A Chronological History of Britain
Episodes of The British History Podcast that include cultural history matters. You’ll learn about the diets, economics, and all the other aspects of daily life for the Celts, Romano-British, Britons, Anglo Saxons, and more.
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Last week we talked about the impact that the Church was having on internal politics within the Anglo Saxon kingdoms, and that is something we will continue to talk about today. However, before we begin, let’s talk about something strange that’s happening on the continent.
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There’s a shift that’s happening in Anglo Saxon politics that’s occurring… we’ve had powerful queens in the Anglo Saxon kingdoms (especially in Mercia, where Queens were more powerful than most). But something is happening in Wessex that will impact around the next several hundred years. West Saxon Queens were getting demoted. Women on the throne, or next to it, were no longer referred to as Queens in Wessex. They were merely Ladies or the King’s wife.
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Lets start with Christmas Day 795. That’s the day Pope Hadrian died… so uh… Merry Christmas?
Hadrian was actually a pretty decent Pope… not Pope Francis level of awesome, though really who is? But he was still pretty good, and upon hearing of his death, Charlemagne commissioned Alcuin to write a poem that was carved into a black marble gravestone that said “I shed tears for the father. I, Charles, had these verses written for him. I weep for you father my heartfelt love. I unite the names with shining titles: Hadrian and Charles, I a king, you a father. You who pray here and read these humble verses, speak: God show mercy and take pity on these two.”
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As you might have guessed, today we’re talking mostly about Offa. But before we get into some of the cool things that were going on under Offa’s reign… lets start with something shady.
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Today we begin in Northumbria.
King AEthelred of Northumbria, son of AEthelwold Moll, was sitting the throne, having taken it from a man who claimed to be from the Line of Ida. And initially it seems that many people were quite happy with AEthelred, and we’re told that he was put in power with a great deal of pomp and circumstance.
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Alright, where did we leave off. We had a new Archbishop of Canterbury, King Offa of Mercia was on the rise, Kent was in decline, and the minor kingdoms were being brought to heel by… yep, Offa of Mercia.
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Today’s episode is going to go all over the kingdoms of the Heptarchy. We have the Kings of Kent, Wessex, East Anglia, Northumbria, and of course, Mercia all involved. It’s a busy one. But Offa will continue to be our main character.
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Today we’re starting a series on one of the most influential Mercian kings in history. King Offa. But before we start this story, I need to fess up to a couple things.
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This year for our Christmas special, I thought I would give you an idea of what Christmas was like for some of the people in Middle Ages Britain. Now, Christmas in the middle ages was quite different from our modern experience in many ways. And like with everything else, it would have varied from location to location. However, in general the celebration would have been guided by a book called the Use of Sarum. The Use was compiled at Salisbury Cathedral, and it quickly became the predominant ceremonial book in England and Scotland and remained a bestseller until about the 16th century and the rise of protestantism in England. So, while there are always variations from town to town, and by now you probably instinctively know that there isn’t a monolithic English or Scottish culture, but rather just a patchwork of smaller cultures… the Use of Sarum does provide at least some degree of uniformity on how Christmas was celebrated during the Middle Ages in England and Scotland.
So here’s what some of them did.
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The first half of this episode is a combination of letting you know what is happening in the Heptarchy (basically, chaos unless you’re in Mercia) and it’s also setting the stage for the second half, which… I’m not going to lie to you… is going to get a little weird. But stick with me.