In the early middle ages, it was quite easy to become a saint. 1 Given some pretension to aristoc... more In the early middle ages, it was quite easy to become a saint. 1 Given some pretension to aristocratic birth, all that was needed was that the friends and associates of the candidate should establish a shrine for his or her veneration, and attract enough attention for people in the surrounding locality to seek it out. In those early days, news of the saint's life and miracles passed by word of mouth, and local cults continued for years, sometimes centuries, on oral stories alone. Written lives of the British saints of Cornwall and Wales date for the most part from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, though their subjects died centuries earlier, and while St Alphege (AElfheah), killed in 1012 by a Viking host, was venerated as a saint almost from the moment of his death, he had no written life until Osbern of Canterbury provided one in the reign of William I. By Osbern's time a vita, a written account of the subject's life, was becoming essential for any respectable saint's cult. 2 Religious communities whose saints did not have written vitae commissioned them, often from professional hagiographers like Goscelin of St Bertin, who wrote saints' lives for the communities at Ely, Barking, Ramsey, St Augustine's at Canterbury, Sherborne, Cerne, Wilton and Minster-in-Thanet. 3 From this point of view, Wulfstan of Worcester got off to a flying start. Within a few years of his death in 1095, his vita was composed not by a professional but by Coleman, who had been Wulfstan's chaplain, as well as chancellor of the diocese and keeper of its written records. We do not have the text of Coleman's vita, which was unusual in being written in English, but we do have the Latin translation undertaken by William of Malmesbury, an historian of no mean ability, at the request of Warin, prior of Worcester (c. 1124 to c. 1142). 4
Aethelred became king of England in 978, following the murder of his half-brother Edward the Mart... more Aethelred became king of England in 978, following the murder of his half-brother Edward the Martyr (possibly at the instigation of their mother) at Corfe. On his own death in April 1016, his son Edmund Ironside succeeded him and fought the invading Danes bravely, but died in November of the same year after being defeated at the battle of Assandun, leading to the House of Wessex being replaced by a Danish king, Cnut. Aethelred, in constrast to his predecessor and successor, reigned (except for a few weeks in 1013/14), largely unchallenged for thirty-eight years, despite presiding over a period that saw many Danish invasions and much internal strife. If not a great king, he was certainly a survivor whose posthumous reputation and nickname (meaning 'Noble Council the No Council') do him little justice. In Aethelred the Unready Ann Williams, a leading scholar on his reign, discounts the later rumours and misinterpretations that have dogged his reputation to construct a record of his reign from contemporary sources.
In the year 937, AEthelstan, king of the English, and his brother Edmund led their army to the st... more In the year 937, AEthelstan, king of the English, and his brother Edmund led their army to the still-unidentified place called Brunanburh, and there defeated a coalition of enemies led by Constantine, king of the Scots of Alba, and Olaf, king of the Dublin Norsemen. A specially-composed praise-poem was entered into the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to commemorate this victory: its closing lines run as follows:
It might be thought that enough ink has been spilt on the meeting of the kings of Britain at Ches... more It might be thought that enough ink has been spilt on the meeting of the kings of Britain at Chester in 973, where Edgar, king of the English, fresh from his coronation at Bath, is alleged to have received the submission of the rulers of Alba, Strathclyde, Mann and North Wales. Apart from Edgar himself, the participants are recorded only in accounts written in the twelfth century, but, despite the fact that the later writers inevitably interpreted earlier events in terms of their own contemporary concerns, there is some circumstantial evidence for the presence at Chester in 973 of most of the people named. What follows is an attempt to disentangle the successive levels of tradition which developed around the meeting at Chester, and to set the event in its tenth-century context. 'The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' records that in 973, on the feast of Pentecost, Edgar was crowned king of the English 'in the ancient borough, Acemannesceaster [which] the men who dwell in this island also call by another name, Bath'. 1 The 'Northern' version of the Chronicle (represented by the D and E texts), written at York 970x1030, adds that the king 'geleade ealle his sciphere to Laegeceastre and þaer him comon ongean vi cyningas and eall wið trywsodon þaet hi woldon efenwyrhton beon on sae and on lande' ('took his whole naval force to Chester, and six kings came to meet him, and all gave him pledges that they would be his allies on sea and on land').
In the early middle ages, it was quite easy to become a saint. 1 Given some pretension to aristoc... more In the early middle ages, it was quite easy to become a saint. 1 Given some pretension to aristocratic birth, all that was needed was that the friends and associates of the candidate should establish a shrine for his or her veneration, and attract enough attention for people in the surrounding locality to seek it out. In those early days, news of the saint's life and miracles passed by word of mouth, and local cults continued for years, sometimes centuries, on oral stories alone. Written lives of the British saints of Cornwall and Wales date for the most part from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, though their subjects died centuries earlier, and while St Alphege (AElfheah), killed in 1012 by a Viking host, was venerated as a saint almost from the moment of his death, he had no written life until Osbern of Canterbury provided one in the reign of William I. By Osbern's time a vita, a written account of the subject's life, was becoming essential for any respectable saint's cult. 2 Religious communities whose saints did not have written vitae commissioned them, often from professional hagiographers like Goscelin of St Bertin, who wrote saints' lives for the communities at Ely, Barking, Ramsey, St Augustine's at Canterbury, Sherborne, Cerne, Wilton and Minster-in-Thanet. 3 From this point of view, Wulfstan of Worcester got off to a flying start. Within a few years of his death in 1095, his vita was composed not by a professional but by Coleman, who had been Wulfstan's chaplain, as well as chancellor of the diocese and keeper of its written records. We do not have the text of Coleman's vita, which was unusual in being written in English, but we do have the Latin translation undertaken by William of Malmesbury, an historian of no mean ability, at the request of Warin, prior of Worcester (c. 1124 to c. 1142). 4
Aethelred became king of England in 978, following the murder of his half-brother Edward the Mart... more Aethelred became king of England in 978, following the murder of his half-brother Edward the Martyr (possibly at the instigation of their mother) at Corfe. On his own death in April 1016, his son Edmund Ironside succeeded him and fought the invading Danes bravely, but died in November of the same year after being defeated at the battle of Assandun, leading to the House of Wessex being replaced by a Danish king, Cnut. Aethelred, in constrast to his predecessor and successor, reigned (except for a few weeks in 1013/14), largely unchallenged for thirty-eight years, despite presiding over a period that saw many Danish invasions and much internal strife. If not a great king, he was certainly a survivor whose posthumous reputation and nickname (meaning 'Noble Council the No Council') do him little justice. In Aethelred the Unready Ann Williams, a leading scholar on his reign, discounts the later rumours and misinterpretations that have dogged his reputation to construct a record of his reign from contemporary sources.
In the year 937, AEthelstan, king of the English, and his brother Edmund led their army to the st... more In the year 937, AEthelstan, king of the English, and his brother Edmund led their army to the still-unidentified place called Brunanburh, and there defeated a coalition of enemies led by Constantine, king of the Scots of Alba, and Olaf, king of the Dublin Norsemen. A specially-composed praise-poem was entered into the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to commemorate this victory: its closing lines run as follows:
It might be thought that enough ink has been spilt on the meeting of the kings of Britain at Ches... more It might be thought that enough ink has been spilt on the meeting of the kings of Britain at Chester in 973, where Edgar, king of the English, fresh from his coronation at Bath, is alleged to have received the submission of the rulers of Alba, Strathclyde, Mann and North Wales. Apart from Edgar himself, the participants are recorded only in accounts written in the twelfth century, but, despite the fact that the later writers inevitably interpreted earlier events in terms of their own contemporary concerns, there is some circumstantial evidence for the presence at Chester in 973 of most of the people named. What follows is an attempt to disentangle the successive levels of tradition which developed around the meeting at Chester, and to set the event in its tenth-century context. 'The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' records that in 973, on the feast of Pentecost, Edgar was crowned king of the English 'in the ancient borough, Acemannesceaster [which] the men who dwell in this island also call by another name, Bath'. 1 The 'Northern' version of the Chronicle (represented by the D and E texts), written at York 970x1030, adds that the king 'geleade ealle his sciphere to Laegeceastre and þaer him comon ongean vi cyningas and eall wið trywsodon þaet hi woldon efenwyrhton beon on sae and on lande' ('took his whole naval force to Chester, and six kings came to meet him, and all gave him pledges that they would be his allies on sea and on land').
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