Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England 184383877X, 9781843838777

Table of contents :
List of Illustrations vi
List of Tables vii
Contributors viii
Preface ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction / Ann Williams 1
PART I
1. Church Councils, Royal Assemblies, and Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas / Simon Keynes 17
Appendix I: Meeting-places of Royal Assemblies in Anglo-Saxon England (900–1066) 140
Appendix II: Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas on Single Sheets (925–75) 158
Appendix III: Citations of Anglo-Saxon Charters 180
PART II
2. Anglo-Saxon Royal Archives: Their Nature, Extent, Survival and Loss / Alexander R. Rumble 185
3. Naming and Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon Law / Carole Hough 201
4. Witnessing Kingship: Royal Power and the Legal Subject in the Old English Laws / Andrew Rabin 219
5. The Burial of Kings in Anglo-Saxon England / Barbara Yorke 237
6. Ine 70.1 and Royal Provision in Anglo-Saxon Wessex / Ryan Lavelle 259
7. Being Everywhere at Once: Delegation and Royal Authority in Late Anglo-Saxon England / Alaric A. Trousdale 275
Index of persons and places 297

Citation preview

PUBLICATIONS OF THE MANCHESTER CENTRE FOR ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES Volume 13

Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England

PUBLICATIONS OF THE MANCHESTER CENTRE FOR ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES ISSN  1478–6710

Editorial Board Donald Scragg Richard Bailey Timothy Graham Nicholas J. Higham Gale R. Owen-Crocker Alexander R. Rumble Leslie Webster

Published Titles 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Textual and Material Culture in Anglo-Saxon England: Thomas Northcote Toller and the Toller Memorial Lectures, ed. Donald Scragg Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Kathryn Powell and Donald Scragg King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Catherine E. Karkov, Sarah Larratt Keefer and Karen Louise Jolly Writing and Texts in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Alexander R. Rumble Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas: A Palaeography, Susan D. Thompson Britons in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Nicholas J. Higham Edgar, King of the English 959–975: New Interpretations, ed. Donald Scragg The Landscape Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan Place-names, Language and the Anglo-Saxon Landscape, ed. Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan A Conspectus of Scribal Hands Writing English, 960–1100, Donald Scragg Leaders of the Anglo-Saxon Church: From Bede to Stigand, ed. Alexander R. Rumble

Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England

edited by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Brian W. Schneider

the boydell press

©  Contributors 2013 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2013 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN  978–1–84383–877–7

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc, 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Papers used by Boydell & Brewer Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents List of Illustrations List of Tables Contributors Preface Abbreviations

vi vii viii ix xi

Introduction Ann Williams

1

PART I 1 Church Councils, Royal Assemblies, and Anglo-Saxon Royal 17 Diplomas Appendix I: Meeting-places of Royal Assemblies in Anglo-Saxon 140 England (900–1066) Appendix II: Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas on Single Sheets (925–75) 158 Appendix III: Citations of Anglo-Saxon Charters 180 Simon Keynes PART II 2 Anglo-Saxon Royal Archives: Their Nature, Extent, Survival and Loss Alexander R. Rumble

185

3 Naming and Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon Law Carole Hough

201

4 Witnessing Kingship: Royal Power and the Legal Subject in the Old English Laws Andrew Rabin

219

5 The Burial of Kings in Anglo-Saxon England Barbara Yorke

237

6 Ine 70.1 and Royal Provision in Anglo-Saxon Wessex Ryan Lavelle

259

7 Being Everywhere at Once: Delegation and Royal Authority in Late Anglo-Saxon England Alaric A. Trousdale

275

Index of persons and places

297

Illustrations Map Meeting-places of the king and his councillors, 900–1066 Figures 1.1 Diploma of King Æthelstan for Wulfgar, AD 931, written by ‘Æthelstan A’ (A1), London, British Library, Cotton Charter viii. 16. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.2 Diploma of King Æthelstan for Ealdulf, AD 939, written by ‘Æthelstan C’ (A3), London, British Library, Cotton Augustus ii. 23. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.3 Diploma of King Edmund for Æthelswyth, AD 940, written by ‘Æthelstan C’ (B1). London, British Library, Cotton Augustus ii. 62 © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.4 Diploma of King Edmund for Ælfstan, AD 943, written by ‘Æthelstan C’ (B3). London, British Library, Stowe Charter 24 © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.5 Diploma of King Eadred for Ælfwyn, AD 948, written by ‘Edmund C’ (C2). London, British Library, Stowe Charter 26 © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.6 Diploma of King Eadwig for Ælfwine, AD 956, Group I (D1) London, British Library, Cotton Augustus ii. 41 © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.7 Diploma of King Eadwig for Ealdorman Edmund, AD 956, Group II (D2). London, British Library, Cotton Augustus ii. 45 © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.8 Diploma of King Edgar for Abingdon abbey, AD 961, written by ‘Edgar A’ (E4). London, British Library, Cotton Augustus ii. 39 © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.9 Diploma of King Edgar for Ingeram, AD 963, written by ‘Edgar A’ (E10). London, British Library, Stowe Charter 29 © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. 1.10 Diploma of King Æthelred for Abingdon abbey, AD 993 (detail) London, British Library, Cotton Augustus ii. 38 © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.

34

80 81 82 83 86 87 88 89 90 115

Tables 5.1 5.2 6.1

Burial places of kings of Wessex from Æthelwulf to Edward the Confessor Burial places of kings of Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria in the late seventh and eighth centuries The renders described in 1 Kings 4:22–23 and Ine 70.1 with a summary of records of Welsh gwestfa

238 239 262

Contributors Carole Hough, University of Glasgow Simon Keynes, University of Cambridge Ryan Lavelle, University of Winchester Andrew Rabin, University of Louisville Alexander R. Rumble, The University of Manchester Brian W. Schneider, The University of Manchester Alaric A. Trousdale, Western Oregon University Gale R. Owen-Crocker, The University of Manchester Ann Williams, University of East Anglia Barbara Yorke, University of Winchester

Preface

S

everal of the ‘Anglo-Saxonists’ who originally formed the core of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies – archaeologists, historians and Old English specialists – have, in the past, focused attention on individual Anglo-Saxon kings by organizing conferences about them, with publications arising.1 It seemed logical, therefore, when the lot fell to me to organize the MANCASS Easter conference of 2006, to attempt an investigation of the nature and functioning of Anglo-Saxon kingship itself. In the ‘Call for Papers’ for the proposed conference on ‘Royal Authority: Kingship and Power in Anglo-Saxon England’, I offered the following hint as to the way I envisaged the conference developing: The objective is to replace the common approach to Anglo-Saxon kingship which focuses on ‘famous names’ and biographical details, in order to examine the wider concept of royal authority.

While it proved impossible entirely to divorce the concept of kingly power from the names and biographies of known rulers, laws and charters being associated with named kings, I was delighted by the original and detailed insights produced by viewing these sources through the lens of ‘Kingship and Power’. The majority of the conference papers based their arguments on Anglo-Saxon text, though Barbara Yorke’s wide-ranging examination of the way in which kingly power was expressed publicly and posthumously through a study of the known burial sites of monarchs from pre-Christian times to the eleventh century considered physical manifestations of royal authority and some considered artefacts, including Gareth William’s Guest Lecture on coins (published elsewhere).2 Inevitably submissions varied in focus, some ranging over six centuries, others concentrating on individual kingdoms and reigns. There were more fundamental differences, however: while some papers analysed sources of knowledge that confirm and demonstrate royal power, others pinpointed loss of authority or 1

2

Ethelred the Unready, Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. David Hill, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 59 (Oxford, 1978); The Reign of Cnut, King of England, Denmark and Norway, ed. Alexander R. Rumble (Leicester, 1994, paperback 1999); Edward the Elder, 899–924, ed. Nick Higham and David Hill (London, 2001); Æthelbald and Offa: Two Eighth-Century Kings of Mercia, ed. David Hill and Margaret Worthington, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 383 (Oxford, 2005); King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge, 2005, paperback 2011); Edgar, King of the English 959–975, ed. Donald Scragg (Woodbridge, 2008). To appear in Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Brian W. Schneider (Oxford, forthcoming, 2013).

x

PREFACE

insecure pretensions to the crown. There were also more quirky, though no less scholarly, offerings which teased material relevant to the conference theme out of unexpected sources. The papers in the second and third categories are to be published in a companion volume.3 The papers selected for this volume belong to the first category, that of exploring manifestations of royal authority at its most effective. These papers are important contributions to mainstream medieval history and mainly draw their material from charters, contemporary historians, especially Bede, and laws. They include discussion of the relationship between secular monarchs and the Church, and between co-existent rulers in the days of multiple kingships and rapidly changing power ratios. They deal with the operation, delegation, attestation and recording of rulership, the exactment of land-forfeiture for violation of law-codes, the roles of bishops, shire-reeves and witnesses in establishing and maintaining royal authority and the significance of the embryo chanceries and treasuries responsible for the preservation of records. In discussing ecclesiastical councils, royal assemblies, and public meetings between contemporary kings for military or religious purposes, the contributions include some lively reconstructions of the arrangements whereby documents came to be written and the king and his entourage accommodated, which give a human and immediate context to the exercise of royal power in Anglo-Saxon England. Simon Keynes’s foundational article ‘Church Councils, Royal Assemblies and AngloSaxon Royal Diplomas’, which forms Part I of the book, is developed from the keynote lecture of the conference. I wish to express my thanks to all the contributors for their research and hard work, and for the patience of those who waited for the collection of papers to be assembled. I am particularly grateful to Ann Williams who readily accepted my invitation to write the Introduction to this volume, which not only contextualizes the other chapters but through its author’s unrivalled knowledge of Anglo-Saxon kingship adds to the scope of the whole book. The editors gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, The University of Manchester, towards the publication of this volume. Gale R. Owen-Crocker Director, Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies The University of Manchester, 2012

3

See note 2 above.

Abbreviations ANS ASC AS Charters

Anglo-Norman Studies The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Anglo-Saxon Charters (British Academy and Royal Historical Society series) ASE Anglo-Saxon England B. M. Facs. Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, ed. E. A. Bond, 4 vols. (London, 1873–8) BAR British Archaeological Reports BCS Walter de Gray Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum: a collection of charters relating to Anglo-Saxon history, 3 vols. (London, 1885–93) BL London, British Library Councils and Councils and Synods, with other documents relating to the   Synods English Church I, A.D. 871–1204, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1981) EETS Early English Text Society; os original series EHD English Historical Documents I c.500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 1955). EHD 2nd ed. English Historical Documents, 1: c.500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock, 2nd edn (London, 1979) EHR English Historical Review EME Early Medieval Europe HE Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica cited by book and chapter JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JMH Journal of Medieval History KCD Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, ed. J. M. Kemble, 6 vols. (London, 1839–48) Kemble Kemble website http://www.kemble.asnc.cam.ac.uk Laws of the The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to   Kings of Henry I, ed. and trans. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1925)   England O. S. Facs. Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, ed. W. B. Sanders, 3 vols., Ordnance Survey (Southampton, 1878–94) PBA Proceedings of the British Academy S followed by the number of the document: P. H. Sawyer, AngloSaxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968), revised version at http://www.esawyer.org.uk TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

xii

VW

ABBREVIATIONS

Stephen of Ripon, Vita Wilfridi, in The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1927)

Introduction ANN WILLIAMS

T

he papers in this volume are based on some of those given at a conference hosted by the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies in April 2006, entitled ‘Royal Authority: Kingship and Power in Anglo-Saxon England’.1 A volume devoted to this subject is welcome for, despite numerous earlier studies of kingship and of individual kings, it remains easy for students of the Old English period to take kings and their office for granted.2 There they are, at the pinnacle of their societies, unquestioned and unquestionable. Contemporaries might have opinions on the character and efficiency of particular kings, though these (if not effusively complimentary) were usually expressed retrospectively. No-one, however, seems to have queried the existence of kingship itself. Only the Icelanders, out of all the early European polities, adopted a different form of political organization, and even in Iceland the goðar might be taken for ‘kings’ in their own localities, rather like the kings of the many English provinciae eventually incorporated into the heptarchic realms.3 This process of trout swallowing minnows and being swallowed in turn by pike, which eventually produced Englalond, used to be viewed as a natural progression, the first step on the road to nineteenth-century parliamentary sovereignty and the British Empire. Such attitudes are nowadays dismissed as laughable, but some of the attendant preconceptions remain; the expansion of West Saxon power in the tenth century, for instance, is still occasionally called a ‘reconquest’, though in fact it was no such thing. Hindsight has many unfortunate consequences, not least the search for ‘origins’, in which earlier times are mined as sources for later developments, rather than studied for themselves. 1

2

3

Another group of papers derived from the same conference, which largely focuses on loss of power, weakness and insecure pretensions to the crown, can be found in Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Brian W. Schneider (Oxford, forthcoming 2013). Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Wood (Leeds, 1977) contains a full bibliography of works published up to that date. See further James Campbell, ‘Bede’s reges and principes’, Jarrow Lecture 1979, reprinted in James Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1986), pp. 85–98; Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society, ed. Patrick Wormald, Donald Bullough and Roger Collins (Oxford, 1983); J. L. Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Medieval Europe (London, 1986), James Campbell, The Anglo-Saxon State (London, 2000). Ross Samson, ‘Goðar: democrats or despots’, in From Sagas to Society: comparative approaches to early Iceland, ed. Gísli Pálsson (Enfield Lock, 1992), pp. 167–88.

2

ANN WILLIAMS

There is also a lingering tendency to regard the history of England (and indeed of Britain) as beginning in 1066, with everything before seen as at best a prelude to (and at worst as a distraction from) the main business.4 This is unfortunate, given the crucial importance of the pre-Conquest kings in consolidating the very nation of the English. Certainly the concept of a single gens Anglorum was expressed by Bede in the early eighth century, but it was the achievement of Alfred and still more of his tenth-century royal successors to develop administrative structures which gave temporal reality to this ideal vision.5 Various views have been expressed on the effectiveness of kingly power, as opposed to propagandist ideals of royal authority, before 1066. The maximist view has been maintained by James Campbell, who has not hesitated to call the late Old English kingdom a ‘nation-state’.6 Others have expressed reservations: Before [England’s] uniqueness is too enthusiastically accepted (and then celebrated), some discounting has to be done for the centripetal thrust of the surviving evidence; while there is an absence here of the kind of thick description supplied elsewhere … of full-blooded and untidy incident, there is relative abundance of legal material which tends to exaggerate the statelike appearance of the tenth-century realm.7

Janet Nelson’s caveat has been echoed by Paul Hyams, who argues that reliance upon sources produced by or for the royal court has seduced scholars into over-stating the practical application of ‘undoubted royal aspirations and robust attempts to actualize them’, while overlooking ‘the resistance of individuals equally keen to defend and perhaps further their own opposed interests’.8 While this question itself is not directly addressed in this volume, several of the papers deal with the inherent problems of the surviving evidence, and with the practical exercise of power as against abstract proclamations of authority. It is one of the strengths of this collection that it examines kingship and power throughout the Old English period, from the time of the English settlements in the sixth century to the eve of the Norman Conquest.9 The origins of kingship in England lie among those forgotten or half-forgotten territorial rulers who emerged in the long years after the collapse of Roman authority in

4 5

6

7 8

9

A view expressed, for instance, by Professor Norman Davies, The Isles: a history (London, 1969). Sarah Foot, ‘The making of Angelcynn: English identity before the Norman Conquest’, TRHS 6th ser., 6 (1996), 24–49; Patrick Wormald, ‘Engla lond: the making of an allegiance’, Journal of Historical Sociology 7 (1994), 1–24. ‘It may seem extravagant to describe early England as a “nation-state”. Nevertheless it is unavoidable’ (‘The late Anglo-Saxon state: a maximum view’, PBA 87 (1994), reprinted in Campbell, The Anglo-Saxon State, p. 32). Janet L. Nelson, ‘Rulers and government’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History III c.900– c.1024, ed. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge, 1999), p. 115. Paul R. Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (Ithaca, NY, 2003), pp. 72–3; see also Paul Hyams, ‘Feud and the state in later Anglo-Saxon England’, Journal of British Studies 40 (2001), 1–43. Early Medieval Kingship, ed. Sawyer and Wood, covers the same chronological framework.



INTRODUCTION

3

Britain. How many there were at any one time is hard to say, nor is it easy to know what to call them, for by the time that written sources emerge most of them had been absorbed by more powerful neighbours.10 Since it is a truism that history is written by the victors, the pretensions of the winners have affected the portrayal of the losers; ‘those higher up the scale were concerned to depress the status of those lower down’.11 A local ruler who appears in sources connected with a greater lord as a subregulus, princeps or even dux (ealdorman) may in his own realm be regarded and described as a rex, and his sphere of authority as a regnum, even if it appears as a provincia in the thought-world of his overlord. Barbara Yorke’s paper on royal burials begins in the prehistory of English kingship, when we are not even sure what to call the inhabitants of the ‘elite’ or ‘princely burials’ which emerge in the late sixth century.12 Whether or not their occupants were called ‘kings’, these richly-furnished interments, whether cremations or inhumations, ‘seem to have been intended to be seen as major features within the landscape’, and are commonly associated with pre-existing sites of the Roman period or earlier. They demonstrate a characteristic (though not universal) fondness for earthen mounds, either newly-built structures or re-used Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows. Yorke speculates that their purpose was to create links with ‘earlier guardians of the land’ whose power the newcomers had appropriated for themselves; once established, the burial sites may in turn have functioned as assembly points at which the descendants of their occupants could demonstrate their authority. Not only do the elite burials link the immigrants with their new lands in Britain, they also look to the wider world from which they had come, incorporating ‘“symbols of power” from many different traditions and people, including the trappings of Roman authority’.13 Even before the conversion to Christianity, the burials of kings, if this is what they were, were already eclectic, and once the rulers (or their successors) were converted, the burial rites could be adapted to the new circumstances. In some places, notably Kent, the old customs gave place to interment within churches, but the ‘elite burial’ tradition could itself be adapted to incorporate Christian elements, as happened at Prittlewell and at Sutton Hoo (mound 1). This combination of adaptability and change continued to the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, when ‘burial inside major basilican churches became the norm in the tenth century’.14 Christianity, or rather the ecclesiastical framework established by the hierarchy of the Church, was from the beginning a powerful tool in the hands of ambitious rulers. The modus operandi of the first missionaries, whether Roman, Frankish or Irish, was to convert the king and his court, on the principle that where the 10

11 12 13 14

For the smaller territories of seventh- and eighth-century England, see Steven Bassett, ‘In search of the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms’, in Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, ed. Steven Bassett (Leicester, 1989), pp. 3–27, especially pp. 17–20. Campbell, ‘Bede’s reges and principes’, in Essays in Anglo-Saxon History, p. 91. ‘The burial of kings in Anglo-Saxon England’, pp. 237–57 in this volume. In this volume, p. 242. In this volume, p. 257.

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ANN WILLIAMS

king went, his people would follow (or be forcibly taken). For aspirant kings the rewards of conversion were considerable, since the missionaries provided them not only with an ideology of royal authority, derived from Roman and Biblical models, but also the tools to realize that ideology in practice. Especially important was the use of the written word. It would not be true to say that the unconverted English were illiterate, since they had their own system of runic writing, but its uses were limited, and probably confined to particular groups and individuals.15 In contrast, the Christian missionaries who converted the inhabitants of the British Isles came from a fully literate culture, and brought the beliefs and assumptions of that culture with them. It was not essential for converted kings, let alone their people, to be able to read, let alone write, but the very fact of educating the upper ranks of society in a religion based upon a book meant that some form of functional literacy began to spread among them, and as the English Church grew and adapted the structure of its European parent, learning and at least functional literacy spread from the ecclesiastical into the secular sphere. How the process worked is suggested by Stephen of Ripon’s account of the ecclesiastical synod at the River Nidd in 709, where St Wilfrid regained his bishopric of York; when the papal letters reinstating him were read out, the senior layman present asked the archbishop for a translation into the vernacular.16 Repetition of such experiences, and the eventual development of vernacular texts, would produce some functional literacy in the English tongue, though one who could not read Latin would still be described as illiteratus.17 Simon Keynes’ paper demonstrates the significance of the great councils of the English church in the development of royal power, literacy and the making and keeping of written records.18 The first synod of the whole ecclesia Anglicana, held in 672 at Hertford, was summoned by Theodore, the ‘first of the archbishops whom the whole English church consented to obey’.19 Theodore, of course, was a Greek, fully versed in the literate culture of the Roman Empire, and the emphasis throughout was on written records, from the book of canons which Theodore produced at the meeting, through the ten specially relevant clauses which were discussed and agreed upon, to the formal record of proceedings, attested by all those present, which Theodore dictated to his notary Titill.20 15

16

17

18 19 20

Though often regarded as primarily ‘magical’ the runic script could be used for practical purposes; see R. I. Page, ‘Anglo-Saxon runes and magic’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 3rd ser., 27 (1964), 14–31, reprinted and updated in R. I. Page, Runes and Runic Inscriptions (Woodbridge, 1995), pp. 105–25. The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, ed. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge 1927), cap. 60. The archbishop replied that ‘the judgements of the Apostolic See are expressed in roundabout and enigmatic language’ and gave a precis of the meaning. The question of lay literacy, including the functions of runes, is discussed by Susan Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon lay society and the written word’, in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamund McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 36–62, especially 36–40. Simon Keynes, ‘Church councils, royal assemblies, and Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas’, in this volume, pp. 17–182. This paper is a development of the keynote lecture of the conference. HE iv.2. All citations are from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. Mynors (Oxford, 1969). HE iv.5.



INTRODUCTION

5

Though Theodore was not able to organize future meetings as regularly as he had wished (his original idea was for yearly councils), Hertford was the first of a long sequence of ecclesiastical synods held throughout the eighth century and well into the ninth. Since kings and secular nobles attended ecclesiastical councils while bishops, abbots and priests were present at royal assemblies, there must have been considerable cross-fertilization between the two; indeed from the late ninth century they merged into one, so that ‘a council of the church might be subsumed within a royal assembly, perhaps a “great synod” convened by the king and timed to coincide with a holy season, with all which that might imply’.21 The evidence for early royal assemblies is not as plentiful as that for ecclesiastical councils, but they were an essential tool in projecting the image of kingship.22 Early medieval kings were peripatetic, travelling constantly through the lands over which they ruled. They probably kept to a known circuit, stopping at places suitable for the assembly of the great and the good. Such meeting-places are rarely identified, but obvious candidates include the wooden amphitheatre at the royal vill of Yeavering in Northumbria, and the Roman theatre at Canterbury (Cantwaraburh) has been suggested as the site where ‘the kings of Kent may have met their folk, the Cantware’.23 The earliest recorded royal assembly was held on the island of Thanet, when Æthelberht of Kent met with Augustine and his fellow-missionaries. No precise location is specified but it was held in the open air, and, despite Bede’s explanation of this (that the king feared to meet the newcomers under a roof lest they should bewitch him), some traditional assembly point was probably used; most recorded meeting-places are situated in the open at or near prominent landmarks.24 It was presumably at such royal assemblies that the laws of the early kings were promulgated. The code of Wihtred of Kent was produced at an assembly at Berghamstyde, attended by Archbishop Berhtwald and Gefmund, bishop of Rochester, with ‘every order of the church of that people’ and ‘the loyal laity’; it is dated by the indiction as well as the king’s regnal year and the month (Rugern).25 No place of assembly is recorded in the preface to the code of Wihtred’s contemporary, Ine of Wessex, but the king acknowledges the advice of his father Cenred, Bishop Hædde of Winchester, Bishop Eorcenwold of London and ‘all my ealdormen and the chief councillors of my people, with a great concourse of the servants of God’.26 21 22 23 24 25

26

Keynes, ‘Church councils’, p. 28. Keynes, ‘Church councils’, pp. 18–39. Nicholas Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), p. 25. For Yeavering, see Keynes, ‘Church councils’, below, p. 30. HE i.25. For the meeting-places of the later hundred courts, see Margaret Gelling, Signposts to the Past, 3rd ed. (Chichester, 1997), pp. 209–14. Wihtred, Preface, see F. L. Attenborough, The Laws of the Earliest English Kings (Cambridge, 1922, reissued New York, 1963), pp. 24–5. Berghamstyde has not been identified with certainty, but may be Bearsted (near Maidstone). Rugern, associated with the rye-harvest, is presumably the month of September, Bede’s haligmonað. Ine, Preface; see Attenborough, Laws, pp. 36–7.

6

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Literate churchmen accustomed to late imperial culture expected the kings of the north to issue law-codes, but early legislation has been seen primarily as a symbolic expression of royal power: ‘by making written law in the image of Moses and the Roman Emperors, barbarian kings gradually consolidated their apparently new status as peacetime rulers of their people’.27 Even if the early codes were concerned mainly with royal and ecclesiastical ideology, this is not to say that they have no more mundane interest; at the very least they may ‘illuminate for us … the actual state of affairs that provoked their promulgation’.28 In the absence of any kind of ‘political theory’, they reveal how rulers and their supporters envisaged the power and authority of the king. Andrew Rabin’s paper examines the legal images of the king’s subjects and their obligations to him.29 He draws attention to the unusual position of witnesses in English, as opposed to continental legislation; in the continental codes the testis is little more than an oath-helper, whereas the English witness is also ‘a testifier, warrantor and notary’.30 Rabin discerns a cumulative difference between the concept of the witness as expressed in the earliest codes and those of the late tenth and eleventh centuries. The laws of Hlothere and Eadric are concerned to regulate the actions of the witnesses, both in criminal proceedings and in witnessing transactions; the witness is an agent, often a royal agent, who performs a set function. In the legislation of the tenth and eleventh centuries (much of it produced by Archbishop Wulfstan II of York), the emphasis is not on external deeds but on the moral and religious obligations of witnesses, and the penalties, both secular and spiritual, which attend failure to perform those obligations; the subject is no longer the object of the law, but part of the legal process itself. Though there is a dearth of references to the citation of law-codes in the preConquest period, it does not follow that they had no practical purposes.31 Ryan Lavelle’s paper deals with a single clause in Ine’s code, 70.1, which specifies the daily renders due to the king from his subjects.32 The right to take tribute is in itself an assertion of overlordship and, in keeping with most early legislation, the clause has Biblical echoes, recalling the daily provisions required by King Solomon.33 This does not mean that it was divorced from contemporary realities. Unlike the biblical text, Ine’s code prescribed a unit of assessment, ten hides,

27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Patrick Wormald, ‘Lex scripta and verbum regis: legislation and Germanic kingship from Euric to Cnut’, in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. Sawyer and Wood, pp. 105–38, at p. 138. Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation, p. xv. Andrew Rabin, ‘Witnessing kingship: royal power and the legal subject in the Old English laws’, in this volume pp. 219–36. Ibid., p. 224. This does not mean that royal judges made no use of the codes (at least of the later kings); Edward the Elder commands his reeves to make their judgements ‘in accordance with the domboc’, which must mean the code of his father Alfred. See further Simon Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word in late Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Uses of Literacy, ed. McKitterick, pp. 226–57. Ryan Lavelle, ‘Ine 70.1 and royal provision in Anglo-Saxon Wessex’, in this volume, pp. 259–73. 1 Kings 4:22–23.



INTRODUCTION

7

from which the daily provisions were due. Multiplying this ten-hide unit by the number of days in the year produces 3,650 hides, which, since hidages in the early period represent not so much land as the people who lived on it, approximates to the assessment of a medium-sized kingdom in the Tribal Hidage.34 Lavelle goes on to suggest that the tribute specified in Ine 70.1 may have been levied not on Wessex as a whole, but on the predominantly British regions of Devon, Somerset and West Dorset. It would thus not only assert Ine’s theoretical rights, but also reflect the existence of a tributary economy imposed on the lands taken under West Saxon lordship in the seventh century. Where written records fail, other sources of information come into play. Barbara Yorke’s paper draws upon archaeology as evidence for the burial of kings, and that of Carole Hough utilizes the linguistic, especially the place-name evidence.35 Like Lavelle, Hough is concerned with the practical intentions of the Anglo-Saxon law-codes. Just as the codes distinguish between the individual king who issued them and the office of kingship, so, she suggests, there is a distinction between the symbolism of the law-codes and the actual body of law and legal practice. A law-code may have a primarily ideological role, but it does not follow that the contents of that code have no pragmatic functions. Hough makes her point in relation to the fines and forfeitures which make up so large a part of the codes. All such fines are payable not to the individual king who issues the law-code, but to the abstract office of kingship. Many are for small amounts, some payable in goods and land as well as, or instead of, cash, a fact which Hough relates to the ‘extraordinary plethora of references to kings and other officials in charter bounds and minor place-names’.36 Some presumably relate to sites and landmarks within or on the boundaries of royal estates, but this cannot be the explanation for all (or even most) of them. An alternative explanation is that they represent ‘land and other property forfeited to the king through transgressions of the law’; which, if accepted, suggests that ‘the laws of the Anglo-Saxons were indeed operational, and … extended deep into the heart of the Anglo-Saxon countryside’.37 Early law-codes have a limited geographical scope. The only extant preAlfredian codes relate to Kent and Wessex, though this does not imply that other rulers did not legislate for their respective peoples: a law-code attributed to Offa of Mercia was among the sources of Alfred’s domboc, but has not (it seems) survived.38 Alfred included Offa’s legislation among his sources because 34 35 36 37 38

For the Tribal Hidage, see D. N. Dumville, ‘The Tribal Hidage: an introduction to its texts and their history’, in Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, ed. Bassett, pp. 225–30. Carole Hough, ‘Naming and royal authority in Anglo-Saxon law’, in this volume, pp. 202–17. Ibid., p. 213. Ibid.. p. 217. Unless it is represented by the decrees of the papal legation of 786, promulgated at a meeting attended by Offa, Archbishop Jænberht of Canterbury, the southern bishops and four ealdormen; see Patrick Wormald, ‘In search of King Offa’s law-code’, in People and Places in Northern Europe, 500–1600: essays in honour of Peter Sawyer, ed. Ian Wood and Niels Lund (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 25–45. The same decrees were promulgated in Northumbria; two early codes for the price of one.

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ANN WILLIAMS

his laws were intended to apply to the extended ‘kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’, which covered western Mercia as well as Wessex; this is also the case with the laws of his son and successor, Edward ‘the Elder’.39 From the time of Edward’s son, Athelstan, the West Saxon kings were also kings of the English, and their laws were meant to cover not only West Saxons and Mercians, but also the Northumbrians, Britons, and Danes within the kingdom which by the end of the century was coming to be called ‘England’.40 Edmund I (940–1) inherited the title ‘king of the English’ from his brother Athelstan (924–39). His legislation is examined in detail by Alaric Trousdale, who, like Lavelle and Hough, distinguishes between the symbolic function of the law-codes and what their contents reveal about the practical intentions of the legislating king.41 Edmund’s immediate problem was to develop an integrated structure of government for his extended kingdom, which now included the eastern midlands, East Anglia, and the formerly Danish kingdom of York as well as Wessex and western Mercia. The obvious solution was delegation, but this was a dangerous ploy, for if the king’s authority over his appointed representatives was not upheld, his kingdom might split apart. It is perhaps for this reason that the tenth century sees a cumulative elevation of the office of kingship and the person of the king, evident not only in the legal sphere but also in the elaboration of the consecration ceremony. There had always been close links between kings and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but now the office of kingship itself acquired a sacral aspect. In his first code, Edmund forbade anyone who had shed Christian blood to approach the king until they had performed the penance laid upon them by their bishops; the clause has, in retrospect, an inherent poignancy, given that Edmund himself was stabbed to death when he intervened in a fight between a member of his household and a man accused of theft.42 The injunction has been seen as part of the process which enhanced the sanctity of the king, the holiness of whose presence is not to be contaminated by the intrusion of impenitent killers. It also, as Trousdale points out, has a practical function, in that it delegates to the diocesan bishop the opening moves against people accused of homicide. Trousdale traces similar delegations of royal power in the other codes associated with Edmund, always with the proviso that it is the king alone who is the source of authority. Kings needed officers who would keep the peace in their names while remaining 39

40

41 42

For the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, see Simon Keynes, ‘King Alfred and the Mercians’, in Kings, Currency and Alliances: the history and coinage of southern England in the ninth century, ed. M. A. S. Blackburn and D. N. Dumville (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 1–45, especially pp. 34–9. Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the twelfth century (Oxford, 1999). The only West Saxon kings for whom no codes exist are Eadred (946–55), Eadwig (955–9) and Edward the Martyr (975–8); nor did the successors of Cnut, whether Danish or English, issue any legislation. Alaric Trousdale, ‘Being everywhere at once: delegation and royal authority in late AngloSaxon England’, in this volume, pp. 275–96. I Edmund, 3; ASC D 946; The Chronicle of John of Worcester ii The Annals from 450–1066, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk (Oxford, 1995), pp. 398–9.



INTRODUCTION

9

conscious that it was delegated royal power which they were wielding. Bishops were ideally suited for this purpose, and it is perhaps for this reason that by the time of Edmund’s son Edgar they are found sitting with the local ealdormen as joint presidents, in the king’s name, in the shire courts. The shire and hundred courts, which emerge into history in the course of the tenth century, constituted a vital link between the king and the localities. The itineraries of the tenth- and eleventh-century kings, so far as they can be reconstructed, rarely extended beyond Wessex and western Mercia, but shires and hundreds (or their northern equivalent, the wapentake) are found throughout the English kingdom. The oldest shires are those of Wessex itself, which date back at least to the eighth century, but the timetable of their introduction north of the Thames is still debateable.43 Most of the Midland shires existed by the early eleventh century (and some may be older), but the East Anglia shires of Norfolk and Suffolk do not appear until the time of Cnut, and Yorkshire not until the eve of the Norman Conquest.44 It seems that the basic structure was in place by the reign of Æthelred, in whose time the office of shire-reeve (sheriff) first appears.45 In the old West Saxon kingdom, each shire had its own ealdorman, but tenth-century ealdormen and their eleventh-century successors, the earls, had much wider areas of command. The deaths of Æthelmær of Hampshire (Hamtun scire) and Edwin of Sussex (Suð Seaxum) are recorded in 982, but it is unlikely that their spheres of office were restricted to the named shires: a successor of Æthelmær, Ælfric, is styled ealdorman of the provinces of Winchester (Wentaniensium Prouinciarum dux) in a diploma of 997, which also bears the attestations of Æthelweard of the Western Provinces (Occidentalium Prouinciarum), Ælfhelm of the Northumbrian provinces (Northanhumbrensium Prouinciarum), Leofsige of the East Saxons, and Leofwine of the Hwiccian provinces.46 Though frequently used by 43

44

45 46

The only one recorded in an eighth-century context is Hampshire (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 757); Wiltshire appears in 802, Dorset in 840, Somerset in 845, Devon in 851 and Berkshire in 860 (all references from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). Shropshire occurs in 1006, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Buckinghamshire in 1010, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire in 1011, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire in 1016 (all references from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). Norfolk and Suffolk first appear in the will of Thurstan Lustwine’s son, dated between 1043 and 1045 (S 1531, Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930), no. 31, pp. 80–5, 192); there seems to have been no division of the two ‘folks’ in the early years of the eleventh century, when their response to the Danish invasions was led by Ulfcytel ‘of the East Angles’. Yorkshire is first mentioned in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ‘C’, 1050. The regions to the north of Yorkshire were never shired by the pre-Conquest kings; Lancashire, Northumberland, Cumberland and County Durham do not appear until the twelfth century. The earliest named sheriff is Wulfsige the priest, who as scirigmann took part in a suit heard before ‘all the men of East Kent and West Kent’ between 964 and 988 (S.1438). Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ‘C’, 982; S 891; Ælfhelm is styled dux Transhumbranae gentis in S 1380, the witness-list of which may reflect a genuine diploma of the 990s. In the series of leases issued by the bishops of Worcester in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the consent of the contemporary ealdorman/earl of Mercia (dux Merciorum) is commonly acknowledged. The death of Ulfcytel of the East Angles (East Englan) is recorded in 1016, but this is doubly anomalous since Ulfcytel was not an ealdorman.

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ANN WILLIAMS

later historians, such ‘territorial’ titles are very rare in contemporary sources; the office of ealdorman/earl was essentially personal and the holders wielded power not over discrete units of administration, but across fluctuating spheres of authority, the bounds of which changed according to the king’s will. It was the shire which was the highest echelon of local government, and the mechanism though which both royal services and regional affairs were organized. Communication with the itinerant king was maintained not only through the diocesan bishop and the ealdorman in whose sphere the shire lay, but increasingly through the sheriff. The sheriff was a royal officer, though individual sheriffs might be drawn into the orbit of powerful and ambitious bishops and earls.47 In the heartlands of the kingdom, moreover, the suitors of the shirecourt, where they can be identified, included men personally commended to the king, some of whom regularly attended his court.48 Royal officers were also sent to the shire courts to oversee any business connected with the king’s authority.49 Nor were the links merely oral and personal; like the office of sheriff, the first royal writs, addressed to the officers and thegns of the shire-court, appear in the time of King Æthelred.50 The writs of the eleventh-century kings used the vernacular, as did many of the written documents which survive from pre-Conquest England, whether agreements, leases, records of legal proceedings, wills, estate-surveys, or marriage contracts; all, however, are couched in language as formal as the Latin of the royal diplomas. The question we must ask is how far what survives is the tip of a long-melted iceberg. Of particular interest are the administrative documents, only a few of which survive; the best-known are the Tribal Hidage, compiled in the seventh century but preserved only in later manuscripts, and the Burghal Hidage, which dates from the reign of Edward the Elder.51 Other such documents once existed: the Winchester survey of Henry I’s reign refers back to a now-lost predecessor compiled in the time of Edward the Confessor.52 Domesday Book, which was based upon the returns to the great survey undertaken in 1086, also refers back to written records, though it is often difficult to determine whether these dated from before 1086, or were generated in the process of the inquiry itself.

47 48 49

50 51

52

For the career of one such sheriff, see Ann Williams, ‘A vice-comital family in pre-Conquest Warwickshire’, ANS 11 (1989), 279–95. Ann Williams, ‘Regional communities and royal authority in the late Old English kingdom: the crisis of 1051–2 re-visited’, History 98 (2013), 23–40. A Herefordshire shire-court in the time of Cnut was attended by Tovi the Proud, a royal staller, ‘on the king’s business’ (on þæs cinges ærende); see A. J. Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 150–3. Richard Sharpe, ‘The use of writs in the eleventh century’, ASE 32 (2003), 247–92. Dumville, ‘The Tribal Hidage’, pp. 225–30; Alexander R. Rumble, ‘An edition and translation of the Burghal Hidage, together with Recension C of the Tribal Hidage’, in The Defence of Wessex, ed. David Hill and Alexander R. Rumble (Manchester, 1996), pp. 14–35. ‘The Winton Domesday’, ed. and trans. Frank Barlow, in Winchester in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Martin Biddle (Oxford, 1976), pp. 9–10.



INTRODUCTION

11

Alex Rumble’s paper gives some idea of what might once have existed.53 It is difficult to believe, for instance, that formal written records do not underlie the remarkable degree of control over the coinage maintained from the time of Edgar to that of Henry I. In this field, we have evidence in the form of the coins themselves, inscribed with the names of moneyer, mint and the issuing king, and numismatic analysis of the thousands of coins produced demonstrates the effectiveness of royal regulations.54 At the very least, lists of mints and moneyers must have been made and updated as need arose.55 The same considerations apply to the heregeld, first raised by Æthelred in 1012 and abandoned by his son Edward in 1051.56 Like other gelds, the heregeld was assessed on the hide, and the fact that the whole of England south of the Tees was hidated shows that it was a nation-wide tax.57 No pre-Conquest documentation on the assessment and collection of geld survives, but the fact that Domesday Book gives pre-Conquest as well as post-Conquest hidages for each holding suggests that such documentation once existed. Since geld was assessed and collected shire by shire and hundred by hundred, the form of any pre-Conquest documents was probably not dissimilar to that of the Northamptonshire Geld Roll, an assessment list relating to a geld taken between 1075 and 1083; though a post-Conquest production, it is written in English, which suggests that it comes out of an insular tradition.58 There is, of course, a distinction to be drawn between the making and the keeping of records. The latter demands some form of permanent organization, and was probably only possible for the larger religious communities, from the archives of which, in fact, much of the documentation on pre-Conquest English history derives. Laymen, even the greatest, had no such resources, and thus had recourse to religious institutions for the preservation of valuable documents. This is as true of the royal families as of their subjects. Rumble collects the early evidence for the preservation of the king’s own charters, which constituted the title-deeds to the lands which belonged to the king as an individual, as opposed

53 54

55 56

57 58

Alexander R. Rumble, ‘Anglo-Saxon royal archives: their nature, extent, survival and loss’, in this volume, pp. 185–99. R. H. M. Dolley and D. M. Metcalf, ‘The reform of the English coinage under Edgar’, in AngloSaxon Coins, ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 136–68; D. M. Metcalf, ‘Continuity and change in English monetary history c. 973–1086’, British Numismatic Journal 50 (1980), 20–49. Rumble, ‘Anglo-Saxon royal archives’, p. 188. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ‘D’, 1051 records that the heregeld was abandoned ‘in the thirtyninth year after it had been instituted’. It is unclear whether the heregeld was subsequently reintroduced by Edward, but since its purpose was to support the stipendiary fleet, which dispersed in 1050, this seems unlikely; it was, however, reimposed by William and continued into the twelfth century, when it became known as Danegeld. It should be distinguished from the tributes (gafol) paid to invading Danish armies between 991 and 1016. The carucates of some northern shires and the sulungs of Kent were equivalents to the hides found elsewhere. ‘The Northamptonshire Geld Roll’, in Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters, pp. 230–7 (text and translation), 481–4 (notes).

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ANN WILLIAMS

to lands belonging to the office of kingship.59 The charters of Cenwulf of Mercia were apparently kept at the abbey of Winchcombe, and the ninth-century kings of Wessex had a similar collection, though precisely where is unknown.60 Some documents were preserved as chirographs, identical copies which were distributed to the interested parties, and to independent bodies for safe-keeping; usually they are known because one copy went to a religious house of which the archive survived, but every chirograph includes a clause stating how many copies were made and who had them. In a few cases, one copy went to the king’s relic-collection (haligdom) or to his treasury (in thesauris, in gazophilacio). The idea in both cases was the same: the document would be preserved along with the valuables of the king, and by the officials appointed to care for them, his chamberlains (Lat. camerarii, OE burðegnas).61 The existence of a central repository has been deduced from Harold I’s seizure of Cnut’s treasure at Winchester in 1035, though the first specific reference occurs in 1086, when the receipts of a geld collected in the years 1084–6 were taken ‘to the king’s treasure at Winchester’ (ad thesaurum regis Wintonie).62 But though the man in charge of the king’s valuables might be called a treasurer (thesaurius), he was not yet a specialized bureaucrat in charge of a departmental organization, but a member of the undifferentiated royal household, who might be called upon to perform various functions as his lord required.63 Long after the establishment of a permanent repository for the royal valuables at Winchester, much of the king’s wealth, in relics, valuables, cash and (presumably) written documents, continued to travel with him as he perambulated the country.64 Whether the pre-Conquest kings also had an in-house chancery or writingoffice is an even more contentious question. From earliest times, royal grants of land and privileges were preserved in writing, as formal, stylized diplomas, invariably in Latin. The series begins in the late seventh century, with the earliest examples running in the name of Hlothhere of Kent.65 All early diplomas are in favour of ecclesiastical persons or institutions, and their origins must lie somewhere in the literate traditions of the Roman, Irish and Frankish missionaries who established the church in England.66 It was not long, however, before the 59

60 61 62

63

64 65 66

For the distinction, see the reference to regalis terrae in c. 999 (S 937) and to ‘the king’s land belonging to the kingdom’ in the Domesday texts (Exon Domesday, ff. 83, 93; Little Domesday, ff. 119v, 289v). For land attached to the office rather than the individual office-holder, see Ann Williams, The World before Domesday (London, 2008), pp. 21–2. Rumble, ‘Anglo-Saxon royal archives’, p. 190. For the translation of thesaurus as ‘treasure’ rather than ‘treasury’, see Michael Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 2nd ed. (London, 1993), pp. 164–5. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ‘C’, 1035; Libri Censualis vocati Domesday Additamenta (London 1816), p. 65 (from the Devonshire Geld Rolls). It is worth remembering in this context that Domesday Book was first known as ‘the book of the treasury’ and ‘the book of Winchester’. This is true of the Anglo-Norman as well as the Anglo-Saxon household; see Stephen Church, ‘Introduction to the Constitutio Domus Regis’, in Dialogus de Scaccario; Constitutio Domus Regis, ed. and trans. Emily Amt and S. D. Church (Oxford, 2007), pp. li–lv. It was this itinerant ‘treasure’ which was memorably lost by King John in the Wash. The earliest to survive as a single-sheet original is S 8, dated 679. Patrick Wormald, Bede and the Conversion of England: the charter evidence, Jarrow Lecture,



INTRODUCTION

13

secular aristocracy began to covet the privileged form of tenure called bookland, which was established by the diploma or, as the English called it, the landbook. In his chapter, Simon Keynes discusses the origins of diplomas, the processes involved in their production, the uses to which they were put, and the problems of authentication.67 Like law-codes, diplomas are the written records of oral grants, and, like law-codes, they emanate from royal assemblies; the problem is when and by whom they were actually written, whether by the beneficiary or (in the case of grants to laymen) some other ecclesiastical agency, or by royal scribes attached to the king’s household. It is of course perfectly possible that diplomas could be produced by a variety of agencies, especially since ‘royal’ clerks and scribes could be drafted in from ecclesiastical scriptoria when the itinerant king required their services. The authenticating agent, however, is not in doubt; the diplomas are royal acta, however they were produced. With the emergence of writs in the eleventh century, the likelihood of some central method of production becomes more compelling. The writs of King Edward were authenticated by an attached seal, some examples of which have survived, and it is from Edward’s reign also that references to ‘the keeper of the seal’ and ‘the king’s chancellor’ appear.68 Just as a treasurer does not imply a treasury, so a chancellor, of course, does not imply a chancery, but the priests of the king’s household may well have constituted a reservoir from which he could draw for the production of both writs and charters. Whether or not this constitutes a writing-office is a matter of opinion, and indeed of semantics. Great claims have been made for the power and authority of the AngloSaxon monarchy. The king’s writ, like the king’s power to tax, ran throughout the shires of England, from Kent to Yorkshire, but its effect cannot have been uniform. Royal power must have been greatest in the south and west, the area most frequently perambulated by the royal court; beyond, where the king was rarely seen, his authority would have been correspondingly weaker. Few royal diplomas exist for northern England, and though this may be due to problems of preservation, the limits of effective royal government as late as William I’s reign are demonstrated by the scope of Domesday Book, which does not include the unshired territories of the north-east. Even in the early twelfth century ‘it was by no means clear that Northumbria north of the river Tees would indeed form part of the English realm’.69 Despite these reservations, the king’s authority seems to have been effective enough. When in 1065 Earl Tostig overreached himself in his Northumbrian command, the local magnates threw him out, killed his household troops and sacked his residence in York; they then marched south to demand redress from King Edward. It is interesting, however, to see precisely what they demanded: that he should appoint another, more acceptable, earl for them, and that he should

67 68 69

1984, reprinted in The Times of Bede, 625–865: studies in early English Christian society and its historian, ed. S. Baxter (Oxford, 2006), pp. 135–66. Keynes, ‘Church councils’, pp. 42–182. Simon Keynes, ‘Regenbald the chancellor (sic)’, ANS 10 (1988), 185–222. William Aird, St Cuthbert and the Normans (Woodbridge, 1998), p. 224.

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renew the law of Cnut.70 Edward, of course, issued no legislation of his own, and the laws of Cnut, codified by Wulfstan lupus, archbishop of York, looked back to the laws of Edgar, which while recognizing the rights of the Danes (that is, the inhabitants of the former kingdom of York) to their own lawful customs, also legislated for ‘the whole nation, English, Danes and Britons, in every part of my dominion’.71 Differences in local customs, differences in the effectiveness of royal power, differences in the amount of local independence, were one thing; but all the regions of the kingdom were part of a whole, and acknowledged the authority of one king. The creation of the late medieval bureaucracy celebrated by historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was achieved not by the Anglo-Saxon kings, nor their Norman successors, but by the Angevin rulers of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was not until the time of Henry II and his sons that the permanent departments of Exchequer and Chancery, with their fixed bases at Westminster, split off from the undivided household which had sufficed for their predecessors. Whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, I leave for others to decide. What the kings of the English created was the nation of England. This seems a sufficient legacy, and one for which they deserve the credit.

70 71

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ‘D’, 1065. IV Edgar, 2a.2.

PART I

1 Church Councils, Royal Assemblies, and Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas SIMON KEYNES

F

rom the earliest days of kingship and royal government in Anglo-Saxon England, the context in which kings were most likely to have been observed by their people displaying their status, dispensing their treasure and exercising their power, was at an assembly. The spectacle must have been as much a part of any such occasion as whatever business might have been conducted, or ceremonies performed. No less important, one imagines, was the impression made as the king and his entourage moved from one place to another, and from another place to the next assembly. Nor should one underestimate the opportunities which such occasions provided for plotting, as well as gossiping, for making enemies as well as friends, and of course for feasting and entertainment. Royal assemblies of one kind or another are visible in the historical record from c. 600 onwards, though it is only in the tenth and eleventh centuries that the material is plentiful and diverse enough (by the standards of historians of the pre-Conquest period) to provide a good foundation for the study of a form of royal government which could claim to represent a distinctive product of its age.1 It is possible to form an impression of the range of places where such assemblies were held, and of their timing, frequency, and duration. It is also possible to get a fair idea of attendance at the assemblies, and of the range of business conducted at them. By analogy with practices often better recorded elsewhere than in Anglo-Saxon England, we have to bear in mind at the same time the significance of ceremonial of many kinds (processions, celebrations, declarations, commemorations, acclamations and inductions, as well as displays of contrition, reward and generosity, to name but a few), all inseparable from the forms of divine service and other religious ritual appropriate to the season, the ceremonial, and the occasion. Central, none the less, to our perception of royal assemblies is the extent to which the written word, in Latin and in the vernacular, played a part in the proceedings. Few if any would doubt that documents were brought forward for consideration at an assembly, or that written records of one kind or another may be said to have emanated from an assembly, in one

1

The most recent study is John Maddicott, The Origins of the English Parliament, 924–1327 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 1–56, which takes the reign of King Æthelstan as its starting point.

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way or another. Prominent, perhaps, among the documents closely associated with royal assemblies was the Anglo-Saxon royal diploma.2 The origin and use of such documents in the early Anglo-Saxon period (c. 600–900) form here an essential part of the background; but the focus of attention is on the second and third quarters of the tenth century, complemented by some discussion of developments thereafter. A seemingly simple question (in connection with the Anglo-Saxon period as a whole) is whether diplomas were normally produced in advance of or soon after the start of an assembly, for use during the course of the assembly, so that they could be taken home by their respective beneficiaries at the end of an assembly; or whether they were normally produced some time after an assembly. It is a question not merely of technical interest, as a matter of Anglo-Saxon diplomatic; for it affects our understanding of royal diplomas as records of royal government, and has wider implications for charters and other forms of record in the vernacular.

Anglo-Saxon Church Councils, c. 670–c. 850 The use of the written word for purposes of royal government can be traced back at least as far as the reign of Æthelberht, king of Kent; but it seems appropriate here to start in a particular and slightly later context. In the early autumn of the year 672, about three years after his arrival in Britain, Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, summoned his fellow bishops to a council at which they could discuss the affairs of the nascent church of the English people. The meeting was to be held at Hertford, a place chosen perhaps because it was readily accessible from different parts of the country; it was accepted at the same time that the bishop of the Northumbrians would be represented by his proxies. The bishops, presumably accompanied by clergy from their respective dioceses, duly assembled at the given time, and each took his appointed place. Theodore introduced the proceedings, securing a verbal commitment from each of his episcopal colleagues to observe the ancient canons of the Church. He then produced a book of the canons; and from this book he drew the attention of his colleagues to ten chapters which he had marked as being of the greatest significance for them. Each item on this agenda was discussed in turn, and where possible a decision was reached. It was laid down in the canons, for example, that a synod should be held twice yearly; but in view of difficulties it was agreed that they should assemble just once a year, on 1 August, at a place called Clofesho. It was decided furthermore that in order to avert controversy, and to ensure accu-

2

The word ‘diploma’ is used here to denote the particular species of formal document drawn up, almost invariably in Latin, and in more or less strict accordance with certain conventions, as evidence of a grant of land by the king to another party, made with the approval of a royal assembly, and intended to serve as a title-deed to the land in question. The word ‘charter’ is used more loosely to cover all forms of written record, whether in Latin or in the vernacular, including diplomas, leases, writs, and wills, and also the various kinds of document generated in connection with disputes over land and privileges.



CHURCH COUNCILS, ROYAL ASSEMBLIES, AND ROYAL DIPLOMAS

19

racy, a written record of the proceedings should be drawn up, and that each one of them should confirm the record with his own subscription. Accordingly, Theodore dictated a text to his notary Titill, beginning with an invocation (‘In nomine Domini Dei et Saluatoris nostri Iesu Christi’), a preamble, and a dating clause (day of the month, and indiction for the year), followed by a narrative in Theodore’s name, a record in ten chapters, and a form of words directed against anyone who might oppose or infringe what had been agreed, and ending with a general blessing on all those who live in the unity of the Church.3 It is unusual to have such a detailed and circumstantial account of the procedure adopted at an assembly of any kind; normally, the process is taken for granted, and the focus is on matters of substance. In this instance we notice that the record was drawn up, immediately after the discussion, by a scribe acting on behalf of Archbishop Theodore, as the one who had convened and had evidently presided at the assembly. There is no list of attesting bishops and other clergy, if only because it was not given in or copied from the text available to Bede sixty years later. A record of a similar kind was made of the decisions reached at the council of Hatfield, in 679. It began with an elaborate dating clause (day of the month, and indiction for the year), with the regnal years of the kings of the Northumbrians, the Mercians, the East Angles, and the men of Kent. Theodore was presiding, and the other bishops were sitting with him, with a gospel-book placed in front of them. Again we are dependent on excerpts provided by Bede; but it would appear that the record was followed by a list of witnesses, probably including bishops and other clergy.4 It is striking, to my mind, that in setting this example of good management Theodore should have been concerned at the same time to ensure that a written record was kept of the proceedings, for the reasons stated. Of course, all this would have come naturally to Theodore himself; there might even be a sense of the imposition of control behind Bede’s remark that Theodore was ‘the first of the archbishops whom the whole English church consented to obey’.5 It so happens that the earliest surviving royal diplomas, drawn up in Latin and cast in the name of one or other of the rulers of the English peoples, also date from the 670s.6 On the face of it, this is unlikely to be a coincidence.7 Theodore

3 4 5

6 7

HE, IV. 5. HE, IV. 17–18. For Theodore, see N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church 597–1066 (Leicester, 1984), pp. 71–6, and M. Lapidge, ‘The career of Archbishop Theodore’, in his Anglo-Latin Literature 600–899 (London, 1996), pp. 93–121; see also C. Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c. 650–c. 850 (London, 1995), pp. 249–58, with her entry on ‘Councils, Church’, in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge, et al., 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2013), pp. 127–8. Royal diplomas and other charters, and modern editions of the texts, are cited below using the forms of abbreviation set out in Appendix III and on the ‘Kemble’ website. F. M. Stenton, The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955), p. 31, building on the work of W. H. Stevenson, as set out in a series of lectures on Anglo-Saxon charters given at Cambridge in 1898 (below, p. 44), of which a transcript is available on the ‘Kemble’ website.

20

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remains a credible candidate as the driving force behind the introduction of charters wherever his authority extended; and the councils which he convened, and over which he presided, provide the most obvious context in which the advantages of the written record would have been impressed upon others. It remains possible that Latin diplomas had been ‘introduced’ some time earlier in the seventh century, perhaps set down on papyrus, and that none from the period before c. 670 has chanced to survive;8 but until new evidence is found, the fact remains that the earliest surviving texts date from soon after Theodore’s arrival in Britain. Attention has also been drawn to evidence that already in the mid-670s advantage might be taken of the opportunity afforded by a church council to issue a diploma in the name of a king present on the occasion; and it seems that this was not an isolated occurrence.9 There is every reason to believe that similar practices extended also to Northumbria in the late seventh and early eighth centuries.10 The familiar image of a church council found in the ninth-century Utrecht Psalter shows about eighty people seated in a wide circle, while three people in a central space stand at one of a pair of lecterns (each of which has a book open upon it), with six others seemingly engaged in writing.11 As for the real world of Anglo-Saxon England, we need not doubt that in the eighth century facilities continued to be available, at church councils, for the production of written records; indeed, the range of business conducted on such occasions demanded it and depended upon it. At the beginning of September in 747 Cuthberht, arch8

9

10

11

For discussion, see P. Chaplais, ‘Who introduced charters into England? The case for Augustine’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 3.10 (1969), 526–42, reprinted in Prisca Munimenta, ed. F. Ranger (London, 1973), pp. 88–107; P. Wormald, ‘Bede and the conversion of England: the charter evidence’, Jarrow Lecture, 1984, reprinted in his The Times of Bede, 625–865: studies in early English Christian society and its historian, ed. S. Baxter (Oxford, 2006), pp. 135–66; and S. Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon lay society and the written word’, in The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe, ed. R. McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 37–62, at 40–2. Cubitt, Church Councils, pp. 18, 22 and 250–62, citing S 51 (Bath 1), S 53 (BCS 85), from Worcester, S 54 (BCS 116), from Evesham, and S 248 (Glast 7); and see also discussion of S 51 in Kelly, Charters of Bath and Wells, pp. 53–62, esp. 61 (observing that the list of bishops could have been constructed from Bede). The strength of Professor Cubitt’s point lies in the fact that the four diplomas are from different archives. In his letter to Egberht, bishop of York, dated 5 November [734]), Bede alludes to the laymen of his day who gave money to kings, and under the pretext of founding monasteries bought lands, causing the lands ‘to be ascribed to them in hereditary right by royal edicts (edictis), and even get those same documents of their privileges confirmed … by the subscription of bishops, abbots and secular persons’ (C. Plummer, Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896), i. 415; EHD 2nd ed., pp. 805–6 (no. 170). Unfortunately, he said little of this in the Historia Ecclesiastica. For further discussion, see Charters of Northern Houses, ed. D. A. Woodman, AS Charters 16 (Oxford, 2012), pp. 1–6; The career of Wilfrid I, bishop of York, in the 670s, provides a context: see Wilfrid: Abbot, Bishop, Saint, ed. N. J. Higham (Donington, 2013), and below, n. 199. The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art: picturing the Psalms of David, ed. Koert van der Horst et al. (Tuurdijk, 1996), p. 4, from the Utrecht Psalter (a Carolingian manuscript dating from the early ninth century), fol. 90v (Quicumque vult). There is no corresponding image in the Harley Psalter.



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bishop of Canterbury, convened a council of his bishops and lesser clergy at Clofesho, attended by Æthelbald, king of the Mercians, ‘with his princes and ealdormen’ (cum suis principibus ac ducibus).12 Writings (scripta) of Pope Zacharias (741–52), in two leaves or pages (in duabus kartis), were laid before the assembled company (in medium prolata sunt), by Archbishop Cuthberht, read out clearly and carefully, and then expounded in English. The pope was evidently distressed by whatever reports had reached him, and exhorted the inhabitants to Britain to mend the errors of their ways.13 Following extended discussion (culminating with a debate on relations between the ecclesiastical and secular orders), a record was made of all that had been agreed. According to this record, the decrees of the council (synodalia gesta) were enacted (peracta sunt) at Clofesho; but it is not clear whether the record was produced in this form at the council itself, as there is no explicit indication to that effect. Copies of the document, comprising a protocol followed by thirty canons, were circulated, perhaps two or three years later, in association with some other texts, including a grant of privileges issued by King Æthelbald, from a royal assembly at Gumley (Leics.) in 749, for the intended benefit of unspecified monasteries and churches.14 A similar picture emerges from a record of the series of meetings held in Britain nearly forty years later, in 786, when two papal legates were sent from Rome to Britain, ostensibly to check on the current state of affairs, but perhaps at the same time in pursuit of a hidden agenda.15 The legate George, bishop of Ostia, sent a report to Pope Hadrian, rehearsing what he had done in five stages.16 First, the legates stayed at Canterbury, where they advised Archbishop Jænberht ‘of those things which were necessary’. Secondly, they went to the court (ad aulam) of Offa, king of the Mercians; and the ‘sacred letters’ (sacros apices) from the pope were well received. Thirdly, Offa and Cynewulf, king

12

13

14 15

16

Text: Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1869–78), iii. pp. 362–76. Translation: J. Johnson, A Collection of all the Ecclesiastical Laws, Canons, or Rescripts … of the Church of England (London, 1720), ed. J. Baron, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1850–1), i. pp. 242–62. Commentary: Cubitt, Church Councils, pp. 99–152 and 266–7; S. Keynes, ‘The reconstruction of a burnt Cottonian manuscript: the case of Cotton MS. Otho A. I’, British Library Journal 22 (1996), 113–60. Criticisms had been directed at the English by Boniface, in the form of letters to Archbishop Cuthberht and to King Æthelbald; presumably Boniface passed reports to Zacharias at the same time. S 92 (BCS 178), on which see Keynes, ‘Cotton MS. Otho A. I’, esp. pp. 135–41. S. Keynes, ‘The kingdom of the Mercians in the eighth century’, in Æthelbald and Offa: two eighth-century kings of Mercia, ed. D. Hill and M. Worthington, BAR British ser. 383 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 1–26, at 15–16. Text: Alcuini sive Albini Epistolae, ed. E. Dümmler, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolarum 4 (Karolini Aevi 2) (Berlin, 1895), pp. 1–481, at 19–29 (no. 3); Councils, ed. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 447–62. Translation: Johnson, Collection, i. 266–85, with EHD 2nd ed., no. 191. Commentary: Cubitt, Church Councils, pp. 153–90 and 270–1; J. Story, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c. 750–870 (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 64–78.

22

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of the West Saxons, met together in a council (in unum concilium); the legates delivered the pope’s ‘holy writings’ (uestra syntagmata sancta) to Cynewulf, and both kings undertook to reform unspecified vices. At this point the legates went their separate ways: Theophylact went into Mercia and Wales, and George went up to Northumbria. Ælfwold, king of the Northumbrians, was in the far north; but Eanbald, archbishop of York, informed him of the legate’s arrival, and the king ‘fixed a day for a council’ (statuit diem concilii). Fourth (therefore), Bishop George came to this council, which was attended by both ecclesiastical and secular orders. In the light of their initial discussion, George wrote a capitulary (capitulare de singulis rebus), and brought it forward at the assembly; he also gave them the pope’s letters for perusal (epistolas uestras … perlegendas). The text of the capitulary, in twenty chapters, is given in full. Among other matters, George had seen that bishops gave judgment in their councils on worldly matters (secularia), and was evidently concerned that proper distinctions were not being properly observed.17 George informs the pope that he propounded the decrees (decreta) before the assembled company, and that they all vowed to observe them; ‘and they confirmed [the decrees] with the sign of the Holy Cross, on your behalf in our hand, and afterwards with a careful pen wrote on the face of this page, imprinting the sign of the Holy Cross, thus +’.18 After a benediction had been given, George returned southwards, taking with him two readers (Alcuin and Pyttel, representing King Ælfwold and Archbishop Eanbald), and brought the same decrees (ipsa decreta) to a council of the Mercians (in concilium Merchiorum). Fifth (therefore), Offa (called gloriosus rex Offa) came to the council with the senators of the land (cum senatoribus terre), and was joined there by Archbishop Jænberht and other bishops of those parts (et ceteris episcopis regionum). At this council the separate chapters ‘were read in a clear voice (clara uoce) and lucidly expounded (perlecta) both in Latin and in English, in order that all might understand’. All present promised ‘with one voice’ (consona uoce) to observe the statutes (statuta). Whereupon the king and his chief men (principes), and the archbishop with his colleagues (cum sociis suis), ‘made the sign of the Holy Cross, in our hand on your lordship’s behalf, and again strengthened the present document with the sacred sign’.19 Thus the proceedings at this last council or assembly (held we know not where, but conceivably at Clofesho or at Chelsea) included a formal reading of the capitulary in Latin, with exposition in Latin and in English, leading first to a collective oath or undertaking, and then to the ceremonial act of attesta17 18

19

Report of the Legates (786), ch. 10 (ed. Dümmler, p. 23). ‘et signo sancte crucis in uice uestra in manu nostra confirmauerunt, et postea stilo diligenti in charta huius pagine exarauerunt, signum sancte crucis infigentes, ita +’, following the manuscript at Wolfenbüttel, reproduced by Story, Carolingian Connections, p. 72. The text in this manuscript would appear to represent a ‘continental’ as opposed to an English line of transmission, and was presumably derived at some remove from Bishop George’s original report to the pope. ‘in manu nostra in uice domini uestri signum sancte crucis firmauerunt et rursum presentem chartulam sacrato signo roborauerunt’, following the manuscript at Wolfenbüttel, reproduced by Story, Carolingian Connections, p. 74.



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tion. The import of the wording which describes this act, as performed first in Northumbria and then in Mercia, seems to be that all or at least some of those present on each occasion, as representatives of the ecclesiastical and secular orders, approached Bishop George, made the sign of the Holy Cross, and then placed their hands between his, in his capacity as the pope’s representative; after which they took up a pen and this time inscribed the sign of the cross on a page which formed part of Bishop George’s capitulary, in further and more tangible symbolism of their oath or undertaking. The original documentation from 786 was presumably taken back by the legates to Rome; but one assumes that copies would have been made for use at Canterbury, Lichfield and elsewhere before they left. As it happens, use was made of the canons in the early 940s, by Oda, archbishop of Canterbury, and in the early eleventh century, by Wulfstan, archbishop of York;20 so both archbishops would have been among those who knew how such things had been done in the distant past. In 798 Æthelheard, archbishop of Canterbury, acting in association of some kind with Coenwulf, king of the Mercians, convened a synodal council (sinodale concilium) at Clofesho.21 The proceedings seem to have begun with a formal affirmation by those present that all were practising the Christian religion as laid down by Pope Gregory, followed by more general discussion. Then (by his own account) the archbishop turned to a matter which was evidently at that time of particular concern: the need to make restitution to churches which had long been afflicted ‘by the loss of lands (terrarum dispendio) and the removal of title-deeds (absumcione cirographorum)’. The case represented in this record was that of the monasterium at Cookham, which from its location on a bend of the river Thames would have been a place of special interest to the Mercians and to the West Saxons alike. We are told that the monastery had been given by Æthelbald, king of the Mercians (716–57), to Christ Church, Canterbury; and we learn that in order to effect this donation the king had instructed Archbishop Cuthberht to take a sod of earth from the place itself (ex eadem terra cespitem), and also all of its charters (libellos), to Canterbury, and there to lay them on the altar at Christ Church, for his salvation. On Archbishop Cuthberht’s death, in 760, two members of the community at Canterbury ‘stole these same documents (easdam inscriptiones)’, and handed them to Cynewulf, king of the West Saxons (757– 86). Using the charters as evidence, Cynewulf was able immediately to assume control of the monastery and its estates; but presently [perhaps in a process which began in the early 760s and culminated in the late 770s] the monastery at Cookham, and ‘many other towns’ (alias urbes quamplurimas), were seized from Cynewulf by Offa, king of the Mercians (757–96). Archbishop ­Cuthberht’s successors, Bregowine (761–4) and Jænberht (765–92), tried at successive

20

21

For Oda’s use of the canons, in his Constitutions, see Councils and Synods, pt 1 [871–1066], pp. 47–74 (no. 20), with G. Mann, ‘The development of Wulfstan’s Alcuin manuscript’, in Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, ed. M. Townend (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 235–78, esp. 239, 260 and 266; and EHD 2nd ed., p. 836. S 1258 (CantCC 27), with EHD 2nd ed., no. 79; see also Cubitt, Church Councils, pp. 93 and 277.

24

SIMON KEYNES

c­ ouncils to reassert their own interest in Cookham, but evidently to no avail. In an ingenious move (since he had nothing to lose), King Cynewulf, ‘led by a tardy penitence (sera ductus penitentia)’, returned the documents (telligraphia, id est libellos) to Canterbury, together with a large payment, ‘humbly asking that he might not be imperiled under an anathema of so great authority’; but (of course) Offa retained the monastery sine litteris – even though he did not have the documents – and left it, without documents, to his heirs. So, at Clofesho in 798, following Offa’s death in 796, Archbishop Æthelheard brought with him the documents (libellos) which had been returned to Canterbury by King Cynewulf, and produced them in the assembly; ‘and when they had been read out (relicti, for relecti) in the presence of the council (coram sinotho), it was decided by the voice of all that it was right that the metropolitan church should receive the oft-mentioned monastery, Cookham, whose title-deeds (inscripciones) it had in its possession’. There could hardly be a clearer instance, in this case from the second half of the eighth century, and albeit from the perspective of an archbishop, of the significance attached to documents as evidence of title, whether as physical objects or as texts, and of a church council as a forum where disputes involving written forms of evidence were heard and settled. In the event, Archbishop Æthelheard made an arrangement whereby he gave all that he had recovered at Cookham to Abbess Cynethryth (probably Offa’s widow), who was then seemingly in charge of the monastery there, in exchange for a large amount of land in Kent which Offa had previously left to his heirs, with reversion to Bedeford (probably Bedford); so both of the contending parties were able to consolidate their respective interests.22 In 816 Wulfred, archbishop of Canterbury, convened a council of his fellow bishops and other clergy from throughout the realms of the southern English, at Chelsea. The council was also attended by Coenwulf, king of the Mercians, with his principes, his duces, and his optimates.23 The acts of the council survive, and it is apparent that matters of great moment were discussed;24 but while the record starts with a dating-clause, and a list of bishops present, it is not clear whether it was drawn up and attested on the occasion of the council itself, or sometime thereafter. A council is known to have been convened at Clofesho in 824, and there was another at the same place in 825. At the council in 824, Archbishop Wulfred managed to recover an estate which had formerly been promised to him, producing the charter so that it could be read at the synod, and supporting his case with the oral testimony of several of those who were named as witnesses in it; whereupon all present agreed and applauded as one.25

22

23 24 25

For further discussion, see Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 103–4; Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon lay society’, pp. 45–6; Keynes, ‘Kingdom of the Mercians’, p. 14; and the commentary on S 1258 in Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, ed. N. Brooks and S. E. Kelly, 2 pts, AS Charters 17–18 (Oxford, 2013), pp. 426–32. Text: Councils, ed. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 579–84. Translation: Johnson, Collection, i. 300–8. Cubitt, Church Councils, pp. 191–203 and 285. S 1434 (CantCC 56), with Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 184–5.



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On the same occasion, the bishop of Worcester appeared before the council with the title-deeds (cum libris) for the minster at Westbury, and it was decided on this basis that the bishop could ‘swear the land into his own possession’; the outcome was set down in writing, and the oath was given thirty days later (30 October 824), at Westbury.26 The council held in 824 has the unusual distinction of being mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, conceivably because a ‘herald’ or messenger (praeco) from Pope Eugenius, called Nothhelm, was present, but perhaps suggesting also that the compilers of the Chronicle, in the early 890s, looked back on the event for some reason now lost to us. Certainly these were tumultuous times in Wessex and Mercia, and thus by extension in Kent, East Anglia, and elsewhere. Following Coenwulf’s death, in 821, kingship of the Mercians had passed to a certain Ceolwulf. Two years later, in 823, Ceolwulf was deprived of his kingdom, and was succeeded by Beornwulf. It may or may not be significant that in 824 two ealdormen, Burghelm and Muca (both Mercians), were slain (wurdon ofslægene), suggestive of internal dissension. In that year Beornwulf in some sense ‘presided’, with Wulfred, over the council at Clofesho, presumably in acknowledgement of his position as host (assuming Clofesho to have been located somewhere in the extended kingdom of the Mercians). In 825 Ecgberht, king of the West Saxons, defeated Beornwulf, king of the Mercians, in battle at Ellendun (Wroughton), in Wiltshire, leading directly to the establishment of West Saxon control over Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex.27 It is not clear whether the council at Clofesho in 825 was held before or after this turn of events. Whatever the case, Archbishop Wulfred secured what appeared to be a satisfactory resolution of his long-standing dispute with King Coenwulf and his heirs, requiring that Coenwulf’s daughter, Abbess Cwenthryth, should give up 100 hides of land in four places, and deliver it to the archbishop ‘with the appropriate ancient title-deeds’ (cum propriis et antiquis telligraphis). However, Cwenthryth failed subsequently to produce all of the charters in question; and when the dispute was heard again, in a meeting convened two years later at Oslafeshlau, she handed over the charters which had been withheld, together with the charters for an additional estate in Kent. The archbishop agreed to the settlement, but only on condition ‘that the names of the aforesaid estates should be erased from the ancient privileges which are at Winchcombe (ut illorum predictorum agellorum nomina de antiquis priuilegiis que sunt æt Wincelcumbe eradati fuerint)’, and the case not brought forward again.28 There would always be a place, alongside written documents, for the 26

27 28

S 1433 (BCS 379), from Worcester, naming a messenger from Pope Eugenius among the witnesses. The names of those who took the oath, at Westbury, appear to have been added on the lost original; for a telling analogy from the Continent, see A. Rio, Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle Ages: Frankish formulae, c. 500–1000 (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 24–5. S. Keynes, ‘The control of Kent in the ninth century’, EME 2 (1993), 111–31, at 120. S 1436 (CantCC 59), extant in single-sheet form, covering Clofesho 825 and Oslafeshlau 827 on the face (in one stage), with a witness-list on the dorse from Clofesho, and a separate Kentish list (ending with six women) presumably of later origin. For the witnesslists in S 1436, see S. Keynes, The Councils of Clofesho [Brixworth Lecture 1993],

26

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taking of oaths; but there could be no more telling demonstration of the significance accorded to the evidence of the written word. The documentation associated with a series of assemblies convened in 838–9 reflects a very different state of affairs, with the West Saxon kings now in the ascendancy.29 The starting-point was grand council (uenerabile concilium) at Kingston-upon-Thames, in Surrey, involving Ceolnoth, archbishop of Canterbury, supported by members of his community, on the one hand, and Ecgberht, king of the West Saxons, and his son Æthelwulf, on the other. The documentation arising from this meeting affords a remarkable illustration of processes which came into play first at Kingston, then at a royal assembly held at Wilton in the heart of Wessex, and finally (after Ecgbert’s death) at a council of the bishops south of the river Humber, held æt Æstran (unidentified). The surviving documentation comprises three single sheets (Sheets A–C), on which basis we can distinguish between three successive stages in the development of the composite text (each involving two of the surviving single sheets): Stage 1 (Kingston, 838). Sheet A, written by a recognized ‘Canterbury’ scribe, carries the Kingston agreement on the face, with a Canterbury witnesslist on the dorse; an important paragraph in the voice of King Æthelwulf, assuring freedom of election, was added by the same scribe across the middle of the dorse, seemingly as an afterthought, and marked for insertion into the text on the face.30 Sheet B is a fair copy of Sheet A, made by the same (Canterbury) hand, but now incorporating the added paragraph in the main body of the text, followed by a slightly different Canterbury witness-list, and in this form evidently constituting an original record of the assembly at Kingston (838).31 It should be stressed that this was clearly a ‘Canterbury’ record of the proceedings, representing the event from an archiepiscopal perspective. The absence of any attestations by parties other than the archbishop and members of his community is striking; and it seems that more was required. Stage 2 (Wilton, 838/839). On the dorse of Sheet B, a five-line text, followed by a West Saxon witness-list, was added (after folding) by a different hand, in darker ink, itself representing an original confirmation of the Kingston agreement of 838 made at a royal assembly convened by King Æthelwulf at Wilton

29

30 31

Vaughan Paper 38 (Leicester, 1994), p. 12, n. 56. For the archives at Winchcombe in the ninth century, see also S 1442 (BCS 575). For Clofesho 825, see also S 1435 (Sel 15), and S 1437 (BCS 386). The latter is a lost single-sheet charter from Worcester, on which had been added the names of those who took an oath at Worcester within thirty days of the proceedings at Clofesho. S 1438 (CantCC 69). For discussion, see Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 323–5; S. Keynes, ‘The West Saxon charters of King Æthelwulf and his sons’, EHR 109 (1994), 1109–49, at 1112–14; J. Crick, ‘The case for a West Saxon minuscule’, ASE 26 (1997), 63–79, at 65–7 and 79; D. Pratt, The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 45–8; and Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 650–61. S 1438, MS. 2 (BL Cotton Augustus ii. 21), with Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 323–4 and 360 n. 70 (‘scribe 4’). S 1438, MS. 1 (BL Cotton Augustus ii. 20), with Brooks, Church of Canterbury, p. 324.



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soon afterwards (838/9). Sheet C originated at Wilton as a fair copy of the Kingston agreement (838), incorporating the Wilton confirmation (838/9), made on a thin strip of parchment (77 cm by 550 cm) by the scribe who had added the Wilton confirmation on Sheet B, with an important additional note (written by the same scribe) urging the holder of the document to show it should there be any trouble.32 It should be stressed that the scribe active at Wilton, on Sheets B and C, practised a distinctive form of script which can be characterized as ‘West Saxon’, and if not in the king’s service was presumably attached to a West Saxon religious house.33 Stage 3 (æt Æstran, 839). The dorse of Sheet B also bears a confirmation added (after folding) by a third hand, at a church council æt Æstran (839), somewhere south of the Humber, with a witness-list comprising several bishops. On Sheet C, the confirmation æt Æstran was added by the same (‘third’) hand who had added the æt Æstran confirmation on Sheet B. It is most unusual to be able to observe, in this way, a single process which extended from a royal assembly convened near the eastern part of the extended kingdom of the West Saxons to a royal assembly convened in the West Saxon heartland, and from there to a council of the bishops convened æt Æstran, somewhere south of the river Humber. Nor does the interest of this documentation end there. According to the Kingston agreement, two identical copies of the record were made, one to be kept by the archbishop ‘with the charters of Christ Church (cum telligraphis ecclesie Christi)’, and the other by King Egbert and King Æthelwulf, ‘with their charters of inheritance (cum hereditatis eorum scripturis)’.34 What we have, it seems, is (a) the archbishop’s original record of three successive agreements (Kingston, Wilton and æt Æstran); (b) a superseded draft of the Kingston agreement; and (c) a copy of the Kingston agreement, incorporating the confirmation at Wilton, made as a part of these two agreements for the intended benefit of some other religious house (whose muniments had passed to Christ Church, perhaps Lyminge or Reculver), which had also been confirmed æt Æstran. We learn in the same connection of the making of a duplicate copy of the Kingston agreement, for the royal archives. One could hardly wish for a better illustration of record production and record keeping in the second quarter of the ninth century, and of the passing of such records, whilst still ‘live’, between royal assemblies, church councils, and the archives of the interested parties. It is the case that church councils, as such, all but vanish from the record in the second half of the ninth century, perhaps for lack of leadership from

32 33 34

S 1438, MS. 3 (BL Cotton Augustus ii. 37), with Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 324–5. Keynes, ‘West Saxon charters’, pp. 1117–18; Crick, ‘West Saxon minuscule’, pp. 65–8. Charters of Coenwulf, king of the Mercians, were kept at Winchcombe (S 1436); charters of Ecgberht and Æthelwulf may have been kept at Winchester, or elsewhere. For further discussion, see A. R. Rumble, ‘Anglo-Saxon royal archives: their nature, extent, survival and loss’, in this volume pp. 185–99.

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Canterbury (under the conditions which came to prevail during those years),35 or perhaps on account of difficulties within the diocese of London (while the Mercians stayed put in their homelands), and because business of the kind that generated written records ceased to be conducted at them.36 One should note also that political conditions which came to obtain in the late ninth and early tenth centuries created opportunities which had not existed before. The establishment of the Alfredian kingdom ‘of the Anglo-Saxons’, c. 880, must already have given rise to assemblies of a different kind, to the advantage of both secular and ecclesiastical orders; and these circumstances persisted into the 920s.37 The establishment of the kingdom ‘of the English’, c. 927, took matters further; and although there were serious complications thereafter, especially between 939 and 959, the kingdom of the English came to be grounded more firmly during the reign of King Edgar. Churchmen could meet in separate session at a royal assembly,38 and quite separately should the need arise; but the interests of the secular and ecclesiastical orders were often if not generally difficult to disentangle, and they must have learnt over many years how to work together. So, if in the seventh, eighth and first half of the ninth centuries the secular powers had chosen sometimes to take advantage of opportunities available to them at church councils, it may be that from the later ninth century onwards, in changed circumstances, the ecclesiastical powers were able to take advantage of the assemblies convened by kings, and could have conducted or initiated business of their own whenever they came together.39 All of this only adds spice to our perception of ‘royal’ assemblies in the tenth century, and to our sense of what might have happened at them. A council of the church might be subsumed within a royal assembly, perhaps a ‘great synod’ convened by the king and timed to coincide with a holy season,40 with all that might imply. In the early 940s Archbishop Oda issued his set of ‘Constitutions’, of the utmost interest and importance, in

35 36 37

38 39

40

Keynes, Councils of Clofesho, pp. 48–51; see also Pratt, Political Thought of King Alfred, pp. 47–8. For elucidation of this view, see Cubitt, Church Councils, pp. 235–40. For the ‘Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’, see S. Keynes, ‘Alfred the Great and the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. N. Discenza and P. E. Szarmach (Leiden, forthcoming), with references. An alternative view remains that Edward succeeded his father as king ‘of the West Saxons’, and that Æthelred and Æthelflæd presided over a kingdom which retained its independence until c. 920, at which point Edward annexed Mercia; see, e.g., P. Stafford, ‘“The Annals of Æthelflæd”: annals, history and politics in early tenth-century England’, in Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters, ed. J. Barrow and A. Wareham (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 101–16, at 112–13, and C. Insley, ‘Southumbria’, A Companion to the Early Middle Ages: Britain and Ireland c. 500–c. 1100, ed. P. Stafford (Chichester, 2009), pp. 322–40, at 329–30. In 1085, William I ‘was at Gloucester with his council, and held his court there for five days, and then the archbishop and clerics had a synod for three days’ (ASC MS E). For further discussion, see C. Cubitt, ‘Bishops and councils in late Saxon England: the intersection of secular and ecclesiastical law’, in Recht und Gericht in Kirche und Welt um 900, ed. W. Hartmann, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs Kolloquien 69 (Oldenbourg, 2007), pp. 151–67. E.g. I Edmund, Prol. (over Easter, at London), in Councils and Synods, p. 61.



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which he set out among other things his view of the relationship between the two orders.41 Whenever they should come together in an assembly of any kind (in aliquo conuentu), there should be concord and unanimity between bishops and principes and the whole Christian people. None the less, much depended on the way in which an assembly was represented in the surviving records. The ‘synodal council’, convened at Winchester during Edgar’s reign (c. 970), that so famously gave rise to the Regularis Concordia, appears at first sight to have been an assembly of the ecclesiastical order, to which the king sent a letter, urging all to be of one mind ‘lest differing ways of observing the customs of one Rule (unius regule) and one country (unius patrie) should bring their holy conversation into disrepute’;42 yet the council is said to have been convened at the king’s order, and, given the nature of royal assemblies in the tenth century, it seems likely that the king would have been present in Winchester, and that he would have been joined there by other members of the secular order. The ‘synodal council’ convened by King Æthelred, at Winchester, twenty years or more later, at Pentecost (4 June) in 993, was conceived or in its outcome was represented as analogous in spirit or intent to the earlier assembly; but the record that emanated from it was cast as a royal diploma, and thus with its witness-list creates a rather different kind of impression.43 Church councils of the late seventh, eighth and early ninth centuries constitute a significant part of the background against which we should approach royal assemblies of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The conduct of business at councils is bound to have influenced the way in which business was conducted at assemblies, and vice versa. The evidence described above illustrating the part played by the written word at particular councils creates expectations as we move onward into the tenth century, when such gatherings took place within a new context. It is likely, furthermore, that some of the more naturally ‘performative’ aspects of proceedings – the act of giving voice to collective consent or approval, or to the threat of divine punishment on those who might contravene the terms of what had been agreed; and perhaps the manner of making the sign of the cross as part of an act of attestation – would have developed along the same lines in both contexts. There are close affinities between the records that emanated from royal assemblies and those that emanated from church councils, and it is no surprise that formulas which advertise the practical and other advantages of the written word are common to both.44

41

42

43 44

Text: Councils and Synods, pp. 67–74. Translation: Johnson, Collection, i. 358–63. Oda’s letter to his bishops is said to have been directed to his fellow bishops after a ‘synodal council’ held in Edmund’s reign: William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum. The History of the English Bishops, I, ed. M. Winterbottom with R. M. Thomson (Oxford, 2007), i. 15–16 (pp. 28–30). Regularis Concordia [hereafter RC], Prol., ch. 4, in T. Symons, Regularis Concordia (London, 1953), pp. 2–3. Aspiring politicians should note the early manifestation of the ‘One Nation’ ideology. On the date of RC, see below, n. 303. S 876 (Abing 124), on which see further below, pp. 108–15. E.g. S 883 (Abing 125), in EHD 2nd ed., no. 118. For further examples, see S. Keynes,

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Royal Assemblies and Shire Assemblies While we may assume that assemblies of one kind or another were commonplace among all of the kingdoms that arose in the early Anglo-Saxon period, it is not until we reach the late sixth and seventh centuries that we can begin to observe royal assemblies in the written record. Symbolically, the sequence begins in the open air on the Isle of Thanet, in 597, when King Æthelberht and his comites gave a hearing to Augustine and his fellow missionaries from Rome; appropriately complemented, of course, by the story of the assembly convened thirty years later, in 627, at which King Edwin and his councillors discussed the advantages of the new religion.45 The assembly structure (‘Building E’) at Yeavering, as excavated, reconstructed and interpreted by Brian Hope-Taylor, creates an impression of regular meetings and ordered debate;46 but it may not represent anything approximating to a norm. One imagines that assemblies were convened under different circumstances and for different purposes, and that they involved a wide variety of settings, ranging from an open-air site, or a purpose-built ‘arena’, to the inside of a royal hall. Knowledge of practices elsewhere would have been brought home to one kingdom or another by those returning from their travels. One might also imagine Grimbald, at the court of King Alfred, enlarging on the form of guidance contained in Archbishop Hincmar’s tract, De ordine palatii;47 and awareness of continental practices can only have increased during the tenth century. Although royal assemblies were central to the form or forms of itinerant kingship practised throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, it is the case that (except under special circumstances) assemblies were taken for granted by those who contributed over the years to the composite record known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The problem lies perhaps with the nature of that record for the late ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. It is possible that for this later period the Chronicle developed as a series of bulletins compiled at intervals and ­circulated, from the centre, as continuations of the Alfredian chronicle of 892, and of each other.48 There might be an analogy here with the Royal

45 46

47

48

‘Royal government and the use of the written word in late Anglo-Saxon England’, in Uses of Literacy, ed. McKitterick, pp. 226–57, at 226 n. 2. HE, I. 25 and II. 13. B. Hope-Taylor, Yeavering: an Anglo-British centre of early Northumbria (London, 1977), pp. 119–22 and 241–4, with P. S. Barnwell, ‘Anglian Yeavering: a continental perspective’, in Yeavering People, Power and Place, ed. P. Frodsham and C. O’Brien (Stroud, 2005), pp. 174–84. Hincmar, De Ordine Palatii, chs. 29–30, in Carolingian Civilization: A Reader, ed. P. E. Dutton, 2nd ed. (Peterborough, Ontario, 2004), pp. 516–32, at 528–9, with R. McKitterick, Charlemagne: the formation of a European identity (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 142–8. N. P. Brooks, ‘Anglo-Saxon “Chronicle” or “Chronicles”? What’s in a name?’, paper given at ISAS, St John’s, Newfoundland, 2009; ‘Why is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle about kings?’, ASE 39 (2012), 43–70; and ‘“Anglo-Saxon Chronicle(s)” or “Old English Royal Annals”?’, in Gender and Historiography: studies in the earlier Middle Ages in honour of Pauline Stafford, ed. J. L. Nelson, S. Reynolds and S. M. Johns (London, 2012), pp. 35–48.



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Frankish Annals;49 although in the case of the Chronicle the ‘royal’ perspective appears not to have extended to any sustained interest in the king’s itinerary for its own sake. It may be, on the other hand, that for this later period the Chronicle should be regarded as a ‘virtual’ (or imagined) set of annals, constructed by modern scholarship for the convenience of modern readers, though in fact distributed across several manuscripts representing the surviving products of a highly complex process of development from an original ‘common stock’.50 Whatever the case, the study of the Chronicle for the period from 892 onwards remains a matter of distinguishing between sequences or sets of annals which came into existence at various times, in different circumstances, and on separate initiatives; of understanding how the sets of annals came together, whenever someone was moved to produce a version fuller than whatever had been available before, or more suited to a particular purpose; and of determining what might have arisen during the course of comparison, supplementation, redaction and separate continuation. Each of the surviving manuscripts is the end product of a process peculiar to itself, and must therefore be approached on terms of its own.51 Those who compiled the annals for the later Anglo-Saxon period took much for granted; and while they were naturally interested in kings, especially when engaged in warfare against the Danes, they were not so much concerned with the routine of royal itineration, unless an assembly was set apart from the norm by the unexpected, such as a sudden death or a collapsing floor, or happened to be the occasion for some serious political intrigue.52 For our knowledge of royal assemblies we are largely dependent, therefore, on the products of the assemblies themselves. The variety of texts which in combination represent the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon legislation have achieved canonical status in their edited forms.53 The law-code of Wihtred, king 49

50

51

52 53

Brooks, ‘“Anglo-Saxon Chronicle(s)” or “Old English Royal Annals”?’, p. 45. For the Royal Frankish Annals, see McKitterick, Charlemagne, esp. pp. 27–31 and 31–43, with B. W. Scholz, Carolingian Chronicles (Ann Arbor, MI, 1970). Whitelock, in EHD 2nd ed., pp. 109–25. For the chronicle of 892, see S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great (Harmondsworth, 1983), pp. 275–81; see also S. Keynes, ‘Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, I: c. 400–1100, ed. R. Gameson (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 537–52, with diagram (p. 542). The diagram (available in colour, with additional detail, on the ‘Kemble’ website), attempts to distinguish between the main elements that make up the AngloSaxon Chronicle from 893 onwards, and to convey an impression of the way in which these elements found their separate ways into lost, conjectured and extant versions. For a very effective illustration of these complexities, see S. Baxter, ‘MS C of the AngloSaxon Chronicle and the politics of mid-eleventh-century England’, EHR 122 (2007), 1189–1227, with references. For examples, see Appendix I. Die Gesetze der Angelsäschen, ed. F. Liebermann, 3 vols (Halle, 1903–16), with The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. F. L. Attenborough (Cambridge, 1922), and The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, ed. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1925). P. Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the twelfth century, I: Legislation and its limits (Oxford, 1999), is, of course, the modern point of departure. For current work on Anglo-Saxon law-codes, see the website ‘Early English Laws’ .

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of Kent, and the law-code of Ine, king of the West Saxons, both of which were issued towards the end of the seventh century, open with grandiose forms of words which advertise what follows as the product of deliberations of the king and his councillors, including the secular as well as the religious orders, and which represent it as legislation for the good of all.54 The two most elaborate law-codes of the Anglo-Saxon period – Alfred’s code of c. 890 and Cnut’s code of the early 1020s – are themselves suffused with an element of grandeur which seems appropriate at the outset of newly established polities. Other texts edited as ‘law-codes’ of kings from Edward the Elder to Æthelred the Unready vary greatly in form and must be distinguished carefully from each other; among them, however, are several relatively short codes promulgated in the name of the king and his assembled councillors, which were plainly the products of royal assemblies.55 Royal diplomas, in Latin, keep more closely to a norm in terms of their structure and content, and (leaving aside their lists of witnesses) have little to offer by way of circumstantial information about a particular assembly. A vernacular record generated from an assembly of the Mercian council convened at Gloucester in 896, with King Alfred’s permission, is remarkable for summarizing its own agenda;56 but it was perhaps a special case. In the tenth century there are precious few documents, apart from law-codes and diplomas, that emanate from royal as opposed to other kinds of assembly,57 and very few diplomas that have anything to say about proceedings in general.58 Indeed, the draftsmen of royal diplomas tend to reveal so little about the assembly itself, apart from the year in which it took place, that one begins to wonder where they stood in relation to the event itself. The first scholar in any position to command the evidence of law-codes and diplomas, as a single body of material, was John Mitchell Kemble (1807–57). Interestingly, his exposition of the witena gemot, as he liked to call it, was written during the political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848, and was published in

54

55

56

57 58

Wihtred, Prol. (Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, i. 12), and Ine, Prol. (ibid. i. 88), with Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, pp. 24 and 36. See also Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 101–2 (Wihtred) and 103 (Ine). For legislation in the tenth century, see S. Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word’, pp. 234–42, and D. Pratt, ‘Written law and the communication of authority in tenthcentury England’, in England and the Continent in the Tenth Century, ed. D. Rollason, C. Leyser and H. Williams (Turnhout, 2010), pp. 331–50. For Æthelstan’s legislation, see also Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 437–40; S. Foot, Æthelstan: the first king of England (New Haven, CT, 2011), pp. 136–48; and L. Roach, ‘Law codes and legal norms in later Anglo-Saxon England’, Historical Research 86 (2013), 465–86. S 1441 (BCS 574; SEHD 14), from Worcester. S. Keynes, ‘King Alfred and the Mercians’, in Kings, Currency and Alliances: History and coinage of southern England in the ninth century, ed. M. A. S. Blackburn and D. N. Dumville (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 1–45, at 28 n. 129. An important exception is S 939 (CantCC 137), on which see below, p. 136. For some exceptions from the 990s, see S 876 (Abing 124), S 891 (KCD 698) and S 893 (Roch 32), discussed further below; see also S 1021 (KCD 791), from Exeter, also discussed below.



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a work dedicated to Queen Victoria in 1849.59 Further studies were published by H. M. Chadwick in 1905, and by Felix Liebermann in 1913.60 Some years later, F. M. Stenton outlined his understanding of the ‘important change’ that could be observed in the character of political assemblies in the tenth century, when during the middle years of Æthelstan’s reign the more limited king’s councils of an earlier age took on the appearance for the first time of ‘national assemblies’, where ‘every local interest was represented’.61 The use of diplomas as historical evidence for matters of such importance was undermined, however, when the view took hold that diplomas might not have emanated directly from royal assemblies.62 A case for respecting the testimony of diplomas as products of royal assemblies was made in 1980, as a necessary part of the background to a study of King Æthelred’s diplomas;63 and although that question is still disputed, the assemblies themselves remain central to any discussion of royal government in the later Anglo-Saxon period.64 More recent work has opened up some wider dimensions;65 and the assemblies are coming into sharper focus.66 Understanding of royal assemblies in the tenth and eleventh centuries arises from consideration of the combination of their different dimensions: how they were planned, convened and organized; the timing, duration and frequency of the meetings; the places where they were held; aspects of attendance; the variety

59 60

61 62

63 64

65

66

J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England, 2 vols. (London, 1849), ii. 182–261, including an account of twelve ‘powers’ of the witena gemot, and a list of meetings (ii. 241–61). H. M. Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 308–66; F. Liebermann, The National Assembly in the Anglo-Saxon Period (Halle, 1913), with a list of meeting-places, pp. 45–7. F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England [1943], 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 349–54, with a map showing ‘Meeting places of the Old English council’ (p. 350). F. Barlow, reviewing T. J. Oleson, The Witenagemot in the Reign of Edward the Confessor: a study in the constitutional history of eleventh-century England (Oxford, 1955), in JEH 7 (1956), 86–7, and citing F. E. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), pp. 34–41; see also F. Barlow, The English Church 1000–1066 (London, 1963), 2nd ed. (London, 1979), pp. 126–7 and 154–5, and Edward the Confessor (London, 1970), 2nd ed. (New Haven, 1997), pp. xxv–xxvi, 166 and 188. Harmer’s edition of the writs, and her treatment of ‘interested ecclesiastics’, also lay behind the views developed by Dr Pierre Chaplais in the 1960s (below, pp. 45–6). S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), esp. pp. 35–9, 79–83, 126–34 and 154–62; see further below, pp. 102–26. H. R. Loyn, The Governance of Anglo-Saxon England 500–1087 (London, 1984), pp. 100–6; A. Williams, Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England, c. 500–1066 (Basingstoke, 1999), pp. 92–3; J. Campbell, ‘Anglo-Saxon courts’, in Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages, ed. C. Cubitt (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 155–70; and especially Maddicott, Origins of the English Parliament, pp. 1–56. Assembly Places and Practices in Medieval Europe, ed. A. Pantos and S. Semple (Dublin, 2004), and Political Assemblies in the Earlier Middle Ages, ed. P. S. Barnwell and M. Mostert, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 7 (Turnhout, 2007). L. Roach, ‘Hosting the king: hospitality and the royal iter in tenth-century England’, JMH 37 (2011), 34–46, and ‘Meetings of the witan in Anglo-Saxon England, 871–978’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Cambridge, 2011), with Assembling Consent in the Early Middle Ages: kingship and assemblies in Anglo-Saxon England, 871–978 (Cambridge, 2013); see also below, n. 69.



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of matters dealt with on such occasions; the ways in which formal proceedings of any kind were conducted; and how the acts of the king and his councillors were recorded and disseminated.67 Assemblies were often arranged to coincide with the annual round of the major religious festivals (Christmas, Easter, and [seven weeks later] Pentecost or Whitsunday),68 leaving scope in the months between Pentecost and Christmas for two or three more assemblies. On the face of it, therefore, royal assemblies might have been convened perhaps five or six times a year.69 It is clear that they were often held on royal estates,70 as part of the process of the king’s itineration through the kingdom;71 but of course they also took place in small towns, shire towns, and the great cities such as London and Winchester. A glance at the map above showing the distribution of recorded meeting-places in the tenth and eleventh centuries is enough to show that southern and western parts of the kingdom were better represented than northern and eastern parts. Common sense dictates that people would not gather from far afield for an event lasting only a day or two; so we might expect that a royal assembly, of a certain kind, would have lasted several days. Evidence bearing on the duration of particular assemblies is hard to find; for what it may be worth, the ‘great assembly’ at Kirtlington was held ‘after Easter’ (8 April) in 977, and Sideman, bishop of Crediton, suffered there a ‘sudden death’ on 30 April.72 The only years in the tenth and eleventh centuries for which we can reconstruct a detailed (if broken) sequence of royal assemblies, and thereby create a sense of royal itineration, fall within the period 928–35. Our good fortune is owed entirely to a person at Æthelstan’s court, probably one of the king’s priests, who deserves recognition as a major figure in his own right, but who in our ignorance of his identity has come to be known to modern scholarship 67 68

69

70

71 72

For a list of recorded meeting-places, see Appendix I, below, pp. 140–57. For a ‘customary’ meeting at Pentecost (973), see Byrhtferth of Ramsey, Vita sancti Oswaldi [hereafter BR, VSO], iv. 6 (Byrhtferth of Ramsey: the Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine, ed. M. Lapidge (Oxford, 2009), pp. 104–6). See also M. Biddle, ‘Seasonal festivals and residence: Winchester, Westminster and Gloucester in the tenth to twelfth centuries’, ANS 8 (1986), 51–72, esp. 69–72; and P. Dalton, ‘Sites and occasions of peacemaking in England and Normandy, c. 900–c. 1150’, Haskins Society Journal 16 (2006), 12–26. For the evidence from the tenth and eleventh centuries, see Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 431 (‘legislative’ sessions) and 432–4 (‘other major royal councils’); though the distinction implied between these types of assembly is perhaps imaginary (below, pp. 37–8). P. Sawyer, ‘The royal tun in pre-Conquest England’, in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society, ed. P. Wormald with D. Bullough and R. Collins (Oxford, 1983), pp. 273–99. For more recent work on royal estates, see R. Lavelle, Royal Estates in AngloSaxon Wessex: land, politics and family strategies (Oxford, 2007), and ‘Geographies of power in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: the royal estates of Anglo-Saxon Wessex’, in Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: language, literature, history, ed. A. Jorgensen (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 187–219. D. Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1981), pp. 85–91. See Appendix I, p. 150. In 1085, William I ‘was at Gloucester with his council, and held his court there for five days, and then the archbishop and clerics had a synod for three days’ (ASC E).

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as ‘Æthelstan A’.73 He would appear to have been responsible for the drafting and writing of all royal diplomas produced during these years; and, perhaps in a first flush of enthusiasm for the newly established kingdom of the English, he invariably gives exact details of date and location for the assembly at which each diploma was issued. The diplomas of ‘Æthelstan A’ thus provide a basis for the reconstruction of several segments of the king’s itinerary. In 930, for example, King Æthelstan and his councillors gathered at Lyminster, in Sussex, at the beginning of April, and again at Chippenham, in Wiltshire, at the end of the same month. Some among their number might have been able to go home in between (assuming there were no other meetings to attend in the middle of the month), but one imagines that the majority stayed in attendance on the king for the duration. At least for some, the same might have applied in 931, when Æthelstan seems to have moved across the country from east to west: there was an assembly at Colchester, in Essex, on 23 March; at Worthy, in Hampshire, on 20 June; at Wellow, in Hampshire (about 20 miles south-east), on 15 July; and at Lifton, in Devon, on 12 November. During the three-month period which extended from early November 932 to late January 933, we find that assemblies were convened at Exeter (9 November), in Devon, and thereafter at Amesbury (24 December), Wilton (11 January) and Chippenham (26 January), in Wiltshire. In 934 the great and the good of the land were in attendance on the king at Winchester on 28 May, and again at Nottingham on 7 June; we must presume that some of them remained with the king as he made his way further north to Scotland, and back, apparently during the weeks from mid-June to late August; whatever the case, we find him back south at Buckingham on 13 September. There is no evidence of this quality for the assemblies convened at any other period. The agency responsible for the so-called ‘alliterative’ charters of the 940s and early 950s often named the place of assembly; but otherwise the example set by ‘Æthelstan A’ was not followed. It may be that practices were modified in the central decades of the tenth century, as circumstances changed, and as it proved impossible to maintain whatever elaborate arrangements must have lain behind the assemblies of 928–35; or it may have been those responsible for drafting royal diplomas who changed their practices; or both. In the reign of Æthelred the Unready, there is evidence of a royal progress, as it were, from an assembly at Winchester in early June 993 to a smaller gathering at Gillingham, probably in Dorset, in mid-July, and from a gathering in the hall of a royal estate at Calne, in Wiltshire, in late March 997, to a major assembly at Wantage, in Berkshire, a few days later;74 but for a long reign such as Æthelred’s this is hardly on a par with the quality of evidence provided by ‘Æthelstan A’. One must bear in mind, therefore, that any list of recorded meeting-places conveys an imperfect impression of the historical reality, for the simple reason that it does not include the numerous charters that do not contain any indication of the place where the assembly at which the charter was issued had been held.

73 74

For the charters of ‘Æthelstan A’, see below, pp. 53–5. For the evidence in question, see below, pp. 108–19.



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One could wish that more were known of those whose privilege, duty, business, or pleasure it might have been to be present at royal assemblies. It is customary to refer to the king and his councillors, or to meetings of the witan, as if the assemblies approximated to meetings of a king’s council; but as one historian put it, ‘The men called witan were not necessarily any more distinguished for their wisdom than were the ealdormenn for their age.’75 The person we know as ‘Æthelstan A’ employed formulas which identified those present at assemblies as bishops, abbots, ealdormen and patrie procuratores, of whom the latter were also called iudices, proceres, and dignitates; on which basis one might suppose that among the thegns were men who were present as office-holders, perhaps from different shires or regions. A vernacular document which emanated from a royal assembly in the late 990s names the witnesses to an agreement as the archbishop of Canterbury, three bishops, two ealdormen, five abbots, five thegns, ‘and all the thegns who were gathered there from far and wide, both West Saxons and Mercians, Danes and English’.76 In the early eleventh century, Byrhtferth of Ramsey imagined the assembly convened over Easter in the mid960s, when King Edgar ordered more than forty monasteries to be founded.77 He also imagined the scene as people gathered for the coronation of King Edgar at Pentecost in 973: ‘At that time it was the holy season when, in accordance with custom, the archbishops and all the other distinguished bishops and the glorious abbots and religious abbesses, and all the ealdormen, reeves (prefecti), and judges (iudices) – or rather everyone whom it was fitting to describe as the nobility of this wide and spacious realm – were to assemble.’78 The presumption is that royal assemblies were significant in their own right, and occasions where serious business was done. While some assemblies were doubtless convened in response to a particular need, it seems likely in general that the business conducted on any occasion ranged across a variety of secular and ecclesiastical matters, of general, current and special concern.79 In addition to the high politics, the promulgation of law, the settlement of disputes, and the conveyance of bookland, we should imagine elections or appointments to high office (secular as well as ecclesiastical), discussion of commerce and coinage, and much else besides. The difficulty remains that by far the most visible products of royal assemblies were the law-codes and the royal diplomas, to the extent that they dominate our sense of the events. In some cases it would appear that a diploma issued at a particular assembly was of ‘local’ interest, and no doubt for good reason;80 but in most cases there was no necessary connection, and in that sense the outlook at an assembly was wide.

75 76 77 78 79 80

P. Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 2003), p. 216. S 939 (CantCC 137). BR, VSO iii. 9–13 (ed. Lapidge, pp. 70–80). BR, VSO iv. 6 (ed. Lapidge, pp. 104–6). See, for example, S 1441 (Worcester), from the 890s (above, n. 56). E.g. S 909, issued from an assembly at Headington, Oxfordshire, for St Frideswide’s church, Oxford.

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One should otherwise note in this connection the suggestion that a distinction existed or was recognized in the tenth century between ‘law-making assemblies’ and assemblies at which more mundane business was transacted, with the implication that assemblies at which law-codes were issued were special events for that reason, leading to the further proposition that ‘kings and their advisers were most likely to make written law when exposed to ideological stimulation’.81 It is apparent that in Æthelstan’s reign laws promulgated on at least four separate occasions – at Grately, at Exeter, at Faversham, and at Thundersfield – were regarded as having been of particular significance. The promulgation of a lawcode was certainly more important in itself than the conveyance of a few parcels of land, yet there is no reason why the two forms of business should have been mutually exclusive. It has to be said that there is no unequivocal case where the conveyance of bookland (and so the production of diplomas) can be shown to have taken place on the same occasion as the promulgation of legislation (and so the production of law-codes); yet this could be no more than a function of the chance survival of the evidence, compounded by the difficulty of connecting law-codes and diplomas, which might so easily, of their nature, not contain sufficient information to indicate that they were produced on one and the same occasion. According to King Æthelred’s diploma for the Old Minster, Winchester, in 997, the assembly at Wantage in that year had been convened ‘in order [literally] to deal with enquiries into various matters-of-concern’.82 The form of words (ob diuersarum questiones causarum corrigendas) covered the restoration of land to the Old Minster, and might well have extended to the promulgation of the law-code known to have been issued by Æthelred and his witan at an assembly at Wantage, ‘for the improvement of public security (to friðes bote)’; perhaps also to much else besides.83 As the political landscape was transformed between c. 880 and the inception in 927 of Æthelstan’s ‘kingdom of the English’, and as the shire system was extended from south to north of the Thames, it would have become increasingly necessary for all concerned to develop procedures whereby the royal assemblies (held perhaps five or six times a year) could connect and interact with the assemblies convened at lower and local levels (on cycles of their own). We catch what appears to be a glimpse of the connection and the interaction, at one such level, in a note appended to the provisions of the London peace-guild, enacted during the reign of King Æthelstan. Ælfheah Stybb and Byrhtnoth, son of Odda, attended an assembly at Thundersfield, in Surrey, at the king’s command; on which occasion all the witan, i.e. all those present, gave their pledge (wedd) to the archbishop of Canterbury that every reeve should receive the pledge in his own shire that all would observe the laws promulgated at

81 82 83

Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 430–49, esp. 435, 437, 438, 443 and 448. S 891 (KCD 698), on which see below, pp. 115–18. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 102 and 196; Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 328–9 and 442–4.



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Grately and elsewhere.84 This short text transports us to a realm where the king formally summoned persons of standing in their respective localities to attend a royal assembly, and where those attending in this capacity undertook on oath to ensure, on their return whence they came, that every reeve would exact a pledge in his own shire that all would observe laws promulgated at the royal assemblies.85 It was a mechanism intended to ensure that whatsoever was transacted at a royal assembly would be implemented at a local assembly, and observed by all. Indeed it is apparent that written reports and instructions, as well as oral reports and instructions, were transmitted from the centre to the localities, and in the same way from the localities back to the centre, presumably in most cases by persons in some way authorized or qualified to do so. The written word as well as the spoken word suffused all aspects of the system, and one imagines that those with business to conduct at an assembly would have needed to be able to participate fully and effectively in the process.86

Continental Charters Before turning to the corpus of Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas, as products of royal assemblies, it is instructive to glance across the Channel at their continental counterparts, especially from the Frankish kingdoms.87 A recent study of the diplomas of Charlemagne serves as a salutary exercise, suggesting that all is not what it might seem to be.88 The diplomas produced in the chanceries of Carolingian rulers in the ninth and tenth centuries, and by their successors in France and Germany, survive in impressive numbers, often in their original 84 85

86

87

88

VI Æthelstan, c. 10: Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, i. 173–83, at 181–2, with EHD 2nd ed., no. 37 (pp. 423–7, at 426–7). Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word’, pp. 239–40; Pratt, ‘Written law’, pp. 344–5 and 347; Foot, Æthelstan, pp. 143–4. Cf. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 297–8, where Ælfheah and Byrhtnoth are seen as ‘carriers of royal messages’ from the king to a meeting of the councillors at Thundersfield, not attended by the king himself, and therefore held under Archbishop Wulfhelm’s presidency. On aspects of pragmatic literacy, see nn. 55, 123 and 131; see also C. R. E. Cubitt, ‘“As the lawbook teaches”: Reeves, lawbooks and urban life in the anonymous Old English Legend of the Seven Sleepers’, EHR 124 (2009), 1021–49, and S. Keynes, ‘The use of seals in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Early Medieval Monetary History, ed. M. Allen, R. Naismith and E. Screen (forthcoming). A useful point of departure remains G. Tessier, Diplomatique royale française (Paris, 1962). For facsimiles of surviving originals, see Diplomata Karolinorum: Recueil de reproductions en facsimilé des actes originaux des souverains carolingiens conservés dans les archives et bibliothèques de France, ed. F. Lot, P. Lauer and G. Tessier, 9 parts in 10 (Paris, 1936–49), esp. pt 8 (for tenth-century diplomas). For editions of west Frankish diplomas, and of east Frankish diplomas, see the ‘Kemble’ website; see also S. Keynes, ‘Re-reading King Æthelred the Unready’, in Writing Medieval Biography 750–1250, ed. D. Bates, J. Crick and S. Hamilton (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 77–97, at 82–5. McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 178–212, esp. 199–204, in respect of the king’s itinerary and the operation of the royal notaries.

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form, and have themselves been subjected to penetrating analysis.89 They are complemented by large numbers of ‘private’ charters, for example from the abbeys of St Gall and Cluny, which are no less impressive in their variety.90 Needless to say, such documents have to be approached with the circumspection that comes only from deep familiarity with all aspects of the material in question. At the same time, it is easy to see why anyone passing from Carolingian and Ottonian diplomas to even the finest of the Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas of the tenth century might presume that the latter were closer in spirit and form to private charters on the Continent, and would appear for that reason to have been produced under significantly different circumstances. For his part, the AngloSaxonist who contemplates the continental material is rendered speechless with envy, even if the long lists of witnesses which adorn his own diplomas provide some compensation. It must suffice in passing to fasten on a few examples, chosen effectively at random. The royal or imperial diplomas of Carolingian and other rulers belong to a world of diplomatic minuscule, royal monograms, the ruche (beehive) and the seal en placard, and notarial subscriptions.91 They are impressive documents, which ‘in their graphic traits alone … asserted power, majesty, and artistry in ways that went far beyond a pragmatic functionalism of writing as record’.92 That is to say, they were in various senses ‘performative’, as for example in the part played by the written document in ceremony or ritual, or in the way that their meaning might extend beyond their written content.93 The array of private

89

90

91

92 93

E.g. H. Keller, ‘The privilege in the public interaction of the exercise of power: forms of symbolic communication beyond the text’, in Medieval Legal Process, ed. M. Mostert and P. S. Barnwell (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 75–108; G. Koziol, The Politics of Memory and Identity in Carolingian Royal Diplomas: the West Frankish Kingdom (840–987) (Turnhout, 2012), with Begging Pardon and Favour: ritual and political order in early medieval France (Ithaca, NY, 1992). For a recent survey of private charters, see the papers assembled in Die Privaturkunden der Karolingerzeit, ed. P. Erhart, K. Heidecker and B. Zeller (Zurich, 2009). For the charters of St Gall, see R. McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 77–134, and the papers by Zeller and Heidecker in Medieval Legal Process, ed. M. Mostert and P. S. Barnwell (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 27–37 and 39–53. It was the charters of St Gall that prompted Mary Prescott Parsons, in the 1930s, to look for comparable material from Anglo-Saxon England (below, p. 45). For Cluny, see M. Innes, ‘On the material culture of legal documents: charters and their preservation in the Cluny archive, ninth to eleventh centuries’, in Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. W. Brown, M. Costambeys, M. Innes and A. Kosto (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 283–320. For a range of originals, in recent exhibition catalogues, see: Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit: Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn, ed. C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 3 vols. (Mainz, 1999) I, 127–8 and 328–33; Otto der Grosse: Magdeburg und Europa, ed. Matthias Puhle, 2 vols. (Mainz, 2001) II, 25–6, 106–18, 167–8, 174–5, 282–3, 330–1, 337–40, 347–52, 382–5; Kaiser Heinrich II. 1002–1024, ed. Josef Kirmeier et al. (Augsburg, 2002), pp. 165–7 and 185–90. Koziol, Politics of Memory and Identity, p. 58. Keller, ‘Public interaction’, pp. 86–7; Koziol, Politics of Memory and Identity, pp. 52–62, and passim.



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charters conveys a sense of varied practices at other levels. In some cases, a charter is said to have been read out; there is evidence of autograph crosses; there are examples of the ceremonial placing of a charter on an altar; and there are indications that significance might be attached to the touching of the charter (firmatio).94 A symbolically significant example, from the early tenth century, is the charter dated 11 September [910], by which William I, duke of Aquitaine, effected the foundation of Cluny abbey, as part of a ‘public’ act in the city of Bourges (over 100 miles to the north-west of the abbey itself).95 There is nothing quite like this from Anglo-Saxon England, though it is still strangely familiar. The charter was written on a large sheet of parchment (61 cm tall by 44 cm wide), by two scribes: the first responsible for the opening of the text (lines 1–7), including the decorative AW (alpha-omega) device; and the second responsible for the rest of the text (lines 7–39), to publice. After this point, on lines 39–47, we find a remarkable array of seemingly autograph crosses, autograph chrismons, and autograph attestations, as well as some non-autograph attestations of laymen (written it seems by the second text-scribe). The dating-clause (line 48), and the notarial subscription of the second scribe (line 49), run across the bottom of the sheet, apparently put there before the witnesses made their respective marks. We turn next to a diploma issued by Otto II, dated 19 November 979, granting to the clergy of Magdeburg the right to elect their archbishop.96 Most interestingly, it seems to have been associated with the gift of a book containing images of the emperor and of the Empress Theophanu; we also learn that having read aloud and displayed the ‘imperial precept’, in the emperor’s presence, Archbishop Adalbert delivered a sermon, and threatened excommunication on anyone who infringed the privilege, whereupon all present shouted ‘Amen! Fiat! Fiat!’.97 The charters of Richard, duke of Normandy (996–1026), show some influence from Carolingian diplomas, though it is apparent that a variety of different arrangements existed for their production.98 A further dimen-

94

95

96 97

98

B.-M. Tock, ‘La mise en scène des actes en France au haut moyen age’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 38 (2004), 287–96; G. Declercq, ‘Between legal action and performance: the firmatio of charters in the early Middle Ages’, in Medieval Legal Process, ed. M. Mostert and P. S. Barnwell (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 55–73. H. Atsma and J. Vezin, with S. Barret, Les plus anciens documents originaux de l’abbaye de Cluny, I: Documents nos 1 à 30, Monumenta Palaeographica Medii Aevi, Series Gallica (Brepols, 1998), 33–9 (no. 4), with facsimile; see also A. Bruel, Recueil des chartes de l’abbaye de Cluny, 6 vols. (Paris, 1876–1903) I, 124–8 (no. 112), with Readings in Medieval History, ed. P. J. Geary, 4th ed. (Toronto, 2010), pp. 315–17. Ottonis II. et III. Diplomata, ed. T. Sickel, MGH Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae 2 (Hanover, 1893), 235–6 (D O II 207). Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, iii. 1, in Thietmari Merseburgensis episcopi Chronicon, ed. W. Trillmich, Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters 9 (Darmstadt, 1957), pp. 84–6; D. A. Warner, Ottonian Germany: the Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg (Manchester, 2001), p. 127; Keller, ‘Public interaction’, p. 88. Cf. L. K. Little, Benedictine Maledictions: liturgical cursing in Romanesque France (Ithaca, NY, 2003), p. 57, on the exclamation in S 1208 (Abing 28). M. Fauroux, Recueil des actes de ducs de Normandie de 911 à 1066 (Caen, 1961); S. Keynes, ‘The Æthelings in Normandy’, ANS 13 (1991), 173–205; and C. Potts, ‘The

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sion is provided by two fine images incorporated in the earliest cartulary of the abbey of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, on the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris, written in the 1070s.99 The text of the charter of Henry I (1031–60), grandson of Hugh Capet, for the abbey’s refoundation in 1060, is complemented by an image which shows the bishop of Paris kneeling before the enthroned king, with the abbot and three canons lined up behind him, while the chancellor presents the abbey’s charter to the king, who is shown applying his autograph cross.100 We also find here the text of a charter of Henry’s son Philip I (1060–1108), by which he completed and increased the abbey’s endowment in 1067, complemented by an image representing the enthroned king adding the abbey of SaintSamson of Orléans to the gift, accompanied by two rows of men representing the ecclesiastical and secular orders, with those in the lower row signifying by raised hands and pointing fingers that they are involved in a collective act of oath-taking, or touching, or witnessing, or expressing approval.101

Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas An Anglo-Saxonist is easily overwhelmed by the quantity, quality and variety of the evidence from across the Channel, ranging from the surviving charters themselves, including large numbers of single-sheet originals, to accounts in literary sources of charters being used for their various ceremonial and legal purposes. It is obvious at the same time that Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas differ from their ‘continental’ counterparts in some fundamental respects. The diplomas constitute a considerable proportion of the type of documents known more generally or loosely as ‘charters’, and provide the historian with a fairly continuous form of record extending from the 670s to 1066, covering a period of nearly 400 years. A problem which arises at the outset is the difficulty, under the complex conditions which prevailed during the earlier part of the AngloSaxon period (before c. 900), of understanding how practices might have been established and maintained in the various kingdoms, and to what extent distinctions emerged and were maintained between royal diplomas and ‘private’ (nonroyal) charters of various kinds. From their introduction, probably in the 670s, and onwards into the first quarter of the tenth century, the diplomas display a generic relationship, in the sense that they were composed of the same range of elements, and employed similar forms of words, serving their purposes in ways which must have been widely understood. There are points of contact

99

100 101

early Norman Charters: a new perspective on an old debate’, in England in the Eleventh Century, ed. C. Hicks (Stamford, 1992), pp. 25–40 (with illustrations). London, BL Add. 11662, for which see Recueil des actes de Philippe Ier, roi de France (1059–1108), ed. H. d’Arbois de Jubainville and M. Prou (Paris, 1908), p. 55 n. 1, and J. Depoin, Recueil de chartes et documents de Saint-Martin-des-champs, 5 vols. (Paris, 1912–21), I, 13 n. 9. BL Add. 11662, fol. 4r, with Depoin, Recueil, pp. 14–18 (charter of Henry I). BL Add. 11662, fol. 5v, with Actes de Philippe Ier, ed. d’Arbois de Jubainville and Prou, pp. 91–4 (no. 30), and Depoin, Recueil, pp. 19–20 and 28–31 (charter of Philip I).



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and shared developments which link together surviving examples from different kingdoms or dioceses; but the impression remains that they belong to distinctive traditions and were drawn up under a variety of different circumstances. For the later Anglo-Saxon period (c. 900–1066), the position is clearer. In this period, a diploma can be characterized as a formal and symbolic record, in Latin, of an occasion when the king, acting in a royal assembly, and with the consent of the ecclesiastical and secular orders, created an estate of ‘bookland’ at a specified place, and conveyed it on the privileged terms defined by the ‘book’, or diploma, to a named beneficiary. This act of establishing a particular estate as bookland, so that it could be held henceforth on these privileged terms, could be performed only by the king, in a royal assembly;102 but the diploma itself served thereafter as the title-deed for the land in question. It established that the land was to be held, with its appurtenances, free from the imposition of worldly burdens, with the exception of military service, bridge-work, and fortress-work, and with the power to give the land to anyone of its owner’s choosing. The natural assumption on first reading a diploma issued in the name of a particular king is that it would have been drafted and written by an agency in the king’s service; but as is so often the case the reality was far more complex and at the same time more interesting. For reasons which will become apparent, it is a matter best approached via a brief survey of the way in which the study of Anglo-Saxon charters has developed since the mid nineteenth century. The first collected edition of the surviving corpus of the texts known loosely and collectively as Anglo-Saxon charters was John Mitchell Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, published in six volumes towards the middle of the nineteenth century.103 Kemble’s natural wish had been to present the texts in a coherent chronological order, but his plans were disrupted, not long after he started, by the discovery of the mid-twelfth-century cartulary of the Old Minster, Winchester, and his best intentions were also frustrated in other respects by circumstances beyond his own control.104 The great majority of the surviving ‘originals’ were published in facsimile between 1873 and 1884.105 As the national collection went from strength to strength, Walter de Gray Birch, of the British Museum, embarked on his Cartularium Saxonicum, providing improved editions of the texts, arranged in a more coherent order; but it was all

102

103 104

105

The Carolingian rulers, and their successors in France and Germany, were not restricted in the same way to royal assemblies. For further discussion, see McKitterick, Charlemagne, esp. pp. 178–212; see also S. Keynes, ‘Re-reading King Æthelred the Unready’, in Writing Medieval Biography 750–1250, ed. D. Bates, J. Crick and S. Hamilton (Woodbridge 2006), pp. 77–97, at pp. 84–5. J. M. Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, 6 vols. (London, 1839–48). S. Keynes, ‘J. M. Kemble and his Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici’, in the reprint of Kemble’s Codex published by the Cambridge University Press in 2011 (vol. i, pp. v– xxiv). E. A. Bond, Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, 4 vols. (London, 1873–8), and W. B. Sanders, Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 3 vols. (Southampton, 1878–84), supplemented by Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. S. Keynes (Oxford, 1991).

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too much for the publisher, and the edition did not progress beyond the death of King Edgar in 975 (with serious consequences for the study of the last century of Anglo-Saxon England).106 Building upon the work of Kemble and Birch, whilst critical of it, and able to peruse the facsimiles, W. H. Stevenson, of the University of Oxford, took the study of charters forward in the 1890s, represented by his involvement in the edition of the ‘Crawford Charters’ (1895),107 by some passing but far-reaching remarks on the charters of King Æthelstan and his successors, made in 1896,108 and by his Sandars Lectures on ‘The AngloSaxon Chancery’, delivered to the University of Cambridge in May 1898.109 Stevenson’s remarks on the need for a new edition of the corpus of charters lay behind H. M. Chadwick’s encouragement of work on records in the vernacular, which bore fruit between 1914 and 1952.110 Meanwhile, the wider implications of Stevenson’s remarks on the production of royal diplomas in the tenth century, taken further in private correspondence some time before 1916, were developed in greater detail by Richard Drögereit, and published in 1935.111 Twenty years later two works were published which contributed most significantly to the wider appreciation of the value of royal diplomas for historical purposes. The three lectures given by Sir Frank Stenton in King’s College, London, in March 1954, were intended to serve as a general introduction to the subject, and were complemented most effectively by the translations of about sixty

106

107

108 109

110

111

W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 3 vols. (London, 1885–93). The story of this project (Keynes, ‘Kemble and his Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici’, pp. xxii–xxiii) has yet to be reconstructed. Some details emerge from Birch’s incoming correspondence, in BL Add. 50205–6. The Crawford Collection of Early Charters and Documents Now in the Bodleian Library, ed. A. S. Napier and W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1895). For the history of this collection, see S. Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: lost and found’, in Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters, ed. Barrow and Wareham [2008], pp. 45–66, at 59 n. 76. W. H. Stevenson, ‘An Old-English charter of William the Conqueror in favour of St. Martin’s-Le-Grand, London, A.D. 1068’, EHR 11 (1896), 731–44, at 731–2. The lectures were never published. For further details, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 14–15; an edited transcript of the lectures, from the manuscript in the library of St John’s College, Oxford, is available on the ‘Kemble’ website. For the sense in which Stevenson employed the term ‘chancery’, see Crawford Charters, ed. Napier and Stevenson, p. ix n. 1. Select English Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, ed. F. E. Harmer (Cambridge, 1914); Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930); AngloSaxon Charters, ed. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1939), 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1956); and Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs (above, n. 62), reprinted with additions (Stamford, 1989). The first three of these editions were reprinted in paperback by the Cambridge University Press in 2011. Supplementary material in the Cambridge reprints derives from S. Keynes, Anglo-Saxon Charters in the Vernacular, Robertson Lecture 2009, University of Aberdeen (forthcoming). R. Drögereit, ‘Gab es eine angelsächsische Königskanzlei?’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung 13 (1935), 335–436, with summary in Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 15–19; for further discussion, see below, pp. 57–8. A complete translation of Drögereit’s tract is available on the ‘Kemble’ website.



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diplomas included in Dorothy Whitelock’s English Historical Documents.112 In both publications the emphasis was on the value of charters individually, rather than on their value collectively; and since both rose from the foundations that had been laid in Oxford by W. H. Stevenson, it was taken for granted that royal diplomas could be regarded as the products of some form of royal or central agency. The significant challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy arose from work conducted outside the historical mainstream. In the mid-1930s, prompted by recent work on the charters preserved in the archives of the abbey of St Gall, Mary Prescott Parsons undertook a pioneering examination of the single-sheet charters from the archives of Christ Church, Canterbury, with a view to identifying any features (including scribal memoranda for the text or for the witnesslist) which might throw light on the processes behind their production.113 The charters in question were from the eighth and ninth centuries; but the significance of Parsons’s work was picked up by Florence Harmer as a line of enquiry which might have a bearing on the production of charters in the Anglo-Saxon period as a whole.114 Harmer drew attention to the very small yet highly significant number of writs by which the king informed the local authorities that he had authorized a particular bishop or archbishop, evidently in his capacity as an ‘interested ecclesiastic’ (i.e. responsible for the diocese in which the land lay), to draw up a priuilegium or diploma in respect of a grant recently made.115 A crucial development arose from observations made by Neil Ker, in the mid-1950s, about similarities between the script of royal diplomas written in the central decades of the tenth century and the script of entries in the ‘Parker’ manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written apparently at Winchester during the same period.116 The work of Harmer and Ker informed the series of seminal papers on Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas published by Dr Pierre Chaplais in the mid112

113

114 115

116

F. M. Stenton, The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955), and English Historical Documents c. 500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 1955), 2nd ed. (London, 1979), cited here as EHD. M. P. Parsons, ‘Some scribal memoranda for Anglo-Saxon charters of the 8th and 9th centuries’, Mitteilungen des österreichischen Instituts für Geschichtsforschung, Erg. Bd. 14 (1939), 13–32. For the charters of St Gall, see above, p. 40. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, p. 41. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, pp. 34–41. The three writs are: S 1105 (ASWrits 55), authorizing Wulfwig, bishop of Dorchester, to draw up a boc in respect of an estate in Oxfordshire, for Saint-Denis (below, pp. 130–1); S 1067 (North 13), authorizing Ealdred, archbishop of York, to draw up a priuilegium in respect of the lands belonging to Beverley minster; and S 1115 (Wells 37), authorizing Giso, bishop of Wells, to draw up a priuilegium in respect of an estate in Somerset, for himself. The practice is also known to have been adopted by King Æthelred in the early eleventh century (below, pp. 124–5). See also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 19–20; Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxxiv–lxxvi; and Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 1061. (Abbreviations for volumes in the British Academy Series ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters’ are listed in Appendix III, pp. 181–2). N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), pp. lix and 57–9 (no. 39), with particular reference to S 636 (BCS 926) and the annal for 951 in the Parker chronicle.

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1960s.117 Chaplais was acutely aware of the striking contrast between Carolingian and Ottonian diplomas, on the one hand, and Anglo-Saxon diplomas, on the other; and if the former advertised so clearly their status as products of a proper ‘chancery’, the latter patently did not. It followed that while an Anglo-Saxon royal diploma which survived in single-sheet form, written in a hand judged to be contemporary with the given date, might be described as an ‘apparent original’, it could and should not be accorded the status of a ‘true original’ unless it also bore physical or palaeographical evidence consistent (perhaps) with its use in an act of conveyance.118 The principle yielded effective and important results for the earlier period;119 but the results must have seemed less than clear for the series of single-sheet diplomas from the archives of Exeter Cathedral, and it was in this context that Chaplais went so far as to suggest that a blank sheet was used in the ceremony, and was then returned to the beneficiary so that an ecclesiastical scribe could ‘write down the charter at leisure’.120 Prompted also by Harmer’s remarks on ‘interested ecclesiastics’, Chaplais extended his view of charters with a suggestion which tied things together in a compelling way. As religious life declined in the ninth century, the production of royal diplomas came for a while, during the first half of the tenth century, to be concentrated in the small number of ecclesiastical scriptoria which remained active, notably at Winchester and Canterbury; but then, as the reform movement picked up, in the third quarter of the tenth century, other scriptoria came into operation and were themselves able to produce diplomas on behalf of various beneficiaries (including laymen). In other words, during this period, there is no evidence that diplomas ‘were drafted or written in what might be called, even loosely, a central royal secretariat’; they were produced ‘not in a self-staffed royal secretariat, but at all times in monastic or episcopal scriptoria’; and ‘the drafting and writing of the diplomas was a local affair, involving only the beneficiary or a near-by ecclesiastical scriptorium’.121 It followed, most elegantly, that the

117

118

119

120 121

R. Sharpe, ‘Pierre Chaplais 1920–2006’, Biographical Memoirs of the British Academy 11 (2012), 115–50, at 135–7. For an early formulation of his views, see P. Chaplais, ‘The original charters of Herbert and Gervase, abbots of Westminster (1121–1157)’ [1962], reprinted in his Essays in Medieval Diplomacy and Administration (London, 1981), no. XVIII, pp. 89–112, at 89. For the terms ‘apparent original’ and ‘true original’, see P. Chaplais, ‘The authenticity of the royal Anglo-Saxon diplomas of Exeter’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 39 (1966), 1–34, reprinted in his Essays in Medieval Diplomacy and Administration, no. XV, pp. 1–34, at 3. P. Chaplais, ‘Some early Anglo-Saxon diplomas on single sheets: originals or copies?’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 3.7 (1968), 315–36, reprinted in and cited from Prisca Munimenta, ed. F. Ranger (London, 1973), pp. 63–87. Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon diplomas of Exeter’, pp. 33–4 (modified in the reprinted version); cf. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 36 n. 66. P. Chaplais, ‘The origin and authenticity of the royal Anglo-Saxon diploma’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 3.2 (1965), 48–61, and ‘The Anglo-Saxon chancery: from the diploma to the writ’, ibid. 3.4 (1966), 160–76, reprinted in and cited from Prisca Munimenta, ed. Ranger, 28–42 and 43–62; with ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon diplomas of Exeter’.



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‘authenticity’ of an Anglo-Saxon royal diploma lay not in a seal, or in a notarial subscription, or in any other physical evidence of ‘chancery’ origin, but in its inherent qualities as a document produced in a religious house by a draftsman or scribe working for an abbot, or for a bishop, or even for an archbishop, and so in the trust placed in such men by grantors and beneficiaries alike. The position developed by Chaplais had other implications, extending far beyond the arcane field of Anglo-Saxon diplomatic.122 Most obviously, it affected understanding of the use (or non-use) of the written word for the purposes of royal government, and had a bearing, therefore, on the study of literacy in medieval government and society.123 It also affected the perception of the role of religious houses during the heyday of the monastic reform movement, in the tenth century; and if particular houses served on the king’s behalf as agencies for the production of royal diplomas, it would affect the way that diplomas had to be edited and criticized. It would have a bearing at the same time on the understanding of the place of the ‘book’, or charter, as a physical object, in the operation of an important aspect of a king’s interaction with religious houses, and with his ealdormen and thegns, and on the ways in which disputes about land were conducted at royal and other assemblies. More generally, it appeared to follow that diplomas, far from being products of royal government, would have to be regarded as ‘literary’ accounts of royal action, and that the lists of witnesses which were integral to the diplomas could not be regarded as reliable records of attendance at royal assemblies. Uncertainty about the circumstances in which diplomas were produced thus generated uncertainly when it came to be asked how diplomas could be used as historical evidence.124 It was during the 1950s and 1960s that the surviving corpus of charters was brought under the kind of control essential for further progress. Peter Sawyer began his work on what would become a comprehensive catalogue of all surviving documents: classifying them by kingdom or type; providing full details of manuscripts, editions and comments; and arranging each series of texts in a meaningful order.125 For their part, H. P. R. Finberg and Cyril Hart published significant contributions to the ‘Leicester’ series of regional guides.126 These advances led at the same time to the inception in the mid-1960s of a 122

123

124 125 126

For invaluable reflections on the field as a whole, from the perspective of the early 1970s, see N. Brooks, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: the work of the last twenty years’, ASE 3 (1974), 211–31, reprinted in N. Brooks, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: recent work’, in his Anglo-Saxon Myths: State and Church 400–1066 (London, 2000), pp. 181–215, at 181–202. P. Wormald, ‘The uses of literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and its neighbours’, TRHS 5th ser. 27 (1977), 94–114. For a further manifestation of the impact, see M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (London, 1979), pp. 12–17; largely unchanged in the 2nd ed. (London, 1993), pp. 26–32, but significantly modified in the 3rd ed. (London, 2013), pp. 23, 30–5 and 336–8. See also above, n. 86. Above, n. 62; see also C. Insley, ‘Where did all the charters go? Anglo-Saxon charters and the new politics of the eleventh century’, ANS 24 (2002), 109–27, esp. 108–11. An account by Peter Sawyer of his work on the preparation of his catalogue is available on the ‘Kemble’ website. For further details, see Brooks, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: recent work’, pp. 183–4, and Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: lost and found’, p. 46 n. 8.

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collaborative research project, organized under the joint auspices of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society, which had the aim of achieving publication of a new comprehensive edition of the charters. Recent developments in the understanding of charters helped to determine the rationale behind the project, to justify the need, and to show how such a daunting task might best be approached. The norm on the Continent was for the diplomas of one ruler to be brought together and presented in due chronological order, and for ‘private’ (non-royal) charters to be treated separately. For Anglo-Saxon England, it was already taken for granted, if not well established, that for the early period it was necessary to distinguish between various diplomatic traditions associated with different ecclesiastical centres.127 The principle adopted for the new edition of Anglo-Saxon charters was, necessarily, that all texts, private as well as royal, in Latin as well as in the vernacular, should be approached, edited, criticized and published in their respective ‘archival’ contexts, in other words as they came to be preserved and as they were transmitted (or fabricated) at different houses during the Middle Ages; but it was expected at the same time that the approach would accord with the notion of the emergence of different diplomatic traditions. The first volume in the series (for Rochester) was published in 1973, followed by the second (for Burton-upon-Trent) in 1979, and the third (for Sherborne) in 1988. A rate of progress of three volumes in fifteen years was described in 1995 as ‘glacial’;128 but the publication of the fourth volume (for St Augustine’s, Canterbury), in the same year, marked the beginning of a flow which by 2014 should bring the series to the publication of its twentieth volume.129 The volumes which form part of the new collaborative edition include detailed remarks on all aspects of any charters preserved in single-sheet form, and further discussion of archival, diplomatic and historical contexts. When complete, the new edition will present the corpus of charters in a series of over thirty volumes. It is of course the way that the charters have to be approached, edited, and judged in relation to each other. It is also the key to unlocking all that the charters can reveal about the foundation and endowment of the religious house, how it ‘negotiated’ the Norman Conquest, how it cultivated or improved a sense of its past in the later Middle Ages, and what became of its muniments 127

128

129

See Parsons, ‘Scribal memoranda’, with Chaplais, ‘Origin and authenticity’, p. 36. The first substantive analysis of local diplomatic traditions was N. P. Brooks, ‘The pre-Conquest charters of Christ Church, Canterbury’, unpublished D.Phil. dissertation (University of Oxford, 1968); see also Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 327–30, with Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury. P. Wormald, ‘Frederic William Maitland and the earliest English law’, PBA 89 (1996), 1–20, at 5; modified as reprinted in his Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: law as text, image and experience (London, 1999), p. 49. The progress is owed in large measure to Dr Susan Kelly, and to support received from several funding agencies. The most recent volumes are Charters of Glastonbury Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 15 (Oxford, 2012); Charters of Northern Houses, ed. D. A. Woodman, AS Charters 16 (Oxford, 2012); and Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, ed. N. Brooks and S. E. Kelly, 2 vols., AS Charters 17–18 (Oxford, 2013). A list of all volumes in the series can be found on the ‘Kemble’ website; see also Appendix III, pp. 180–2.



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in times of upheaval, whether in the 1530s or the 1640s. No less important, however, is the way an edition organized in this way raises awareness of a basic principle which informs the study of Anglo-Saxon charters at every turn: that comparison between texts preserved in different and presumably independent archival contexts is of its nature one the most powerful tools at our disposal. It is to be hoped, in this connection, that it will be possible in the fullness of time to produce editions of the Latin diplomas of a particular period, kingdom or king, in which attention can be directed back to the fundamental continuities of the diplomatic tradition across all archives. Such editions would represent a return full circle to the editions of Kemble and Birch; they would show at the same time how the full potential of the Latin and vernacular records can be realized for historical, literary and other purposes. The publication of Professor Sawyer’s catalogue of Anglo-Saxon charters in 1968, complemented by the appearance of the first two volumes of the new series in the 1970s, with the promise of so many more to come, defined the parameters of the field and showed the way forward. Scholars from Stevenson onwards had been aware of the literary dimensions of royal diplomas; but the Latin glossary provided by Michael Lapidge for Sawyer’s Charters of Burton Abbey represented a significant advance.130 As we have seen, Dr Chaplais had challenged some basic assumptions about the production of royal diplomas in the tenth century, with far reaching implications. His Scribe 2 (‘Æthelstan C’) and Scribe 3 (‘Edmund C’) settled down firmly at the Old Minster, Winchester, and with their colleagues seem to have ‘pioneered and propagated new standards and new models of handwriting’.131 Of course there remained scope for differences of opinion, leading in due course to further debate. In the course of a review of the diplomatic tradition in the tenth century, undertaken in the mid-1970s, I formed the impression, for my own part, that throughout the period from 925 to 975 royal diplomas were produced by a form of ‘central’ agency, operating on behalf of the king, and on the occasion of royal assemblies, for different beneficiaries; it was clear at the same time that procedures were flexible, and that other arrangements were also available.132 Dr Chaplais held firmly 130

131

132

Sawyer, Charters of Burton Abbey, pp. 89–91. See also D. Bullough, ‘The educational tradition in England from Alfred to Ælfric: teaching utriusque linguae’ [1972], reprinted in his Carolingian Renewal: sources and heritage (Manchester, 1991), pp. 297–334, esp. 304–5; and remarks by Professor Lapidge in the papers collected in his Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066 (London, 1993), e.g. pp. 20–1, 31, 94–5, 137–9, 184–90, 305–7 and 495. The literary frame of reference for diplomas may be judged from Dr Rosalind Love’s entries in the Fontes Anglo-Saxonici online database (University of Oxford), reached by searching under ‘Anglo-Saxon Author’, choosing ‘Anon (Lat.)’, and selecting ‘Show Sources’ for ‘Charter S876’, etc. M. B. Parkes, ‘The palaeography of the Parker Manuscript of the Chronicle, Laws and Sedulius, and historiography at Winchester in the late ninth and tenth centuries’, ASE 5 (1976), 149–71, esp. 162–3 and 167. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 14–153, esp. 79–82; S. Keynes, ‘Regenbald the Chancellor (sic)’, ANS 10 (1988), 185–222, at 185–7; ‘Royal government and the written word’, pp. 255–7; and S. Keynes, ‘Chancery, Royal’, in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge et al., pp. 97–8.

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to the view that there was no such thing as a ‘royal chancery’, arguing that the production of diplomas was delegated by the king to particular bishops or abbots who had been present at a royal assembly, but who for practical reasons would have performed their task some time after the event.133 A wider palaeographical dimension was brought to the subject by Professor David Dumville, at first from his analysis of the development of Anglo-Saxon Square minuscule in the first half of the tenth century,134 and then from his study of the emergence of Anglo-Caroline minuscule in the third quarter of the tenth century.135 He saw the succession of scribes as a driving force behind the development of ‘a new kind of royal documentation’, with significant changes taking place at significant times.136 Patrick Wormald weighed in soon afterwards with some pertinent remarks on the supposed ‘Winchester’ credentials of certain mid-tenthcentury scribes.137 Dr Charles Insley expressed the view that the production of a charter should be detached from the royal assembly, and that the ‘actual charter was drawn up on a later occasion’.138 Professor Nicholas Brooks suggested that attention should be focused on the nature of royal assemblies, as occasions when people would come together, when a person in holy orders might move from the company of a bishop or an abbot into the king’s household, and vice versa, and when plenty of expertise might be available.139 Dr Susan Thompson undertook a systematic survey of diplomas preserved in single-sheet form, and in this context formed her own view of their production.140 The most substantial 133

134

135 136 137 138

139 140

P. Chaplais, ‘The royal Anglo-Saxon “chancery” of the tenth century revisited’, in Studies in Medieval History presented to R. H. C. Davis, ed. Henry Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore (London, 1985), pp. 41–51, at 42–4, with his review of David Dumville’s English Caroline Script (1993), in Journal of the Society of Archivists 16 (1995), 105–7. D. N. Dumville, ‘English Square minuscule script: the background and earliest phases’, ASE 16 (1987), 147–79, at 173–5 (Phase II, including diplomas of ‘Æthelstan A’ and ‘Æthelstan C’, of the 930s), and ‘English Square minuscule script: the mid-century phases’, ASE 23 (1994), 133–64, at 144–7 (Phase III [Decorative], including diplomas of ‘Æthelstan C’ and ‘Edmund C’, of the 940s and 950s) and 152–5 (Phase IV [Caroline features] of the 960s, including diplomas of ‘Edgar A’). D. N. Dumville, English Caroline Script and Monastic History: studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950–1030 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 16–18, 52–3, 142–3 and 152–3. Dumville, ‘English Square minuscule script: the mid-century phases’, esp. pp. 156–64, on ‘The royal chancery and the development of the Square minuscule’. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 167–71, noting that ‘only the most porous of membranes separated the culture of the court from that of the major royal abbeys’. C. Insley, ‘Charters and episcopal scriptoria in the Anglo-Saxon south-west’, EME 7 (1998), 173–97, esp. 179–84 (‘The Anglo-Saxon chancery debate’), at 183–4. Cf. Insley, ‘Where did all the charters go?’, pp. 118–19, and ‘Assemblies and charters in late AngloSaxon England’, in Political Assemblies in the Earlier Middle Ages, ed. P. S. Barnwell and M. Mostert (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 47–59, at 57, entertaining the possibility that charters might have been read out at assemblies; and C. Insley, ‘Rhetoric and ritual in late Anglo-Saxon charters’, in Medieval Legal Process, ed. Mostert and Barnwell, pp. 109–21, at 114, on the use of charters in ceremonies. Brooks, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: recent work’, pp. 202–15, on publications of 1973–98, at 208–9. S. D. Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas: a palaeography, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 6 (Woodbridge, 2006), esp. pp. 3–18 and



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and sustained contribution to the debate has been that made by Dr Susan Kelly, first in the introduction to her edition of the charters of Abingdon, published in 2000–1, and most recently in the introduction to her edition of the charters of Glastonbury, published in 2012. For the period from the accession of Æthelstan onwards, normal procedure seems to have been that diplomas were drawn up some time after the ceremony of conveyance, by ‘local’ scribes, using notes which had originated at the assembly.141 In the early 960s the most important of these agencies was the scribe known to scholarship as ‘Edgar A’, who is identified (following Drögereit, Chaplais, and others) as an Abingdon scribe, perhaps Abbot Æthelwold himself; and in a subtle extension of this line of argument, it is suggested that as a mark of his special favour towards Æthelwold and Abingdon, King Edgar permitted or encouraged the abbot to draw up diplomas in the abbey to serve as title-deeds for some of the abbey’s estates.142 Dr Kelly has clarified matters further with her recent review of the diplomatic tradition in the central decades of the tenth century.143 She detects evidence of ‘dramatic changes’ at particular points, questioning whether such evidence is compatible with ‘the smooth pattern of development that we might expect if the central agency was a permanent institution with an unbroken history from the reign of Æthelstan to that of Æthelred’, and suggesting instead that it might reflect ‘the fluctuating domination of certain scribes or ecclesiastical supervisors’.

Royal Diplomas from Æthelstan to Edgar The debate about the production of charters in the second and third quarters of the tenth century is likely to continue; and before exploring in any greater detail the place of royal diplomas in the context of royal assemblies, during these years, it would be as well to set out my own understanding of the relationship between the various diplomatic traditions which can be traced through the period. There are cases, in the ninth century and even before, when an agency of production seems to have been ‘royal’ as distinct from episcopal or monastic. It is arguable, in particular, that a ‘West Saxon’ diplomatic tradition can be detected in the central decades of the ninth century, quite different from the ‘Kentish’ traditions associated with Canterbury and Rochester, yet not obviously connected with either of the West Saxon sees at Winchester and

141 142

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127–8; see also S. D. Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Vernacular Documents: a palaeography, Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, Occasional Publications 1 (Manchester, 2010). The first book originated as a Manchester PhD thesis in 1997, and does not take account of more recent work. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, esp. pp. lxxix–lxxxii; Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 1008; and below, n. 243. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxxvii, cxxvii–cxxxi, and Charters of Glastonbury, p. 121. For a different assessment of the in-bred diplomas in favour of Abingdon abbey, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 10–13. Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 118–24.

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Sherborne.144 There are signs of a distinctive tradition again in the 890s, perhaps connected in some way with the earlier tradition and to be associated with the emergence in the 880s and 890s of the Alfredian polity known to contemporaries as the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons.145 A group of closely related diplomas dated 903, in favour of Ealdorman Æthelfrith, were drawn up in common form to replace a number of title-deeds which had been lost in a fire;146 several of the other surviving charters from the first decade of the tenth century appear to represent the output of agencies which were probably an integral part of the political and ecclesiastical establishments at Winchester.147 For a reason or combination of reasons which of their nature are difficult for us to fathom, and probably beyond our reach, there was a decline in the output of new diplomas in the first quarter of the tenth century, which manifests itself as a yawning gap in the surviving record from c. 910 to 925, in other words from a point in the reign Edward the Elder to a point soon after the accession of his son Æthelstan.148 The explanation lies hidden, perhaps, in considerations arising from developments within Edward’s extended kingdom, compounded by the re-arrangement of the West Saxon dioceses; a complicating factor was doubtless the need to sustain a co-ordinated campaign against the Scandinavians settled in eastern England.149 Diplomas break surface again in 925, with a charter issued in the name of King Æthelstan on the occasion of his coronation at Kingston.150 We move thereafter into a period, coinciding with the second and third quarters of the tenth century (925–75), and thus neatly encompassing the reigns of Æthelstan, Edmund, Eadred, Eadwig and Edgar, which can with good reason be regarded as the golden age of the Anglo-Saxon royal diploma. The roots may lie in procedures and conventions stretching back at least 250 years, and the subsequent development of the diploma may extend for another 100 years; but it is during 144 145 146

147

148

149

150

Keynes, ‘West Saxon charters’, esp. pp. 1131–4; see also Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 86–92. Keynes, ‘West Saxon charters’, pp. 1135–41. Keynes, ‘West Saxon charters’, pp. 1143–4, with S. Keynes, ‘A charter of King Edward the Elder for Islington’, Historical Research 66 (1993), 303–16, citing S 367 (CantCC 101), S 371 (Glast 22) and S 367a (LonStP 10). Keynes, ‘West Saxon charters’, pp. 1141–3 and 1144–5, and S. Keynes, ‘Edward, king of the Anglo-Saxons’, in Edward the Elder 899–924, ed. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill (London, 2001), pp. 40–66, at 50–1. For discussion, see Stenton, Latin Charters, pp. 52–3, and, more recently: Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 79–81, ‘Charter of King Edward for Islington’, p. 314, ‘England, c. 900–1016’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, III: c. 900–c. 1024, ed. T. Reuter (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 456–84, at 465–6, and ‘Edward, king of the AngloSaxons’, pp. 55–6; D. N. Dumville, Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 151–3, and ‘English Square minuscule script (II)’, pp. 157–8; and Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. 78 and 82–3, Charters of St Paul’s London, pp. 157–8, and Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 338–9. It may be that we have something to learn by analogy from the decline in the number of diplomas issued by west Frankish rulers in the late ninth and tenth centuries, on which see Koziol, Politics of Memory and Identity, esp. p. 307. S 394 (CantStA 26), dated 4 September 925, which is probably no more than an abstract of the diploma in question.



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this period that we see the diploma reaching what was perhaps the peak of its development as an instrument of royal government.151 Of course there are many complications, arising not least from the difficulty of distinguishing the wheat from the chaff, or the signal from the noise, or the authentic diplomas from the mangled, bowdlerized and fabricated texts which came to be preserved alongside and among them. If one were, for the sake of an argument, boldly to leave aside those texts which one might judge to be spurious (in itself of course a highly contentious matter), it would emerge that the texts of roughly 375 diplomas survive from the period. This works out at seven or eight for each year; but in fact the texts were not distributed evenly across the period, since an exceptionally high number (c. 60) survive from the single year 956, and there are several years for which fewer than (say) three survive. It is difficult to establish by force of any argument what proportion this might represent of the diplomas issued during these years. One would have to take into account the extent to which some genuine charters of the period might lie behind those deemed to be problematic or spurious; and one would also have to bear in mind that other things were patently not equal, in the sense, for example, that the preConquest archives of some religious houses are much better represented than others. One might also look to the Continent at rates of production and rates of survival under rather different circumstances. Suffice it to say, however, that one would be pleasantly surprised if the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas were to represent as much as one tenth of those originally issued; on which basis a figure of seventy or eighty each year, spread unevenly across fifty years, might be an underestimation of a hypothetical reality. The diplomas of King Æthelstan (924–39) represent a striking development from the diplomas of his immediate and more distant predecessors.152 After minding the ‘gap’ across the period from 910 to 925, and registering the existence of a small group of interesting texts for Æthelstan’s earliest years,153 we encounter the extraordinary series of diplomas which can be associated with the person known to scholarship as ‘Æthelstan A’. If one respectfully sets aside the charters judged to be spurious, it emerges that ‘Æthelstan A’ appears to have exercised or to have enjoyed a monopoly over the production of charters for a

151

152

153

For a demonstration of the point in graphic form, see S. Keynes, An Atlas of Attestations in Anglo-Saxon Charters c. 670–1066 (Cambridge, 2002), Table XXVI, sheet 1 (compared with sheets 2 and 3, for the later tenth and eleventh centuries), superseding Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 47 (fig. 2). The Atlas of Attestations is available on the ‘Kemble’ website. King Æthelstan’s diplomas were the subject of ‘The charters of King Æthelstan and the making of the kingdom of the English’, given as a Toller Lecture at the University of Manchester in 2001, an expanded version of which will appear in Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas 871–975, AS Charters Supplementary Series 2 (in preparation). See also Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, p. 119, and Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 871–2 and 878. S 395 (Bur 2), S 394 (CantStA 26), and the pair S 396 (Abing 21) and S 397 (Bur 3); see also S 1417 (WinchNM 9), from Winchester, which survives in its original form.

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period of seven years, from a point in 928 to a point in 935.154 In 927 Æthelstan had gained recognition as king ‘of the English’; so it is as if the advent of a ‘unified’ kingdom was accompanied deliberately and pointedly by the introduction of a new form of diploma, produced it seems under stricter or more direct control than had been the case hitherto. ‘Æthelstan A’ was a well educated man, steeped in the works of Aldhelm and other authors,155 probably a priest in the king’s household, and perhaps with special responsibility for keeping track of the calendar (among other duties). As the draftsman and scribe of the king’s diplomas, he was concerned above all to project a sense of the grandeur of Æthelstan’s kingship: in the aspirations conveyed by the royal style; in the precision and detail of the dating-clause, as a reflection of royal itineration;156 in the parade of the names of the great and the good who were present at the assembly where the grant was made; and in the soaring exuberance of his prose. Each of the four groups into which his diplomas can be classified is distinguished from the others by the employment of a particular proem. The first and second groups represent successive stages in the development of the formulaic structure of the text, until the perfection represented by the third and fourth groups was achieved; but he provided his distinctive dating-clauses and witness-lists from the outset, and kept to a single theme for the sanction (with variations). The texts are not slavishly copied from each other (or from a formulary), but have every appearance of being tweaked or adjusted each time they were used, as the fancy took him. In addition to the place of issue and the year of grace, the datingclauses provide the regnal year, the indiction, the epact, and the concurrents, as well as the day of the month and the age of the moon. The indiction, epacts and concurrents were presumably read off for the year from an Easter Table; the regnal years are interesting in themselves, and the age of the moon would have been calculated with the help of other computistical tables. The witness-lists are no less extraordinary, not merely for their great length, but for their inclusion (when appropriate) of Welsh sub-kings, and (as a matter of course) of ‘superfluous’ bishops, abbots, and ealdormen (duces) drawn from the ‘Scandinavian’

154

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156

For details of the ‘Æthelstan A’ charters, see Atlas of Attestations, Table XXVII, where the surviving examples are classified in four groups. A number of them are available in modern editions, with detailed commentaries. Group I: S 399 (Glast 23). Group II: S 403 (Sel 17). Group III: S 413 (Abing 23); S 1604 (Abing 24); S 418 (WinchNM 10); S 419 (Shaft 8); S 379 (WinchNM 8); S 422 (Sherb 7); S 423 (Sherb 8). Group IV: S 425 (CantCC 106); S 407 (North 1); S 426 (Glast 24); S 434 (Malm 26); S 435 (Malm 27). Extract: S 1792 (LonStP 11). See also S 1206 (Sel 16), S 408 (Abing 27), S 409 (Abing 25), S 410 (Abing 26) and S 436 (Malm 28). In addition to the work of Michael Lapidge (above, n. 130), see S. Gwara, ‘A record of Anglo-Saxon pedagogy: Aldhelm’s Epistola ad Heahfridum and its gloss’, Journal of Medieval Latin 6 (1996), 84–134; J. Stevenson, ‘The Irish contribution to Anglo-Latin hermeneutic prose’, in Ogma: Essays in Celtic Studies, ed. M. Richter and J.-M. Picard (Dubin, 2002), pp. 268–82, at 272–6; and D. A. Woodman, ‘“Æthelstan A” and the rhetoric of rule’, ASE 42 (2013), forthcoming. Above, pp. 35–6.



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parts of his kingdom.157 In his earliest surviving diplomas, written at Exeter on Easter Day in 928, ‘Æthelstan A’ refers to the charter which the king attests as a ‘little document’ (breuiculam) ‘inscribed with the unsightliness of ink-staining, and disfigured by the tearful dripping of a virgin pen (atre fuscationis pallore depictam ac lacrimosa uirginei forcipis destillatione fedatam)’;158 but he was being falsely modest. There is nothing remotely comparable, in the entire corpus of Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas, to this coherent group of highly distinctive texts, spread over seven years. The elevated position accorded regularly in the witness-lists to Ælfwine (Ælle), bishop of Lichfield, suggests that ‘Æthelstan A’ held him in high regard.159 It would be tempting to press the evidence further and to suggest that ‘Æthelstan A’ was none other than the bishop himself;160 but it seems more likely that ‘Æthelstan A’ was of Mercian origin (and respected Bishop Ælfwine for that reason), that he had acquired his learning in one or other of the several religious houses in that region, and had entered Æthelstan’s service during the king’s early years among the Mercians.161 It is only by dwelling on the glories and complexities of the diplomas drafted and written by ‘Æthelstan A’ that one can fully appreciate the elegant simplicity of the diplomas that followed. The new format was introduced in 935, apparently while ‘Æthelstan A’ was still active, though it happens not to be represented in surviving single sheets until 939; most significantly, it became a ‘standard’, effectively diagnostic, aspect of the diplomatic ‘mainstream’ for the best part of 25 years, from the mid-930s to the late 950s.162 It was in essence a matter of graphic design, as if in the mid-930s those charged with responsibility for the production of Æthelstan’s diplomas, going forward, had invented the concept of the ‘iCharter’.163 The adoption of the new format might also have represented a triumph, over the particular perspective espoused or personified by ‘Æthelstan A’, of others in the king’s service who saw things differently. While it is dangerous to fasten on negative evidence, one cannot fail to notice the striking ‘absence’, from the witness-lists of Æthelstan’s later diplomas, of Wulfstan I, archbishop of York, and of the bishops of Lichfield and Hereford.164 A possible inference, that tensions and even divisions were arising within Æthel157 158 159 160 161

162

163 164

Atlas of Attestations, Tables XXXVI–XXXIX. The incidence of Scandinavian names among the ealdormen contrasts with the composition of the lists of thegns. S 400 (BCS 663), from the Old Minster, Winchester, and S 399 (Glast 23). Atlas of Attestations, Table XXXVII. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. lxxv, n. 16, with her commentary on S 413 (Abing 23); see also Foot, Æthelstan, p. 98. On the wider significance of these diplomas, see Keynes, ‘England, c. 900–1016’, p. 470; see also Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 434–5, and Foot, Æthelstan, pp. 27, 70–3 and 77–91 and 259–65. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 24–5, 44–5, 67–9 and 71; Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, p. 119; Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 877–9, on S 447 (CantCC 107). For an interesting analogy, see Koziol, Politics of Memory and Identity, pp. 55 and 57–8. For aspects of the design, see Appendix II, below, pp. 161–2. Atlas of Attestations, Table XXXVII, with S. Keynes, ‘Wulfstan I’, in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge et al., pp. 512–13.

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stan’s kingdom ‘of the English’, draws strength from the special treatment now accorded to the bishops of London and Winchester in the witness-lists, as if indicative of a significantly different outlook at the king’s court. Striking too is the apparent ‘absence’ of Ealdorman Æthelstan in 937 (the year of the Brunanburh campaign), though he reappears thereafter.165 The evidence is tenuous; but it seems likely that the introduction of the new format for royal diplomas in 935 reflected some deeper changes taking place at King Æthelstan’s court and within his kingdom.166 The diplomatic ‘mainstream’ can be traced from the closing years of Æthelstan’s reign, through the reign of King Edmund (939–46) and into the reign of King Eadred (946–55). The scribe known to scholarship as ‘Æthelstan C’ had produced a diploma for King Æthelstan in 939, and continued to write diplomas for King Edmund; the scribe known to scholarship as ‘Edmund C’ wrote several diplomas for King Edmund, but would appear to have begun his career as a royal priest during Æthelstan’s reign.167 The impression of diplomatic continuity from the 930s into the 940s is strengthed when all surviving diplomas are taken into account, including those preserved only in cartulary copies. At the same time the diplomas have their own story to tell, suggested, for example, by the unusually large number which survive from the year 940, and by the composition of the witness-lists when judged as records of attendance at royal assemblies.168 Political circumstances had changed in the immediate aftermath of Æthelstan’s death, and the effect can be seen in the royal styles applied to Edmund and Eadred.169 No less interesting, however, as evidence of religious learning and Latin style during the same period, are the proems, sanctions and other formulaic elements, for all that they can or might yet reveal, as a vibrant body of literature, about the ways in which formulas were developed, modi165 166

167

168

169

Atlas of Attestations, Table XXXVIII. If only to judge from royal styles, the wider political outlook remained much the same. In the diplomas of ‘Æthelstan A’, from 930, the king was styled, in the superscription, king of the English and of Britain; he was not normally accorded a royal style, as such, in his attestation. In the diplomas of 935–9, Æthelstan is styled king of the English and of Britain in the superscription, and is now, as a rule, also king ‘of Britain’ in his attestation. The usage changes in Edmund’s diplomas (below, n. 169). S. Keynes, ‘King Athelstan’s books’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge and H. Gneuss (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 143–201, at 147–53, citing Chaplais, ‘Anglo-Saxon chancery’, pp. 46–7; see also Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 909–10. Atlas of Attestations, Tables XLI–XLVI. On variation in the number of diplomas issued from year to year during the course of a reign, in Frankish contexts, see Koziol, Politics of Memory and Identity, esp. pp. 55 and 125. Keynes, ‘England, c. 900–1016’, p. 473; see also G. Molyneaux, ‘Why were some tenthcentury English kings presented as rulers of Britain?’, TRHS 6th ser. 21 (2011), 59–91. Edmund is styled king of the English in the superscription and in his attestation, without reference to ‘Britain’. A striking exception is S 498 (Glast 33), for land in Devon, in which Edmund is king of the English ‘and ruler of this province of the land of the Britons (huiusque prouincie Britonum ruris gubernator)’, where one suspects some ‘local’ interference. For further remarks on the diplomatic tradition of this period, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 44–6.



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fied and shared by those involved in the production of royal diplomas. It is a reasonable presumption that the draftsmen and scribes of the majority of the diplomas issued in the years from c. 935 to c. 950 were members of a central or royal agency, and that they followed on in this capacity from ‘Æthelstan A’. Yet whereas ‘Æthelstan A’ would appear to have been a single person, operating on his own (as draftsman and scribe), his successors in the later 930s and 940s should perhaps be regarded as members of a larger team. Moreover, this mainstream agency was itself complemented from time to time in the 940s by a different agency, responsible for the so-called ‘alliterative’ charters (discussed further below). In other words, and as one might expect, arrangements were modified as the years passed. A significant break in the continuity of the diplomatic mainstream occurs in or about the year 950, in the middle of the reign of King Eadred. The break manifests itself in two ways, presumably connected to each other: a high proportion of the surviving diplomas from the years 950 and 951, and from the years 953 and 955, prove on examination to belong not to the mainstream but to two other diplomatic traditions; and there was an overall decline in the number of diplomas issued, to the extent that none at all survives from the years 952 and 954.170 It is a matter of some considerable interest for our understanding of events in the early 950s that the mainstream agency which had dominated the production of diplomas from c. 935 to c. 950 should become all but invisible thereafter (for the rest of Eadred’s reign). It is as if Eadred had to do largely without or perhaps had himself rejected the services of the well established agency, and had or chose to rely instead on the services of the two other agencies: of which the one, associated in some way with Coenwald, bishop of Worcester, is the one that had been used intermittently, since the early 940s, first by Edmund and then by Eadred;171 and of which the other, associated in some way with Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury, would appear to have come into operation in 951.172 It is a remarkable phenomenon; and no doubt the explanation went far deeper than simply the failure of whatever arrangements had been in place before. The short reign of King Eadwig (955–9) is of special interest for the extraordinarily high number of diplomas which survive from the single year 956, and for the scope that all of Eadwig’s diplomas provide for further diplomatic and historical analysis – the production of diplomas in general, and the changing circumstances of Eadwig’s reign.173 It is important to recognize that the mainstream agency is itself well attested again from 956 until the end of Eadwig’s reign. Yet Eadwig is not credited with his own alphabet of scribes, and one could 170

171 172 173

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 46 and 48, and ‘England, c. 900–1016’, pp. 474–5. For the incidence of surviving charters in the early 950s, see Atlas of Attestations, Table XXVI, p. 1 (superseding the table in Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 47). For the ‘alliterative’ charters, see below, pp. 93–5. For the ‘Dunstan B’ charters, see below, pp. 95–7. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 48–69, and ‘England, c. 900–1016’, pp. 476–9, with Atlas of Attestations, Tables XXVI and XLVII–LIII, and S. Keynes, ‘King Eadwig (c. 940–959)’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison, 60 vols. (Oxford, 2004), vol. 17, pp. 539–42.

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be forgiven, therefore, for imagining that, in relation to his three predecessors and his immediate successor, he was disadvantaged in this respect.174 Of course it is no more than an accident of survival. Had more diplomas of 956 (Group I) survived in their original form, we can be sure that the scribe of the one that does survive would have recurred in another, and would thus have been dignified as ‘Eadwig A’, attracting attention not only for his early attempt at Caroline minuscule, but also for his remarkable departure from the ‘standard’ format.175 Had more diplomas of 956 (Group II) survived in their original form, two more scribes might have come into their own, in the same way, as ‘Eadwig B’ and ‘Eadwig C’ respectively, and given joint credit (interestingly) not only for their return to the standard format but also for their simultaneous use of a decorative chrismon as pictorial invocation.176 One of these scribes active in 956 (Group II) has been identified as the scribe of Eadwig’s diploma for Archbishop Oda in 957; but the identification is uncertain.177 A scribe active in 956 (Group IV) lurks not far behind what would appear to be a replica of a lost original diploma of Eadwig, or perhaps a very clever fabrication written by someone who had before him an original diploma;178 it is very likely that the scribe of the hypothetically ‘lost’ diploma in question also wrote the diploma for Archbishop Oda in 957. In short, the central agency or royal secretariat of the 940s, though hard to detect in the early 950s, was thriving again in the later 950s.179 The surviving corpus of diplomas issued in the name of King Edgar comprises approximately 120 texts, including about 10 issued by Edgar as king of the 174

175

176

177

178

179

Drögereit’s view that the ‘chancery’ collapsed in 951 is perhaps inseparable from his estimation of the significance of the deaths in that year of Theodred, bishop of London, and Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester (‘Gab es eine angelsächsische Königskanzlei?’, pp. 414–16). His curious failure to make anything of Eadwig’s charters can only be explained by his remark that they required further study. S 594 (Abing 54), with T. A. M. Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), p. xix. See also Dumville, English Caroline Script, pp. 16, 18 and 142, and Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. 227–9 (discussing the review mentioned above, n. 133). S 624 (Abing 65) and S 636 (BCS 926). On the ‘introduction’ of the chrismon in 956, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 68, with Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. 265 and 277. The occurrence of a decorated form in S 554 (Burt 12), in the name of King Eadred, dated 951, may be significant; the status of this diploma requires further investigation. For the identification between the scribes of S 624 (Abing 65) and S 646 (BCS 1347), from Ely, see T. A. M. Bishop, ‘A charter of King Edwy’, Bodleian Library Record 6 (1957), 369–73, with Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. 277; for expressions of doubt, see Keynes, Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Charters, p. 4, and J. Crick, ‘Norman imitation of pre-Conquest script: English evidence and some French comparanda’, in The Long Twelfth-Century View of the Anglo-Saxon Past, ed. M. Brett and D. A. Woodman (forthcoming). S 602 (Burt 17), included in Appendix II (D5). See Sawyer, Charters of Burton, pp. 28–9; Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 68 n. 133, and Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Charters, p. 4; superseded by Crick, ‘Norman imitation of pre-Conquest script’. Crick concludes that ‘the scribe of S 602 produced a remarkably faithful post-Conquest copy of an original diploma of Eadwig’. A more detailed discussion of the diplomas of the 940s and 950s will appear in AngloSaxon Royal Diplomas 871–975 (above, n. 152).



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Mercians and Northumbrians (957–9) and about 110 issued by him as king of the English (959–75); a further 50 texts, deemed problematic for one reason or another, must also be taken into account.180 When Edgar first became king, in 957, he would have needed to make his own arrangements for the production of diplomas; and it is interesting to find that the diplomatic evidence can be understood in terms of a small group of draftsmen or scribes, operating on the king’s behalf.181 One might expect that whatever arrangements had been employed by Edgar as king of the Mercians would have had some influence on the arrangements established after the reunification of the kingdom of the English in late 959. The majority of the diplomas issued in the early 960s which survive in single-sheet form were drawn up by the scribe known to scholarship as ‘Edgar A’; and it is reasonable to assume that the same scribe or agency was responsible for the other diplomas, cast in very similar terms, which survive from the same period but only in later copies. The question which arises is how, on this basis, should we characterize the agency in question. It has been suggested that ‘Edgar A’ was an Abingdon scribe; indeed, he has been identified as none other than Æthelwold, abbot of Abingdon 954–63 (bishop of Winchester 963–84), and it is supposed that he operated at Abingdon abbey.182 It has also been suggested that ‘Edgar A’ was a ‘royal’ scribe, arguably one of the priests who had operated on Edgar’s behalf from 957 to 959, who remained in the king’s service when Edgar succeeded to the re-unified kingdom, and became the key member of a putative royal secretariat in the early 960s, operating on the occasion of royal assemblies for a variety of different beneficiaries.183 The diplomas of ‘Edgar A’ mark a clear change from the format that had represented the norm in the years from c. 935 until c. 950, and again in the later 950s; but it is no more than a change that signifies that we move, after Eadwig’s death, into a new phase in the story of the diplomatic mainstream. Unlike ‘Æthelstan

180

181 182

183

For further details, see S. Keynes, ‘Conspectus of the charters of King Edgar’, in Edgar, King of the English 959–975: new interpretations, ed. D. Scragg (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 60–80, at 75–9. It should be stressed that the diplomatic tradition would look different were some of the charters deemed ‘problematic’ – including S 673 (Abing 84), S 729 (Muchelney) and S 788 (Pershore) – to be regarded as authentic. S. Keynes, ’Edgar, rex admirabilis’, in Edgar, King of the English 959–975, ed. Scragg, pp. 3–58, at 13–16, with n. 57, and ‘Conspectus of the charters of King Edgar’, pp. 64–5. Drögereit, ‘Gab es eine angelsächsische Königskanzlei?’, pp. 416–18; Chaplais, ‘Origin and authenticity’, p. 42, with ‘Anglo-Saxon chancery’, pp. 48–9, and ‘Royal AngloSaxon “chancery” revisited’, pp. 49–50; Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule, p. 9 (no. 11); C. Hart, ‘The earliest Suffolk charter’, in his The Danelaw (London, 1992), pp. 467–85, at 478–9; Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, esp. pp. cxv–cxxxi and 358–9, Charters of Peterborough, pp. 242–3, and Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 120 and 475–7; and J. Crick, ‘The art of writing: scripts and scribal production’, in The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature, ed. C. A. Lees (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 50–72, at 69. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 75–6, and ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 12–23, esp. 14–16. The key diplomas are S 681 (Pet 14) and S 680 (BCS 1051); on which see also Hart, ‘Danelaw and Mercian charters of the mid-tenth century’, pp. 449–52 (Egr9), and Kelly, Charters of Peterborough, pp. 242–3.

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A’ (in the period 928–35), ‘Edgar A’ (in the period 960–3) operated not on his own but as the most visible member of a team; and it seems that after his retirement or death in 963 (or perhaps it was after his translation to higher office), his example continued to be followed by those who remained in the king’s service. It is abundantly clear, at the same time, that other agencies were also involved in the production of Edgar’s diplomas. One such agency, which had produced at least two of Edgar’s diplomas in 958, for estates in the west midlands (Cheshire, Herefordshire), can be seen to have produced at least two more diplomas in 963, also for estates in the midlands (Shropshire, Derbyshire), representing another instance of continuity, to set beside ‘Edgar A’; all four diplomas are attested by the king with the formula scribere iussi, perhaps acknowledging an act of delegation to the agency in question.184 Another agency produced at least four diplomas for estates across the south-west (in Cornwall, Somerset, Devon and Dorset), including three which survive in single-sheet form, written by three different scribes; in one, the same formula scribere iussi is used of the diocesan bishop, perhaps reflecting a similar procedure in a different way.185 It is interesting, of course, that small groups of diplomas which appear to represent the delegation of charter production to particular agencies should be so clearly distinctive in themselves; for they also help in this way to define what is distinctive about the rest. Discerning the diplomatic tradition in the tenth century is a matter of looking for threads that connect the diplomas of one king or another, or of one region or another, or of one religious house or another; and of judging how best to make sense of any patterns or connections which emerge in the process. To my mind, a ‘mainstream’ tradition can be traced from 928 until the end of Edgar’s reign in 975, and beyond. As we have seen, there were significant changes in 935 and in 959; there was also a significant interruption in the early 950s. One need hardly stress that these fifty years themselves represented a period of great change, of various kinds and at various levels; and of course it is interesting to see how these changes are reflected in the diplomatic tradition, and how the draftsmen of a king’s diplomas might choose to project political aspirations which were not always as securely grounded as they might have wished. Certainly there were changes of personnel, and one significant interruption; but in the circumstances

184

185

S 667 (BCS 1041), from Chester, and S 677 (Wells 31), dated 958; and S 723 (BCS 1119), from the Old Minster, Winchester, and S 712a, possibly from Burton, dated 963: Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 69–70, and ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 13 and 15–16; N. Brooks et al., ‘A new charter of King Edgar’, ASE 13 (1984), 137–55, at 145–6; Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. lxxviii, and Charters of Bath and Wells, pp. 217–18. S 684 (BCS 1056), dated 960, from Exeter; S 697 (BCS 1072), from the Old Minster, Winchester; S 721 (Glast 50), dated 963; and S 736 (BCS 1165), from Abbotsbury, dated 965: Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 76 n. 153, and ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 15 and 19; Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon “chancery” revisited’, p. 50; Dumville, ‘English Square minuscule script: the mid-century phases’, p. 155 n. 117; and Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. cxv n. 128, and Charters of Glastonbury, p. 483.



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that prevailed in the central decades of the tenth century, a smooth pattern of development should not be expected.

Royal Assemblies and Royal Diplomas The protracted debate about the production of royal diplomas in the tenth century is best not polarized into a choice between two mutually exclusive alternatives, and reduced to a matter of the existence or otherwise of a royal ‘chancery’. The challenge is to identify and to characterize the arrangements that existed for the production of charters at any time from that of the earliest surviving examples that are generally regarded as authentic (670s) to the end of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ period (1066); and, within this period, to consider how we might be able to make sense of any changes or developments in relation to larger historical issues, and what scope there might have been for innovation and improvisation. At the heart of it all are the recurring scribes designated ‘Æthelstan A’, ‘Æthelstan C’, ‘Edmund C’ and ‘Edgar A’ who, with colleagues not so well represented as themselves, seem in the period 925–75 to have been responsible for the production of a high proportion of surviving originals, for a wide variety of beneficiaries. The questions arise whether the recurrent scribes and their colleagues operated on the occasion of the royal assemblies, or in their respective localities some time after the event; whether they possessed any form of ‘institutional’ continuity or identity across this period; what was involved in work of this nature; whether a particular abbot or religious house may or may not have been in a position to perform such a service on the king’s behalf; and what kind of arrangement is likely to have been most readily compatible with what is known about the function of the royal diploma as a title-deed. It would be as well to address some of these questions, in passing, before focusing attention again on the surviving originals. ‘Æthelstan A’ and his successors were not merely scribes who wrote (or drafted and wrote) royal diplomas. Their identities and associations are unknown; and while some would argue that they were members of religious communities at Winchester, Abingdon and elsewhere, it might be supposed that they were members of the body of priests in the king’s service, who maintained an unfolding tradition that extended from the late 920s into the early 970s and beyond. A priest seconded from a religious house into the royal household might have served the king, in one capacity or another, for some years; and, if not promoted to higher office in the church, he might after a while have entered another community, or moved back whence he came.186 It is not unlikely that ‘Æthelstan A’, and those who followed him, were singled out for their learning, their command of Latin, and their literacy; and that their skills in these respects were complemented by other skills of a kind required for their involvement in 186

For a survey of royal priests in the late ninth and tenth centuries, see Keynes, ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’, pp. 187–92; and for the will of Eadred, see S 1515 (WinchNM 17), with Miller, Charters of the New Minster, pp. 80–1.

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a complex operation which was central to the business of royal government as conducted at royal assemblies. Their duties brought them close to the king, and close also to those in high office around him. The production of a royal diploma can never have been a straightforward exercise. It may be that diplomas, as instruments of royal government, had been on the decline, in some sense, in the late ninth and early tenth centuries; yet there is no mistaking their reinvention in the late 920s, and their centrality thereafter to the operation of kingship and royal government. A diploma was a symbol of the power invested in a royal assembly to create an estate of bookland, and was regarded with respect as a title-deed to the estate in question.187 In the hands of its rightful owner, and in the presence of the requisite witnesses, a diploma could itself be used symbolically to effect the transfer of land to another party. In the mid-eighth century King Æthelbald had urged Archbishop Cuthberht to take all the charters of the monastery at Cookham, on the Thames, and lay them on the altar at Christ Church, Canterbury; in the 960s Queen Eadgifu gave some land in Kent to Christ Church by taking the charters and with her own hands laying them on the altar; years later, in the mid-eleventh century, King Edward the Confessor placed a diploma on the altar at Exeter.188 There were royal archives, and archives of religious houses; but we must also imagine that ealdormen, thegns and others had ‘archives’ of their own, even if no more than a number of diplomas kept folded up in the proverbial box under the proverbial bed. King Eadred is known to have entrusted at least some of his charters to Abbot Dunstan, for safe-keeping at Glastonbury abbey; some laymen may have followed his example, others doubtless did not.189 If an unscrupulous thegn stole a royal diploma from a church, or from another thegn, he might be able to take advantage of his possession of the diploma in laying claim to the land in question; and if he contrived by nefarious means to obtain a ‘false’ diploma,

187

188 189

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 31–9. Cf. Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon lay society and the written word’, pp. 44–6 (with reference to the earlier period), extended in Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. cxxv–cxxvi, to the period as a whole; see also R. M. Liuzza, ‘Literacy’, in A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Studies, ed. J. Stodnick and R. R. Trilling (Chichester, 2012), pp. 99–114, at 110–11. S 1258 (CantCC 27), cited above, pp. 23–4; S 1211 (CantCC 124); S 1021 (KCD 791), cited below, p. 130. For a wider perspective, see W. Brown, ‘When documents are destroyed or lost: lay people and archives in the Eearly Middle Ages’, EME 11 (2002), 337–66. For King Eadred and Glastonbury, see B’s Vita sancti Dunstani [hereafter B, VSD], chs. 19 and 20 (The Early Lives of St Dunstan, ed. M. Winterbottom and M. Lapidge (Oxford, 2012), pp. 60 and 64), with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 12–13, 48 n. 88, and 147–8. For the possibility that the practice might help to account for the presence of apparently ‘alien’ charters in the archives of certain religious houses, see ibid., p. 13 n. 21, with reference to Abingdon, Burton and the Old Minster, Winchester; see also C. Insley, ‘Archives and lay documentary practice in the Anglo-Saxon world’, in Documentary Culture and the Laity, ed. Brown et al., pp. 336–62, at 352–5 (for Burton) and 356–61. For a different view, see Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. cxxxvii–cxxxl, and Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 139–41.



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he would have done so in order to use it in much the same way.190 The like­ lihood that such practices were commonplace already in the second quarter of the tenth century is borne out by the diplomas themselves. In 925, King Æthelstan authorized the production of a replacement diploma in respect of a certain estate, presumably at its owner’s request (and perhaps in return for a payment); in which context the draftsman of the new diploma incorporated a form of words annulling any older charter brought forward against it.191 Several charters issued in the early 940s (in troublous times precipitated by Æthelstan’s death) incorporate forms of words to much the same effect. Some contain a formula indicating that the new charter had been drawn up ‘because we did not have the old one’, and annulling any other charter which might be brought against it;192 others (produced perhaps in slightly different circumstances) contain a formula directed against anyone who brings forward an old charter against the present one.193 The formulas in question are of their nature formulaic; yet they have an important bearing on our understanding of the use and abuse of diplomas in the mid-tenth century. A text which gives a good impression of diplomas at work, towards the end of the tenth century, is the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi, written at Ely abbey in the early twelfth century.194 The author drew directly on the accumulation of vernacular charters preserved at Ely in his own day, most of which would appear to have originated in the 970s, before and after the death of King Edgar in 975; so the evidence is of high quality. At one level, we see how the landmarket operated in eastern England, involving proposal, agreement, and initial payment, the transfer of a title-deed from one party to the other, in the presence of witnesses, and perhaps a further payment.195 At another level we see how so much turned, in litigation, on the ownership of the ‘charter’ itself (in this context the diploma or title-deed). In one case, a dispute about the ownership of an 190 191 192

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194

195

For cartae falsae, see Koziol, Politics of Memory and Identity, pp. 315–99, esp. 352–7, and below, pp. 103–4 and 125. S 395 (Burt 2), dated 925. S 460 (Abing 31), dated 940, with Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. 131; S 469 (BCS 757), from Wilton, dated 940; S 488 (BCS 786), from the Old Minster, Winchester, dated 943; S 496 (Abing 36). S 470 (WinchNM 12), dated 940, with Miller, Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, p. 65; S 474 (Glast 31); S 475 (BCS 770) and S 487 (BCS 787), from the Old Minster, Winchester; S 491 (Abing 37); see also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 107 n. 68. For the Libellus, see S. Keynes, ‘Ely abbey 672–1109’, in A History of Ely Cathedral, ed. P. Meadows and N. Ramsay (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 3–58, at 7–8 and 26–7; see also Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake (London, 1962), with J. Fairweather, Liber Eliensis (Woodbridge, 2005). An edition of the Libellus in its own right, with translation and commentary, will be included with the royal diplomas and other documentation from Ely in Charters of Ely Abbey, with the ‘Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi’, ed. S. Keynes and A. Kennedy, as part of the British Academy/Royal Historical Society Anglo-Saxon Charters series. A provisional text and translation of the Libellus is available on the ‘Kemble’ website (under Archives/Ely). Libellus Æthelwoldi, chs. 35 (Bluntisham), 38 (Hauxton and Newton), 42 (Horningsea), and 49 (Sudbourne). For wider discussion, see R. Naismith, ‘Payments for land and privileges in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 41 (2013), 277–342.

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estate was settled when a monk of Ely, for the abbey, produced the title-deed for the estate at a shire meeting, and it was declared ‘that the person who had the charter was nearer [to the oath] that he should have the land, than the one who did not have it’.196 In another case, Bishop Æthelwold, for Ely, made a payment to King Edgar for a pair of estates in Cambridgeshire, which had recently been bequeathed to the king by a certain Eadric. Less than a month later, the king himself died, leaving the transaction incomplete (heriot had not yet been paid in respect of the estates in question, and the charters had not been handed over to the abbey). Bishop Æthelwold and Abbot Byrhtnoth were concerned that the charters remained in the possession of Eadric’s brother, fearing that ‘claims and trickeries’ might thus arise. First they asked Ealdorman Æthelwine to obtain the charters from the brother, by legal process; but although Æthelwine accepted an inducement, he accomplished nothing. They then asked their friend Ealdorman Byrhtnoth to buy the charters from the brother, indicating at the same time that they were ready to give the brother a charter for two estates in Essex (a charter which they knew he wanted), plus a further payment. Byrhtnoth took the charter for the estates in Essex, and gave it to the brother, adding the further payment; and finally the brother handed over the charters for the estates in Cambridgeshire to Byrhtnoth, who sent them on to Ely.197 There are many references in the corpus of vernacular documents to the transfer of land accompanied by transfer of the title-deed, just as there are numerous references to disputes over the ownership of land which clearly turned on the ownership or on the evidence of charters (most of which were presumably genuine, though some of which were doubtless forged). One has to ask, under such circumstances, what if any implications might this have for the ways in which diplomas were drawn up in the first place, and handed over to the beneficiary. As if by definition, the creation of an estate of bookland, with exemption from certain worldly burdens, and with the freedom to bequeath the land to anyone of its owner’s choosing, involved the production of a ‘book’ (boc), or charter; and the natural assumption, against the background of the evidence of church councils, is that the diploma would have been required for the ceremony of conveyance, not only for its powerful symbolic effect, but also so that it could be taken away by the beneficiary. Perhaps this proved difficult or impossible to achieve under certain circumstances; but it was always possible, if the need arose, for the king to delegate responsibility for the production of a diploma to a separate agency. What, then, is known or might be surmised about the ‘ceremony of conveyance’, presumed to have been held during the course of a royal assembly? A range of possible analogies suggests itself, extending from the speeches and

196

197

Libellus Æthelwoldi, ch. 35 (Bluntisham); see also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 34 n. 60, with ‘Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis’. The History of the Church of Abingdon, ed. J. Hudson, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2002–7), i. xxv and 208–9. The role of charters in disputes over land emerges clearly from several other vernacular documents: e.g. S 1445 (CantCC 104), S 1211 (CantCC 124), S 1457 (Roch 36) and S 1456 (Roch 37). Libellus Æthelwoldi, ch. 38 (Hauxton and Newton).



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enthusiastic applause at a school assembly, as prize-winners go up to receive their award from a celebrated alumnus, to the formality and dignity of an investiture at Buckingham Palace. Presumably a ceremony of conveyance, at an Anglo-Saxon royal assembly, involved the beneficiary as well as the king, and was conducted in the presence of the assembled company. In the late seventh century, the grantor placed a sod of earth, representing the land, on the altar of a church, accompanied (one imagines) by the swearing of oaths and a solemn act of witnessing.198 The ceremonial of conveyance perhaps became more formalized in the eighth century, for example when conducted at assemblies held some distance from a favoured church, but also as the use of charters increased, and as laymen saw reason to partake in a privileged form of land tenure. Greater formality in the ceremonial of conveyance might in turn have had some impact on the diplomas themselves; and in this respect the emergence in Wessex of something approximating to a common form, in the central decades of the ninth century, might prefigure what we can observe in the kingdom of the English in the second quarter of the tenth century. Much is left to our imagination. Presumably the king himself would have been seated in all his splendour, ready to make a formal announcement of the grant, or to perform a particular symbolic action. It is possible that some other person qualified for the task was on hand to read out aloud from a consolidated list of grants or from the text of one or more diplomas;199 and if Latin had been used, one imagines that those present might have been grateful for an exposition or summary in English.200 The ceremonial might have involved orchestrated acts or utterances by the assembled company, reinforcing with all due solemnity the sentiments expressed in a blessing or sanction,201 or expressing approval of the king’s munificence in a more exuberant

198

199

200 201

For valuable discussion, see Dr Kelly’s commentaries on S 14–15 (CantStA 43–4), S 1164 (Shaft 1), S 1806 (Pet 3) and S 1803–5 (Pet 4), and S 1165 (Chert 1), with further references. There can be no doubt that charters of one kind and another were brought to assemblies by disputing parties, and perused as evidence; e.g. S 1258 (CantCC 27), S 1187 (BCS 313), and S 1445 (CantCC 104). It is also clear that a charter for a religious house might be read out, perhaps regularly, at the house in question, as for instance by Wilfrid at Ripon (B. Colgrave, The Life of St Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge, 1927), p. 36), or as in the case of S 745 (WinchNM 23), at the New Minster, Winchester. The formal reading out of a diploma at the assembly where the grant itself was made, is a different matter; but analogies are there for the pressing. See above, p. 21 (Clofesho, 747) and 21–3 (the ‘Mercian’ council in 786). Elements of a diploma are sometimes represented as a declaration made collectively by the assembled company, placed after the end of the witness-list. This is seen, for example, in the late ninth century (S 348 (BCS 567), from Wilton); in the ‘alliterative’ charters of the 940s and early 950s; in S 582 (BCS 917), dated 955, from Wilton, and in several of the diplomas of 956 (Group 1); in the New Minster charter of 966 (S 745 (WinchNM 23)); in a charter of Æthelred, dated 1001 (S 898 (KCD 705), from Coventry); and in a charter of Cnut, dated 1019 (S 956 (WinchNM 33)); see also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 103 n. 61, and below, p. 119. S 1208 (Abing 28), a vernacular text from Abingdon which ends ‘sy hyt swa, amen, amen’, should be assessed in this context; cf. above, n. 97.

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manner.202 The act of attestation must itself have been choreographed in some way. The account of the councils held in 786, cited above, suggests that the English were familiar with the custom of making an autograph cross on a sheet of parchment, as part of an act of attestation; but the crosses which stand against the names of the witnesses in a royal diploma are rarely if ever ‘autograph’, which might suggest that diplomas were drawn up in advance of the proceedings, or indeed some time afterwards. Perhaps it was found more practicable, for a grant made at a royal assembly, to invite some or all of the witnesses to touch the diploma, or the sheet of parchment, or to make the sign of the cross from where they stood or sat. As for the beneficiary himself, one imagines that he was there, in the midst of it all, and one hopes that he came away with some tangible evidence of whatever had been approved. Arguably, the diploma was of such great importance as a title-deed that it would have been handed over to the beneficiary as an integral part of the ceremony (indeed the climactic part), so that he could take it away with him when the company dispersed.203 If not, it must have been understood that the beneficiary would receive the diploma on a later occasion, under different circumstances, perhaps at a local assembly. Arrangements sustainable within the borders of a relatively small kingdom would have become that much more difficult to sustain in the tenth-century kingdom ‘of the English’. Whether operating at the assembly itself, or some days or weeks later, an agency charged with responsibility for the production of a royal diploma, or of several diplomas in respect of grants made on a single occasion, would have needed access to a considerable amount of information in order to accomplish its task, coming from different directions. In the first place, the agency would require a record of the operative details for each diploma, including the name and appropriate designation of the beneficiary, the name and hidation of the estate, and in some cases a record of whatever the beneficiary had paid to the king in respect of the land.204 Secondly, the agency would need to be familiar with the forms of words appropriate for each of the component parts of the diploma, or to have access to a generic model or models drawn up for use on this or any other occasion; the agency might also be expected to be familiar with any standard features of a diploma, including layout and script, and extending from the form of the pictorial invocation to the form of the endorsement. Thirdly, the agency would require an authorized text of the

202

203

204

Above, pp. 21–3 (council in 786) and 24–5 (synod in 824). My impression is that the ‘alliterative’ charters of the 940s and early 950s (below, pp. 93–5) bring us close to these aspects of the ceremonial. See also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 35, for ‘Æthelstan A’, and 103, citing S 889 (WinchOM) and S 893 (Roch 32). Byrhtferth’s form of words for a collective declaration uoce clara, in Vita S. Ecgwini, iii. 5 (ed. Lapidge, p. 262) perhaps reflects genuine usage at royal assemblies. For evidence to this effect, see Keynes, ‘West Saxon charters’, pp. 1143 and 1145, with reference to S 362 (BCS 595), from the Old Minster, Winchester; see also below, pp. 130–1, with reference to S 1028, and to Baldwin, monk of Saint-Denis. For payments, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 33 and 107–8; for wider discussion, and a comprehensive list of payments, see Naismith, ‘Payments for land and privileges’.



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boundary-clause, for incorporation verbatim in the new diploma. Little is known of the circumstances in which such estate surveys were drawn up; but they must have originated locally, whether based on surveys contained in older charters for the same estate, or made afresh when circumstances required. The texts were presumably set down in the form of a written document by a local priest or reeve,205 and brought from the locality to the ‘centre’, perhaps on a separate strip of parchment, or perhaps as an integral part of local records of some kind.206 Fourthly, the agency would require a schedule containing a formal list of persons known to be present at the assembly, arranged in accordance with their status (including royals, higher ecclesiastics, ealdormen, and thegns). The witness-list is the most visible of the aspects of a diploma which link the process of its production to a royal assembly; and whilst by no means the only matter at stake, it remains central to the line of argument.207 The archbishops, bishops, abbots, ealdormen and thegns who are named in a witness-list would have been present at the assembly, and presumably at the ceremony of conveyance; but they are named not as persons who had been carefully selected for the particular grant, from among those present, but as members of the collective body of the king’s witan, or councillors, whose involvement, as a group, was required to validate the proceedings. The witness-lists must have been derived directly or indirectly from memoranda of the kind represented by two surviving examples from the first half of the ninth century;208 alas, evidence of this quality does not survive from the later period. The witness-list is at the same time a text which takes its place among the various elements, such as the proem, the dispositive section, the boundary-clause, the sanction, and the dating-clause, which had to be drawn together in the process of producing the diploma itself; and it has to be judged accordingly.209 The occurrence of identical lists in two or more diplomas of the same date is likely to reflect the use of the same memorandum in the production of the diplomas in question;210 and the occurrence of similar lists in diplomas which were demonstrably issued on different occasions

205

206 207 208 209 210

A boundary-clause could be delightfully short, as in S 494 (Abing 38), or highly complex, as in S 495 (BCS 792), from Evesham, both of which are dated 944. The latter contains personal intrusions by those who had been involved in making the survey, on which see A. E. Brown et al., ‘Some Anglo-Saxon estates and their boundaries in south-west Northamptonshire’, Northamptonshire Archaeology 12 (1977), 155–76, with S 496 (Abing 36); see also S 724 (Abing 100). The significance of the personal intrusion in S 1603 (Abing 51A) is undermined by its context as part of a grant. S 1862 (CantCC 80); S 255, MS. 2 (BAFacs. 28); S 1547 (BCS 1323). Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 126–34, with Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxxx–lxxxii. Below, pp. 71–2, citing S 163 (CantCC 40) and S 293 (CantCC 73), of which the latter is reproduced in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge et al., pp. 100–1. For the evidence in general, see Atlas of Attestations; see also Barlow’s review of Oleson, cited above, n. 62. S 447 (CantCC 107) and S 449 (BCS 734), dated 939, with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 43, and Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 878; S 461 (Abing 32), S 463 (BCS 758) and S 464 (CantCC 110), dated 940, with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 44–5.

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is likely to reflect some form of continuity from one occasion to the next, if only the checking of a memorandum drawn up for use at the previous assembly (and retained), when drawing up a memorandum for an assembly a couple of months later.211 Yet witness-lists are seen in certain cases to be ‘live’ (reactive and informed) texts, not arid lists of names which could be set in stone. Scribes might make adjustments in the light of their knowledge of the particular diploma for which a list was used. A significant name might be capitalized. Names might be erased from a list, or added to a list, in circumstances which varied from case to case.212 A bishop, ealdorman or thegn who was normally included in witnesslists of the period might be omitted from the list in a diploma of which he was himself the beneficiary. When the lists in diplomas issued over a period of years are set beside each other, patterns emerge which indicate that conventions were observed, and the records from each year, or across a period years, are found to accord with each other in matters of detail, generating further confidence. None of this points necessarily and exclusively to the assembly, as opposed to the ecclesiastical scriptorium; but it seems easier to understand the quality of the evidence overall on the assumption that those responsible for transferring information from memorandum to diploma were close to the event itself. The diplomatic tradition running through the period 925–75 is perhaps best understood in terms of an overlapping succession of scribes, working separately or in collaboration with each other. The diplomas represent the output of an agency which operated at royal assemblies, on behalf of the king and for all manner of different beneficiaries; and it probably formed part of the administrative services on which the king and others at the centre must have been able to rely. The effective operation of this agency ensured that beneficiaries were able to receive their title-deeds as an integral part of ceremonial at the assembly, and to take them home. Such a view makes sense of the impression one gets of the diplomas as a large body of inter-related texts, respecting basic conventions yet at all times displaying signs of controlled organic change. The arrangements were not so inflexible, however, that any such ‘central’ agency operated to the exclusion of others. When circumstances required, a task was delegated to another agency or agencies, usually resulting in a distinctive form of diploma. In such cases the task might have been discharged at the assembly itself; but sometimes the diploma was drawn up some time later, and handed over to the beneficiary by some other arrangement.

The Evidence of Surviving Single Sheets We owe our knowledge of the scribes themselves to the surviving originals preserved on single sheets of parchment; but what else might we learn from 211 212

S 844 (KCD 639) and S 851 (Abing 120), with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 87, and Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxxxii–lxxxiii and 466. For example, in S 712a (BAFacs. 44), copied from a lost single sheet, the name of one of the attesting ealdormen (probably Byrhtnoth) is not given, perhaps because it had been erased on the original; cf. Atlas of Attestations, Table LVI.



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these originals about the processes involved? Most Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas survive in the form of copies entered into cartularies written at various times from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, or in early modern transcripts of originals now lost. We are normally at the mercy, therefore, of different copyists active at different times, and in many different places, who set about their task for their particular reasons, applying their own principles of selection and of transcription. Yet enough diplomas survive as (apparent) originals to enable one to gain some understanding of the circumstances in which charters were produced (if also to appreciate how much information has been lost). The finest series of single sheets is that preserved from the archives of Christ Church, Canterbury; one can but lament the loss of what would have been comparable material from Glastonbury (still extant in the mid-thirteenth century), Worcester (still extant in the mid-seventeenth century), and elsewhere.213 All of the surviving single sheets written before c. 1100 have been published in facsimile;214 images in colour, showing face and dorse of each single sheet, are now readily accessible on the internet.215 The founder of the discipline known in British academe as diplomatic, and in North America as diplomatics, was Jean Mabillon (1632–1707), whose great work De re diplomatica was published in 1681;216 credit for its further development is given to Theodor von Sickel (1826–1908). It is a basic principle of the discipline that diplomas should be approached in the first instance by close examination of those preserved in single-sheet form, so that the script and formulation of the (apparent) originals can help to establish the basis upon which all surviving texts can be judged, in whatever form they have been preserved. The judgement that a diploma preserved in single-sheet form is indeed an original, as opposed to a contemporary copy, an early fabrication, or (say) a replica in imitative script, itself arises from examination of its script and of any other physical features. Identification of the scribe responsible for one diploma as that responsible for another diploma, for a different beneficiary or preserved in a different archive, is clearly powerful evidence that both are originals; while the detection of features on a single sheet which one would not expect to find in anything other than an original would point in the same direction. In the 1690s the young Humfrey Wanley (1672–1726) aspired to be the

213

214 215 216

For the single-sheet charters from Christ Church, see Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 46–8 and 135–40, and commentaries, passim. For the single-sheet charters from Glastonbury, see L. Abrams, Anglo-Saxon Glastonbury: church and endowment (Woodbridge, 1996), pp. 16–19 and 35–9, and Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 82–3 and 554–64. For the loss of single-sheet charters from Worcester, see Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: lost and found’, pp. 57–9. For a group of singlesheet charters from Abingdon, see below, n. 317. Above, n. 105; further information about the published facsimiles is available on the ‘Kemble’ website (above, n. 6), under ‘Single Sheets’. A ‘Single Sheet Database’ for Anglo-Saxon charters is available on the ‘Kemble’ website. R. Aris, ‘Jean Mabillon (1632–1707)’, in Medieval Scholarship: biographical studies on the formation of a discipline, I: History, ed. H. Damico and J. B. Zavadil (New York, 1995), pp. 15–32.

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English Mabillon, seeing himself as the author of a projected De re Anglorum diplomatica. In 1697 he approached Thomas Smith, custodian of the Cotton library, in a bold attempt to borrow Sir Robert Cotton’s ‘Noble Book of Saxon Charters’ (which became BL Cotton Augustus ii); and it emerges from their lively correspondence in that year that the question of autograph crosses, as a criterion for establishing the authenticity of a charter, was in the minds of them both. Wanley was famously rebuffed by Smith; and soon afterwards he turned his attention to a group of single-sheet charters from Worcester, then in the possession of John, Lord Somers, but now lost, presumed destroyed.217 The publication of the two series of facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon charters between 1873 and 1884 made possible the important work, in the 1930s, of Richard Drögereit, on the diplomas of the tenth century, and of Mary Prescott Parsons, on diplomas of the earlier part of the Anglo-Saxon period (c. 670–900). Parsons broke new ground with her examination of single-sheet diplomas preserved from the archives of Christ Church, Canterbury, drawing attention to features which threw light on the process of their production, including two instances of attached slips of parchment which appeared to be scribal memoranda for witness-lists.218 In 1963, Albert Bruckner examined the earliest of the singlesheet charters in what was then the British Museum (now in the British Library), comprising twenty-two charters judged to date from the late seventh and eighth centuries, and among other observations suggested in certain cases that crosses in a witness-list might be autograph.219 In 1965 Dr Pierre Chaplais sought to show how, among such early charters preserved in single-sheet form, ‘originals’ might be distinguished from copies.220 One case demonstrated most effectively how a bishop in a sub-kingdom might seek confirmation of a charter from his political overlord. In 780 Oslac, dux of the South Saxons, granted land in Sussex to the church of St Paul, Selsey;221 the text was written in what is judged to be an irregular ‘provincial’ script, on the face of a sheet of parchment which had been used before for a different purpose. Some years later, the bishop of Selsey

217

218 219

220 221

The exchange between Wanley and Smith becomes the story of Wanley, his ‘Book of Specimens’, and the ‘Somers Charters’ (below, n. 268), and thus merges with the story of George Hickes, his Dissertatio Epistolaris (1703), and the ‘Altitonantis Charter’. Parsons, ‘Some scribal memoranda’, p. 19, citing S 163 (CantCC 40) and S 293 (CantCC 73), both of which are mentioned further below. Chartae Latinae Antiquiores: Facsimile-edition of the Latin charters prior to the ninth century, ed. A. Bruckner and R. Marichal [ChLA], pt III: British Museum London (Olten and Lausanne, 1963), with A. Bruckner, ‘Zur Diplomatik der älteren angelsächsischen Urkunde’, Archivalische Zeitschrift 61 (1965), 11–45. For the ‘autograph’ crosses, see S 19 (CantCC 5), in ChLA, iii. 220; S 23 (CantCC 10), in ChLA, iii. 190; S 31 (CantCC 14), in ChLA, iii. 221; S 35 (Roch 9), in ChLA, iii. 195; S 106 (CantCC 16), endorsement, in ChLA, iii. 186; and S 1184 (Sel 11), in ChLA, iv. 236. It has to be said that genuinely autograph crosses generally stand out as such, and that Bruckner’s examples are less than compelling (Kelly, St Augustine’s, p. lxxxv, finds them ‘utterly unconvincing’); see also Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon lay society’, pp. 42–3, and Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, p. 33. Chaplais, ‘Diplomas on single sheets’. S 1184 (Sel 11), with ChLA iv. 236.



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took the charter to a Mercian royal assembly at Irthlingborough, near Leicester; a record of King Offa’s confirmation (787 × 796) was added in a regular form of script by a well practised hand. The physical evidence of the two different hands, operating some years and some distance apart on the same single sheet, was seen to accord well with the internal indication of a grant and a later confirmation, suggesting strongly that the document should be accepted as an original. The other cases discussed by Chaplais are rather different, in the sense that they involve single sheets on which the main part of a text was written at one stage, and the rest of the same text (for example the witness-list) added subsequently, in a second stage of writing but as an integral part of the process by which the diploma was produced. Thus, in 679 Hlothhere, king of Kent, granted land in Kent to Abbot Beorhtwald (of Reculver).222 The main text was written in a single operation; the witness-list seems to have been added as a slightly later and separate operation, although probably by the same scribe. Some time probably in the late 680s, Oethelred, a kinsman of a king of the East Saxons, granted land probably in Essex to the abbess of Barking.223 The text was written in one hand, perhaps of the late seventh century, up to ‘… et ut firma et inconcussum sit donum’, at which somewhat critical point the process of its production was apparently interrupted (and the train of thought lost). It seems that it was not until many years later that the text was completed, with the addition of a boundary-clause, a blessing and a witness-list; but it is suggested that these elements were added from a schedule which had been written as part of the original process and then sewn to the lower edge (subsequently discarded). In 736 Æthelbald, king of the Mercians (though here famously accorded a more grandiose style), granted land at Ismere, by the river Stour in Worcestershire, to Cyneberht, for the construction of a minster.224 In this case, the main text, including the witness-list, was written in a single operation; some further attestations were soon afterwards inserted in and added to the list, by the first scribe, and a postscript was added on the dorse by a different scribe. In 799, at Tamworth in the heart of Mercia, Coenwulf, king of the Mercians, restored land in Kent to Christ Church, Canterbury.225 The text, written (perhaps some time in advance) by a ‘Canterbury’ scribe, at first extended to the end of the grant itself; the dating-clause and the list of witnesses were added subsequently, by the same scribe (with the names of laymen on the dorse), perhaps soon after the document had been used in the ceremony of conveyance at Tamworth. In 808, at an Easter assembly at Tamworth, Coenwulf granted land in Kent to one of his thegns.226 The main text appears to have been written in one stage up to and including the

222 223 224 225 226

S 8 (CantCC 2), with ChLA iii. 182. S 1171 (BCS 81), with ChLA iii. 187, and EHD 2nd ed., no. 60. S 89 (BCS 154), with ChLA iii. 183. S 155 (CantCC 29), with ChLA iii. 223. S 163 (CantCC 40), with S. Keynes, ‘Angelsächsiche Urkunden (7.–9. Jahrhundert) / Anglo-Saxon charters (7th–9th century)’, in Mensch und Schrift im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Peter Erhart and Lorenz Hollenstein (St Gallen, 2006), pp. 97–108, at 104 (illustration).

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dating-clause; the witness-list seems to have been added at a slightly later stage, perhaps after the document had been folded and used in the ceremony of conveyance, using a separate schedule for the witness-list which had been produced by another scribe and stitched to the lower edge of the charter.227 In 843 Æthelwulf, king of the West Saxons, granted land in Kent to Æthelmod, his thegn.228 In this case, most instructively, the text appears again to have been written in one stage up to and including the dating-clause, at which point the process was interrupted; a separate schedule for a witness-list, drawn up by two collaborating scribes (one supplying names from the king’s immediate entourage, and the other supplying a list for the archbishop and his community), was stitched to the lower right corner of the charter, and sooner or later formed the basis, with some editing, for the provision of a witness-list by the main scribe on the charter itself. The natural inference, in all of these cases (two from the seventh, two from the eighth and two from the ninth century), is that the document was prepared immediately in advance of an event, and was thus available for use in that event.229 In the case of the Ismere charter, it would appear that the whole text, including the witness-list, was written in advance, with adjustments made immediately afterwards. In the other cases, it would appear that the operative part of the charter was prepared as a first stage, and that the charter was completed in a second stage; and given the nature of the distinction between the two stages, it is clear that the process was interrupted by the use of the charter in a ceremony of conveyance. Of special interest, of course, are the two ninthcentury examples, each with a schedule for the witness-list still attached. In the much larger number of cases of those apparent originals where the whole text was written seemingly in one stage, we have to ask ourselves whether the writing of the diploma took place immediately before, or sooner or later after, the ceremonial act (though perhaps there is no reason to think that the answer was necessarily the same in all cases). It is generally assumed that the draftsmen or scribes involved in the production of diplomas in this early period operated as members of the communities of episcopal sees or of other religious houses. There are instances, especially among the ninth-century single sheets that came to be preserved in the archives of Christ Church, Canterbury, where the scribe of a diploma can be identified in another context, in some cases a book, and in several cases other diplomas.230 One could not, however, rule out the possibility that two or three of the scribes represented in this period, perhaps especially from the kingdoms of Wessex 227

228 229 230

It has been suggested in this case that the text and the witness-list were written as a single operation, implying perhaps that a blank sheet of parchment had been used in the ceremony of conveyance (Parsons, ‘Some scribal memoranda’, pp. 21–2; Kelly, ‘AngloSaxon lay society’, p. 44). S 293 (CantCC 73), with Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters (7th–9th century)’, p. 107 (illustration). Chaplais, ‘Some early diplomas’, pp. 83–4; Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon lay society’, p. 44; Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, p. 7. Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 360–1, and the full analysis in Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury.



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and Mercia, might have been members of a royal household; the options have to be left open. One should add that for all the evidence from surviving single sheets that diplomas were used in ceremonies of conveyance, there are precious few examples of charters in which seemingly ‘autograph’ crosses have been placed against a name in the witness-list.231 None the less, the practices observed at church councils should be borne in mind. The act of attestation, perhaps involving the witnesses in making the sign of the cross, was central to the ceremonial; and if it is harder than one might expect to find unequivocal examples, on parchment, from the eighth and ninth centuries, it may be because the act was practised in a way which left less obvious trace than one would like.232 Few Latin diplomas survive from the reigns of King Alfred the Great and Edward the Elder, fewer still in their original single-sheet form. The diploma issued in the names of King Alfred and Archbishop Æthelred, produced by a Canterbury scribe in 873, makes a poor impression, and has become symbolic of the sorry state of literacy in Latin at Canterbury at about the time of Alfred’s accession.233 A diploma from the archives of Rochester, issued in 898, also of great interest in its own right, is scarcely more encouraging as evidence from the closing years of Alfred’s reign.234 None of the series of diplomas issued by Alfred in the 880s and early 890s, with West Saxon or Mercian associations, has chanced to survive in single-sheet form.235 We can but try to make up for the scarcity of original diplomas in other ways. The will of Ealdorman Alfred affords a telling example of procedure involving a vernacular text at a local assembly, probably in the later 880s. It originated presumably as an oral declaration, and was set down in writing, on the face of a single sheet, so that the testator’s intentions could be made known in this way to the king and his councillors and also to other interested parties; it bears on the dorse a list of witnesses at a local assembly, added by a second scribe, suggesting that the will was read out at this assembly and then confirmed by those present, including the archbishop, the ealdorman, and several others.236 The tales of two Mercian

231

232

233 234 235

236

Above, n. 219, and below, pp. 93–5 (‘alliterative’ charters) and 108–15 (S 876), with Appendix II, pp. 165–6. For the practice on the Continent, see Tock, ‘La mise en scène des actes’, pp. 291–2, and Declercq, ‘Between legal action and performance’, pp. 55–62. For the practice of touching the sheet of parchment by the parties concerned (including the witnesses), see Declercq, ‘Between legal action and performance’. For discussion of the making the sign of the cross (OE rodetacn), in various contexts, see the papers by K. Jolly, D. Johnson, J. Roberts and others in The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. C. E. Karkov, S. Larratt Keefer and K. L. Jolly (Woodbridge, 2006). S 344 (CantCC 93). S 350 (CantCC 99). S. Keynes, ‘West Saxon charters’, pp. 1134–41, and S. Keynes, ‘The power of the written word: Alfredian England 871–899’, in Alfred the Great: papers from the eleventh-centenary conferences, ed. T. Reuter (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 175–97 at 184–5, and above, pp. 51–2. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. 78–9, and Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 331–2. For the diplomas in question, see, e.g., S 347 (Glast 21), S 348 (BCS 567), S 354 (BCS 565), S 356 (Malm 20) and S 355 (Abing 18). S 1508 (CantCC 96), with Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word’, pp. 251–5, at 253.

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ealdormen illustrate in their different ways how deeply documentary practices were embedded in lay society. In the late 890s the ‘venerable’ Ealdorman Æthelwulf read and examined (recitauit et inuestigauit) the charters of inheritance (hereditarios libros) of King Coenwulf, establishing thereby that Coenwulf’s heirs were able to lease the land belonging to Winchcombe for a term of no more than one life; as a result, a certain Wullaf was required to surrender charters granted by Cynethryth and Ælfflæd, and in consideration was given an estate in Worcestershire, with reversion to Worcester.237 At about the same time Ealdorman Æthelfrith lost all of his own charters of inheritance (hereditarii libri) in a fire, an occurrence which was by no means uncommon;238 and in 903 he applied to the authorities for replacements. The new ones were to be written ‘in the same terms as the earlier ones had been written, in so far as he could relate them from memory’; and for those that he could not remember, there was to be one in common form, lest anyone ‘should be so emboldened to assail him in a contentious manner with other charters’.239 One of the charters in common form survives in what would appear to be its original single-sheet form. It is somewhat irregular in its appearance, written on what looks like a discarded scrap of parchment, with the witness-list written across the centre of the dorse; a different scribe added a boundary-clause above the witness-list, suggesting that the parchment was in use later in the tenth century as the title-deed for the estate.240 These two ealdormen, both as it happens from Mercia, would appear to have acquired some degree of literacy as part of King Alfred’s reforms. They were soon joined by the West Saxon Ealdorman Ordlaf, who was also well aware of the value of charters.241 We turn now, and against this background, to the ‘original’ diplomas of the second and third quarters of the tenth century, with a particular question in mind: what if anything do they reveal about the circumstances of their production, when examined as physical objects in the way applied by Parsons, Bruckner,

237 238

239

240 241

S 1442 (BCS 575), from Worcester. For a continental analogy, see Brown, ‘When documents are destroyed or lost’, esp. pp. 351–2; see also Rio, Legal Practice and the Written Word, esp. pp. 11–20, with A. Rio, The Formularies of Angers and Marculf: two Merovingian legal handbooks (Liverpool, 2008), pp. 73–6 (Angers) and 166–8 (Marculf). S 367 (CantCC 101), with Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 839–43; S 367a (LonStP 10), with Kelly, Charters of St Paul’s, pp. 155–8; and S 371 (Glast 22), with Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 336–9. For discussion of the group, see Keynes, ‘Charter of King Edward for Islington’, with text and translation of S 367a, and S. Keynes, ‘Edward, king of the Anglo-Saxons’, pp. 52–5, with illustrations of S 367. S 367 (CantCC 101). S 1445 (CantCC 104). See also S. Keynes, ‘The Fonthill Letter’, in Words, Texts, and Manuscripts, ed. M. Korhammer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 53–97, at 56–8 and 95–6; Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 144–8; N. P. Brooks, ‘The Fonthill Letter, Ealdorman Ordlaf and Anglo-Saxon law in practice’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. S. Baxter, et al. (Farnham, 2009), pp. 301–17; Insley, ‘Archives and lay documentary practice’, pp. 336–7 and 344–9 and M. Ammon, ‘“Ge mid wedde ge mid aðe”: the functions of oath and pledge in Anglo-Saxon legal culture’, Historical Research 86 (2013), 515–34.



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Chaplais and others to the surviving originals of the earlier period? Between thirty-five and forty diplomas of the period 925–75 are preserved in their apparently ‘original’ single-sheet form, representing approximately 13 per cent of the surviving corpus of texts for the same period. A glance at these originals is enough to see that the crosses which are integral to each of the first-person attestations, and the forms of attestation themselves, are invariably non-autograph; all were written by the scribe responsible for the main text. It is apparent at the same time that a clear majority of the originals were produced in what seems to have been a single-stage process. The sheet itself might have been cut, and perhaps prepared for use as a diploma, at any time before the scribe set to work; but the complete text on the face of the sheet, including the pictorial invocation, the boundary-clause, the dating-clause, and the whole of the witness-list, was written in a single operation by a single scribe, who then folded the sheet of parchment in on itself, wrote the endorsement on an outer panel, and perhaps secured the folded bundle by means of a wrapping-tie. If all went well, the operation was a single-stage or continuous process. As we have seen, the natural interpretation of the examples of ‘two-stage’ production from the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries is that the first stage took place in advance of a ceremony, and that adjustments or additions were made immediately afterwards. Such observations appear at first sight to encourage the supposition that during the period 925–75 the production of diplomas was effected under significantly different circumstances. After all, common sense suggests that the record of an act cannot be made and witnessed before the act itself has taken place. Accordingly, the inference in the case of a diploma produced in a single-stage process is that it was drawn up after the ceremony of conveyance. It is conceivable that the diploma was produced immediately or very soon after the ceremony, by a member of a ‘central’ or royal agency, or by a scribe operating in some other capacity, perhaps as a member of a bishop’s or an abbot’s entourage.242 It is also suggested that diplomas were generally or regularly produced some time after the assembly at which the ceremony of conveyance had taken place, by a ‘local’ scribe, acting perhaps on the beneficiary’s application to a religious house in the vicinity of his home, or of the estate, or perhaps on the beneficiary’s application to a particular religious house which had been authorized at the assembly to act in this way. In either case, the assumption is that notes or records of some kind would be available to the draftsman or scribe, who would use them as the basis for his text, including the boundary-clause and the witness-list.243 242

243

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 37 (by a ‘central’ agency); see also Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon “chancery” revisited’, p. 51 (by an ecclesiastical agency, chosen at an assembly), and ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon diplomas of Exeter’ [1981], p. 33 (an ecclesiastical affair). Above, pp. 49–51 and 64–6. Such a view was implicit in the papers written by Dr Chaplais in the 1960s, and is explicit in Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon “chancery” revisited’, pp. 42–4; see also Insley, ‘Charters and episcopal scriptoria in the Anglo-Saxon southwest’, pp. 183–4. For more recent discussion of the procedures for the drawing-up of royal diplomas, see Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxxix–lxxxiv and 358–9. Dr Kelly

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It might be suggested, on the other hand, that the ‘single-stage’ process of production so well attested in the single sheets of the period 925–75 represented a continuation and at the same time a significant development of an earlier process by which diplomas were produced immediately in advance of a ceremony of conveyance. Judged in isolation from the earlier evidence, the suggestion might seem to be improbable; judged in the light of the earlier evidence, it makes much better sense. It is possible that diplomas were produced soon after the start of a royal assembly, some time before their intended use in a ceremony of conveyance; that in constructing his text the draftsman or scribe of a diploma employed, in advance of the ceremony, a standard form of words for the king’s grant, made in the presence of his councillors, as if it were something which had already taken place;244 and that this was done so that the diploma could be handed over to its beneficiary as part of the ceremony, with the acclaim of the assembled company, to be taken away so that it might serve as a title-deed for the estate thereafter.245 If the system worked as intended, it should have been possible for an agency operating on behalf of the king, with ready access to the necessary information, to start its work soon after those attending had assembled, and in most cases to complete the process in a single continuous operation, in advance of the ceremony itself; and we could then take at face value the statements in the diplomas of ‘Æthelstan A’ (and others) to the effect that a diploma was written at the place of assembly. Alas, systems do not always work as intended. The question is whether in a minority of cases, in circumstances which could not be foreseen or avoided, something went wrong. It may be, for example, that essential details were not available when the production of a diploma had to start, or at the time when it was needed; or that a failure in communication had made the task more difficult than was usual. The question would then arise whether it had proved possible to resolve the problem in the time available before the diploma was needed for ceremonial purposes, or whether the diploma had been used as required, and then brought back to the agency of its production so that any necessary adjustments could be made in the time that remained, before those present dispersed. The simple way to test the hypothesis is of course to examine the diplomas themselves. The surviving ‘originals’ from the period 925–75 are cited hereafter

244

245

argues that since ‘the great majority of tenth-century royal diplomas surviving in their original form are single-stage productions’, and are witnessed, ‘they were presumably drawn up after the actual conveyance ceremony’. She argues further that since ‘separate memoranda of witnesses’ might have been available, it is possible that a diploma ‘could be drawn up a considerable time after the conveyance and (one might suppose) by a local scribe as easily as a royal agent, and in a local scriptorium rather than on the site of the meeting of the witan’. The usual form of words was limited to the simple fact of donation, and does not involve any description of the ceremonial itself. More circumstantial information emerges from narratives embedded in some of the diplomas produced in the later period (below, pp. 108–20 and 130–1). For an earlier expression of uncertainty (before or after the ceremony of conveyance), see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 37.



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using the forms of reference given in Appendix II (below, pp. 158–79). Each entry in the appendix summarizes the observable aspects of the single sheet which are pertinent in the context of this discussion. It would be as well to bear in mind that the diplomas are the work not of disembodied ‘hands’, or depersonalized scribes, but of persons unknown who had acquired the skills needed for the drafting and for the writing of legal instruments, but whose duties might not have been limited to the production of charters. Some have labels; none has a name. If any of them was in the service of the king, he would most likely have been a royal priest, whose education might have started at a religious house, if not in the royal household, and who might later have moved out of the king’s service and onward and upwards into the higher echelons of the religious order. If any of them was in the service of a particular bishop, or abbot, he might have been present with his superior at a royal assembly, or of course in the relative comfort of his own (religious) house. Other considerations to be borne in mind are that behind the production of any diploma lies a considerable amount of specialized knowledge, expertise, access to information, and contact with whatever agencies represented the king’s interest, the ‘local’ interest (e.g. a shire reeve), and the beneficiary’s interest. It is difficult to imagine how work of such a specialized and technical nature could have been done by anyone other than someone accustomed to do it, in association with others; and it is inconceivable that everything should always have gone to plan. The first two diplomas in the list are the surviving work of the scribe who through the misfortune of anonymity has come to be known as ‘Æthelstan A’ (above, pp. 53–5).246 There is every reason to imagine that all of the many diplomas produced by this scribe between 928 and 935 would have looked very much the same as each other: large rectangular sheets of parchment (significantly wider than tall), comprising an uncompromisingly solid block of text above perhaps five or six columns of witnesses. Nothing quite like them had been seen before; and they must have seemed magnificent, even intimidating, in their formality and in their grandeur. The earlier of the two (A1), issued at Lifton in Devon on 12 November 931, has every appearance of being a singlestage production (Fig. 1.1), until one notices that the last two names in the sixth and final column of the witness-list have been added by a different hand. We can but guess why this should have been so: probably because the memorandum used for this purpose by the scribe proved not to contain quite enough names, creating a sense of the irregular and incomplete, subsequently rectified by the provision of two additional names, perhaps in advance or perhaps in the immediate aftermath of the assembly. The second of the two surviving originals written by ‘Æthelstan A’ (A2) was issued at Winchester on 28 May 934, and is a fine single-stage production. As we have seen (above, p. 55), a new format for royal diplomas was introduced in 935, and was the format of choice for ‘mainstream’ diplomas for the 246

The labels attached to the scribes derive from Drögereit’s tract of 1935 (above, n. 111); for ‘Æthelstan B’, and other missing names, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 16–18.

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next twenty-five years. The scribe known to scholarship as ‘Æthelstan C’ was responsible for one of the two such diplomas which survive in their original form from 939 (A3) (Fig. 1.2). A different scribe was responsible for the other (A4). The two scribes would appear to have been colleagues in the same agency. Interestingly, both would appear to have been supplied with a rather short memorandum for the witness-list, leaving space unused. ‘Æthelstan C’ was still at work in the early 940s, producing two of the surviving single-sheet diplomas in the name of King Edmund (B1, B3), both of which display interesting features. In the case of B1 (Fig. 1.3), the memorandum supplied to ‘Æthelstan C’ for the witness-list was again too short, leaving some unused space. As in the case of the diploma of ‘Æthelstan A’ (A1), the space was used for the addition, by another scribe, of the names of more thegns, presumably to make good the column; the added thegns do not occur among those who appear elsewhere in the witness-lists of the early 940s, but one need not doubt that they were among those attending on this occasion.247 In the case of B3 (Fig. 1.4), it would appear that the scribe originally left a space blank for the insertion of the boundaryclause, perhaps because it was not to hand when he happened to be preparing the main text; but it was soon supplied. Yet again the memorandum for the witnesslist was too short; in this case, the unused space remained unused. Working alongside ‘Æthelstan C’, in the agency charged with primary responsibility for the production of royal diplomas, was the scribe known to scholarship as ‘Edmund C’.248 He was responsible for no fewer than five of the diplomas of this period which survive in single-sheet form, comprising two of Edmund (B5, B6) and three of Eadred (C1, C2, C4). Three (but only three) of the five surviving originals written by ‘Edmund C’ are single-stage productions (B5, B6, C1). Two are more complex (C2, C4). In 948 King Eadred granted land in Kent to Ælfwynn, a religious woman (C2) (Fig. 1.5). In the dispositive section, ‘Edmund C’ would appear at first to have left spaces blank for the hidation and for the name of the estate, as if he did not have all of the requisite information to hand. It is clear in this case (perhaps appropriately) that he also left a space blank between the sanction and the witness-list, suggesting (given our knowledge of his normal procedure) that the boundary-clause was not at first to hand. It was perhaps only a short time later that ‘Edmund C’ was able to complete the diploma, inserting the operative details and the boundaryclause; at the same time, most interestingly, he also inserted a statement (placed immediately above the boundary clause) to the effect that the beneficiary paid two pounds of most pure gold.249 It might be supposed that the additions are indicative of a process in which the diploma was not completed until some

247

248 249

Atlas of Attestations, Table XLIII (1), column for S 464 (dated 940), under Wulfheah (18), Wulfsige 2 (19), Wulfnoth (20), Æthelstan (21), Æthelsige (22) and Eanulf (23). It is said in this connection that the addition of the names ‘raises important questions about the legal status of witness-lists in Anglo-Saxon diplomas’ (Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 888). ‘Edmund C’ had begun his service during the reign of King Æthelstan: above, p. 56. Naismith, ‘Payments for land and privileges’, p. 328 (no. 131).



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time after a ceremony of conveyance; the more natural interpretation, perhaps, is that ‘Edmund C’ was operating at the assembly, immediately in advance of the ceremony, and in this instance had to deal with a case where not all of the information required had been available at the outset.250 In 949 King Eadred granted land in Berkshire to Wulfric (C4). It seems that the boundary-clause was inserted in a space which had been left blank between the sanction and the dating-clause; it may have arrived late, or it may be that the scribe had it to hand, and felt able to judge the space required, but wished to finish the other parts of the text before turning to the bounds. The diplomas of King Eadwig are of special interest for many reasons. One of the diplomas assigned on the basis of text and witness-list to a notional ‘Group I’ survives in single-sheet form (D1), and is significantly different in appearance from the ‘standard’ format of previous years (Fig. 1.6). It would appear that the text was written in the first instance as far as the boundaryclause; that it was then folded once in each direction; and that the witness-list and the sanction were added soon afterwards, perhaps as part of a second stage after the single sheet had been used in the ceremony of conveyance. It may be, in other words, that on this occasion (in the circumstances that prevailed early in 956) the production of charters had been entrusted perforce to a person who for lack of experience, and under pressure of time, reverted to the two-stage process seen sometimes in the eighth and ninth centuries. The diplomas of 956 (Group II) are represented by two which survive in the single-sheet form (D2, D3), written by different scribes, marking a return to the ‘standard’ format of the 940s, though in each case displaying innovative use of a chrismon as pictorial invocation. In the case of D2 (Fig. 1.7), it is conceivable that the main text was written before the operative details (the status and name of the beneficiary, and the hidage and name of the estate) were known; and that these details, together with the boundary-clause, were inserted thereafter. The remaining single-sheet diplomas from Eadwig’s reign (D4, D5, D6, D7) follow the ‘standard’ format, with the use of decorated forms of chrismon in D5, D6 and D7; each seems to have been produced in a single stage. About fifteen diplomas of King Edgar are preserved in single-sheet form. They make essentially the same impression as the diplomas of his predecessors, with a mixture of single-stage productions and a few more complex cases. It is clear that the most prolific agency for the production of diplomas in the early 960s was the person known as ‘Edgar A’, who adopted a modified format or layout for the diploma as a whole, and practised a new variety of Square minuscule (Style IV). His output is represented not only by the five diplomas which survive in their original form (from four different archives), but also by several others preserved as copies entered in cartularies; and of course it is the profile of this corpus of texts overall which determines the view one takes of his likely identity.251 Three (but only three) of the five surviving originals written 250 251

For further discussion, see Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 925–6, with Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon “chancery” revisited’, p. 43 n. 6. For details of the diplomas of ‘Edgar A’, see Atlas of Attestations, Table XXX, with

Figure 1.1  Diploma of King Æthelstan for Wulfgar, AD 931, written by ‘Æthelstan A’ (A1)

Figure 1.2  Diploma of King Æthelstan for Ealdulf, AD 939, written by ‘Æthelstan C’ (A3)

Figure 1.3  Diploma of King Edmund for Æthelswyth, AD 940, written by ‘Æthelstan C’ (B1)

Figure 1.4  Diploma of King Edmund for Ælfstan, AD 943, written by ‘Æthelstan C’ (B3)

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by ‘Edgar A’ are single-stage productions (E3, E7, E9). Two are more complex (E4, E10). In 961 King Edgar granted land at Ringwood, in Hampshire, to Abingdon abbey (E4) (Fig. 1.8). ‘Edgar A’ wrote the text up to and including the boundary-clause; the sheet was folded horizontally; a second scribe, writing in Anglo-Caroline minuscule, added the dating-clause and a witness-list.252 By analogy with some of the ninth-century examples of ‘two-stage’ production, it might be supposed that the Ringwood diploma was produced in two distinct stages, separated by its use in a ceremony of conveyance. One possibility is that ‘Edgar A’ wrote the text, as far as the boundary-clause, immediately in advance of the event; that he stopped where he did so that the single sheet could play its part in the proceedings, for which purpose it was folded; and that the diploma was completed immediately afterwards, still at the assembly but (as it happened) by a different scribe and in diplomatic terms a distinctive manner.253 A second possibility is that ‘Edgar A’ (if presumed to be an Abingdon scribe) prepared the text, in advance of the assembly, as far as the boundaryclause, probably at Abingdon; that the sheet was then folded, for use at a royal assembly; and the dating-clause and the witness-list were added thereafter, probably back at Abingdon. The diploma is untypical, since other diplomas were drawn up after the ceremony; so it is suggested further that the ceremonial in which it played some part (i.e. its use in this way at a royal assembly) was a sign of Edgar’s special favour towards the abbey.254 A third possibility takes us into rather different territory. It is conceivable that the features of the Ringwood diploma are to be explained not in terms of its production before and after its use in a ceremony of conveyance, but in relation to other problems altogether. ‘Edgar A’ began his work on the diploma in advance of the ceremony, perhaps even, in this case, in advance of the assembly. He wrote the main text and the boundary-clause; but he crammed in the bounds, as if to leave as much space as he could for whatever might follow. The process was suspended, and the sheet was folded horizontally. A second scribe, presumably a colleague of the first, was assigned the task of completing the diploma, evidently by this stage at the assembly. Perhaps before its completion, perhaps after, ‘Edgar A’ made what is clearly an addition at the end of the boundary-clause, seeming to confirm (most unusually) that the land as described in the bounds accounted for the 22 hides of the assessment; he might also have corrected a misspelling in the

252

253

254

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 70–6, and ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 14–18 and 65–9. A number of them are available in modern editions, with detailed commentaries: e.g. S 687 (Abing 86); S 690 (Abing 87); S 710 (Shaft 24); S 711 (Bath 16); S 709 (Wells 32); S 716 (North 5); S 717 (CantCC 126). S 690 (Abing 87), with Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule, pp. xix and 9 (no. 11); see also Dumville, English Caroline Minuscule, pp. 52–3 and 143, on ‘Edgar A’ as a practitioner of Square minuscule (Phase IV), and on the second scribe as a practitioner of Anglo-Caroline (Style I). Bishop associated both scribes with Abingdon, as did Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon “chancery” revisited’, pp. 47–8; for the view that both scribes were colleagues in a royal secretariat, see Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 17–18, with n. 74. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxxix, c–ci and 357–9.



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dating-clause, perpetrated by the second scribe.255 Interestingly, a similar kind of problem would appear to have arisen two years later. In 963 Edgar granted land in Essex to a thegn called Ingeram (E10) (Fig. 1.9).256 In this case, ‘Edgar A’ wrote the main text, apparently leaving a small space for the insertion of a figure for the hidage, and stopping at the end of the sanction; at this point he left a space sufficient for a three-line boundary-clause, and went on to complete the text with the dating-clause and witness-list. It is possible that some uncertainty had arisen in connection with the hidage and perhaps also the bounds; and that when it was resolved ‘Edgar A’ inserted the figure ‘vii’ for the hidage, and inserted the boundary-clause in the space he had previously left blank. Perhaps it was the boundary-clauses that generated the problems; and it may be that these diplomas show how ‘Edgar A’ dealt with such problems on two separate occasions. What do we learn from the above? The essential point, which is not controversial, is that the majority of diplomas which survive in their apparently original single-sheet form appear to have been produced in a single more or less continuous operation. These diplomas represent the norm, or perhaps one should say they represent a highly complex process running smoothly. The more difficult question is whether ‘single-stage’ production of the diploma indicates or suggests that the diplomas were produced after, perhaps some time after, the ceremony of conveyance, with (necessarily) the help of notes and memoranda generated at the assembly; or whether ‘single-stage’ production indicates or suggests that the diplomas were produced immediately in advance of the ceremony of conveyance, soon after the start of the assembly. Production in advance of the event, in the tenth century, would represent a continuation and perhaps also a refinement of earlier practice, in the eighth and ninth centuries. As before, the diploma formed a necessary part of the ceremonial, produced in advance so that it could be brought out into the midst of an assembly, expounded, witnessed in some symbolic way, handed over to the beneficiary, and taken away. Production after the event, in the tenth century, would have rather different implications. The answer, perhaps, lies hidden in the glitch. As we have seen, examination of the surviving single-sheet diplomas suggests that, alongside the perfectly produced single-stage specimens, we find a significant number of specimens bearing traces of a kind which suggest that the production of the diploma had proceeded less smoothly than was normally the case. It is only to be expected that a complex system might on occasion not function as intended. The problems most likely to be encountered were of various kinds. If the business in hand was relatively straightforward, the agency might have been able to keep the operation under control; if for whatever reason the volume of business was greater, or the available time shorter, there might have been complications, 255

256

Bishop was of the opinion that the first scribe (‘Edgar A’) corrected the work of the second scribe, confirming ‘that text and subscription are effectively coeval’; but the evidence is not entirely convincing (below, Appendix II, p. 176). S 717 (CantCC 126), with Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, pp. 126–8.

Figure 1.5  Diploma of King Eadred for Ælfwyn, AD 948, written by ‘Edmund C’ (C2)

Figure 1.6  Diploma of King Eadwig for Ælfwine, AD 956, Group I (D1)

Figure 1.7  Diploma of King Eadwig for Ealdorman Edmund, AD 956, Group II (D2)

Figure 1.8  Diploma of King Edgar for Abingdon abbey, AD 961, written by ‘Edgar A’ (E4)

Figure 1.9  Diploma of King Edgar for Ingeram, AD 963, written by ‘Edgar A’ (E10)



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arising for example from failures of communication or connection. The system depended on a draftsman or scribe having access at the right time to the requisite information. There might have been a lack of information or some uncertainty about the operative details. For some unknowable reason, the boundary-clause might not have been available, at least at the start. As we have seen, the process depended also on the provision of a memorandum or schedule of those present at the assembly, which might then have been be used by those involved in the production of diplomas. The memorandum would have been of a certain length, presumed rightly or wrongly to be fit for its intended purpose; though it is possible that it may not always have contained enough names in one category, just as it is possible that it may have contained too many in another. A scribe might have needed or wished to make certain adjustments when using the memorandum in the construction of his own witness-list. If something went wrong, it might have been possible to put things right before the diploma was needed for the ceremony; or it might have been possible to make adjustments immediately after its use, while the appropriate scribes were still on hand and the beneficiary still present. And so on. It is important to emphasize that all of the ‘recurrent’ scribes who produced ‘single-stage’ diplomas also produced diplomas with glitches of one kind or another, suggestive of more complex circumstances. Accordingly, we need an explanation which can accommodate both varieties. The question thus arises whether the glitches are readily compatible with the notion that diplomas were produced some time after the event, or whether they are more naturally compatible with the notion that diplomas were produced in advance of the event, at the assembly. It would be easy, in my view, to account for the evidence in terms of the problems which sometime arose in the process of producing diplomas at royal assemblies, immediately in advance of the ceremony of conveyance; indeed, the presence of such glitches might be regarded as one of the factors which indicate that a single sheet is original. It would be more difficult, in my view, to account for the evidence if one were to suppose that diplomas relating to grants authorized at an assembly were drawn up by agencies operating after the event, using memoranda brought home from the assembly; indeed, one might then have expected to find glitches of a rather different kind. To my mind, therefore, the normal although by no means the invariable practice in the tenth century was for a royal diploma to be produced at a royal assembly, immediately in advance of the ceremony of conveyance, soon after the start of the assembly itself. It is perhaps for this reason, among others, that the diplomas tend to avoid explicit reference to any aspect of the process, apart from the act of attestation; at the same time, the pretence of autograph crosses in the witness-list was an easy way of maintaining a pleasant appearance. The diploma was handed over to the beneficiary as an integral part of the ceremony itself, conducted in the presence of the king and his ‘wise men’; and the beneficiary was thus able to take away his diploma once the proceedings were over. The suggestion that diplomas were produced before the event might seem to be counter-intuitive; for one has to ask how could a record be produced of an act that had not yet taken place, before witnesses who had not yet assembled? The

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response lies, of course, in the simple observation that an assembly is likely to have lasted for several days. It would have been possible for someone involved in the process to have drawn up a memorandum of those present, in each of several categories, almost as soon as they started to arrive; and this memorandum could then have been used, with recourse to other material prepared in advance of the assembly, for the production of whatever diplomas might be required. Put another way, it should have been possible, on a Tuesday, to observe who was present at an assembly, and to draw up a memorandum which could be used, on a Wednesday, when preparing whatever number of diplomas would be needed, on the Friday, for handing over to the beneficiaries, before everyone went home.

Other Agencies of Production The ‘central’ agency personified by ‘Æthelstan A’ and his successors did not exercise a monopoly over the production of royal diplomas, except perhaps in its earliest years. Other agencies are seen to have been operating in the central decades of the tenth century, represented in particular by two distinctive groups of diplomas: the so-called ‘alliterative’ charters of the 940s and early 950s,257 and the so-called ‘Dunstan B’ charters of the period 950–75.258 The labels that have become attached to each of these groups are not entirely appropriate, but are retained here for ease of understanding.259 Each group is of interest for its own sake; and both groups, in their divergence from the norm, help at the same time to highlight what is distinctive about the ‘mainstream’ itself. 257

258

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For details of the ‘alliterative’ charters, see Atlas of Attestations, Table XXVIII. The charters were first recognized as a group by W. de G. Birch, in a note incorporated in the preliminary materials for the third and final volume of his Cartularium Saxonicum, published in 1893. They attracted little attention in their own right, and were dismissed as spurious by Richard Drögereit in 1952. Their distinctive identity and authenticity, as a group, was re-established by Dorothy Whitelock in 1955 (EHD, p. 340), taken further in an unpublished typescript of a lecture written in the late 1950s, preserved among her papers. See also C. Hart, ‘Danelaw and Mercian charters of the mid-tenth century’, in his The Danelaw [1992, developed from work first published in 1972], pp. 431–53, at 431–44; Sawyer, Charters of Burton, pp. xlvii–xlix; EHD 2nd ed., pp. 372–3; Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 82 n. 165, ‘King Athelstan’s books’, pp. 153–9 (MacDurnan Gospels), and the entry on Bishop Koenwald (Cenwald), in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge et al., pp. 279–80; and Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 121–2, 376–7 and 382–4. For details of the ‘Dunstan B’ charters, see Atlas of Attestations, Table XXIX. The charters were first identified as a group by Dr Hart in 1975; see also above, p. 57. Two ‘new’ charters came to light in 1993, and the augmented group is discussed by S. Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, ASE 23 (1994), 165–93. For more recent discussion, see Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 13–14, 19 and 22, and Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 121–4, 139–40 and 455–6. The ‘alliterative’ charters (Hart’s ‘Dunstan A’ charters) need a label which does not fasten on just one of their attributes (and then not the most distinctive among them); and the ‘Dunstan B’ charters need a label which does not imply an association of a particular kind with one person, or indeed a secondary relationship with some other group.



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The ‘alliterative’ charters were produced between 940 and 955, and appear to be associated in some way with Coenwald, bishop of Worcester.260 They are of interest not least because they reflect deep learning and considerable literary pretension;261 and they are made the more interesting because the agency responsible for their production seems not to have been too concerned about prevailing conventions of diplomatic. One of the most striking aspects of the charters is the changing form of the royal style, which proceeds (as it were) from the kingdom ‘of the Anglo-Saxons’, but which reaches further when appropriate.262 It is also interesting (in relation to the problems discussed above in connection with the mainstream diplomas) that the agency seems to have experienced problems with boundary-clauses.263 The lists of witnesses differ fundamentally from the norm, in their layout (not in columns, but along the line), their structure and terminology, and in aspects of selection (reminiscent of ‘Æthelstan A’); the attestations of Queen Eadgifu, mother of Edmund and Eadred, are particularly distinctive.264 It is also striking that in several cases important elements of the formulation are placed after the list of witnesses, sometimes including words or turns of phrase which seem to reflect a performative flourish at the end of the ceremony of conveyance.265 The two earliest surviving examples of the type, both dated 940, and issued in one case from an assembly at Colchester (Essex) and in the other from an assembly at Chippenham (Wiltshire), grant large estates in northern Wiltshire to Wulfric, a king’s thegn who developed a close association with Glastonbury abbey;266 the later surviving examples, dated between 942 260

261 262

263

264

265

266

Above, n. 257. Several examples are available in modern editions: S 472 (Glast 29); S  473 (Glast 30); S 479 (Burt 5); S 484 (Burt 6); S 1606 (Burt 7); S 544 (Abing 43); S 549 (Burt 8); S 548 (Burt 9); S 557 (Burt 11); S 569 (Burt 13); S 566 (Pet 11). For example, S 473 (Glast 30) begins with an extended invocation of the Cross, inspired by Hrabanus Maurus; see also Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, p. 383. For the styles in their historical context, see S. Keynes, ‘The Vikings in England, c. 790–1016’, in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, ed. P. Sawyer (Oxford, 1997), pp. 48–82, at 69–73, and ‘England, c. 900–1016’, pp. 472–6. Bounds included within the main text: S 473 (Glast 30); S 544 (Abing 43); S 550 (Evesham), perhaps inserted; S 566 (Pet 11). Bounds appended or added later: S 472 (Glast 29); S 556 (Thorney); S 557 (Burt 11). Bounds indicated, but not provided: S 520 (Worcester); see also S 549 (Burt 8) and S 548 (Burt 9), if not omitted by copyist. No bounds: S 479 (Burt 5); S 484 (Burt 6); S 552a (Barking); S 569 (Burt 13). S 544 (Abing 43), ‘o Eadgeofu felix’; S 552a (Barking), ‘Eadgeofu’; S 569 (Burt 13), ‘Eadgeofu euax’; S 566 (Pet 11), ‘Edgefu euax’; cf. S 572 (Ely), ‘Ædgiva efax genitrix regum’. The expression euax eugeque (‘hurrah! well done!) was used by Aldhelm; for a later usage, see Anglo-Saxon Conversations: the Colloquies of Ælfric Bata, ed. S. Gwara and D. W. Porter (Woodbridge, 1997), p. 182 (‘excellent and outstanding’). The recurrence of the Anglian form ‘Eadgeofu’ (as opposed to ‘Eadgifu’) reflects the common origin of these diplomas. S 479 (Burt 5); S 484 (Burt 6); S 520 (Worcester); S 544 (Abing 43); S 549 (Burt 8); S 548 (Burt 9); S 550 (Evesham); S 552a (Barking); S 556 (Thorney); S 557 (Burt 11); S 569 (Burt 13); S 566 (Pet 11); cf. S 1290 (Worcester); S 574 (WinchOM). S 472 (Glast 29) and S 473 (Glast 30). For Wulfric, brother of Abbot Dunstan and manager of the abbey’s estates, see B, VSD, ch. 18 (ed. Winterbottom and Lapidge, pp. 58–60); see also Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 192–3, with Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. clxxxix, and Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 145–8 and 154–6.

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and 955, are for estates scattered across the midlands, between the Thames and the Humber.267 Unfortunately, not one of the corpus of about fifteen ‘alliterative’ charters survives in its original single-sheet form. However, three of those issued in the name of King Eadred survive as early modern transcripts of ‘originals’ now lost, and suggest in combination that the single sheets which lay behind them would have had much to reveal about the circumstances of their production. The first records a grant of land in Northamptonshire to Wulfric, pedisequus, and was issued on the occasion of the king’s coronation at Kingston in 946.268 The text of the diploma alludes to a boundary-clause ‘below’ (indicating an intention that one would be added), although none was provided; there were crosses against the names of each of the witnesses, which seemed to Humfrey Wanley to be autograph;269 and the list of witnesses is followed by a short blessing, ending ‘Amen’. The second is a grant of land in Buckinghamshire to Æthelmær, preses, which emanated probably from an assembly convened at Somerton, in Somerset, during the Easter season in 949.270 It incorporated a boundary-clause, ending with the opening words of a note in the vernacular which summarizes a complex pair of exchanges lying behind the grant; the note was probably added on the single sheet, as an afterthought, since to judge from the transcript its concluding words were placed elsewhere (probably on the dorse). In the witnesslist, Coenwald’s name is given in capitals, perhaps reflecting an association with the agency of production; the names, crosses and spaces are strikingly irregular, perhaps indicating that they were set out in some such way on the single sheet. The list of witnesses is followed by a more extended peroration, comprising a collective form of attestation, a blessing, a sanction, and an injunction, ending ‘Amen’; at which point we find a record of a payment made by the beneficiary, thus standing outside the main text of the diploma and perhaps added on the original as an afterthought.271 The third is a grant of land in Gloucestershire to Wulfric, miles, issued on a subsequent occasion in 949.272 In this case, the early modern transcript seems close to being an attempted facsimile of the lost original. The script used for the Latin text was an early manifestation of Anglo267 268

269 270 271 272

For their distribution, see the map of England during the reigns of Edmund and Eadred, available on the ‘Kemble’ website. S 520 (BCS 815), from Worcester, printed from the lost single sheet in Smith’s edition of Bede (1722). The original was seen and described, by Wanley, among the group of single-sheet charters that belonged at the time to John, Lord Somers: H. Wanley, Librorum Vett. Septentrionalium … Catalogus Historico-Criticus (Oxford, 1705), pp. 301–3, at 302. Wanley remarks that the crosses were ‘of varying appearance’ (cum crucibus diversæ formationis). The absence of any thegns should be noted. S 544 (Abing 43), transcribed in the mid sixteenth century by Robert Talbot (Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxiii–lxiv). For records of payments, see above, p. 66; see also Appendix II, below, p. 172, with reference to C2. S 550 (BCS 882), from Evesham, with BAFacs. 43. The formulation suggests a close association with S 548 (Burt 9), by which the king granted land in Derbyshire to Uhtred, miles and dux, issued probably on the same occasion.



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Caroline minuscule; Insular script was used for the composite boundary-clause, and (to some extent) for the proper names in the list of witnesses. A break of continuity near the end of the bounds presumably reflects a gap in the original. The list of witnesses is laid out along six lines at the bottom, followed by a graphic device positioned just below the last line, where the list ends.273 Seven crosses placed in the left-hand margin, not necessarily integral to the body of the text, arose conceivably in connection with acts of attestation. It is most unfortunate that we can only imagine the originals behind these three charters, on the basis of transcripts. The ‘alliterative’ charters represent an extraordinary body of material, intimately related to each other, and deeply interesting in their own right as works of learning and literature. Judged as diplomas, they are inventive, spirited, and delightfully chaotic. They stand apart from the diplomatic mainstream, yet they seem none the less to emerge from the very heart of the ceremonies of conveyance conducted at royal assemblies. The second group comprises the texts known as the ‘Dunstan B’ charters, which are associated in some significant way with Glastonbury abbey.274 Elements anticipating what in the early 950s would become the distinctive ‘Dunstan B’ formulation are to be found in two diplomas of the later 940s, preserved in different archives yet both connected explicitly with Abbot Dunstan. One is King Edmund’s lease of an estate in Somerset to his thegn Æthelnoth, dated 946;275 the other is King Eadred’s grant of the minster at Reculver to Christ Church, Canterbury, dated 949.276 Each of these diplomas lends support to the other, as evidence that Dunstan was authorized in the late 940s to operate in this way on behalf of the king (first Edmund, then Eadred); and of course it is appropriate that this should have led in the early 950s to further responsibilities. The ‘Dunstan B’ diplomas themselves are quite unlike the mainstream diplomas of 940s, and also quite unlike the ‘alliterative’ diplomas. The earliest surviving example, dated 951 and attested by King Eadred, is said to have been

273

274

275

276

In S 550 (BCS 882), the graphic device is clearly an A and a T standing either side of a smaller omega with a cross above its central element. There was apparently a similar device in S 548 (Burt 9), known from a thirteenth-century cartulary in what is probably a garbled form, depicted accurately in BCS and represented as an alpha-omega device in Burt. Above, n. 258. For those in Eadred’s name which are available in modern editions, see S 555 (Glast 43); S 563 (Glast 44); S 568 (Glast 45); S 561 (Abing 48); S 560 (Abing 49); S 564 (Abing 50); S 562 (Shaft 17); S 570 (Shaft 18). S 509 (Glast 36), with Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 182–4; cf. Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 60–1 and 415–17 (‘reworked at Glastonbury at a later date’). S 505 (WinchNM 13), dated 945, for a priest called Æthelnoth, also appears to anticipate the ‘Dunstan B’ formulation in certain respects (Miller, Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, pp. 68–70), but has no known connection with Dunstan (its witness-list is abbreviated). S 546 (CantCC 120), extant in single-sheet form, registered below, Appendix II (C3). For discussion, see Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 232–6 (noting the special treatment accorded to Queen Eadgifu); Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 184–5; and Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 940–3, with further references.

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written at Dunstan’s command.277 Diplomas of the same type were issued in Eadred’s name on occasions in 953 and 955 (or undated). Among them, one, dated 955, survives in its original single-sheet form.278 It was produced in a single continuous operation; and although it is different in layout and script from the mainstream diplomas of the same period, it seems well disciplined and thoroughly professional. In these diplomas of 953 and 955, King Eadred is conspicuous by his non-inclusion in the witness-lists, as if the diplomas emanated from royal assemblies at which the king himself had not been present. It is conceivable that the king’s name was omitted on ‘technical’ grounds;279 but the more natural explanation is that the king was prevented from attending assemblies by the illness known to have afflicted him throughout his reign,280 and that in his expected absence the work was undertaken on his behalf by an agency closely associated with an abbey favoured by him. Remarkably, in two cases – one involving a diploma preserved at Abingdon and the other involving a diploma preserved at Shaftesbury – what would appear to have been duplicate copies of the diplomas in question were preserved at Glastonbury.281 One such case could be explained away, for example as a charter referring to a different piece of land at the same place; but it is more difficult to explain away two such cases, involving different archives, raising the possibility that the texts preserved at Glastonbury were derived from drafts for the diplomas preserved elsewhere. Matters are complicated further by the group of three ‘Dunstan B’ diplomas issued in Edgar’s name in 958, when he was king of the Mercians.282 It is quite possible that someone from the ‘agency’ responsible, in other words someone from Glastonbury, transferred to Edgar’s court and there continued to produce diplomas of the same type (omitting Edgar from the witness-list in conformity with the model);283 it is also possible that in the circumstances of the ‘divided’ kingdom in 957–9, which are little understood, Edgar was able in some way to avail himself of the agency’s services, and was thus himself ‘absent’, for a different reason. Following the reunification of the kingdom in 277 278

279

280 281

282 283

S 555 (Glast 43), with Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 455–6. S 563 (Glast 44), and below, Appendix II (C5), with Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 186–7, and Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 460–2. Two other ‘Dunstan B’ charters survive in the form of early modern transcripts of single sheets now lost. One is a charter of King Edgar, dated 958 (S 676a), for which see Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pl. VII; interestingly, its layout is different from that represented by S 555. There could be an analogy with the practice whereby a person who might normally be included in a witness-list was (sometimes) dropped from the list in a diploma which was in his favour (above, p. 68). B, VSD, ch. 20 (ed. Winterbottom and Lapidge, p. 64), with Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 185–6. S 570 (Shaft 18) and S 564 (Abing 50), entered in the (lost) Liber terrarum of Glastonbury, nos. 97 and 109 (Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 547 and 548). For further discussion of this point, see Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 187–8, and Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 86–7, 124 and 139–40. S 676 (WinchOM), S (Add.) 676a, and S 678 (Abing 82), with Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 176–7 and 190–1, and ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 13–14 (n. 52). Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. 334.



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late 959, the agency continued to produce diplomas of the ‘Dunstan B’ type in Edgar’s name. Most of them are attested by the king, in the normal way; but one, dated 975, and specifically said (most unusually) to have been written at Glastonbury abbey, is not attested by the king.284 Clearly, we should not underestimate the complexity of the arrangements that developed in the 940s and 950s; and given the practice, before the tenth century, whereby ‘ecclesiastical’ (i.e. local or non-royal) agencies were charged with the task of producing diplomas on behalf of the king, it should come as no surprise that similar practices continued to be observed thereafter. Most prominent among the agencies involved in the production of royal diplomas during Edgar’s reign were of course those which represented the diplomatic ‘mainstream’, including ‘Edgar A’ and his successors; but beside them, and in some respects associated with them, were other agencies which would seem to have become involved in such work under particular circumstances.285 The agency which produced diplomas of the ‘Dunstan B’ type in the 960s and 970s, for estates across the country, has left the clearest trace of its work; others may have specialized in the production of diplomas for estates in a particular shire or group of shires, or in a particular diocese.286 There is the interesting and especially distinctive case of the ‘midlands’ agency which had worked for Edgar in 958, and which seems to have continued to work for Edgar in the early 960s.287 One of the diplomas produced by this agency survives in its original single-sheet form, and another survives in the form of an early modern transcript of a single sheet now lost; various aspects of formulation and layout suggest a common origin, and both have features which reflect complications in the process of production.288 There is also the case of Edgar’s ‘west country’ agency, known to have been operating between 960 and 965.289 Remarkably, three of the four surviving diplomas attributed to this agency survive in single-sheet form, and prove to be the work of three different scribes, demonstrating that we should not expect a particular agency to be identifiable as a single scribe.290 A further dimension to the arrangements that existed for the production of charters in Edgar’s reign is suggested by one of the various forms of attestation which appear to suggest involvement in the production of a diploma.291 Among them we find a formula which indicates quite explicitly that a particular bishop, as part of the act of drafting or dictating the charter, under the direction of the king

284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291

S 802 (BCS 1315), from the Old Minster, Winchester, on which see Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 179 and 192–3, and Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, p. 123. Above, pp. 59–60, with Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 12–23. The level of regional organization which has been detected among Charlemagne’s notaries provides a form of analogy; see McKitterick, Charlemagne, pp. 199–212. For the ‘midlands’ agency, see above, n. 184. For S 677 (Wells 31), see Appendix II (E1); for S 712a (BAFacs. 44), see above, n. 212. For the ‘west country’ agency, see above, n. 185. For S 684, S 697 and S 736, see below, Appendix II (E2, E5 and E11). Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 26–8, 63 n. 113, 121 n. 124 and 125 n. 134, with Chaplais, ‘The “Royal” Anglo-Saxon chancery’, p. 50, and Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. 486.

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and his men, gave orders that it should be written (‘Ego .N. episcopus hanc cartulam dictitans rege suisque precipientibus perscribere iussi’).292 The formula occurs a few times in the 960s, in different contexts,293 and is found thereafter in the 1010s and 1020s, again in different contexts;294 and while it may not carry the same significance in each of the diplomas in which it is found, it is striking that in certain cases it was applied to the diocesan bishop. The principle of delegation in Edgar’s reign is thus well established, and provides the context for the extraordinary charter for the New Minster, Winchester, which marks the replacement of the secular clergy by regular monks in 964, but which was not drawn up until 966.295 The charter was produced, famously, in the form of a small book, with its illuminated opening pages followed by a main text written throughout in gold letters; and since it is generally agreed that the text was drafted by Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, one imagines that the book was written and decorated at the Old Minster, for use next door.296 The dating-clause (fol. 30r) leads directly to the witness-list (on six pages from 30r to 32v), which is itself followed by a sanction cast in the form of a collective declaration by the witnesses themselves (33r).297 One is reminded here of the performative aspects of the ‘alliterative’ charters, and of the sanctions that follow the witness-list in some of the diplomas of King Eadwig issued in 956 (Group I);298 and it may be significant that there are complications at this point in the original book (32v–33r), involving the contribution of a second scribe, which require further consideration in the light of the observed features of the single sheets.299 One might add that if Bishop Æthelwold had been authorized to produce a grand document of this kind for the New Minster in 966, the question arises whether he or anyone else had been authorized in the 960s or early 970s to produce similar documents protecting the privileges of other religious houses. To judge from Wulfstan of Winchester, in his Vita S. Æthelwoldi written in the mid-990s,

292

293 294

295

296 297 298 299

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 26–7 and 125 n. 134, with ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, p. 18 n. 74; Kelly, Charters of Shaftesbury, p. 102; Woodman, Charters of Northern Houses, p. 123. S 1213 (BuryStEd), perhaps derived from a royal diploma dated 962; S 712 (North 4), dated 963; S 730 (Shaft 25), dated 964; S 755 (Exe), dated 967. S 931 (Thorn), dated 1013; S 931b (Bark), dated 1013, with reference to two other charters; S 977 (Eve), undated (1021 x 1023); S 983 (Thorney), undated. The potential significance of this style of attestation is enhanced by the way in which it is used in S 931b; see below, p. 125. S 745 (WinchNM 23), from BL Cotton Vespasian A. viii. For discussion, see also The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, ed. S. Keynes (Copenhagen, 1996), pp. 26–8; Miller, Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, pp. 105–11; A. R. Rumble, Property and Piety in Early Medieval Winchester, Winchester Studies 4.iii (Oxford, 2002), pp. 65–97 (including text and translation); Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, p. 21. Lapidge, Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066, pp. 127–8 and 189–90, with references. The pages containing the dating-clause, witness-list, and sanction (30r–33r) are reproduced in Miller, Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, plates II–VIII. Above, pp. 94–5 and 58; see also below, p. 119. See below, Appendix II (E12).



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the endowment of the monastery which Æthelwold had founded at Abingdon had grown under his successor Abbot Osgar to more than 600 hides of land, and was further strengthened with ‘privileges of eternal liberty (aeternae libertatis … priuilegiis)’ written on divine as well as on royal authority, which, ‘sealed with gold leaves (laminis aureis sigillata)’, were preserved at Abingdon to his own day.300 There may also have been documentation of some kind for the Old Minster at Winchester,301 and for Æthelwold’s foundations at Ely.302 It is unclear, however, what our expectations should be for Edgar’s reign, beyond the extraordinary charter for the New Minster; and much might depend on the view one takes of the date of the Regularis Concordia.303 Normal diplomatic usage for the endowment of a religious house involved a grant of land ad usus monachorum;304 but there were variations, as shown in 971 when Æthelwold seems himself to have been involved in drafting the diploma by which Edgar gave him land at Barrow-upon-Humber, in Lincolnshire, apparently in the early stages of the establishment of the monastery at Burch (Peterborough).305 Wulfstan of Winchester’s view of Edgar was conditioned by the attitudes that had come to prevail at Winchester, Abingdon and elsewhere in the 990s; and it 300

301

302 303

304 305

Wulfstan of Winchester, Vita S. Æthelwoldi [hereafter WW, VSÆ], ch. 21 (ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, p. 36), with Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. xli. Wulfstan’s intended meaning is unclear. The charters may have been written in gold letters (cf. S 745, S 880, S 1036), or ‘sealed’ and thereby protected within gilded sheets, or secured inside a gold altar, reliquary or box; see also Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, p. 48 n. 219. It is also possible that the reference is (e.g.) to a register of donations, put together at Abingdon in the late tenth century; cf. S. Keynes, ‘King Æthelred’s charter for Eynsham abbey (1005)’, in Early Medieval Studies, ed. Baxter et al., pp. 451–73, at 457. For S 814–19 and 821–7, in Edgar’s name, forming a composite text produced at the Old Minster, perhaps in the late tenth century, see Rumble, Property and Piety, pp. 98–135, and Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 47–8. WW, VSÆ, ch. 23 (ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, pp. 38–40), For Edgar and Ely, see Keynes, ‘Ely abbey 672–1109’, pp. 21–3. On the date of RC, see Keynes, ’Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 42 n. 189, and 45, with references; see also D. Pratt, ‘The voice of the king in “King Edgar’s Establishment of Monasteries”’, ASE 41 (2013), 145–204, at 149 and 171. The royal injunction about monks and nuns, mentioned by Byrhtferth of Ramsey (BR, VSO iv. 3), which seems by his chronology to have been in force c. 965, is perhaps more likely to have been an allusion to the events of 964 (cf. WW, VSÆ, ch. 18), as in RC, Prol., ch. 2, than to the letter of exhortation addressed by Edgar to the synodal council of Winchester (RC, Prol., ch. 4), and thus has no bearing on the date of that council and so on the date of RC. One might add that some time is likely to have lapsed between any such injunction and the need for any such monastic agreement; on which basis the RC (and so the council of Winchester) would sit more comfortably c. 970 than c. 965. For further discussion, see Byrhtferth of Ramsey: Lives, ed. Lapidge, pp. 72–3, and Early Lives of St Dunstan, ed. Winterbottom and Lapidge, pp. xliv–xlv. Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 46–7; see also below, pp. 125–6. S 782 (Pet 15), which is in certain respects anomalous. For its attribution to Bishop Æthelwold, see D. Whitelock, ‘The authorship of the account of King Edgar’s establishment of monasteries’ [1970], reprinted in her History, Law and Literature in 10th–11th Century England (London, 1981) pp. [VII] 125–36, at 130–3, with Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 21–2. For further discussion, see Kelly, Charters of Peterborough, pp. 249–56.

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may be that he was indulging a wishful thought. Persons of high standing in the church had been writing charters on behalf of kings since the late seventh century, and had probably been fabricating them in the interests of their respective houses for just about as long. Respect for documentary evidence is one thing; but it was bound at the same time to generate its own complications. The continued delegation of responsibility for the production of diplomas to bishops, abbots and other ecclesiastical agencies was not so much a product of the monastic reform movement, in the tenth century, as a function of the increased use of the written word, over a longer period, in Latin and in the vernacular, for purposes of royal government and local administration, and in all matters pertaining to the ownership of bookland. Yet the evidence for delegation has to be kept in perspective. The central agency active during the period 925–75 would appear to have operated in loose association with a number of other agencies; and the key question is how the arrangements worked in practice, in relation to the routine of royal assemblies, and in the interests of all concerned. Under certain circumstances, a king might turn to an abbot, a bishop, or even an archbishop when the diploma dealt with a special matter, considered for whatever reason to be outside the remit or beyond the competence of the usual agency. King Eadred’s grant of the minster at Reculver to Christ Church, Canterbury, was perhaps a case in point. King Edgar’s grant of privileges for the New Minster, Winchester, was clearly so. A diploma recording the foundation and initial endowment of a religious house would have represented another challenge, though it is not clear when the need arose.306 The great majority of royal diplomas in this period, however, were relatively straightforward grants of bookland; and the production of a title-deed for a single estate, whether for a higher ecclesiastic, a religious house, or a layman, need not have presented any problems. Perhaps the king turned to a favoured, experienced and trusted bishop, as a special privilege, or when the circumstances allowed, or to lighten the burden which would otherwise fall on others, or when something occurred which prevented the production of a diploma in the normal way. Perhaps the king or those around him resorted to delegation when the possibility of authorizing a new grant, exchange or sale of land, and several others, arose directly from proceedings at the assembly itself, so that nothing had been prepared in advance. In some such circumstances, the central agency might have been able to rise to the challenge; in others, not. The grants made by King Edmund to his thegn Wulfric, soon after his accession, and King Eadred’s grant to his thegn Wufric pedisequus, on the occasion of his coronation, led in each case to an ‘alliterative’ charter. The authorization would have been given at the assembly, and if the agency was able to act at once there might be no need to incorporate explicit reference to an arrangement which must have been self-evident. Other diplomas might have been produced necessarily some time after the event, and the agency might have been expected to incorporate some expression of its role. Whatever the case, adoption of the procedure would have required authoriza-

306

For Cluny, see above, p. 41; and for further discussion, see below, pp. 125–6.



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tion, and seems almost invariably to have led to a diploma which stands apart from a discernible norm. It was no more than a flexible system working well. Before leaving this aspect of the subject, and this period, mention should be made of a curiously hybrid text, preserved in its original form, which shows what might happen when an agency accustomed to producing documents in the vernacular aspired to the greater heights of a royal diploma. In 968 a certain Ælfwold purchased a small parcel of land in Kent from a certain Æthelflæd; and someone was charged with making a record of the transaction in writing. The draftsman or scribe began in the vernacular, setting out the essential details but leaving a blank space on the second line for the amount paid, presumably because the figure was yet to be determined – though it was soon added (1,450 pennies [denarios]). He continued with a boundary-clause, in Latin and the vernacular, and then made use of some Latin formulation derived from an earlier Kentish diploma, culminating with an elaborate sanction. In a second stage of production, the scribe provided a basic form of dating-clause, followed by a list of witnesses, presented in the manner of a royal diploma. His initial attempt to furnish the correct indiction failed, perhaps for lack of an Easter Table; but he was soon able to supply the information, indicating that the indiction was the same as the king’s regnal year (11, calculated from 957). The witness-list reveals that all this took place at a meeting, presumably in Canterbury, attended by King Edgar, Archbishop Dunstan, an abbot, two reeves, a port-reeve, four thegns, and eight rustici (ceorls), with the addition of three more thegns and another rusticus, and a reference, along the bottom line, to the communities of Christ Church and of St Augustine’s, and to the three ‘fellowships’ (geferscipas), within the burh, outside the burh, and the guests. The list of witnesses ends with the addition of Ælfsige bur-thegn, the hired (community, or household) of Appledore, and five other men of unspecified status. An insertion on the first line associates a certain Eadwold with Æthelflæd, as co-vendor, and an additional note, on the dorse, reveals that Ælfwold paid a further 100 pence (panæga) to Eadwold and his sons.307 The singular interest of this document for present purposes is threefold. In the first place, if the charter did not survive in its original form, displaying all the physical traces of the successive stages in its production, and if we were dependent on a cartulary copy (though in fact no such copy exists), one’s natural inclination might be to regard the document as a fabrication, by someone who had reason to dignify a ‘private’ transaction in what would have to be described as an ‘experimental’ diplomatic form. Yet the charter is undoubtedly authentic and original. Secondly, it thus has the power to transport us into the midst of an intimately ‘Kentish’ assembly, at which the king happened to be present, and at which trouble was taken to produce a written record of at least one aspect of the proceedings. The transaction did not require a diploma, as such; so it is as if the 307

S 1215 (CantCC 128), with Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 136–7. For its context within the documentation for Edgar’s reign, see Keynes, ‘Edgar rex admirabilis’, pp. 39–40, and ‘A conspectus of the charters of King Edgar’, in Edgar, King of the English, ed. Scragg, pp. 60–80, at 72.

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person responsible for making the record was so impressed by the king’s presence that he decided to enhance the (vernacular) record of the sale itself (lines 1–4) with some of the attributes of a Latin diploma. Thirdly, it provides a point of comparison for the way things might have worked at royal assemblies, when there would have been a need for the production of written records on a much larger scale, and, dare one say, of more ‘professional’ appearance.

The Diplomas of King Æthelred the Unready The diplomas of the period 925–75, when studied closely and collectively in relation to all other available forms of evidence, provide the basis for our knowledge of at least some of the many complications which lay behind the emergence of a kingdom of the English during these years. In the same way, the diplomas of the period 975–1016 provide the basis for insight into the difficulties which arose and multiplied as the English found themselves again under the rule of first one, and then another, youthful king, and as those in or aspiring to occupy positions of power and responsibility sought to protect or advance their respective interests, and sometimes found themselves in conflict with each other. It was a natural process, transcending the imagined personalities, culpability or competence of any one or all of the protagonists; and it was soon complicated, for those affected, by the renewal and then the intensification of viking raids.308 The diplomas of King Æthelred contribute significantly to our understanding of practices at royal assemblies, providing invaluable evidence of attendance at the meetings, throwing light on various aspects of the arrangements that existed for the production of diplomas, and affording a few glimpses of the ceremonial involved. As had been the case before Æthelred’s reign (during the central decades of the tenth century), responsibility for the production of diplomas seems generally to have been assigned to a ‘central’ agency, and in certain cases to have been delegated by the king to an agency of some other kind. The diplomas of the 980s represent for the most part a continuation of the practices which had obtained in the 970s; there is evidence at the same time of a connection from the ‘central’ agency to the New Minster, Winchester, as well as a late ‘Dunstan B’ charter from Malmesbury.309 During the 990s, and onwards to the end of Æthelred’s reign, the diplomas assume a more varied character, and by the same token come into their own for all the purposes of modern scholar-

308

309

A detailed conspectus of Æthelred’s diplomas, with more extended discussion of particular persons and themes, will appear in S. Keynes, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas 975–1066, AS Charters Supplementary Series 3 (in preparation). Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 84–92 (central agency) and 92–5 (other agencies); see also Dumville, ‘English Square minuscule script [I]’, p. 161. For the New Minster charters, see S 842 (WinchNM 26) and S 845 (WinchNM 27), together with S 865 (WinchNM 28) and S 869 (WinchNM 30), with commentaries in Miller, Charters of the New Minster; for the ‘Dunstan B’ charter, see S 862 (Malm 32), with Kelly, Charters of Malmesbury, pp. 242–3.



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ship. Although the traces are more difficult to detect, there could be little doubt that throughout this period the diplomas were regularly drawn up by a central agency, acting at royal assemblies; equally, there can be no doubt that responsibility for the production of diplomas was on occasion, and with due authority, delegated to another agency.310 The diplomas of the years from c. 990 to c. 1005 are of particular interest.311 They take their place as part of what was apparently a flurry of the kind of business, conducted at royal assemblies, which involved documentation. Royal diplomas had long been respected as evidence of a person’s title to an estate of bookland; but in the period 925–75 (as before) security of tenure might be undermined by someone else who brought an older (or purportedly older) diploma for the same estate into contention.312 Complications arising from domestic politics were compounded by complications arising from the changes in the ownership of land which took place as laymen built up their holdings and as the heads of religious houses recovered or extended their endowments. Resentments contained during Edgar’s life were unleashed by his death in 975, precipitating the disruption associated with the reign of Edward the Martyr (975–8); the death of Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, in 984, precipitated further disruption. The impact on disaffected laymen, and others, thus intensified from the later 970s onwards. In the 980s, draftsmen of diplomas employed forms of words directed against anyone who might bring forward an older charter against the new one.313 In the 990s, matters were complicated further by the onset of sustained viking raids. It was against this background that draftsmen began to enlarge almost as a matter of course on the circumstances behind a particular grant, and to incorporate narratives, sometimes in Latin and sometimes in English, explaining how an estate had been forfeited into the king’s hands, often (it seems) by due process of law at a royal assembly.314 Unscrupulous laymen at all times might take advantage of the king (and others) in securing (genuine) diplomas in respect of land which belonged to or was held on lease from a religious house.315 It is likely, however, that the changing circumstances had provided 310 311

312 313

314

315

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 95–120 (central agency) and 120–6 (other agencies). Keynes, ‘Re-reading King Æthelred’, pp. 89–96, with references, and ‘The cult of Edward the Martyr during the reign of King Æthelred the Unready’, in Gender and Historiography, ed. Nelson et al., pp. 115–25. See above, pp. 62–3. S 856 (KCD 648), S 860 (KCD 650) and S 861 (KCD 655), all from the Old Minster, Winchester; S 872 (Sel 21); with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 88 and n. 20. S 443 (BCS 727), from the Old Minster, is an ‘early’ forgery which contains wording directed against charters which had belonged to the former owners of land forfeited by them for their criminal actions. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 97 (listed) and 200–2 (discussed), with S. Keynes, ‘Crime and punishment in the reign of King Æthelred the Unready’, in People and Places in Northern Europe, 500–1600, ed. I. Wood and N. Lund (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 67–81, at 76–81. For the pressure which might be applied to a religious house to lease its land, see S 509 (Glast 36), with Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 416–17; and one can imagine how

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and continued to provide contexts for the production of ‘false’ charters.316 A better understanding of the extent, variable quality and apparent effectiveness of such activity, before and after the Norman Conquest, will emerge only from close and systematic study of forged diplomas, whether still extant in their ‘original’ single-sheet form or only in cartulary copies.317 One imagines that some priests (or monks) might be induced to act on behalf of laymen who recognized the need for written evidence in pursuit of their own claims; and there could be no doubt that members of religious houses, eager to recover possession of what was considered to be rightfully theirs (or to strengthen their title to what had just been recovered), would do the same. False charters might take any form, ranging from title-deeds to foundation charters and grants of privileges. Anyway, and as before, several of the charters issued by King Æthelred in the 990s (and into the eleventh century) contain forms of words directed against older charters which might be used to challenge a newly issued charter, showing that older documentation was still considered to be a threat.318 In a remarkable document drawn up apparently to complement a group of three royal diplomas issued in the late 990s, the draftsman declares (in the voice of the king): ‘This I enjoin … that no man shall presume to change this donation (donationem) for any reason, or to bring forward a title-deed (territorii codicem) or the writing of a cyrograph (cirographi dictatum) against the documents of my donation (mee munificentie scripta); but all those old deeds (antiqua territoria) … are to be reckoned invalid for ever after, and, reduced to nothing and exposed to the contempt of all, are to be trampled under foot; and the decrees of this privilege (huius priuilegii decreta) are to be strengthened with firm and unshaken solidity’.319

316 317

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319

easily this might lead to complications. For an example from the 990s, see also S 884 (Muchelney), with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 181 n. 103 (illustrating the power of a royal assembly to annul a diploma). For an analogy from the 1020s, see S 956 (WinchNM 33). For such contexts, see above, pp. 62–3, and below, pp. 111–12 (S 876), 117 (S 891) and 129 (S 956). See Crick, ‘Norman imitation of pre-Conquest script’. One need not doubt that members of religious houses participated enthusiastically in such activities. Of a particular group of twelve single-sheet charters from Abingdon, now lost, only five would appear to have been copied from authentic originals; see Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. xlvii and lxiii–lxiv. A case-study is provided by the variety of tenth-century documentation preserved from the Rochester archive; see S. Keynes, ‘King Æthelred the Unready and the Church of Rochester’, in Textus Roffensis: law, language and libraries in early medieval England, ed. B. Bombi and B. O’Brien, Studies in the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout, forthcoming). E.g. S 881 (KCD 687), from Wilton; S 883 (Abing 125); S 896 (Abing 128); S 901 (Abing 132); S 902 (Abing 131); S 926 (Roch 33); S 927 (Abing 136); with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 201 n. 176. See also below, pp. 111–12 and 117. S 937 (Abing 129), with EHD 2nd ed., no. 123; for a different reading of this passage, see Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. 506. This document, which lacks a dating-clause and a witness-list, and which is anomalous in other respects, seems likely to have been drafted on the king’s behalf in the context of a royal assembly, conceivably although not necessarily by Wulfgar, abbot of Abingdon.



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The diplomas of this period seem almost to parade their credentials as products of royal assemblies. Far from being relentlessly formulaic, and therefore in any sense routine, they were the work of draftsmen who might have shared various turns of phrase, and who might have respected certain conventions, but who were able at the same time to take advantage of the scope they evidently enjoyed for innovation, reflection, and literary display. Even so, while they break free in many cases from the familiar form of a conventional title-deed, they still cohere as a group. A literary or diplomatic device used quite often during this period was the incorporation of a form of address, after the proem, which had the effect of transforming the operative part of the diploma, in the king’s voice, from a statement into a more direct notification.320 The increased use of notification clauses might reflect the influence of continental diplomatic practices, or of the forms of address in Latin letters, or of vernacular documentation.321 It might also reflect a practice, adopted in certain cases, whereby a diploma was read out at an assembly, or (and perhaps more likely) expounded off the cuff in the vernacular (as had been the practice at church councils in the eighth century). Most interestingly, when the device was used in King Æthelred’s diploma for Eynsham abbey, in 1005, it turned the text as a whole into an address by the king to all those in holy orders and to all those holding offices of worldly power; an effect complemented, in the same diploma, by Æthelmær’s formal address to the assembly, incorporated after the bounds as a separate text in the vernacular.322 Most remarkably, the diplomas of these years also draw us into the heart of debates which were taking place in high circles, as the king and those around him looked back on the immediate past and tried to understand what lay behind their present difficulties. The discourse was of the sins which had brought God’s punishment down upon the English people, in the form of the viking invasions of the early 990s; and it was discourse, in that connection, about the commemoration of King Edward the Martyr, about the loss of direction after the death of Bishop Æthelwold in 984, and about manifold wrongdoing in the king’s youth (iuuentus), including the abuse of church privileges and complicity in the appropriation of church lands.323 Unfortunately, for all that the king and his 320 321 322 323

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 111–14; see also Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, on S 537 (CantCC 119). For examples in penitential letters issued by Wulfstan as bishop of London, see Councils and Synods, pp. 233–4. S 911 (KCD 714), with Keynes, ‘King Æthelred’s charter for Eynsham’, pp. 459–60 and 461–2. For some further discussion, see Keynes, ‘Re-reading King Æthelred’, p. 93, and ‘Cult of Edward the Martyr’, with references. The problem of the youthful king (familiar from Ecclesiastes 10.16, and from the seventh-century Hiberno-Latin text De XII abusiuis seculi) had arisen earlier in the tenth century, with Eadwig (and Edgar), and remained of interest in the late tenth century, looking forward as well as back. The tract De XII abusiuis seculi was translated into English by Ælfric, probably in the late 990s; see S. Keynes, ‘The declining reputation of King Æthelred the Unready’ [1978], reprinted in Anglo-Saxon History: Basic Readings, ed. D. A. E. Pelteret (New York, 2000), pp. 157–90, at 157–8. Ælfric’s use of the tract is discussed in more detail by M. Clayton, ‘De duodecim abusivis, lordship and kingship in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Saints and

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councillors tried to do in the 990s, the threat from the vikings only escalated, prompting further responses in the opening years of the eleventh century. Taking all this together, and building at the same time on the evidence of the diplomas of the period 925–75, there could be no more compelling demonstration of the continued and close link between the business conducted at royal assemblies and the royal diplomas which emanated directly from them. For present purposes, it must suffice to focus within this period on a group of diplomas issued between 993 and 998, in which the king is seen to make amends for what is now represented as earlier wrongdoing.324 They arise, one suspects, from Æthelred’s changing personal circumstances, the growing influence on him of those in high places, and their collective response to the viking raids. They have much to reveal about unfolding dynamics within the upper echelons of the English church, as a new generation of bishops and abbots came to the fore. This was the age of Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury (990–4), Ælfric, bishop of Ramsbury (991 × 993–) and archbishop of Canterbury (995–1005), Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester (984–1006) and archbishop of Canterbury (1006–12), and Wulfstan, bishop of London (996–1002) and archbishop of York (1002–23).325 It was also a period in which Æthelred himself reached greater maturity of judgement. The king’s mother, Queen Ælfthryth, had in some sense returned to court in the early 990s, after an apparent ‘absence’ of several years; interestingly, she made her appearances accompanied by a growing line of grandsons.326 The king’s kinsman Ealdorman Æthelweard, whose outlook on events in general can be judged from a reading of his version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and who was also active at this time (with his son Æthelmær) as a patron of Ælfric, the homilist, of Cerne abbey in Dorset, now held a respected position in high circles as the senior ealdorman in the land.327 We may not be able to over-

324

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326 327

Scholars: new perspectives on Anglo-Saxon literature and culture in honour of Hugh Macgennis, ed. S. McWilliams (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 141–63, esp. 159–63, suggesting that its use by Ælfric ‘amounts to forceful criticism of his king’. The diplomas suggest to me that the discourse in the 990s had large dimensions, and that Ælfric’s translation of De XII abusiuis seculi would have represented a very useful contribution from all points of view. The diplomas in question are S 876 (Abing 124), S 885 (Roch 31), S 891 (KCD 698, from the Old Minster, Winchester), and S 893 (Roch 32). For further discussion, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 95–104 (diplomatic context) and 176–93 (historical context); ‘Wulfsige, monk of Glastonbury, Abbot of Westminster (c. 990–3), and Bishop of Sherborne (c. 993–1002)’, in St Wulfsige and Sherborne, ed. K. Barker, D. A. Hinton and A. Hunt (Bournemouth, 2005), pp. 53–94, at 67–8; and ‘Re-reading King Æthelred’, pp. 90–3. For the two Rochester charters (S 885 and S 893), see below, n. 367. On Sigeric, Ælfric and Ælfheah, as three successive archbishops of Canterbury during the most difficult years of Æthelred’s reign, see the entries on each in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al., pp. 436, 9 and 7–8, with Keynes, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas 975–1066, in more detail. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 187, with Atlas of Attestations, Table LIX. For Æthelweard and Æthelmær, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 191–3, and ‘Apocalypse then: England A.D. 1000’, in Europe around the Year 1000, ed. P.  Urbanczyk (Warsaw, 2001), pp. 247–70, at 247–8 and 261–4, with Atlas of Attestations, Tables LXII and LXIII; see also C. Cubitt, ‘Ælfric’s lay patrons’, in A Companion



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hear their conversations, or to intercept any letters which passed between them; but we may imagine, perhaps, from the number of occasions they would have been in each other’s company, especially at royal assemblies, that all of these people, and others alongside them, would have shared in discussion of matters of current and common concern. The draftsmen of the diplomas which emanate from these occasions bring us close to the innermost and unfolding thoughts of the king himself, and of those around him.328 Over ten years ago, Pauline Stafford explored ‘political’ aspects of this discourse, with compelling results.329 Charles Insley pursued a similar approach, suggesting that the diplomas provide echoes of a dialogue at the assemblies, ‘negotiating the limits of royal power’.330 Catherine Cubitt has since fastened to good effect on the occurrence in these diplomas of the language of penance, seeing Æthelred’s ‘penitential actions’ of 993 as an early manifestation of a theme which can be tracked through the later diplomas of the 990s.331 Levi Roach has developed the same theme, exploring contemporary continental dimensions and millennial overtones.332 Needless to say, we have to tread carefully in our estimation of the precise nature of what was taking place on successive occasions in the 990s. The performance of penance, whether ‘private’ or ‘public’, was not in itself remarkable;333 and for his part Æthelred

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331

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to Ælfric, ed. H. Magennis and M. Swann (Leiden, 2009), pp. 165–92, and M. Gretsch, ‘Historiography and literary patronage in late Anglo-Saxon England: the evidence of Æthelweard’s Chronicle’, ASE 41 (2013), 205–48. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 98–102 and 118, and L. Roach, ‘Penitential discourse in the diplomas of Æthelred the Unready’, JEH 64 (2013), 258–76. For the voice of Charlemagne in capitularies, see J. L. Nelson, ‘The voice of Charlemagne’, in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. R. Gameson and H. Leyser (Oxford, 2001), pp. 76–88; and on the ‘voice’ of a royal diploma, see G. Koziol, ‘Is Robert in hell? The diploma for Saint-Denis and the mind of a rebel king (Jan. 25, 923)’, EME 14 (2006), 233–67, at 258–9, and Politics of Memory and Identity, pp. 353–6. P. Stafford, ‘Political ideas in late tenth-century England: charters as evidence’, in Law, Laity and Solidarities, ed. P. Stafford, J. L. Nelson and J. Martindale (Manchester, 2001), pp. 68–82. Insley, ‘Where did all the charters go?’, pp. 116–17, and ‘Assemblies and charters’, pp. 53–5. More recently, with greater emphasis on penance: ‘Rhetoric and ritual’, pp. 116–18, and ‘Charters, ritual and late tenth-century English kingship’, in Gender and Historiography, ed. Nelson et al. [2012], pp. 75–89, at 77–80. In her paper on ‘The politics of remorse’, given at the International Society of AngloSaxists conference, Munich in 2005; see also Cubitt, ‘Bishops and councils in late Saxon England’ [2007], pp. 162–7; ‘Ælfric’s lay patrons’, pp. 173–5 and 180–1; ‘The politics of remorse: penance and royal piety in the reign of Æthelred the Unready’, Historical Research 85 (2012), 179–92; and Sin and Society in 10th- and 11th-Century England (forthcoming). L. Roach, ‘Public rites and public wrongs: ritual aspects of diplomas in tenth- and eleventh-century England’, EME 19 (2011), 182–203, at 193–9; ‘Penitential discourse in the diplomas of Æthelred the Unready’; and ‘Apocalypse and atonement in the politics of Æthelredian England’, English Studies 95 (2014), forthcoming. See S. Hamilton, The Practice of Penance, 900–1050 (Woodbridge, 2001), esp. pp. 2–9 (‘public’ and private penance), with C. Cubitt, ‘Bishops, priests and penance in late Saxon England’, EME 14 (2006), 41–63 (penance as a regular part of lay piety). In the words

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was not the first Anglo-Saxon king said to have performed penance in respect of such wrongdoing.334 There could be little doubt, however, that the draftsmen of King Æthelred’s diplomas were drawing attention to what must have been an extraordinary phase in the king’s reign when, in the context of royal assemblies, he expressed remorse for wrongful acts perpetrated in his youth, involving a declaration of his readiness to do penance, and a demonstration of his resolve to undo what had been done wrong. As one would expect, given the nature of the evidence, the wrongdoing in question involved what was perceived in retrospect as the king’s infringement of the (real or imagined) privileges of a religious house, or of the terms of a title-deed which had passed into the possession of a religious house in respect of one of its estates; and, as threatened in the sanctionclause of any such diploma, the king would be required to make amends for his wrongdoing by performing due penance. The question which arises is where any one or all of Æthelred’s actions, in the 990s, belonged in a range which might have extended from an admission of wrongdoing, or an announcement of the king’s contrition, to the performance of penance in private, or within the context of a royal assembly, or in public. Æthelred’s actions may or may not have been forced upon him, and may or may not have determined thereafter the exercise, perception or characterization of his kingship;335 it seems more likely, however, that they formed part of a concerted effort, conceived in high places, to help earn God’s favour in the troubles that lay ahead. King Æthelred’s reaffirmation of the ‘liberty’ of Abingdon abbey, in relation to the election of its abbot and in relation to (unspecified) estates forming its landed endowment, was prompted by the abuse of the abbey’s rights in the later 980s, and was discussed in the first instance at an assembly convened at Winchester, for Pentecost (4 June), in 993.336 It is remarkable enough that the king should have made a display of righting wrongs which had been done in his youth; it is no less remarkable that Abbot Wulfgar should have taken the opportunity, in obtaining a reaffirmation of the abbey’s privileges, to construct a larger narrative taking their history back through the tenth into the ninth, eighth and late seventh centuries. Matters are complicated in this case by the existence of purportedly ‘earlier’ texts, preserved at Abingdon, which are closely related

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of the homilist Ælfric, ‘true penance heals our misdeeds’; see Ælfric’s homily on the Epiphany, from his Second Series of Catholic Homilies, dedicated to Archbishop Sigeric (c. 992 x 994), in Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text, ed. M. Godden (Oxford, 1979), p. 26 (cited by Cubitt, ‘Bishops, priests and penance’, p. 41). The tale of Leofwine, son of Æthulf, provides a striking example of wrongdoing, penance and the performance of good works, at a lower level; see Liber Eliensis, ii. 60, in Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake (London, 1962), pp. 131–2. For Cynewulf, king of the West Saxons, in the 780s, see S 1258 (CantCC 27). For two suggestively different analogies, see M. de Jong, The Penitential State: authority and atonement in the age of Louis the Pious, 814–840 (Cambridge, 2009), esp. pp. 122–31 (Attigny, 822) with 228–41 and 245–9 (Soissons, 833), developed from M. de Jong, ‘Power and humility in Carolingian society: the public penance of Louis the Pious’, EME 1 (1992), 29–52. S 876 (Abing 124), with Councils and Synods, pt 1, pp. 179–90, and Hudson, Church of Abingdon, i. 140–51 (text from BL Cotton Claudius C. ix, with translation).



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to the diploma of 993.337 If the so-called Orthodoxorum diplomas of Eadwig and Edgar are genuine, they would affect materially our understanding of the early stages of the monastic reform movement, and Æthelred’s diploma would be seen to be an ‘in-house’ production, of uncertain authority. If on the other hand the diplomas of Eadwig and Edgar are forgeries, the question might arise whether Æthelred’s diploma should fall with them, and all be seen as part of a tendency in the late tenth century whereby certain monastic houses, in trying to recover lost rights, were eager to assert their credentials as houses steeped in ancient privileges and connections to the distant past. Alternatively, it may be that Æthelred’s diploma is the only one of the Abingdon group that is authentic, representing a personal triumph for Abbot Wulfgar as he strove to recover and to secure privileges which had been lost in the later 980s; and that sooner or later similar diplomas were being fabricated at or for other houses. My own view of the matter remains that Æthelred’s diploma is genuine, and the others spurious.338 It attests to the king’s change of heart in the early 990s, and is of the greatest importance for that reason; it attests no less significantly to the promotion and the endorsement of aspirations entertained in one of the reformed houses to an ‘historical’ identity reaching back to the early days of the English church. It happens also to afford a view of the processes behind the production of a royal diploma which is remarkable in itself, and, as we shall see presently, no less so in relation to a closely related diploma of 997. One could say that the attention Æthelred’s diploma of 993 continues to attract is evidence, in itself, of the way in which its content exudes a sense of its own authenticity, especially when taken in relation to other diplomas of the same period, which might be said to speak with the same voice. An ‘ordinary’ royal diploma represented an act by which the king, with the approval of his councillors, created an estate of bookland, and conveyed the title-deed for the estate into the hands of the named beneficiary. The king’s restoration of privileges to Abingdon abbey went way beyond a straightforward grant of land, and was not, therefore, the kind of diploma that could have been prepared in advance. One imagines that it was decided at Winchester, in early June 993, how the required diploma should be drawn up. Wulfgar, abbot of Abingdon, and Ælfric, as bishop of Ramsbury, might well have been expected to play leading parts in the exercise, in connection with those sections of the diploma in which they had a special interest. It was apparently decided, at the same time, that the diploma would be ratified at a meeting at Gillingham (probably the place of that name in Dorset), in mid July. Given the inclusion of circumstantial information 337

338

For discussion, see E. John, Orbis Britanniae (Leicester, 1966), pp. 181–209. For a modification of John’s case, see Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxxxiv–cxv, cxciii, cxciv and cciii–cciv, with Insley, ‘Where did all the charters go?’, pp. 116–17, and Cubitt, ‘Bishops and councils’, p. 163 n. 56 (cf. ‘Politics of remorse’, p. 181 n. 12); see also Hudson, Church of Abingdon, i. cxcv–cciv, and Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 918 and 970. For penetrating discussion of the larger historical context, see Pratt, ‘The voice of the king in “King Edgar’s Establishment of Monasteries”’, pp. 181–7. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 98–102, 118, 176–8 and 250–1, with ‘Re-reading King Æthelred’, pp. 89–93; see also below, n. 349.

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relating to proceedings at Gillingham, those involved in the process must have come together on or soon after that occasion, in order to produce the diploma; and there is reason to believe that the diploma was in fact a product of the occasion itself. The diploma begins with a pictorial invocation in the form of an alpha-omega device, surmounted by a cross, introducing a long proem making use of some earlier themes or turns of phrase but also developed for the occasion.339 After the proem, the operative part of the diploma is presented in the form of an extended narrative, beginning with reference to the death of Bishop Æthelwold (in 984), and its effects on the young (impressionable) king. We can but guess who might have been responsible for the wording at this point, though it must (of its nature) have come from a source very close to the king himself. One thinks of Archbishop Sigeric, and of Ælfheah, who had succeeded Æthelwold as bishop of Winchester;340 whatever the case, the diploma shows that by 993 those in the king’s circle looked back to Æthelwold’s death as a point at which the young king fell under the influence of persons who were thought by them to have led him astray. An echo, in this narrative, of wording at the beginning of the prologue to the Regularis Concordia suggests that in his reference to those who had misled Æthelred, in his youth, the draftsman intended a contrast with the guidance that Æthelwold, as abbot, had been able to give to the young Edgar.341 In acting wrongly but with the advice of Wulfgar, late bishop of Ramsbury, and of Ealdorman Ælfric, ‘who is still alive’ (qui adhuc superest),342 the king had done things which contravened the ‘liberty’ (libertas) which Abbot Æthelwold had acquired for the abbey from Eadred, Eadwig and Edgar; so in dwelling on these matters, and wishing not to fall under anathema (in accordance with the sanction of a diploma), Æthelred ordered a council to be held at Winchester. Further echoes, at this point in the diploma, of wording in the prologue to the Regularis Concordia indicate that the draftsman also intended

339 340

341

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For the proem, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 100, n. 51, and 200, n. 172; see also Cubitt, ‘Bishops and councils’, p. 163. On the context for the role that might have been played in this connection by Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester, see S. Keynes and R. Naismith, ‘The Agnus Dei pennies of King Æthelred the Unready’, ASE 40 (2012), 175–223, at 182–5. Keynes, ‘Re-reading King Æthelred’, p. 91, n. 70; Roach, ‘Penitential discourse’, pp. 266–7. Links of this nature between texts of different kinds are most unusual, and of great interest. The ealdorman in question was either Ælfric of Hampshire who had succeeded Æthelmær in 982, and who died in 1016, or Ælfric cild, son of Ælfhere, ealdorman of Mercia (d. 22 October 983), who succeeded his father in late 983, who does not attest any charters after 984 (Atlas of Attestations, Table LXII) and who was exiled in 985. Eadwine was appointed abbot in 985; attestations of an Abbot Eadwine, presumably of Abingdon, occur in 987–90 (Atlas of Attestations, Table LXI). For further discussion, see Keynes, Diplomas of Æthelred, p. 177 (Ælfric of Hampshire), and Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. cxc–cxci and ccxv (Ælfric cild). The statement in the diploma to the effect that the Ealdorman Ælfric in question was still flourishing at the time (in 993) implies a distinction between him and another who was not, suggesting that Ælfric was the ealdorman of Hampshire; in which case one assumes he was remorseful alongside the king.



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a parallel between the ‘synodal council’ at Winchester which lay behind the diploma, and the earlier ‘synodal council’ at Winchester which lay behind the Regularis Concordia.343 In a section which appears to represent the proceedings at Winchester, the king promises to make amends for what had been done wrongfully, and to restore the ancient charter of liberty; matters decided on this occasion were ratified by ‘spiritual agreement’ (pacto spiritali). In a section which appears to represent proceedings a few weeks later, at Gillingham, the king renounced the payment Ealdorman Ælfric had made in order to secure the abbacy for his brother Eadwine, and, like his predecessors, renewed the abbey’s liberty. This was presently confirmed after mass in the church (in oratorio), naming as witnesses Abbot Ælfsige (of the New Minster, Winchester), the king’s kinsman Æthelmær, and his uncle Ordulf. The act represented a fresh start; so the king committed the office of abbot to Wulfgar, said to be subject to the king ‘with most humble devotion’, without any payment, and renewed the privilege (in consideration of prayers for the king), including the assurance that, after Wulfgar’s death, the community would be able to choose his successor as abbot in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict.344 At this point a new section in the diploma begins,345 enlarging in more general and overtly historical terms on what the ‘liberty’ of Æthelred’s privilege entailed, as a renewal of an earlier privilege and in extending a privileged form of tenure over the abbey itself and over its lands. Cædwalla [king of the West Saxons in the 680s], had given the land at Abingdon to Christ and St Mary ‘in earlier times’; Abbot Hræthhun [in the early ninth century] had obtained the ‘old privilege’ from Pope Leo [III] and King Coenwulf [of the Mercians]; and the land at Abingdon had fallen thereafter into royal hands [in the late ninth or early tenth century], until its liberty was confirmed successively by Eadred, Eadwig, Edgar and Æthelred.346 There follows a pair of linked injunctions. The first (‘Quod ego …’), in the king’s name, affirms the previous section. The second (‘Tempore siquidem …’) refers back to the time when the estates now restored to the abbey had been appropriated from the abbey, and when wicked men stole the title-deeds and produced ‘new’ ones for themselves; the new charters are to be disregarded and anath-

343 344

345

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H. Vollrath, Die Synoden Englands bis 1066 (Paderborn, 1985), p. 309. Freedom of election had been central to the agreement reached at Kingston in 838 (above, p. 26, with reference to S 1438); it was discussed at the council of Winchester that gave rise to the Regularis Concordia (ed. Symons, p. 6), c. 970 (above, n. 42); and it was central to the diploma for Abingdon in 993. The difficulties arise in connection with the 950s and 960s; see John, Orbis Britanniae, pp. 207–9, with Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. xcii–xciii, on S 729 (Muchelney), described as ‘entirely credible’. ‘Huius priuilegii libertas … in sempiternum construeret’: Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. 479–80. It should be noted that after the end of the previous section (‘… eligens constituat’), the rest of line 26 on the single sheet was left blank; the new section begins on a new line. For further discussion of this view of Abingdon’s past, see Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. cxciii, cxciv and cciii–cciv (represented as the work of Abbot Æthelwold himself). A different view (from Winchester, in the late 990s) is found in WW, VSÆ, chs. 11–13 (ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, pp. 18–24).

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ematized, and the old privilege is to endure.347 The sanction, directed against anyone who should presume to infringe the renewed liberty, threatens the usual dire punishments unless the malefactor should perform due penance.348 In the dating-clause, the privilege is said to have been drawn up at Abbot Wulfgar’s request; in the witness-list, Ælfric, bishop of Ramsbury, is named as the bishop in whose diocese the abbey lay, and Abbot Wulfgar is said to have ‘dictated’ the charter. At one level, the Abingdon diploma presents a view of the circumstances which had led to the abuse of the abbey’s privileges in the later 980s, and of the ways in which the wrongs were put right in 993; yet in setting this against a view of Abingdon’s refoundation (and re-endowment) in the third quarter of the tenth century, and against the background of a construction of its more dim and distant past, a much larger purpose was achieved. No estates are named, giving the abbot what amounted to a carte blanche; and since it is likely that Abbot Wulfgar had been among those most closely involved in the production of the privilege, he must have been well pleased with the outcome.349 The diploma for Abingdon is, on the face of it, one of the most highly charged texts in the surviving corpus, providing valuable insight into the thinking of those in high places at a turning-point in Æthelred’s reign; it is by the same token anything but normal in terms of its structure and content. There is every reason to believe, however, that it is an authentic product of successive meetings at Winchester in early June and at Gillingham in mid-July 993. The diploma is preserved in single-sheet form, and is in fact one of the largest and grandest of single-sheet diplomas to survive from the Anglo-Saxon period, measuring approximately 49 cm tall by 62 cm wide.350 Before attempting to interpret the

347

348

349

350

This formula raises interesting historical questions which require discussion in their own right; see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 99–100, and Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. cii. It was of course convenient for Abingdon to claim that its older title-deeds had been ‘stolen’, and new ones issued, though one suspects that the practice might not have been unusual, especially in the conditions that obtained in the later 970s and in the 980s. For the occurrence in the 980s and 990s of formulas condemning older charters, see above, n. 313; see also below, p. 117, with reference to S 891 (KCD 698), and below, n. 367, with reference to evidence from Rochester; see also S 956 (WinchNM 33), from the early years of Cnut’s reign, discussed below, n. 410. For this sanction, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 101 n. 52, suggesting that the use of phylargiria (love of money) echoes the use of the same word in the opening narrative, and is thus appropriate to the Æthelredian context. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 121, n. 124, and 191. A paper focusing on Wulfgar’s career as abbot of Abingdon (990–1016), to appear in Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas 975–1066 (above, n. 308), will include further discussion of his role in the drafting of S 876, and of the circumstances in which the ‘earlier’ Orthodoxorum charters of Eadwig and Edgar might have been fabricated. BL Cotton Augustus ii. 38. The charter was until recently mounted in one of the several bound volumes containing charters from Cotton’s ‘Augustus ii’ portfolio. It has now recovered its independence as a loose sheet, carefully conserved and protected in its own portfolio. S 786 (BCS 1282), King Edgar’s Orthodoxorum charter for Pershore, dated 972, fabricated apparently in the late tenth century, is of much the same size (with witness-list on the dorse); see Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, pp. 142–5, with plate 10.



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evidence further, it should be borne in mind that the meeting at Gillingham was seemingly not a royal assembly, and that the memorandum used there in mid-July, as the basis for the witness-list in Æthelred’s diploma, would appear to have originated at the royal assembly held at Winchester in early June. The scribe of the diploma had space available for six columns of witnesses, but he seems for whatever reason to have decided to leave the fifth and sixth columns vacant, in the lower right-hand corner of the sheet. Curiously, he did not provide crosses against any of the attestations in the list as a whole, perhaps in connection with the rather unusual procedure he was having to follow, and perhaps also in the expectation that crosses would be added later by at least some of those named.351 Whatever the case, this most unusual of diplomas soon attracted a complex combination of added names and crosses.352 It is hard to work out how best to account for the additions, and no explanation is likely to be compelling unless it happens to be one’s own. If one takes the view that the diploma was produced at Abingdon, some time after the meetings at Winchester and Gillingham, by Abbot Wulfgar himself, on his own initiative, one would have to suppose that it was he who solicited the crosses.353 The interpretation advocated here proceeds from acceptance of the substance of the Abingdon diploma as an ‘official’ and authorized product of the combination of the meetings first at Winchester and then at Gillingham; it proceeds also from the basic principle that if possible one should try (for simplicity’s sake) to account for the additions in terms of a single occasion, before Abbot Wulfgar took the diploma back to Abingdon. When transferring names for the witness-list from the memorandum produced at Winchester to the diploma produced at Gillingham, the main scribe of the diploma left a gap for the name of the bishop of Sherborne, evidently during a vacancy after the death of Bishop Æthelsige; the next bishop, Wulfsige, is named later in the list as the abbot of Westminster. One imagines that this represented the situation at Winchester, in early June, perhaps (in line with usual procedure) immediately before proceedings started. Wulfsige might then have been ‘elected’ to the bishopric of Sherborne, as a separate part of the proceedings at Winchester, and Ælfwig might have been chosen or appointed to succeed him as the new abbot of Westminster; but the memorandum was left as it had been at the start.354 Some of those present at Winchester remained

351

352

353

354

Note, however, that in the formula introducing the witness-list there is a cross above the word consentientibus (not shown in the printed text), as if referring to all of the witnesses named. For possibly analogous features, see S 745 (WinchNM 23), below, pp. 177–8 (E12). A facsimile of S 876 is to be found on the Kemble website (above, n. 6). The necessarily speculative interpretation offered here will only begin to make sense if read in relation to the image; see also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 101 n. 54, and ‘Wulfsige’, pp. 61–2. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. cxiv: ‘we might conceive that Abbot Wulfgar sought subsequent corroboration from individuals for a diploma which had been drawn up in irregular circumstances.’ The assembly at Winchester was evidently attended by an impressive complement of higher ecclesiastics (though the see of York was still vacant). It should be noted that Ælfric and Eadulf were ‘elected’ to their respective sees (Canterbury and York), appar-

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with the king, and were thus present six weeks later, at Gillingham; and it was perhaps at Gillingham, once the diploma had been drawn up, that it became the object of particular attention (Fig. 1.10). A chrismon was added between the first and second columns of witnesses, in a position which leaves its intended significance unclear (to us);355 it may draw attention to Abbot Wulfgar’s attestation (with his name in capitals), or perhaps it marks the incomplete attestation for Sherborne. Some of those present appear to have been called upon to apply the crosses which now stand against their names. The crosses added against the names of the bishops in the first column of witnesses vary from each other in their appearance, and might well be autograph; but it is conceivable that some of the smaller and plainer crosses among them were added vicariously, in a process which we are in no position to understand.356 Whatever the case, it was quite possibly at Gillingham that Wulfsige’s name was inserted by a second hand in the space that had been left blank for the vacant bishopric by the first, in order to make good the obvious deficiency; and that the name of Ælfwig, identified as the abbot of Westminster, was inserted by the same hand at the top of the first of the pair of otherwise empty columns. In each case, encouragingly, the name is accompanied by what would appear to be an autograph cross. Also convincingly autograph is the cross added against the attestation of Ælfsige, abbot of the New Minster, Winchester, probably the Abbot Ælfsige mentioned in the diploma as present at Gillingham; the rather faint crosses against the names of the abbot of Ely and the abbot of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, are not autograph, and (to judge from direct examination of the original) were apparently written by the main scribe (departing, perhaps absent mindedly, from the procedure adopted for the diploma as a whole).357 Convincingly autograph in the third column are the crosses added against the names of the abbots of Chertsey (in Surrey),

355

356

357

ently as part of the business at an assembly in 995: see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 253, and Atlas of Attestations, Table LXa, citing S 885 (Roch 31) and S 886 (Abing 126). For the election of Wulfstan as bishop of Worcester in 1062, see William of Malmesbury, Saints’ Lives: Lives of SS. Wulfstan, Dunstan, Patrick, Benignus and Indract, ed. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson (Oxford, 2002), pp. 44–6. The chrismon was used not as a form of attestation, but in order to draw attention to something; see Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion, ed. P. S. Baker and M. Lapidge (Oxford, 1995), p. 68. In the cases where autograph crosses were identified (tentatively) in eighth-century charters, the crosses in question were those placed against the names of the king and/or a leading ecclesiastic, and were accompanied by other crosses presumed not to be autograph (above, n. 219). One thinks here of the story, reported in the twelfth-century Liber Eliensis, that in Æthelred’s reign the abbots of Ely, St Augustine’s, and Glastonbury (or their appointed deputies) served in rotation at court as the king’s ‘chancellor’ (cancellarius), with responsibility in some sense for the reliquaries and other ornaments of the altar. For discussion, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 151–2, with references; see also Kelly, Charters of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, pp. 215–16, suggesting that while the abbots may have had custody of the relics, this need not have involved other duties of the kind that came to be associated with the office of chancellor, and Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, p. 140. The story will be discussed further in a forthcoming edition of the charters of Ely abbey (above, n. 194).

Figure 1.10  Diploma of King Æthelred for Abingdon abbey, AD 993 (detail)

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Malmesbury (in Wiltshire), and Milton (in Dorset). The parchment is damaged down one of its vertical folds, in a way that obscures whatever once stood to the left of the attestations in the fourth column: a trace of what would seem to have been an autograph cross can be seen against the attestation of Leofric, abbot of St Albans, at the top of the column; but it is impossible to tell whether any crosses might have been added against the names of any of the ealdormen or thegns, in the same column. If all of the additions are best understood in terms of a single occasion, the gathering at Gillingham, in Dorset, forming an extension of the earlier assembly at Winchester, provides the most obvious and natural solution. Taking the evidence of the text together with the evidence of the additions to the witness-list, it is difficult (in my view) to imagine that this extraordinary document could be anything other than an authentic product of the two meetings in June–July 993. King Æthelred’s diploma for Abingdon abbey, produced at Gillingham in the early summer of 993, is matched closely by his diploma for the Old Minster, Winchester, drawn up about four years later, in the spring of 997.358 The similarities between the two diplomas, preserved in different archival contexts, weigh strongly in support of the authenticity of both. The diplomas also complement each other as evidence of the circumstances behind Æthelred’s displays of remorse, in the 990s, for his earlier wrongdoing. Unfortunately, and unlike the diploma for Abingdon, the diploma for the Old Minster does not survive in its original single-sheet form; but to judge from the copy spread over three pages in the mid-twelfth-century Codex Wintoniensis,359 it would have been no less impressive. The diploma records King Æthelred’s restoration of what is represented as an estate of 100 hides at Downton, in Wiltshire, to the Old Minster, comprising 55 hides at Downton, on the river Avon, in the south-eastern corner of the county, and 45 hides at Ebbesbourne, on the river Ebble, further to the west.360 To judge from a narrative dating-clause, the decision to restore the land to the church was made at a gathering of ‘not the smallest multitude of wise men (haud minima sapientum multitudine) in the hall of the royal estate known generally as Calne’, held over Easter (28 March) in 997. The narrative continues: ‘And so a few days later, having again called out the company (caterua) of the whole host (omnis exercitus) – comprising bishops, abbots, ealdormen, leading men, and a great many thegns – to the place known to its inhabitants as Wantage, in order to deal with enquiries into various matters (ob diuersarum questiones causarum corrigendas), I gave permission in the meantime for this to be set down more firmly in this charter …’.361 In this case, 358

359 360

361

S 891 (KCD 698), with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 101–2, 180 and 255. A new edition of this diploma will appear in Charters of the Old Minster, Winchester, ed. A. R. Rumble. BL, Add. 15350, fols. 16r–17r. For an exposition of the boundary-clauses (Downton and Bishopstone, south of Salisbury), with map, see A. Du Boulay Hill, ‘The Saxon boundaries of Downton, Wilts.’, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 36 (1910), 50–6. For instances of the use of exercitus in a similar context, see BR, VSO iv. 6–7 (ed. Lapidge, pp. 104–6). For the assembly at Wantage, see also above, p. 38.



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therefore, the process leading to the production of the diploma began soon after the meeting at Calne, in northern Wiltshire, and apparently in advance of the full royal assembly at Wantage, in Berkshire. After the proem, the draftsman adopts the same highly personal tone as heard before in the Abingdon diploma. The king makes known to all those reading the charter that he has restored the land to the Old Minster, in respect of the ‘sedulous humility’ of Bishop Ælfheah; he explains further how he had been party in his youth to the appropriation of the land from the church; and how some years later, having reached greater maturity, he came to realize that he held the land unjustly, and, fearing the Last Judgment, resolved to restore the land to the church. There follows a summary of earlier (perhaps imagined) stages in the history of the estate, reaching back into the seventh century, but leading onwards from there to more recent grants by Eadred and Edgar, stressing Edgar’s particular association with Æthelwold, now called ‘saint’.362 The dispositive section includes an immunity clause, coupled with a reservation clause, followed by a short sanction. This is followed, most interestingly, by a formula directed against earlier charters, including those which the king had ‘dictated’ in his youth; as we have seen, a form of words to much the same effect was included in the diploma for Abingdon, suggesting that charters produced quite recently were thought likely in the prevailing circumstances to pose a serious threat.363 The boundary-clause is followed by the dating-clause, in the form of the narrative mentioned above, introducing the witness-list. It is interesting to see that the attestations of Queen Ælfthryth and of her several grandsons are now accorded priority over the archbishops and bishops. The layout in the cartulary suggests that the archbishops and perhaps the first three bishops were laid out along the line, and that the rest of the witnesses were disposed across the sheet in five or six columns. As was customary at this time, all of the bishops are identified with the names of their respective sees. This level of informed detail is extended to the abbots, all of whom are identified with the names of their respective abbeys (a feature found otherwise only in the Abingdon diploma). Most interestingly (and uniquely), each of the five ealdormen is accorded a style indicating for which shires or districts (prouinciae), or peoples, he was responsible, perhaps suggesting particular consciousness of secular organization on this occasion, unless simply the outcome of the draftsman’s own attempt to treat the ealdormen in the same

362

363

For Æthelwold’s translation at Winchester on 10 September 996, about six months before the date of S 891, see WW, VSÆ, chs. 42–3 (ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, pp. 64–6). The question arises whether Æthelwold and Ælfheah had been trying for some time to recover property claimed as part of the Old Minster’s endowment; whether it was Ælfheah, in the 990s; or whether one of their successors was looking back wistfully from a later date. Rumble, Property and Piety, pp. 103 and 105–9, sees S 821 (for the same estates as S 891) as part as a composite dossier which might have originated at the Old Minster, c. 980. S 540 (for the same estates) purports to be a diploma of King Eadred, dated 948, granting the land to the Old Minster; it survives as a single sheet, in script imitative of ‘Edmund C’, and was perhaps fabricated in connection with S 891. See also S 229 (BCS 27) and S 275 (BCS 391). See references above, n. 347.

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way as the bishops and abbots. Most intriguingly (and unusually), the leading nine thegns are accorded verbs of attestation, and differ in this respect from the remaining thegns; one wonders whether this might echo the apparent distinction made in the narrative section between the leading men (optimates) and a larger body of ordinary thegns (nobiles). Since one could hardly imagine a grander occasion, one assumes that the list represents the full royal assembly at Wantage; one assumes further that it was on this occasion that the finished diploma was handed over to Bishop Ælfheah. It might well have been at this assembly, in early April 997, that the king and his councillors promulgated the law-code designated III Æthelred, known to have been issued at Wantage;364 it might even have been a decision taken on this occasion which caused the viking mercenaries, on the Isle of Wight, to reactivate themselves as a hostile force, and to resume their raiding.365 King Æthelred’s diplomas for Abingdon (993) and for the Old Minster (997) are remarkably similar in structure and content. The circumstances behind their production must have differed significantly from the circumstances in which ‘routine’ diplomas, recording simple grants of land which could be and were planned in advance, were drawn up. They were the enduring symbols as well as the immediate products of assemblies which would be remembered for the significance of what had taken place at them, involving an openly remorseful king in his dealings with two of the leading religious houses in the land. The diplomas share overt concern for the restoration of ancient rights and endowments, after a period when those rights had been abused or violated. The restoration of the privileges of Abingdon abbey was a matter decided upon in a royal assembly at Winchester, and put into effect by means of a diploma produced and ratified on a subsequent (and possibly more intimate) occasion at Gillingham. The restoration of land to the Old Minster arose from a preparatory gathering at Calne, and was delivered a few days later during the course of a royal assembly at Wantage. In each case, the act arose from deliberations between the king and those closest to him, and required more time than usual for the preparation and delivery of the diploma, to the beneficiary, in the appropriate context. The Abingdon diploma is clear enough on the matter of election, but opaque in connection with the abbey’s unspecified estates; the diploma for the Old Minster deals directly with a particular estate, and is more coherent. It is possible in each case that the beneficiary (or his agents) returned home between the two meetings in order to collect information; but it is likely at the same time that a central agency of some kind was involved in the drafting and writing of the diplomas, and self-evident that they emanated directly from the proceedings at the second meeting. In both cases the diplomas would appear to have played their part in the proceedings; but it is as if matters were organized more effectively in 997 364 365

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 196–7; Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 442–4; Cubitt, ‘Politics of remorse’, p. 184. For this conception of the viking raids in the 990s, see S. Keynes, ‘The historical context of the Battle of Maldon’, in The Battle of Maldon, AD 991, ed. D. Scragg (Oxford, 1991), pp. 81–113, at 88–95, and ‘The Vikings in England’, pp. 73–6.



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than they had been in 993, and that even within the 990s those trying to manage the process were learning how to improve their performance. The emphasis in the diploma for Abingdon (993), and in the diploma for the Old Minster (997), is on the king’s admission of wrongdoing, explained in both cases in terms of his passage from the ignorance of youth to the greater maturity of judgement that came as one grew older.366 Precisely the same explanation for the king’s actions is given in the two diplomas, dated 995 and 998 respectively, by which the king restored land in Kent to the church of Rochester.367 The two diplomas for Rochester share distinctive turns of phrase or formulation with the diplomas for Abingdon and the Old Minster; and it is arguable that all four are likely to have been products of the same agency. One gets the impression, however, that the diplomas for Rochester were produced in ‘normal’ circumstances, each perhaps during the course of a single assembly. The earlier of the two would appear to have been issued at an assembly held at or soon after Easter in 995, possibly at Amesbury in Wiltshire. Godwine, recently appointed bishop of Rochester, was evidently attempting to recover lost parts of the ancient endowment of his church, after what had been a difficult period (in the later 980s); and the king was disposed to help him. The later of the two was issued at an assembly held over Easter in 998, and seems to have touched an aspect of the same period in the later 980s which the king regarded in retrospect with a particular sense of remorse or shame. The king does penance before God, with tearful contrition of heart, whilst at the same time restoring the land to the church and hoping in this way to make amends for what he had done before. Moreover, he has granted that the charter should be written, and by his own hand has given it to Bishop Godwine, ‘at an assembly and in the presence of my leading men (in conuentu et praesentia optimatum meorum)’, ordering that no-one should appropriate the land thereafter and that it should always belong to the see of Rochester. A form of words (‘Nos omnes optimates consensimus’), placed after the witness-list, suggests that the witnesses expressed their collective approval at the end of the proceedings.368 It would seem to have been a remarkable occasion: carefully staged, intended perhaps to bury once and for all the memories of an incident long since overtaken by the turn of events, and significant enough to be described, in advance of the ceremony itself, in a diploma which would then be handed over to the bishop at the climactic moment of the proceedings. As argued above, it was apparently normal practice for a diploma to be drawn up soon after the beginning of an assembly, in advance of a ceremony of conveyance, so that it might be delivered to its intended beneficiary, in the presence of the king and his councillors, and taken away. One imagines that on this occasion, in 998, the ‘performance’ had a

366 367

368

For this discourse, see above, n. 323. S 885 (Roch 31) and S 893 (Roch 32): Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 101–4, 178–80, 253 and 255–6; Keynes, ‘King Æthelred the Unready and the church of Rochester’. For collective declarations of this kind, see above, n. 201.

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significance which transcended the transfer of land, and needed to be mentioned for its own sake. The variety of procedures available for the production of diplomas in the 990s can be illustrated in another way by the case of King Æthelred and Æscwig, bishop of Dorchester. In 994 the ‘pagans’ were threatening Canterbury, and Archbishop Sigeric needed to raise money. He sold an estate of 30 hides at (Monks) Risborough, in Buckinghamshire, to Bishop Æscwig; and when the archbishop’s messengers (nuncii) brought back the money from the bishop (90 pounds of silver and 200 mancuses of gold), Sigeric used it to pay off the Danes. At a royal assembly convened very soon afterwards, the archbishop is said to have transferred an old title-deed for Risborough to the bishop; but it was also thought necessary for the king to issue a new diploma in respect of the estate, referring for the boundary-clause to the original title-deed (in originali codicello), perhaps to make clear the basis of the bishop’s title to the estate, given the circumstances in which its sale had been effected.369 A natural assumption is then that the diploma for Bishop Æscwig was drawn up on the occasion of the assembly, and handed over to the bishop together with the original title-deed. As it happens, the diploma (which came to be preserved in the archives of Christ Church, Canterbury) is dated ‘995’, but with the correct indiction (vii) for 994; and since Archbishop Sigeric is known to have died in October 994, one imagines that the AD date was miscopied in its later transmission. The matter is complicated, however, by the existence of a diploma in the name of Bishop Æscwig, preserved in the archives of St Albans abbey and extant in its original single-sheet form, by which the bishop gave an estate in Oxfordshire to his faithful man Ælfstan.370 The bishop explains in this diploma that the former owners of the land had freely surrendered the earlier charters to him; and that now, ‘with the consent and permission of King Æthelred and of the councillors (senatorum)’, he (the bishop) has confirmed it with ‘with a new heading (noua superscriptione)’, in other words with a diploma in his own name. So, at the same time as receiving a new diploma for himself, Bishop Æscwig was given permission to produce a diploma in his own name for his faithful man Ælfstan, perhaps reflecting particular concern at the time about security of tenure. Curiously, Bishop Æscwig’s diploma for Ælfstan shares with King Æthelred’s diploma for Bishop Æscwig not only the same erroneous date (‘995’ [i.e. ­dccccxcv] for 994 [dccccxciiii]), in this case without an indiction, but also exactly the same witness-list (with some slight variation in the forms of attestation). It is, none the less, one of the most strikingly ‘calligraphic’ originals found among the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon diplomas, written by a scribe who was clearly enjoying himself. There is obviously a close connection between the two diplomas, which seems likely to have originated at the point of their production; but how is the 369

370

S 882 (CantCC 134); see also EHD 2nd ed., pp. 569–70 (no. 117). The title-deed in question was evidently S 367 (CantCC 101), with bounds added on the dorse; see Keynes, ‘Edward, king of the Anglo-Saxons’, pp. 52–4 (with illustrations). S 1379 (StAlb 8). A facsimile is available on the ‘Kemble’ website.



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relationship between them best understood? One possibility is that both of the grants were authorized at the same royal assembly, held in the autumn of 994; that Bishop Æscwig was given permission by the king to draw up the diploma in favour of himself, on his return to Dorchester, for which purpose he also received a memorandum for the witness-list; that he received permission at the same time to produce a diploma in his own name for his man Ælfstan, approved at the same assembly; and that in this process an apparent error in the datingclause became common to both, perhaps suggesting in itself that the diplomas were not in fact produced until the new year.371 A second possibility is that King Æthelred’s diploma for Bishop Æscwig was drawn up at the royal assembly, by an agency close to the centre and thus well placed to provide the narrative account of Archbishop Sigeric’s involvement in the three-cornered transaction involving himself, Bishop Æscwig, and the Danes; that the bishop wished at the same time to give an estate elsewhere to Ælfstan, for which he had the earlier title-deeds, but for which a new ‘royal’ diploma was felt for whatever reason to be desirable; that Bishop Æscwig was authorized to produce the diploma, apparently on the same occasion, in respect of his grant of land to Ælfstan, incorporating explicit acknowledgement of the king’s permission, and of his own initiative in the matter; and that in using the royal diploma as a source for his own text, an error in the date which had originated in the royal diploma was repeated mechanically in his own.372 A third possibility is that King Æthelred’s diploma for Bishop Æscwig was drawn up at the royal assembly by a ‘central’ agency, for delivery to Bishop Æscwig; that the same agency, acceding to the bishop’s request (perhaps for a fee), produced a new diploma in the bishop’s name, presumably at the royal assembly; and that in this process, using the royal diploma as a model, the error in the date was repeated mechanically. The basic choice is between the notion that both diplomas were drafted by Bishop Æscwig, at Dorchester, some time after the assembly, and the notion that both were produced at the royal assembly itself, and handed over to their respective beneficiaries on that occasion. It is a choice which will be determined as much by one’s views on the place of charters in the ceremonial of conveyance as by any reading of the charters themselves. It might be supposed, however, that a central agency is more likely than a ‘local’ agency to have drafted a royal diploma with its narrative content seen from the centre; that special circumstances lay behind the production of such a remarkable episcopal diploma, masquerading as a royal diploma; and that the two diplomas, whilst clearly connected through the circumstances of their production, might appear not to have been produced by one and the same agency. The inclusion, in the diplomas of the 990s, of expressions of the king’s remorse for the wrongdoings of his youth prompts a further observation. What for the king had begun in the early 990s on a personal level, in respect of his

371 372

Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 995–7; see also the detailed discussion of the two charters in Crick, Charters of St Albans, pp. 165–6. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 124 and 251–2.

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own wrongdoing in the later 980s, soon acquired much wider dimensions.373 One need not think for a moment that a putative ‘central agency’, or ‘royal secretariat’, operating as an integral part of an organization functioning at and between royal assemblies, was a dark office in the depths of the royal household staffed by a team of faceless scribes doing their mundane work in strict compliance with whatever rules and regulations were imposed on them from above. The impression, on the contrary, which emerges from a perusal of the diplomas themselves is that the agency operated at the highest level of royal government and in the closest proximity to the king, and to those around him. Æthelred’s diplomas of these years were anything but mundane. We should imagine, perhaps, that at the highest level of royal government the roles of particular archbishops, bishops and abbots were of the greatest importance; and that when it came to the preparations that lay behind the production of a royal diploma bearing in one way or another on the welfare of the church, such men came not unnaturally into their own. The diplomas deal with various matters: affirming the privileges of an established religious house; making adjustments to the organization of an episcopal see; restoring important estates which had been appropriated under regrettable circumstances; confirming the foundation and endowment of a religious house; and so on. As suggested above, Archbishop Sigeric (990–4) might have been not far behind the Abingdon diploma of 993; and it is entirely appropriate, of course, that he should seem to have been directly behind the diploma of 994 by which King Æthelred authorized the re-organization of the diocese of Cornwall, under Bishop Ealdred.374 His successor, Archbishop Ælfric (995– 1005), is a less familiar figure (having suffered, perhaps, from the indignity of being confused with Ælfric of Cerne, and still recovering from the process of disambiguation); yet there is reason to believe that he exerted a key influence on the conduct of the nation’s affairs during a period of great difficulty.375 There is evidence that Ælfric might have played some part in the production of King Æthelred’s priuilegium for Muchelney abbey, which deserves a special place among surviving grants of privileges in favour of religious houses from the age of the monastic reform movement;376 certainly, the judgement implicit in the draftsman’s choice of a word (inepte), in connection with the leasing of

373

374

375 376

For the larger dimensions, see S. Keynes, ‘An abbot, an archbishop, and the Viking raids of 1006–7 and 1009–12’, ASE 36 (2007), 151–220, especially the tract De tribulationibus (pp. 172–7), the law-code VII Æthelred (pp. 179–89), and the Agnus Dei pennies (pp. 190–201); see also Keynes and Naismith, ‘The Agnus Dei coinage’, and Keynes, ‘Cult of Edward the Martyr’. S 880 (KCD 686), on which see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, esp. pp. 100, 111, 124 and 251; see also Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. xc, and C. Insley, ‘Athelstan, charters and the English in Cornwall’, in Charters and Charter Scholarship in Britain and Ireland, ed. M. T. Flanagan and J. A. Green (Basingstoke, 2005), pp. 15–31, at 22–3, and ‘Rhetoric and ritual’, p. 113. For Archbishop Ælfric, see Keynes, ‘Cult of Edward the Martyr’, pp. 119–20; Keynes and Naismith, ‘Agnus Dei pennies’, p. 182; and above, n. 325. S 884 (BAFacs. 11), with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 120, 181 n. 103, 192 n. 141 (Æthelmær), and 253.



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monastic property to a layman, is consistent with the fact that the diploma was written by a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury. Nor can Ælfric, as archbishop, have been far behind the diplomas for Rochester and Winchester, issued in the years 995–8, or indeed the diploma for Sherborne in 998.377 One should ask at the same time whether he might have played some part, as archbishop, in deciding the terms of the interesting group of privileges for religious houses issued by King Æthelred in the opening years of eleventh century: one for Shaftesbury abbey (1001);378 one for Wherwell abbey (1002);379 one for Burton abbey (1004);380 and one for Amesbury abbey.381 Certainly, these diplomas need to be studied more closely, not only in relation to each other but also in relation to the diplomas of the 990s.382 They cohere well as a group; and there is every reason to suppose that they were the work of a single agency, operating on behalf of and in close association with the king.383 One aspect of the English response to the difficulties of these years is symbolized by the so-called ‘Massacre of St Brice’s Day’ in 1002, and lies directly behind King Æthelred’s diploma for St Frideswide’s, Oxford (7 December 1004);384 the main group of diplomas for religious houses form part of a story which goes even deeper, and which leads in due course to King Æthelred’s for Eynsham abbey (1005).385 One should add that production of ‘ordinary’ diplomas, serving as title-deeds for particular estates, continued much as before. Æthelred’s diploma in favour of St Albans abbey, dated 1007, is a fine example of its kind, and must have been drawn up in close cooperation with the abbot himself;386 a diploma in favour of the thegn Morcar, dated 1009, for land in Derbyshire, is stunning, verging on the

377 378 379

380 381 382

383 384

385 386

For S 885 (Roch 31), S 891 (KCD 698) and S 893 (Roch 32), see above; for S 895 (Sherb 11), see Keynes, ‘Wulfsige’, pp. 67–72. S 899 (Shaft 29), with Keynes, ‘Cult of Edward the Martyr’. S 904 (KCD 707), superseded by the text in the original inspeximus charter of King Henry III, which first appeared at auction in 1974, passed in 1991 into the Schøyen Collection (MS. 1354), appeared again at auction at Sotheby’s, London, 10 July 2012, lot 38, and is now British Library, Add. Charter 77735. S 906 (Burt 28). For the diploma for Amesbury, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 107 n. 66. For example, the conditional form of the reservation clause, seen in S 891 (KCD 698) and S 890 (Crediton), both dated 997, reappears in the diplomas for Shaftesbury and Wherwell, and is echoed in the law-codes V–VI Æthelred, promulgated in 1008; see further Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 102 n. 56. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 104–7. S 909 (KCD 709), with J. Blair, ‘The minsters of the Thames’, in The Cloister and the World, ed. J. Blair and B. Golding (Oxford, 1996), pp. 5–28, at 20, and S. Keynes, ‘The Massacre of St Brice’s Day (13 November 1002)’, in Beretning fra seksogtyvende tværfaglige vikingesymposium, ed. N. Lund (Moesgaard, 2008), pp. 32–66, at 33–6. In certain respects the formulation of S 909 echoes that of earlier charters, e.g. S 891 (KCD 698). S 911 (KCD 714), with Keynes, ‘King Æthelred’s charter for Eynsham abbey’, pp. 461–2 and 469–70. S 916 (StAlb 12), and BAFacs. 16, with Dumville, English Caroline Minuscule, p. 135, and Crick, Charters of St Albans, pp. 193–8.

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iconic.387 Both survive in their original single-sheet form; each appears to have been drawn up with expertise, in a single operation. As one might expect, there is also clear evidence, from throughout Æthelred’s reign, for the delegation of responsibility for the production of diplomas by the king to other agencies. The diplomas issued in Æthelred’s name in the 980s, which appear to be associated in some way with the New Minster, Winchester, were mentioned earlier.388 A diploma of 1007 by which the king granted land at an unnamed place to an unnamed thegn, which ends most unusually with a ‘notarial’ attestation (‘Ego Winsye monachus qui hoc testamentum dictitaui atque perscripsi’), seems at first sight to provide some kind of analogy.389 The monk Winsige cannot be identified; but since the charter was preserved at Burton abbey, in Staffordshire, one imagines that he is most likely to have been a member of that community. There could be scarcely any doubt that the text as transmitted is an abbreviated copy of an authentic diploma of King Æthelred, in favour of a king’s thegn. As it happens, excerpts from the same charter have recently come to light among notes made in the late sixteenth century from a lost cartulary of Burton abbey, adding usefully to our knowledge of the witnesslist, although not alas to our understanding of the charter itself.390 It has been regarded as perhaps ‘a draft or formulary’, in other words as a complete text which was simply lacking its operative details, with interesting implications.391 It may be, on further reflection, that the operative word is testamentum, and that Winsige had copied the text of a diploma onto the back of a will which he had written on behalf of a local thegn.392 In addition to this material, there are some unequivocal examples of delegation from the last decade of Æthelred’s reign. At a royal assembly convened at an unspecified place some time between 1006 and 1011, King Æthelred instructed Archbishop Wulfstan to draw up a boc, or diploma, in respect of a small estate in Worcestershire which Æthelstan, bishop of Hereford, had bought from a certain Leofric of Blackwell.393 The estate was evidently held by Leofric as bookland; its purchase by the bishop was unopposed and uncontested; and it was to be held by Bishop Æthelstan as bookland in his own right. It may be that Leofric did not have the title-deed to hand, or that it was in need of a new boundary-clause; so it was decided to 387

388 389 390

391 392 393

S 922 (Burt 32), and BAFacs. 17, with Dumville, English Caroline Minuscule, pp. 134–5. In the witness-list the name of Sigeferth, the beneficiary’s brother, is capitalized. For its apparent relationship with another diploma in favour of the same beneficiary, issued two years later, see Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 123, citing S 924 (Burt 34). Above, n. 309. S 917 (Burt 30). Washington DC, Folger Shakespeare Library, MS V. a. 353 (not foliated). I owe my knowledge of these excerpts to the kindness of Dr Nigel Ramsay, who came across them during his research into the papers of the herald Robert Glover (1543–88). Glover names the three ealdormen, and also the patricius. For further evidence of a lost cartulary of Burton abbey, see Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: lost and found’, pp. 63–5. Sawyer, Charters of Burton, p. 57; Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 115–16, n. 110. Cf. Keynes, ‘Ely abbey 672–1109’, p. 8 n. 29. S 1460 (ASCharters 83), with Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 124.



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authorize Wulfstan, as diocesan bishop, to produce a new one on their return, incorporating a fresh survey. As it happened, the new diploma proved useful to Bishop Æthelstan in a lawsuit which arose ‘many years’ later, when the fresh survey came into its own. Unfortunately, the diploma drawn up by Archbishop Wulfstan does not survive. One can but wonder, therefore, whether he employed the formula, mentioned above, which had been devised apparently in the 960s to indicate that a diploma had been produced under such circumstances. Two diplomas of King Æthelred, from the archives of Barking abbey in Essex, both issued in April 1013, add usefully to the picture. In each case, responsibility for the production of the diploma appears to have been delegated to Ælfhun, bishop of London.394 As we have seen, it is likely that the practice had been adopted from time to time in the tenth century, perhaps in continuation of earlier practices, and perhaps especially in the 960s; but it probably required specific authorization in the form of a direct instruction at an assembly, or a royal writ. We have seen that the diplomas issued in Æthelred’s name in the 990s, and into the opening years of the eleventh century, represent a marked development from the diplomas of the 980s and, looking further back, from those of Æthelred’s immediate predecessors. Among the diplomas issued in the period 940–75 are several ‘foundation’ charters or grants of privilege. King Edgar’s charter for the New Minster, Winchester, produced in 966, stands out as an exceptional document produced in exceptional circumstances. It is more difficult, however, to decide whether any of the other charters of this kind might be authentic, or whether all of them should be set respectfully aside as forgeries produced at various times from the late tenth century onwards.395 Much work remains to be done on this material, and the matter is bound to be contentious. It is conceivable, however, that the founding or refounding and the endowment of a religious house, in the mid-tenth century, was a process generally so complex and extended that it was unlikely to have been understood as a single act, of a kind which might be conducted at a royal assembly; and that whereas, in Edgar’s reign, diplomas were used for the process of endowment, well represented by those charters which grant an estate to a religious houses ad usus monachorum,396 they were not used for an act of foundation as such. It is likely, 394

395

396

For these diplomas (S 931a and S 931b), which came to light in the mid-1980s, see S. Keynes, ‘The burial of King Æthelred the Unready’, in The English and Their Legacy 900–1200: essays in honour of Ann Williams, ed. D. Roffe (Woodbridge, 2012), pp. 129–48, at 139–40. For the wider context, see V. H. Galbraith, ‘Monastic foundation charters of the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, Cambridge Historical Journal 4 (1934), 205–22; see also Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 40–8, and ‘King Æthelred’s charter for Eynsham’, pp. 456–9. The danger lies in front-loading the monastic reform movement with foundation charters and grants of privileges to an extent which would suggest that those involved knew from the outset what problems they might encounter later on. It is more likely, as a matter of principle, that monks were better at being wise after the event. For the production of ‘false’ charters in the tenth century (not for the first time), see above, pp. 62–3; see also J. Barrow, ‘Worcester’, in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al., p. 509. Above, p. 99, with Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, pp. 46–7.

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however, that circumstances in the later 970s, and in the later 980s, were such as to prompt a significant development in the way diplomas were used. At first this manifested itself in the remarkable diplomas of the 990s, in which a more flexible structure was adopted in order to deal with more complex subject-matter; it manifested itself thereafter in the group of diplomas, issued in the early years of the eleventh century, which suggest collectively that foundation charters for recently established religious houses, and grants of privileges, were now on the agenda. Writing early in the eleventh century (c. 1010), Byrhtferth of Ramsey imagined a monologue in which Ecgwine, bishop of Worcester, recalled the foundation and endowment of Evesham abbey, in the early eighth century. First Ecgwine journeyed to Rome, so that his main purpose could be achieved in the presence of the pope. On his return, an assembly (sinodus) was held at Alcester (Warwicks.), with an ordered seating plan for the bishops, involving ‘heralds’ (precones), speeches, and other acts; the pope’s letter was read out loud, and there was an acclamation. At this point, responsibility for the production of a priuilegium was delegated by the king to the archbishop of Canterbury. The priuilegium was taken from the assembly at Alcester to Evesham, where it was placed inside the altar, apparently with other title-deeds. The story culminates with a brilliant pastiche of a sanction, threatening damnation on anyone who infringed the liberty which had thus been given to the church of Evesham.397 Byrhtferth’s story is interesting not least for his use of the term priuilegium, in this particular context; for while it was perhaps an obvious word to use, it is striking that the same word was used in vernacular writs instructing bishops to produce diplomas.398 Yet we learn also from this story that Byrhtferth was familiar, in the early eleventh century, with the notion that an archbishop might at the king’s instigation take a leading role in the production of a priuilegium for a religious house, at a royal assembly, and that religious houses were mindful, at the same time, of the need to wrap themselves in ancient charters in order to protect their ancient privileges.399 It is, in short, a story which accords very well with what is known of royal assemblies in the early eleventh century, as represented (for example) by King Æthelred’s diplomas for Wherwell, Burton and Eynsham.

Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas 1016–66 As we have seen, the diplomatic tradition in the period from 925 to 975 can be understood in terms of a mainstream, with complications provided by the ‘alliterative’ charters and the ‘Dunstan B’ charters. The diplomatic tradition in the period from 975 to 1016 begins in continuation of what had gone before, 397 398 399

Byrhtferth of Ramsey: Lives, ed. Lapidge, pp. xxxviii–xxxix (date), and Vita S. Ecgwini, preface (p. 208), i. 10 (p. 222) and iii. 1–8 (pp. 252–68). Above, n. 115, citing S 1067 and S 1115. For discussion of the passage, see also C. Cubitt, ‘The tenth-century Benedictine Reform in England’, EME 6 (1997), 77–94, at 91–2; Cubitt, ‘Bishops and councils’, pp. 160–1; and Roach, ‘Public rites and public wrongs’, pp. 185–6.



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but from the early 990s develops in interesting ways, though still suggestive of a close connection between the drafting of diplomas and ceremonial at royal assemblies. The diplomatic tradition, such as it may have been, continues thereafter until the Norman Conquest, and exerts an influence into the Anglo-Norman period. It is customary, none the less, to think in terms of the ‘decline’ of the outmoded royal diploma, in Latin, and of its eclipse by the vernacular writ. There can be no doubt that fewer diplomas survive in a period from which we have many writs, with obvious implications, and that certain writs attest to the practice whereby kings would delegate responsibility for the production of a diploma to an interested ecclesiastic.400 Moreover, it is difficult to escape from the apparent implications of a familiar text entered by the monk Eadwig Basan, perhaps in the 1020s, into an early eleventh-century gospel-book at Canterbury. The text purports to be a copy of a writ addressed by King Cnut to the shire court of Kent, apparently soon after his accession.401 Cnut remarks that he had authorized Archbishop Lyfing to draw up a ‘new’ charter of freedom (freols) for Christ Church, in the king’s name. The archbishop is said to have replied that he had plenty of them already, ‘if only they were good for anything’. At which point Cnut took affirmative (or rather performative) action, by coming to Canterbury and placing the charters on the altar. The text clearly reflects a sense of frustration at Canterbury that the privileges which had accumulated there, up to that time, had been of little help in preventing the erosion of the church’s privileges; perhaps it also reflects a sense of frustration with the practice whereby responsibility for the production of a royal diploma was delegated to others, and a feeling that a stronger lead was required.402 The diplomas issued in the names of Cnut (1016–35), Harthacnut (1040–2) and Edward the Confessor (1042–66), represented by those which survive as apparent originals and by those preserved only as later copies, await more detailed analysis.403 Matters are obviously complicated by the changing political

400

401

402

403

Above, n. 115. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, pp. 34–8; Stenton, Latin Charters, pp. 82–91; Barlow, Edward the Confessor, p. 188; Insley, ‘Where did all the charters go?’, pp. 120–7. S 985 (CantCC 145), from BL, Royal I. D. ix, fol. 44v, reproduced in Prisca Munimenta, ed. Ranger, plate II. See Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 288–9, and Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 1058–62. For grants of privileges to religious houses, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, see above, pp. 125–6. One has to ask oneself what Eadwig might have had in mind when he referred to the freolsas, and where, in particular, S 914 (CantCC 140) might have stood in this connection; see also S 22 (CantCC 8), which is spurious. S 914, in Latin and English, was written by Eadwig into another gospel-book at Canterbury: Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 261, and Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 257–9; but see also Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 1026–34 and 1054–6. For general remarks on Cnut’s charters, see M. K. Lawson, Cnut: the Danes in England in the early eleventh century (London, 1993), esp. pp. 236–44; S. Keynes, ‘Cnut’s earls’, in The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway, ed. A. R. Rumble (Leicester, 1994), pp. 43–88, at 48–54; Miller, Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, p. 162; and Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 1054–6 and

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circumstances, and by the influence likely to have been exerted in high places by priests drawn from the Continent, whether from Germany, Normandy or elsewhere.404 At the same time, analogies provided by numismatic and other evidence encourage the supposition that existing arrangements remained in place, and within such a framework that options would multiply. Throughout this period, the witness-lists continued to display patterns and connections which are most likely to have originated in schedules drawn up on the occasion of successive royal assemblies; but it is the case that the successive kings issued fewer diplomas than their predecessors, and that traces of a diplomatic ‘tradition’, holding together diplomas in favour of various beneficiaries, and preserved from the archives of different religious houses, are harder to discern. However, the overall appearance and the formulation of the diplomas remained rooted in the practices of the tenth and early eleventh centuries.405 One should bear in mind that a large number of tenth-century diplomas were still serving their intended purpose in the eleventh century, as title-deeds, suggesting strongly that they were still regarded with due respect, and worthy of imitation. The draftsman of a diploma recording King Edward’s grant of land at ‘Bergh’ (unidentified) to Tofig comes (otherwise unknown), in 1048, tried hard to rise to the challenge, reaching higher indeed than might have been necessary for the purpose in hand, and overreaching himself and others in the process; but the diploma, if only we could see it in its original form, must have been seriously impressive.406 The intended effect, in this and in other cases, might well have been symbolically to assert the continued grandeur of a polity which for all its twists and turns now reached back well over a hundred years. About fifteen of the royal diplomas produced in the last fifty years of the pre-Conquest kingdom of the English survive in their original single-sheet form, which, while less than half the number of ‘originals’ surviving from the period 925–75, is not insignificant. Most if not all of them appear to be ‘single-stage’ productions, so we lack evidence of the ‘glitches’ which seem so instructive for the earlier period. A few examples will suffice to convey a sense of their variety, and thus of their diplomatic interest. In 1018 King Cnut granted land in Sussex to Archbishop Ælfstan (Lyfing), at the request of Queen Ælfgifu (Emma).407 The diploma was written by Eadwig Basan, and while it might be assumed by

404

405 406

407

1130–2. For Edward’s diplomas, see Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. xxv, 135–6, 146 and 188. None survives from the period of joint rule between Harold I (Harefoot) and Harthacnut (1035–7), or from the sole reign of Harold (1037–40), or from the reign of Harold II (1066). S. Keynes, ‘Giso, bishop of Wells (1061–88)’, ANS 19 (1997), 203–71, at 205–13 (for Cnut and the Lotharingian connection); ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’; and ‘Æthelings in Normandy’ (for Edward’s debt to the Normans). This is also the impression reported by Stenton, Latin Charters, pp. 83 and 84. S 1017 (Bur 38). The proem (perhaps derived from a tenth-century diploma) is deciphered by Michael Lapidge. Several words are glossed, reflecting an earlier attempt to decipher its meaning; perhaps the glosses originated on the single sheet, in connection with an exposition of its content. S 950 (CantCC 144).



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analogy with his other work that he operated as an agent of the archbishop, it has also been suggested that he might have acted at this stage as an agent of the king.408 In 1019 Cnut restored land in Hampshire to the New Minster, Winchester.409 In this case, the scribe has not been identified in other contexts. Most interestingly, the king is represented as admitting that he had been misled by a young citizen of Winchester into thinking that the land was in his gift, illustrating an aspect of the imposition of a new regime, yet at the same time harking back suggestively to the candour displayed in Æthelred’s diplomas of the 990s.410 At some point in the early 1020s Cnut granted land in Northamptonshire to the monk Æfic.411 For whatever reason, responsibility for the production of the diploma was delegated to the diocesan bishop; it incorporates a very interesting boundary-clause, and a good witness-list, but it lacks a datingclause and is also tellingly anomalous in its overall appearance.412 Adoption of a similar procedure perhaps lies behind the curious case of the two diplomas, dated 1031, and written by one and the same scribe (probably from the southwest), by which Cnut granted estates in Devon to different laymen.413 The list of witnesses used for both diplomas includes two men known to have died in 1030; the diplomas seem otherwise to be authentic, and the implication is perhaps that the agency followed an outdated memorandum, or an older diploma.414 The scribe of a diploma by which Cnut granted land in Kent to Bishop Eadsige, in 1035, produced an elegant diploma in the format introduced in the mid-930s and ‘standard’ until the late 950s, though written in his own Anglo-Caroline script.415 The scribe of another Kentish diploma, in the name of Edward the Confessor, failed to provide a dating-clause, apparently because he switched latterly to a model which had the dating-clause at the beginning.416 The diplomas of the 1040s for estates in the south-west continue to display certain irregularities which suggest the possibility that the production of diplomas for land in the south-west was delegated as a matter of course to a regional agency or agencies of some kind (as had been the case in 1031).417 In 1042 Hathacnut granted land in Hampshire to Ælfwine, bishop of Winchester, and three years later Edward

408

409 410

411 412

413 414 415 416 417

For the suggestion that Eadwig was at this stage a royal scribe, see Dumville, English Caroline Minuscule, pp. 111–40, esp. 126–8; cf. Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 1054–5. S 956 (WinchNM 33). For the inclusion of a formula directed against older charters, see above, nn. 191–3, 313 and 347; for the combined blessing and sanction, immediately after the witness-list, see above, n. 201. S 977 (KCD 736). Keynes, ‘Cnut’s earls’, pp. 49–50; and for the act of delegation, see above, n. 292. For the bounds, see Brown et al., ‘Some Anglo-Saxon estates and their boundaries’ (cited above, n. 205). S 963 and S 971, with Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon diplomas of Exeter’, pp. 23–4. Keynes, ‘Cnut’s earls’, p. 50; see also above, n. 387, with reference to S 924 (Burt 34). S 974 (CantCC 155). S 1044 (CantCC 167), issued 1042 × 1044. S 1003, S 1005 (CantCC 168), S 1019 and S 1004.

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granted the bishop an estate elsewhere in the same county.418 The diplomas are impeccable in appearance and formulation, and were written by one and the same scribe. It is entirely natural to infer that the scribe was a member of the Old Minster, Winchester; but equally one might be disposed to imagine that he was member of a central or royal agency. The diploma, dated 1050, by which King Edward amalgamated the sees of Devon and Cornwall, and established a new see for the south-west at Exeter, emanates not so much from a royal assembly as from the midst of the installation ceremony for Bishop Leofric, in his cathedral.419 In the text of the diploma, the king (voiced, as it were, by the draftsman) tells how with his own hand he placed the priuilegium on the altar of St Peter, how then he took Leofric by the right hand, while the queen took him by the left hand, and how together they led him to his episcopal throne, in the presence of the earls, the king’s kinsmen, his thegns and priests, whilst Archbishops Eadsige and Ælfric indicated their approval and praise, with all the others named at the bottom of the charter. The emphasis on ceremonial may reflect Leofric’s own background in Lotharingia; and if we are to take literally the part played by the diploma itself, it may be that the diploma was produced, at Exeter, immediately in advance of the carefully staged event. The extant single sheet was written by a scribe who has been identified in manuscripts from Exeter;420 however, there is some doubt that the single sheet is necessarily the original, as opposed to a contemporary or early copy made of it made by an Exeter scribe.421 A special place belongs in this context to a unique assemblage from the late 1050s, comprising an original writ, with an impression of the royal seal, and an associated single-sheet royal diploma, from the archives of the abbey of SaintDenis, near Paris. In the writ, which can be seen from internal evidence to have been issued in the period 1055 × 1057, King Edward informs the shire-court of Oxfordshire that he has granted land at Taynton, Oxon, to Saint-Denis; and he authorizes ‘the bishop’, evidently Wulfwig of Dorchester, as diocesan, to draw up a diploma to this effect.422 The surviving diploma is dated 1059.423 As in other cases where it is known that a diploma was produced under circumstances of this kind, Edward’s diploma for Taynton is anomalous, in terms of its format and also in terms of its diplomatic. Yet there is more to it than that. The diploma was 418 419 420

421

422

423

S 994 (KCD 763) and S 1008 (KCD 781), both from the Old Minster, Winchester. S 1021 (KCD 791), for which see Councils and Synods, pp. 528–33 (no. 71), and Insley, ‘Rhetoric and ritual’, pp. 113–14; see also Appendix II, pp. 145–6. T. A. M. Bishop, ‘Notes on Cambridge manuscripts, Part II’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 2 (1954–8), 185–99, at 195; see also Insley, ‘Rhetoric and ritual’, p. 113, noting that S 1021 was modelled in part on S 880. Evidence for the existence of other versions of the diploma is cited by Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon diplomas of Exeter’, p. 31. A new edition is in preparation: Charters of Crediton and Exeter, ed. C. Insley. S 1105 (ASWrits 55), from Paris, Saint-Denis, reproduced with its seal in BAFacs. 20; see also Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, pp. 243–5, and Facsimiles of English Royal Writs to A.D. 1100, ed. T. A. M. Bishop and P. Chaplais (Oxford, 1957), no. 20 (pl. 18). For other writs authorizing a bishop to produce a diploma, see above, n. 115. S 1028 (ASWrits, pp. 538–9), from Paris, Saint-Denis, reproduced in BAFacs. 21; see also R. A. Brown, The Norman Conquest (London, 1984), pp. 130–2 (translation).



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not drawn up in respect of the occasion where the grant had been decided, as might have been the expected procedure; rather, it was drawn up at an assembly held at least two years later. Crucially, it ends with a note, unparalleled in AngloSaxon diplomatic, to the effect that Baldwin, who had been the king’s physician and was now a monk of Saint-Denis, had ‘received the charter of this gift from the hand of the same king’, with the approval of those named in the witnesslist. It would appear to follow that when the bishop attended in 1059, he came to the assembly knowing that the grant of Taynton would be formally enacted on this occasion, that he would be expected to produce the diploma (at the assembly), and that Baldwin, monk of Saint-Denis, would be on hand to receive it from the king. The point was, perhaps, that there had to be someone present to receive the diploma, as or on behalf of the beneficiary; so the arrangement was made for Baldwin, as a monk of the abbey, to play his part.424 It is about as close as we ever get to a description of a ceremony of conveyance, and it comes fortuitously, by virtue of the complicated cross-channel circumstances, and rather late in the day. In what would prove to be the closing years of the kingdom of the English, we encounter the royal diploma in various guises, showing in combination how much it had changed since the central decades of the tenth century, and indeed since the reign of King Æthelred. Some were patently produced by agencies to which the task had been delegated; others may attest to the continued vitality of a central or royal agency. A diploma by which Edward granted an estate in Hertfordshire to Westminster abbey, dated 1060 (in fact the latest diploma to survive as an apparent original), exempts the estate from the common burdens; and while it might on that basis be dismissed as a monkish fantasy, it might equally be regarded as symbolic of the king’s special favour towards his new foundation.425 A diploma by which Edward granted land in Devon to St Mary’s, Rouen, in 1061, is preserved in the form of what would seem to be a thirteenth-century replica of a (lost) single-sheet original; the appearance among the witnesses of Regenbald, styled sigillarius, is of singular interest, and one also notices Osbert, ‘canon of St Mary’s’, who like Baldwin before him might have been there to receive the diploma from the king.426 A diploma by which Edward granted land in Somerset to Wulfwold, abbot of Bath, also dated 1061,

424

425

426

It emerges from William I’s diploma for Saint-Denis, dated 1069, that Edward had given the church at Deerhurst to the monk Baldwin, for his own uses, and the land at Taynton to the abbey; see Acta of William I, ed. Bates [below, n. 437], pp. 767–9 (no. 254). For the use of material from Saint-Denis at Westminster, see below, n. 433. S 1031 (Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 333–5), with BAFacs. 22. For an earlier grant which appears to grant exemption from the common burdens, see S 950 (CantCC 144), with Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 1056. The privileges granted in S 1031 have to be understood in a wider context: see D. Pratt, ‘Demesne exemptions from royal taxation in Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England’, EHR 128 (2013), 1–34. S 1033 (KCD 810), with BAFacs. 42 and Keynes, ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’, pp. 200–1.

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was drawn up in a most interesting form by Giso, bishop of Wells.427 Giso’s ‘notarial’ attestation is placed after the end of the text and before the king’s attestation, prompting the thought that (if not a later insertion) it might have marked the end of a first stage, before the addition of the witness-list; the crosses in the witness-list follow rather than precede each name; the witnesses occur in an order which makes one wonder how they might have been positioned on the original; and the boundary-clause follows the witnesses. The diploma by which Edward confirmed Earl Harold’s foundation of Waltham abbey, in 1062, was once dismissed as ‘inadmissible as an Old English record’.428 If we may believe the late twelfth-century Waltham Chronicle, the diploma was written in letters of gold, and the king himself had drawn ‘a gold cross on the charter with his own hand’.429 To judge from a copy entered c. 1200 in a charter roll, the witnesses were arranged on the diploma in five columns, ending with the notarial subscription of a certain Swithgar, whose associations seem to have been with Regenbald, now styled the king’s chancellor. There is much still to learn about the formulation, the substantive content and the wider historical significance of the Waltham diploma. Some time in the early 1060s Edward authorized Archbishop Ealdred to draw up a diploma for the lands belonging to St John’s minster at Beverley, in Yorkshire;430 alas, the diploma itself does not survive. Two other diplomas, one for Malmesbury abbey, drawn up by Abbot Brihtric,431 and one for the bishopric of Wells, drawn up by Bishop Giso,432 both dated 1065, show yet again that diplomas produced under such circumstances tended to differ from a notional norm. The cluster suggests that it had become a practice, in the early 1060s, for the king to confirm the landed endowment of religious houses; but while production of the diplomas for Beverley, Malmesbury and Wells was delegated to others, it seems that production of the diploma for Waltham had been left in the hands of a central agency. The final flourish of the Anglo-Saxon royal diploma is symbolized, perhaps unfortunately, by the so-called ‘First’ and ‘Third’ charters of King Edward the Confessor for Westminster abbey, issued ostensibly at Westminster on 28 December 1065.433 It would appear that the charters in Edward’s name were

427 428 429

430 431 432 433

S 1034 (Bath 22), with Keynes, ‘Giso, bishop of Wells’, pp. 231–2 and 256, and Kelly, Charters of Bath and Wells, pp. 142–4. S 1036 (KCD 813), with Stenton, Latin Charters, pp. 86–7; for a different assessment, see Keynes, ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’, pp. 201–3. The Waltham Chronicle: an account of the discovery of our Holy Cross at Montacute and its conveyance to Waltham, ed. L. Watkins and M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1994), pp. xxxviii–xliii and 36–8. S 1067 (North 13), and above, n. 115. S 1038 (Malm 33), with Kelly, Charters of Malmesbury, pp. 246–50; see also Keynes, ‘Giso, bishop of Wells’, pp. 234–5. S 1042 (Wells 40), with Kelly, Charters of Bath and Wells, pp. 241–7; see also Keynes, ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’, pp. 203–4, and ‘Giso, bishop of Wells’, pp. 232–8 and 257. S 1043 (KCD 824), with BAFacs. 38 (‘First’ Charter), and S 1041 (KCD 825) (‘Third’ Charter). S 1011 (KCD 779), dated 1045, and known as the ‘Second’ charter, stands apart from them; it appears to have been based on a charter of Philip I of France for



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composed (with others) in the 1120s or 1130s, not least because the two pretended originals (of the ‘First’ and the ‘Third’ charters) are written in the hand of a scribe identified as a monk of Westminster responsible for writing a charter of Abbot Herbert (1121–c.1136).434 The charters in Edward’s name are attributed on stylistic grounds to Osbert de Clare, a monk of Westminster in the 1120s, who became prior in the late 1130s, and who is best known as the author of a Life of St Edward, King of the English, which builds on the documentary material.435 In 1139, or soon afterwards, Osbert journeyed to Rome in order to make representations for Edward’s canonization, and to draw the pope’s attention to what he regarded as the maladministration of the abbey under Abbot Gervase (1138–c.1157), apparently King Stephen’s illegitimate son. We may leave aside the outcome. What matters here is that the two diplomas, with their pendant seals, were fabricated at Westminster as part of the process by which the monks constructed and imagined their pre-Conquest past; the diplomas also formed part of a campaign which would lead sooner or later to Rome. Yet while the diplomas are patently spurious, the monk of Westminster responsible for their fabrication clearly made use of some genuine documentation from the mid1060s, presumably drawn from the abbey’s archives.436 The question, therefore, is what might we learn from these forged diplomas for Westminster about diplomatic practices in the last years of Edward’s reign. We gain a good impression of practices at the centre from the charters for Westminster (1060), Rouen (1061) and Waltham (1062), just as we may judge what was happening on the periphery from the charters for Bath (1061), Malmesbury (1065) and Wells (1065). The evidence suggests that practices in Edward’s household, and perhaps also at his assemblies, were influenced (unsurprisingly) by the presence of priests (and others), drawn from various parts of the Continent, who had been active in England by then for some time. Their influence can be seen or suspected already in the 1050s, and more clearly so in the early 1060s. The new church built by King Edward at Westminster was dedicated on Wednesday 28 December 1065; the king died just over a week later, on Thursday 5 January 1066. The likelihood is that Edward was prevented by his death from fulfilling what might

434 435

436

Saint-Denis, dated 1068, though a genuine charter of 1045 was used for the witness-list (cf. S 1010, from Wilton). Editions of all three, and others, will be included in Charters of Westminster Abbey, ed. R. Mortimer. Chaplais, ‘Original charters of Herbert and Gervase, abbots of Westminster’, pp. 91–2. The History of Westminster Abbey by John Flete, ed. J. A. Robinson (Cambridge, 1909), pp. 8–9 and 12–14; M. Bloch, ‘La vie de S. Édouard le Confesseur par Osbert de Clare’, Analecta Bollandiana 41 (1923), 5–131, at 5–63, esp. 46–52 and 91; Harmer, AngloSaxon Writs, pp. 286–92; Chaplais, ‘Original charters of Herbert and Gervase, abbots of Westminster’, pp. 90–5; Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 272–7, and The Life of King Edward who Rests at Westminster, ed. F. Barlow, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1992), pp. 150–63, esp. 157 and 160–1; R. Mortimer, ‘Edward the Confessor: the man and the legend’, in Edward the Confessor: the man and the legend, ed. R. Mortimer (Woodbridge, 2009), pp. 1–40. Keynes, ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’, pp. 198–9 and 209–10. The significance of S 1037a (North 11), in this connection, is discussed by Woodman, Charters of Northern Houses, pp. 163–70.

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well have been his intention to issue a grand diploma for Westminster abbey. Had he lived longer, one might have expected a document which followed on in its formulation, terminology and appearance from the earlier diplomas for Westminster, Rouen and Waltham, and doubtless several others which have not chanced to survive in any form. There is every reason to assume (with Osbert) that a hypothetical diploma of Edward the Confessor for Westminster abbey would have been produced and sealed under the auspices of Regenbald, the king’s chancellor. One imagines further that it would have played its part in a magnificent ceremony at the abbey, in the course of which Edward might well have applied a golden cross to the document, and then moved forward to place it on the altar, whilst the assembled company consented and applauded. One is left to wonder, perhaps in common with those present on any such occasion, what might have happened next. In fact the influence of the Anglo-Saxon royal diploma was still felt in the early years of the reign of William the Conqueror. The impression made on the reader by Professor Bates’s edition of William’s charters is unsurprisingly one of great diversity, arising directly from the changed political circumstances. There are documents which reflect the influence of pre-Conquest diplomatic forms, alongside documents of different type, showing the continuation of practices which had obtained across the Channel in Normandy; there are also documents which show the influence which ‘continental’ practices began to exert in AngloNorman England.437 The most striking example of an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ diploma issued in the name of William I is that confirming the foundation and endowment of the collegiate church of St Martin’s-le-Grand, not far from the cathedral church of St Paul, in London.438 At Christmas in 1067 the priest Ingelric, who had come to England during the reign of Edward the Confessor, and his brother ‘Eirard’, petitioned King William, who granted their request and gave permission for a diploma to be drawn up. The diploma was written and confirmed at Pentecost (11 May) in 1068, when all had gathered for the queen’s consecration at Westminster. The original does not survive; but it must have been a large and imposing document, drafted by those familiar with the formulation of King Edward’s diplomas, incorporating an extended summary in English, with a long list of witnesses disposed in six columns across the width of the sheet, and an impression of the Great Seal of William I apparently suspended from its lower edge. Attestations of two papal legates seem to have been added subsequently, in 1070, perhaps on the dorse. The diploma suggests that practices and conven-

437

438

Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: the acta of William I (1066–1087), ed. D. Bates (Oxford, 1998), comprising over 350 documents, arranged by beneficiary. For aspects of their production, see pp. 105–8; see also P. Chaplais, ‘Une charte originale de Guillaume le Conquérant pour l’abbaye de Fécamp: la donation de Steyning et de Bury (1085)’ [1959], reprinted in his Essays in Medieval Diplomacy and Administration, no. XVI, and G. R. C. Davis, ‘A Norman charter’, British Museum Quarterly 25 (1962), pp. 75–9. Stevenson, ‘Old-English charter of William the Conqueror’ (cited above, n. 108); Keynes, ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’, pp. 218–19; and Acta of William I, ed. Bates, pp. 594–601 (no. 181).



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tions could be adapted without difficulty to suit new conditions; though this was not necessarily the first ‘Anglo-Saxon’ royal diploma to have been furnished with a seal.439

Latin and the Vernacular The focus of attention above has been on the Latin diplomas which emanated from the royal assemblies. One should not lose sight, however, of the vernacular documents which were generated at the same time, and which help to remind us that diplomas, in Latin, belonged to proceedings which were conducted largely in English (as one would expect).440 The routine business at assemblies would have generated various forms of documentation: not only the diplomas, but also letters or writs addressed to local officials (including reeves of different kinds), announcing a particular decision, or requiring a particular action, as well as formal records of decisions on matters prompted by current concerns, and more wide-ranging (and perhaps more widely circulated) law-codes for the promotion the common good. Examples are to be found, of course, in the surviving corpus of royal legislation,441 and (for the eleventh century) in the corpus of writs.442 Other examples are to be found in the corpus of vernacular charters.443 A number of these charters survive in single-sheet form, and were the work of a multiplicity of scribes;444 most survive only in the form of later copies. The majority were presumably drawn up by priests or monks attached to religious houses, in connection with their own affairs or on behalf of laymen. Some were doubtless intended for use at or for submission to local assemblies of one kind or another; others were evidently drawn up in the aftermath of such assemblies, as a partisan record of the outcome of a dispute. A significant number were drawn up in the form of a bipartite or tripartite chirograph, the separate parts

439 440 441 442 443

444

Keynes, ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’, pp. 216, n. 188, and 220–1. For further discussion, see Acta of William I, ed. Bates, esp. pp. 68–73 (diplomas) and 96–8 (Regenbald). For royal assemblies, see above, pp. 30–9; see also above, p. 47, with n. 123 (Clanchy). Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, with Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, and Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, ed. Robertson (above, nn. 53–5). Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs. The corpus is best approached with the aid of three volumes produced at the instigation of H. M. Chadwick, for which see above, n. 110. For the records from Ely abbey, see above, p. 63. See also L. Oliver, ‘Legal documentation and the practice of English law’, in The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature, ed. C. A. Lees (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 499–529, at 515–26 (writs and wills). Hands writing vernacular texts in single-sheet charters of the later tenth and eleventh centuries are registered in D. Scragg, A Conspectus of Scribal Hands Writing English, 960–1100, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 11 (Cambridge, 2012), passim; only in a very few cases have the hands also been identified in books, e.g. no. 445 (Eadwig Basan).

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of which were entrusted to interested (or perhaps disinterested) parties.445 Some of these were episcopal leases. Some were private wills, one or other part of which would be transmitted to and formally made known at a shire assembly or at a royal assembly. Some were evidently drawn up at a shire assembly, as a formal record of the settlement of a dispute.446 There are perhaps fewer instances than one might expect where a chirograph was used for making a formal and definitive record of business discussed and settled at a royal assembly. One originated at an assembly held at Cookham, Berkshire, in the late 990s, as a record of an agreement which was immediately committed to writing ‘and read before the king and the witan (and beforan ðæm cincge and ðam witon gerædd)’.447 Another originated at an assembly held probably at Lincoln, in the early 1050s, and is a record of the agreement reached between Wulfwig, bishop of Dorchester, and Earl Leofric and his wife Godgifu, concerning the endowment and administration of the collegiate church of St Mary, Stow.448 It may be that the work of a putative royal secretariat, operating at a royal assembly, was directed mainly towards the production of law-codes and royal diplomas. Another aspect of business arising from assemblies is represented by the surviving corpus of vernacular writs. There is (in my view) no reason to suppose that the ‘outmoded’ Latin diploma was outmoded, and still less to imagine that it was in any way superseded by the more efficient vernacular writ in the first half of the eleventh century.449 The two types of document were quite different from, and thus complemented and so were not in competition with, each other. One imagines that while a king would have been able at any time of his choosing to dispatch a writ (sealed, or accompanied by a seal) to its intended recipient, a considerable number of them would need to have been dispatched in the immediate aftermath of an assembly, including those giving notice to a shire court of particular instructions, decisions, appointments, confirmations

445

446

447

448

449

For further discussion, see K. A. Lowe, ‘Lay literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and the development of the chirograph’, in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and Their Heritage, ed. P. Pulsiano and E. Treharne (Aldershot, 1998), 161–204, esp. 168–80. For records of shire assemblies (above, p. 19), see S 1454 (CantCC 133), as a chirograph; S 1456 (Roch 37); S 1460 (ASChart 83), from Worcester, as a chirograph; S 1462 (ASChart 78), entered in a gospel-book at Hereford; S 1473 (CantCC 171), as a chirograph; S 1474 (Sherb 17), as a chirograph. S 939 (CantCC 137). Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 1007–8, suggest that a draft was read out, and the chirograph created ‘at a later time’. It seems more likely, however, that the chirograph would have been made at the time, so that the copies could be distributed at once to the interested parties; the analogy is with the will of Siferth of Downham, for which see Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word’, pp. 254–5. S 1478 (ASChart 115), preserved at Eynsham. For further discussion, see S. Baxter, The Earls of Mercia: lordship and power in late Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2007), pp. 182–8. For discussion, see Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, pp. 34–8; Stenton, Latin Charters, pp. 89–91; and Chaplais, ‘Anglo-Saxon chancery’, esp. p. 50. See also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 140–5, with ‘Regenbald the Chancellor’, pp. 214–16, and the entry on ‘Charters and Writs’ in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge et al., pp. 102–3.



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of appointments, or actions (including grants of land).450 Such writs are most likely to have been written and sealed by members of the royal secretariat, and perhaps given to a trusted person representing the shire to which the writ was addressed, or to a person whose duty it was to carry documents and messages from the centre to the localities on behalf of the king.451 The writs which have survived are those which had been retained for particular reasons, at particular religious houses or by particular persons; writs in general, however, were used for wide variety of purposes, and in most places it was the Latin diploma which continued to serve as the title-deed for an estate.

The ‘Authenticity’ of the Anglo-Saxon Royal Diploma The Anglo-Saxon royal diploma had its beginnings in the seventh century, and its development can be followed, albeit at times with some difficulty, onward through the eighth century and into the ninth. The emergence of a new polity in the 880s, and the further political complications which arose in the first quarter of the tenth century, must have had some effect; and it may be that the ‘gap’ in the record was in some way a product of these difficulties. Against this background, and in the immediate aftermath of further political developments in 927, the diplomas of ‘Æthelstan A’ seem to represent nothing less than a new beginning. The way forward, however, was found to lie with a modified format, introduced in 935 and soon established as the norm. The view was taken above that from the late 920s onwards royal diplomas were produced by a ‘central’ agency of some kind, operating on the occasion of royal assemblies; but it may be seen quite clearly that from the early 940s other agencies were able to operate alongside the central agency, albeit under circumstances not yet fully understood. The work of a putative central agency can be traced through the 940s and onwards (after an interesting hiatus in the early 950s) from the mid950s into the 960s, 970s and beyond. The diploma reached new heights, as it were, in the 990s, sustained into the opening decade of the eleventh century; and there remains compelling internal evidence that these documents were still (for the most part) the products of a central agency, and would have been handed over to their beneficiaries in the context of a royal assembly. The use of other agencies continued, in the same way as before; and while it seems clear that the delegation of responsibility for the production of diplomas increased, during the last fifty years of the Anglo-Saxon period, reflected in the more varied appearance of royal diplomas, there is reason to suppose that some of the finest and grandest of their kind were being produced, in the early 1060s, by an agency which might well have been dignified by contemporaries as a royal chancery. It is conceivable that towards the very end of this process of development, the authenticity of a royal diploma was advertised and guaranteed by an appended 450 451

Keynes, ‘Giso, bishop of Wells’, p. 240, and R. Sharpe, ‘The use of writs in the eleventh century’, ASE 32 (2003), 247–91. Keynes, ‘The use of seals in Anglo-Saxon England’.

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impression of the king’s seal. Yet wherein lay the ‘authenticity’ of a diploma before that auspicious moment? We have seen how royal diplomas served their intended purpose in the later tenth century, and, in particular, how their function as title-deeds for estates of bookland, although open to abuse, was in general respected.452 A diploma was indeed powerfully symbolic of the estate to which it referred; but it would be mistaken to imagine that diplomas were impractical, and only of interest to those able to appreciate their finer points. The main text was written in Latin, making it inscrutable to all but the literate clergy and the most well educated laymen; yet in almost all cases a diploma incorporated a boundary-clause in the vernacular, and a vernacular endorsement. One need not imagine a layman perusing the various title-deeds which he kept in the little wooden box under his bed: glowing inwardly at the pious sentiments, expressed in the proem, which had lain behind the creation of his bookland in the first place; or taking comfort from the punishments, described in the sanction, which awaited anyone who dared to challenge the privileged form of tenure which he enjoyed. What counted was that the diplomas were in his box, under his bed. If there was a problem, he could rummage through the box looking at the endorsements on the diplomas, recognizing his own name on one or two of them, and perhaps that of his father, or grandfather, on two or three others. We might even imagine him unfolding a diploma in order to check a detail in the boundary-clause. It is also possible that by virtue of its design a diploma, once unfolded, enabled its owner to recall with swelling pride the day when he, or one of his forbears, had received the land from the king, at a royal assembly, and in the presence of the great and good of the land. A thought such as this then leads to another. It might not have been a matter of concern to anyone that a diploma lacked outward signs of authentication, such as an impressively autograph notarial subscription, or the impression of a seal; and besides, there were other ways of achieving the same purpose. It would have been self-evident that diplomas were written in the sonorous language of the Church, that they were suffused with the tenets of the Christian faith, and that they were written by priests who commanded respect precisely because they were men of God. Nothing could stop a man of God, from the most lowly of priests to the most exalted of archbishops, from having a go at the fabrication of a charter, to the best of his ability and so with varying degrees of success; nor could anything stop an unscrupulous layman from withholding or secreting charters that should have been given up, or from stealing charters from the box under someone else’s bed. Yet it would not have been a simple exercise for anyone to make up a royal diploma, precisely because of its language and form as a legal instrument. It may be that the system relied on the natural inclination of members of the secular and ecclesiastical orders to place their trust in a document which proceeded from and took its place within the established Christian order.453 It is possible, at the same time, that the system worked because a diploma could

452 453

Above, pp. 62–8. Chaplais, ‘Origin and authenticity’, pp. 33 and 42, and above, pp. 46–7.



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be seen from its general appearance, and most obviously from the columns of names across the bottom of the sheet of parchment, to have been produced at a royal assembly, which in the late ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries meant a gathering as imposing and as impressive as anything which one could hope to encounter on this earth.454

454

I draw in this article on material presented in three papers given on different occasions in the University of Manchester: a Toller Lecture on the charters of King Æthelstan, in March 2001; a paper on the act of attestation in royal diplomas, at a conference on ‘The Cross’ in July 2002; and a paper on royal assemblies and the written word, at the conference on ‘Kingship and Power’ in May 2006. I am grateful to Professor Gale OwenCrocker and to Professor Don Scragg for giving me an opportunity to develop aspects of this material for the purposes of the present volume, and to Brian Schneider for his editorial attention. I am grateful to Caroline Palmer, of Boydell & Brewer, in the same connection, and for permitting the inclusion of a generous selection of images of the royal diplomas in the British Library, one of which reappears on the cover.

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Appendix I Meeting-places of Royal Assemblies in Anglo-Saxon England (900–1066) This is a revised version of a list, with an accompanying map, first published over thirty years ago.1 Its purpose is to bring together references to Anglo-Saxon royal assemblies in the tenth and eleventh centuries, in those cases where the available sources afford evidence of the place where the assembly was held. Entries are grouped under each place. A question mark against an entry indicates a degree of uncertainty about the entry as a whole, as a record of a royal assembly, and a dagger symbol (†) indicates a source of information which is itself of questionable authority. The accompanying map (above, p. 34) was drawn by Mr Reginald Piggott, to replace the version published in 1980. The information summarized in the list is drawn primarily from law-codes and royal diplomas, which together represent the surviving written products of royal assemblies held during the period in question. Some references to assemblies in the tenth and eleventh centuries are found in ‘literary’ sources, including the annals which form part of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a number of hagiographical texts in Latin. It emerges, unsurprisingly, that royal assemblies were convened at places of different kinds, including royal estates, small fortified towns, county boroughs, and of course the major centres such as Winchester and London. Needless to say, there were many other places where royal assemblies were held, and many other places which might have been on a king’s itinerary, beyond those for which evidence survives and happen therefore to be included in this list. Various aspects of royal assemblies (timing, frequency, duration, attendance, business, ceremonial) are discussed briefly above, pp. 30–9.2 The list includes about seventy places, of various kinds. Some are characterized below with a sentence or two about their particular associations. Two blocs of entries are significantly larger than the rest. One brings together evidence bearing on the special significance of Kingston-upon-Thames in the tenth century, not least (although not exclusively) as a place for royal inaugurations. The other reflects the emergence of London as the commercial and political centre of the kingdom of the English in the later tenth and eleventh centuries. References to royal diplomas and vernacular charters are given in accordance with the practices summarized elsewhere.3 References to the several manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are to the volumes in the series published by D. S. Brewer (Cambridge).4 References to law-codes employ the system 1 2 3 4

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 269–73, with map on p. 36. See also Roach, Assembling Consent (cited above, n. 66), covering these and other much wider aspects of the subject. Above, n. 6, and Appendix III. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition, 3: MS A, ed. J. M. Bately (1986);



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of numeration used in the standard edition by Liebermann, also found in the more accessible editions by Attenborough and Robertson.5 Citations are given where possible to modern editions of Latin texts published under the auspices of ‘Oxford Medieval Texts’.6

Recorded Meeting-Places (900–1066) Abingdon, Berkshire (royal estate) Much of the land surrounding the minster at Abingdon, on the river Thames, appears to have fallen under royal control in the late ninth or early tenth century. The place is described as a royal estate in a diploma of King Eadred, dated 950. The minster at Abingdon was refounded under Æthelwold, probably in the early 950s. On a visit to Abingdon shortly before the king’s death in November 954, some Northumbrian thegns in the king’s party became inebriated.7 • ? an ‘assembly of nobles’ in 926: for the place, see WM, GR ii. 135. 3 (ed. Mynors, et al., p. 218); the date emerges from Flodoard’s Annals.8 • ? assembly, c. 931: † S 1208 (Abing 28). • diploma of King Eadred, 950 (regali in uillula): S 552a (‘Kemble’ website), from Barking [‘alliterative’]. Amesbury, Wiltshire (royal estate) Bequeathed by King Alfred to his younger son Æthelweard, and by King Eadred to his mother Queen Eadgifu. • diplomas of King Æthelstan, 24 December 932 (in uilla omnibus notissima): S 418 (WinchNM 10) and S 419 (Shaft 8) [‘Æthelstan A’].

5 6

7

8

4: MS B, ed. S. Taylor (1983); 5: MS C, ed. K. O’B. O’Keeffe (2001); 6: MS D, ed. G. P. Cubbin (1996); 7: MS. E, ed. S. Irvine (2004); and 8: MS F, ed. P. S. Baker (2000). Die Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, and Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, ed. Robertson, cited above, n. 53. Wulfstan of Winchester: Life of St Æthelwold, ed. M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1991); The Early Lives of St Dunstan, ed. M. Winterbottom and M. Lapidge (Oxford, 2012); Byrhtferth of Ramsey: The Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine, ed. M. Lapidge (Oxford, 2009). For the Vita Ædwardi regis, see The Life of King Edward who Rests at Westminster, Attributed to a Monk of Saint-Bertin, ed. F. Barlow, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1992). Symeon of Durham: ‘Libellus de Exordio atque Procursu istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, Ecclesie’ / Tract on the Origins and Progress of this the Church of Durham, ed. D. Rollason (Oxford, 2000). The Worcester Latin Chronicle, compiled in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries by Florence and John, monks of Worcester, is cited from The Chronicle of John of Worcester, II: The Annals from 450 to 1066, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk, with J. Bray (Oxford, 1995). William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum is cited from William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum/ The History of the English Kings, ed. R. A. B. Mynors with R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–9). Wulfstan of Winchester, Vita S. Æthelwoldi, chs. 11–13 (ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, pp. 18–24). See also J. Blair, ‘The Minsters of the Thames’, in The Cloister and the World, ed. J. Blair and B. Golding (Oxford, 1996), pp. 5–28, at 21. P. Lauer, Les Annales de Flodoard (Paris, 1905), p. 36; The ‘Annals’ of Flodoard of Reims 919–966, ed. S. Fanning and B. S. Bachrach (Peterborough, Ontario, 2004), p. 16. For further discussion, see Foot, Æthelstan, pp. 192–8.

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• assembly in 977: Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 428). • assembly at Easter (21 April) 995, at which Ælfric was elected archbishop of Canterbury: ASC F; it is possible that S 885 (Roch 31) and S 886 (Abing 126), attested by Ælfric and by Ealdulf as (arch)bishops ‘elect’, were issued on this occasion. Andover, Hampshire (royal estate) Land at Andover was bequeathed by King Eadred to the New Minster, Winchester, but the bequest seems not to have taken effect. For further discussion, see below under Grately. • legislation of King Edgar (959 × 963): II and III Edgar; see also IV Edgar 1.4. • assembly in 980, preceding the dedication of the Old Minster at Winchester: Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de Sancto Swithuno, lines 75–80.9 • ? assembly in 994, for the ceremonial which followed the bringing of Olaf Tryggvason from the viking base at Southampton: ASC CDEF 994; see also II Æthelred. Axminster, Devon (royal estate) • diploma of King Edward the Elder, 901: S 364 (BCS 588), from Wilton. Bath, Somerset Included in the Burghal Hidage. • coronation of King Edgar, Pentecost (11 May) 973: ASC AG 973, BC 974, DEF 972; Byrhtferth, Vita S. Oswaldi, iv. 6–7 (ed. Lapidge, pp. 104–10), not mentioning the location; see also † S 799 (BCS 1304), from Wilton, and † S 808 (CantCC 129). • legislation of King Æthelred (August/September 1009): VII Æthelred. Beorchore, a ‘new town’ (unidentified) • diploma of King Æthelred, 1007: S 915 (Abing 134). Bicanleag (identification uncertain), probably Bickleigh, near Exeter, or Bickleigh, near Plymouth, Devon • diplomas of King Edward the Elder, 904: S 372 (BCS 613) and S 373 (BCS 612), from the Old Minster, Winchester, S 374 (WinchNM 7), and S 1286 (BCS 611), from the Old Minster, Winchester. Bradanford, probably Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire The Avon was regarded later in the tenth century as marking the boundary between the ‘western English’ (i.e. the West Saxons) and the Mercians.10 • a ‘great meeting of the witan’ (magnus sapientum conuentus), ? 957 × 959: Vita S. Dunstani, ch. 25 (ed. Winterbottom and Lapidge, pp. 76–8).11

9 10 11

The Cult of St Swithun, ed. M. Lapidge, Winchester Studies iv.2 (Oxford, 2003), p. 378. The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. A. Campbell (London, 1962), p. 52. According to the author of the Vita S. Dunstani, the assembly at ‘Bradford’ took place after Eadwig’s death in October 959, and it was on this occasion that Dunstan was marked



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Britford, near Wilton, Wiltshire (royal estate) • assembly in autumn 1065: Vita Ædwardi regis, i. 7 (ed. Barlow, pp. 76–80); cf. ASC C 1065. Bromdun (identification uncertain) • legislation of King Æthelred (978 × ?997): see I Æthelred 1.2 and III Æthelred 4. Buckingham, Buckinghamshire (shire town) Included in the Burghal Hidage. • diploma of King Æthelstan, 13 September 934 (in uilla): S 426 (Glast 24) [‘Æthelstan A’]. Calne, Wiltshire (royal estate) A royal estate in the tenth century, which in Edgar’s reign was held for the king by his reeve Eadric.12 • assembly in 977, when ‘all the chief councillors of the English people’ (ealle þa yldestan Angelcynnes witan), meeting perhaps in the absence of the young King Edward, fell from the upper storey of a building: ASC DEF 978. For elaboration of the incident, probably imaginary, see William of Malmesbury’s Vita S. Dunstani, ii. 18–19.13 • gathering ‘in the hall of the royal estate at Calne’, over Easter (28 March) 997, evidently in preparation for a full assembly of the witan to be held thereafter at Wantage: see S 891 (KCD 698), from Winchester, Old Minster, and below, under Wantage. Canterbury, Kent The location of Canterbury meant that it was perhaps not a natural meetingplace for royal assemblies in the tenth and eleventh centuries; though of course there is good evidence for local assemblies. • diploma of King Æthelred, 11 July 1002: S 905 (CantCC 139). • ? consecration of Edward the Confessor, 1041 × 1043: Vita Ædwardi regis i. 1 (ed. Barlow, p. 14); see also under Winchester. Cheddar, Somerset (royal estate) A place with significant royal associations during the reign of King Edmund; and well attested archaeologically.14

12

13 14

out for a bishopric. Dunstan is known to have been a bishop already in 958, and it may be that the meeting at Bradford took place some time before Eadwig’s death (Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, p. 8 n. 28); alternatively, the author might have been confused by details of episcopal succession, in which case the event at Bradford was perhaps the occasion of Edgar’s inauguration as king of the reunited kingdom of the English. Lantfred of Winchester, Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni, ch. 25, and Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de S. Swithuno, ch. 8: Cult of St Swithun, ed. Lapidge, pp. 308 and 508. William of Malmesbury, Saints’ Lives: Lives of SS. Wulfstan, Dunstan, Patrick, Benignus and Indract, ed. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson (Oxford, 2002), pp. 268–70. Vita S. Dunstani, ch. 13.7 (ed. Lapidge, p. 46), with P. Rhatz, in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al., p. 103.

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• ? diploma of King Edmund, 24 July ‘960’, ? for 941: † S 511 (BCS 765), from Winchester, Old Minster. • diploma of King Eadwig, 29 November 956: S 611 (Abing 73) • ? diploma of King Edgar, ‘978’ for ? 968, at Easter: † S 806 (BCS 1219– 20), from Winchester, Old Minster. Chippenham, Wiltshire (royal estate) Well attested as a royal estate in the ninth century (Asser, chs. 9, 52); Ealdorman Ordlaf was at Chippenham, with Edward the Elder, when Helmstan brought him a seal from Winchester.15 • diploma of King Æthelstan, 29 April 930 (in uilla omnibus notissima): S 405 (BCS 1343), from Exeter [‘Æthelstan A’]. • diplomas of King Æthelstan, 26 January 933 (in uilla omnibus notissima / in uilla celeberrima): S 422 (Sherb 7) and S 423 (Sherb 8) [‘Æthelstan A’]. • diploma of King Edmund, 940 (celebri loco): S 473 (Glast 30) [‘alliterative’]. Chirton, Wiltshire (?) • ? legal proceedings at an assembly (c. 980): S 1498 (WinchNM 25). Cirencester, Gloucestershire A place with strong Roman associations; represented here by a significant series of four records, spanning the years from 935 to 1020, perhaps reflecting its suitability as a meeting-place in the western borderlands between Mercia and Wessex (with Gloucester a further 20 miles north-west). • diploma of King Æthelstan, 935 (in ciuitate a Romanis olim constructa): S 1792 (LonStP 11) [‘Æthelstan A’]. • diploma of King Eadwig, 956: S 633 (BCS 937), from Worcester [‘alliterative’]. • legal proceedings which led to the banishment of Ealdorman Ælfric in 985: S 896 (Abing 128), dated 999, and S 937 (Abing 129), undated (? 999). • a ‘great assembly’ (micel gemot) at Easter (17 April) 1020, at which Ealdorman Æthelweard and others were outlawed: ASC CDE [political]. Colchester, Essex (shire town) A place with strong Roman associations. • diploma of King Æthelstan, 23 March 931 (in uilla omnibus notissima): S 412 (BCS 674), from Winchester, Old Minster [‘Æthelstan A’]. • diploma of King Edmund, 940: S 472 (Glast 29) [‘alliterative’]. Colyton, Devon • legislation of King Edmund (939 × 946): III Edmund. Cookham, Berkshire (royal estate) The minster at Cookham, situated on a bend of the river Thames, was the subject of dispute between Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish interests in the late eighth

15

S 1445 (CantCC 104).



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century.16 It was close to Sashes Island, one of the places named in the Burghal Hidage. • assembly during the reign of King Æthelred, c. 997: S 939 (CantCC 137), evidently drawn up at the assembly, and read out in the presence of the king and his witan (naming a selection), with ‘all the thegns who were gathered there from far and wide, both West Saxon and Mercians, Danes and English’. • ? assembly, 1006: Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 458), with reference to the blinding of Wulfheah and Ufegeat, also mentioned (without location) in ASC CDE and in the Welsh annals. Dorchester, Dorset (shire town) A significant meeting-place in the ninth century.17 • ? diploma of King Æthelstan: † S 391 (BCS 738–9), from Milton. • diploma of King Æthelstan, 21 December [935] (in ciuitate celeberrima): † S 434 (Malm 26), † S 435 (Malm 27) and † S 436 (Malm 28), all dated 937 [‘Æthelstan A’]. Edington, Wiltshire (royal estate) The site of King Alfred’s victory over the Danes in 878; bequeathed by Alfred to his wife Ealhswith. • diploma of King Eadwig, 9 May 957: S 646 (BCS 1347), from Ely. Enham, ?King’s, Hampshire (royal estate) • legislation of King Æthelred, Pentecost 1006 × 1011, probably 16 May 1008: V Æthelred (dated 1008) and VI Æthelred (Enham), with ASC CDE 1008; see also X Æthelred (perhaps an ‘official’ version of legislation on the same occasion). Exeter, Devon Included in the Burghal Hidage; called a ‘royal fortress (arx regia)’ in 928. Alfred gave (the minster at) Exeter to Asser, with all the jurisdiction belonging to it in Devon and Cornwall (ch. 81). In 1050 the bishoprics of Devon (Crediton) and Cornwall (St Germans) were amalgamated, citing poverty and exposure to viking raids; the see was relocated to Exeter as a place of greater security (S 1021, below). • legislation of King Edward the Elder (? 920 × 924): II Edward. • diplomas of King Æthelstan, 16 April 928 (in arce regia): S 399 (Glast 23) and S 400 (BCS 663), from Winchester, Old Minster [‘Æthelstan A’]. • diploma of King Æthelstan, 9 November 932: S 418a (‘Kemble’ website), from Barking [‘Æthelstan A’]. • legislation of King Æthelstan, promulgated in an assembly held at midwinter (924 × 938): V Æthelstan (Councils & Synods, no. 14); see also IV Æthelstan, c. 1, VI Æthelstan, Prol., and cc. 1 and 10. • diploma of King Edward, 1050 (before 29 Oct.), from which it emerges that the king placed the charter on the altar of St Peter’s, Exeter, and that the king 16 17

Above, pp. 23–4; see also Blair, ‘Minsters of the Thames’, p. 23. S 277 (Shaft 2) and S 333 (Sherb 6).

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and queen then led Bishop Leofric to his place, in the presence of those named in the witness-list: S 1021 (KCD 791; Councils & Synods, no. 71). Faversham, Kent • legislation of King Æthelstan (924 × 939), after assemblies at Grately and Exeter: see III Æthelstan, cc. 2 and 3, IV Æthelstan, c. 1, and VI Æthelstan, c. 10 apparently with reference to legislation at a royal assembly. The text known as III Æthelstan, addressed by the bishops and other men of Kent to King Æthelstan, and issued before August in a year unspecified, was itself promulgated from a ‘local’ as opposed to a royal assembly, but perhaps one also held at Faversham. Cf. the entry for Thundersfield, Surrey. Frome, Somerset • ? diploma of King Æthelstan, 16 December 934: † S 427 (BCS 705), from Winchester, Old Minster. Gadshill, Kent • ? diploma of King Eadred, 948: † S 537 (CantCC 119). • ? assembly, c. 970: S 1457 (Roch 36). Gillingham, Dorset or Kent Probably Gillingham in Dorset; alternatively Gillingham, near Rochester, in Kent, on the road (Watling Street) between London and Canterbury. • diploma of King Æthelred, 17 July 993: S 876 (Abing 124), following a royal assembly at Winchester in early June; but perhaps not a full assembly. • election of Edward the Confessor as king, in 1042: WM, GR ii.197.1 (ed. Mynors, et al., p. 352); cf. below, under London. Glastonbury, Somerset The site of a seventh-century minster, refounded as a Benedictine abbey in the 940s, under Abbot Dunstan. • ? diploma of King Eadred, ‘956’: † S 571 (BCS 931), from Winchester, Old Minster. • ? diploma of King Edgar, ‘951’: † S 670 (BCS 1048), from Westminster. • diploma of King Edgar, 975: S 802 (BCS 1315), from Winchester, Old Minster [‘Dunstan B’]. • ? diploma of King Cnut, 1032: † S 966 (Glast 61). Gloucester, Gloucestershire (shire town) A place with strong Roman associations, which became an important centre of Mercian secular authority in the late ninth and early tenth centuries (associated with Ealdorman Æthelred and his wife Æthelflæd), and thereafter.18 • ? diploma of King Edgar, 28 December 964 (= 963): † S 731 (BCS 1135), from Worcester, known as the ‘Altitonantis’ charter. • assembly in the royal palace at Gloucester, September 1051, where Earl Godwine was charged with the murder of Alfred, followed by another assembly

18

Blair, in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al., p. 215, with references.



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in London: ASC D 1052, E 1048, F 1050; see also Vita Ædwardi regis i. 3 (ed. Barlow, p. 34). Grately, Hampshire An estate of which little else is known in the Anglo-Saxon period, but which comes into sharper focus when judged in relation to the nearby royal estate at Andover.19 • legislation of King Æthelstan (924 × 939), possibly c. 930 (before promulgation of further legislation at Exeter, Faversham, Thundersfield): II Æthelstan (Councils & Synods, no. 13); with retrospective allusions to this act of legis­ lation in V Æthelstan, Prol., III Æthelstan, cc. 2, 5 and 7, IV Æthelstan, c. 2, and VI Æthelstan, Prol., and cc. 1, 10 and 12.20 Hamsey, near Lewes, Sussex • assembly during the reign of King Æthelstan (924 × 939): S 1211 (CantCC 124). Headington, Oxfordshire • diploma of King Æthelred, confirming lands to the church of St Frideswide, Oxford, 7 December 1004: S 909 (KCD 714). Hursteshevet, possibly ‘Hurst Head’, in the Solent • ? assembly of the nobility of England, meeting Edward on his arrival from Normandy in 1041: Quadripartitus, Arg. 9 (ed. Liebermann, i. 533).21 Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey Kingston was a West Saxon royal estate in the first half of the ninth century, when King Ecgberht and King Æthelwulf came to an agreement there with Archbishop Ceolnoth (above, pp. 26–7). It was probably also the site of a significant minster.22 Its association with the agreement of 838 may or may not have been a consideration when the place was first chosen, in 900 or in 925, as a site for a royal inauguration. More significant, perhaps, was its location on the river Thames, on the border (as it were) between the ‘Mercian’ and ‘West Saxon’ parts of the Alfredian kingdom ‘of the Anglo-Saxons’. If so, one should bear in mind that Kingston might have appealed more to a ‘Mercian’ or ‘Anglo-Saxon’ than to a ‘West Saxon’ (e.g. Winchester) mind-set.

19

20

21 22

R. Lavelle, ‘Why Grately? Reflections on Anglo-Saxon kingship in a Hampshire landscape’, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 60 (2005), 154–69. For Æthelstan’s legislation, see Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word’, pp. 237–8; Wormald, Making of English Law, esp. pp. 437–40; Pratt, ‘Written law’, pp. 336–7; and Foot, Æthelstan, pp. 136–48. The reference to the promulgation of II Æthelstan at Grately is from Quadripartitus (and Lambarde); the references in the other codes confirm that a major act of law-making took place at Grately, during Æthelstan’s reign, evidently with reference to II Æthelstan. J. R. Maddicott, ‘Edward the Confessor’s return to England in 1041’, EHR 119 (2004), 650–66. Blair, ‘Minsters of the Thames’, pp. 24–5; see also the entry on Kingston in Encyclopedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al., p. 277.

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The location, at Kingston, of the coronations of Æthelstan, Eadred, Eadwig and Æthelred rests on good evidence.23 The location, at Kingston, of the coronations of Edward the Elder, Edmund and Edward the Martyr depends on Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St Paul’s.24 Edgar’s ‘second’ coronation at Bath, in 973, appears to have eclipsed any record of a putative ‘first’ coronation, c. 960.25 Reignlengths for several tenth-century kings are given on a leaf (BL Cotton Tiberius A. iii, fol. 178) which originally followed ASC, MS B (BL Cotton Tiberius A. vi);26 some appear to have been calculated from a date sooner or later after their predecessor’s death, presumably an election or coronation. It is apparent that charters were issued, at Kingston, on the occasions of the coronations of Æthelstan, in 925, and Eadred, in 946. It follows that coronations were occasions not only for the solemn rituals of inauguration, but also for royal assemblies; by analogy, other references to coronations are included here, on the assumption that they would imply royal assemblies. The king-making process would appear under normal circumstances to have involved a formal ‘election’ by the leading men of the kingdom, followed by a coronation, involving promises and oaths on all sides; the relationship between the election and the coronation might not always have been the same. The significance attached to the coronation ceremony is apparent from the successive versions of the Anglo-Saxon coronation ordo, which would appear to have originated in the ninth century, and to have undergone further development in the tenth and eleventh centuries.27 A text known as the Old English Promissio regis constitutes a vernacular version of the coronation oath (based on the Latin ordo), followed by two short paragraphs of general admonishment directed at a Christian and consecrated king.28 The oath itself is said to have been copied verbatim ‘from the document (gewrit) which Archbishop Dunstan gave our lord at Kingston, on the day he was consecrated as king’, with reference to Edgar (c. 960), Edward (975), or Æthelred (978 or 979); the two added paragraphs suggest that an occasion arose some time later on which the king was reminded of his obligations as a consecrated king. • ? (election and) coronation of King Edward the Elder (Whitsunday [8 June]

23 24 25

26 27

28

S. Keynes, ‘The burial of King Æthelred at St Paul’s’, in The English and their Legacy, 900–1200, ed. Roffe, pp. 129–48, at 133–7. For further details of his work, see Keynes, ‘Burial of King Æthelred’, pp. 132 n. 17 and 133 n. 21. The perception of Edgar’s coronation in 973 as a second, as opposed to a long deferred or delayed coronation, originated in a seminal article by J. L. Nelson, ‘Inauguration rituals’, in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Wood (Leeds, 1977), pp. 50–71, at 63–70. ASC B, ed. Taylor, pp. 56–8; see also Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, et al., pp. 4–5, and EHD 2nd ed., pp. 147–8. J. L. Nelson, ‘The second English Ordo’, in her Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986), pp. 361–74, with ‘The first use of the second Anglo-Saxon Ordo’, in Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters, ed. Barrow and Wareham, pp. 117–26. M. Clayton, ‘The Old English Promissio regis’, ASE 37 (2008), 91–150.



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900): the date is from Æthelweard’s Latin version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, without mention of place;29 located at Kingston by Ralph de Diceto.30 • coronation, and diploma, of King Æthelstan (4 Sept. 925): for location, see ASC BCD (Mercian Register) 924; S 394 (CantStA 26), dated 4 September 925 (‘on the day of his consecration’); also located at Kingston by Ralph de Diceto; length of reign in Tiberius A. iii is calculated from coronation.31 • ? diploma of King Æthelstan: † S 420 (BCS 697), from Chertsey, dated at Kingston, 16 December 933. • ? diploma of King Æthelstan: † S 450 (BCS 785), from Exeter, dated at Kingston, 6 October ‘943’. • ? coronation of King Edmund (? 29 Nov. 939): located at Kingston by Ralph de Diceto; length of reign in Tiberius A. iii appears to be calculated from late November 939 (following Æthelstan’s death on 27 Oct.). • coronation, and diploma, of King Eadred (‘16 Aug.’, or mid-Oct., 946): for year and location, see S 520 (BCS 815), from Worcester; for date (16 Aug.) and location, see Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 400); also located at Kingston by Ralph de Diceto; length of reign in Tiberius A. iii appears to be calculated from a date in mid-Oct. 946 (following Edmund’s death on 26 May). • (election and) coronation of King Eadwig (late 955, or c. 27 Jan. 956): for date (955), and location, see Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 404); also located at Kingston by Ralph de Diceto; the length of Eadwig’s reign in Tiberius A. iii appears to be calculated from a date in late Jan. 956. A famously picturesque account of Eadwig’s coronation is given in the Vita S. Dunstani, chs. 21–2 (ed. Winterbottom and Lapidge, pp. 66–70). • ? coronation of Edgar (c. 960). No evidence survives; it is merely a presumption that Edgar was inaugurated at about this time, and, if so, that it took place at Kingston. The reign-length given for Edgar in Tiberius A. iii (16 years, 8 weeks, 2 days) represents the period from the date of Edgar’s death (8 July 975) back to 11 May 959, suggesting (as Whitelock observed) that the compiler had in mind the day of Edgar’s coronation in 973 (11 May), but applied it to the year of his accession in 959; the likelihood that Edgar was formally inaugurated on three occasions (957, 959/60, 973) had seemingly confused the issue. • assembly in 972: S 1451 (BCS 1290), from Westminster.

29 30

31

The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. A. Campbell (London, 1962), p. 51. It might be assumed that Edward was crowned in 900 at Winchester; but there is no evidence to this or to any other effect (pace Liebermann). One could have little confidence in the word of Ralph de Diceto, on its own; but other considerations come into play, including the likelihood that Edward would have been crowned by Archbishop Plegmund as king ‘of the Anglo-Saxons’, in succession to his father, and at an appropriate place (Keynes, ‘Edward, King of the Anglo-Saxons’, pp. 48–9). For the view that it was Æthelstan who inaugurated the practice of coronation at Kingston, see Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 447 n. 114; Nelson, ‘The first use of the second Anglo-Saxon Ordo’, pp. 123–4; and Foot, Æthelstan, p. 74. For further discussion, see Pratt, Political Thought of King Alfred, pp. 74–5.

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• assembly in 974: S 1653 (Charters of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, ed. Kelly, p. 185). • ? (election and) coronation of King Edward the Martyr (?19 July 975): located at Kingston by Ralph de Diceto. An early eleventh-century entry in an Abingdon calendar gives the date 19 July for the ‘election’ of St Edward, evidently with reference to Edward the Martyr;32 the election itself is said on good evidence to have been disputed between those who wanted Edward and those who wanted Æthelred.33 Adalard, lectio viii, states that Edward was consecrated by Archbishop Dunstan, but gives neither date nor location.34 Osbern of Canterbury describes how, following Edgar’s death [8 July 975], in the midst of disagreement at Edward’s ‘election’, Dunstan seized the initiative, elected (elegit) him, and consecrated (sacrauit) him.35 • assembly during the reign of Edward the Martyr (975 × 978), conceivably at the time of his election and coronation in July 975: Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi, ch. 60.36 • coronation of King Æthelred (probably 4 May 979):37 ASC C 979, Æthelred was consecrated at Kingston, ‘on Sunday, a fortnight after Easter’ (4 May); ASC DEF 978, ‘very quickly’ after his accession, Æthelred was consecrated king at Kingston, ‘with much rejoicing by the councillors of the English people’; also located at Kingston by Ralph de Diceto. No day is given, but in 978 C’s ‘fortnight after Easter’ would give 14 April. • ? charter of King Cnut: † S 981 (CantCC 154), dated Pentecost ‘1032’ • ? marriage agreement made ‘at Kingston before King Cnut’: S 1461 (CantCC 149); but perhaps of its nature, and in view of the witnesses, more likely to refer to Kingston, Kent, than to Kingston in Surrey. Kirtlington, Oxfordshire • ? assembly (943 × 946): S 1497 (StAlb 7A) • ‘a great assembly’ after Easter (8 April) in 977, extending to the death there of Sideman, bishop of Crediton, on 30 April, followed by his burial at Abingdon: ASC BC 977. Lifton, Devon • diploma of King Æthelstan, 12 November 931 (in uilla omnibus notissima): S 416 (BCS 677), from Winchester, Old Minster [‘Æthelstan A’]. Lincoln, Lincolnshire • assembly at which the endowment of the monastery at Stow St Mary, Lincs., 32 33 34 35 36 37

Keynes, ‘Burial of King Æthelred’, pp. 136–7. Byrhtferth, Vita S. Oswaldi, iv. 18 (ed. Lapidge, pp. 136–40). Adalard, in Early Lives, ed. Winterbottom and Lapidge, p. 130. Vita S. Dunstani, ch. 37, in Memorials of St Dunstan, ed. W. Stubbs (London, 1874), p. 114. Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake, Camden 3rd ser. 92 (London, 1962), p. 116. For the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi, see above, p. 63. S. Keynes, ‘The cult of King Edward the Martyr during the reign of King Æthelred the Unready’, in Gender and Historiography: Studies in the earlier Middle Ages in honour of Pauline Stafford, ed. J. L. Nelson and S. Reynolds (London, 2012), pp. 115–25.



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was approved, with list of witnesses (apparently at a royal assembly), including ‘all the citizens of Lincoln’ and ‘all the men who attend the yearly market at Stowe’ (1053 × 1055): S 1478 (Councils and Synods, no. 73), from Eynsham. London When Alfred the Great ‘restored’ the burh or borough of London in 886, he contributed significantly to its emergence, during the tenth century, as the principal urban, commercial and political centre in the nascent kingdom of the English.38 The legislation promulgated by the ‘peace-guild’ of London (VI Æthelstan) affords a view of communal organization in London in the 930s, and how its leaders were interacting with royal government;39 Æthelstan’s halfbrother, King Edmund, promulgated legislation at London in the early 940s. Bishop Oswald issued one of his leases during the course of a royal assembly convened by King Edgar at London in 973; assemblies were held at London in the 980s. In 1050–2 and 1055 a series of highly-charged assemblies took place at London, featuring prominently in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for those years. • ? charter of King Æthelstan, ‘930’ [for 934]: † S 428 (BCS 701), from Worcester; but see under Nottingham. • legislation of King Edmund, during the Easter season (941 or 942 × 946): I Edmund, Prol. • ? charter of Archbishop Dunstan, Pentecost ‘966’: † S 1294 (BCS 1179), from Crowland. • ? charter of King Edgar, 971: † S 783 (Glast 56). • ? council in the ‘12th’ year of the reign of King Edgar: William of Malmesbury, De antiquitate Glastonie, ch. 61.40 • lease of Oswald, bishop of Worcester, 973: S 1328 (BCS 1293), from Worcester. • legal proceedings during the reign of King Edgar (963 × 975): S 1457 (Roch 36). • sale of land to Bishop Æthelwold (974 × 975): Libellus Æthelwoldi, ch. 46 (ed. Blake, p. 110). • legal proceedings, confirmed eight days later in a shire-court at Northampton (977 × 984): Libellus Æthelwoldi, ch. 10 (ed. Blake, p. 85). • legal proceedings at a ‘great meeting’ (micel gemote) associated with Ealdorman Æthelwine, in the 980s: S 877 (WinchNM 31), dated 996. 38

39

40

C. N. L. Brooke, London 800–1216: the Shaping of a City (London, 1975); Kelly, Charters of St Paul’s, London, pp. 1–49; Keynes, ‘Burial of King Æthelred’, pp. 137–44; R. Naismith, ‘London and its Mint c. 880–1066: a Preliminary Survey’, British Numismatic Journal, forthcoming. Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word’, pp. 239–40; Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 296–9; Pratt, ‘Written law’, pp. 345 and 347–10; Foot, Æthelstan, pp. 142–4. J. Scott, The Early History of Glastonbury: an Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury’s ’De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie’ (Woodbridge, 1981), p. 128, for the approval of Pope John’s privilege for Glastonbury, dated ‘965’, in the ‘12th’ year of Edgar’s reign; for further discussion, see Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 570–4, at 572–3.

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• diploma of King Æthelred (986): S 1796 (LonStP 20b). • legal proceedings at a ‘great synod’ (miclan sinoþ) convened by Archbishop Æthelgar (988 × 990): S 877 (WinchNM 31), dated 996. • ? charter of Wulfsige, bishop of Sherborne, 998: † S 1382 (Sherb 12). • assembly to which ‘Ealdorman Eadric and all the chief councillors of England, ecclesiastical and lay’ came, before Easter (13 April) in 1012, staying there until the tribute (gafol) had been paid (after Easter): ASC CDEF 1012 [political]. • ? election (? and coronation) of Edmund Ironside in 1016 (after 23 April): ASC CDEF; for coronation, see Ralph de Diceto. • ? assembly convened by King Cnut after the death of King Edmund (30 Nov.), 1016: Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 494). • ? coronation of Cnut (1017): Ralph de Diceto. • record of the acquisition of land, at a royal assembly (1020 × 1023): S 1463 (Pet 20). • ? charter of King Cnut, 1032: † S 965 (KCD 748), from Crowland. • ? coronation of Harthacnut in 1040: Ralph de Diceto. • election of Edward the Confessor in (June) 1042, before Harthacnut’s burial: ASC CD 1042, EF 1041 (for the location). • assembly where Manni was chosen as abbot of Evesham, August 1044: Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 540); cf. ASC D 1045. • ? ‘Second Charter’ of King Edward for Westminster, 1 August 1045: † S 1011 (KCD 779), from Westminster. • ‘great assembly’ (micel gemot), mid-Lent 1050, at which the number of ships was reduced by nine to five: ASC E 1047. • assembly (witenagemot), mid-Lent 1051, at which Robert was appointed archbishop of Canterbury: ASC C 1050, E 1048. • assembly in London at the autumnal equinox 1051 (following an assembly at Gloucester), at which Earl Godwine and his sons were declared outlaws: ASC D 1052, E 1048, F 1050; see also Vita Ædwardi Regis, i. 3 (ed. Barlow, pp. 34–6). • assembly (witenagemot), or ‘great assembly’ (mycel gemot), held outside London, September 1052, at which Godwine was reinstated: ASC CDE 1052, with F 1051; see also Vita Ædwardi regis i. 4 (ed. Barlow, pp. 42–4). • assembly (witenagemot) held a week before mid-Lent 1055, at which Earl Ælfgar was outlawed: ASC C 1055, E 1055. • ‘synod’ at which Cynesige, archbishop of York (1051–60), consecrated Herwald as bishop of Llandaff, Pentecost 1059: Book of Llandaff.41 • assembly, Christmas 1065: Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 598). Lyminster, Sussex • diploma of King Æthelstan, 3 April 930 (in uilla omnibus notissima): S 403 (Sel 17) [‘Æthelstan A’]. 41

J. G. Evans and J. Rhys, The Text of the Book of Llan Dav (Oxford, 1893), pp. 265–6, with Barlow, English Church 1000–1066, pp. 232–3.



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Milton, probably Dorset (or Kent) • diploma of King Edward, 903: S 368 (BCS 600), from Wilton. • diploma of King Æthelstan, 30 August 932 (in uilla nobilissima): S 417 (BCS 689), from Winchester, Old Minster [‘Æthelstan A’]. Northampton, Northamptonshire (shire town) • ‘great assembly’ (mycel gemot), October 1065, involving Morcar, his brother Earl Edwin, and Earl Harold (but evidently not the king), for the appointment of Morcar as earl, and renewal of the ‘law of King Cnut’: ASC CDE, with Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 598); see also under Oxford. Nottingham, Nottinghamshire (shire town) • diploma of King Æthelstan, 7 June [934] (in ciuitate omnibus notissima): † S 407 (North 1), dated ‘930’ [‘Æthelstan A’]. • ? assembly at Nottingham (972 × 975), when the king (?Edgar) confirmed Archbishop Oswald in the possession of lands in Northumbria obtained for St Peter’s, York, by Archbishop Oscytel: S 1453 (North 6), in BL Harley 55, fol. 4v. Oxford, Oxfordshire (burh, and shire town) Included in the Burghal Hidage; of particular significance from its location on the river Thames. Not attested as a meeting-place in the corpus of royal diplomas; but four assemblies at Oxford, all notable for ‘political’ reasons, were recorded in eleventh-century annals in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. • ‘great assembly’ (mycle gemot), 1015 (before September), where Ealdorman Eadric betrayed Sigeferth: ASC CDE 1015. • political settlement between the Danes and the English, 1018, with lawcode of King Cnut: ASC CDE 1018, with Cnut 1018.42 • assembly ‘of all the councillors’ immediately after the death of King Cnut, for discussion of the succession, mid-November 1035: ASC E 1036. • ‘great assembly’ (mycel gemot), ?Oct./Nov. 1065, from Northampton: ASC C, with date 28 Oct., and Vita Ædwardi regis, i. 7 (ed. Barlow, p. 78), coming from ‘beyond the boundary of Middle Anglia’. Penkridge, Staffordshire • diploma of King Edgar, 958: S 667 (BCS 1041), from Chester. Perrott, or Petherton, Somerset • ? assembly (1061 × 1066): S 1116 (Wells 38). Pydelan (?Puddletown), Dorset • diploma of King Edward, 976: S 830, from Exeter (ex Crediton). Shrewsbury, Shropshire • diploma of Æthelred and Æthelflæd, rulers of the Mercians, 901: S 221 (BCS 587), from Much Wenlock.

42

A. G. Kennedy, ‘Cnut’s Law Code of 1018’, ASE 11 (1983), 57–81.

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Slaughter, Lower and Upper, Gloucestershire • legal proceedings over land at Hatfield, ‘in the presence of the whole nation’ (975 × 983): Libellus Æthelwoldi, ch. 5 (ed. Blake, p. 80). Somerton, Somerset • diploma of King Eadred, Easter 949 (in uilla famosissima): S 549 (Burt 8) [‘alliterative’]. Southampton, Hampshire (shire town) Included in the Burghal Hidage. • ? assembly in 901, ratifying the foundation of the New Minster, Winchester, represented also by diplomas of King Edward the Elder: † S 360 (WinchNM 3), dated 900 for 901, and S 366 (WinchNM 5); see also S 1443 (WinchNM 2). • diploma of King Edward the Elder, 903: S 369 (Abing 19); see also † S 370 (WinchNM 6). • ? assembly following the death of King Æthelred on 23 April 1016, at which the bishops, abbots, ealdormen and nobles of England chose Cnut as king, and coming to him at Southampton renounced Æthelred’s descendants and made peace with him: Worcester Latin Chronicle (ed. Darlington and McGurk, p. 484). ‘Sutton’, ? Sutton Courtney, Berkshire • diploma of King Harthacnut, 1042: S 993 (Abing 141). Thundersfield, Surrey • legislation of King Æthelstan (924 × 939): see IV Æthelstan, Prol., alluding to earlier legislation at Exeter and Faversham, and c. 6; see also VI Æthelstan, Prol., and cc. 1 and 10.43 Wantage, Berkshire (royal estate) The birthplace of Alfred, son of Æthelwulf, in 849 (Asser, ch. 1); bequeathed by Alfred to his wife Ealhswith, and by King Eadred to his mother Queen Eadgifu. • legislation of King Æthelred (978 × 1008, ? early April 997): III Æthelred. • diploma of King Æthelred, issued from an assembly held a few days after Easter (28 March) 997, following an earlier gathering, over Easter, at Calne, in Wiltshire (above, pp. 115 and 117–18): S 891 (KCD 698), from the Old Minster, Winchester. Soon after the gathering at Calne, the bishops, abbots, ealdormen and others assembled at Wantage (about 40 miles north-east), in order to deal with various matters (ob diuersorum quaestiones causarum corrigendas); the witness-list probably relates to the second occasion. Warminster, Wiltshire • assembly at which Æthelhelm Higa withdrew from the lawsuit over land at Fonthill (c. 920): S 1445 (CantCC 104) [‘Fonthill Letter’]. Weardburg (identification uncertain) • ? diploma of Æthelflæd, ruler of the Mercians, 9 September, ? 915 × 916: † S 225 (Abing 20), dated ‘878’. 43

Councils and Synods, no. 15; see also above, n. 85.



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Wellow, ?East, Hampshire (royal estate) • diploma of King Æthelstan, 15 July 931 (in uilla regali): S 1604 (Abing 24) [‘Æthelstan A’]. Westminster, Middlesex • ? diploma of King Æthelred, 998, on his way by boat to visit the abbey: † S 894, from Westminster. • ? diplomas of King Edward for Westminster, 28 December 1065 (‘1066’): † S 1041 (KCD 825), ‘Third Charter’, and † S 1043 (KCD 824), ‘First Charter’, from Westminster. • ? writ of King Edward: see † S 1110 (Harmer no. 62), from Ramsey. • coronation of Harold II, 6 January 1066: ASC E 1066, with location inferred from Herman, Miracula sancti Eadmundi, ch. 24.44 Whittlebury, Northamptonshire • legislation of King Æthelstan: see VI Æthelstan, c. 12.1, from a report by Bishop Theodred to Archbishop Wulfhelm.45 Wihtbordesstan (identification uncertain) • legislation of King Edgar, as a remedy for a sudden plague (962 × 963): IV Edgar; see IV Edgar, c. 1.4. Wilton, Wiltshire (shire town) Included in the Burghal Hidage. • diploma of King Æthelstan, 11 January [933] (in ciuitate notissima): † S 379 (WinchNM 8), dated ‘921’ [‘Æthelstan A’]. Winchcombe, Gloucestershire • diploma of King Edmund, 942 (in loco celeberrimo): S 479 (Burt 5) [‘alliterative’]. Winchester, Hampshire King Alfred seems latterly to have based himself at Winchester, where he was buried, and where Edward the Elder completed the foundation of the New Minster. Included in the Burghal Hidage. It would appear that Winchester was at the centre of the West Saxon political establishment in the central decades of the tenth century; but it began to be eclipsed thereafter by London (except during the reign of Cnut and Harthacnut). • diplomas of King Edward, 900: S 359 (BCS 594) and S 1284 (BCS 590), from Winchester, Old Minster. • ? assembly, c. 909: † S 385 (BCS 622), from Winchester, Old Minster. • diploma of King Æthelstan, 28 May 934 (in ciuitate opinatissima): S 425 (CantCC 106) [‘Æthelstan A’].46 44

45 46

For Herman’s Miracula sancti Eadmundi, written in the late eleventh century, see Memorials of St Edmund’s Abbey, ed. T. Arnold, 3 vols. (London, 1890–6), i. 26–92; a new edition and translation, by T. Licence, is forthcoming. Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word’, p. 240. In the immediate aftermath of his father’s death (924), Æthelstan’s relations with the secular and ecclesiastical establishments at Winchester may have been strained (Miller,

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• ? ‘synodal council’ convened by King Edgar (959 × 975), probably c. 970, to which the king addressed a letter of exhortation, and at or after which the Regularis Concordia was drawn up: Regularis Concordia, Prol., c. 4 (ed. Symons, pp. 2–3).47 • ? assembly during the reign of Edward the Martyr (975 × 978): S 1376, from Winchester, Old Minster. • ? dedication of the Old Minster at Winchester, 20 October 980, in continuation of an assembly at Andover: Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de Sancto Swithuno, lines 61–114.48 • ‘synodal council’, represented by diploma of King Æthelred, at Pentecost [4 June] 993: see S 876 (Abing 124), which was itself produced or ratified on 17 July, at Gillingham, Dorset (or Kent), though the witness-list appears to represent the earlier assembly at Winchester. • legislation of King Cnut (1020 × 1023, during the Christmas season): I Cnut. • coronation of Edward the Confessor, Easter Day (3 April) 1043: ASC CD and EF; see also under Canterbury. • ? diploma of King Edward the Confessor, 1049: † S 1018 (KCD 786), from Winchester, Old Minster. • ? diploma of King Edward the Confessor, ? 31 Dec. 1065: † S 1037a (North 11). Windsor, Berkshire (royal estate) The site of the eleventh-century royal palace is believed to be a field named ‘Kingsbury’ in Old Windsor, beside the Thames.49 The land was given by Edward the Confessor to his abbey at Westminster. • ? assembly during the reign of Cnut: Herman, Miracula S. Eadmundi, ch. 19. • ? writ of King Edward, Easter (not dated): † S 1109 (Harmer no. 61), from Ramsey. • diploma of King Edward, 24 May 1065: S 1042 (Wells 40). • ? assembly in August 1065, when Baldwin was consecrated abbot of Bury St Edmunds: Herman, Miracula S. Eadmundi, ch. 24.

47

48 49

Charters of the New Minster, pp. xxviii–xxx, with references); but the difficulties need not have lasted. The poem Carta dirige gressus (c. 927), by means of which some good news was conveyed to the queen, the atheling, the ealdormen and the thegns, at the ‘royal palace’, was written by a certain ‘Peter’, probably a member of the community of the New Minster, and was preserved in a manuscript probably at Winchester. This assembly is included here because it was convened by the king, and on the assumption that members of the secular order were also present; its date depends on the presumed date of the Regularis Concordia itself. For further discussion, see above, p. 99 n. 303. Cult of St Swithun, ed. Lapidge, pp. 376–80. J. Blair in Encyclopaedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al., p. 484.



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Woodstock, Oxfordshire (royal estate) • legislation of King Æthelred, promulgated at Woodstock ‘in Mercia’ (978 × 1008, c. 997?): I Æthelred. • legislation of King Æthelred (? 1008 × 1016): IX Æthelred (fragment). Woodyates, Dorset • ? an assembly in the west country (August 970): note by Aldred, provost of Chester-le-Street, in the Durham Collectar, with reference to Bishop Ælfsige ‘in his tent’ at Oakley (Down), near Woodyates, Dorset, among the West Saxons;50 see also S 781, from Ely. Woolmer, Hampshire (royal estate) King Alfred had issued a diploma from Woolmer in 898.51 • ? diplomas of King Edgar, Easter (27 March) 970: † S 776 (BCS 1265) and † S 779 (BCS 1266–7), from Ely. • assembly during the reign of King Æthelred (990 × 993): S 1454 (CantCC 133), from a shire court at Cuckamsley, Berkshire. Worthy, King’s, Hampshire • diploma of King Æthelstan, 20 June 931 (in uilla omnibus notissima): S 413 (Abing 23) [‘Æthelstan A’]. York, Yorkshire Although the recorded meeting-places of royal assemblies in the tenth and eleventh centuries are concentrated almost entirely in the south, there is evidence (albeit of uncertain authority) that on occasion kings convened assemblies at York. • ? presence of King Æthelstan, when he received envoys from Harold, king of the Norwegians: WM, GR ii.135.1 (ed. Mynors, et al., p. 216).52 • ? presence of King Æthelstan in 936, when he received envoys from Hugh, duke of the Franks, to secure the return of Louis, son of Charles: Flodoard of Rheims, Annales; for location, see Richer, Historiae.53 • ? assembly during the reign of King Edgar (963 or 966), at which Northumbrian earldoms were rearranged: John of Wallingford.54 • ? assembly at which Styr, son of Ulf, gave land to the church of Durham (1002 × 1016): Symeon of Durham, Libellus (ed. Rollason, p. 152).

50

51 52 53

54

Rituale Ecclesiae Dunelmensis: the Durham Collectar (Durham, 1927), pp. xiv–xix and 185; R. Gameson, Manuscript Treasures of Durham Cathedral (London, 2010), pp. 42–3; Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, p. 51 n. 238. S 350 (CantCC 99). For further discussion, see Foot, Æthelstan, pp. 54–5. Lauer, Flodoard, p. 63, with Fanning and Bachrach, Annals of Flodoard, p. 28; Richer: Histoire de France (888–995), ed. R. Latouche, 2 vols. (Paris, 1930–7), i. 129. For further discussion, see Foot, Æthelstan, pp. 168–9 and 264. The Chronicle Attributed to John of Wallingford, ed. R. Vaughan (London, 1958), pp. 54–5, with D. Whitelock, History, Law and Literature in 10th–11th Century England (London, 1981), no. III, at pp. 77–8.

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Appendix II Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas on Single Sheets (925–75) A check-list is provided below of thirty-eight royal diplomas, from the period 925–75, which survive in single-sheet form, and which are or might be judged ‘original’. Images of the face and dorse of these diplomas are available on the ‘Single Sheets’ database which forms part of the ‘Kemble’ website, and further details for each document are accessible from the associated ‘Electronic Sawyer’ website.1 In certain cases the precise status of a single sheet is necessarily a matter for debate, yet it seemed best to admit into the list as many as reasonably possible;2 there remain a considerable number of single-sheet diplomas which more clearly belong to the various species of copies and forgeries (pre1100), often in imitative script, which are not included.3 Within this appendix, the diplomas are cited by their running number in the check-list, as follows: A1–4, diplomas of King Æthelstan (924–39); B1–6, diplomas of King Edmund (939–46); C1–5, diplomas of King Eadred (946–55); D1–7, diplomas of King Eadwig (955–9); and E1–16, diplomas of King Edgar (957/959–75). 23 of the single-sheet diplomas in the check-list are in the British Library.4 The check-list underlies and informs the discussion above (pp. 68–92) of the contribution made by surviving originals to our understanding of the circumstances in which charters were produced during this period. It is intended to set in context the work of the five scribes who have long been identified as responsible for the writing of more than one royal diploma, and who thus take their place at the centre of any discussion of the production of diplomas in the central decades of the tenth century. Four of them are known by the labels assigned to them in 1935 by Richard Drögereit. ‘Æthelstan A’ was active on this evidence in 931 (A1) and 934 (A2); ‘Æthelstan C’ was active on this evidence in 939 (A3), 1

2

3

4

For these websites, see above, n. 6. with Appendix III. The plates which accompany this paper were made from digital images supplied by the British Library, and are reproduced with kind permission of the British Library Board. Examples: S 546 (CantCC 120), for Canterbury; S 602 (Burt 17), for Æthelnoth; S 702 (BCS 1085, from Westminster), for Ælfheah; S 704 (BAFacs. 6); S 772 (BCS 1229, from Worcester), for Ælfwold; S 786 (BCS 1282), for Pershore. Several examples are included in BAFacs.: e.g. S 405 (no. 27), in the manner of ‘Æthelstan A’, and S 794 (no. 25), from Ely. Many others are included in the ‘Single Sheet Database’, under ‘Copies or Forgeries’. Needless to say, the replication and fabrication of diplomas for more or less nefarious purposes is attested already in the eighth and ninth centuries, and became widespread in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and thereafter. For groundbreaking work in this field, see Crick, ‘Norman Imitation of Pre-Conquest Script’. The charters originally assembled by Sir Robert Cotton in the portfolio designated ‘Augustus ii’ have been removed from the several volumes into which they had been re-bound. Each is now conserved and mounted separately, in museum board doublewindow mounts (with overthrows). The charters from the Stowe and Harley collections are conserved in similar ways.



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940 (B1) and 943 (B3); ‘Edmund C’ was active on this evidence in 944 (B5), 946 (B6), 947 (C1), 948 (C2) and 949 (C4); and ‘Edgar A’ was active on this evidence in 960 (E3), 961 (E4), 962 (E7, E9) and 963 (E10). A diploma of King Eadwig issued in 957 (D6), which would not have been available to Drögereit in facsimile, was identified by T. A. M. Bishop in 1957 as the work of a scribe who had written a diploma for Eadwig in 956 (D2); but this identification remains uncertain.5 Drögereit argued that the work of these scribes extended to other diplomas which are known only from cartulary copies. This is entirely likely, as a matter of principle; though for various reasons it would be hazardous to follow him all the way down the path.6 It may be seen from the list that several other scribes are represented in the surviving corpus by no more than one diploma apiece. It is to be expected that some of these scribes, perhaps even several of them, operated alongside the ‘named’ scribes and might thus have belonged to the same ‘central’ or ‘royal’ agency. It is also to be expected that some of them operated independently, under circumstances which differed from the norm. The agency responsible for the ‘Dunstan B’ charters is represented here by a single diploma (C5), which is self-evidently of a different kind; an agency with southwestern associations is represented by three diplomas, which in their formulation are distinctive as a group yet which prove to have been written by three different scribes (E2, E5, E11), with interesting implications. Among charters out on their own are the Reculver charter of 949 (C3) and the New Minster charter of 966 (E12). Ten of the diplomas in this list were formerly or still are preserved among the muniments of Christ Church, Canterbury. Six are from Abingdon; five from the Old Minster, Winchester; two from the New Minster, Winchester; two from Burton-upon-Trent; two from Exeter; and one apiece from several other houses (including Abbotsbury, Buckfast, Ely, Evesham, Glastonbury, Pershore, Westminster, Wells and Worcester). These figures arise from the variable circumstances in which single sheets have survived from each of the archives where pre-Conquest charters were preserved, and have no necessary bearing on the original associations of the scribes involved. It is the case, of course, that a diploma in favour of Abingdon abbey would have been preserved in the abbey’s archives; but one cannot assume that a diploma in favour or preserved in the archives of a particular religious house would have been associated with that house at the point of its production. The entries for each diploma in the check-list represent a summary of observations which arise from direct examination of the single sheet. These observations are themselves brought together and summarized here under various headings, forming the basis of the more general discussion above (pp. 77–85). The objective has been in part to determine which of the surviving ‘originals’ might be regarded as ‘single-stage’ productions, and which display traces of a seemingly more complex (and perhaps revealing) process; and, beyond that,

5 6

Above, n. 177. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 18.

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to consider what we might learn from the single sheets, as a group, about the processes underlying their production. Needless to say, each diploma requires and could sustain more detailed discussion than is possible in the present context. The exercise could be extended usefully to include diplomas which have been preserved as early modern transcripts of single sheets now lost, or even as cartulary copies, in so far as copies sometimes reveal information about their exemplars of a kind related to the matters discussed below. The close study of surviving single sheets judged to be contemporary or later copies, or replicas or fabrications in imitative script, would be no less interesting, in the same connection, both for its own sake and for the sake of comparison with the diplomas judged to be originals. SCRIBES AND SCRIPT. The script seen in the single-sheet diplomas of the 940s and 950s was likened by Ker, Chaplais and Parkes to hands active in the Parker manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and was thus associated by them with the Old Minster, Winchester.7 The diplomas of the mid-tenth century have since formed the basis for Professor Dumville’s detailed analysis of successive phases in the development of English Square minuscule script, and of the early stages of Anglo-Caroline; indeed, they lie directly behind his suggestion that the process of change was driven from within the agency to which the scribes would seem to have belonged.8 ‘Æthelstan A’, known from two diplomas extant in their original single-sheet form (A1, A2), has not been firmly identified in other contexts, though his Square minuscule script has been likened to that of the main text in the manuscript of Bede’s prose and metrical lives of St Cuthbert, presented by King Æthelstan in the mid-930s to the community of St Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street. ‘Æthelstan C’ is known from three diplomas: one for King Æthelstan, dated 939 (A3), and two for King Edmund, dated 940 and 943 (B1, B3). He thus personifies continuity from one reign to the next; his script is classified as ‘Phase II’ in 939 and as ‘Phase III’ in 940.9 The scribe designated ‘Edmund C’ entered an inscription in a gospel-book given by King Æthelstan to Christ Church, Canterbury,10 and in the 940s wrote diplomas for Edmund (B5, B6) and Eadred (C1, C2, C4). He too personifies continuity, across a period of at least ten years. Circumstances in the 950s were more conducive to change, although also to continuity. Initial change, under Eadwig, is represented by whomsoever was responsible for D1; initial change is also represented by ‘Edgar A’ (E3, etc.). In the reigns of both kings, however, there are also clear elements of continuity from earlier practices. It is important to recognize the scribes who appear to belong in the company of the recurring scribes, but who are themselves singletons, in the sense that they are known only from single surviving specimens (e.g. A4; B2; B4; D2/D6; D7). The scribe of a diploma

7 8 9 10

Above, pp. 45–7 and 49–50. Above, p. 50. Dumville, ‘English Square minuscule script: the background and earliest phases’, p. 173, and ‘English Square minuscule script: the mid-century phases’, pp. 145–6. Above, n. 167.



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dated 956 (D3) has been identified in the annal for 951 in the Parker Chronicle; the scribe of a diploma dated 969 (E14) has been identified in another book. The majority of the diplomas are (in my view) seen from similarities of script, layout and formulation to represent a diplomatic ‘mainstream’, and to constitute the surviving products of some form of ‘central’ and presumably royal agency for the production of royal diplomas. There is no reason, however, to imagine that a central or royal agency would necessarily have enjoyed a monopoly over the production of diplomas. It is unfortunate that not one of the ‘alliterative’ diplomas of the 940s and early 950s has survived to claim its place in a list of this nature. The existence of other agencies working in some sense alongside the ‘royal’ scribes is well represented by the Reculver charter (C3), by the surviving ‘Dunstan B’ charter (C5), by the ‘south-western agency’ (E2, E5, E11), and by the New Minster charter (E12). PARCHMENT. The usual orientation for a royal diploma in the period 925–75 was a ‘horizontal’ or ‘landscape’ rectangle (wider than tall), as opposed to a ‘vertical’ or ‘portrait’ rectangle (taller than wide). A sheet of parchment was first cut and prepared for the diploma. Presumably the agency responsible would have known roughly what was required in a particular case, and should thus have been able to make allowance for any need to write a long text, or to leave space after the text for a long witness-list. A royal diploma serving as the titledeed for a single estate would need a certain amount of space; a diploma created in connection with a more complex transaction (though unusual in this period) would need more. The greater width than height allowed space across the parchment for four or five columns of witnesses, each of which might (in principle) be reserved for a particular category of witness (bishops, etc.). It is possible that the writing area (usually on the flesh side) was prepared before the sheet was cut to its intended size. Horizontal ruling is normal, sometimes with vertical lines at each side; evidence of pricking is less frequent, perhaps lost as a result of trimming the sheet on each side.11 The scribe would thus have been working within a finite area. A few single sheets have a step in the parchment at one corner (B5, C2, D7 and E11), generally interpreted as the surviving trace of a tongue which had been cut away from one edge of the sheet and wrapped around the folded diploma in order to keep it together (see further below, under Folding). FORMAT. The overall appearance and layout of a royal diploma was as distinctive an element of its generic ‘identity’ as its script, its Latin style, and its formulation. The recipient of a grant of land from King Æthelstan, in the late 920s or early 930s, familiar perhaps with the rather variable appearance of ninth- and early tenth-century diplomas, would have been seriously impressed by the document he brought home with him: impressed by the size and stately grandeur of the document itself, folded up into a neat package; and, if he could recognize or read a few Latin words, impressed also by the listing of so many bishops, abbots, ealdormen and thegns who had been present at the royal assembly at 11

On the preparation of the parchment, and for pricking and ruling, see Thompson, AngloSaxon Royal Diplomas, pp. 21–6.

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which the grant had been made. It has to be said, however, that the ‘text-block’ is rather packed, and does not give much help to the reader. The diplomas produced in the later years of Æthelstan’s reign, from c. 935 onwards, are more restrained in various respects, but represent a significant advance in terms of graphic design.12 A more overtly or self-consciously decorative form of script is accommodated by wider line-spacing; the use of bold capitals at the beginning of each of the component elements of the formulation serves usefully to mark them apart from each other; and the names of the king, the beneficiary and the estate are displayed between points, to good effect. Following the Latin formula introducing the bounds, the boundary-clause itself is written in a smaller register of script, setting this essential element apart from the rest. The component parts of the dating-clause (giving the AD date and the indiction) are disposed across a single line, again for clarity. The witness-list draws attention to itself in the lower left-hand corner of the diploma with a column of crosses, each followed by the word ‘Ego’; the word is omitted after the first column of witnesses, perhaps to save space cumulatively across the sheet, or perhaps so that the second and subsequent columns do not compete graphically with the first. In the leading attestations, a small cross is placed over the word crucis, in the formula cum sigillo sancte crucis (or its equivalent), adding a visual dimension to the words, but perhaps also standing symbolically for the act of making the sign of the cross with the usual gesture.13 The form of the vernacular endorsement, written (generally although not invariably) on one of the panels created by the folding of the sheet, after the main text had been written on the face, developed in the 930s, reaching what became its norm in the early 940s. This format was adopted for a high proportion of the diplomas issued in the period c. 935–65, and is here designated the ‘standard’ format for the period 925–75, from which other diplomas may differ. The ‘modified’ format employed by ‘Edgar A’ in the early 960s is characterized by the pictorial invocation (usually an elegantly simple form of chrismon, though in one instance a cross), by the consistent use of rustic capitals for the names of the grantor, beneficiary and place, by generous line-spacing, and by the occurrence of the word ‘Ego’ not only in the first but also in the second and subsequent columns of the witness-list. PICTORIAL INVOCATION. Although more elaborate devices, such as the letters alpha-omega, and chrismons or christograms, were used sporadically in the eighth and ninth centuries, occasionally in combination with each other,14 the standard form of pictorial invocation (as opposed to the verbal invocation) was conventionally a small cross, seen in all of the diplomas of Æthelstan, Edmund 12 13

14

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 23–5 and 67–8; Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, p. 119; Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 878–9. For the gesture, in such a context, see above, pp. 22–3, in connection with the council held in 786. Some passages in Felix’s Life of St Guthlac are instructive in this respect: see J. Roberts, ‘Guthlac of Crowland and the seals of the Cross’, in The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Karkov et al., pp. 113–28. S 114 (BCS 230), dated 779, from Evesham, and S 298 (BCS 451), dated 846, from the Old Minster, Winchester.



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and Eadred. Strikingly, variant forms of chrismon appear in 956 (Group II), and almost immediately reach (in some cases) a high degree of elaboration; the curvaceous chrismons favoured by ‘Edgar A’ are distinctive in a different way.15 DISPOSITIVE SECTION. The operative details in a royal diploma, needed for the dispositive section and also for the vernacular endorsement, were essentially threefold: the name and the appropriate designation of the beneficiary; the assessment or hidage of the estate (in hides [mansae] or sulungs); and the name of the estate. It may or may not have been relevant in a particular case that the beneficiary had made a payment in respect of the diploma; and it is not clear under what circumstances such payments were recorded.16 The details pertaining to the estate would generally be complemented by a boundary-clause, which often began with the place-name and sometimes included the hidage. It would appear in a few cases that the operative details in the dispositive section might not have been available when the scribe was first preparing the diploma, but were added soon afterwards (perhaps shortly afterwards) in spaces which at first had been left blank.17 One should bear in mind that if operative details were at first omitted, it might not have been possible for the scribe to provide a proper endorsement at the same time. Possible examples of the insertion of operative details in spaces originally left blank are: C2 (hidage and place-name), also with an inserted boundary-clause and an added note on payment;18 D2 (name and designation of the beneficiary, hidage, and place-name); E7 (hidage); E8 (name of beneficiary, hidage, and place-name). BOUNDARY-CLAUSE. The boundary-clause was naturally central to the function of a royal diploma as the title-deed for an estate.19 It would appear, however, that the incorporation of a boundary-clause in a diploma could present difficulties; and the question arises whether the observable instances throw any light on the circumstances in which the diplomas were produced. It is possible in some cases that the scribe had the boundary-clause to hand, from the outset, but left its incorporation until he had finished the main text, judging from his experience how many lines would be required. It is also possible that the boundary15 16 17 18

19

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 68; Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. 265; Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, pp. 32–6. For the inclusion of records of payment to the king, see above, p. 66. In some cases, a gap remained blank, with due reflection in a cartulary copy: see, for example, S 655 (Shaft 22), S 681 (Pet 14), S 727 (BCS 1127), and S 750 (Abing 106). The record of payment placed (perhaps as an afterthought) at the end of S 544 (Abing 43) provides an analogy from the corpus of ‘alliterative’ charters, issued (as it happens) one year after C2. For the form in which the text of a boundary-clause might have been provided to the scribe of a royal diploma, see above, p. 67. It would be of value, for example, if the need arose to ‘measure’ a piece of land in some way, in order to ascertain how many acres each of the hides contained, or how much of it was free from claim. See the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi, chs. 14, 22 and 42. A few of the surveys incorporated in royal diplomas provide glimpses of the work in progress: e.g. S 495 (BCS 792), from Evesham; S 724 (Abing 100); S 1603 (Abing 51A). For the use of boundary-clauses in settling disputes, see S 1441 (Harmer, SEHD, no. 14) and S 1460 (Robertson, Charters, no. 83).

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clause was, for whatever reason, not available when the scribe began his work, or that it needed to be checked in some way, and that he had to leave a space for its insertion. It might have come to hand say one hour or one day later, and have been incorporated into the diploma, hours or days before the diploma itself was needed for use in a ceremony of conveyance; or, after coming to hand, there might not have been an opportunity to insert it until immediately after the diploma had played its part. The sheet may or may not have been folded in the meantime. In some cases, the availability or otherwise of the boundary-clause might have affected the provision of operative details in the dispositive section, and in the endorsement. In short, there are many possibilities; and each case has to be judged separately. In a charter of King Eadred (C2), dated 948, and in a charter of King Edgar (E10), dated 963, the evidence for the later insertion of the boundary-clause is unequivocal, because in each case the scribe, when adding the bounds, had to work within a space determined by the surrounding Latin text, already in position. These two cases, fifteen years apart, serve if nothing else to demonstrate that boundary-clauses were on occasion inserted after the writing of the main text; it should be noted that the scribes involved are ‘Edmund C’ and ‘Edgar A’, thus representing ‘mainstream’ practices. These two cases are complemented by five others, across the same period, where one might suspect insertion, but where the physical evidence is not so clear: a charter of King Æthelstan (A3), a charter of King Edmund (B3), a charter of King Eadred (C4), a charter of King Eadwig (D2), and a charter of King Edgar (E5). In one case (D6) a boundaryclause is not provided, perhaps because the land in question (Ely), assessed at 40 hides, could not or did not need to be described in such a way. In another case (E3), the diploma has no bounds because it represents a restoration of several estates (perhaps with earlier title-deeds?). For the short notes sometimes found added to boundary-clause, see below (Added Text). WITNESS-LIST. Although represented in a diploma as a record of those who witnessed a grant made by the king as part of the formal proceedings at a royal assembly, we need not imagine that a list of witnesses originated in the observation or actions of those present at a ceremony of conveyance. A witness-list is better regarded as a carefully constructed text, as formulaic as a proem or a sanction, and drawn up in accordance with conventions and considerations arising from the niceties of office, personal status, and closeness to the king.20 The two surviving examples of scribal memoranda for witness-lists both date from the ninth century.21 None survives from the tenth century; but it is likely that behind the witness-list incorporated in a royal diploma of this period lay

20

21

A modern analogy is provided by the lists of cabinet ministers published in Hansard: see Atlas of Attestations, ‘Cabinet Ministers in Conservative governments, 1979–1997’ (at end), with S. Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon history after Anglo-Saxon England’, in Stenton’s ‘Anglo-Saxon England’ Fifty Years On, ed. D. Matthew (Reading, 1994), pp. 83–110, at 100–4. For these memoranda, see above, pp. 71–2. See also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred,



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a memorandum or schedule of much the same kind, drawn up soon after the beginning of an assembly so that it might form the basis for the witness-lists in any diplomas issued on the occasion. A significant aspect of tenth-century diplomas is the way in which the witness-lists project a sense of the ordered groups of witnesses, in their respective columns; an important aspect of the ‘standard’ format of royal diploma introduced in 935, when compared with the series of diplomas produced by ‘Æthelstan A’ (928–35), is the special treatment accorded to the bishops of London and Winchester, and the different criteria applied in the selection of those to be included in the list as a whole. The relative order of names within a group was evidently important, though it was an order probably determined or affected at any time by a combination of different factors, and fell some way short of an order observed with complete rigidity; there are also indications that a list of names might be modified for use in a particular diploma.22 One imagines that the length of a memorandum, like the length of a witness-list, was determined by the size of the piece of parchment on which it was written. There are several cases where the witness-list in a diploma ends seemingly short, leaving space on the single sheet as if for the addition of a few more names. It is conceivable that such space was intended for the discretionary addition of local witnesses;23 alternatively, it may be that a ‘short’ list in a diploma ended where it did because the memorandum from which the names were drawn was itself relatively short. In a majority of cases, the available space was not used (A3; A4; B2; B3; B5).24 However, in one case (A1), the names of two thegns were added, and in another (B1), the names of six thegns were added; in both cases, the names were added quite conspicuously by a scribe other than that of the rest of the text. The additional names could have been added days or weeks after the diploma was first produced; but it is a reasonable presumption that they were added, for one reason or another, on the occasion of the royal assembly, perhaps immediately after the ceremony of conveyance. Practices represented on the continent, and also represented in AngloNorman and later medieval England, raise the question whether in any cases the cross placed against an attestation in an Anglo-Saxon royal diploma might be

22

23 24

pp. 44–5; Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. lxxx–lxxxii; and Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, pp. 42–9. Instances, in single sheets, of addition, omission, erasure and capitalization need to be studied in relation to the whole corpus. In some cases it seems that a name was omitted from a witness-list if he were the beneficiary of the diploma in question. The treatment of Ealdorman Edmund in S 624 (D2) is a case in point; other instances may be identified in the Atlas of Attestations, where a beneficiary (marked ‘ben’) seems conspicuously absent from a run of attestations in the same name. Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 879 and 888. See also S 489 (CantCC 113), with Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 904, observing that the mid-thirteenth-century copy reproduces features of the lost single sheet, including a solitary cross after the last attestation (Wulfhelm), as in A3.

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regarded as genuinely ‘autograph’.25 A few possible examples have been identified among the surviving charters of the early Anglo-Saxon period;26 but there is always an element of wishful thinking, and in no case is the identification entirely convincing. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the crosses which form part of the witness-list were written almost invariably by the scribe of the main text. It is possible that autograph crosses were to be found on the ‘alliterative’ charters of the 940s and early 950s, though none survives in its original singlesheet form; King Æthelred’s diploma for Abingdon abbey, dated 993, remains the only surviving diploma for which a case can be made.27 FOLDING AND ENDORSEMENT. As part of a continuous process of production, or perhaps soon after its production, a diploma was folded a number of times horizontally and vertically, transforming it from a flat sheet into a more compact package. In most cases, a vernacular endorsement was written on one of the panels created in this process (normally one or other of the two outer panels, but occasionally an inside panel). In order to keep a diploma in its folded state, it would have been necessary to fasten it in some way: by cutting a narrow strip of parchment from an edge of the sheet and wrapping it around the folded diploma (leaving just a step in the corner, once the ‘tongue’ itself was torn away), or by tying a separate strip of parchment around the folded diploma (leaving no trace), in the manner of a piece of string.28 Possible examples (steps remaining from tongues) are B5, C2, D7 and E11. To judge from staining and discolouration, it was normal practice to keep diplomas folded up (rather than flat), with the vernacular endorsement showing on the outside for ease of identification. It is striking that during this period the form of the endorsement was as formulaic as any part of the formulation of the Latin text. To judge from the single sheets, a basic distinction can be recognized between three seemingly successive ‘types’ of endorsement, offering incremental amounts of information: • Type 1: ‘This is the landbook at Place’. Examples: A1; B6. • Type 2: ‘This is Place’s [land]book which King .N. booked to .N. in perpetual inheritance’. Examples: A3; A4; B1; B2 (var.).29 • Type 3: ‘This is the [land]book of 00 hides at Place which King .N. booked

25 26 27

28

29

For continental charters, see above, pp. 39–42. For examples from Anglo-Saxon England, see above, n. 219. For the ‘alliterative’ charters, see above, p. 92. S 876 (Abing 124) is discussed above, pp. 108–15; see also Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 101 n. 54, and 251, and Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. cxiv and 483. For ‘tongues’ as wrapping-ties, see P. Chaplais, ‘The letter from Bishop Wealdhere of London to Archbishop Brihtwold of Canterbury: the earliest original “Letter Close” extant in the west’, in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries, ed. M. B. Parkes and A. G. Watson (London, 1978), reprinted in his Essays in Medieval Diplomacy and Administration (London, 1981), no. XIV, pp. 16–17. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 24 n. 33.



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to .N. in perpetual inheritance’. Examples: B3; B5; C1; C4; D1; D2; D3; D4; D6; D7; E2; E3 (var.); E6; E9; E10; E14.30 • Type 3a: E2; E5; E11.31 • Special cases (see check-list): C3; C5; D5; E1; E12; E15. • No contemporary endorsement: A2; B4; C2; E4; E7; E8. It has been remarked, in connection with diplomas in general, that ‘relatively few surviving documents were endorsed by the scribe responsible for the text of the charter’.32 The matter has important implications for our understanding of the production of diplomas, but is not always easy to judge. Quite apart from the obvious difficulty of comparing script on different sides of the same sheet (only in part eased by photography), one is comparing vernacular text with Latin text, or a short sample of ordinary vernacular script (the endorsement) with a slightly longer sample in a smaller or more compressed register of script (the boundary-clause). Moreover, one has to bear in mind that an endorsement might have been written on an outer panel with the sheet still folded up, or with the sheet unfolded and face down – in each case undoubtedly making a difference for the scribe. One can but report an impression, subject to further refinement. • Endorsement probably by the main hand: A1; A3; A4; B1; B2; B3; B5; C1; C4, D1, D2, D3, D5, D6, D7, E1, E2; E3; E5; E6; E9; E10; E11; E13; E14; E15; E16. • Endorsement by a different hand: B6; C3; C5; D4. • No contemporary endorsement: A2; B4; C2; E4; E7; E8. During the period 925–75, the endorsement seems on this basis more often than not to have been written by the main scribe.33 The natural assumption in any such case is that the diploma was written by the scribe in one continuous operation, completed only when the sheet had been folded and endorsed. If a diploma were to be available for use at a royal assembly, in a ceremony of conveyance, it might have been customary to use it in its folded and endorsed state; indeed, this was perhaps the purpose of the endorsement in the first place. Yet the occurrence of endorsements by different hands, coupled with the fact that some diplomas were not endorsed at all, suggests other possibilities. It may be that the scribe, having folded a diploma, might for whatever reason fail to endorse it, and that the endorsement was added soon or some time afterwards, by the same scribe, or by another, or not at all. Alternatively, it may be that in most cases a diploma, once written, was used for its purpose whilst still unfolded (and thus not endorsed); and that after its use it was folded and endorsed, usually (as it happened) by the scribe who had written the text on the face, although in certain

30 31 32

33

Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 81 n. 162. Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 76 n. 153, and ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, p. 15 n. 62. Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, pp. 50–4, at 50, citing eight of those in the list below (B5, E2, E3, E5, E6, E9, E10, E16) and adding six more as possible instances (B3, C1, C4, D2, D3, E11). Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 36 n. 66 (where ‘invariably’ was perhaps an overstatement).

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circumstances by a different scribe, and occasionally (for some reason) not at all. One cannot be sure. One might suppose, however, that the evidence overall is more readily compatible with the supposition that diplomas were produced at royal assemblies, by a process with sometimes failed to work as smoothly as intended, than that they were produced days or weeks after the event, under perhaps less challenging circumstances. ADDED TEXT. Although more common in the earlier period, it is unusual in the tenth century, and therefore always interesting, to find substantive and early (i.e. pre-Conquest) additions on the face or dorse of a royal diploma, whether made as afterthoughts by the main hand, or made by other hands; later archival notes are of course commonplace. There are instances of short notes added on the face, after the boundary-clause: D1 (and syx cotsetlan); D3 (and se haga an hamtune þe þærto gebyret); E1 (and eadgar cyning … on ece yrfe); E4 (and þisses landes is ealles .xxii. hida); E10 (and se wuda æt tettincgleage). There are also instances of notes added on the dorse, relating to later stages in the history of the estate: E10 (acquisition by Archbishop Dunstan); E16 (secondary grant). Other instances of this kind may be discernible in cartulary copies.34 Substantive additions to the boundary-clause might have required authorization of some kind. The sale or grant of an estate of bookland by one party to another could be effected by the transfer of the existing title-deed, and would generally have taken place at a local assembly, in the presence of witnesses, perhaps recorded in a separate vernacular charter. PROCESS. In a clear majority of cases (24 of the 38 diplomas in the checklist), the diploma was produced by a scribe working in a single apparently uninterrupted operation, which seems generally to have extended to the folding of the sheet and to the provision of a vernacular endorsement; this group should be extended to include the two cases where the diploma was produced in a single operation, with in each case a few witnesses added by another hand. In a smaller but not insignificant number of cases (11 of the 38), a diploma was produced in a process which for some reason seems not to have been smooth or continuous: perhaps because a problem arose which interrupted the process, or perhaps (in a few cases) because the diploma was needed for use in a ceremony of conveyance and was completed in a second stage. This reckoning leaves aside E12 (New Minster, Winchester), in the form of a book. • Continuous process: A1 (with added names); A2; A3; A4; B1 (with added names); B2; B4; B5; B6 (with added endorsement); C1; C3; C5; D3; D4 (with added endorsement); D5; D6; D7; E2; E3; E6; E7; E9; E11; E14; E15; E16. • Discontinuous process: B3 (inserted bounds?); C2 (operative details, inserted bounds, added record of payment); C4 (inserted bounds?); D1 (witnesslist and sanction possibly added in a second stage; with note added after bounds); D2 (operative details and inserted bounds?); E1 (additional grant); E4 (process involved two scribes; addition after the bounds); E5 (process possibly inter-

34

E.g. S 463 (BCS 758), from the Old Minster, Winchester.



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rupted); E8 (operative details); E10 (operative details, and inserted bounds); E13 (complex process). It has been suggested that ‘single-stage’ production suggests that diplomas were produced some time after the royal assembly at which the grants of bookland were made, using notes taken away from the assembly for the purpose. It is argued above that the observable features are more readily compatible with the notion that diplomas were produced soon after the start of an assembly, immediately in advance of and for use in the ceremony of conveyance.35

A. Reign of King Æthelstan (924–39) A1: S 416 (BCS 677), from the Old Minster, Winchester. Facsimile: Fig. 1.1. Diploma of King Æthelstan for Wulfgar, dated 12 November 931. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase II’) by the scribe designated ‘Æthelstan A’. The large rectangular format is presumably a continuation of the scribe’s earlier practices (since 928). Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in the same register of script as the Latin text. The witness-list is disposed at first along the line; disposed in columns for the bishops, ealdormen, abbots and thegns; full forms of attestation. Space for two more names remained at the bottom of the last column of witnesses; a second (contemporary) scribe provided two additional names, for completion. Vernacular endorsement (Type 1) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an inside panel. The will of Wulfgar (written by a different scribe, attested elsewhere in the Bedwyn manumissions), formerly stitched to the bottom left-hand edge of the diploma, is now fastened in the same place. A2: S 425 (CantCC 106). Diploma of King Æthelstan for Ælfwald, dated 28 May 934. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase II’) by the scribe designated ‘Æthelstan A’. Narrow margins; but evidently trimmed. The format and layout are the same as in S 416. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundaryclause written in the same register of script as the Latin text. The last six witnesses in col. 1, and the last five witnesses in col. 2, belong at the end of the list of thegns, in col. 4, and would appear to have been placed where they are in order to complete the first and second columns; suggesting in turn that the original memorandum had sixteen bishops, four abbots and twelve ealdormen, and then a superfluity of thegns. One imagines that in this way the scribe used the superfluity of thegns to ensure that proper appearances would be maintained at the top of each column. Produced probably in a single stage, with no contemporary endorsement. The operative details in line 5 were erased and re-written s. xi/xii, to serve Canterbury’s interest. A3: S 447 (CantCC 107). Facsimile: Fig. 1.2. Diploma of King Æthelstan for Ealdwulf, dated 939. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase II’) by the scribe 35

For further discussion, see above, pp. 74–92.

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designated ‘Æthelstan C’. This diploma represents the first appearance in a surviving original of a format which would appear (on the evidence of cartulary copies) to have been introduced in 935; which became ‘standard’ thereafter; and which was still used, though sporadically, during the 960s. Vernacular boundary-clause written in effectively the same register of script as the Latin text. It is possible that the boundary-clause was inserted in a space left blank, after folding. In the witness-list, the thegns end in the fifth column, with Wullaf, followed by a cross with no name beside it; there is space for four more names, and for a sixth column. Vernacular endorsement (Type 2) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. Produced probably in a single stage. A4: S 449 (BCS 734), from the Old Minster, Winchester. Diploma of King Æthelstan for Wulfswyth, dated 939. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase II’) by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in effectively the same register of script as the Latin text. In the witness-list, the thegns end in the fifth column, with Wullaf; there is space for three more names, and for a sixth column. Vernacular endorsement (Type 2) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. Produced probably in a single stage.

B. Reign of King Edmund (939–46) B1: S 464 (CantCC 110). Facsimile: Fig. 1.3. Diploma of King Edmund for Æthelswyth, dated 940. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by the scribe designated ‘Æthelstan C’. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. The thegns end in the fifth column, with Wulfhelm. A further six names were added by another scribe, contemporary with the first, in order to complete the column; the names may have been added before the sheet was folded (and endorsed). Vernacular endorsement (Type 2) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. B2: S 470 (WinchNM 12). Diploma of King Edmund for the New Minster, Winchester, dated 940. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Apparently written in two (or three) stints, although probably as a single operation. The first stint accounts for the main text and the boundary-clause, followed perhaps directly by the dating clause and the initial column of ‘+ Ego’ needed for the episcopal attestations. The names in the witness-list appear to have been added thereafter, in a slightly darker ink, as if entered direct from the memorandum. The thegns end in the fifth column, with Wulfhelm; there is space for one more name, and for two more columns. Vernacular endorsement (Type 2, var., for a religious house) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. Produced probably in a single stage. B3: S 512 (CantCC 112). Facsimile: Fig. 1.4. Diploma of King Edmund for Ælfstan, dated 943. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by the scribe



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designated ‘Æthelstan C’. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. The boundary-clause would appear to have been inserted by the main scribe in space originally left blank (leaving one line unused, between the bounds and the witnesses). (The ‘E’ of ‘Ego’, in the king’s attestation, was at first placed on the line above, but was then moved down, suggesting that the scribe was concerned that he might not have left enough space for the boundary-clause.) The thegns end in the fifth column, with Wulfhelm; there is space for six more names. Traces of an erased word can be discerned underneath the name of the last bishop in the witnesslist; the word was possibly the name ‘Wulfsige’, with reference to the Wulfsige who succeeded Alfred as bishop of Sherborne in 943 (Atlas, Table XLI), but the sequence of erased letters is far from clear. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel; possible traces of a trial endorsement on another panel. B4: S 495 (BCS 792), from Evesham. Diploma of King Edmund for Bishop Ælfric, dated 944. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Standard format; but the sheet is unusually ‘tall’, in order to accommodate an unusually detailed set of bounds. Pictorial invocation (cross). The vernacular boundary-clause occupies 17 lines, and uses the same line spacing as the Latin text. There is no contemporary endorsement. Produced probably in a single stage. B5: S 497 (CantCC 114). Diploma of King Edmund for Ælfstan, dated 944. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by the scribe designated ‘Edmund C’. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. The thegns end at the foot of the fourth column; there is space for another column. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. Step in upper-right corner, perhaps remaining from a wrapping-tie. Produced probably in a single stage. B6: S 510 (CantCC 115). Diploma of King Edmund for Ordhelm and Ælfwold, dated 946. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by the scribe designated ‘Edmund C’. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Vernacular endorsement (Type 1) added after folding, by a different (contemporary) hand, on an outer panel. Produced probably in a single stage.

C. Reign of King Eadred (946–55) C1: S 528 (CantCC 116). Diploma of King Eadred for Oswig, dated 947. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by the scribe designated ‘Edmund C’. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Interestingly, and most unusually, a section of text which forms a continuation of the sanction was written (before folding)

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on the dorse, presumably to leave sufficient space for the dating-clause and the witness-list to take their proper place on the face. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. Produced probably in a single stage. C2: S 535 (CantCC 118). Facsimile: Fig. 1.5. Diploma of King Eadred for Ælfwynn, dated 948. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by the scribe designated ‘Edmund C’. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Operative details (assessment, place) seemingly inserted in spaces which had been left blank for the purpose; but status and name of the beneficiary were known from the outset. Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script; inserted in space originally left blank between sanction and witness-list, apparently before folding.36 A record of payment (+ duas libras purissimi auri dedit) was inserted in available space above the boundary-clause. No contemporary endorsement. Step in lower left corner, presumably from a wrapping-tie. C3: S 546, MS. 1 (CantCC 120). Diploma of King Eadred for Christ Church, Canterbury, dated 949: grant of the monastery at Reculver to the church of Canterbury, under Archibishop Oda. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Significantly different in format from the ‘standard’ diplomas of the 940s, and evidently the work of a different agency. Pictorial invocation not visible; cross in MS. 2. In addition to the king, the witness-list comprises two archbishops and ten bishops, an abbot (Eadhelm), and three ealdormen; the attestations of Queen Eadgifu and Abbot Dunstan are given special treatment, in a block to the right of the others; Dunstan attests with a form of words claiming that he composed the charter and wrote it with his own hand (propriis digitorum articulis). The crosses follow, rather than precede, the attestations; they are not autograph. Space remains in the lower right corner of the sheet. Vernacular endorsement (of a basic kind) added after folding, by a contemporary hand, on an outer panel. A vernacular boundary-clause was added on the upper part of the dorse, in a different (contemporary or slightly later) hand. MS. 2 is a ‘fair’ copy of MS. 1, in imitative script; the whole text, including the boundary-clause, is on the face of the sheet.37 C4: S 552 (Abing 44). Diploma of King Eadred for Wulfric, dated 949. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by the scribe designated ‘Edmund C’. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script; possibly inserted in space left blank between sanction

36

37

Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 925–6, regard this diploma as an example of a pro forma document, with reference to Chaplais, ‘Royal Anglo-Saxon “chancery”’, pp. 42–3, who cites it as evidence that in some cases the boundary-clause was not available when a scribe began writing a diploma, and had to be obtained later ‘from wherever the land granted was situated’, for insertion into the text; and he saw the extended process as one which took place some time after the assembly, using notes taken there. For discussion of the Reculver diploma, see Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, pp. 940–3.



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and dating clause. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3, with detail added perhaps as an afterthought) added after folding, probably by the main scribe, on an outer panel. C5: S 563 (Glast 44). Diploma of King Eadred for Ælfgyth, dated 955. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Significantly different in its appearance from the ‘standard’ diplomas of the 940s, and evidently the work of a different agency.38 It is an example of the ‘Dunstan B’ diplomas of the early 950s (anticipated in S 546, above), and is the only surviving original of the type. No pictorial invocation; the amount of payment possibly inserted. Vernacular boundary-clause written in the same register of script as the Latin text. No crosses in the witness-list. Vernacular endorsement (penerd mynstres boc) added after folding, by a contemporary hand, on an outer panel; additional endorsement (boc to pennerd. dcccclv) added by a slightly later hand on an inside panel. Produced probably in a single stage.

D. Reign of King Eadwig (955–9) D1: S 594 (Abing 54). Facsimile: Fig. 1.6. Diploma of King Eadwig for Ælfwine, dated 956 (Group I). Written in a manifestation of Caroline minuscule, with some admixture of Insular forms, by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Significantly different in format from the ‘standard’ diplomas of the 940s. Pictorial invocation (cross); two other prominent crosses in the left-hand margin appear intended to mark the beginning of the boundary-clause and the beginning of the witness-list (cf. S 550). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. The dating-clause, which seems to introduce the witness-list, is in fact followed directly by the boundary-clause. The witnesslist, and beneath it the sanction, appear to have been added in a second stage, after the sheet had been folded in half both ways, and leaving a line blank. The layout of the witness-list suggests awareness of the ‘standard’ format; in the second column, the ealdormen are not accorded any style. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added after folding, probably by the main scribe, on an inside panel. A short note was added after the boundary-clause, by a different (contemporary) hand. D2: S 624 (Abing 65). Facsimile: Fig. 1.7. Diploma of King Eadwig for Ealdorman Edmund, dated 956 (Group II). Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by a scribe who may also have been responsible for S 646 (D6); there are differences, as well as striking similarities. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (chrismon). Operative details (name and designation of the beneficiary, hidage, place-name) seemingly inserted in spaces left blank for the purpose. Vernacular 38

The script of S 563 was likened by Chaplais to that of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 30, written at the command of Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury. See also Keynes, ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, pp. 186–7; Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, pp. 32–3; and Kelly, Charters of Glastonbury, pp. 460–5.

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boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script; possibly inserted, after folding. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. D3: S 636 (BCS 926), from the Old Minster, Winchester. Diploma of King Eadwig for Wulfric, dated 956 (Group II). Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by a scribe not certainly identified in other contexts; it has been suggested that he wrote the annal for 951 in the ‘Parker’ manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS. 173, fol. 27v). Standard format. Pictorial invocation (chrismon). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. A note has been added at the end of the bounds by an unpracticed (contemporary) hand, relating to an appurtenant haga in Southampton. D4: S 618 (Abing 66). Diploma of King Eadwig for Brihtric, dated 956 (Group III). Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Diverges from the ‘standard’ format, although influenced by it; no pictorial invocation. Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. One superfluous cross in the witness-list. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added by a contemporary hand, after folding. Produced probably in a single stage. D5: S 602 (Burt 17). Diploma of King Eadwig for Æthelnoth, dated 956 (Group IV). Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (decorated chrismon); cf. S 646 (D6). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Vernacular endorsement (of a basic kind) added presumably by the main scribe, after folding; followed in smaller script by a short explanation of the configuration of the estate. Conceivably original, but more likely an imitative copy of a later period.39 Produced probably in a single stage. D6: S 646 (BCS 1347), from Ely. Diploma of King Eadwig for Oda, archbishop of Canterbury, dated 9 May 957, at Edington, Wilts. (before the division of the kingdom). Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by a scribe who may also have been responsible for S 624 (D2). Standard format. Pictorial invocation (decorated chrismon); cf. S 602 (D5). No boundary-clause. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an outer panel. Produced probably in a single stage. D7: S 649 (BCS 1003), from the Old Minster, Winchester. Diploma of King Eadwig for Wulfstan, dated 957 (before the division of the kingdom). Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase III’) by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (decorated chrismon). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added after folding, by the main scribe, on an inside panel. Step in lower left corner, presumably from a wrapping-tie. Produced probably in a single stage.

39

Above, n. 178.



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E. Reign of King Edgar (957/959–75) E1: S 677 (Wells 31). Diploma of King Edgar, as king of the Mercians, for Ealhstan, dated 958. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Significantly different in its appearance from the ‘standard’ diplomas of the 940s and 950s. Pictorial invocation (cross). Vernacular boundary-clause written in the same register of script as the main text; four or five words were deleted and replaced, perhaps by a different hand, with a longer text in much smaller script, correcting an omission. A vernacular note, following on from the bounds, records an additional grant by King Edgar of an urban plot (haga) in Hereford. Erasure of four or five words near the beginning of the sanction. Vernacular endorsement (of a basic kind) added after folding, probably by the main scribe, on an outer panel. King Edgar’s ‘midlands’ agency (above, p. 97). E2: S 684 (BCS 1056), from Exeter. Diploma of King Edgar for Eanulf, dated 960. An anomalous diploma, for an estate in Cornwall. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Significantly different in its appearance from the ‘standard’ diplomas of the 940s and 950s. Pictorial invocation (cross). In the witness-list, two thegns known to have been the king’s kinsmen are positioned, significantly but most unusually, among the ealdormen. The vernacular boundary-clause, written in a smaller register of script, is placed after the witness-list, along the bottom of the sheet. A vernacular endorsement (Type 3) by the main scribe extends across two panels, apparently written before folding. Produced probably in a single stage. King Edgar’s ‘west country’ agency (above, p. 97). E3: S 687 (Abing 86). Diploma of King Edgar for Wulfric, dated 960. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase IV’, with some admixture of Caroline forms), by the scribe designated ‘Edgar A’, with rustic capitals for proper names. Modified format. Pictorial invocation (chrismon). No boundary-clause (in the nature of the text, which restores several estates). In the witness-list, each column of names, not just the first, incorporates the word ‘Ego’. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3, var., for a freols which restores several estates) added by the main scribe, after folding, on an outer panel; for the spacing of the words, cf. S 702 (E6). Produced probably in a single stage. The first surviving example of an original diploma by ‘Edgar A’, representing a significant change from the ‘standard’ diplomas of the 940s and 950s, although not necessarily any significant change in the circumstances of their production. E4: S 690 (Abing 87). Facsimile: Fig. 1.8. Diploma of King Edgar for Abingdon abbey, dated 961. Main text and boundary-clause written in Square minuscule (‘Phase IV’) by the scribe designated ‘Edgar A’, with rustic capitals for proper names. Pictorial invocation (chrismon). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script, on five lines, with tighter (ruled) line spacing (cf. normal line spacing for bounds in E7 and E9, and tighter spacing again in E10), as if to leave as much room as possible for the rest of the text, in problematic circumstances. In a note crammed into available space at the end of the

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boundary-clause, the scribe confirms that the land amounts to 22 hides (as if the hidation might have been in question). Dating-clause and witness-list written in Anglo-Caroline minuscule (Style I), in a lighter ink, after horizontal folding, by a different scribe, who has not been identified in other contexts. In the witnesslist, there are no crosses for the first column. In the opinion of T. A. M. Bishop, the first scribe (‘Edgar A’) corrected the work of the second scribe in the datingclause; if so, the observation would have a significant bearing on our understanding of the process behind the production of the diploma.40 There is no contemporary endorsement. For further discussion of the process of production, see above, pp. 84–5. E5: S 697 (BCS 1072), from the Old Minster, Winchester. Diploma of King Edgar for Cenulf, dated 961. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (decorated chrismon). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script; possible that it was inserted into a space left for the purpose. Probably single-stage; though possible that dating-clause and witness-list were added after vertical folding. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3, var.) added by the main scribe, after folding, across two inside panels. King Edgar’s ‘west country’ agency (above, p. 97). E6: S 702 (BCS 1085), from Westminster. Diploma of King Edgar for Ælfheah, dated ‘862’ for 962. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe identified as that of the Bosworth Psalter (BL Add. 37517); with a fundamental error in the date, suggestive of carelessness or of forgery.41 Pictorial invocation (chrismon). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added by the main scribe, after folding, across two inside panels (with on ece yrfe spread out, as in E3). The scribe is writing his own script, rather than imitating that of ‘Edgar A’, and the chrismon is not modelled on the distinctive ‘Edgar A’ variety; proper names, however, are in rustic capitals, in the manner of ‘Edgar A’, and the formulation is appropriate. E7: S 703 (BCS 1082), from Bury St Edmunds. Diploma of King Edgar for Æthelflæd, dated 962. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase IV’) by the scribe designated ‘Edgar A’, with rustic capitals for proper names. Modified format. Pictorial invocation (chrismon). In the main text, the figure (‘.vii.’) for the hidage of the estate appears to have been inserted in a space which had been left for the purpose. Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of 40

41

Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule, pp. xix and 9, with reference to the Insular r in carta (in the dating-clause) and also it seems to the f in trofeum. The r in carta is perhaps closer to the form employed by ‘Edgar A’ than to the form employed by the second scribe (for the personal names in the witness-list), and seems compressed; it has to be said, however, that close inspection of the word in the original charter, with the aid of cold light and a magnifying glass, reveals no obvious sign of erasure. T. A. M. Bishop, ‘An early example of the Square minuscule’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 4 (1964–8), 246–52, at 246–7, citing the charter as evidence for the date of the manuscript. The legal proceedings in the late 960s, represented by S 1447, provide an obvious context in which this diploma might have served a useful purpose.



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script, with wide line-spacing. No contemporary endorsement. Produced probably in a single stage. E8: S 704, from Buckfast. Diploma of King Edgar for Æthel[…]e, dated 962. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe who has not been identified in other contexts. Pictorial invocation (cross). Operative details (beneficiary, assessment, place) seemingly inserted in spaces left blank for the purpose. After a formula introducing the boundary-clause, a line was seemingly left blank (across the central fold); the vernacular bounds were inserted below (perhaps later), in a smaller register of script, followed by the dating-clause and witness-list. No contemporary endorsement. E9: S 706 (BCS 1083), of uncertain provenance. Diploma of King Edgar for Titstan, dated 962 (damaged). Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase IV’) by the scribe designated ‘Edgar A’, with rustic capitals for proper names. Modified format. Pictorial invocation (chrismon). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script, with wide line spacing. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added by the main scribe, after folding, on an outer panel; the beneficiary is styled the king’s burthegn. Produced probably in a single stage. E10: S 717 (CantCC 126). Facsimile: Fig. 1.9. Diploma of King Edgar for Ingeram, dated 963. Written in Square minuscule (‘Phase IV’) by the scribe designated ‘Edgar A’, with rustic capitals for proper names. Modified format. Pictorial invocation (cross). In the main text, the figure (‘.vii.’) for the hidage of the estate was possibly inserted in a space which had been left for the purpose. Vernacular boundary-clause, written in a smaller register of script and much tighter spacing, was clearly inserted in a space which had been left blank between the sanction and the dating-clause (mearce respecting the placement of Anno), apparently before folding; with an additional note about woodland. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added by the main scribe, after folding, on an outer panel. A slightly later vernacular endorsement, written across two inside panels, records that Ingeram gave the charter, with the land, to Archbishop Dunstan. For further discussion of the process of production, see above, p. 85; see also Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 969. E11: S 736 (BCS 1165), from Abbotsbury. Diploma of King Edgar for Wulfheard, dated 965. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe who has not been identified in other contexts. Standard format. Pictorial invocation (alpha-omega). Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3, var.), on panel, by the main scribe. Step in lower left corner, presumably from a wrapping-tie. Produced probably in a single stage. King Edgar’s ‘west country’ agency (above, p. 97). E12: S 745 (WinchNM 23). Rumble, Property and Piety, pp. 65–97. Charter of King Edgar for the New Minster, Winchester, dated 966. An extraordinary document in every respect. Constructed in the form of a small book (22 cm by 16 cm), of over sixty pages (2r–33v), written throughout in gold letters in Anglo-Caroline minuscule (Style I). The first opening juxtaposes an image of the king prostrate before Christ (2v) with explanatory verses (3r). There follows

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a formal summary (3v), in place of an endorsement. The text itself begins with a chrismon (4r), and extends over many pages (4r–29v); some folios are missing and content lost. The text is followed by a dating-clause (30r), a list of witnesses (30r–32v), and a sanction (33r–v). It would appear at first sight that the main scribe completed the text to the end of the witness-list (32v), and that the sanction, on 33r–v, was added by a second scribe, conceivably in the aftermath of a ceremonial event.42 In Dr Rumble’s view (Property and Piety, p. 71), however, the first scribe wrote only the first four names at the top of 32v, and then all of the Egos for the ten remaining attestations down to the bottom of the page; the second collaborating scribe provided the names of the last ten witnesses (from Æthelwine dux to Wulfstan minister), and then added the sanction (33r–v). The outline or drypoint crosses which stand against all but one of the names in the witness-list would appear to have been added as a separate operation, after the writing of the names; nine of them have been filled with gold (King Edgar, Archbishop Dunstan, Edmund atheling, Queen Ælfthryth, Eadgifu regis aua, Bishop Ælfwold, Ealdorman Ælfhere, Ealdorman Æthelwine, and Æthelweard minister), in circumstances which remain obscure, but which provide scope for speculation.43 E13: S 768 (Burt 23). Diploma of King Edgar for Bishop Wulfric, dated 968. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts. The irregular layout gives the whole sheet an unusual appearance. Pictorial invocation (chrismon [XPS]). Produced apparently in two stages: (1) main text and dating-clause, followed by a blank space, with the sanction at the bottom of the sheet; (2) witness-list and vernacular boundary-clause inserted by the same scribe into the blank space. Vernacular endorsement added by the main scribe, after folding, on an outer panel. Conceivably original; but there are factors which raise cause for concern (see discussion in BAFacs 7). E14: S 772 (BCS 1229), from Worcester. Diploma of King Edgar for Ælfwold, dated 969. Written in Anglo-Caroline minuscule by a scribe who has been identified as ‘scribe iii’ in a manuscript of Virgil.44 Pictorial invocation (chrismon). The formulation indicates that this is a diploma of the ‘Edgar A’ type, connected with another of the same date (S 773), in favour of the same person; both were preserved at Worcester.45 Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. Vernacular endorsement (Type 3) added by the main scribe, after folding, on an inside panel; describing the grant as one made to the king’s leofan getreowan þegne. Produced probably in a single stage. 42 43

44 45

Liber Vitae of the New Minster, ed. Keynes, p. 27 n. 112. For the curious treatment of the crosses in the witness-list, see ibid., pp. 27–8, n. 115; Rumble, Property and Piety, p. 71; and Miller, New Minster, Winchester, pp. 110–11 (with plates I–VII). Vatican City, Bibliotheca Apostolica, Reg. lat. 1671: Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule, p. 17, with plate XVII (‘scribe iii’). For further discussion, see C. R. Hart, The Early Charters of Northern England and the North Midlands (Leicester, 1975), p. 82; Dumville, English Caroline Script, pp. 70–4; and Keynes, ‘Edgar, rex admirabilis’, p. 20.



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E15: S 786 (BCS 1282), from Worcester. Diploma of King Edgar for Pershore, dated 972. Grant of freedom of election, with restoration of numerous estates in Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, free from all worldly service; reference is made to an earlier privilege which Ealdorman Beornoth had obtained from King Coenwulf. Written in Square minuscule by a scribe not identified in other contexts; with various erasures, alterations and additions. Pictorial invocation (alpha-omega, surmounted by a cross). The text of the extended set of vernacular boundary-clauses continues on the dorse, followed by the dating-clause, the witness-list (without crosses), and a note attaching two properties in Worcester. A vernacular endorsement (in square capitals) was added, after folding, on an inside panel. Produced probably in a single stage. Arguably authentic and original; also arguable that the script is imitative, and that the charter was fabricated for Pershore, c. 1000 or later, to serve as a record of estates which the abbey claimed as its ancient endowment.46 E16: S 795 (BCS 1303), from Exeter. Diploma of King Edgar for Ælfhere, dated 974. Written by an unidentified scribe, in Square minuscule; large format, with an impressive complement of bishops and abbots among the witnesses. Vernacular boundary-clause written in a smaller register of script. In the witness-list, the name of the tenth bishop was seemingly erased (cf. Atlas of Attestations, Table LIV/5). Vernacular endorsement by the main scribe written across two inner panels. Produced probably in a single stage. A later endorsement in Latin, written in Anglo-Caroline minuscule (s. x/xi), records the gift of the land by the venerable priest Brihtric to St Mary’s, Crediton, for the souls of his parents.

46

For discussion of this charter, see Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, pp. cvi–cxi; Thompson, Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas, pp. 142–5; and P. Stokes, ‘King Edgar’s charter for Pershore (AD 972)’, ASE 37 (2008), 31–78.

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Appendix III Citations of Anglo-Saxon Charters Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas, and other charters in Latin and in the vernacular, are cited here by their number in P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968), abbreviated as S, followed by the number in the catalogue (e.g. S 876). A new version of ‘Sawyer’, revised and updated by Susan Kelly, Rebecca Rushforth and others, has been prepared under the auspices of the British Academy/Royal Historical Society Joint Committee on Anglo-Saxon Charters, and is maintained as part of the same project. The data in the ‘Revised Sawyer’ is available online as the ‘Electronic Sawyer’ (Digital Humanities, King’s College London). Further information on the Anglo-Saxon charters project, and on the series ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters’ (published by the Oxford University Press for the British Academy), is to be found on the ‘Kemble’ website: www.kemble.asnc.cam.ac.uk The classic multi-volume editions of charters, compiled in the nineteenth century by John Mitchell Kemble and by Walter de Gray Birch, are cited as ‘KCD’ and ‘BCS’. These abbreviations are explained further below, together with the abbreviations for the early editions of the vernacular charters, and the abbreviations for published facsimiles of charters preserved in single-sheet form. A new edition of the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon charters (including royal diplomas, episcopal leases, vernacular writs, wills, etc.), prepared under the auspices of the BA/RHS Joint Committee on Anglo-Saxon Charters, and published by the British Academy, continues to make progress (see below). When complete, the new edition will comprise about thirty volumes, each containing the charters formerly preserved in the archives of a particular religious house, or group of houses. In those cases where a charter is from an archive which has already been published in the new edition, the charter is cited by its number in ‘Sawyer’, followed in brackets by a short form of abbreviation for the volume in question, accompanied by number of the charter, e.g. S 876 (Abing 124); the abbreviations for each volume are explained below. In those cases where a charter is from an archive which has not yet been covered in the new edition, reference is given to its number in Birch’s edition (BCS), for the period to 975, or in Kemble’s edition (KCD), for the period 975–1066. Charters forming part of the Crawford collection, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, are cited from Crawford Charters, ed. Napier and Stevenson. Vernacular texts are cited from the series directed by H. M. Chadwick, comprising Harmer’s SEHD, Whitelock’s Wills, Robertson’s Charters, and Harmer’s Writs. In cases where no edition is specified, further information on the charter will be found in ‘Sawyer’.



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Abbreviations for Volumes in the Series ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters’ In references to particular charters in the component volumes of the new edition (in progress), the following abbreviations are used for each volume, followed by the number of the charter in the volume: Abing Charters of Abingdon Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, 2 pts, AS Charters 7–8 (Oxford, 2000–1) Bath Charters of Bath and Wells, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 13 (Oxford, 2007) Burt Charters of Burton Abbey, ed. P. H. Sawyer, AS Charters 2 (Oxford, 1979) BuryStE Charters of Bury St Edmunds, ed. K. Lowe and S. Foot (in preparation) CantCC Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury, ed. N. Brooks and S. E. Kelly, 2 pts, AS Charters 17–18 (Oxford, 2013) CantStA Charters of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 4 (Oxford, 1995) Chert Charters of Chertsey Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly (in preparation) CredExe Charters of Crediton and Exeter, ed. C. Insley (in preparation) Glast Charters of Glastonbury Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 15 (Oxford, 2012) LondStP Charters of St Paul’s, London, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 10 (Oxford, 2004) Malm Charters of Malmesbury Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 11 (Oxford, 2005) Midland Charters of Religious Houses in the Midlands, ed. S. E. Kelly (in preparation) North Charters of Northern Houses, ed. D. A. Woodman, AS Charters 16 (Oxford, 2012) Pet Charters of Peterborough Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 14 (Oxford, 2009) Roch Charters of Rochester, ed. A. Campbell, AS Charters 1 (London, 1973) Sel Charters of Selsey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 6 (Oxford, 1998) Shaft Charters of Shaftesbury Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 5 (Oxford, 1995) Sherb Charters of Sherborne, ed. M. A. O’Donovan, AS Charters 3 (Oxford, 1988) StAlb Charters of St Albans, ed. J. Crick, AS Charters 12 (Oxford, 2007) Wells Charters of Bath and Wells, ed. S. E. Kelly, AS Charters 13 (Oxford, 2007) West Charters of Westminster Abbey, ed. R. Mortimer (in preparation) Wilt Charters of Wilton Abbey, ed. R. Rushforth (in preparation) WinchNM Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, ed. S. Miller, AS Charters 9 (Oxford, 2001)

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WinchOM Charters of the Old Minster, Winchester, ed. A. R. Rumble (in preparation) Worc Charters of Worcester (in prospect) The volumes forming part of the new edition contain extensive introductions dealing with the history of the religious house or houses in question, and on the charters in each archive or group of archives, complemented by detailed commentaries on each text. References to these introductions and commentaries are given in a different way, citing the editor’s name and the title of the edition (e.g. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon, p. 358). Other Abbreviations KCD J. M. Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici, 6 vols. (London, 1839–48), paperback reprint, 6 vols. (Cambridge, 2011) BCS W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 3 vols (London, 1885– 93), paperback reprint, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 2012) CrawCh The Crawford Collection of Early Charters and Documents now in the Bodleian Library, ed. A. S. Napier and W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1895) SEHD Select English Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, ed. F. E. Harmer (Cambridge, 1914), paperback reprint (Cambridge, 2011) ASWills Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930), paperback reprint (Cambridge, 2011) ASCharters Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1939; 2nd ed., 1956), paperback reprint (Cambridge, 2009; re-issued, 2011) ASWrits Anglo-Saxon Writs, ed. F. E. Harmer (Manchester, 1952), reprinted with an addition (Stamford, 1989) BMFacs. E. A. Bond, Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, 4 vols. (London, 1873–8), cited by volume number and number of facsimile OSFacs. W. B. Sanders, Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 3 vols. (Southampton, 1878–84), cited by volume number and number of facsimile BAFacs. Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. S. Keynes, AS Charters, Supplementary Series 1 (Oxford, 1991), cited by number of facsimile

PART II

2 Anglo-Saxon Royal Archives: Their Nature, Extent, Survival and Loss ALEXANDER R. RUMBLE

T

his paper is intended to promote a more balanced view of the extent of the royal archives kept by and for Anglo-Saxon kings than either the national land registry postulated by Cyril Hart in 1970 or the minimalist entity suggested by Michael Clanchy in 1979 and 1993. Hart envisaged a centralized registry of title in Wessex from 854 onwards, postulating ‘first that the later Anglo-Saxon kings kept copies of the royal landbooks issued by them, and secondly that this royal collection was housed at Winchester, at least during the last century of the Anglo-Saxon state’.1 In marked contrast, Clanchy has stated that ‘It seems unlikely that England was governed by a bureaucracy using documents in its routine procedures before 1066.’2 I shall return to Hart’s theory in due course but, against Clanchy’s view, while acknowledging the paucity of specific references to the deposition of documents for the future use of the monarch, I would argue that the range and sophistication of royal government by 1066 would certainly have been reflected in a similar range of records kept. This may seem axiomatic to Anglo-Saxonists, but is still not always apparent to others who prefer to stress the Norman contribution to English history.

The Records of Royal Administration Anglo-Saxon officials involved in each of a number of royal activities or responsibilities would have had to create some records not merely for immediate convenience but also for future reference.3 From the late sixth century onwards, these would usually have been written on parchment but may some1 2 3

Cyril Hart, ‘The Codex Wintoniensis and the king’s haligdom’, in Land, Church and People, ed. Joan Thirsk (Reading, 1970), pp. 7–38, at 18. Michael Thomas Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (London, 1979), p. 17; 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1993), p. 32. For examples of the pragmatic use of writing in relation to legislation and legal disputes, see Simon Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word in late Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990, paperback 1992), pp. 226–57.

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times have taken the form of wooden accounting tallies of the type used in the twelfth-century royal exchequer.4 Detailed accounts must have been kept of the returns from national tax­ation, whether in the form of money payments or of tribute in kind. Although the earliest surviving manuscript of the list of peoples and their taxable values known as the Tribal Hidage is from the first half of the eleventh century,5 the text itself was (as argued by Nick Higham) probably originally composed in the seventh century for Edwin, king of Northumbria, as overlord of his southern neighbours.6 It would have been preserved on that king’s behalf, and probably by his heirs, as both a fiscal document and a political statement. Much later, from Domesday Book and its associated texts, we have clear evidence that local fiscal records from the reign of Edward the Confessor still survived into the 1080s and that in some shires they formed a partial template for the Norman survey of landholding and tax liability.7 Presumably these survived in repositories under the control of the local sheriff, who may also have had records relating to defence and the administration of the law in his particular shire. By 1066 there should have existed official records concerning both the manning and equipment of the fyrd and the requirement to maintain specific bridges and fortifications: note would have been made at least of nonperformance of these communal obligations, since that attracted a legal penalty.8 Royal officials concerned with the law should have had lists of suitors to the shire and hundred courts and might also have had lists of estates where the king had devolved jurisdiction on to a local lord by means of his writ.9 As noted by James Campbell, those men supervising the peace-guild around London in the reign of Athelstan were ‘by no means unlikely’ to have been required (by VI Æthelstan, ch. 3) to keep some account of income and expenditure relating to their activities.10 Reeves in charge of the administration of royal estates and boroughs would probably have been expected to keep annual accounts of both rents and appur-

4

5

6 7 8 9

10

De necessariis observantiis scaccarii dialogus qui vulgo dicitur Dialogus de Scaccario, The Course of the Exchequer by Richard, Son of Nigel, Treasurer of England and Bishop of London, ed. and trans. Charles Johnson (London, 1950), pp. 22–4, and frontispiece; Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record (1993), pp. 123–4, and plate VIII. BL Harley 3271, fol. 6v; David Dumville, ‘The Tribal Hidage: an introduction to its texts and their history’, in The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, ed. Steven Bassett (London, 1989), pp. 225–30, at 225, and fig. 16.1. Nicholas J. Higham, ‘The Tribal Hidage: its context and purpose’, in N. J. Higham, An English Empire: Bede and the early Anglo-Saxon kings (Manchester, 1995), pp. 74–111. Sally P. J. Harvey, ‘Domesday Book and its predecessors’, EHR 86 (1971), 753–73. A fine of 120 shillings under the terms of II Cnut, ch. 65, see EHD 2nd ed., p. 464. In Kent, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire, the holders of such rights were listed in Great Domesday Book, see David Roffe, Domesday: the inquest and the book (Oxford, 2000), p. 133 and n. 117. James Campbell, ‘Some agents and agencies of the late Anglo-Saxon state’, The AngloSaxon State (London and New York, 2000), pp. 201–25, at 221; EHD 2nd ed., p. 424.



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tenant economic resources such as livestock, salt-pans or woodland.11 Although surviving evidence for this sort of text has an ecclesiastical provenance, the impetus for the production of such records would have been at least as great on the royal fisc.12 The information included in Great and Little Domesday Books about burghal tenements and customs, as also about the Terra regis in each county, suggests regular and detailed record-keeping at least by 1066.13 Specific classes of record may also have been kept for the king at a national level, relating to national defence, the coinage, and foreign relations. The list section of the early tenth-century Burghal Hidage, one version of which was available for copying in the royal Exchequer at Westminster in c. 1225, recorded the taxation needed to maintain each of the fortifications of Greater Wessex.14 Other, now-lost, lists might have been made of defensive sites further north, after the reconquest of the midlands from the Danes.15 It is also likely that records relating to the manning and equipping of ships were made. If in 1040–41, according to Ken Lawson, each ship in Harthacnut’s fleet cost 652 marks per year,16 some overall calculation of cost would doubtless have been made to assess how large a fleet the king could afford. Such a calculation would have had to take into account the precise and various shire-by-shire contributions to the danegeld.

11 12

13

14

15

16

A useful discussion of the importance of reeves in Anglo-Saxon administration is in Campbell, ‘Some agents and agencies of the late Anglo-Saxon state’, pp. 207–12. For the dues listed as customarily payable by various categories of rural population within an (ecclesiastical) estate, see the treatise known as Rectitudines singularum personarum, in English Historical Documents, ii, 1042–1189, ed. David C. Douglas and George W. Greenway, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 1981), no. 172, where dated to ?1042–66. For arguments in favour of a date earlier in the eleventh century, see Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the twelfth century, i, Legislation and its limits (Oxford, 1999), pp. 387–9. Documents listing the actual dues payable on two ecclesiastical estates are translated in English Historical Documents, ii, nos. 173–4: these are S 359 concerning the Old Minster, Winchester estate at Hurstbourne Priors, Hampshire ?c. 1050, and S 1555 relating to the Bath abbey estate at Tidenham, Gloucestershire, ?c. 1060. For the additional evidence of some subsidiary Domesday ‘satellites’, see Harvey, ‘Domesday Book and its predecessors’, pp. 760, 763, 767–8. A pre-Conquest survey of Winchester (?c. 1057) formed the point of departure for Survey I (c. 1110) in the Winton Domesday, see Winchester in the Early Middle Ages: an edition and discussion of the Winton Domesday, ed. Martin Biddle, Winchester Studies 1 (Oxford, 1976), pp. 9–10, 449. The Defence of Wessex: the Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon fortifications, ed. David Hill and Alexander R. Rumble (Manchester, 1996), passim and pp. 51–2 with fig. 3.9 (MS. B2). Buckingham, Worcester and Warwick appear in the Burghal Hidage, but are apparent additions to the list relating to Greater Wessex, see The Defence of Wessex, ed. Hill and Rumble, pp. 28–35, and discussion by Nicholas Brooks at 89–91 therein. Michael Kenneth Lawson, ‘The collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the reigns of Æthelred II and Cnut’, EHR 99 (1984), 721–38, at 721–3 and 737–8. The calculation is based on information given by ASC (E) and John of Worcester that in each ship [of eighty oars] each oarsman was paid 8 marks and each steersman 12 marks.

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There would also have been royal records concerning the coinage. Interpolated into the lawcode II Æthelstan (issued at Grately, Hampshire, some time between 926 and c. 930) we have a slightly earlier list relating to mints and numbers of moneyers in five shires of southern England as well as London.17 Later, particularly after the reform in 973 which established a regular cycle of recoinage,18 and with increasingly centralized die-cutting in the eleventh century,19 more detailed records would also have been kept, probably including regular accounts of profits from each mint and lists of moneyers. Finally, the king’s officials would also be likely to preserve for future reference any diplomatic correspondence he received, for example letters from other monarchs or the pope, perhaps with copies of his replies. Mere remnants of these official records are discernible in a few surviving administrative texts and also in the Domesday material but, taken together, they suggest the bureaucratic mentality of a royal administration which from the tenth century had a consistency of structure through the shire and hundred/ wapentake system and a network of royal centres visited regularly by the king on his perambulations.20

Royal Family Archives In addition to the official records discussed above, members of the royal families, at least in Mercia from the eighth century and in Wessex from the ninth, possessed their own personal booklands and therefore had a need to keep their title-deeds safe. Such bookland estates were separate from residences held by the king or queen or the æthelings by virtue of their position, which were normally inalienable.21 In contrast, these were estates held by bookright and therefore freely alienable by the individual concerned.22 They were referred to in Latin as hereditas and in Old English as yrfe. 17 18

19 20

21

22

Mark Blackburn, ‘Mints, burhs, and the Grately Code, cap. 14.2’, in The Defence of Wessex, ed. Hill and Rumble, pp. 160–75, at 167–72. Reginald Hugh Michael Dolley and David Michael Metcalf, ‘The reform of the English coinage under Eadgar’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins: studies presented to F. M. Stenton on the occasion of his 80th birthday, 17 May 1960, ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 136–68. The initial six-yearly cycle of recoinage was shortened to three years or less after 1036, see Mark A. S. Blackburn, ‘Coinage’, in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge, John Blair, Simon Keynes and Donald Scragg (Oxford, 1999), pp. 113–16, at 113. Kenneth Jonsson, ‘The coinage of Cnut’, in The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway, ed. Alexander R. Rumble (London, 1994), pp. 193–230, at 223, 230. Peter Sawyer, ‘The royal tun in pre-Conquest England’, in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon England: studies presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Patrick Wormald with Donald Bullough and Roger Collins (Oxford, 1983), pp. 273–99. The more ancient royal properties are represented by many of the large estates and hundredal manors of the Terra regis of the Domesday records. For estates associated with the æthelings, see David N. Dumville, ‘The Ætheling: a study in Anglo-Saxon constitutional history’, ASE 8 (1979), 1–33, at 5–6. For a summary of the advantages of holding bookland, see Simon Keynes, The Diplomas



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Contemporary documents concerning the settlement, at the Council of Clofesho in 825 and shortly after, of a long-running dispute between on the one hand Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury and on the other Abbess Cwenthryth of Minster-in-Thanet and her father, the late King Cenwulf of Mercia, included the condition, stipulated by the archbishop, that the names of certain estates returned to him by Cwenthryth be deleted ‘from the ancient diplomas at Winchcombe’, de antiquis priuilegiis quæ sunt æt ƿincel cumbe.23 This seems to be a reference to the personal title-deeds of Cenwulf and his heirs (perhaps including the privilege granted him by Pope Paschal I)24 deposited at the monastery of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, which is said to have been founded by Cenwulf in 798,25 and over which Cwenthryth appears to have had control as abbess.26 It is probable that the particular documents referred to by Archbishop Wulfred made reference to more than just the estates which were being returned to him and, as they were still needed by Cwenthryth and her kin as evidence of title to land (?and churches) elsewhere, could not be surrendered to him. A later ninth-century mention of King Cenwulf’s documents in the Winchcombe archive was made in a document of 897, surviving in two eleventh-century cartulary-copies, in which Æthelwulf, a Mercian ealdorman (dux),27 gave judgement in a dispute over the tenure of land at Upton in Blockley, Worcestershire.28 It is stated that Æthelwulf ‘read out and studied the diplomas of King Cenwulf’ (recitavit et investigavit hereditarios libros CENǷULFI regis), and found that,

23

24

25

26

27

28

of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016: a study in their use as historical evidence (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 31–2. S 1436; BL Cotton MS. Augustus ii. 78 (B. M. Facs., ii. 18) and BL Stowe Charter 15 (O. S. Facs., iii. 15). For a discussion of the status of these manuscripts as copies made in 826 or 827, see Nicholas Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066 (Leicester, 1984), pp. 322–3. The context of the dispute is discussed by Brooks, Early History, pp. 175–91, and by Catherine Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c. 650–c. 850 (London and New York, 1995), pp. 225–8. See also Simon Keynes, ‘Church councils, royal assemblies and the use of the written word in AngloSaxon England’, in this volume, pp. 17–182. 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, 1946, reprinted 1998), pp. 255–7; Brooks, Early History, pp. 185–6. Levison, England and the Continent, p. 257; Brooks, Early History, p. 182. The so-called foundation charter (S 167, BCS 338; bearing the date 811) is a forgery, see Levison, England and the Continent, pp. 253–5. Levison (England and the Continent, p. 257) suggested that the monastery founded by Cenwulf was a double one, for both monks and nuns. Cwenthryth was described as ‘the chief archivist of the [Mercian] royal house’ by Michelle P. Brown, ‘Female bookownership and production in Anglo-Saxon England: the evidence of the ninth–century prayer-books’, in Lexis and Texts in Early England: studies presented to Jane Roberts, ed. Christian J. Kay and Louise M. Sylvester, Costerus 133 (Amsterdam, 2001), pp. 45–67, at 50. For the several individuals with this title in Mercia at this time, see Simon Keynes, ‘Mercia and Wessex in the ninth century’, in Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Europe, ed. Michelle P. Brown and Carol A. Farr (London and New York, 2001), pp. 310–28, at 326. S 1442; BCS 575. Cf. Levison, England and the Continent, p. 252.

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according to their terms, no one after Cenwulf should hold property belonging to the endowment (hereditas) of Winchcombe except under the terms of a lease for one life. A certain Wulflaf, who had been holding the estate of Upton by means of two leases, each for three lives (one granted by Cwenthryth and the other by her kinswoman Ælfflæd), was made to surrender the land and these leases (pristinos libellos) in return for a new lease for his life only. In the context of these Mercian family archives, it may be significant that Cwenthryth’s legendary role as instigator of her brother (St) Kenelm’s murder was said in the mid eleventh century to have been revealed to the pope because of a vernacular note, written in gold letters and delivered by a dove, giving the location of his corpse. The latter was said to have been subsequently disinterred and translated for reburial and veneration at Winchcombe.29 A comparable ninth-century collection of documents belonging to a royal family seems to have existed somewhere in Wessex. Two separate agreements reached during the Council of Kingston (Surrey) in 838 were recorded in writing as chirographs, one part of which was in each case intended to be deposited with the archives of the particular church concerned (Winchester Cathedral and Christ Church, Canterbury, respectively) and the other with ‘the writings of the inheritance’ of Kings Egbert and Æthelwulf (cum hereditatis eorum scripturis).30 It should be noted that this particular collection may have included not only title-deeds to estates, but also evidence regarding Æthelwulf’s claim to succeed his father Egbert to the throne of Wessex, the strengthening of which seems to have been the royal purpose behind the agreements reached at Kingston with the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of Winchester, respectively.31 Such collections may have included not only title-deeds but also copies of the wills made by individual members of the royal family. The most well-known of these is King Alfred’s second will, made after many of the beneficiaries of his first had been killed in the wars against the Vikings.32 The only surviving preConquest text of it is that in the Liber Vitae of the New Minster, Winchester, copied in the first half of the eleventh century,33 but it would almost certainly have first been issued on a number of single sheets of parchment, probably as several chirographs, at least one section of which would have been kept by the king. His first will had been made in several copies and distributed to many 29

30

31 32 33

Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives: Vita S. Birini, Vita et Miracula S. Kenelmi, Vita S. Romwoldi, ed. and trans. Rosalind C. Love (Oxford, 1996), pp. 64–7. For later versions, see Richard M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England, 2nd ed., paperback (London, 1970), pp. 99–100. S 281 and 1438. The former is a mid twelfth-century cartulary-copy in the Codex Wintoniensis (BL Additional MS. 15350, fol. 113v); see further below, p. 198. S 1438 survives in three contemporary manuscripts (BL Cotton Augustus ii. 20, 21 and 37; B. M. Facs , i. 17, ii. 26 and 27); on their interrelationship, see Brooks, Early History, pp. 323–5. Brooks, Early History, pp. 146–7. S 1507; Charters of the New Minster, Winchester, ed. Sean Miller, AS Charters 9 (Oxford, 2001), no. 1. BL Stowe MS 944, fols. 29v–33r.



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people, causing some difficulty to Alfred in attempting to recover them all when he had to revoke it.34 In his second will Alfred states that he took his father Æthelwulf’s will (yrfegeƿrit) to an assembly at Langanden and had it read out aloud in order to justify his own actions with regard to the inheritance of his nephews.35 Alfred’s action here demonstrates the weight given to archival evidence in the settlement of disputes over lands belonging to the royal family. Other surviving royal wills are those of King Eadred (951×955, in a later medieval cartulary-copy)36 and the ætheling Athelstan (1014, in two contemporary manuscripts).37 Two documents which show the process by which some royal bookland estates could have been newly created out of lands previously reserved to the crown as folkland are S 298 (an original diploma dated 847 for 846; relating to 20 hides at the South Hams, Devon) and S 715 (a cartulary-copy of a diploma dated 963; granting 5 hides at Patney, Wiltshire).38 Each of these records a grant of land by the king (respectively Æthelwulf and Edgar) to himself with the approval of his counsellors. Other royal booklands might have been bought for money or acquired at various times by bequest.

Where Were the Royal Archives Kept and By Whom? As already suggested, some documents would be preserved at local centres of administration (boroughs, royal residences, or royal ecclesiastical foundations). Others however were probably carried with the king on his perambulations. King Alfred stated in his second will that he had entrusted copies of his earlier one ‘to many men, who had witnessed its writing’ (7 hæfde monegum mannum þa geƿritu oðfæst 7 on þas ylcan geƿitnesse hy ƿæron aƿritene).39 Presumably this could have included both ecclesiastics and laymen such as ealdormen. It is known that chirograph copies of particularly important decisions or agreements were entrusted to members of the royal household, sometimes being placed for safety with the king’s collection of holy relics (hāligdōm) or in his treasury (in thesauris, in gazophilacio). These documents were given a better ‫‏‬

‫‏‬

34 35 36 37

38

39

Charters of the New Minster, ed. Miller, pp. 6, 9. Charters of the New Minster, ed. Miller, pp. 4, 8. S 1515 (Charters of the New Minster, ed. Miller, no. 17); BL Additional MS 82931 (Liber Abbatiae), fol. 22r. S 1503: BL Stowe Charter 37 (O. S. Facs., iii. 38) and Canterbury, Dean and Chapter Library, Chart. Ant. H 68 (O. S. Facs., i. 18). For the date, see Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’, p. 267. See further below, p. 197. BL, Cotton Chart. viii. 36 (B. M. Facs., ii. 30); BCS 451; BL Add. 15350, fol. 84r–v; BCS 1118. For Buckland place-names which indicate other examples of estates newly created by means of a grant by royal diploma, see Alexander R. Rumble, ‘Old English bōc-land as an Anglo-Saxon estate-name’, Leeds Studies in English, ns 18 (1987): Studies in Honour of Kenneth Cameron, ed. Thorlac Turville-Petre and Margaret Gelling, pp. 219–29. S 1507; Charters of the New Minster, ed. Miller, no. 1, p. 6.

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chance of survival through their physical association with sacred or valuable objects in a similar way that copies of other documents were sometimes written into gospel books.40 References to the deposit, in the king’s hāligdōm or his treasury, of parts of chirographs occur from the late tenth century on and are listed below (i–vii). i.

þissa geƿrita syndon ðreo. an is æt cristes cyrcean. oðer æt þæs cinges haligdome. ðridde hæfð seo ƿuduƿe.41 ‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

There are three of these writings: one is at Christ Church [Canterbury]; the second is with the king’s relics; the widow has the third.

This clause occurs in an original memorandum recording the decision of a royal council at Cookham about the status of the will of the traitor Æthelric of Bocking.42 The document was issued in the form of a triple chirograph, the central part of which has survived in the archives of Christ Church, Canterbury.43 ii. Hec scripto tripliciter consignantur. Unum est apud Ely, aliud in thesauris regis, tertium Leofleda habet.44 These things have been recorded in writing in triplicate: one is at Ely [abbey]; the second is in the king’s treasury; Leoflæd has the third.

A statement in the Liber Eliensis (II, lxxxviii), probably copied from one part of the original document, that the will of Leofflæd, daughter of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth, was issued as a triple chirograph. iii. Nu sinden þise write þre. on is mid þise kinges halidome. and oþer at seynt Eadmunde. 7 þridde mid Leofgiue seluen.45 ‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

Now there are three of these writings: one is with the king’s relics; and the second is at St Edmund’s [abbey]; and the third is with Leofgifu herself.

A statement, copied into two Bury St Edmunds cartularies from one part of the original document, that the will of Leofgifu was issued as a triple chirograph. iv. Ut igitur hoc totum apud generationem nascituram robur solidum et perpetuam obtineret firmitatem. decrevit rex omnia, ordine quo gesta sunt vel relata, literis Anglicis ad monimentum futurorum declarari, ejusdemque scripti medietatem in gazophilacio, ubi quæcunque habebat 40 41 42

43 44 45

Francis Wormald, ‘The Sherborne “Chartulary”’, in Fritz Saxl 1890–1948, ed. Donald James Gordon (London, 1957), pp. 101–19, at 106–7. S 939: 995×999. My translation, as with the other documents quoted here. See below, p. 194; Nicholas Brooks, ‘Treason in Essex in the 990s: the case of Ætheric of Bocking’, in Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Brian W. Schneider (Oxford, forthcoming 2013), pp. 17–27. Canterbury, Dean and Chapter Library, Chart. Ant. B 1 (O.S. Facs., i. 17); for edition, see Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930), no. 16(2). S 1520: 1017×1035 (12th cent.); Liber Eliensis, II, lxxxviii; Liber Eliensis, ed. Ernest Oscar Blake, Camden Soc., 3rd ser. 92 (London, 1962), pp. 157–8. S 1521: 1035×1044 (13th cent.); Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Whitelock, no. 29.



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præcipua et pretiosa erant reposita, ab Hugelino cubiculario suo diligenter conservari.46 Therefore, so that all of this might have solid strength and perpetual firmness with the generation to be born, the king decreed that all things, in the order in which they were done or reported, should be declared in English letters for the remembrance of those in the future, [and] that a half of the same writing should be carefully preserved by Hugelin the chamberlain in the treasury where he had several important items and where precious things were kept.

A statement in the Ramsey Chronicle, composed c. 1170, that a vernacular report was made of the Council of Rheims and written as a double chirograph. v. Nu syndon þisse gewrita. þreo. an is mid þæs kyngces haligdome. 7 oðer is mid Leofrice eorle. 7 þ’ þridde is mid þam b[isceop]e. on ða halgan stowe.47 ‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

Now there are three of these writings: one is with the king’s relics; the second is with Earl Leofric; and the third is with the bishop in the holy place/church.

A statement, copied into the Eynsham cartulary, that the agreement between Bishop Wulfwig of Dorchester, Earl Leofric and his wife Godgifu about the endowment of the secular minster of Stow St Mary, Lincolnshire, was in the form of a triple chirograph. vi. In hæc vota coram rege partes alterutræ convenerunt, et sub multorum testimonio hoc inter se fœdus facto triplici cyrographo firmaverunt; una pars scripti, jubente rege, in ejus capella cum reliquiis quas habebat sanctorum remansit, alteram comes, tertiam vero fratres apud se in pignus securitatis retinuerunt.48 For these purposes, both parties gathered in the presence of the king and a triple chirograph having been made they confirmed this agreement between them in the witness of many people. On the orders of the king, one part of the writing remained in his chapel with the saints’ relics which he had; the earl had the second [part]; and the brothers kept the third with themselves as a pledge of security.

A statement in the Ramsey Chronicle, composed c. 1170, that the exchange of lands between Ramsey Abbey and Earl Ralph of Hereford was issued as a triple chirograph.

46 47 48

Ramsey Chronicle, 1049 (14th cent.). See below, p. 194. This instance of diplomatic reporting is not noticed by Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record. S 1478: 1053×1055 (12th cent.); Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Agnes Jane Robertson (Cambridge, 1939), no. 115. Ramsey Chronicle, 1050×1056 (14th cent.); Chronicon abbatiæ Rameseiensis, ed. Macray, p. 172.

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vii. [spurious] Et harum breuium tria sunt. Unum in ecclesia cristi. alterum in monasterio sancti Augustini & tertium in thesauro regis cum reliquiis sanctorum.

And þissera geƿrita synd þreo an is innon cristes cyrcean. 7. oðer æt s[an] c[t]e Augustine. 7 þ[æt] þridde is inne. mid þæs kynges haligdome.49 ‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

‫‏‬

And there are three of these writings: one is in Christ Church [Canterbury], and the second [is] at St Augustine’s, Canterbury, and the third is in with the king’s relics.

A statement that a (bilingual) memorandum alleging that King Cnut confirmed the reversion of Folkestone, Kent, to Christ Church, Canterbury, was issued as a triple chirograph. Most of these texts show the king acting as a neutral ‘third party’ to agreements, providing a place of safe deposit for one part of the memorial chirograph, but two may reflect a desire to retain, for future royal use, copies of texts containing material important to the crown. No. (i) above, S 939, recorded a significant decision made by King Æthelred and his counsellors at an important meeting held at Cookham, Berkshire, between 995 and 999, regarding the implementation of bequests made under the will of an individual regarded as a traitor. The testator, Æthelric of Bocking, was said to have aided an enemy fleet which had come earlier in the reign (? in 991) to Essex under Swein, probably the Danish king, Swein Forkbeard.50 Normally the land (and life) of a traitor such as Æthelric would have been forfeit to the king,51 but in this case estates had been already promised by the will to Christ Church, Canterbury and other churches, so a matter of principle was at stake and it was decided in the beneficiaries’ favour. As the decision might later have been cited as a precedent in another dispute, it was prudent of the king to keep a record of it with his hāligdōm. The other document (iv, above) was a specially-composed vernacular record, now lost, of proceedings at the Council of Rheims, which began on 3 October 1049 and was presided over by Pope Leo IX. This important reforming council had been attended from England by Bishop Duduc of Wells and Abbots Ælfwine of Ramsey and Wulfric of St Augustine’s, Canterbury. The council discussed many current issues facing the Church, including simony, the oppression of the poor, and incestuous marriage.52 The latter was perhaps of greater interest to Edward the Confessor, as the Council was made the occasion for the issue of a papal prohibition on the intended marriage of Duke William of Normandy to 49 50 51 52

S 981: ‘A.D. 1032’ (late 11th cent.); BL Stowe Charter 40; O. S. Facs., iii. 41; for an edition of the vernacular part, see Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, no. 85. EHD 2nd ed., p. 535. Ian Howard, Swein Forkbeard’s Invasions and the Danish Conquest of England, 991–1017 (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 36–7. Laws of Alfred, ch. 4, see EHD 2nd ed., p. 410. Carl Joseph von Hefele and Henri Leclercq, Histoire des conciles d’après les documents originaux, 11 vols. (Paris, 1907–52), iv, pt 2, pp. 1011–28; Councils and Synods, no. 69.



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Matilda the daughter of the count of Flanders. This marriage, which went ahead nevertheless in about 1050 or 1051,53 was of relevance not only to Edward’s immediate foreign policy in relation to a firm alliance between these two continental maritime powers, but also to his thoughts about the succession to his throne.54 The deposit of documents with the king’s relics or treasure would have required the involvement of the royal chaplains and/or the chamberlain (Latin cubicularius, OE burþegn) such as Hugelin, mentioned in 1049 (iv, above).55 However, earlier on in the tenth century, records were sometimes entrusted for safekeeping to an exceptionally trusted adviser who was not in permanent attendance on the king. King Eadred (946–55) is said to have committed documents and valuable objects to Abbot Dunstan of Glastonbury: ‫‏‬

… commisit illi rex optima quæque suorum suppellectilium, quamplures scilicet rurales cartulas, etiam veteres præcedentium regum thesauros, necnon et diversas propriæ adeptionis suæ gazas, sub munimine monasterii sui fideliter custodiendum.56 … the king entrusted to him, for keeping faithfully in the enclosure of his monastery, all the best of his personal property, that is many estatecharters, also the old treasures of preceding kings, and diverse precious objects of his own acquisition.

Eadred deposited at the abbey all his most important personal property, that is estate-charters and heirlooms, as well as various treasures that he had acquired himself. However the entrusting of documents to others could sometimes prove to be less than satisfactory if the custodian turned out to be unfaithful. We may note the reference made by King Edgar to his grandmother Eadgifu (the widow of King Edward the Elder) having previously entrusted her diploma concerning East Meon, Hampshire, to him before he became king.57 The diploma had been lost due to his own carelessness or because the infidelis to whom he had unwisely entrusted it had hidden it: … sed per tumultuantis uitę incuriam eam perdidi. uel infideli qui eam cęlat ignoranter ad custodiendum commendaui. … but I lost it through the carelessness of [my] restless life as I foolishly entrusted it to be kept by an unfaithful person who hid it. 53

54 55 56

57

Handbook of British Chronology, 3rd ed., ed. Edmund Boleslaw Fryde, Diana Eleanor Greenway, Stephen Porter, and Ian Roy, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 2 (London, 1986), p. 34. Frank Barlow, Edward the Confessor (London, 1970), pp. 103–4; and The English Church 1000–1066, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), pp. 301–2. Barlow, English Church, pp. 120–4. B, Vita Dunstani, §19; Memorials of Saint Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series 63 (London, 1874), p. 29. Cf. Lesley Abrams, Anglo-Saxon Glastonbury: church and endowment (Woodbridge, 1996), p. 345. S 811; BL Add. 15350, fols. 35v–36r, at fol. 35v: 959×963 (?959).

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Even documents which had the king as beneficiary could go missing in a short period of time. A grant of Long Sutton, Hampshire, to King Edgar made 973×975 by Æthelberht a reeve (economus) had been lost or stolen by 979 in the reign of his son Æthelred, according to S 835.58

The Survival of Royal Archives at Winchester after 1066 A case can thus be made for the existence of local royal archive-repositories in various Anglo-Saxon administrative centres, while references also exist to the preservation of records for the king’s more personal use. There is, however, no reason to accept the existence of a sophisticated central registry of land title, of the sort envisaged by Cyril Hart, into which copies of all diplomas granted were deposited.59 This suggestion did not take into consideration the essential role of the royal diploma as a unique and symbolic record of legal title given only to those privileged to own bookland.60 It was based on a misinterpretation of the provenance of several pre-Conquest documents copied into the Winchester Cathedral cartulary, now known as the Codex Wintoniensis, relating to ‘alien’ estates, that is those of which there is no record of Winchester Cathedral ever having held. It was put forward by Hart in 1970 as a considerable elaboration of a suggestion by H. P. R. Finberg in 1961, in The Early Charters of the West Midlands, that all of the documents in the Codex relating to alien estates had been taken from the royal archives.61 Alternative explanations for the availability of some of these for inclusion in the cartulary are however possible.62 These include, as Nicholas Brooks noted in 1974, the pre-Conquest deposit of various family archives for safekeeping at Winchester Cathedral.63 Another cause might be the actual (but now unrecorded) tenure of certain of the estates concerned by the cathedral at some point and a subsequent agreed alienation of them which included surrender of most title-deeds, but not all.64 It is possible, however, that the presence of a few documents in the cartulary or the cathedral archive may be due to some poaching of records from a royal archive of a more limited sort than that envisaged by Hart, one that may have survived at the royal palace in Winchester into the first part of the twelfth 58 59 60 61 62

63 64

BL Add. 15350, fol. 114. As above, n. 1. As above, n. 22. Herbert Patrick Reginald Finberg, The Early Charters of the West Midlands, 2nd ed. (Leicester, 1972), p. 22. Alexander R. Rumble, ‘The structure and reliability of the Codex Wintoniensis (British Museum Additional MS 15350; the Cartulary of Winchester Cathedral Priory)’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of London, 1980), 2 vols., I, pp. 147–74. Nicholas Brooks, ‘Anglo-Saxon charters: the work of the last twenty years’, ASE 3 (1974), 211–31, at 228. Compare the group of diplomas in the Abingdon archive relating to apparently alien estates, discussed in Charters of Abingdon Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly, 2 vols., AS Charters 7–8 (Oxford, 2000), pp. cxl–cliii.



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century. Such documents could easily have been removed on the orders of the Norman Bishop Henry of Blois, for the benefit of his cathedral church there, by 1138 when he was in possession of, and probably inhabited, the immediately adjacent royal palace site.65 The royal treasury had moved to the castle by at least 1135,66 but the palace itself was not destroyed until 2 August 1141 when it, and many other buildings in the city, were burnt during the civil war between Henry’s brother King Stephen and their cousin the Empress Matilda.67 Had a stray box of Anglo-Saxon charters been discovered in the palace by Bishop Henry or his agents, at a time when a cartulary record of the pre-Conquest endowment of the cathedral was being constructed at his instigation, it is highly likely that he would have at least ordered them to be studied for possible relevance to the cartulary.68 Documents thought to be of potential significance could possibly have been removed to the cathedral. These could have included one of the chirograph copies of the will of the ætheling Athelstan (S 1503), of which two were included in the part of the Codex copied 1129×1139;69 also S 715, copied at the same time.70 The text of S 281, copied into the Codex in the mid twelfth century, could also have been obtained from the royal palace at this time.71 Two other diplomas (S 298 and 738),72 whose estates had royal connections and both of which were later in the cathedral archive,73 survive as original single-sheets but were not copied into the Codex. This could have been because they were eventually deemed not relevant to the cathedral endowment, as indeed they seem not to be, both concerning alien estates (although Sawyer 298, the grant by King Æthelwulf to himself, related to the South Hams, Devon, which has the same onomastic origin, from simplex OE hamm, as the cathedral estate of Ham, Wiltshire, and could have been confused with it).74 Sawyer 738 concerned Newnham Murren, Oxfordshire, which was later bequeathed by its beneficiary Ælfgifu (probably the divorced wife of King Eadwig) in 966×975 to the ætheling Edward (later King Edward the Martyr);75 one would have expected this diploma to have been handed over with the estate on Ælfgifu’s death and then placed in the royal archive.

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

74 75

Winchester in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Martin Biddle, pp. 296–302, 326. Winchester in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Biddle, pp. 290–2, 295, 304–5. Winchester in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Biddle, pp. 304, 297–301, 324–6. Alexander R. Rumble, ‘The purposes of the Codex Wintoniensis’, ANS 4 (1981), 153–66, 224–32, at 162–4. BL Add. 15350, fols. 43v–44r and 50r–v. BL Add. 15350, fol. 84r–v. BL Add. 15350, fol.113r–v. See below. Respectively: BL Cotton Charter viii. 36 and Harley Charter 43 C. 5 (B. M. Facs. ii. 30 and iii. 27). S 738 was transcribed (and endorsed) by Sir Simonds D’Ewes at the cathedral in 1640, see BL Harley MS. 596, fols. 17v–18v. S 298 was endorsed by the cathedral clerk John Chase in the mid seventeenth century. In the body of the diploma the estate is called OM HOMME, but there is a tenth-century endorsement To Hamme. See S 1484; Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Whitelock, no. 8.

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S 281, copied into the Codex Wintoniensis in the mid twelfth century, was an agreement between Kings Egbert and Æthelwulf on the one hand and the bishop of Winchester on the other, of which one copy was to be kept cum hereditatis eorum scripturis, ‘with the writings of their inheritance’, i.e. with the diplomas belonging to (this branch of) the royal family, and the second with the muniments of the bishop’s church.76 It is at least possible that the exemplar of the cartulary text was the royal copy rather than the bishop’s. S 715 was the diploma, copied into the Codex in 1129×1139, by which King Edgar granted Patney in Wiltshire to himself.77 While it may be that it was acquired as part of the back-title to the estate which the cathedral had probably acquired by 1047×1053,78 it is also possible that, because its original beneficiary had been the king, it had remained in the royal archive until removed on the orders of Henry of Blois.

Conclusion The totality of the Norman takeover of secular landholding in England after 1066 and the usual practice of all later landholders (both ecclesiastical and secular) of merely having to prove their title back to the reign of William I (1066–87) led to the general medieval disuse of Anglo-Saxon documentation. The replacement by the Normans of Old English by Latin as the language for administrative record-keeping in England (writs being issued in Latin from 1070) would also have led to a substantial devaluation of earlier vernacular written evidence and eventually its loss from lack of care.79 From this loss (aided by the considerable legal and social status given to Domesday Book)80 grew a common myth that a consistent policy of preserving public records in England owed its origin to Norman rather than Anglo-Saxon administrators.81 However, 76 77 78 79

80 81

See above, p. 190. As above, n. 70. S 1403; Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, no. 107. Cf. Vivian Hunter Galbraith, Domesday Book and Its Place in Administrative History (Oxford, 1974), p. 29: ‘the change-over to Latin must have led to the neglect and eventual destruction of great quantities of Anglo-Saxon archives’. Roffe, Domesday: the inquest and the book, discusses the ‘mystique’ of Domesday Book and refers (p. 6) to its ‘extraordinary talismanic status’ in the medieval period. The official view is that Great and Little Domesday Book are classed as ‘the oldest of the public records’ (see Guide to the Contents of the Public Record Office, 2 vols. (London, 1963), I, p. 111); this is however a legal definition in that they owe their authority to never having been out of official custody. More accurately, Domesday Book is described as ‘our earliest public record to survive’ by Elizabeth M. Hallam, ‘Nine centuries of keeping the public records’, in The Records of the Nation: the Public Record Office 1838– 1938, The British Record Society, 1888–1988, ed. G. H. Martin and Peter Spufford, The British Record Society (Woodbridge, 1990), pp. 23–42, at 24. It is notable also that the Domesday scholar V. H. Galbraith took a more reasoned view of the extent of AngloSaxon record-keeping in ‘The beginnings of the public records’, in Studies in the Public Records (London, 1948), pp. 26–55, at 37–41, e.g. (38), ‘We are perhaps in danger of



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most early medievalists would now agree that this myth cannot be sustained given the bureaucratic needs (pace Michael Clanchy) of an ordered state and an organized economy such as we know from various categories of evidence, including numismatics and urban archaeology, existed in late Anglo-Saxon England. We know also that other early medieval states on the Continent, such as Francia or Lombardy, had archives associated with royal palaces,82 so there is no reason to suppose that the Anglo-Saxon kings did not likewise preserve certain documents in their own residences. Fortunately, we do not have to argue from complete silence on the question of Anglo-Saxon royal archives since, as I hope to have demonstrated, fragmentary though it be, enough written evidence survives to reflect a pragmatic recordkeeping mentality amongst royal officials and advisers within England before 1066, relating not only to matters of general administration but also to matters of state policy and to the personal landholding of the royal families.

82

being misled if we confine ourselves “scientifically” to surviving evidence. For once, perhaps, we should reconstruct a larger vanished past from these fragments.’. Herbert Zielinski, ‘The transmission of Lombard documents (to 774)’, in Charters, Cartularies, and Archives: the preservation and transmission of documents in the medieval West, proceedings of a colloquium of the Commission Internationale de Diplomatique (Princeton and New York, 16–18 September 1999), ed. Adam J. Kosto and Anders Winroth, Papers in Mediaeval Studies 17 (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, 2002), pp. 32–42, at 35–6 and n. 13.

3 Naming and Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon Law CAROLE HOUGH1

Kings and Laws

T

hroughout most of the period from which documentary records survive, Anglo-Saxon kingship is closely associated with law-giving.2 The earliest text in Old English is the law-code issued by Æthelberht I of Kent (c. 580–616) towards the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century, inaugurating a tradition of written legislation which continued up until the eleventh.3 Other regional laws survive from the reigns of Æthelberht’s successors Hlothhere (673/4–685), Eadric (685–686) and Wihtred (691–725), and from that of the West Saxon king Ine (688–725/6). The first national law-code was issued by Alfred the Great (871–899) between 887 and 893, and was followed by further sets of laws in the names of Edward the Elder (c. 900–925), Athelstan (c. 925–939), Edmund (c. 939–946), Edgar (c. 959–963), Æthelred (c. 978–1014) and Cnut (c. 1020–1023). Not all were intended to be comprehensive. The later seventh-century Kentish laws were issued to supplement rather than to replace those of Æthelberht,4 and some of those dating from the tenth century are short sets of clauses addressing specific topics, supplementing the domboc compiled by Alfred.5 The legal corpus as a whole is characterized by repetition, with later 1

2

3

4 5

This paper was written during a period of research leave from the University of Glasgow between September 2005 and January 2006. I am grateful to the University of Glasgow for facilitating the research, and to my colleagues in the Department of English Language for their support. All references within this paper to law-codes or to clause numbers follow the system in the standard edition of the Anglo-Saxon laws, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. F. Liebermann, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–16). Quotations from laws extant in more than one manuscript are from the version preferred by Liebermann and printed in the left hand column of his edition. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, III, 2, dates Æthelberht’s code to c. 602/3, an estimate that has been widely but not universally accepted. The evidence is discussed in Carole Hough, ‘Legal and documentary writings’, in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (Oxford, 2001), pp. 170–87, at 171–3, where a revised dating of c. 599/600 is proposed. This is clear from the preamble to the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, discussed below. References to the laws of Alfred and of Ine within those of Edward the Elder, Æthelstan and Edgar make it clear that Alfred’s domboc was still in use (Simon Keynes, ‘Royal

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laws drawing on earlier ones, and contemporary codes borrowing from each other.6 This is important for many reasons, not least in leading to the successive recopying and hence preservation of texts which might otherwise have been lost.7 It also impacts on the link between naming and royal authority that will be explored within this paper. The total extent of legislative output is difficult to establish. Some law-codes have been lost, and are known only from allusions within other texts.8 Some are fragmentary;9 others may be composite in their extant form;10 and not all of those treated as royal codes by later scholarship actually belong within the

6

7

8

9 10

Government and the Written Word in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 226–57, at 233). Annette Hoff, ‘Law and landscape’, in Land, Sea and Home, ed. John Hines, Alan Lane and Mark Redknap (Leeds, 2004), pp. 433–42, at 438, is therefore incorrect in stating that ‘All of the Anglo-Saxon laws are linked to the name of a specific king, and thus probably were only valid law during his reign irrespective of how short it was’. For instance, some of Æthelred’s legislation was re-issued by Cnut in the eleventh century; and a clause relating to travellers appears in similar form in the late seventh-century laws of both Ine (ch. 20) and Wihtred (ch. 28). The Kentish laws are extant only in Rochester, Cathedral Library, A.3.5 (Textus Roffensis), dating from 1122–3. This and other twelfth-century compilations are also responsible for the survival of other pre-Conquest legislation. The laws of Ine are preserved only as an appendix to the domboc of Alfred the Great, who may or may not have edited the original text. For instance, Bede (HE, III.8) mentions laws issued by Eorcenberht of Kent (640–4) to enforce the Christian religion, and II Edward 5.2 refers to treaties relating to eastern and northern England. No trace of these remains. Laws issued by the Mercian king Offa (757–96), mentioned in the Preface to Alfred’s code (see below, pp. 205–6), also appear to have been lost, although an alternative possibility suggested by Patrick Wormald (‘Lex scripta and verbum regis: legislation and Germanic kingship, from Euric to Cnut’, in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Wood (Leeds, 1977), pp. 105–38, at 112 n.40; ‘In search of King Offa’s “Law Code”’, in People and Places in Northern Europe 500–1600: essays in honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer, ed. Ian Wood and Niels Lund (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 25–40, reprinted in Patrick Wormald, Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: law as text, image and experience (London, 1999), pp. 201–23) is that they did not comprise a vernacular code like those of Æthelberht and Ine, but may be represented by an extant Latin capitulary bearing some resemblance to laws of Alfred’s own. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (London, 1983), p. 305, comment: ‘On the other hand, it is also possible that Offa subsequently issued his own law-code, and that he drew for this purpose on the legates’ capitulary’. Examples include IX and X Æthelred. For instance, Keynes, ‘Royal government’, p. 235, points out that the texts known as II and VI Æthelstan ‘are clearly composite in their received form, combining material derived from texts of different type’; while Patrick Wormald, ‘“Inter cetera bona … genti suae”: law-making and peace-keeping in the earliest English kingdoms’, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’ alto Medioevo 42 (1995), 963–93 (reprinted in Wormald, Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West, pp. 179–99), at 977–83, suggests that the laws of Ine, preserved in the form of an appendix to those of Alfred but datable on internal evidence to 695, may comprise no less than six separate series of which the dating evidence applies only to the first. As discussed below (p. 206), the second series of Kentish laws survives in the joint names of Hlothhere and Eadric, but it is uncertain



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corpus.11 Even during the tenth and eleventh centuries, much legislation appears to have been issued orally, so that the written records may represent only the tip of the iceberg.12 For the earlier Anglo-Saxon period, we may have only the tip of the tip. The code issued by Æthelberht in response to the Roman mission led by Augustine is so coherent in structure and comprehensive in coverage as to suggest a codification of laws already in oral circulation, while parallels with continental Germanic legislation appear to reflect a long established legal tradition pre-dating the introduction of literacy.13 A major question surrounding this body of material is: What was it for? Were the Anglo-Saxon law-codes intended for practical use, or was their purpose primarily symbolic, representing what Wormald has described as ‘an aspiration on the part of kings and their advisers’?14 On the one hand, the sheer volume of legislative output, maintained over some five centuries, creates a strong impression that the laws were intended to be put into practice.15 On the other, the functional value of the codes is severely limited. With the exception of that of Æthelberht, they are not generally well structured;16 and even the great domboc

11

12

13 14 15

16

whether it was issued during a period of joint rulership, or represents a composite of laws originally issued separately by each king. Keynes, ‘Royal government’, p. 235, notes that ‘modern editors, for the sake of convenience, have branded a group of legislative texts from Æthelstan’s reign as (the Ordinance on Charities and) I–VI Æthelstan, implying that they constitute a sequence of royal codes, when in fact they are texts which differ substantially in origin, status and nature’. In particular, the text known as III Æthelstan ‘is not a royal code at all, but rather a report from the bishops and other councillors in Kent back to the king (who is addressed in the second person), thanking him for his guidance and informing him of the measures which they have taken for the maintenance of the peace’ (‘Royal government’, p. 238). See for instance C. P. Wormald, ‘The uses of literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and its neighbours’, TRHS, 5th ser. 27 (1977), 95–114, at 112: ‘even in later Anglo-Saxon England, formal royal law-making may have remained oral, and our texts may be more in the nature of ecclesiastical records of decisions taken than legislative acts in themselves’. The issues are discussed by J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford, 1971), pp. 33–9. Wormald, ‘The uses of literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and its neighbours’, 125. Regarding Alfred’s code, for instance, Keynes, ‘Royal government’, pp. 231–2, comments: ‘while there can be little doubt that a degree of political ideology lies behind its production, it is difficult not to believe that it was intended to serve a practical purpose as well’. An outstanding example is Ine’s code, described as ‘much the least organized post-Roman legal statement’ by Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the twelfth century. Volume 1. Legislation and its limits (Oxford, 1999), p. 104, who notes: ‘An opening set of clauses on the Church’s law and on affronts to the king’s peace, closely paralleled in contemporary Kentish legislation, leads into the first of five or more distinct pronouncements on theft, each separated from the next by a minimum of six laws on other topics. This is followed by the first of four or more sets of laws on the relationships and wergelds of English and “Welsh”. Later in the code, there are decrees on the responsibilities of the gesith which are displaced by a dozen or so others (featuring yet again theft and English-“Welsh” disputes) from further laws about gesith obligations. A number of these clauses repeat the very words of what had already been said: “if a ceorl has been often charged and is at last caught out (gefongen), his hand or foot is to be struck off”; “the cierlisc mon who has been often accused of theft and is at last caught (gefo) as guilty in the ordeal or in open guilt, his hand or foot is to be struck off”.’

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issued by Alfred would have been difficult to apply, with different penalties given for the same offences in his own laws and in the appended laws of Ine,17 and with the symbolic number of 120 chapters achieved at the cost of arbitrary grouping of subject matter.18 Moreover, the lack of recourse to written law in surviving records of case-law appears to support the view that the practical use of the law-codes may have been secondary to their function in reinforcing the role of the king as head of state and keeper of the peace.19 This was a role that changed significantly over the course of time. Discussing the seventh-century laws, Wormald draws attention to an increasingly pro-active 17

18

19

For instance, Alfred 12 stipulates 5 shillings for each large tree burned or felled, plus a fine of 30 shillings, while Ine 43 and 44 stipulate 60 shillings for burning a tree, 30 shillings for felling each of up to three trees, and 60 shillings for felling a tree large enough to shelter 30 pigs. Alfred 40 stipulates 60 shillings for breaking into the premises of a bishop or ealdorman, while Ine 45 gives the amounts as 120 shillings and 80 shillings respectively. According to Ine 39, a man who moves to a new district without permission is obliged both to return and to pay his lord 60 shillings, while according to Alfred 37, 60 shillings is paid by his new master to the lords of each of the two districts. It is interesting to note that Hoff identifies similar inconsistencies within individual compilations of Danish law, including clauses on the fencing of fields ‘in accordance with two different land-valuation systems that could not both have been in use in the same village at the same date’ (‘Law and landscape’, p. 434). The significance of the number 120, the age of Moses at his death and the number of disciples descended upon by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, is discussed by Wormald, ‘Lex scripta and verbum regis’, at p. 132. Wormald, ‘Lex scripta and verbum regis’, p. 122, writes: ‘I have (I hope) read all the Anglo-Saxon charters recording judicial decisions, and even on matters of criminal law where written law might have helped there is not a single direct reference to, still less a quotation from, the extant texts’. On the other hand, Keynes, ‘Royal government’, p. 243, argues that the reason the written laws are not cited is because their role was secondary to that of oral pronouncements: ‘It is perfectly true that there is no recorded instance of a royal law-code cited by chapter and verse, but should we necessarily expect there to be so? What counted, indeed, was the king’s oral decree; and it was the function of the tenth-century law-codes to assist in the process of bringing knowledge of the king’s decrees into the localities, not to provide a permanent frame of reference’. The corpus of case-law is established by Patrick Wormald, ‘A handlist of Anglo-Saxon lawsuits’, ASE 17 (1988), 247–81. The main sources are charters and notitiae, Domesday Book, cartulary-chronicles and gesta and miracula, and it should be noted that some of the lawsuits are known only from the briefest of allusions, which give no information as to whether or not legal texts were in fact consulted. For instance, case no. 53 (S 1453) relates to a ‘forfeiture to Archbishop Osketel of York by two brothers who had one wife’. The only details of the case are contained within a charter concerning estates of the see of York, which states: 7 æt Heolperbi him wæs gegolden for unrihtan hæmede wæron twegen gebroþra hæfdon an wif ‘and Helperby was given him [Oscytel] because of an illicit union – there were two brothers who had one wife’ (Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A. J. Robertson, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 111–13, at 112–13, no. 44). Even less is known about the forfeiture comprising case no. 88 (S 1229). This is mentioned within a grant of an estate recording that the present owner had received it from Cnut þa Ælfric se þegen hit hæfde forworht þan cyninge to handan ‘when the thegn Ælfric had forfeited it to the king’ (Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, pp. 182–3, no. 96). In instances such as these, the absence of references to written law is a matter of absence of evidence, not evidence of absence.



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royal involvement in justice and in the exaction of financial and other penalties, paralleled by a growing emphasis on personal responsibility both through the use of first person pronouns and through the naming of rulers in the prologues or preambles to their laws.20 Whereas Æthelberht’s code is anonymous, and is attributed to him on the basis of a reference by Bede (HE ii.5)21 and a rubric probably composed by the compiler of the only extant manuscript, the twelfthcentury Textus Roffensis,22 later laws stand in the names of individual kings. The heading to the second series of Kentish legislation, Þis syndon þa domas ðe Hloþhære 7 Eadric, Cantwara cyningas, asetton23 ‘These are the laws which Hlothhere and Eadric, kings of the people of Kent, established’, is again a later addition,24 but here there is a preamble which appears to be original, and which reads as follows: Hloþhære 7 Eadric Cantawara cyningas ecton þa ǽ, þa ðe heora aldoras ær geworhton, ðyssum domum þe hyr efter sægeþ.25 Hlothhere and Eadric, kings of the people of Kent, augmented the laws, which their predecessors had made, by these decrees which are stated hereafter.

Prologues to the laws of Wihtred and of Ine also name the rulers directly, while the famous section 49,9 of the lengthy Preface to Alfred’s domboc begins Ic ða Ælfred cyning ‘I then, King Alfred’: 49,9. Ic ða Ælfred cyning þás togædere gegaderode 7 awritan het, monege þara þe ure foregengan heoldon, ða ðe me licodon; 7 manege þara þe me ne licodon ic áwearp mid minra witena geðeahte, 7 on oðre wisan bebead to healdanne. Forðam ic ne dorste geðristlæcan þara minra awuht fela on gewrit settan, forðam me wæs uncuð, hwæt þæs ðam lician wolde ðe æfter ús wæren. Ac ða ðe ic gemette awðer oððe on Ines dæge, mines mæges, oððe on Offan Mercna cyninges oððe on Æþelbryhtes, þe ærest fulluhte onfeng on Angelcynne, þa ðe me ryhtoste ðuhton, ic þa heron gegaderode, 7 þa oðre forlét.26 49,9. I then, King Alfred, gathered these together and ordered to be written many that pleased me of those which our forefathers kept; and I rejected many of those that did not please me with the advice of my councillors, and ordered them to be kept in a different way. I did not dare presume to set in writing many at all of my own, because I did not know what would please those who should come after us. But I collected herein those that I found which seemed to me most just, either from the time of my kinsman Ine, or of Offa, king of 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

‘“Inter cetera bona ... genti suae”’, 983–7. HE: ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969). Carole Hough, ‘Palaeographical evidence for the compilation of Textus Roffensis’, Scriptorium 55 (2001), 57–79, at 70–1. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 9. As with the rubric to Æthelberht’s code, Liebermann (Gesetze, III, 3) dated this to between the eighth and eleventh centuries, but there is reason to believe that it was composed by the Textus Roffensis scribe (Hough, ‘Palaeographical evidence’, 70–1). Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 9. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 46.

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the Mercians, or of Æthelberht, who first received baptism among the English, and I omitted the others.

Both of these passages have been much discussed. As regards the first, attention has focused on whether the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric were promulgated jointly during a period of combined rule, or if the extant series represents a compilation of edicts issued separately by each king.27 As regards the second, sustained attempts have been made to establish the truth of Alfred’s claim to have drawn on the laws of Æthelberht, Ine and Offa, and to identify any relevant clauses within his code.28 In the effort to resolve these difficulties, however, an equally fundamental point may have been overlooked. The fact that the division of responsibility between the two Kentish kings is unclear may suggest that it was not considered important. The same inference may be drawn from the fact that laws from different sources are identified neither in Alfred’s Preface nor in the main body of his legislation.29 Alfred’s concern was to situate himself within the tradition of law-giving represented by Æthelberht, Ine and Offa, not to privilege individual clauses above others.30 It is also notable that the naming of kings in the introductions and prologues to the post-Æthelberhtian codes is not paralleled within the laws themselves. The word cyning ‘king’, with its variants and compounds, occurs more than 200 times within the extant legislation.31 Many references are to forfeitures and fines due to the king, but in almost no instance is the king identified by name. Even where the law is written in the first person, references to forfeitures to the crown are in the third person. An example is II Cnut 69: 69. Þis is þonne seo lihtingc, þe ic wylle eallon folce gebeorgan, þe hig ær þyson mid gedrehte wæran ealles to swyðe.

27

28

29 30

31

Barbara A. E. Yorke, ‘Joint kingship in Kent c. 560 to 785’, Archæologia Cantiana 99 (1983), 1–19, at 7, takes the laws to have been issued jointly, while Lisi Oliver, The Beginnings of English Law (Toronto, 2002), p. 120, notes that ‘it is possible that what remains to us actually represents a conflation of laws separately issued by the two kings, or that Eadric may have confirmed the laws of his uncle in an attempt to shore up his own tenuous hold on the kingship’. Palaeographical evidence supporting the theory that the laws were originally issued separately is discussed in Carole Hough, ‘Numbers in manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon law’, in Writing and Texts in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Alexander R. Rumble (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 114–36. As regards Offa’s code, see for instance references cited by Wormald, ‘In search of King Offa’s “Law Code”’, pp. 27–8). It is generally accepted that the personal injury tariff (Alfred 44–77) was inspired by Æthelberht, but as Wormald, The Making of English Law, p. 279 observes, ‘no single law of Alfred’s was an unaltered rehearsal of one of Æthelberht’s or Ine’s’. Even the text of Ine’s laws preserved as an appendix to Alfred’s domboc is integrated with his own code to the extent that chapters are numbered consecutively throughout. Indeed, it may be significant in light of the argument to be presented in this paper that Alfred does not actually attribute the laws to Æthelberht, Ine and Offa. Instead he describes them as on dæge ‘from the time’ of these kings. This is a conservative estimate and does not include occurrences within rubrics, many of which are not original.



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69,1. Þæt is þonne ærest, þæt ic bebeode eallum minan gerefan, þæt hi on minan agenan me rihtlice tilian 7 me mid þam feormian, 7 þæt him nan man ne þearf to feormfultume na þingc syllan, butan he sylf wylle. 69,2. 7 gif hwa æfter ðam wite crafige, beo he his weres scyldig wið þone cingc.32 69. This is then the mitigation, through which I wish to protect all the people, from what before this they have been oppressed with all too greatly. 69,1. That is the first, that I command all my reeves, that they lawfully provide for me from what is my own, and support me from that, and that no one need give anything to them for my support, unless he himself wishes to. 69,2. And if after this anyone demands a fine, he is to forfeit his wergild to the king.

This is absolutely consistent throughout the five centuries of Anglo-Saxon lawgiving for which we have records. In the entire body of extant legislation, I have been able to find only one clause where the king is identified personally by name as the recipient of compensation. This is VI Æthelstan 11, which states: 11. Endlyfte, þæt Æþelstan béot his bisceopum 7 his ealdormannum 7 his gerefum eallum ofer ealne minne ánweald, þæt ge þone frið swa healdan swa ic hine gerǽdd habbe 7 mine witan. Gif eower hwilc forgymeleasað 7 me hyran nelle 7 þæt wedd æt his hyremannum níman nelle 7 he geþafað þa dyrnan geþingo 7 emban þa stéoran swa beon nelle, swa ic beboden hæbbe, 7 on urum gewritum stent, þonne beo se gefera buton his folgoðe 7 buton minum freondscipe 7 gesylle me CXX scll’, 7 be healfum þam ælc minra þegna, þe gelandod sy 7 þa stéore swa healdan nelle, swa ic beboden habbe.33 11. Eleventh, that Æthelstan commands his bishops and his aldormen and all his reeves over all my dominion, that you keep the peace as I and my counsellors have established it. If any of you is negligent and will not obey me, and will not accept the pledge from his inferiors, and consents to secret agreements and will not be concerned with the regulations, as I have commanded, and as it stands in our writings, then the reeve is to be deprived of his office and of my friendship and is to give me 120 shillings, and half that amount each of my thanes, who holds land and will not keep the regulations, as I have commanded.

Significantly, however, VI Æthelstan is an anomalous and composite code, of which ch. 11 is identified by Keynes as ‘a royal order directed to the officials of the shire-courts’.34 It does not therefore impact on the present argument. The question, then, is why the royal codes consistently refer to the king by office rather than by name. One possible answer is that the law existed independ­ently of the kings who purported to issue it. We have already seen that legislation was expected to outlast individual reigns, with the codes of both 32 33 34

Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 356. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 182. Keynes, ‘Royal government’, p. 240. The so-called ‘code’ is analysed in detail by Keynes, ibid., pp. 235–40.

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Æthelberht and Alfred continuing in use after their lifetimes, and later laws drawing on and even repeating earlier ones. While it was important in terms of royal authority for the king to adopt the role of law-giver, this need not involve the creation of new legislation. It might of course do so – there are certainly instances where, as Wormald points out, the king appears to be ‘making law in response to individual cases’35 – but these are the exception rather than the rule.36 The same ideological purpose could be served by appropriating to himself some part or parts of the existing body of legal material. It seems to me that previous discussions of Anglo-Saxon law have tended implicitly to make two conflations. Firstly, the king responsible for issuing laws has been conflated with the king referred to within those laws. As we have seen, there is a lexical distinction between the king as law-giver, who is characteristically named in the prologue or preamble to his code and who sometimes legislates in the first person, and the king as recipient of fines or compensation, who is almost invariably referred to by the generic term cyning. While the sheer number of references to the king within the extant texts demonstrates the central part played by the office of kingship within the legal system, this may be separated out from the identity of the king of the day. Secondly, the act of issuing the law has been conflated with the content of the legislation. It has thus appeared to follow that if the reason for issuing a law-code was ideological, the laws within it were symbolic rather than functional. This may have led to much of the uncertainty surrounding the purpose of Anglo-Saxon legislation. Once we differentiate between the act of law-giving and the body of law, the possibility arises that conclusions relating to one need not impact on the other. Even internal inconsistencies within compilations such as Alfred’s domboc may indicate only that these compilations were not drawn up with a view to functionality, not that the laws within them were unusable. The question of whether or not they were actually applied remains open. An argument in favour of the laws being intended for practical use is the financial advantage afforded to the king and his officials. In many instances, the king is explicitly identified as the recipient of payments; in others, he is implicitly so.37 Overall they reflect an enormous potential for kings to benefit from their involvement in the judicial system. As Wormald points out, ‘The escalation of their capacity to take fines and other judicial profits may have had the same sort of effect on royal revenue as the increasing opportunity to exploit trade which arose from commercial growth.’38 It therefore seems all the more strange that there is so little documentary evidence of the laws being put into practice. 35 36

37 38

‘“Inter cetera bona ... genti suae”’, 982. It is notoriously difficult to distinguish between old and new law in the Anglo-Saxon codes, where the value placed on tradition may even lead to innovative legislation being presented as established custom. As has often been pointed out, Wihtred 5 refers to ald reht ‘ancient right’ within a clause aimed at enforcing the values of the new Christian religion. Examples of both types from the seventh-century laws are discussed by Wormald, ‘“Inter cetera bona … genti suae”’, 984–6. ‘“Inter cetera bona … genti suae”’, 987.



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Penalties and Forfeitures I should like to suggest that such evidence may exist, but that we need to look beyond the documentary record in order to find it. The surviving records of case-law are, after all, not only highly selective but – like so much of the documentary evidence from Anglo-Saxon England – primarily concerned with the upper classes. One reason the law-codes are so important is that they offer rare and valuable insights into the lives of the lower ranks of society. Æthelberht’s code, for instance, deals in descending order with the king, the aristocracy, freemen, servants and slaves, with substantial coverage given to women. Many of the sums involved as penalties here and in later laws are simply too small to feature in records of case-law. It is not unusual to find references to pennies and sceattas alongside shillings, as in the final section of the personal injury tariff in Æthelberht 33–72: 70. Gif seo micle ta of weorðeþ, X scll’ forgelden. 71. Æt þam oðrum taum gehwilcum healf gelde, ealswa æt þam fingrum ys cwiden. 72. Gif þare mycclan taan nægl of weorþeð, XXX scætta to bote. 72,1. Æt þam oþrum gehwilcum X scættas gebete.39 70. If the big toe is struck off, 10 shillings is to be paid as compensation. 71. For each of the other toes, half as much is to be paid as already stated for the fingers.40 72. If the big toe nail is struck off, 30 scættas is to be paid as compensation. 72,1. For each of the others, 10 scættas is to be paid as compensation.

A documentary record of the forfeiture of such sums as these would have been worth less than the parchment it was written on. It is also important to bear in mind that the fines and other profits due to the king and his officials may not have been paid in money. Laws such as Æthelberht 9 show that penalties could involve forfeiture of goods or property rather than money: 9. Gif frigman freum stelþ, III gebete, 7 cyning age þæt wite 7 ealle þa æhtan.41 9. If a freeman steals from a freeman, he is to pay three-fold compensation, and the king is to have the fine and all the goods.42

So too, Wihtred 12 reads:

39 40 41 42

Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 7. Fingers were worth between four and eleven shillings according to Æthelberht 54. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 3. It is uncertain whether the second 7 means ‘and’ or ‘or’.

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12. Gif ceorl buton wifes wisdome deoflum gelde, he sie ealra his æhtan scyldig 7 healsfange. Gif butwu deoflum geldaþ, sion hio healsfange scyldige 7 ealra æhtan.43 12. If a freeman makes offerings to devils without his wife’s knowledge, he is to forfeit all his goods and his healsfang; if both make offerings to devils, they are both to forfeit their healsfang, and all their goods.44

Some 300 years later, VI Æthelred 35 specifies forfeiture of property for desertion: 35. 7 gif hwa of fyrde butan leafe gewende, þe cyning [sylf on] sy, plihte his are.45 35. And if anyone deserts an army without permission, the king himself being present, he is to forfeit his property.

The same punishment, augmented by outlawry and excommunication, is prescribed for marrying a nun in chapters 16 and 17 of Cnut’s Proclamation of 1020, where again a law written in the first person uses the third person to identify the king as recipient: 16. 7 eac we beodað on Godes ælmihtiges naman 7 on ealra his haligra, þæt nan man swa dyrstig ne sy, þæt on gehadodre nunnan oððe on mynecenan gewifige; 17. 7 gyf hit hwa gedon hæbbe, beo he utlah wið God 7 amansumod fram eallum Cristendome 7 wið þone cyning scyldig ealles þæs þe he age, buton he ðe raðor geswice 7 þe deopplicor gebete wið God.46 16. And also we command in the name of God almighty and all his saints, that no man is to be so audacious, that he should marry a nun or a woman dedicated to God; 17. And if anyone has done so, he is to be an outlaw before God and excommunicated from all Christendom, and he is to forfeit all that he has to the king, unless he desists very quickly and atones very deeply to God.

Even where a financial penalty is stipulated, it is clear from laws such as Alfred 18,1 that it would often have been paid in goods rather than in money: 18,1. Gif beweddodu fæmne hie forlicgge, gif hio sie cirlisc, mid LX scill. gebete þam byrgean, 7 þæt sie on cwicæhtum feogodum, 7 mon nænigne mon on ðæt ne selle.47

43 44

45 46 47

Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 13. Again, it is uncertain whether 7 means ‘and’ or ‘or’, and whether ceorl in this clause should be translated ‘freeman’ or ‘husband’. The issues are discussed in Carole Hough, ‘Women and the law in seventh-century England’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 51 (2007), 207–30, at 214 and 226–7. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 256. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 274. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 58–60.



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18,1. If an engaged woman commits adultery, if she is of ceorl rank, she is to compensate the surety with 60 shillings, and that is to be in livestock – cattle – and no person is to be given as part of it.

Ine 54,1 sets out in greater detail the way in which compensation to the value of 100 shillings may be made up: 54. Se þe bið werfæhðe betogen 7 he onsacan wille þæs sleges mid aðe, þonne sceal bion on þære hyndenne an kyningæde be XXX hida, swa be gesiðcundum men swa be cierliscum, swa hwæþer hit sie. 54,1. Gif hine mon gilt, þonne mot he gesellan on þare hyndenna gehwelcere monnan 7 byrnan 7 sweord on þæt wergild, gif he ðyrfe.48 54. He who is accused of homicide and wishes to deny the killing with an oath, then there must be within the hundred someone to swear a king’s oath of 30 hides, in the case of a man of gesið or ceorl rank, whichever it is. 54,1. If payment is made, then he may give in each hundred [shillings] of wergild a slave and a corslet and a sword, if he needs to.

Some laws specify forfeiture of land, as with Ine 51: 51. Gif gesiðcund mon landagende forsitte fierd, geselle CXX scill. 7 ðolie his landes; unlandagende LX scill.; cierlisc XXX scill. to fierdwite.49 51. If a man of gesið rank who owns land evades military service, he is to pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; one who does not own land, 60 shillings; one of ceorl rank, 30 shillings, as a fine for evasion of military service.50

Similarly, II Cnut 77 reads: 77. 7 se man, þe ætfleo fram his hlaforde oððe fram his geferan for his yrhþe, si hit on scipfyrde, si hit on landfyrde, þolige ealles þæs þe he age 7 his agenes feores; 7 fo se hlaford to þam æhtan 7 to his lande, þe he him ær sealde. 77,1. 7 gyf he bocland hæbbe, ga þæt þam cingce to handa.51 77. And the man, who flees from his lord or from his companions because of his cowardice, whether it is on a naval or a military expedition, is to forfeit all that he has including his life; and the lord is to succeed to the possessions and to his land, which he gave him previously. 77,1. And if he has bookland, it is to pass into the king’s hands.

II Cnut 13,1 makes clear that forfeitures of land could apply to any crime punishable by outlawry: 13. 7 se ðe utlages weorc gewyrce, wealde se cingc þæs friþes.

48 49 50 51

Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 112–14. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 112. Again, it is not entirely certain whether 7 means ‘and’ or ‘or’. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 364.

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13,1. And gyf he bocland hæbbe, þæt sy forworht þam cingce to handa, si ðæs mannes man, þe he sig.52 13. And if anyone commits a crime punishable by outlawry, the king is to have the power to grant him security. 13,1. And if he has land granted by charter, it is to be forfeited into the possession of the king, whoever’s man he is.

Some indication that such forfeitures were applied is provided by references within the corpus of lawsuits compiled by Wormald.53 Case no. 27 (S 362), for instance, refers to the forfeiture of an estate resulting from desertion and breach of oath during the reign of Alfred the Great, case no. 33 (S 1211) refers to a forfeiture of Goda under Edward the Elder’s ‘unexplained accusation’, and case no. 75 (S 926) refers to a forfeiture by Æthelflæd in 1012 for assisting her outlawed brother. The relationship between legislation and case-law is, however, problematic,54 and any light that is thrown relates to offenders towards the upper end of the social scale. Small-holdings were a crucial part of the economy, as is reflected in references to responsibility for fencing of premises and meadowland, and to ownership of pasture. Examples include Ine 40, 42 and 49: 40. Ceorles worðig sceal beon wintres 7 sumeres betyned; gif he bið untyneð, 7 recð his neahgebures ceap in on his agen geat, nah he æt þam ceape nan wuht: adrife hine ut 7 ðolie æfwerdlan.55 40. A ceorl’s enclosure is to be fenced in winter and summer; if it is unfenced, and his neighbour’s cattle enters through his own gap, he is not entitled to anything from the cattle; let him drive it out and suffer the loss. 42. Gif ceorlas gærstun hæbben gemænne oððe oþer gedálland to tynanne, 7 hæbben sume getyned hiora dæl, sume næbben, 7 etten hiora gemænan æceras oððe gærs, gán þa þonne, þe ðæt geat agan, 7 gebete þam oðrum, þe hiora dǽl getynedne hæbben, þone æwerdlan þe ðær gedon sie; abidden him æt þam ceape swylc ryht swylce hit kyn sie. 42,1. Gif þonne hryðera hwelc sie þe hegas brece 7 ga in gehwær, 7 se hit nolde gehealdan, se hit age oððe ne mæge, nime se hit on his æcere mete 7 ófslea; 7 nime se agenfrigea his fel 7 flæsc 7 þolie þæs oðres.56 42. If ceorls have a paddock in common or other shared land to fence, and some have fenced their part, some not, and [cattle] eat their common crops or grass, those who own the gap are to go and compensate the others, who have fenced their part, for the damage that has been done; they are to demand regarding the cattle such reparation as is proper.

52 53 54 55 56

Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 316. Wormald, ‘A handlist of Anglo-Saxon lawsuits’. The extent to which case no. 27 reflects extant legislation is discussed in Hough, ‘Legal and documentary writings’, at pp. 181–3. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 106. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 106–8.



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42,1. If, however, it is any of the cattle that breaks the hedges and goes in anywhere, and he who owns it would not or could not control it, he who finds it on his land is to take and kill it, and the owner is to take its hide and meat and suffer [the loss of] the rest. 49. Gif mon on his mæstenne unaliefed swín gemete, genime þonne VI scill. weorð wed. 49,1. Gif hie þonne þær næren oftor þonne ænne, geselle scill. se agenfrigea 7 gecyðe, þæt hie þær oftor ne comen, be þæs ceapes weorðe. 49,2. Gif hi ðær tuwa wæren, geselle twegen scill. 49,3. Gif mon nime æfesne on swynum: æt þryfingrum þæt ðridde, æt twyfingrum þæt feorðe, æt þymelum þæt fifte.57 49. If anyone finds pigs on his mast-pasture without permission, he is then to take a pledge worth 6 shillings. 49,1. If, however, they were not there more often than once, the owner is to pay a shilling and swear an oath to the value of the livestock, that they have not been there more often. 49,2. If they were there twice, he is to pay two shillings. 49,3. If anyone takes pannage in pigs: he is to take the third three fingers [thick], the fourth two fingers [thick], and the fifth a thumb [thick].

It seems likely therefore that many small land-holders too would have paid their fines in land rather than in money. Were these laws put into practice, irrespective of their non-appearance in case-law?

Charter Bounds and Place-Names Indications that they were may be reflected in a quite different range of material: the toponymic corpus. It seems largely to have escaped notice that there is an extraordinary plethora of references to kings and other officials in charter bounds and minor place-names. The Dictionary of Old English, s.v. cyning, cyng, creates a separate sub-section 1.A.6.e ‘referring to boundary markers’,58 citing as examples cyninges-broc ‘brook’, -culand ‘cow-pasture’, -crundel ‘quarry, pit; ravine, hollow, gully’, -dæl ‘pit, hollow’, -dic ‘ditch’, -(fyrd)stræt ‘military road’, -fyrhþ ‘land overgrown with brushwood, scrubland on the edge of forest’, -(ge)mære ‘boundary, border’, -gemyþe ‘mouth of a river where it runs into another, a confluence of rivers’, -hæcce ‘fence’, -heahweg ‘highway’, -healh ‘nook’, -hleow ‘shelter’, -inwudu ‘private woodland’, -limfin ‘lime-heap’, -mæd ‘meadow’, -mearc ‘march, boundary, boundary mark’, -mere ‘pond, lake, pool, wetland’, -mylen ‘mill’, -ræw ‘row, row of houses’, ‑rod ‘clearing’, -scipen ‘cow-shed’, -sloh ‘muddy place’, -stæþ ‘landing-place’, ‑steort ‘tail or tongue of

57 58

Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 110. Dictionary of Old English A–F, version 1.0. (Toronto, 2003: CD-ROM). However, Cynniges horscroht (for croft) (S505) and on kynges wudu (S508) are included under sub-section 1.A.6.c ‘referring to the king’s residences and properties’.

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land, the end of a piece of land, a projecting piece of land’, and -þyrne ‘thornbush’.59 These would appear to require explanation.60 As Gelling comments in connection with the boundary markers cincges scypene ‘king’s cow-shed’ and cinges þornas ‘king’s thorn-bushes’ in Berkshire, ‘There is no likelihood of royal participation in the erection of sheds or planting of thorns’.61 With regard to these two instances, Gelling’s preferred solution is that since they occur within the bounds of part of Kingston Lisle, a place-name referring to royal demesne, the boundary markers can be translated as ‘cowshed and thorn-bushes on the boundary of the royal estate’.62 However, this cannot be taken to apply to a majority of such formations; and a recent suggestion by Higham that references to thorn-bushes and barns in place-names such as Thurnham ‘at the thorn bushes’ and Lathom ‘at the barns’ in Lancashire may have had an economic significance raises the possibility of a similar interpretation in charter bounds.63 When we turn to place-names, a similar picture emerges. English placenames are traditionally divided into ‘major names’, typically those of towns and villages, and ‘minor names’, typically those of small landscape features. We are not concerned here with major names such as Kingston, a recurrent formation which as Smith notes ‘in many instances refers to royal manors or estates, which are often independently attested as such in early documents’.64 A quite different set of problems is presented by minor place-names from cyning, now being identified in growing numbers as a result of the increasingly detailed coverage of minor toponymy in post-war volumes of the English Place-Name Survey.65 59

60

61 62 63 64

65

Definitions are mostly from Margaret Gelling and Ann Cole, The Landscape of PlaceNames (Stamford, 2000), but otherwise from Dictionary of Old English A–F, for those letters so far covered, or from A. H. Smith, English Place-Name Elements, 2 vols., English Place-Name Society 25–6 (Cambridge, 1956). Some are of course more easily explained than others. Combinations such as cyninges (fyrd) stræt ‘king’s military road’ and cyninges heahweg ‘king’s highway’ present no difficulties, referring to the major roads on which travellers were under the king’s protection. See for instance David A. E. Pelteret, ‘Roads’, in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge, John Blair, Simon Keynes and Donald Scragg (Oxford, 1999), pp. 395–6. Margaret Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire, 3 vols., English Place-Name Society 49–51 (Cambridge, 1973–6), III, 828. Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire, III, 828. Mary C. Higham, ‘Place-names and local history’, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 99 (2003), 205–13, at 210–11. Smith, English Place-Name Elements, I, 123. The common place-name Kingston has itself been much discussed. See for instance Jill Bourne, ‘Kingston Place-Names: an interim report’, Journal of the English Place-Name Society 20 (1987–8), 13–37; Carole Hough, ‘The place-name Kingston and the Laws of Æthelberht’, Studia Neophilologica 69 (1997), 55–7; Duncan Probert, ‘Towards a reassessment of “Kingston” place-names’, Journal of the English Place-Name Society, 40 (2008), 7–22. A revised edition of Smith, English Place-Name Elements, is currently under revision at the Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham, where the headword entry for cyning will include a fuller selection of occurrences in minor place-names. Fascicles so far published are The Vocabulary of English Place-Names (Á–Box), ed. David Parsons and Tania Styles with Carole Hough (Nottingham, 1997); The Vocabulary of English Place-Names (Brace–Cæster), ed. David N. Parsons and Tania Styles (Nottingham,



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Examples include a Cheshire field-name recorded in the twelfth century66 as Kingessuire ‘king’s neck of land’,67 a lost Kingeseng (1359) ‘king’s meadow or pasture’ in Westmorland,68 and Kinley Farm (Kyniley 1320) ‘king’s clearing’ in Shropshire.69 Whichever king is referred to, we are bound to wonder what he had to do with such small features of the landscape. Even within the category of place-names usually described as ‘major’, the term cyning may be combined with a second element which sits somewhat oddly with it. Examples include King’s North in Kent (de Kingesnade 1226) ‘the king’s piece of detached woodland’,70 and the township of Kingsley (Chingeslie 1086) ‘the king’s wood or clearing’ in Cheshire.71 The parish-name Kingscote in Gloucestershire (Chingescote 1086) is explained as ‘The king’s cottage’ in the English Place-Name Survey for that county;72 but this is a derivation that raises more questions than it answers.73 As we have seen, the law-codes – as opposed to their preambles – consistently refer to the king by office rather than by name. This pattern is replicated in references to the king within charter bounds and place-names. Apart from place-names dating from the earliest stages of settlement,74 there are few that

66

67

68 69 70 71 72 73

74

2000); David N. Parsons, The Vocabulary of English Place-Names (Ceafor–Cock-Pit) (Nottingham, 2004). Other fascicles are at an advanced stage of preparation, but will not necessarily appear in alphabetical order. It is often uncertain whether or not place-names recorded in late sources were coined during the Anglo-Saxon period. Since place-names were coined in and transmitted through spoken language, often predating the extant records by many centuries, they are notoriously difficult to date. For a discussion, see for instance Carole Hough, ‘Women in English place-names’, in ‘Lastworda Betst’: essays in memory of Christine E. Fell with her unpublished writings, ed. Carole Hough and Kathryn A. Lowe (Donington, 2002), pp. 41–106, at 54–8. John McN. Dodgson, The Place-Names of Cheshire, 5 vols. in 7 (Part 5.2 completed and edited by Alexander R. Rumble), English Place-Name Society 44–8, 54, 74 (Cambridge and Nottingham, 1970–97), I, 253. A. H. Smith, The Place-Names of Westmorland, 2 vols., English Place-Name Society 42–3 (Cambridge, 1967), II, 245. Margaret Gelling, The Place-Names of Shropshire. Part 3, English Place-Name Society 76 (Nottingham, 2001), p. 48. Paul Cullen, ‘The place-names of the lathes of St Augustine and Shipway, Kent’, unpublished DPhil thesis (University of Sussex, 1997), pp. 122–3. Dodgson, The Place-Names of Cheshire, III, 239. A. H. Smith, The Place-Names of Gloucestershire, 4 vols., English Place-Name Society 38–41 (Cambridge, 1964–5), II, 237. There may be a parallel with the place-name Biscot in Bedfordshire (Bissopescote 1086). Again there is no known connection with a bishop (A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire, English Place-Name Society 3 (Cambridge, 1926), p. 156), but provisions within the law-codes relating to forfeitures and fines to bishops and other ecclesiastical officials (e.g. Æthelberht 1, Ine 45, Alfred 40,1, II Cnut 36, II Cnut 42) raise the possibility that property may have passed into their possession by this means. Examples include those potentially reflecting the Mercian dynasty of Penda. See for instance Nicholas Brooks, ‘The formation of the Mercian kingdom’, The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, ed. Steven Bassett (London, 1989), pp. 159–70, at pp. 163–4, and Graham Jones, ‘Penda’s footprint? Place-names containing personal names associated

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can plausibly be taken to contain the names of contemporary kings, despite the frequency both of other personal names and of the term cyning itself.75 This may previously have escaped notice because it used to be thought that personal names in place-names were in general those of the founding fathers – or mothers – of the settlements. The absence of later kings’ names would therefore be unremarkable. It is now believed, however, that many of the personal names used as place-name qualifiers are those of manorial land-holders, sometimes incorporated into the toponym in order to mark the change of ownership.76 Lands that passed into the possession of the king do not appear to have been marked in like manner, but rather by reference to the office of kingship.77 It would seem that as in the law-codes, names of individual kings were actively avoided. I wish to suggest that some of the many references to royalty in AngloSaxon boundary markers and place-names may represent land or other property forfeited to the king through transgressions of the law. Change of ownership is one of the most common reasons for renaming, and although the evidence here is circumstantial, it is difficult to see how else penalties could have been paid, and difficult to account otherwise for the recurrence of place-name formations linking an anonymous king with apparently random features of the rural economy. Small forfeitures could have been difficult to keep track of, and it may have been customary for this reason for the term cyning to be incorporated within the name. Although insignificant individually, the cumulative income would have contributed to the royal revenues.78

Conclusions To summarize the argument presented in this paper, I suggest that the ideological inspiration of the law-codes issued by Anglo-Saxon kings accounts for the impracticalities inherent within those codes, but need not impact on the functionality of the law itself. In many instances kings were not making new law but

75 76

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78

with those of early Mercian kings’, Nomina 21 (1998), 29–62. Discussing personal names in charter bounds, Peter Kitson, ‘Quantifying qualifiers in Anglo-Saxon charter boundaries’, Folia Linguistica Historica 14 (1993), 29–82, at 59, also draws attention to ‘the possibility that where trees bear the names of ancient kings sometimes it is the ancient king who is commemorated’. A striking exception is Offa’s Dyke. A useful outline of developments in scholarly opinion is provided by Kenneth Cameron, ‘Stenton and place-names’, in Stenton’s Anglo-Saxon England Fifty Years On, ed. Donald Matthew (Reading, 1994), pp. 31–48, at 37–8. The identification of historical individuals with personal names in place-names is highly problematic, as discussed for instance in Hough, ‘Women in English place-names’, at pp. 59–60. Even allowing for this, however, potential instances of kings’ names are vanishingly few. This is demonstrably the case with regard to Kingswear in Devon (Kingeswere 1170–96) ‘the king’s weir’. The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, ed. Victor Watts (Cambridge, 2004), p. 348, notes that ‘The weir is recorded because of the importance of its revenues from the catching of fish’.



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drawing on an existing body of legislation, so that the coherence or otherwise of a particular compilation is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the laws were applied. I further suggest that occurrences of the term cyning within charter bounds and minor place-names may represent forfeitures to the crown, recording change of ownership through change of name. If this hypothesis is correct, it indicates that the laws of the Anglo-Saxons were indeed operational, and it reflects an emphasis on royal authority which was consistently maintained throughout five centuries of legislation. The king’s involvement in the affairs of his subjects was not notional but real, and his authority extended deep into the heart of the Anglo-Saxon countryside.

4 Witnessing Kingship: Royal Power and the Legal Subject in the Old English Laws ANDREW RABIN

T

he role played by written law in expanding Anglo-Saxon royal authority has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate since Patrick Wormald’s 1977 article, ‘Lex scripta and verbum regis: legislation and Germanic kingship from Euric to Cnut’. In that essay, Wormald argued that early law-codes provide ‘direct evidence for the image which Germanic kings and their advisors, Roman or clerical, wished to project of themselves and their people: an image of king and people as heirs to the Roman emperors, as counterparts to the children of Israel, or as bound together in respect for the traditions of a tribal past’.1 In broad terms, what Wormald suggests is that Anglo-Saxon royal legislation served a symbolic function, depicting the king as the primary source of legal authority. Though possessing questionable value as applied law, Old English legislation nonetheless asserted an ideological argument for the centralization of royal power. Responses to Wormald, most notably by Paul Hyams, have focused primarily on whether this ‘maximalist’ notion of kingship truly reflected the day-to-day realities of pre-Conquest governance.2 In this article, however, I approach Wormald’s arguments from a slightly different perspective: rather than examining how Anglo-Saxon laws characterize the king, I consider how pre-Conquest legislation portrays the subject. Doing so not only expands our understanding of the relationship between ruler and ruled, but it also reveals how evolving perceptions of the written legal text reflect the changing roles and responsibilities of the individual before the law. These issues emerge especially in the statutes concerning witnessing and testimony. Here, the demand for intelligible, transparent speech privileges an 1

2

Patrick Wormald, ‘Lex scripta and verbum regis: legislation and Germanic kingship, from Euric to Cnut’, in Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: law as text, image, and experience (London, 1999), pp. 1–44, at 38. These arguments were expanded upon in Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the twelfth century (Malden, MA, 1999). Paul R. Hyams, ‘Feud and the state in late Anglo-Saxon England’, Journal of British Studies 40 (2001), 1–43; Paul R. Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (Ithaca, NY, 2003), pp. 71–111, esp. 98–100. For further discussion of these issues, see the essays contained in James Campbell, The Anglo-Saxon State (London, 2000).

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ideal of the legal subject as likewise intelligible and transparent.3 That notions of subjectivity coalesce around the figure of the witness reflects one of the principal features of Old English law. Of the other major surviving Germanic law collections, none, with the possible exception of the Salic, develop as complex or extensive statutes on testimony as those found in Anglo-Saxon royal legislation. However, although scholars have long recognized the prominence of witnessing, as yet there has been no study focusing specifically on the role played by the witness in pre-Conquest law.4 Instead, as the attention paid to Anglo-Saxon legal subjectivity has increased, readers have largely concentrated on the penalty statutes, particularly those involving decapitation. According to such studies, physical punishment reconstitutes the human body as a legal text, thereby producing a subject – in the words of Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe – ‘about [whom] things may be known’ by juridical authority.5 While I agree with the importance accorded the penalty statutes by O’Keeffe and others, focusing on physical punishment reveals only part of the story. Dictating proper forms and rituals for public speech enables the testimony statutes to offer a guide to the individual’s self-presentation before the law. The standards laid out for this self-presentation express not merely a rhetoric of legal speech, but a royal model for the relationship between subject and authority as well. In other words, by defining the conditions under which the witness’s testimony assumes validity and coherence, the law establishes criteria by which the individual becomes open and legible – in short, becomes subject – to legal authority. 3

4

5

My account of legal subjectivity is influenced by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Judith Butler. O’Keeffe defines the subject as, ‘that being who fulfills the position of “I” in a sentence, thus one who is subject of and to discourse, and, at the same time, one who is also subject of and to power’. According to Butler, ‘the subject is the linguistic occasion for the individual to achieve and reproduce intelligibility, the linguistic condition of its existence and agency’. See Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe , ‘Body and law in late AngloSaxon England’, ASE 27 (1998), 209–32, at 230; Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power: theories in subjection (Stanford, CA, 1997), pp. 1–31, esp. 11. For allusions to the witness’s prominence in Anglo-Saxon law, see Florence E. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), p. 535; David Mellinkoff, The Language of the Law (Boston, MA, 1963), p. 48; Doris Stenton, English Justice between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter, 1066–1215 (Philadelphia, PA, 1964), p. 14; Susan Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon lay society and the written word’, in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 36–62, at 50–1; Richard Firth Green, A Crisis of Truth: literature and law in Ricardian England (Philadelphia, PA, 1999), p. 62; Wormald, The Making of English Law, p. 384; Patrick Wormald, ‘Charters, law, and the settlement of disputes in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Wormald, Legal Culture pp. 289–312, at 300–1. Regarding the distinction between Old English testimony practices and those described in the Salic Law, see Katherine Fischer Drew, The Laws of the Salian Franks (Philadelphia, PA, 1991) pp. 38–9. O’Keeffe, ‘Body and law’, p. 230. See also Shari Horner, ‘The language of rape in Old English literature and law: views from the Anglo-Saxon(ist)s’, in Sex and Sexuality in Anglo-Saxon England: essays in memory of Daniel Gillmore Calder, ed. Carol Braun Pasternack and Lisa M. C. Weston (Tempe, AZ, 2004), pp. 149–83, at 152–63; Mary P. Richards, ‘The body as text in early Anglo-Saxon law’, in Naked before God: uncovering the body in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Benjamin C. Withers and Jonathan Wilcox (Morgantown, WV, 2003), pp. 97–116.



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In reading the Old English testimony statutes, this article examines how accounts of witnessing express early notions of legal authority and subjectivity. Focusing on four sets of transitional texts in the history of Old English witnessing – the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, Alfred, Edgar, and those composed by Archbishop Wulfstan on behalf of Æthelred and Cnut – I suggest that there is a convergence between the language used to portray the witness and that used to characterize the written legal document. Recognizing this convergence helps us to understand how Old English legislation advanced royal notions of power and authority as well as to trace the origins of what might be called Anglo-Saxon legal consciousness.6 From the earliest Kentish laws to those of Æthelred and Cnut, as writing gradually becomes a means of extending and normalizing judicial power, so the witness assumes more of the qualities of the legal document. Exposing himself through his testimony to interrogation and interpretation, the witness must become, in a sense, like a text: coherent and readable, a subject of the presiding royal, juridical, or legislative authority. If, in early Kentish legislation, the witness only encounters legal authority in certain, specific contexts, by the late eleventh century the subject has become a text to be written, read, and known by the law.

The Subject of the Law Even among the earliest commentators, the ordering of society and the definition of its members was understood as one of pre-Conquest law’s fundamental objectives. Bede, in an oft-quoted passage describing the promulgation of Æthelberht’s laws, claims that the king’s purpose in transcribing customary, oral law was to ordain, ‘qualiter id emendare deberet, qui aliquid rerum, vel ecclesiae, vel episcopi, vel reliquorum ordinum furto auferret: volens scilicet tuitionem eis, quos et quorum doctrinam susceperat praestare’7 (‘what compensation he ought to pay who carries off anything by theft from the churches, the bishop, or other holy orders: naturally wishing to provide for those whose doctrine he received’). Although scholars disagree whether Æthelberht’s laws truly fulfilled the ecclesiastical purpose ascribed to them,8 for Bede, incorpo6

7 8

I take the term ‘legal consciousness’ from the work of legal historian Anthony Musson, who describes it as the psychological internalization of legal discourse to the extent that it serves as ‘an active element shaping people’s values, beliefs and aspirations and also as a passive agent providing a reserve of knowledge, memory and reflective thought, influencing not simply the development of the law and legal system, but also political attitudes’. Anthony Musson, Medieval Law in Context: the growth of legal consciousness from Magna Carta to the Peasants’ Revolt (New York, 2001), pp. 1–2. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1991), p. 150. Translation the author’s. C.f. H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, Law and Legislation from Æthelberht to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1966), pp. 5–6; A. W. Simpson, ‘The laws of Ethelbert’, in On the Laws and Customs of England, ed. Morris S. Arnold, Thomas A. Green, Sally A. Scully and Stephen D. White (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981), pp. 3–17, at 11–13; Mary P. Richards,

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rating the Church into written legislation signifies its formal integration into Anglo-Saxon society. The legal document functions as the logical response to Æthelberht’s ‘natural’ desire to ‘provide for’ the Roman Church’s position in the Kentish polity. Moreover, in that the promulgation of Æthelberht’s laws stems from his acceptance of Christian doctrine, legal identity here comes to assume the same textual basis as religious identity: Æthelberht’s initiation as a Christian subject through his reception of the ‘New Law’ of the Gospels produces a new, written form of English (or at least Kentish) Christian law. Just as the king now identifies himself through the discourses of a literate doctrine, so he now redefines the identities of his subjects through the promulgation of a written set of laws. The origins of legal literacy thereby correspond – for Bede, at least – to the beginnings of Christian subjectivity in England. Influenced by the need to govern England’s diverse Anglo-Saxon and Danish populations, similar moves to characterize legal subjectivity persist throughout pre-Conquest legislation. For instance, the ninth-century Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum details that identical wergild values should apply to both the English and the Danish (Englisc 7 Denisc)9 while II Cnut in the eleventh century likewise specifies that ‘heonon forð læte manna gehwylcne, ge earmne ge eadigne, folcrihtes weorðe 7 him man rihte domas deme’10 (‘henceforth all men, both poor and rich, shall be deemed worthy of their folk-right, and for them shall righteous judgments be passed’). While phrases such as ‘poor and rich’ (ge earmne ge eadigne) or ‘English and Danish’ (Englisc 7 Denisc) appear formulaic, they nonetheless indicate the scope of the legislation: both Alfred and Cnut identify their subjects by inclusion in a particular juridically-defined population. Dividing subjects into identifiable categories permits the law to express its own comprehensiveness (applying, as it does, to all possible types of citizens – rich and poor, English, and Danish) as well as to impose an intelligible order upon society.11 By articulating these categories, the law divides its subjects into ordered demographic units. Consequently, even as these laws dictate the

9

10 11

‘Anglo-Saxonism in the Old English laws’, in Anglo-Saxonism and the Construction of Social Identity, ed. Allen J. Frantzen and John D. Niles (Gainesville, FL, 1997), pp. 40–59, at 44; Patrick Wormald, ‘“Inter cetera bona genti suae”: law making and peacekeeping in the earliest English kingdoms’, in Wormald, Legal Culture, pp. 179–200, at 181. AGu 2. Quotations from the laws are taken from the standard edition, Die Gesetze Der Angelsachsen, ed. Felix Liebermann, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–1916). The Old English laws have also been edited in Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, ed. Benjamin Thorpe (London, 1840); The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. F. L. Attenborough (Cambridge, 1922); The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, ed. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1925). More recently, the Kentish Codes have been re-edited from manuscript in Lisi Oliver, The Beginnings of English Law (Toronto, 2002). Abbreviations used are the standard abbreviations for the codes established by Liebermann. All translations are the author’s. II Cn. 1.1. Similar binary categorizations appear elsewhere in the laws also, for instance in the distinction between the wergilds for ‘foreign’ (wealh) and ‘English’ (Englisc) subjects in Ine 23–4 and the different witnessing needs of those who are and are not communicants (huslgenga) in Wihtred 23.



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parameters of appropriate legal behaviour, they also communicate models of legal identity. This interest in legal identity is linked rhetorically to the notion of legislation as a textual supplement to human memory. Medieval law mythologizes the transition from orality to textuality as a disambiguating process whereby the written codifies and records oral custom. Anglo-Saxon law expresses this connection between oral and written both in the detailed promulgation narratives that begin royal legislation and in its use of a first person voice in the statutes themselves. The preface to Wihtred’s laws, for example, records that the text was compiled on the sixth of Rugern in the fifth year of the king’s reign. At that time in Barham, a ‘deliberative council’ (geþeahtendlic ymcyme) assembled which included the high-bishop of Britain, the bishop of Rochester, and every order of the church ‘in unanimity’ (anmodlice) with the laity: ‘Ðær ða eadigan fundon mid ealra gemedum þas domas 7 Cantwara rihtum þeawum æcton, swa hit hyr efter segeþ 7 cwyþ’12 (‘There the nobles devised these judgments with the consent of all and extended the laws of the Kentish people as is hereafter stated and declared’). The value of the legal document here derives from its capacity to record accurately the moment when law was first handed down. As such, legal authority lies, not with the document, but with the event the document preserves. Moreover, in transmitting the event, the text itself ‘speaks and declares’ (segeþ 7 cwyþ), thereby emulating the oral act of law-giving itself. This sort of emphasis on the document’s potential to speak is central to the rhetoric of Anglo-Saxon legislation. Mary Richards points out that Old English law, unlike its continental analogues, grounds its authority in the imitation of first person speech: ‘the phrases we beodað, we lærað, and the ubiquitous we cwædon appear as formulas conveying the authority of oral pronouncements within the formal written codes. By contrast, the continental codes in Latin, while retrospective, lack a personal voice even in their prologues.’13 By adopting a first-person voice, the legal text conjures the king’s presence even as the reader, through his encounter with the text, revisits that moment at which juridical authority first manifested itself in human language. Characterizing itself as a means of transparent, accurate preservation, the legal record emerges as a more reliable, less ambiguous substitute for the vagaries of oral tradition. Furthermore, by feigning an accurate and transparent record of royal speech, the text here also models the behaviour of the ideal witness: it provides transparent testimony, untainted by forgetfulness, bias, or perjury, which is coherent and legible to the imagined reader. The document that ‘speaks and declares’ (segeþ 7 cwyþ) the law resurrects for the subject the orality and immediacy of the lawgiving moment. In this sense, it recalls the Old English language of testimony, which likewise valorizes the witness’s ability to make himself open and legible. In swearing to testify ‘swa minum egum oferseah 7 minum earum oferhyrde’ (‘as my eyes saw and my ears heard’),14 the witness, like the laws, must create, 12 13 14

Wi. pr. Richards, ‘Anglo-Saxonism’, p. 43. Swer. 8.

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or attempt to create, an illusion of immediacy and transparency. In short, he must approximate the qualities of the legal text. The laws communicate the importance of this legibility through the psychological vocabulary permeating legal discussions of testimony. While continental legislation refers to the witness as a testis – derived from the Latin root for ‘other’ or ‘third’ – the Old English laws use the term gewitnes – related to the verb ‘to know’ (witan) and the noun ‘mind’ (wit).15 The significance of this difference in etymology is indicated by both terms’ use in their respective traditions. Continental law, following the Roman tradition of minimizing testimony’s role in the evidentiary process,16 restricts the witness’s involvement to that of oath-helper.17 In contrast, Old English codes contain extensive legislation regarding the witness’s responsibilities as oath-helper, testifier, warrantor, and notary. Although scholarship generally has acknowledged only the first of these – and its primacy is still emphasized by those invested in the ‘primitiveness’ of early medieval law18 – Wormald’s study of early case records indicates that, in practice, a distinction may not always have been drawn between oath-helping and more conventionally narrative testimony.19 Liebermann, in his edition of the laws, lists seven distinct definitions of the term gewitnes as used in royal legislation: having foreknowledge of an action or transaction, having knowledge of a 15

16

17

18

19

Carl Darling Buck, A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages: a contribution to the history of ideas (Chicago, IL, 1949), p. 1436; D. H. Green, Language and History in the Early Germanic World (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 31, 42. Stephen Barney argues that the idea of witnessing (gewitnes), knowing (witan), and blaming or punishing (witan or witnian) all derive from the idea of ‘seeing’ – whether ‘seeing’ stems from ‘knowing’, as Buck implies, or ‘knowing’ from ‘seeing’, as Barney claims, there nonetheless remains a fundamental link between the idea of bearing witness and the idea of making known interior processes of perception and cognition. Stephen Barney, Word-Hoard (New Haven, CT, 1985), pp. 13, 33. Significantly, the Institutes mentions witnessing only once, in its description of the proper procedures for making a will. See Justinian’s Institutes, ed. Paul Krueger, trans. Peter Birks and Grant McLeod (Ithaca, NY, 1987), 2.10.6. J. A. Crook points out that the recorded evidence of witnessing in the Roman world is minimal at best – in fact, he suggests, most scholars seem to have developed their notions of Roman witnesses from a conflation of earlier Athenian sources and later Germanic ones. He also cites Quintilian’s complaints that witnesses are held in such low regard that law schools fail to properly train lawyers in cross-examination and interrogation tactics. J. A. Crook, Legal Advocacy in the Roman World (Ithaca, NY, 1995), pp. 34, 144, 166. There also is some slight evidence indicating that the witness may have functioned as a sort of unofficial notary. Crook, Legal Advocacy, 144; Drew, The Laws of the Salian Franks, 34. Leonard Levy, for example, argues that in ‘primitive’ Anglo-Saxon law, ‘judgment … preceded trial’ because ‘if [the accused] rounded up the requisite number of compurgators and the cumbrous swearing in very exact form proceeded without a mistake, he won his case’. In contrast, Richard Firth Green is somewhat more generous towards early law and its practitioners, simply observing that, ‘the inferiority of compurgation to more modern methods of proof was not always obvious to those in a position to judge between the two’. Leonard Williams Levy, The Palladium of Justice: origins of trial by jury (Chicago, 1999), p. 4; Green, Crisis of Truth, p. 104. Wormald, The Making of English Law, p. 152.



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crime, a witness, an official panel of witnesses (such as those instituted by IV Edgar), giving evidence or testimony, authorizing or notarizing testimony (like that guaranteeing the legality of a transaction), and oath-helping.20 That two of these definitions should define gewitnes specifically as a psychological state or mental action reflects the extent to which the act of testimony characterizes the individual as a legal subject: the witness is not merely a secondary figure on the margins of court procedure, but rather an intellect to be interrogated, read, and known by juridical authority.

Legislating the Witness The earliest surviving statutes on witnessing occur in the laws promulgated by Hlothhere and Eadric sometime between 673 and 685. Surviving, like other Kentish legislation, in the twelfth-century Textus Roffensis,21 these laws offer a more comprehensive vision of royal authority as well as a more highly developed notion of legal textuality than does their predecessor, the laws of Æthelberht. Not only does this text boast the first documentation of Old English judicial procedure in its investiture of ‘judges of the Kentish people’ (deman Cantwara)22 but it also provides the first characterization of the relationship between contemporary royal decree and its predecessors, both written and oral. The prologue reads, ‘Hloþhære 7 Eadric, Cantwara cyningas, ecton þa æ, þa ðe heora aldoras ær geworhton, ðyssum domum þe hyr efter sægeþ’23 (‘Hlothhere and Eadric, kings of the Kentish people, extended the laws, those which their elders previously wrought, by these rulings which are hereafter stated’). It is unclear whether the ‘law’ referred to is merely written or oral custom as well, though the term æ, which most frequently designates unwritten tradition or practice, suggests the latter.24 In either case, both the regulation of court proceedings and claim that these decrees ‘extended’ (ecton) those of their predecessors indicate a realization of the text’s capacity to broaden governmental authority. Implicitly, the ability to record prior law and custom permits the expansion of codified law beyond the bounds of human memory: as Wormald writes, beginning with the code of Hlothhere and Eadric, ‘law was now made as well as 20 21

22 23 24

Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, II, 102. On the manuscript and its accuracy, see: Patrick Wormald, ‘Laga Eadwardi: The Textus Roffensis and its context’, in Wormald, Legal Culture, pp. 115–39; Mary P. Richards, ‘The manuscript contexts of the Old English laws: tradition and innovation’, in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1986), pp. 171–92; Mary P. Richards, ‘Elements of a written standard in the Old English laws’, in Standardizing English: essays in the history of language change, ed. Joseph B. Trahern (Knoxville, TN, 1989), pp. 1–22. Hl. 8. See also: Andrew Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England: life and landscape (Charleston, SC, 1999), p. 99. Hl. pr. See also Wi. pr. On the etymology of æ and lagu and their respective affiliations with orality and literacy, see Green, Language and History, p. 31.

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recorded in writing’.25 Such a realization explains not only this code’s more complex syntax, but also the introduction of more complex judicial apparatus in the form of justices, witnesses, and judicial process. That these roles and practices should be regulated suggests increased governmental oversight of legal behaviour; by fixing judicial procedure in writing, the law homogenizes and normalizes oral custom. As such, the decision by Hlothhere and Eadric to ‘extend’ the laws of their predecessors through an expansion of the judicial apparatus likewise extends – if only theoretically – the reach of royal authority. The laws of Hlothhere and Eadric define the nature of legal subjectivity more specifically through their statutes on witnessing. Five of the text’s sixteen statutes regulate legal testimony, which is divided into two types: the witness in a criminal proceeding, called an æwda, and the witness to a transaction, designated a gewitnes. The æwda is first mentioned in the second clause, which describes what happens when a slave murders a nobleman and escapes: ‘Gif se bane oþbyrste, feorþe manwyrþ26 he togedo 7 … gescænne mid godum æwdum þæt he þane banan begeten ne mihte’27 (‘If the killer escapes, [his master] shall add to [the wergild] the value of a fourth man and show … by good witnesses that he had not been able to apprehend the killer’). Subsequent clauses then repeat this language in order to establish the penalties in cases where the victim is of less than noble status. It is only in the fifth clause, describing how a freeman accused of stealing slaves might clear his name, that the text clarifies the ambiguous phrase, mid godum æwdum: ‘hæbbe þare freora rim æwdamanna 7 ænne mid in aþe, æghwilc man æt þam tune þe he tohyre’28 (‘each man shall have a number of free witnesses, and one of those in oath [with him] from the community to which he himself belongs’). Though Liebermann, citing an etymological connection between æw and að,29 identifies the æwda in these clauses as an eideshelfer (‘oath-helper’), little in the text, save the enigmatic phrase mid in aþe (‘with [him] in oath’), bears out this claim.30 However, while the procedural behaviour of the witness remains somewhat opaque, the æwda does appear to serve a specific symbolic function: testifying to the social role of those involved in judicial actions. That a free man must have ‘a number of free witnesses’ (freora rim æwda manna) and that at least one of those must be from his own town suggests that the witness testified, not just to what he saw or heard, but also to the character and social position of the principals of the case.31 Just as the wergild defines and differentiates the status and value of social ranking, the nature of those permitted to witness the subject’s claim and 25 26 27 28 29

30 31

Wormald, The Making of English Law, p. 103. That is, the slave’s owner, who has been made to pay the victim’s family three times his wergild, must add to the fine the wergild of a fourth man. Hl. 2. Hl. 5. Both words derive from notions of custom, oath, or bond. Hence also both the adjective æwe meaning ‘lawful’ and ‘wedded’, and the noun æwe denoting ‘spouse’. Dictionary of Old English (Toronto, 1986), fascicle 1, pp. 739–40. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, III, 19–20. For another reading of this clause, see Oliver, The Beginnings of English Law, pp. 144–5.



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character express these rankings in the court of law. The king’s power to incorporate such regulations into the written legislation testifies to the text’s capacity to rigidify social standing and homogenize legal procedure. The importance of testimony to the determination of legal identity is even more pronounced in the second type of witnessing, that of the witness to a transaction. The text’s final clause reads: Gif Cantwara ænig in Lundenwic feoh gebycge, hæbbe him ðonne twegen oððe ðreo unfacne ceorlas to gewitnesse oþþe cyninges wicgrefan. 1. Gif hit man eft æt þam mæn in Cænt ætfo, þonne tæme he to wic to cyngæs sele to þam mæn ðe him sealde, gif he þane wite 7 æt þam teame gebrengen mæge. 2. Gif he þæt ne mæge, gekyþe ðanne in wiofode mid his gewitena anum oþþe mid cyninges wicgerefan, þæt he þæt feoh undeornunga his cuþan ceape in wic gebohte; and him man þanne his weorð agefe. 3. Gif he þanne þæt ne mæge gecyþan mid rihtre canne, læte þanne an, 7 se agend tofo. 32 If any man of the Kentish people buys chattel in London, he shall have [with] him then two or three honest men or the king’s city-reeve as witness. 1. If it is claimed afterwards from the man in Kent, then he shall call to the king’s residence as warrantor the man who sold it to him, if he knows him and can bring him as warrant. 2. If he cannot do that, he shall make known then on the altar with one of his witnesses or with the king’s city-reeve, that he purchased that chattel in London openly with his known goods, and then the value [of the chattel] shall be given back to him. 3. If he then cannot make this known with the proper declaration, he shall forfeit it and the owner take possession.

This passage provides the first use of the word gewitnes in Old English law, and the context is significant: the law equates the gewitnes with the wicgerefa as a warrantor to a transaction. Though the law mandates ‘two or three honest men’ for every one city-reeve, their oaths carry equivalent weight upon the altar. Implicitly, the ‘honest men’ become agents of the king or, more accurately, extensions of the king’s perception or cognizance: they are unfacne – not merely honest per se, but without a stain or blemish (fac) to distort or obscure their character – and function as ‘wits’, both minds or intellects and organs of sense perception.33 The law thus materializes subjectivity as an object of inspection, a physical entity visible to the law that must be kept clean and unblemished. While the æwda remains relatively opaque to juridical authority, the gewitnes functions by making himself transparent and allowing others to see through him (in both senses of the phrase). The honest man thus becomes the one most able to open himself up before authority, either in the king’s residence (cyngæs

32 33

Hl. 16f. For the relationship between ‘wit’ and sense perception, see n. 15 above and Barney, Word-Hoard, pp. 13, 33.

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sele) or on the altar (in wiofode). That these two locations should be alluded to specifically evokes the authoritative (and authorial) presence from which the law derives its power. The necessity of the witness recalls the king’s absence: witnesses exist because the king, the incontrovertible source of temporal authority, cannot himself personally oversee all transactions. However, the references to the king’s residence or altar ensure that the potential for presence always remains: for the witness, there persists the possibility, even the threat, that one might be summoned to the king’s presence. Implicitly, the witness must obey the law, not because of the king’s presence, but because of the possibility of presence. Subjectivity thus becomes, not an action, but a mode of being, a selfhood created by the perpetual possibility of presence. As a gewitnes, a watcher or an organ of perception, the witness becomes someone transparent, knowable by and through juridical authority. Although subsequent to the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric by approximately two hundred years, Alfred’s legislation similarly treats its own textuality as subject for consideration. Yet if earlier law-givers portrayed themselves as extending previous legislation, Alfred also highlights his departure from precedent. Describing his editing strategy, he writes, ‘monige ðara ðe me ne lycodon ic awearp mid minre witena geðeahte, ond on oðre wisan bebead to healdenne. Forðon, ic ne dorste geðristlæcan ðara minra awuht feola on gewrit setton, forðon me was uncuð hwæt ðæs ðæm lician wolde þe æfter us wæron’34 (‘Many of those [laws] which did not please me I discarded with the advice of my councillors, and [some] I ordered observed in another way. Furthermore, I dared not presume to preserve in writing many of my own, because it was unknown to me what would be pleasing to those who come after us.’). This passage, perhaps the most oft-quoted lines in Old English law, has caused some readers to find either ‘a fear of … the consequences of writing [new laws] down’35 or a ‘resist[ance to] graphism and formalism’36 in Alfred’s text. Such readings, however, miss both this passage’s origin as a variation on a common legal topos originating with Justinian37 and the manner in which it redefines the king’s relationship with the legal text. Instead of ‘extending’ previous laws, Alfred here proclaims his prerogative to re-edit them by freely removing, rearranging, or even rewriting their component parts. How much was actually rewritten, itself a vexed question,38 here seems less important than his assertion of his right to do 34 35 36

37

38

Alf. Pr. Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: studies in the reconstruction of the past (Cambridge, 1992) p. 572. Tim Murphy, ‘As if: camera juridica’, in Politics, Postmodernity, and Critical Legal Studies: the legality of the contingent, ed. Costas Douzinas, Peter Goodrich and Yifat Hachamovitch (New York, 1994), pp. 69–106, at 81. Wormald finds analogues to this passage in Justinian, Rothari’s Lombard code, Charlemagne’s Admonitio Generalis, and in texts by Ansegisus and Archbishop Hincmar. Wormald, The Making of English Law, pp. 277–8. Even Wormald seems somewhat undecided on the subject: on the one hand, he writes that ‘Alfred was professing a greater respect for precedent than he actually practiced’ and that laws ‘“borrowed” from earlier English legislation account for only 75 per cent of the



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so. This assertion places his own self-conscious authority directly at the centre of the law-making process: while previous law, as an ‘extension’ of earlier decree, derived authority from an inherited textual and legal tradition, Alfred’s legislation receives its meaning from a context defined entirely by Alfred himself. By emphasizing his own self-conscious decision-making process, Alfred justifies his severing of individual laws from their texts of origin; although the prologue later cites the legislation of Offa, Ine, and Æthelberht, these texts serve here as source material rather than as living, enforceable laws to be ‘extended’. While previous kings had revised or manipulated received legal tradition, Alfred is the first explicitly to ground his legislation’s authority in his own capacities as legislator and author. Implicitly, the text’s preface equates authorial skill with royal authority: Alfred’s ability to re-work previous legislation testifies to his prowess as a king. Put differently, Alfred’s authorial control over his text points also to his royal authority over his subjects. In this sense, the text itself becomes the subject. This close relationship between textuality and subjectivity defines the depictions of testimony in Alfred’s laws as well. For instance, the opening clause, which has no analogue in any of Alfred’s self-proclaimed sources,39 identifies the personal oath as being of paramount importance in the creation of legal subjectivity. The relevant passage, framed in the royal first-person plural, decrees, ‘Æt ærestan we lærað, þæt mæst ðearf is, þæt æghwelc man his að 7 his wedd wærlice healde’40 (‘First, we instruct, as that which is of greatest necessity, that each man hold carefully his oath and pledge’). Significantly, while previous ‘oath’ legislation referred almost exclusively to either oath-helping or exculpatory declarations, this passage provides one of the earliest instances of the oath of allegiance, the að 7 wedd. However, although this passage concentrates on issues of loyalty or allegiance rather than evidentiary testimony, it follows the latter in construing legal subjectivity as a relationship expressed primarily through language. Like earlier witnessing regulations, legal identity here again derives from the subject’s capacity to swear to a relationship. As before, the truthfulness of the subject’s language indicates the integrity of his character. Furthermore, the use of the verb lærað (‘instruct’ or ‘teach’) – its only appearance in Alfred’s laws – rather than the more conventional sægeþ (‘say’ or ‘decree’) both construes the reader’s relationship to the king as a student to a teacher and, more importantly, frames transcribed law as a form of doctrine.41 The acceptance of subject-status involves more than just the recognition of a particular legal identity or political affiliation. Rather, the most valued subject becomes the one who best learns the king’s lesson and responds most sincerely

39 40 41

whole’, while on the other he agrees with Stenton’s judgment of the laws’ ‘conservative tenor’. Wormald, The Making of English Law pp. 279, 282, 284; F. M. Stenton, AngloSaxon England (Oxford, 1971), pp. 275–6. Wormald, The Making of English Law, pp. 283–4. Alf. 1. On the relationship between forms of lar and doctrine, see: Eric Jager, The Tempter’s Voice : language and the Fall in medieval literature (Ithaca, NY, 1993) pp. 147–9.

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through a meaningful oath. By placing so much emphasis on oath-taking, Alfred draws a line from speech to behaviour to identity: by swearing properly, the individual commits himself to behave rightly, thus bearing witness to his acceptance of the king’s instruction. Legal identity thus becomes more than an act or a persona, but rather something learned and internalized first by properly speaking and then by embodying one’s oath and pledge. Conforming to the að 7 wedd signifies, not merely behavioural adaptation, but a rewriting of the self according to the king’s authoritative text. Just as the king’s power becomes the context from which the law-collection derives its authority, so too do the laws now define the context from which the subject obtains his legal identity. The role of the term gewitnes in Alfred’s laws demonstrates in a more material fashion his textualization of the subject. Although those clauses regulating economic witnessing follow legal precedent in a relatively straightforward manner, the use of gewitnes to signify a mental state or psychological process continues to expand juridical authority over the subject. For example, the text decrees: Gif mon of boldgetale wille in oðer boldgetæl hlaford secan, do ðæt mid ðæs ealdormonnes gewitnesse, þe he ær in his scire folgode. 1. Gif he hit butan his gewitnesse do, gesylle se þe hyne to men feormige cxx scll to wite: dæle he þæt hweðre, healf [þam] cyninge on ða scire ðe he ær folgode [7] healf on ða ðe [þonne] he oncymð.42 If a man wishes [to go] from one county to seek a lord in another county, he shall do that with the knowledge [gewitnesse] of his ealdorman, whom he previously followed in his shire. 1. If he does it without his knowledge [gewitnesse], he who takes him as a man shall pay 120 shillings as penalty: moreover, he shall divide that, half to the lord in the shire whom he previously obeyed and half in that to which he has come.

While this is not the first instance of Old English law restricting citizen movement – in particular, Alfred’s statute here closely resembles Ine 3943 – this is the first instance of that restriction being limited by the knowledge or awareness (gewitnesse) rather than merely the permission (alief) of the ealdorman. Liebermann, one of the few to comment on this clause, notes the differences in culpability and penalty from the comparable passage in Ine’s laws and concludes that this passage indicates a growth in royal authority.44 However, this passage does not frame the expansion of political power merely through the distribution of fines; instead, that authority should be construed in terms of psychological 42 43

44

Alf. 37f. Cf. Ine. 39. ‘Gif hwa fare unaliefed fram his hlaforde oððe on oðre scire hine bestele, 7 hine mon geahsige, fare ðær he ær wæs 7 geselle his hlaforde lx scill’ (‘If anyone go forth without permission from his lord and betakes himself into another shire, and a man discovers him, he must go back to where he was previously and give his lord 60 shillings’). Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, III, 58.



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gewitnes indicates also an expansion of legal consciousness. In other words, while the gewitnes of this passage presumably corresponds to the alief of Ine 39, Alfred’s laws imply a legal interiority absent from previous legislation: ‘permission’ constitutes a specific action resulting from a particular request or petition, while ‘cognizance’ or ‘awareness’ represent a position or status in which the subject already subsists. This is not to argue that Alfred’s revisions necessarily indicate a change in practice (beyond those explicitly indicated in the text), rather that these changes indicate a new way of thinking about authority and subjectivity. To leave a county without a lord’s permission represents a crime only against that lord’s authority; however to leave a county without the awareness of the presiding legal authority is to offend legal authority itself and, as such, demands a fine to the lords of both counties. Indeed, that the lord of the second county should be termed a cyning, although such a title was reserved more commonly for the king himself, may reflect the hlaford’s status as a royal representative and thus his authority, expressed through his gewitnes, as derivative from the king’s. Implicitly, then, just as the legitimacy of the legal text originates in the unifying context of Alfred qua author or collector, so the legal subject derives his identity from his relationship to or position within juridical gewitnes. As has been frequently noted, subsequent West Saxon laws tend to be less comprehensive than those of Alfred. As Mary Richards writes, ‘given Alfred’s accomplishments and reputation, it is not surprising that his successors … accepted his code as seo domboc and confined their own lawgiving to supplementary topics’.45 However, if Alfred’s immediate successors conceived of themselves as ‘supplementing’ Alfred’s legislation, the laws of Edgar indicate that, by the middle of the tenth century, a new legal paradigm was needed to reflect the changes in English society. In particular, IV Edgar (c. 962) enunciates a new relationship between king and subject, a relationship reflected also in new constructions of the legal text. In contrast to previous legislation by Edgar and others which had been referred to as ‘orders’ or ‘decrees’ (gerædnyss) and dated according to regnal year or religious season, IV Edgar is identified explicitly as a written document (a gewrit) promulgated in response to ‘þam færcwealme þe his leodscype swyðe drehte 7 wanode wide gynd his anweald’46 (‘the sudden pestilence that has greatly afflicted and reduced his people, widely throughout his kingdom’). In part, the substitution of gewrit for gerædnyss reflects a growing awareness of the administrative usefulness of writing that will develop into the royal writs of the eleventh century.47 Here, however, the use of gewrit also implicates the text in a doctrinal tradition in which the subject’s submission to the king’s legal authority reenacts the Christian’s submission to heaven’s divine authority. IV Edgar emphasizes this analogy in its early clauses which

45 46 47

Richards, ‘Anglo-Saxonism’, p. 50. See also Wormald, The Making of English Law, p. 430. IV Eg. pr. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, pp. 6–19.

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compare, ‘þæt godcunde be woruldgewunan’48 (‘the ways of God with worldly behaviour’). This notion of law as a response or, in Edgar’s words, a ‘remedy’ (bot) to a ‘sudden pestilence’ imbues the legal text with the authority, not merely of a secular directive, but of a religious mandate. As the first clause declares, ‘him [Edgar] þuhte 7 his witum, þæt ðus gerad ungelimp mid synnum 7 mid oferhyrnysse Godes beboda geearnod wære’49 (‘to him [Edgar] and his council it seemed that this misfortune had been earned because of sin and neglect of God’s commands’). Moreover, that these laws should apply to all of Edgar’s subjects, regardless of their ethnic origins as ‘English, Danes, and Britons’ (ge Englum ge Denum ge Bryttum),50 emphasizes the primacy of English legal subjectivity, like religious identity, over cultural background.51 By linking civic behaviour to moral disposition, Edgar affiliates his laws with authoritative texts of the Christian Church; and as such a text, the law acquires its power, not simply from Edgar qua king and author, but also from its incorporation into a genre of sacred writings, subjection to which involves one’s inner soul or essential self in addition to one’s civic persona. Implicitly, the text thereby equates the experience of legal subjectivity with that of religious subjectivity: the disposition of an individual’s social identity reflects that of their immortal soul. This re-imagining of the legal text corresponds to Edgar’s transformation of the legal witness. Whereas the notion of a witness as warrantor to a transaction had descended virtually unchanged from the earliest Kentish laws, IV Edgar replaces the amateur witness of previous legislation with official panels of professional witnesses composed of trustworthy citizens within each borough and hundred. In doing so, IV Edgar attempts to bring the entire economic life of the community under the direct purview of royal authority. The decision to incorporate official witness panels reflects a new emphasis in Edgar’s legislation on the institutional aspects of law. This emphasis manifests itself not only in the witness panels but also in the law’s regulation of the institutional prerogatives of the Church and state (clauses 1–2), its assertion that every man – both those living in boroughs and those outside (ge binnan burgum ge butan burgum) must be under a lord’s ‘surety’ (borg, clause 3), and its concern with the legal means of fixing property rights and ownership.52 Yet perhaps the most striking feature of IV Edgar’s focus on law’s institutional aspects is its unprecedented focus on legal rhetoric,53 a focus particularly evident in its testimony statutes. For instance, describing the role of the witness panels, the text reads: 7 ælc mon mid heora gewytnysse bigcge 7 sylle ælc þeora ceapa þe he bicgcge oððe sylle aþer oððe wæpengetace.

48 49 50 51 52 53

IV Eg. 1. IV Eg. 1. IV Eg. 2a. Stenton points out that this is the first official recognition of Danes as Englishmen. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 371. Regarding IV Edgar’s interest in property, see Richards, ‘Anglo-Saxonism’, p. 53. Wormald, The Making of English Law, p. 318.



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1. 7 heora ælc, þonne hine man ærest to wytnesse gecysð, sylle þone að, þæt he næfre, ne for feo ne for lufe ne for ege, ne ætsace nanes þara þinga þe he to gewytnesse wæs, 7 nan oðer þingc on gewytnesse ne cyðe butan þæt an, þæt he geseah oððe gehyrde. 2. 7 swa geæðedra manna syn on ælcum ceape twegen oððe þry to gewitnysse.54 And each man with these witnesses must buy and sell each of those goods that he buys or sells either in borough or wapentake. 1. And each of them, when he is first selected as a witness, must swear an oath, that he never, not for payment, nor for love, nor for fear, would deny any of those things to which he was witness, and [he would not] bear witness to anything except only that which he saw and heard. 2. And two or three of these sworn men will be at every transaction as witnesses.

Edgar here not only requires the participation of official witnesses, but he also mandates the sort of oath that must be sworn in order to validate their testimony. Clause 6.1, for instance, which describes the oath taken by would-be witnesses, suggests through its formulaic ne for feo ne for lufe ne for ege the rhetoric of that oath and foreshadows the language of the witness’s oath recorded in the later text, Swerian. Like the legal text, which poses as a window to a primal space of immediate authority, so the witness here must transmit precisely ‘only that which he saw and heard’ (‘butan þæt he geseah oððe gehyrde’) that is, reproduce in coherent, legible form an account of a particular originary moment. Incorporating the rhetoric of the witnessing oath into the statute serves the same purpose as IV Edgar’s establishment of official witnessing panels: it imposes a fixed institutional framework on what had been a more autonomous realm of legal behaviour. By reframing the witness as an institutional – rather than an amateur – figure, the law exercises greater control over his behaviour, thereby further standardizing the subject’s self-presentation before the legal authority. As an authorized, physical manifestation of the king’s power, the witness thus incorporates into his person those same qualities that lend the legal text its authority: the ability to preserve, communicate, and extend royal power and perception even in the king’s absence; the capacity to transmit or reproduce the immediate presence of juridical authority; and the potential to present itself/ himself in a unified, coherent, and legible form. This writing of the witness into the legal institution accordingly results in the further bureaucratization, or rather, the further textualization of the legal subject in the pre-Conquest state. As the later laws of Æthelred and the legislation of Cnut were authored either wholly or in part by Archbishop Wulfstan, it is not surprising that they share both style and theme. In these texts, Wulfstan deploys the language of penance familiar to readers of his more famous Sermo lupi ad Anglos to legislate both the secular and moral lives of an increasingly diverse English and Danish popu-

54

IV Eg. 6f.

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lation.55 Though he draws liberally from earlier royal legislation, particularly IV Edgar,56 his primary sources are the religious, particularly penitential, works he encountered during his early tenure at Worcester: the Excerptiones PseudoEgberti, the Capitula of Theodulf, the Regula canonicorum of Amalarius of Metz, and the De rectoribus Christianis of Sedulius Scottus.57 As Bethurum writes, these works gave him a theory of kingship characterized by the belief that, ‘the king is Christ’s substitute among Christian people. … As God’s substitute, his prime function is the protection of the people of God, and justice and piety are his principal concerns’.58 Wulfstan thus extends those religious aspects of royal authority first brought forward in Edgar’s laws: whereas Edgar used the writtenness of his text to identify the secular institution of government with the religious institution of the Church, Wulfstan construes the king as himself a religious leader possessed of a divine mandate and such secular crimes as the attachment of property as religious sins.59 Although Wulfstan recognizes a distinction between secular and divine hierarchies, the authority of both derives from the same divine source and, as such, the individual’s identity as a legal subject reflects, not just his secular loyalties, but the disposition of his immortal soul also. The legal text thereby manifests in the civic sphere the moral imperative and divine authority born by penitential and doctrinal texts in the religious sphere. Indeed, it is in these laws that the ‘if … then’ clauses that dominated previous legislation are largely replaced by a syntax Mary Richards describes as ‘hortative and moralistic’.60 In short, for a population consisting of such diverse elements as marginally Christianized Danes and an English religious community on the latter end of the Benedictine reform, the laws of Æthelred and Cnut become sacred texts and the individual’s identity as an English legal subject becomes identical with his essential Christian self. It is in these laws also that the Old English witness reaches its final definition and, appropriately, most fully embodies the role of legal text.61 Like his predecessors, Wulfstan characterizes the witness as a subject whose very ‘self’ constitutes a legal text, yet he does not limit himself to a merely metaphorical link between subjectivity and textuality: rather, for subjectivity to be fully instantiated in the individual, it must be inscribed on and through the subject’s body itself. Accordingly, those statutes regulating legal testimony emphasize 55 56 57 58 59

60 61

Patrick Wormald, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan and the holiness of society’, in Wormald, Legal Culture, pp. 225–52. Dorothy Bethurum, The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957) p. 82. Bethurum, The Homilies of Wulfstan, p. 70. Bethurum, The Homilies of Wulfstan, p. 77. See, for instance, V Atr. 32f. in which he exhorts his reader to end ‘those unjust practices which our lord himself has frequently and often ordered us to cease’ (unlaga þe ure hlaford oft 7 gelome silf het alecgan) and describes those who attach land as ‘wily villains of the west’ (manswican be westan). Richards, ‘Written standard’, p. 10. I have discussed Wulfstan’s use of witnessing and testimony in his other writings in Andrew Rabin, ‘The Wolf’s testimony to the English: law and the witness in the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 105.3 (2006), 388–414.



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the witness’s physical participation in his speech. For example, while II Cnut echoes IV Edgar’s injunction that a witness must swear only to ‘that which he saw and heard’ (‘þæt he geseah oððe gehyrde’),62 here the code accentuates the interaction of the organs of perception: witnesses may only testify ‘to what they saw with their eyes and heard with their ears’ (‘hit eagum oferseah 7 earum oferhyrdon’).63 Of course, this difference may only indicate a change in formula, yet the fact that Wulfstan incorporates such a change signals a new emphasis on the corporeal aspects of testimony.64 Similarly, while the laws of both Æthelred and Cnut sentence perjurers to exile,65 a more permanent physical punishment is also assessed: ‘gyf hwa mæne að on haligdome swerie, 7 he oferstæled weorðe, ðolie þara handa’66 (‘if anyone swears a false oath on relics and he is convicted, he shall forfeit that hand’). As Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe has noted, the shift to mutilation as penalty for various crimes reflects a new construction of the textuality of the subject: ‘action on the body is reassigned meaning over time as compensation for wrongdoing shifts from an external, and in some ways communal, responsibility satisfiable by compurgation and fine … to an internal guilt in the eleventh century codes (in a mutilation which forever after forces the body to confess to its guilt as a part of the process of salvation)’.67 Implied in O’Keeffe’s observation is an increasing affinity of the soul or essential self with the individual’s identity as a legal subject. Here, juridical authority responds to equivocal speech, the perjured text of one’s subjectivity, by creating the body as an unequivocal text: writing the law on the subject’s body restores the necessary contiguity between text and meaning, presentation and self. The body becomes the physical transcription of the law, drawing selfhood and subjectivity into a single, coherent text bearing witness to its own essential, legible, knowable identity. Although the development of written law before the Norman Conquest can hardly be described as steady or consistent, the transformation in legal attitudes concerning the witness and his testimony do point towards gradually changing notions of legal subjectivity. The seeming correspondence between changes in witnessing statutes and reconceptions of legal textuality suggests that notions of self become increasingly linked to, even defined by, the ways in which juridical authority defines the idea of lex scripta. If, in the earliest legislation, legal subjectivity remains contingent on the individual engaging in certain actions or behaviours, the latest laws define the individual himself as a text subject to interpretation by the legal powers-that-be. As such, it is significant that, although the record of Old English codified law ends with the legislation from the reign

62 63 64 65 66 67

IV Eg. 6.1. II Cn. 23.1. The phrase itself is Biblical in origin and may be found in Ecclesiastes 17:13, Matthew 13:14–5 and Acts 28:27. e.g. V Atr. 23–25, VI Atr. 28f, VIII Atr. 27, I Cn. 5.3, II Cn. 6. II Cn. 36. I follow Robertson in translating þara handa as singular. See Robertson, Laws, p. 356 n. 36.2. O’Keeffe, ‘Body and law’, p. 217.

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of Cnut, post-Conquest legislation preserves many of the witnessing statutes first set forth in the laws of Edgar, Æthelred, and Cnut.68 While we may only conjecture, it seems possible that William and his successors recognized the usefulness of such statutes in establishing their own theories of royal power and legal identity in their new, Anglo-Norman empire.

68

Stenton, English Justice, p. 14.

5 The Burial of Kings in Anglo-Saxon England BARBARA YORKE

W

e have a complete record of the places of burial of the kings of Wessex and England from the reign of Æthelwulf (839–58) onwards (Table 5.1).1 For the earlier historic period the sequences are incomplete (Table 5.2), but we are still more likely to know where a king was buried than where he was born or married. Though most of the tombs themselves and their contents have been lost,2 some have been recovered through excavation and some written accounts give very precise details about the location of a king’s burial, as will become apparent in the discussion below. There is therefore a valuable body of evidence surviving for one of the major rites of passage which all kings had to undergo. The problems in interpreting the evidence, of course, should not be underestimated as there is much we are never told. Who made the final decision about a king’s resting-place? Sometimes, for instance, when the place of burial was a church which had enjoyed much patronage from the ruler during his lifetime, it may be safe to conclude that the choice was his, but this is unlikely to have always been the case, as evidence from later periods suggests.3 Nor did royal bodies necessarily remain where they were originally interred. Relatives might remove them to what was considered a more appropriate place, or rivals oust them altogether.4 Those kings who were also saints were particularly likely to have had their bodies translated from their original places of burial.5 Antiquarian 1

2

3

4 5

The later material is discussed in greater detail in Barbara Yorke, ‘Anglo-Saxon royal burial: the documentary evidence’, in Death and Burial, ed. Tania Dickinson and Edward James (York, 1992), pp. 41–6. One of the largest collections of royal remains is that of late Anglo-Saxon rulers preserved in mortuary chests in Winchester cathedral; Martin Biddle, ‘Early Renaissance at Winchester’, in Winchester Cathedral. Nine Hundred Years 1093–1993, ed. John Crook (Chichester, 1993), pp. 257–304, at 275–8. Aidan Dobson, The Royal Tombs of Great Britain. An Illustrated History (London, 2004); David Palliser, ‘Royal mausolea in the long fourteenth century (1272–1422)’, in Fourteenth Century England, ed. W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 1–16. The unexpected death of King Edmund (939–46) may have allowed Dunstan to intervene to have him buried at Glastonbury thus inaugurating a sequence of royal burials there; see below p. 255. See examples of Æthelwulf and Harald Harefoot below pp. 253, 256. See in particular examples in John Blair, ‘A handlist of Anglo-Saxon saints’, in Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, ed. Alan Thacker and Richard Sharpe (Oxford, 2002), pp. 495–566.

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Table 5.1: Burial places of kings of Wessex and England from Æthelwulf to Edward the Confessor Æthelwulf d. 858 Æthelbald d. 860 Æthelberht d. 866 Æthelred I d. 871 Alfred d. 899 Edward d. 924 Athelstan d. 939 Edmund d. 946 Eadred d. 955 Eadwig d. 959 Edgar d. 975 Edward d. 978 Æthelred d. 1016 Edmund d. 1016 Cnut d. 1035 Harald d. 1040

Steyning Sherborne Sherborne Wimborne Winchester OM Winchester NM Malmesbury Glastonbury Winchester OM Winchester NM Glastonbury Wareham St Paul’s, London Glastonbury Winchester OM Westminster

minster bishopric bishopric nunnery bishopric minster minster minster bishopric minster minster nunnery? bishopric minster bishopric minster

Harthacnut d. 1042 Edward

Winchester OM Westminster

bishopric minster

trans Winchester OM

trans Winchester NM

trans Shaftesbury nunnery

thrown out and reburied in Danish cemetery, London

OM = Old Minster NM = New Minster

enthusiasm might also conjure up suggestions of royal burial on very slender evidence.6 These problems of interpretation need to be constantly borne in mind. However, even though there are gaps in the evidence, it is possible to compare practice between kingdoms and over time in such matters as location and type of institution, as well as the form of the structures, in which kings were buried. Consideration of choices of site against the background of contemporary politics and external influences may help to make sense of the wide range of different locations which received a kingly burial. Written records refer almost exclusively to Christian burial at ecclesiastical sites, but archaeological evidence allows us potentially to extend the study of royal burial back into the period of kingdom formation in the sixth century, and to consider patterns that were established before burial at church sites became 6

For example, the suggestion that Aldfrith of Northumbria was buried at Driffield because he was recorded as having died there: Dobson, Royal Tombs, pp. 27–8 and passim. Alcuin. The Bishops, Kings and Saints of York, ed. Peter Godman (Oxford, 1982), line 1084, pp. 86–7, in stating that Aldfrith was buried with his ancestors (appositus patribus suprema sorte quievit), may imply that Aldfrith was in fact buried at Whitby; see Barbara Yorke, Rex Doctissimus: Bede and King Aldfrith of Northumbria, Jarrow Lecture 2009 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2010), 17.



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Table 5.2: Burial places of kings of Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria in the late seventh and eighth centuries Kings of Wessex (Caedwalla to Beorhtric) Caedwalla Ine Æthelheard Cuthred Sigeberht Cynewulf [Cyneheard] Beorhtric

685–88 688–726 726–40 740–56 756–7 757–86 d. 786 786–802

St Peter’s, Rome St Peter’s Rome

Old Minster, Winchester Axminster Wareham

bishopric status unclear nunnery

Bardney Rome Lichfield Repton Bedford (?)

retired as monk

Winchcombe

nunnery

Kings of Mercia (Æthelred to Wiglaf) Æthelred Cenred Ceolred Æthelbald Offa Ecgfrith Cenwulf

674–704 704–9 709–16 716–57 757–96 796 796–821

bishopric nunnery nunnery

Kings of Northumbria (Ceolwulf to Osbald) Ceolwulf Eadbert Oswulf Æthelwold Moll Alhred Æthelred Ælfwold Osred Osbald

729–37 737–58 758 758–65 765–74 774–8;790–6 778–88 788–90 796

Lindisfarne York

(d. 764 as monk) bishopric (d. 768 as cleric) bishopric

exiled Hexham Tynemouth York

bishopric minster (d. 792) bishopric

the norm. Of course, without the identification provided by written accounts, the definitive interpretation of a burial as royal cannot be made even with the inclusion of grave-goods that were particularly wealthy or apparently symbolic of the exercise of power. It is perhaps preferable to use the more neutral term of ‘elite burial’, though burials under mounds with rich grave-goods are (if male) often referred to as ‘princely burials’. Although the provision of lavish grave-goods was apparently an essential component of the burials of the elite in the sixth and seventh centuries, those graves will not be considered in detail here. Rather the

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concentration will be on the location of burials within a specific landscape, a topic which archaeologists have increasingly recognized as being as significant as the contents of the graves themselves and which will allow comparisons to be drawn with later Anglo-Saxon royal practice.

Characteristics of Traditional Elite Burials in the Late Sixth and Seventh Centuries Monumentality Many traditional elite burials seem to have been intended to be seen as major features within the landscape, but also to be associated with a landscape that already had prominent man-made features within it. Burial, both of inhumations and cremations, might be associated with existing prehistoric or Roman sites, and be made under prominent earthwork mounds.7 Prehistoric barrows might be reused, as with the rich female burial of the late seventh century from Swallowcliffe Down (Wiltshire),8 but for the richest male burials it was more often the case that new barrows were built that closely resembled the prehistoric prototypes and in some cases seem to have been deliberately intended to replace them. Sutton Hoo is an example of a cemetery of at least eighteen barrows created in the sixth and seventh centuries,9 while Asthall (Oxfordshire) is an isolated burial mound, in the vicinity of prehistoric barrows, and in a prominent position close to the Roman road known as Akeman Street (and still a commanding site today when viewed from the A40).10 Sites of open-air ritual Little is known of the funereal rituals that may have accompanied these exceptional burials, but current interpretations of burial practice having social agency would see such ceremonies as having a potentially valuable role in the creation of ancestors and the transmission of power. Beowulf and Ibn Fadlan’s account of the burial of a leader of the Rus may give some flavour of what could have been involved.11 Both these burials also involved the building of mounds, an act which can be seen as part of the ritual performance as well as leading to the 7 8 9

10

11

Howard Williams, ‘Monuments and the past in early Anglo-Saxon England’, World Archaeology 30 (1998), 90–108, at 100–2. George Speake, A Saxon Bed Burial on Swallowcliffe Down, English Heritage Archaeological Reports 10 (London, 1989). Martin Carver, Sutton Hoo. A seventh-century princely burial ground and its context, Society of Antiquaries Report 69 (London, 2005). Six associated flat graves have also been identified in the cemetery. Tania M. Dickinson and George Speake, ‘The seventh-century cremation burial in Asthall Barrow, Oxfordshire: a reassessment’, in The Age of Sutton Hoo: the seventh century in north-western Europe, ed. Martin Carver (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 95–130. Jos Bazelmans, By Weapons Made Worthy. lords, retainers and their relationships in Beowulf (Amsterdam, 1999); Morten Lund Warmind, ‘Ibn Fadlan in the context of his



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creation of a permanent memorial.12 A promising recent line of interpretation has suggested that other ceremonies associated with the enforcement of kingship could have taken place at the site of royal burials, such as the holding of assemblies.13 Creation of significant ancestors A convincing explanation for the emulation of earlier barrow burials and the siting of Anglo-Saxon burials in landscapes containing prominent prehistoric or Roman monuments is that they are connected with the desire to create links with the past that could aid the living in various ways.14 Such strategies by AngloSaxon elites could be seen, among other things, as either establishing links with earlier guardians of the land or as demonstrating that their own founders had taken over former seats of power. Through barrow burials new significant ancestors were created to help control the land. Among the attractions of such interpretations is that they seem to fit with the little we know of AngloSaxon foundation legends.15 For instance, the name of the supposed founder of the royal house of Wessex, Cerdic, was an Old English version of Caratacus, a former ruler of Britain.16 However incongruous it might appear given the apparent Brittonic origins of the name, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle annals Cerdic is portrayed as creating a new dynasty through emigration and victory in battle over shadowy British rulers, his progress being marked by significant landscape features that were named after him.17 A tenth-century charter reveals that a Cerdicesbeorg (Cerdic’s barrow) lay on the boundary of the major royal estate of Hurstbourne (Hampshire).18

12 13

14

15

16 17

18

age’, in The Ship as Symbol in Prehistoric and Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Ole CrumlinPedersen and Birgitte Munch Thye (Copenhagen, 1995), pp. 131–5. Howard Williams, Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain (Cambridge, 2006). Heinrich Härke, ‘Cemeteries as places of power’, in Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Mayke de Jong, Frans Theuws and Carine van Rhijn (Leiden, 2001), pp. 9–30; Sarah Semple, ‘Locations of assembly in early Anglo-Saxon England’, in Assembly Places and Practices in Medieval Europe, ed. Alexi Pantos and Sarah Semple (Dublin, 2004), pp. 135–54. Williams, ‘Monuments and the past’; Sarah Semple, ‘Burials and political boundaries in the Avebury Region, North Wiltshire’, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 12 (2003), 72–91. Barbara Yorke, ‘Anglo-Saxon origin legends’, in Myths, Rulership, Church and Charters: essays in honour of Nicholas Brooks, ed. Julia Barrow and Andrew Wareham (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 15–30. David Parsons, ‘British *Caraticos, Old English Cerdic’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 33 (1997), 1–8. 514 Cerdicesora (landing place); 519 Cerdicesford [?Charford, Hampshire] (victory over British); 527 Cerdicesleag (victory over British); The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a revised translation, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, David C. Douglas and Susie I. Tucker (London, 1961). S 359; Barbara Yorke, ‘The Jutes of Hampshire and Wight and the origins of Wessex’, in The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, ed. Steven Bassett (Leicester, 1989), pp. 84–96, at 91, 94.

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Eclecticism and emulation Within commonly occurring features, there was also a great variety of practice. Sutton Hoo was predominantly an elite burial ground, physically separate from the nearby cemetery discovered in the vicinity of Tranmer House.19 The burial discovered in 2003 at Prittlewell (Essex) was set within a cemetery of ordinary burials,20 while Asthall was an apparently isolated Anglo-Saxon burial set among earlier barrows, perhaps on the edge of Anglian territory.21 Prittlewell was an inhumation in an elaborate burial chamber, Asthall a cremation; the burials at the Sutton Hoo elite cemetery embrace a bewildering variety of burial traditions to be found in recent or contemporary practice in northern Europe.22 Prittlewell and mound 1 at Sutton Hoo reveal through their burial assemblages emulation and contact with many different areas of Europe, and a willingness to include within them ‘symbols of power’ from many different traditions and peoples, including the trappings of Roman authority.23 The princely burials of Anglo-Saxon England belong to a wider tradition of European elite barrow burial, and, like their espousal of animal-art, such forms may have been part of a desire to link themselves with other Woden-descended elites claiming origins in the north.24 When the whole ensemble is taken into account the AngloSaxon princely burials demonstrate links with many areas of mainland Europe and the insular world. A capacity for adaptation and experimentation with the symbolic language of many different elites can be said to have been one of their major characteristics. Ostentatious display, that might be expected to make an ­impression on those who witnessed or heard of the funereal ceremonies, was combined with creation of permanent monuments in the landscape, and, perhaps, of accessible ancestors who could continue to aid their families and kingdoms, or, at least, be remembered as significant heroes.

Royal Burial in the Conversion Period With conversion to Christianity Anglo-Saxon royal houses became more fully aware of the forms of burial appropriate for Christian rulers, but because the missionaries of Anglo-Saxon England came from several different areas of Europe, and the Anglo-Saxons had their own traditions of princely burial (even 19 20 21

22 23 24

Carver, Sutton Hoo, pp. 489–90. Museum of London, The Prittlewell Prince: the discovery of a rich Anglo-Saxon burial in Essex (London, 2004). Dickinson and Speake, ‘Asthall Barrow’, especially pp. 115–23. The authors discuss the possibility that some of the other barrows in the vicinity may have contained Anglo-Saxon burials. Carver, Sutton Hoo, pp. 283–313. William Filmer-Sankey, ‘The “Roman emperor” in the Sutton Hoo ship burial’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 149 (1996), 1–9. Lotte Headeager, ‘Cosmological endurance: pagan identities in early Christian Europe’, European Journal of Archaeology 1 (1998), 382–96; Lotte Headeager, Iron Age Myth and Materiality. An archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400–1100 (Abingdon, 2011), pp. 33–58.



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if these had been adopted relatively recently), the results, especially to begin with, were far from uniform. Canterbury provided an early model for royal Christian burial. King Æthelberht and his Frankish wife Bertha were buried, together with their Frankish bishop Liudhard, in the south porticus dedicated to St Martin of the monastic church of SS Peter and Paul built outside the Roman walls of Canterbury by Augustine.25 The Kentish court in the reign of Æthelbert was introduced to ideas of Christian burial from two different areas of western Europe, Francia and Rome. Within Francia there was an already established a tradition of royal burial inside churches,26 but unlike many of Bertha’s relatives, Æthelberht and Bertha were not buried in the main body of the church, but in an attached porticus or side-chamber that formed a separate chapel.27 The use of a porticus may have been derived from Augustine’s knowledge of imperial mausolea flanking St Peter’s in Rome,28 and can be seen as part of Augustine’s desire to replicate aspects of the religious topography of Rome in Canterbury.29 The Augustinian model for royal burial, as we might describe it, seems to have been taken to Northumbria by Paulinus when he went there from Canterbury, for the head of Edwin, the first Northumbrian king to be baptised, was buried at York in a porticus dedicated to St Gregory,30 while the rest of Edwin and the body of King Oswiu and members of his family were buried in what was probably a comparable structure dedicated to St Gregory at Whitby.31 However, although Canterbury provided an influential precedent for burial in a separate burial space and at an episcopal centre, neither of these customs was ever universally followed in Anglo-Saxon England. In a number of kingdoms after the first appearance of Christianity traditional burial under mounds with grave-goods seems to have continued. Kent was rather unusual among the southern kingdoms in that, once a threatened breach between Æthelberht’s successor Eadbald and the Augustinian mission had been avoided, there was an unbroken line of kings coming to the throne already converted and committed to Christianity. Such was not the case in most other kingdoms where 25

26 27

28

29 30

31

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969) (HE), II.5; Eric Cambridge, ‘The architecture of the Augustinian mission’, in St Augustine and the Conversion of England, ed. Richard Gameson (Stroud, 1999), pp. 202–36. E. James, ‘Royal burials among the Franks’, in Age of Sutton Hoo, ed. Carver, pp. 243–64. For the suggestion that Clovis may have been buried in a similar structure at St Genevieve outside the walls of Paris, see P. Périn, ‘The undiscovered grave of King Clovis I (d. 511)’, in Age of Sutton Hoo, ed. Carver, pp. 255–64. André Grabar, Martyrium. Récherches sue le culte des reliques at l’art chrétien antique (Paris, 1946), especially pp. 491–2; Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, ‘Church burial in Anglo-Saxon England’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 29 (1995), 96–119; John Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), pp. 61–2, 66–7. Cambridge, ‘Architecture of the Augustinian mission’, pp. 211–22. HE, II.2; the separation of head from body probably occurred after Edwin’s defeat in battle by the pagan Penda of Mercia, in a similar way to the well known dismemberment of King Oswald of Northumbria which is discussed below. HE, III.24; The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge, 1985), ch. 19.

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there might be a gap of forty to fifty years between the first introduction of Christianity to royal houses and their final acceptance of the new religion, with periods of apparent rejection of it by some rulers in-between.32 Internal politics and external relations with overlords in part explain fluctuations in the support given to Christianity. In the East Saxon kingdom, for instance, King Saberht was converted through the influence of his uncle Æthelberht of Kent in 604, but Saberht’s sons expelled Æthelberht’s missionaries on his death in 616. In c. 653 Sigeberht ‘Sanctus’ was baptised at the court of his Northumbrian overlord Oswiu, but Sigeberht was murdered by members of his court who apparently objected to aspects of Christian morality.33 His successor Swithhelm was converted at the East Anglian court, but in the great plague of 663–4 one of the East Saxon kings is said to have reverted to paganism. The somewhat ­chequered history of support for Christianity among the East Saxon rulers is typical of a number of other kingdoms, and so it is perhaps not surprising that in many provinces traditional burial practices were not immediately replaced by forms that were more ostensibly Christian. The rich burial of the early seventh century excavated at Prittlewell is most likely to have been, from the evidence of the gold foil crosses included within it, someone who had at least been introduced to Christianity and presumably baptised. However, the burial was made in a traditional cemetery with the display of status through grave-goods in a wooden chamber, and probably under a barrow. Presumably this form of princely burial ritual could be adapted to include either pagan or Christian ceremonies (if not, elements of both) as was appropriate for the individual concerned.34 Whether the mound 1 ship-burial at Sutton Hoo was or was not of King Rædwald of the East Angles, it seems to embody the spirit of his reign, as recorded by Bede, when Christian and pagan gods might be worshipped in the same building, for items with Christian associations, like the silver bowls and spoons, were placed alongside others such as the helmet decorated with icon­ ography that seems to be drawn from pagan myth in an exceptionally eclectic burial assemblage. None of the known princely burials appear to date after the middle of the seventh century, but the rich female burial from Swallowcliffe Down (Wilts) in Wessex may be in the region of fifty years later.35 With the

32

33 34

35

Nicholas Higham, The Convert Kings: power and religious affiliation in early AngloSaxon England (Manchester, 1997); Barbara Yorke, ‘The reception of Christianity at the Anglo-Saxon royal courts’, in St Augustine and the Conversion of England, ed. Richard Gameson (Stroud, 1999), pp. 152–73. Barbara Yorke, ‘The kingdom of the East Saxons’, ASE 14 (1985), 1–36, at pp. 31–2. For contrary arguments that they indicate resistance to Christianity and alignment with non-Christian areas of Europe, see Robert Van der Noort, ‘The context of medieval barrows in western Europe’, Antiquity 67 (1993), 66–73; Carver, Sutton Hoo, pp. 491–2, 499–501. By the late seventh century barrow burial with wealthy grave-goods seems to have been more commonly associated with women than with men and, as many of these final phase burials included crosses or items decorated with crosses or other Christian symbols, many are likely to have been of Christians; Helen Geake, The Use of Grave-goods in Conversion-Period England, c. 600–c.850, BAR, British Series, 261 (Oxford, 1997),



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accession of Cædwalla in 685, Wessex may have been the last kingdom in which an unbaptised king succeeded to the throne, by which time many churches had been founded, and large numbers of people were probably Christian. It is quite likely that a number of kings of the seventh century named by Bede, but whose burial places are unknown, were not buried at churches or in other exclusively Christian cemeteries, but (like many of their subjects) in traditional burial grounds and following traditional customs. However, increasingly burial at a church site came to be seen as imperative and so led to permanent change in burial topography.

Developments in the Late Seventh Century: A Period of Experimentation Once royal houses had made the decision to make Christianity their official religion, there appears to have been a period of experimentation in which kings sought to manifest a close association with the new religion and its God in ways that went beyond the conventional examples of royal patronage in the Middle Ages, and were not necessarily entirely pleasing to their local clergy.36 In effect they were creating Christian founder kings to replace, or supplement, those ancestors already manufactured through origin legends and barrow burial. It was the period of ‘the kings who opted out’ in a variety of different forms.37 It included kings such as Sigeberht of the East Angles, Sæbbi of the East Saxons, Æthelred of Mercia and Centwine of the West Saxons who retired to live and die as monks or abbots. It is likely that many of the monk-kings were the subjects of embryonic cults, but in most cases the conditions did not exist to enable these to flourish.38 Kings who met their deaths in battle against pagans or renegade Christians might fulfil other criteria for sainthood. The cult of Edwin of Deira was evidently promoted at Whitby,39 but was not taken up by Bede, whose portrayal of Oswald of Bernicia as a royal saint ensured the longevity and further growth of his cult.40 Other kings gained credit for abdicating and travelling to Rome for religious reasons. Cædwalla and Ine of Wessex, Cenred of Mercia and Offa

36

37

38

39 40

pp. 124–7; Sally Crawford, ‘Anglo-Saxon women, furnished burial and the Church’, in Women and Religion in Medieval England, ed. Diana Wood (Oxford, 2003), pp. 1–12. Barbara Yorke, ‘The adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon royal courts to Christianity’, in The Cross Goes North: processes of conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300–1300, ed. Martin Carver (York, 2003), pp. 243–58. Clare Stancliffe, ‘Kings who opted out’, in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society, ed. Patrick Wormald, Donald Bullough and Roger Collins (Oxford, 1983), pp. 154–76. Susan Ridyard, ‘Monk-kings and the Anglo-Saxon hagiographic tradition’, The Haskins Society Journal 6 (1994), 13–28. See also Nicholas Higham, ‘The shaved head that shall not wear the crown’, in Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gale R. OwenCrocker and Brian W. Schneider (Oxford, forthcoming 2013), pp. 7–16. Life of Gregory the Great, ed. Colgrave, ch. 18–19. Oswald. Northumbrian King to European Saint, ed. Clare Stancliffe and Eric Cambridge (Stamford, 1995). On Oswald’s cult see further below pp. 246–7.

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of the East Saxons were all buried there.41 Alhfrith of Northumbria had also wished to go to Rome, but had been overruled by his father Oswiu who himself had intended to end his days there, but died before he could do so.42 All these manifestations of commitment to the new religion resulted in forms of burial and sites of burial that differed considerably from traditional practices, except in that they marked out the individual rulers as people of particular significance and distinction. They can be said to have created a new class of demonstrably Christian ancestors. Oswiu’s intention to end his days in Rome can be linked with his apparent concern to ingratiate himself with St Peter, the gate-keeper of heaven, in the speech given to him by Bede in his account of the synod of Whitby.43 A personal concern with salvation at a Last Judgement which was felt to be not too distant helps to explain these manifestations of commitment by individual kings to the new religion, though that need not rule out an appreciation of wider dynastic purposes or an adaptation to Christian principles of the traditional importance of creating memorable death rituals. Ecclesiastical advisers would, of course, have been a major influence, and behind many of the royal retreats into monasticism or to Rome can be discerned the influence of that ecclesiastical maverick, Bishop Wilfrid of Northumbria.44 However, we should also not discount the ability of kings, once they had developed some familiarity with Christian traditions, to orchestrate their own death rituals, including burial, or those of their relations. One of the most notable examples of kings doing it for themselves appears to be Oswiu’s treatment of the remains of his brother Oswald. The dismemberment of the latter’s body by Penda after the battle of Maserfelth allowed Oswiu some freedom in distributing body parts to different ecclesiastical centres; Oswald’s head went to the episcopal see of Lindisfarne and his hands and arms to the royal vill of Bamburgh.45 As Alan Thacker observes, the burial of the head in the cemetery at Lindisfarne suggests that the monks there were not as keen to develop the veneration of Oswald as his brother was.46 Oswald’s violent death in battle seems to have met with an immediate lay response that saw the place where he had fallen and any items or substances that had contact with his spilt blood as having miraculous properties.47 Bede carefully edited the various mani-

41

42 43 44 45

46 47

Both Cenred and Offa received the tonsure and died in Rome as monks soon after their arrival as recorded in the Liber Pontificalis; HE, V.19, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 498–9, n.2 and 527, n. 3. Bede, Historia Abbatum, in Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Charles Plummer (Oxford, 1896), p. 365; HE, IV.5; Stancliffe, ‘Kings who opted out’, p. 156. HE, III.25, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 306–7. Stancliffe, ‘Kings who opted out’, pp. 170–1, and 161–9, for the importance of Irish influences. HE, III.12. This dispersed burial of body parts appears to be a new feature of Christian royal burial (aided by the cult of relics), not found in pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon elite burial practice. Alan Thacker, ‘Membra disjecta: the division of the body and the diffusion of the cult’, in Oswald, ed. Stancliffe and Cambridge, pp. 97–127, at 101–2. HE, III.9–14.



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festations to conform with Christian ideas of cult and promoted Oswald as a patron saint of Northumbria and the ecclesia Anglorum not as a martyr but because of his exemplary life.48 Behind Bede’s narrative it is possible to discern a more popular reaction which may owe something to pre-Christian attitudes to rulers who died in battle,49 and may provide an insight into traditions that could lie behind some of the warrior burials under mounds. The next stage in the development of the cult was the recovery of Oswald’s body from its place of burial near the battlefield by Oswiu’s daughter Osthryth, and its reburial at the monastery of Bardney (Lincolnshire) founded by her husband King Æthelred of Mercia.50 At much the same time Osthryth’s sister, Abbess Ælfflaed of Whitby, retrieved the headless body of their grandfather King Edwin of Deira/Northumbria from its battlefield site and buried it in the church dedicated to St Peter at Whitby ‘on the south side of the altar dedicated to St Gregory’, perhaps a southern burial porticus like that built at Canterbury for Æthelbert and Bertha.51 The author observes ‘that other of our kings’ were also buried there, and one of these was Oswiu himself.52 What one sees in this early history of royal burial in Northumbria and Mercia is a developing trend for burial to be made at monastic centres that were closely associated with the royal house and managed by its members. Æthelred of Mercia took the unusual step of retiring to Bardney himself, but such (apparently) voluntary retirement and abdication did not become a regular practice.53 More typically a royal eigenkloster was a nunnery managed by royal widows and princesses, of which Whitby is one of the best recorded examples.54

The Eighth Century and Regional Variations in Royal Burial (Table 5.2) By 700 there was a variety of ecclesiastical institutions that might be deemed suitable for royal burial and no one pattern that was universally followed. However, some different regional patterns can be observed in the choices made in the different kingdoms in the eighth century which may in some cases be connected with variations in the operation of kingship or with political disputes. In Kent royal burial continued at its archiepiscopal centre of Canterbury in the monastery founded by St Augustine, but subsequent royal burials took place not 48 49 50 51 52

53 54

Vicky Gunn, ‘Bede and the martyrdom of St Oswald’, Studies in Church History 30 (1993), 57–66. Thacker, ‘Membra disjecta’; Catherine Cubitt, ‘Sites and sanctity: revisiting the cults of murdered and martyred kings’, EME 9 (2000), 53–83. HE, III.11. Earliest Life, ed. Colgrave, ch. 18–19; Deliyannis, ‘Church burial’, p. 99. Earliest Life, ed. Colgrave, ch. 19; HE, III.24, where it is also noted that Oswiu’s queen Eanflæd, Abbess Hild of Whitby (herself a Deiran princess) and ‘many other nobles’ were buried there. For the possible burial of King Aldfrith (d. 705) at Whitby, see n. 6 above. Stancliffe, ‘Kings who opted out’, pp. 174–6 for discussion of reasons. Barbara Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses (London, 2003), pp. 17–46, 111–18.

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in the porticus of SS Peter and Paul, but in a church dedicated to St Mary that had been founded by King Eadbald (616–40) and lay to the east of the main basilica.55 St Mary’s was used for royal burial by successive kings who were closely related to one another and by manipulation of the succession dominated the throne, apart from a brief period following the death of Hlothhere in 685 when reges dubii vel externi shared rule.56 The only ruler of this main line not recorded as being buried in Canterbury was Eadberht I (d. 748) said by Thomas of Elmham to be buried in Reculver, but this was in keeping with the concentration of his interests in western Kent.57 Æthelred of Mercia’s son Ceolred was buried in his episcopal centre of Lichfield in 716,58 and with him ended the domination of the descendants of Penda. From 716 to 821 the throne of Mercia, apart from some very short-lived reigns, was occupied by just three kings – Æthelbald, Offa and Cenwulf – who came from rival lineages. All three were buried in nunneries, respectively Repton, Bedeford (Bedford?) and Winchcombe, that were especially associated with them during their reigns, and in the case of the last two, passing to female heirs on their deaths.59 King Wiglaf (827–40) and his murdered grandson Wigstan were also buried at Repton.60 It would appear that in Mercia in the eighth and ninth centuries these royal nunneries were particularly important to individual lineages. The provision of places of burial was just one way in which they supported the rule of family members and nurtured dynastic identity, perhaps a continuation of traditional roles of Anglo-Saxon royal women. In Northumbria, by contrast, in spite of the development of Whitby as a royal mausoleum and there being several nunneries that are recorded as under the control of women of the royal house in the seventh century, no nunneries are recorded as the places of burial of Northumbrian kings in the eighth century (the burial places of Northumbrian kings who died in the ninth century are not recorded). In part the change can be connected with the decline in fortunes of the families of Oswald and Oswiu. The last of their lineage to rule was probably King Osric, who died in 729, who may have been the son of King Aldfrith (686– 705), the son of Oswiu.61 It was a common pattern in Anglo-Saxon history for royal nunneries to have been affected adversely by the decline of the lineages 55

56

57 58 59 60 61

HE, II.6; Goscelin, Historia Translationis Sancti Augustini, ed. G. Henschenius and D.  Papebroch, Acta Sanctorum May 6 (Brussels, 1688), pp. 411–43, II, 10; Deliyannis, ‘Church burial’, p. 99. Barbara Yorke, ‘Joint kingship in Kent c. 560–70 785’, Archaeologia Cantiana 99 (1983), 1–19. Of these ‘intrusive’ kings only the West Saxon Mul who was killed in Kent is recorded by Goscelin as being buried at St Mary’s. Thomas of Elmham, Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis, ed. Charles Hardwick, Rolls Series 8 (London, 1858), 11, 6. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 716: Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Charles Plummer (Oxford, 1892–9), I, 42–3. Yorke, Nunneries, pp. 52–5, 165–7. David Rollason, ‘Cults of murdered royal saints in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 11 (1983), 1–22, at pp. 6–9. David Kirby, ‘Northumbria in the time of Wilfrid’, in Saint Wilfrid at Hexham, ed. David Kirby (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1974), pp. 1–34.



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that had supported them.62 However, the apparent preference for the episcopal centres of York, Lindisfarne and Hexham for royal burials in eighth-century Northumbria seems to mark a more significant shift in practice. This could be seen as part of a broader European trend, but also needs to be seen in context of the prominent involvement of bishops in the faction fighting that characterized eighth-century Northumbria. One result of the factional politics is that a number of Northumbrian kings died in exile and their places of burial are unrecorded. An alternative strategy in Northumbria for removing a ruler from the throne without actually killing him was forcible tonsure. The deposed kings of whom we know were sent to episcopal centres. This was the fate of King Ceolwulf in 731, though he subsequently re-emerged in the same year to continue his reign,63 and King Osred II was forcibly tonsured at York in 790 and subsequently banished.64 Alternatively, voluntary abdication to enter a religious community could be used as means of passing the throne to a nominated successor. Ceolwulf apparently chose to retire to be a cleric at Lindisfarne to allow the succession of his cousin Eadberht.65 Eadberht himself retired in 757/8 to York where his brother Egbert was archbishop and thus facilitated the accession of his son Oswulf.66 Both were recorded, as one might expect, as being buried in the foundations to which they had retired. Without getting bogged down in too much detail, it is apparent from the surviving Northumbrian annals that York, Lindisfarne and the Wilfridian foundations of Hexham and Ripon were often allied with different factional groups against one another within the eighth century,67 and that one aspect of the support they provided was care for their candidate’s dead body (if they could get hold of it). For instance, King Ælfwold, who was murdered in 788, was buried at Hexham where his cult as a martyr was nurtured, but his murderer Ealdorman Sicga, who committed suicide in 793, was buried at Lindisfarne.68 Conflict between rival lineages was also a feature of Wessex in the eighth century, and, though the record is far from complete, the variety of sites chosen for royal burials is also likely to be a reflection of varying allegiances. When King Cynewulf and his rival Cyneheard both ended up dead in the celebrated incident at Meretun in 786, the body of Cynewulf was taken for burial at the 62 63 64 65 66 67

68

Yorke, Nunneries, pp. 47–71. ‘Continuations from the Moore MS’, 731: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 572–3. ‘Historia regum’, 790: Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. T. Arnold, Rolls Series 75b (London, 1885), II, 50. ‘Continuations from the Moore MS’, 737: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 572–3. ‘Continuations from the Moore MS’, 758: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 574–5. Kirby, ‘Northumbria in the time of Wilfrid’; David Rollason, ‘Hagiography and politics in early Northumbria’, in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English prose saints’ lives and their contexts, ed. Paul Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1996), pp. 95–114; idem, Northumbria, 500–1100: creation and destruction of a kingdom (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 192–208. ‘Historia Regum’, 788 and 793: Symeon Opera Omnia, II, 52. A church dedicated to SS Cuthbert and Oswald was later erected by the clergy of Hexham on the site of the murder.

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episcopal centre of Winchester and that of the aetheling to Axminster (Devon), perhaps a minster with particular links to his branch of the royal house.69 In the ninth century the restriction of the succession to the descendants of King Egbert did not see an end to succession disputes. King Æthelbald (d. 860) was buried at the second bishopric of Sherborne where he had apparently found support for his coup against his father; his brother Æthelberht (d. 865) was also buried there.70 But in Wessex in the eighth and ninth centuries, unlike Northumbria, royal burial was not restricted to male minsters. As in Mercia, kings might also be buried in nunneries. King Beorhtric (d. 802), who was married to a daughter of King Offa of Mercia, was buried at Wareham, which was, or became, a nunnery,71 and King Æthelred I (d. 871) at Wimborne, which had been founded as a nunnery by his branch of the royal house during the reign of Ine (688– 725).72 Political allegiances and family associations both seem to have been relevant to the choice of royal burial site in eighth and ninth century Wessex.

Structures for Royal Burial in the Late Seventh to Ninth Centuries Burial within the main body of a major church apparently continued to be rare in Anglo-Saxon England in this period in contrast to practices in Francia.73 It may not have been completely unknown, but putative written references to church burial are often imprecise about the exact location of burial. Saebbi of the East Saxons is said to have been buried in his stone sarcophagus in ecclesia of St Paul in London but without any additional details.74 The practice of burial within major churches has not been confirmed by excavation, but relatively few of the church sites for royal burial recorded in written sources have been the subject of large scale excavation. No burials were discovered in the excavation of Old Minster, Winchester before the end of the ninth century.75 However, the southern porticus (the equivalent of which at Canterbury was used for royal

69 70 71 72

73

74 75

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 755 (= 757): Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 46–9. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 860: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 66–9; Asser’s Life of King Alfred, ed. William Henry Stevenson (Oxford, 1904), ch.12; pp. 9–12. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 784 (= 786): Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 52–3; Asser, Life of King Alfred, ed. Stevenson, ch. 49; pp. 36–7. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 718 and 871: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 42–3. 70–3. The founders of Wimborne – Cwenburh and Cuthburh – were the sisters of King Ine and of Ingild, an ancestor in the direct male line of King Æthelred I and other members of the Alfredian branch of the royal house. Deliyannis, ‘Church burial’, pp. 97–113; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Carolingian royal funerals’, in Rituals of Power from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, ed. Frans Theuws and Janet. L. Nelson (Leiden, 2000), 131–84. HE, IV.11. Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Dispersal or concentration: the disposal of the Winchester dead over 2000 years’, in Death in Towns: urban responses to the dying and the dead, 100–1600, ed. Steven Bassett (Leicester, 1992), pp. 210–47, at 222–4; Deliyannis, ‘Church burial’, pp. 101–2.



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burial) could not be excavated as it lies under the present cathedral. It would also be the case that use of stone sarcophagi, as in Sæbbi’s burial, would leave no traces if laid on a stone floor.76 The compromise of burial separate from the main body of a major church in a self-contained porticus that was favoured at Canterbury, York and Whitby in the seventh century does not seem to have become an established feature of Anglo-Saxon royal burials. At Canterbury, as we have seen, after the death of Eadbald in 640, the southern porticus was abandoned in favour of the small detached burial chapel of St Mary to the east of SS Peter and Paul, but on the same axis.77 This development may have been followed elsewhere. A possible parallel, though without any known orientation towards a major church, is the small chapel used for selected burials discovered in excavation of the cemetery of a nunnery at Nazeingbury in Essex.78 The nunnery was patronized by the East Saxon royal house, and a prominent male burial in the chapel could putatively have been that of one of their kings. The best parallels for detached burial chapels of this type come from Francia. One of the best known examples is the surviving chapel of the nunnery at Jouarre that still contains the sarcophagi of the family of Bishop Agilbert of Paris, who had previously been bishop of the West Saxons.79 In Mercia in the eighth century the royal burial structure of choice seems to have been a detached mausoleum with a subterranean burial chamber adjacent to the east end of a major church (similar to the linear spatial arrangements of Canterbury). The form was first identified at Repton where Martin Biddle proposed that such an eastern structure was the burial place of King Æthelbald of Mercia who is recorded as being buried at Repton after his murder in 757.80 Martin Biddle and Harold Taylor have proposed that the same structure was also used for the burial of King Wiglaf and his murdered grandson Wigstan, and that, as part of the development of the latter’s cult, it was subsequently incorporated into the minster church as a crypt where it can still be visited today.81 Steven Bassett has argued that documentary evidence for a chapel 76 77 78

79 80 81

Deliyannis, ‘Church burial’, pp. 101–2. See n. 55. P. J. Huggins, ‘Excavations of a Belgic and Romano-British farm with Middle Saxon Cemetery and Churches at Nazeingbury, Essex, 1975–6’, Essex Archaeology and History 10 (1978), 3rd series, 29–117. It is thought likely that this excavated site is the nunnery of Nazeing known from surviving charters: K. N. Bascombe, ‘Two charters of King Suebred of Essex’, in An Essex Tribute: essays presented to Frederick G. Emmison as a tribute to his life and work for Essex History and Archives, ed. Kenneth Neale (London, 1987), pp. 85–96. M. de Maillé, Les Cryptes de Jouarre (Paris, 1971). Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘The Repton Stone’, ASE 14 (1985), 233–92. Martin Biddle, ‘Archaeology, architecture and the cult of saints in Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Anglo-Saxon Church: Papers on history, architecture and archaeology in honour of Dr H. M. Taylor, ed. Lawrence Butler and Richard Morris (London, 1986), pp. 1–31; Harold M. Taylor, ‘St Wystan’s Church, Repton, Derbyshire: a reconstruction essay’, Archaeological Journal 144 (1987), 205–45. For a different interpretation see Eric Fernie, The Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1983), pp. 116–21.

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with a crypt close to the east end of Winchcombe church was an analogous structure which could have been used for the burial of King Cenwulf and his murdered son Cynehelm, around whom a cult also developed.82 A third possible example is the sunken structure discovered in excavation abutting the east end of St Oswald’s, Gloucester, which Carolyn Heighway and Richard Bryant have proposed as the burial places of Æthelred II and Æthelflaed, the last independent rulers of Mercia, who are known to have been buried there in 911 and 918 respectively.83 The record of Æthelflaed’s burial says that she was buried in the eastern porticus,84 which suggests that the term porticus continued to be applied to structures used for burial and closely associated with a church even if they were not of the same build. The burial porticus of the rulers of Mercia could have had resonance with several different burial traditions, including that of Canterbury, but might also look back to older customs of burial in the landscape. Martin Biddle has drawn an analogy between the mausoleum at Repton on a ridge over the river with the monumentality and siting of mound 1 at Sutton Hoo.85 Whereas the majority of episcopal centres were in former Roman towns, nunneries were more likely to be founded in significant rural or coastal locations. Romanitas seems to have been evoked at Repton by other means. Martin Biddle has also suggested that a sculpture of a mounted warrior excavated in the vicinity of the mausoleum origin­ally stood beside it to commemorate Æthelbald.86 The figure on the sculpture is clearly derived from prototypes of mounted Roman emperors though the figure has been customized by the addition of Anglo-Saxon weapons and dress and a very fine, drooping moustache. The attractions of using imperial iconography to support Anglo-Saxon royal status have already been noted in the interpretation of some of the grave-goods in Sutton Hoo mound 1. But one should also note that several kings travelled to Rome, perhaps when they knew that they were near the end of their lives, and were buried there. A precedent was established by Cædwalla of Wessex, who died soon after baptism and was buried within St Peter’s with an epitaph provided by the pope himself.87 Cædwalla’s example would have become well known thanks to the circulation of the epitaph in syllogae and in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, probably through a transcription made by Aldhelm who may have accompanied Cædwalla to Rome.88 There 82 83

84 85 86 87 88

Steven Bassett, ‘A probable Mercian royal mausoleum at Winchcombe, Gloucestershire’, Antiquaries Journal 65 (1985), 82–100. Carolyn Heighway and Richard Bryant, The Golden Minster: The Anglo-Saxon minster and later medieval priory of St Oswald at Gloucester, Council for British Archaeology Report 117 (London, 1999), pp. 7–11, 62–67. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 918 C: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 105. Biddle, ‘Archaeology, architecture and the cult of saints’, p. 22. Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘The Repton Stone’, pp. 233–92. HE, V. 7. Richard Sharpe, ‘King Ceadwalla’s Roman epitaph’, in Latin Learning and English Lore: studies in Anglo-Saxon literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe and Andy Orchard, 2 vols. (Toronto, 2005), pp. 171–93; Michael Lapidge, ‘The career of Aldhelm’, ASE 36 (2007), 15–69, at 52–64.



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would have been not just prestige through burial in Rome, but an expectation of a fast-track to heaven through the intervention of St Peter. The popularity of separate burial mausolea in Mercia may therefore also owe something to the adaptation of late Roman prototypes that by the eighth century would have had both imperial and Christian connotations. The example of Rome itself where some Anglo-Saxon kings had been buried may have been very important, and fits a pattern seen with the princely burials whereby a resonant innovation by one dynasty might be rapidly emulated by other royal houses. One could see, for instance, the so-called ‘mausoleum of Helen’ and its relationship to the church of St Peter and St Marcellinus in Rome as a putative model for the Mercian structures.89 The fact that the mausoleum was apparently originally built by Constantine to be his own burial place would have made it even more attractive as a model. The imperial mausolea flanking St Peter’s in Rome are also likely to have been a significant influence (as at Canterbury). Other echoes of Rome can be identified. The striking columns with twisted decoration that were added to the Repton chamber when it became a crypt have their closest parallels in Rome.90 The chapel with crypt at Winchcombe has a recorded dedication to St Pancras, the Roman martyr who had been translated to one of the major intramural pilgrimage churches in Rome and to whom a church in the monastic complex at Canterbury had also been dedicated.91

Tenth-Century Developments (Table 5.1) Burial within churches seems to have become the norm for the kings of Wessex and England from at least the reign of Alfred onwards.92 Alfred himself may have been the innovator, though it is possible that his brothers had been interred within the churches at Sherborne and Wimborne; we do not have evidence one way or the other. A richly-clad, late ninth-century burial is the earliest known grave recovered from the Old Minster in Winchester,93 and it is tempting to speculate whether this could be the grave of King Æthelwulf (d. 855) who had been moved to Winchester from his original place of burial in Steyning (Sussex) by the time of the compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.94 Alfred too was buried in the Old Minster, but his body was transferred to New Minster which seems to have been founded with the intention that it would serve as the burial place of the dynasty founded by Alfred. The foundation of New Minster was 89 90 91 92 93 94

Périn, ‘Grave of Clovis’, pp. 258–60; Deliyannis, ‘Church burial’, pp. 114–16. Fernie, Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons, pp. 116–21. Bassett, ‘Winchcombe’, pp. 87–90. See Yorke, ‘Anglo-Saxon royal burial’ for fuller discussion.. Martin Biddle, ‘Excavations at Winchester 1964. Third interim report’, Antiquaries Journal 65 (1965), 256 and 263–4. The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti, ed. David Dumville and Michael Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition 17, ed. David Dumville and Simon Keynes (Cambridge, 1985), 858; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 855: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer I, 66–7.

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overseen by his son King Edward the Elder, but it may well have been commissioned by Alfred before his death, as New Minster tradition believed.95 The New Minster records also make it clear that burial was within the main body of the church; Edward is said to have been buried with his parents ‘on the right side of the altar’.96 These new arrangements are likely to have been made in conscious imitation of the pattern of burial within major churches that had been the norm for Frankish rulers for some centuries.97 No doubt, as in Francia, there were also elaborate funeral rituals, but virtually nothing is recorded of these, with the exception of the presumably rather unusual case of the translation of Edward the Martyr.98 Alfred and Edward may have wished to found in Winchester their own equivalent to Charlemagne’s Aachen, a royal cultural and spiritual centre where the great ruler had been buried. It is interesting to compare New Minster in Winchester as a place of burial with the new church that came to be known as St Oswald’s in Gloucester founded by Alfred’s daughter Æthelflaed and her husband Æthelred. Although the latter appear to follow Alfred and Edward in selecting a former Roman town for a new minster in which they were to be buried, Æthelred and Æthelflaed eschewed burial within the church for interment in a separate mausoleum in the Mercian tradition.99 The West Saxon dynasty after the time of Alfred also followed continental practice in preferring burial in male minsters rather than in nunneries, a move that can be linked to belief that male houses with their greater number of priests were better able to intervene through masses for the souls of the departed.100 After the burial of Alfred’s brother Æthelred (d. 871) at the family nunnery of Wimborne, the only tenth- or eleventh-century king to be buried in a nunnery was Edward the Martyr who was finally laid to rest in the nunnery of Shaftesbury. Like a number of aspects of the treatment of the body of Edward after his murder in 978, there is more than one way in which the burial can be interpreted.101 On the one hand, one could see the choice of Shaftesbury as a slur on the memory of Edward. Those who had favoured the accession of his half95

96 97 98 99 100

101

The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, British Library Stowe 944, ed. Simon Keynes, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 26 (Copenhagen, 1996), pp. 2–5, 81–2. Liber Vitae: Register and martyrology of New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, ed. Walter de Gray Birch (London, 1892), p. 6. Nelson, ‘Carolingian royal funerals’. These were, of course, concerned with his translation as a saint, see n. 101. Heighway and Bryant, Golden Minster, pp. 62–7; see above p. 252. Patrick Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: memory and oblivion at the end of the first millennium (Princeton, NJ, 1994), pp. 63–9; Mayke de Jong, ‘Carolingian monasticism: the power of prayer’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. II c.700–c.900, ed. Rosamund McKitterick (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 622–53. Susan J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: a study of West Saxon and East Anglian cults (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 154–71; Simon Keynes, ‘King Alfred the Great and Shaftesbury abbey’, in Studies in the Early History of Shaftesbury Abbey, ed. Laurence Keen (Dorchester, 1999), pp. 17–72, at 48–55; Barbara Yorke, ‘St Edward, King and Martyr: an Anglo-Saxon murder mystery’, in Shaftesbury Abbey, ed. Keen, pp. 99–116.



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brother Æthelred II (Unræd) had argued that Edward was his inferior by birth because his mother had not been a consecrated queen. On this interpretation, burial in a nunnery could symbolize the fact that he had been a lesser member of the royal house for whom burial in nunneries continued to be applicable in the tenth and eleventh centuries. On the other hand – and this is perhaps a preferable explanation – Shaftesbury may have been favoured, as royal nunneries had been in earlier periods, because it was controlled by female members of the royal house who could be expected to manage with appropriate sensitivity Edward’s posthumous career as a martyred king. Male minsters within the Wessex heartlands were the preferred sites for royal burials in the tenth century, but New Minster did not become the exclusive burial church of the new dynasty. Edward’s son Athelstan was buried at Malmesbury which had been a church he especially favoured during his lifetime because, according to William of Malmesbury, it was the burial place of his ‘kinsman’ St Aldhelm.102 However, one can also note that Winchester was associated with support for Athelstan’s rivals for the throne, his half-brothers by his father’s second marriage.103 Athelstan is not known to have had any children and his two half-brothers, Edmund and Eadred, from Edward’s third marriage, were both buried in places associated with the growing monastic reform movement that was closely allied with the royal house. Edmund was buried in Dunstan’s monastery of Glastonbury,104 and Eadred in the leading West Saxon episcopal church of Old Minster, Winchester.105 Edmund’s son Eadwig was also buried in Winchester, but at New Minster, and was the last king to be interred there.106 Eadwig’s brother Edgar was buried at Glastonbury, the burial place of his father,107 but also the monastery particularly associated with Dunstan and the monastic reform movement of which Edgar was a major patron. Edgar’s son Æthelred II became the first of the dynasty to be buried outside Wessex when he was interred at St Paul’s in London, where he had died while seeking to defeat Cnut,108 but his son Edmund Ironside was buried with his grandfather and great-grandfather at Glastonbury.109 Cnut and his son Harthacnut were buried in Old Minster, Winchester, which they had favoured during their lifetimes probably because of its long-standing associations with the West Saxon dynasty.110 102 103

104 105 106 107 108 109 110

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton (London, 1870), pp. 396–7. Barbara Yorke, ‘Æthelwold and the politics of the tenth century’, in Bishop Æthelwold. his career and influence, ed. Barbara Yorke (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 65–88, at 69–74; Sarah Foot, Æthelstan. the first king of England (New Haven and London, 2011), 39–41. The Chronicle of John of Worcester. Volume II: the Annals from 450 to 1066, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk (Oxford, 1995), pp. 398–9. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 955 DF: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer I, 123. Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes. Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. Darlington and McGurk, pp. 424–5. Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. Darlington and McGurk, pp. 484–5; Michael Lawson, Cnut. The Danes in England in the early eleventh century (Harlow, 1993), pp. 138–9. Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. Darlington and McGurk, pp. 492–3. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1035 CDE: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 158–9; AngloSaxon Chronicle 1042 E: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 163; John Crook, ‘“A worthy

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Edward the Confessor, son of Æthelred II, was buried like his father in the London area, though not in the city,111 but in the new church he had built at the royal residential complex in Westminster where his half-brother Harald Harefoot had been buried before Harthacnut contemptuously had his body ejected.112 As in some of the earlier cases that were considered, several different minsters were chosen as the sites of royal burial with the Old and New Minsters in Winchester and Glastonbury being the most favoured. There was a trend for kings to be buried in the same place as their fathers, but the pattern was broken on a number of occasions which can in some cases be connected with the rivalry of sons for the throne, and the support, or resistance, they received from prominent ecclesiastical centres. That Cnut, who strove in many ways to be seen to be ruling in the tradition of his West Saxon predecessors, chose Old Minster, Winchester as the place of his burial is testimony both to the support he received from the ecclesiastical establishment and to the continuing symbolic significance of the choice of a royal burial place. To this tradition also belongs the display after the Norman Conquest of the coffins of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian kings who had been buried in Old Minster, Winchester, first in a memorial court around the original site of Swithun’s tomb and then, under Henry of Blois, in the feretory area behind the high altar.113

Conclusion The death of a leader was always a potentially fraught period in any medieval people’s history when rival candidates for the throne might threaten the established order. A dead king’s body could have a symbolic significance for succeeding kings whether or not they were his biological successors and irrespective of whether they were Christians or not. When the ætheling Æthelwold made a bid for the throne on the death of his uncle King Alfred in 899 it is surely significant that one of the two places he seized to launch his campaign was Wimborne where his own father, King Æthelred I, from whom he could trace his own hereditary right to the throne, was buried.114 King Wiglaf may have chosen Repton for his own burial because it was the burial place of the former Mercian king Æthelbald though he is not known to have been able to claim kinship with

111 112 113 114

a­ ntiquity”: the movement of King Cnut’s bones in Winchester cathedral’, in The Reign of Cnut. King of England, Denmark and Norway, ed. Alexander Rumble (London, 1994), pp. 165–92. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1066 E; Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 197. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1040 CDE: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 160–2; Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. Darlington and McGurk, pp. 530–1. John Crook, ‘St Swithun of Winchester’, in Winchester Cathedral. Nine hundred years 1093–1993, ed. John Crook (Chichester, 1993), pp. 57–68. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 900: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 92–3; Ryan Lavelle, ‘The politics of rebellion: the Ætheling Æthelwold and West Saxon royal succession, 899–902’, in Challenging the Boundaries of Medieval History: the legacy of Timothy Reuter, ed. Patricia Skinner (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 51–80.



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him. The significance of Repton as a place of royal burial is also likely have been also appreciated by the Viking Great Army which over-wintered there in 874 and seems to have buried there, among others, one of its own leaders under a traditional burial mound.115 The example of Repton provides a good illustration of the significance of the places of burial of rulers to both followers of traditional Germanic religions and Christianity. Current studies of pre-Christian burial practice in England and Scandinavia may help us to recognize certain themes that recur in royal burial after conversion as well. The creation of sites containing significant ancestors is one of these, and may also help to explain the desire for royal saintly ancestors in the seventh and eighth centuries. The suggestion that places of royal burial might be locales for other rituals connected with kingship is also well worth consideration for later centuries. A reference in the Fonthill letter to the noble thief Helmstan exonerating himself with an oath taken at King Alfred’s tomb may alert us to a practice that may have been much more widespread than this apparently unique reference might suggest.116 The need for access to a royal tomb for such secular purposes may help to explain why it was considered desirable in the seventh and eighth centuries to have royal tombs physically separate from the main body of churches. However, it is also the case that study of post-conversion royal burial practices may help with the interpretation of earlier princely burials. For instance, the provision of two apparently contemporary princely burial grounds at Snape and Sutton Hoo in the kingdom of the East Angles could be seen as a result of the type of rivalry between royal kindreds leading to different choices of sites for royal burials of which many examples can be found in the historic period.117 It is not surprising to find that impressive display, creation of ancestral links and demonstration of political alliances, within the context of appropriate religious provision and ritual, are recurring themes in the choice of royal burial sites in the Anglo-Saxon period. Eclecticism and a willingness to combine traditions from several different cultures, eras and religions could be also said to be a feature of Anglo-Saxon kingly burials before burial inside major basilican churches became the norm in the tenth century.118

115

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Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Repton and the “Great Heathen Army”, 873–4’, in Vikings and the Danelaw. select papers from the proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress, Nottingham and York, 21–30 August 1997, ed. James GrahamCampbell, Richard Hall, Judith Jesch and David N. Parsons (Oxford, 2001), pp. 45–96. Simon Keynes, ‘The Fonthill Letter’, in Words, Texts and Manuscripts: studies in AngloSaxon culture presented to Helmut Gneuss on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday, ed. Michael Korhammer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 53–97, at 88–9. Nicholas Brooks, ‘The Fonthill Letter, Ealdorman Ordlaf and Anglo-Saxon law in practice’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, Catherine Karkov, Janet Nelson and David Pelteret (Farnham, 2009), pp. 301–18. The incident may have taken place c. 900 when Alfred’s tomb would still have been in Old Minster. Carver, Sutton Hoo, pp. 497–9. I am very grateful to David Palliser and Howard Williams for reading a draft of the paper and making many helpful observations.

6 Ine 70.1 and Royal Provision in Anglo-Saxon Wessex1 RYAN LAVELLE

S

ince the publication of John Mitchell Kemble’s Saxons in England in 1848, the concept of the itinerant ruler has been long acknowledged, if not always fully appreciated, as a major feature of Anglo-Saxon kingship.2 A practice which was hardly unique amongst their European contemporaries and arguably emergent from notions of what was practicable in the post-Roman West for the victualling of the king and his followers, in Anglo-Saxon England this took the shape of feorm, a term which referred to the render of goods and entertainment.3 Proximity and the ability of the king to be seen at known times was an important corollary – if not the indeed the function – of this practice. I have argued elsewhere that the landholdings recorded in Domesday Book as providing the ‘farm of one night’ are a significant feature of royal provision in the West Saxon landscape. Like others, I am of the opinion that there is evidence in Domesday Book for continuity of provision in kind for a royal court.4 However, it is not the intention of this paper to revisit the details of 1

2

3

4

I wish to record here my thanks to Robin Bendrey and Chris Grocock for advice on the practical issues of animal production. The former’s archaeozoological expertise has been especially valuable in directing me to relevant work, of which I would otherwise be unaware. However, errors of judgement and interpretation are the responsibility of myself alone. J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England: a history of the English Commonwealth till the period of the Norman Conquest, 2 vols. (London, 1849; 2nd ed. 1876), II, 58. Frederic William Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond: three essays in the early history of England (Cambridge, 1897), pp. 319–20; F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1943; 3rd ed. 1971), p. 288. Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘Early medieval kingships in the British Isles’, in Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, ed. Stephen Bassett (Leicester, 1989), pp. 28–39. Ann Hagen, Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: production, processing, distribution and consumption (Hockwold-cum-Wilton, 2006), pp. 303–17. See, most recently, Alban Gautier, ‘Hospitality in pre-Viking Anglo-Saxon England’, EME 17 (2009), 23–44. For the full range of meanings of feorm, including provisions, feast, hospitality and entertainment, see its entry in Dictionary of Old English A to G Online, ed. Antonette  diPaolo Healey, (accessed 16 August 2012). Ryan Lavelle, ‘The “Farm of One Night” and the Organisation of Royal Estates in Late Anglo-Saxon Wessex’, Haskins Society Journal 14 (2005 for 2003), 53–82. The ‘farm of one night’ estates are considered further in Ryan Lavelle, Royal Estates in Anglo-Saxon

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this system but rather to explore the wider implications of the royal usage of landholdings in Wessex, considering the development of the king’s feorm on a broader canvas. These are issues of concern in the research on early social organization: Kathleen Biddick sees it as no less than the development of early statehood from chiefdoms as resources were distributed and thus permanently alienated in the seventh and eighth centuries,5 and while Chris Wickham is more circumspect regarding the capacities of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in his comparative work on European states and proto-states, he has also drawn attention to the role of the alienation of resources in the development of kingdoms during this formative period.6 Nonetheless, render and itinerant kingship remained an important element of royal authority. While such a wide-ranging issue cannot be fully addressed in a short paper such as this, the observations which arise are relevant for the study of the control of territory, and authority over territory for the provision of kings and their followers. After addressing the historical significance of itinerant kingship, I will examine the fiscal and ideological implications of the evidence in the lawcode of King Ine of Wessex (dating from between 688 and 694) as well as the practical aspects of the render described in that lawcode, suggesting that the render was focused on western Wessex. This has implications for our picture of the development of the West Saxon kingdom.

Itinerant Kingship However, it is pertinent to begin outside Wessex, with a piece of evidence concerning early Northumbria. When relating the ancestry of Ceolfrith, abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, the Vita Ceolfridi refers to the norms of gathering food for feasting. This highlights the significance of heavenly kingship and its earthly comparison. Ceolfrith’s father, a servant of the king (i.e. a thegn) holding ‘a most noble office in the king’s personal retinue’ (cum nobilissimum comitatus ageret officium), had collected together a large feast (epulae) for the king; but war had prevented the king from coming, so the food was given to the poor by Ceolfrith’s father: … et que regi terreno ac ministris eius exibenda proposuerat, summo iam Regi in humilibus illius aeterne gratia retributionis exibuerit. … and with the things which he had intended for the entertainment of an earthly king and his thegns, he entertained the highest king in the person of his lowly followers, for the sake of eternal reward.7

5

6 7

Wessex: land, property and family strategies, BAR British Series 439 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 13–47. For the historiography, see n. 2, above. Kathleen Biddick, ‘Field edge, forest edge: early medieval social change and resource allocation’, in Archaeological Approaches to Medieval Europe, ed. Kathleen Biddick, Studies in Medieval Culture 18 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1984), pp. 105–18. Chris Wickham, Framing the Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400–800 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 314–26. Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. C. Plummer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896), I, 401; translation from EHD 2nd ed., p. 768.



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This was a subversion of the expectations of feorm (here, the anonymous author may have meant feorm when he used the Latin term exhibere, translated by Dorothy Whitelock as ‘entertainment’)8 but by making reference to Ceolfrith’s aristocratic background in a fashion typical of early English sanctity,9 it nonetheless showed the significance of royal expectations. It is pertinent to note an observation made by Thomas Charles-Edwards that, if a king did not turn up at an expected time, the donor was freed from his obligations for another year.10 In the Vita Ceolfridi, a virtue is made of that practice, turning it into something associated with royal authority. In the absence of the temporal king, Ceolfrith’s father created what the author wished his reader to see was a less transitory link, ensuring that what was gathered for the king’s consumption still sent a message of kingship to its audience.11 A brief cross-Channel comparison may be relevant to a grittier political reality. A record of a much later Frankish episode shows that the presence of the king – or rather his absence – at known times could have tangible political consequences. Nithard’s Historiae, an account of the civil wars following the death of the Emperor Louis the Pious, provides a telling reference to Charles the Bald’s need to keep to a known itinerary: ‘if he changed his itinerary, everyone would say he had run away’ (si quoquo modo aliorsum iter flectere coepisset, cuncti fugam illum inisse iactarent).12 Evidently, continuing a known circuit, to go to places where the king would be known, and would be seen, was the key to successful kingship. As was first recognized in the nineteenth century, the laws of King Ine provide an indication of the significance of this.13 A clause in this lawcode records what was expected from ten hides of land. Though not specified as feorm, which appears to be more frequently used in the later Anglo-Saxon period, but as foster (a word with connotations of ‘care’ or ‘feeding’),14 a render in kind is spelt out in detail. 8 9

10 11

12

13 14

Dictionary of Medieval Latin, Fascicule 3 (D–E), ed. R. E. Latham, D. R. Howlett, with A. H. Powell and R. Sharpe (Oxford, 1986). Patrick Wormald, ‘Bede, “Beowulf” and the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy’, in Bede and Anglo-Saxon England: papers in honour of the 1300th anniversary of the birth of Bede, given at Cornell University in 1973 and 1974, ed. Robert T. Farrell, BAR British Series 46 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 32–95 at 54–8. For Ceolfrith’s family background and the significance of the royal foundation of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, see also I. N. Wood, The Most Holy Abbot Ceolfrid (Jarrow, 1995), especially pp. 5–6. Charles-Edwards, ‘Early medieval kingships’, p. 31. See Alban Gautier, Le festin dans l’Angleterre anglo-saxonne (Ve-XIe siècle) (Rennes, 2006), pp. 109–11, for the episode as indicative of maintaining the social differentiation of the poor. Nithardi Historiarum Libri IIII, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz, revised by Ernest Müller, Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 44 (Hanover, 1907), II, 9, p. 23; translation from Carolingian Chronicles: royal Frankish annals and Nithard’s Histories, ed. Bernard Walter Scholz with Barbara Rogers (Ann Arbor, MI, 1970), p. 150. For Nithard’s motivations, as a party close to Charles the Bald at this stage in his works, see Janet L. Nelson, ‘Public Histories and private history in the work of Nithard’, Speculum 60 (1985), 251–93. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 237. For definitions of feorm and foster, the latter referring much more specifically to

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Table 6.1: The renders described in 1 Kings 4:22–23 and Ine 70.1 with a summary of records of Welsh gwestfa 1 Kings 4.22–23 30 measures of fine flour 60 measures of meal 10 fattened oxen 20 oxen from the pastures 100 sheep harts roebucks fallow deer fatted fowl

Ine 70.1 10 vats of honey 300 loaves 12 ambers of Welsh ale 30 ambers of clear ale 2 full-grown cows or 10 wethers

10 geese 20 hens 10 cheeses an ‘amber’ full of butter 5 salmon 20 ?pounds of fodder 100 eels

Welsh lawcodes Llyfr Cyfnerth 1 horseload of wheat flour 1 ox 7 threaves of oats 1 measure of honey 24 pence Or commutation of one pound Plus mead, bragget or ale Llyfr Iowerth 1 horseload of the best flour that grows upon the land 1 cow or ox 1 full size tub of mead 7 threaves of oats 1 three-year old sow 1 salted flitch 1 vessel of butter Or commutation of one pound Plus mead, bragget or ale

The renders described in 1 Kings 4:22–23 and Ine 70.1, aligned according to their appearance in the lists, as arable produce, meat and fowl, with a summary of records of Welsh gwestfa (nobles’ render to the king, after Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh Kinship, pp. 370–1) for comparison.

The recipient was not specified nor indeed was the period to which the render referred but, given the context, it was probably royal: Æt x hidum to foster: x fata hunies, ccc hlafa, xii ambra wilisc ealað, xxx hluttres, tu eald hriðeru oððe x weðeras, x gees, xx henna, x cesas, amber fulne buteran, v leaxas, xx pundwæga fodres 7 hundteonig æla. As a food-rent from 10 hides: 10 vats of honey, 300 loaves, 12 ‘ambers’ of Welsh ale, 30 ‘ambers’ of clear ale, 2 full-grown cows or 10 wethers, 10 geese, 20 hens, 10 cheeses, an ‘amber’ full of butter, 5 salmon, 20 ?pounds of fodder, 100 eels.15

15

nourishment, see Healey (ed.), Dictionary of Old English A to G and (accessed 16 August 2012). For a reference to thirty hides of ‘fosterland’ at Sydling (Dorset), see S 391 (BCS 738), and for the suggestion that foster represents pastus, ‘feeding’, in some early Anglo-Saxon Latin charters, as well as the note that feorm was more frequently used in the later Anglo-Saxon period, see Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, p. 321. Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. and trans. F. L. Attenborough (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 58–9; EHD 2nd ed., p. 406.



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Although it should be noted that comparable lists of produce exist in the provision of goods to kings in Welsh lawcodes and lists of produce are a logical way of denoting authority over the people on the land,16 Ine 70.1 may be more noteworthy for its Biblical echo. In this fashion, it sent out a message of royal authority which is relevant to the vigorously legislative model of kingship proposed by Patrick Wormald.17 As can be seen by the comparison in Table 6.1, it recalls the provision to Solomon outlined in the first Book of Kings, from which three verses warrant quotation in full: And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life. And Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow deer, and fatted fowl. For he had dominion over all the region on this side the river, from Tiphsah even to Azzah, over all the kings on this side the river: and he had peace on all sides round about him.18

The chapter from which this passage comes is specifically associated with the imposition of kingship, in terms of both the domination of neighbouring kingdoms and the composition of the king’s household. If Anglo-Saxon kings – like so many of their contemporaries – saw themselves as Old Testament rulers, then the Book of Kings provided a theological blueprint for rulership. The West Saxon debt to provision envisaged according to the Solomonic model can be seen in terms of the goods rendered (Table 6.1). Although not exactly the same goods, in principle they are not dissimilar. The cultural needs of West Saxon kingship provide a north-west European adaptation of Solomon’s render, with arable products, meat and fowl appearing in the same order in both documents. The prioritization of cattle as a food source is also evident in both Ine and Solomon’s provision (an issue to which I shall return) and the absence of pigs, in contrast to both the Anglo-Saxon archaeological record and Welsh render, may be a conscious echo of Jewish taboo in Leviticus 11:7 (while, like pigs, eels were not a kosher foodstuff, their inclusion in Ine 70.1 may come from the

16

17

18

For discussion of these lists, see F. Seebohm, The English Village Community: examined in its relations to the manorial and tribal systems, and to the common or open field system of husbandry. An essay in economic history (London, 4th ed., 1905), pp. 195–8, and, more recently, T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh Kinship (Oxford, 1993), pp. 370–7. For a brief discussion of lists described in English charters (S 146, 1263 and 1861 [BCS 273, 324 and 364]), see Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, pp. 321–2. For the legislation of royal provision in early Kent, see Lisi Oliver, ‘Cyninges Fedesl: the king’s feeding in Æthelberht, ch.12’, ASE 27 (1998), 31–40. Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the twelfth century. Volume I: Legislation and its limits (Oxford, 1999), pp. 29–108 (see pp. 103–4 for the confident assertion that, despite owing its survival to Alfred, it was ‘not an Alfredian paraphrase’). Patrick Wormald, ‘“Inter cetera bona … genti suae”: law-making and peace-keeping in the earliest English kingdoms’, Settimane di Studio (Spoleto) 42 (1995), 963–96. 1 Kings 4:21–24.

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fact that they are not singled out in Leviticus 11:10–12). It can hardly have been insignificant that Alfred recalled the Old Testament comparison, as the transmission of Ine’s laws was owed to Alfred’s own lawcode.19 First, however, there is a need to address what Ine or his legislator meant when referring to ‘hides’. Although the consequences of Ine’s legislation and the later booking of land, necessitating the mensuration of land into units based on hidation, meant that the hide became to all intents and purposes a fiscal unit, this does not seem to have been its origin. It is unlikely that in the seventh century these were laid out as units of taxation associated with bookland in the manner of the Domesday survey or late Anglo-Saxon taxation system (although presumably it included some land which was ‘booked’). Instead, these were probably, as Charles-Edwards has suggested, a pre-existing unit of measurement associated with kinship, which were explained, at least in the early parts of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, as being ‘English assessments’ (aestimationis Anglorum).20 Rather than land that was measured for the specific purposes of taxation, these measurements were already known. This was land – or rather it referred to the families on the land – for which obligations were explicitly being set out, the purposes of active legislation. As Ine 70.1 seems to be associated with kingship and its ideological application, the render from ten hides can be confidently associated with royal expectations and, in any case, it may be recalled that early grants of land were related to the rights of the recipient of the land granted to enjoy the rights of render enjoyed by the king.21 An objection to this needs acknowledgement, however. As has been suggested to me by Alex Burghardt, Ine’s lawcode may be an attempt to codify AngloSaxon kingship through what was reasonable: to inform his subjects that this was what he required and no more, avoiding accusations of harshness.22 The latter point seems reasonable in terms of the consensual politics of Anglo-Saxon law, such as Cnut’s much later statement that ‘no one need give anything to [the royal reeves] to my provisioning [feormfultume] unless he himself wishes’ (nan man ne þearf to feormfultume na þingc syllan, butan he sylf wylle).23 However, the context of Ine’s lawcode is arguably different from that of Cnut. Ine’s legis19 20

21

22 23

See Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 122, on Asser and views on the Book of Kings. T. Charles-Edwards, ‘Kinship, status and the origins of the hide’, Past and Present 56 (1972), 3–33. For other readings, see P. S. Barnwell, ‘Hlafæta, Ceorl, Hid and Scir: Celtic, Roman or Germanic?’, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 9 (1996), 53–61, and Martin J. Ryan, ‘That “dreary old question”: the hide in early Anglo-Saxon England’, in Place-names, Language and the Anglo-Saxon Landscape, ed. Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan (Woodbridge, 2011), pp. 208–23. HE, I.25, II.9, III.4 and IV.16 refers to familiae as an ‘English’ assessment, whereas III.24, IV.3, IV.13, IV.19, and V.19 do not: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), pp. 72–3, 162–3, 222–3, 292–3, 336–7, 372–5, 382–3, 396–7, 520–1. E. John, Land Tenure in Early England (Leicester, 1964), pp. 27–9. See also P. Wormald, Bede and the Conversion of England: the charter evidence (Jarrow, 1984). See Alfred 2 for reference to minsters and other communities ‘to which king’s feorm belongs’ (þe cyninges feorm to belimpe): Laws, ed. Attenborough, p. 64; EHD 2nd ed., p. 409. Alex Burghardt, personal communication. II Cnut §69.1: Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, ed. and trans.



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lation is, as Patrick Wormald characterized it, ‘aggressive’, and may be seen in terms of the overlordship imposed.24 Furthermore, the render described in Ine 70.1 may reflect the high status of its recipient: the lack of pigs in the lawcode may suggest that in addition to being an Old Testament statement of kingship, the West Saxon legislator had need of high status sources of meat (bacon would have been a very practical and much easier means of raising the meat for the render).25 It is also unlikely that the record of the render was intended for lands which had been alienated by charter, as although this would directly relate to their assessment in hides and may have been an attempt to ensure royal control of render from alienated lands, royal grants of land seem to have allowed the right to the feorm of the estate. Therefore this would not have been agriculturally sustainable as their alienation would have meant that the surplus from the estate – an issue to be addressed below – would have had one burden too many, needing to support both the estate holder and the king. In the remaining part of this paper, I wish to explore the possibility that Ine 70.1 was associated with the developing control of western Wessex in the later seventh century.26 While Frederick Maitland did not commit himself to applying this only to western Wessex, it is relevant to note that he did not dare ‘argue that this law is a general law for the whole of Wessex’, suggesting the possibility that the clause ‘may refer only to some newly settled and allotted districts’.27 More recently, Barbara Yorke mentioned Ine 70.1 in the context of the control of western Wessex, noting Thomas Charles-Edwards’s suggestion of the ‘subtle change from payments imposed by a victorious overlord to those given “voluntarily” to help support a ruler’s duties’, but her magisterial survey of Wessex did not address the implications of this render for the territories controlled by Ine.28 Given the Solomonic connection discussed above, consideration of western Wessex nonetheless deserves further exploration. The Book of Kings records Solomon’s reign ‘over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt’.29 The render given to Solomon each day was thus given by his tributary kingdoms, and that daily basis may be noteworthy in an Anglo-Saxon context. While Ine or even Alfred probably did not have access to such a great number of roebucks that they could enjoy them each day, the render recorded in Ine 70.1 is more realistic in terms of what a north-western European economy could provide. If early

24 25

26

27 28 29

A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1925), pp. 208–9; EHD 2nd ed., p. 465. On this clause, see Gautier, ‘Hospitality’, p. 42. Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 106. P. J. Crabtree, ‘Sheep, horses, swine, and kine: a zooarchaeological perspective on the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England’, Journal of Field Archaeology 16 (1989), 205–21 at 210. For an attempt to impose a chronology upon this, see W. G. Hoskins, The Westward Expansion of Wessex (Leicester, 1970). See also Barbara Yorke, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1995), pp. 64–72. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 237. Yorke, Wessex, pp. 72–3; Charles-Edwards, ‘Early medieval kingships’. 1 Kings 4:24.

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Anglo-Saxon kingship was based on the receipt of tribute, and the Solomonic parallel can be made, this was a tributary economy for the lands taken under West Saxon overlordship during the later seventh or early eighth century. While the codification of Ine’s lawcode does not give any explicit indication of the context of clause 70.1, western Wessex was a legal preoccupation. Seven of the clauses in the lawcode are concerned with British or ‘Welsh’ identity.30 One of the effects of the treatment of Britons in the lawcode was to create an ethnic differentiation of English and Britons within Wessex, forcing assimilation for Britons who, as Yorke has pointed out, had effectively become invisible by the time of Alfred’s lawcode.31 Ine’s lawcode makes two references to Britons in the context of hides of land, suggesting that, in common with Charles-Edwards’s assessment, hidage here was a means of assessing land in terms of those who lived on it rather than only for taxation.32 References to ‘Welsh’ ale from a later eighth-century Mercian context, as with the references to its render in Ine 70.1, are perhaps indicative of Celtic contact or at least cultural influence.33 If the lawcode of Ine was ‘written law that is “live”’, as Patrick Wormald referred to it,34 with the consideration given to the Britons in Ine’s Wessex as necessary when the circumstances arose, it may be suggested that the ten-hide provision in the clause came from this context.

Ine 70.1 and the Tributary Economy The list of goods to be rendered in Ine 70.1 is indicative of the codification of a tributary economy. Even if, as Chris Wickham has suggested, this appears an idealized list35 and there may be numerological significance in some of the figures given by our West Saxon legislator (and, given the arguable Old Testament parallel, this would hardly be surprising), some practical observations may nonetheless be made from the figures given, as the lawcode was presumably born of West Saxon royal experience.36 There is thus some justification for taking the figures at their face value in terms of what they would have meant for a tributary economy, and even if the problems with the figures’ reliability are

30 31

32 33

34 35 36

Ine 23.3, 24.2, 32, 33, 46.1, 54.2, 74: Laws, ed. Attenborough, pp. 42–60; EHD 2nd ed., pp. 401–7. Yorke, Wessex, p. 72. See also Martin Grimmer, ‘Britons in early Wessex: the evidence of the law code of Ine’, in Britons in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Nick Higham (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 102–14. Ine 24.2 and 32: Laws, ed. Attenborough, pp. 44–6; EHD 2nd ed., pp. 401–2. For the production and importance of Welsh ale, often contrasted with ‘clear’ ale, as in Ine 70.1, see Hagen, Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink, pp. 211–13. A later record of a render to Peterborough to ‘ten mittan of Welsh ale’ (ten mittan welsces aloð) in S 1440 (BCS 465) may suggest that by the ninth century this may have been a more general term rather than a description of provenance. Wormald, ‘Inter cetera’, p. 982. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, p. 321. Wormald, Making of English Law, pp. 104–5.



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compounded by the necessarily broad calculations, their discussion is a worthwhile exercise. Taking the most significant of the animals referred to, the cow, the work of archaeozoologists can cast some light on what the consequences of provision may have been. Published estimates for the carcass weights of early medieval livestock vary considerably,37 but figures in the region of 130–150 kilograms may be suggested, with an approximately 50 to 60 per cent return of meatto-bone ratio (this did not mean that the rest would have been disposed of; they would simply not have been choice cuts). Therefore, allowing a reasonable margin of error, it may be estimated that the beef from one early medieval cow could provide between 100,000 and 150,000 calories.38 Assuming that a healthy, wealthy and active man would have required some 2,500 calories per day, the two full-grown cows detailed in Ine 70.1, with a combined calorific value of between 200,000 and 300,000 calories, would have fed between 80 and 150 people in one day before they even needed to start on anything else (after all, there were 300 loaves and 100 eels). By comparison, given that the total carcass weights of ten wethers may have been some 100 kilograms, fewer

37

38

Estimates are 220–270 kg cattle liveweight in Anglo-Scandinavian York: T. P. O’Connor, The Archaeology of York, 15.3: bones from Anglo-Scandinavian levels at 16–22 Coppergate (London, 1989), pp. 166–7; 170 kg liveweight and 103 kg carcass weight for the seventh-century West Stow assemblage: P. J. Crabtree, West Stow, Suffolk: early Anglo-Saxon animal husbandry, East Anglian Archaeology Report 47 (Suffolk County Council, 1989), pp. 37–8 and 210; a heavier dressed carcass estimate of 181 kg was made for medieval cattle at Gomeldon, Wiltshire, by R. Harcourt, ‘Report on the animal bones’, in Excavations at the Deserted Medieval Village of Gomeldon, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, ed. J. Musty and D. Algar, Salisbury Museum Research Committee Reports, 3.9 (Salisbury, 1964), cited in T. P. O’Connor, Animal Bones from Flaxengate, Lincoln, c. 870–1500, Archaeology of Lincoln 18.1 (London, 1982), p. 12. See also B. A. Noddle, ‘A comparison of the animal bones from eight medieval sites in southern Britain’, in Archaeozoological Studies, ed. A. T. Clason (Amsterdam, 1975), pp. 248–60. It should be noted that the authors of the Flixborough report, though estimating ranges of meat consumption at the site as a whole, use the discrepancies in the calculations to caution against ‘absolute values’, hence this report does not present estimates for individual animals: Keith Dobney, Deborah Jaques, Cluny Johnstone, Allan Hall, Beverley La Ferla and Susan Haynes, ‘The agricultural economy’, in Farmers, Monks and Aristocrats: the environmental archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Flixborough, ed. Keith Dobney, Deborah Jaques, James Barrett and Cluny Johnstone. Excavations at Flixborough, vol. 3 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 116–89, at 123–5. For modern data on the Dexter, a comparatively small and hardy breed, which is often compared, at least in terms of size, with early medieval cattle (e.g. in Christopher Grocock, ‘“To eat, to wear, to work”: the place of sheep and cattle in the economy’, in The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World, ed. Maren Clegg Hyer and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Exeter, 2011), pp. 73–92, at 79), see the Dexter Cattle Society website, (accessed 15 August 2012). My calculation is based upon the calorific value of prehistoric beef of 1,600 calories per kilogram (I use the more commonly understood term ‘calorie’ to mean kcal) given by Tony Legge, ‘Milk use in Prehistory: the osteological evidence’, in The Zooarchaeology of Fats, Oils, Milk and Dairying, ed. Jacqui Mulville and Alan Keith Outram (Oxford, 2005), pp. 8–13 at 12.

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people may have been fed by the sheep than by cuts of beef.39 Although such a possible calorific deficiency may have been counteracted by the king’s receipt of the good quality wool which wethers are able to provide,40 it is more probable that, given the context, this was purely a food render and the requirement of wethers was likely to have been practical in terms of flock maintenance (for which, see below). That said, assuming a reasonably balanced diet for everyone, the total of the goods may be estimated to have been sufficient for 200–300 people to have eaten well in one sitting, and approximately 1,300 litres of ale41 meant that they had something with which to wash down their food (especially important if clean water supplies could not be guaranteed). In contrast to the suggestion made by Maitland that it may have sufficed only for the king and ‘a modest retinue’,42 Ine 70.1 is indicative of the number of people which might have been expected at a royal assembly of the sort gathered together in later charter witness lists, with thirty to forty of the great and good, with their various hangers-on, presumably an entirely arbitrary ratio of, say, ten or so minor people for every important personage.43 The practicality and sustainability of such a render also deserves some attention. It was of no use for the king and his retinue to have eaten the local peasants out of everything which they had. While the ability of elites to be well fed in times of hardship was an important indicator of social superiority and one might expect the peasantry to feel the pinch before the king, systems of render had to be sustainable. In practical terms, this meant that the peasantry of a particular area had to sustain themselves for 365 days of the year for the king’s one. Nonetheless, the render in Ine 70.1 trod a fine line between conspicuous consumption and sustainable production, which leads me to suspect that it was not based on what was ‘reasonable’ but was an evident burden. On the basis of yields of loaves per acre, Chris Wickham suggests that 300 loaves, for example, was not a particularly large render.44 But the render was not only an arable return and it is relevant to address, too, the pastoral side of the economy to which Ine 70.1 relates. An observation made by Tony Legge on prehistoric societies is relevant to our consideration of the decisions which were faced

39

40 41

42 43

44

This calculation is based on an approximate estimate of 40 kg liveweight for sheep found in Anglo-Scandinavian York: O’Connor, Archaeology of York 15.3, p. 176. However, Chris Grocock has informed me that twenty people would have been able to eat well with the meat from a sheep from an unimproved breed. S. J. M. Davies, The Archaeology of Animals (London, 1987), p. 186. An amber would have been the equivalent of 48 sesters (of 23 or 24 ounces each). Definitions here are from Christopher Corèdon with Ann Williams, A Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 12, 256. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 237. Ryan Lavelle, ‘Why Grateley? Reflections on Anglo-Saxon kingship in a Hampshire landscape’, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 60 (2005), 154–69, at 156. Cf. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, p. 321, suggested on the basis of bread calculations.



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by communities subject to the provision of render in an early historic society: every surplus animal rendered and given outside the community which reared it denied its value to future production.45 In contrast to pigs, a quick, cheap and comparatively easy source of meat for a small community (which, in addition to Biblical prohibitions, may explain their absence from a render which was meant to convey status), cattle required specialized investment in skills and a strategic overview of production, and were limited to agricultural production in lowland areas with ready access to water.46 Whether to rear a calf to maturity or to kill the young calf for themselves and take far more prodigious quantities of milk, butter and cheese from the calf’s mother was a decision which was regularly faced by a small community, and had a bearing on their ability to provide a render.47 The quality of the royal render is thus borne out by the fact that Ine 70.1 specified ‘full-grown’ (OE eald) cows. From an ovine perspective, taking into account natural losses and the need to sustain and develop a flock, the provision of ten wethers per year would have required a substantial surplus. A render of ten wethers per year would perhaps have needed flocks of at least fifty ewes (not to mention a hard-working ram or two), so economies of scale would have been important for replacement and the maintenance of a flock size.48 Although from some four centuries after Ine’s lawcode, Domesday Book’s record of the yearly render by the six-hide Somerset estate of Cricket St Thomas of six sheep and six lambs to the night’s farm estate of South Petherton from a flock of 124 sheep suggests that a 1:10 ratio was more sustainable.49 Fewer problems could have resulted from the yield of grain which Ine 70.1 necessitated. Providing 1,300 litres of ale, not to mention the bread which was notably required as loaves, not just flour or wheat, would have been onerous but hardly impossible, given a decent yield.50 Nonetheless, as the units of calcula-

45 46

47 48

49 50

Legge, ‘Milk use’, p. 12. A level of 76 m above the Ordnance Datum is assumed: Annie Grant, ‘Animal husbandry in Wessex and the Thames Valley’, in Aspects of the Iron Age in Central Southern Britain, ed. B. Cunliffe and D. Miles (Oxford, 1984), pp. 102–19, at 103–4. For a review of the limitations of the use of cattle in an early medieval tributary economy, see F. McCormick, ‘The decline of the cow: agricultural and settlement change in early medieval Ireland’, Peritia 20 (2008), 210–25. For further discussion of this issue, see Grocock, ‘“To eat, to wear, to work”’, pp. 79–81. I am indebted for discussion on this matter to Robin Bendrey, who has drawn my attention to hypothetical flock calculations in M. L. Ryder, Sheep and Man (London, 1983), pp. 81–2: from a flock of 100 ewes (and four rams), 80 lambs might be born, about half of which could be expected to survive. Assuming an equal distribution of male and female lambs, the 20 males would have been available as animals surplus to the maintenance of flock size, from which a render could be made (perhaps once their fleeces had been sheared for the community’s own benefit), while the 20 females would have been needed for flock maintenance. For more modern comparisons, see E. Hart, Sheepkeeping on a Small Scale: sound advice on home wool production (Wellingborough, 1979). Caroline Thorn, Domesday Book: Somerset, ed. Caroline Thorn and Frank Thorn (Chichester, 1980), ref. 1:4 and 19:1 (including Exeter Domesday reference). Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, p. 321, suggests, on the basis of calculations

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tion required a mixed output, if land units were mixed (as was probably the case), Ine 70.1 did not represent an easy burden.

The Development of an Early Medieval Kingdom The division of the West Saxon kingdom into ten-hide units which this paper has so far entertained, presupposes a relatively uniform agrarian balance amongst these areas, able to provide the wide range of products outlined in Ine 70.1. The ten-hide figure quoted in Ine’s lawcode may be approached from a different perspective, however: if legislation for the provision of food was concerned with ensuring a constant and consistent supply of food, then it may be examined in terms of the days of the year rather than assuming ten-hide units. Ten hides multiplied by the 365 days of the year is 3,650 hides. Putting to one side the rather large figure of 100,000 hides for Wessex in the Tribal Hidage, which may be indicative of a later addition,51 a theoretical measurement of 3,650 hides may bear comparison with the multiples of 300 recorded in that document.52 Given that shires within ‘central’ Wessex can be calculated in Domesday Book with some 2,500–4,000 hides, such an assessment may equate with a very small West Saxon kingdom of the late sixth or early seventh century.53 However, the lawcode should be addressed to Ine’s Wessex, the sort of kingdom that was capable of the control of Hamwic, not the relatively insignificant kingdom of the Gewisse of an earlier generation. If we can take Ine 70.1 to recall the sentiments of I Kings 4, it may be more indicative of a move towards the regulated control of tributary territory.54 Although the Isle of Wight, for example, may have been such a tributary territory, these figures may be applied more logically to conquest and the consolidation of Ine’s rule in the south-west of Britain, the population of which, as noted above, Ine’s lawcode was at least partly concerned. With south-western territory under West Saxon control, the hidages of this area are worthy of consideration. This was, as the preoccupations of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggest, an area which was then coming under West Saxon control, and indeed helped to define

51 52 53

54

made from later medieval yields in C. Dyer, Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 28–9, that 300 loaves would have required a hectare of land. Yorke, Wessex, p. 73. Wendy Davies and Hayo Vierck, ‘The contexts of Tribal Hidage: social aggregates and settlement patterns’, Frümittelalterliche Studien 8 (1974), 223–93. This observation is made in Lavelle, ‘“Farm of One Night”’, pp. 58–9. Shire hidages are calculated by N. P. Brooks, ‘The administrative background to the Burghal Hidage’, in The Defence of Wessex: the Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon fortifications, ed. D. H. Hill and A. R. Rumble (Manchester, 1996), pp. 128–50 at 135–6 (Hampshire, 2,588 hides; Dorset, 2,321; Somerset, 2,951; Wiltshire, 4,050). Ryan, ‘That “dreary old question”’, p. 214, citing HE, II.9 and IV.16 (14): Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 162 and 382, remarks on hidages ‘mentioned in a context suggestive of royal tribute-taking’.



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the West Saxon kingdom.55 As the figures from the Tribal Hidage may be shown to relate to Mercian overlordship for an aggressively expansionist Mercia,56 perhaps the assessment of hides during the reign of Ine may be seen in a similar light. In an admittedly later document, the figures from the Burghal Hidage associated with the fortifications in Devon, Somerset, and West Dorset (effectively the territory to the west of Selwood) totalled some 3,900 hides.57 Work on this subject in recent decades has shown the continuity, mutatis mutandis, of these figures.58 For a West Saxon king in control of conquered British territory wishing to assert a tributary control, the hidage of the area to the west of Selwood could have been intended to provide a daily render of proportions that recalled Old Testament kingship. Thus, on a figure of ten hides’ foster, pastus or (if the term is allowed at this point) feorm per day, the conquered territory may reasonably have been subdivided to be assessed at some 3,500–4,000 hides. While it may be well nigh impossible to ascertain how such a tribute may have been organized, we do not have to assume that each ten hides rendered the given provisions each day on a daily basis. One might more reasonably expect tribute to have been taken on the hoof to central collection points by the likes of the poor married peasant recorded in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica.59 A ruler could then travel to such places in order to consume that tribute in order to assert his authority, and for this a West Saxon equivalent of Ceolfrith’s father may have been responsible for ensuring that sufficient food was ready to eat in the right place at the right time. Ine’s lawcode arguably catches a transitional point in West Saxon history. Over the course of one or two generations the resources of the kingdom were being enlarged from the equivalent of some 6,000 hides to a good 10,000 hides. While such figures can only be estimates, they give an idea of the resources commanded by the kingdom. Some of that additional land could be given away to favoured monastic houses but arguably this was more than an itinerant king needed, and indeed more than he could use. As Ælfric the Homilist observed in the late tenth century: Wyrdwritera us secgað, ða ðe awritan be cyningum, þæt þa ealdan cyningas on ðam ærran timan hogodon hu hi mihton heora byrðena alihtan, for þan ðe 55

56 57 58

59

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ABCE MSS s.a. 658, 661, ABCDE MSS s.a. 709, 710: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a revised translation, ed. D. Whitelock with David C. Douglas and Susie I. Tucker (London, 1961), pp. 21, 23, 26; Yorke, Wessex, pp. 59–60. Davies and Vierk, ‘Contexts of Tribal Hidage’, pp. 225–7. Excluding Bath, these figures are: Bridport, 760 hides; Exeter, 734; Halwell, 300; Lydford, 140; Pilton, 360; Watchet, 513; Axbridge, 400; Lyng, 100; Langport, 600. Brooks, ‘Administrative background’, and D. A. Hinton, ‘The fortifications and their shires’, in Defence of Wessex, ed. Hill and Rumble, pp. 151–9; P. H. Sawyer, From Roman Britain to Norman England (London, 1978), pp. 227–8. HE, IV.22: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 402–3; the suggestion is that of Barbara Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1990), p. 162. See Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh Kinship, p. 368, for observations on the distinctions between renders of livestock over long distances and the localized receipt of grain.

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an man ne mæg æghwar beon, and ætsomne ealle þing aberan, þeah ðe he anweald hæbbe. Historians who write about kings tell us that ancient kings in former times considered how they might alleviate their burdens, because a single man cannot be everywhere and sustain all things at once, though he might have sole authority.60

If Anglo-Saxon kingship developed along the lines of Biblical ‘ancient kings’ (and the Old Testament parallel with Ine’s law suggests so), it is relevant to note that the eighth century witnesses the emergence of an aristocracy with quasi-regal powers, including the office of ealdormen. Moreover, references to scirmen in Ine’s lawcode suggests that this process had already begun,61 perhaps revealing the reasons behind the devolution of royal authority to which Ælfric later referred. By way of conclusion, to complete a whistle-stop tour of royal provision, an observation can be made by briefly applying the Domesday evidence to the principles of the render in Ine 70.1. If the manors recorded in Domesday Book as providing the night’s farm were the remnants of the former West Saxon kingdom’s royal estates, they had to have been able to provide more than just one night’s farm each, notwithstanding the eleventh-century total of nineteen farms of one night (or a single farm of nineteen nights?) recorded from manors across Domesday Wessex.62 If, as many commentators have observed, the development of hundreds was related to the organization of royal estates,63 the shires of early eighth-century Wessex may not have had enough hundreds in total for royal provision on the level of an eleventh-century ‘farm of one night’. The 220 hundreds recorded in the Domesday folios for Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Devon are a substantial number,64 but even at a maximal interpre60

61 62 63 64

Homilies of Ælfric: a supplementary collection, ed. John C. Pope, EETS, os 259–60 (London, 2 vols., 1967–8), II, 728; cited, with translation, by Simon Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘The Unready’, 978–1016: a study in their use as historical evidence, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 3rd series, 13 (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 206–7. I am indebted to Ann Williams for this reference. Yorke, Wessex, p. 91; Ine 8: Laws, ed. Attenborough, p. 38; EHD 2nd ed., p. 400. Lavelle, ‘“Farm of One Night”’, p. 57. Eighty nights’ render can be roughly calculated across Domesday England. See Susan Pearce, South-western Britain in the early Middle Ages (London, 2004), pp. 279–81. These were thirty-two hundreds in Devon (Frank R. Thorn, ‘Hundreds and Wapentakes’, in The Devonshire Domesday, ed. Ann Williams and G. H. Martin (London, 1991), pp. 26–42 at 42), thirty-nine hundreds in Dorset (Frank R. Thorn, ‘Hundreds and wapentakes’, in The Dorset Domesday, ed. Ann Williams and G. H. Martin (London, 1991), pp. 27–44 at 41), forty-four hundreds in Hampshire (Frank R. Thorn, ‘Hundreds and wapentakes’, in The Hampshire Domesday, ed. Ann Williams and R. W. H. Erskine (London, 1989), pp. 28–39 at 30), sixty-four hundreds in Somerset (Frank R. Thorn, ‘Hundreds and wapentakes’, in The Somerset Domesday, ed. Ann Williams and R. W. H. Erskine (London, 1989), pp. 32–41 at 40–1), and forty-one hundreds in Wiltshire (Frank R. Thorn, ‘Hundreds and wapentakes’, in The Wiltshire Domesday, ed. Ann Williams and R. W. H. Erskine (London, 1989), pp. 31–45 at 44).



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tation of royal control, there were not enough hundreds to represent one estate per day and night throughout the year (notwithstanding how many of those lands were under ecclesiastical control). Were Ine’s ten-hide based provision enough to ensure that an early West Saxon king (and his agents) had roundthe-year provision from a limited territory, the arguably much larger ‘farm of one night’ units may not have fulfilled precisely the same function in the same manner. Perhaps the night’s farm in eleventh-century Wessex was not a single night’s render but, given the archaic idea, a royal assessment could be made. Nonetheless, I would not doubt that the ‘farm of one night’ in Domesday Book was related to the provision of early West Saxon kings as it showed the principles of provision in kind for an itinerant king. While addressing the longer-term development of the organization of royal estates in late Anglo-Saxon Wessex is a subject beyond the scope of this paper, the fact that the idea, even if not the same operation, of the feorm of one night and one day remained present in the exercise of eleventh-century royal authority is testament to the significance of its organization at an earlier, formative stage of West Saxon kingship.

7 Being Everywhere at Once: Delegation and Royal Authority in Late Anglo-Saxon England1 ALARIC A. TROUSDALE

I

n the second quarter of the tenth century the kings of England were still developing the ways and means by which they would organize and administrate the former kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and the areas of the Danelaw not separately, but jointly. As one scholar has noted of the period, echoing no doubt many others, ‘We should dearly like to know, but do not, how far these areas had been integrated within the machinery of West Saxon government.’2 This essay does not claim to have an answer to this ambiguity, but it would like to consider how kings might have gone about the process of achieving such integration. Kings Edward the Elder (899–924) and Athelstan (924–39) laid much of the groundwork, and this process continued under King Edmund (939– 46) and his successors; but Edmund has not received a comparable amount of attention from historians. This essay will raise questions and address some seemingly overlooked points of what could be termed King Edmund’s administrative policies. Examination of that king’s legislation, it will be argued, is one of the ways forward.3 The kings of England in the tenth century were busily trying to boost their perceived importance, as well as making sure that their image was supported by actual power. Historians are familiar with the many symbols of royal authority: legislation, crowns, coins, and patronage are but a few examples; but would do well to remember that people – both individuals and the positions they held – were also powerful symbols of royal authority. We might inquire as to whether or not kings may have attempted to express their authority by empowering others below them. What says ‘I am powerful’ more than recognizing in another individual or body lower in status to your 1

2 3

The author would like to thank John Hudson for detailed comments on an early version of this paper, and Nicholas Brooks for pointing out particular language problems that helped greatly to clarify key points. Gale Owen-Crocker corrected many mistakes; all remaining errors are, of course, my own. David Dumville, Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar: six essays on political, cultural, and ecclesiastical revival (Woodbridge, 1992), p. 147. For editions and translations of Edmund’s legislation, see Die Gesetze der Angelsachen, ed. F. Liebermann, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–16), and The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, ed. and trans. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1925).

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own a certain authority of his or its own, held in your name? The king’s ability to delegate his own royal authority is an integral part of any medieval power structure, and from time to time this required adjusting to fit new circumstances. The individuals to whom an Anglo-Saxon king could delegate his authority were those closest to him, his ealdormen and thegns, archbishops and bishops; the administrative structure in which they worked remains largely unknown.4 England in the middle of the tenth century experienced considerable political instability, with both secular and ecclesiastical interests vying for influence under an increasingly powerful king. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between the king and his representatives of royal authority in the mid tenth century. More generally it will address contemporary issues of local administration and how officials may have dealt with legal proceedings at the hundred and shire level. The essay proposes that royal legislation reinforced royal power in the person of the diocesan bishops, while at the same time promoting efficiency and institutional familiarity between the localities by encouraging cooperation between local administrative authorities. This process is especially visible in the legislation of King Edmund. Edmund was the first to succeed to the kingship of all of Britain, and the expression of imperial pretension introduced under Athelstan was refined further by his successors. One wonders how Edmund perceived his role as king of several disparate territories still becoming accustomed to being governed as one, and how he balanced the bigger picture of his inherited English ‘empire’ against the more day-to-day administration of the localities. The king cannot be everywhere at once, and in his absence it was the delegates of his authority working at the local level that had to be relied on to maintain the peace. Recent work on Anglo-Saxon law has begun to recognize the subtle differences between active legislation, and what is coming to be known as ‘administrative law’; that is, the difference between leges that prohibit illegal behaviour, and those that seem to do more to outline how the authorities responsible for keeping the peace would preside over the laws as they may have stood. Interpretation of the latter is notoriously difficult. In order to proceed we will be taking the problematic course that entails probing law codes not for what they can tell us about how Anglo-Saxon law was made, but what the king may have wanted his laws to accomplish in the shorter term; this will involve a close reading of the laws themselves, a chancy practice even when the utmost care is employed.5 4

5

See H. R. Loyn, ‘The term Ealdorman in the translations prepared at the time of King Alfred’, EHR 68 (1955), 512–25; ‘Gesiths and thegns in Anglo-Saxon England from the seventh to the tenth century’, EHR 70 (1955), 528–49; The Governance of Anglo-Saxon England 500–1087 (London, 1984); H. R. Loyn, ‘Church and state in England in the tenth and eleventh centuries’ in Tenth-Century Studies: Essays in commemoration of the millennium of the Council of Winchester and Regularis Concordia, ed. David Parsons (London, 1975) pp. 94–102. See also C. R. Hart, The Danelaw (London, 1992). See P. Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the twelfth century, I (Oxford, 1999) and also Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: law as text, image and experience (London, 1999). In The Making of English Law, Wormald makes important arguments regarding textual history, and raises questions regarding how and why the laws



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At the risk of taking a gradualist reading of the laws, the use of such methodology is intended to facilitate exploration and speculation, and it is hoped that despite a somewhat narrow approach to the evidence, the nature of Edmund’s legislation permits this.

I Edmund and Archbishop Oda of Canterbury (941–58) The law code known as I Edmund has been most closely associated with a tract concerned with episcopal details, the so-called Chapters of Archbishop Oda of Canterbury.6 In order to appreciate I Edmund and that king’s other legislation, it will be necessary to understand the Chapters and their author. Consisting of ten numbered paragraphs of relatively consistent length, the Chapters concern traditional issues of authority and integrity amongst the clergy. Ranging from such issues as clerical celibacy to inhibiting girovagi, their tone is serious and exhortatory. They were composed sometime between 942 and 946, as Oda identifies himself as archbishop, and also dedicates his effort to King Edmund personally in the prologue.7 The Chapters are only partly Oda’s own compositions, and consist mostly of an edited compilation of a number of sources, some not yet identified, but mostly coming from the Legatine Councils of 786.8 Despite the fact that Oda’s Chapters appear to be primarily a work of compilation rather than original composition, the themes he stresses and their connection to I and II Edmund make them invaluable to the present discussion. For while they may not be entirely Oda’s original views, his excerpts – indeed, as well as what he chose not to include – from his various sources do give us an oblique insight into what the archbishop had on his mind. While the Chapters appear chiefly concerned with ecclesiastical observances and the proper duties of each particular class of cleric, there are hints at a more general interest in greater involvement on the part of the clergy in seemingly secular affairs. An emphasis on increased clerical commitment to worldly administrative issues can be seen in several of the Chapters, especially the second, which is concerned mainly with the duty of the king to select good councillors and to protect his subjects:

6 7 8

have been passed down to us as they are. Perhaps most importantly he argues that the laws as we have them are of little value when attempting to determine their intended use. While there are difficulties to be overcome, and despite Anglo-Saxon kings’ undeniable desire to write themselves into the lawmaking tradition, the present author does not share Wormald’s opinion that we are unable get at what Anglo-Saxon kings might have intended their legislation to do. See Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, III, 124. The Chapters are edited in Councils and Synods. 67–74. Oda received his pallium in 942, and King Edmund was killed in May 946. See Councils and Synods, p. 69. See G. Schoebe, ‘The Chapters of Archbishop Oda (942/6) and the canons of the Legatine Councils of 786’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 35 (1962), 75–83

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Secundo capitulo ammonemus regem et principes et omnes, qui in potestate sunt, ut cum magna humilitate suis archiepiscopis omnibusque aliis episcopis obedient, quia illis claves regni celorum date sunt et habent potestatem ligandi atque solvendi; nec se magni pendant in seculari potentia, quia Deus superbis resistit, humilibus dat gratiam. Habeatque rex prudentes consiliarios, Deum timentes super regni negotia, ut populus, bonis exemplis regis et principum eruditis, proficiat in laudem et gloriam Dei. In the second chapter we admonish the king and his princes and his men who are in authority, that they be obedient with great humility to their archbishops and to all of their bishops, because those who have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven have the strength both to bind and to loosen. And let them value not their secular power, for God resists the prideful while showing favour to the humble. And the king should have prudent councillors, fearing God above the business of the realm, so that the people, being instructed by the good example of the king and his great men, might accomplish much in the praise and the glory of God.9

The language suggests explicitly the connection between God’s grace and the secular powers of law; those who are in a secular position of lawgiving are given ‘the strength both to bind and to loosen’ from the bishops (and the archbishop). It hints ever so slightly at dependency, but the emphasis remains one of cooperation between just judges, both secular and ecclesiastic. According to Oda, the king’s powers to delegate authority in the realm of law comes from the grace meted out by God, and this relationship requires cooperation between those delegated by God – the bishops – and those delegated by the king, his ealdormen and thegns. This theme continues in the third Chapter, which makes it clear that not only are secular authorities inherently tied to ecclesiastic ones, but so also are ecclesiastics tied to the king and his men.10 It is directed expressly to the bishops, and explicitly admonishes them always to ‘preach the word of truth to the king’.11 This emphasis on secular and ecclesiastical cooperation is further summed up in the eighth chapter, in no uncertain terms, with the words: ‘Therefore, brothers, let concord and unity be between the bishops and the great men, and amongst all the Christian people.’12 The language of unanimity between Christians is not at all uncommon, but here again we can observe a conscious emphasis on the duty of secular magnates and of ecclesiastics – bishops in particular – to work together for the common Christian good. This underlining of the necessity of secular/ecclesiastic collaboration is made clear just as readily by what Oda omitted from the sources he consulted as what

9 10 11

12

Councils and Synods, p. 70. Translation mine. Councils and Synods, p. 71. ‘Absque ullo timore vel adolatione cum omni fiducia verbum veritatis predicare regi, principibus populi sui, omnibus dignitatibus, et numquam veritatem subterfugere’; Councils and Synods, p. 71. Translation mine. ‘Ideo previdendum est, fraters, ut sit Concordia ut unanimitas inter episcopos et principes omnemque populum christianum’; Councils and Synods, p. 73. Translation mine.



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he chose to include. As Whitelock observed, Oda’s omissions are significant, especially those canons from the Legatine Council of 786 he chose not to highlight.13 They include a number of canons dealing particularly with more exclusively ecclesiastical topics. For instance, injunctions on costume,14 baptismal rites and the necessity of knowing the paternoster and creed15 and the exclusion of illegitimate children from receiving any inheritance were ignored.16 Neither did Oda choose to include in his Chapters any discussion of the necessity of the vigorous prohibition of heathenism found in the third and the nineteenth canons.17 They are all very specific injunctions, and all would have been dealt with solely by ecclesiastics in a decidedly spiritual context. They naturally would have had no place in a document calculated to emphasize the necessity of secular/ecclesiastic cooperation. Archbishop Oda does not seem to have been keen on highlighting those particular canons dealing with matters that might be considered more exclusively secular in nature, either. Reference to the twelfth canon, which deals with the election of kings and the crime of regicide, is absent in what Whitelock identifies as an ironic twist, considering that Edmund was stabbed to death in his own hall.18 This aside, it is important that within the Chapters the king is only mentioned in the context of his duty generally to protect the Church and surround himself with prudent councillors, givers of just judgments.19 The Chapters’ overriding secular interest lies with those councillors, the king’s delegates and not the king himself. Perhaps the most significant visible exclusion is Oda’s disregard of a key element of the tenth canon, which specifically prohibits bishops from attending secular councils.20 If the above interpretation is accepted, any reference to this provision would have essentially negated the entire purpose behind the Chapters. The 786 Legatine Decrees and Oda’s Chapters both stress concord within Christian society, but Oda has tailored many of the earlier pronouncements so as to fit more appropriately into a context of cooperation between the secular and the ecclesiastic roles in the application of law and governance.21 The stressing of the bishop’s function in relation to the secular world and his relationship 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

The following discussion is taken from Whitelock’s introduction to Oda’s Chapters, in Councils and Synods, p. 68, and the conclusions made here follow her observations. For the Legatine Decrees, see Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland III, ed. A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs (Oxford, 1871), pp. 447–62. Canon 4; Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents III, ed. Hadden and Stubbs, p. 450. Canon 2; Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents III, ed. Hadden and Stubbs, pp. 448–9. Canon 16; Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents III, ed. Hadden and Stubbs, pp. 455–6. Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents III, ed. Hadden and Stubbs, pp. 449–50, 458–9. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a collaborative edition, 6: MS D, ed. G. P. Cubbin (Cambridge, 1996), p. 44. See especially the second Chapter; Councils and Synods, p. 70. ‘Vidimus etiam ibi Episcopos in conciliis suis secularia judicare, prohibuimusque eos voce Apostolica: “Nemo militans Deo implicet se negotiis secularibus, ut Ei militet Cui se probavit”’; Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, p. 452. See also C. Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c. 650–c. 850 (London, 1995), p. 189, n. 143.

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with the king’s councillors, as opposed to the king himself, is suggestive of the archbishop’s own interest in the bishop’s role in local administration. With a better understanding of the reasoning and the mindset behind Oda’s Chapters, one is in an improved position to discuss the law code known as I Edmund. Archbishop Oda is mentioned prominently in the prologue of the code, and as Wormald has said, it does indeed seem as if the code was ‘an attempt to put the impetus of vernacular law behind the principles expounded by [the Chapters]’.22 I Edmund appears at first glance as a bit of a hodgepodge of ecclesiastical concerns. A close reading of several of its clauses shows it to be in fact a systematic approach at delineating the rights and obligations of bishops with respect to their local spheres of administration and their responsibilities to the king. In this respect it echoes I Athelstan, which also refers to the general duties of ecclesiastics, and of bishops in particular.23 The prologue begins by stressing the attendance of the two archbishops, Oda and Wulfstan of York. The presence of both archbishops’ names is perhaps an indication of the greater cooperation (or at the very least a hope of greater cooperation) at all levels of the Church and state espoused by the Chapters. The first clause is primarily concerned with those in holy orders and their behaviour. It echoes much of the more general theme of setting a good example found in the Chapters, and even goes so far as to prescribe a punishment ‘which is ordained in the canon’, perhaps an overt reference to the Legatine Decrees themselves.24 In the third clause one finds the novel statement that, ‘Gif hwa Cristenes mannes blód ageote, ne cume he na on ðæs cyninges neawiste, ær he on dædbote ga, swa him biscop tæce 7 his scrift him wisige’ (‘If anyone sheds the blood of a Christian man, he shall not come to the king’s neighbourhood25 until he proceeds to do penance, as the bishop appoints for him or his confessor directs him’).26 William Chaney considered the significance of this clause as relating

22 23

24

25 26

Wormald, English Law, p. 310. The prologue of I Athelstan also speaks of reeves and of ealdormen, but lays special emphasis on bishops and their own property. See The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. and trans. F. L. Attenborough (Cambridge, 1922), p. 123. ‘þæs wyrðe þe on ðam canone cweð’; Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 6, 295. This is in contradiction of Liebermann’s belief that the punishment meted out was, in fact, not according to canon law (Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, III, 125); see Wormald, English Law, p. 310, n. 215. Translation mine. While Robertson translated neawiste as ‘anywhere near [the king]’, ‘neighbourhood’ is preferable. Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 6–7. Liebermann felt that the mention of the bishop by name indicated that a high-ranking member of society, such as a king’s thegn, was meant. He based this on the inclusion of a few extra words in one of the manuscripts containing Edmund’s law codes (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 383), which suggest that the stipulation was drawn up with precisely the kings’ own retainers in mind. He felt that this addition, which reads, ‘if he be the king’s man’ (gyf he cyninges man sy), exemplified the code’s actual meaning, and helped to clarify it (Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, III, 125). Robertson joined him in this view (Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 295–6 n.3, 296 n.4). Wormald however has since shown the phrase to be a scribal addition to the text, possibly an error or, as is more likely, a later gloss. His investigation of Corpus Christi College MS



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directly to the king himself, and he highlighted its parallels to the sanctity of the pagan Germanic ruler-cult.27 Whether or not this association is still tenable, Chaney does agree, as does the present author, with Whitelock’s ascribing the law to part of the ‘movement to emphasize the sanctity of kingship discernable in other texts in this century’.28 These are important points to make, but there is more. As Chaney correctly observes, the third clause of I Edmund establishes the mediation of the bishop as a necessary step before one ‘polluted’ by the crime of homicide may approach the king.29 In actual practice, this would have placed great discretionary powers in the hands of a bishop presented with a submissive criminal, one willing to do penance. Furthermore, one could interpret this clause’s emphasis on proper channels as an attempt to prevent a killer from going over the head of the local bishop to appeal directly to the king’s own personal justice.30 Through this clause the king retains his rights to administer his own personal justice undiminished; at the same time it reinforces the notion of communication between the king and the bishops in serious legal matters. Cooperation remains the overriding principle, but it is cooperation that provides both the king and the bishops their own separate measures of authority. The clause appears to force any murderer to rely first on the bishop before appealing higher up; it distances the king from the trouble of having to deal with criminals personally, while simultaneously reinforcing the authority of the bishop in his diocese. The bishop’s power is essentially the king’s here; royal authority is at work through the bishops, who enjoy a similar authority from God. Even if one reads this clause in strictly ideological terms, the relationship between the king and the bishops is laid bare. The bishop’s actual power may have been unchanged, but the king, as well as God, now explicitly endorsed whatever authority in this sort of case they previously possessed.

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383 shows that there are a surprising number of slight (and indeed, not so slight) errors and emendations to be found within it (English Law, pp. 228–36, 308–9). These range from the simple to the egregious, and he felt that the irregularity of the additions found in the manuscript reflects a glossing rather than the original language (English Law, p. 309 n. 205). William A. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: the transition from paganism to Christianity (Manchester, 1970), pp. 213–17. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship, p. 217; see also EHD 2nd ed., p. 332. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship, pp. 218–19. Chaney goes on to say: ‘Thus the right of asylum is upheld, and the royal protector loses none of his prerogatives, but the peculiar character of the Anglo-Saxon king has been reasserted as sacral and not to be defiled by one ritually unclean – unshriven or excommunicated, in the terminology of the new courtreligion’. This is after a comparison between I-II Edmund and a later law, VI Æthelred 36, which speaks in the same terms of Edmund’s restriction, with the important addition of bars against ‘those who secretly compass death,’ morðwyrhtan. It is therefore interesting to note the very similar warnings against witchcraft and magic found in Oda’s ninth Chapter. While this provision applies only to a particular crime, it resonates with Wormald’s comment that the Anglo-Saxons had the rather pronounced habit of ‘over-hasty resort to the king’ (Legal Culture, p. 349).

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After the fourth clause, which is a general admonition against adultery and intercourse with nuns, comes a directive aimed at the bishops themselves. I Edmund 5 concerns the maintenance of Church property, and the bishop’s own property in particular.31 It has been interpreted by Liebermann as an exhortation to keep individual churches in general good standing with the corpus ecclesiarum;32 and Robertson posits the possibility that the basic upkeep of church buildings, perhaps those that had fallen into disrepair during the course of the Danish wars in particular, is meant.33 The present interest lies with the fact that I Edmund 5 places the responsibility and the personal authority of the bishop himself at the fore. In addition to making it clear that bishops are to take an active role in the upkeep of their churches (in whichever sense upkeep is meant), they are also to ‘exhort the king that all God’s churches be well put in order, as we have much need [that they be]’.34 In conjunction with the third clause one can observe a theme developing in I Edmund, that of the empowerment of the bishop as a direct (perhaps the direct) intercessory between the king and his folk in certain matters of justice and of religious well being. While it is clearly evidence of what Chaney observes in the context of ‘the Anglo-Saxon kingdom under God … led in this world through law on its path to salvation by a king working with the Church and the “deputies of Christ” within it’, it also shows a great concern with the proper duties and the hierarchy of responsibility between the king and his ‘deputies’, the bishops.35 I Edmund 3 and 4 remind bishops that, at least in part, the king delegates their authority. One can observe in I Edmund not only an interest in reaffirming the enthroned royal dignity, but also a concern with maintaining the local authority of the king’s delegates within their own local context. Part and parcel of this would appear to be the bishops’ role in promoting a majestic view of royal authority by carrying out their own local business in the king’s name; working together, the king and the bishops reinforce the authority of the other. There are further possible implications. The themes addressed above could also be suggestive of a power disparity between ecclesiastics and secular officials regarding the regulation of legal matters independent of the king himself. A comparative reading of Oda’s Chapters supports this, and the legal emphasis on cooperation and increased involvement on the part of bishops within their diocese might hint at a desire for balance between 31

32 33

34 35

‘[Be cyricena gebetunge.] Eac we gecwædon, þæt ælc biscop béte Godes hus on his agenum, 7 eac þone cyningc minegige, þæt ealle Godes circan syn wel behworfene, swa us micel þearf is’ (‘Likewise we have ordained that every bishop shall restore the houses of God on his own property, and also exhort the king that all God’s churches be well put in order, as we have much need [that they be]’), Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 6–7. Based on his translation, and explicated by Robertson in Laws of the Kings of England, p. 296. According to Eadmer of Canterbury’s Vita Odonis, Archbishop Oda was instrumental in the rebuilding of Christchurch Cathedral; see Eadmer of Canterbury, lives and miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan, and Oswald, ed. A. J. Turner and B. J. Muir (Oxford, 2006), pp. 25–6. Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 6–7. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship, p. 220.



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the respective spheres of legal officials. One might not take this too far, as the emphasis on property is also prominent; but it may be a sign of an increased awareness that bishops could have a powerful influence on legal proceedings, and especially so when property was involved.36 This general interpretation of I Edmund therefore suggests at the same time an elevation of the status of the king at the highest level of society and the Church, as well as an intensification of the powers of the bishop at the more local, diocesan level. While the bishops’ authority appears amplified and possibly extended, it is exclusively at the local levels of legal administration, within their own diocese. The impression is one of a royal personality not looking to be disturbed by matters that could be more easily dealt with by the local authorities. A king with pretensions to managing a burgeoning kingdom might legislate in such a way.

II Edmund, Wergeld, and the Politics of the Mund A number of recent studies have highlighted the prevalence of feud in AngloSaxon society. When unchecked, disputes that began as essentially local matters had potentially far-reaching consequences. King Edmund’s second code is at its most basic an attempt at royal regulation of the blood feud, and it is in this context that it has most often been approached.37 The concepts introduced in the code exhibit a further move towards the elevation of the status of the king in the administration of law, but in such a way as to further separate the concept of his personal justice from the responsibilities delegated to local officials in I Edmund, and vice versa. Wormald was accurate in his assertion that II Edmund was designed to apply the ideological stance taken in I Edmund to a more specialized arena of justice. However, Wormald placed minimal importance on the concept of the king’s mund, the special protection of the Crown.38 The qualification of the king’s mund in II Edmund is innovative and also well in line with the concepts discussed above in relation to I Edmund. The ordinance on feud begins with the first person plural voice, and the

36

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38

It was after all Archbishop Oda’s protégés and partners in the Benedictine reform movement, Dunstan and especially Æthelwold, who proved so instrumental in the acquisition and retention of lands in the decades that followed King Edmund’s reign. See Barbara Yorke, ‘Æthelwold and the politics of the tenth century’, in Bishop Æthelwold, His Career and Influence, ed. Barbara Yorke (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 65–88. See Paul R. Hyams, ‘Feud in medieval England’, Haskins Society Journal 3 (1991), 1–21; and also his ‘Feud and the state in late Anglo-Saxon England’, The Journal of British Studies 40 (2001), 1–43. II Edmund is unique also in its relationship to the peculiar tract known as Wergeld, an anonymous code, which it closely parallels. Wormald has shown that they share much of the same language, and in such an order, that the conclusion that they are simply differently worded versions of the same pronouncement becomes inescapable. See English Law, pp. 374–8.

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informal language belies the seriousness of the code.39 When reading the prologue and its sub-clause the impression is one of logical progression, suggestive of planning and careful deliberation. Compared with Edmund’s other legislative output, his second code appears more mature, more carefully and rationally thought-out than any other.40 The first clause gets straight to the point, laying down what amounts to an ‘out clause’ should a killing occur. It effectively isolates any slayer by making him alone the bearer of the vendetta. So long as one follows the rules by having friends and kin aid in the payment of the wergeld, and the wergeld is paid in full and in due time, all will be well.41 The ifs and buts come in the sub-clauses, which make provision for what will happen should a kin not support a killer. The three sub-clauses call on families not to cheat the system by giving them the option to avoid both the potential economic hardship and the possibility of being included in the legitimate feud. A kindred could then either throw their lot in with the homicide, or avoid the whole mess altogether.42 The second sub-clause even makes provision for the possibility of a single member of a kin group attempting to flaunt the law by aiding the murderer, in defiance one would imagine of the rest of the family. II Edmund effectively sets this individual outside the law along with the murderer, without including the rest of the kin.43 It sets forward almost as if it were designed as a social regulation, protecting the larger part of a kindred from the rogue actions of a single member. The second clause prohibits any breach of the sanctity of sanctuary. It forbids any harm to be visited upon a criminal seeking ecclesiastical or royal sanctuary, and the emphasis is on violence done within the protected area of a church or a royal burh. One is tempted to give this clause little more than a cursory glance, but it may be worthwhile to treat it and the third sub-clause of the first as closely related. They both draw heavily on previous legislation: II Edmund 1.3 draws from II Athelstan 20.7, and II Edmund 2 draws from Alfred 2 and 40.44 In each case the crime is described in virtually the same way, but Edmund has tacked on the additional penalty of outlawry and loss of property into the king’s hands. 39 40

41 42 43 44

The style is decidedly personal in nature, a feature Wormald notices as being novel in Anglo-Saxon law. See English Law, p. 311. The prologue gives, as a whole, the notion that this law was not one composed by an ecclesiastic, but reflects closely the actual words of the king. Take for example the passage, ‘First, then, it seemed to us all most necessary that we should keep most firmly our peace and concord among ourselves throughout my dominion. The illegal and manifold conflicts which take place among us distress me and all of us greatly. We decreed then …’ (EHD, p. 391). Whitelock’s translation of II Edmund is preferable to Robertson’s, but the original is taken from his edition: ‘Ðonne ðuhte us ærest mæst ðearf, þæt we ure gesibsumnesse 7 geþwærnesse fæstlicost us betweonan heoldan gynd ealne minne anwald. Me egleð swyðe y us eallum ða unrihtlican 7 mænigfealdan gefeoht ðe betwux us sylfum syndun: ðonne cwæde we’; Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 8–9. EHD, p. 392. EHD, p. 392. II Edmund 1.3. This is the first key penalty laid down, and it is a harsh one: inclusion in the vendetta, and royal confiscation of all property. See EHD, p. 392. Laws of the Kings of England, p. 296.



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The enhanced penalties and the language used in Edmund’s stipulations strongly resemble King Athelstan’s codes, in that they stress the sole right of the king to pronounce guilt and collect the entirety of the profits of justice. Such stress on royal privilege is continued in the third clause, in which Edmund declares, ‘7 ic nelle þæt ænig fyhtwite oððe manbot forgifen sy’ (‘and I do not wish that any fine for fighting or compensation to a lord for his man shall be remitted’).45 The tone is noticeably more forceful. H. R. Loyn noticed this imposition on the right of the kin by the king, and his observation that ‘a higher authority was present’ is highly relevant here.46 The law highlights and employs Edmund’s own royal prerogative just as much as it attempts to suppress the rights of the kindred to settle their own scores with unsupervised – by its very nature unpredictable and therefore dangerous – violence.47 The fourth clause bears a close relationship to I Edmund 3, in that it appears to repeat and clarify the provision excluding a slayer from coming straight to the king for justice (see above). III Edmund 4 states: Eac ic cyðe, þæt ic nelle socne habban [þone ðe mannes blod geote] to minum hirede, ær he hebbe g[od]cunde bote underfangen 7 wið mægðe gebet – on bote befangen – 7 to ælcum rihte gebogen, swa biscop him tæce ðe hit on his scyre sy. Further, I make it known that I will allow no resort to my court before he [the slayer] has undergone ecclesiastical penance and paid compensation to the kindred, [or] undertaken to pay it, and submitted to every legal obligation, as the bishop, in whose diocese it is, instructs him.48

The clause emphasizes the position of the bishop specifically in his diocese, his authority to pronounce legal and ecclesiastical penalties, and the local rights of the kin to receive proper reparation. Here King Edmund reiterates the separation of his person from the homicide and places the authority of the bishop as a criminal’s first step towards legality. A criminal may no longer appeal directly to the king if the local authorities do not see things his way.49 This example makes explicit the role of the bishop as both a partition between an individual and the king’s personal justice, and as a powerful entity in the local context of the legal system. The bishop is doing the king’s work for him, and it is in the king’s name that the bishop acts. Of additional interest is the balance that II Edmund 4 strikes when compared with the preceding three clauses. Whereas the preceding clauses stress royal prerogative in the punishment of criminals, II Edmund 4 extends and clarifies the relatively novel concept of the king’s isolation from those contaminated by crime, and re-affirms the more local rights of bishops to prescribe the appropriate punishments. Edmund stresses his own 45 46 47 48 49

EHD, p. 392; Laws of the Kings of England, p. 9. H. R. Loyn, ‘Kinship in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 3 (1973), 197–210, at 203. For a slightly different reading, see Hyams, ‘Feud and the state in late Anglo-Saxon England’, pp. 14–17. Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 10–11; see also Wormald, English Law, pp. 310–11. See above, n. 30.

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royal authority while maintaining the degree of local power provisioned for in his other pieces of legislation. II Edmund 5, 6 and 7 stand in sharp contrast to the opening clauses of the code. These particular clauses closely resemble the unofficial legal tract known as Wergeld, and as Wormald has remarked, appear ‘out of place’.50 The break in subject is matched by the change in tone. The fifth clause is essentially a personal ‘thank you’ to those who have given their support in the suppression of thefts, and also appears to entreat all concerned to support the provisions put forth. This clause, peculiarly, appears in the middle of the code as a whole. The final clause also stands out both textually and linguistically. This fact led Wormald to suggest that the seventh clause possibly represents an additional text that was added on to the tail end of II Edmund.51 While he discounts this prospect, one might give his suggestion a second glance. In addition to the textual abnormalities noticed by Wormald, there is a noticeable difference in originality. The first five clauses of II Edmund all draw on and copy from earlier West Saxon royal legislation, including that of kings Ine, Alfred, Athelstan, and I Edmund.52 In the two final clauses of II Edmund there are no direct visible connections with any earlier Anglo-Saxon law code and the provisions are decidedly innovative in their content. Perhaps the most important novelty is in the sixth clause, with the introduction of two new terms to Anglo-Saxon law, mundbryce and hamsocnum. Mundbryce refers to the king’s own special protection (mund), not a new legal concept in any sense; and while the new term was seemingly introduced to specify the breaking of said special peace, its inclusion in the laws here alongside the second new term is significant.53 Hamsocnum refers to housebreaking, and its literal translation equates to ‘attack on a homestead’. Perhaps most important is the fact that hamsocnum appears to be a Scandinavian loan word, most probably derived from the ON heimsókn.54 Anglo-Saxon scholars are by no means strangers to Scandinavianisms, and while these remain relatively uncommon, they often come as little surprise. We should perhaps take slightly more notice when they appear in concentrated number within a certain text. Edmund’s first and third codes show no evidence of Scandinavian loan words, but his second code contains no fewer than three, and all of these are found in the sixth and seventh clauses. The other two include sectan, from the

50 51

52 53 54

Wormald, English Law, p. 377. Wormald, English Law, pp. 311, 377. In addition to the sudden shift of focus and theme, there are also textual peculiarities. In two manuscripts, the Textus Roffensis and CCCC MS 383, Wormald has noticed the prominence of unusually oversized initials at this point, and that this may be a sign of a new text. In CCCC MS 383 the initial in question (f. 55v) is in red ink and set apart from the surrounding text. In the Textus Roffensis the initial is similarly offset and outsized. See Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 296–7. See Ine 6, Alfred 7 and 39–40, in Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, pp. 38–9, 68–9 and 80–3. Laws of the Kings of England, p. 297.



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ON sætta (‘to make peace among’), and grið, meaning peace generally, or more specifically localized peace, such as sanctuary or truce.55 As suggested above, the establishment of the king’s mund was the driving concept behind Edmund’s second code as a whole, and it is in the sixth and seventh clauses where the term is applied and more fully defined. It may be no coincidence then that we see this prevalence of Scandinavian legal terminology suddenly thrust alongside the provisions defining what constituted the initiation of the king’s special protection, and what was subject to the king’s authority once it had been established in a particular case. It is entirely possible that this density of loan words in the final clauses is indicative of an effort to make the concept of the mund more approachable to a group or locality that might not be familiar with the conditions involved. Approached in this context, II Edmund appears as having plausibly been composed with a Scandinavian speaking audience at least partly in mind. One assumption could be that individuals well versed in Scandinavian languages directly influenced these clauses of II Edmund, and it is hardly a stretch to suggest that Archbishop Oda, and possibly Archbishop Wulfstan, were amongst them.56 If this is accepted, then it is unproblematic to recommend further Wormald’s suggestion that II Edmund was promulgated sometime soon after King Edmund recaptured the area of the Five Boroughs in 942/3.57 The pagan Norse who ruled Northumbria for some years previous had effectively dominated the Christian-Danish inhabitants of these areas, and their absorption back into English control would have obliged the re-introduction of West Saxon style administration. Dorothy Whitelock touched on this, and her suggestion that II Edmund was ‘part of an attempt to secure greater uniformity over the various parts of the kingdom’, as well as being connected with ‘the division of the midlands into shires during the [tenth] century’ strikes a chord with the analysis below of III Edmund and the Hundred Ordinance, as shall be demonstrated.58 The close relationship between the final clauses of II Edmund and the anonymous tract known as Wergeld could be seen as lending assistance to this view. Wormald has shown unequivocally that the tract provides an expanded reading of the seventh clause of II Edmund, with the majority of the added details being related to the proper modes of payment.59 In essence it is an elaborative section serving to clarify the points laid down by II Edmund’s final clauses. The implication inferred by its sheer existence is that clarification was needed in the first place, a point which reinforces the probability that the legal concepts being 55

56

57 58 59

Robertson identifies the possibility of a fourth in the inclusion of hand, which possibly relates closely with handsal, an ON legal term relating to a sincere promise (Laws of the Kings of England, p. 297). Oda was of Danish ancestry (see N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), pp. 222–37), and Wulfstan must have been fluent in multiple Scandinavian languages. Wormald hinted at this in English Law, p. 441. EHD, p. 333. Wormald, English Law, p. 377. See also Hyams, ‘Feud and the state in late Anglo-Saxon England’, pp. 15–16.

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introduced might have been met with some confusion, due perhaps either to their novelty and/or complexity, or their reception by those who were un­familiar with such concepts. The unofficial nature of Wergeld serves to underpin the suggestion that there was a degree of circumscribed analysis and elaboration being exercised by those who were charged with interpreting and administering the law in the localities.60 If Wergeld is to be considered even remotely contemporary with II Edmund, and it almost certainly is, then it is possibly evidence of increased local interpretation of official legislation. The implication is that the local authorities had the ability to so interpret it.61 II Edmund therefore emerges as a directive aimed at local officials on how to differentiate between what was to be under the aegis of local responsibility, and what circumstances were to constitute the boundaries of the king’s own special protection, his mund. In one sense it clarifies certain themes set forth in his other laws by delineating the powers of local authorities in the specific terms of the feud. It also serves to set apart further the special powers of the crown by delegating authority into the hands of district officials, while reserving the right of royal interference if a case was either mishandled or the rules flagrantly contravened. Edmund continues to encourage more local initiative in the upholding of the law, while at the same time reaffirming his own royal dignity and authority in special circumstances. By approaching legal administration in this way, the vigour of the Law is enhanced at all levels, exemplified by the hierarchical distinctions and shown by the organizational structure of local and royal jurisdictions working in conjunction. There is an emphasis on increased cooperation between all ranks of the Anglo-Saxon legal system, and the parallel with the ideals espoused by Archbishop Oda’s Chapters is marked.

III Edmund and the Hundred Ordinance So far this essay has relied on close readings of the legislative language found in Edmund’s first and second codes as evidence for an increased emphasis on the power of bishops in the local administration of law, as well as an increasingly sophisticated level of cooperation between royal and local authority. Discussion will now turn to Edmund’s remaining official act of legislation and the document known as the Hundred Ordinance. Also known as the Colyton edict, III Edmund is notable both for its reliance on traditional phrasing and themes, borrowed mostly from the laws of King Athelstan, and on its innovation in language. Wormald has noted that there is only one complete clause without obvious precedent, and the code as a whole is generally comparable to the

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‘Wergeld comes out of all this looking like an unofficial treatise inspired by royal legislation’, Wormald, English Law, p. 377. Table 3.1 in Wormald’s English Law, pp. 112–17 shows the prevalence of ‘unofficial’ legal tracts corresponding roughly with King Edmund’s reign and immediately after; while not a smoking gun, the correspondence is noteworthy.



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style found in the introduction of Athelstan’s fourth code.62 The first clause of III Edmund is a general admonition on personal loyalty to the king himself. A hint of time-honoured language shows itself in the famous passage stating that subjects should show their constancy by ‘favouring what he [the king] favours and discountenancing what he discountenances’, a repetition from the laws of his father, King Edward the Elder.63 Wormald has compared this oath with an earlier example found in the laws of King Alfred, but makes the point that Edmund’s oath appears to have a more Carolingian flavour.64 III Edmund contains the first reference to the hundred as a unit of organization in England, and the fact that its earliest mention is such a relatively late one has puzzled Anglo-Saxon scholarship for years.65 Generally historians have noted the fact that the hundred is not attested in the sources before King Edmund’s reign, and make clear that this still does not allow us to put even a remotely accurate date to the origin of the hundred as an institution.66 Despite the difficulty of the term’s late appearance, many consider it highly likely that the hundred – as an administrative unit – originated in the first quarter of the tenth century.67 It is not so surprising then to find its first mention in a legal

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Wormald, English Law, p. 312. Indeed, the somewhat dry pronouncement that, ‘These are the provisions for the preservation of public peace and the swearing of allegiance which have been instituted at Colyton by King Edmund and his bishops, together with his councillors’ does sound similar to the preamble to the Thunderfield edicts (Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 12–13); Compare with, ‘These are the ordinances which the councillors established at Exeter by the advice of King Æthelstan, and again at Faversham, and on a third occasion at Thunderfield(?) where all these provisions were drawn up, ratified’; Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, pp. 146–7. ‘ … in amando quod amabit, nolendo quod nolet’; Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 12–13. Specifically, the Exeter code; see Wormald, English Law, p. 311. Wormald, Legal Culture, p. 12. III Edmund 2: ‘Vult etiam, ut ubi fur pro certo cognoscetur, twelfhindi et twihindi consocientur et exuperent eum vivum vel mortuum, alterutrum quod poterunt; et qui aliquem eorum infaidiabit qui in ea quaestione fuerint, sit inimicus regis et omnium amicorum eius; et si quis adire negaverit et coadjuvare nolit, emendet regi cxx s. – vel secundum hoc perneget quod nescivit – et hundreto xxx s.’ (‘Further, it is his will, that where a man is proved to be a thief, nobles and commoners shall unite and seize him, alive or dead, whichever they can. And he who institutes a vendetta against any of those who have been concerned in that pursuit shall incur the hostility of the king and of all his friends, and if anyone shall refuse to come forward and lend his assistance, he shall pay 120 shillings to the king – or deny knowledge of the affair by an oath of equivalent value – and 30 shillings to the hundred’), Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 12–13. The hundred is mentioned in VI Athelstan 3, but only in the context of a group of men being counted and organized in that number. See Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, pp. 158–9, and also Ine 54 (Laws of the Earliest English Kings, pp. 54–5). See Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (London, 1971), pp. 504–5; also Pauline Stafford, Unification and Conquest: a political and social history of England in the tenth and eleventh centuries (London, 1989), p. 136; and H. M. Chadwick, Studies on AngloSaxon Institutions (Cambridge, 1905), p. 248. Cyril Hart makes a compelling case for placing the hundred’s creation in the time of King Edward the Elder, specifically after his military takeover of most of Mercia in 917–18 (The Danelaw, pp. 281–8). See J. Campbell, The Anglo-Saxon State (London, 1999), pp. 16–17.

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context shortly thereafter; it was immature, and still being modified. Care ought to be taken when referring to the hundred as an institution, as there remains much that is unknown about the differences between its organization in Wessex, Mercia and the Danelaw.68 Still, it was precisely during the second quarter of the tenth century that such organization was undergoing rearrangement and reassessment, and this fact should not dissuade us from proceeding on the assumption that West Saxon kings were beginning to organize their sundry dominions in at least a similar, if not identical, fashion. The best evidence for this process is the anonymous Anglo-Saxon legal tract known as the Hundred Ordinance.69 It lays down the fundamental ground-rules for the holding of the local hundred courts, and makes provision for how a case might be handled should it be deemed applicable to more than one hundred’s particular jurisdiction. It remains difficult to date precisely.70 It could conceivably have been composed any time between the reigns of King Edmund and King Edgar (939–961?).71 One clue to its dating is found in the second clause, which states ‘do ðam ðeofe his riht, swa hit ær Eadmundes cwide wæs’ (‘[a thief] shall receive his deserts as has already been decreed by Edmund’).72 While the Hundred Ordinance may have borrowed from Edmund’s laws as well as the laws of Edward the Elder, its wording does suggest that it was not a code of royal origin, at least in its received form. Wormald points out that both the tense of the law-making voice and the initial words found in some of the clauses suggest that it might possibly have been composed by ‘an informed cleric’.73 Indeed, some of the language does tend to lean towards sounding unofficial, or at the very least modified from an earlier form.74 The Hundred Ordinance is thus a difficult document to approach, but whether or not it was issued from the mouth of the king, what is important here is its association with III Edmund. It is remarkable that the two earliest docu68

69

70 71 72

73 74

See Loyn, The Governance of Anglo-Saxon England 500–1087, pp. 119–20, 137–40. Campbell’s comment that when dealing with hundreds and wapentakes ‘resemblances were more important than differences’ is worth remembering here (The Anglo-Saxon State, p. 32). It has been edited both as The Hundred Ordinance, as in EHD, pp. 393–4, and as I Edgar in Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 16–19. While it will be referred to here as The Hundred Ordinance, it will be cited from Laws of the Kings of England. See Wormald, English Law, p. 378, nn. 505–6 for a brief discussion of comments made by previous editors. EHD, p. 393. Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 16–17. As Whitelock observed (EHD, p. 393), this does not inexorably lead us to the conclusion that Edmund was dead when the code was produced. Wormald agrees somewhat, tending towards a date of production for the code closer to King Edmund’s reign, rather than one further removed (English Law, p. 378). Wormald, English Law, pp. 378–9. The rather strange (and as yet, inadequately accounted for) provision that ‘Hryðeres belle, hundes hoppe, blæshorn – ðissa ðreora ælc bið anes scill’ weorð; 7 ælc is melda getald’ (‘A cow’s bell, a dog’s collar and a horn for blowing – each of these three shall be worth a shilling, and each is reckoned as an informer’) might be better understood in the context of an official code being interpreted by a concerned local civil servant. Hundred Ordinance 8, Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 18–19.



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ments to mention and discuss the hundred as an established body can be reliably connected with King Edmund by name. Wormald noticed this as well, but perhaps his most pertinent observation is that the Hundred Ordinance could have been ‘drafted for, or by, any single hundred’.75 If this were the case, it would be a further indication of local authorities’ growing contribution to the administration and interpretation of legal proceedings. These concerns are recognized further when we examine in what specific context the hundred, as a body, is mentioned in both III Edmund and the Hundred Ordinance; both codes make provision for the direct funding of the hundred from the profits of justice. In III Edmund the fine comes in the form of 30 shillings from one who refused to assist a band of united nobles and commoners seeking a known thief.76 In the Hundred Ordinance there are multiple provisions. Thirty pence are to be paid to the hundred by the man who refused to ride with the authorities in pursuit of thieves, and double that for a second offence.77 For a third blatant neglect of duty, half a pound was demanded.78 Also, 30 shillings were expected if someone failed to appear at the court in a timely fashion (unless he was prevented by a summons from his lord).79 It is significant that when the fine rises upon a second and third dereliction of one’s duty to the local authorities, the matter remains one for the locals, with the addition of the lord of the particular man in question. The king is not involved, and no fine is explicitly payable to him personally. In fact, the only individual who owed anything to the king was the chief official of the hundred who neglected his own duty as a pursuer of thieves attempting to escape another hundred’s jurisdiction.80 In this respect the Hundred Ordinance bears a striking resemblance to III Edmund 3, with both expressing concern with the boundaries and responsibilities of local officials. Wormald is, then, exactly right when he calls the Hundred Ordinance ‘part of a heavily encouraged trend towards organization of local peace initiatives’.81 In this context the Hundred Ordinance appears more like the abridgement of a piece of official royal legislation on the part of an interested entity, most likely some individual who was just the sort of local official the provisions it contained would apply to. The two codes then, III Edmund and the Hundred Ordinance, indicate the improved funding of local legal bodies. This observation may permit speculation regarding royal ambitions for the holding of the hundred courts. The funding of the hundred courts from the fines levied by local justice may have been an attempt to promote administrative self-sufficiency. One must be careful here, and in no way is autonomy suggested. As has been 75 76 77 78 79 80

81

Wormald, English Law, p. 378. III Edmund 2; Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 12–13. Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 16–17. Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 16–17. Hundred Ordinance 7.1; Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 18–19. Hundred Ordinance 5.1; Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 18–19. In this respect it bears a striking resemblance to III Edmund 3, with both codes’ interest in the boundaries and responsibilities of local officials. Wormald, English Law, p. 378.

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seen with I and II Edmund, local officials’ authority was essentially the king’s. With greater local authority, it follows that officials would need in turn more resources on which to draw. By localizing, as it were, the organization and collection of fines, the king could rely on his officials to do the job of administrating their respective hundreds without troubling him significantly, as the local officials’ authority to do so was in effect the kings’. Such an interpretation resonates with what has been argued above regarding I and II Edmund. When these clauses in III Edmund and the Hundred Ordinance are compared with the earlier laws of Edmund’s immediate predecessors, Edward the Elder and Athelstan, one can see that the policy described above was decidedly at odds with established precedent. The first and second clauses of I Edward, II Edward Prologue §3, 2 and 7, all make provision for specific fines payable to the king, for ‘insubordination’ (oferhyrnesse).82 There is no specific mention of any fine to be paid to any local body; the king takes all. The emphasis on payment to the king continues in King Athelstan’s legislation, and is found in I Athelstan 5, II Athelstan 1–1.5, 3, 6–6.1 and 6.3, 20–20.2 and 22–22.1.83 IV Athelstan also contains specific fines payable to the king, although not as many as found in the Grately code (IV Athelstan 4 and 7).84 V Athelstan 1.2, 1.33 and 1.4 all make careful provision for payments to the king by unruly local officials,85 and Athelstan’s lengthy sixth code issued by the London Peace Guild puts forth a few conditions for royal fines (VI Athelstan 1, 1.5, 7, 8, 8.4 and 11).86 In these codes one does find fines levied that were not payable to the king himself, but in nearly all cases the recipient(s) of the fine are either unnamed, or the sums are to go to individual plaintiffs. The overall financial emphasis in the laws of Edward the Elder and Athelstan is on making sure that the profits of justice end up either in the hands of the king, or those who were specifically wronged. It is not until III Edmund and the Hundred Ordinance that we first see the channelling of fines into local administrative bodies. One may look to later legislation for further evidence of changes in local administration during the middle of the tenth century. Within King Edgar’s fourth code there is an interesting allusion specifically to King Edmund. IV Edgar 2a states, ‘to ælcere byrig 7 on ælcere scyre hæbbe ic mines cynescypes gerihta swa min fæder hæfde, 7 mine þegnas hæbben heora scipe on minum timan swa hi hæfdon on minas fæder’ (‘that in every borough and in every county I possess my royal prerogatives as my father did, and that my thegns keep their rank in my lifetime as they did in my father’s’; emphasis mine).87 The only extant legislation that might plausibly be the antecedent for this statement

82 83 84 85 86 87

Laws of Laws of Laws of Laws of Laws of Laws of

the the the the the the

Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, Kings of England, p. 33.

pp. pp. pp. pp. pp.

115–21. 123–43. 149–51. 153–5. 157–69.



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is III Edmund 1, as Liebermann and Robertson have noted.88 At the same time, it is entirely possible that Edgar was not even referring to a codified list of rights at all, as the use of the phrase ‘lifetime’ (minum timan) suggests a more personal rather than a formalized arrangement. Both the Hundred Ordinance and IV Edgar seem to touch on privileges from the reign of King Edmund (at the very least in the case of IV Edgar, established yet unspecified royal rights), which dealt specifically with issues of royal authority in the hands of the king himself, and authority held by his thegns, by its nature delegated directly from the king. It is potentially significant that Edgar speaks specifically of his father’s rights and privileges and not of those of his predecessors in general. Edgar does not say that he is to enjoy those rights enjoyed by either of his uncles, King Athelstan or King Eadred; he does not say that these rights were enjoyed by his father’s father, or suggest that the rights of which he speaks were ancient ones. There is no shortage of references to prior legislation and indeed specific references to previous monarchs in the corpus of Anglo-Saxon law, but this is the only instance that the present author has found that speaks specifically of royal rights previously held.89 As the majority of these references are to more abstract themes and the spirit of legislation in general, with phrases reminiscent of influences from the past rather than specific codes, Edgar’s reference to the rights of his father are somewhat set apart.90 This may appear to contradict an interpretation of King Edmund’s legislation as an exercise in strengthening the authority of local officials, but as the prologue to his third code attests, he was very much concerned with proper channels of allegiance and royal dignity. The two themes, then, local self-sufficiency and authority, combined with increased funding as found in III Edmund and the Hundred Ordinance, and the allusions to royal prerogatives at the local level found in IV Edgar, are not irreconcilable. They reflect the same themes observable in I and II Edmund, as well as

88

89

90

Laws of the Kings of England, p. 307. That Edgar terms his ‘royal prerogatives’ (cynescypes gerihta) in the plural might be important, and it is possible that he was referring to a more dispersed list of local royal rights laid out by his father over time, by their nature not readily evidenced within the text of a single code. This list is long. See Ine’s Prologue ‘with the advice and instruction of Cenred, my father’ (Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, pp. 36–7), and the famous reference to Ine in Alfred’s Prologue (ibid., pp. 62–3), as well as the Prologue to II Edward, where the king speaks of his own ‘previous orders’ (ibid., pp. 118–19). Athelstan followed this practice of referencing his own laws, and these are well known. The laws of Æthelred II are rife with allusions to the legislation of his ancestors, and even mention kings Athelstan, Edmund, and Edgar (in the latter’s case twice) by name (see III Æthelred 1, V Æthelred 15, VII Æthelred 1 and 4.2, and VIII Æthelred 7, 37 and 43 (Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 64–5, 84–5, 108–13, 120–1 and 126–9). Similar references can be found in the laws of Cnut, specifically in his dated proclamations (Cnut 1020, 13; Cnut 1027, 16) and II Cnut 18 (Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 142–3, 152–3 and 182–3); but he also omits King Edgar’s name. A notable exception is VIII Æthelred 7, which refers to a specific law of Edgar. See Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 120–1.

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Archbishop Oda’s Chapters; that is, the promotion of stability and harmony between royal authority and the local by making the two concepts practically indistinguishable.

Conclusions The nature of the Anglo-Saxon leges as we have them resists a definitive appraisal, and one must bear in mind that this likely reflects how contemporaries thought of them as well. While the above interpretation remains but one reading, this essay has attempted to show that for all the seeming diversity found in King Edmund’s legislation there are observable threads of logical expression that tie the three codes together. Edmund was not wholly innovative. One sees in Athelstan’s Grately code and the unofficial tracts associated with it the beginnings of an emphasis on what Wormald called the ‘action by those locally entrusted with law enforcement and its rewards’.91 VI Athelstan as well appears greatly concerned with local peace guilds.92 But King Edmund was acquainted with the movement towards local control that had been developing in the localities, and perhaps both he and Athelstan were resolved to co-opt it. The originality behind the explicit funding of local administrative institutions and the greater empowerment of local officials in the application of the law can be seen in a more appropriate context. Edmund’s legislation consolidated the local authority of the bishops, insofar as their responsibilities as judges of legal cases went, and recognized their authority within their dioceses. It was the king’s own royal authority at work through his delegates, working in his name; locals gained (or retained) their influence, but it was reinforced as the king’s, not theirs. At the same time one observes the promotion of royal authority with an increased profile. This took the form of a more formal separation from the day-to-day administration of local legal proceedings combined with an enhanced sacral identity, promoted no doubt by the king’s empowered ecclesiastical delegates. Edmund makes this abundantly clear when he separates himself from a homicide in terms associated with sanctified kingship; he was above the routine, and it was the problem of the local authority to deal with. The king has delegated the responsibility without losing any of the corresponding authority behind it. There may be points of comparison with the empowerment of the missi by Charlemagne in his later years. Rosamond McKitterick has suggested that as Charlemagne became more comfortable in his position as emperor after 801, his legislation began to emphasize the role of his missi dominici as representatives of his royal authority. After the year 800 Charlemagne’s capitularies increasingly focused on the duties and responsibilities of the missi, a shift most visible

91 92

Wormald, English Law, p. 379. For discussion of II Athelstan and the associated tracts, see ibid., pp. 172–8, 366–79. See Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. Attenborough, pp. 156–69.



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in his capitulary from 802.93 The Italian origin of the manuscript in which the 802 capitulary survives leads McKitterick to believe that the capitulary may ‘represent a statement of the new administrative arrangements and their ideological rationale sent to Pippin of Italy for distribution to the relevant officials in their newly defined districts’.94 That the missi themselves may have been responsible for recording much of the capitularies that survive resonates with the discussion above of Wormald’s ‘informed cleric’ with regard to the unofficial English tracts of the mid-tenth century.95 There may also be suggestions that Oda was mimicking this Carolingian approach, as much of the 802 capitularies emphasize the importance of officials knowing the law and judging justly, themes stressed in both I Edmund and his Chapters. Wormald often stressed the Carolingians’ influence on King Edmund’s legislation, and such a comparison may lend weight to his many observations.96 It was the careful and prescribed manipulation of royal resources that allowed a king to maintain his grip on the various local administrative regions under his control. In the mid tenth century Anglo-Saxon royal resources were on the wax, and the king needed no small number of officials to keep the peace in the localities in his name. In the context of a recently integrated kingdom, these officials had to be not only conscious of the central royal authority, but increasingly flexible in the localities as well. English kings of course relied heavily on men they could call upon to act as secular government officials, their thegns and ealdormen. But the king’s primary secular delegates could be everywhere at once just as easily as kings; kings needed the close cooperation of the religious sphere in order to keep the peace in the localities. It is not until the legislation of King Edgar that evidence comes of the explicit presence at the shire court of both the bishop and the ealdorman working in concert in the judging of legal cases.97 Historians since Chadwick have assumed that it was not until this point that such provisions were formally acknowledged, and Wormald’s study of Anglo-Saxon lawsuits reinforces the suggestion that the mid tenth century was when the shire court took on an expanded role.98 Legislation prior to that of King Edgar had not formally required bishops and ealdormen to sit side by side in each shire court, and Edgar’s provision that they do so rightly stands as a watershed; but the preceding argument suggests that historians should revisit the role played by earlier legislators, even if the issues addressed are reflections of a king ‘defining more precisely what men had previously taken for

93

94 95 96 97 98

Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne: the formation of a European identity (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 256–66. See also Wormald’s comments on Charlemagne’s capitularies’ emphasis on administrative efficiency and imperial pretension in Legal Culture, pp. 29–30. McKitterick, Charlemagne, p. 262. McKitterick, Charlemagne, p. 266. See English Law, pp. 310–11 and Legal Culture, pp. 337–40. III Edgar 5.2. See Laws of the Kings of England, pp. 26–7. See Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions, p. 223; Carl Stevenson, ‘The AngloSaxon borough’, EHR 45, no. 178 (1930), 177–207, at 200. See Wormald, English Law, p. 152, and especially Legal Culture, pp. 284–5, 346–7, n. 48.

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granted’.99 Edmund’s reign was also the nascent period for what would become the Benedictine reform movement, which itself ushered in a period of exceptional cooperation between the religious and secular domains. Archbishop Oda was the elder statesman of this movement, and he clearly recognized the need for direct mutual aid between ecclesiastics and secular officials under an increasingly powerful king.

99

Hyams, ‘Feud and the state in late Anglo-Saxon England’, p. 14.

Index of persons and places

Aachen, Germany 254 Abbotsbury, Dorset, abbey 60n.85, 159, 177 Abingdon, historically Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) 51, 59, 61–2, 65n.201, 69n.213, 84, 96, 99, 104n.317, 108–13, 116–19, 122, 141, 150, 159, 166, 175, 196n.64, 1.8, 10 Adalbert, St, archbishop of Magdeburg 41 Æfic, monk 129 Ælfflaed, abbess of Whitby 247 Ælfflæd, kinswoman of Cwenthryth 74, 190 Ælfgar, earl 152 Ælfgifu (Emma), queen of Æthelred II and of Cnut 128 Ælfgifu, queen of Eadwig 197 Ælfgyth, beneficiary 173 Ælfheah Stybb 38–9 Ælfheah, beneficiary 158n.2 Ælfheah, bishop of the New Minster, Winchester, archbishop of Canterbury 58n.174, 106, 110, 117–18, 176 Ælfhelm, ealdorman of the Northumbrian provinces 9 Ælfhere, ealdorman of Mercia 110, 178–9 Ælfhun, bishop of London 125 Ælfric, ealdorman 144 Ælfric, ealdorman of the provinces of Winchester 9 Ælfric, ealdorman of uncertain identity, possibly of Hampshire 110–11 Ælfric, homilist, monk of Eynsham and abbot of Cerne 105n.323, 106, 107n.333, 122, 271–2 Ælfric, St, bishop of Ramsbury, archbishop of Canterbury 106, 109, 112, 113n.354, 122–3, 130, 142, 171 Ælfric, thegn 204 Ælfsige, abbot of the New Minster, Winchester 111, 114 Ælfsige, bishop of Chester-le-Street 157 Ælfsige, bur-thegn 101 Ælfstan, archbishop of Canterbury see Lyfing Ælfstan, beneficiary of Bishop Æscwig 120–1 Ælfstan, beneficiary of King Edmund 170–1, 1.4

Ælfthryth, queen of Edgar 106, 117, 178 Ælfwald, beneficiary 169 Ælfwig, abbot of Westminster 113–14 Ælfwine (Ælle), bishop of Lichfield 55 Ælfwine, abbot of Ramsey 194 Ælfwine, beneficiary of King Eadwig 173, 1.6 Ælfwine, bishop of Winchester 129 Ælfwold (Ælfwald), bishop of Sherborne 178 Ælfwold, beneficiary 158 Ælfwold, beneficiary of King Edgar 178 Ælfwold, beneficiary of King Edmund 171 Ælfwold, king of the Northumbrians 22, 239, 249 Ælfwold, purchaser of land 101 Ælfwynn, beneficiary of King Eadred 78, 172, 1.5 Æscwig, bishop of Dorchester 120–1 æt Æstran, location of church council 26–7 Æthelbald, king of the Mercians 21, 23, 62, 71, 239, 248, 251–2, 256 Æthelbald, king of the West Saxons 238, 250 Æthelberht I, king of Kent 5, 18, 30, 201, 202n.8, 203, 205–7, 209, 215n.73, 221–2, 225, 229, 243–4 Æthelberht, king of the West Saxons 238, 250 Æthelberht, reeve 196 Æthelflæd, beneficiary 176 Æthelflæd, lady of the Mercians 28n.37, 146, 153–4, 252, 254 Æthelflæd, outlaw’s sister 212 Æthelflæd, vendor of land 101 Æthelfrith, ealdorman 52, 74 Æthelgar, archbishop of Canterbury 152 Æthelhelm Higa 154 Æthelmær 105 Æthelmær, ealdorman of Hampshire 9 Æthelmær, kinsman of Æthelred II 111, 122n.376 Æthelmær, preses 94 Æthelmær, son of Æthelweard 106, 110n.342 Æthelmod, thane 72 Æthelnoth, priest 95n.275 Æthelnoth, thane 95, 158n.2, 174 Æthelred I, king of the West Saxons 238, 250, 254, 256

298

INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Æthelred II, ruling ealdorman of Mercia 28n.37, 146, 153, 252, 254 Æthelred II,‘Unræd’, king of the English 9–11, 29, 32–3, 36, 38, 45n.115, 51, 65n.201, 102–26, 129, 131, 142–3, 145–8, 150, 152, 154–7, 166, 187n.16, 194, 196, 201, 202nn.6, 9, 210, 221, 233–6, 238, 255–6, 281n.29, 293nn.89, 90, 1.10 Æthelred, archbishop of Canterbury 73 Æthelred, king of the Mercians 239, 245, 247–8 Æthelred, king of the Northumbrians 239 Æthelric of Bocking 192, 194 Æthelsige, bishop of Sherborne 78n.247, 113 Æthelstan ‘A’, scribe 36–7, 50n.134, 53–5, 57, 59–61, 66n.202, 76–8, 92–3, 137, 141, 143–5, 150, 152–3, 155, 157–8, 160, 165, 169, 1.1 Æthelstan ‘C’, scribe 49, 50n.134, 56, 61, 78, 158, 160, 170–1, 1.2–4 Æthelstan, bishop of Hereford 124–5 Æthelstan, ealdorman 56 Æthelstan, king see Athelstan Æthelstan, thane 78n.247 Æthelswyth, beneficiary 170, 1.3 Æthelweard, ealdorman of the Western Provinces 9, 106, 149 Æthelweard, ealdorman, outlaw 144 Æthelweard, minister 178 Æthelweard, son of King Alfred 141 Æthelwine, ealdorman 64, 151, 178 Æthelwold, ætheling of Wessex 256 Æthelwold, St, abbot of Abingdon, bishop of Winchester 51, 59, 64, 98–9, 103, 105, 110, 111n.346, 117, 141, 151, 283n.36 Æthelwold Moll, king of the Northumbrians 239 Æthelwulf, ealdorman of Mercia 74, 189 Æthelwulf, king of the West Saxons 26–7, 72, 147, 154, 190–1, 197–8, 237–8, 253 Agilbert, bishop of the West Saxons, and of Paris 251 Akeman Street, Roman road 240 Alcester, Warwickshire 126 Alcuin, reader at council in 786 21 Aldfrith, king of the Northumbrians 238, 247–8 Aldhelm, St, abbot of Malmesbury, bishop of Sherborne 54, 93n.264, 252, 255 Aldred, provost of Chester-le-Street 157 Alfred, ætheling 146 Alfred, bishop of Sherborne 171 Alfred, ealdorman, testator 73 Alfred, king of the West Saxons 2, 6n.31, 7, 30, 32, 73–4, 141, 145, 151, 154–5,

157, 190–1, 201, 202nn.7, 8, 10, 203n.15, 204–6, 208, 210, 212, 215n.73, 221–2, 228–31, 238, 253–4, 256–7, 263n.17, 264–6, 284, 286, 289, 293n.89 Alhfrith, king of the Deirans, sub-king of the Northumbrians 246 Amalarius of Metz 234 Amesbury, Wiltshire 36, 119, 123 Andover, Hampshire 142, 147, 156 Ansegisus, St, monastic reformer 228n.37 Asser, bishop of Sherborne 145, 264n.19 Asthall, Oxfordshire, 240, 242 Athelstan (Æthelstan), king of the English 8, 17n.1, 32n.55, 33, 35–6, 38, 39n.84, 44, 51–4, 56, 63, 78n.248, 141, 143–50, 152–5, 157–8, 160–2, 164, 169–70, 186, 188, 201, 202n.10, 203n.11, 207, 238, 255, 275–6, 280, 284–6, 288–9, 292–4, 1.1–2 Athelstan, ætheling 191, 197 Augustine, St, archbishop of Canterbury 5, 30, 203, 243, 247 Avon, river 116, 142 Axbridge, Somerset 271n.57 Axminster, Devon 147, 239, 250 Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds 156 Baldwin, physician, monk of Saint-Denis 66, 131 Bamburgh, Northumberland 246 Bardney, Lincolnshire 239, 247 Barham, Kent 223 Barking, historically Essex (now Greater London) 71, 93nn.263–5, 125, 141, 145 Barney, Stephen 224n.15 Bassett, Steven 251 Bates, David 134 Bath, Somerset 133, 142, 148, 181, 187, 271 Bede, St, ‘the Venerable’, x, 2, 5, 19, 20nn.9, 10, 94n.268, 160, 202n.8, 205, 221–2, 244–7, 252, 264, 271 Bedeford (probably Bedford) 24, 248 Bedwyn, Wiltshire 169 Bendrey, Robin 259n.1, 269n.48 Beorchore, unidentified town 142 Beorhtric, king of the West Saxons 239, 250 Beornoth, ealdorman 179 Beornwulf, king of the Mercians 25 Bergh, unidentified place 128 Berghamstyde (possibly Bearsted, Kent) 5 Bertha, queen of Æthelbert I of Kent 243, 247 Bethurum, Dorothy 234 Beverley, (East) Yorkshire 45n.115, 132 Bicanleag, probably one of two places now called Bickleigh, Devon 142 Biddick, Kathleen 260



INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Biddle, Martin 251–2 Birch, Walter de Gray, 43–4, 49, 92n.257, 180 Biscot, Bedfordshire 215n.73 Bishop, T. A. M. 159, 176 Bishopstone, Wiltshire 116n.360 Bourges, France 41 Bradanford, probably Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire 142 Bridport, Dorset 271n.57 Brihtric, abbot of Malmesbury 132 Brihtric, beneficiary 174 Brihtric, priest, donor 179 Britford, Wiltshire 143 Britons 8, 14, 232, 266 Bromdun, unidentified place 143 Brooks, Nicholas 50, 196, 275n.1 Bryant, Richard 252 Buck, Carl Darling 224n.15 Buckfast, Devon 159, 177 Buckingham 36, 143, 187n.15 Buckingham Palace 65 Buckinghamshire 9n.44, 94 Buckland place-names 191n.38 Burch see Peterborough Burghardt, Alex 264 Burghelm, Mercian ealdorman 25 Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire 48, 60n.184, 62n.189, 123–4, 126, 159 Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk 176, 192 Butler, Judith 220n.3 Byrhtferth of Ramsey, monk, priest, author 37, 66n.202, 99n.303, 126 Byrhtnoth, abbot of Ely 64 Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex 64, 68n.212, 192 Byrhtnoth, son of Odda 38, 39n.85 Cædwalla, king of the West Saxons 111, 239, 245, 252 Calne, Wiltshire 36, 116–18, 143, 154 Cambridge, University of 44 Campbell, James 2, 186 Canterbury, Kent 21, 23–4, 26, 28, 46, 51, 73, 101, 120, 143, 146, 156, 158n.2, 169, 243; Christ Church cathedral 23, 45, 62, 69–72, 95, 100, 120, 123, 127, 159–60, 172, 190, 192, 194; church of St Mary 248, 251–3; church of SS Peter and Paul 243, 250–3; Roman theatre 5; St Augustine’s abbey 48, 114, 194 Caratacus, British king 241 Cenred, king of the Mercians 245, 246n.41 Cenred, king of the West Saxons 5, 239, 293n.89 Centwine, king of the West Saxons 245

299

Cenulf, beneficiary 176 Cenwulf (Coenwulf), king of the Mercians 12, 23–5, 27, 71, 74, 111, 179, 189–90, 239, 248, 252 Ceolfrith, abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow 260–1, 271 Ceolnoth, archbishop of Canterbury 26, 147 Ceolred, king of the Mercians 239, 248 Ceolwulf, king of the Mercians 25 Ceolwulf, king of the Northumbrians 239, 249 Cerdic, legendary founder of Wessex 241 Cerdicesbeorg (Cerdic’s barrow) 241 Chadwick, H. M. 33, 44, 135n.443, 180, 295 Chaney, William 280–2 Chaplais, Pierre 33n.62, 45–7, 49, 51, 70–1, 75, 75n.243, 160, 173n.38 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, emperor 39, 97n.286, 107n.328, 228n.37, 254, 294, 295n.93 Charles ‘the Bald’, Frankish king and emperor 261 Charles-Edwards, Thomas 261, 264–6 Chase, John, cathedral clerk 197 Cheddar, Somerset 143 Chelsea, London 22, 24 Chertsey, Surrey 114, 149 Chester-le-Street, Co. Durham, community of St Cuthbert 160 Chippenham, Wiltshire 36, 93, 144 Chirton, Wiltshire 144 Cirencester, Gloucestershire 144 Clanchy, Michael 185, 193, 199 Clofesho, unidentified location of council 18, 21–6, 65n.200, 189 Clovis I, king of the Franks 243n.27 Cluny, France 40–1, 100n.306 Cnut, king of England, Denmark and Norway 8n.40, 9, 10n.49, 12, 14, 32, 65n.201, 112n.347, 127–9, 146, 150, 152–6, 186n.8, 194, 201, 202n.6, 204n.19, 206, 210–11, 215n.73, 221–2, 233–6, 238, 255–6, 264, 293n.89 Coenwald, bishop of Worcester 57, 93–4 Coenwulf, see Cenwulf Colchester, Essex 36, 93, 144 Colyton, Devon 144, 288, 289n.62 Cookham, Berkshire 23–4, 62, 136, 144, 192, 194 Cornwall 60, 122, 130, 145, 175 Crediton, Devon 123n.382, 145, 150, 153; St Mary’s 179 Cricket St Thomas, Somerset 269 Crowland, Lincolnshire 151–2 Cubitt, Catherine 20n.9, 107

300

INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Cuthberht, archbishop of Canterbury 20–1, 23, 62 Cwenburh and Cuthburh, sisters of Ine, king of the West Saxons 250n.72 Cwenthryth, abbess of Minster-in-Thanet 25, 189–90 Cyneheard, ætheling 239, 249 Cynehelm, son of Cenwulf, king of the Mercians 252 Cynesige, archbishop of York 152 Cynethryth, abbess of Cookham, probably queen of Offa 24, 74 Cynewulf, king of the West Saxons 21–4, 108n.334, 239, 249 D’Ewes, Sir Simonds 197 Danelaw 275, 290 Deerhurst, Gloucestershire 131n.424 Derbyshire 60, 94, 123, 186n.9 Devon 7, 9n.43, 56n.169, 60, 129–31, 145, 271–2 Dorset 7, 9n.43, 36, 60, 270–2 see also West Dorset Downton, Wiltshire 116 Driffield, East Yorkshire 238n.6 Drögereit, Richard 44, 51, 58n.174, 70, 77n.246, 92n.257, 158–9 Duduc, bishop of Wells 194 Dumville, David 50, 160 Dunstan B charters 57n.172, 92, 95–7, 102, 126, 146, 159, 161, 173 Dunstan, St, abbot of Glastonbury, archbishop of Canterbury 150 Durham, cathedral 157 Durham, County 9n. 44 Eadbald, king of Kent 243, 248, 251 Eadberht I, king of Kent 248 Eadberht, king of the Northumbrians 249 Eadgifu, queen of Edward the Elder 62, 93, 95n.276, 141, 154, 172, 178, 195 Eadhelm, abbot 172 Eadred, king of the English 8n.40, 52, 56–7, 58n.176, 61n.186, 62, 78–9, 93–6, 100, 110–11, 117, 141–2, 146, 148–9, 154, 158, 160, 163–4, 171–3, 191, 195, 238, 255, 293, 1.5 Eadric, ealdorman 152–3 Eadric, king of Kent 6, 201, 202n.10, 205–6, 221, 225–6, 228 Eadric, king’s reeve 143 Eadric, testator 64 Eadsige, bishop 129–30 Eadulf, archbishop of York 113n.354 Eadwig A, B and C, scribes 58

Eadwig Basan, monk of Canterbury, scribe 127–8, 129n.408, 135n.444 Eadwig, king of the English 8n.40, 52, 57–9, 79, 98, 105n.323, 109–11, 112n.349, 142–3n.11, 144–5, 148–9, 158–60, 164, 173–4, 197, 238, 255, 1.6–7 Ealdred, bishop of Cornwall 122 Ealdred, bishop of Worcester, bishop of Hereford, archbishop of York 45, 132 Ealdulf, archbishop of York 142, 1.2 Ealdwulf, beneficiary 169 Ealhstan, beneficiary 175 Ealhswith, wife of King Alfred 145, 154 Eanbald, archbishop of York 22 Eanflæd, queen of Oswiu, king of the Northumbrians 247n.52 East Angles 19 East Meon, Hampshire 195 Ebbesbourne, Wiltshire 116 Ecgberht, king of the West Saxons 25–6, 27n.34, 147 Ecgfrith, king of the Mercians 239 Ecgwine, bishop of Worcester 126 Edgar A, scribe 50n.134, 51, 59–61, 79, 84–5, 97, 159–60, 162–4, 175–8, 1.8–9 Edgar, king of the English 9, 11, 14, 28–9, 37, 44, 51–2, 58–60, 63–4, 79, 84–5, 96–101, 103, 105n.323, 109–11, 112n.349, 117, 125, 142–4, 146, 148–51, 153, 155–8, 164, 175–9, 191, 195–6, 198, 201, 221, 225, 231–6, 238, 255, 290, 292–3, 295, 1.8–9 Edington, Wiltshire 145, 174 Edmund C, scribe 49, 50n.134, 56, 61, 78–9, 117n.362, 159–60, 164, 171–2, 1.5 Edmund I, king of the English 8–9, 29, 52, 56–7, 78, 93–5, 100, 143–4, 148–9, 151, 155, 158, 160, 162, 164, 170–1, 201, 237n.3, 238, 255, 275–7, 279–96, 1.3–4 Edmund II, ‘Ironside’, king of the English 152, 238, 255 Edmund, ætheling 178 Edmund, ealdorman 165, 173, 1.7 Edward ‘the Confessor’, king of the English 10–11, 13–14, 62, 127–34, 143, 145–7, 152, 155–6, 186, 194–5, 238, 256 Edward ‘the Elder’, king of the West Saxons 6n.31, 8, 10, 28n.37, 32, 52, 73, 142, 144–5, 148, 149n.30, 153–5, 195, 201, 202n.8, 212, 238, 254–5, 275, 289–90, 292, 293n.89 Edward ‘the Martyr’, king of the English 8n.40, 103, 105, 143, 148, 150, 153, 156, 197, 238, 254–5 Edwin, ealdorman of Sussex 9 Edwin, earl 153



INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Edwin, king of the Northumbrians 30, 186, 243, 245, 247 Egberht, bishop of York 20n.10 Egbert, archbishop of York 249 Egbert, king of the West Saxons 27, 190, 250 Eirard, brother of Ingelric 134 Ellendun (Wroughton), Wiltshire 25 Ely, Cambridgeshire 58n.177, 63–4, 93n.264, 99, 114, 135n.443, 145, 157–9, 164, 174, 192 Emma, queen see Ælfgifu (Emma) Eorcenberht, king of Kent 202n.8 Eorcenwold, bishop of London 5 Essex 25, 64, 71, 85, 194 Eugenius II, pope 25 Evesham, Worcestershire 20n.9, 67n.205, 93nn.263, 265, 94n.272, 126, 159, 162n.14, 163n.19, 171 Exeter, Devon 32n.58, 36, 38, 55, 60n.185, 130, 144–7, 149, 153–4, 159, 175, 179, 269n.49, 271n.57, 289nn.62, 63; cathedral of St Peter 46, 62, 145 Eynsham, Oxfordshire 105, 123, 126, 136, 151, 193 Faversham, Kent 38, 146–7, 154, 289n.62 Finberg, H. P. R. 47, 196 Five Boroughs 287 Flodoard of Reims 141, 157 Folkestone, Kent 194 Fonthill, Wiltshire 154 Francia 199, 243, 250–1, 254 Frome, Somerset 146 Gadshill, Kent 146 Gefmund, bishop of Rochester 5 Gelling, Margaret 214 George, bishop of Ostia 21 Germany 39, 43n.102, 128 Gervase, abbot of Westminster 46n.117, 133 Gewisse 270 Gillingham, Dorset 36, 109–14, 116, 118; or possibly Gillingham, Kent 146, 156 Giso, bishop of Wells 45n.115, 132 Glastonbury, Somerset 51, 62, 69, 93, 95–7, 114n.357, 146, 151n.40, 159, 237n.3, 238, 255–6 Gloucester 28n.38, 32, 144, 146, 152; St Oswald’s church 252, 254 Gloucestershire 9n.44, 94, 179, 189 Glover, Robert, herald 124n.390 Godwine, bishop of Rochester 119 Godwine, earl of Wessex 146, 152 Goscelin, historian 248n.56

301

Grately, Hampshire 38–9, 142, 146–7, 188, 292, 294 Green, Richard Firth 224n.18 Gumley, Leicestershire 21 Hadrian I, pope 21 Hædde, bishop of Winchester 5 Halwell, Devon 271n.57 Ham, Wiltshire 197 Hampshire 9n.43, 129, 270n.53, 272 Hamsey, Sussex 147 Hamwic (Southampton), Hampshire 270 Harold (Harald I), king of the Norwegians 157 Harold I, ‘Harefoot’, king of the English 12, 128n.403 Harold II (Godwinesson), earl of Wessex, king of the English 128n.403, 132, 155 Hart, Cyril Roy 47, 92n.258, 185, 196, 289n.66 Harthacnut, king of the English 127, 128n.403, 152, 154–5, 187, 238, 255–6 Hatfield, Hertfordshire 19, 154 Headington, Oxfordshire 37n.80, 147 Heighway, Carolyn 252 Helmstan, landowner and thief 144, 257 Helperby, York 204 Henry I, king of England 10–11, 42 Henry II, king of England 14 Henry III, king of England 123n.379 Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester 197–8, 256 Herbert, abbot of Westminster 46n.117, 133 Hereford 55, 136n.446, 175 Herefordshire 10, 60 Herman, hagiographer 155–6 Hertford 4–5, 18 Hertfordshire 9n.44, 131 Herwald, bishop of Llandaff 152 Hexham, Northumberland 239, 249 Higham, Mary C. 214 Higham, Nicholas J. 186, 214 Hild, St, abbess of Whitby 247n.52 Hincmar, archbishop of Reims 30, 228n.37 Hlothhere, king of Kent 12, 71, 201, 202n.10, 205–6, 221, 225–6, 228, 248 Hope-Taylor, Brian 30 Hough, Carole 7–8 Hudson, John 275n.1 Hugelin, chamberlain 193, 195 Hugh Capet, king of France 42 Hugh, duke of the Franks 157 Humber, river 26–7, 94 Hurstbourne Priors, Hampshire 187n.12, 241 Hursteshevet, possibly ‘Hurst Head’, Solent 147

302

INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Hyams, Paul 2, 219 Ibn Fadlan, Arab traveller 240 Ine, king of the West Saxons 5, 7, 32, 201, 202nn.6–8, 10, 204–6, 211–12, 215n.73, 222n.11, 229–31, 239, 245, 250, 260–72, 286, 289n.65, 293n.89 Ingelric, priest 134 Ingeram, thane of King Edgar 85, 177, 1.9 Ingild, brother of Ine, king of the West Saxons 250n.72 Isle of Wight 118, 270 Jænberht, archbishop of Canterbury 7n.38, 21–3 John of Wallingford 157 John of Worcester 187n.16 John XIII, pope 151n.40 John, king of England 12n.64 Jouarre, France 251 Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor 228 Kelly, Susan E. 48n.129, 51, 65n.198, 75n.243, 180 Kemble, John Mitchell 32, 43–4, 49, 180, 259 Kenelm, St 190 Kent 3, 7, 9n.45, 11n.57, 13, 19, 24–5, 62, 71–2, 78, 101, 119, 127, 129, 146, 186n.9, 203n.11, 227, 243, 247–8, 263n.16 Keynes, Simon x, 4, 13, 207 King’s North, Kent 215 King’s Worthy, Hampshire 36, 157 Kingeseng, historically Westmorland (now Cumbria) 68 Kingessuire, Cheshire 215 Kingscote, Gloucestershire 215 Kingsley, Cheshire 215 Kingston Lisle, Berkshire 214 Kingston, Kent 150 Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey 26–7, 52, 94, 111n.344, 140, 147–50, 190 Kingswear, Devon 216n.78 Kinley Farm, Shropshire 215 Kirtlington, Oxfordshire 35, 150 Langanden, unidentified place 191 Langport, Somerset 271n.57 Lathom, Lancashire 214 Lavelle, Ryan 6–8 Lawson, Ken 187 Legge, Tony 268 Leo III, pope 111 Leo IX, pope 194 Leofflæd, daughter of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth, testatrix 192

Leofgifu, testatrix 192 Leofric, abbot of St Albans 116 Leofric, bishop of Exeter 130, 146 Leofric, earl of Mercia and his wife Godgifu 136, 193 Leofric, of Blackwell 124 Leofsige, ealdorman of the East Saxons 9 Leofwine, ealdorman of the Hwiccian provinces 9 Leofwine, son of Æthulf 108n.333 Levy, Leonard 224n.18 Lichfield, Staffordshire 23, 239, 248 Liebermann, Felix 33, 141, 201n.2, 205n.24, 224, 226, 230, 280nn.24, 26, 282, 293 Lifton, Devon 36, 77, 150 Lincoln 136, 150–1 Lincolnshire 9, 186 Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Northumberland 239, 246, 249 Liudhard, bishop 243 Lombardy 199 London 28, 35, 38, 140, 146–7, 151–2, 155, 186, 188, 227, 238, 292; St Martin’s-leGrand 134; St Paul’s cathedral 134, 238, 250, 255–6; see also Westminster Long Sutton, Hampshire 196 Lotharingia 130 Louis I, ‘the Pious’, king of Aquitaine, king of the Franks, emperor 261 Lydford, Devon 271n.57 Lyfing (Ælfstan), archbishop of Canterbury 127–8 Lyminster, Sussex 36, 152 Lyng, Somerset 271n.57 Mabillon, Jean 69–70 Maddicott, John 17n.1 Magdeburg, Germany 41 Maitland, Frederick W. 265, 268 Malmesbury, Wiltshire 102, 116, 132–3, 238, 255 Manni, abbot of Evesham 152 Maserfelth (possibly near Oswestry, Shropshire), 246 Matilda, empress, daughter of King Henry I 197 Matilda, queen of William I 195, 134 McKitterick, Rosamond 294–5 Mercia 8–9, 22–3, 25, 28n.37, 71, 73–4, 144, 157, 188, 189n.27, 239, 247–8, 250–3, 271, 275, 289n.66, 290 Meretun, unidentified place 249 Milton, Dorset 116, 145, 153 Milton, Kent (?)153



INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Monks Risborough see Risborough, Buckinghamshire Morcar, earl 153 Morcar, thegn 123 Moses, biblical figure 6, 204n.18 Muca, Mercian ealdorman 25 Much Wenlock, Shropshire 153 Muchelney, Somerset 59n.180, 104n.315, 111n.344, 122 Mul, king of the West Saxons 248n.56 Musson, Anthony 221n.6 Nazeingbury, Essex 251 Nelson, Janet 2 Newnham Murren, Oxfordshire 197 Nidd, river 4 Nithard, lay abbot of St Riquier, historian 261 Normandy 128, 134, 147 Northampton 151, 153 Northamptonshire 9n.44, 11, 94, 129 Northumbria 7n.38, 13, 20, 22–3, 153, 239, 243, 247–50, 260, 275, 287 Nothhelm, praeco of Pope Eugenius 25 Nottingham 36, 151, 153 Nottinghamshire 9, 186 O’Keeffe, Katherine O’Brien 220, 235 Oakley (Down), Dorset 157 Oda, archbishop of Canterbury 23, 28, 58, 172, 174, 277–80, 282n.33, 287, 295–6 Offa, king of the East Saxons 245–6 Offa, king of the Mercians 7, 21–4, 71, 202n.8, 205–6, 229, 239, 248, 250 Offa’s Dyke 216n.75 Olaf Tryggvason, king of Norway 142 Ordlaf, West Saxon ealdorman 74, 144 Osbern of Canterbury, monk and hagiographer 150 Osbert de Clare, monk and prior of Westminster 133–4 Osbert, canon of St Mary’s, Rouen 131 Oscytel, Osketel, archbishop of York 153, 204n.19 Oslafeshlau, unidentified place in province of the Hwicce 25 Osred II, king of the Northumbrians 239, 249 Osric, king of the Northumbrians 248 Osthryth, queen of Æthelred of Mercia 247 Oswald, St, bishop of Worcester, bishop of London, archbishop of York 151, 153 Oswald, St, king of the Northumbrians 243n.30, 245–8, 249n.68 see also Gloucester, St Oswald’s church Oswig, beneficiary of King Eadred 171

303

Oswiu, king of the Northumbrians 243–4, 246–8 Oswulf, king of the Northumbrians 239, 249 Otto II, king of Germany, Holy Roman Emperor 41 Owen-Crocker, Gale R. 139n.454, 275n.1 Oxford 153; St Frideswide’s church 37n.80, 123, 147; University 44–5 Oxfordshire 9n.44, 45n.115, 120, 130 Palliser, David 257n.118 Palmer, Caroline 139n.454 Pancras, St, martyr 253 Paris, France, abbey of Saint-Martin-desChamps 42; church of St Genevieve 243n.27 see also Saint-Denis Parkes, Malcolm B. 160 Parsons, Mary Prescott 40n.90, 45, 70, 74 Paschal I, pope 189 Patney, Wiltshire 191, 198 Paulinus, St, missionary, bishop of Rochester 243 Penda, king of the Mercians 215n.74, 243n.30, 246, 248 Penkridge, Staffordshire 153 Perrot, or Petherton, Somerset 153 Pershore, Worcestershire 59n.180, 112n.350, 158n.2, 159, 179 Peter, poet of Winchester 156n.46 Peter, St 246, 253 Peterborough (Burch), Cambridgeshire 99, 226n.33 Philip I, king of France 42, 132n.433 Piggott, Reginald 140 Pilton, Somerset 271n.57 Pippin, king of Italy 295 Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury 149n.30 Prittlewell, Essex 3, 242, 244 Pydelan (?Puddletown), Dorset 153 Pyttel, reader 22 Quintilian, Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, rhetorician 224n.16 Rabin, Andrew 6 Rædwald, king of East Anglia 244 Ralph de Diceto, dean of St Paul’s 148–50, 152 Ralph, earl of Hereford 193 Ramsey, Cambridgeshire 155–6, 193 Reculver, Kent 27, 95, 100, 159, 161, 172, 248 Regenbald, sigillarius, chancellor of Edward the Confessor 131–2, 134 Repton, Derbyshire 239, 248, 251–3, 256–7

304

INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Rheims, France 193–4 Richard II, duke of Normandy 41 Richards, Mary 223, 231, 234 Ringwood, Hampshire 84 Ripon, North Yorkshire 65n.199, 249 Risborough, Buckinghamshire 120 Roach, Levi 107 Robert of Jumièges, archbishop of Canterbury 152 Robertson, A. J. 141, 235n.66, 280nn.25, 26, 282, 284n.40, 287n.55, 293 Rochester, Kent 48, 51, 73, 104n.317, 106n.324, 112n.347, 119, 123, 146, 223 Rome, Italy 21, 23, 30, 126, 133, 239, 243, 245–6, 252–3; church of St Peter and St Marcellinus 253; ‘mausoleum of Helen’ 253; St Peter’s church 239, 243, 253 Rothari, king of the Lombards 228n.37 Rouen, France 133–4; St Mary’s 131 Rumble, Alexander R. 11, 117n.362, 178 Rus, Viking people 240 Rushforth, Rebecca 180 Saberht, king of the East Saxons 244 Sæbbi, king of the East Saxons 245, 250–1 Saint-Denis, near Paris 45n.115, 130, 131n.424, 132–3n.433 Saint-Samson of Orléans, abbey 42 Sashes Island, Berkshire 145 Scragg, Donald 139n.454 Sedulius Scottus 234 Selwood, Somerset 271 Shaftesbury, Dorset 96, 123, 238, 254–5 Sherborne, Dorset 48, 52, 114, 123, 238, 250, 253 Shrewsbury, Shropshire 153 Sicga, ealdorman 249 Sideman, bishop of Crediton 35, 150 Siferth of Downham 136n.447 Sigeberht ‘Sanctus’, king of the East Saxons 244 Sigeberht, king of the East Angles 245 Sigeberht, king of the West Saxons 239 Sigeferth, brother of Morcar 124n.387, 153 Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury 106, 108n.333, 110, 120–2 Slaughter, Upper and Lower, Gloucestershire 154 Smith, A. H. 214 Smith, Thomas, custodian of the Cotton library 70 Snape, Suffolk 257 Solomon, king of Israel and Judah, biblical figure 6, 263, 265

Somerset 7, 9n.43, 45, 60, 94–5, 131, 270n.53, 271–2 Somerton, Somerset 94, 154 South Hams, Devon 191, 197 South Petherton, Somerset 269 Southampton, Hampshire 142, 154, 174 see also Hamwic St Albans, Hertfordshire, 120, 123 St Frideswide’s see Oxford St Germans, Cornwall 145 St Martin’s-le-Grand see London St Paul’s cathedral see London Stenton, Sir Frank M. 33, 44, 229n.38, 232n.51 Stephen of Ripon, historian 4 Stephen, king of England 133, 197 Stevenson, W. H. 19n.7, 44–5, 49 Steyning, Sussex 238, 253 Stow, Lincolnshire 151; St Mary’s 136, 150, 193 Styr, son of Ulf 157 Surrey 25 Sussex 25, 70, 128 Sutton (?Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire) 154 Sutton Hoo, Suffolk 3, 240, 242, 244, 252, 257; Tranmer House 242 Swallowcliffe Down, Wiltshire 240, 244 Swein ‘Forkbeard’, king of Denmark 194 Swithgar, notary 132 Swithhelm, king of the East Saxons 244 Swithun, St, bishop of Winchester 256 Sydling, Dorset 262n.14 Talbot, Robert 94n.270 Taylor, Harold 251 Tees, river 11, 13 Thacker, Alan 246 Thanet, Isle of, Kent 5, 30 Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury 4–5, 18–20 Theodred, bishop of London 58n.174, 155 Theodulf of Orléans 234 Theophanu, empress of Otto II 41 Theophylact, papal legate 22 Thomas of Elmham, chronicler 248 Thundersfield, Surrey 38, 39n.85, 146–7, 154 Thurnham, Lancashire 214 Tidenham, Gloucestershire 187n.12 Titill, notary of Theodore 4, 19 Titstan, burthegn of King Edgar 177 Tofig, comes, beneficiary of Edward the Confessor 128 Tostig, earl of Northumbria 13 Trousdale, Alaric A. 8



INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Ufegeat 145 Upton, Worcestershire 189–90 Wales 22 Waltham, Essex 132–3 Wanley, Humfrey 69–70, 94 Wantage, Berkshire 36, 38, 116–18, 143, 154 Wareham, Dorset 238, 250 Warminster, Wiltshire 154 Watchet, Somerset 271n.57 Watling Street, Roman road 146 Weardburg, unidentified place 154 Wellow (?East), Hampshire 36, 155 Wells, Somerset 132–3, 159 Wessex 7–9, 12, 25–6, 65, 72, 144, 185, 187–8, 190, 237–8, 241, 244–5, 249–50, 253, 255, 260, 265–6, 270, 272–3, 275, 290 West Dorset 7, 271 Westbury (now Westbury on Trym, Bristol) 25 Westminster, historically Middlesex, now the London borough of the City of Westminster, 238, 256 Wherwell, Hampshire 123, 126 Whitby, 238n.6, 245–8, 251; St Gregory’ s altar/porticus 243, 247; St Peter’s church 247 Whitelock, Dorothy 45, 92n.257, 149, 261, 279, 281, 284n.40, 287, 290n.72 Whittlebury, Northamptonshire 155 Wickham, Chris 260, 266, 268 Wiglaf, king of the Mercians 239, 248, 251, 256 Wigstan, St, grandson of Wiglaf, king of the Mercians 248, 251 Wihtbordesstan, unidentified place 155 Wihtred, king of Kent 5, 31, 32n.54, 201–2, 205, 208n.36, 209, 222n.11, 223 Wilfrid, St, bishop of Northumbria 4, 20n.10, 65n.199, 246 William I, ‘the Conqueror’, king of England, duke of Normandy 11n.56, 13, 28n.38, 35n.72, 131n.424, 134, 194, 198, 236 William I, duke of Aquitaine 41 William of Malmesbury, historian 255 Williams, Ann x, 272n.60 Williams, Gareth ix Williams, Howard 257 Wilton 26–7, 36, 63n.192, 65n.201, 104n.318, 133n.433, 142–3, 153, 155 Wiltshire 9, 93, 270n.53, 272n.64 Wimborne, Dorset 238, 250, 253–4, 256 Winchcombe, Gloucestershire 12, 25–6n.28, 27n.34, 74, 155, 189–90, 239, 248, 252–3 Winchester, Hampshire 10, 12, 27n.34, 29,

305

35–6, 45–6, 50–2, 53n.153, 56, 61, 77, 99, 108–13, 116, 118, 123, 129, 140, 143–4, 146–7, 149, 155–6, 165, 185, 196, 254–5; cathedral 190, 196, 237n.2, 250; New Minster 65n.199, 98, 100, 102, 111, 124–5, 129, 142, 154–5, 159, 168, 170, 177, 190, 238, 254–6; Old Minster 38, 43, 49, 55n.157, 60nn.184–5, 62n.189, 63nn.192–3, 66n.203, 97n.284, 99, 103n.313, 106n.324, 116, 117n.362, 130, 142–6, 150, 153–6, 159–60, 162n.14, 168n.34, 169–70, 174, 176, 187n.12, 238–9, 250, 253, 255–6; palace 196 Windsor, Berkshire 156 Winsige, monk 124 Woden, northern god 242 Woodstock, Oxfordshire 157 Woodyates, Dorset 157 Woolmer, Hampshire 157 Worcester 9n.46, 20n.9, 25, 26n.28, 32n.56, 37n.79, 69–70, 74, 93nn.263, 265, 94n.268, 136n.446, 141n.6, 144, 146, 149, 151, 158n.2, 159, 178–9, 187 Worcestershire 74, 124, 179 Wormald, Patrick 50, 202n.10, 203–4, 206n.28, 208, 212, 219, 224–5, 228nn.37–8, 263, 265–6, 276n.5, 280, 281n.30, 283, 284n.39, 286–91, 294–5 Worthy see King’s Worthy, Hampshire Wulfgar, bishop of Ramsbury 110 Wulfgar, abbot of Abingdon 108–9, 111–14, 1.1 Wulfheah, witness 78n.247 Wulfheah 145 Wulfheard, beneficiary 177 Wulfhelm, archbishop of Canterbury 39, 155 Wulfhelm, thegn 170–1 Wulfhelm, witness 165n.24 Wulflaf, tenant 190 Wulfred, archbishop of Canterbury 24–5, 189 Wulfric, abbot of St Augustine’s, Canterbury 194 Wulfric, bishop 175, 178 Wulfric, king’s thane, beneficiary 79, 93–4, 100, 172 Wulfsige, abbot of Westminster Wulfsige, bishop of Sherborne 113–14, 152, 171 Wulfsige, priest and sheriff 9n.45 Wulfsige, witness 78n.247 Wulfstan I, ‘lupus’, bishop of London, archbishop of York 14, 23, 55, 105n.321, 106, 124–5, 221, 233–5, 280, 287 Wulfstan II, archbishop of York 6, 114n.354 Wulfstan of Winchester 98

306

INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES

Wulfstan, beneficiary Wulfstan, minister 178 Wulfswyth, beneficiary 170 Wulfwig, bishop of Dorchester 45n.115, 130, 136, 193 Wulfwold, abbot of Bath 131 Wullaf, landholder 74 Wullaf, thegn 170

Yorke, Barbara ix, 3, 7, 265–6 Yeavering, Northumberland 5, 30 York 8, 13–14, 113, 157, 204n.19, 239, 243, 249, 251, 267n.37, 268n.39; St Peter’s 153 Yorkshire 9, 13, 186n.9 Zacharias, St, pope 21