Hist. [OE.: occurring once in the Chronicle, where the Parker MS. (in its oldest part written a. 900) has it thus, while the later MSS. read variously, B brytenwalda, C bretenanwealda, D and E brytenwealda, F brytenweald; and twice in a charter of King Æthelstán as brytænwalda, brytenwalda. See below.]
A title given in the Old English Chronicle to King Egbert, and (retrospectively) to seven earlier kings of various Old English states, said to have held superiority, real or titular, over their contemporaries; also occasionally assumed by later Old English kings: its sense can only be ‘lord (or ruler) of the Britons,’ or ‘of Britain’; cf. the Roman title dux Britanniarum, and the Brettonum dux of Beda, rector Britanniæ of Æthelstan. (See Rhŷs, Celtic Britain, Freeman, N. C., I.)
c. 855. O. E. Chron., an. 827 (Parker MS.). Ecgbryht … wæs se eahteða cyning, se ðe Bretwalda wæs.
934. Charter, in Cod. Dipl., V. 218–9. Ic Æðelstan, Ongol-Saxna cyning and Brytænwalda eallæs [(2) Brytenwalda ealles] ðyses iʓlandæs [Latin version (1) Ego Æðelstanus rex et rector totius huius Britanniae insulae; (2) Ego Æðelstanus Angul-Saxonum necnon et totius Britanniae rex].
1839. Keightley, Hist. Eng., I. 22. Some of the Anglo-Saxon Kings assumed a still higher title, that of Bretwalda or Ruler of Britains.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), II. IV. iii. 239. Any Bretwalda or Supreme Sovereign.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. vi. 122. The existence of this hegemony, whether or no its possessor bore the title of Bretwalda, was not accompanied by unity of organisation.
[Note. It is uncertain whether the later forms are genuine fuller forms, traditional equivalents, or merely etymologizing alterations of Bretwalda ‘ruler of the Bretts’ (cf. Ælwalda, Alwealda, Ealwealda ‘All-ruler, Almighty’). The element bryten- occurs also in several compounds, all poetic, in the sense ‘far-stretching, spacious,’ as in bryten-cyning, bryten-grund, bryten-ríce, bryten-wang; whence Kemble wished to explain brytenwalda as ‘wide ruler.’ But in the charter of Æthelstán, the equivalence of ‘Brytenwalda ealles ðyses iʓlandes’ to ‘rector totius huius Britanniae insulae’ shows its identity with Britannia. Kemble’s conjectured derivation of bryten- from bréotan ‘to break’ is etymologically impossible; and there can be little doubt that, even in the poetic compounds, the word is simply a poetic use of Bryten, Breoten Britannia, or of Breotone (:—brituni) Brittŏnes, Britons. These compounds may actually have been formed on the model of bryten-walda, or, if earlier, may have had reference to the far-reaching extent of Britain, as compared with any single state in it; or finally, the word breotone Britons, may have been taken poetically for ‘men,’ ‘people,’ or ‘nations,’ as apparently in Satan, l. 687 burg and breotone cities and peoples or nations. It is not impossible that Bretwalda was suggested by a British title, such as *Brithon-wletic, *Brython-wledig = Brittonum dux.]
