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

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264 MERCEDES SALVADOR-BELLO

The Death of Edgar

Her geendode eorðan dreamas

Eadgar, Engla cyning, ceas him oðer leoht,

wlitig  wynsum,  þis wace forlet,

lif þis læne. Nemnað leoda bearn,

5 men on moldan, þæne monað gehwær

in ðisse eðeltyrf, þa þe ær wæran

on rimcræfte rihte getogene,

Iulius monoð, þæt se geonga gewat

on þone eahteðan dæg Eadgar of life,

10 beorna beahgyfa,  feng his bearn syððan

to cynerice, cild unweaxen,

eorla ealdor, þam wæs Eadweard nama.

 him tirfæst hæleð tyn

nihtum ær

of Brytene gewat, bisceop se goda,

15 þurh gecyndne cræft, ðam wæs Cyneweard nama.

þa wæs on Myrceon, mine gefræge,

wide  welhwær Waldendes lof

afylled on foldan. Fela wearð todræfed

gleawra Godes ðeowa; þæt wæs gnornung micel

20 þam þe on breostum wæg byrnende lufan

Metodes on mode. Þa wæs mærða Fruma

to swiðe forsewen, sigora Waldend,

rodera Rædend, þa man his riht tobræc.

 þa wearð eac adræfed, deormod hæleð,

25 Oslac of earde ofer yða gewealc,

ofer ganotes bæð, gamolfeax hæleð,

wis  wordsnotor, ofer wætera geðring,

ofer hwæles eðel, hama bereafod,

 þa wearð ætywed uppe on roderum

30 steorra on staðole, þone stiðferhþe,

hæleð higegleawe, hatað wide

cometa be naman, cræftgleawe men,

wise soðboran. Wæs geond werðeode,

Waldendes wracu wide gefrege,

35 hungor ofer hrusan; þæt eft heofona Weard

gebette, Brego engla, geaf eft blisse gehwæm

egbuendra þurh eorðan westm.

‘In this year Edgar, king of the English, reached the end of earthly joys, chose for him

the other light, beautiful and happy, and left this wretched and ﬂeeting life. The sons

of nations, men on the earth, everywhere in this country – those who have been rightly

trained in computation – call the month in which the young man Edgar, dispenser of

treasure to warriors, departed from life on the eighth day, the month of July. His son then

succeeded to the kingdom, a child ungrown, a prince of nobles, whose name was Edward.

And ten days before, there departed from Britain a famous man, the bishop, good from his

innate virtue, whose name was Cyneweard. Then in Mercia, as I have heard tell, widely,

almost everywhere, the praise of the Ruler was cast down to the ground; many of the wise

servants of God were dispersed. That was a great cause of mourning for any who bore in

EDGAR PANEGyRICS 265

Unlike The Coronation, the association of The Death of Edgar with late

tenth-century praise-poetry and Benedictinism is more difﬁcult to demonstrate,

since this text apparently lacks structural cohesion, as has been pointed out by

some editors. Dobbie for example contrasts this poem with the other Chronicle

panegyrics stating that The Death ‘deals not with a single event of national sig-

niﬁcance, but with all the important happenings of the year 975’.

In his edition

of Brunanburh Campbell likewise suggested that the ﬁrst twelve lines of The

Death might constitute a poem in itself. He also noted that, being of ‘inferior

quality’, the remaining lines were possibly added by the chronicler.

The Death certainly presents two parts that can be clearly distinguished. On

the one hand, the ﬁrst section (lines 1–12) is close to traditional obituary poetry,

as the major topic is the king’s death with minimum reference to the subsequent

accession of his son Edward. On the other, a second section (lines 13 to the end)

offers an account of apparently disparate events: the exile of Cyneweard, bishop

of Wells; the scattering of the monks in Mercia; the banishment of Oslac, earl

of Northumbria; the allusion to the ominous comet; a subsequent great famine;

and, ﬁnally, God’s providential re-establishment of prosperity. A separate anal-

ysis of these two parts may however prove that they work as a harmoniously

uniﬁed poem that not only adheres to the encomiastic format but also functions

as a poetic sequel to The Coronation. In addition to this, the study will also

demonstrate that The Death exhibits several features which suggest that, like

the preceding poem, this is a further piece that was probably created in the

Benedictine orbit.

The

ﬁrst

section of The Death presents some aspects that have been associ-

ated with the traditional genre of the obit, which could be regarded as a sub-type

of the panegyric.

Thomas D. Hill has cited the ﬁrst four lines of this poem

as an example of what he calls the ‘variegated obit’, a topos which presents

his breast and mind an ardent love for the Creator. Then the Author of glories, the Ruler

of victories, the Governor of the heavens, was too greatly scorned, when his rights were

violated. Then also the valiant man Oslac was driven from the country, over the tossing

waves, the gannet’s bath, the tumult of waters, the homeland of the whale; a grey-haired

man, wise and skilled in speech, he was bereft of his lands. Then was also revealed up

in the skies a star in the ﬁrmament, which men ﬁrm of spirit, wise in mind, skilled in

science, wise orators, far and wide called ‘comet’ by name. The vengeance of the Ruler

was manifested widely throughout the people, a famine over the earth, which the Guardian

of the heavens, the Prince of the angels, afterwards amended. He gave back bliss to each

of the islanders through the fruits of the earth.’

The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, vol. 6: The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. Elliott van

Kirk Dobbie (New york, 1942), p. xlii.

Campbell, Brunanburh, p. 36.

The ﬁrst section of The Death complies with the two major characteristics of the eulo-

gistic genre mentioned by Townend: a notable concern with naming and the use of heroic

diction. Thus, The Death introduces the allusion to the king’s name (2a) and that of his

successor (12b). This ﬁrst part also makes use of typically encomiastic style, as observed

in the epithets employed for Edgar (Engla cyning, 2a, and beorna beahgyfa, 10a). As in

Brunanburh with Æthelstan and his brother Edmund, The Death praises both the king and

his successor Edward, the latter being referred to as eorla ealdor (12a). See Townend,

‘Pre-Cnut Praise-Poetry’, pp. 353–5.

266 MERCEDES SALVADOR-BELLO

the death of a particular character – often a biblical patriarch, apostle, saint

or a remarkable churchman – in a specially elaborate pattern.

The motif is

particularly frequent in late tenth-century literature in both Old English and

Latin. Among the numerous instances recorded by Hill, some of the passages

are interestingly close to the diction and imagery offered by The Death. For

example, in The Fates of the Apostles the account of the deaths of the disciples,

especially that of St Andrew, follows a similar formulaic pattern: ‘[Andreas]

him ece geceas/ langsumre lif, leoht unhwilen …’ (19–20).

In Byrhtferth’s

Northumbrian Chronicle, a parallel formula is consistently employed for the

deaths of outstanding ecclesiastics: ‘Eodem anno Alberht archiepiscopus ex hoc

luce migravit ad aeternae lucis perennitatem. …’

Æthelweard’s Chronicon

likewise offers this formulaic reference to Edgar’s decease:

Postque spiramen reddit authori

Telluris insultus, marcescens ab ea

Lumina cernit altitonantis,

Omissa tandem luce corrupta,

Anglorum insignis rex Eadgarus.

Accordingly, it is quite clear that at generating the account of the king’s death

the author of The Death was following a conventional obituary pattern that

often applied to saints, bishops and other prominent characters. In this sense,

this poem recalls the preceding coronation piece in which Edgar’s characteriza-

tion as a priestly ﬁgure was consciously elaborated. The formulaic presentation

of Edgar’s obit in The Death therefore connects with the Benedictine ideological

conception of the king in his double role as rex et sacerdos. Furthermore, it

suggests that this poem participated in the well-known genre of the obit and, by

extension, of the panegyric.

the

end of the ﬁrst section, the troublesome period immediately following

the king’s death is anticipated when the poet hints at the fact that this event was

unexpected, as the adjective geonga (8b) – referring to Edgar – suggests; also,

the poem states that Edward was too young to succeed his father (cild unwaxen,

11b). These lines therefore serve as a transitional passage connecting to the

second section, an idea that supports the assumption that the two parts should be

Thomas D. Hill, ‘The “Variegated Obit” as an Historiographic Motif in Old English Poetry

and Anglo-Latin Historical Literature’, Traditio 44 (1988), 101–24, esp. pp. 116–17.

Translation by Hill: ‘[Andreas] chose the eternal, long-lasting life, light that does not pass

…’.

My translation: ‘In that same year archbishop Alberht departed from this light to the per-

petuity of the eternal light …’. Text from Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold,

RS 75 (London, 1882–85), II.53. For further examples of this formula in Byrthferth’s

work, see Hill, op. cit., p. 109.

‘And afterwards Eadgar, the distinguished king of the English, gave back his spirit to

the maker of the world, and fading away from it [i.e. from the world], and having at

last left this corrupted light, he saw the light of him who thunders on high’, Campbell,

Æthelweard, p. 56. Note that Campbell does not translate insultus ‘as its sense is obscure’

in the passage.

EDGAR PANEGyRICS 267

read as a single composition. The second section thus opens with the account of

Cyneweard’s banishment. It is not surprising that the poet chose Cyneweard as

a representative victim of the anti-monastic revolt. He is speciﬁcally mentioned

in ASC A, s.a. 964, which narrates an episode that is no doubt particularly sig-

niﬁcant in the reform process, the driving of priests from minsters and replacing

them with monks. Here, Cyneweard’s promotion to the abbacy of Milton Abbas

(later, to the bishopric of Wells) is clearly connected to the expulsion of the

clerks from the Old and the New Minsters. The reference to his banishment

in the poem is therefore probably viewed as a logical consequence of the po-

litical disturbances following Edgar’s death. In diction typical of praise-poetry,

Cyneweard is thus valued positively as tirfæst hæleð (13a) and as bisceop se

goda,/ ðurh gecyndne cræft (14b–15a). By presenting him eulogistically, the

poet characterizes Cyneweard as a heroic victim of the revolt and effectively

portrays his exile as a great loss for the English nation.

The

poem

then offers a detailed account of the anti-monastic reaction in

Mercia (16–23) with an allusion to the expulsion of the monks from their mon-

asteries in retaliation for Edgar and the reformers’ strict impositions in the pre-

ceding years.

The phrase gleawra Godes þeowa (19a) now clearly refers to

monks that are described as fervent servers of the Lord – þam þe on breostum

wæg byrnende lufan / Metodes on mode (19–21a) – and, as in The Coronation,

are said to be numerous (fela, 18b). A probable member of the monastic clergy,

the author of The Death thus mournfully regrets the convulsion occasioned in

the reformed church and the abusing of his devout Mercian colleagues and,

in a clearly disaproving tone, laments the ominous breaking of God’s law (his

riht tobræc, 23b). The idea of Oslac’s overseas banishment is next introduced

(24–28). Again the emphasis is on violent social turmoil, as the verb dræfed

(24a) echoes todræfed (18b) referring to the monks in the preceding lines. As

with Cyneweard and the Mercian monks, the poet resorts to eulogistic language

so that Oslac is described as gamolfeax hæleð (26b) and wis  wordsnotor (27a).

Oslac, earl of Northumbria, was presumably inﬂuential during Edgar’s reign,

especially from 968 onwards, as he consistently witnessed royal charters and di-

plomas.

From the poet’s perspective, Oslac, like his ecclesiastical counterpart

See D. J. V. Fisher, ‘The Anti-Monastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr’,

Cambridge Historical Journal 10.3 (1952), 254–70.

He subscribes to S 712, 712a, 716, 732–4. Interestingly, Cyneweard and Oslac jointly

sign as witnesses in S807. For this, see Rumble, Property and Piety, no. vi. In ‘The Death

of Edgar (and others)’, ANQ 4 (1965), 52–5, N. D. Isaacs has pointed out that Oslac’s

departure might be a reference to his death instead of his exile. However, the use of the

expressions dræfed (24a) and hama bereafod (18b) rather point to severe political meas-

ures of expropriation and banishment carried out after Edgar’s reign. Besides, the verb

dræfed parallels dræfde in the prose entry narrating the expulsion of secular canons at

Edgar’s behest (964A). Also, see D. Whitelock, ‘The Dealings of the Kings of England

with Northumbria in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in

Some Aspects of their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Peter Clemoes

(London, 1959), pp. 70–88.

268 MERCEDES SALVADOR-BELLO

Cyneweard, therefore possibly deserved to appear as an honourable representa-

tive of the nobility affected by the crisis following Edgar’s death.

By alluding

to three major social ranks (priests, monks and noblemen) in the

same order found in The Coronation, The Death resembles the ﬁrst poem in that

it shows a preoccupation with the social repercussions caused by the event in

question, the difference being that in the second poem two of the ranks (priests

and noblemen) are represented by individuals rather than groups. In clear con-

trast to The Coronation, The Death stresses the fragmentation of society with

the three-fold reference to the exile of Bishop Cyneweard, a prominent repre-

sentative of the priesthood, the scattering of the monks in Mercia, and the ban-

ishment of Oslac, an outstanding nobleman. In his Vita S. Oswaldi, Byrhtferth

describes Edgar’s death and the subsequent disturbances in a similar way to that

of the Chronicle poem:

Obiit tam inclytus rex viii. idus Julii; cujus obitu turbatus est status totius

regni, commoti sunt episcopi, irati sunt principes, timore concussi sunt

monachi, pavefacti populi, clerici læti effecti sunt quoniam tempus eorum

advenit. Expelluntur abbates cum monachis suis, introducuntur clerici cum

uxoribus suis, et erat error pejor priore. Expulsus est et abbas Germanus cum

aliis, et apte, ut qui erat particeps iniquitatis, ﬁeret particeps transmigrationis.

Namque scimus quia sæpe perit justus cum impio, non spiritu sed a corpore.

Hæc non sunt exotica quæ dico verba sed satis cognita, quia prius a nostra-

tibus sunt sanctæ Dei ecclesiæ vastatæ, expulsis scilicet Domini servis, qui

(non) diebus non noctibus cessabant a Divinis laudibus, licet aliqui non rite

fecerunt, sed tamen plurimi bene egerunt.

This exerpt likewise presents the aftermath of Edgar’s death as a general state

of chaos affecting both the nobility and the clergy (bishops, abbots and monks)

– with clerics turning back to their licentious way of life. Also, like the author

of The Death, Byrthferth personalizes his account and, naturally from a monk’s

viewpoint, mentions Abbot Germanus, as a distinguished victim of the dis-

order.

Interestingly, the ﬁnal reference to the expulsion of the zealous monks

is close to the phraseology found in The Death (lines 20–21a).

‘The illustrious king died on 8 July, and by his death the state of the whole kingdom was

thrown into confusion, the bishops were agitated, the noblemen stirred up, the monks

shaken with fear, the people terriﬁed; the clerics were made glad, for their time had come.

Abbots, with their monks, were expelled; clerics, with their wives, were introduced; and

the last error was worse than the ﬁrst. Abbot Germanus also was expelled along with the

others – and ﬁttingly, that he who shared in the injustice, should share in the transmigra-

tion. For we know that the just man often perishes with the wicked, not in spirit, but in

body. These words which I utter are not extravagant, but well known, that before the holy

churches of God were laid waste by our countrymen, when the servants of the Lord, who

ceased not day and night from the divine praises, were expelled, though some did not act

rightly, yet many did well’ (EHD, p. 912).

The prominence of Germanus in the Benedictine movement is well attested. Germanus

was a disciple of Oswald and spent several years in Fleury. He later returned from Fleury

and became abbot of Winchcombe until this community was dissolved as a consequence

of the the anti-monastic reaction. Germanus and his fellow monks were then relocated at

EDGAR PANEGyRICS 269

In this context of social fragmentation, the appearance of the comet is thus

a ﬁtting allusion in The Death, since it was traditionally considered as a sign

foretelling ‘pestilence, famine, war or change of king’.

Right after the comet,

a great famine is interpreted as ‘the Ruler’s vengeance’ (Waldendes wracu,

34a) and the result of the breaking of God’s law in Mercia. Similarly, the New

Minster Refoundation Charter alludes to the canons’ depravity as provoking

iusti uindictam iudicis (‘the vengeance of the Just Judge’).

This imagery is in

turn reminiscent of the natural upheaval occurring after Christ’s death in the

biblical account (Matt. 27:51). In this sense, The Death recalls the reference to

the completion of the ﬁrst millennium in The Coronation, since the natural dis-

asters in the ﬁrst were probably intended to associate the aftermath of Edgar’s

death with the apocalyptic time.

ith

its resonances of the Second Coming and the Final Judgment, The Death

thus dovetails with the preceding poem. The ﬁnal reference to God’s provi-

dential intervention in restoring prosperity (35b–37) is also signiﬁcant, since it

would perfectly ﬁt a Benedictine author concerned with transmitting the idea

of a re-establishment of law and order after the critical stage following Edgar’s

death.

As a whole, with its account of the king’s obit and the subsequent social

disorder, The Death can therefore be read as a poem which counterbalances the

contents of The Coronation.

Conclusions

As this paper has suggested, the relationship between The Coronation and The

Death goes beyond their merely sharing encomiastic features, since the two

poems evince a consistent use of imagery and diction that parallels the propagan-

distic features found in contemporary pro-reform texts. To begin with, Edgar’s

sacerdotal and christological status is clearly hinted at in both, as observed in

the ambivalent use of epithets alluding to Christ and Edgar in The Coronation

and in the priestly characterization of the monarch with the formulaic reference

to the obit and the allusion to God’s revenge as a result of the failure to keep

Ramsey. He later became abbot of Cholsey where he died c. 1013. See Michael Lapidge,

‘Abbot Germanus, Winchcombe, Ramsey and the Cambridge Psalter’, Words, Texts and

Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occa-

sion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. Korhammer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 99–129.

Michael Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London, 1996), p. 121. See also Byrht-

ferth’s Enchyridion (c. 1010–12) in Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion, ed. Peter S. Baker and

Michael Lapidge, EETS ss 15 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 120–1.

Here the charter paraphrases Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job. See Rumble, Property

and Piety, iv, p. 81 and n. 48.

Cf. ‘The image of a land of plenty is a commonplace of insular political thought which

equated good harvests and clement weather with the rule of a righteous king; conversely,

famine and hard winters were associated with an unjust ruler or one who harboured sin’,

Joanna Story, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia

c. 750–870 (Aldershot, 2003), p. 219.

270 MERCEDES SALVADOR-BELLO

His law in The Death. In addition, the two poems exhibit a concern with the

social impact caused by the event in question. The Coronation manifestly puts

the emphasis on the solid concord of three social ranks witnessing the ceremony

whereas The Death highlights the rupture of that ideal unity by illustrating the

political disorder produced by Edgar’s death.

Also,

the two poems eschatological resonances can be discerned. In The

Coronation the presentation of the event is clearly associated with Christ’s

Second Coming and in The Death the social and natural disorders described

are deliberately compared to Doomsday. Consequently, the two poems seem

to function as a diptych offering, on one hand, a positive evaluation of Edgar’s

coronation as a climatic moment of the reform and, on other, its temporary

decline with the king’s death.

A further reason for reading The Coronation

and The Death together is their existence in a blended version in Æthelweard’s

Chronicon, where the two poems effectively merge to produce a long, solemn

panegyric that ﬁttingly honours Edgar and serves as an appropriate coda to this

chronicle.

The

elaborat

e contents and the diptych-like structure of the Chronicle poems,

which signiﬁcantly differ from the surrounding prose entries, therefore do not

suggest scribal improvisation to comply with the annalistic sequence but rather

an independent circulation.

It is possible that chroniclers could have freely

used eulogistic material at hand at particular places in the annals. Signiﬁcantly,

the two poems appear in ASC ABC versions, which convey (especially B) the

chronologically closest accounts of the reported events. Their presence in what

seems to be the authorized southern recensions suggests that they might have

been ofﬁcially sanctioned as royal panegyrics associated with the contemporary

reform movement.

By inserting the poetic pair in the Chronicle, clerical com-

pilers most likely intended to honour the reform’s greatest benefactor who, as

a quasi-saintly ﬁgure, was thus appropriately furnished with an apotheosis-like

poem – exalting the king at the peak of his career –, and a ﬁtting obituary piece,

A similar two-fold display is presented in the Exeter Book with the Guthlac poems, in

which Guthlac A is about major events in the life of the saint and B is about his death.

The possible inﬂuence of hagiography in the Edgar poems is thus to be taken into account,

since, as Thormann states, they ‘draw upon the formulas and themes of Christian narra-

tive and elegy, appropriating the conventions of religious poetry for secular purposes’,

Thormann, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Poems’, p. 65.

With regard to the panegyrics of the Chronicle, Campbell, Brunanburh, p. 37, has sug-

gested that ‘Such poems must have been a popular form of composition with certain poets

of the age.’ See also Townend, ‘Pre-Cnut Praise-Poetry’, p. 353, who states that the Edgar

poems, together with Brunanburh and The Capture, ‘were not composed specially for the

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but rather enjoyed an anterior (and possibly subsequent) circula-

tion’.

Even though David Dumville in Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar: Six Essays

on Political, Cultural, and Ecclesiastical Revival (Woodbridge, 1992), ch. 3, has chal-

lenged the Winchester ascription of A, most scholars still think these three versions of

the Chronicle seem to be associated with centralized authority. For the contrary view, see

Bately, MS A, pp. xc and xxxiii, where she argues that the block of annals from 924–75

contains ‘material with Winchester connexions’.

EDGAR PANEGyRICS 271

equally enhancing the king’s reign as a golden age with the description of the

desolate climate of the post-Edgarian period.

Apart from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle poems and Æthelweard’s Chron-

icon, there are no extant panegyrics of Edgar or any other tenth-century king

to corroborate the existence of an independent royal eulogistic trend. In the

case of Æthelstan, however, there are fragments of two lost Latin poems – one

celebrating his

coronation and another one praising his courageous participa-

tion at Brunanburh – that were incorporated by William of Malmesbury in his

De gestis regum.

In this light, it may be tentatively assumed that Malmesbury

rescued these poems from a eulogistic tradition associated with kings who were

well-known benefactors of ecclesiastical interests. Similarly, the reference to

some Bella Athelstani regis in a thirteenth-century book-list from Glastonbury

might point to the existence of a Latin version of Brunanburh outside of the

Chronicle.

On this basis, Lapidge suspects the possible use of a Latin poem

celebrating Æthelstan’s victory at Brunanburh in the passage alluding to that

battle in Wulfstan Cantor’s Vita S. Æthelwoldi.

Despite their fragmentariness,

these cases may point to the existence of a eulogistic trend that was known by

authors w

ho, like Wulfstan Cantor or Malmesbury, made use of this material

for the composition of their works. Accordingly, we may conclude that the com-

pilers of ASC could have equally employed pre-existing panegyrics like The

Coronation and The Death which might have been incorporated at particular

places of the annals.

also quite clear that Edgar’s popularity did not wane after his death

and that a eulogistic trend might have continued well after that, since the later

ASC DE versions offer either revised renderings of the preceding poems or,

perhaps, different poetic adaptations recovered from either a contemporary or an

earlier eulogistic corpus that was available at that moment. Edgar poems in the

Northern Chronicle recensions offer signiﬁcant divergences such as the substitu-

tion of the coronation poem for a laudatory piece celebrating Edgar’s accession

(959DE), attributed to Wulfstan the Homilist, which interestingly conveys a

critical reference to Edgar’s excessive toleration of pagan customs at the end.

These divergences were perhaps induced by the natural change of perspective

of early eleventh-century chroniclers, who were not fully in agreement with

Edgar’s policy in the preceding period.

The 975DE entry also dramatically

departs from the contents and the format of the ABC poems

but, as Bredehoft

Cf. Plummer, Earle’s Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel, II.152: ‘Across the troubles of the

intervening years later chroniclers looked back upon the reign of Edgar, “the peaceful,”

as on a golden age’.

For the poem on Æthelstan’s coronation, see Joseph Stevenson, The Church Historians

of England, vol. 3, part I (London, 1854), ch. 133. For the Latin poem on the battle of

Brunanburh, see Stevenson, ibid., ch. 135.

See T. Hearne, Iohannis Glastoniensis Chronica, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1726), II.438.

Lapidge and Winterbottom, WulfstW, p. 17, nn. 6 and 7.

Cf. Thomas Bredehoft, Textual Histories: Readings in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Toronto,

2001), p. 108.

For example, the reference to the ‘anti-monastic reaction’ is presented in a prose coda.

272 MERCEDES SALVADOR-BELLO

states, it ‘clearly seems to have been composed by a poet who was aware of

the traditional content of the earlier Chronicle verse, despite the fact that he

composed in a less traditional verse form.’

It is possible, then, that the later

versions of ASC were still reworking or adapting earlier panegyrics in order to

comply with contemporary stylistic concerns and the new political situation.

The continuity

of a tradition of Edgarian praise-poetry may be supported

by the writings of Ælfric, a writer of the second generation of Benedictines

and a disciple of Æthelwold. In the epilogue to the book of Judges from the

Old English version of the Heptateuch, Ælfric has a well-known diggression in

which Edgar is praised together with his predecessors Alfred and Æthelstan.

Resonances of praise-poetry devoted to Edgar seem to be in Ælfric’s mid-Lent

homily (LS XIII), in which a couple of passages apparently paraphrase the

images of chaos and destruction offered in The Death.

These lines may thus

point to the great inﬂuence that a surviving tradition of panegyrics devoted to

Edgar may have exerted on works written by ecclesiastical authors.

Finally

, The Battle of Maldon bears witness to the continuity of praise-poetry

devoted to the benefactors of the Benedictine cause. Scragg has already pointed

out that we possibly owe the survival of this poem to Byrhtnoth’s well-attested

support of ecclesiastical interests.

In this light, if Byrhtnoth’s active contribu-

tion to the reform explains the preservation of a poem narrating the defeat and

death of this ealdorman, it seems fairly reasonable to assume that The Corona-

tion and The Death could stand for samples of praise-poetry celebrating King

Edgar as the greatest exponent of the reform movement. Accordingly, it is there-

fore possible that the two Edgar poems in ASC illustrate an incipient tradition

of royal panegyrics, the development of which was probably truncated by the

unfavourable political circumstances after the king’s death.

Bredehoft, Textual Histories, pp. 105–6.

For the text, see The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, ed. S. J. Crawford, EETS 160

(London, 1922; repr. with additions by N. R. Ker 1969), pp. 416–17, with a translation in

EHD.

LS XIII, lines 12–54, pp. 294–95. Note parallelism in a preceding passage from the same

work, lines 139–46.

The Battle of Maldon, ed. D. G. Scragg (Manchester, 1981), p. 18. See also The Battle of

Maldon, AD 991, ed. Donald Scragg (Oxford, 1991), p. xii.

My thanks to Donald Scragg, Frederick M. Biggs, John D. Niles, Shashi Jayakumar,

Michael D. C. Drout, Maria J. Mora and Rebecca Stephenson for their helpful comments

on this essay.

Abingdon, 40 [see also Bishop Æthelwold]

Ælfgifu, mother of Edgar, 143, 152, 263n

Ælfgifu, wife of King Eadwig, 30n, 87–90,

99n, 101–2, 244

Ælfheah, ealdorman of Hampshire, 8, 27,

31–3, 85, 89–90, 93, 95n, 98, 136, 138,

149

Ælfhere, ealdorman of Mercia, 8, 11, 22,

30–3, 43n, 53–4, 56, 84–5, 89–90, 92–5,

97–8, 100–1, 107, 149, 177–8, 244–5

Ælfric, abbot and homilist, 3n, 46n, 47, 96,

131

Ælfthryth, Queen, 4, 19, 27–8, 42n, 53, 96–8,

101–2, 145–9, 152–7, 212, 218–20, 222–3,

243, 245–6

Æthelﬂæd, Lady of the Mercians, 94, 114–15,

118, 122, 197

Æthelﬂæd, wife of Edgar, 4, 27, 53, 97, 144,

148, 156

Æthelmær, ealdorman, 46n, 53, 87n, 243

Æthelred II, king of the English, 3, 5, 27–8,

31n, 34, 46–8, 52, 57, 84, 96–7, 127, 145,

147, 149–51, 153, 161, 163, 175n, 178n,

179n, 187, 189–90, 192, 217, 236n

Æthelsige, bishop of Winchester, 85–6, 137

Æthelstan, king of the English 924–939, 6,

12n, 18, 23, 25–7, 34, 37, 41n, 88, 91, 95,

97n, 105, 114, 117–19, 122, 127, 146–7,

161, 182–3, 186, 189–90, 204, 228, 231n,

252, 254n, 256n, 265, 272

Æthelstan ‘Half-King’, ealdorman of East

Anglia, 31, 35, 44, 56, 93–4, 105–6, 173,

244

Æthelstan Rota, ealdorman, 30–2, 95n, 98

Æthelweard, ealdorman, author of the

Chronicon, 3, 46n, 53, 87, 89, 99–101,

129, 132–3, 177, 190, 243, 255, 256n, 258,

262, 266, 270

Æthelwine, ealdorman of East Anglia, 11,

31–2, 35, 44–5, 53, 55–6, 94–5, 97–8, 101,

149, 177, 219, 243, 245

Æthelwold, ealdorman of East Anglia, 19, 31,

94, 95n, 96–8, 145, 149, 155

Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, 3, 15–18,

21, 29, 39–42, 44, 53–4, 83, 87, 89–90,

95, 97, 100–1, 106–7, 122, 129–30, 133–4,

139, 149–50, 154–5, 183n, 184n, 211–14,

217–23, 231n, 233–4, 236n, 239–40,

244–6, 248, 252n, 255 [see also Wulfstan

of Winchester]

Alfred, king of the Anglo-Saxons, 5–6, 88, 99,

105–6, 118, 121, 126, 144, 175, 190, 236,

248, 272

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 9, 33, 53–4, 88, 99,

124, 127 129–34, 139, 171–2, 175, 176n,

188, 197, 214–15, 218, 243–4, 252–72

Battle of Maldon, 31n, 85n, 101, 272; see also

215

Benedictine Rule, see Rule of St Benedict.

Byrhtferth of Ramsey, Life of Oswald, 3n, 4,

9, 35, 40, 42–50, 52, 54, 58, 84, 86, 94,

101, 127, 153, 163–4, 212–15, 218–20,

244, 257–8, 268

Byrhthelm, bishop of Winchester, 42, 86–7,

89, 100, 218

Byrhthelm, bishop of Wells, brieﬂy archbishop

of Canterbury, 41, 86, 107

Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, 31–2, 53,

55–6, 86–7, 89–90, 98, 100–1, 243, 272

Chertsey, 9n, 42, 243

Chester, St Werburg’s, 13, 104–23

Cnut, king of the English, 143, 146, 155, 161,

172n, 177, 179n, 189–90

coinage, 23–5, 138, 178, 188, 192–207

coronation of Edgar, 5, 41, 48–51, 105, 121,

147–8, 165, 212, 252–63, 265, 269–70

Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, 3, 4, 8,

14n, 22, 28, 34, 37–9, 41–3, 48, 52, 88–90,

93n, 96, 102, 107, 122, 129–36, 149–50,

154–5, 157, 161n, 164–5, 167, 190, 213,

215, 217–20, 221n, 228, 231n, 239–40,

245–6, 252n, 259, 261; earliest Life of, 4,

9, 40–1, 46, 84, 89–90, 102n, 124, 139,

178n, 258

Eadgifu, wife of Edward the Elder, 27, 37,

88–90, 93, 106, 144, 146–7, 219n, 243

Eadred, king of the English 946–955, 6, 7, 13,

14n, 23, 25, 27, 38, 41, 88, 93, 94n, 95n,

Index