Harold at the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror established five (later six) semi independent territories known as rapes within Sussex. The South Saxon see was transferred from Selsey Abbey to a new cathedral in the city of Chichester. Castles were built, many the subject of sieges in the High Middle Ages. Sussex was of strategic importance on the most direct route between Angevin lands in England and Normandy. Many Sussex ports, including the Cinque Ports, provided ships for military use. A succession crisis in the kingdom of France led to the Hundred Years War in which Sussex found itself on the frontline. Various rebellions followed in the late medieval period, including the Peasants’ Revolt, Jack Cade's rebellion and the rebellion of the Merfold brothers. Under Henry VIII, the church in England split from Roman Catholicism. Mary I returned England to Catholicism and in Sussex 41 Protestants were burned to death. Under Elizabeth intolerance continued on a lesser scale as many Catholics in Sussex died at this time. In Elizabeth's reign, Sussex was open to the older Protestant forms practised in the Weald as well as the newer Protestant forms coming from Continental Europe; combined with a significant Catholic presence, Sussex was in many ways out of step with the rest of southern England. Sussex escaped most of the ravages of the Civil War with two sieges and one battle. As the Industrial Revolution took hold, the Wealden iron industry collapsed. The growth of the seaside resorts in the 18th century was especially significant in Sussex. Sussex men played a significant role in the first world war Battle of the Boar's Head. At the war's end terms of the Armistice were agreed at Danny House. In World War Two the county was a base for the Dieppe Raid and D Day landings. In 1974, the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex was replaced with one each for East and West Sussex, which became separate ceremonial counties. In the 21st century a county day and a county flag were created for Sussex and a National Park was established for the South Downs.

In 1993 a human like tibia was found at Boxgrove near Chichester. Boxgrove man apparently lived in a temperate stage immediately prior to the Anglian glaciation, in the Lower Paleolithic period between 524,000 and 478,000 years ago. It is believed that during the Mesolithic Age nomadic hunters arrived in Sussex from Europe. At the time (8000 BC), Britain was still connected to the continent, however the ice sheets over northern Europe were melting rapidly and causing the gradual rising of sea levels, which eventually led to the forming of the Straits of Dover, effectively cutting off the Mesolithic people of Sussex from the continent. From about 4300 BC to about 3400 BC the mining of flint for use locally and also for wider trade was a major activity in Neolithic Sussex. There was also a Neolithic pottery industry, with styles of pot reminiscent of finds elsewhere, such as Hembury and Grimston/Lyle Hill.

From the Bronze Age (about 1400 1100BC) settlements and burial sites have left their mark throughout Sussex. The transition from the late neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in Sussex is marked by the appearance of Beaker pottery. There have been several finds including some in Beaker settlements; a significant settlement was one discovered near Beachy Head in 1909. The presence of Beaker pottery provides the first evidence of the migration of people from northern Europe since the early Neolithic period. A small number of agricultural settlements, or farmsteads, have been excavated on a large scale. This was followed by an invasion by the Roman army under Julius Caesar that temporarily occupied the south east in 55BC.

Viking raids took place on Sussex in the following years. According to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, in 895 the people of Chichester fought off a large force of raiders, slaying many hundreds of them, and took some of their ships. After the Battle of Edington, in Wessex, Alfred the Great constructed an integrated network of fortifications and defence with a system of fortresses, known as burhs, at its centre. Alfred was able to make it difficult for the Vikings to seize strategically important towns and ports. In Sussex burhs were built at Chichester, Burpham, Lewes, Hastings and Eorpeburnan. Burhs also had secondary roles as economic centres, safe havens in which trade and production could take place. Some of the burhs became the administrative centres of their districts, headed by thegns, or chieftains. The fortifications seem to have protected Sussex well from attack. By the ninth century, of the many Anglo Saxon kingdoms, only four remained, namely Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia. Of those four kingdoms, Wessex became dominant and eventually, by Æthelstan's reign (927 to 939), had absorbed the other kingdoms into the one Kingdom of England. During the reign of Æthelred the Unready there was renewed conflict with the Danes. In 998 the Vikings established a base on the Isle of Wight from which they could launch attacks and in 1000 the Anglo Saxon Chronicle reported that "everywhere in Sussex they plundered and burnt as is their custom". After the Danish king Cnut the Great took the English throne in 1016, there was a brief flowering of Saxon culture in Sussex, as peace returned. Churches were built and wall paintings were created across Sussex, including at Bosham, Sompting, Worth, Jevington, Sullington and Clayton. Under Cnut's kingship, Godwin, Earl of Wessex rose to prominence. A son of Wulfnoth Cild, a South Saxon thegn, Godwin was also popular in Sussex. When Godwin refused an order from Edward the Confessor to punish the people of Dover following a violent clash between the people of Dover and Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, King Edward sent Godwin and his family into exile. On his return from exile in 1052 Godwin received a hero's welcome in Sussex. After Cnut's death, Godwin's daughter, Edith married Edward the Confessor and Godwin's son Harold became the last Saxon king of England. Godwin and Harold used Bosham and Pevensey as naval bases from which they protected the coast from pirate raids. Norman influence was already strong in Sussex before the Conquest: the abbey of Fécamp had interest in the harbours of Hastings, Rye, Winchelsea and Steyning; while the estate of Bosham was held by a Norman chaplain to Edward the Confessor.

The Sussex women are very nice in their dress and in their houses. The men and boys wear smock frocks more than they do in some counties. William Cobbett. 1822
The Sussex coast was greatly modified by the social movement of sea bathing for health, which became fashionable among the wealthy in the second half of the 18th century. Resorts developed all along the coast, including at Brighton, Hastings, Worthing, and Bognor. Conditions became so bad that it was even reported to the House of Lords in 1830 that four harvest labourers (seasonal workers) had been found dead of starvation. During World War I, on the eve of the Battle of the Somme on 30 June 1916, the Royal Sussex Regiment took part in the Battle of the Boar's Head at Richebourg l'Avoué. Over a period of less than five hours 17 officers and 349 men were killed. Twelve sets of brothers were amongst the dead, including three from one family. A further 1,000 men were wounded or taken prisoner. The day subsequently became known as "The Day Sussex Died". With the outbreak of World War II, Sussex found itself part of the country's frontline with its airfields playing a key role in the Battle of Britain and with its towns being some of the most frequently bombed. As the Sussex regiments served overseas, the defence of the county was undertaken by units of the Home Guard with help from the First Canadian Army. During the lead up to the D Day landings, the people of Sussex were witness to the buildup of military personnel and materials, including the assembly of landing crafts and construction of Mulberry harbours off the county's coast. In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the county boundaries were revised with the mid Sussex area of East Grinstead, Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill and Hassocks being transferred from East Sussex into West Sussex. The Gatwick area that was formerly part of Surrey was transferred to West Sussex. As part of the Local Government Act 1972, the eastern and western divisions of Sussex were made into the ceremonial counties of East and West Sussex in 1974. Boundaries were changed and a large part of the rape of Lewes was transferred from the eastern division into West Sussex, along with Gatwick Airport, which was historically part of the county of Surrey. The county boroughs were returned to the control of the two county councils but in 1997 the towns of Brighton and Hove were amalgamated as a unitary local authority and in 2000, Brighton and Hove was given City status.

The system of hundreds had been introduced during the time of the Saxons. In the 7th century Sussex has been estimated to have contained 7,000 families or hides. The creation of the rapes by the Normans introduced boundaries that divided some of the hundreds (and also some of the manors) causing a certain amount of fragmentation. Ultimately Sussex was divided into six rapes; Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings. At the time of the Domesday Survey, Sussex contained fifty nine hundreds. This eventually increased to sixty three hundreds and remained unchanged till the 19th century, with thirty eight retaining their original names. The reason why the remainder had their names changed was probably due to the meeting place of the hundred court being altered. These courts were in private hands in Sussex, held by either the Church or the great barons and local lords. After several changes the act of 1504, during the reign of Henry VII, arranged for it to be held alternately at Lewes and Chichester. That gaol is known to have been used until 1269, when the site of the prison was given to the Greyfriars to build a priory. In the middle of the 17th century, a gaol was built in Horsham, then in 1775 a new gaol was built to replace it. It is believed that the last case of someone being executed by being pressed to death (peine forte et dure), in the country, was carried out in 1735 at Horsham. At the assizes a man who pretended to be dumb and lame was indicted for murder and robbery. When he was brought to the bar, he would not speak or plead. Witnesses told the court that they had heard him speak so he was taken back to Horsham gaol. The last public hanging in Sussex was at Horsham in 1844, a year before the gaol finally closed. The sheriff's function was to be responsible for the civil justice within the county. The office of High Sheriff for Sussex then continued until 1974 when it was ended by the local government re organisation that split Sussex into the two counties of East and West Sussex. During time of internal unrest or foreign invasions it was usual for the monarch to appoint a lieutenant of the county. The policy of appointing temporary lieutenants continued until the reign of Henry VIII, when Lords Lieutenant were introduced as standing representatives of the crown. The main duties of the Lords Lieutenant was to oversee the military in the county; in Sussex this was the Militia and the Sussex Yeomanry. Private jurisdictions, both ecclesiastical and lay, played a large part in the county. The chief ecclesiastical franchises were those of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Chichester and also that of Battle Abbey, which was founded by William the Conqueror. The main lay francises were those of the Cinque Ports and the Honour of Pevensey. The Cinque Ports were a group of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex that were given ancient rights and privileges. The main rights were the exemption of taxes and duties and the right to enforce the laws in their jurisdiction. The Honour of Pevensey was a collection of estates in Sussex.

Borough English was the custom that lands should descend to the youngest son or daughter, or, in default of issue, to the youngest brother of the deceased. The name originated from a case in Nottingham in 1327 when the English borough, or part of the town, held to ultimogeniture and the French (Norman) part to primogeniture. In Sussex, inheritance by Borough English could still be found on 134 manors after 1750. Gavelkind was the practice of partible or equal inheritance, as opposed to primogeniture. It was predominant in Kent but was also found, across the county border, in Sussex. It existed in Rye, in the large manor of Brede, and in Coustard manor (in Brede parish). Borough English and gavelkind were finally abolished in England and Wales by the Administration of Estates Act 1925.

Several polytheistic religions, including Celtic polytheism and Roman religion, were practised in Sussex before Christianity was firmly established there in the 7th century. Christianity was practised during part of the Romano British period, but was replaced in the 5th century by the polytheistic religion of the South Saxons. According to Bede, it was the last area of what was to become England to be converted. After the Council of London of 1075 decreed that sees should be centred in cities rather than vills, the South Saxon diocese, with its see at Selsey was transferred to Chichester. As was the case in the rest of the country, the Church of England's split with Rome during the reign of Henry VIII was felt in Sussex. Mary's persecution of Protestants earned her the nickname Bloody Mary. The figures for Sussex indicated that there were more Anglican than non conformist places of worship. In 1801 the Members of Parliament (MPs) for the counties on the south coast of England were elected to a third of all the seats in parliament, although they represented only about 15% of the nation's population. The design of the country's electoral system had changed little since the first parliament in 1295. In 1264 a group of barons led by Simon de Montfort, launched a civil war against Prince Edward, in the name of Henry III, known as the Second Barons' War. On 12 May 1264, Simon de Montfort's forces occupied a hill known as 'Offam Hill' outside Lewes. Royalist forces tried to storm the hill for over five hours but ultimately were defeated by the barons'. During the 19th century, Victorian road builders constructing the Brighton Lewes turnpike in the area of the battle discovered mass graves with around 2000 bodies in them. Cade's rebellion was not just supported by the peasant class, but many gentlemen, craftspeople and artisans, as well as the Abbot of Battle and Prior of Lewes, flocked to his standard in revolt against the corrupt government of Henry VI. Most of the west of the county were for the King and included a powerful group with the bishop of Chichester and Sir Edward Ford, sheriff of Sussex, in their number. A military governor, Algernon Sidney was appointed in 1645. The brewer William Cawley became an MP for Chichester in 1647 and was one of the signatories on King Charles I's death warrant. At the beginning of the 19th century, agricultural labourers' conditions took a turn for the worse with an increasing amount of them becoming unemployed, while those remaining employed faced their wages being forced down. The Sussex Yeomanry were subsequently disparagingly nicknamed the workhouse guards. The protesters faced charges of arson, robbery, riot, machine breaking and assault.

As much of the Mid Sussex area has clay not far under the surface, clay has in the past been a focus of industry in central Sussex, in particular in the Burgess Hill area. In the first quarter of the 20th century, Burgess Hill and the Hassocks and Hurstpierpoint areas had many kilns, clay pits and similar infrastructure to support the clay industry; nowadays the majority of this form of industry has left the area, although it still can be seen in place names such as "Potters Lane", "Meeds Road", "The Kiln"; Meeds Pottery was once a significant pottery in the centre of Burgess Hill. At the height of the success of this industry, tiles and bricks from Sussex were used to build landmarks such as Manchester's G Mex. In 2007 the local district council produced plans to close the only remaining tile works in the area and use the site for residential development. Then in 2015 the last tile works moved to a new home in Surrey.

After the Romans left, roads in the country fell into disrepair and in Sussex the damage was compounded by the transport of material for the iron industry. In 1749 Horace Walpole wrote to a friend complaining that if he desired good roads "never to go into Sussex" and another writer said that the "Sussex road is an almost insuperable evil". Because of the state of the county's roads the major transport network for Sussex had been by way of sea and river, but this had become increasingly unreliable as well. Roads had been maintained by the parishes, in a system established in 1555, a system that had proved increasingly ineffective given the relentless increase in traffic. A report on the county's turnpike trusts, published in 1857, said that there were fifty one trusts covering of road, with 238 toll gates or bars, giving an average of one toll gate every
The last turnpike to be constructed in the county was between Cripps Corner and Hawkhurst in 1841. The system of turnpikes, coaches and coaching inns collapsed in the face of competition from the railways. The main north–south road, which connects the coast to the London orbital M25, is the M23/A23.

The first canals that were constructed in Sussex can be described as navigations, in that their purpose was to make the lower reaches of the county's rivers navigable. The rivers had suffered from centuries of neglect, which had made navigation, even for small craft, difficult.

In 1804 Richard Trevithick, a Cornish engineer, built the first steam locomotive for a railway. His seven tonne locomotive hauled 10 tonnes of iron and 70 passengers on a journey of 9 mile (14 km) from the Penydarren Ironworks near Merthyr Tydfil to the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon, reaching a top speed of almost
George Stephenson built the engine Locomotion for the Stockton & Darlington railway, which was opened in 1825 for both passenger and goods traffic; Locomotion pulled thirty six wagons containing coal, grain and 500 passengers a distance of at a top speed of
The Manchester to Liverpool railway of 1830 was the first to convey passengers and goods entirely by mechanical traction. Stephenson's Rocket, which won the famous Rainhill Trials in 1829, was the first steam locomotive designed to pull passenger traffic quickly. In the 1830s, during the summer the London Brighton road would see around 40 coaches a day plus a number of private carriages taking visitors to the coast. This changed after two things happened:
In 1750 a Dr Richard Russell recommended Brighton for a seawater cure. From 1783 the Prince of Wales started visiting Brighton on a regular basis making it a fashionable destination. But within 40 years of the railway's arrival, Brighton's resident population had doubled. In 1846 the L&BR merged with the London & Croydon Railway, the Brighton & Chichester Railway and the Brighton, Lewes & Hastings Railway to form the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR). The LB&SCR continued as an independent entity until the Railways Act 1921, which saw the merger of various rail companies in the south and south east into the Southern Railway Company (SR); formed on 1 January 1923. Two railway companies in the county that were not absorbed by the SR, were Volk's Electric Railway the world's first electric railway, that runs along the front at Brighton and opened in 1883, and the West Sussex Railway, a light railway between Chichester and Selsey, opened in 1897 (and closed in 1935). SR was the smallest of four groups that were brought together by the Railways Act 1921. The LB&SCR had partly electrified their network before World War I, though that had been an overhead system. SR decided to electrify their network using the third rail DC system. The government went ahead with their plans and franchises were awarded to train operating companies (TOC). Also Thameslink for services between Brighton and Bedford, and from Brighton to Cambridge and Horsham to Peterborough. In September 2021, the government announced that Southeastern would take over the South Eastern franchise from Govia that operates between eastern Sussex and London.

The two major ports in Sussex are at Newhaven, opened in 1579, and at Shoreham opened in 1760. Other ports such as Pevensey, Winchelsea, and the original medieval port of Rye now lie stranded from the current coastline. In addition, for smaller craft, there are working harbours at Rye Harbour and Hastings, with Brighton Marina, Pagham and Chichester harbours catering for leisure craft. Other harbours that existed such as Fishbourne, Steyning, Old Shoreham, Meeching and Bulverhythe are long since silted up and have been built over.