Ealhswith, Alfred the Great's Queen

Most of the information we have about the life of Ealhswith, King Alfred the Great’s wife, comes from Asser’s Life of King Alfred. From Asser we learn that in 868 Alfred, not yet king, wed a woman from Mercia, the daughter of Æthelred, an ealdorman, and Eadburh, whom Asser describes as “from the royal stock of the king of the Mercians”. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, trans., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1983), 77. Oddly, Asser fails to tell us Alfred’s wife’s name, though he tells us both of her parents’ names, one of the many peculiarities that Alfred P. Smyth uses in his argument that Asser was not, in fact, the writer of the Life. Alfred P. Smyth, King Alfred the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 196. Janet L. Nelson takes a different perspective, arguing that Asser’s failure to name Alfred’s wife suggests that there was growing tension in the 890’s between Alfred and his son and successor Edward, which could have led Alfred – and hence, Asser – to keep Ealhswith, a strong supporter of her son, in the shadows. Janet L. Nelson, ‘Reconstructing a royal family: relections on Alfred, from Asser, chapter 2’ in People and places in northern Europe, 500-1600: essays in honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer, ed. Ian Wood and Niels Lund (Rockester, NY: The Boydell Press, 1991), 47-66, 65-66. The Life does, however, name three daughters and two sons whom Ealhswith bore to Alfred, though it notes that it omits children who died young. Keynes and Lapidge, 90. Evidence for Ealhswith’s name and her connection to King Alfred appears in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, in which Alfred’s son and successor, Edward, is recorded as giving the abbey Hankerton in return for Fernberge. Attached to the record of this gift is a note that it was signed by “[Edward’s] mother Ealhswith and Ælfflæd the wife of the king”. William of Malmesbury, The Deeds of the Bishops of England (Gesta Pontificum Anglorum), trans. David Preest (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2002), 270. Ealhswith’s name appears in a number of other documents, though without any mention of her particular status. In his will, Alfred left Ealhswith estates at Lambourn, Wantage, and Edington, in addition to 100 pounds. Dorothy Whitelock, ed., Vol. 1 c. 500-1042 of English Historical Documents, ed. David Douglas (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955), 494. In 902/903, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that the ealdorman Aþolf (Æthelwulf), Ealhswith’s brother, died and in 904/905, that Ealhswith herself died. Janet M. Bately, ed., MS A. Vol. 3 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, ed. David Dumville and Simon Keynes (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986), 902, 905; G. P. Cubbin, ed., MS D. Vol. 6 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, ed. David Dumville and Simon Keynes (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), 903, 905; Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe, ed., MS C. Vol. 5 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, ed. David Dumville and Simon Keynes (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001), 903, 905. The New Minster Liber Vitae describes Ealhswith as the founder of a convent, due to her foundation of St. Mary’s Abbey, a convent in Winchester that came to be called Nunnaminster. Walter de Gray Birch, ed., Liber Vitae: Register and Martyrology of New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester (London: Simpkin, 1892), 5. Despite her being wed to the king of England, it is unlikely that Ealhswith was called a cwen, or queen. Asser tells us that ninth-century Anglo-Saxons refused to call the king`s wife regina, queen, and instead referred to her as coniunx regis, king’s consort. Keynes and Lapidge, 71. Furthermore, Stacy S. Klein argues that during the ninth century, unlike during other centuries, queens had little if any might; during the ninth century, for example, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle rarely mentions queens in any way. Stacy S. Klein, Ruling Women: Queenship and Gender in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 13. Stephanie Hollis notes that in the ninth century, queens (or kings’ wives) witnessed charters far less often than they did during other centuries. Stephanie Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1992), 212-13. Despite this, we know that Ealhswith must have witnessed at least one charter, for “Ealhswið mater regis” is recorded as a witness to King Edward`s grant of Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire in exchange for land at Fearnberngas in Somerset in 901. Walter de Gray Birch, ed., Cartularium Saxonicum: A Collection of Charters Relating to Anglo-Saxon History, Vol. 2 (London: Whiting & Co., 1887), 589. There is other evidence that Ealhswith managed to assert herself. The convent Ealhswith founded was one of only two religious houses for women founded during the reigns of King Alfred and King Edward; the other house was founded by Alfred himself. Furthermore, an eighth- or ninth-century manuscript called the Libellus Precorum associated with Ealhswith`s convent has a ninth-century note added in Old English specifying the land that Ealhswith owned at Winchester. On this basis, Christine Fell argues that this book probably belonged to Ealhswith. Christine Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England (London: British Museum Publications, Ltd., 1984), 127. If so, Ealhswith was likely able to read, an incredibly unusual accomplishment for an Anglo-Saxon woman. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records Ealhswith’s death in 904/5. Bately, ed., ASC A, 905; G. P. Cubbin, ed., ASC D, 905; Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe, ed., ASC C, 903, 905.