939-59

Question 1

Why are charters important for this period?

Answer 1

Charters for this period are quite large in quantity and are made more important by the fact that there is not much about this period in the ASC, so we tend to rely on charters and The Life of St Dunstan for our information.

• For the central decades of the 10th century there is an impressive number of charters from each year. But then in some years, such as 954, there aren’t any, but then in years like 956, there is a huge peak.
• Overall there were fewer charters issued into the 11th century than in the 10th.
• the period has many different interpretations; wracked by political instability

Question 2

What happened in 957 and the implications of charter ev.

Answer 2

957 the kingdom was divided between Eadwig and Edgar. Charters indicate that in 957 the courts separated, so that there was now one north and one south of the Thames. And then when Eadwig dies, everything just comes back together.

• – Can we say that this separation looks like a rebellion? Arguably, it can be said that it looks more like there was an agreed division of the kingdom, which enabled both Edgar and Eadwig to issue charters.
• • But Edgar was not able to issue coins and Eadwig issued coinage in London (which was in Edgar’s area). This numismatic evidence indicates that Eadwig was nominally in control of the whole region. – This is a prime example of how we can put charters and coins together to form a (somewhat) coherent picture.

Question 3

striking feature of Eadwig’s charters

Answer 3

• One thing that is striking about Eadwig’s charters is that when you crunch through the estates, is that he issues diplomas in relation to estates which had had a diploma/ charter issued for it recently, perhaps even just a few years prior.
  Thus, these were properties that were given by Edmund or Eadred to someone else, meaning that, in effect, Eadwig was appropriating estates for himself and redistributing them. He wasn’t taking land from the church, but rather was taking the lands of one group of thegns to give to another group of thegns.

Question 4

charters of 956

Answer 4

• In the charters of 956, you can identify four distinct groups. Eadwig was not just churning out charters all year, but rather he issued them at 4 separate royal assemblies. You can tell the order in which these charters were issued by following the evolution of titles; i.e. a thegn becomes an earl. These were groups of charters that were controlled and issued at successive royal assemblies.

Question 5

attestations of welsh sub-kings…?

Answer 5

• Attestations of Welsh sub-kings only occur in the Æthelstan A charters and in the alliterative charters- is this due to their production? This could be down to a Mercian element/ influence, as Mercians were generally more conscious of Welsh sub-kings than those in Wessex were, simply due to the fact that the Welsh were their neighbours.

Question 6

Style/ distinctive features of Dunstan B charters

Answer 6

• opposite of alliterative charters; they are short, precise and unembellished
• ‘consensi et subscripti’ is used every time to introduce the act of attestation
• they begin with a dating clause and dispense with proems and invocations

Question 7

The Dunstan B charters of Eadred’s reign

Answer 7

all disposed of estates in the south and west- geographical dependent
- eadred is absent from the witness lists of charters from his reign- likely he is not present due to illness, so work was undertaken on his behalf

Question 8

Earliest/ an example of a Dunstan B charter

Answer 8

dated 951, S 555 from Glastonbury and is said to have been written at Dunstan’s command

Question 9

Keynes on alliterative charters

Answer 9

“delightfully chaotic”

Question 10

Style features of the alliterative charters

Answer 10

• cast in 3rd person
• issues with bondary clauses- often ammended
• The names, crosses and spaces are all irregular
• witness lists set out in a line not column
• Distinctive prose and alliteration and unusual vocab
• poetic proems
• Sometimes names place of assembly (altho not always)

Question 11

Surivial of alliterative charters

Answer 11

none in original SS form, can’t know if written by same scribe

Question 12

Snook on what the alliterative charters and B mean

Answer 12

Snook emphasises that neither the alliterative charters or the Dunstan B charters show that charter production was becoming localised, rather that local ecclesiastics were becoming more involved in the buisness of central government

Question 13

Koenwald…

Answer 13

• Bishop of worcester 928-58
• Merican
• Served athelstan- sent to Germany
• Died in 58- they end

Question 14

reasons for supposing koenwald wrote the alliterative charters

Answer 14

• only person to appear on all unabbreviated WL
• Is styled monarchus 4 times- suggesting prestige
• in s5444 (a 949 grant to Æthelmear) his name is in capitals

Question 15

Historiography of the alliterative charters

Answer 15

First regonised as a group by Birch in 1893 but attracted little attention in their own right, Drogerit dissmissed them as spurious

Question 16

first 2 alliterative charters examples

Answer 16

first two are both from 940 and are grants of land to Wulfric, a thegn

Question 17

Preservation/ area of the alliterative charters

Answer 17

• Generally cocnerned with W + E midlands, between thames and humber
• archival distribution of alliterative charters and estates they concerned (with exceptions of glasto and abbingdon) are all north of thames
• Snook suggests geographical pragmatism dictated when coenwald had responsibility devolved to him
• none are preserved in WS archives

Question 18

no of alliterative charters and date

Answer 18

15/16, snook says 16

range 940- 956 – both Edmund and Eadred

Question 19

sig of alliterative charters

Answer 19

• opperated alongside/ perhaps in asoc with other agencies

- they stand apart from the mainstram yet still emerge from the heart of the conveyance ceremony

Question 20

scholarship on hermeneutic latin

Answer 20

Rebecca Stephenson has demonstrated that in the 10th century, pro-reform ecclesiastics developed a shared enthusiasm for hermeneutic’ Latin which they used as a way to broadcast their shared sense of identity and monastic exceptionalism, and …
Snook explores how beyond this it evolved into manifestations in charters, and suggests more than the blossoming of ecclesiastical ideology, but rather that the ecclesiastics were using charters as a means of projecting themselves and their ideas around the kingdom in a way previously only reserved for the king.

Question 21

charters after aethelstan

Answer 21

• It is clear that after Athelstan’s death, a cartel of top ecclesiastics grew rapidly in England, and rather than establishing regional powerbases from their respective sees they sought to exercise power directly from the centre.

Question 22

content of the new minster charter

Answer 22

It is quite simple in content, and is essentially a tirade against the secular clergy and how they need to be replaced by the monks. The whole charter is connected to the notion that if you support the monks, then the kingdom with thrive.
- Chapter 14 of the charter gives the monks freedom from royal control, and it also contains a lot of references to the ‘monastery’s property’ but then there is no list of these properties at all.

Question 23

date of new minster charter

Answer 23

966

Question 24

information on the monastic reform

Answer 24

• ## How does the monastic reform movement find reflection in the charter evidence? This is a difficult question. We know that Glastonbury was founded in the 940s but there is no foundation charter for it. Barking Abbey has a wonderful alliterative charter from the 950s.
• The net result is that there is very little documentary evidence for the early period of the monastic reform. First main account is the ASC entry for 964. This is an explicit record of Edgar driving secular priests from Winchester and replacing them with monks. There has been a general tendency among historians is to take the side of the monks, but this involves buying into the propaganda the monks push forward.

Question 25

other main source for eadwig

Answer 25

• The author of the Life of Dunstan has a very dim view of Eadwig and his reign.

Question 26

the beginings of the monastic reform movement

Answer 26

It seems that Edgar regarded abbot Æthelwald of Abingdon as his tutor and mentor. The monastic reform movement was already taking speed at this point, and Edgar really latched himself onto it.
- How does the monastic reform movement find reflection in the charter evidence? This is a difficult question. We know that Glastonbury was founded in the 940s but there is no foundation charter for it. Barking Abbey has a wonderful alliterative charter from the 950s.

Question 27

4 other key facts on the new minster charter

Answer 27

• We do not have the whole thing, and are missing the first part of chapter 22. Some people think this could have been a list of estates, but perhaps putting this would have been silly as it would probably have been almost immediately out-dated.
• The whole thing is written in gold. But there is very little detail and it is not very complex and just lots of prejudice; “much like trump”.
• It seems likely that it was written by Æthelwald, but we cannot know this for sure.
• The document is at the heart of the monastic reform movement, and there is no other charter which helps to understand it to anywhere near the same level.

Question 28

intro/ summary of edgar A (3)

Answer 28

“Edgar A is like Athelstan A with knobs on”. He has very nice crismons with characteristic bendy arms.

• Edgar A was responsible for about 60-70% of the charters during Edgar’s rule, but there were a few other scribes who were producing charters at the same time: he doesn’t have the same monopoly as Athelstan A exhibited.
• There are lots of charters all in the same Edgar A type; some are grants, some are title deeds.

Question 29

Snook on 956

Answer 29

• Argues Eadwig issued so many charters in 956 in an attempt to create a new powerbase for himself- more than in any Anglo-Saxon year. In doing this he raised whole new families to prominence, almost seeking to reconstruct the English elite.

Question 30

what happens when eadwig comes into power

Answer 30

• When Eadwig came into power he reacted against the powerful pro-reformist factions that had grown at the royal court. He reduced Athelstan ‘Half-King’s power by appointing new ealdormen to new areas of Mercia previously overseen by him and confiscated the lands of Eadgifu, and she was never to attest another charter.

Question 31

sources for edgar

Answer 31

• In many ways his reign is benchmark of AS age, but more a reflection of the writers who benefited and supported his monastic reform sympathies and actions. On account of these competing views, his charters are even more important.
• Around 100 or so verifiable documents from his reign.

Question 32

summary of othodox orum

Answer 32

There is some controversy surrounding the orthodox-orum charters. There is a charter of Eadwig and then Edgar from 959 which conveys privileges to Abingdon Abbey, and then the same from Edgar in 973.
-So if you believe this, it would make Eadwig the first to promulgate monastic reform movement, so if they are genuine then you get a complete change in the order of events.
Keynes believes that the Æthelred one is genuine, and the earlier two are forgeries.
– But Susan Kelly argues that the Orthodox-orum charters are genuine, and that the Æthelred charter is a fake (this is the general view of earlier scholarship). This is essentially diplomatic argument, but it has implications upon the history of the entire monastic reform movement.

Question 33

dunstan B charters in edgars reign

Answer 33

• Dunstan B charters more wide ranging than in Eadred’s reign—diplomatic model developed by Dunstan B entered wider usage?

Question 34

keynes view on oo

Answer 34

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 signiicantly 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. I

Question 35

historiography on edgar A and who he was and intro to style

Answer 35

First identified by Drogeriet, frequently survive at Abingdon.

• Drogereit thought he was based there and maybe Aethelwold, Keynes that this was a ‘red herring’. His earliest charters date from 960s, have clear formularic. Extant single sheets show mostly same hand.
• style is Edgar A writes in interesting yet straightforward latin.
• Edgar A most controversial draughtsman; nature of his employment lots of scholarly discourse.

Question 36

issue/ thing with edgars charters and example

Answer 36

• Greatest issue for Edgar’s charters is consistency- why did they all look so dissimilar? Maybe they were more concerned with the outcome itself, which was consistent.
• Six charters extant from 967- three in A, one SW, one D and one Mainstream. On the face they look different but the sections such as the royal style is very similar—legal operation much the same. The extent of his authority is always presented in a similar way, even if the word is different ie. basileos, imperator.

Question 37

hermenutic in Edgar…

Answer 37

• S745 has very different style of latin—uses hermeneutic—in certain circumstances, when reformers wanted to broadcast their message, they used this style, otherwise unembellished.

Question 38

snook on ‘mainstream’

Answer 38

• Comment on term mainstream- misleading, they don’t have anything in common other than not belonging to the other categories. All 4 categories often issued alongside each other. No monopoly.

Question 39

overview of scribes under edgar

Answer 39

Unlike other kings having a single scribe, Edgar’s display a degree of diversification and have many scribes—points not towards the weakening of royal power but the increasing sophistication of AS admin.

Question 40

4 types of edgar charters

Answer 40

• mainstream
• Dunstan B
• Edgar A
• Also few charters which disposed of land and were preserved in the South west- reflect local tradition perhaps.