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Ealdred was Abbot of Tavistock, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York in early medieval England. He was related to a number of other ecclesiastics of the period. After becoming a monk at the monastery at Winchester, he was appointed Abbot of Tavistock Abbey in around 1027. In 1046 he was named to the Bishopric of Worcester. Ealdred, besides his episcopal duties, served Edward the Confessor, the King of England, as a diplomat and as a military leader. He worked to bring one of the king's relatives, Edward the Exile, back to England from Hungary to secure an heir for the childless king.
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature.
Eadwig was King of England from 23 November 955 until his death. He was the elder son of Edmund I and his first wife Ælfgifu, who died in 944. Eadwig and his brother Edgar were young children when their father was killed trying to rescue his seneschal from attack by an outlawed thief on 26 May 946. As Edmund's sons were too young to rule he was succeeded by his brother Eadred, who suffered from ill health and died unmarried in his early 30s.
Edward, often called the Martyr, was King of the English from 975 until he was murdered in 978. Edward was the eldest son of King Edgar, but was not his father's acknowledged heir. On Edgar's death, the leadership of England was contested, with some supporting Edward's claim to be king and others supporting his younger half-brother Æthelred, recognised as a legitimate son of Edgar. Edward was chosen as king and was crowned by his main clerical supporters, the archbishops Dunstan of Canterbury and Oswald of York.
Edgar was King of England from 959 until his death. He became king of all England on his brother's death. He was the younger son of King Edmund I and his first wife Ælfgifu. A detailed account of Edgar's reign is not possible, because only a few events were recorded by chroniclers and monastic writers were more interested in recording the activities of the leaders of the church.
Æthelstan or Athelstan was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Ecgwynn. Modern historians regard him as the first King of England and one of the "greatest Anglo-Saxon kings". He never married and had no children; he was succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I.
Æthelweard was an ealdorman and the author of a Latin version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle known as the Chronicon Æthelweardi. He was a kinsman of the royal family, being a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon King Æthelred I of Wessex, the elder brother of Alfred the Great.
Ælfthryth was Queen of the English from her marriage to King Edgar in 964 or 965 until Edgar's death in 975. Ælfthryth was the first wife of an English king known to have been crowned and anointed as queen. She had two sons with Edgar, the ætheling Edmund and King Æthelred the Unready. Ælfthryth was a powerful political figure and possibly orchestrated the murder of her stepson, King Edward the Martyr, in order to place her son Æthelred on the throne. She appeared as a stereotypical bad queen and evil stepmother in many medieval histories.
Ælfwynn was the ruler of Mercia as the 'Second Lady of the Mercians' for a few months in 918, following her mother's death on 12 June 918. She was the daughter of Æthelred and Æthelflæd, the rulers of Mercia. Her accession was the only example of rule passing from one woman to another in the early medieval period in the British Isles. Manuscript C of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states: "Here also the daughter of Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, was deprived of all control in Mercia, and was led into Wessex three weeks before Christmas; she was called Ælfwynn." ASC C dates Æthelflæd's death as 12 June 918 and Ælfwynn's deposition to December 919, but most historians revise the deposition to 918. George Molyneux gives the period of Ælfwynn's power as "six or eighteen months". ASC C is the only version of the Chronicle to mention Ælfwynn. Other versions reflect a West Saxon view point and ASC A states that Edward took power in Mercia immediately after Æthelflæd's death, but ASC C includes entries from a lost version called the 'Mercian Chronicle'.
The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old English poetry, along with the Vercelli Book in Vercelli, Italy, the Nowell Codex in the British Library, and the Junius manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The book was donated to what is now the Exeter Cathedral library by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, in 1072. It is believed originally to have contained 130 or 131 leaves, of which the first 7 or 8 have been replaced with other leaves; the original first 8 leaves are lost. The Exeter Book is the largest and perhaps oldest known manuscript of Old English literature, containing about a sixth of the Old English poetry that has come down to us.
Sharon Turner was an English historian.
Sigeric was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 990 to 994. Educated at Glastonbury Abbey, he became a monk there before becoming an abbot and then Bishop of Ramsbury before his elevation to the archbishopric. An account of his pilgrimage to Rome in 990 survives and is an important source for historians studying Rome during his lifetime.
"The Rime of King William" is an Old English poem that tells the death of William the Conqueror. The Rime was a part of the only entry for the year of 1087 in the "Peterborough Chronicle/Laud Manuscript." In this entry there is a thorough history and account of the life of King William. The entry in its entirety is regarded "as containing the best contemporary estimate of William's achievements and character as seen by a reasonably objective Englishman". As a resource, earlier writers drew from this in a more literal sense, while later historians referred to it more liberally. The text in its original language can be found in The Peterborough Chronicle 1070–1154, edited by Cecily Clark. A modern translation can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles translated by G.N. Garmonsway. Seth Lerer has published a more recent modern translation of "The Rime of King William" in his article, "Old English and Its Afterlife," in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature.
Cyneweard was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Wells. He was a monk of Glastonbury Abbey before becoming abbot of Milton Abbey in 964. He was consecrated bishop of the Diocese of Wells in about 973 or 974, and died in office on 28 June 975. His death is mentioned in the short Old English poem "The Death of King Edgar", which occurs in the entry for 975 of two of the manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
The Liber Eliensis is a 12th-century English chronicle and history, written in Latin. Composed in three books, it was written at Ely Abbey on the island of Ely in the fenlands of eastern Cambridgeshire. Ely Abbey became the cathedral of a newly formed bishopric in 1109. Traditionally the author of the anonymous work has been given as Richard or Thomas, two monks at Ely, one of whom, Richard, has been identified with an official of the monastery, but some historians hold that neither Richard nor Thomas was the author.
Oslac ealdorman of York from around 963 to 975. His territory included but may not have been limited to the southern half of Northumbria. His background is obscure because of poor source documentation. The latter has facilitated disagreement amongst historians regarding his family and ethnicity.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great. Multiple copies were made of that one original and then distributed to monasteries across England, where they were independently updated. In one case, the Chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154.
The "Battle of Brunanburh" is an Old English poem. It is preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a historical record of events in Anglo-Saxon England which was kept from the late ninth to the mid-twelfth century. The poem records the Battle of Brunanburh, a battle fought in 937 between an English army and a combined army of Scots, Vikings, and Britons. The battle resulted in an English victory, celebrated by the poem in style and language like that of traditional Old English battle poetry. The poem is notable because of those traditional elements and has been praised for its authentic tone, but it is also remarkable for its fiercely nationalistic tone, which documents the development of a unified England ruled by the House of Wessex.
"Capture of the Five Boroughs" is an Old English chronicle poem that commemorates the capture by King Edmund I of the so-called Five Boroughs of the Danelaw in 942.
The Death of Alfred is an Old English poem that is part of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, concerning the killing of Alfred Aetheling in 1036. It is noted for its departure from traditional Old English poetic metre, abandoning the alliterative verse form in favour of fairly consistently rhyming hemistichs.
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Bibliography
- Bragg, Lois (1991). The lyric speakers of Old English Poetry. Fairleigh Dickinson UP. ISBN 978-0-8386-3403-5.
- Dunham, Samuel Astley (1834). A history of Europe during the Middle Ages, Volume 4. Longman. p. 22.
- Henry, Samuel (1788). The History of Great Britain, Volume 4. London: Strahan and Cadell.
- Loyn, H.R. (1998). "Angelsächsische Geschichtschreibung". In Johannes Hoops (ed.). Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, Volume 11. Vol. 2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-015832-8.
- Momma, H. (1997). The Composition of Old English Poetry. Cambridge studies in Anglo-Saxon England. Vol. 20. Cambridge UP. ISBN 978-0-521-55481-7.
- Pancoast, Henry Spackman (1894). An introduction to English literature. Holt. p. 44.
