Athelstan (England König) - Æthelstan : the first king of England

THELSTAN

Also in the Yale English Monarchs Series

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*Available in the U.S. from University of California Press

THELSTAN

THE FIRST KING OF ENGLAND

Sarah Foot

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW HAVEN AND LONDON

Copyright 2011 Sarah Foot

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Foot, Sarah.

thelstan : the first king of England/Sarah Foot.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-300-12535-1 (cl:alk. paper)

1. Athelstan, King of England, 895939. 2. Great BritainKings and rulersBiography. 3. Great BritainHistoryAthelstan, 925940. 4. Great BritainHistoryAnglo-Saxon period, 4491066. I. Title.

DA154.1.F66 2011

942.01'71092dc22

[B]

2010051046

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Michael

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATES

1. thelstan presenting a book to St Cuthbert . Cambridge, Corpus Christi College. By permission of the President and Fellows, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS 183, fo iv ).2. Harry Mileham, King Alfred presents a royal cloak and sword to his grandson thelstan, c. 1909. Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library.3. Statue of thelfld, lady of the Mercians and thelstan, from Tamworth. Photograph Amy Sergison.4. Acrostic poem addressed to thelstan. With the permission of The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (MS. Rawl. C. 697, fo 78 V ).5. Coronation stone from Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. Author's photograph.6. Manumission made when thelstan first became king. The British Library Board (MS Royal i. B. vii, fo 15 v ).7. Rex pius thelstan poem. The British Library Board (MS Cotton Tiberius A. ii, fo 15r).8. Inscription recording thelstan's donation of the book to Christ Church, Canterbury, London. The British Library Board (MS Cotton Tiberius A. ii, fo 15 v ).9. Gospel dice ( Alea evangelii ). By permission of the President and Fellows, Corpus Christi College, Oxford (MS 122, fo 5 v ).10. Coins. The Trustees of the British Museum. References are to M.M. Archibald and C. Blunt, Sylloge of the British Isles 34: British Museum Anglo-Saxon Coins V, thelstan to the reign of Edgar, 924c.973 (London 1986).a) Bust diademed/horizontal trefoil type; moneyer Wulfsige, SCBI , no. 2.b) Horizontal trefoil type; moneyer Eadmund, SCBI , no. 14.c) Circumscription cross type, mint Derby, moneyer Beornard, SCBI , no. 74.d) Circumscription cross type, mint London, moneyer Beahred, SCBI , no. 84.e) Crowned bust type, mint London, moneyer Biorneard, SCBI , no. 129.f) Crowned bust type, mint Norwich, moneyer Hrodear (for Hrodgar), SCBI , no. 143.g) Crowned bust type, mint Winchester, moneyer Otic, SCBI , no. 161.h) Circumscription cross/Circumscription rosette type, mint Chester, moneyer Abba, SCBI , no. 174.j) Helmeted crowned bust type, minted in North East, moneyer iard, SCBI , no. 252.11. Alfred Pearse, The great battle of Brunanburgh, 937 , from Hutchinson's History of the Nations . The Stapleton Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library.12. Christ with the symbols of His passion including the holy lance and a piece of the cross, from the thelstan Psalter. The British Library Board. (MS Galba A xviii, fo 2 v ).13. Christ in Majesty, from the thelstan Psalter. British Library Board (MS Galba A xviii, fo 21r)/The Bridgeman Art Library.14. Engraved gem with crucifixion. British Museum. Genevra Kornbluth.15. Vestments from the tomb of St Cuthbert. By permission of Durham Cathedral.a) Maniple: Pope Gregory the Great.b) Girdle: tabs at end.c) Stole: St Jonah.d) Maniple, reverse end panel: PIO EPISCOPO FRIDESTANO .e) Stole, reverse end panel: AELFFLAED FIERI PRECEPIT .16. thelstan's tomb in Malmesbury Abbey. Author's photograph.17. Silver finger-ring from Beverley with thelstan's name inscribed round the outside, and John of Beverley's inside, Moyses Hall Museum, Bury St Edmunds. Photograph Chris Mycock.18. Statue of King thelstan in Beverley Minster, cast in lead by William Collins, 1781. Photograph Judith Maltby.19. King of Wessex , engraving of thelstan askingthat Bible be translated into Saxon tongue, from William Augustus Russel's A New and Authentic History of England (1777). Photograph by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

FIGURES

The West Saxon Royal Family. The West Saxon Royal Family in Europe, after V. Ortenberg, Aux priphries du monde carolingien, in La royaut et les lites , ed. R. le Jan (Lille 1998), 517.

MAPS

Britain in the tenth century, Richard Sowerby, after Paul Hill, The Age of Athelstan , (Stroud, 2004), map 1. Tenth-century Britain and Europe, Richard Sowerby. English Mints, 924939, Richard Sowerby, after David Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England , map 215. When thelstan was where, Richard Sowerby, after David Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England , map 155.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It has proved an odd experience to find myself writing a biography at the same time as my husband, the modern British historian and historiographer Michael Bentley. While I have explored a shadowy tenth-century king, he has worked on the life of a leading twentieth-century historian, Regius Professor, head of a Cambridge college and Vice-Chancellor of his university. Outwardly, our tasks could not be more different: his subject, Sir Herbert Butterfield, left not only a large body of historical writing but also a huge personal archive, complemented by a wider public record. Mine left no personal records at all and, despite his claim to fame as England's first monarch, is ill-attested in the contemporary record and subsequent historiography. Yet in many ways we have grappled with similar difficulties and have benefited substantially from sharing our methodological perspectives. This life reflects that mutual journey towards making our subjects biographable. Without Michael's historical perceptions, his unsentimental criticism and unstinting support, this book would have been greatly impoverished; it is dedicated to him with loving gratitude. He bears no responsibility, however, for my decision to make the attempt, which is one I owe to my former research students, particularly Morn Capper and Martha Riddiford. It was they who first persuaded me that I should resurrect a project first begun as an undergraduate and revitalized by the invitation to write a short biography of thelstan for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . They went on asking, How's thelstan? at regular intervals not only until I started to write, but whenever I seemed to be flagging as the project progressed. I hope they and also Geoff Little, who took with typical equanimity this invasion onto what he might have seen as his own territory feel that the resulting book was worth the wait.

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