Lincoln and the Anglo-Saxon see of Lindsey

It is by no means universally agreed that Lindsey was ever a kingdom or had kings. Stenton, in what is still the most thorough discussion of Lindsey, expressed his doubts on the matter but then dismissed them; there are other scholars who retain theirs. Of those listed, for example, in the supposedly royal genealogy ( not a regnal list) of Lindsey, none apart from the last named, Aldfrith, is known to have been a king; some of them may indeed have ruled, but Lindsey would be unique if power had always been transmitted by direct royal primogeniture. Certainly our almost total ignorance of Lindsey's history is a considerable obstacle to viewing it as a fully developed kingdom; but that absence of evidence is no doubt largely due to its early subordination to Northumbria and Mercia by turns. Bede's description of it, whatever else he neglected to tell us, as prouincia and its meriting a bishop both point to the conclusion that Lindsey was indeed a kingdom, but one of those which succumbed early on to aggrandizing neighbours.