Edgar the Ætheling: Anglo-Saxon prince, rebel and crusader

1985 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 197-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Hooper
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Large Contribution ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
William Of Malmesbury

In the years which followed the Norman Conquest, the Old English aristocracy was largely deprived of its lands and offices, both lay and ecclesiastical. The resistance of the English nobility to the Norman Conquest made a large contribution to its own eclipse, but it is rarely that we are afforded a glimpse of the fortunes of an individual. The historian may, however, dwell in some detail on the career of one man, Edgar the Ætheling. Episodes from his life are preserved in a variety of works composed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains several entries relating to his activities after 1066, and the D version shows a special interest in Edgar and his family. Among Latin histories, those of John of Worcester, William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis follow his activities, although none of these authors was well informed about his life. Edgar appears not to have made a strongly favourable impression upon any of them: to the anonymous compilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle he was the rightful heir to the throne of England, but to both William and Orderic he was indolent. There is little difficulty involved in bringing together the known episodes of his life, and although his royal blood makes him a far from typical example the picture that emerges gives a useful insight into how one Englishman fared in the unstable political climate of the years immediately preceding the Norman Conquest, and in its aftermath. It is intended here to assemble the evidence for the life of Edgar and to treat him not as a footnote to history, which is how he has often fared at the hands of historians, but as a character of no small importance in the history of the Norman Conquest of England.

Anglo-Saxon Law

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Rabin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old English ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Royal Authority ◽  
Low Profile ◽  
Early English ◽  
Insight Into

A larger body of law survives from Anglo-Saxon England than from any other early medieval community. The standard edition of early English legislation, the Gesetze der Angelsachsen of Felix Liebermann (Liebermann 1903–1916), contains roughly seventy pre-Conquest texts, to which can be added well over a thousand Charters, Writs, and Wills. If one also includes the numerous surviving quasi-legislative texts, legal formularies and rituals, and homilies derived from legal sources, it is possible to gain a sense of both the diversity of Anglo-Saxon legal composition and the centrality of such texts to pre-Conquest culture. Yet the importance of the Anglo-Saxon legal corpus lies in more than just its size. Linguists observe that the legislation of Æthelbert (c. 604) is the earliest substantial text to survive in Old English, while monastic charters of the 11th and early 12th centuries are among the latest. Historians of the English Renaissance point out that the editio princeps of Anglo-Saxon law, William Lambarde’s Archaionomia (1568), was one of the first publications to result from the 16th-century revival of Old English scholarship and that a copy now held by the Folger Shakespeare Library even contains what may be a signature of Shakespeare himself. Americanists note the influence of Old English law on the thought of Thomas Jefferson while scholars of 19th-century literature see its traces in the writings of Henry Adams. Nonetheless, this material has yet to attract the scholarly interest given to either the literature of the period or the legal developments of the later Middle Ages. The centuries before the Norman Conquest rarely feature in courses on legal history and introductory Old English students receive only the most cursory exposure to pre-Conquest laws and charters. Despite its comparatively low profile, however, the study of Anglo-Saxon law offers valuable insight into early English concepts of Royal Authority and political identity. It reveals both the capacities and limits of the king’s regulatory power, and in so doing, provides crucial evidence for the process by which disparate kingdoms gradually merged to become a unified English state. More broadly, pre-Conquest legal texts shed light on the various ways in which cultural norms were established, enforced, and, in many cases, challenged. And perhaps most importantly, they provide unparalleled insight into the experiences of Anglo-Saxon England’s diverse inhabitants, both those who enforced the law and those subject to its sway.

The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists

1976 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 23-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Dumville
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

This collection of Old English royal records is found in four manuscripts: London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian B. vi; London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v, vol. 1; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183; and Rochester, Cathedral Library, A. 3. 5. The present paper aims both to provide an accurate, accessible edition of the texts in the first three of these manuscripts and to discuss the development of the collection from its origin to the stages represented by the extant versions. We owe to Kenneth Sisam most of our knowledge of the history of the Anglo-Saxon genealogies. Although his closely argued discussion remains the basis for any approach to these sources, it lacks the essential aid to comprehension, the texts themselves. It is perhaps this omission, as much as the difficulty of the subject and the undoubted accuracy of many of his conclusions, that has occasioned the neglect from which the texts have suffered in recent years.

Chronicle F and Canterbury Post-1066

After Alfred ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 268-296
Author(s):  
Pauline Stafford
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Church History ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
New Situation ◽  
The Voice

This chapter considers the range of work on Anglo-Saxon vernacular chronicles at Canterbury after the Norman Conquest, including additions to Chronicles A and B, and the making of the bilingual Latin and Old English Chronicle F. The scribe of Chronicle F and his monastic house, Christ Church, connected to Canterbury’s archbishops, emerge as major players. The range, which included contact with Chronicle D, the use of Chronicle /E, and the making of a brief Chronicle I, suggests a conscious engagement with the tradition of vernacular chronicle writing and an awareness of what united it. The voice of F is more overtly monastic, with Christ Church history incorporated into the story. The bilingual F, including new Latin annals, some on Norman history, in both F and /E, addressed a new mixed audience and the new situation the Conquest had created. Additions on popes and their relations with archbishops address wider European changes.

Two pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 197-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Carley
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fine Collection ◽  
Irish School ◽  
William Of Malmesbury

The earliest identified surviving manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey date from the ninth and tenth centuries, but there are reliable post-Conquest traditions claiming that valuable books were found at the monastery as early as the reign of Ine, king of the West Saxons (688–726). By the tenth century at the latest there are reports of an ‘Irish school’ at Glastonbury, famous for its learning and books, and St Dunstan's earliest biographer, the anonymous. B., relates that Dunstan himself studied with the Irish at Glastonbury. During Dunstan's abbacy (940–56) – that is, at the period when most historians would place the beginnings of the English tenth-century reform movement – there was a general revival at Glastonbury which included a concerted policy of book acquisition and the establishment of a productive scriptorium. Not surprisingly, Dunstan's abbacy was viewed by the community ever afterwards as one of the most glorious periods in the early history of the monastery, especially since the later Anglo-Saxon abbots showed a marked falling off in devotion and loyalty to the intellectual inheritance of their monastery. Æthelweard and Æthelnoth, the last two Anglo-Saxon abbots, were especially reprehensible, and confiscated lands and ornaments for the benefit of their own kin. Nor did the situation improve immediately after the Conquest: the first Norman abbot, Thurstan, actually had to call in soldiers to quell his unruly monks. In spite of these disruptions, a fine collection of pre-Conquest books seems to have survived more or less intact into the twelfth century; when the seasoned traveller and connoisseur of books, William of Malmesbury, saw the collection in the late 1120s he was greatly impressed: ‘tanta librorum pulchritudo et antiquitas exuberat’.

II. —Decorated Initials in English MSS. from A.D. 900 to 1100

Archaeologia ◽  
1945 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 107-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Wormald
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Outline Drawing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Norman Invasion ◽  
Do So

A recent beautiful publication by Mr. Mynors of the MSS. in the Cathedral Library at Durham has raised an important point in the history of English illuminated MSS. Up to now there has been a tendency to regard the Norman Conquest as constituting a complete break with the past accompanied by the introduction of a new style of illumination. There is, of course, no doubt that in many spheres of life the Norman occupation of England did do away with many characteristics of Anglo-Saxon England. But this is not the whole story. A change in one department of life does not mean a revolution in another. In the realm of literature, for instance, Professor Chambers has shown that the Conquest did not interrupt the writing and development of vernacular prose. Mr. Mynors's book produces ample evidence to confirm a suspicion long held by some, but not uttered, that much of the ornament used by illuminators of English MSS. during the first fifty years after the Conquest is directly descended from motives in use in England long before the Norman invasion. To Mr. Mynors's evidence from Durham, examples of illuminated MSS. from Canterbury may be added in order to show that the famous outline drawing style of the English MSS. of the tenth and eleventh centuries had healthy descendants in the early years of the twelfth century. The best place to see this continuity is in the illuminated initials of these MSS. In order to do so it is necessary to examine the development of initial ornament in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries.

The decoration of the Tanner Bede

1992 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 115-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gameson
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Considerable Importance ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Facsimile Edition ◽  
History Of

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner 10 is the oldest extant copy of the Old English translation of Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. The volume dates from the early tenth century. This in itself adds significantly to its interest, for manuscripts produced in England during the sixty or so years from s. ix2–x1 are scarce. It is ornamented with a remarkable set of decorated initials which are of considerable importance for understanding the characteristics and development of manuscript art during this period, and this is our primary concern here. The text of Tanner 10 was edited at the end of the last century, its codicology and palaeography have recently been reviewed, and a complete facsimile edition is currently being prepared: an examination of its extensive decoration is long overdue. To put this art-work in its context, before turning to the manuscript itself, it will be helpful first to review briefly the main classes of decorated initials which appear in late Anglo-Saxon books as a whole, and then to examine the early history of the particular type that was used in the Tanner Bede.

scholarly journals King Edgar's charter for Pershore (AD 972)

2008 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 31-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Single Sheet ◽  
First Time ◽  
Important Evidence

AbstractS 786 is one of the so-called Orthodoxorum charters, a group of documents which provide important evidence about the Anglo-Saxon chancery, the development of charters in the tenth century, and the history of Pershore Abbey and the tenth-century Benedictine reforms. The document has therefore received a great deal of attention over the past century or so, but this attention has been focussed on the surviving tenth-century single sheet, and so a second, significantly different version of the text has lain unnoticed. This second version is preserved in a copy made by John Joscelyn, Latin Secretary to Archbishop Matthew Parker. Among the material uniquely preserved in this copy are Old English charter bounds for Wyegate (GL), Cumbtune (Compton, GL?) and part of the bounds probably for Lydney (GL), as well as a reference to a grant by Bishop Werferth of Worcester. In this article both versions of the document are discussed and are published together for the first time, and a translation of the single sheet is provided. The history of the two versions is discussed in some detail, and the text of a twelfth-century letter which refers to the charter is also edited and translated.

The scholarly recovery of the significance of Anglo-Saxon records in prose and verse: a new bibliography

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 223-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. G. Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Entire Body ◽  
Old English Literature ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The new bibliography by Stanley B. Greenfield and Fred C. Robinson of the entire body of publications on Old English literature provides the occasion for reviewing not so much the bibliography itself as the subject it covers. This article is, of course, not a brief history of Anglo-Saxon studies from the dissolution of the monasteries in Henry VIII's reign to the 1970s. It is a highly selective exemplification of some of the changing aims and achievements of scholars when they went to the vernacular records in prose and verse that survive from Anglo-Saxon times.

Development of the Progressiv form in Germanic

PMLA ◽  
1913 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-187
Author(s):  
George O. Curme
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Brief Treatment ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
English Verb

The expressivness of the progressiv form of the English verb has attracted the attention of many foren grammarians, who briefly but with painstaking care hav endevord to analyze its force. Also more ambitious attempts hav been made to penetrate into its history and meaning. Pessels in his doctor's dissertation The Present and Past Perifrastic Tenses in Anglo-Saxon (1896) has patiently recorded the exampls of the construction in a large number of Old English works. Alfred Åkerlund in his On the History of the Definit Tenses in English (1911) has treated both the older and the modern fases of the development with considerabl penetration. Also a number of other scholars hav delt with different fases of the study or hav investigated the development in particular periods or particular sections of the English speaking territory. Several foren scholars hav studied the progressiv form in other Germanic languages and dialects. A brief treatment of the Gothic progressiv in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, vol. v, pp. 421-6, by Professor H. Gering is refreshingly suggestiv. In spite of this extensiv literature there remains much to be said, and this paper is offerd as a further contribution to the subject.

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