Page "Hastings" Paragraph 7

From the 6th century AD until 771, the area around modern-day Hastings, as the territory of the Haestingas tribe, considered itself to be a separate Kingdom from the surrounding Kingdoms of Suth Saxe (" South Saxons ", i. e. Sussex ) and Kent, and attempted to retain its separate cultural identity until the 11th century.

The kingdom was probably a sub-kingdom, the object of a disputed overlordship by the two powerful neighbouring kingdoms: when King Wihtred of Kent settled a dispute with King Ine of Sussex & Wessex in 694, it is probable that he seceded the overlordship of Haestingas to Ine as part of the treaty.