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

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44 SIMON KEyNES

ﬁed year, possibly in 965 or perhaps thereafter.

197

According to Byrhtferth, the

king was moved on this occasion by the assembled company of bishops, abbots

and abbesses, with their respective followings, singing divine service; and it

is in this context that Byrhtferth says of the king that he ordered more than

forty monasteries to be established with monks. After the others had dispersed,

Oswald stayed back and asked the king if he had a place where he might be

able to assemble his monks. Edgar offered him a choice of three monasteries,

at St Albans (Hertfordshire), Ely (Cambridgeshire), and Benﬂeet (Essex); so

wald went at once to inspect them, and then returned home. yet he also had a

fourth option. It had so happened, during the course of the Easter meeting, that

a distinguished king’s thegn (inclytus miles regis) had died. At the funeral, the

king ordered that the body should be taken away to its place of burial; Oswald

accompanied the procession, and, after the burial, another distinguished thegn

(miles egregius), called Æthelwine, identiﬁed as one of the sons of Ealdorman

Æthelstan Half-King, approached Oswald for his blessing. In the course of their

conversation Æthelwine remarked that he had a suitable place for the establish-

ment of a monastery, at Ramsey, where there were already three men eager to

follow the monastic life. Within a few days Oswald had inspected Ramsey as

well, and was so impressed by its suitability, expressed in terms of its natural

resources, that he instructed the priest Eadnoth to move there from Westbury

and to make the place habitable. Work continued apace during the spring and

summer; and in August, when all was ready, Oswald himself led his monks

across the country to Ramsey.

198

Necessary preparations were made for the ﬁrst

winter, and in the following spring foundations were laid for stone buildings, in-

cluding the church.

199

Oswald pressed on thereafter, with help from Ealdorman

Æthelwine.

200

As soon as the monastery was completed, apparently at about the

time of King Edgar’s death in 975, it was consecrated by Archbishop Oswald,

assisted by Ælfnoth, bishop of Dorchester.

201

Byrhtferth chooses to indicate in

this connection that Oswald provided his community at Ramsey with many gifts,

197

There is no reason to believe that this meeting was anything other than an ordinary

meeting of the king and his councillors. For some further discussion, see J. Barrow, ‘The

Community of Worcester, 961–c.1100’, St Oswald of Worcester, ed. Brooks and Cubitt,

pp. 84–99, at 94–5.

198

BR, VSO iii.9–17 (Raine, York, pp. 424–31). The remark about forty monasteries may

have been part of Byrhtferth’s general encomium of the king, rather than a reference to

a speciﬁc order made on a particular occasion. The identity of the thegn who died during

the course of the meeting is not known; but according to Ramsey’s twelfth-century Liber

benefactorum, the funeral took place at Glastonbury. Byrhtferth was evidently under the

impression that Æthelwine himself was a young man at the time, and so still a thegn

(iii.15); and perhaps he would not have known that Æthelwine had succeeded his brother

in 962 and would thus already have been an ealdorman at the time of his meeting with

Oswald. For the suggestion that the funeral was in fact that of Ealdorman Æthelmund

(here loosely styled miles), who does indeed disappear from the witness-lists in 965, see

Byrhtferth, ed. Lapidge.

199

VSO iv.1–2 (Raine, York, pp. 433–4).

200

VSO iv.8 (Raine, York, pp. 438–9).

201

VSO iv.15 (Raine, York, pp. 446–7).

EDGAR, REX ADMIRABILIS 45

including books, vestments, and other items necessary for the religious life;

202

and he indicates in another context that Ealdorman Æthelwine also gave many

gifts, and promised to give 200 hides of land.

203

One learns from all this, unsurprisingly, that the foundation of a monastery

was a long and complex process. In the case of Ramsey, the building work

seems to have extended over a period of almost ten years; and it seems that the

acquisition of a landed endowment took even longer. Much would depend on

the resources of the founders themselves, or on their willingness to expend their

resources for such a purpose; yet much might also depend on a monastery’s

‘identity’ or proﬁle within its own locality, and on its success, or otherwise,

in becoming a focal point of attention. Perhaps there is a contrast to be drawn

here between a place like Ramsey, which depended to a great extent on the pa-

tronage of a particular family, and a place like Ely, which had been refounded

by the bishop of Winchester, which enjoyed royal patronage, and which had the

undoubtedly special attraction of its association with St Æthelthryth to generate

extra support. That is not to say, however, that Ely’s extraordinary success in

the early 970s was necessarily to its advantage; for the greater the success,

the greater the impact on local society, and so the greater the resentment after

Edgar’s death – as we read in the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi.

scarcely surprising that after several years of separate initiatives the need

should have been felt for some overall control. It is not known for certain when

Edgar convened the ‘synodal council’ at Winchester described in the prologue

to the Regularis Concordia, and suggestions range from a date in the mid-960s,

perhaps 966,

204

to a date in the early 970s, perhaps 973.

205

King Edgar addressed

a letter, to the synodal council of Winchester, ‘set forth magniﬁcently on parch-

ment’, in which he urged ‘all to be of one mind as regards monastic usage …

lest differing ways of observing the customs of one Rule and one country (unius

regulae ac unius patriae) should bring their holy conversation into disrepute’.

206

There is an analogy to be pressed here with the reform of the coinage, and with

the background to the events at Bath and Chester in 973; but perhaps the more

compelling argument in favour of the later date is that such action might not

have been required before the early 970s.

This

not the place to pursue the monastic reform movement into its second

generation, in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, except to say again

how dependent we are on views of the ‘movement’, in the central decades of the

202

VSO iv.15 and v.10 (Raine, York, pp. 446–7 and 462–3).

203

VSO v.14 (Raine, York, pp. 467–8); see also Hart, ‘Æthelstan “Half-King” and his

Family’, pp. 596–7.

204

Barrow, ‘Chronology’, below, pp. 211–23. The suggestion arises from the identiﬁcation

of Edgar’s preceptum about the establishment of monasteries (VSO iv.3: above, p. 42),

in force in the mid-960s, as the letter addressed to the council of Winchester which led

to Regularis Concordia.

205

T. Symons, ‘Regularis Concordia: History and Derivation’, Tenth-Century Studies, ed.

D. Parsons (Chichester, 1975), pp. 37–59 and 214–17, at 39–42.

206

Regularis Concordia, Proemium, ch. 4 (Symons, RC, pp. 2–3; Consuetudinum saeculi

X/XI/XII monumenta non-Cluniacensia, ed. Hallinger, pp. 70–1).

46 SIMON KEyNES

tenth century, which were formed in the context of conditions which had come

to prevail in the 990s. The earliest Lives of Dunstan, Æthelwold and Oswald

hav

e for this reason to be treated with all due circumspection. yet perhaps there

is more to it than that. It would be interesting to know how widely Bishop

Æthelwold’s treatise on the Old English Rule of St Benedict might have been

read, and what inﬂuence it might have exerted on the communities of religious

houses in times of trouble, when they would have been brought under ever in-

creasing pressure from the secular powers. Reﬂecting concerns expressed else-

where in the New Minster charter, Æthelwold exhorts his successors to observe

the Rule, and, more strikingly, impresses upon them the need to protect God’s

property against the kind of losses from which churches had suffered in the past,

whether through acts of robbery perpetrated by evil men or through the actions

of those who were in charge of the churches themselves.

207

One can almost see

the genesis, here, of a natural inclination for heads of houses to ensure that

their landed endowments and their privileges were protected by the necessary

or most effective forms of documentation, with threats and curses of every kind;

and there were reasons, in the 990s, why for their part the secular powers might

have been minded to promote the same cause.

208

We are led back, unavoidably,

to the controversy surrounding the authenticity of the so-called ‘Orthodoxorum’

charters in the names of Eadwig and Edgar.

209

If genuine, they would bear di-

rectly on the course of monastic reform from 959 onwards, and the tenor of the

summary given above would have to be adjusted. If spurious, King Æthelred’s

charter for Abingdon abbey, dated 993, would take its place at the head of the

series, and much else would follow. The basic formula employed in Edgar’s

charters of the 960s and early 970s for the operative element in grants of land

to religious houses was ad usus monachorum (or a variation on that theme),

found in charters of ‘Edgar A’ and of the ‘Edgar A’ type for Abingdon, Shaftes-

bury, Glastonbury, Romsey, Wilton, Bath, and Ely;

210

different forms of words

207

Councils & Synods, pp. 152–4. If in the preface to the Regularis Concordia King Edgar

was represented as protector of monks, Æthelwold’s remarks in this context seem to

reﬂect an awareness of more complex realities; and for the way in which Ælfric moved in

the same direction, see C. A. Jones, Ælfric’s Letter to the Monks of Eynsham (Cambridge,

1998), pp. 43–6.

208

Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 189–93, and ‘An Abbot, an Archbishop, and the Viking Raids

of 1006–7 and 1009–12’, ASE 36 (2007), pp. 151–220. For Æthelweard and his son

Æthelmær, see also M. Gretsch, ‘Ælfric, Language and Winchester’, A Companion to

Ælfric, ed. M. Swan and H. Magennis (Leiden, forthcoming).

209

Above, pp. 16–17.

210

Among charters for Abingdon, the formula ad monachorum usus inibi regulariter de-

gentium dominoque nostro deuote seruientium occurs in S 690 (Abing 87), dated 961,

and occurs also in S 688–9; the formula ad usus ibidem fratrum Deo seruientium occurs

in S 682, dated 960, S 708, dated 963, and S 732–4, dated 965; and the formula ad

usus monachorum Dei inibi degentium occurs in S 757–60, dated 968; cf. S 700, dated

962, S 701, dated 962, and S 724, dated 964. For similar usages in ‘Edgar A’ charters

for other houses, see S 744, dated 966 (Shaftesbury), S 764, dated 968 (Glastonbury),

765, dated 968 (Romsey), S 766–7, dated 968 (Wilton), S 777, dated 970 (Bath), and

S 780–1, dated 970 (Ely).

EDGAR, REX ADMIRABILIS 47

are found in charters of the ‘Dunstan B’ type, for Bath and Glastonbury, and

in other charters for the Old Minster, Winchester, and for Peterborough.

211

yet

Edgar’s charter for the New Minster, Winchester, dated 966, demonstrates quite

clearly that general privileges of such a kind were not out of place in his reign;

and, since Wulfstan of Winchester refers to royal charters for Abingdon, appar-

ently produced during the abbacy of Æthelwold’s successor Osgar (963–84),

212

and also to a charter for Ely,

213

one might suppose that the New Minster charter

was not unique. The question arises, nonetheless, whether any of Edgar’s char-

ters of foundation or refoundation, or general grants of privileges, apart from the

New Minster charter, can be accepted as authentic.

214

Some among them may

have come into existence in the closing decades of the tenth century, in recogni-

tion of a need to provide a monastery with useful documentation, perhaps ex-

tending to a respectably ancient identity, at a time when its lands and privileges

were coming under threat. At Westminster, for example, the monks produced a

charter intended to secure the endowment received in Edgar’s reign (invoking

ancient charters of King Offa);

215

the fact that Edgar’s ‘Orthodoxorum’ charter

for Pershore abbey survives in single-sheet form, written probably not later than

the end of the tenth century,

216

suggests that some if not all of the other ‘Ortho-

doxorum’ charters, including those of Eadwig and Edgar for Abingdon, came

into existence at about the same time; and Edgar’s charter for Ely abbey, also

extant in single-sheet form (probably of the later eleventh century), is given not

only in Latin but in an Old English version which has been attributed to Ælfric

of Eynsham.

217

A composite text, representing Edgar’s role as benefactor of the

Old Minster, Winchester, was conceivably put together in Æthelred’s reign;

218

some of the charters of King Edgar said by Wulfstan of Winchester to have

211

For usages in ‘Dunstan B’ charters for Bath and Glastonbury, see S 694, S 735, S 743,

S 785 and S 791; the usage in S 735 (Bath 17) is especially interesting (above, p. 19).

See also S 699, dated 961 (Old Minster, Winchester), and S 782, dated 971 (Peterbor-

ough).

212

WW, VSÆ, ch. 21 (Lapidge and Winterbottom, WulfstW, p. 36); but see further below,

n. 000.

213

WW, VSÆ, ch. 23 (Lapidge and Winterbottom, WulfstW, pp. 38–40).

214

For the charters in question, see Keynes, ‘Conspectus’, pp. 63–4. They range from prob-

lematic to patently spurious; but there is much to learn from the circumstances in which

each was produced, and from the relationship between them.

215

S. Keynes, ‘Wulfsige, Monk of Glastonbury, Abbot of Westminster (c.990–3), and Bishop

of Sherborne (c.993–1002)’, St Wulfsige and Sherborne, ed. K. Barker et al. (Oxford,

2005), pp. 53–94, at 56–7, with reference to S 670 (BCS 1048), S 1450, MS. 1 (BCS

1351), and S 1451 (BCS 1290).

216

S 786 (BCS 1282), with the letter from Godfrey, archdeacon of Worcester, to the pope,

in BL, Cotton Augustus ii. 7; see also Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, pp.

142–5, and P. Stokes, ‘King Edgar’s “Orthodoxorum” Charter for Pershore Abbey’, ASE

(forthcoming).

217

S 779 (BCS 1266–7); see J. Pope, ‘Ælfric and the Old English Version of the Ely Privi-

lege’, England before the Conquest, ed. P. Clemoes and K. Hughes (Cambridge, 1971),

pp. 85–113.

218

S 814–19 + 821–7, for which see Rumble, Property and Piety, pp. 98–135, at 103, and

a forthcoming study by Sophie Rixon.

48 SIMON KEyNES

preserved at Abingdon in his own day might have been produced more recently

than he might have supposed;

219

and Professor Lapidge suggests that Edgar’s

charter for Ramsey, dated 974, contains traces of Byrhtferthian Latinity, raising

the possibility that the need for such a charter might have been felt, at Ramsey,

in the late tenth or early eleventh century.

220

It is arguable that few of the mon-

asteries which came into being during Edgar’s reign did so in circumstances

for which a straightforward charter of foundation or endowment, or a grant of

privileges, would have been expected, or indeed appropriate; but different con-

ditions prevailed in Æthelred’s reign, and of course at later dates. The question,

therefore, is whether some religious houses might have turned sooner rather

than later, under these circumstances, to the fabrication of charters, not just in

the name of King Edgar, or his immediate predecessors, but also in the names

of kings from the more distant and venerable past.

The events of 973

A ﬁfth and ﬁnal theme, which also needs to be approached in its wider context,

arises in the early 970s. In 1943 Sir Frank Stenton expressed his view that ‘the

ﬁrst event of [Edgar’s] time which made a strong impression on his contem-

poraries was his long-deferred coronation, which took place at Bath, on Whit

Sunday 973’.

221

The medieval notion was that Edgar’s coronation was deferred

as penance for his sins;

222

and a modern notion has arisen that Edgar’s solemn

anointing was deferred until he reached the canonical age (thirty) for ordination

into the priesthood (in fact he was in his twenty-ninth year). It is now perhaps

generally assumed that Edgar would have been crowned and consecrated king

by Archbishop Dunstan in 960, not long after Dunstan’s return to England on

receiving his pallium from Pope John XII at Rome in September of that year;

223

219

The view in the late tenth century was that Abingdon was enriched (ditatus), following

the appointment of Osgar as abbot (in 963), with at least 600 hides, and strengthened

(suffultus) with charters of eternal liberty, written with divine and royal authority, which,

‘sealed with gold leaves’ (laminis aureis sigillata), were preserved there ‘to the present

day’ (WW, VSÆ, ch. 21, Lapidge and Winterbottom, WulfstW, p. 36). The allusion seems

to be to a number of separate charters, which between them are rather unlikely to have

amounted to an endowment of this order of magnitude (cf. Abing, pp. clxv–clxvi, and

Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis, ed. Hudson, I, cxxxvii–cxliii); but it remains unclear

what might have been meant by the reference to their being ‘sealed with gold leaves’,

unless no more than a ﬂight of fancy, perhaps suggested by II Chron. iii.8, with reference

to Solomon’s temple, overlaid with gold – laminis aureis – amounting to 600 talents.

220

S 798 (BCS 1311); see Byrhtferth, ed. Lapidge. The ‘original’ charter was displayed at

Ramsey in the 1530s; see Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters: Lost and Found’, pp. 50–1.

221

Stenton, ASE, p. 368; see also John, ‘The Age of Edgar’, pp. 188–9, and A. Jones,

‘The Signiﬁcance of the Regal Consecration of Edgar in 973’, Journal of Ecclesiastical

History 33 (1982), 375–90.

222

WM, Gesta Regum ii.158 and 160.1 (ed. Mynors et al., pp. 258 and 260); EC, VSD, chs.

56 and 58 (ed. Turner and Muir, pp. 136 and 142–4).

223

For this line of argument, see J. L. Nelson, ‘Inauguration Rituals’ [1977], reprinted in her

Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986), pp. 283–307, at 296–303.

A copy of the privilege of Pope John XII accompanying the grant of a pallium to Arch-

EDGAR, REX ADMIRABILIS 49

and of course it is an assumption which has a signiﬁcant impact on the inter-

pretation of the events at Bath in 973. The evidence of law-codes, charters and

coins indicates that there was nothing deﬁcient about Edgar’s kingship during

the 960s; yet there is no mistaking the contemporary perception of his ‘second’

coronation in 973 as a symbolic event of the utmost signiﬁcance in its day,

which in some sense marked a new beginning.

224

So what did it signify? For

reasons which are not entirely clear, Byrhtferth of Ramsey remarks in his Vita

S. Oswaldi that Edgar sent Æscwig, abbot of Bath, to Germany, accompanied by

the thegn Wulfmær, bearing wonderful presents (mira munera) for the emperor

(presumably Otto I), and returning with even more wonderful gifts (mirabiliora

munera) and a treaty of peace (pactum … pacis).

225

The date of the mission

is not speciﬁed; but it seems likely that it took place in the closing months

of 972, after the emperor’s return from Italy.

226

It would be interesting, there-

fore, to know whether Æscwig and Wulfmær were still present in Germany for

either or both of the major assemblies convened by Otto in March 973, ﬁrst at

Magdeburg (Palm Sunday [16 March]) and then at Quedlinburg (Easter Sunday

[23 March]); but alas the evidence fails us.

227

It is difﬁcult to resist the thought

that Æscwig was reminded by whatever he saw in Germany of the value of

grand ceremonial, and that he was instrumental in applying this lesson for the

meeting convened at Bath over Pentecost (11 May) in 973.

228

There is no reason

to believe that a special version of the coronation service was devised for use

speciﬁcally on this occasion, representing a signiﬁcant change from earlier litur-

gical usage or indeed in the conception of Edgar’s kingship;

229

so it is essentially

bishop Dunstan, dated 21 September 960, is entered in the ‘Pontiﬁcal of St Dunstan’;

see Councils & Synods, no. 25, and Keynes, ‘Wulfsige’, pp. 62–6.

224

The principal sources are the entries in ASC; see also BR, VSO iv.6–7 (Raine, York, pp.

436–8). For the poem in ASC ABC, see Mercedes Salvador-Bello, ‘The Edgar Panegyrics

in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, below, pp. 252–72. The entry in the ‘northern recension’

(ASC DE) contains the same basic information, but continues with a connected reference

to the event at Chester.

225

BR, VSO iv.4 (Raine, York, p. 435, but following Lapidge in reading ‘Æscuuium’ for

Raine’s ‘Ætherium’). Æscwig attests Edgar’s charters as abbot (of Bath) from 963

onwards (Keynes, Attestations, table LV); see also The Heads of Religious Houses:

England and Wales, I: 940–1216, ed. D. Knowles et al., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2001),

28. A thegn called Wulfmær was the beneﬁciary of a charter in 962 (S 707) and again

in 973 (S 793); attestations of a Wulfmær occur in 968 and 972 (Keynes, Attestations,

table LVII).

226

K. Leyser, ‘The Ottonians and Wessex’, in his Communications and Power in Medieval

Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries, ed. T. Reuter (London, 1994), pp.

73–104, at 95–7.

227

For the assemblies at Magdeburg and Quedlinburg, see D. A. Warner, Ottonian Germany:

The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg (Manchester, 2001), pp. 114–15; see also

Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056 (London, 1991), pp. 174–5.

228

ASC, s.a. 973; see also BR, VSO iv.6–7 and 11 (Raine, York, pp. 436–8). The connection

was made by Leyser, ‘Ottonians and Wessex’, p. 97, unaware that the abbot in question

was in fact the abbot of Bath; see also Byrhtferth, ed. Lapidge.

229

This argument was propounded by P. Schramm, A History of the English Coronation

(Oxford, 1936), pp. 19–22, and adopted by Stenton, ASE, p. 368. It is now recognized

50 SIMON KEyNES

the repetition of the ritual, and its location at Bath, that must be indicative of

its intended meaning, together with the fact that it was associated with a cer-

emony which took place at Chester immediately afterwards. A contributor to

the northern recension of the ASC, writing perhaps twenty-ﬁve years after the

event, remarked in this connection that six kings came to meet Edgar, ‘and gave

him pledges that they would be his allies on sea and on land’; or, as Ælfric put it

(without identifying the occasion), ‘all the kings who were in this island, of the

Welsh and of the Scots, came to Edgar – on one such day eight kings – and they

all submitted to Edgar’s rule’.

230

For his part, Byrhtferth of Ramsey had a clear

view of the extent of King Edgar’s power: he subjected all peoples ‘whom the

ocean surrounds’ to his authority, conquered ‘the ferocious and foolish kings of

the Scots and Welsh’ (feroces ac stolidos reges Scottorum atque Cumbriensium),

and glittered thereafter.

231

In these various sources the rulers in question are left

unnamed; but the kings who came to Edgar at Chester were identiﬁed in the

later eleventh- or early twelfth-century source which lies behind the chronicles

of John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury,

232

and are seen on this basis

to lend substance to the notion of Edgar’s much vaunted supremacy throughout

Britain. Modern post-colonial interpretation has reinvented the ceremony at

Chester as a ‘peace summit’, or a conference of the ‘Great Powers’, casting

Edgar as little more than a genial host or chairman.

233

It might be different if

the draftsmen of Edgar’s charters had chosen, like some of their predecessors,

to include sub-kings in the witness-lists, and thus have given a better sense of

the background in the 960s; for it is difﬁcult to see in the events of 973 very

that the signiﬁcant developments in the history of the Anglo-Saxon coronation service

took place in the late ninth or early tenth century; see esp. J. L. Nelson, ‘The Second

English Ordo’, in her Politics and Ritual, pp. 361–74, and ‘The First Use of the Second

Anglo-Saxon Ordo’, Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters, ed. Barrow and Wareham

(forthcoming).

230

ASC DE, s.a. 973; Ælfric’s Lives of the Saints, in Swithun, ed. Lapidge, pp. 606–7.

231

BR, VSE iv.11 (ed. Lapidge, forthcoming). It is not clear what Byrhtferth may have meant

by the Cumbrienses; but perhaps more than the men of Cumbria (or Strathclyde). For the

background, see A. Woolf, From Pictland to Alba 789–1070, New Edinburgh History of

Scotland 2 (Edinburgh, 2007), pp. 152–7.

232

JW, Chronicon, s.a. 973 (ed. Darlington and McGurk, pp. 422–4), and WM, Gesta Regum

ii.148.2 (ed. Mynors et al., pp. 238–40); see also S 808 (CantCC 129). The Malcolm dux

seen in S 779 (BCS 1266), from Ely, was presumably Malcolm of Strathclyde.

233

Jayakumar, ‘Reﬂections on the “Foreign Policies” of King Edgar’, pp. 31–5; D. Thornton,

‘Edgar and the Eight Kings, AD 973: Textus et Dramatis Personae’, EME 10.1 (2001),

49–79; J. Barrow, ‘Chester’s Earliest Regatta? Edgar’s Dee-Rowing Revisited’, EME

10.1 (2001), 81–93; and A. Williams, ‘An Outing on the Dee: King Edgar at Chester, AD

973’, MScand 14 (2004), 229–43. For more recent discussion, see S. Matthews, ‘King

Edgar, Wales and Chester: the Welsh Dimension in the Ceremony of 973’, Northern

History 44 (2007), 9–26, re-emphasizing larger political dimensions; A. Breeze, ‘Edgar

at Chester in 973: A Breton Link?’, Northern History 44 (2007), 153–7; Woolf, From

Pictland to Alba, pp. 207–9, on the ‘Welsh’ context; and C. Downham, Viking Kings of

Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014 (Edinburgh, 2007), pp. 124–7.

EDGAR, REX ADMIRABILIS 51

much less than the ceremonial reafﬁrmation and public celebration of Edgar’s

rule throughout Britain.

234

A curious tract on the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, compiled apparently at

Durham in the 1120s, ends with a brief account of the earls of Northumbria

which reveals what may be another dimension of the same story.

235

According

to this source, Earl Oslac [of York] and Earl Eadwulf ‘Yvelcild’ [of Bambor-

ough], with Bishop

Ælfsige [of Chester le Street], escorted Cinaed, king of

Scots [Kenneth II (c. 971–95)], to

a meeting with King Edgar; whereupon, in

return for his homage, Edgar gave Kenneth the land called Lothian (between

the Tweed and the Forth).

236

Oslac was evidently a major player in the north at

this time; Eadwulf, his more northerly colleague, is found among the witnesses

to Edgar’s charters only in 968–70,

237

yet enough to lend some credence to the

possibility that Edgar tried in the later 960s and early 970s to bring the far

north under some semblance of control. There is good reason to believe that

Bishop Ælfsige, for his part, was in the heart of Wessex in 970, but it would be

hazardous to press this evidence too far.

238

The aftermath of King Edgar’s death

Edgar died on 8 July 975, and was buried, like his father Edmund before him, at

Glastonbury.

239

The place of a king’s burial was always a matter of importance,

whether to a king before his death, or to those who had reason to control his

234

Stenton, ASE, pp. 369–70; Nelson, ‘Inauguration Rituals’; Keynes, ‘England 900–1016’,

pp. 481–2; Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 441–2.

It should be emphasized, of

course, that Edgar had been styled ‘king of the whole of Britain’ from the outset of his

reign (above, pp. 24–5).

235

The tract (De primo Saxonum adventu) is edited from BL, Cotton Domitian A.viii, in

Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. T

. Arnold, 2 vols. (London, 1882–5), I.365–84, at

382, and EHD,

p. 284, n. 6. For further discussion, see Whitelock, ‘Dealings of the Kings

of England’, pp. 76–9.

236

For discussion, see Stenton, ASE, p. 370; M. O. Anderson, ‘Lothian and the Early Scot-

tish Kings’, Scottish Historical Review 39 (1960), 98–112;

B. Meehan, ‘The Siege of

Durham, the Battle of Carham and the Cession of Lothian’, Scottish Historical Review

55 (1976), 1–19;

D. Broun, ‘Kenneth II’, ODNB xxxi.279–80; and W

oolf, From Pictland

to Alba, pp. 208–11.

237

Keynes, Attestations, table LVI.

238

In a note in the tenth-century ‘Durham Ritual’ (Durham Cathedral A.IV.19, p. 167; fac-

simile in M. P. Brown, Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age (London, 2007), p.

111),

Bishop Ælfsige is reported to have been present, in a tent, at a place south of ‘Woodyates

at Oakley in Wessex’, on St Lawrence’s Day (10 Aug.), a Wednesday, when the moon

was ﬁve nights old. The indications would be compatible with 970; and it is the case

that Bishop Ælfsige makes his sole appearance in Edgar’s reign in a charter dated 970

(S 781, from Ely: Keynes,

Attestations, tab

le LIV). For further discussion, see Rituale

Ecclesiae Dunelmensis / The Durham Collectar, ed. A.

H. Thompson and U. Lindelöf,

Surtees Society 140 (Durham, 1927), pp. xiv–xix and 185, and Ker, Catalogue, pp.

144–6

(no. 106). Whether this was the only occasion on which Ælfsige came south is of

course another matter.

239

JW, Chronicon, s.a. 975 (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 424); WM, Gesta Regum ii.160

(ed. Mynors et al., p. 260).

52 SIMON KEyNES

remembrance;

240

and in Edgar’s case, the choice of Glastonbury is perhaps to

be read in terms of the closeness of the relationship between the king and his

archbishop, stretching back to Edgar’s reign as king of the Mercians. The death

of King Edgar also had immediate and dramatic consequences of various kinds,

and from the nature of these consequences we learn much about the reign which

had just ended. The aftermath was described by one contemporary observer as

a period of dissension (dissensio), trouble (tribulatio), and sedition (seditio);

241

another referred to ‘most unhappy times’ (infelicissima … tempora).

242

On the

face of it, the explanation is not far to seek. The succession to Edgar’s throne

was immediately disputed between supporters of Edward and supporters of

Æthelred; and there were at the same time widespread attacks on the recently

reformed monasteries, labelled by modern scholarship as ‘the anti-monastic re-

action’. The question is whether or to what extent these matters might have been

connected, and whether there were other issues at stake.

243

The fact that the succession was disputed on Edgar’s death, and that it was

not the kingdom that was divided, is perhaps a sign of what Edgar had achieved

in the 960s and early 970s. Certainly, the kingdom represented by the reformed

and impressively uniform coinage of the closing years of Edgar’s reign would

seem to have been less readily divisible than the kingdom represented by the

coinage of the 950s and 960s. The fullest account of the disputed succession is

provided by Byrhtferth of Ramsey, writing about twenty years after the event,

during the reign of King Æthelred, and presenting a view which cannot have been

far removed from the ofﬁcial line of the day: some of the chief men (primates)

wanted the elder son Edward, but several of the nobles (principes) disliked

Edward and preferred Æthelred; Edward and Æthelred were on good terms with

each other; the murder of Edward was a heinous crime perpetrated by treach-

erous and deranged men, who later received their just deserts; and the victim

was the Lord’s anointed, who became a martyr.

244

Although Dunstan is said by

later writers to have acted decisively in support of Edward,

245

there seems little

reason to believe that Edward’s party was identiﬁed as one of monastic reform,

still less that the supporters of Æthelred sought to harm Edward’s position by or-

240

For the burial-places of the kings of the West Saxons, and their successors in the tenth

and eleventh centuries, see Blackwell Encycl, pp. 511–16.

241

BR, VSO iv.17 (Raine, York, p. 448).

242

S 1451 (BCS 1290), from BL, Stowe Ch. 32 (written in the late tenth century).

243

Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 163–74.

244

BR, VSO iv.18–21 (Raine, York, pp. 449–52). It is conceivable that Byrhtferth intended

a distinction here between primates, denoting high-ranking ecclesiastics, and principes,

denoting high-ranking laymen; distinctions of apparently the same kind are made in his

Vita S. Ecgwini, i.10, iii.4, and iii.6. For the early development of the cult of St Edward,

and the role of Ælfric (bishop of Ramsbury and archbishop of Canterbury), Wulfstan

(bishop of

London and archbishop of york), and Germanus (abbot at Ramsey and of

Cholsey), see S. Keynes, ‘King Alfred the Great and Shaftesbury Abbey’, Studies in the

Early History of Shaftesbury, ed. Keen, pp. 17–72, at 50–3, and ‘The Cult of Edward the

Martyr during the Reign of King Æthelred the Unready’ (forthcoming).

245

OC, VSD, ch. 37 (Stubbs, Dunstan, p. 114); EC, VSD, ch. 59 (ed. Turner and Muir,

p. 144); WM, VSD, ii.18.2 (ed. Winterbottom and Thomson, p. 268).

EDGAR, REX ADMIRABILIS 53

chestrating an attack on monasteries.

246

The dispute arose from Edgar’s succes-

sive marriages, and seems to have been essentially personal. There was support

in some quarters for the natural priority of Edward, son of Edgar and Æthelﬂæd,

over Æthelred, son of Edgar and Ælfthryth. Others, probably including Bishop

Æthelwold, took the view that Ælfthryth was a ‘legitimate’ queen, and so that

Æthelred was the surviving legitimate heir. Edward’s coronation should have

settled the issue, at least for the time being; but some among Æthelred’s thegns

preferred their own lord, leading about two and a half years later to the murder

of King Edward, on 18 March 978.

247

More signiﬁcant, perhaps, than the disputed succession were the changes in

the secular hierarchy precipitated by Edgar’s death. We saw above that from

about 970 until the end of Edgar’s reign there were ealdormen holding ofﬁce

in Mercia (Ælfhere), East Anglia (Æthelwine), Essex (Byrhtnoth), and North-

umbria (Oslac). The ealdormen of Mercia, East Anglia and Essex retained

their

positions.

According to the ASC for 975, Earl Oslac was driven from the

country; the implication seems to be that he was closely identiﬁed with Edgar’s

regime, and effectively went with it.

248

yet what should we make of the apparent

lack of representation for the whole of England south of the river Thames, in

the early 970s? It may be that Edgar’s perceived strength as a ruler was to some

extent a function of the degree of power or personal inﬂuence that he was able

to exercise, latterly, in this area; in which case his death would have left a gaping

void which had to be ﬁlled. At least three new appointments were soon made

to cover the area in question: Æthelweard of west Wessex, Æthelmær of Hamp-

shire, and Eadwine of Sussex (and Kent).

249

If the peace and stability in Edgar’s

reign had depended to such an extent on his own ability to hold structures in

place, one begins to understand why it might have proved so difﬁcult, during the

short reign of Edward the Martyr, for the authorities to keep control, and why

so many might have taken advantage of the situation in order to protect, assert

and advance their own interests. A chapter-heading in the unique manuscript

of Ealdorman Æthelweard’s Chronicle suggests that he intended to provide a

chapter on the reign of Edward, and on his murder.

250

It would be most inter-

246

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

bridge Historical Journal 10 (1950–2), 254–70; Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 163–74.

247

Cf. D. N. Dumvile, ‘The Death of King Edward the Martyr – 18 March, 979?’, Anglo-

Saxon 1 (2007), pp. 269–83; and for further discussion, see Keynes, ‘The Cult of Edward

the Martyr’.

248

Eadulf of Bamborough is not heard of after the early 970s, and may have been eclipsed

or indeed replaced by Oslac of york. Oslac was soon replaced by Thored, who attests

from 979; and Waltheof makes a solitary appearance in 994 (Keynes, Attestations, table

LXII). For Oslac, see also below, p. 57.

249

Keynes, Attestations, table LVIII, and (e.g.) S 828 (Abing 117). Æthelmær ‘of Hamp-

shire’ and Eadwine ‘of Sussex’ both died in 982 (ASC); for Eadwine’s role in Kent, see

1457 (Roch 36). The ealdorman Leofwine seen in S 830 and 832 was perhaps also from

the west country; he is otherwise unknown. The ‘ealdorman’ Ælfric who occurs in S 828

(Abing 117) was perhaps in fact Ælfric, abbot of Malmesbury.

250

Æthelweard, Chronicle, iv, Chapter-headings, p. 34.