He was born about 880.[1] That he was Alfred's younger son by Ealhswith is stated by Asser in his biography of the king (c. 893).[2] Asser also provides valuable detail on the boy's upbringing. Whereas his brother Edward and sister Ælfthryth were raised and educated at court, Æthelweard was sent to a type of school (schola), where he learned to read and write both Latin and Old English and was instructed in the liberal arts "under the attentive care of teachers, in company with all the nobly born children of virtually the entire area, and a good many of lesser birth as well." Such education would have started at an early age, before the onset of adolescence.[3]
Will of Alfred the Great, AD 873–888, granting land to Æthelweard (11th-century copy, British Library Stowe MS 944, ff. 29v–33r)
Since the (late) 890s, Æthelweard attested several of his brother's charters.[6] According to John of Worcester, he died on 16 October 922 and his body received burial at Winchester,[7] where he was soon joined by his brother Edward (d. 924). William of Malmesbury confirms the place of burial, but places his death four years before Edward's.[8] It may have been Æthelweard whose name was entered into the New Minster Liber Vitae, fol. 9v., with the designation clito "ætheling", but if so, he seems to be mistaken for a son of Edward.
William tells that Æthelweard had two sons, Æthelwine and Ælfwine, who died fighting in the Battle of Brunanburh and who were buried at Malmesbury, at the behest of their cousin King Athelstan, who was buried there himself only two years later.[9] The connection with this house is prominent in a series of three spurious charters from the Malmesbury archive, in which Athelstan is made to endow the abbey in memory of his "cousins" (patruelia) Æthelweard, Ælfwine and Æthelwine.[10] If Ælfwine and Æthelwine died childless, their deaths would have brought an end to Æthelweard's direct descent.
Notes
↑ art. Ealhswith, in K.J. Panton, Historical Dictionary of the British Monarchy, Lanham - Plymouth, 2011, p. 138.
Asser, Vita Ælfredi, ed. W.H. Stevenson, Asser's Life of King Alfred. Oxford, 1904; tr. S.D. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great. Harmondsworth, 1983. pp.65–110.
William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. and tr. R.A.B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglorum. The History of the English Kings. OMT. 2 vols: vol 1. Oxford, 1998.
John of Worcester, Chronicle (of Chronicles), ed. Benjamin Thorpe, Florentii Wigorniensis monachi chronicon ex chronicis. 2 vols. London, 1848–9; tr. J. Stevenson, Church Historians of England. 8 vols: vol. 2.1. London, 1855. 171–372.
New Minster Liber Vitae, fol. 9v., per entry in PASE.
Asser was a Welsh monk from St David's, Dyfed, who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s. About 885 he was asked by Alfred the Great to leave St David's and join the circle of learned men whom Alfred was recruiting for his court. After spending a year at Caerwent because of illness, Asser accepted.
Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the dissolution of the monasteries.
Pershore Abbey, at Pershore in Worcestershire, was an Anglo-Saxon abbey and is now an Anglican parish church, the Church of the Holy Cross.
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.
The Battle of Brunanburh was fought in 937 between Æthelstan, King of England, and an alliance of Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin, Constantine II, King of Scotland, and Owain, King of Strathclyde. The battle is often cited as the point of origin for English nationalism: historians such as Michael Livingston argue that "the men who fought and died on that field forged a political map of the future that remains [in modernity], arguably making the Battle of Brunanburh one of the most significant battles in the long history not just of England, but of the whole of the British Isles."
Ealhswith or Ealswitha was the wife of King Alfred the Great. Her father was a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, which is thought to be an old Mercian tribal group. Her mother was Eadburh, a member of the Mercian royal family. Ealhswith is commemorated as a saint in the Christian East and the West on 20 July.
Ælfgifu was Queen of the English as wife of King Eadwig of England for a brief period of time until 957 or 958. What little is known of her comes primarily by way of Anglo-Saxon charters, possibly including a will, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and hostile anecdotes in works of hagiography. Her union with the king, annulled within a few years of Eadwig's reign, seems to have been a target for factional rivalries which surrounded the throne in the late 950s. By c. 1000, when the careers of the Benedictine reformers Dunstan and Oswald became the subject of hagiography, its memory had suffered heavy degradation. In the mid-960s, however, she appears to have become a well-to-do landowner on good terms with King Edgar and, through her will, a generous benefactress of ecclesiastical houses associated with the royal family, notably the Old Minster and New Minster at Winchester.
Exminster is a village situated on the southern edge of the City of Exeter on the western side of the Exeter ship canal and River Exe in the county of Devon, England. It is around 6 km (3.7 mi) south of the centre of Exeter, and has a population of 3,084, increasing to 3,368 at the 2011 census.
Æthelstan was the King of Kent from 839 to 851. He served under the authority and overlordship of his father, King Æthelwulf of Wessex, who appointed him. The late D, E and F versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describe Æthelstan as Æthelwulf's brother, but the A, B and C versions, and Æthelweard's Chronicon, state that he was Æthelwulf's son. Some historians have argued that it is more probable that he was a brother, including Eric John in 1966 and Ann Williams in 1978. However, in 1991 Ann Williams described him as Æthelwulf's son, and this is now generally accepted by historians, including Frank Stenton, Barbara Yorke, and D. P. Kirby.
John of Worcester was an English monk and chronicler who worked at Worcester Priory. He is usually held to be the author of the Chronicon ex chronicis.
Edward the Elder was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æthelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred's elder brother and predecessor, Æthelred I.
Eadnoth the Younger or Eadnoth I was a medieval monk and prelate, successively Abbot of Ramsey and Bishop of Dorchester. From a prominent family of priests in the Fens, he was related to Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, Archbishop of York and founder of Ramsey Abbey. Following in the footsteps of his illustrious kinsman, he initially became a monk at Worcester. He is found at Ramsey supervising construction works in the 980s, and around 992 actually became Abbot of Ramsey. As abbot, he founded two daughter houses in what is now Cambridgeshire, namely, a monastery at St Ives and a nunnery at Chatteris. At some point between 1007 and 1009, he became Bishop of Dorchester, a see that encompassed much of the eastern Danelaw. He died at the Battle of Assandun in 1016, fighting Cnut the Great.
Æthelwald or Æthelwold was ealdorman of East Anglia. He is mentioned in Byrhtferth's life of Oswald of Worcester along with other members of his family.
The Gaini were an Anglo-Saxon tribe which occupied part of the kingdom of Mercia.
Ecgwynn or Ecgwynna, was the first consort of Edward the Elder, later King of the English, by whom she bore the future King Æthelstan, and a daughter who married Sihtric Cáech, Norse king of Dublin, Ireland, and Northumbria. Extremely little is known about her background and life. Not even her name is given in any sources until after the Norman Conquest. The first to record it is William of Malmesbury, who presents it in Latinised guise as Egwinna and who is in fact the principal source for her existence.
Ælfflæd or Æthelflæd is not recorded before the twelfth century. William of Malmesbury describes Æthelflæd as the daughter of King Ceolwulf I of Mercia, wife of King Wiglaf's son Wigmund, and mother of Wigstan.
Ælfgifu of York was the first wife of Æthelred the Unready, King of the English; as such, she was Queen of the English from their marriage in the 980s until her death in 1002. They had many children together, including Edmund Ironside. It is most probable that Ælfgifu was a daughter of Thored, Earl of southern Northumbria.
Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury was the first wife of King Edmund I. She was Queen of the English from her marriage in around 939 until her death in 944. Ælfgifu and Edmund were the parents of two future English kings, Eadwig and Edgar. Like her mother Wynflaed, Ælfgifu had a close and special if unknown connection with the royal nunnery of Shaftesbury (Dorset), founded by King Alfred, where she was buried and soon revered as a saint. According to a pre-Conquest tradition from Winchester, her feast day is 18 May.
Æthelwine of Athelney was a 7th-century saint venerated in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. He lived as a hermit on the island of Athelney in the marsh country of Somerset, and is known to us through being recorded in the hagiography of the Secgan Manuscript. He was venerated as a saint after his death, Nov. 26.
Æthelgifu was a daughter of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex. She was the third surviving child of the marriage between Alfred and Ealhswith in 868. Alfred's biographer, Asser, wrote that "Æthelgifu, devoted to God through her holy virginity, subject and consecrated to the rules of monastic life, entered the service of God'.
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