Abbreviations

GestaRegum

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, ed. and trans. R.M. Thompson and M. Winterbottom, 2 vols, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

HE

Bede, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969).

LE

Liber Eliensis: A History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth, ed. and trans. Janet Fairweather (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005).

LectEorm

Lectiones in Natale Sancte Eormenhilde in Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely, ed. and trans. Rosalind C. Love, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 11–25.

VAlfredi

Asser, Asser’s Life of King Alfred, ed. William Henry Stevenson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959); trans in Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (London: Penguin, 1983).

VsÆthelberhti

Anonymous, Vita Sancti Æthelberhti, ed. M.R. James in ‘Two Lives of Ethelbert, King and Martyr’ in The English Historical Review 32, No. 126 (1917), 214–44.

VBalt

Vita S. Balthildis, in Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, ed. Bruno Krusch, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum II (Hannover: Impensis bibliopolii Hahniani, 1884–1920), pp. 475–508; trans. Paul Fouracre and Richard A. Gerberding in Late Merovingoian France: History and Hagiography, 640–720 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 119–32.

VsG

Felix, Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956).

VOffarum

Michael Swanton, ed. and trans.The Lives of the Two Offas (Crediton: The Medieval Press, 2010).

VSex

Vita Beate Sexburge Regine, in The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely, ed. and trans. Rosalind C. Love, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 133–90.

VWer

Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Vita S. Werburge, in The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely, ed. and trans. Rosalind C. Love, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 25–52.

VWilf

The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927).

Acknowledgements

The majority of the research for this book was undertaken in the years 2019–21, during which a global pandemic brought much of the world to a standstill. Things were difficult. At the same time, there were many people whose assistance and thoughts throughout this project were incredibly constructive, and for which I am very grateful. The series editors, Ellie Woodacre and Louise Wilkinson, have been incredibly generous with their time and constructive criticism. Rutger Kramer’s advice and commitment to an accompanying article in the Royal Studies Journal helped iron out some of the methodological difficulties, from which the material here has benefited immensely. Special thanks also go to Francis Leneghan, Hannah Bailey, Emily Kesling, Britton Brooks, Helen Appleton and Daniel Thomas for allowing me to bounce ideas around with them and offering guidance on where to look. The artist who produced the image for the cover, Tom Hadfield, was excellent to work with on the abstract image to represent the material in this volume. The publication staff at Routledge, particularly Isabel Voice and Laura Pilsworth, were helpful and understanding throughout.

The largest debt of gratitude goes to my family and friends, who have always been incredibly supportive and patient with all of the research and sacrifices that went into this project. I would not have arrived at where I am today without my parents’ and siblings’ indulgence of my love for history and reading, and it is only from the everyday support and patience of my husband, James, that I could finish this project.

Note on the names

The spellings of names varied in early England. They were written down as they sounded, but according to the conventions of Latin orthography. During the intervening period, characters such as the eth (‘ð’), which is pronounced ‘th’, could be mistaken, like the name ‘Friðuswið’, which we now recognise as the patron saint of Oxford, Frideswide. Similarly, the character used in some early English texts to represent the sound ‘w’ was the rune wynn, ƿ, which was sometimes confused with the Latin letter ‘p’ – thus many later medieval texts accidentally name Eowa, a younger brother of Penda through whom Æthelbald and Offa of Mercia drew their lineage as ‘Eopa’. The representation of vowel sounds could also vary in spelling. The name of Cyneburh of Mercia’s husband could be rendered Ealhfrith or Alhfrith. I have opted to use spelling which more clearly shows lines of relationship (Ealhfrith and Ealhswith, for example, who were full siblings). Barring that, I have defaulted to the rendering of the name in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; in instances where names do not occur there, I have followed the practice in the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England database.

I have also opted to call the era ‘early England’, in line with the guidelines from the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, moving away from the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’, which has problematic connotations in the way it is used in public discourse in the twenty-first century. The term still appears in titles of publications and books.

Introduction: Speculum Reginae: Early English Queens, 650–850

This book offers a biographical account of some of the earliest known English queens. We know the names or existences of around thirty queens in this era, in which the kingdoms of early England were becoming increasingly formalised and approaching an institution recognisable as what would later be known as monarchy. Early English queenship as an institution or practice, and the individual women who held that office have yet to be treated as a whole. Individual queens stand out in the record: in the seventh century, Æthelthryth of Ely, queen and saint, is well-documented and was a popular saint in medieval England; other queens were demonised and castigated as scapegoats for the ills of a kingdom, such as Eadburh of Wessex and Cynethryth of Mercia, both eighth-century queens whose historiographers were less than kind to their memories.

It is for this reason that I have chosen the subtitle Speculum Reginae (‘mirror of a queen’, or ‘mirror for a queen’). It is, admittedly, a neologism which both invokes a well-established tradition of medieval writing about royal families and their rules, and an extended metaphor for how we encounter the information and perceptions of the women who form the subject of this book. The speculum principum, or ‘mirrors for princes’, is a genre of literature traditionally composed for the advice and education of future leaders, principally those who would become kings.¹ Like queenship itself, the tradition stretches back into antiquity, drawing from authors and works such as Seneca and St Augustine’s City of God, through to the early Middle Ages, in works such as pseudo-Cyprian’s On the Twelve Abuses of the World (De duodecim abusivis saeculi), in Frankish texts like Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne (Vita Karoli) and Smaragdus’ The Royal Way (Via regia), or in the aristocratic Dhudoda’s manual book (liber manualis) for her noble sons, as well as other texts. The genre was certainly evident in texts associated with England in this era. Letters from the English missionary Boniface to King Æthelbald of Mercia, and from Alcuin back to various English kings, employ the sort of didactic and hortatory functions of the speculum genre. Elements of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History offer advice praising the examples of good kings and criticising those of the wicked, a purpose identified explicitly in its preface. This work was translated into Old English sometime between the ninth and tenth centuries, as was Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis, probably during the reign of King Alfred and at his instruction. The Cura Pastoralis offers advice for a good Christian ruler, whether a bishop or a king. Other texts less commonly considered as speculum may, however, also fit into this genre. The famous Old English epic poem Beowulf portrays several portraits of kings both wise and wicked, and bids its listeners to listen well when proclaiming ‘that was a good king!’ A neighbouring text in the same manuscript, an Old English translation of The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, presents Alexander as ‘the famous king’ and his actions – whether as model or counterexample of good kingship. Asser’s Life of Alfred seems directly inspired by the earlier Life of Charlemagne in presenting its subject as a king and saint, a biography with hagiographic reflexes within the speculum tradition.

By undertaking a study of the lives of these early English queens, this book offers a speculum reginae of sorts. Many of the queens discussed here are documented as idealised forms of their historical selves. Remembered in charters, hagiographies and royal texts designed to promote the interests of their descendants (or their rivals’ descendants), the depictions are rarely realistic or authentic by our understanding of the terms. The authors who document and record these women deploy them according to their purposes and the needs of their audiences. They are used as didactic devices to illustrate what is good and laudable: they are saints in hagiographic works designed to promote the interests of the communities associated with their cult, or they are wicked women whose avarice and otherness shaped the worlds and existences of the communities which followed.

This is why the extended metaphor of the mirror is so useful in understanding the work that follows. We cannot access any of these women directly. The documentary records in which their existences are remembered – to the extent that we can even say that – are only reflections of the women who existed. In each portrait, we see images, reflections, aspects of the individual, and, by extension, of the office of the queen that she fulfilled. In many cases, the sources by which we can access her and the details of her life are centuries later than when she lived. In other cases, she has taken on aspects to suit the needs of the community deploying her as a representation or literary device. Above all, there is obscurity. Queens’ names are forgotten, invented, or conflated to serve a need for authenticity, with varying degrees of historical veracity or verisimilitude. Queens only feature in the historical records when they serve a distinct purpose, whether as a family connection, as progenitors or mothers, or actors in key events. Even then, they tend to occupy the margins, even when, after a careful investigation, they may have been a key agent in major cultural or political shifts. We can only see this by glancing indirectly through the looking glass of the documentation available to us. It requires a concerted effort to see through the smoke and mirrors of what exists as the historical record to access the queens who feature in it.

What Was a Queen?

There is no surviving fixed definition of what a queen was in the early Middle Ages. At her most fundamental, a queen was always a woman who was closely related to a king. In the majority of instances, this was a wife, though there was evidence of, if not polygamy, certainly concubinage. Some facets of what have been identified as Germanic traditions are associated with early English queenship. For example, the tradition of having multiple wives or concubines, a practice more commonly associated with the earlier, pre-conversion period, has also been observed in Old Norse and Frankish kingship.² In some instances, the status of a wife whose son was designated as heir would increase, being promoted to the role of queen.

In other instances, the queen might refer rather to a king’s mother. Several mothers of kings were influential, but examples of queens serving as regents seem rare in early England. Seaxburh, the queen of Cenwealh of Wessex (r. 642–45 and 648–72) may be one such example, as she is recorded as having reigned after the death of her husband in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, though there is no record of the couple having a son; alternatively, Cynethryth, the queen of Offa of Mercia (r. 757–96), appears to have remained influential during the short tenure of their son, Ecgfrith (r. 796) as king. This is a major difference from, for example, Frankish queens, because of the nature of early English kingship. Frankish kings were more strictly patrilineal, descending in the first instance from father to son and, only in their absence, then to other male relatives. Kingship in early England, on the other hand, derived from two major principles. Firstly, a candidate for the throne had to be a male descended from the royal stock, usually with a mythic progenitor. Secondly, he had to be a proven and effective military leader. There are almost no examples of kings younger than their late teens. Ecgfrith of Mercia is a notable counterexample, but the circumstances of his accession were remarkable, as explored further in Chapter 2. Queens in early England, then, were sometimes mothers, though rarely continued as dowager queens, but were always defined by their close proximity to kings.

By their very nature, queens were mediatory figures. Marriages, often conducted as a means of alliance between two families, placed queens between two kin groups, and sometimes also two different rival dynasties. In some instances, these two factions may have been feuding, forcing the bride into a strained peaceweaving relationship, which is further explored in Chapter 3. At her marriage, a woman never fully shed her agnatic identity; instead, she acquired new layers of identity by positioning herself in relation to a new, sometimes even more powerful man: her husband, the king. For princesses, this could prove either advantageous or particularly perilous. For example, the marriage of Peada of Mercia (king of the Middle Angles, r. 653, then Mercia r. 655–56) to Ealhflæd of Northumbria in the early 650s must have had some motive of attempting to curb hostilities between the two royal families of Mercia on his side, and Northumbria on hers. Other queens mediated religious conversions between their Christian birth families and their husbands: in the mid-seventh century, Eormenhild, a Kentish princess, appears to have been key in converting her husband, Merewalh of the Magonsætan, a Mercian subkingdom; similarly, Osgyth, who appears to have been descended from the Mercian royal stock, was married to Sighere of Essex (r. 663–88), a minor Saxon kingdom, in an attempt to strengthen ties between the two royal families and exert continued Christian influence in the region. In her work on queens in Old English literature, Stacey Klein notes that sources have a ‘shared sense of the queen as a mediatory figure … who offers the potential to bridge differences between groups of people, social structures and systems of belief’.³ Historical queens – individuals whose existences feature now in the documentary record as literary reflections of their historic selves – face almost identical circumstances.

This medial position, occupying a space in two categories which at times were paradoxically mutually exclusive, could present problems for an early English queen. In many ways, a queen was little different from an aristocratic woman. She was expected to keep the household, raise and educate her children and any fosters or hostages, give advice to her husband, and further the interests of her family. A major motivation in her decisions was a fundamental question of identity: what constituted her family? Did she continue to prioritise the interests of her birth family, or did she throw in her lot with that of her husband? There is no general answer: each queen faced different circumstances and navigated the conditions in which she found herself individually. The question was even more fraught because of how a queen derived her power.

Queens, as early medieval women, derived their power principally by virtue of their relationships with their male relatives, whether by marriage or by birth. Queens were regularly called upon to give advice, settle disputes, promote family interests or proteges, or safeguard dynastic interests. These could be for male relations or sons. For example, Domne Eafe, queen of Merewalh of Mercia, who reigned in the late seventh century, was called upon to mediate in a question over wergild, or the payment to recompense for the death of a relative. Her cousin King Ecgberht of Kent (r. 664–73) had been implicated in the murder of her brothers, Kentish æthelings, or men descended from the mythic royal lineage and held to be appropriate military leaders. Her brothers, Æthelred and Æthelberht, were later revered as martyrs and saints, but in the aftermath of their deaths Domne Eafe demanded land to establish a monastery as compensation. Later, Ælfflæd, wife of Wigmund of Mercia (c. 849) may have been key in promoting the cult of her murdered son Wigstan from her position as abbess of Winchcombe, but also as the daughter of a former king.

A queen’s relationship with her birth family rarely ended at the point of her marriage. By virtue of there being several kingdoms into which a woman could marry, a network of family relationships forged by sisters marrying kings could be a powerful conduit of power, forging alliances across the whole island. Perhaps the most notable of these was the network formed by the daughters of Eorcenberht of Kent in the seventh century: Domne Eafe married Merewalh, a Mercian sub-king; her sister Eormenburh was the second queen to Ecgfrith of Northumbria (r. 670–85); a third sister, Eormengyth, married Centwine of Wessex (r. 676–85). This created an unofficial alliance spanning three kingdoms which the queens could and did use to their advantage: Eormenburh used it to force the Northumbrian cleric Wilfrid into obscurity and exile, and Eormengyth may have used it to secure an abbacy at a foundation in Northumbrian territory in her widowhood. This was particularly unusual because most widowed queens returned to the kingdom of their birth and either founded or entered an existing monastic foundation associated with her royal family. Queens like Æthelthryth of Ely, who separated from her second husband, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, were even known to dedicate lands which had served part of her dowry to endow new monastic foundations. Equally, the collapse of a queen’s birth family could have dire consequences. Osthryth, queen of Æthelred of Mercia (r. 675–704), seems to have married into the Mercian royal family as yet another attempt to placate the raging feud between the Northumbrian and Mercian royal families in the late seventh century; the death of her full brother, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, placed a half-brother, Aldfrith, on the throne, who may have been less supportive of his half-sibling. Osthryth was murdered by her own Mercian nobles in 697, possibly as revenge for her half-sister’s role in murdering the Mercian king Peada nearly forty years earlier.

The best sort of definition of a queen in early England remains a woman who was intimately related to the king, usually as a wife. One of the reasons for such a fluid definition was because there was no officially sanctioned ceremony recognising a queen. The earliest coronation office for a queen is the ninth-century Judith Ordo, which remained one of the most influential ordos for the anointing of a queen.⁴ Nevertheless, there were certainly other means of formally recognising a queen. The Latin title regina, queen, appears in a number of sources ranging from historical to documentary. Queens feature in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum), clearly distinguished from wives (uxores) or concubines (concubinae). They are given the title of ‘queen’ or ‘wife of the king’ in charters, sometimes in contemporary copies, other times in later copies (or even forgeries). The rare queen even had coinage issued in her own name: Cynethryth of Mercia, perhaps the most notable of the early English queens, had coins issued jointly with her husband Offa, but also in her name alone, with a ruler portrait on the obverse. The early English queens discussed here were queens consort of kingdoms, or even subkingdoms at times, much smaller than that of the later, unified England after Æthelstan. However, in considering the development of monarchy – that is, the rule of a single family – queens made considerable advances in unifying and transmitting legitimacies across generational and geographic divides.⁵

Nor did this necessarily end with the death of the king. Queens in early England frequently faced one of three fates: remarriage, cloister, or obscurity. A queen’s relationship with her birth family was frequently one of the choicest attractions for a marriage partner. Most early English queens were of aristocratic birth, if not the daughter of a reigning king. The support and connection with her family could be crucial in forging alliances or maintaining support for a tenuous position on the throne. Æthelthryth of Ely’s second marriage to Ecgfrith of Northumbria, an ætheling nearly ten years her junior, must be considered a political match, for Æthelthryth herself had expressed a long-standing desire to retire from secular life according to hagiographical sources. Similarly, the success of Beorhtric of Wessex (r. 786–802) has long been connected with his marriage to Eadburh, a Mercian princess, and thereby as a connection or alliance with her father, Offa of Mercia. Earlier, Wihtred of Kent (r. 691–725) donated land jointly with his queen, Cynegyth, in thanks for returning the borders of his kingdom to what they had been in his father’s days. Cynegyth’s family may have been essential in returning the territory and single rule to this branch of the royal family.⁶ Other, later queens remained eligible brides in widowhood: the eleventh-century sources associated with the death of St Kenelm (Cynehelm) state the reason for the young ætheling’s martyrdom as his objection to the remarriage of his mother Ælfflæd to a cousin of his – a cousin, presumably, on the paternal side being, thereby, a rival for the Mercian throne.

Many widowed queens opted for monastic life, often becoming abbesses of foundations usually associated with their birth families. For example, the Mercian princess-saint Werburh could trace no fewer than 16 female saints and abbesses in her genealogy; her mother Eormenhild followed in the footsteps of her mother, Seaxburh of Ely. Both mothers had been queens and entered monastic life, either as widows or in amicable retirements from secular careers. Cyneburh, a Mercian princess married to Ealhfrith of Deira (a Northumbrian sub-kingdom, c. 655–c. 665) returned to her homelands and was known with her sister Cyneswith as one of a pair of saintly sisters responsible for the foundation and governance of several monastic foundations in Mercia; her husband merely disappears from the historical record, and is presumed to have passed away, perhaps even having revolted against the rule of his father Oswiu. Absences and disappearances in the documentary record can make it difficult to fully appreciate circumstances and events, but can be compared against other sources to furnish the basis for some educated conjectures.

Kings like Ealhfrith could disappear from the historical record with no real certainty over their fate; the same can be said for queens, but perhaps even more so. Where many kings’ demises or burials feature in historical works like Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the ends of queens rarely feature in such works. For queens associated with a saint, or themselves cast in a holy light in hagiographical works, there is often more information to work with, but even these accounts must be considered carefully. Working with later sources often tells us more about the needs and concerns of the community writing and consuming these sources, rather than the individuals and circumstances of their setting.⁷ It was the exception, rather than the rule, to record a queen’s death – and usually for exceptional reasons. Frithugyth, queen of Æthelheard of Wessex (r. 726–40) is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as departing for a voyage to Rome in 737 with bishop Forthhere of Sherborne. There is no record of her – or Forthhere’s – return. Did she, like Ine, Æthelheard’s predecessor, make a final pilgrimage to Rome? Another notable exception is the death of Seaxburh of the Gewisse, a people later known as the West Saxons. There are suggestions that she ruled in her own right following the death of her husband, King Cenwealh (r. 642–45, 648–72) for up to two years.

Most queens faded into obscurity, though such obscurity is not limited to queens. It is particularly notable in the history of women in early England.⁸ The aristocratic women of early England are, if anything, more visible than their counterparts of other social classes, whose names and lived experiences are mostly omitted from surviving sources. Nevertheless, it is perhaps easier to see the absence because of the prominence queens hold in other areas of the historical record. For example, Cynethryth, the queen of Offa of Mercia became abbess of Cookham, among other foundations in her widowhood, and was involved in major negotiations and conciliar proceedings to settle disputes over proprietary rights with the archbishop of Canterbury in 798. There is no record of her passing – there is only absence. More stark because of its absence in the historical record is the fate of Osburh, the mother of Alfred the Great of Wessex (r. 871–99), a woman denied the title of queen in what must be regarded as a West Saxon reaction against the robust queenship of Eadburh under Beorhtric earlier in the late eighth century. She was the mother of Alfred, and possibly also other siblings born to Æthelwulf of Wessex (r. 839–58). Osburh appears in two episodes in Asser’s Life of Alfred, but is otherwise absent by 856, when Æthelwulf took the Frankish princess Judith of Flanders to be his young queen. Had Osburh died? Was she divorced? Did the record of her pious character in Asser’s account mean she had retired to monastic life? We have only questions for the end of her career as queen. Other queens are even more obscure. The wife of Eardwulf of Northumbria (r. 796–806, 808–?), a woman whose name has not survived in any source and known from only one passing reference in a letter, is even more difficult to pin down. We do not know what her name was, what family she was born into, or from what kingdom she hailed. Our only knowledge of her was that she was cast aside in favour of a mistress in 797.⁹

The role of queen, however, did overlap with aspects of female roles in other classes. Women in early medieval Europe were seen to be in charge of the household; queens, too, were heads of the household, which in this case, was the royal court itself. Women in early England often held the keys to a house, and this was no different for a queen, who often had control of the household – and/or royal – treasury.¹⁰ The later office of butler (pincerna), a high-status role in the household involved with the serving of food at court, had not yet fully developed, though by the ninth-century, Alfred’s father-in-law Oslac appears to have occupied an early form of the role.¹¹ Thus, early English queens must be seen as capable administrators, a role certainly confirmed in several contemporary sources. One such explicit reference is to be found in the correspondence of Alcuin. In one letter, he writes to a nun at the court of king Offa (c. 786/7):

Please greet my lady the Queen in my humble name. I would have written her a letter of counsel if the King’s business had permitted her to read it. Let her rest assured that I am as faithful to her ladyship as I can be.¹²

Alcuin refers to the queen, Cynethryth, directly and separately. He implies that she is busy, but that she too might be consulted about the ‘King’s business’. The nature of court life in this period must also be noted when considering the role of the queen. The itinerant nature of the majority of courts in this era means that the queen was running, in essence, a household on wheels. This may have involved using tents, or wooden structures designed to last about the span of a generation, to house the essential servants and members of the royal family’s retinue. It is in this context that the importance of the queen’s own social and political power becomes apparent.

One of the queen’s main functions was as a peacekeeper, a key focus of Chapter 3. In terms of both political and social standings, this could take the form of appeasing and maintaining positive relationships with a king’s nobles. She was by no means alone – rewards from the king, especially increasingly bookland, or land given to nobles with a charter to confirm the gift, either in perpetuity or in the terms stipulated in the grant, were also important as ways to curry favour with nobles. Either by using her influence to persuade the king, whether to donate to a particular monastic foundation or to confirm a gift to a loyal thane, or by giving her own gifts to cultivate loyalty, the queen commanded considerable social and political power, a key role in keeping the balance in kingdoms, especially in periods in which co-rule and fraternal succession were still more common than patrilineal.

Queens also wielded economic power. As John Blair has explored in his expansive work in Building Anglo-Saxon England, royal displays of wealth tended to be ‘heavy in treasure and display, light in permanent built installations and capital investment, but flexible and adaptive in its spatial organisation, and probably all the more effective for that’.¹³ Kingdoms and their royal dynasties tended to have traditional territorial heartlands, and would often reuse a site several times throughout the generations, rebuilding and replacing wooden halls whose frames tended to last only about a generation. Like their royal kinsmen, queens were often adorned with gold, rings, or other precious items: in Beowulf, Wealhtheow is described as cwen Hroðgares cynna gemyndig, … goldhroden (‘Hrothgar’s queen, mindful of etiquette [and] adorned in gold’, ll. 613–14).¹⁴ The Old English poem Maxims I praises gold as sellic sigesceorp, sinc on cwene (‘best on triumphal apparel, treasure on a queen’, l. 126).¹⁵ The gold is not merely a poetic affectation. In the account of the death of Æthelthryth of Ely, formerly queen of Northumbria, she views the fatal tumour growing on her neck as a sort of penance for her earlier vanity for wearing valuable necklaces, saying ‘instead of gold and pearls, a fiery red tumour now stands out upon my neck’ (HE, IV.19). Archaeology, too, associates women and treasure. It is usually impossible to distinguish a king or queen from other high-status burials, but it is noteworthy that around the 630s, the trend for exquisitely furnished male inhumations transitioned to those of elite females; by 680, even these were fading out, a phenomenon Blair links with the increased participation and high-status roles for women in monastic foundations, which were being founded in greater numbers than ever around 700.¹⁶

In addition to running the household, the queen’s economic power was considerable in the form of gifts, whether to retainers, other rulers, or ecclesiastical recipients. The famous will of Æthelgifu, a late tenth-century document, notes how the lady bequeaths her lands and property; other late wills, including that of Wynflaed, gifted a sumptuous tent.¹⁷ There is little reason to suppose that earlier queens were any different, even if the documentary evidence is somewhat slighter for their grants and gifts. Sometimes these gifts were made as co-donors with their powerful husbands. Several of Wihtred’s queens were co-donors to their favoured foundation, Minster-in-Thanet. In a charter of 694, Wihtred and his first known wife, Cynegyth, donate lands to abbess Æbbe, herself a dowager queen. In the charter documenting the donation, Wihtred thanks God for returning his rule to the boundaries of his father’s (Ecgberht, r. 664–73) territory.¹⁸ Little is known of Cynegyth beyond this charter, but her name, which alliterates those of other rulers whose names start with C/K, could perhaps suggest a political alliance which enabled Wihtred to take back the full extent of his territory as it had been under his father. She could be connected with the family including Cædwalla of Wessex (r. 685–88), who conquered Kent and installed his brother Mul as king there. However by 696, Æthelburh appears as Wihtred’s queen in the documentary record. Like her predecessor, Æthelburh is known for being a co-donor with Wihtred, this time to St Augustine’s, Canterbury; she is named as coniunx mea (‘my wife’), and is one of three witnesses whose names are preserved in the thirteenth- and fifteenth-century copies of the charter. It is tempting to associate her with the line of Æthelberht, the king of Kent who invited Augustine of Kent to come to his kingdom, and whose daughter by Bertha was also named Æthelburh. Charters are a particularly important source that document the economic powers of early English queens.

A queen’s generosity could extend to other forms of gift as well. Wilfrid’s hagiography records that Eanflæd, queen of Oswiu (r. 642–75), used her influence to secure the young Wilfrid a position at Lindisfarne ministering to a former companion of the king who had retired there, thereby starting him on the path to his illustrious career in the Church. Stephanie Hollis asserts that at this stage, Eanflæd should be considered a co-ruler or leader-figure, similar to the office of the queen outlined in Maxims I.¹⁹ Her ability to steer patronage or sponsor young nobles constituted a form of leadership which served to strengthen the bonds between the communities and peoples under her – and her husband’s – rule.

Another queen known for her munificence and economic generosity was in fact Æthelthryth, later saint, of Ely. As a widowed queen, Æthelthryth had already received and retained the landed rights to the dower land given her by her first husband, Tondberht of the Gyrwe. Endowed with her own lands as well as with the ear of Ecgfrith, the king of Northumbria, Æthelthryth was a well-endowed patroness. The Life of St Wilfrid records that Wilfrid received an estate from Æthelthryth at Hexham:

For in Hexham, having obtained an estate from the queen, St Aethelthryth, the dedicated to God, he founded and built a house to the Lord in honour of St Andrew the Apostle. (VWilf, c. 22)

Bertram Colgrave dates this particular episode between 672 and 678, but the hagiographer’s insistence on retaining Æthelthryth’s title of queen suggests it was as queen that she donated to land for Wilfrid’s foundation; it also occurs in the narrative before any mention of Ecgfrith’s second wife and queen, Eormenburg (Iurminburg), which also supports this chronology. Nor was her munificence as queen limited to land. The Liber Eliensis records that whilst still queen, Æthelthryth also gifted luxurious vestments she had made with her own hands, including a stole and maniple, as well what must be financial support, to the hermit and later bishop and saint, Cuthbert.

One of the more prolific queens in terms of land donations was Cynethryth, queen of Offa of Mercia. In several charters, she affirms or witnesses the gift of land to foundations in Chertsey, Paris and Glastonbury, or to individuals, such as the gift to Ealdberht, one of Offa’s ministers, and his sister Selethryth, an abbess; in this charter, she is witness after the king and some of the bishops, but before several other bishops and principes.²⁰ It must be stressed that although Cynethryth’s donation record follows traditional patterns of patronage for queens, she is exceptional in the quantity of donations she witnesses: she appears as a witness in 25 surviving charters.

Cynethryth’s economic exceptionality is further minted in the coinage issued solely in her name, the only early English queen to be so recognised. Unlike any contemporary queen in medieval Europe except perhaps the Empress Irene of Byzantium, Cynthryth’s coinage raised her profile and may have been issued in connection with the recognition and anointing of her son Ecgfrith, as Offa’s heir. The coinage appears to imitate early Byzantine coinage, possibly that of the Empress Helena, reinforcing the relationship between the two mothers, who model led sanctity and piety to their kingly sons. It also establishes the authority of the queen, independently from her relationship with the king, as the majority of her coins bear the name of her moneyer, Eoba, who minted all of her known silver pennies, her name and her title, Regina M, queen of the Mercians. There are several coins with various versions of portraits on the obverse, in which her portrait serves as an additional authenticating factor. It is perhaps wise to be wary of just how much authority this in fact provided. Since these are the only coins minted solely in the name of a queen, it is difficult to interpret whether the run was seen as successful and therefore more coins were minted, further solidifying her own identity, authority and power, or whether the lack of later coinage issued in solely a queen’s name might gesture that this was not considered an acceptable role or identity for a queen. Regardless of the circumstances, the exceptionality of Cynethryth’s coinage must be acknowledged. Like other queens, she certainly authorised gifts, witnessed donations, organised patronage and oversaw the financial and logistical functioning of the itinerant royal household. Her role as an almsgiver reflects her access to monetary resources, and reinforces the view of the queen as a major financial power in this era.

Another major function of the queen was to give advice. Given her medial position in the court, at once at its centre yet also from its margins, as many queens came from rival branches of domestic royal families or from foreign kingdoms entirely, a queen could often see a situation from different perspectives. The queen as advisor, especially to her husband, appears to have a long trajectory back into Germanic traditions.²¹ The nameless, pagan queen of Rædwald of East Anglia (r. 599–c. 624) admonished her husband when he was considering accepting a bribe to murder one of the exiles in his protection:

When he revealed to the queen the plan … she dissuaded him from it, warning him that it was in no way fitting for so great a king to sell his best friend for gold when he was in such trouble, still less to sacrifice his own honour, which is more precious than any ornament, for the love of money. (HE, II.12).

The advice of the queen could be a boon to a king, but it often put her at odds with another key king’s advisor, the bishop. The conversion to Christianity and increasing power of the Church sometimes put these two powerful advisors into competition for the king’s ear. At times, they could work well together. Osgyth’s marriage to the recently apostatised Sighere of Essex (r. 663/4–c. 688) appears contemporaneous with the preaching of Jaruman, which seems to have been largely successful in making a lasting conversion: Sighere’s son, Offa of Essex, removed himself from the succession to the throne in 709 to go on pilgrimage to Rome. At other times, the queen could be a major thorn in a bishop’s side. Eormenburh’s persecution of Wilfrid, who had been a staunch supporter of her predecessor as queen, Æthelthryth, chased him across three different early English kingdoms and ultimately to Rome in an attempt to resolve the quarrel. As an advisor to the king, the queen occupied a prominent position in early English society.

Early England

Thus far, we have focused on what it meant to be an early English queen. However, the geopolitical arrangement of England also played a key role in how these queens lived. The political make-up of England in the years 650–850 differs widely from the arrangements following the establishment of the Danelaw and the amalgamation of the rule of English-speakers under the house of Wessex that emerged in the tenth century. Sometimes referred to as the ‘heptarchy’, there were, in fact, several kingdoms in the area now known as England. Kingdoms were initially tribally based, rather than geographically, and the early kings were little different from elevated warlords. Over time, different peoples combined into larger kingdoms, sometimes ruled by regional subkings. A major feature of early English kingship was that most candidates for the throne, called æthelings, could typically trace their descent from a mythic ancestor king. This shared lineage denoted the candidate as being of royal stock, whether descending from a previously established line or from a cadet branch. This lineage tended to be only patrilineal, which is yet another reason why the names and family relationships of queens are often obscure and difficult to relate to other male relatives. Among these families and groups, several groups emerged in various regions, some coming to dominate neighbours and amalgamate other kin groups, whilst others declined in status.

Kent

By 650, several major kingdoms had emerged in the British Isles. In Kent, the descendants of Æthelberht, the first Christian king, and his Frankish queen Bertha, continued to reign in a junior role, and over time the kings of Kent saw their hold over the territory fracture, reunite and eventually pass entirely into foreign hands, as kings from neighbouring lands conquered and placed their own relations or client kings on the throne of Kent. In particular, Cædwalla of Wessex (r. 685–89) installed his brother Mul, as king of Kent; later, Offa of Mercia (r. 757–96) extended his rule to the region, although Mercian rule was not uninterrupted; his successor, Coenwulf of Mercia, later put down rebellions in Kent and installed his brother Cuthred as king. The earlier Kentish royal family, even though largely extinct by the closing years of this period, nevertheless attracted considerable interest from the monastic houses whose foundations and patron saints derived from this royal house. The Kentish Royal Legend, including the Mildrith Legend, included many of the queens and saints of this royal branch, and there was a continued interest in this family due to its long-standing association with the foundation of Christianity and the establishment at Canterbury, both at St Augustine’s and at Christ Church. (See Table I.1.)

Table I.1Kings and known consort queens of Kent, c. 650–850
King, with regnal dates	Queens
Eorcenbert (r. 640–64)	Seaxburh
Ecgberht I (r. 664–73)
Hlothhere (r. 673/4–75)
Eadric (r. 685–87)
Mul (r. 687)
Oswine (r. 688–90)
Wihtred (r. 690/1–725)	Cynegyth Æthelburh Wærburh
Æthelberht II (r. 725–62)
Eanmund (r. c. 762–c. 764)
Heabert (r. c. 764–c. 765)
Ecgberht II (r. c. 764–c. 785)
Ealhmund (c. 784)
Eadberht Præn (r. 796–98)
Cuthred (r. 798–807) Mercian sub-king
Baldred (r. 798–807) Mercian sub-king
Æthelwulf (r. 825–39) West Saxon sub-king	Osburh
Æthelstan (r. 839–c. 851) West Saxon sub-king

Northumbria

The kingdom of Northumbria originated as two separate kingdoms, which remained sometimes as subkingdoms, often held by a son or heir to the joint throne once he came of age. The Northumbrian throne passed between the royal families of these two subkingdoms, Bernicia and Deira, with the Bernician dynasty eventually seizing the majority under Oswiu, who took a princess of the Deiran line, Eanflæd, for one of his queens. Northumbria was a major power in the seventh century, with several of its kings holding what Bede termed imperium, a sort of overlordship by which these kings extended their influence over lands not traditionally held by their people.²² However, this overlordship, won through a combination of battles and marriage alliances, was not necessarily easily held and occasioned several deaths among the royal families of Northumbria as well as the lands they sought to dominate. Their rivalry with the royal house of Mercia in the seventh century prompted several attempted peaceweaving marriages, such as those of Cyneburh of Mercia to Ealhfrith of Deira (r. 656–64), Peada of the Middle Angles (a Mercian sub-kingdom) (r. 653–56) to Ealhflæd of Northumbria, and later, Æthelred of Mercia (r. 675–704) to Osthryth of Northumbria.

The Northumbrian royal house was a desirable match for the royal families of several other early English kingdoms. The marriage of Edwin of Northumbria, from the Deiran dynasty, to Æthelburh of Kent early in the seventh century allied the two royal houses, both of which were influential in the conversion to Christianity. Æthelburh was the daughter of Æthelberht of Kent and his Frankish wife, Bertha, and was therefore one of the first Christian princesses. Her lineage connected the royal house of Northumbria to powerful, wealthy and culturally ascendant houses, even if at a geographic distance. Later in the seventh century, the second marriage of Ecgfrith to Eormenburh of Kent would recall similar alliances, bringing the royal dynasty of Northumbria, including its numerous royal saints, into dialogue with branches of royal families closely aligned with the Roman mission to the island in 597.

The legitimacy of a candidate for the throne derived from both genealogical lineage and a candidate’s martial prowess; fraternal succession was common, as was the ascendance of rival claimants for the throne from other branches of the royal line. In the eighth century, the succession of the Northumbrian throne was increasingly complicated by a combination of depositions, abdications, murders, usurpers and restorations. The names of these kings are recorded in a variety of sources from coinage to liber vitae to annals, some of which hail from the Continent, others of which are later historical works which may preserve now-lost traditions. Liber vitae, lists of names associated with a particular religious foundation, such as the Northumbrian liber vitae include many such names, but they tend to be organised in groups which can make it difficult to be precise about titles or family relations: the kings are recorded alongside other high-ranking noblemen in a list of regum vel ducum. Similarly, the queens are recorded in a list of reginarum vel abatissarum, ‘queens or abbesses’. The names and identities of Northumbrian queens in the eighth century are rare to identify except where other external sources offer additional information. For example, Offa of Mercia married his eldest daughter Ælfflæd to Æthelred I of Northumbria (r. 774–78/9, 790–96) in 792 at Catterick. The only other queen I have been able to identify from the later years of the period 650–850 is the wife of Eardwulf of Northumbria (r. 796–806, 810–?). However, we are unable to recover anything more concrete than her existence: her name is unmentioned, which complicates any attempt to uncover her origins, family, or experiences.²³

Northumbrian queens are among some of the most famous from this period, and their marriages helped to create substantial networks of alliances that crossed early England. Æthelthryth of Ely, the first queen of Ecgfrith of Northumbria, was an East Anglian princess married twice before retiring to monastic life and founding the house at Ely. The interdynastic politics which motivated many of the matches of its kings, whether to bolster their legitimacy, forge alliances, or temper feuds, features prominently in the careers of many of the early English queens. (See Table I.2.)

Table I.2Kings and known consort queens of Northumbria, c. 650–850
King, with regnal dates	Queen
Oswiu (r. 642–70)	Rhiainfellt Fín Eanflæd
Oswine of Deira (r. 644–51)
Œthelwald of Deira (r.? 651–?655)
Ealhfrith of Deira (d.? 664)	Cyneburh
Ecgfrith (r. 670–85)	Æthelthryth Eormenburg (Iurminburg)
Ælfwine of Deira (d. 679)
Aldfrith (r. 656/6–705)	Cuthburh
Eadwulf (r. 705/706)
Osred I (r. 705/6–16)
Cenred (r. 716–18)
Osric (r. 718–29)
Ceolwulf (r. 729–37)
Eadbert (r. 737–58)
Oswulf (r. 758)
Æthelwald Moll (r. 758–65)
Alhred (r. 765)
Æthelred I (r. 774–79, 790–96)	Ælfflæd
Osbald (r. 796)
Eardwulf (r. 796–806)	‘Anonymous 756’
Ælfwold II (r. 806–08)
Eanred (r. c. 808–40/1)
Æthelred II (r. 840/1–44, 844–48/9)
Rædwulf (r. 844)
Osbert (r. 848/9–67)

East Anglia

The kingdom of East Anglia was an important power source in the sixth and seventh centuries, but saw its political fortunes wane as its neighbours, Northumbria and Mercia, ascended. It had important trading networks with Scandinavia and Frisia, which seem to have endured throughout the period of 650 to 850. John Blair’s work on the landscape of early England has identified an ‘eastern zone’ encompassing ‘east Yorkshire, the East Midlands and parts of East Anglia’ – parts of the kingdom of Lindsey, as well as some of the Middle Angles – which had a particularly defined material culture, possibly shaped by these rich trading networks.²⁴

The East Anglian royal dynasty was a force to be reckoned with in the early seventh century. Bede identified Rædwald (r. c. 600–27), an early seventh-century king, as one of the early kings to hold imperium over several other kingdoms, a position confirmed in his decision to protect the future Northumbrian king in exile, Edwin, from assassins. Although a collection of royal genealogies compiled around 725 includes the paternal genealogy of king Ælfwald (r. 713–49), son of king Aldwulf (r. 663–713), these lists bypass one of the most prominent East Anglian kings, Anna (r. c. 640–53). Anna’s name is likely a hypercorism, or shortening, of the name Æthelmund: a majority of the men in his family had names starting with the prototheme Æthel-, like his brothers Æthelhere and Æthelwold. Anna is particularly important in any consideration of queens in this era because of his relationship to several notable queens and saints. His queen Sæwara, discussed in Chapter 4, may have been a member of the East Saxon royal family, and was the mother to four notable daughters: Seaxburh, queen of Eorcenberht of Kent (r. 640–64) and saint; Æthelthryth of Ely, whose second marriage to king Ecgfrith of Northumbria ended in divorce as she preferred monastic life also, was revered as a saint; as well as Æthelburh, and a daughter from an earlier relationship, Sæthryth, who became abbesses at Brie on the continent.²⁵ The connection between the foundation at Ely and the extended branches of this family helped to document the illustrious heritage of the East Anglian royal family and its offspring: Seaxburh became abbess at Ely, as did her daughter Eormenhild, and her granddaughter, the virgin saint Werburh.

East Anglia vied for control of adjoining territory and subkingdoms with its neighbours, Northumbria and Mercia. At times it could be a key ally of Northumbria – Rædwald helped to support Edwin in the early seventh century; at others, they appear to have fallen under the overkingship of the neighbouring Mercians. For example, Anna’s brother Æthelhere perished in battle fighting with Penda of Mercia against Oswiu of Northumbria at Winwæd in 655. The alliance between Anna and Ecgfrith, sealed with the latter’s marriage to Æthelthryth despite the large age gap between them, must have been an important political move to continue to oppose the growing power of the Mercian kings in the midlands. Both Mercia and East Anglia appear at various points to have vied for control of the Middle Angles. This kingdom of Anglian peoples, settled in an area centred around modern-day Leicestershire, may have been independent at one point, but fairly early on came under Mercian sway: Penda of Mercia set his son Peada as king over the Middle Angles when he came of age around 653. However, there are some other examples of connections between the Mercians and the East Anglians which may suggest a degree of cooperation or even intermarriage. Ecgburh, an abbess of the Mercian royal monastic foundation at Repton in the early eighth century, was the daughter of king Ealdwulf of the East Angles (r. 663–714), and Felix’s Life of St Guthlac, the hagiographic life of Guthlac, a Mercian ætheling turned monk and hermit, was dedicated to the East Anglian king Ælfwald (r. 713–49).²⁶

The prominence of the East Anglian kingdom was almost directly inversely correlated with the power of its neighbour Mercia. Like other kingdoms, East Anglia at various points split the kingdom among subkings: following Ælfwald’s death in 749, rulers may have included Beonna, Hun and Alberht (possibly more rightly Æthelred I, and possibly the father of Æthelberht). Offa of Mercia, who succeeded to the Mercian throne in 757, extended some control over the kingdom, which was repulsed with the accession of Æthelberht of East Anglia (r.? 779–94); Æthelberht was murdered by Offa during a visit to conduct a betrothal between himself and one of Offa’s daughters. The Mercian hold over East Anglia was never particularly secure: Beornwulf of Mercia (r. 823–26) and his successor, Ludeca (r. 826–27) were both killed attempting to reassert their authority in East Anglia. Nevertheless, the two neighbouring kingdoms may have shared more than merely a border: in Chapter 3, I propose that one of the most pressing reasons for Offa’s assassination of Æthelberht was in fact a blood relationship formed by an earlier peaceweaving marriage between Leofrun, a Mercian kinswoman, and the East Anglian king.

With the exception of material associated directly with Æthelthryth of Ely and her family, the history of East Anglia is somewhat patchily documented. There are very few contemporary historical sources from within the kingdom, and charters and other documents are few and far between. Years of rule by foreign agents, as well as the kingdom’s position within the Danelaw in the tenth century may have disrupted some of the archives and documents which tell the story of the East Anglian royal family in more detail. (see Table I.3.)

Table I.3Kings and known consort queens of East Anglia, c. 650–850
King, with regnal dates	Queens
Anna (d. 653/4)	Sæwara
Æthelhere (654/4–55)
Æthelwald (655–63)
Aldwulf (663–713)
Ælfwald (713–49)
Beonna (acc. 749)
Æthelred	?Leofrun
Æthelberht (?779–94)
Eadwald
Athelstan
Æthelweard (before 855)

Wessex

The West Saxons were originally known as the Gewisse, which was perhaps a tribal name or may reflect an eponymous legendary ancestor in its royal genealogies, Gewis.²⁷ Its royal family traced its roots back to Cerdic, but like many other kingdoms, it appears to have practiced multiple kingship, with local subkings at times unified under a more senior king. In the seventh and early eighth centuries, the kingship passed around multiple branches of the same royal family, with many examples of fraternal succession and cousins acceding the throne.

The fortunes of Wessex rose with its increase in territory. Seizing lands from neighbours and western expansion offered greater access to resources and increased prominence. The West Saxon royal family made a few key marriages with other royal families: the first queen of Cenwealh (r. c. 642–45; 648–72) was a sister of Penda of Mercia (d. 655), and Penda deposed him from the West Saxon throne at least temporarily in response to putting his sister aside. Cuthburh, daughter of Cenred and sister of Ine of Wessex (r. 670–726), was married to Aldfrith of Northumbria (r. 685–704/5), the unlikely heir to his half-brother Ecgfrith of Northumbria. Ine’s own queen, Æthelburh, appears to have been West Saxon in origin herself.

The information available for West Saxon queens is particularly fraught because of the active suppression of the office of queen in the ninth century under Ecgberht of Wessex (r. 802–39) and his successors. Beorhtric of Wessex (r. 786–802) gained the throne of Wessex possibly with the assistance of Offa of Mercia, to whose daughter Eadburh, he was wed to in 789. Eadburh is vilified in the West Saxon sources as a wicked queen whose appetite for fame and power were her undoing. Because Offa helped drive Ecgberht from Wessex and into exile, the royal line descended from Ecgberht largely effaced the office of queen, recently expanded and abused by Offa’s daughter, from the way they ruled. Asser comments how the West Saxon kings following Ecgberht did not follow the custom of nominating the king’s wife as a queen as a response to Eadburh’s wickedness. He remarks on ‘the (wrongful) custom of that people … [f]‌or the West Saxons did not allow the queen to sit beside the king, nor indeed did they allow her to be called “queen”, but rather “king’s wife” ’ (VAlfredi, c. 13).

It is difficult to speculate whether this effacement of the office of queen occurred with earlier West Saxon queens as well. There is very little material about many of them, and for many kings there is no record of their queen at all, even well before the dynasty of Ecgberht. A later fourteenth-century source attempts to name Ecgberht’s wife as Radburga, a supposed relation of Charlemagne acquired during his time in exile in Francia, but there is no other near-contemporary material to support this assertion. Rather, few West Saxon rulers in this period appear to have made particularly high-stakes alliances in their marriages: Ecgberht’s son Æthelwulf (r. 838–58) took Osburh, the daughter of the court butler (a highly trusted position), for the mother of at least some of his children, including Alfred (r. 871–99). His later marriage to Judith of Flanders in 855 was highly unusual, as was her father’s insistence on her coronation at the time in Paris.²⁸ When Alfred married, his bride’s background was also relatively modest: Ealhswith, whose father, Æthelred Mucel, was a nobleman, and mother, Eadburg (not the same as Offa’s daughter), was descended from royal Mercian stock.

The influence of the traditions of Ecgberht’s lineage and its prominence in understanding the development of the monarchy in England cannot be overstated. What would become the kingdom of the English derives from the House of Wessex, descended directly from Alfred, Æthelwulf and Ecgberht. The obscurity of the role of queen, as well as the individuals who filled this office, can be traced at least in part to the effacement of the office by this particular branch of early English monarchy. (See Table I.4.)

Table I.4Kings and known consort queens of Wessex, c. 650–850
King, with regnal dates	Queens
Cenwealh (642–73)	Seaxburh
Seaxburh (673–74), regnant
Æscwine (674–76)
Centwine (676–85/6)	Eormengyth
Cædwalla (685/6–88)
Ine (688–726)	Æthelburh
Æthelheard (726–40)	Frithugyth
Cuthred (740–56)
Sigeberht (756–57)
Cynewulf (757–86)
Beorhtric (786–802)	Eadburh
Ecgberht (802–39)	Radburga?
Æthelwulf (839–55 (858 Kent))	Osburh Judith (m. 855)

Mercia

Mercia was a major kingdom in the Midlands, expanding significantly in territory and power under Penda of Mercia in the mid-seventh century, and lasting until its absorption into the emerging kingdom of the English under Alfred, Edward the Elder (r. 899–924), and his son Æthelstan (r. 924–39), the first true ‘King of the English’. Its original territory probably comprised of lands around Tamworth and the Trent River valley, but expanded to incorporate other tribes and regions, such as the Magonsætan, Hwicce and Middle Angles; later kings could claim a degree of overlordship over previously independent major kingdoms such as East Anglia, following Offa’s murder of Æthelberht in 794, or Kent.

Greater Mercia, as it came to be in the eighth century, incorporated several additional kingdoms which earlier had been independent principalities. The kingdom of the Magonsætan appears to have been an early addition, as well as the Hwicce. Lindsey, an independent kingdom based in the Lincolnshire region, passed back and forth between Northumbrian and Mercian overlordship. Many contemporary sources contain a fairly heavy anti-Mercian bias. To the authors writing in Northumbria, like Bede, and later in Wessex, like Asser, Mercians were persistent belligerents, often inculpated in the deaths of holy, Christian kings. Working with their history is often a reconstruction and excavation of the sources’ biases and omissions.

However, Mercia is particularly noteworthy in the history and development of queenship in early England. Among the earliest named powerful queens, Cynewise, a queen of Penda (d. 655) is noted for holding the heir to the Northumbrian throne hostage whilst her husband the king was away campaigning north of the Humber. Several Mercian queens in the late seventh and early eighth century were involved in influential peaceweaving marriages, such as those of Ealhflæd of Northumbria to Peada of Mercia and, later, Osthryth of Northumbria to Æthelred of Mercia (r. 675–704). Arguably, neither of these matches can be regarded as a success, as at least one in each pair was murdered, which is discussed further in Chapter 3. Other queens were noteworthy evangelists and may have helped to establish the networks and structure of the emerging ecclesiastical organisation in the kingdom; for example, the marriage of Wulfhere of Mercia (r. 658–75) to Eormenhild connected the Mercian royal dynasty with the illustrious and holy lineages of Kent and East Anglia.

Queenship may have reached something of a zenith under Offa of Mercia’s queen, Cynethryth. She witnessed numerous charters, corresponded with the Northumbrian cleric Alcuin at Charlemagne’s court, raised her children, and had coinage issued in her name alone. It is possible that Offa elevated the position of Cynethryth, whose lineage may trace back to Penda’s queen, Cynewise, to compensate for his own more obscure origins. There are indications that queenship retained a particularly high status in Mercia: Coenwulf’s queen, Ælfthryth, witnessed several charters even after what we interpret as the death of her son and Coenwulf’s likely intended heir, Cynehelm (Kenelm), and Ælfflæd, the wife of Wigmund of Mercia, appears to have been particularly important in bolstering the legitimacy of her father-in-law, Wiglaf (r. 827–29, 830–39), and his intended heir, Wigstan.

Indications that queenship was an especially prominent office in Mercia are further supported by the later actions of Lady Æthelflæd of Mercia (d. 918), who assumed the rulership of Mercia after the death of her husband Lord Æthelred of Mercia, and under the auspices of her brother Edward the Elder, king of Wessex. A unique set of annals in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle known as the ‘Mercian Register’ record how, at the death of Æthelflæd, Edward the Elder placed her daughter Ælfwynn in a convent.²⁹ Had the Mercians intended to adopt Ælfwynn as their own ruler? It is only conjecture, but based on the examples of her own mother and the prominent practice of queenship, stretching back through Cynethryth and to Cynewise, the prospect is not wholly impossible. (See Table I.5.)

Table I.5Kings and known consort queens of Mercia, c. 650–850
King, with regnal dates	Queens
Penda (d. 655)	Cynewise
Peada (655–56) sub-king under Oswiu of Northumbria	Ealhflæd
Wulfhere (658–75)	Eormenhild
Æthelred I (675–704)	Osthryth
Merewalh, sub-king of the Magonsætan	Domne Eafe
Coenred (704–09)
Ceolred (709–16)
Æthelbald (716–57)
Beornred (757)
Offa (757–96)	Cynethryth
Ecgfrith (796)
Coenwulf (796–821)	Cynegyth (?) Ælfthryth
Ceolwulf I (821–23)
Beornwulf (823–26)
Ludeca (826–27)
Wiglaf (827–29, 830–40)	Cynethryth
Beorhtwulf (840–52)

Surrey

Another kingdom in early England that was later amalgamated by the increasing power and territorial expansion of its neighbours was Surrey. It is possible that the kingdom of Surrey was rather a subkingdom, first under Kentish, then under Mercian auspices.³⁰ The main king known from Surrey was Frithuwald (r. 673–75), who may have been related to the Mercian royal dynasty.³¹

The power dynamics and matches made with the royal family of Surrey offer a better understanding of queenship by tracing out some of the speculative familial relationships that can be hypothesised from closer consideration of names. Though Barbara Yorke asserts that the later lives of St Osyth of Chich ‘can add little to our appreciation of East Saxon history in the seventh century’, because of the confusion between her and St Osyth of Aylesbury; if indeed these are two separate saints, there are other connections illustrated which are worthy of consideration.³² Her mother’s identity, named Wilburh and supposedly a daughter of Penda, fits well chronologically and supports other details such as Osyth’s association with another aunt in the area. Much of the work involving Surrey is speculative, but using this information as a means of understanding the power dynamics underpinning marriage alliances and geographic politics in the seventh century offers another angle from which to consider queenship in early England.

Sussex

Bede provides some information on the history of the South Saxons, whose territory stretched between Kent and Wessex along the southern coast (HE, IV.16). An early king, Ælle, appears among Bede’s list of kings holding imperium, but as the kings of Kent and especially of Wessex began to rise in power, the eminence of the South Saxons appears to have waned (HE, II.5). Later in the eighth century, as Kent came under the control of the Mercians, Sussex appears to have also become a Mercian subkingdom, as South Saxon kings continued to witness charters (of sometimes dubious authenticity), but with confirmation from Mercian royalty.³³ The association between the royal line of Sussex and the Mercian royal houses appears to date to at least the late seventh century, when Wulfhere supported Æthelwealh to take over the rule of the previously independent Isle of Wight (HE, IV.13). The alliance was sealed by conversion and a marriage between the houses: Æthelwealh’s queen, Eafe, had been baptised among the Hwicce, where she was raised as a princess.³⁴

However, that was not the end of South Saxon associations with other, more dominant neighbouring royal houses. Cædwalla of Wessex (r. 685–89) killed Æthelwealh on his way to establishing himself on the West Saxon throne, and took control of the region after killing Berhthun a year later. Ine of Wessex appears to have been recognised as an overking by Nothhelm in the late seventh century, whose queen, Æthelthryth, appears to have witnessed a donation of land to the local bishopric at Selsey. Several later kings continued to operate with the oversight or support of the king of Wessex, and may, like others, have had multiple subkings in different regions. In the eighth century, Sussex found itself back in the Mercian orbit under Æthelbald and Offa, though the only queen known from among its kings was Æthelthryth.

Essex

The kingdom of Essex retained a greater degree of independence than many of its neighbouring regions, although we lack much detailed knowledge of the royal dynasty during large sections of its history. Its kings appear to have been indebted to Kentish influence in the early seventh century, but converted to Christianity under the influence of Oswiu around 653 (HE, III.22). An apostasy in the mid-660s served as an occasion for intervention from other Christian kings: Wulfhere sent bishop Jaruman to reconvert the recalcitrant East Saxons, and may have cemented his influence by arranging a marriage between Osgyth, a princess of the Mercian royal line, and Sighere of Essex (r. 663/4–88); Sighere’s co-king and cousin, Sæbbi, appears to have been congenial to Mercian interests, and his sons. The association with Mercia strengthened during the reigns of Æthelbald and Offa.

Although several kings can be identified from Bede’s History, and later genealogies and charters, known East Saxon queens are very few in number. Barbara Yorke proposes that the founders of Barking Abbey, Æthelburh and her brother Eorcenwald, bishop of London, may have been members of the East Saxon royal family. However, given their location and eminent connections, other dynasties may have made marriages with this line. The name element ‘Eorcen-’ is often associated with the Kentish royal dynasty, and Sæbert had married the sister of King Æthelberht of Kent in the early seventh century. Furthermore, although there is some confusion around the name of the queen of King Anna of East Anglia in the mid-seventh century, it is most likely that her name was Sæwara, which suggests that her unrecorded origins may have been as a member of the East Saxon royal family. (See Table I.6.)

Table I.6Kings and known consort queens of Essex, c. 650–850
King, with regnal dates	Queens
Sigeberht ‘Sanctus’ (r.c. 653)
Swithhelm (d. c. 653)
Sighere (c. 664–c. 688)	Osgyth
Sæbbi (c. 664–93/4)
Sigeheard and Swæfred (acc. 693/4)
Swæfbert (d. 738)
Selered (d. 746)
Siwthred
Sigeric (ab. 798)
Sigered (r.? 798–825)
Sigeric II

Northern European Queens

Early English queens may have been insular, but they were not isolated from the cultural practices of northern Europe. Eastern England in particular had long-standing trading routes and regular communication and even intermarriage with Frankish and Frisian communities.³⁵ The conversion to Christianity in England seems to have been prompted by Æthelberht’s marriage to the Frankish princess Bertha in the sixth century. Rather than accept missionaries from his wife’s family, a tactic often used by kings in a stronger position to reinforce the hierarchy between them and their client kings, Æthelberht requested a missionary directly from Rome, and Augustine arrived in Kent in 597. A number of names in the Kentish royal family look similar to Frankish names, suggesting a degree of intermarriage. For example, the prototheme Eorcen- can be found in both Kentish and Frankish families: Eorcenberht, a Kentish prince of the seventh century, carried the name, as did Eorcenwald, the mayor of the palace to Clovis II. Marriages between Norse kings and chieftains and the English became more prevalent in the tenth and eleventh centuries as contact in Britain increased between the two groups, but Norse queenship also shares a number of parallels with early English queenship, as well as some key differences.

Frankish Queenship

Frankish queens shared many of the same circumstances which faced their English counterparts, but there were some notable differences in their practice of the office. Like England, there was no one, unified ‘Francia’, and therefore the traditions and particulars varied across the individual kingdoms and according to each queen. Unlike in England, where the practice of monarchy was largely imported from traditions in the Continental, Germanic homelands, Frankish queens had a triple heritage which informed the development of their queenship: Germanic, Roman and, increasingly, Christian. Roman traditions endowed women with more generous rights than Salic law, which largely excluded women from inheriting land or money. The degree to which Salic law satisfied the claims of some aristocratic women seems to have remained a source of anxiety, as Charlemagne appears to have actively guarded his daughters from marriage, perhaps out of concern for their descendants claiming territory or rights from his male offspring.³⁶ In addition, early Frankish kings appear to have practiced forms of polygyny and concubinage, with the transition to Christianity only partially curbing their practice.³⁷

Frankish queens could come from a variety of backgrounds. The interwoven nature of royalty and aristocracy, and a more fluid definition of nobility, as well as the practice of royal concubinage, meant that an acknowledged queen could come from a range of varied backgrounds, despite the fact that these circumstances never became fully irrelevant. As Pauline Stafford observes, for kings ‘the choice of a wife never became an irrelevance to be left to personal preference.’³⁸ Some queens were chosen from domestic nobles, some were foreign princesses, while some were at times close relations. Upstart kings tended to choose brides to boost the legitimacy of their sons’ claims, and the reasons for this remained strong throughout the early medieval era.³⁹ A queen’s power depended on two key relationships: first, with her agnatic family, and secondly, with her husband. As queen, she could be a peacemaker, intercessor, or patron, and it was almost always in her interest to promote her birth family. The support of her birth family could be essential to the success of her husband, but equally, her position within the court could bolster the prospects of her family. Similarly, several Frankish queens appear to have been peaceweavers, women married in an attempt to curb any number of the feuds raging between regions and families.

One of the major changes over time was the dominant relationship a woman had. Early in the period 650–850, the family seems to have been the key connection, and a woman was expected to prioritise this even after marriage. However, over the period, a major social change, largely grounded in the transition to Christianity, along with growing emphasis on the indissolubility of Christian marriage, positioned ‘the conjugal unit as the reproductive and economic unit in society’.⁴⁰

The power of the Frankish queen was predominantly based in her position as head of the household – the royal household, which, by proxy, served as a metaphor for the entire kingdom. Stafford’s view of queens emphasises how ‘the queen’s power at court depended partly on the centrality of that court to all politics, then on her ability to influence the king. The nature of personal rule ensures that she who has the king’s ear may help direct the course of events.’⁴¹ Some queens, like Clothilde, managed to convert her husband, Clovis I (r. 481–509) to Catholic Christianity; others, like Brunhild, queen of Sigebert I of Austrasia (r. 561–75), became infamous for prioritising their birth families’ interests and sowing discord to pursue revenge and vendetta. Queens were often associated with the treasury or royal hoard, as well as raising those in the royal household, including their children and any fosterlings.⁴² A queen could also serve as regent, either in the absence of her husband at war, or in the event of his death, until the coming of age (or into the majority) of her son.

In some ways, Frankish queens are better understood than early English queens, and Frankish paradigms may help illustrate some of the gaps in the Insular material. The transition from polygyny to monogamy – at least in the period 650–850 – seems to have been paralleled in England, and there were notable examples of kings whose relationships did not tend to monogamy. Penda, the famous warlike, pagan Mercian king of the seventh century, appears to have had multiple wives: the most famous of his wives, queen Cynewise, is discussed in Chapter 4. In the eighth century, the Mercian king Æthelbald (r. 716–57) attracted much censure from the Continental missionary Boniface, for the rumours that he had not only declined to take a wife, but had also been fornicating with and defiling nuns.⁴³ In the ninth century, Æthelbald of Wessex (r. 855–60), an older brother of Alfred the Great, married his stepmother Judith of Flanders, after his father’s death in 858. So, whilst orthodox monogamy was the overwhelming practice among early English kings, there were notable counterexamples.

The records of queens’ access to treasuries also seems a salient potential parallel. English queens in this era were still largely peripatetic, and the main royal sites built out of wood, so little archaeological evidence can confirm how queens interacted with the political and geographical landscape. Relationships between Frankish queens and their birth families often feature more clearly in surviving narratives, making comparisons useful. The fluidity between nobility and royalty is another clear point of comparison, as fortunes and status raised and diminished according to the alliances a family was able to make, often via marriage. However, one major difference seems to be the amount of violence prevalent among the royal families. There were some notable feuds between early English royal families: the conflict between the family of Penda of Mercia and the royal family of Northumbria produced some of the most prominent examples of violence, both on the battlefield and in courts, with poisonings and murders at the highest levels. However, there does not seem to be evidence of violence on the scale observed with the Frankish queen Brunhild in the sixth and seventh centuries in the Insular sources. Brunhild is often held up as an infamous example of a queen who overstretched her power, and both English and Frankish sources were well-supplied with biblical precedents and comparison for wicked queens.⁴⁴

Contemporary Frankish queenship shared many commonalities with early English queenship, and in many instances, parallels can be drawn which may help to inform our understanding of gaps in the English documentary record. Sustained contact as well as intermarriages between their royal dynasties suggest that both may have been aware of the different kinds of queenship practiced in the two regions, much in the same way that kingship was. Whether Bertha, the Frankish queen of Æthelberht of Kent (r. 589–616), Balthild, queen of Clovis II (r. 639–57), or Judith, Æthelwulf of Wessex’s second queen (m. 856–58), these connections better inform how we understand the various queens of England in this era.

Norse Queenship

Norse queenship offers many parallels with both Frankish and early English queenship, though in perhaps some different ways. Where many Frankish queens and some English queens have contemporary sources, or near-contemporary sources in the forms of annals, chronicles, histories and hagiographies, almost all of the sources for Norse queens are much later. Documented in fornaldarsögur – legendary sagas written in the later medieval era about the times before the foundation of Iceland in the ninth and tenth centuries – the sources tend to use this historical setting as an opportunity to serve the needs of its writers: to enhance genealogy and status, or to provide comments on the issues of the present day at a safe distance by using historical figures.⁴⁵ For example, Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir reads the figure of Gunnhildr in the Islendingasögur as a metaphor for the ‘threat of Norwegian political supremacy offered to Iceland in the thirteenth century, gendered female in the demonized character of the queen’.⁴⁶ Similarly, queens in riddarsögur – sagas with southern European settings and often influenced by romance literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – serve to promote royal ideologies and notions of civilised society.⁴⁷ It is almost pointless to distinguish between ‘historical’ and ‘literary’ depictions of queens in these sources because they are all inherently literary constructs which reflect the historical and social needs of their authors and audiences.

One of the key features common to Frankish, Scandinavian and early English queens was the late arrival of Christianity, and the slowness of the highest members of society to conform to Christian ideas of marriage. Because Norse society, like that of early England, was largely predicated on homosocial bonds, giving women in marriage was an important way of making alliances. Women are largely absent in genealogical works or sections of text unless they are particularly noteworthy, such as being of higher status than her husband. Any marriage had strategic value, and even more so the higher up in society one went. In earlier society, although women were married to their husbands and often gave advice to benefit his interests, Norse women appear to have retained loyalty to their agnatic families.⁴⁸ However, as the social changes engendered by Christianity became more prevalent, women were expected to prioritise the interests of her husband and his family. Furthermore, as Caroline Larrington has observed, the idea that the queen was an exclusive vessel for bearing heirs was a late development, and one possibly influenced by French romances.⁴⁹

Connections with her male family were essential for Norse queens to act with power. It was often through these male relations that she accessed power, whether by offering advice, advocating for her kin, or promoting her own sons. The title dróttning, ‘queen’ applied to women with official queenly status, something which sometimes outlasted the life of the king from whom it was derived, as with the case of Ástriðr Ólafsdóttir in the eleventh century, who addressed the Swedish assembly as the widowed dowager queen in order to advocate for the legitimacy of her son.⁵⁰ The title of ‘mother of the king’ in some texts hints that it was perhaps a formal role, a designation largely absent in early English sources and examples. The ability of a queen to persuade was one of her key avenues to power: Friðriksdóttir comments on how ‘intimate access, through familial bonds to the king, a public figure with magisterial authority, informed methods of persuasion to influence the king.’⁵¹ We might say the same of English or Frankish queens: these early northern European queens relied on their relationships with their husbands to advance their interests.

Much of a Norse queen’s power was concentrated in her role as an advisor. Women were ‘permitted – even expected – to give advice to men in various situations’ in the sagas.⁵² In some cases, this was by whetting, in which a woman would insult and belittle the man in her life in an attempt to force him to act, sometimes to seek revenge or avenge an insult to honour. Whetting may have been a literary device, ‘a way of evoking values’ later authors ‘admired on some level but that were no longer seen as acceptable’.⁵³ Far more admired, however, was the counterimage of the woman who offered advice to avoid or mediate violence, a sort of peaceweaver informed by her medial position between two families, or elevated by virtue of experiences which differed from that of her male relations. This advice was often well-received, invoking gnomic truths in ‘words of wisdom that benefit their husbands and kingdom, and ultimately, the audience’.⁵⁴ There are some parallels in early English queens: the impassioned complaints of Eormenburh to Ecgfrith of Northumbria, jealous of Wilfrid’s popularity and wealth, demand to see him humbled and humiliated to restore the order due to her husband as king.⁵⁵ Other queens, like that of Rædwald, offered advice to her husband to maintain his honour.

However, unlike early English or Frankish queens, there seem to have been a few more avenues by which Norse queens may have accessed power. Like her more southerly counterparts, access to independent financial sources enabled a Norse queen to a greater degree of autonomy and power. She, too, was considered to be a head of the household, whether an aristocratic house or a royal court, and there are portrayals of queens even holding their own courts or separate households.⁵⁶ In addition, the practice of kvenkné, the possibility of claiming a throne via matrilineal descent, whilst not a preferred practice, did sometimes function as a means of legitimacy. The introduction and codification of Salic law in the sixth century in Frankish lands appears to have attempted to debar and reduce similar possibilities, and there are no known examples of early English kings claiming thrones via matrilineal descent; however, there may be a case of at least concern for it in the instances of Æthelberht of East Anglia and Ecgfrith of Mercia (on which, see Chapter 3, particularly on Leofrun). Furthermore, the literary construct of the mykongr, or maiden-king, in fornaldrsögur and riddarasögur offers another imagination of the kind of power available to a queen-like woman. The maiden-king is a young noblewoman who rules, showing autonomy by following her own wishes, often against social expectations and the desires of the male authorities in her life; in most texts, however, she is usually also cruel and haughty, and the hero of the saga humbles, humiliates and conquers the maiden-king.⁵⁷ The literary construct of such a powerful woman is, ultimately, as Friðriksdóttir asserts, a ‘fantasy of power’; nevertheless, the depictions of maiden-kings and dowager queens ruling represent women as ‘competent if often overbearing rulers: their kingdoms seem to thrive despite the lack of a male sovereign.’⁵⁸ The date and genre of these Norse sources make it perilous to extrapolate too liberally for the purposes of biography, but offer interesting parallels and conceptions of what an early medieval queen was.

On the whole, the images of the Norse queens in the sagas offer numerous points of comparison to the early English queens. Like their insular cousins, the sources in which Norse queens appear are complex and they are often omitted or marginalised. Their roles as peaceweavers and advisors are perhaps more emphasised, which is fitting with the prevalence of feud culture in these texts, and, which is rather more relegated in early English sources – perhaps the best example is the unusual and almost saga-like short story in the annal for 755 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which details the feud between Cynewulf and Cyneheard for control of the West Saxon throne. There are also, on the whole, more examples of transgressive queens in the Norse accounts than among the queens of early England, 650–850. Some of this may be due to the nature of the sources in which early English queens are documented; so many of the texts are historical or hagiographical in nature, that queens tend to be held up as ideals or models of sanctity, or simply marginalised, rather than demonised. There are certainly examples of queens whose actions were criticised: Eormenburh’s conflict with Wilfrid earned her the title of a ‘Jezebel’, and Eadburh’s imperious queenship, modelled on the prominent position of her mother in the Mercian court, provoked such a harsh reaction at the West Saxon court that the wives of the West Saxon queens in the ninth century were not accorded the title of queen at all.

English queens did not exist in an Insular vacuum. The society, culture and traditions which shaped the practice and position of queens in early England had resonances and reflexes on the Continent. Even though there is seemingly limited evidence of much intermarriage between queens of these areas – Bertha, Ymme (the queen of Eadbald of Kent, r. 616–40) and Balthild being the possible exceptions – there were clear factors which influenced how queenship came to be understood, and how each individual queen acted in her role.

Sources

One of the reasons that a work like this has not yet been undertaken is the difficulty of the material and sources for working with the lives of early English queens. In The Earliest English Kings, D.P. Kirby remarks how ‘The source-record is rich and varied but it is fragmentary and incomplete. It does not tell the historian everything that he would wish to know, nor does it answer all his many questions. Rather, it illuminates fitfully and for short periods only what are really often little more than local developments.’⁵⁹ This is one of the hazards of working with early medieval material generally, but it is perhaps even more apparent when we shift women to the forefront of the discussion. As Clare Lees and Gillian R. Overing have observed, ‘The female agent is a double-agent: she moves in this “real” world of [early English] society, but we can only perceive her in that penumbral, netherworld to which she is relegated by clerical culture.’⁶⁰

Queens, as exceptional women, factor into the written records of their contemporaries only when the authors felt they served a role, either for their messages or for their audiences. There certainly were women authors and audiences, but the majority of texts and documents in which these queens are cited appear to have male authors, male subjects, and were intended for male audiences.⁶¹ Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is an essential source, but one which is markedly silent on some key areas, and often imbued with an ecclesiastical misogynistic bias. Charters documenting land donations and sales, often later copies of now-lost documents or forgeries for the benefit of later users, will sometimes include the name of a queen, perhaps as an authenticating feature, but she is often a solitary woman in a list of male witnesses. Queens often appear as figures or subjects in hagiographical texts, whether as the woman being cast as a saint, as with Æthelthryth, Seaxburh, Osgyth, or Eormenhild, or as adversaries to saints, like the representations of Balthild and Eormenburg in the Life of St Wilfrid, as explored in Chapters 3 and 4.

This book cannot be biography in the traditional sense of attempting a character sketch informed by the intimate thoughts and experiences of these women. The information must be coaxed from what the sources can offer – and often, it is only by combining multiple sources, sometimes centuries apart in composition, that we arrive at something more like a sketch of a queen’s life.

Furthermore, much of the material presented here is at least somewhat theoretical. Genealogical material, whether in narratives or in tables, is useful at times, but subject to interference at several stages of recopying, or conscious manipulation to promote a later author’s needs. In presenting material here, then, I have considered several principles. One is the date: earlier material has some claim to being potentially more proximate and therefore more likely to reflect authentic information and traditions. However, date alone is insufficient. I have also considered the text’s authorship, and the likely biases of the text, whether political or hagiographical. Each text has been shaped to suit the needs of its author and audience, and their interests and expectations must also be considered against the information presented. Provenance has also been considered; some later material has claims to upholding earlier traditions due to connections to cult centres or other information. There are times where the conventions of an author’s era come to the fore more clearly than what is likely to be biographical or authentic circumstances – as shall be seen with the talents of Æthelthryth of Ely, for example, in Chapter 1.

There are a few key texts in which queens feature, but these are most definitely not texts about queens, and it is important that this difference in purpose is kept in mind when discussing the individuals documented in their writings.

Perhaps the most essential source, certainly for the queens from 650 to 730, is Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The history offers an overview of the progress and development of the English and their conversion to Christianity. To inform his work, Bede drew on oral and documentary accounts from all over the island, and names his sources in the introduction to his work; however, writing a work dedicated to a Northumbrian king and with the explicit intent of detailing the progress of the conversion, Bede’s history often exhibits biases against rival kingdoms and individuals whose actions did not conform to his idea of orthodox Christian practice.⁶² These are compounded by Bede’s lack of access to information from certain areas, such as early Wessex and sections of Mercia. Furthermore, in promoting the advance of Christianity and its cultural practice, Bede can be seen to obscure other cultural patterns, such as the advisory role of queens. Nevertheless, his work is invaluable for offering a snapshot of various kingdoms and their relationships through the sixth, seventh and early eighth centuries.

Other, later histories are important. The annals in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle offer brief, annual information. Produced within the West Saxon court but promulgated in various, independently updated versions in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the chronicles offer most often snippets of essential information, such as notable events such as deaths, successions, comets, plagues, or battles. The information about Æthelburh, queen of Ine of Wessex, destroying Taunton survives in the Chronicle, as does some genealogical information. The Liber Eliensis, a twelfth-century compilation of material associated with Ely, presents information about the relationships of its saints and their families, though some of the information has become confused in the five hundred years between some of the early queens and when it was written down. Crucially, it follows the mistake set out in a Kentish text, The Life of Mildburh, naming Anna of East Anglia’s wife as Hereswith, daughter of Hereric of Northumbria, and a member of the Northumbrian royal family; in addition to Æthelthryth, Seaxburh and Æthelburh, it also names Wihtburh as a daughter, and two sons, Aldwulf and Germinus, as children of Anna of East Anglia. Other, later works are also important, as they may have had access to information which has since been lost. For example, William of Malmesbury’s two twelfth-century histories, Deeds of the English Kings (Gesta Regum Anglorum) and the Deeds of the English Bishops (Gesta Pontificorum Anglorum) draw on a range of later early English materials, including saints’ lives, records of miracles, and charters, and offer an enlarged scope of the world after Bede’s passing in the 730s. However, the large temporal gap between the subject material in the seventh through ninth centuries and the twelfth century, as well as the vested interest of William and his audiences to provide authentic stories and names to justify their ecclesiastical holdings, does mean that the information must be treated carefully to avoid introducing mistakes, forgeries and other misbegotten traditions, especially when they conflict with earlier sources. Other, later histories and chronologies, such as the Flowers of History (Flores Historiarum, one by Roger of Wendover, and another by Matthew Paris) of the thirteenth century, and Richard of Cirencester’s Historial Mirror of the Deeds of the Kings of the English (Speculum historiale de gestis regum Angliae), a fourteenth-century history, also contain a few useful details.

Other works which tend to be more personal in nature provide a range of material to illustrate the lives of these queens: hagiographies, lives, or legendaries often provide more quotidian details about their subjects, and at times, queens – whether as subjects themselves, mothers, sisters, daughters, cousins, or aunts. Also produced at Ely, the Lives of several female saints (Æthelthryth, Seaxburh, Eormenhild, Wihtburh and Werburh) dating from the eleventh century record the Ely monks’ view of these women who were important to their foundation. Other early saints’ lives furnish minor details, such as the Life of Guthlac, the Life of Wilfrid and the Lives of St Cuthbert. Many saints were either descended from royalty, or were influential and moved in high-status circles, bringing them into contact with abbots, abbesses, bishops, kings and queens. However, the prime purpose of hagiographical texts is to present their subject as a saint, and so they adopt and adapt details to better conform a subject to traditional notions of sanctity. Collections of legends, such as those in the Kentish Royal Legend and the Mildrith Legend, as well as the Secgan and lists of saints’ resting places offer further details. Other later hagiographical works can also record information useful for understanding the lives of queens: the Lives of the Two Offas produced at St Albans, as well as other twelfth-century material about the saint and king Æthelberht of East Anglia, offer a line of inquiry for better recognising the queen of Æthelred I of East Anglia (mid-seventh century). The twelfth-century Life of Modwenna provides some information about Osgyth’s background as a Mercian princess before her marriage to Sighere of Essex (r. c. 664–c. 688). Finally, Asser’s Life of Alfred – part imitation of the popular Lives of Charlemagne, part biography, part hagiography, part speculum regum – offers a carefully presented narrative of the West Saxon court, from the time before his grandfather Ecgfrith’s succession, to the policies, acts, laws and will of Alfred. Produced in the West Saxon court by Asser, a Welsh bishop summoned by the king to aid a renaissance programme of learning and education, it offers an outsider’s perspective, but clearly from a position within the court itself, the work praising and extolling the virtues of Alfred as king.

Other sources can be less obviously biased, but often offer less of a detailed narrative to work from. Archaeological information can provide rough confirmation of dates and foundations, or material culture as an additional point of contact. For example, the Balthild ring found in East Anglia has furnished more evidence as to understanding Balthild, queen of Clovis II (r. 639–57); similarly, archaeological data from Bedford provides further reason to admit the textual narratives about the death of Æthelberht and the initial centres of his cult.⁶³ Charters are another source rich with information: in early English usage, most charters are documentary records for land, whether by sale or by grant, and usually include a date, the names of the donor and recipient, an outline of the boundaries of the land, and a list of witnesses. As such, queens, whether as donors, witnesses, or recipients (often in their later careers as abbesses, as with Eormenhild in a charter of Wihtred of Kent in 699 confirming privileges of Kentish churches in minsters), feature among the parties represented in such texts. However, charters are incredibly complex documents, especially when their purpose is considered: they are essentially a title deed to land and its rights, and though many foundations took careful pains to preserve and record such important documents, they also had vested interests in replacing missing charters, or even fabricating charters to protect their holdings. The information in each charter must be very carefully considered, although where the name of a queen appears, it is perhaps noteworthy if even just for the appeal to her as an authenticating factor in promoting the legitimacy of the document. On the other hand, charters do not provide many of the details usually expected in a biography: relationships are sometimes explained in the titles of witness list entries, but key dates, personality, and other acts do not factor among the typical information provided.

A final, and at times essential, clue is in the names of the queens themselves, where names survive. There is no contemporary work explaining naming practices, and the evidence is complicated by the surviving population of names: more male names survive than female, and the majority of names are clearly from an exclusively aristocratic background. This does not present an issue for queens, who were also almost exclusively aristocratic. The personal names of queens offer more context about the relationships a woman was likely to have because of the composition of Old English names. They tend to be dithematic, that is, having two name-elements, usually words with their own meanings. These are referred to as the prototheme, for the first part of a name, and deuterotheme, for the second part of the name. Over time, deuterothemes seem to have developed a gendered character, although as Okasha has articulated, grammatical gender did not necessarily agree with biological or social gender.⁶⁴ As a result, certain names tend to be considered male and others female, depending on their deuterothemes. In aristocratic families, either name-element could often indicate descent, either by reusing an earlier theme or continuing alliteration. Another key principle to naming patterns was the desire to mark kinship. Familial names (at least in aristocratic records) often alliterate, or share a name element with the father, or, less often, with the mother’s side of the family. Thus, many of the names in royal families, or in branches of royal families, tend to alliterate. For example, in the seventh century, the king of the East Angles, Anna (probably a hypocorism for a name starting Æthel-, since his brothers were named Æthelhere and Æthelwold) married a particular queen whose name was probably Sæwara, a possibility discussed in Chapter 4. She had a daughter by a previous marriage, Sæthryth. The children of their union were Æthelthryth (picking up the prototheme from her father, and using a traditional deuterotheme ‘thryth’, a feminine noun meaning ‘force, power, strength’); Seaxburh (adopting the alliterative ‘s’ in the matrilineal prototheme), and Æthelburh (returning to the patrilineal prototheme and ‘burh’, another feminine noun meaning ‘city, fortress’). Not all examples work as simply as this: the children of Oswiu of Northumbria were Aldfrith, Ealhfrith, Ealhflæd, Ecgfrith, Ælfwine, Ælfflæd and Osthryth. There are some repeated name-elements, such as the Ealh- of Ealhfrith and Ealhflæd, who were both born to one of Oswiu’s earlier queens, Rhiainfelt of Rheged, or the Os- of Osthryth. Similarly, Aldfrith, born to an Irish princess, Fín, Ealhfrith and Ecgfrith share the deuterotheme ‘frith’, meaning ‘peace, security, protection’.

These naming patterns tend to be more useful when addressing absences in the records. Where there is a missing relationship, or a case of mistaken identity, the protothemes offer some possibilities for further lines of enquiry, or can help confusions. For example, the possibility that Osthryth had a marriage and children before becoming the queen of Æthelred of Mercia is somewhat easier to evaluate, which is discussed in Chapter 3. On the other hand, it is also somewhat useful to dismiss offspring who seem to have sprung up out of nowhere if their names do not conform to any observable pattern that would connect them to their supposed parents. For example, the infant prodigy and confessor St Rumwold is said to have been a grandson of Penda, born of an unnamed daughter of Penda, married to an unnamed king of Northumbria.⁶⁵ Neither of the royalty of Mercia or Northumbria in that era have any names alliterating with R; as Barbara Yorke has observed, in the legends, ‘the number of Penda’s daughters appears to be legion.’⁶⁶ But like charters, we must use name evidence very carefully, as later sources may have also invented information in these patterns, or we may be missing evidence which would authenticate other offspring. The absence of mothers’ names is particularly noteworthy, as their names may have helped resolve the reasons behind some otherwise observable patterns in naming which have no otherwise readily apparent explanation. Paying attention to naming practices offers one more method of inquiry to understanding the relationships and identities of these early English queens.

The sources for understanding the lives of early English queens are disparate and difficult. Intended for purposes other than individual biographies, there are risks in sifting details from each kind of text, and there is no absolute way to verify any of the information. However, by investigating the connections, contexts, sources and biases of each source, we come to a better understanding of each individual queen, and, by extension, of the office of queenship in the years 650–850.

Regnal Tales

The genealogical tables that appear earlier in this Introduction offer a summary of the interrelationships between the royal dynasties of early England, 650–850. There are many different ways of looking at the material, depending on which kingdom one privileges, and so much of the material is repeated and re-presented to help highlight these connections which are often obscured in the narratives. One disadvantage of such tables is the information that they omit. The nature of early English kingship favoured a royal dynasty with several branches, and many aristocrats could claim at least some royal lineage. Queens often descended from aristocratic branches whose male members had not secured succession to the royal throne, but may have been otherwise important military leaders and administrators. Such family trees prune back perhaps the majority of individuals, representing only the most relevant individuals, but thereby divorcing them from one of their most essential contexts: their family identity. Nonetheless, they still offer a clear and accessible overview of much of the genealogical information available from this era.

The regnal tables in this Introduction are drawn from Barbara Yorke’s work in Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. I have supplied the names of their queens, when known. What is perhaps most apparent is the sheer lack of queens – whether we are missing their identities, or whether many kings did not take wives. To me, it seems to be the former, rather than the latter.

Overview of Chapters

One of the main aims of this book is to paint a clearer picture of the practice of queenship in early England, offering broad overviews, but also more specific examinations of each of these women. Very few queens here have enough material to write full biographies about them as individuals alone; yet equally, these women are better understood as parallel examples of how different women held a similar office. It is only by putting them together that we begin to understand their lives as women and their offices as queens better.

The first chapter considers queens from the perspective of one of the dominant cultural forces in the era: Christianity. Even though some aspects of queenship, like their reputation for wise counsel, or the practice of polygamy or concubinage by kings, may have roots in the Germanic past of the early English, syncretic elements and the majority of practice in the queens in this chapter are firmly rooted in the traditions and expectations of Christian monarchy. As mediatory figures, queens were often heavily involved in conversions to Christianity. As mothers, they raised their children in line with the teachings of Christianity, and a large majority of early English saints trace their lineage to the royal dynasties. Finally, as queens, these women were often involved in the distribution of grants and treasure, whether to nobles, or as patrons and foundresses of Church organisation, especially of minsters. These features of queenship, including the exceptionality of the office, are reflected in the depiction of Mary as Queen of Heaven in the ninth-century poem, The Advent Lyrics.

Many of the better-known queens were revered as saints, and often have a body of writings associated with their life stories by which to know them and their sanctity. Perhaps the most noteworthy is Æthelthryth of Ely, twice queen yet virgin, foundress of Ely (d. 679). Her commitment to her faith and her purity made her an example of eschewing the glory of the world in favour of the Kingdom of Heaven. Other queens may have been less dramatic in their commitment to virginity, but still achieved sanctity via other means. Most sainted queens retired to monastic life following their careers as queens, and a large majority served as abbesses to monastic houses, whether as its foundress, like Cuthburh, queen of Aldfrith of Northumbria (r. 686–705), who founded Wimborne back in her birth kingdom after separating from the king, or following in another abbess’s path, like Seaxburh of Ely, queen of Eorcenberht of Kent (r. 640–64), who succeeded her sister Æthelthryth as abbess at Ely after having founded a new house at Minster-in-Sheppey. Other queens were more noted for their role in converting their royal husbands to Christianity, for example, the marriage of Oswiu of Northumbria (r. Bernicia 642–75; Northumbria 651–75) to Eanflæd, or the marriage of Osgyth to Sighere of Essex (r. 664?–c. 690). Like Mary, as queens, these women were exalted beyond the powers and respect usually accorded even to other aristocratic women. Their Christian culture instilled the values of promoting charity, of virginity and chastity, and fostering peace among fellow Christians.

Chapter 2 expands on the Christian values of queenship in early England by exploring the roles of queens as mothers. Unlike in later times, succession practice in early England, which favoured promoting a mature, successful ætheling over primogeniture or the son of the current king, made maternity a less crucial or essential aspect of queenship. A queen had roles to fill other than principal womb. Cultural changes over time promoting the rights of heirs born to legitimate marriages saw an increase to the status of queens from the late eighth century, a particularly prominent aspect to the careers of three queens of Mercia in the ninth century: Ælfthryth, Cynethryth and Ælfflæd. Nevertheless, maternity was a key aspect of how many queens lived: Cynethryth, queen of Offa of Mercia (r. 757–96) was an especially notable queen and mother, as was the queen of Clovis II (r. 639–57), Balthild, who served as regent for Neustria after the death of her husband, and whose origins may have been among the East Anglian nobility. The story of Eormenhild, daughter to one sainted mother, mother to a sainted daughter, captures how sanctity ran in families and was inculcated as part of their role as queen, leading by example, and teaching their children and kingdom. However, one of the most prominent mothers of this era, Osburh, wife of Æthelwulf of Wessex (r. 839–56; king of Kent, Sussex and Essex, 856–58), was not accorded the title of queen at all. The depiction of her in Asser’s Life of Alfred reflects her role as both a wife of a current ruler and mother to a future king, teaching her children.

In the third chapter, the medial nature of the queen comes into clearer focus as we explore how queens can be seen as peaceweavers, a theoretical category of high-status individuals who bring peace through their interrelationships between groups of people. In the case of queens, this was between two different families, whether branches of the same dynasty, or between feuding royal families from neighbouring kingdoms. The category has been fruitfully applied to analyse the positions and roles of women in many texts from this era, most notably the character of Hildeburh in the Old English heroic texts of Beowulf and The Finnsburh Fragment, but is most obvious when discussing women who have failed to manifest a lasting peace by her union – in terms of marriage, but also in terms of flesh, whether that means her own body as a physical manifestation of the relationship between her male relations, or as the vessel by which to produce a child whose blood united those two family identities. Failed peaceweavers are often easily identifiable in the historical record, where feuds and wars re-erupt, as in the marriages between the offspring of Oswiu of Northumbria and Penda of Mercia in the late seventh century. Here, three arguably peaceweaving marriages were made, all of which ended with at least one partner meeting what seems like an untimely death, if not an outright murder: Cyneburh to Ealhfrith, Ealhflæd to Peada, and Osthryth to Æthelred of Mercia.

Other peaceweavers may not be as apparent in the historical record. The union of Osgyth, a princess of the Mercian royal family, to Sighere of Essex in the late seventh century, looks like an unrecognised peaceweaving marriage obscured in the sources by the absence of any catastrophic backlash. Similarly, the career of Eadburh, queen of Beorhtric of Wessex (786–802) is often examined as an instance of a woman’s reputation in the historical record facing bias from rival, hostile dynasties. Recognising her as a peaceweaver whose marriage successfully created an alliance between two kingdoms (whilst it lasted) better explains the nature of the relationship between kings – her father Offa, and her husband Beorhtric – and kingdoms in the late eighth century, as well as the reasons her reputation was so severely maligned in later West Saxon sources. Yet better understanding the model of the peaceweaver can also make it a powerful theory for instances where the historical sources are less explicit about the identities and experiences of queens. Rereading the details of the murder of Æthelberht of East Anglia in the late eighth century with a particular view as to the identity of his mother – a shadowy absence in most of the material – I propose that her identity played a crucial role in both his promotion and demise, linking her more distinctly to the Mercian royal family. Certain key details in his story, such as the rationale for his murder by Offa, his burial, and the tolerance of his cult within Mercia in the aftermath of his death, are more easily rationalised if his mother had been descended from the Mercian royal family. The paradigm of the peaceweaver helps draw attention to how a queen’s identity had to be multiple, belonging at once to her birth family, and yet also to the dynasty of her husband, and the implications this continued to have both in her lifetime and after it.

Finally, in Chapter 4, we turn to the women whose identities and lived experiences are the most marginal in the record: the women whose voices are almost entirely unheard. Queens do figure predominantly in the records of known women, but even this documentation can be problematic as there may only be scanty evidence, or evidence that is at least in part spurious. In this chapter, we delve into these silences, moving beyond the sources and their biases to expand what can be said, often drawing on patterns which have emerged earlier: the networks of power created by families; the mediatory position of queens, whether as peaceweavers, mothers, or converters; the sanctity of these women’s reputations. Naming practices and networking offer further details on more obscure individuals, such as the three wives of Wihtred of Kent in the early eighth century, or the curious case of Anna of East Anglia’s queen in the mid-seventh century, whose name, despite being mother to several saints, is omitted or confused from many early sources. Nor is she alone: the confusion between Eormenburg, the second queen of Ecgfrith of Northumbria, and her sister, Eormengyth, queen of Centwine of Wessex, including in relatively early sources, often conceals the networks of power shaped by the marriages of royal sisters across the English kingdoms. Despite the scarcity of detail in the sources – annals, histories, charters and hagiographies – the power of other, prominent queens from the mid-seventh century emerges more clearly. In the careers of Cynewise of Mercia, queen of Penda, and Seaxburh of Wessex and Æthelburh of Wessex, we can see the inherent powers considered befitting of a queen, an attitude often obscured by the paucity of sources. It is often from these most intractable sources that a clearer impression emerges of the attitudes the early English held about queens and queenship, both by what they record and what they neglect to include in their accounts. The inherent power of the queen, as a woman with powerful connections to the most powerful men in the kingdom, becomes more apparent when considered in its most essential form: simple annalistic statements of what a queen did.

Unlike many lengthy studies of kings and kingship, this work adopts a comparative approach to queenship, comparing queens in similar situations, rather than queens of similar time periods, or of the same kingdoms. Because the power of a queen tended to derive from her relations – her male relations, as well as those married to her sisters, cousins and aunts – to understand her, we must first understand her family. In addition, reading each individual queen alongside other queens in similar familial or political circumstances allows us to identify parallels and illustrate a fuller picture, allowing some provisional hypotheses which help to fill gaps in the historical record. It also allows us to see her own connections and networks, rather than constraining and confining her within the geopolitical confines of her husband’s kingdom. Her husband and his kingdom were essential factors in the values and nature of the office which she held as queen – how the dynasty shaped and used queens and queenship to its benefit. Dynasties which felt their hold on the throne or succession was tenuous often elected to bolster its legitimacy and support with the judicious selection of a queen who could provide that backing.

This does somewhat detract from some of the chronological and geographical changes and trends impacting many of the queens across this study. Some queens of the mid-seventh century, for example, may not have been Christian, or have been one of several wives consort to their husbands. The queens of the late seventh century, by contrast, were often part of the conversion, and many were key agents in the spread and consolidation of Christianity in the kingdoms of their husbands. The queens of the later eighth century often had increased profiles, which appears to have been linked to dynastic needs: the Mercian practice of queenship, and the kingdoms into which Mercian princesses married, saw the office of the queen inhabited by women of increasing political stature and activity in household and political matters. Increasing emphasis around succession practice also raised the profile of the queen, particularly in Mercia in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, though the dynasty of Ecgberht in Wessex instead adopted a reactionary approach and demoted the status of the queen in the ninth century. Royal dynasties also found the incursions of Norse raiders an additional challenge, which certainly upset succession policies which were already fractious from a series of abdications, depositions and murders. Reading the chapters against each other, a sense of both the similarities and differences facing these queens becomes more apparent, as do the fundamental features of queenship. A queen, at her most essential, was the wife of a king, often married as a political arrangement to serve the interests of both families. Her power derived from her male relations, and she never existed as only belonging to one kingdom or family; she had a medial role, belonging always to her birth family, but exercising her office in the kingdom of her marriage.

Map I.1A Map of Early England, ca. 650–850

Notes

1. For an overview of the genre of the ‘speculum principum’, see Matthias Haake, ‘Writing to a Ruler, Speaking to a Ruler, Negotiating the Figure of the Ruler: Thoughts on “Monocratological” Texts and Their Contexts in Greco-Roman Antiquity’, in Global Medieval: Mirrors for Princes Reconsidered, eds Regula Forster and Neguin Yavari (London: Harvard University Press, 2015), 58–82; on later mirrors for princes, see Lester K. Born, ‘The Specula Principis of the Carolingian Renaissance’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 12 (1933): 583–612.
2. Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘Concubinage in Anglo-Saxon England’, Past and Present 108, no. 1 (1985): 3–34, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/108.1.3; Pauline Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1983), pp. 63–78; Theresa Earenfight, Queenship in Medieval Europe, Queenship and Power (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), 31–78.
3. Stacey Klein, Ruling Women: Queenship and Gender in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 4.
4. Julie Ann Smith, ‘The Earliest Queen-Making Rites’, Church History 66, no. 1 (1997): 18–35, https://doi.org/10.2307/3169630.
5. Earenfight, Queenship in Medieval Europe, 25.
6. Susan E. Kelly, ‘Wihtred (d. 725)’, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eds H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), ref:odnb/29381, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29381.
7. Virginia Blanton, ‘The Lost and (Not) Found: Sources for Female Saints’ Legends’, in A Companion to British Literature, vol. I: 700–1450, 4 vols (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 65–80; Virginia Blanton, Signs of Devotion: The Cult of St Aethelthryth in Medieval England, 695–1615 (University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); for discussion of similar phenomena in Norse literature, see Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature: Bodies, Words, and Power, The New Middle Ages (New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), 8, 20.
8. For a discussion of the absence, see Stephanie Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1992), 1–14; Clare Lees and Gillian R. Overing, ‘The Clerics and the Critics: Misogyny and the Social Symbol in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Gender and Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaisance, eds Thelma S. Fenster and Clare Lees, New Middle Ages (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), 19–40; Clare Lees and Gillian R. Overing, Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon England, Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009), 1–15.
9. Stefany Wragg, ‘An “Authorized Fiction”: Towards a Biography of Anonymous 756’, Royal Studies Journal 8.2 (2021).
10. Christine Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066 by Cecily Clark and Elizabeth Williams (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 60; Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 104–5.
11. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, trans., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (London: Penguin, 1983), 229, at n. 7; see further Alban Gautier, ‘Butlers and Dish-Bearers in Anglo-Saxon Courts: Household Officers at the Royal Table’, Historical Research 90, no. 248 (2017): 269–95.
12. Alcuin, Alcuin of York, trans. Stephen Allott (York: William Sessions, 1974), no. 36, 49.
13. John Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018), 103.
14. Frederich Klaeber, Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, Fourth Edition, eds John D. Niles, R.D. Fulk and Robert E. Bjork (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), ll. 613–614. All quotations will come from this edition; all translations from Beowulf are my own unless otherwise indicated.
15. George Philip Krapp and Elliot Van Kirk Dobbie, eds, The Exeter Book, vol. 3, 6 vols, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1936), l. 126, 161.
16. Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England, 132–3 and 174–5.
17. Ibid., 65.
18. Peter Sawyer et al., eds, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Revised and digitized (London: Royal Historical Society, 1968), https://esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/about/about.html, S19. Susan Kelly connects this perhaps with the appearance of Cynegyth in the charter, in which she is described as both donating equally to the foundation, see Kelly, ‘Wihtred (d.725)’.
19. Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church, 117–18.
20. Sawyer et al., Anglo-saxon Charters, S125.
21. Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church, 151–6.
22. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, II.5; see further discussion at Patrick Wormald, ‘Bede, Bretwaldas and Origins of the Gens Anglorum’, in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, eds Patrick Wormald, Donald A Bullough and Roger Collins (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 99–129.
23. For a fuller discussion of ‘Anonymous 756’, see Wragg, ‘Authorized Fiction’.
24. Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England, 71.
25. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, III.8. Wihtburh is probably a later invention of Ely.
26. Bertram Colgrave, ed., Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 15 and 47.
27. For more on early West Saxon history, see D.P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings, Reprint (London: Routledge, 1991), 48–61; D.P. Kirby, ‘Problems of Early West Saxon History’, The English Historical Review 80 (1965): 10–29; Barbara Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: Routledge, 1990), 128–56; David N. Dumville, ‘The Anglian Collection of Royal Genealogies and Regnal Lists’, Anglo-Saxon England 5 (December 1976): 23–50, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263675100000764.
28. Judith’s coronation was highly unusual, and still survives. See further details, Smith, ‘The Earliest Queen-Making Rites’; Pauline Stafford, ‘The King’s Wife in Wessex 800–1066’, Past and Present 91, no. 1 (1981): 3–27. As their marriage took place in 855, she does not figure in the scope of this discussion. She is also not to be confused with the later Judith of Flanders (d. 1095).
29. Pauline Stafford, ‘The Political Women of Mercia, Eighth to Early Tenth Centuries’, in Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe, eds Michelle Brown and Carol A. Farr, Studies in the Early History of Europe (London: Leicester University Press, 2001), 25–49; The ‘Mercian Register’ is available in G.P. Cubbin, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Vol. 6 MS D, vol. 6 (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1996), see xxx–xxxi.
30. John Blair, ‘Frithuwald’s Kingdom and the Origins of Surrey’, in The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, ed. Stephen Bassett, Studies in the Early History of Britain (London: Leicester University Press, 1989), 97–107; Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, 47.
31. Kirby, Earliest Kings, 115–17; Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, 108.
32. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, 54.
33. Cf. Kirby, Earliest Kings, 167.
34. Susan E. Kelly, ‘Kings of the South Saxons (Act. 477–772)’, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eds H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), ref:odnb/52344, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/52344.
35. Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England, 60–64; For further reading, see Wilhelm Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century: The Ford Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford in the Hilary Term, 1943 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946); Joanna Story, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c. 750–860, Studies in Early Medieval Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003); Joanna Story, ‘Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent’, in Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, eds Claire Breay and Joanna Story (London: The British Library, 2018), 23–32.
36. For further discussion of Charlemagne’s daughters and their marriages, see Walter Pohl, ‘Why Not to Marry a Foreign Woman: Stephen III’s Letter to Charlemagne’, in Rome and Religion in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Thomas F.X. Noble, ed. Valerie Garver and Owen Phelan (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 47–63; Wragg, ‘Authorized Fiction’.
37. Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 62–63; Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister 500–900 (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 38; Earenfight, Queenship in Medieval Europe, 54–5.
38. Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 51.
39. Cf. ibid., 37.
40. Wemple, Women in Frankish Society, 2.
41. Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 98.
42. Ibid., 104–5, 110–12.
43. Boniface, Die Briefe Des Heiligen Bonifatius Und Lullus, ed. Michael Tangl, Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Epistolae Selectae 1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1916), Nos. 73 and 74, 146–56; trans. Dorothy Whitelock, ed., English Historical Documents c. 500–1042, 2nd edn, vol. 1 (London: Routledge, 1996), Nos. 177 and 178, 870–77. Æthelbald was later murdered by his own bodyguard at Seckington.
44. Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers.
45. Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, 3, 6, 81–2.
46. Ibid., 83.
47. Cf. ibid., 7; Carolyne Larrington, ‘Kerling / Drottning: Thinking about Medieval Queenship with Egils Saga Einhendar Ok Ásmundar Berserkjabana’, Saga-Book 39 (2015): 61–76; Barbora Davídková, ‘Óláfr and the Queens: Gender, Queenship and Kingship Ideologies in the Separate Saga of Saint Óláfr’ (MA Thesis, Oslo, University of Oslo, 2017).
48. Jochens, Women in Old Norse Society, 67; Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, 28.
49. Cf. Carolyne Larrington, ‘Queens and Bodies: The Norwegian Translated Lais and Hákon IV’s Kinswomen’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108, no. 4 (2009): 506–27, at 527.
50. Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, 93–4.
51. Ibid., 89.
52. Ibid., 41.
53. Ibid., 20.
54. Ibid., 25.
55. Colgrave, Life of Bishop Wilfrid, 48–9.
56. Cf. Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, 87.
57. Larrington, ‘Queens and Bodies’; Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, 107–8.
58. Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature, 130, 109.
59. Kirby, Earliest Kings, xii.
60. Lees and Overing, Double Agents, 2.
61. On female authors and audiences, see Diane Watt, Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100, Studies in Early Medieval History (London: Bloomsbury, 2020); Blanton navigates the gendered nature of the subject and audiences of texts in her Signs of Devotion.
62. Nicholas J. Higham, An English Empire: Bede and the Early Anglo-Saxon Kings (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).
63. For more information on the Balthild ring, see Paul Fouracre, ‘Unravelling the Mystery of Queen Balthild: Professor Paul Fouracre on a Ring That Sparked a Lot of Head-Scratching …’, History@Manchester (blog), 2 November 2016, https://uomhistory.com/2016/11/02/unravelling-the-mystery-of-queen-balthild-professor-paul-fouracre-on-a-ring-that-sparked-a-lot-of-head-scratching/.
64. Elisabeth Okasha, Women’s Names in Old English (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 2–3 and 73–4.
65. Rosalind C. Love, Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives: Vita S. Birini, Vita et Miracula S. Kenelmi and Vita S. Rumwoldi, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 94–5.
66. Barbara Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: Routledge, 1990), 110.