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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At 16 years old, King AEthelred was considered fully grown by Anglo Saxon standards. And as a bonus graduation present, the powerful Bishop AEthelwold of Winchester… who appears to have been the defacto head of state while AEthelred was a child… had died.
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“Under AEthelred nothing was done; or, more truly, throughout his whole reign he left undone those things which he ought to have done, and he did those things he ought not to have done.”
That is the damning conclusion of Edward Augustus Freeman, a Victorian historian, and epic beard grower.
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“No man can make himself king, but the people have the choice to choose as king whom they please; but after he is consecrated as king, he then has dominion over the people, and they cannot shake his yoke from their necks.”
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King Edgar the Peaceable was buried at Glastonbury in 975.
But weirdly that isn’t the end of his story.
William of Malmesbury tells us that nearly a century later, in 1053, the Abbot Ailward re-opened the King’s tomb. Malmsbury doesn’t tell us WHY the monk opened the grave, so I suppose we can just assume Ailward was going through a goth phase.
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The King is dead. Long live the King.
Eadwig, the 18 year old King known for his beauty, had died. Somehow.
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Today, we’re going to wrap up this cultural series with a focus on my favorite group of people. The people who rarely, if ever, get talked about.
The commoners.
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When we left off, we were talking about Thegns. Specifically, we were talking about King’s Thegns and how they could wield degrees of power that could rival even the formidable Ealdormen.
At this point in this short series, the hope is that you have a sense of what incentives the economic structure created, the way that power flowed in this era, and what these titles meant in action.
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Ealdormen… Thegns… Ceorls.
These were the important cogs in the machine of government. They had powerful roles, and held powerful spaces within anglo saxon culture.
And it’s time we get to know these roles like the back of our hand.
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Links to material referenced in the show.