BRETWALDA, a title meaning "Ruler of Britain," applied by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to Egbert, king of the West Sax ons, when he became overlord of all the English peoples south of Humber. The chronicler states that seven other kings, from Aella of Sussex in the 5th century to Oswiu of Northumbria in the 7th, had held this title before Egbert. It was a poetical expression, not a formal style, and is therefore not found in Latin documents of an earlier time.