Scragg Donald (Edited). Edgar, King of the English 959-975: New Interpretations (Pubns Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies)

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Contributors

Lesley Abrams, University of Oxford

Julia Barrow, University of Nottingham

Frederick M. Biggs, University of Connecticut at Storrs

Julia Crick, University of Exeter

Mercedes Salvador-Bello, Universidad de Sevilla

Shashi Jayakumar, Singapore

Catherine E. Karkov, University of Leeds

Simon Keynes, University of Cambridge

C. P. Lewis, Institute of Historical Research, University of London

Hugh Pagan, London

Alexander R. Rumble, University of Manchester

Donald Scragg, University of Manchester

Barbara york

University of Winchester

Preface

The reign of King Edgar is undoubtedly a crucial one in the history of tenth-

century England, yet it remains an enigmatic one in many respects because

of the paucity of reliable evidence for it. This book takes a fresh look at what

evidence there is, and evaluates it in new and signiﬁcant ways. The origin of

the collection of essays that it contains was in presentations to an international

conference organized by the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies in

April 2005, the latest of an on-going series on Anglo-Saxon kings from Offa to

Harthacnut. I am very grateful for help with the administration of this confer-

ence by Brian Schneider, and acknowledge a generous grant by the British

Academy in its support.

At the Edgar conference, nine of the essays in this book were presented,

although they have been extensively rewritten and enlarged for the present

purpose. To them three new essays are added, those of Simon Keynes, Chris

wis

and Barbara yorke, and in addition the valuable conspectus of charters

prepared by Simon Keynes which will surely now become the foundation of

study for the period. Keynes’ wide-ranging essay which opens the book is based

on the charter evidence, and is comparable with his seminal study of Edgar’s

son, The Diplomas of King Æthelred (Cambridge, 1980). It seems to me that

his review of Edgar’s reign will prove just as important and extensively quoted

as the latter. The two Keynes pieces are followed by three studies relating to

the short but politically obscure period when Edgar ruled north of the Thames

while his brother Eadwig concentrated on the south, a full account of the major

players of the two reigns by Shashi Jayakumar, a detailed examination of a single

charter relating to Chester by Chris Lewis, and a controversial proposal that we

view this period as a late example of joint kingship by Fred Biggs. These are

followed by four studies of different aspects of Edgar’s life and reign. Barbara

york

’s account of women has an important place in this volume for a variety

of reasons, most signiﬁcantly because the status of royal women seems to have

changed under Edgar. Dominion over the whole of Britain is another issue of

Edgar’s reign, given his reported rowing down the Dee by tributary kings, and

his style as ruler of ‘Albion’ in charters is here fully explored by Julia Crick.

Because of his earlier rule of Mercia and Northumbria, his relationship with the

Danelaw is important too, studied here in depth in a wide-ranging chapter by

Lesley Abrams. Finally in this section, because the reform of the coinage in the

last years of Edgar’s reign has been well documented, Hugh Pagan’s essay on

monetary matters concentrates on the earlier coin issues. The last section of the

book is devoted to what is, in many respects, the most signiﬁcant development

of the reign, the great monastic renewal, signiﬁcant not least because one result

of it is the survival in the reformed monasteries of such records as we have of

xii PREFACE

Edgar’s reign and also those of his sons. Here are essays offering new interpreta-

tions of the date of the start of the movement (Barrow), the most famous icon of

the reform, the frontispiece of the New Minster charter (Karkov), reproduced as

the frontispiece to this book, the changing landscape of Winchester (Rumble),

and the Chronicle poems about Edgar seen as pro-reform propaganda (Salvador-

Bello). The very limited material available for study of the reign makes it inevi-

table that there is some overlap between chapters, although I hope that any

contradictory views that result will be considered healthy.

I should like to thank all of the contributors for their work in making this the

most deﬁnitive account of the reign of Edgar that has appeared, and to congratu-

late them on the result. I would also like to record my very warm appreciation

to Caroline Palmer for her encouragement and support (especially in dark days

when I thought the book would never be ﬁnished), and for her enthusiasm for

the project.

Donald Scragg

Manchester, 2007

Abbreviations

Abing Charters of Abingdon Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, 2 pts,

AS Charters 7–8 (Oxford, 2000–1)

ANS Anglo-Norman

Studies

ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [followed by letters designating

versions]

ASE Anglo-Saxon

England

Baker, MS F The

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition.

Volume 8, MS F, ed. P. S. Baker (Cambridge, 2000)

BAR

British Archaeological Reports

Bately, MS A The

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition.

Volume 3, MS A, ed. J. Bately (Cambridge 1986)

Bath Charters of Bath and Wells, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 13

(Oxford, 2008)

BCS W

. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 3 vols. (London,

1885–93)

BIHR Bulletin

of the Institute of Historical Research

BL London, British Library

Blackwell Encycl. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed.

Michael Lapidge, John Blair, Simon Keynes and Donald

Scragg (Oxford, 1999)

Blair, Church John

Blair

, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford,

2005)

BNJ British

Numismatic Journal

BT(S) Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon

Dictionary (Oxford, 1882–98); Supplement by T. Northcote

Toller (Oxford, 1921), Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda

by Alistair Campbell (Oxford, 1972).

Burt Charters of Burton Abbey, ed. P. H. Sawyer, AS Charters 2

(Oxford, 1979)

Campbell,

The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. A. Campbell (London,

Æthelweard 1962)

CantCC

Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, ed. N. Brooks and

S. E. Kelly, 3 pts, AS Charters (Oxford, forthcoming)

CantStA Charters of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, ed. S. E.

Kelly, AS Charters 4 (Oxford, 1995)

CCSL

Cor

pus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout, 1953– )

Councils & Councils & Synods with Other Documents relating to the

Synods English

Church, I, A.D. 871–1204, ed. D. Whitelock,

M. Brett,

and C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford, 1981)

CSASE Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England

CTCE C. E.

Blunt, B. H. I. H. Stewart and C. S. S. Lyon, Coinage

in Tenth-Century England from Edward the Elder to

Edgar’s Reform (Oxford, 1989)

Cubbin, MS D

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition.

Volume 6, MS D, ed. G. P. Cubbin (Cambridge, 1996)

DOE Dictionary of Old English, ed. A. Cameron et al. (Toronto,

1986– )

Earle

and Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Charles Plummer

Plummer on

the basis of an edition by John Earle, 2 vols. (Oxford,

1892–9)

EEMF Early

English Manuscripts in Facsimile

EETS Early English Text Society

os original series

EHD English Historical Documents c. 500–1042

, ed.

D. Whitelock, 2nd ed. (London, 1996)

EME Ear

ly Medieval Europe

EPNS English Place-Name Society

EPNSJ English Place-Name Society Journal

FS F

rühmittelalterliche Studien

Hamilton, Gesta Gesta Pontiﬁcum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, RS

(London, 1870)

HBS Henr

y Bradshaw Society

HSJ Haskins Society Journal

Irvine, MS E The

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition.

Volume 7, MS E, ed. S. Irvine (Cambridge, 2004)

JEGP J

ournal of English and Germanic Philology

Jnl Brit. Stud. Journal of British Studies

JW, Chronicon The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. R. R. Darlington

and Patrick McGurk, 2 vols. to date (Oxford, 1995–8)

KCD

. M. Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici, 6 vols.

(London, 1839–48)

ynes, Simon Keynes, An Atlas of Attestations in Anglo-Saxon

Attestations Charter

s c. 670–1066, ASNC Guides, Texts, and Studies 5

(Cambridge, 2002)

eynes, Diplomas S. K

eynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred “the Unready”,

978–1016: A Study in their Use as Historical Evidence

(Cambridge, 1980)

Lapidge and W

ulfstan of Winchester, The Life of St Æthelwold, ed.

Wint

erbottom, Michael Lapidge and Michael Winterbottom, OMT

WulfstW (Oxford,

1991)

LE Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake, Camden Society 3rd ser. 92

(London, 1962)

LS Ælfric’

s Lives of Saints, ed. Walter W. Skeat, EETS os 76,

82, 94, 114 (London, 1881–1900, repr. in 2 vols. (London,

1966)

xiv ABREVIATIONS

ABBREVIATIONS xv

Malm Charters of Malmesbury Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS

Charters 11 (Oxford, 2005)

MScand Mediae

val Scandinavia

ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Bibliography, ed. H. C. G.

Matthew and B. Harrison, 60 vols. (Oxford, 2004)

OEN Old

English Newsletter

O’Keeffe, MS C

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition.

Volume 5, MS C, ed. K. O’Brien O’Keeffe (Cambridge,

2001)

OMT Oxford

Medieval Texts

ON Old Norse

Pet Charters of Peterborough Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS

Charters 14 (Oxford, 2008)

Raine, York The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops,

ed. J. Raine, 3 vols., RS 71 (London, 1879–94)

RES

view of English Studies

Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. and trans. A. J. Robertson

Charters (Cambridge, 1939)

Roc

h Charters of Rochester, ed. A. Campbell, AS Charters 1

(London, 1973)

RS Rolls

Series

Rumble, Property A

lexander R. Rumble, Property and Piety in Early Medieval

and Piety Winchester: Documents Relating to the Topography of the

Anglo-Saxon and

Norman City (Oxford, 2002) [cited by

document]

S P

. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and

Bibliography (London, 1968) [cited by document number]

Sel Charters of Selsey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 6 (Oxford,

1998)

Shaft

Charter

s of Shaftesbury Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters

5 (Oxford, 1995)

Sherb Charters of Sherborne, ed. M. A. O’Donovan, AS Charters

3 (Oxford, 1988)

StAlb Charters of St Albans, ed. J. Crick, AS Charters 12

(Oxford, 2007)

Stenton, ASE F

rank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon

England, 3rd ed. (Oxford,

1971)

Stubbs, Dunstan Memorials of St Dunstan, ed. W. Stubbs (London, 1874)

Symons, RC Regularis Concordia, ed. and trans. Thomas Symons

(London, 1953)

Taylor, MS

B The

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition.

Volume 4, MS B, ed. S. Taylor (Cambridge, 1983)

THSLC T

ransactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and

Cheshire

TRHS T

ransactions of the Royal Historical Society

VCH Victoria County History (London, 1900–75; Oxford,

1976– )

Wells Charters of Bath and Wells, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 13

(Oxford, 2008)

Whitelock, Wills Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (Cambridge,

1930)

WinchNM Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, ed. S. Miller, AS

Charters 9 (Oxford, 2001)

WM, Gesta Gest

Regum Anglorum. The History of the English

Regum Kings, ed.

and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and

M. Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–9)

yorke, Æthelwold Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Inﬂuence, ed.

B. yorke

(Woodbridge, 1988)

xvi ABREVIATIONS

Documentary Evidence

Edgar, rex admirabilis

SIMON KEyNES

N the frontispiece to his grant of privileges for the New Minster, Winchester,

drawn up in 966, King Edgar is shown prostrate before Christ (see frontis. to

this book);

and in an eleventh-century manuscript of the Regularis Concordia,

perhaps reproducing an earlier image, he is shown ﬂanked by two bishops, pre-

sumed to be Dunstan and Æthelwold, lending their combined authority to the

text.

Both images depict Edgar in close association with the monastic reform

movement, and symbolize the particular aspect of his reign which has come to

dominate all others.

As al

ways, it is instructive to see how the received tradition took shape. In

Bishop Æthelwold’s treatise on the Old English Rule of St Benedict, written

probably in the 970s if not before, Edgar is praised as one who maintained his

dominion (anweald) in such great peace and tranquility.

For Ealdorman Æthel-

weard, writing from his position of authority probably in the 980s, Edgar was

rex admirabilis, Anglorum insignis rex, and monarchus Brittannum nobilis.

the viking raids of Æthelred’s reign intensiﬁed, from the 990s into the opening

years of the eleventh century, Edgar came to be remembered, in the monastic

houses which had been reformed or founded during his reign, as bringer of

the stability, peace and good order that had been lost and was now craved;

and indeed, it was in this context that he ﬁrst achieved a form of apotheosis.

BL, Cotton Vespasian A. viii: The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966–1066, ed. J. Back-

house, D. H. Turner and L. Webster (London, 1984), p. 47 (no. 26); see also C. E. Karkov,

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 84–118, and ‘The

Frontispiece to the New Minster Charter and the King’s Two Bodies’, below, pp. 224–

41.

BL, Cotton Tiberius A. iii: Golden Age, ed. Backhouse et al., p. 47 (no. 28).

The treatise (appended to a manuscript of the Old English Rule) is best edited, with trans-

lation and commentary, in Councils & Synods, I.33. For the suggestion that it was written

in the 960s, see M. Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine

Reform (Cambridge, 1999), esp. pp. 230–3 and 240–1.

Campbell, Æthelweard, pp. 55–6.

S. Keynes, ‘England, 900–1016’, The New Cambridge Medieval History, III: c. 900–

c. 1024, ed. T. Reuter (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 456–84, at 479, citing Æthelwold, Lantfred,

Wulfstan and Ælfric, all of Winchester, and Byrhtferth of Ramsey. For Ælfric on Edgar, see

Ælfric’s Lives of the Saints (Swithun), in M. Lapidge, The Cult of St Swithun, W

inchester

Studies 4.ii (Oxford, 2003), pp. 590–609, at 606–7.