A Chronological History of Britain
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When we left off last episode, war had come to Mercia. Ingimund and his Scandinavian allies abandoned their peace treaty and were seeking to expand their borders, but according to the Irish Annals and the Welsh annals, it wasn’t AEthelred Lord of Mercia who was organizing the defenses. It was AEthelflaed, Queen of the Saxons.
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A year after Edward took the throne – in year 901, while he was still fighting AEthelwold’s rebellion – something strange appeared in the Charters.
This event doesn’t get discussed in the Chronicle. But these Charters reveal that in 901, there was an enormous gathering of the important political figures of Wessex. This gathering took place in Southampton, and the charters reveal that (with the exception of the Bishop of Worcester), all of the Bishops of Kent, Sussex, and Wessex were present. This council was also attended by AEthelweard, Edward’s younger brother, as well as Edward’s two sons… AEthelstan (his eldest son, and the son of Ecgwynn), and the infant Aelfweard (the newborn son of Edward’s new wife, AElfflaed). Accompanying Edward to this meeting was his household, his thegns, and important figures from Winchester.
There is a lot of interesting things going on at this meeting, as revealed in the witness lists of these charters. One of them is that, the infant AElfweard (the child of Edward’s new marriage) was listed above AEthelstan, Edward’s first born.
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I hope that after the last few episodes (and honestly, the last few years) have dispelled the myth of elegance that surrounds monarchy. Especially medieval monarchy.
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Sometimes life comes at you fast. So much happens in such a short space of time that you barely have a chance to take note of where you’re at and, only after it’s all passed, only /then/ do you have a chance to say “oh my god, what /was/ all of that?”
I wonder if that’s what Edward’s life was like in late 902.
The death of his father, the push for the Crown, his elevation, the subsequent rebellion, the fight with the Danes of East Anglia and Northumbria (with the aid of his cousin), the construction of his mother’s abbey and the completion of his father’s abbey… and finally the death of his mother. It was a lot.
But here’s the thing. That’s not all of it. That’s just the stuff I’ve told you about so far.
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It was an audacious move. To take possession of two towns, to fortify himself inside the Royal Estate of Wimborne (the resting place of his father), and to do all of this after taking an unnamed nun as his wife. But that was what AEthelwold son of AEthelred did.
As we discussed last week, we aren’t told who the nun was, but based on the events and the geography of AEthelwold’s rebellion, there’s a good argument to be made that… as AEthelred sat in the estate of Wimborne… as he organized his defenses and maintained the morale of his supporters who resided within the Estate… he was accompanied by AEthelgifu, daughter of Alfred the Great and sister of King Edward.
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On October 26th, 899, Alfred the Great died. He left behind his wife, Eahlswitha, as well as his grown children. I imagine that the loss of Alfred was probably quite difficult on all of them. It’s always hard to lose a family member. But for Edward… the designated heir… what must that have been like? I mean, look at it from Edward’s perspective.
Edward was probably somewhere in his 20s at this point, was an AEtheling, and was the designated heir to the throne. His whole life had been in preparation for this moment. All the tasks and responsibilities handed down to him, all the charters and meetings with ealdormen, all the military appointments and time in the field. All of it was building up to /this/.
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Things in Britain are changing rapidly. In Scotland the MacAlpin dynasty is rising, and with it comes the merging of the Scottish and Pictish cultures. A similar blending is happening in the Anglo Saxon regions. As we’ve see in the last few episodes – cities are changing, economies are emerging. And the sudden appearance of new placenames – some which are Danish and others that are a blend of Danish and Old English – tell us that cultures are changing too.
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For the last few episodes we’ve been discussing the way life has been changing in Southern Britain. While the dramatic battles and political maneuvering dominated the story of the last season, you’re now learning of the many of the changes that were changing how lives were lived on the island, and some of them weren’t a direct result of the Northmen raiders. Instead, these changes were part of an overall shift in how the Anglo Saxons saw their place in the world. It was a cultural shift as much as it was anything else, and central to it were the changing attitudes towards land.
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London is a world unto itself, and it has been for most of its very, very long history. One of the weirdest things about the city is that it contains its own separate city – distinct from the rest of London. It has its own laws, its own government, its own walls. The City of London is a city within a city.
And it gets a lot of attention, not to mention money. Currently it houses the financial district which houses the most powerful banking institutions of not only the UK, but the entire world.
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If you read of old Britain… even if you read of modern Britain… you’d be forgiven if you thought it was all London. And London does soak up a ton of the spotlight. It’s like the Stonehenge of the non-neolithic period. You can’t avoid it. And we won’t here, either. London will be covered regularly, because it has to be. But today, lets talk about a different town. Because while London is important, it’s not the only urban center on the island, and while we’ve been talking about the development of the economic landscape of the Anglo Saxon territories during the Viking Age… we haven’t yet talked about how these town specifically functioned and developed.
So today, let’s use Worcester as a non-London Anglo Saxon case study.